Communism? Really? Yes, Really.

This audio-only clip is from a panel discussion at a conference held late last summer in Seattle called the "Everything for Everyone Festival." The speaker is Mike Ely, one of the people behind the Kasama Project, a revolutionary website which I have cited positively many times here on my blog and which I have also written for. The subject of the panel was "revolutionary strategy today," and the presentations of the other panelists — all great listening — can all be heard on the Kasama blog.

In this short presentation Ely argues for the renewed relevance of communism, that is, restating a process of revolutionary struggle toward a transformative goal, a radically egalitarian future that is not only desirable but possible. Ely calls for figuring out how to move beyond the failures of the left in the last century with creativity and determination. I find Ely's words inspiring and compelling. "Serve the People! Power to the People!"

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