“Struggles that emphasize the fact of exploitation – its unfairness, its brutality – and seek to ameliorate the terms and character of labor in capitalism, take the working-class as their subject. On the other hand, struggles that emphasize dispossession and the very fact of class, seeking to abolish the difference between those who are “without reserves” and everyone else, take as their subject the proletariat as such. Because of the restructuring of the economy and weakness of labor, present-day struggles have no choice but to become proletarian struggles, however much they dress themselves up in the language and weaponry of a defeated working class …Worker’s struggles these days tend to have few objects besides the preservation of jobs or the preservation of union contracts. They struggle to preserve the right to be exploited, the right to a wage, rather than for any expansion of pay and benefits. The power of the Occupy movement so far – despite the weakness of its discourse – is that it points in the direction of a proletarian struggle in which, instead of vainly petitioning the assorted rulers of the world, people begin to directly take the things they need to survive. Rather than an attempt to readjust the balance between the 99% and the 1%, such a struggle might be about people directly providing for themselves at a time when capital and the state can no longer provide for them.”
This piece raises the important question of how we think about the revolutionary subject today. Does it still reside in the working class, or at the point of production, as traditionally conceived? How have changes in capitalism transformed class composition? How does this affect revolutionary strategy? We are posting this in order to generate discussion. We will soon post responses from others. Posting should not suggest endorsement.
Blockading the Port Is Only The First of Many Last Resorts
Posted by OaklandCommune • December 7, 2011
By any reasonable measure, the November 2 general strike was a grand success. The day was certainly the most significant moment of the season of Occupy, and signaled the possibility of a new direction for the occupations, away from vague, self-reflexive democratism and toward open confrontation with the state and capital. At a local level, as a response to the first raid on the encampment, the strike showed Occupy Oakland capable of expanding while defending itself, organizing its own maintenance while at the same time directly attacking its enemy. This is what it means to refer to the encampment and its participants as the Oakland Commune, even if a true commune is only possible on the other side of insurrection.
Looking over the day’s events it is clear that without the shutdown of the port this would not have been a general strike at all but rather a particularly powerful day of action. The tens of thousands of people who marched into the port surpassed all estimates. Neighbors, co-workers, relatives – one saw all kinds of people there who had never expressed any interest in such events, whose political activity had been limited to some angry mumbling at the television set and a yearly or biyearly trip to the voting booth. It was as if the entire population of the Bay Area had been transferred to some weird industrial purgatory, there to wander and wonder and encounter itself and its powers.
Today’s Love Goes to Arizona’s Banned Book Smugglers
by Jorge Rivas
The Librotraficante Caravan is bringing contraband books—or “wet-books”—to Arizona. The project is also intended to raise awareness of the “prohibition” of the Mexican-American Studies Program and the removal of books from classrooms.
“When we heard that Tucson Unified School District administrators not only prohibited Mexican-American Studies, but then walked into classrooms, and in front of young Latino students, during class time, removed and boxed up books by our most beloved authors – that was too much. This offended us down to our soul. We had to respond,” said Tony Diaz, founder of Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say, which has led the charge.
a
a
Diaz added, “With their record of anti-immigrant legislation, politicians in Arizona have become experts in making humans illegal. We did not do enough to stop that, thus that anti-immigrant legislation spread to other states such as Alabama and Georgia. Now, these same legislators want to make thoughts illegal. If we allow this to happen, these laws, too, will spread. Other branches of ethnic studies will be prohibited, and other states will follow suit.”
The Librotraficante Caravan will travel from Houston, Texas, to Tucson, Ariz., carrying a payload of contraband books, creating networks of Underground Libraries and leaving community resources in its wake.
With just days away from launching the caravan Libroficante could use your help. A Kickstarter fundraising campaign didn’t work out they way hoped for, so donations are critical. For more information on how you can make a tax-deductible donation visit librotraficante.com/Donate.html.
A secret police document shows that the New York City Police Department increased surveillance of thousands of mosques and Muslims.
The revelation contradicts the department’s claim that it does not conduct religious profilingPolice analysts listed a dozen mosques from central Connecticut to the Philadelphia suburbs. None has been linked to terrorism, either in the document or publicly by federal agencies.obtained by the Associated Press
Immigration offenses makes Latinos majority in federal prison
BY CINDY CARCAMO
For the first time, Latinos make up more than half of all federal felony offenders sentenced so far this fiscal year, according to a report released by the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
Immigration violations — including illegal crossings and other crimes such as human smuggling — account for most of the increase in the number of Latinos sentenced to prison over the last 10 years, according to the commission’s data.
The rise may be due to the unprecedented number of deportations under the Obama administration after the launch of a controversial program called Secure Communities. The program checks the fingerprints of every person booked by local law enforcement agencies against Department of Homeland Security databases for immigration violations.
Launched in March of last year in Orange County, the program is intended identify and deport people who are in the country illegally and suspected of or convicted of serious crimes. However, the program has come under fire lately by immigration activists and some law enforcement officials who say the vast majority of people targeted under the program were arrested for offenses as minor as selling street food without a permit. Advocates also say in practice the program targets anyone booked into police custody, including crime victims and non-criminals, for transfer to immigration authorities.
Thanks to Jim for suggesting this piece from Mother Jones.
By Adam Serwer
The Obama administration has deported close to one million undocumented immigrants since January 2009, according to recently updated [1] statistics from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.
Since fiscal year 2009, the actual number is 1,107,415. But the financial year started in October of 2008, when George W. Bush was still president, so the total under Obama is actually 982,548. On the other hand, the current numbers only go up to the end of July, so the administration may have already passed the one million deportations threshold. By comparison, in his last 28 months in office, Bush deported about 785,148 undocumented immigrants. (I couldn’t find monthly records for before 2007.)
How you react to Obama’s record on deportation depends where you are on the political spectrum. The GOP has been accusing [2] the administration for months of instituting “de-facto amnesty” even as deportation numbers skyrocketed, while liberals and the Spanish-language press have been attacking the administration for breaking its promises.
“Something important is happening here. Especially around the question of US imperialism, Mexico’s role in the abolition of slavery, generally, and the relationship between these two communities.”
There has been brewing (after years of Black military recruitment and especially after 9/11) the problem of American patriotism emerging among African American people. And here it breaks out… openly. And part of the resolution is the discussion of the relationship of Black people to the United States (to belong? to aspire to belong? to defend? to adopt the USA-USA rant of the mindless ones?)
Danny’s essay first appeared on his News Dissector site. (Salute to Danny for his many decades of tireless resistance and excavation.) This article tracks the illusion and the disillusion in personal detail.
Is it accurate on the “lessons we can’t deny” or is there more to extract?
By Danny Schechter
Journalists are not supposed to have political opinions, and yet we all do. Our “biases” are usually disguised, not blatant or overtly partisan, and can be divined in what stories we cover and how we cover them,
Even ‘just the fact’s ma’am,’ journos for big Media have to decide which facts to include and which to ignore.
Our outlooks are always shaped by our worldviews, values and experience, not too mention the outlets we work for.
Which brings me to the challenge of seeking truth and recognizing it when you see it.
I have to admit that I was seduced by the idea of Barack Obama.
The idea of a black President, the idea of a young President, the idea of an articulate President, and the idea of a man married to such a stand up women from a working class family was hard to resist.
Jorge, Fanny, Arianna, Miguel, Ireri and Carla. Photo: Sarah Ji
This piece first appeared on the Immigrant Youth Justice League site. The importance of these brave civil disobedience actions by undocumented youth should speak for itself.
The very slogan “Undocumented and Unafraid” is a powerful break — reminding us all of the Freedom Summer days in Mississippi.
Looking for a place to dig in? To investigate? To take a stand? This is a place.
Six Undocumented Youth Arrested in Chicago Action Against Secure Communities
UPDATE, 3:50 AM: All of the undocumented youth who were part of the action have been released, along with 3 supporters who were also detained by police. We are committed to supporting the undocumented youth in raising fund for their $1,500 bail. Please consider making a donation to support them and our organizing.
Analleli Rios Ramirez, center, and her brother-in-law, Eusebio Resendiz, try to obtain a permit to take their truck into Mexico.
The following first appeared in the New York Times, August 9, 2011.
Mexico-Bound Immigrants Face Scrutiny at Border
By MARC LACEY
NOGALES, Ariz. — An American immigration agent bounded up the steps of a bus about to cross the United States-Mexico border recently and demanded to see the papers of all those aboard. “Papers!” he shouted, eying passengers warily as he walked up and down the aisle.
Such checks are not surprising given all the attention focused on illegal immigration these days. But this bus full of migrants was leaving the United States, not entering it.
A raft of immigration laws in Arizona and other states is designed to make life so difficult for illegal immigrants that they pack their bags and head home. But the reality on the border is that departing the country has become more complicated than ever — leading some people to worry that the outbound checks could not only dissuade illegal immigrants from leaving the country but also place them in a kind of no-win limbo, reviled if they stay and potentially arrested if they try to leave.
This was originally written as a Facebook note, and is being re-posted here with the permission of the author.
What is clear is that the same problems that affect and preocupy the radical left in the Western world are being felt by the ideological right, and that their response will not always come packaged in the usual packages of State collusion, fringe parties and street hooliganism, but might take forms such as Breiviks, and perhaps even other forms of violence. It is too early to tell if this action will have a cooling effect in this particular ideological space … or if it will be a spark that lights a prairie fire.
Anders Behring Breivik is not a fundamentalist Christian, he is something worse
by SKS
The New York Times has repeated the lie that Anders Behring Breivik, the butcher of Oslo and is a fundamentalist Christian. He is not.
The New York Times‘ thesis is that he is somehow a mirror image of Al Qaeda, a disaffected Christian turning the tables on Islamic fundamentalism. He is not.
He is the vivid, brutal, expression of a bubbling right-wing political movement of the post 9/11 era, emerging not from fascism or neo-fascism or from “revolutionary nationalism”, but from the unholy marriage of Austrian School economics and paleo-conservative cultural identity Romanticism – think Goethe, Scifi/Fantasy novels, and von Mises spawn a child.
It would be easy to denounce Breivik as a Norwegian exception, but this would be a mistake. While he is distinguishable by his actions, it is important to note that some of Breivik’s core concerns have also played a prominent role within Norwegian and European politics more generally. I spent four years interviewing far right activists, many of whom rejected political violence. Yet what became clear during this research was that there is, unquestionably, a culture of violence within the broader far rightwing subculture. Many of the ideas that were voiced during this research have also come to light over the past 48 hours: the perceived threat posed by Muslim communities, a belief that mainstream parties are incapable of dealing with this threat and strong emphasis on a “clash of civilizations” between members of the majority population and minority groups.
Norway attacks: We can no longer ignore the far-right threat
Matthew Goodwin
The tragedy in Norway this weekend may prove to be a watershed moment in terms of how we approach far right followers, groups and their ideology. Until now, European democracies and their security services had focused almost exclusively on the threat from al-Qaida -inspired terrorism. Rightwing extremist groups and their more violent affiliates were dismissed as a disorganised, fragmented and irrelevant movement.
This conventional wisdom, however, ignored wider evidence of a more violent and confrontational mood that was emerging within European far right circles. This shift may have been a response to the arrival of al-Qaida-inspired terrorism, or a sense that far right political parties in Europe (such as the Norwegian Progress party of which the attacker was once a member) were not having enough influence on issues such as immigration.
by Favianna Rodriguez & Russell Varner for The Soundstrike
Are you a visual artist that fights for Human Rights? Do you have art work about migrants, immigration, day laborers, DREAM Act students, borders, raids, anti-militarization of the border, coming out undocumented, or any other issue related to migrant rights?
If yes, than keep reading…
I am collaborating with The Sound Strike for the upcoming Boycott Hatred Benefit Concert taking place in Los Angeles, CA on July 29th. This event will bring the LA community together with <span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>art</span>, live music, a panel discussion, food and local vendors with the purpose of raising awareness and strengthening to pro-migrant movement. Featured bands are Fitter, Aztlan Underground & Outernational.
The evening before the L.A. Rising Concert, which will be a reunion of Rage Against the Machine, The Soundstrike (founded by Zach de la Rocha) will organize a benefit concert to raise funds for Arizona-based charities PUENTE and Derechos Humanos.
I am organizing the exhibit for this event along with Russel Varner.
If you have artwork related to the pro-migrant fight – PLEASE SUBMIT FOR CONSIDERATION.
This is a powerful statement — and its publication may prove to be a significant event. A Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and documentary filmmaker, Jose Antonio Vargas, has outed himself — as an undocumented immigrant. He has put himself in the position of being deported or imprisoned (for lying on official documents). This story (and this man’s courage) is putting a face on the millions who live in the shadows. His article was just published in the New York Times Magazine — which gives it great prominence at a time when undocumented immigrants face a terrible mix of invisibility and accelerated persecution. * * * * * * *
by Jose Antonio Vargas
One August morning nearly two decades ago, my mother woke me and put me in a cab. She handed me a jacket. “Baka malamig doon” were among the few words she said. (“It might be cold there.”) When I arrived at the Philippines’ Ninoy Aquino International Airport with her, my aunt and a family friend, I was introduced to a man I’d never seen. They told me he was my uncle. He held my hand as I boarded an airplane for the first time. It was 1993, and I was 12.
My mother wanted to give me a better life, so she sent me thousands of miles away to live with her parents in America — my grandfather (Lolo in Tagalog) and grandmother (Lola). After I arrived in Mountain View, Calif., in the San Francisco Bay Area, I entered sixth grade and quickly grew to love my new home, family and culture. I discovered a passion for language, though it was hard to learn the difference between formal English and American slang. One of my early memories is of a freckled kid in middle school asking me, “What’s up?” I replied, “The sky,” and he and a couple of other kids laughed. I won the eighth-grade spelling bee by memorizing words I couldn’t properly pronounce. (The winning word was “indefatigable.”)
On Sunday, our Kasama crew gathered with many hundreds of others in celebration for the May First rally in Union Park, Chicago.The crowd may have been smaller than than the massive marches of previous years (since the unions had apparently not mobilized this time, and perhaps because others gathered at Haymarket commemorations). But this rally was certainly more red than in past years and you had to look very very hard to find any American flags.
The following photos were taken by JB Connors.
This was a crowd with many undocumented immigrants who did not want to be photographed, so we stuck to individual shots at the edges (rather than crowd shots).
“This means you must have faith not only in your fellow students and activists, but also the conservative catholic immigrant, rightwing construction worker, and the republican retail cashier. One should not mistake that they are ‘Really on our side but just don’t know it.’ Instead, one should recognize that we can win them over through proper argument, action, and line.”
Greg shared this with us. It sketches methods that have contributed to the communist work around the RSU in Salt Lake City — developing a radical core, developing their knowledge of communist theory, engaging in active mass work, energetic public discussion around communism, and defense of immigrant workers. It also appears on Greg’s personal blog, Red Flags Over Utah.
Thoughts on Student Organizing
by Gregory Lucero
I’ve prepared some thoughts on the student organizing I’ve done. These, of course, are not complete. However, I’ve been asked to provide some introductory advice for those seeking to start a student movement within their area. As I’ve started one up in the most conservative city in the United States, I have some general advice that I feel can help most American student organizers. The advice is split into the personal and the organizational. I’ve listed the personal first because it’s the one you can immediately put into effect, but one should understand the vital nature of both the personal and organization principles remain vital.
I will give some suggestions below for starting up.
This was originally in New Left Review. Due to its length, we are posting it in two parts. The first part can be found here.
“Today, California has run aground on the reefs of inequality and racial division, inferior schooling and incapacitated government, while those who profited from the boom times have refused to share their good fortune with new arrivals. Without California’s dynamism, the us will lose its chief motor of growth and continue its long decline.”
The Golden State Adrift
by Richard Walker
The Great Recession opened the gap still wider. To close it, the state helped itself to billions in local government revenues, while the collapse of property values further undermined local authorities’ finances. The city of Vallejo has declared bankruptcy, Maywood had to lay off all its workers, and others teeter on the brink. State authorities have implemented their own austerity programme: in 2009, they slashed spending by 20 per cent, cutting schools by $6 billion, universities by $3 billion and medical care by $4 billion. [11]
The fiscal crisis overlays a profound failure of politics and government in California. The origins of the stalemate lie in the decline of the legislative branch, which has popularity ratings even lower than Schwarzenegger’s. Led by Assembly Speaker Jesse Unruh in the 1960s, California’s legislature was admired across the country for its professionalism. But by the 1980s, under Speaker Willie Brown, it had become largely a patronage system for the Democratic Party, which has controlled the state legislature continuously since 1959. Republicans went after Brown and the majority party by means of a ballot proposition imposing term limits on elected officials in 1990. Term limits neutered the legislature, taking away its collective knowledge, professional experience and most forceful voices, along with much of the staff vital to well-considered legislation. Sold as a way of limiting the influence of ‘special interests’, term limits have reinforced the grip of industry lobbyists over legislators. [12]
This was originally in New Left Review. Due to its length, we are posting it in two parts. The second part can be found here.
“The story of its woes will sound familiar to observers across Europe, North America and Japan, suffering from the neoliberal era’s trademark features: financial frenzy, degraded public services, stagnant wages and deepening class and race inequality. But given its previous vanguard status, the Golden State should not be seen as just one more case of a general malaise. Its dire situation provides not only a sad commentary on the economic and political morass into which liberal democracies have sunk; it is a cautionary tale for what may lie ahead for the rest of the global North.”
The Golden State Adrift
By Richard Walker
Against the backdrop of sweeping Republican advance in the 2010 us mid-term elections—a surge of 64 seats to take the House of Representatives, six more senators and eleven new state governorships—California stands out. [1] The Golden State confirmed its position as the country’s Democratic stronghold, delivering convincing wins for the party’s candidates in the gubernatorial and Senate elections. Democrats retained a solid two-thirds majority—32 out of 53—of the state’s delegation to the House of Representatives and held onto their heavy majorities in the State Senate (25–15) and Assembly (52–28).
That California bucked the anti-incumbent trend this November is all the more striking, given that the state has been battered by the Great Recession and boasts the third-highest unemployment rate in the country—at 12 per cent, only Nevada’s and Michigan’s are higher. Indeed, California played a leading role in triggering the us economy’s slide after 2007—a bleak inversion of its longstanding historical role. From the gold rush of the 1840s to the hi-tech boom of the 1990s, it was a world centre for inventiveness and fantasy production. The crucible for much of the economic, political and technological character of the American Century, it has been the leading engine of the us economy for most of the last fifty years. Yet today it is sputtering badly. What explains this disturbing turn of events?
Report on the rally at Utah State House, Salt Lake City, Utah, Jan. 24. Thanks to Gregory Lucero for suggesting this to Kasama. This article first appeared in Liberation.
Don’t let Utah become Arizona!’
Hundreds in Salt Lake City say no to anti-immigrant state bills
By Bill Wulle
In response to proposed racist, anti-immigrant state legislation, a rally coinciding with the first day of Utah’s legislative session was held at the Utah State Capitol in Salt Lake City raising the demands “Don’t let Utah become Arizona!” and “Now is the time to stand up and fight back for immigrant rights!”
About 300 people gathered for the Jan. 24 rally organized by United for Social Justice, which focused on defending constitutional and workers’ rights. USJ demanded an end to the ICE raids and to the overall persecution of immigrant communities. The rally also promoted full equality in wages, jobs, voting, union rights, benefits, housing, health care, and education for everyone regardless of their immigration status.
There have been face-to-face standoffs in Mulfreesboro where anti-Muslim bigots have been confronted by progressive and radiccal forces.
Jase Short shared the following article with Kasama. It first appeared on Solidarity’s site. Jase’s work has appeared here on Kasama before.
By Jase Short and Andy Woloszyn
WHEN THE MUSLIM community in Murfreesboro, Tennessee sought a permit to build an expanded Islamic Center, local bigots saw an opportunity to exploit the same “moral panic,” invented by the Tea Party, the Christian Right and much of the corporate media, that would also emerge in New York around the so-called “Ground Zero mosque.” The amalgamation of racial, ethnic, religious and national identities into a demonic Islamic “Other,” has been spreading throughout the United States as well as Western Europe.
It was in this context that forces in middle Tennessee — representing some of its most reactionary elements such as real estate mogul and neo-Confederate ideologist Howard Wall — signed on with the national Islamophobic campaign, expecting an easy escalation of anti-Muslim sentiment across the area.
It‘s a condition of the Religious Land Use Act and Tennessee’s zealous equivalent (passed, ironically enough, as an agenda item of the Christian Right), that there is precious little legal space for county planning commissions to bar — for any reason at all — a permit for land use by a religious institution as long as it meets certain legal criteria. The case of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro’s (ICM) purchase of land for an expanded Islamic Center, serving their growing congregation (several hundred families), was no different.
This comes from Bay of Rage.
