The North Korea Crisis Is Made in USA

Pyongyang, North Korea, after firebombing by the United States in the early 1950s

Those memes equating Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un might make people feel better, but this crisis is strictly Made In USA.

Sure, I have misgivings about the nature of the regime in North Korea, but it must be said that most of what passes for news about the DPRK in the US is transparent and frankly racist nonsense. My general policy is, to quote somebody famous, no investigation no right to speak, which means when confronted by dubious propaganda about North Korea meant to desensitize Americans to the genocidal and aggressive foreign policy of our own government, I choose my words carefully. What most of us need to know about the DPRK is that it is a tiny and relatively poor country that has been deliberately isolated from the world economy for over sixty years. It spent forty years as a brutally enslaved colony of Japan, and half the country has been occupied by American troops ever since. The US and its allies murdered millions of people as they flattened it in a war, actually a thinly disguised war against China, that they couldn't actually win, which is testimony to the resilience of the Korean people. Whether the government in North Korea is something North Koreans like is frankly beside the point. The bottom line must be that Americans don't get to choose how other countries are governed. Now is not really the time to be debating the nature of a society under Washington's lethal sights: now is the time to understand where the real enemies of peace and humanity lie.

The truth is that the US government doesn't care about what kind of government exists in North Korea (and tbh, though Trump's rhetoric is raw and frightening, it's not substantively different than threats made by every single US president since Truman). They don't care about the people in North Korea. Certainly a government that constantly renews blank checks to Saudi Arabia and apartheid Israel, and was the last major international ally of racist white minority ruled South Africa, couldn't be too worried about the people of North Korea. A country that threatens to incinerate an entire population is actually concerned about that population? You BELIEVE that?

This is the thing we must all be clear on: there is no equation between Trump and Kim; there is no equation of "threat" between the tiny DPRK and the massively armed USA. I read a statistic that said DPRK's military budget was less than that of the NYPD. The only actual threat is the one made by the United States. What has actually happened is that the DPRK has "threatened" to defend itself from aggression. The DPRK's posture is entirely provoked by the existential threat that the US's military machine, right on its borders, poses to its right of self-determination. I don't like nukes, but I will not condemn a nation for choosing a desperate option to stop a global bully.

Remember what happened to "crazy" Saddam Hussein, or more importantly, his country after US invasion. To "crazy" Gaddafi or more importantly, his country after US bombing. When you call Kim Jong Un "crazy," you're participating in a racist charade. Tell me the name of another North Korean person why don't you?

There is a country where people are in prison camps, even slave labor camps. There is a country where people are forced to eat garbage, where unemployment is chronic. There is a country where people are killed with total impunity by law enforcement. There is a country where dissent is demonized by the political castes, where dissenters are blacklisted from employment. There is a country which threatens its neighbors, that attacks sovereign nations unprovoked, that sends its armies across the world in blood-orgies of murder. There is a country that steals from others. There is a country whose elections are farces. There is a country where family and financial connections ensure political and social influence. There is a country where warlike mobs can be pushed to bloodlust through chants and manipulation. There is a country whose residents routinely fantasize about how they should "take out" anybody they choose on the world stage. That country is not North Korea, it's the USA.

Let's recognize the real threat and deal with it. We're running out of time. No, Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump are not equal in any way, and your oh-so-funny Kim Jong Un memes are the equivalent of making ching-chong faces; to call them racist is to be making an understatement.
It is without contest. The main threat to humanity is the one in Washington.

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(Crossposted from my personal Facebook. I have had plenty to say in the months since the election, none of which involves me changing my mind about my abstention, but for various reasons have decided to cut back on blogging here. But this seemed like a good milestone to add here for the record. I'm not abandoning this blog, I actually refer to it myself a lot, but especially until I finish my book project I can't commit here to return to a regular schedule. Comments always welcome. See you next time!)

Real enemies, False Friends: Imperialism and homophobia in Africa

This article originally appeared on The Kasama Project on 8 February 2014. Reposting here to preserve a broken link. It may also be accessed here.

“What Clinton and Obama have done is weaponize gay rights in the service of neocolonialism.”

By ISH

Gay people in African countries have long confronted existential challenges. But now old laws that criminalize homosexual behavior are being supplemented with harsh penalties and new laws designed to push gay people back into the shadows. This massive wave of repression is being led by local demagogues and visiting American missionaries. But underneath it all, decades of neocolonial exploitation and blatant imperialist hypocrisy have created a perfect storm of terror for gay Africans.

We celebrate the fact that Uganda is a no go zone for the gay people. Let them die like cockroaches and insects with no purpose. We praise the lord that our leaders are put them in their places;- graveyards, cells, prisons and out of Uganda. Yeessssssssssssssssssss this is it, we shall get them.” —a Ugandan supporter of anti-gay legislation, on Facebook

After being stalled for several years and having undergone various revisions, Uganda's parliament made headlines in December by finally passing a deeply repressive bill against gays and lesbians. While the death penalty clause was removed from what was originally referred to as the "Kill the Gays Bill," it sets penalties including life imprisonment for “aggravated homosexuality,” and also criminalizes the failure to turn in known homosexuals for their behavior. According to the Guardian, “Homosexuality was already illegal in Uganda under a colonial-era law that criminalised sexual acts 'against the order of nature,' but the Ugandan politician who wrote the new law argued that tough new legislation was needed because gay people from the west threatened to destroy Ugandan families and were allegedly 'recruiting' Ugandan children into gay lifestyles.”

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has so far refused to sign the bill into law, saying the bill would not solve the problem of “abnormality.” But regardless of the status of the bill, Ugandan gay people, referred to as “kuchus,” report a sharp increase in anti-gay harassment and violence. Activist David Kato was murdered in 2011, and Andrew Waiswa of the Gender-Equality and Health Organisation of Uganda (GEHO) was beaten by thugs in December requiring hospitalization. Waiswa, now recuperating at home, reports that his friends are threatened daily on the streets. Says Waiswa, “So they want to kill me for being me and trying to help fellow LGBTq brothers and sisters??? Now that's madness!! I have survived many attempts and I know some of us might lose our lives in this battle, but giving up the fight is not an option....We are born this way!!! We are gay! We are here... we can't hide anymore, we have nowhere to run...yes we are Ugandan Kuchus!!”

A Worldwide Trend?

Unfortunately, Uganda is not the only country in Africa, or indeed elsewhere in the world, where gay or queer people are now being targeted. In January, Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan surprised observers by signing a similarly repressive law that criminalizes gay marriages but also criminalizes the ability of gays and lesbians to associate or to form organizations. Immediately following the enactment of this law, dozens of gay Nigerians were arrested, according to human rights activists.  In northern Nigeria where Muslim sharia law coexists with civil Nigerian law, the new law seems to have fueled a wave of popular anti-gay protest demanding harsh penalties for those arrested.

Nigerian student Udoka Okafor summarizes:

Openly LGBT persons in Nigeria are simply struggling to survive a culture that is hostile to them because of their sexual and gender orientation. The legal system criminalizes them, society ostracizes them, and politicians spit out negative demagogueries about them that further indoctrinate people into a culture of hostility towards LGBT persons.”

Elsewhere, Gambia's president Yahya Jammeh used the occasion of his September speech to the United Nations in New York to denounce homosexuals and their supporters: "Those who promote homosexuality want to put an end to human existence...Homosexuality in all its forms and manifestations which, though very evil, antihuman as well as anti-Allah, is being promoted as a human right by some powers.”

A legislator in Liberia is promoting a law that would also criminalize gay marriage: “[Homosexuality] is a criminal offence. It is un-African...It is a problem in our society. We consider deviant sexual behaviour criminal behaviour,” said the legislator, Jewel Howard-Taylor.

Back in 1995 President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe notoriously said, “I find it extremely outrageous and repugnant to my human conscience that such immoral and repulsive organizations, like those of homosexuals, who offend both against the law of nature and the morals of religious beliefs espoused by our society, should have any advocates in our midst and elsewhere in the world.” He has kept up this anti-gay attitude ever since and non-sexual gay behavior was criminalized in Zimbabwe in 2006. There are many other examples across sub-Saharan Africa.

And of course there is the law in Russia, signed by President Vladimir Putin last summer, that bans “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations to minors.” This law effectively shoves Russia's gay and lesbian community back into the closet, as any open activity can now be cited as “gay propaganda” that might expose children to homosexuality. While homosexuality itself remains decriminalized in post-Soviet Russia (at least for now), activists report a disturbing increase in violence directed against the Russian gay community. The Russian anti-gay law has been a focus of world-wide activists seeking to use the winter Olympics in Sochi to publicize what's happening there and punish the Olympics' supporters for enabling repression by calling for protests and a boycott.
Finally, in December of last year, India's supreme court shocked the world by reinstating a colonial-era law recriminalizing homosexuality. The 1861 law had been struck down in 2009. In the new year, the supreme court even rejected complaints by human rights activists and stood firm on its decision to make homosexuality punishable by up to ten years in jail.

Why Is this Happening?

Yet things look very different in the United States. While violence against transgendered people remains at an unprecented high level, and while a bill against workplace discrimination against LGBT people (ENDA) languishes in congress, the rapid increase in the number of states legalizing same-sex marriage equality would suggest a rising tide of acceptance toward gay people here at home. Despite the furious activity of anti-gay hate groups and the frothings of fascist teapartiers on the American right, mostly the story in the US has been one of rapid legal advance for gay civil rights. So why all this backlash against gay people in so many places around the world?

Many of the African politicians behind these anti-gay laws claim that homosexuality represents something un-African being imported into Africa by criminal European or American gays for nefarious purposes like child molestation. These politicians say there is no history of homosexuality in Africa, despite the fact that this is widely disputed by scholars. Ugandan pastor Martin Ssempa, one of the architects of the Uganda bill, wrote, “Homosexuality is illegal, unnatural, ungodly and un-African: In Uganda as most of the global South, homosexuality is an 'evil and repugnant sexual act' which simultaneously breaks four established laws [including] the law of our African tribal cultures which have been handed down to us by our fathers from thousands of years of civilized traditions.”

It is true that a moden gay identity owes much to the evolution of gay consciousness in European and American culture, but gay historians and anthropologists have documented same-gender sexuality and gender-nonconforming behavior all over the world, including in many traditional African cultures. It's ironic that what these politicians are actually defending is a legal system and religious morality established by the British colonial masters, who introduced harsh anti-gay codes at the point of bayonets to the indigenous populations of the African regions they conquered in the 19th century.
And it's not as though there are no African gays standing up for their own rights. There are LGBT organizations across Africa. The very fact that African gays now have a roster of martyrs like David Kato of Uganda, or Roger Jean-Claude Mbede and Eric Lembembe of Cameroon, disproves this notion that gay people are outsiders. And who can forget the heroic anti-apartheid activist turned HIV-activist Simon Nkoli?

So what is really happening? Two actual outside forces are involved.

The Evangelical Link

Scott Lively is a right-wing American Christian fundamentalist activist who has devoted his career to attacking LGBT people. The author of a slanderous book that claims Nazi Germany was the product of a homosexual conspiracy, he traveled to Uganda in 2009 to give a series of lectures warning of a gay menace to Ugandan society. His message is not just one of religious conservatism, but a call to political action. American evangelical missionaries have been using allegedly charitable intentions to build networks throughout Africa. Their ubiquitous presence in local relief work, including massive involvement in HIV/AIDS charities, has given them entry to local politics. Their work is not all about mere charity: it comes with a heavy dose of social conservatism and politically reactionary ideology. Their AIDS relief work, where they have become a channel for US government funding, puts AIDS prevention in the context of conservative religious practice and morality, focusing for instance, on abstinence and marriage. Remember the abortive and bizarre “Kony 2012” campaign? The people behind that were part of the same community of zealous missionaries working hard to capture the minds of communities across central Africa.

Lively and others like him, apparently on the losing end of the so-called culture wars in the United States, have found a receptive audience in countries like Uganda. In the U.S., Lively's organizations are derided as hate groups. In Uganda, in the midst of a massive religious revival where antigay attitudes have become commonplace, Lively's political message has found fertile ground. Martin Ssempa, already engaged in a campaign against sexual permissiveness in AIDS prevention, became one of his chief local disciples. An American journalist visiting Uganda in 2005 described Ssempa's message:

In his sermons, he condemns homosexuality, pornography, condoms, Islam, Catholics, certain kinds of rock music, and women’s rights activists, who he says promote lesbianism, abortion, and the worship of female goddesses. He told me that Satan worshipers hold meetings under Lake Victoria, where they are promised riches in exchange for human blood, which they collect by staging car accidents and kidnappings.”

Scott Lively and the American evangelicals have become the catalyst for the transformation of these reactionary ideas into political reality. Although Lively claims to be against harsh punishment for homosexual acts, it's clear that his pseudo-historical and pseudo-scientific diatribes against gay people have sent anti-gay sentiment in Uganda over the top. It's worth noting —and frightening — that Lively has lately been making numerous appearances in Russia. (He's also being sued in the state of Massachusetts for “crimes against humanity” by a Ugandan LGBT group called SMUG, Sexual Minorities of Uganda, backed by the Center for Constitutional Rights).

While Lively is the most prominent of the reactionary evangelical leaders implicated in anti-gay legislation, there are religious organizers across the region influencing popular attitudes and legal processes. The Catholic Church, the conservative wing of the Anglican church, numerous protestant denominations, and in the case of some countries, Islamic fundamentalist movements like Nigeria's Boko Haram, are all preaching intolerance toward gay people.

But it's a mistake to simply blame the new wave of anti-gay repression on mere backward religious ideas. The real issue is power, and this is revealed as we consider who is actually benefiting from this repression.

The Weaponization of Gay Rights

There is a second outside force behind the wave of anti-gay reaction in Africa and elsewhere, and it's actually the more sinister one. Ironically, this force is dressed in pro-LGBT language and intent. This force is the U.S. State Department.

Hillary Clinton, acting as President Obama's secretary of state, made a speech at the UN offices in Geneva in 2011 in which she said, "Some have suggested that gay rights and human rights are separate and distinct, but in fact they are one and the same.”  The speech was a sweeping condemnation of anti-gay repression world-wide. Under her leadership, the State Department followed up the speech with broad policy statements that “the United States would use all the tools of American diplomacy to promote LGBT rights around the world.”

American and international LGBT organizations widely welcomed Clinton's remarks, hoping that the United States would use its “leverage” to advocate for gay civil rights in places like Uganda. The American LGBT population largely cheered Clinton and Obama, which was, of course, part of the idea.

But here's the problem. The United States is not actually a force for good in the world, and certainly not a force for good in Africa.

The real interest of the US in Africa is power; economic and political power. In the fifty-plus years of the post-colonial era, African countries have learned well and good what domination by the US means. In countries like Congo, Rwanda, Liberia, and Angola, the US has meant decades of genocidal civil strife and the looting of natural resources. It has meant coup d'etats and rule by viciously corrupt western puppets. It has meant poverty for the masses of people while a select few at the top of African countries are blessed with untold wealth and influence. It has meant crushing national debts and environmental disaster. It has meant brute force against uprisings or national attempts to break free of imperialist — of neocolonial — domination. The United States and its corporations profit from African misfortune.

What Clinton and Obama did was weaponize gay rights in the service of that neocolonialism.
It's no accident that Clinton issued this statement when she did. Obama has his eye fixed clearly on one of the main battlefields of neoliberal globalization. American “advisers” and even armies have been dispatched to central Africa. Drone bases have been set up in west Africa. US military incursions and drone attacks continue in Somalia. And US military aid and mercenary assistance (in concert with its junior partner the Israeli military-industrial complex) is all over east Africa. The radical-looking governments once supported by the Soviet Union have mostly disappeared, but Chinese imperialism has replaced Russia as an economic threat to the US in Africa. The US has used its crocodile-tears version of “human rights” as a weapon before, but now some symbolic concern for LGBT rights has been added to the American armory. Let us be clear: this is not a good thing for the gay, lesbian, transgender, or queer people of Africa.

US Africa policy is drenched in blood. Sure there's lots of money going to famine relief, AIDS prevention, and resource exploration. But each dollar is a strand from a spider's web. And how dare the United States, prison capital of the world, lecture any other country about civil repression?
The neocolonial domination of Africa looks different than the colonial domination of Africa. It requires allowing national governments the appearance of independence. The corrupt, anti-democratic rulers of so many African countries understand this well too. What the weaponization of gay rights allows them is a cheap form of utterly fake anti-imperialism. It allows them to deflect actual criticism of their repressive rule by blaming gay people as subversives and pointing to their own opposition to imperialism by loudly resisting the bullying of the State Department on gay-related social policy. The real fact that the US government and multinational corporations are propping up undemocratic regimes because it's strategically and economically profitable to do so is consciously obscured. The millions of dollars that fatten the accounts of local compradors from their collaboration with imperialism are no longer the focus when these compradors turn around and announce that they are standing up to unfair pressure from the most powerful country on the planet.

Last July, Zimbabwe's Mugabe commented after Obama's visit to a handful of African countries:

Then we have this American president, Obama, born of an African father, who is saying we will not give you aid if you don’t embrace homosexuality....We ask, was he born out of homosexuality? We need continuity in our race, and that comes from the woman, and no to homosexuality....we will cut their heads off.”

The anti-gay demogogues in Uganda and Nigeria are also clear on this, finding great utility in the time-honored traditions of scapegoating and showboating. One can see exactly what has now happened by examining the Facebook page “Nigerians Must Unite and Liberate Nigeria.” A really interesting page, full of anti-imperialist content, it's the site of daily postings against Nigerian government corruption, ethnic and religious sectarianism, against corporate destruction of the Nigerian environment, and plunder of Nigerian resources. But along came the anti-gay marriage law, and now it is filled with posts and comments praising President Jonathan. “We are forever looking forward to the slightest opportunity to commend Goodluck Jonathan the President of our nation, in the hope that he will do better. In that spirit, my compliments, and in no small measure, go out to President goodluck jonathan, for having the courage to stand up to enormous American & European pressure, by signing into law, the Anti-Gay bill and criminalizing same-sex marriage and public celebration of gay love in Nigeria. Thumbs up on this one.” And, “Good News from Nigeria President Goodluck Jonathan has signed into law a wide-ranging bill which not only criminalizes same sex marriage, but all cohabitation, meetings, gatherings and advocacy by or on behalf of gay people in the country: The signed bill says the gays, lesbians in Nigeria will risk a 14-year jail term...Brave President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.” Pro-gay commenters were called CIA agents and banned.

So not only is bigotry triumphant, but the corrupt national leaderships which actually profit from their relationship with neocolonialism and the multi-national corporations are let completely off the hook.

Against Homonationalism

The reaction of the LGBT establishment in the US has been predictable,  lining up to demand that the US, the EU and other governments increase their pressure on African governments. The corporatist LGBT civil rights group Human Rights Campaign (HRC) even traveled to Davos to present at the World Economic Forum vulture nest: "When countries like Russia or Nigeria pass laws that threaten the human rights of LGBT people, world leaders must make it clear that those actions have consequences,” said HRC head Chad Griffin. The HRC basically identifies with imperialism and calls for more misery to be inflicted on Nigeria. Talk about not doing African gays any favors. (For more information on how the HRC actually profits from global exploitation check out these reports: “HRC and the Vulture Fund”  and “HRC International Expansion Funded by the Worst Humans.”)

While the impulse toward solidarity with oppressed lesbian, gay and transgender people in countries like Uganda and Nigeria is positive, it's really impossible under the circumstances of US imperialist hegemony to fail to contextualize what's going on in Africa, and to fail to understand the hypocrisy of American intent. The liberation of Africa's gay people may wind up looking different than the civil rights trajectory in Europe and the United States. This is in no way to excuse or mitigate the brutal repression being inflicted on gays in Uganda and Nigeria; indeed it should be firmly and loudly condemned by communists, as imperialism and the corrupt rule of the compradors should be equally condemned.

But the liberation of Africa from neocolonialism, imperialism and neoliberalism (including the liberation of African gay people) must be the work of Africans themselves.

As in the Middle East, where apartheid Israel is using its supposed acceptance of gays as a propaganda weapon in its war against the Palestinians, the concept here of “homonationalism” is useful.

Writing in Jadaliyya, Maya Mikdashi identifies homonationalism in the context of what Hillary Clinton's aggressive statement really meant: “In her speech Secretary Clinton was...reproducing this generative alienation between political and human rights. She emphasized that LGBTQs everywhere had the same rights to love and have sex with whomever they choose as partners, and to do so safely. In making this statement, she reiterated a central tenet of what Jasbir Puar names homonationalism: the idea that LGBTQs the world over experience, practice, and are motivated by the same desires... Secretary Clinton suggested that queers everywhere, whether white or black, male or female or transgendered, soldier or civilian, rich or poor, Palestinian or Israeli, can be comprehended and interpolated through the same rights framework. But the content of what she she calls 'gay rights' is informed by the experiences and histories of (namely white gay male) queers in the United States, and thus there is an emphasis on visibility and identity politics and an elision of the class and political struggles that animate the lives of the majority of the third world's heterosexual and homosexual populations. Thus detached from its locality, 'gay rights' can travel internationally not only as a vehicle for normative homo-nationalism, but as a vehicle for neoliberal ways of producing politics and subjects more broadly.” 

Thus, part of the problem is that the imposition of American will on African countries is rightfully going to produce backlash, leaving the actual lesbian, gay, transgender or queer Africans forced into making false and dangerous choices. And it's fair to suggest that the active embrace of US bullying by elements in the American gay community who have embraced the agenda of the Obama State Department might mark a transition from “homonationalism” to “homoimperialism.”
Mikdashi concludes with a warning, which is really important when thinking about how to respond to calls for justice against the oppression which is real and horrifying, coming from people and places drenched in the bloody hypocrisy of empire:

We cannot 'choose' to not be who we have become, but we must recognize how we have been formed as neoliberal rights seeking and speaking bodies, and how this formation is linked to a history of depoliticization and alienation. In other words, we must be both tactical and skeptical when this language reaches to embrace us, and when we, as activists and as academics, use it ourselves. We must find ways to critically inhabit this homonational world and try, always, to act within the uncomfortable and precarious line between rights and justice.”

Lenin famously said that communists should be “tribune[s] of the people...able to react to every manifestation of tyranny and oppression, no matter where it appears, no matter what stratum or class of the people it affects.” And so we are called to speak out against the rise of anti-gay repression in Africa, in Russia, in India, and to challenge the credentials of those who claim they are somehow defending African-ness by oppressing gay people. But for us, this work begins here in the US: the State Department, the Clintons, the Obamas, the fascist hate groups and the ilk of Scott Lively, these mortal enemies are all here right at home.

As Andrew Waiswa of GEHO says, evoking past liberation struggles in Africa, “A luta continua!”

May Day 2014

Here's my yearly inspirational post on May Day. This is crossposted from the Kasama website:

MAY FIRST: RAISE A RED BANNER!

It's May Day, the international workers' holiday, the communist holiday. (And you can read about the origins of the holiday here.)

It's not a holiday to give gifts, to eat a big meal with the family, to contemplate a trip to the beach. It's a holiday to remember what we're in this for, a holiday to go outside and shout about what's wrong with the world and what should be, can be, must be, fixed.

It's not a day to talk about which lying and cheating candidate to vote for in the next election: it's a day to talk about less voting and more revolution.

It's not a day to talk about begging the bosses for a few more crumbs: it's a day to talk about a world without bosses.

It's not a day to settle for a slightly higher minimum wage: it's a day to proclaim the principle of “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.”

It's not a day to think about taxing the rich, it's a day to envision ending the system that perpetuates inequality once and for all, and shaking off that 1% for good.

It's not a day to be locked down by the pain of racism, of sexism, of heterosexism, of transphobia: it's a day to be proud of who we are, knowing that by struggling together we're building a better world in our own image; it's a day to treat each other with respect.

It's not a day to question the right of people to live where they want, on this day nobody is illegal. Or maybe, everybody is illegal: we're all rejecting the rotten terms of "citizenship" in this society together. It's a day to embrace our sisters and brothers regardless of documentation, to walk together in solidarity, to speak our many languages openly and equally, to demand a home for all.

It's not a day to fear the police and the government snoops and snitches. It's a day to remember our vast power as the majority, aware of our right to fight, conscious of the righteousness of our cause. It's a day for us to own the streets, a day for us not to fear the shadows behind us.

It's not a day to be locked inside: it's a day to talk about smashing open the prisons and freeing our loved ones, about re-imagining how a truly just world might wipe away injustice and heal selfish hearts.

It's not a day to listen to the words of our so-called leaders as they try to trick us into supporting — and fighting in — new wars. It's a day to call them on their bullshit, to openly oppose them, to denounce their plans for world domination. It's a day to talk about a different world free of imperialism.

It's not a day, here in the belly of the beast, to decorate with red, white and blue. It's a day to remember that the proletariat has no country — has all countries — and the troops we need to be supporting are the liberation warriors fighting in the forests and mountains of India, of Nepal, of the Philippines.

It's not a day to shoot down our dreams as unrealistic, it's a day to proudly proclaim our struggle for a just society liberated from capitalism once and for all. It's a day to unleash those dreams.

It's not a day to be silent, it's a day to talk about what we want and to plan how to get it; it's a day to demand what is right.

It's not a day to talk about hoping things get better, it's a day to fight to make things better.

It's not a day to be only a radical or a leftist, to moderate our language or worry about what people think: it's a day to be a communist, a red, a revolutionary fighter for human liberation.

It's a good day to raise a red flag. It's a good day to link arms with your comrades, to take the streets, to act like we own those streets, which, in fact we do. It's a good day to talk to your neighbor about what needs to be changed in the world. It's a good day to help open the eyes of a friend to the reality of the world we live in. It's a good day to recommit to the struggle's long haul, to remember the martyrs we have lost, and to remember the words of the brilliant thinkers who help us to make sense and strategy of the world and its challenges. It's a good day to be inspired and reinvigorated.

As the dawn breaks red on the horizon, wake up and celebrate. And may tomorrow be as good as today. It's right to rebel!

March Writings

I have a couple new pieces up on the Kasama site.

First up I wrote a short piece for International Women's Day. Entitled "International Women's Day: Oppression transformed into revolutionary power," it's a brief survey of some of the history behind the March 8 holiday:

"Today women are a significant part of the revolutionary movement: whether in the rural regions of India where armed women Maoist rebels challenge Indian capitalism (photo at top), or in the mass movements of the squares from Egypt to Wall Street, or in the spheres of theoretical exploration and debate necessary to take the communist movement to its next stage, women's voices are a crucial part of grounding the struggle in the reality of experiencing and challenging oppression. Revolutionary sisterhood is indeed powerful. Let's see what it can do next."

But what I'm really happy with is a short survey of some of my favorite radical songs. "Urban rebel music subverting your earwaves" takes a look at a handful of songs from Jill Scott, Ursula Rucker, Erykah Badu, Boots Riley and the Coup, and Welfare Poets. Faithful readers of The Cahokian will recognize a couple of these: I've written about the Rucker song and about Erykah Badu before.

I've combined a little bit of cultural critique, music appreciation, lots of song lyrics, and music clips and videos to discuss some surprisingly radical songs outside the more expected realms:

"When people start talking about radical or political music, I'm always surprised how the topic of conversation rarely moves outside the genres of hardcore head-banging punk or earnest sing-along folk. Sometimes talk moves on to the well-worn populism of mass-appeal pop-rock, the Springsteen/Mellencamp/Fleetwood Mac tunes so beloved by bourgeois politicians trying to put something over on voters, and there's the counterpoint of classic hip-hop with its righteous anger against cops and sometimes problematic derision of women and gays. Without disparaging any of these rich genres of music, I want to recommend some really great and really radical tunes from genre-busting urban musicians who sometimes defy easy categorization but whose visionary art is something that revolutionaries can really embrace."

There's some really great songs discussed. The Jill Scott number "My Petition" is a must-listen, and it really is amazingly subversive. The article was set off by re-listening to this song while riding the bus and paying attention to the lyrics. I hadn't noticed before how slyly Scott hooks you in to a critique of America while assuming at first she's talking about her love life. There's a song clip provided. Check it out!

I've also written a few short introductions for re-purposed content on Kasama. You can follow my postings there at this link.

Finally let me put in a plug for my daily work at the "Anti-Imperialist League" on Facebook. Every day I've been posting a picture with a first-person quote from a huge spectrum of revolutionaries. Each Saturday I post a quote about a little-known or forgotten episode of rebellion.

It's been really educational and rewarding. I've come to realize the importance of letting people speak on their own, and seeing how much traditional history actually disparages the record of oppressed people themselves. I don't find myself agreeing 100% with every analysis of imperialism offered, but the people featured, a worldwide mix of women and men, are all actual fighters or theoreticians against empire. And I've been able to feature some of the struggles that have always interested me, like the tragically brave Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP) May Day rally of 1976 featured in the graphic above.

My goal is to continue the anti-imperialist quote of the day project for at least an entire year.

Remember the Charge of the Light Brigade!

In a war between Russian and US imperialism, the only side the people should be on is their own. 

President Obama got on TV last night to say that there would be "consequences" to Russian military involvement in Crimea. While the Ukraine is certainly a complicated issue what with the involvement of a host of fascists and right-wing fake communists, opposing American saber-rattling must be key for those of us in the United States. 

No to Obama's Crimean Adventure! The main enemy is at home — Down with US imperialism!

Recent Writings

Supporters of GEHO in Jinja, Uganda

After a long dry spell, I've been doing some more writing, all of it over on the Kasama website. Working with other members of the editorial collective, I've been helping to flag and introduce interesting articles from outside websites, as well as generating original content.

First up, I'm most proud of a long piece I spent a week researching and writing. Entitled "Real Enemies, False Friends: Imperialism and Homophobia in Africa," it covers the causes behind the wave of terrifying anti-gay repression in Africa. I've coined the phrase "weaponization of gay rights" to describe the hypocritical embrace of LGBT rights by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as a neocolonialist cudgel in the arsenal of US imperialism. It's pretty timely in the context of the orgy of hypocrisy during the Sochi Olympics in which anti-gay, repressive Russia is being pilloried by the professedly pro-gay, but still repressive US. I take aim at local demagogues, American evangelicals like Scott Lively, imperialist politicians, and the worst alleged gay rights organization ever, the Human Rights Campaign.

Next up are a bunch of short introductions meant to frame and introduce articles for discussion:

"Sochi Olympics — stop anti-gay violence in Russia" is a Human Rights Watch report  on the disturbing increase in antigay violence following the passage of Russia's gay propaganda law. My introduction just presents some of the issues for those not familiar. I'd like to follow this up with a discussion of the attempted gay boycott of Sochi and its corporate sponsors, addressing some of the same issues of hypocritical imperialism as in my Uganda/Nigeria piece.

"East Baltimore — What the fuck is a selfie?" is an article about life in a world where social media doesn't reign supreme. My introduction is a call to examine the bubbles and presumptions leftists inhabit when thinking about interacting with the real world.

"Atlanta, unfit rulers should get out of the way" is an article about the calamitously unusual snowstorm that swept the south. My introduction talks about the clash of extreme weather and capitalist crisis.

"American Studies Association penalized by NY Senate for Israel boycott" talks about the attempted retaliation against supporters of the BDS movement in New York. My introduction introduces the BDS movement as a way of materially supporting the Palestinian struggle.

Since Kasama front paged my fairly critical piece on Peter Seeger, we chose another article that was more personally laudatory as a counterpoint. I introduced "Music journalist Dave Marsh remembers Pete Seeger" in the hopes of keeping a discussion going.

My personal life is still quite unsettled, but it feels good to be speaking my mind again and keeping up with the writing. I'd love feedback from readers.

Not Dead!

So, turns out everything they say about 21st-century capitalism is true!

I've been out of work for a few months now, dealing with caregiving for an elderly parent who's receiving inadequate insurance, and dealing with dwindling finances. We've put our home up for sale, and are making various plans to move forward, all of which involve lots of angst and concrete challenges and difficulties. It's all quite depressing, and as the months have gone on it turns out that it's hard to focus on one's literary voice in the midst of personal turmoil caused by the inability of the system to care for its people. I'm grateful for a solid relationship and a warm cat, and trying to remain optimistic and thinking longterm past temporary difficulties, but this all adds up to an extended absence from my blogging commitments.

I haven't abandoned The Cahokian, or given up writing longer pieces for other websites like Kasama, but my energy is focusing on keeping me above water. I'm hoping to return to regular posting here as life calms down, but I wanted to acknowledge my failure to post in, well, months.

Meanwhile, I haven't been absent from the world, I'm still trying to keep a finger in social networking. You can follow my work, mostly anti-imperialism focused, on a number of platforms:

Follow me on Pinterest

Follow my postings of anti-American propaganda on Tumblr: Anti-Americana

Follow occasional personal/political posts on Tumblr: cahokianish

Like my anti-imperialist quote-of-the-day project on Facebook: Anti-Imperialist League 

Follow me on Twitter: @CahokianISH

There's some overlap on the above, I'm trying to still have a voice despite everything. I feel like I have a lot left to say on a lot of subjects, but now isn't winding up to be the moment.

See you back here soon. And fuck capitalism.

Anti-Americana: Anti-Imperialist Spectacle

This is a tourist postcard from Pyongyang, capital of the Democratic Republic of Korea. While tourism is not a major industry in North Korea, it does serve a public relations role in attempting to counteract the dominant western propaganda narrative built on standard anti-communist tropes of drudges walking around in a gray slave society. As a resident of the United States, which specializes in the manufacture of such tropes, I find it hard to accurately speculate on the actual nature of North Korean society; I suspect it's a country like any other, full of people just trying to live their lives in peace. I would reject out of hand both the giant prison narrative and the competing official rainbows and unicorns one.

Back to our postcard, this seems to be a shot of a stage spectacular. There's a projection of a spinning globe and a choir bearing red flags; actors gather in clusters around the stage posed in composed vignettes that suggest the dynamic groupings of people shown on propaganda posters. What's going on here?
 

Turning the card over, we get to the crux of the matter. The caption reads: "The revolutionary peoples of the world, unite more firmly under the banner of anti-imperialist, anti-U.S. struggle, and mutilate the U.S. imperialists in all parts!" Ouch!

The card doesn't say which, but this is clearly some kind of revolutionary theater production. As in cultural-revolution-era China, in North Korea there are a number of officially sanctioned revolutionary plays, operas, dances and films. One of them, "Sea of Blood," a story of resistance to the Japanese occupation, has apparently been running continuously since 1971. Another, "The Flower Girl," also about the years of resistance to Japan, is attributed to Great Leader Kim Il Sung himself. Sadly, I can't tell what work is represented on this postcard. But I'd sure like to see the show! I'm guessing this card is from the 1970s.

Forty Years Ago Today

Forty years ago today, the Chilean military, backed by the United States, overthrew the elected socialist government of Chile, and brought a bloody end to the "Chilean road to socialism," and the life of its architect, President Salvador Allende Gossens.

On that day forty years ago, neoliberalism introduced itself to the world, waving a bloody hand and pounding a mailed fist of repression, revealing the gruesome reality hidden in the pages of economic texts written by milquetoast academics in the service of capital. One day the oppressive theories and practices of neoliberalism will be heaped in a bonfire, and today's heirs to Kissinger, Friedman and Pinochet will be swept away to dim historical memory.

Last year I wrote a short analysis of Allende's Popular Unity government and its fall: Although a lot of the lessons of Chile are negative ones, nothing takes away from heroic, self-sacrificing example of Allende, who fell in combat for the people he loved. ¡Salvador Allende Presente!

Lasting vengeance will arrive with the real creation of People's Power, the creation of a just and equitable world of human liberation.

Anti-Americana: Historical Optimism

 

"Vietnam Will Win! America Will Lose!" reads this Chinese poster, probably from the early 1960s. I'm not 100% sure of this poster's provenance, and would love to know more about it. The illustration shows a crowd of peasants attacking an American soldier; usually the careful compositions of Chinese propaganda art showed a measured balance between civilians, militia, and military. Also, I'm pretty sure the Chinese characters used predate the simplification engineered in the PRC in the 1950s, and there is no use of Pinyin, which seemed to appear on most Chinese posters predating the Cultural Revolution. 

As for the slogan, of course it turned out to be quite accurate. A myth of the invincibility of US imperialism emerged somewhere between the Spanish-American War and World War II, that the US always emerged victorious from war. This myth is largely preserved in popular consciousness, even though it's quite far from the truth.

The U.S. failed to make a decisive victory in its first major post-WWII engagement, Korea. Unable to defeat the North Koreans, who were heavily backed by the Soviet Union and more importantly the new People's China, the best the US could achieve was a military stalemate, easily claimed as a victory by the North. Vietnam ended in the ignominious collapse of a massive American war effort. Cuba brushed off the CIA attack at Giron in 1961. Some minor US engagements, on might call them episodes of bullying, like Grenada and Panama, ended in decisive US victories. However, its two wars in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, while victorious in battlefield terms, probably count as net political defeats. The US seemed to win the cold war, though the resurgence of no-longer-even-claiming-to-be-socialist Russia on the international scene in the last few years makes it clear that that victory might have been only politically solid, leaving a potential military opponent standing.

Surely the US is hungry for a clear military success. Let's hope that proves elusive in Syria... or Iran.

Anti-Americana: Remember Norman Morrison, I Am Today and You Are Forever

I don't usually run two Anti-Americana features in a row, but the onslaught of pro-war propaganda as the Obama regime and his bipartisan allies attempt furiously to drum up support for their apocalyptic attack on Syria seems to demand it. Shown is a stamp from the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, or North Vietnam, issued in 1965 to honor "Noman Morixon," otherwise known as Norman Morrison. The stamp shows Morrison's smiling face, shown above an apparently American anti-Vietnam war demonstration with signs in English.

Morrison would be eighty this year had he not sacrificed his own life to protest the Vietnam War, then rapidly escalating. Morrison was a devout pacifist Quaker; in November of 1965 he doused himself with gasoline and burned himself to death in front of Robert McNamara's Pentagon office in Washington, D.C. Self-immolation has, of course, a long and tragically noble tradition, from the South Vietnamese monks who Morrison was probably emulating, to Mohammed Bouazizi of Tunisia who set off the Arab spring with his own supreme sacrifice.

Morrison became a folk hero in Vietnam. An incredibly moving poem about Morrison, his daughter Emily, who he carried along with him on the day of his death, and his act of political and social protest, was written by Vietnamese poet To Huu. I tracked down the poem, in its original Vietnamese with English translation, on a Vietnamese blog of poetry, Tay Bui, which I repost below. It's angry, profane, and really evocative of both the moment of Morrison's sacrifice and the horrible murderous moment in Vietnam he was protesting. Be sure to go to the original blog and thank the blogmaster for making this powerful poem available. Tay Bui offers some further information on Morrison in English and in Vietnamese.

I weep that once again, as warships steam toward Syria, this refrain of tragedy has the ring of now. It's past time to rid the world of the scourge of U.S. aggression, once more under the false flag of humanitarianism. How many more will die this time?

Emily, Child (Ê mi-ly, con)

Ê mi-ly, con đi cùng cha
Emily, come with me
Sau khôn lớn con thuộc đường, khỏi lạc...
Later you'll grow up you'll know the streets, no longer feel lost
- Đi đâu cha?
- Where are we going, dad?
- Ra bờ sông Pô-tô-mác
- To the banks of the Potomac
- Xem gì cha?
- To see what, dad?
Không con ơi, chỉ có Lầu ngũ giác.
Nothing my child, there's just the Pentagon.
Ôi con tôi, đôi mắt tròn xoe
Oh my child, your round eyes
Ôi con tôi, mái tóc vàng hoe
Oh my child, your locks so golden
Đừng có hỏi cha nhiều con nhé!
Don't ask your father so many questions, dear!
Cha bế con đi, tối con về với mẹ...
I'll carry you out, this evening you'll going home with your mother...
Oa-sinh-tơn
Washington
Buổi hoàng hôn
Twilight
Ôi những linh hồn
Oh, those souls
Còn, mất
That remain or are lost
Hãy cháy lên, cháy lên Sự thật!
Blaze, blaze the Truth!
Giôn-xơn!
Johnson!
Tội ác bay chồng chất
You fucker, your crimes accumulate
Cả nhân loại căm hờn
All humanity detests
Con quỷ vàng trên mặt đất.
The yellow demon upon this earth.
Mày không thể mượn nước son
You cannot borrow the crimson waters
Của Thiên Chúa, và màu vàng của Phật!
Of God, and Buddha's yellow.
Mác Na-ma-ra
McNamara
Mày trốn đâu? Giữa bãi tha ma
Where are you hiding, asshole? In the burial yard
Của toà nhà năm góc
Of a five corner building
Mỗi góc, một châu.
Each corner a continent
Mày vẫn chui đầu
You still squeeze your head
Trong lửa nóng
Inside hot flames
Như đà điểu rúc đầu trong cát bỏng.
Like the ostrich buries its head in the scorching sands

Hãy nhìn đây!
Look over here!
Nhìn ta phút này!
Look at me right now!
Ôi không chỉ là ta với con gái nhỏ trong tay
Oh it's not only me with my little daughter in my arms
Ta là Hôm nay
I am Today
Và con ta, Ê-mi-ly ơi, con là mãi mãi!
And my daughter, oh Emily, you are forever!
Ta đứng dậy,
I stand awake,
Với trái tim vĩ đại
With the great heart
Của trăm triệu con người
Of a hundred million
Nước Mỹ.
Americans.
Để đốt sáng đến chân trời
To flame, light up the horizon
Một ngọn đèn
A light
Công lý.
Of Justice.

Hỡi tất cả chúng bay, một bầy ma quỷ
Hey all you fuckers, pack of devils
Nhân danh ai?
In whose name?
Bay mang những B 52
You bring B52s
Những na-pan, hơi độc
Napalm, poison gas
Từ toà Bạch Ốc
From the White House
Từ đảo Guy-am
From Guam
Đến Việt Nam
To Vietnam
Để ám sát hoà bình và tự do dân tộc
To liquidate peace and national freedom
Để đốt những nhà thương, trường học
To incinerate hospitals and schools
Giết những con người chỉ biết yêu thương
Murder people who only know love
Giết những trẻ em chỉ biết đi trường
Murder kids who only know going to school
Giết những đồng xanh bốn mùa hoa lá
Murder green fields, four seasons of leaves and blossoms
Và giết cả những dòng sông của thơ ca nhạc hoạ!
And even murder rivers of poetry, music and art!

Nhân danh ai?
In whose name?
Bay chôn tuổi thanh xuân của chúng ta trong những quan tài
You bury the bloom of our youth in coffins
Ôi những người con trai khoẻ đẹp
Oh, those strong, handsome sons
Có thể biến thiên nhiên thành điện, thép
Who can transform nature to into electricity, steel
Cho con người hạnh phúc hôm nay!
For people's happiness today!

Nhân danh ai?
In whose name?
Bay đưa ta đến những rừng dày
You bring me to dense jungles
Những hố chông, những đồng lầy kháng chiến
Spiked pits, muddy fields of resistance
Những làng phố đã trở nên pháo đài ẩn hiện
Villages that become fortress that disperse to reappear
Những ngày đêm đất chuyển trời rung...
Nights and days where the heavens and earth shake and jolt
Ôi Việt Nam, xứ sở lạ lùng
Oh Vietnam, a strange land
Đến em thơ cũng hoá thành những anh hùng
To the children who become heroes
Đến ong dại cũng luyện thành chiến sĩ
To the wild bees who train to be warriors
Và hoa trái cũng biến thành vũ khí!
And the trees and flowers become weapons!

Hãy chết đi, chết đi
Go ahead and die, die
Tất cả chúng bay, một bầy ma quỷ!
All you jerks, a pack of demons
Và xin nghe, nước Mỹ ta ơi!
And I ask that you listen, my America!
Tiếng thương đau, tiếng căm giận đời đời
To the voices of pain, of eternal hatred
Của một người con. Của một con người thế kỷ
Of a child. Of a person of this century

Ê-mi-ly, con ơi!
Emily, oh child!
Trời sắp tối rồi...
It's beginning to get dark...
Cha không bế con về được nữa!
I can carry you no further
Khi đã sáng bùng lên ngọn lửa
When I ignite, light up as a flame
Đêm nay mẹ đến tìm con
Tonight, your mother will come find you
Con sẽ ôm lấy mẹ mà hôn
You'll hug her and kiss
Cho cha nhé
Her for me
Và con sẽ nói giùm với mẹ:
And tell your mother this for me:
Cha đi vui, xin mẹ đừng buồn!
I left happy, mother don't be sad!
Oa-sinh-tơn
Washington
Buổi hoàng hôn
Twilight
Còn mất?
Remains or is lost?
Đã đến phút lòng ta sáng nhất
It's come, the moment when my heart's brightest
Ta đốt thân ta
I set fire to myself
Cho ngọn lửa chói loà
So the flames dazzle
Sự thật.
Truth.

Anti-Americana: Kids Do the Darnedest Things

 

An Anti-Americana twofer today, with two North Korean images of unknown provenance. Both show cartoonish militarized children — an airman, a nurse, a soldier, and a seaman — using the tools of their trade to stick it to the man, in the form of a helmeted U.S. soldier. In the top image, the U.S. imperialist is joined by a Japanese imperialist: the North Koreans have long memories, not easily forgiving the brutal, forty year occupation of Korea in the first half of the 20th century.

I recognize these classically composed propaganda images cross the line from archetype to stereotype; still, I can't get enough of 'em. Frankly, with all the hypocritical sabre-rattling against Syria, I can't think of a nicer target for derision than U.S. imperialism.

If you enjoy these images, Anti-Americana is a regular feature here on the Cahokian; see old entries here. You can also subscribe to my pinterest feed of Anti-Americana by going here and clicking "follow." Also, check out the "Anti-Imperialist League" on facebook, in which I'll be trying to contextualize and historicize today's struggles in the long annals of organized popular resistance.

Depravity & Hypocrisy Laid Bare: The Meaning of Syria

Crossposted from The Kasama Project:

 Who gassed 1,300 civilians in a suburb of Damascus one Summer morning?

The United States government says it was the government of Bashar al-Assad. The rebels fighting to overthrow Assad, and I heard an estimate this morning that there are as many as a thousand different rebel groups and factions, agree. The Russian government, which backs Assad, says it was done by the rebels, whom it calls terrorists. Others say it was done by Israeli intelligence agents waving the impossible to prove or disprove "false flag" that ends all arguments. Still others say nothing happened at all, a bunch of faked pictures and staged news reports. (A report this morning, as plausible or questionable as any other, claims the gas was Saudi-supplied and accidentally set off by inept rebel mishandling). The United Nations says it is investigating! The United States says it doesn't really care what the UN says, it's too late for facts.

President Obama says the U.S. must respond to what happened with as-yet-undefined military force. As he beats the drum for an attack on Syria, the American people don't seem particularly interested in supporting a new war. And yet, for those voices that are beginning to speak out against the idea of a new war, there seems to be a lot more silence. I think we need to look into what is going on.

If anything is clear in the midst of this muddle (besides the fact that a lot of people seem to be dying), it's that the reputation of the U.S. government for telling anything resembling the truth is completely in the shitter.

President Obama's sudden drive for military retaliation against Assad can't be heard without the reverberation of deafening echoes of the propaganda and disinformation campaign waged by President Bush and his neocon allies in their drive to attack Iraq just over a decade ago. Everyone knows, now, that Bush and his cronies were lying, and most people assume that Obama and his cronies are lying now.



This is a photo of Obama's current secretary of state, John Kerry — then a Senator — and his billionaire wife having an intimate dinner for four with Mr. and Mrs. Assad at a classy Damascus restaurant a couple years ago. Secretary Kerry has just called the alleged chemical weapon attacks "a moral obscenity." He went on to claim, "Our sense of basic humanity is offended."

As happens so often lately, one doesn't know whether to laugh or cry at this imperialist politician's words.

Basic sense of humanity? Is this the same basic sense of humanity that caused the U.S. to starve untold thousands in a decade-long blockade of Iraq, and when that didn't seem to advance their agenda, to invade that country, unprovoked, causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands? The basic sense of humanity that sends drones to assassinate thousands of people on all corners of the globe without trial or evidence, or apparently, even very good aim? Many avert their eyes and ears from the monstrous claims of these politicians, but few actually believe them.

But even as the politicians were crying "But, chemical weapons!," long suspected news was confirmed that the CIA had no problem assisting Saddam Hussein back in the days when he was fighting U.S. Enemy Number One, Iran. Let's quote the headline: "Exclusive: CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran. The U.S. knew Hussein was launching some of the worst chemical attacks in history — and still gave him a hand." That water under the bridge is experiencing a bit of a backflow.

And, speaking of WMDs, chemical weapons and moral obscenities, a little bit of cursory historical research reminds us that it was the U.S. that was the first and only nation to use nukes against civilians. The U.S. blanketed Vietnam with the chemical defoliant Agent Orange, still causing birth defects generations later. The U.S. used depleted uranium weapons in both its wars against Iraq, again leaving a multi-generational legacy of of horrible birth defects. Then there's white phosphorus munitions, shared with its Israeli client state, that turn mere explosives into toxic explosives. Or how about that tear gas used by repressive governments across the Mediterranean, made in U.S.A.? Or closer to home, is not the pepper spray that drenched the Occupy movement a chemical weapon? Indeed let's discuss moral obscenities, shall we?

Occupy Wall Street veteran Mickey Z., in a great article detailing some of the government and media hypocrisy over Syria, wagged, "When I first read about a dictator unleashing chemical warfare upon "his own people," I thought the media was finally discussing how President Obama appointed Michael Taylor (vice president for public policy at Monsanto) to the position of deputy commissioner for Foods at the FDA." Mickey's joke makes a serious point: who the fuck are these people to be lecturing anyone? They don't actually care about people at all: they care about money, votes, power.


This is a picture of U.S. marines walking the streets of Fallujah, Iraq. Fallujah was levelled after its rebellious inhabitants killed and strung up some hired American mercenaries. You'll need a strong stomach to follow up links on what vengeful Americans did to the people of that city. Now, these same masters of outrage say that Assad must be punished for using gas "against his own people." They say they don't want to invade Syria, they don't want to take sides in the civil war, they don't want regime change, they just want to lob a few missiles on the country to teach them a lesson. Would could possibly go wrong?

Remarkably, at least for now, the British parliament just voted down a motion by the Prime Minister to join the U.S. in retaliatory strikes against Syria. (Unsurprisingly for anyone who knows anything about the party obscenely calling itself "socialist" in France, the French President, Socialist Party leader Françoise Hollande has pledged full support to any U.S. attack. France is always eager to remind its former colonies, like Syria, who still wields the stick of imperialism.)

What is less good news is the apparent broad cynicism, apathy or resignation of the U.S. population.
A handful of demonstrations against the threat of a U.S. attack on Syria have already taken place, but they've been small, nothing like the huge demonstrations that met Bush's drive to war. A call went out for local demonstrations at noontime on Saturday, August 31, but I expect these to attract mostly core activists and suspect they will be widely ignored by the media.

The liberal establishment and its media have fallen in lockstop behind the Democratic president Obama. It's a subject for its own discussion elsewhere, but the repulsive liberal vilification of military and NSA whistleblowers Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden and heroic journalists like Glenn Greenwald, is a sad spectacle to behold. The New York Times, which shilled endlessly for the Iraq war, losing quite a bit of journalistic prestige and integrity in the process, has already run one grotesque OpEd piece entitled "Bomb Syria, Even If It Is Illegal." Another creepy OpEd piece suggested that the best scenario for the U.S. and Israel (always the first concern of Times journalists) would be an extended civil war that drains the resources of all sides.

Vocal opposition to a strike on Syria seems to be coming more from the right wing of American politics. Republicans and Libertarians, ever eager to condemn Obama for anything at all, have seized the moment. Of course it helps these posers that they're on summer break right now. I would be surprised, in the end, if the U.S. congress doesn't acquiesce to whatever Obama chooses to actually do. He hasn't yet formally asked Congress for authorization, and in any case he refused to do so when "backing" the NATO attack on Libya.



We were treated to the spectacle this week of watching President Obama interrupt his plans against Syria to make a speech lauding the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr on the 50th anniversary of the civil rights March on Washington. While plenty of people in attendance remembered that Dr. King was vehemently opposed to the Vietnam War, suffice it to say that the liberal politicians speaking from the podium didn't call out this dramatic contradiction. Obama's speech seemed wooden and full of empty platitudes, and even liberals in the African-American community took notice: "Dr. King was a pacifist and anti-militarist who believed that America was the greatest single cause of violence in the world. Barack Obama, while giving his own March on Washington anniversary speech, has already, or soon will, order the United States military to attack Syria....In his soaring rhetoric, Barack Obama chose to return to an old trope, and what is for him, a comfortable narrative. He would speak about his dream of a post-racial America, one that is still a work in progress.....That Barack Obama would decide to lecture and scold Black America on the 50th Anniversary of Dr. King’s speech and the March on Washington is disturbing." (Chauncey De Vega)

In the face of all of this it's not surprising that people feel overwhelmed and anxious. People are worried and concerned about a new war, but disgusted at self-evident hypocrisy and politicians with a long history of lying. That doesn't seem to be enough to coalesce an antiwar movement. The rampant spread of demoralizing conspiracy theories among young people disaffected with liberalism is not helping. Why bother protesting if there is always a hidden hand manipulating reality?

Frankly I think the fact that some remnants of the old anti-war movement have now tied themselves to support for Assad in the Syrian civil war doesn't help, either. The Workers World Party's International Action Center seems to have furnished an antiwar demo I attended in New York with Syrian government flags and portraits of Assad; the PSL's ANSWER coalition seems to take a soft-peddled but similar approach.

There needs to be a real anti-war movement. People should be out in the street, angry and pissed off. It is absolutely incredible that this frayed worn script is being used to rationalize another war. It's outrageous that there are so few strong public voices against it.



As a communist, as an activist in my community, I'm gonna go out on the street with folks I met during the Occupy movement and we're gonna make some noise. I think there will be few of us. I think most people will pass us by. And the depravity of this situation is so horrible, so exhausting, I get that. If we don't look, maybe what's happening a million miles away won't get closer. But I think we should talk for a minute about what we're doing this for: what do we care?

For a hot minute Obama and Qaddafi, the Libyan dictator he eventually helped depose, were buds. In that same rarified world, the Kerrys and Assads can sit down to a gentile dinner or, as shown in another now classic photo, Donald Rumsfield and Saddam Hussein can share a hearty handshake. These photos reveal something profound about the world, the world that communists want to overturn.

It's just not true that for every bad guy there's a good guy. One of the great pieces of wisdom in Marxism is that people do things for material reasons: the world is not turned by a war between good and evil, or by black and white, but by material self interest. The actions of people with different class interests become predictable; and the key to changing the injustices of the world is understanding where the leverage lies, where the sources of power are.

Communists should oppose imperialism, this is absolutely true, and so very important.

The best thing we communists in the U.S. can do for all those who struggle around the world is to do what we can to defeat the monster in whose belly we live. But communists should also support the struggles of the people worldwide for liberation, for self-determination, for freedom. This means that while the Bushes and the Obamas and the Rumsfields and the Kerrys of this world are our enemies, the Qaddafis, the Saddams, the Assads, the Putins of this world, they are not our friends. That is not how the world is divided, not now. These are all, every last one of them, depraved, hypocritical, corrupt, capitalist politicians with a taste for the blood of the people.

Regardless of what the currently unknowable truth is behind the tragedy in that Damascus suburb, Assad and many of the rebel factions have committed easily documentable atrocities against regular people who want nothing more than their own right of self-determination. The western nations falsely posing as humanitarians have a documentable record of even worse atrocity. Communists must point to the horizon and say it doesn't have to be like this. We can win the world for ourselves, for the global majority.

Oh it's an idea not an exact number, but you remember, to coin a phrase, the 99%.
We must sweep away the clutter. Out with the bombs and missiles of imperialism. Out with the duplicitous false parties of capitalist politics. Out with the armies of sectarianism and division. Out with the self-serving, lying murderers who rule the nations of the world. Out with the lying mouthpieces of the mainstream media.

Stopping the war on Syria would be a very good start to making those things happen. Are you with us?

STOP THE ATTACK ON SYRIA!

—by Ish