redFlags

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.

RNC St. Paul: Anarchists are getting ready!

Support needed for SF mural on popular struggles against borders & fences

By Martin Travers
artist living in Holland, and creator of the original image

I am a firm believer in the right to self determination of all peoples all over this wonderful world we all inhabit. To stand by the right to that self determination by Palestinian people or any other people is by no means supporting terrorism or senseless violence or racism, to say that is in itself an injustice. My painting which was recreated on the mural in question is about that right, breaking through the wall that separates the Israelis from Palestinians and the Palestinians from each other is symbolic of the breaking of the walls that fence in the marginalised and the “unwanted” people everywhere because to see them is to be reminded of where and how Europe, north America and Israel got its wealth.

Declaration to Reaffirm the Significance and Relevance of the Anti-Revisionist Struggle and the GPCR

This international declaration, signed by several significant international communist parties including the Communist Party of India (Maoist), was originally issued on May 1, 2007. I am here including it to give communists in the USA a sense of how some of these discussions are playing out... Unfortunately, there is no organized national grouping in the USA that currently sees the need to keep these in circulation.

We, the undersigned Marxist-Leninist, Mao Zedong Thought and Marxist-Leninist-Maoist parties and organizations, hereby issue this declaration to reaffirm the significance and relevance of the struggle against modern revisionism starting in 1956 in opposition to the revisionist content of the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in February 1956 leading to the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976 and continuing after the bourgeoisie seized power in China in 1976. We do so after one year of activities celebrating the 50th anniversary of the anti-revisionist struggle and renewing our commitment to pursue this struggle.

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".

A call to build the Iraq Moratorium Day

By by Jeremy Brecher & Brendan Smith
Originally published in The Nation

Though Americans disapprove of President Bush's handling of the situation in Iraq by more than two to one, they don't seem to be expressing that disapproval to anyone but pollsters. A plan to establish a monthly Iraq Moratorium Day may provide a way for them to do so.

Refitting an idea from the Vietnam era to the age of the Internet, organizers of the Iraq Moratorium Day are inviting ordinary Americans to demand an end to the war in targeted activities in their local communities and viral activities online. The goal is a "monthly expression of determination to end the war."

The initiators, a handful of individuals from different corners of the antiwar movement, are asking people to make a simple pledge:

"I hereby make a commitment that on Friday, September 21, 2007, and the third Friday of every subsequent month I will break my daily routine and take some action, by myself or with others, to end the War in Iraq."

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).

Momentum Grows for March 20 Student Day of Action Against the War

By Brad Sigal

At colleges and high schools across the country, students are building for a day of protests on March 20 against the U.S. war in Iraq. Students at more than 60 schools have protests planned on that day, in the largest coordinated day of student anti-war protests in years. A press release for the March 20 actions says, "In the space of just three weeks, over sixty campuses have signed onto the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) call to action—from Tuscaloosa, Alabama to Grand Rapids, Michigan; from high schools in central North Carolina to the west coast campus of UC Santa Barbara; from urban centers of Chicago, Boston, New York, and Los Angeles to rural campuses of Tennessee and Iowa—and in dozens of places in between."

23 students arrested occupying military recruitment center

Received from the Slamista listserve: At noon, Monday, March 12, 2007, nearly 100 students from area universities marched to the armed forces recruiting station on 157 Chambers Street. Twenty-three members of Students for a Democratic Society entered and occupied the recruiting station shutting down recruitment activity for nearly two hours. 

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.