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Republican Hater's Ball

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 04:55:11 GMT

[youtube IAc0OmQ1PpY]

Jay Smooth pops off on the Sarah Pallin speech. Funny for the Republican remarks, but posted for his analysis of the GOP attack on community organizing. (continue reading &aquo;)

DNC Reflections: This Is What Activistism Looks Like

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:01:50 GMT

By John Tarleton

”It was completely mystifying to me. I couldn’t tell what they were protesting about,” said the young downtown office worker who was sitting across from me on a light rail train. She was heading to her home in the suburbs of south Denver as she related her experience of watching a clash between police and protesters that sent scores of people to jail on the first night of the Democratic Convention. “It seems like they just wanted attention,” she concluded.

With the exception of a powerful 7,000-strong antiwar demonstration led by the Iraq Veterans Against the War, protests at the Democratic Convention were small and self-marginalizing. Both delegates and Denverites I spoke to throughout the week had no idea what the protests were about to the extent they were aware of them at all. The two main protest groups – Unconventional Action and Recreate ‘68 – did not have an easy task with the local police and media spreading scare stories for months and with Barack Obama and the Democrats widely perceived as a reforming alternative to eight years of Republican rule. However, there was little effort made to bridge the comprehension gap.

When several hundred masked anarchists paraded down the 16th St. pedestrian mall in downtown Denver on the day before the Convention started waving orange and black flags and chanting “Whose Streets? Our Streets!”, bystanders were simply baffled. As soon as the march veered onto a side street, it was cordoned off from both directions by police who unsuccessfully chased about 20 breakaway protesters into a six-story parking garage while allowing the rest to leave after a tense, half-hour standoff.This confrontation was promptly hailed as an exciting victory on the DNC Disruption 08 website. “The classic Whose Streets Ours Streets chant gained real meaning for the protesters as they reclaimed the parking lot, the streets and a sense of possibility that hints at the transforming power of a public in rage at the war and fueled with a sense of joy and liberation.” The cat-and-mouse game continued the following night and would end in mass arrests.

Recreate ‘68 eschewed confrontational street tactics in favor of permitted marches emphasizing the struggles of oppressed peoples both inside the US and around the world. But with an enigmatic name (Which part of 1968 do we want to recreate—the assassinations, the race riots, the thrashing of antiwar protesters, the election of Richard Nixon?) and a laundry list of causes (Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Haiti, Venezuela, Mumia, Leonard Peltier, the Cuban 5, etc., etc.), their message was as impenetrable for the uninitiated as that of the anarchists who came across as having no message at all.

Historically, protest movements have served to dramatize injustice, galvanize a complacent populace, pressure intransigent politicians and recruit growing numbers of people into broad-based movements for social change. If the DNC protests were disappointing, spending the third night of the convention inside the Pepsi Center listening to the tired, vacuous speeches of Democratic Party hacks like Joe Biden, John Kerry and Madelaine Albright was enough to make me yearn for the honest anger of the protesters.

The “change we need” is much more than Obama has any intention of delivering. We need people to be constantly pushing the envelope of what’s considered possible. But, self-righteous posturing is self-defeating. In the decade since the 1999 Seattle WTO demonstrations, radical protesters have developed the capacity for holding protest “convergences” that includes mobile soup kitchens, mobile street medics, teams of legal observers and I-Witness Video activists who document police brutality and independent media outlets like Indymedia that convey the protesters’ side of the story to other activists around the world. While this is an impressive feat, events in Denver provided a reminder that creating a parallel universe dedicated to social protest is not enough in itself if its inhabitants are unwilling to engage with the larger society they seek to change.

Via The Indypendent (continue reading &aquo;)

Strategic Lessons from DNC Protests

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 17:06:57 GMT

Major police assaults on mass marches, mass arrests at anti-capitalist marches, a raid on the Converegence space.

The PIGS are trying to "re-create '68" their own way with a police riot-or more likely, a premeditated conspiracy to deprive us all of our rights at the DNC and the RNC.

If the police strategy is one or pre-emption at major public events and spaces, there is an obvious contermeasure:

Those planning direct action need to stay out of sight until their primary action. This should be ONE action only in the course of both conventions: Think it through, plan it right, and then go kick their asses.

Do this stuff in small, squad-size affinity groups of 12-20 people. Some things may only require a team of four good warriors. These affinity groups and the members within them need deploy once only, which means they CANNOT be pre-empted if known public spaces and events are avoided both before and(if the event would bring real charges) afterward.

Those NOT planning direct action could then take precautions to avoid charges that stick and march anyway, knowing the heavy shit will come from elsewhere.

A model to think of here is the campaign against HLS: If announced protests against HLS meet police repression, the protests may stop, but ALF has sometimes responded with up to a TENFOLD intensification of small-unit guerrilla warfare against the offending targets.

I was in NYC during the RNC there, and the really important stuff was done by small committed teams that did that one thing only. These actions were highly disruptive. The only flat-out victory over the cops won by a large-scale action was the seizure of Central park-and that required a march of over 500,000 people. That's 100 brigades, folks-five times as many as Bush sent to Iraq!

We are at WAR, people! There has been not only the police attacks in Denver, but an Infoshop raided on the West Coast and a police attack on Indymedia journalists in the Twin Cities-a week BEFORE the DNC.

Since the Enemy has arms we are not choosing to carry and e are not gaining a ten to one numerical advantage, we need to rely on asymmetrical tactics that can give us the winning edge.

Audio via Indymedia (continue reading &aquo;)

Savage Family @ DNC

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 13:16:42 GMT

[youtube 2xo7YLI6Bwg] (continue reading &aquo;)

Cop Tactics at DNC Protests

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:32:58 GMT

[youtube vZCHXngYHbo] (continue reading &aquo;)

Images from DNC Protests

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:27:51 GMT

(continue reading &aquo;)

NW APOC Benefit

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 14:48:44 GMT

The Northwest Anarchist People of Color Gathering Benefit fundraiser!

WHEN: THIS Saturday, August 16th, 2008
WHERE: 1334 NE KILLINGSWORTH, Portland, Oregon
WHEN: 7PM - 12AM
WHAT: A social with Captured By Porches brew on sale
WHO: Open to everyone, one and all!

WHO AGAIN: Performers!
DJ XIPE TOTEC
Walidah Imarisha
Rob Los Ricos
plus special guests!

Come out and support the Anarchist/Autonomous People Of Color movement!

WHY: The first ever Northwest Anarchist/Autonomous People of Color Gathering is happening this weekend as well (open to people of color only
- email northwestapoc@yahoo.com for more information about the gathering) and we’re having a benefit to raise money for it, and the 2009 National APOC Conference!

***Walidah Imarisha is a poet, journalist and rabble rouser. She is the bad half of the poetry duo Good Sista/Bad Sista, and was one of the editors for the first anthology to be released about Sept. 11 and the aftermath, Another World is Possible. She is one of the founders and first editor of the political hip hop publication AWOL Magazine, and spent six years on the board of the Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors. www.walidah.com

***Rob Los Ricos, Chicano Anarchist and former political prisoner, will also be performing an acoustic set! Rob completed serving a seven-year sentence for his role in a clash between police and protesters during anti-globalization protests in Eugene, Oregon on June 18, 1999. A Chicano and longtime anarchist organizer, he was convicted of rioting and assault with a deadly weapon for allegedly chucking a rock at a cop. www.roblosricos.net

***DJ XIPE TOTEC: Rockin' Revolutionist Regeneration. Playing the what’s fresh in Mexica Hip Hop!

Plus a few groups will be tabling the event!

For more information, email: agonzalez@riseup.net with questions (continue reading &aquo;)

Residential School Apology: An Anarchist View

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 13:31:44 GMT

by Rev, from Linchpin #5

On June 11th 2008, the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, claimed to apologize for residential schools and the government’s plan to destroy the cultures of Indigenous peoples in Canada. This apology came after a similar apology was given to indigenous people in Australia. Residential or boarding schools were part of colonial policy in New Zealand, Australia, the United States and Canada. Harper’s apology talked about the abuses and cultural assimilation of Indigenous peoples in Canada by the Canadian government, especially the forced removal of children from their families. However, there is so much that Harper did not say. What he left out was that the residential schools were just one aspect of colonization.

Residential schools were run by churches, led by the Department of Indian Affairs for most of their existence. They focused on a total approach to assimilation: physical, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual. The Indigenous children stolen from their families were to be made into Canadians by force. The curriculum was created to allow the destruction of Indigenous ways of living on the land. The idea of “killing the Indian and saving the man,” was really about making way for capitalist ways of living on the land. In essence, residential schools aimed at handing over Indigenous land to corporations and turning Indigenous people into workers. Since Canadian society was based on private property while most Indigenous communities held the land in common, residential schools taught skills for private property ownership and taught the values of a capitalist society to the children. In the mind of the churches and the government, the Indigenous person was to become a settler and worker for the ruling class.

The residential schools were first called Manual Labour or Industrial schools and this says a lot about their actual purpose. The schools spent a half day teaching lessons in the classroom, the other half was spent learning trades or housework. The schools aimed to produce workers that were able to be exploited for wages or for their crops. The students were taught to be hard working and obedient like all good white Christian workers. Or in other words, to respect the authority of the church, state and the capitalist bosses. This is the same idea as the workhouse or poorhouse in Europe, to discipline and create the working class.

Authority and fear were central to the goals and methods of the residential schools. Indigenous societies were very free and equal. European society on the other hand used discipline and power to control people. Residential schools used power and violence to train Indigenous peoples to submit to settler society and the figures of authority in it. Indigenous peoples were taught to behave like white people or face punishment, just like all settler children are taught to behave or face punishment. Those who ran residential schools argued that Indigenous parents did not exercise proper authority over their children.

The residential school curriculum tried to destroy Indigenous languages in order to remove the people from the land. Indigenous languages often name an object by what you can use it for. For instance, Cecilia Jeffries Indian Residential School, Kenora, Ontario Picture courtesy of Nishnawbe Aski Nation Residential Schools Project, www.nan.on.ca, The Shingwauk Project plants are often named after what healing properties they offer. The elimination of this knowledge through the teaching of English imposed settler ways of living, because the necessary knowledge to live Indigenous was lost.

Residential Schools also taught sexism and the rule of men over women (patriarchy). Girls were taught to be domestic and remain in the home, while very often Indigenous women had more freedom and could do many jobs outside the home. Women were taught that Christian marriage was right rather than be brought up in a clan system where women’s solidarity and collective power protected women from male oppression. Women were taught to be inferior and this destroyed the backbone of the gender equality in Indigenous societies. This inequality was essential to the development of the working class in all European societies. The production of the Christian nuclear family is the linchpin of capitalist society.

To wrap up, residential schools were a project to spread capitalism. Residential schools were meant to turn Indigenous peoples into settlers and make them workers and peasants for the capitalist system. Harper will never apologize for the real goals of the residential schools. Many Indigenous peoples, such as the Assembly of First Nations, are even scared to admit how colonized they remain. Really discussing decolonization will require the unsettling of capitalism. Recognizing that colonization and capitalism are the same process, shows us that the struggle for Indigenous freedom from the authority of bosses and the government is a natural ally with the anarchist struggle for freedom. (continue reading &aquo;)

LA Social Forum Reportback: "Outreach" or Alliance-Building?

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:43:29 GMT

by Michael Novick, *Anti-Racist Action-LA/People Against Racist Terror
(ARA-LA/PART)*

At the end of June, I participated in the "Los Angeles Social Forum," an attempt to hold a unifying gathering of people from many different movements and organizations in Los Angeles (and other parts of southern California) on the model of the World Social Forum and the first US Social Forum held last year in Atlanta. Those national and international gatherings have attracted large numbers of grassroots organizers from groups that identify with the concept of "civil society." The Atlanta gathering was particularly noteworthy for being predominantly people of color and women, and seemed to signal the emergence of a new generation of activists "in the trenches" of community resistance around issues like gentrification, AIDS, violence against women, Hurricane Katrina, and the war.

But the Los Angeles event did not draw large numbers of local activists, and most of those who participated were from the self-identified left and peace movement. The majority of the large number of workshops scheduled were sponsored by an alphabet-soup of socialist and communist organizations (FSP, RCP, PSL, WWP, ISO, etc.) and a smaller number by various solidarity activists around Latin America and the Middle East and peace groups such as Interfaith Communities United for Peace & Justice (ICUJP) and Iraq Veterans Against War (IVAW). A separate set of workshops were held concurrently under the auspices of the LASF at a different venue, associated with the Center for the Study of Political Graphics' "Prison Nation" poster exhibit. Those workshops, also sparsely attended, focused on criminal justice issues and gang truce work and included organizations such as Homies Unidos, the Youth Justice Coalition, and Families to Amend California's Three Strikes (FACTS).

In the wrap-up discussion, as participants who came to Sunday's "mini-assemblies" and stayed to discuss what the LA Social Forum had accomplished talked, it became clear why the LASF had fallen far short of organizers and participants hopes and dreams. As they summed up their long months of hard work and the small (and demographically narrow) turnout that resulted, organizers repeatedly talked about the need to do more and better "outreach." This is a self-defeating conception of what it would take to achieve an authentic forum of the people currently engaged in community activism around diverse issues such as gentrification and housing, health care, police abuse, prisons, education, migrants' rights and legalization, labor rights and a living wage, and the host of other struggles that are raging in Los Angeles.

The inadequacy of that conception helps explain how so few people would come to a unity-building conference in a city in which hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets on May 1, where recent rallies by families and friends of a few of the 14 or more people killed by the LAPD so far this year have drawn hundreds, where 40,000 teachers and an almost equal number of parents and students took to the streets at every school in the district against budget cuts just 3 weeks prior.

What the peace movement and the self-proclaimed "left" needs is not "more and better outreach," but a fundamental strategic reorientation to grassroots community-based organizing and base-building, and to alliance-building with other social forces who are in motion in this city. Finding allies requires learning about the different communities within this megalopolis and the issues that are of concern to them.

First and foremost in what is essentially a 'third world' city inside the U.S., this means communities of color: people of African descent, Chicano/Mexicano/indigenous people (including migrants and residents from Central America), Asians in all their diversity, (Arabs, Muslims and South Asians as well as Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Khmer and others). Building alliances means paying attention to the intersections of the issues affecting these communities, and the self-organizing that is taking place within them, and the policy issues and protests the (predominantly-'white') left has focused its energies on. But building alliances also means bringing some social weight to the table – not the weight of a self-proclaimed ideological vanguard, but the weight of grass-roots base-building of our own.

The kind of unity the organizers of the LA Social Forum were seeking is possible only on the basis of respect and support for self-determination: acknowledging the right of colonized people to define their own struggles, resistance, priorities and timetables. It is possible only on the basis of mutual solidarity, not charity, but fighting –really fighting—side by side against a common enemy. It requires people in the peace movement and those working for ameliorative social reforms, "clean" money elections, or universal health care to recognize that there is a fundamental and irreconcilable contradiction between the needs of the people and those of the Empire.

Failure to recognize this has led to defeat after defeat, and demoralized many activists and community people. After 40 years of environmentalism, the environment is in such distressed condition that the planetary ability to sustain life as we know it is threatened. After 40 years of prisoners' rights, prison reform, even prison abolitionism, the U.S. now incarcerates
25% of all the prisoners on earth, with no sign of stopping. After decades of peace activism, the U.S. is actively engaged in two land wars in Asia and has a military budget larger than the rest of the planet combined and still growing.

*Calls for "peace and justice" and plans for "more and better outreach" are not enough. The only way to overcome this unadorned litany of "progressive" failure is a self-critical transformation of the weaknesses of elitism, racism, acceptance of the empire's legitimacy and identification with the oppressor that have thwarted our initiatives. *

* *

*What is needed is a commitment to decolonization, and to following the lead of the resistance and liberation struggles of colonized people. *

* *

*Nothing less will do.***
*
*

* *

*[emphasis mine …]* (continue reading &aquo;)

Obama T-Shirt Controversy is False

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:09:23 GMT

By resistance

Hmm … that would make a good category.

The story that’s making the rounds is about a white woman who was accosted by African American teenagers because she was wearing a tee-shirt that reads “Obama is my slave.” It’s embellished with all sorts of details–the “victim” is a 25-year-old graduate student from Manhattan. Oh, and the girls cursed her and pulled the I-Pod buds out of her ears! They spit in her face and pushed and shoved her!

I call bullshit.

The source of this “story” is the person who designs and sells the tee-shirt. He sent out a press release alleging that the woman is going to sue him for the trauma she underwent. In fact, the first thing she did after the attack was contact his store!

And the newspapers have run with the story. Nobody has been able to contact the alleged victim. The account of the attack came solely from the tee-shirt designer.

But the story is just too good, too hot to pass up, I guess. Because it fans the flames. White people often talk about people of color seeing racism where it doesn’t exist. What is less-frequently talked about are the hoaxes in which scary people of color hurt poor unsuspecting white people. Because both of these viewpoints feed into and are reinforced by the majority view.

The Tawana Brawley case is often brought up as an example of how black people use allegations of imaginary racism. But you don’t hear much talk about Charles Stuart or Susan Smith, even though both of those cases are more recent. Stuart, you may recall, claimed black guys abducted and murdered his pregnant wife. Smith claimed black guys abducted her children.

Anyway, the asshole tee-shirt designer is getting his 15 minutes.

Via Resist Racism (continue reading &aquo;)