8 Months Later: Surviving Police Terrorism in Oakland

Police violence against Occupy Oakland. Photo from UWire.

This article was written by my friend Scott Anansi Rossi, a queer anarchist living in the Bay Area in California. I'm posting it here as a guest post because it's such a vivid first-hand tale of experiencing police terrorism against the Occupy movement, but also because it communicates some of the many ways repression, indeed capitalism itself, attacks the core of our humanity. Scott bravely talks about the personal struggles awakened by his political activism, something I can completely relate to. And so much for all the sneering, dismissive contempt offered up by the media against Occupy: this has been a sea change moment, not only in terms of our willingness to fight back as people, but in terms of the willingness of the state to use brutality against its citizens. This testimony gets at why my own re-radicalization has been so vivid. As I return to calling myself a revolutionary, to calling myself a communist even, this story of survival inspires me. Thanks Scott!

Hey everyone. Thanks for reading this. I want to talk about the last 8 months. 8 months and 8 days to be exact. This is probably going to be the hardest thing I've ever written about in my life, but I need to do it. I'm not really writing with a structure here, I'm just going to write and write it all out until I can't write anymore. Some of this I've put in writing in one form or another over these last 8 months, so forgive me if you've heard or read this before or we've talked about it, and forgive the length here, this is one thing I can't edit for brevity. Indulge me this, so you can see the whole picture and understand.

 251 days ago was January 28, 2012. I don't know how many of you remember that day, but for me, and many others, it's a day I'll never forget. It became one those days in your life that transform you, where one chapter ends and another begins. This started out as a really dark, sorry chapter of my life, but an important one, and one that deserves telling. So here goes.

 January 28, 2012. Occupy Oakland organized an event called "Move in Day" and the goal was to seize an abandoned building and turn it into a community center. Feelings aside, there was a desperate need in the community, the city was unresponsive and there's a historical precedent. I didn't plan on going because I had to work and I was convinced that there was some "bacon in that sandwich" as I put it when I fear police infiltrators are in the mix or shit's been compromised. About 2,000 people that showed up that day, which really was amazing. Elderly, children, parents, families, everybodies. It was a good cross section of Occupy Oakland. I was sitting at work watching the livestream, and just ... I don't have words for how I felt when OPD attacked the protest. It was a fucking massacre. (Breaking the narrative/4th wall here, I've got goosebumps and tears in my eyes already just remembering it) The cops started shooting less than lethal projectiles at the march as soon as it neared the convention center they had targeted for Liberation. At first it was smoke bombs, but as the march retreated to a nearby street, OPD launched rubber bullets, tear gas, pepper ball rounds and other things into the crowd. If it wasn't for the protesters with shields, dozens of people would have been wounded. As it was, quite a few people were hit and hurt pretty badly. This culminated in a running street battle for a few blocks which basically cemented my decision to go to Oakland as soon as I got off work. I just couldn't sit there all comfy and safe, knowing that innocent people were being brutalized by the very force that was supposed to protect and serve them. That day, for myself, and a lot of people, we learned that the oaths the police swear come secondary to the concerns of Capital. Those with money and power will have their property and privilege defended and the worse abuses will be heaped upon people to preserve that. I mean, I knew that on paper, I read all the books, this wasn't my first venture into anarchist or radical theory. But knowing on paper is different from seeing. I would come to rue that realization over the next few hours.


As some of you may remember, I posted a picture of me just before I left my house that night. The look on my face makes me cry sometimes, because that was the last time I was "me". I knew I was going into a charnel house, I knew I should have just stayed home and raged into Twitter and dumped revolutionary screed into Facebook, but that wasn't the right thing to do. The right thing to do was go out there and help the innocent; the people who were getting a face full of broken social contract and trodden civil rights and OPD brutality. As a famous leader* once said, "the right thing is not necessarily the smart thing". And so I went to Oakland.


The BART ride was the worst. Everyone I knew was kettled by the Oakland Police Department at my old apartment complex at 19th and Telegraph. Kettling is where the cops trap you and give you dispersal orders but no exits, and on that day, they decided to tear gas everyone while they were trapped, also gassing everyone in that apartment complex. So again, I knew I was going into the mix. To this day, every time I cross the bay on BART and come out of the tunnel into West Oakland, my throat gets tight and I get this rush of adrenaline and fear and bile in the back of my throat. EVERY TIME. I was trying to prepare myself for the worst via Twitter, but there's just no way you can do that. My brain reads shit on twitter as though it's a video game or crap on the internet. I'm mad, or I feel sad, but there's not much substance to it. It passes with the next cat video or funny picture. What I walked into was real and it changed my life and it will be with me until I die and now that I'm putting these words out there, it'll be around long after I'm gone.


The train stopped at 19th Street BART, and right here, I'd love to say that the story stops, I came to my senses and got the fuck out and went home. But I'm not going to say that. As soon as I stepped out of the train, I saw two older women from OccupySF. Veteran activists I respected what they had to say and loved hearing their stories and learning from them. Instead of hugs and smiles, these women were in tears, warning me not to go up top, that the cops were "going crazy and gassing everyone". As they were telling me what they had been through, I could hear what I assume were flashbangs going off in the distance. We talked for a few minutes until their train came and I went upstairs. It was eerily quiet. By that time, the march had broken out of the kettle at the Uptown Apartments and was moving up Telegraph or Broadway towards the YMCA. I spent some time talking to people at the bus stop, one woman had thrown up because she couldn't stop coughing and crying, a few others were in various stages of grief and anger and had the telltale white splash of LAW on their faces. LAW, in case you're wondering, stand for Liquid Antacid + Water, whcih is the Street Medic's answer to Tear Gas and Pepper Spray.
 

Scott Anansi Rossi

Tear gas in the US isn't a gas actually, it's a particulate, and I got really upset thinking that most of these people probably didn't know how to treat their clothes afterwards. You can't just wash them, because you'll activate the particles and expose yourself again and again and again, and there are SERIOUS long term health issues associated with long term tear gas exposure. I'm not really a praying person, my religion is centered in science and pragmatism and the believe that maybe, just maybe, there might be something out there that cares about us little motes of consciousness, but that night, I prayed a lot. Sometimes I think it was to keep me sane, sometimes in the hope that whatever or whoever was on duty would listen and help us.

I decided I'd try to catch up with the march, since the people told me I had just missed it. I went back to Broadway and ran into another OccupySFer who I had worked with on the Welcome Team, a real solid, stand up guy who I won't name for security issues, but you know who you are. At that point, I was already scared because the steady stream of people heading towards 14th street were saying the march had been kettled again, and everyone I knew was up there, so it was great running into this guy. Even though he wasn't a Medic, he was a buddy and I wasn't alone. You must not Medick alone if at all possible, because the police, especially Oakland Police, target medics for arrest.
 
The kettle at the YMCA was one of the worst things I have ever seen in my life. So many police, so many screaming, crying people and confused onlookers who wondered why the cops were going crazy. Happily, I ran into another friend, who had the luck to run into a compassionate officer who let a few women through the lines. I kept hoping that they'd let everyone out and we could all go home. This is where things get a little foggy and things got a little dangerous for me. What happened next is pretty much why a lot of things went the way they did and what allowed the second half of this blog post to even happen.

A few minutes after I got to the police line, I ran into a medic who was non-marked and didn't have any supplies. He was also at work and heard about what went down, so he came to do some bike scouting. Based on what he told me, we figured I was the only marked medic not kettled, which really bothered me. I had one bottle of LAW and enough water and milk of magnesia for one more bottle. What the hell was I going to do if the crowd got tear gassed again? I had a few bandages and ice packs, but what the hell was I going to do if the cops shot the crowd that was building at 23rd and Broadway? The projectiles are called 'Less than Lethal' rounds, but they will shred you if you get in their way. They are metal wrapped in a little bit of hard foam or rubber. Your guts are pudding if you don't have enough padding. I wasn't worried about myself, but about the bystanders and the smaller statured protesters. It's the United States, we shouldn't have to deal with this. I find the State out of date and increasingly unable to deal with realities of modern life. That's why I'm attracted to radical politics and anarchy. That's why people came out last fall, because many of them realized it as well. Even those who came to work for reform of the state knew it couldn't continue what it was doing in its current form. Does that mean we deserved to get tear gassed? Shot at with rubber bullets?


I'm not sure how long I was standing, mostly in disbelief, at the police line. There's a lot of black holes in my recollection that may or may not ever come back. Such is the nature of trauma and the psyche and based on what I do remember, I'm ok if it never comes back. Really. Oblivion keep those memories, please.


The Alameda Sherrif sent over their nice big army tank infantry assault vehicle for "crowd control purposes" the one cop bragged to what looked to be a reporter. Purchased with delicious DHS dollars, the sight of it caused worry from some, anger from others, and I remember one black woman just crying out with her hand out towards the tank, almost pointing at it.

 At some point, these two kids dressed for a black bloc came up to me and told me to watch myself, that the "fat cop" was pointing at me. And sure enough, a few seconds after they said, it, five or six cops came at me. They didn't run, but they weren't walking either. I'm not gonna lie, I ran. I may have made some weird whimper/groan in fear. I remember thinking "I CAN'T GET ARRESTED, I WORK TOMORROW!" and "I CAN'T GET ARRESTED, WHO IS GOING TO TAKE CARE OF ALL THESE PEOPLE?" at the time, I was somewhere between 330 and 340 pounds. I had lost weight during Occupy and was happy and keeping that weight off, and I outran those cops. In retrospect, they didn't seem too interested in pursuing me, as when I got to Grand and Broadway, I looked back, they were walking back from the halfway point and it looked like their friends were arresting people where I was just standing with those 2 guys. Did people get arrested instead of me? Because of me? Would they have been arrested if I wasn't standing there? Jesus fucking christ.

 There was a small woman. I'm not sure for what, but the cops grabbed her. She probably weighed 90 pounds, maybe 100 pounds wet. Five or six cops, it's hard to tell how many, because they were acting as a mass, basically enveloped her and I heard her scream and then she was on the ground, not moving, and clearly in pain. 3 of the cops, easily two or three times her weight, had their knees on the back of her knees, her stomach (Gods I pray she wasn't pregnant!) and ON HER FUCKING NECK. the whole time she's not resisting and they're cuffing her and she's scream-weeping. Do you know what that sounds like? Sometimes at night, that noise will come back to me in a random dream, or I'll hear a child scream while playing or seeing a butterfly and I'm right back there that night, chills and tears and everything.
 
There was a guy, maybe 150 or 200 pounds. Restrained and sitting on the curb. I remember it looked like he was asking one of the cops something and this other cop hit him in the chest with his baton and I watched him fall over and watched his head bounce off the pavement. This point was all blurry to me, because I kept walking back towards the kettle, leaving when a cop looked or walked my way, twice I started back towards Oscar Grand Plaza at 14th and Broadway, because I heard that there was a reconvergence, but I was alone by that time and didn't feel it was safe with all the cops on the road and in the way. They were arresting people at random at that point in the night, snatch and grab bullshit and that scared me more than getting arrested by the kettle. There were no livestreamers, there was no crowd. This was some dark back alley arrest shit and I was scared for my life. This is when cop gangs beat the shit out of people, and how funny a story that'd be in the locker room; about how they beat the shit out of the fat gay guy who was crying when we kidnapped him on Broadway. I'm thinking this about the police, ya know? The ones who are to 'protect and serve' us? Crazy you say? What I saw was crazy. What I remember was crazy.

 By the time I finally got to OGP, City Hall had been entered. They didn't break in, because the doors were left open. It was a trap and they fell for it and an American Flag was burnt and Jean Quan was more upset about the smashed snack machine that the egregious abuse of power and violence that they had unleashed on their own people. There were rumors of another medic showing up, people wanted to organize a "Fuck the Police" march and there was a standoff at 14th and Broadway with the cops threatening tear gas and physical violence and injury. They really do say "chemical weapons" and "serious injury", and I knew they meant it. That girl's bloody face told me all I ever needed to know.

 Then this wave of realizations hit me. I never got badge numbers. The cops were too far away for me to even do that. I'll never know who these people are, what happened to them, I'll never be able to thank them for what they've done or hug them and tell them we'll do our best to make sure everything would be OK. Survivor's guilt. Grief. I've never felt grief before in my life because I have a peculiar outlook on death and the afterlife, but suddenly I was awash in it. I remember I left Oakland and headed back to San Francisco, but not remembering much about the trip. I wasn't unconscious, but I wasn't here either. I remember being at the Stud at some point, in my stinking and dirty Medic Gear, showing up just to say hi and so my friend knew I was at his party. I remember some twink looking at me going saying some snotty comment about "fat doctor" and laughing with his friends like he said something witty and I remember wanting to punch, but not hit him, just punch so hard he stopped existing.

 And then the fun started.

 I have panic attacks at loud noises sometimes, I get edgy and aggressive when cops are around, especially in public settings like a coffee shop or bookstore. I don't feel safe anywhere. I'm depressed. Nihilistic at times. I wonder if anything I've ever done or will do will be worth the sacrifices some of those people made that night. I have survivor's guilt. If only I could have done more, was smarter, was faster, was thinner and more athletic. If only I could have broken through police lines somehow and rescued those people! This triggered an eating disorder that I'm in treatment for. I went from 340 to over 400 pounds and I'm only just able to talk about this now, after six months of pretty intense therapy and support groups. The night I realized I needed help was when I had blacked out from binge eating, and I had a night terror reliving that night and I woke up running to the bathroom pissing myself and whimpering. It's not always the visuals that haunt me, but the sounds too. The sounds of that woman screaming with all the cops on top of her. The sounds of the guy grunting after his head bounced off the pavement. The sound of me whimpering because I couldn't help them without getting arrested, I couldn't help them even if I was arrested, and it was happening too far away to see badge numbers or faces. I continually break down whenever I feel helpless. I used to be strong! I used to be a rock people turned to in their tough times. Now I have to pep talk myself into getting out of bed every goddamn morning. I don't feel safe around my friends or even my lover, I worry that somehow I'm going the horrors in my brain crashing into their life. It's an everyday battle not to overeat, to battle that food addiction, that compulsion to bury myself in a carb coma or swill pints of ice cream until that hole in my heart goes away for a while.

 I'm angry. All the time. I'm angry that this happened. That people laugh about it or don't get it. I would never wish this on my worst enemy, but I wish I could share my pain and memories so you could get it. Because you can't get it until you've lived it. And people have been living this for decades. I'm angry that the State uses violence as a tool to repress political movements and keep people in line. I'm angry that it works. Some people are afraid and don't come out anymore. Some people are too shell shocked and are still dealing with the emotional and spiritual fallout from this. People I know and care about have PTSD from the police. People were mistreated in jail. Hell, two months ago I had to leave an innocent and tame march in Oakland, barely breathing down a panic attack because there was a cop car and a truck at an intersection next to each other and I just couldn't deal with that. When you see me posting angry screed into facebook and saying "REVOLT!", "Fuck the Police!" and the FTP/ACAB stuff, it's because I really feel that. I don't have my life anymore. I'm not that Scott you used to know and love. That hopeful innocent part of me died that night, and I'm not being histrionic about that. It's gone and hard as I might try, good works and faith and love that I might have, it might not ever come back, and that's part of the reality of this struggle and the reality of state violence. This is why they do it, because people just go away. There were times when, while I wasn't suicidal, I was definitely thinking it'd be better to just die than carry these memories. And you read what I'm going through and all I saw was some kids gettin beaten. Imagine what some Iraq or Afghanistan Vet is going through? When you see me rail against rape culture and patriarchy, try to imagine what a rape victime is going through. If you take one thing from this, let it be compassion. It's extremely important you remember how to feel and you don't lose that. Don't let this system make you see suffering people as Unpersons. They're Us's. They're you.

 So after all that, I don't want to end this on a bad note. While it seems all bad, there's a silver lining. The need for therapy actually helped me address the eating disorder that alwas creeps into my life when I'm stressed or depressed. This has got me writing and reading and organizing against police brutality and violence. Rather than be another victim, I chose to be empowered by this, and I recognize that I have the privilege to do so. I found Feminism and am learning to be a better person and smash Patriarchy which keeps us all down. I choose to find ways of organizing and working around, and in recognizance of state violence against protesters, people of color, women, trans, gays, lesbians, sex workers, all of the Others and Underdogs and Everybodies we should be celebrating this one life we get with. Everyone has the right to speak your mind, to assemble. You have the right to housing, food, water. These are not entitlements, you cannot live without these. No, Mr. Piggie, I will not go home thank you. Not while children go to bed on the streets, while they go to bed with no food in their stomachs, while schools crumble and people have to suffer and die without health insurance in the richest nation on the planet. I'm going to keep on fighting, and I'll fight until every last battle is won or until my final breath is drawn, because you don't get equal rights and social justice by asking for permission and waiting. If there's one thing my parents taught me growing up, through all the viewings of Red Dawn, Legend of Billie Jean and Return of the Jedi, it's that you absolutely must fight. Fight for yourself and your loved ones, and fight for those that can't fight for themselves.

 So I was going to write a big sappy ending about how thankful I am and how much I love everyone, but you know what, it's 3:15 AM, there is a spider dangling over my computer monitor and I fucking hate spiders. They're almost as bad as cops. So I'll leave you with a smile and the knowledge that I'm doin' alright, so let's all try to make sure we're all doing alright and then smash shit up until the world works better.

 Thanks. Seriously, you have no idea.

 Scott

 * RIP Laura Roslin

PS -- As always, with any and everything I post, feel free to share far and wide. Especially with shit like this, because you never know who is suffering in silence.

Defensive Voting?

FIrst Report on #S17

"Unfuck the world!" NYC today!

Appears now on Kasama, written by me.

Occupy anniversary party rocks Downtown NYC
An Occupy organizer, a woman named Lisa, asked for a show of hands: “Who was here a year ago?” A few dozen hands shot up.
“Who wasn’t?” Hundreds more shot up.
All of a sudden it didn’t matter that there weren’t thousands of people sitting in this circle: it was clear that a real movement had been born that in the space of a single year had rocked our worlds. Something tangible had been created from nothing, and it was gathered on a beautiful late-summer night to talk about mass anti-capitalist action on the streets of New York City.

read the rest here.

Another World Is Possible! Happy Anniversary #OWS!

Today, September 17 is (only) the first anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement. A day of actions and civil disobedience is planned (full details on the S17 website). I've been busy at rallies and assemblies all weekend and intend to fully participate in the day's events. I'll be posting reports and photos in the days to come. It's been an amazing year!

¡Victor Jara Presente!

Victor Jara was murdered by the U.S. backed-Chilean junta 39 years ago today.

Follow Me on Twitter!

I have joined the Twitterati! You can now follow me on Twitter, @CahokianISH. It's going to be a big exciting weekend of mass action in New York City. #S17,  the one year anniversary of #OWS, here we come! There should be plenty to tweet about. And yes, sorry, but I still think of annoying yellow birds not blue ones when I hear the word "tweet." #mygeneration.

The Other September 11th

September 11, 1973: The Bombing of the Moneda, Santiago, Chile (Corbis)

It's a strange irony that before 2001, the date September 11th was already etched into the history of infamy by another act of brutal violence. For on that date in 1973, working in collusion with the U.S. government, the Chilean military overthrew the elected Popular Unity (UP, or Unidad Popular) government of President Salvador Allende, bombing the presidential palace, murdering Allende himself, and beginning a dark chapter of repression resulting in the murder of thousands of Popular Unity supporters, leftists, trade unionists, and regular working people.

¡Crear Poder Popular! Create Popular Power!

Allende, a socialist, had risen to power not through a revolution but through an election. With broad popular support from the Chilean left and the Chilean working class, he attempted the socialist transformation of Chilean society without first overthrowing the capitalist state. It's easy in retrospect to criticize Allende, and important in many ways to do so. Indeed, in my opinion he and the leftist parties that backed him committed serious errors that paved the way for their own destruction. But at the same time the Chilean experiment in a new road to socialism is filled with important lessons for people seeking a path to a new world. Some of these lessons were brutal and hard, but others inspiring. In the end I think history marks Allende as a hero, even if a tragic one. He fell in combat for a better world.

Chile in the early 1970s became a kind of crucible where the struggle between the classes became super-heated. As working people took to the streets, the upper classes responded in kind, playing havoc with the Chilean economy. While thousands of students and middle-class people joined the workers and the leftists parties in the struggle for economic transformation, thousands more formed outright fascist organizations to combat the restive working class. As working people occupied farms and factories to support the socialist and communist dominated government, other working people challenged its rule. Indeed some leftist parties distanced themselves from the Allende government.

New forms of workers autonomy, and workers and community control sprung up everywhere. "Create Peoples' Power!" became the watchword of the people out in the street. Despite some conciliatory efforts toward the propertied classes by the Allende government, the workers' movement in Chile became a speeding train, clearly approaching a collision with state power. To see how the Chilean population radicalized and politicized in the course of revolutionary events is awe-inspiring. Regular people understood the importance of acting together: it became obvious how they themselves had the power to change Chilean society: how politics seeped into the daily acts of living. The workers were miles ahead of Allende himself.

While Allende was freely elected, he was never able to achieve a majority for UP in the Chilean parliament, and always forced to make allowances with professedly progressive factions of the bourgeoisie and their military. And this, of course was his undoing.

The Popular Unity made much of a nonviolent path to socialism, but this proved to be a pipedream. Violence, or the threat of violence, is the underpinning of class society. Marx and Engels made this clear long ago in The Communist Manifesto, and the events in Chile were a like a blank slate waiting for the violence to fill itself in. Fatally, Allende and Unidad Popular failed to disarm the military, the instrument of potential violence of the ruling class, and failed to arm the people and create workers militias, the force necessary to meet the (unwanted) violence everybody could see coming. The propertied classes and their allies would defend the capitalist state to the death against those who sought to dismantle it. It was not necessary for the Chilean revolution to advocate violence, merely to soberly prepare itself against the building threat.

Allende thought he had split the allegiance of the military: Pinochet, the man who became Chile's military dictator, was among the supposedly "loyal" officers who Allende rallied to defeat an earlier coup attempt in mid-1973. But the military was just biding its time, all the time plotting and colluding with the CIA and the US government. The Chilean ruling class wasn't sitting idly by waiting for Allende or the workers to expropriate them: they were organizing and building their own counterrevolution just as surely as the people were building their revolution. But in the crucial moment the ruling classes had the jets and the bombs and the tanks and the machine guns.

And they held the stadium that was turned into a giant concentration camp into which leftists were herded and murdered: there perished the legendary musician Victor Jara, proud supporter of the UP, who had his hands smashed and broken by military torturers before they made him play one last song before they killed him.

It's no accident that after the success of the coup, when all the manifestations of people's power were smashed, Chile became an economic labratory for American economists of the ilk of Milton Friedman and his cothinkers, the forerunners to the trickle-down theorists so beloved by American conservatives. They wanted a Chile with a docile, pacified population, with subdued or eliminated trade unions, and a disappeared political opposition. Thousands were murdered, and the blood of those martyrs is on the hands of the U.S. government and all those civilian economic vultures as surely as it on the hands of the fascist elements in Chilean society.

Salvador Allende's distinctive glasses, recovered from the rubble, preserved in a museum in Chile

Allende took to the radio from the Moneda Palace while it was under attack by those jets and tanks: "Other men will overcome this dark and bitter moment when treason seeks to prevail. Go forward knowing that, sooner rather than later, the great avenues will open again where free men will walk to build a better society." Within a few hours he was dead, and the Chilean experiment was crushed by a U.S.-backed fascist jackboot. While today the military dictatorship is a thing of the past, the struggle for poder popular continues in Chile, and for people around the world who dream of that better world.

Strongly recommended: "La Batalla de Chile: La lucha de un pueblo sin armas," Patricio Guzmán's extended black-and-white documentary study of the end of the Unidad Popular government. A must-see: readily available on DVD.

The 12 Steps

via facebook.

Revolution Is Art

 

Some random graphic design:
"Another World Is Possible: ¡Luchar Crear Poder Popular! (Struggle To Create People's Power!)"

 

Annual Candy Samples Video Break!

Yes it's that time of year again! A new video from my favorite drag queen, the immortal Candy Samples, actress. This year's video is a tribute to the gay "bear" world, with a new song entitled "Bear Season." Once again yours truly has several background color roles, though my adorable boyfriend may be seen here as the guitar player. The videos are always a hoot to make, and this one was no different, though the extensive "green screen" filming meant that those of us in the cast had no idea whatsoever what the final product would look like. Bonus points to Candy for the Sarah Palin references!

If Communism Is Dead, Why Are They Still Afraid of It?

Jodi Dean discusses the "Communist Horizon." From New York City's Brecht Forum. This is some dense Marxist philosophy but stay with it.

Revolution in Our Times?

The following statement is reposted from East Coast Renegades:

We are in an historic moment. The economic crisis is deepening the poverty gap and its racial disparities, expanding and intensifying police repression, and causing the political system to waver and fracture. It appears this process will continue, giving rise to more radical and extreme struggles nationally and globally. Yet despite its potentials, the Occupy movement has failed to sustain and grow into a revolutionary mass movement. Now is the time to regroup, re-strategize, and commit ourselves to taking action as best we can in the outbreaks that are coming.

The authors of this statement are forming a network on the east coast, and we hope others will join us. Our network brings together old and new militants to share analysis, strategy, tactics, resources and methods of struggle. Together we want to open up a space for principled debate, in which we respectfully challenge and develop each-other’s ideas about revolutionary practice, and push each other to do better than we are doing. We want to develop our ability to intervene in crises, whether they be cases of police violence, community violence, austerity cuts, housing occupations, prisons strikes, labor struggles, etc.

We believe our central task is to seek out the revolutionary elements of people’s everyday experiences, to support and push this self-activity in ever more radical directions. At the same time, we must ruthlessly critique everything that holds it back: both the racist, sexist, reactionary elements within it, and the liberals and self-appointed leaders who co-opt it, such as politicians, nonprofit staff, and union bureaucrats.

While working toward the worldwide overthrow of the capitalist system, many in our network are currently agitating and organizing in urban neighborhoods of color, and feel this work will be central to any revolutionary strategy in the U.S. In order to build local popular power that can challenge the existing order, we must connect a wide array of labor, immigrant, student, feminist, queer, rural, and other struggles. We understand that many of these categories overlap with each other, and are prevalent within neighborhoods of color.

We hope our efforts will move us closer to a form of organization that is useful for our time, different from the vanguard parties and structureless networks of the past, and we think this grouping could serve as an embryo for such an organization down the road. Together we will study and critique past revolutions and current movements, and undertake serious political education. We will grow together as committed militants, analyzing and acting in the world around us, and working toward revolution in our time.

The above statement was written by some of the same folks who put out the Con Ed flyers I reposted earlier. The graphic is one of the brilliant works of agitprop art produced by Emory Douglas of the Black Panther Party way back in the day. I'm not sure I'm as negative about the Occupy movement having already "failed," but I think this statement makes some great points I completely agree with.

Speaking of Police State America....

This shocking scene was recorded last week in the subway by one of my Occupy/Ocupemos Sunset Park compañeros. The cop claims the kid jumped the turnstyle. This is what "stop and frisk" really means to thousands of thousands of black and latin youth in New York: degrading, frightening, brutal.

FTP.

Welcome to Police State America

Some people are worried about disturbed individuals firing guns into movie theaters. I'm worried about a disturbed government firing guns against unarmed protesters including women and children. If you haven't been following the events in Anaheim, California, you're not looking in the right direction. Watch the above video soon as some versions have been pulled down from the internet as local California forces of repression try to suppress the story. Yes, that is black-clad stormtroopers firing rubber bullets into a crown of families and then setting the dogs after them. Yes, California, post-racial America, 2012.


Protests in Anaheim have been ongoing. Here from a couple days after that first video, well-known liveblogger Tim Pool wanders around Anaheim after a protest. This "dangerous armed (with an iphone) revolutionary" is then... fired on unprovoked and unannounced by the local stormtroopers. Yes, an unarmed member of the press fired on. Yes, California, post-racial America, 2012.

Now you can go back to paying attention to the sideshow freakfest that is the elections. When it's just as bad in 2013, no matter who wins, don't say I didn't warn you.

Remembering The Main Enemy

In the belly of the beast

As the "Arab Spring" continues to challenge the established order in countries across the Middle East, a key question has emerged: given the predatory nature of the United States, what's the proper response when local forces call for "humanitarian" military assistance from American or NATO forces? There's an ongoing debate on left forums in the internet, and I am happy to report that Kasama's Mike Ely has succinctly staked out a position that jibes with my own. This is a response written to a piece by Pham Binh, which originally appeared on The North Star and was reposted on Kasama called "Libya and Syria: When Anti-Imperialism Goes Wrong."

Here is a portion of Mike Ely's article. Read the whole thing at Kasama.

Answer to Pham Binh: Our responsibility to oppose new U.S. crimes, by Mike Ely

Here is one of the most basic and important questions of any revolutionary movement: Do you support the government and this system or don’t you? Do you see what their interests are, and the criminal nature of their actions, or don’t you?

All my life, I have seen how in popular movements the most basic goals are controversial. In ironic ways, it has been controversial to be antiwar in the antiwar movement. It has been controversial to be communist in the communist movement.

So I’m not surprised that someone writes (for audiences of communists, revolutionaries, and socialists) that we should support the U.S. military in its previous attack on Libya, and then even urges pre-support for a not-yet-existent U.S. attack on Iran’s ally government in Syria.
(I  wonder: Is this argument the leftist pre-stage to supporting coming Israeli/U.S. attacks on Iran? And which of Pham’s arguments here can’t be applied there?)
Here is my view in a nutshell:

• We should not support U.S. military attacks around the world. We should not support U.S. bases, fleets, drones, agents, trainers, commandos or nukes intruding into the lives of people around the world.
• We should support the isolation, defeat and dismantling of the U.S. military (not its murderous deployment in the troubled spots of empire). “Yankee Go Home!”
• We should politically expose this military, its purposes, its goals, and its nature — not portray it as a possible force for good.
• We should not create public opinion for its next possible attacks in the next zone of civil conflicts.
• We should create public opinion for the future political dismantling of the U.S. military as an institution (and for its systematic removal around the world, break up of its office corps, the destruction of its nukes, the trial and punishment of its leading war criminals). Where the Pentagon stands, we should hope for a salted field of the kind that surrounded ancient Carthage.

I would like to break down parts of Pham’s argument, piece by piece.
Starting with insult for your opponents

Pham  starts by saying

“Reflexive opposition to Uncle Sam’s machinations abroad is generally a good thing. It is a progressive instinct that….”

Since Pham then goes on to reject such opposition, it is worth noting that the phrasing here is loaded. Our opposition to U.S. imperialism is here described as “reflexive,” “instinct” and later as “a broken record.” At one point, he even compares us to dogs salivating on command.

His claim is that consistent opposition to U.S. imperialist actions is unnuanced, mechanical and unthinking, as if we don’t consider specific circumstances, and are just on autopilot following raw gut feelings. And then his own analysis is purported to be, by contrast, thoughtful and engaged with reality.

I think these characterizations are as mistaken as they are rude.
Is it counterrevolutionary to oppose U.S. imperialism?

Pham writes:

“The moment the Syrian and Libyan revolutions demanded imperialist airstrikes and arms to neutralize the military advantage enjoyed by governments over revolutionary peoples, anti-interventionism became counter-revolutionary because it meant opposing aid to the revolution.”

This jumbles everything up.
First, supporting the U.S. government (from here within the U.S.) is counterrevolutionary, because we intend to make a revolution against them.

One of the key tasks of any revolutionary movement is to systematically expose the core institutions, figures and interests that define the existing system. It is an inflexible task. Any movement that is not clear on that cannot and will not ever train forces to make a revolution.

There may be rebellions against established governments in Syria and Libya, and this-or-that group may make tactical decisions of various kinds. But their choice hardly define (for us) what we should say or do in regard to this empire and its military.

We obviously can’t control what political forces do in Libya or Syria (and we are hardly in a position to advise them). But I can tell you that regardless of what anyone says, anywhere in the world, we will oppose U.S. imperialism.

When the German revolutionaries said during World War 1 “The main enemy is here in our own country,” they were saying that their political exposure and activity had to be aimed at the German imperialists –  at the German justifications of war aims, at the German government’s pretenses of democracy and anti-autocracy etc. Why? Because they (the communist revolutionaries in Germany) intended to mobilize forces to overthrow the German Kaiser and the capitalist system in Germany.
People in other countries (say in Russia, or France during World War 1) had other tasks — because (obviously) if a Russian socialist focused mainly on exposing German imperialism’s oppressive nature it would (objectively, in the real world of politics) mean encouraging the Russian war effort and strengthening the Russian Tsar.

We (in our time and place) have a special and distinct task in regard to U.S. imperialism. We are in the belly of this beast, in the heart of the empire — and the demagogic lies of the U.S. government have an especially great influence among the people.

Here in the U.S., too many people believe “The U.S. might not always be good, but it is certainly better than a Saddam, or an Assad, or a Gaddafi, or a Brezhnev, or…..” When the Hillaries and Reagans of this government portray the U.S. as a force for good, and for “democracy,” and for ending torture, and for popular sovereignty of distant peoples, we have a special and ongoing responsibility to expose all that.

There may be times when revolutionaries in distant places may find themselves in tactical alliances with reactionary powers. Mao Zedong in China and Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam took aid from the U.S. in WW2. The Vietnamese took aid from the USSR during their struggle for independence…
But again no decision by anyone anywhere should lead revolutionaries in the U.S. to ally with U.S. imperialism. And history is rich with examples of those who flirted with such pro-imperialist tactics, and the terrible consequences of that.

The illusion that the U.S. military might help the revolution
Pham assumes that the U.S. military intervention is somehow aid for revolutions in Libya and Syria.  This is perhaps the key issue (and key illusion) to discuss  (and I will open that issue here without dealing with it in great depth).

But here is the core reality to confront: The U.S. military is the single largest force of murder and oppression in world history. Its very purpose (its nature and its conscious goal) is to serve, defend and extend U.S. imperialism. When this massive and brutal military enters anywhere, that is done to extend U.S. power (and serve the larger purposes of U.S. state policy and capitalist interests).
Sometimes the U.S. fails in its policy goals. Sometimes its military actions bog down in failure and defeat (thank gawd). But their purpose and intent is always to deepen the U.S. grip on key and strategic parts of the world, to prevent genuine revolution, prevent the rise of non-revolutionary but anti-U.S. forces, to co-opt and intimidate diverse political forces, to force intrusion of U.S. economic interests and so on.

The military entrance of the U.S. imperialists is (objectively and inevitably) the intrusion of American interests and power — and (especially in fragile, undefined and chaotic political situations) they intentionally skew and transform the entire situation.

They encourage pro-U.S. puppet forces to emerge, they corrupt and compromise those who were not previously inclined that way, they attach threads to everything (including debts, trainers, etc) as political-military forces on the ground become dependent (for their day to day survival) on imperialist actions (and therefore inevitably obedient to imperialist demands, or even hints).
We oppose all of that.

We do not want the U.S. empire strengthened. We do not want the U.S. to have a say in who emerges in Syria or Libya or Iran. We do not want them to be able to mascarade as defenders of popular aspirations anywhere.

We need to oppose their practical efforts and politically expose their nature (to anyone we can reach)....

For a decade, the U.S. has been on a rampage (unprecedented since Hitler attacked his neighbors one by one in the late 1930s). This U.S. “war on the world” has focused on the wide swathe of countries from North Africa to Central Asia: Afghanistan, Iraq, Western Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, now potentially Syria and Iran. This is all part of a single global strategy that emerged from 9/11 — where Bush and Obama policies have a great deal of overlap.

Do we really need to train the people to look at each of these cases, one by one, and ponder afresh “Is this one good for the people there?”

We should (and do) support popular uprisings against oppressive governments (including in China, Iran, Syria, Libya, Greece, Egypt, etc. etc.) but we should be firm, strategic and consistent in our opposition to U.S. imperialism. (That is our special responsibility for reasons having to do with both our position in the world and our particular task within world history.)...

We are revolutionaries and communists in the belly of the beast. We are people with serious responsibilities and serious intentions.

Sunset Park Rent Strike: Scenes from the Struggle

The first rent strike support flyer

My local Occupy group, Occupy/Ocupemos Sunset Park, has been immersed in a local struggle, a rent strike in a series of buildings on 46th Street in this Brooklyn neighborhood. Here are some of the flyers we've been producing for the actions.

The strike has been receiving terrific media coverage and terrific support from the Occupy network. I will be back in the next few days with a post to detail what's been happening and put the struggle in context.

The first action ended with an impromptu hour-long occupation of state assemblyman Felix Ortiz' office, which was truly awesome. Tonight, see the last flyer below, we're staging a sidewalk sleep-in and people's inspection of the buildings.

This video was taken at the first action; it sums up what was happening at the beginning. Yours truly is interviewed at length toward the end. Enjoy.

A terrific account of the strike with interviews with many of the rent strikers can be found here: "Brooklyn Women Make Their Building Theirs."

"The Most Powerful Workers in New York City"

Locked-out Con Ed worker in Brooklyn: "If We Go Out the Lights Go Out!"

On Sunday, July 1, contract negotiations between New York City's electric utility, Consolidated Edison or Con Ed, and its 8,500 unionized workers represented by the Utility Workers Union of America broke down. Even though New York City was entering a heatwave, stressing the electrical grid across the city, the electric company locked out the workers, replacing them in their crucial jobs with a smaller number of managers and bosses. The union for the workers has continued to try to negotiate with the electric company, but they've also been holding daily pickets and solidarity rallies across New York City.

A group of revolutionary organizers calling themselves the New York City Renegades have been agitating among the workers with some of the most powerful worker-focused propaganda I've seen in years. This is a brilliant example of some of the fruits of the Occupy Wall Street movement: class consciousness, solidarity, autonomous community/worker organizing outside the confines of existing organizations, all in convergence with solid revolutionary organizing traditions. The goal of these organizers is to "unite the workers with the 'hood." I met with some of the Renegades in time to pass out some leaflets at a rally of the UWUA workers outside the Con Ed offices on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn; I found the gathered workers hungry for solidarity, the leaflets flew out of my hand.

These leaflets are a necessary challenge to the top-down strategies of existing union leadership. Union-busting is a priority strategy of state and local governments, both Republican- and Democratic -led, across the country. The Renegades are arguing that the small minority of working people who are still unionized must unite with those who are not, in order to beat back a fundamental attack on the right of people to organize themselves. A bitter defeat is possible: the unions who still hold sway with public employees desperately need allies.

Here are two of the leaflets distributed by the Renegades to the locked-out Con Ed workers in preparation for organizing a workers and community meeting to plan a course of action.

THE MOST POWERFUL WORKERS IN NEW YORK CITY

Con Ed, MTA and healthcare workers are the most powerful workers in the entire city. But they have been defeated by the bosses and politicians in every major labor fight in the last decade. Unless things change quick, more defeats are coming.

The bosses win because they pit the poor and working class public against the workers when the workers resist. In this right over the Con Ed contract, many everyday people see the wages of Con Ed workers as the cause of their high utilities bill, instead of a small taste of what all working class people could win if they stick together. Others consider the lockout a private matter to be handled between Con Ed and its workforce, instead of an issue that affects all New Yorkers. This is a trap set by the bosses and politicians, and it has worked all too well.

The only way to escape this trap is for workers to lead the whole of New York City in a struggle for a better life, including people outside their own workplaces and unions. If MTA workers called a fare strike with free transit for everyone in the city, all poor and working people would immediately support it. If Con Ed workers called for a strike to end stop and frisk and make utilities free, every young person of color in the city would have their back.

If workers provided this kind of leadership, all the crap about young people smoking weed and acting like delinquents would disappear. Young people would show up at picket lines and throw eggs at managers. They would fight the police tooth and nail if scabs were brought in. Instead of beefing with each other and hurting the community, poor and working class youth would direct their anger at the bosses, politicians and police who oppress us all. One million students are on summer vacation right now, with no work and few social programs, waiting to take up this fight.

Will Con Ed workers provide this leadership for New York City? It will require leaving isolated pickets outside Con Ed yards, and doing public actions at drop-in centers and other busy locations across the city. It will require explaining to millions of everyday people what the Con Ed workers are fighting for, and discussing how to fight together against the bosses in the common interest. It will require finding new ways to fight, and taking initiative without waiting for direction from the union leadership.

If free utilities, healthcare, and transport become part of workers' demands, the working class of New York City will unite, and become unstoppable. Then workers will be able to win not only a contract, but a hell of a lot more.


And here's a second, follow-up flyer:

THE MOST POWERFUL WORKERS IN NEW YORK CITY, PART 2

Management is preparing for a long battle with Con Ed workers, and is willing to risk the deaths of New Yorkers and its own management to win. An opponent like this can't be defeated with kid gloves. Con Ed workers need to take their gloves off and beat management to a pulp. But how?

Praying for a blackout to bring Con Ed to its knees is hardly a winning strategy. It's more like the hail mary of people who don't have a plan to win by their own initiative. Rallies are often just glorified pep rallies, and do little to win over the public. The rally on July 5th was like the festivals put on during Roman times. Orgies and spectacles were the order of the day while the rest of the society was collapsing. Right now we have millions in prison, many more in failing schools, and even more with no jobs and no hope of finding them — many Black and Latino. These same people are being told in the Daily News that stubborn workers are the cause of their problems.

There is a lot of big talk about the power of the union. But a lockout tells another story, that management was preparing this for months, getting ready to sucker punch the workers. Where were the union leaders when this was happening? Sitting around, reassuring workers that they were powerful, while sipping margaritas with [NYC mayor] Bloomberg and the ruling class of this city. That's not a winning strategy.

Con Ed workers have a choice: either build a citywide counterattack against the bosses, or submit to a drawn-out, exhausting negotiation process that will probably end in an ass whooping. Tough talk is not enough.

A growing crew of young people is ready, willing and able to join with Con Ed workers. We want to strategize and try out new ways to bring the workers' struggle to millions of everyday New Yorkers. We want to uppercut [Con Ed CEO] Kevin Burke and knock his ass out. Together we can make it happen.


Here's an excerpt from a third flyer calling for a community meeting:

WORKERS AND COMMUNITY MEETING

We believe only the rank and file of Local 1-2 can win against Con Ed and lead NYC. The ranks have power, but they have not used it so far. There are only two endings to this struggle: defeat or victory. The next 10 days will determine the next tens years of your life. Won't you wish you gave everything you had to fight against Con Ed?

The point of this meeting is not to tell each other Burke is a jerk, Con Ed is making lots of money, and the unions are under attack. All of us know these things. The purpose of this meeting is so Con Ed Workers, along with community members, can discuss how we can win against Con Ed. We must think, plan, and execute a strategy to defeat Con Ed. We do not have even a second to lose. Management is working its ass off to defeat you. How hard are you willing to think and work to win?

[...] Should we occupy Con Ed HQ, should we march through the streets of Manhattan shutting them down or occupy Brooklyn Bridge? Should we ask the people of NYC to not pay their bills while workers are locked out?... Bring your ideas to the table!

Police Terrorists Raid Leftist Organizers in Seattle

Apartment in Seattle ransacked by SWAT team looking for "anarchist materials"

An apartment used by organizers for Occupy Seattle and the Kasama-affiliated Red Spark Collective was raided early this morning by a SWAT team who broke down the door and used flash grenades to force their way in. Though they arrested nobody, the police terrorists cuffed the residents while they tore the apartment apart, looking for "anarchist materials" and a black hoodie allegedly connected to this year's militant May Day marches in Seattle.

The apartment has been a hub for organizing an upcoming cultural and political festival called "Everything 4 Everyone."

Here's the official Occupy Seattle press statement:

"Early morning, June 10, SWAT police forced their way into the Seattle apartment of several organizers from the Occupy movement. The sleeping individuals, two residents and two visitors, scrambled to put on clothes as they were confronted by officers holding drawn tactical rifles.
The neighbor, Natalio Perez heard the attack from downstairs: “Suddenly we heard a loud crash which was, I guess, them breaking down the door, and then right after I heard what must have been the flash bang grenade and a lot of yelling over a loudspeaker. I heard them go up the stairs and then there was just a lot of crashing and stomping as they tore the place apart.”
After the raid, the residents examined the papers handed them by a detective. One explained: “This warrant notes that they were specifically looking for ‘anarchist materials’—this says to me that it’s an explicitly political thing. That we are not being raided for connection to any crime, but to some political ideology that the police think we have. I was just doing research on the old Pinkerton strikebreaking paramilitaries, so it’s kind of funny, you know, to have that old red scare history burst through my front door at six AM.”
This action targets well known activists from Occupy Seattle who have recently been involved with anti-police brutality organizing, actions against the juvenile detention center and the weekly Food for Everyone free barbecue in the Central District.
“They took basic stuff,” another resident said. “A zip-up sweater, one glove, a blue beanie, a pink scarf. They took a few flyers we had, one from a book release party for a book on Occupy.
This is stuff that would be in the house of any activist or even people who just come to events now and then.”

For ongoing details of this blatant attack on the right of the people to organize, check out updates on Kasama including this account of details. For information on Everything for Everyone, including a link to make donations, click here.

NYC Gay Pride 2012

Occupride/Occupy Wall Street contingent, gay pride New York City 2012

I wrote a report on this year's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender pride parade in New York City. It appears on Kasama. Here's a couple pictures I took of the day.

NYPD pens in queer people on Christopher Street

This Is Not Gay Liberation

 

It's gay pride season. This weekend is New York City's big gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender pride parade. I've gone almost every year since I've lived in New York City, over thirty years. My first Pride was 1977, before I lived here. In the middle I went to Pride in Chicago. I marched many of those years. For a while I was even a member of the official planning coalition, before it became a nonprofit corporation. Back in those days we called it a gay pride "march."

The gay world has been abuzz with what would seem to be a slew of victories. The repeal of DADT has brought gay pride to, of all places, the Pentagon, where the masters of war plot how to subvert and attack people around the world. Apparently they will be taking a few moments from piloting child-killing drones over Pakistan and Yemen to celebrate "our rich diversity," as the flyer above reads. Later this year there will be a celebration of the end of DADT at the Intrepid, the aircraft-carrier turned museum floating in the Hudson off a New York City pier. That is, if they can swab the decks free of the bloodstains of thousands of Vietnamese killed by the Intrepid's planes in its period of service in the American war of aggression against Vietnam in the 1960s. Look! A rainbow flag!

Corporate sponsors are big news this year: a whole bunch of dubious corporations from Wells Fargo to Target have rolled out those rainbow flags, and the gay community rejoices, apparently turning a blind eye to the actual, you know, business practices and social role of these corporations. Hey, they're pro gay!

And speaking of taking time off from piloting drones, President Obama, er, came out in support of marriage equality. Well, he came out personally as a supporter of gay marriage. The day after the lesbian and gay community of North Carolina was devastated by a brutally anti-gay referendum that the President failed to comment on. Did I mention he thinks marriage equality is a states rights issue so his personal opinion doesn't mean he will intervene in such state struggles in the future? Oh sure I understand the limits of his executive power. He has certainly made clear the limits of his moral authority. It might come as no surprise that the gay community, deeply distrustful of Obama, immediately jumped full force on his reelection bandwagon. Seemingly, the only gay voices continuing criticism of the president are those on the right tainted by the dogwhistle racism of the Republicans.

Oh and a new book came out, which I can't imagine myself reading, by a heterosexual woman I'd not heard of before named Linda Hirshman entitled "Victory: The Triumphant Gay Revolution." Yes, it seems we have won. The struggle for our civil rights is over! No doubt we are now approaching the same state of grace as all of "post-racial" America.

This needs to be said: This is not gay liberation.

I'm finding myself surprisingly pissed off this year. Lesbian and gay pride always seemed like an opportunity to take our star turn: to celebrate our place in the fabric of the city, in the fabric of society. To walk about openly without worry, armed with great numbers in mutual solidarity. It seemed to me that while it was not always an overtly political event, it certainly had the political subtext of bringing our own struggle for social justice to the same field of battle where all the other struggles are waged.

But this year it feels to me like the gay community is saying, "hey, we got ours!" I think the community understands the threat from the religious right: it's clear a large minority of people in the United States have no love for the gays. But I think the gay establishment, and hence a large segment of the community, has also been utterly seduced by those fluttering rainbow flags. Gay pride has literally been sold to corporations. And those who question the sale, or suggest that a pinkwashing sleight of hand is at work, are being silenced or marginalized.

What a sham it is that corporations are waving rainbow flags at the same time they're busting unions, taking back basic benefits like paid healthcare and time off, and generally engaging in the looting of society for their own financial gain.
 
For me, "gay liberation" has always been intimately tied to "the revolution." That is, one social justice struggle among many that got at the core nature of capitalist society and its divide-and-rule strategies and materially-based oppressions inherent in that politico-economic system. I always argued that victory for our struggle as gay people — deeply connected to the role of women in capitalism — was not possible in a capitalist society. I don't feel equipped to address that huge question head-on in this essay, but I have to say that what the gay community is experiencing right now doesn't feel like a victory to me. I suppose the end of certain forms of legal discrimination are an advance for a certain privileged layer of the community that may benefit many gay people up and down the class spectrum, but something feels hollow.

While semi-covert gay organizations quietly existed for years before the  legendary Stonewall rebellion, the mass gay civil rights movement has its roots in the social uproar of the 1960s and the radical movement against American involvement in Vietnam. It's no accident that the first militant gay organization, the Gay Liberation Front, was named in the spirit of the South Vietnamese National Liberation Front, more commonly known as the Vietcong.

  

At its beginning the queer movement was a revolutionary movement. Perhaps the theory was undeveloped but the impulse was clear. One early group was even called STAR, or Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries. And in its earliest days gay liberationists united with others who recognized the connections. While shamefully some forces on the left were slow to embrace the gay struggle, black and Latino revolutionaries in the same gritty urban centers as the multi-racial gay community understood a natural alliance. The Occupy movement neighborhood assembly I work in, Occupy/Ocupemos Sunset Park, just showed the extraordinary documentary film "Palante, Siempre Palante" about the Young Lords Party, roughly the revolutionary Puerto Rican equivalent of the Black Panther Party. The film tells how the Young Lords openly and proudly supported gay liberation.

The gay movement went on a long journey toward moderation and respectability. A trans-class movement, it's no particular surprise that today's mainstream "LGBT" organizations are solidly in the pocket of the Democratic Party. But when I see today's pride parades built around corporate sponsorship or the narrow focus on "what's good for the gays" to the exclusion of any other social justice concerns, I am reminded over and over that it hasn't always been this way. Once upon a time gay people were protesting militarist monstrosities like the Intrepid. Now our political leaders are throwing a party on it.

It's not widely enough circulated, but back in 1970 the Black Panther Party's Huey Newton gave a speech in which he touched on the women's and gay liberation movements. The Black Panthers are sadly maligned in historical memory: virtually massacred by government COINTELPRO terrorism, the Panthers are misremembered as being violent, misremembered as some kind of glorified retrograde gang. Nothing could be further from the truth and Newton's far-thinking words from 1970 help reveal this:

"Remember, we have not established a revolutionary value system; we are only in the process of establishing it. I do not remember our ever constituting any value that said that a revolutionary must say offensive things towards homosexuals, or that a revolutionary should make sure that women do not speak out about their own particular kind of oppression. As a matter of fact, it is just the opposite: we say that we recognize the women's right to be free. We have not said much about the homosexual at all, but we must relate to the homosexual movement because it is a real thing. And I know through reading, and through my life experience and observations that homosexuals are not given freedom and liberty by anyone in the society. They might be the most oppresed people in the society.... And maybe I'm now injecting some of my prejudice by saying that "even a homosexual can be a revolutionary." Quite the contrary, maybe a homosexual could be the most revolutionary. When we have revolutionary conferences, rallies, and demonstrations, there should be full participation of the gay liberation movement and the women's liberation movement." 

The whole text is quite remarkable, far more advanced than the politics of much of the left at the time. This history of connected revolutionary struggles needs to be revisited.

In New York and San Francisco #OWS contingents will be marching in the parades. They'll be pointing out all the corporate pinkwashing that's going on. Mainstream gays have already suggested this act of elementary and obvious political education is "disruption." They have accused Occupy people of being "outsiders," as if no actually queer person could possibly reject the sale of gay pride to corporate America.

"Not gay as in happy, but queer as in fuck you."

Fighting civil discrimination is good. But fighting for the liberation of society is better. Let's not lose sight of the prize at the end: it's not about queer people being free just to be like suburban "middle-class" heterosexuals, it's about freeing society from all forms of oppressive relations.

The celebration of that victory will take place on the ruins of the Pentagon and at the site of the Intrepid being broken down into scrap.

Happy gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer pride. The struggle continues.

The Lessons of the Sojourner Truth Organization

Truth and Revolution, A History of the Sojourner Truth Organization, by Michael Staudenmaier

The Sojourner Truth Organization was one of the many small revolutionary left groups that dotted the American political landscape in the 1970s, spawned by the wave of radicalization that followed the upheavals of the 1960s. STO was also one of the many small revolutionary left groups that disbanded in the 1980s in the depths of the Reagan era. A wonderful new book, "Truth and Revolution: A History of the Sojourner Truth Organization 1969-1986," by Michael Staudenmaier, has just been published by the anarchist book house AK Press that documents the rise and fall of a group that has long passed into leftwing legend.

While the book is a meticulously documented product of a close read of STO's printed archive and years of interviews with former members of the group, Staudenmaier is clearly not just performing an academic/historical exercise. The author has a history in the movement, and his attention to important discussions really shows. Many of the issues that STO innovated and grappled with remain relevant today, even though the face of the left is barely recognizable from STO's time. The period of STO's vibrancy may seem like ancient times, but as I myself can attest, many of us who were active in that long-ago era find ourselves still — or perhaps, again — active today, can look to STO's story for lessons about how to be revolutionaries in America. Staudenmaier astutely notes the relevance of this tale from a past wave of radicalization for today's Occupy-era radicals.

I confess that the first thing this book inspired in me was a wave of nostalgic memories. I'm 53 today and I joined my first communist organization back in 1976 fresh out of high school. My own political demoralization and falling away from the organized left occurred ten years later, about the same time STO disbanded. Indeed the last organization I was a member of (and the one I was a member of for the bulk of that period) , the Revolutionary Socialist League, itself disbanded a couple years later. (I'm also happy to report my return to ranks of the revolutionary-minded politically active in the current radicalization).

I joined the communist left in Chicago, which was in fact the home base of STO. The descriptions of STO's work, first in factory-floor organizing, and later in anti-imperialist solidarity work, anti-fascist activism and in regroupment-oriented party-building on the left, were all intensely familiar. The language that STO used to discuss its work and direction was the language I learned. The era of post-radicalization "lull" and de-industrialization was the era I grew up in politically; these were the same issues the RSL dealt with as well. I left Chicago for New York in 1981, but many of the scenes and issues and forces described in "Truth and Revolution" were as I remembered them. It made me wonder if all the groups struggling to stay relevant in that dark time of counterrevolution were all going through the same process without realizing that a period of organizational decline was universal among communist and socialist groups.

Interestingly, there was a brief moment when we in the RSL, then on a trajectory away from the Trotskyism and even Leninism that it had grown up in, were all fascinated by the Sojourner Truth Organization and discussed trying to orient to them in some way. I'm not sure whatever happened to that idea. Staudenmaier discusses at great length the unique path that STO traced. Its core founders were old left, but it grew up in the world of the so-called New Communist Movement, that is generally meant as the "Maoist" wing of the left that emerged from the 1960s student movement and rejected both the established Soviet Union-sponsored world communist parties and also the existing critical/oppositional Trotskyist communist movement. One could discuss endless factional hairsplitting among the parties and sects of that era, but the STO walked its own unique line. With a critique of "Stalinism," an affinity for the one-time Trotskyist and theorist of black liberation C.L.R. James, and a strong commitment to supporting "Third World" liberation organizations, as they were called back then, STO couldn't be easily pigeonholed.

One of STOs groundbreaking pamphlets: Understanding and Fighting White Supremacy

Staudenmaier discusses at great lengths STO's reputation for discussing and developing theory. He details how they tried to advance the ideas of Marxism and of Marxist theorists like Antonio Gramsci into a time like the 1970s and a country like the United States that presented so many challenges for revolutionaries. I found his discussions of STO's theory of "dual consciousness" incredibly thought-provoking.

Staudenmaier explains how STO, largely through the theoretical work of one its members, Noel Ignatin, made a name for itself addressing the key question for American radicals: racism. Ignatin addressed the theories of white skin privilege and the white blind spot, and explained how the white working class came to be poisoned by its material attachment to white supremacy. STO came to believe that the prime directive for white workers, indeed for white revolutionaries, was to support the autonomous organizing of black people, of Puerto Rican people, of world revolutionaries fighting against American hegemony. The arguments on racism and white supremacy are deeply compelling. These are arguments far removed from "traditional Marxism" and yet very familiar to many schools of political and cultural thought today. It strikes me that this theory of white supremacy is ripe to be returned to the sphere of making revolution. Nothing says "white supremacy" quite like today's allegedly post-racial consciousness.

And yet STO's theoretical innovations revealed a contradiction unsolved by STO that proved to be one of its unmaking: do white revolutionaries unite with black revolutionaries in a single organization? How are the theoretical differences that might arise breached? If revolutionaries support the autonomous organizing of oppressed and working people in all kinds of struggles, what is the role of a party to that autonomy? STO was not afraid to get its hands dirty in the struggle, but it somehow managed to get tangled up in its own argument and failed to recruit masses of people from the struggles in which it engaged.

Indeed it is in the issue of building an organization that can fight for the necessary massive societal change, a party of revolutionaries, that I found "Truth and Revolution" most thought-provoking. Clearly the 1970s/1980s model of competing hair-splitting self-proclaimed vanguard sects did not work. Much of the left globally is stuck in this model that seems quaint at best and cringe-worthy at worst. How to synthesize the many best traditions of Marxism, of Leninism, or of Anarchism, Maoism, or even Trotskyism, into something that might, you know, actually be capable of waging an actual revolutionary struggle and overturning the wretched mess that is globalized capitalism? This seems incredibly relevant.

For me, the Occupy movement has really made it clear that the first task of revolutionaries is to stay connected to changing reality, and engaged with the consciousness of people in motion. Contrast, for example, this exercise in sterility and self-righteous abstentionism from one ultrasectarian grouplet at this link to the wonderful "It's Five Minutes to Dawn and the Wind Smells like Freedom" statement of the Kasama Project aimed at Occupy activists. Some of the failures of the STO seem self-inflicted. But some of its failures were borne of the simple reality that fifty or a hundred people, even if they're all brilliant, committed and heroic, is not enough people to defeat an empire. But when the balance of forces shifts, people need to be ready and organized to ride the wave. Creating a vehicle that is creative, self-aware, flexible, and awake to the possibilities around us seems like an important thing.

"Truth and Revolution" is history. I suppose it's ultimately the story of a defeat: I don't think we understood how the reality Reaganism ushered in was going to be so successful in undoing the 1960s. I know we didn't understand the change that was happening to the world. But something is changing in the world, and as we try, again, to get it right, it's definitely worth going over the story of a group like the STO.

"Truth and Revolution" is available directly from the AK Press and also from mainstream vendors like Amazon.

Much of STO's published work is available on the internet at the remarkable Sojourner Truth Organization Digital Archive.

A Few Modest Suggestions for a Very Proper Jubilee Celebration

Happy jubilee Queen Elizabeth! Thinking of you and your cousins! What could one possibly give one of the world's richest welfare parasites other than a few heartwarming tales?

"Arriving at the foot of the guillotine, Louis XVI looked for a moment at the instruments of his execution and asked Sanson why the drums had stopped beating. He came forward to speak, but there were shouts to the executioners to get on with their work. As he was strapped down, he exclaimed "My people, I die innocent!" Then, turning towards his executioners, Louis XVI declared "Gentlemen, I am innocent of everything of which I am accused. I hope that my blood may cement the good fortune of the French." The blade fell. It was 10:22 am. One of the assistants of Sanson showed the head of Louis XVI to the people, whereupon a huge cry of "Vive la Nation! Vive la République!" arose and an artillery salute rang out which reached the ears of the imprisoned Royal family." —eyewitness Charles Henri Sanson, 1794

"Nicholas, facing his family, turned and said "What?"[1] Yurovsky quickly repeated the order and the weapons were raised. The Empress and Grand Duchess Olga, according to a guard's reminiscence, had tried to cross themselves, but failed amid the shooting. Yurovsky reportedly raised his gun at Nicholas and fired; Nicholas fell dead instantly. The other executioners then began shooting until all the intended victims had fallen. Several more shots were fired and the doors opened to scatter the smoke.[1] There were some survivors, so P.Z. Yermakov stabbed them with bayonets because the shouts could be heard outside.[1] The last to die were Anastasia, Tatiana, Olga, and Maria, who were carrying several pounds (over 1.3 kilograms) of diamonds within their clothing, thus protecting them to an extent.[8] However, they were speared with bayonets as well. Olga sustained a gunshot wound to the head. Anastasia and Maria were said to have crouched up against a wall covering their heads in terror until Maria was shot down, and Anastasia was finished off with the bayonets. Yurovsky himself killed Tatiana and Alexei. Tatiana died from a single bullet through the back of her head.[9] Alexei received two bullets to the head, right behind the ear.[10] Anna Demidova, Alexandra's maid, survived the initial onslaught but was quickly stabbed to death against the back wall while trying to defend herself with a small pillow she had carried that was filled with precious gems and jewels." — description based on eyewitness accounts, Yekaterinberg, Russia, 1918

"The king adjoins, 'I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown; where no disturbance can be, no disturbance in the world.'The bishop: 'You are exchanged from a temporal to an eternal crown, - a good exchange.' Then the king asked the executioner, 'Is my hair well?' And taking off his cloak and George [the jeweled pendant of the Order of the Garter, bearing the figure of St. George], he delivered his George to the bishop. . . Then putting off his doublet and being in his waistcoat, he put on his cloak again, and looking upon the block, said to the executioner, 'You must set it fast.' The executioner: 'It is fast, sir.'...Then having said a few words to himself, as he stood, with hands and eyes lift up, immediately stooping down he laid his neck upon the block; and the executioner, again putting his hair under his cap, his Majesty, thinking he had been going to strike, bade him, 'Stay for the sign.' Executioner: 'Yes, I will, and it please your Majesty.' After a very short pause, his Majesty stretching forth his hands, the, executioner at one blow severed his head from his body; which, being held up and showed to the people, was with his body put into a coffin covered with black velvet and carried into his lodging." — eyewitness report of the execution of King Charles 1, 1649

Still, perhaps this tale of compassion offers hope. Chin up!

"Next, testimony came from 27 teenagers and young adults who were former school children who testified to being the only survivors of the 180 children who were arrested and died in April 1979 after they threw rocks at Bokassa's passing Rolls-Royce during the students protest over wearing the costly school uniforms which they were forced to purchase from a factory owned by one of his wives. Several of them testified that on their first night in jail, Bokassa visited the prison and screamed at the children for their insolence. He was said to have ordered the prison guards to club the children to death, and Bokassa indeed participated, smashing the skulls of at least five children with his ebony walking stick....One of the most lurid allegations against Bokassa was the charge of cannibalism, which was technically superfluous. In the Central African Republic, statutes forbidding cannibalism classified any crime of eating human remains as a misdemeanour...Former president Dacko was called to the witness stand to testify that he had seen photographs of butchered bodies hanging in the dark cold-storage rooms of Bokassa's palace immediately after the 1979 coup. When the defence put up a reasonable doubt during the cross-examination of Dacko that he could not be positively sure if the photographs he had seen of dead bodies were used for consumption, Bokassa's former security chief of the palace was called to testify that he had cooked human flesh stored in the walk-in freezers and served it to Bokassa on an occasional basis. The prosecution did not examine the rumours that Bokassa had served the flesh of his victims to French President Giscard d'Estaing and other visiting dignitaries....On 12 June 1987, Bokassa was found guilty of all but the cannibalism charges. The court acknowledged that many individual allegations of murder had been levelled at Bokassa but found that the evidence was unimpeachable in only about 20 cases. Bokassa was said to have wept silently as Judge Franck sentenced him to death....On 29 February 1988, President Kolingba demonstrated his opposition to capital punishment by voiding the death penalty against Bokassa and commuted his sentence to life in prison in solitary confinement. With the return of democracy to the Central African Republic in 1993, Kolingba declared a general amnesty for all prisoners as one of his final acts as President, and Bokassa was released on 1 August 1993." — the fate of Jean Bedel Bokassa, the late self-crowned monarch of the former "Central African Empire