redFlags

World Can't Wait: Cindy Sheehan arrested just before Bush's State of the Union; 1,000+ rally in Times Square: 68+ cities say "Bush Step Down"

I'm still working my way through Bush's State of the Union speech. I couldn't hear it at Times Square tonight, I'll tell you that. Over 1,000 New Yorkers filled a block of TImes Squre rallying to drive the whole Bush agenda from power. It was cold and drizzling, but the crowd was too hot under the collar to sit and grumble at home. I just found out about Cindy Sheehan getting arrested before Bush got started at the Capitol building, here's what she says really happened (mp3). That sister is ferocious. If the energy and determination manifested in Manhattan are part of a national force -- then this coming spring is going to be a season of struggle. From the early reports -- this movement has legs.

Photos are up on NYC Indymedia from Stanley Rogouski and Fred Askew. Jeff Paterson reports from the Bay Area that thousands gathered and toppled a massive effigy of Bush... in  Chicago they lit theirs on fire. World Can't Wait local reports are coming in by the hour from DC, Hawaii, Wisconsin, Greensboro, NC...

The protest in DC this weekend is important. Every person will count and the trip is a chance to talk about what we can all do when we get back home. If you've been a spectator, you can just get on the bus. If you don't have better plans, stop waiting for the perfect ride and start driving. If you're not sure about making it to the DC protests, Sunsara Taylor has a message for you.

Bush Step Down! State of Union // State of Emergency

Freedom Road: Will the Occupation End in 2006?

Freedom Road Socialist Organization's National Executive Committtee has released a position paper on the US occupation of Iraq and some points of orientation for activists in the antiwar movement. As always, it is interesting both for what is says... and what it doesn't. Concentrating on building the broadest movement possible, it is consistent with the general social movement orientation that Freedom Road has been on for some time. It also recognizes that this is a moment where radical breakthroughs are possible and upholds a diversity of tactics including direct action.

The full text is available at the Freedom Road Socialist organization website, and here in document form: Download FRSOoccupation2006.pdf

 

Daniel McGowan released on bail

Daniel McGowan was one of 12 indicted activists accused of involvement with a string of arsons in the West attributed to the Earth Liberation Front (ELF). McGowan denies any involvement with the actions. After his family put up a number of different properties for bail (set at $1.6 million), he was released into his sister's custody and should be returning to New York City in the coming week. Read the report on NYC Indymedia: Daniel McGowan Released Into Custody of His Sister.

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Jed Brandt writes: I first met Daniel McGowan in the build-up to the Republican National Convention in New York. Puckish in his good humor, Daniel became the most prominent spokesperson of the direct action and anarchist forces organizing to give our commander-in-chief a proper welcome through his involvement with RNC Not Welcome. As a reporter for the Indypendent, I spoke with many of the organizers from the whole spectrum of groups working to make those protests happen, and talking with Daniel was always a pleasure, if only because he broke from the activist lingo that often obscured more than it explained. He spoke his mind, and had none of the "lesser evil" illusions being peddled by the Democratic Party. Daniel sees social change coming from the actions of everyday people. That's why he worked at a women's legal referral service, studied acupuncture and became a political activist. It's why he looked out for friends. It's why he's earned the loyalty of his friends, family and comrades.

Self-effacing, committed and not at all the wild-eyed crazy the government's "eco-terrorist" rhetoric tries to paint. It's great news he's been released on bail. Daniel's family has been amazing, with everyone pooling together to meet the government's insane bail demand.

Welcome home, Daniel. Let's all try and make sure you stay at liberty.

CPN(M): On Imperialism and Proletarian Revolution

Red Flags writes: The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has released their first substantial information bulletin since the end of the ceasefire and the resulting civil-military nation-wide offensive. The following article On Imperialism and Proletarian Revolution is the lead article The entirety of Maoist Information Bulletin No. 11 is available online. The translation is a little choppy in places, but this is the official translation -- so that's what's going up.

[In other news, the photograph below is taken from El Universal, a Venezuelan daily, and their coverage of the World Social Forum currently being held for the Americas in Caracas. According to the original caption, there was a Revolutionary Internationalist Movement presence.]

On Imperialism & Proletarian Revolution

• Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)
• Maoist Information Bulletin #11

Despite the capitalist class essence remains the same; the imperialism in its course of development has been acquiring new forms and shapes. To exploit and oppress economically, politically, culturally and militarily the broad masses of people of the earth in the form of a single globalize state has become the main specificity of today’s imperialism. The world that had been influenced, on the one hand, by the wave of national liberation, democratic and socialist movement around the Second World War and the inter-imperialist rivalry during the cold war, on the other, has now been entrapped in the sole hegemony of the US imperialism.

Owing to the main factors like, the defeat of new democratic and socialist states that were developed in the course of the first wave of World Proletarian Revolution in the power struggle against the state-owned bureaucrat capitalism, the establishment of unparalleled economic and mainly military superiority of the US imperialism over other main imperialist countries, the control of multinational finance capital upon the national capital and economy of the third world countries and the intensification of worldwide cultural intervention by means of the monopoly in information technology etc. the aforesaid hegemony has been maintained....

First Team of International Volunteers Returns from Nepal's Liberated Area, and Calls for More Volunteers -- Building a Road into the Future

Report from the First International Brigade's Road-Building Brigade: In November 2005, a group of seven volunteers from Australia, Britain, Canada, Colombia, Germany and Norway went to the liberated Rolpa district in mid-western Nepal and worked on the road that is being built there under the leadership of the regional people’s power, the Magarat Autonomous Regional Government (MARG). We travelled thousands of miles to answer the MARG’s Call to work together with Nepalese from all over the country to build a 90-km road through mountainous terrain. This project is a part of the efforts of the new revolutionary power to forge a self-reliant economy, free of the chains of imperialist domination.

Our numbers were few, but we represented the sentiments of millions more back home. Many who knew about Nepal understood what we were up against and helped support our trip. The reactionary monarchy ruling Nepal has received hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons and financing from the Western powers and India, and has compiled one of the worst records in the world for disappearances, extra-judicial executions, and other types of bloody repression. Despite all this it has failed to suppress the desire for liberation of the millions of people in Nepal, and most of the population now live in areas liberated by the revolutionary forces.

The arrival of this first organised group from abroad to help with the road-building effort struck a deep chord among the people of Nepal. Some Nepalese working on the road who at first did not know what we had come for were almost incredulous to see a group of foreigners pick up tools and begin to shovel dirt side-by-side with them. Their incredulity turned quickly to unbridled enthusiasm and good-natured attempts to help our initially clumsy efforts – it was an experience marked by the deepest kind of internationalist solidarity between people.

[Also included after the jump are the call from the Magarat Autonomous People's Republican Government for volunteers & the Provisional Report of the First Int'l. Brigade to the Magarat Autonomous Republic of Nepal.]

UFPJ's Operation Stay at Home

Burningman writes: As if United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) didn't play the fool enough around the RNC permitting fights in New York... as if the leading members haven't engaged in some of the pettiest positional politics regarding their decades-long bickerfest with Workers World Party's various appendages... now they've gone whole-goofy-hog by calling for people to STAY HOME for Bush's State of the Union speech instead of joining the national State of the Union Is a State of Emergency protests initiated by the World Can't Wait. That's right, kids. Stay home and argue with the TV a little more, send money to UFPJ, and... "have fun!"

This is the sad epitome of activism-as-usual. These movement mavens continue to languish in a holding pattern that is immune to the dynamic political situation we face. And I swear to the god that doesn't exist, if one more activist tells me to "have fun," I will throttle them. Okay, I won't... but you know what I'm saying.

Travis Morales challenges Gen. Hayden's defense of NSA spy program

WCW reports: At the National Press Club on Jan. 23, Travis Morales, a World Can't Wait organizer, challenges General Hayden, former director of the National Security Agency, to a public debate on the NSA spy program and asks him whether the NSA is spying on The World Can't Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime. Check out the transcript below.  Listen

FMLN leader Jorge Schafik Hándal dies at 75

The Comm. In Solidarity with the People of El Salvador writes: Longtime FMLN leader Jorge Schafik Hándal died yesterday in El Salvador. Hándal was returning from Bolivia where he attended the inauguration of Bolivian President Evo Morales; as he was walking through the Comalapa Airport in El Salvador he collapsed from an apparent heart attack and was treated by paramedics before being taken to the Hospital de la Mujer by helicopter. There, he was pronounced dead at around 5:00 in the afternoon. Schafik Hándal was 75 years old.

The FMLN held a press conference to announce the tragic death of the party’s historic leader, and called for three days of mourning in his honor. Members of the FMLN and the Salvadoran social movement immediately began congregating outside the hospital and at the party’s headquarters in San Salvador. The praise for Hándal and his role in the 12-year war against the US-backed Salvadoran military regime began pouring in. Said Guadalupe Erazo, a leader of the Popular Social Bloc (BPS), “just as we continue struggling in the example of Schafik, he will continue living in the hearts of Salvadorans.”

Maoist Resurgence in 2005: A Political and Military Assessment

[Burningman writes: Well, Gary beat me to writing this one. I have to whole-heartedly agree. This was originally posted to Dissident Voice.]

By Gary Leupp

The year 2005 was a good one for the Maoist movement, the most vigorous trend within what remains of the communist movement that transformed the globe in the twentieth century. Four episodes in the four countries most affected by Maoist organizations should suffice to establish that Marxism-Leninism in its Maoist form not only remains a factor in global affairs, but also is rapidly gaining in strength and significance.