Kasama is going to post different versions of the great revolutionary anthem, The Internationale. Here is the first by Alistair Hulett.
Archive for February, 2008
Video: International #1
Posted by Mike E on February 24, 2008
Posted in Internationale, music, video | 4 Comments »
Sri Lankan Maoists’ Thousand Flowers: Contents & PDF
Posted by Mike E on February 23, 2008
Kasama has received a new theoretical journal “Thousand Flowers” created by Maoist forces in Sri Lanka We plan to publish a few articles from it here online, and work with others to make the whole issue available. (Thanks to Maoist Revolution list.) Read over the table of contents and share with us which essays you think are most important to post and discuss.
For a complete pdf file of this journal. (thanks to Eric Odell.)
Note: While “Thousand Flowers” describes itself as the journal of the Ceylonese Communist Party (Maoist) — it is worth pointing out that several different centers and lines claim continuity with that party. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in communism, Karl Marx, Mao Zedong, Maoism, Marxist theory, peoples war, revolution, south asia, Sri Lanka, theory, Thousand Flowers, V.I. Lenin | 3 Comments »
Sri Lankan Maoists’ Thousand Flowers: Editorial
Posted by Mike E on February 23, 2008
Kasama has received a new theoretical journal “Thousand Flowers” created by Maoist forces in Sri Lanka. We plan to publish a few articles from it here online, and work with others to make the whole issue available. (Thanks to Maoist Revolution list.) Read over the table of contents and share with us which essays you think are most important to post and discuss.
Editorial from the First Issue of Thousand Flowers
Thousand Flowers is intended to train a new generation of revolutionaries in grasping and applying the science of Marxism-Leninism- Maoism as a foundation for building the Ceylon Communist Party-Maoist . The objective is to build a new leadership that can formulate and solve the concrete problems of the Sri Lanka revolution. Through critical analysis and discussion, Thousand Flowers hopes to charter the scientific theory, strategy and path of the Lankan revolution.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in communism, Communist Party, Karl Marx, Mao Zedong, Maoism, Marxist theory, mass line, peoples war, revolution, south asia, Sri Lanka, theory, V.I. Lenin | Leave a Comment »
Sri Lankan Maoists’ Thousand Flowers: Some Notes on Method
Posted by Mike E on February 23, 2008
Kasama has received a new theoretical journal “Thousand Flowers” created by Maoist forces in Sri Lanka We plan to publish a few articles from it here online, and work with others to make the whole issue available. (Thanks to Maoist Revolution list.) Read over the table of contents and share with us which essays you think are most important to post and discuss.
Some Notes On Method Of Analysis and Presentation:
The method adopted here is to
1) Draw a sweep of history and to situate the proletarian revolution and Communism in its universal context,
2) Evaluate the role and contribution of Comrade Shan in serving and advancing the proletarian revolution and the cause of Communism, and
3) Draw a line of demarcation between scientific proletarian revolution and bourgeois revisionist counter-revolution, between Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and Revisionism.
Let us try to engage in a serious discussion – although in a somewhat free flowing way, so we can try to spread wings and soar like eagles while being aimed at the target. That is to say, so we can move back and forth from the abstract to the concrete, from the general to the specific, from perceptions to conceptions, advance from partial, fragmented, distorted, subjective knowledge to rational scientific objective knowledge, move from illusion and appearance to reality and essence, from ignorance to knowledge, from false consciousness to class consciousness. The flow of the discussion may tend to be discursive and even repetitive. Major crucial points will be emphasized over and over again. At the end of the exercise we would have crossed a bridge by making a radical rupture with revisionism and a conscious leap to becoming true communist revolutionaries and prepare ourselves for the revolution.
Posted in Karl Marx, Mao Zedong, Maoism, Marxist theory, peoples war, revolution, south asia, Sri Lanka, theory, V.I. Lenin | Leave a Comment »
Sri Lankan Maoists’ Thousand Flowers: Open Letter to Communist Forces
Posted by Mike E on February 23, 2008
Kasama has received a new theoretical journal “Thousand Flowers” created by Maoist forces in Sri Lanka We plan to publish a few articles from it here online, and work with others to make the whole issue available. (Thanks to Maoist Revolution list.) Read over the table of contents and share with us which essays you think are most important to post and discuss.
Open Letter To Genuine Communist Revolutionary Forces.
By Comrade Surendra, Chairman, Ceylon Communist Party-Maoist
We have all experienced the disintegration of the proletarian revolutionary movement in our country. This is a tragic development given the historic challenges and opportunities facing the international proletariat and the oppressed people of the world. While many have abandoned revolution and sought secure pastures, others have stayed on the high road of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, Socialism and Communism, upholding the crimson path of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao. Some of us, along with the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM), have adopted Maoism as the highest stage in the development of Marxism-Leninism, while upholding the path of the new democratic revolution and protracted people’s war. Some have formed rival parties claiming the legacy of the CCP-M and of Comrade Shan. Some have formed small groups to sustain their own class limitations and personal needs. However, all these trends remain divorced from scientific revolutionary practice, from the masses, and from concrete reality. Their activity has no link to advancing the revolutionary class struggle towards the goal of Communism. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in communism, Mao Zedong, Maoism, Marxist theory, peoples war, revolution, south asia, Sri Lanka, Surendra, theory, Thousand Flowers, V.I. Lenin | 2 Comments »
Video: Confronting Slave Labor in Tangipahoa Parish
Posted by Mike E on February 22, 2008
Don’t miss this video news report on actions by workers in the strawberry fields of Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana.
(Thanks to Somecomments for submitting this.)
The thirty workers from San Luis Potosi in Mexico have have been living with all-too-typical slave-like conditions — with their passports held by their vicious “employer,” wages as low as $2 an hour and constant threats of deportation (even though they are part of a legal “guest worker” program). The exploitation and mistreatment was brutal. Their strike started on Valentine’s day, with organizing help from the local Workers Center for Racial Justice.
This video shows a delegation of African American supporters (from the Alliance of Guest Workers for Dignity) confronting this utter pig, Charles “Bimbo” Relan. Bimo then fired the striking workers. And hunted by the U.S. authorities — they are in hiding in New Orleans. Bimbo has (predictably) not been charged with anything — even though holding the passports of workers is a classic case of felony “human trafficking.”
For a sense of the politics of Tangipahoa Parish, also check this second video out.
Posted in African American, anti-racist action, capitalism, immigration, Mexico, racism, religion, video | 4 Comments »
More U.S. Rape on Okinawa — Enough!
Posted by Mike E on February 22, 2008
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This important message from Okinawa reaches us via the CounterPunch News Service. Thanks to “somecomments” for submitting it for posting on Kasama. Okinawa is a grouping of Pacific Islands occupied by U.S. forces since the end of World War 2, and used as a base for threatening people throughout the Asian Far East. The people of Okinawa have suffered continual outrages from the occupying forces, including repeated incidents of rape.
A Message from the Women of Okinawa
(Feb. 21, 2008) Once again, American GIs have raped an Okinawan girl, one from junior high. We are angry.We do not believe that all of you are rapists. But given the long history of similar crimes over the sixty years from the Battle of Okinawa continuing to today, one could be forgiven for thinking so. If you are a female GI, can you trust these male GIs ?
We know that this incident is only the tip of the iceberg. There have been so many rape victims who have told no one and wept silently in their beds, that you are probably confident that you could get away with it, aren’t you. But those days are now over.
Posted in abuse, Japan, military, rape | 16 Comments »
AWTW: Looking Deep into the Violence in Kenya
Posted by Rosa Harris on February 21, 2008
Kenya:
• A look behind the violence in Kenya
• Blood money for Kenyan Valentine roses
• A walk through Kibera, a year before it exploded
A look behind the violence in Kenya
18 February 2008. A World to Win News Service.
The bitter infighting within the Kenyan ruling classes over who will rule over the people for the next five years in no way represents the interests of poor Kenyans of any of the country’s more than 40 ethnic groups. Yet as has happened in past elections there, the leaders of the different political parties rapidly whipped up sections of the people of different ethnic origins who corresponded in part to their electoral base. This unleashed a spiral of violence and chain of contradictory events that most often set the masses of poor people against each other in devastating scenes of looting, burning and bloodshed and left more than a thousand people dead after one month. Mostly it was poor Kenyans who had nothing in common with the leaders.
Posted in >> International, Africa, AWTW news, Kenya | 2 Comments »
Maoist Ecology and Urban Planning in Developed Countries
Posted by Mike E on February 20, 2008
The following is an excerpt from the RCP’s 2001 Draft Program. It puts forward innovative ideas of socialist sustainability and Maoist urban planning that have, unfortunately, not been further developed (or acknowledged) in the RCP’s own political work. However these proposals are worth rescuing from the RCP’s indifference and debating in their own right.
The New Socialist Economy Part 2: Agriculture, City and Countryside, Ecology, and Planning
Introduction
Maoism approaches economic development as an interdependent whole. It strives for integrated and egalitarian development. It takes account of the immediate and pressing needs of society and of the long-term goals and long-term effects of economic-social development.
Capitalism mobilizes human and material resources according to the dictates of profit and evaluates economic performance within that narrow framework. Socialism, by contrast, insists on a kind of social balance sheet. For instance, agricultural land-use has health and environmental repercussions; what is called the ‘built environment’ of residential dwellings, public buildings and spaces, and transport systems reflects society’s values and shapes the experience of daily life. These sorts of issues are part of the framework of economic calculation and planning under socialism.
In carrying out socialist construction in the former United States, the proletarian state will pay attention to certain key economic-social interrelationships and transformations, among which are:
- the interconnections between agriculture and industry and the alliances that the proletariat forges with farmers;
- the nature of and balance between urban and rural development;
- the relationship between economic development and the preservation of ecological systems.
Posted in communism, ecology, environment, Maoism, Marxist theory, politics, RCPUSA, revolution, social ecology, theory | 45 Comments »
Video: Revolutionary villagers and Maoists in India
Posted by Mike E on February 19, 2008
A fascinating video from a Maoist area in India (submitted by Pavel):
Posted in >> analysis of news, communism, CPI(Maoist), India, Naxalite, peoples war, revolution, video | 2 Comments »
Rogouski: I Was Going To Review “Taxi To the Dark Side”
Posted by Mike E on February 18, 2008
By Stanley W. Rogouski
I was going to write a review of “Taxi to the Dark Side,” Alex Gibney’s new documentary about the American military’s use of torture in the “war on terror.” But then I realized that it would be a waste of time.
First of all, the definitive review of the film has already been written. The Discovery Channel, which purchased the exclusive rights to “Taxi to the Dark Side” from Gibney last month, has declared that due to its “controversial nature” they would not be showing it as they had originally planned. Furthermore, it’s unlikely that they’ll be selling it to another network. That’s all you need to know. There’s not really much I could add to the Discovery Channel’s 4 star endorsement. You’re never going to see this film on cable television so go out and see it before it disappears from the theaters.
I also realized that “Taxi to the Dark Side” would be tricky to write about, not so much because it is disturbing, but because it would be so difficult to convey its impact.
Normally when I write about a film, I like to keep myself in the background, to let the story tell itself with as little commentary possible. “Taxi to the Dark Side” certainly has a compelling story at its core. Dilawar, a 22-year-old taxi driver in Afghanistan was accused of participating in a rocket attack on US troops and taken to Bagram Air Force Base for interrogation. Four days later he was dead, so badly beaten that his legs had been pulpified. As the medical examiner who later declared his death to have been a “homicide” tells us, Dilawar’s legs would have had to have been amputated had he lived. Even if Dilawar had been the worst of the worst, what happened to him would still have been a war crime. Ted Bundy wasn’t tortured. Tim McVeigh wasn’t tortured. Hermann Goering, Joseph Goebbels and Albert Speer weren’t tortured in US custody.
But Dilawar was not the worst of the worst. In fact, he wasn’t even an insurgent or a guerilla fighter, not even a rank and file foot soldier in the Taliban, just a frail, 5’9” and 122 pound, young man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in film review, military, torture, war on terror | 8 Comments »
The United States of Torture
Posted by Mike E on February 18, 2008
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By Mike Ely
I wrote this article in 2005, as the first information started to leak out about horrific events in the U.S. Air Force base at Bagram, Afganistan. Now, three years later, a film about these crimes, “Taxi to the Dark Side,” is in the theaters. It depicts the torture and casual murder of an Afghani taxi driver in U.S. hands. I urge you to see this film. And I welcome any review or comments on the film you submit.Dilawar, a 22-year-old Afghani taxi driver, was taken to “Bagram Collection Point” — the U.S. center for interrogation and torture in Afghanistan. We now know some of what happened to him in 2002, because details from a secret U.S. Army report have leaked out.
The guards beat Dilawar over and over, especially on his legs. Then for almost four days, he was chained to the ceiling of his cell by his wrists. Finally, at 2 a.m. one morning, he was taken again for interrogation. As Dilawar was forced down into a chair, his legs were twitching uncontrollably and his hands were completely numb. And the questioning started again. When Dilawar asked for water, U.S. Specialist Joshua R. Claus mocked him, and squirted water hard into his face, shouting, “Come on, drink! Drink!” as the young man gagged.
Posted in abuse, Black History, CIA, genocide, George W. Bush, lynching, Mike Ely, military, Native people, torture, war on terror | 3 Comments »
Video: Dukowski’s Tunnel Youth
Posted by Mike E on February 18, 2008
This is our playground and our barren choices.
Posted in music, video | 1 Comment »
Scharmyn: The American Way of Torture
Posted by Mike E on February 17, 2008
by Quorri Scharmyn
An obvious lie and an obvious truth: The lie is “America doesn’t do torture.” The truth is that the U.S. government has been torturing across the world, in special CIA camps and military prisons. They have organized it, justified it, and covered it up. They trained and unleashed the torturers, and then gave them immunity from persecution. The government has picked officials, including now the Attorney General, making sure that they support torture and will help shield the torturers from international war crimes trials and from domestic prosecution. When the U.S. government talks of “protecting our way of life” – the truth is that torture of both innocents and opponents stands out around the world as a hallmark of that “way of life.”
Quorri Sharmayn submitted the following article to Kasama – on the conduct and coverup of U.S. torture.
Posted in abuse, CIA, John McCain, military, Quorri Scharmyn, torture, war on terror | 2 Comments »
Video: The Police Abuse of Hope Steffey
Posted by Mike E on February 17, 2008
This video speaks for itself. Hope Steffey had herself called the sheriffs of Stark County via 911. Like LA’s Rodney King video, this tape reveals brutality that is utterly routine for the police. The Sheriff’s Department says they did “everything by the book” — his claim too is routine. The only thing unusual is that this incident has gone viral.
The second day of TV coverage of this case….
Posted in abuse, Domestic violence, police, video | 11 Comments »
India’s Maoists: A Presentation to the World’s Comrades
Posted by Mike E on February 17, 2008
Our ongoing discussion of the Nepali Maoists — their tactics and their underlying thinking — can now take a new leap based on this new material. Kasama site is going to start publishing online major articles from the Worker #11 published by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) in July 2007. This important issue of the Workers has gathered diverse articles on burning questions that face the world revolution. We will publish a new piece every few days — giving everyone some time to digest and debate each of them in turn. (Thanks to Single Spark for all the hard work done in making this available.)
This posting starts the materials from the “International Seminar” held in December 2006. We will post the Nepali Maoist presentation next. Let’s focus our discussion in one common thread — please post your comments there.
Posted in >> analysis of news | 2 Comments »
Nepal: The Coming April Crisis, and India’s Role
Posted by Mike E on February 17, 2008
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Sharply contending parties in Nepal agreed to have the future of the country contested in a elections for a constituent assembly. This has given rise to huge debate within Nepal, and among its people, over what kind of future to have, what kind of state and social system. Various forces (including the pro-Indian Nepalese Congress party NC) have repeatedly postponed and impeded those elections — leading the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) to point out that the future can also be settled by other means. There are (as several commentators note) two undefeated armies in Nepal — one belonging to the government, the other led by the Maoists. Currently the elections are scheduled for April — and there is great tension over whether they will be sabotaged again, and (if so) what will follow. India is accused of helping torpedo the elections by stirring up secessionist forces in the Terai, the strategic agricultural border area in southern Nepal. Possibilities include renewed Maoist armed uprising, broad mass protests, a crackdown by the Nepalese military, continued stalemated crisis and possibly an invasion by the powerful nearby Indian army — or various combination of these things. A piece from the Nepal Times follows.
Plan A…. India Doesn’t Seem to Have a Plan B on Nepal
Posted in India, Maoism, Nepal, peoples war, UCP Nepal (Maoist) | Leave a Comment »
Video: Linton Kwezi Johnson on Di Great Insohreckshan
Posted by Mike E on February 17, 2008
Posted in >> analysis of news, anti-racist action, L K Johnson, music, video | Leave a Comment »
Differences? Yeah. Let’s Get into It.
Posted by Mike E on February 16, 2008
by Mike Ely
Part 1: Shedding a Discredited Method
Left spot wrote:
“It seems that in general there’s a commitment to a higher level of discussion here than… dismissive name-calling.”
Yes, there is – people gathered here are aiming for substantive excavation of their views and of reality.
I think we should take the RCP’s public self-orientation as a starkly negative example: Their logic loop starts from an unjustified assumption that they alone are right and revolutionary. And then quickly decides that engaged communist opponents are objectively wreckers and “parasitic critics,” whose line isn’t worthy of serious attention.
I remember the first time my high school was leafleted during the Vietnam war. A crowd of hundreds formed around the leafleting team grabbing the papers. The movement had arrived, we thought excitedly. As I pressed forward to get a flyer, one of my friends from a leftwing family whispered sternly in my ear, “Don’t take that, those are Trotskyites.” Political differences were treated like a infectious disease of the mind. And those same CPUSA forces later denounced us as “wreckers” and “petty bourgeois anti-communists” (and even “CIA agents”!) as we rallied to Mao’s historic criticism of the Soviet Union.
This method invents little “dustbins of history” and then (in the most superficial way imaginable) assigns opposing ideas and lines to their bins. Verdicts are in, all that you need to learn is the sorting. It trains inhabitants of a little bubble world to dismiss-without-knowing – as our comrade Borhan revealed in his very sad MaoRev protest. It is the armor of deeply flawed projects.
The movement we create should be so totally over this. When it reappears in our midst I think we should respond like peasants seeing a rat scurry across the floor. We should jump to our feet shouting “Get it! Get it!” as we chase it out of sight.
Posted in 9 Letters, communism, Mike Ely, RCPUSA, revolution, theory | 9 Comments »
