thanks to Nathaniel for sharing this article with us. It was originally published by Monthly Review. We have posted a previous piece by the MLMRSG on this U.S.-organized atrocity. This history is especially important now when the revolutionary forces in Nepal are more and more directly confronting a Nepal Army that is suspected of considering a U.S.-and-Indian-encouraged coup d’etat.
by Nathaniel Mehr
The Indonesian killings of 1965-66 provide a valuable case study for anyone seeking to understand the techniques with which governments and non-governmental actors manipulate information sources in pursuit of pragmatic and ideological goals.
When the Indonesian army’s strategic reserve crushed an internal army mutiny on 1st October 1965, the reserve’s leader, General Suharto, seized the opportunity to link the mutiny — which had claimed the lives of six leading Generals — to the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). At this point, the PKI was the largest communist party outside the officially communist nations, posing a credible threat to the Indonesian army’s long-standing primacy in Indonesian public life. Capitalising on reports that the upper echelons of the PKI had endorsed the abortive mutiny, the Indonesian army effected a mobilisation of anti-communist opinion with the single aim of exterminating the PKI once and for all. The campaign, which did not discriminate between party cadres and the party’s mass membership, culminated in the violent deaths of between 500,000 and a million people, the overwhelming majority of whom were rural peasants who had joined the PKI because of the party’s progressive position on land reform issues. The massacre removed the PKI as a viable political force in Indonesia, paving the way for Suharto to seize power and install a 32-year dictatorship that became notorious for corruption and human rights abuses.
From Wikipedia: “Brother Ali has been under pressure from the recording industry due to lyrics from his recent song “Uncle Sam Goddamn”, claiming creative interference from “somebody I don’t wanna name, but some of you probably has they cell phones.” The unnamed corporation ultimately withdrew its sponsorship for Ali, causing him to truncate parts of his current tour. Furthermore, on the song Second Time Around with Benzi and Wale, Brother Ali makes references to being kicked off tour followed by the line “Verizon dissed me too, cuz I was too political.” The song is notably critical of the American government, with accusations that the American political system is addicted to war.”
It is widely reported that the Tamil Tigers have been defeated, amid tremendous brutal violence by the Sri Lankan government. The Tamil separatist forces were cornered with their backs to the sea in Northwest Sri Lanka, surrounded by tens of thousands of Tamil civilians — and they were all pounded by the heavy artillery of government forces. The defeat of the Tamils has been accompanied with ugly celebrations of Sinhalese domination — as the government appealed to chauvinist sentiments among the Sinhalese majority. Tamils are a minority within Sri Lanka descended from virtually enslaved planation workers brought into Britain’s Ceylonese planations from India. The leaders of the current government are personally part of the rural landlord class — helping to lay bare the deep divisions and roots of the ongoing conflict.
We would like to publish here an important background piece on this struggle. It is called “Sanmugathasan, the Unrepentant Left and the Ethnic Crisis in Sri Lanka.“
It revisits the analysis of the early Sri Lankan Maoist leader Comrade Shan (N. Samugathasan), and elaborates a communist analysis of the conflicts in Sri Lanka and their relationship with revolutionary posibilities. Though the piece focuses heavily on a textual analysis of Shan’s work, it is possible to glean a great deal about the contradictions and controversies surrounding the Tamil uprising of the last two decades.
Written by Ravi Vaitheespara this piece first appeared in the Economic and Political Weekly in October 27, 2007.
As always, publishing this piece here, does not mean that Kasama endorses its analysis — but just that we offer it for critical study and discussion.
We will publish an excerpt from this larger piece — choosing those sections most directly touching on the Tamil oppression and separatism. The excerpts start with a discussion of the JVP, a controversial uprising in Sri Lanka in the 1970s that was sometimes considered Guevarist, but was also tied to “communalism” (a backward approach to ethnic conflicts).
It has been described as Elvis vs. Pat Boone. Actually its more like Little Richard vs. Pat Boone. And this time, Pat Boone won (for that moment at least).
To his credit, when the results were announced, Kris Allen himself blurted out: “Adam deserves this, this is crazy.”
The showdown between Adam Lambert and Kris Allen concentrates something about the cultural wars — that have (for a while) found a sharp focus on the acceptance of gay relationships. In the final shows, Kris made a point of appearing with his girlfriend. While an internet campaign (and Fox) circulated photos of Adam Lambert kissing a guy, the always bland-and-boring Kris sang a country western duet about kissing a girl. While, unrestrained after all the votes were already in, Adam in wild glitter eye makeup slyly covered a Kiss song about being up with the boys all night.
And so, in the end the contest really loomed as a straw poll of 100 million votes over acceptance and tolerance -There are other issues. (One observer quipped Kris Allen has “fuckability as judged by 13 year olds.”) But really who could doubt that Adam was head-and-shoulders above everyone in talent and creativity?
The fact that Kris Allen won is being justifiably seen as an outrage — and as the project of layers of encrusted anti-gay hysteria and bigotry.
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Adam Lambert’s remarkable reforging of Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” (done for Idol’s Country Music night, heh.)
Şayet Nepal’de Bir Hesaplaşma Gerçekleşecek Olursa…
Mike Ely, bu makalesinde Nepal devriminin bulunduğu durumu ve fırsatları, ABD’li devrimcilerin Nepal eleştirisini değerlendirerek tartışıyor
Mike Ely
Jaroslav yakın zamanda Nepalli devrimcileri eleştiren bir yazı kaleme aldı. Ona göre Nepal’deki devrimciler çok sayıda insana, yaşayan siyasi pratik aracılığıyla yeni bir devrime ihtiyaç olduğu gerçeğini göstermiyorlarmış. Şöyle diyor bu yazısında:
“Ben halkın iktidarı ele geçirmek için ihtiyaç duyduğu eğitimin tamamına sahip olduğunu söylemiyorum. Ben NBKP(M)’nin (Nepal Birleşik Komünist Partisi/Maoist -çn.) şu anda yaptıklarının bu eğitimin ilerletilmesine hiçbir katkıda bulunmadığını söylüyorum. İnsanlar ya anlıyor ve tekrar ediyorlar, ya da anlamıyorlar ve bunun da hiçbir yardımı dokunmuyor.”
I don’t usually praise analyses by moderate Republicans, but I’m going to post a New York Times editorial by David Brooks below.
Its central thesis is that Cheney’s “Genghis Khan side” (as it was called within the Daddy Bush 1 administration) had a heyday of three years after 2001. And that this peaked in 2004. We all know its features: global triumphalism, expanded torture, unilateralism, Bush Doctrine of preemptive war, crude rejection of Geneva Accords and other treaties, etc.
It also coincided with a high tide of religious fundamentalism of a hyper-patriotic Christian kind — an attempt to wield religion to conservatize the American culture and politics in radical ways.
Brooks then raises that the period from 2004-2008 represented a series of struggles and slow begrudging shifts — sharply conditions by the prospect of catastrophic failure in Iraq and by the visible revulsion of most of the world. They had overreached after 9/11, and were driven toward various forms of retrenchment. All kinds of people are viscerally relieved to see an Obama replace a George W. — and the contrast seems stark. But what comes out here is a far more nuanced sense of continuity — and the ways the current policies of Obama were gestating within the debates of the ruling class even during the W years themselves.
And, Brooks goes right into this: pointing out the continuity from W’s second period with some of the “new” Obama policies.
This is in fact often how shifts in ruling class strategy happen: there was a growing sea-change within the ruling class. An attempt of a new start, some modification of policies, some plans for new offensives.
Bush started to speak about closing Guantanamo, bringing back combat troops from Iraq after the “surge,” etc. But in the pursuit of that shift in strategy, Obama emerged as the figure most likely to pull it off (not McCain, who was also differentiating himself on torture, etc.) The religious right got knocked back a peg (after 2004 and then hard after 2006) — just as some (in both the liberal and radical left) were hyping the immediate danger of theocracy.
In September we issued a call to lurkers to step forward. We wrote against silence and fence-sitting:
Comrades must organize themselves and not waste what we do know, our real capacities and experience. The world needs us to rise to this occasion and break through the old walls, self-limiting doctrines and fear of success. We need to be revolutionaries, not just revolutionists. All you lurkers reading this and not speaking… step up.
Quite a few people have stepped forward in the intervening months — quite a few have specifically mentioned this call to the lurkers.
We want to speak again to those who watch but do not speak. Consider this a call to do the right thing, to take sides, to speak your mind, to wade into the deep political waters, to dare…..
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The top 10 reasons to NOT speak your mind (here and elsewhere):
1) Politics is a spectator sport. Consumers have no responsibility to speak or act.
2) The Internet is enemy-dominated territory. Posting a comment is dangerous in ways I can’t explain. There is no way around that.
WASHINGTON, May 19, 2009 (Reuters) — The Obama administration is expanding immigration checks to nearly all local jails, which could sharply increase U.S. deportation cases, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday.
Expanding the program could result in a tenfold increase in illegal immigrants who have been convicted of crimes and identified for deportation, the report said, citing current and former U.S. officials.
The program, initiated by former President George W. Bush, began in October and operates in 48 counties, the Post said. Read the rest of this entry »
The following is lifted whole from a compilation at the University of Washington compiled by Glenda Pearson, March 1998. It is a list of dozens of movies about communism in U.S. culture. (The introductory stuff below is interesting, but can be skipped.) Thanks to Miles Ahead for suggesting this.
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The films produced in Hollywood before, during and after the Cold War Red Scare make for an interesting study in the response of a popular medium caught in a political firestorm. The following list is a selective filmography of motion pictures that played a role in fueling the Red Scare, in propagandizing the threat of Communism and in a few rare and rather veiled cases, in standing up to the charges of the House Committee on Un-American Activities. As the frightening fifties receded in memory and the political temperment gradually changed with the passing decades, Hollywood found more courage in facing up to the culpability of the film industry itself and its role in supporting gross violations of civil liberties. Several feature films and a number of documentaries exploring this painful issue round out the list below.
HUAC interrogated many film industry people. In the end, countless careers were destroyed but only ten individuals actually went to jail. This group came to be known as “The Hollywood Ten.” Alvah Bessie, Herbert J. Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott, and Dalton Trumbo paid a huge price at the hands of HUAC. An exhaustive analysis of their films, published in 1972 by Dorothy B. Jones (who had served as chief of the film reviewing and analysis section of the U.S. Office of War Information during World War II), indicated that “none of the 159 films credited over a period of years (1929-1949) to The Hollywood Ten contained Communist propaganda.” (Cogley, p.226)
Publicly, the U.S. claimed its “war on terror” was an act of defense — defense of American lives, defense of civilized values and so on. Of course Bush blurted out that he intended a “crusade” against his global enemies — clueing in the world to his fundamentalist Christian mindset. Now more evidence is on display, about the influence and mentality of extreme rightwing Christian fundamentalism during the Bush years — Defense Secretary Rumsfeld (a neo-con with little religious association) dressed up his daily briefings for Bush in belligerent military quotes from the Bible. Enter the warrior cult of Jesus, with Bush groomed as instrument of God.
It is revealing — in ways Foster Kramer (below) doesn’t quite get. It isn’t evidence that Rumsfeld wasted his time or that the Pentagon did ugly design. It is a sign of how the American Secretary of Defense thought he had to PACKAGE his advice to the President. And if you read the quotes they are clearly a drumbeat urging Bush to stand strong and unwavering in his decision to conquer Iraq. And again: it is revealing that to get this message across to the commander-in-chief, a largely secular Rumsfeld had to package it in quotes coming from the Christian God to Bush.
This high-level evidence of a fanatical, even messianic Christian Crusader mentality is echoing around the world. It is the graphic ideological complement to the Abu Ghraib pictures.
Donald Rumsfeld’s Judgment-Happy, Scary, Biblical Defense Briefing Art
By Foster Kamer
This isn’t crazy, or terrifying: alongside Robert Draper’s GQ piece on Donald Rumsfeld being called out by former colleagues, they’re running covers of his White House morning defense briefings. You have to see these.
Draper notes that the briefings were “a daily digest of critical military intelligence so classified that it circulated among only a handful of Pentagon leaders and the president; Rumsfeld himself often delivered it, by hand, to the White House.” You have to wonder: was Rumsfeld sitting over a well-to-do Department of Defense intern, going through loads of pictures and trying to decide what colors he wanted which quotes to be? Or did he do it himself? Either way, these things have more in common with the Zodiac Killer than anything any kind of defense briefing should even remotely look like. Graphic designers, turn away. These aren’t pretty, in so many ways.
May 17, 2009, Kathmandu: huge rally supports the Maoist claims to power.
The following report on Sunday’s rally is from telegraphnepal.com, not from the Maoists themselves. Caution needs to be taken in a period of disinformaiton. However this news is important, and so we are posting it here.
Nepal Maoist threaten Revolt, State Capture: Sunday Mass meets
The wounded Maoists party had organized huge rallies in major centers of the country, on Sunday May 17, 2009. The rallies later converged into mass-meets wherein the Maoists leaders mostly criticized their political opponents. President of the Republic Dr. Ram Baran Yadav and Mr. Madhav Kumar Nepal- the UML leader who in all likelihood is to lead the country as the next prime minister- were the Maoists’ major targets.
Caretaker Prime Minister and the Maoists party chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal addressing a sea of Maoists cadre in Kathmandu repeatedly called the UML and the Nepali Congress as the agents of the foreign Gods.
“As per the dictates of their foreign masters, the dejected and rejected UML and NC leaders are forming the next government”, said a pretty annoyed Dahal. “Their heads will be always down as they have surrendered to their foreign masters, we have resigned but yet our heads will always be up”, said Dahal.
We have received the following eyewitness report from Ben Peterson who has been traveling through Nepal. Ben’s reports are gathered on his own blog Lal Salaam. Kasama posts this because it is of interest. As always, posting does not apply an agreement with the analysis. All photos are credited to Ben Peterson. Part 2 is posted here.
In Their Own Words- The People of Rolpa (part 1)
Interviews conducted by Ben Peterson
[Saturday, April 25, 2009] I recently spent a week living with and talking to the the people of Rolpa. Rolpa is a very underdeveloped hilly district in Nepal’s mid-western region where the Maoists launched their People’s War in 1996- which went on to change Nepal in almost every aspect of its politics and culture. Because of this, however, Rolpa was also the scene for some of the worst police/army repression and violence. These are their stories in their own words.
The Martyrs Gate welcomes people as they cross into Rolpa. It was built by the Maoists during the Peoples War period.
We have received the following eyewitness report from Ben Peterson who has been traveling through Nepal. Ben’s reports are gathered on his own blog Lal Salam. Kasama posts this because it is of interest. As always, posting does not apply an agreement with the analysis. All photos are credited to Ben Peterson. Part 1 is posted here.
In Their Own Words- The People of Rolpa (Part 2)
Interviews are conducted by Ben Peterson.
The hills of Rolpa.
This is Gaurav Sharma. He is 26 years old and a captain in the Peoples Liberation Army. In his own words- here is his story:
“I joined the Maoists movement when I was 15. Because I was still young I wasn’t allowed to be a fighter at first, so I joined and became and actor and a dancer in one of the cultural troupes. It was good, I got to travel widely all across Nepal. “I came from a farming family, peasants in Rolpa. I joined through another member of my extended family who had joined the movement, however my close family, my parents, were against me joining the movement initially.
“Now, we’ll spearhead the ‘third Janaandolan’ against the president’s unconstitutional move to reinstate the Army chief and also complete our unfinished revolution.”
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The following are two statements by Gajurel. The first is recent from Kantipur Report. The second is a longer interview from October 2008.
C.P. Gajurel, 59, is a politburo member and chief of the foreign affairs bureau of the CPN (Maoist) party. In August 2003, while he was attempting to go to London from Chennai airport with forged travel documents, he was arrested and spent three years in jail in Chennai.
Following the second People’s Movement of 2006, and the entry of the Maoists into mainstream politics, he was released from jail in December 2007. Since his release, he has traveled internationally, raising awareness about and seeking support for his party. Thanks to Ka Frank for the first article.
NEPALGUNJ, May 17 – A senior Maoist leader said on Sunday that his party has not yet given up the goal of capturing the state.
I saw the new Star Trek on a date last night. My companion was a committed communist Trekkie deep into sci-fi future speculation.
Here are my thoughts:
1) Roddenberry is really dead.
Unfortunately, the rumors are true. This film is drained of Star Trek’s once defining social concern and progressive insights (with one exception). It is an example of ways that even the best of the 60s is now ancient history.
Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek (like the early series Twilight Zone) used TV to “explore brave new worlds” politically — about war, colonialism, racism, hierarchies etc.
At times the series posited a future civilization beyond money, racism, intolerance, nation-states, war-like intentions, and (thanks to the prime directive) genuinely determined not to destroy civilizations it encountered. And that, of course, is largely what attracted a truly fanatic following — especially among the alienated and quirky.
Last month, Kasama posted an analysis from the MLM Revolutionary Study Group called “Revolution and State Power in Nepal.” Since then, in the wake of rapidly moving events, the MLMRSG has written the following reassessment of their views, published on May 16, 2009.
By the MLM Revolutionary Study Group
In keeping with the importance of supporting the people’s revolution in Nepal, we have been following the rapidly changing developments after the attempted sacking of General Katawal, Chief of Staff of the reactionary Nepalese Army, by the Maoist-led government. We have also been looking more closely at the statements by party leaders following the National Conference of the Unified CPN (Maoist) held in November 2008. Finally we have developed our views on the particular circumstances posed by the revolution in Nepal. We have decided to make some further comments that clarify, correct and elaborate upon our paper of April 4, 2009. (See www.mlmrsg.com)
First, we have reassessed the results of the National Conference. Prior to it, Chairman Prachanda’s views were coming under public criticism from a number of senior party leaders, including Kiran (Mohan Baidya), Guarav (CP Gajurel) and Biplap (Netra Bikram Chand). The main issue of political strategy that was brought to the conference was whether the party should go for a People’s Republic, completing the new democratic revolution through the seizure of state power, or the revisionist position that the party should consolidate the present bourgeois republic and limit itself to a process of state restructuring. (See Bastola’s “Historic National Convention: Milestone of Revolution,” in the December 1-15, 2008 Red Star, and CP Gajurel’s “The Role of Major Tactical Line in Developing a New Constitution” in the January 16-31, 2009 Red Star. For Red Star archives.)
The Conference united around a compromise that merged the two positions. This resolution delivered a partial blow that has restrained the revisionist strategy that had been dominant, and has given more freedom of action to the revolutionary forces in the party. Since the leadership of neither side was defeated, the line struggle has not ended but has moved out of public view in recent months.
Thanks to Zerohour for suggesting this 1992 essay from Science Fiction Studies.
By H. Bruce Franklin
The original Star Trek series was conceived, produced, and broadcast during one of the most profound crises in the history of the United States, a crisis from which we have by no means recovered. Those thirty-three months when the series was first broadcast—between September 1966 and June 1969— were in fact one of the most excruciating periods in American history. In the midst of a disastrous war, virtual warfare in the nation’s own cities, ever-increasing crime, inflation and debt, campus rebellions, and profound challenges to hallowed cultural values and gender roles, Star Trek assumed a future when Earth has become an infinitely prosperous, harmonious world without war and social conflict, a future in which the aptly-named starship U.S.S. Enterprise itself embodied an ordered, self-contained society capable of making traditional American values and images triumphant in the farthest reaches of the universe.
Looming over the mind of every thinking American, the Vietnam War threatened to tear the nation asunder. Indeed, even today the very mention of Vietnam raises the emotional temperature and brings out deep divisions in American society. As a matrix for Star Trek, the war lurked in the background of the serial. The utopian 23rd-century future assumed in Star Trek—never envisioned—is presented as a sequel to the Vietnam epoch, just as the universe of the starship Enterprise is presented as an alternative to the actual world of viewers in the America of the 1960s.
“Kasama is a communist project for the forcible overthrow and transformation of all existing social conditions. We are open to learning, unafraid to admit our own uncertainties. At the same time, we will not shrink from what we do know: the solutions cannot be found within the current world order or the choices it provides. We are for revolution. We seek to find the forms of organization and action for the people most dispossessed by this system to free themselves and all humanity.
“To take this road, we need a fearless, open-eyed debate, discussion and engagement. We need fresh analyses of the rapid changes shaping the world around us. We need to sum up a century of revolutionary strategies and attempts, victories and defeats – instead of the conventional wisdom and facile verdicts that paralyze our movements. We need to re-imagine a radical politics that can take life among people and move mountains. We need a movement that can listen, as well as speak.
Clustering information visually allows spies to identify patterns and human networks within the white noise of data
This article documents how the Chinese government has been spying the external Tibetan opposition. But, obviously, the capabilities discussed here are capabilities available to other governments who go less exposed in the media.
A key passage in this piece (from tne New York Times Science section) is:
“Wireshark makes it possible to watch an unencrypted Internet chat session while it is taking place, or … to watch as Internet attackers copied files from the Dalai Lama’s network. In almost every case, when the Ghostnet system administrators took over a remote computer they would install a clandestine Chinese-designed software program called GhOst RAT — for Remote Administration Terminal. GhOst RAT permits the control of a distant computer via the Internet, to the extent of being able to turn on audio and video recording features and capture the resulting files. The operators of the system — whoever they were — in addition to stealing digital files and e-mail messages, could transform office PCs into remote listening posts.”
Kasama would like to closely follow (and expose) developments associated with internet security. Please forward to use pieces you come across.
thanks to Nathaniel for sharing this article with us. It was originally published by Monthly Review. We have posted a previous piece by the MLMRSG on this U.S.-organized atrocity. This history is especially important now when the revolutionary forces in Nepal are more and more directly confronting a Nepal Army that is suspected of considering a U.S.-and-Indian-encouraged coup d’etat.
