Kasama received the following report on an outragious LAPD raid on an Anarchist gathering on Nov. 16.
Anything We Do is a Threat to the System:
Account of the Police Raid on Sunday
by Joaquin Cienfuegos
“It’s a war between city blocks and cops.” -Psycho Realm
I was released on Tuesday November 18th after spending about 3 days in police custody for “resisting/obstructing police.”
First I want to start by apologizing, because I feel like the police caught us off guard on Sunday November 16, and I personally could have been more prepared or should not have put myself in that type of situation. This political repression was made clear to me when the arresting officers were cracking jokes to the “watch commander” about how thy had “shut down an anarchist party.”
The event was a fundraiser for the first ever Los Angeles Anarchist Bookfair, the Revolutionary Autonomous Communities’ Defense Fund, and to support a traveling revolutionary hip hop group from New York called the X-Vandals, held at a warehouse space collectively rented out to artists from Los Angeles.
Part of the problem is that this space is isolated in an industrial part of the city with no traffic, so it made it is easy for the police to surround us there. Their intentions were clear, they wanted to shut down the event, and according to several accounts, it seemed like they had specific targets for arrest.
The following report appeared in Stratfor (or Strategic Forecasting, Inc.), a private intelligence agency focused on geopolitics, mainly for corporate clients. This report deals with the larger framework (including the inter-imperialist rivalry) that shapes the U.S. conflicts in the Middle East. In particular, it points out that Russian activities force changes in U.S. allignments.
It was written before Iraq’s cabinet approved its recent pact with the U.S.
The warming of U.S.-Iranian relations did not begin with Obama’s election; it began with the Russo-Georgian War.”
* * * * * *
Iran Returns to the Global Stage
By George Friedman (Nov. 10, 2008)
After a three-month hiatus, Iran seems set to re-emerge near the top of the U.S. agenda. Last week, the Iranian government congratulated U.S. President-elect Barack Obama on his Nov. 4 electoral victory. This marks the first time since the Iranian Revolution that such greetings have been sent.
While it seems trivial, the gesture is quite significant. It represents a diplomatic way for the Iranians to announce that they regard Obama’s election as offering a potential breakthrough in 30 years of U.S. relations with Iran. At his press conference, Obama said he does not yet have a response to the congratulatory message, and reiterated that he opposes Iran’s nuclear program and its support for terrorism. The Iranians returned to criticizing Obama after this, but without their usual passion.
The following is the statement widely circulated by members of World Can’t Wait’s steering committee. A response from the Kasama Projectis posted separately. Other statements were posted as well.
From the Steering Committee of World Can’t Wait (Drive Out the Bush Regime)
November 18. 2008:
This weekend, The World Can’t Wait will gather in Chicago for our eighth national meeting.
Everyone who unites with the mission of World Can’t Wait as stated in the Call to Drive out the Bush Regime, and is committed to evaluating whether and how World Can’t Wait should go forward in building a mass, independent movement to stop the crimes of their government, is welcome to come to work. This meeting will include those who voted for Obama, Nader or McKinney; those who didn’t vote; people of different ideological perspectives and religious affiliations, or none; and people who have been with World Can’t Wait for years, or who are newcomers.
This welcome does not include anyone who intends to disrupt our meeting. As a group of leaders who have been repeatedly arrested for non-violent civil disobedience, and sometimes just for being in protests, we are attuned to efforts by the government, both ongoing, and in recent U.S. history, to disrupt progressive and revolutionary political organizations. Opposition to this forms the very basis of World Can’t Wait’s unity in our Call, as in “YOUR GOVERNMENT puts people in jail on the merest suspicion, refusing them lawyers, and either holding them indefinitely or deporting them in the dead of night.”
We are posting here a response by the Kasama Project to charges made by the Steering Committee of World Can’t Wait. We are posting the WCW statement separately, so readers can better evaluate the issues at hand.
A Reply on World Can’t Wait:
Serious Resistance Needs Serious Debate
From the Kasama Project
This is a complex moment for all of us who want to build resistance to the U.S. empire. There is a great need for summation, debate and creative thinking. Unfortunately, the leadership of World Can’t Wait chose this moment to exclude a long-time WCW activist, Lee James (WCW Philadelphia) from the organization’s upcoming national conference. There were widespread protests within WCW and, a few days later, members of the WCW steering committee responded with a startling public justification for the political expulsion.
This statement supports the exclusion of some supporters of Kasama, a newly formed communist project. It portrays Kasama as a suspicious organization that threatens to disrupt the WCW national conference.
For obvious reasons, we feel compelled to respond.
Kasama received the following open letter that calls for actions of anti-authoritarians at the Obama inauguration. We are posting it here because it will be of interest, and not because we share the views it expresses.
* * * * * * * *
We call on all anarchists, horizontalists, autonomists, anti-capitalists, anti-authoritarians, and others organizing a world from below to bring our best creative spirits to the project of a “Celebrate People’s History and Build Popular Power” bloc on January 20, 2009, in Washington, DC—or in your hometown, if you can’t make it.
As people striving toward a nonhierarchical society, yes, we can—and should—be rigorously critical of Barack Obama. It goes without saying that we want a world without presidents; we want worlds of our own constituting via directly democratic structures, not states. But not all heads of state are alike, and if we fail to recognize both the historical meaning and power of this particular moment, we will ensure our own irrelevance.
Throughout the election, Kasama has posted a sharp debate over what stand to take on Obama. Now that the election is over, that debate continues, and needs to be sharpened again (under new conditions).
Kasama offers the following piece as a contribution to that debate — and posting it here does not imply agreement with its arguments. The original title of this piece is “The Bumpy Road Ahead: New Tasks of the Left Following Obama’s Victory.”
American progressives have won a major victory in helping to defeat John McCain and placing Barack Obama in the White House. The far right has been broadly rebuffed, the neoconservative war hawks displaced, and the diehard advocates of neoliberal political economy are in thorough disarray. Of great importance, one long-standing crown jewel of white supremacy, the whites-only sign on the Oval Office, has been tossed into the dustbin of history.
The depth of the historical victory was revealed in the jubilation of millions who spontaneously gathered in downtowns and public spaces across the country, as the media networks called Obama the winner. When President-Elect Barack Hussein Obama took the platform in Chicago to deliver his powerful but sobering victory speech, hundreds of millions-Black, Latino, Asian, Native-American and white, men and women, young and old, literally danced in the streets and wept with joy, celebrating an achievement of a dramatic milestone in a 400-year struggle, and anticipating a new period of hope and possibility.
I thought I’d add my two cents on the matter of Lee James’ expulsion from WCW (on the basis of what I gather has happened, which of course may be an incomplete account).
First of all, concerning my own relationship to WCW:
I’ve thought since its inception in the summer of 2005 World Can’t Wait has been the “best thing out there” in terms of an antiwar organization with a genuine anti-imperialist orientation, ability to work with a wide range of forces while maintaining that orientation, bold propaganda (the “Stop the Attack on Iran” posters), creative tactics (the orange outfits), media breakthroughs (Sunsara Taylor on Fox), excellent and informative website, etc. It continues to play a vital role, as of this moment, at least. It can always blow it of course.
I made some efforts to build for the Oct. 5, 2006 event in Boston, and wrote an article for Dissident Voice (also carried on the WCW site along with five other pieces by me that are still up, I notice) urging people to attend the local actions. I attended a meeting afterwards with activists including a Revolution Books regular (and, I assume, a party member) to sum up the low turn out.
I think I was the most up-beat person there since I’d frankly not expected a huge crowd. My assessment was that we’d done what we had to do and that we had to continue to do what we had to do under trying circumstances in an imperialist country with a lot of forces arrayed against us.
But I had not been deeply invested in the campaign time-wise. I think those who had been—in and around the party, and those newly involved and getting close to the RCP in that campaign—were those most morose and in some cases maybe even feeling somewhat burned by the experience.
We are starting a new series by Bill (his third on Kasama). Rubber and Glue will appear in five parts over the next few days.
Elements of Exhaustion, or, Rubber and Glue (Kasama Post #3)
Part I: Recoiling Into a Dead End
by Bill Martin
“It may even be that there are pathways that certain currents of Maoism have taken that are effectively precluded from getting “there” (that is, revolution). It may even be that we simply have to accept a fundamental disconnect between ‘here’ and ‘there,’ that seems to be one upshot of Badiou’s theory of truth-events…”
“….it is difficult for many of us who came in one way or another through Maoism to now engage in regroupment and reconception with people who came through other Marxist or otherwise radical trends (even other trends of Maoism, but obviously I especially have in mind the various Trotskyist trends). I do think there is something to the fact that, for a long time, among trends within Marxism, only the RCP and Bob Avakian were really willing to put the possibility and necessity of revolution out there and to try in various ways to pursue revolution. That has to count for something, but what exactly in our attempt to forge a new paradigm? It might not be a matter of Trotskyism itself having something to contribute (on the other hand, why rule this out per se?…), but why not some people who came through that experience and who themselves were looking for ways to radically change the world?”
” There is one thing I do know, however, and I don’t hesitate to say it is a basic article of faith: no form of economism is revolutionary, no matter how militant its expression.”
Thanks to RW Harvey for pointing this out. From the Black Agenda Report who wrote in their introduction:
‘Obamist sections of the Left seem to believe it ‘doesn’t matter who Obama is, what he does, says, or stands for – he represents hope and change and that’s good enough.’ Some folks are simply misinformed, and therefore blissful. ‘Many of the people that danced in the streets haven’t taken the time to do any research on Obama, so part of their euphoria is based on ignorance.’ One is expected to partake in the party. ‘Those who castigate folks for not being appropriately jubilant at Obama’s election are insisting that blacks content themselves, in perpetuity, with symbolism instead of real change.’”
Critical Thinking Amid the Elation
by Shannon Joyce Prince (Nov. 2008)
* * * * * *
“Obama is hiding imperialism, neo-liberalism, and corporatism behind the language of progressivism.”
“It’s one thing for masses of white people to assume that racism is 90% over. It’s another for a black man, Obama, to tell them this is so.”
We will be posting a wide range of post election commentary on this site. The following is from the blog Ron is Still Home. (Thanks to antiwar.com for pointing it out).
Election ’08: How Did the Empire Do?
by Ron Jacobs
In the wake of the recent election results it’s essential to ask how the Empire fared. It’s not just occupying Iraq. It’s not just brutally occupying Afghanistan under the guise of a war on terror being fought by the heirs of the Wahhabist-influenced, Carter-Reagan-CIA-trained guerrilla armies. It’s not only continuing the encirclement of Russia and China with missiles and military bases. And it’s not merely still trying to subjugate popular movements and governments in Latin America through election-tampering and outright armed subversion. It’s doing all of that and more.
We see the latest Pakistani government weakly protest the continued killing of its citizens by Predator drones and military raids, while simultaneously joining those attacks. Unable and unwilling to genuinely oppose the manipulation of the Pakistani government by Washington, Pakistan’s elites battle each other and the Pakistani people for Washington’s favor and money. Next door, former and rogue elements of Pakistan’s intelligence services support different factions of the Afghan resistance to the U.S. occupation. Meanwhile, other political forces in Islamabad support the U.S.-maintained Karzai government in Kabul, which has less internal support than the Green Zone government in Baghdad.
“Every schoolchild in the U.S. has been taught that the Pilgrims of the Plymouth Colony invited the local Indians to a major harvest feast after surviving their first bitter year in New England. But the real history of Thanksgiving is a story of the murder of indigenous people and the theft of their land by European colonialists–and of the ruthless ways of capitalism.”
Circulate Mike Ely’s “Native Blood: The Myth of Thanksgiving.”
There was an important initial flare of discussion in a nearby thread – about how much to engage the RCP and about the urgency of moving on. I would like to help sharpen that by gathering some thoughts here.
To be clear, I am raising these thoughts to solicit replies — corrections, differences, agreement, refinement, and deepening. Let’s unite on a higher level about the purpose and focus of this site. And let’s take up some quite difficult tasks that face us.
First on Moving On from the RCP
1) Kasama brings together revolutionaries from a number of different backgrounds. Some have emerged from the RCP and its periphery. Some were never that close (or haven’t been for a long time). There emerges (from time to time) a bit of a tension — where those who recently split from the RCP want to continue to “excavate” some line questions (and sum up the last few years of events), and other folks here at Kasama say “The RCP is not that important, objectively, and we need to articulate a basic break and move on.”
The new issue of the Nepalese Maoist English-language newspaper, Red Star (Issue 18), has been published. here is one of the main articles — described as an “opinion” piece. Further articles will appear on the Revolution in South Asia website.
The original title of this piece is: “People’s Republic is the fundamental goal of a Communist Party.”
* * * * *
“There is no difference of opinion within the party to go ahead to the People’s Republic. However, the republic that is going to be institutionalized in Nepal will not be a copy of other countries. Major emphasis will not be given to the mechanical relationship to assist only communist parties among the anti-feudal and the anti-imperialist parties, but also emphasis will be given to the dialectical relationship which creates the environment for a democratic political competition to serve the people…
“Our party has clearly stated that an independent and people-oriented republic with multi-party competition should be developed instead of the old parliamentary system that is worthless to the people. The party has moved ahead by introducing an optional model of People’s Republic rather than the model developed during the period of Mao in China. There was no federalism in Mao’s democracy; but we are talking about a new federal republican system in Nepal. Hence, the democracy that we are trying to develop is a more advanced democracy than the Chinese Republic…
The basic pillars of the new state power will be liberation of people from class, caste, regional and gender repression, federalism with the right of self-determination and freedom for anti-imperialist and anti-feudalist parties. The revolution is not yet complete.”
A Perfect Circle - “Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums“
Kalash notes: “This is a remix of their track entitled ‘Pet.’ This song speaks to complicity, the consequences of taking the easy road over the hard, and the general lulling effect of the american atmosphere. i prefer ‘Pet,’ but, alas, no video….don’t worry–the lyrics will come soon.”
Is revolution possible? How can the people deepen revolutionary change after seizing power? To answer those questions, it is valuable to study Mao’s revolution in China, and especially the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
Kasama would like to share “Evaluating the Cultural Revolution in China and its Legacy for the Future.” It was written by the by the MLM Revolutionary Study Group in the U.S. This comprehensive paper describes the course of the Cultural Revolution (CR) from 1966-1976, its achievements and shortcomings, and why future movements for revolution, socialism and communism must stand on its shoulders.”
Part 1 is available on Kasama. The other parts will soon follow.
This Part 2 describes the arc of the Cultural Revolution, from the first dazibaos [big character posters protesting party bosses] in 1966 at Beijing University, to the January Storm in Shanghai in 1968, through to the shift to the right in the Chinese Communist Party in the early 1970s and the overthrow of the so-called “gang of four” by Deng aXiaoping nd his supporters after the death of the revolutionary leader Mao Zedong in 1976.
How it started
In May 1965, after an absence of 38 years, Mao reascended Mount Chingkang, the first revolutionary base area of the CCP in southern China. Alluding to historical events and literary themes of the past, this poem by Mao demonstrates his resolve to launch a new and victorious struggle for the hearts and minds of the Chinese people.
Kasama received the following report on an outragious LAPD raid on an Anarchist gathering on Nov. 16. 
