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Revolution #285 November 18, 2012

BA on Obama

Let's Be Real Here: As Bad As Bush Was,
In Many Ways Obama Is Worse...

October 25, 2012 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

This audio clip is from a recent talk by BA, and is highly relevant going into the elections.

Listen to it, play it for others, and spread it.

Right-click here to download.

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Revolution #285 November 18, 2012

Reflections on What Humanity Needs: Revolution, and the New Synthesis of Communism:

The Critical Importance of Leadership

by Lenny Wolff | November 4, 2012 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

I recently went back over the interview with BA (What Humanity Needs: Revolution, and the New Synthesis of Communism). This interview is extraordinarily wide-ranging. It deeply explores questions involved in bringing forward new initiators of a new stage of communism; the new synthesis of communism; questions of strategy; culture; science and morality; the "head and the heart"; and other really critical questions. And it explores all these from many different angles, from the most world-historical to the personal.

I started this particular reading of the interview with an intention to deepen my grasp of its sweep and depth "in its own right." But as I read, I was struck by its direct relevance to some particular problems that the movement for revolution (and those working to lead it forward) confront right now. So I wanted to pull out and highlight, and comment on, a few things that struck me in that light. I'm not trying here to speak to the whole interview, and it would definitely be wrong to reduce the interview to these points—but, as I said, a few points did strike me with particular impact about some of the problems confronting the movement for revolution. The stakes right now are very high and, one way or another, what revolutionaries do in this period will be pivotal to whether we break through the "tough spot" we face—and not breaking through is not an option. So I'm raising all this in a spirit of a hard, scientific look at some trends and tendencies in our work that pull against our breaking through, and of drawing all that we can from what is a very rich piece by BA.

As I was reading through the interview, I thought of a question posed to me by another comrade: do we realize that in everything we do, we have to be leading people? Not just getting them to do this or that particular thing, or to have a conversation about this or that particular point or topic... but actually leading them to engage with, contribute to and be part of building the movement for revolution. Struggling with people, and learning from them as well...and doing all of it as part of something larger. As I went through the interview, not only was BA talking about leadership—in fact, this is a major explicit theme that weaves through the whole interview, and I want to get to that shortly—but he was also providing a model in this.

In talking about this with another comrade, she said well, leadership is line. That's true—but what is line?

Here I want to draw on something that has struck me every time I've read the interview. At one point, in a really rich answer to a question by Brooks on the importance of line, BA notes that, "Line is the application of a world outlook and method to reality. It's a probing of reality and the drawing together and synthesizing of the lessons that are learned from probing reality."

I want to focus on that phrase "probing reality." BA does this in the interview, throughout. Look, for example, at the question that Brooks raises, referring to what someone said on the contrast between the '60s and today, in the section "Resistance... and Revolution." What's BA's approach here? First off, he's doing deep listening—he's thinking about the reality behind Brooks' question, and then he's looking at that reality from different angles... he's using line to probe the reality beneath the question. It's not just "here's where you're right, here's where you're wrong"... or "here's where we agree and here's where we don't, so let's move on." It's not a canned answer taken off the shelf of a set of positions. It's a real exploration of, yes, objective reality—one which fleshes out the contradictory forces and directions of the two different periods under discussion, explores how these played out and still play out in a number of different dimensions, examines how other developments entered into the process, and really fleshes out the dynamics of how things have developed over time and why they did. From there—from that probing of reality—he goes to both the challenges we confront and what we actually have going for us in confronting those challenges. And because it's a fully present, in-the-moment consideration, and because the pulse of life that beats within the abstractions is kept in mind, there's a real freshness to it—new ways of looking at the question, new insights are unearthed. In other words, there's a deep probing and, on that basis, a real synthesis.

You can see this method throughout the interview¹, and you can see it in other things too. It's in the questions and answers at the end of the Revolution Talk, for instance—listen again, for instance, to the answer on whether Black people should receive reparations for slavery and the oppression that has followed slavery. Or listen to the recent interview with BA done by Cornel West.

Over and over: probing reality, and synthesis. I'm stressing this because I think that all too often, in practice, a lot of us treat line as if it were a static set of ideas that we bring forward against other sets of ideas (or else, sometimes, as a set of ideas that we don't bring forward because they may "get in the way" of a particular objective!). There's no life to that. And there's no real leadership involved in that either.

This emphasis on probing reality relates to another major theme of the interview—being scientific in our approach, letting other people in on this scientific method, and struggling for that method. Popularizing the scientific method, demystifying it, and explicitly posing it against other methods. I wonder how often, when we're wrangling with someone and they're clearly basing themselves on another method—post-modernism, or religion, or pragmatism, or whatever—I wonder how often we say, "hey, that's not quite scientific" and explain why and then work things through with them with a scientific approach. This has always been a hallmark of BA, but it's extremely striking in the interview—and it's something that, again, I think we could all stand a little self-interrogation on.

(And I mean self-interrogation, and not self-cultivation or self-criticism—I mean going into shortcomings in how we too often come at things precisely in order to do better. I found this part of the interview very important in this regard:

Look, we're all gonna make errors, we're all gonna make mistakes. You can't do anything in the world of consequence, and you certainly can't engage in any major undertaking—and especially one which is trying to transform the whole of human society and the whole relations of people in the world, up against such powerful entrenched forces—there's absolutely no way in the world that you're gonna take very many steps, let alone carry out that whole process, and not make mistakes. The point is: do you learn from your mistakes, do you learn to learn more quickly and more thoroughly from your mistakes, do you honestly confront your mistakes, do you sum them up, and do you let other people know—do you popularize your understanding of the mistakes you made and why you made them, and enable other people to learn from your mistakes? That's the key thing. Because everybody's gonna make mistakes, okay?)

Again, this theme of leadership runs through the entire interview, right from the beginning with the doctor-patient analogy. But here I want to draw on one very pithy way that it's put toward the end of the interview, where BA is speaking to "the heart and essence of communist leadership." It's not, he says, "providing tactical advice in a particular circumstance or particular struggle, even though that may be something that people need to do, and it can be an important element of what they do." Then he goes on to say:

[T]he heart of it is actually implementing "Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution"—is actually bringing forward all of the things we've talked about in terms of enabling people to get a real understanding, scientifically grounded, of the larger picture that any particular thing fits into. What is the overall foundation and framework in which all these things are occurring? What is, to put it simply again, the problem and solution: what do all these outrages stem from; what are they all rooted and grounded in; what do we need to do to uproot and eliminate all this, and how do we actually build the movement to do that? All that is the essence of communist leadership, whatever level of a party, or whatever part you play in the division of labor of a party, as part of a revolutionary communist vanguard.

Think about that for a minute. This is not to say that particular things don't need to be done. But are we putting them in the "overall foundation and framework in which all these things are occurring" and which in fact actually determines their significance? Sometimes people will hunger for this. And sometimes it will be quite contentious. All too often, it seems, we let others set the terms on what IS the overall foundation and framework, and then we try to come at things from within those terms. Now it is not about "our framework vs. their framework"—as if these are two different, equally subjective narratives. It is about what is objectively real, and which framework corresponds to that. To return to the quote: "What is, to put it simply again, the problem and solution: what do all these outrages stem from; what are they all rooted and grounded in; what do we need to do to uproot and eliminate all this, and how do we actually build the movement to do that?" We have an understanding of that, we have a method and approach to deepen that understanding, we have a way to listen and go back-and-forth with people without losing that grounding and, indeed, for that very grounding to enrich it—but we have to lead with that.

This is not just a question of whether we do this when we talk with others, important as that is. There is in fact a more fundamental question to pose to ourselves: are we going back to what is said about the "overall foundation and framework" in our own approach to everything we do, to every objective we undertake? And when we do lead others in (very important) objectives—do we understand all that as being part of, and on that basis something that has to be knit into, a larger process, or do we mentally separate these off from that larger context? And, as one comrade recently pointed out in a discussion we had of this, if we don't consciously synthesize these objectives and activities into a larger picture, including how all these relate to preparing people to wage the all-out struggle for revolution when the situation emerges in which that can be done as the next major leap in emancipating humanity... and if we don't weave these together as part of a movement which contains many diverging threads and strands but is all forming a tapestry leading to revolution... then all this work will spontaneously and inevitably be synthesized into "just another part of the current scene"—that is, just another part of the ongoing permanent necessity the masses face. Now I definitely don't want to reduce the whole discussion of leadership in the interview, and even in this section, to just this point: but... again... are we doing this? And if we're not doing this, to quote Joe Veale from a few months back, what ARE we doing?

This leads to yet another important point to compare and contrast on: winning. This comes in at a number of points—and it grounds the whole interview—but here I want to highlight a particular point where BA has just emphasized the fact that what we represent really DOES objectively represent what humanity needs, and that what we're fighting against really IS utterly reactionary, cruel, needless, and, yes, evil. This is an important point of principle to deeply get and to fight for. "But, then," he goes on to say, "the 'good guys' have to win."

We have to actually make this real. If we don't win, if we don't break through, first here and then there—and then, if we're set back, learn from that and go forward again with a new stage and a new wave of this revolution, and eventually get to the point where the imperialists are cornered and holed up in a few parts of the world, and then eventually they're swept away entirely—if we don't do that, then the suffering of the masses of people, the things we were just talking about that we should feel real outrage and passion about, are gonna continue; it may be in some new forms, but they're gonna continue. And the future of humanity is gonna be threatened in an even more acute way through what's happening—what this system is doing to the environment, for example, as well as through the wars that these ruling classes wage, directly or through proxies, or whatever—and they have these nuclear arsenals, and all the rest of it. If we don't sweep all that away and not allow them to destroy humanity in the process, then it ultimately doesn't matter that we're the "good guys." It matters, but in the final analysis it doesn't matter if we don't win.

Let's really sit with that for a minute. It's important to be right and it's important to actually BE "the good guys." But... it ultimately doesn't matter if we don't win. It's important to do the work ourselves to understand and ground ourselves in how everything we're doing is part of politically transforming the terrain and accumulating forces that could actually lead a revolution... that could actually win... and it's absolutely critical that we imbue others with this understanding. Otherwise, what's the point?

Now BA never loses sight—and he never lets others lose sight—of what it means NOT to win. The acute sense of what it means to let this system keep running—that's always there, in a living painful way, in the interview and in everything else. These are REAL PEOPLE being put on the rack every single day, by the billions. But he also never loses sight of the scientific basis for masses of people to defeat this. There IS a way out... and a way to win. Not a guarantee, not something that won't require a whole lot more work and struggle and mind-wrenching thinking... but a way. A possibility—a real possibility.

This is first of all a point of orientation for communists: is this what we are about? Is this what we are grappling with? Is this part of the "whole larger picture" that we ourselves are living in and thinking about—or is it off to the side? This is a "prove-it-all-night" question and, first of all, for us.  But then there's the relationships we're building: are we not just telling people that this is important, but actually showing them how everything is fitting into that—into getting closer to the time when we can actually lead people to deal with all that? Not in a silly way or a way that could unwittingly open us up to distortion ... but are we making the effort to consciously situate everything, in our own thinking and the thinking of others, "from the revolution back." Another way to think about this: do we think about things from the standpoint of leaders of a future socialist state, and leaders of a revolution to get to that state? Do we exude that? It's not a gimmick; it's a question of basic approach. When people meet us, they should come away not only having heard a compelling case for why we need a revolution, but with a real sense that this party is taking responsibility to lead that and has a real grounded sense of how to go about it ... AND that there is a role for them in this revolution, a place for their thinking and suggestions, room for them to probe reality, and a need for them to get on into it, at whatever level of understanding and agreement they're at now.

If we DO understand and do this, then it should not be difficult to instill in the people we work with and lead the feeling that this work has real purpose and direction. I think the way in which the statement on strategy is paraphrased in the interview is important—it's a very basic and simple principle that everyone we're working with should understand, and see themselves in:

While we're reaching and influencing millions, thousands can be and need to be brought forward, oriented, trained, and organized in a revolutionary communist way and enabled to actively struggle for the objectives of this revolution. And, when the time comes that there is a much deeper and broader crisis in society that reaches objectively revolutionary proportions—when the ruling class really has much greater difficulty ruling in the way they've ruled, and masses of people in the millions and millions, and tens of millions, don't want to and, in an active sense, are increasingly refusing to, live in the old way—then that core of thousands can, in turn, influence, can bring into the revolutionary movement, on many different levels, and can lead the millions and tens of millions who are refusing to live in the old way, and are actively seeking radical change.

Yes, this involves struggle. People do not spontaneously see that larger picture, they do not spontaneously see where their activity fits into the whole movement for revolution and how it is transforming society and to what end, they don't spontaneously approach things scientifically (indeed, as BA points out early on, the whole question of whether society can even be approached scientifically is a hotly debated one). Even when they are drawn to revolution, they face all the resistance of society at large—the constant saturation of anticommunism, the constant attacks on the humanity of the masses, and the way in which all that has broad influence right now. And communists themselves, by the way, are subject to the same pulls on this as everyone else and also have to struggle against spontaneity.²

This struggle is a living process. It is itself scientific—or it must be scientifically approached and grounded—and not religious ("spontaneity, get thee behind me"). It is a question of a solid core, with a lot of elasticity, and those two aspects in constant dialectical interplay.

This kind of struggle actually deepens unity and should strengthen our relationships with people. Listen again to the interview of BA by Cornel West, where different outlooks and methods are clearly delineated, and this leads to the ground for unity being more clearly identified (and further strengthened and vitalized), while the areas for further grappling and wrangling are more clearly understood. It's not as if people have to be united with some checklist of points to be involved in this process—again, drawing from the interview:

Even people who may not agree with or may not know that much about the new synthesis of communism, for example—many, many people, thousands and thousands of people—can get actively involved in and be motivated to be part of helping to project this into all corners of society. They can find their own level, so to speak—as long as the way is provided for them to find their own level—to participate in that, with that kind of contradiction in their own understanding, and in their own approach.

That is one very important aspect of, at one and the same time, dealing with unity and contradiction, which is a lot of what you have to do in building the movement for revolution. There are different levels and different forms in which people can unite to fight oppression—to fight the power, to put it that way—even while they have disagreements about how to wage that fight, let alone about the bigger context and framework into which that fits.

- - -

I hope these points spark further grappling with the interview in its own right—which, as I said at the beginning, encompasses and speaks to quite a bit more than the themes I've chosen to focus on here... and further application of the interview to the pressing problems faced by the movement for revolution in both this and other very crucial spheres. In looking back through the interview as I'm wrapping this letter up, I see all kinds of points and passages that would be relevant to go back and put in, but this is the middle of a process, not the end, so I think I'll leave it here... for now.

1. To include just one, particularly striking instance of this approach to line, from a discussion toward the end of the interview on the new synthesis of communism:

I mean, what is represented by communism—and specifically the new synthesis of communism—is actually scientifically analogous to that [earlier an analogy had been made to a cure for "a massive epidemic which is causing horrific suffering"]. It is the way forward. It is not some magic solution. It's a scientific approach to forging the way forward. It has answered—or spoken in a significant way to—some real problems. At the same time, it has posed new questions, identified new contradictions that have to be confronted, which weren't seen as clearly before. And it's an ongoing process of discovering, confronting and transforming different aspects of reality that have to be transformed, in order to achieve the emancipation of humanity. That's what it is. That's why we put it forward. And that's why we struggle to let people know about it and to win them to engage it seriously—and, yes, to take it up—because that's exactly what it embodies and represents. It is analogous to a way to deal with a very serious epidemic. There is an epidemic in which the mass of humanity is suffering terribly, as constituted under this capitalist-imperialist system, and there is a way forward—not a magic wand to wave to solve all problems, but a means for forging a way forward on a higher level than before, as a result of this new synthesis that's been brought forward. [back]

2. In this regard, I want to particularly refer people to a passage in the very trenchant section "Particular Outrages, Particular Struggles, and the Overall Movement for Revolution":

And once you get that [communist] level of understanding—and, yes, it's a process and not a "once and for all" thing—but, once you make the leap to getting that basic understanding and grounding, then it's a question of continually struggling to remain grounded and to get continually more deeply grounded in that understanding, and to apply it in a living way to all the different particular aspects of building the movement for revolution—all the different spheres of struggle, be they cultural, ideological, or political, over major social questions or, as we were talking about earlier, over questions which, at first at least, don't seem to be major social questions but then, perhaps unexpectedly, become that. Now, for communists, like everyone else, there is the pull of what dominates in society. There is the pull of the putrid, revolting culture, ideology, and morals that you have to continually struggle against, not just individually but collectively, together with others. There is the political pull to seeing things in isolation from the overall and larger picture, and into simply being concerned with one particular form or manifestation of the oppressive nature of this system—losing sight of the larger picture into which this particular form fits. That is a constant pull on people. And there is a need—again, not just for individuals on their own, but together, collectively, with growing numbers of people—for struggle to continually loft all of our sights back up to the larger standpoint of seeing the whole picture and proceeding, with regard to any particular aspect of things, any particular part of the struggle, with this whole broad understanding in mind and as the constant guide in what we're doing. This all has to be built as part of preparing the ground for, and getting to the point where, when the objective conditions ripen, we can actually lead millions and millions of people to make this revolution we're talking about, to actually sweep away this system, to defeat and dismantle its repressive institutions, and bring into being new revolutionary institutions that really do serve the interests of the masses of people, and back them up in carrying forward the struggle to continue transforming society, to support others in the world waging the same struggle, and to help people see the need in other parts of the world to wage this struggle more and more consciously toward the common goal of a communist world. [back]

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Revolution #285 November 18, 2012

At a Critical Time...

Sustain Revolution!

October 28, 2012 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

In a world of vicious exploitation, brutal oppression, and environmental devastation, a new stage of the communist revolution, based on Bob Avakian's new synthesis of communism, is fighting to be born. And one essential component of that happening is that Revolution newspaper and revcom.us have the financial resources to survive!

But Revolution/Revolución does not have the financial base to continue to operate—in print or online. That is a situation which must change right away.

A big part of the solution: forging—with creativity and determination—a network of sustainers, people who contribute money to Revolution and revcom.us on a regular basis. Without this network of sustainers, Revolution will not continue to publish—in print or online—and what a disaster that would be! On the other hand, a vibrant, vital network of sustainers will literally sustain this paper and website. That network will itself be part of preparing the ground for revolution. For a full picture of how this can happen, and the role of Revolution within that, see "On the Strategy for Revolution" at revcom.us.

So, it starts with YOU. If you're not a financial sustainer of Revolution, make arrangements with your local distributor to change that NOW. And with those who get, in the fullest sense, what difference this newspaper and website mean to the world at the core of the effort, we should all reach out to many others who are inspired by this new website and Revolution newspaper—from their own perspectives. And we should struggle with and win them to be regular financial sustainers.

Last issue, we called for focused activity in October to forge a network of financial sustainers for the paper and the website. Get together with others to take stock of how this is going—measured against the urgent need to accomplish it. Send us your experiences, and tell us why you are sustaining Revolution.

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Revolution #285 November 18, 2012

From A World to Win News Service

Behind the Marikana Massacre and the Wave of "Illegal" Strikes in South Africa's Mines

November 18, 2012 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

November 5, 2012. A World to Win News Service. The cold-blooded murder of 34 striking miners at the Lonmin platinum mine near Rustenburg, in the country's Northwest Province on August 16, sent shockwaves around the world. The international media was incredulous that such a thing could occur in what is often touted as Africa's star democracy, 18 years after the end of apartheid was negotiated.

While violent deaths of poor blacks are still very common in South Africa, where the gap between rich and poor is one of the highest on the planet, this was a massacre by special forces very likely acting on orders from the top of the African-National Congress-led (ANC) state in a planned military-style operation.

Even before the accusations and counter-accusations began to unfold, together with the discovery that many miners were shot in the head or back at close range that day, it was difficult to avoid a flood of memories of the repressive apartheid state machine, for which assassination and gunning down blacks as a form of "crowd control" were a key pillar of white minority rule until 1994.

I. What Happened at Marikana?

Accounts of what happened at Marikana vary widely, and that is part of the drama behind the August 16 massacre.¹ The previous week, on August 10, a contingent of miners marched to the local office of the National Union of Mineworkers in Marikana to demand that the NUM take up their call for a strike. These workers, mainly men, work 800 to 1,000 meters underground and earn between 4,000 and 6,000 South African rand (ZAR) ($480 to $730 U.S.D.) net per month. Their primary demand was a wage increase to 12,500 ZAR ($1400) a month gross, but years of exploitation, dangerous working conditions, very poor living conditions and frustration all combined to erupt in the form of a wildcat strike.

The NUM rebuffed them, reportedly by insisting they return to work and go through the proper collective bargaining procedures under its auspices. Later many eyewitnesses described in detail how several armed NUM officials came out of their offices to break up the march and fired on the workers, killing two of them. From there tensions escalated and so did the strike. On August 13 police shot at a group of strikers walking to another Lonmin mine nearby to enlist the support of workers there. The police killed two or three workers, while the workers reportedly killed two policemen with their traditional weapons.

Led by 3,000 men, mostly rock drill operators, miners occupied the small rocky hills called koppies near the Marikana mine, where they spent several days and nights, meeting and planning the strike, singing struggle songs, wooden sticks in the air. They refused to talk with local NUM leaders and mine management refused to negotiate with them.

As one person summarized events that week before the massacre, "Mine owners called in the nyalas (armored police vehicles), and police were beating up people in the settlements. NUM officials were collaborating with the police and the strikers chased the NUM shop-steward types out of the townships. The strikers banded together for protection." During the skirmishes that week two security guards were also killed in a nearby mine village, as part of 10 deaths that preceded the massacre.

The national SA police spokesman announced that August 16 was going to be "D-day." Lonmin's representative constantly repeated on TV that the strike was illegal and the company wouldn't meet with "criminals." On August 16, a South African Council of Churches delegation tried to negotiate the conflict but Lonmin management refused to meet with them also. Just as the church delegation was leaving the area they heard bursts of gunfire. They got a cell phone call from one of the strikers who asked, "Where are you? They are shooting us." Then the phone line went dead.

Heavily armed special forces—including a Tactical Reaction Unit, a National Intervention Unit, a Special Task Force and regular police—backed up by 62 armored vehicles set up a razor wire barrier in front of the largest hill. As the miners came down, apparently planning to return to the settlement, police opened fire with automatic weapons amid a cloud of tear gas that partially obscured their assault. In a matter of minutes, 34 miners lay dead. This was the scene shown in the initial video of the shootings broadcast around the world.

Some reports say that the police vehicles then rolled over and crushed the bodies of those who hadn't died instantly. It was revealed later that most of the 34 who died were not killed in the initial attack filmed on video. A different story emerged after journalists and activists went to the scene and spoke directly with survivors and their families and filmed the blood on the rocks on two smaller koppies. While helicopters fired tear gas from above to immobilize other groups of miners hiding on the back side of the main hill, police also attacked on foot, approaching one after another of the miners and apparently killing them at point blank range. Some witnesses testified that several men were also shot through the head from the circling helicopters.

Police rapidly collected cell phones to get numbers and identities of strikers. A young miner who escaped death had found the phone of his friend crushed by a police vehicle. When he opened his hand, there was nothing but a flattened piece of metal.

In addition to the murdered miners, more than 80 were injured and 279 were arrested, 150 of whom said they were beaten in custody.

According to Lonmin management, 95 percent of its 28,000 mineworkers didn't report for work.

Who is responsible? Because of the intense political fall-out, this is a question that the ANC government and its institutions and organizations are ducking even after officially defending the police. A Commission of Inquiry is under way. Much of the controversy hovers around the way in which the massacre went down and the lies, cover-up and political stakes nationally and internationally, but also the justice of the demands of these platinum miners or whether they were being "too greedy," as one headline screamed.

The militant confrontation with big corporate mine owners, the police, the ANC government and its unions ignited a wave of strikes not just across South Africa's platinum belt, but in gold, chrome and iron ore mines as well. An estimated 80,000-100,000 mineworkers in at least a dozen companies have gone on strike for varying durations between August 10 and early November. But the contagion spread further. Thousands of truck drivers quickly followed suit in a three-week union-backed strike and in KwaZulu-Natal Province 3,800 clothing workers, paid below the minimum, demanded a "living wage." Apparently nearly 200,000 government employees also threatened to walk out, their union said.

Originally the conflict in Marikana was presented as just a turf war between rival unions, but as the story began to unravel, not just the repression but the politics of the ANC and its national trade union confederation (COSATU, which includes the National Union of Mineworkers) came under attack. Because NUM, the dominant union in the mines since the ANC took power, did not support the miners' strike, the workers quickly cast aside NUM's authority. As a result, a section of its membership shifted to the independent Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU) and refused to talk to NUM. COSATU, the ANC and the South African Communist Party (SACP), all part of the ruling tri-partite political alliance, at first condemned the "violent illegal strike," calling it the work of "anarchists" (i.e. non-ANC). As one activist remarked, "NUM is 'king of the hill' inside COSATU," so this rebellion sent tremors throughout the ANC alliance.

The massacre provoked immediate and widespread outrage throughout the country and the world. People from every social class and in every corner of the country have been debating the massacre, the strikes and the media coverage. Initially murder charges were brought against the arrested miners, employing an old apartheid "common purpose" law under which they were held responsible for the deaths of their own comrades at the hands of the police, but the National Prosecuting Authority quickly dropped them after a national and international outcry. In some cities as well as in the Rustenburg area solidarity demonstrations were held.

The ANC was losing sleep over threats to its legitimacy, its image and frankly, its future. Along with investors, it kept a worried eye on the stock exchange, where precious metals dipped. Stock prices jumped back up again when both sides in the strike reached an uneasy settlement a few weeks later.

II. Life for Miners in the Platinum Belt

A large number of the platinum miners—and of these strikers—are migrant laborers from poor rural areas of the Eastern Cape Province, those ethnically segregated reserves for the black population known as bantustans under apartheid rule. Many funerals were held in the former Transkei and it was reported that the common language of the strikers was Xhosa rather than Tswana, spoken in the Northwest Province where the mines are. Partially to get around labour laws, mine owners often hire workers through centralized labor brokers rather than directly. This practice drives down wages and expectations and preys on the highly vulnerable unemployed rural poor from outside the area, partly in order to foster divisions among workers.

Those hired by labor brokers often don't get benefits or allowances for housing or healthcare. Many miners can't afford to live even in the more established black townships nearby because they must send money home each month to support their families in the rural areas—the reason they travelled so far to get a job in the first place. So they have little choice but to live in the hated single-sex mine hostels or in dense settlements of shacks. Many shacks don't even have windows for fear of being robbed. One miner at Lonmin who buried his brother back in the Eastern Cape after the massacre, said he and his father, also a miner, support 18 people back home between them.

Two days before the shootings a report released by the Bench Marks Foundation, an NGO of the SA Council of Churches, detailed the still appalling living conditions of platinum miners and warned that if they weren't improved further uprisings were likely. Sanitation is terrible and clean water often not available, partly due to environmental pollution caused by the mines. Townships and informal settlements sprawl around the stark, dry landscape, in sharp contrast to the multi-billion dollar operations around Rustenburg, with high-tech security and CCTV monitors to control theft by miners.

Even if mine wages have increased since the days of apartheid, daily life for miners remains hard and dangerous. Safety hazards are many, from falling rocks to high noise and temperature levels. The constant exposure to fumes and platinum dust over time often results in permanent skin and respiratory complications associated with a disease called platinosis. If you add in the reality of non-existent or chronically under-serviced health facilities and extremely rudimentary living conditions, it's not a job to envy. Yet at least it is a job, in a country where unemployment is more than 25 percent, often reaching more than 70 percent in the former bantustans, which are easy recruiting grounds for labor brokers.

Social conditions are intolerable too and women bear much of the brunt. One miner told a reporter, "There's nothing to do here but work, get drunk and use prostitutes." Speaking in front of the dusty shack settlement outside the mine shafts where she lives, one unemployed woman in the area, also from the Eastern Cape, said that although she passed the entrance test for the mine, she was not hired because she refused to provide sexual services in return and didn't have the money for a bribe to be put on the hiring list. She also recounted how many men didn't want their wives or girlfriends to work underground "because they know what goes on down there."

III. The Imperialist Mine Owners and the ANC-Led State

These conditions are not so different from those suffered by miners working for mainly international mineral extraction companies during long decades of apartheid and settler colonialism. At the same time, semi-protective labor laws have now been passed.

South Africa's mines are and always have been a key artery to the imperialist world. Exploitation of minerals and the forced harnessing of black labor to work the mines through accelerated land dispossession and colonial tax laws began back in the 1860s with the discovery of gold and diamonds. Platinum, used primarily in automobile catalytic converters, but also jewelry, was discovered only in the 1920s in the Northwest. Three giant mining corporations—Anglo American Platinum (Amplats),² Lonmin and Impala Platinum (Implats) operate dozens of shafts in the Northwest Province, where 80 percent of the world's platinum is mined.

These groups mainly comprising international capital have added a few hand-picked black businessmen and women to their boards. Their participation in shareholding was financed in large part by the mining companies themselves to fulfil racial diversity expectations. And the role of the mainly black ruling party, the ANC, has been key in facilitating the slightly modernized exploitation of South Africa's raw materials since the end of white minority rule.

Picture this example: Lonmin, the world's number three platinum producer, has a license issued by the SA government to run its operations until 2037, renewable until 2067. Who sits on their board as a "non-executive" director? Cyril Ramaphosa, a long-standing ANC "comrade" and prominent member of its National Executive Committee, its highest leading organ. As a representative of the bridge between the ANC and the private sector, he was a top contender to become the ANC's presidential candidate in 2009 before Jacob Zuma was chosen instead. Ramaphosa used to head up the NUM and helped build the COSATU federation under the ANC's wing. He became one of South Africa's handful of black super-rich, derogatorily called "Black Diamonds" created through the Black Economic Empowerment program that aimed to promote black-owned businesses. That scheme enabled him to invest in land and build up his own investment holding company with shares in resources (minerals), financial services, property, infrastructure, energy and food and beverages.

So behind the Marikana massacre, you can connect the dots of the kind of populist bourgeois democracy that reliably serves imperialist interests and national capitalists alike (some black, but mostly still white): brutal repression carried out by the state's special police forces; ANC political leaders with direct financial interests in mining; ANC-led unions fighting with independent ones and trying to dissuade mineworkers from striking for higher wages while signing a "peace agreement" with management (which most strikers refused to recognize); and, from the central government, a warning from the Public Enterprises minister that prolonged labor unrest will undermine investor confidence and lead to losses in jobs.

In other words, while the lion's share of profits are going to Lonmin's imperialist pockets and while they and other corporate interests are by far the major players in the industry, the collaborative political role of the ANC government and its direct and indirect linkages with the private sector—still mainly in white hands—provide the necessary lubricant for this capitalist machine to properly function. In addition, the populist face of the ANC in power laments and "empathizes with" the deep inequalities that blacks continue to suffer from the colonial past and offers reform salves for these wounds. When it came to governance in 1994 the ANC pledged to eliminate poverty, unemployment and racial injustice, redress white monopoly land ownership and provide universal education, healthcare and other services—all without uprooting the system that causes all this misery. Although this social reform plan has been nuanced somewhat over time, such promises were at the heart of the ANC's Redistribution and Development Program, or RDP, merged into a neo-liberal framework.

But very little has changed for the poor in South Africa since 1994, especially in the countryside. The ANC-led state has not been able to re-wire capitalist growth for the benefit of the oppressed black population, nor did its neo-liberalizing economists ever really believe this was possible. If anything, alongside the new black middle class, especially visible in the cities, the gap between rich and poor has grown.

Social discontent took root long ago. This recent strike wave among miners followed a series of public sector strikes. After numerous police crackdowns and a couple of deaths, service delivery protests subsided in some areas, only to pop off again in others. In September 2012 workers hired by one of the large labor broker companies targeted a local power station, burning buses and other vehicles. Following numerous demonstrations against cuts in education, technical school campuses in Pretoria were closed in August 2012 as students blocked entrances with burning tires and boycotted classes to protest the lack of accommodation and financial aid. Although organized social movements and protests tend to be issue-oriented with their ups and downs, different forms of this malaise can be seen almost everywhere in South Africa, spanning different political viewpoints, social expectations and understandings of the system and the state.

The ANC's triangular political alliance (ANC-SACP-COSATU) plays an important role in helping the state stabilize an otherwise potentially much more volatile black population which expected not just more services and infrastructure but a major change in the whole social order that would be different from apartheid.

The South African Communist Party, formerly a pro-Soviet party, set its sails towards the West and accepted aid and sponsorship from several imperialist countries when state capitalism in the Soviet Union collapsed. Now they debate the shortcomings of the capitalist system as a close ally of the ANC in power, helping to preside over this murderous and unjust system that was flexible enough to do away with formal apartheid laws and give black people the right to vote in 1994. Through its writings the SACP also continues to try to lend theoretical and political substance to a hollow national liberation program that in reality always represented little more than an agenda for political compromise and sharing power within the existing bourgeois state—exactly what the masses got.

Although it was the defiant, decades-long struggle of the people that brought apartheid to its knees, and the ANC was part of the anti-apartheid movement, there was no revolution of any kind in 1994. The power-sharing deal between the ANC and the ruling apartheid National Party was the outcome of lengthy negotiations brokered by the West. Many of those South Africans who bought into the demagogy and helped build the trade unions today deeply resent what they see as its betrayal.

Now the political forces grouped around the ANC are feeling the sting of public opinion reacting to the Marikana massacre from a variety of points of view. In an editorial following the massacre, after tracing the history of exploitation of black workers in South Africa, the SACP deputy secretary-general expressed his indignation that charges of "authoritarianism" were being directed against such a democratic state with such a democratic constitution. He pleaded with people not to "demonize" the alliance because of the Marikana events.

The political cracks in the ANC's rule are widening and its true nature as servants of the parasitic capitalist class has been made more visible to many. As one observer commented, "People see COSATU-ANC as part of the same system that is oppressing them and are protecting the capitalist interests. Not just in the mines. Those people have become oppressors themselves. It's taken a number of years for people to see it but as time moves on, the interests of these black capitalists will also become clearer to them."

Naturally opposition parties are lapping up every false step of the ANC government for their own potential gain, constantly repeating charges of corruption and inept administration. And all is not well within the ANC alliance itself, which the Marikana massacre has further strained. As the ANC heads into its national congress in December 2012 that will decide whether to continue with Jacob Zuma or replace him, factions are vying over how to revitalize its posture for more social reform while pushing ahead with the neoliberal agenda and what it requires.

One rift involves Julius Malema, former leader of the ANC youth league who was recently kicked out of the party and is now facing prosecution for money laundering. Fist in the air, he also jumped into the miners' conflict as a platform for his dispute with the ANC leadership. A favorite distraction for the South African media, Malema (renown for, among other exploits, eating sushi off half-naked women's bellies at an ANC nightclub), has his own ambitions in national politics, so his timely denunciation of Zuma's "handling of the crisis" boosted his following, at least temporarily, particularly among ANC youth.

IV. Tensions Continue to Run High

With the murders and funerals of their comrades hanging heavily in the air, miners rejected several wage offers that did not meet their demands for 12,500 ZAR/month during more than four weeks of negotiations and continued skirmishes with the police, reinforced by army troops in Marikana, sent to prevent further political meetings and demonstrations. On September 18 Lonmin finally agreed to an unprecedented 22 percent wage increase. That gave rock drill operators 11,078 ZAR³ ($12,275) per month before numerous deductions, and general miners 9,611 ZAR, up from 8,164 ZAR. Most Lonmin miners returned to work two days later.

A planned four-month-long inquiry has begun and more ugly details of this mass execution are likely to emerge. But not without a struggle. On November 2 strike leaders who had presented initial testimony and were returning to their township were stopped by a police barricade. Lawyers reported that police put a hood over their heads and told them that if they talked they would be shot.

The Lonmin settlement came far too late to stop the spark to many other platinum mines, as well as chrome, iron ore, and especially gold mines.

In particular, after the massacre 15,000 miners at Gold Fields' KDC West shaft sent the NUM packing in a dramatic sequel to Marikana, demanding similar wage increases. They were followed shortly afterwards by 24,000 miners at AngloGold Ashanti. On November 2 that company announced it was suspending its operations at two mines. More than 8,000 of the striking workforce at KDC East were then fired, and dismissal appeals are pending.

Twelve thousand striking workers from four Anglo American Platinum (Amplats) mines in Rustenburg have been out for seven weeks and are still refusing to return without a hefty wage increase. In an effort to get tough, to "draw a line in the sand" and break miners' will and expectations after the Lonmin deal, management dismissed them all, before offering to reinstate them later in the month; some speculate that this is to wipe out benefits built-up and avoid severance pay. Strikers marched on NUM offices to withdraw their membership and on October 30 instead of returning to work they built barricades with rocks, logs and burning tyres, blocking fire engines and confronting a police helicopter, water cannons and several armoured vehicles. A power sub-station was set on fire at the Khuseleka shaft in Rustenburg and the NUM office was also targeted. "We won't go to work until we get what we want," one miner said. "Our kids have been shot at, our families have been terrorized and brutalized, but we are not going back to work."

Footnotes

1. The article "Hunted like Beasts" by investigative photojournalist Greg Marinovich (Daily Maverick, Mail & Guardian) more or less corroborates the brief summary here, based on his and the accounts of several others who went to the Rustenburg area during or after the massacre, spending time at the sites where the miners were killed and collecting stories from eyewitnesses or from those who escaped death that day; much of it has been avoided by the mainstream media because of the pure police terror it implies. [back]

2. Amplats is owned by the infamous conglomerate, Anglo American, whose massive global wealth accumulation is tightly intertwined with its sordid history of exploiting black workers under apartheid rule. [back]

3. Up from 9,063 ZAR before the strike, which after deductions came to between 4-5,000 ZAR. The Mail & Guardian reported that many workers didn't understand their pay slip, it was so confusing. [back]

Sources: Mail & Guardian, Financial Mail, Sunday Times, The Sowetan, Daily Maverick, Bench Marks Foundation, iafrica, Forbes, Lonmin, Amplats, a wide range of political organizations' websites and many other press accounts. Thanks to several comrades who contributed to this article.

A World to Win News Service is put out by A World to Win magazine, a political and theoretical review inspired by the formation of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, the embryonic center of the world's Marxist-Leninist-Maoist parties and organizations.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/285/blood-on-the-border-in-la-joya-en.html

Revolution #285 November 18, 2012

Texas Cops Murder Two Immigrants

Blood on the Border in La Joya

November 18, 2012 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

On October 25, two Texas Parks and Wildlife Rangers reported seeing a "suspicious" truck crossing sparsely populated scrubland near the South Texas town of La Joya, close by the U.S.-Mexico border. They claim the truck driver wouldn't stop for them when ordered to do so.

They began a pursuit, and soon were joined by a helicopter from the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS, i.e., state troopers). The DPS troopers later said a blanket they claimed covered the truck bed confirmed their belief that the truck carried a drug shipment. One of the cops, Miguel Avila, announced that he was going to "shoot out the tires" of the truck. "We have a clear spot," he declared. Avila leaned out the helicopter and began blasting away.

Moments later, two men riding in the truck were dead and another wounded. José Leonardo Coj Cumar, 32, and Marcos Antonio Castro Estrada, 29, were both from the Guatemalan town of San Martín Jilotepeque. They had taken their perilous journey into El Norte in search of work: José's eldest son needed surgery for a badly injured arm; Marcos had two young daughters and a pregnant wife he had difficulty supporting.

Other immigrants in the truck said the police story about a suspected drug shipment was clearly a lie. For one thing, four people were packed into the cab of the truck. The six in back were only partially covered by a blanket. The fact that the truck was carrying people was clearly visible to the cops in the helicopter hovering 400 or so feet above them. Speaking of the cop's story, Alba Caceres, from the Guatemalan consulate in McAllen, Texas, told a reporter that "Neither you nor I believe it."

The immediate response from Texas state officials was cold-blooded, brazen defense of murder. Sid Miller, the Texas state representative who heads the Committee on Homeland Security and Public Safety which oversees the Texas DPS, responded to questions about the shooting this way: "Looks like everything was done according to DPS policy. It's unfortunate some people died, but I guess the lesson is: don't be running from the law. So there will be no hearing." A spokesman for Rick Perry, the Christian fascist governor of Texas and former presidential candidate, also called the incident "unfortunate," and then continued, "But border security continues to be a top priority for Gov. Perry and the people of Texas."

The notoriously violent and racist Texas Rangers conducted an "investigation" into the incident, and have turned over their findings to the FBI and the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. Hidalgo County District Attorney René Guerra also announced a grand jury investigation.

But at this point, no charges have been filed against any of the cops. Miguel Avila is back at work, doing "administrative duty." D.A. Guerra indicated the scope and direction of the official "investigations" and "hearings" when he told reporters, "The only thing that we're discussing is an overview of the incident. They [the Texas Rangers] brought preliminary facts and we are redirecting some areas in the investigation that they have to investigate through their sources and also Parks and Wildlife; just general stuff to set up the incident maps, the layout of the land, that kind of stuff." When a reporter asked Guerra whether charges would be filed against Miguel Avila, Guerra replied, "That's not even under consideration right now."

In fact, the only person facing any criminal penalties in this incident is the 14-year-old driver of the pickup, who has been charged with felony evasion of arrest. The youth has been released to the custody of his grandmother.

In an October 2012 report to the UN titled "Human Rights Violations on the United States-Mexico Border," the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said the U.S. government's militarization of the border and criminalization of immigrants have led to "extensive civil and human rights abuses, including the deaths of more than 5,600 unauthorized border crossers. In addition, at least 18 individuals have died since January 2010 as the result of alleged excessive use of force by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials, including six who were under the age of 21 and five who were U.S. citizens." On October 10 this year, 16-year-old José Antonio Elena Rodríguez of Sonora, Mexico was shot dead by Border Patrol agents while he was in Mexico, for allegedly throwing rocks onto the U.S. side of the line. These killings are an expression of the grotesque militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border that has been under way for years and has accelerated under Obama.

In the last seven years, Texas and the Office of Homeland Security have poured over $600 million into "Operation Border Star" and other programs directed at militarizing state and local police units along the border. The result has been the purchase and deployment of Predator B drones, six armored high-speed gunboats on the Rio Grande, each of which is armed with six .30-caliber fully automatic machine guns capable of firing 900 rounds a minute, and a $7.5 million high-altitude spy plane. Ranger Reconnaissance Teams, in combat fatigues and carrying assault files, also now operate along the southern border.

The border between the U.S. and Mexico is soaked in the blood of thousands of immigrants who have died trying to cross it, and haunted by the pain of thousands more locked up in its detention centers. It is a dividing line and a point of collision between the U.S. and the countries this capitalist-imperialist monstrosity dominates to its south, dominating and distorting the already ravaged economies of those countries.

Since 2006 when the U.S. forced the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) on the people of that region, there has been a significant increase in investment in production for export rather than local consumption. According to the World Bank, a major instrument of western imperialism, "Poverty in Guatemala is both widespread and severe. Approximately 75 percent of the population is estimated to live below the poverty line, which is defined as an income that is insufficient to purchase a basic basket of goods and services. Almost 58 percent of the population have incomes below the extreme poverty line, which is defined as the amount needed to purchase a basic basket of food."

The Southern Borders Communities Coalition, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and others organized and participated in protests and vigils in La Joya and other border locations. People carried pictures of the dead, and have vowed to continue to fight for justice.

We demand justice for José Cumar and Marcos Estrada!

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/285/texas-blockaders-stand-their-ground-against-keystone-xl-ipeline-en.html

Revolution #285 November 18, 2012

Texas: Blockaders Stand Their Ground Against Keystone XL Pipeline

November 18, 2012 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Since the last week of September, dozens of environmental activists along with local landowners in East Texas have been attempting to blockade construction of the southern portion of the Keystone XL pipeline. This section of the pipeline would carry tar sands oil extracted in Alberta, Canada, from Cushing, Oklahoma, to the Gulf of Mexico coast. The blockade actions are concentrated near Winnsboro, two hours from Dallas, but have also occurred in other parts of the state.

Last year 1,200 people were arrested in civil disobedience actions at the White House calling for President Obama to reject the entire Keystone XL pipeline. If built, this pipeline would greatly increase the flow of tar sands oil from Alberta to the Gulf Coast for shipment. The actions in Texas have been joined by other opposition to the tar sands, such as recent protests against other proposed pipelines from Alberta through pristine wilderness to British Columbia, on the west coast of Canada.

Tar sands oil is some of the dirtiest, most carbon-polluting on the planet—and carbon in the atmosphere is the main cause of global warming. Extraction of tar sands oil is itself greatly destructive to the environment and indigenous peoples' lands in Alberta. And the Alberta tar sands reserves represent a huge pool of carbon, which, if burned, would further exacerbate the warming of the planet. This global warming is already causing great harm around the world, including more frequent and damaging extreme weather events like hurricanes, floods, and droughts—and it poses an urgent threat of catastrophe to ecosystems and life on earth.

Tar Sands Action, which organized the protests in DC, called Keystone XL a "fifteen hundred mile fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the continent." Climatologist James Hansen has said that if the tar sands reserves are fully extracted and burned, it would be "game over for the climate."

The current protests in Texas are called by Tar Sands Blockade. Blockaders have been sitting in trees to try to stop construction of the southern part of the pipeline, which is cutting a swath through Texas forests and farmland. Others have chained themselves to construction equipment and protested in other ways to call attention to and try to stop this pipeline from going through.

TransCanada, the builder of the pipeline, working with local authorities has turned the sites surrounding the protest into a police state. The courts granted TransCanada the right of eminent domain to force landowners to sell land for constructing the pipeline. TransCanada has hired local police to be private security and try to suppress the protests. Activists have been pepper sprayed, Tasered, and brutalized. People who have tried to resupply tree-sitters with food and water have been harassed and arrested. Tree-sitters have endured threats and taunts and been denied food and water by these "security forces." The company is videotaping activists, and is seeking an injunction to stop the protests and force activists to pay damages for the "crime" of seeking to protect the land and save the planet.

In their lawsuit, the company called these courageous people standing up for the planet "eco-terrorists." Police have even handcuffed and detained reporters, including from the New York Times, to prevent them from interviewing tree-sitters. Despite this, the Times article on the protest didn't even report the arrest of their own journalists.

To this point, at least 35 people have been arrested, including actor Daryl Hannah, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, and a local landowner. All kinds of charges have been put on the protesters, including some felonies and resisting arrest charges against people doing non-violent civil disobedience.

Obama helped jump-start the building of this southern portion of Keystone XL. He personally went to Cushing, Oklahoma, in March to announce his approval for the project, saying, "And today, I'm directing my administration to cut through the red tape, break through the bureaucratic hurdles, and make this project a priority, to go ahead and get it done."

Despite all the suppression, the protests have been continuously joined by new people. Tar Sands Blockade spokesperson Ron Seifert said on Democracy Now! that stopping Keystone XL "is a necessary condition for our collective future. If it goes online and starts moving over 800,000 barrels a day of this incredibly energy-intensive dirty fuel to the Gulf Coast refineries, we're not going to have a viable future on this planet."

The significance of the increasing resistance to environmental destruction manifested by these protests is deeply underscored by the devastation and wrecking of lives wrought by Superstorm Sandy on the people of the Atlantic coast and the crimes of the system in Sandy's wake. The tar sands blockades should be supported and spread.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/285/prosecuting-freedom-fighters-still-a-priority-for-nyc-en.html

Revolution #285 November 18, 2012

In the Midst of Storms Natural and Unnatural, Prosecuting Freedom Fighters Still a Priority for NYC

November 5, 2012

by Jamel Mims | November 18, 2012 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

The following article was posted on the Stop Mass Incarceration Network website.

For several days, I have been watching the largest metropolitan area in the wealthiest country in the world brought to a standstill by the most crippling natural disaster in decades. Much is revealed of the priorities of this country by what they pour resources into fastest. Schools are shut down, but the New York Stock Exchange is up and running. Residents of the Lower East Side in Manhattan who live in poverty are without power and basic necessities, yet the Financial District at the southern tip of Manhattan is open. The subways and railroads are flooded and in limited operation, but the courts and the political railroads remain flooded with people and continue operating on the fast-track. While the city focuses its attention on recovery from the damage of the "Storm of the Century," the tempest of mass incarceration and its path of destruction goes swirling on, tossing about and disintegrating the lives of thousands of people each day.

On October 31, I traveled through gridlocked traffic in two boroughs to appear in court in Queens. I am in the midst of trial, facing up to one year of jail for nonviolently protesting the NYPD's stop-and-frisk policy at the 103rd Precinct in Jamaica, Queens. This action in November 2011 was part of a series of city-wide actions called for by Cornel West and Carl Dix, which has ignited resistance to the policy and helped bring about a climate where the policy is at the forefront of every news headline.

Despite the storm, the line at the Queens County Criminal Courthouse wrapped around the block, and I overheard stories of people without power, water, or transportation who somehow made it to the line that morning to deal with the cases the state has against them. Many of them had their cases delayed substantially, six weeks out until December. But when our attorneys met with the judge, it was made quite clear that not only is our trial scheduled to continue with great haste, on Monday, November 5th, but that the judge is also considering the relatively unprecedented step of a re-voir dire of one of the sitting jurors. He feels that juror may no longer be unbiased, as during the original jury questionnaire she expressed her opposition to the stop-and-frisk policy. This comes on top of the District Attorney twice escalating the charges before trial, first adding an additional count of Obstruction of Governmental Administration, and again by charging us not as individual agents, but as "acting in concert," which means if I or any of my three co-defendants are found guilty, we are all found guilty.

Now confronted even more sharply with how seriously the gears of the injustice system are grinding forward in this case, I want to go further than my last piece in explaining why this case matters to more than just those who know and care about me personally. I know that many who already lived one paycheck away from disaster—the bulk of those who are the targets of the very policy I am facing jail time for protesting—are legitimately distracted and profoundly overwhelmed by the urgent need to get food, dry clothes, and clean drinking water. In the midst of these catastrophes, with both natural and unnatural causes, our prosecution still remains among the city's top priorities. Why?

Sharing the story of our protest against the stop-and-frisk policy, and the outrageous charges lobbed at us as a result, has galvanized support from people from all corners of my life, and helps to shed light on just why the authorities are so adamant in pursuing the charges against us. High school classmates at Sidwell Friends; acquaintances from the Fulbright program; teachers, artists, and students I work with here in New York City; people across the country are inspired by the city-wide civil disobedience actions we conducted, and the stand we are taking through these trials.

It's been amazing to receive such an outpouring of support among my high school network at Sidwell Friends, many from sections of people who are not the victims of racial profiling, yet are outraged that it happens in this society, and that one of their classmates now faces jail time for protesting it. Many of their sentiments even begin to call into question the legitimacy of the justice system. There are also those who have shared their stories of living under the New Jim Crow. One co-worker recounted growing up in Jamaica, Queens at the 103rd, under constant harassment from the police, even going so far as drawing their weapons on him on several occasions. Another co-worker shared the humiliation of coming into work and being stopped and searched at the door by school police, while her boss was waved in past the metal detectors without issue.

A young man from the South Side of Chicago responded to my article, recalling that "stop-and-frisk" was always the norm in certain areas. "This was usually performed by un-uniformed detectives in Chevy Caprice Classics and Ford Crown Victorias. In my case, there was no formal announcement of policy, it was just the norm. If you were a young Black man walking or driving through certain areas you stood a significant chance of being stopped and searched. At the time it was very common to grumble about it, but it was rare that anyone took the time to advocate for our rights in the face of that type of oppressive behavior. So I say all that to say: Thanks for what you are doing Jamel. I wish that there had been one of you in Chicago during the 90's."

There is much to learn from these expressions of support. They are not only indicative of the tremendous social weight of the issue we face, but also of the tremendous fear the rulers of this system have of further exposing the scope of, and fomenting resistance to, the human rights nightmare of mass incarceration. The powers-that-be really have a dilemma on their hands. In the face of upheaval around the social fissure of mass incarceration, they can choose to back off of repressive policies such as stop-and-frisk, like releasing a steam valve in order to release the pressure. Or, they can dig in and enforce it more brutally, and isolate and crush any potential movement against it, risking unleashing an even more severe and thoroughgoing wave of resistance.

In light of this, it comes as no surprise that just as stop-and-frisk is a controversial flashpoint in society we are facing an unprecedented wave of repression. The authorities have doubled down on their support of stop-and-frisk, and continue to wantonly harass and murder Black and Latino youth. Just this year, Reynaldo Cuevas, a young Latino, was murdered in the Bronx as he ran to safety fleeing a robbery at the bodega in which he worked. Jose Polanco, a National Guardsman, was shot point blank in his car on the side of the road by an officer with a case of road rage in Queens. These cases are by no means uncommon: every 40 hours, another young life is stolen by law enforcement in this country. Just in New York City, the NYPD have made 685,000 reported stops—the NYPD has in fact stopped and frisked more young Black men than there are young Black men in the city.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly have gone on a PR tour justifying this brutality to the masses they inflict it upon, speaking to all-Black congregations to remind them that Black and Latino youth are dangerous, and that these measures are taken to protect the citizenry from unruly criminals. The case against us is a particular expression of this dilemma: as stop-and-frisk is objectively on trial in society, we stand trial facing up to a year in prison for protesting the policy at the 103rd precinct, which set off a city-wide wave of resistance against the policy and mass incarceration. Yet the refrain from the judge and prosecution has been "stop-and-frisk is not on trial here." Tell me, how could this be about anything else?

The system of mass incarceration sits atop a fault-line social contradiction historically centered at the core of the development of the United States: the oppression and exploitation of Black people and other racial minority groups. Since its inception, the United States has maintained a cohering mythology of "the greatest nation on earth," and a free and democratic society for all, while maintaining, and depending on, some form of racial caste system. First it was slavery, then Jim Crow segregation, and now the "New" Jim Crow, mass incarceration. We find ourselves in the midst of a "post-racial" society with equal opportunity for all, yet 2.4 million mostly Blacks and Latinos are warehoused across the nation, with their rights denied, barred access to housing and voting rights, and legally discriminated against, wearing a badge of shame and dishonor for the rest of their lives. The trial itself, and the prosecution and judge's attempts to rule out any discussion of stop-and-frisk speaks volumes about the necessity they face to maintain this myth, to maintain a veneer of legitimacy while not only trampling over our First Amendment rights to protest, while fundamentally violating the rights of a whole section of people they have historically criminalized.

The stakes of our trial are high for the movement, and for society. Stop-and-frisk and the scourge of mass incarceration are not just our pet project, nor a "cause du jour." This isn't just about defending our right to protest, but about acting with urgency to stop the continuous assault on another's right to live. One wouldn't sum up the Black Liberation Movement of the 1960's, or the Abolitionists of the 1850's, by saying, "Well, that was just some people's thing, or that was a certain section of people who were passionate about expressing their right to protest."

The Freedom Fighters against the old Jim Crow, those who conducted the freedom rides and sit-ins, acted not just out of passion, but out of moral imperative to challenge policy as a way of bringing an end to an entire system of state-sanctioned racial oppression. Now, we face a situation drastically worse, where millions of youth have stories of living under the New Jim Crow, and thousands of communities bear the scars of a system of mass incarceration whose effects are tantamount to a slow genocide. Yes, the police and the courts trampled over First Amendment rights in the process, but precisely because we spoke up against, and fomented resistance to a conscious policy that concentrates a leading edge of the New Jim Crow. They want to send a message: if you make too much noise around this, we'll shut you up. We want to send the opposite message. You can fight against injustice and beat it back, and win. Their fate, and the terms of mass incarceration more broadly in society, is bound up with what is allowed, and not allowed, to happen to us.

As we recover from one storm and brace to endure another, we stand at the crossroads of a moral imperative. If we are convicted of these unjust charges, there is a danger of weakening the movement, and setting disturbing new terms for those who wish to protest injustice. In winning, we have the potential to put the movement against mass incarceration onto a new trajectory, and come much closer to ending this horror once and for all. In either case, the terms of the conversation won't be the same as they were before. Mass resistance is needed to solve this problem. We are seeing the embryonic steps toward this in the protests against the execution of Troy Davis, the courageous efforts of inmates at Pelican Bay in hunger striking to demand an end to their torturous conditions, in the upheaval against the vigilante murder of Trayvon Martin, and in the resistance concentrated around the issue of stop-and-frisk.

There is still quite a way to go. When we look back at this moment in history, when stop-and-frisk was on trial in society and more specifically in the trial of four Freedom Fighters who put themselves on the line to drag this injustice into the light, which side of history will we fall on?

Check www.stopmassincarceration.org for trial updates, ways to support, and stay involved in the struggle.

Jamel Mims is an multimedia artist, hip hop pedagogue, and activist from Washington, D.C. In 2008 he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study hip hop in Beijing. His work, which ranges from multimedia ethnography to political expression, is joined together by common themes of youth culture, social transformation, and the urban environment. He currently lives in New York City.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/285/victory-in-trial-of-four-stop-stop-and-frisk-defendants-en.html

Revolution #285 November 18, 2012

Victory in the Trial of Four "STOP Stop & Frisk" Freedom Fighters

NOT GUILTY of Two Counts of Obstruction of Government Administration, Guilty of One Count of Disorderly Conduct

November 15, 2012 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

November 15, Queens, NYC. After a three-week-plus trial of four “STOP Stop & Frisk” freedom fighters, the jury didn’t buy the prosecution’s flimsy case that tried to prove Carl Dix, Jamel Mims, Morgan Rhodewalt and Bob Parsons were guilty of two counts of Obstruction of Government Administration and should go to jail for one year.

The six jurors came back with a NOT GUILTY verdict on both counts for all four defendants.

The jury did find all four defendants guilty of one count of disorderly conduct for failure to disperse, which is a violation and carries a maximum penalty of 15 days in jail. Sentencing is January 7, but today, after the verdict was delivered, the prosecution said they are going to recommend a fine or community service.

Shortly after the verdict, Carl Dix told Revolution:

“They were going to make people pay a heavy price for protesting against stop-and-frisk, they crafted it from the beginning, And they failed in this objective. They put on a case where they couldn’t provide any evidence. This verdict is a victory for our side. For this trial, we gathered support, including bringing together lawyers who wanted to fight this case, we spread the word and built the kind of fight that in the end, prevented them from delivering the message and exacting the punishment they were aiming for. But the fight isn’t over. There are nine more people who were arrested that day who are going to be going on trial in Queens. And there are 13 people facing trial for “STOP stop & frisk” protests in Brooklyn. Freedom fighter Noche Diaz faces several additional trials, one in Manhattan and one in the Bronx. And all of this is part of the larger fight to stop mass incarceration.”

Go to the Stop Mass Incarceration Network website for more information, press releases, statements, etc. And stay tuned at revcom.us for an account and analysis of the trial.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/285/video-natural-disaster-social-disaster-talk-by-Raymond-Lotta-en.html

Revolution #285 November 18, 2012

New Video:

Why a Natural Disaster Became a Social Disaster, And Why It Doesn't Have to Be That Way: Reflections on Hurricane Sandy and the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America (Draft Proposal)

November 15, 2012 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Video of a talk by Raymond Lotta at Revolution Books, New York City

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/285/battle-for-the-truth-about-the-great-leap-forward-en.html

Revolution #285 November 18, 2012

The Battle for the Truth About the Great Leap Forward: Resources for Readers of Revolution

November 15, 2012 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

The New York Times and the New York Review of Books have recently featured two high-profile articles about the Great Leap Forward of 1958-60. They both serve the anticommunist "master narrative" that the Great Leap Forward was an exercise in demonic Maoist control that led to history's worst famine. And they share in common a method of argumentation that traffics in colossal lies and distortions about historical fact, as well as the actual goals and policies of the Great Leap Forward.

These articles are part of the continuing bourgeois ideological offensive to slander and vilify the Soviet revolution of 1917-56 and the Chinese revolution of 1949-76. The take-home message of these widely promoted attacks on the first wave of socialist revolution is this: "leave this capitalist world of horror as it is; this is the best and only of all possible worlds." 

The op-ed "China's Great Shame" by Yang Jisheng in the New York Times (November 13) states that the Chinese revolution, and the Great Leap Forward in particular, had instituted a "vast system of slavery in the name of liberating mankind" and that this system led to the death of "36 million victims." There is not a shred of truth to these statements, and the "facts" cited by the author are no more than baseless assertions.

But readers can learn the truth of the Great Leap Forward—about what it set out to achieve, its actual record of accomplishment and problems, the causes of the famine that did take place, and the measures taken to alleviate it. They can access valuable material from Bob Avakian in "Radically Different Systems: Radically Different Outlooks and Objectives, Radically Different Results," (section of the new interview, WHAT HUMANITY NEEDS: Revolution, and the New Synthesis of Communism), from the Great Leap Forward page on the Set the Record Straight website (www.thisiscommunism.org), and from the YouTube, "Raymond Lotta Takes on Lies about Mao's Great Leap Forward."

There are four key points to keep in mind:

1) The Great Leap Forward was aimed at creating a sustainable agriculture, bringing masses of peasants into the running of administrative and political affairs, bringing women out of the household and into the swirl of the battle to create a new society, and overcoming unequal development between the cities and countryside. The commune system that was one of the great innovations of the Great Leap Forward created new forms of social cooperation. This was not "slavery," as Yang Jisheng asserts, but a leap in social organization.

2) The famine that struck China in 1959-60 was principally the result of unprecedented droughts and flooding. There were other factors, including the sudden withdrawal of aid and technical support by the Soviet Union to punish China for challenging and breaking with the Soviet economic and political model; policy mistakes made by the revolutionary leadership; intense social and political struggles; temporary dislocations in the planning system; and China's encirclement by Western imperialism. This was not "Mao's great famine" but a famine of complex, intermeshing causes.

3) Yang Jisheng's claim that 36 million people died as a result of the Great Leap Forward is just that...a claim. It is based on sensationalistic and politically motivated estimates, unreliable demographic and census data, archival materials of questionable quality, and dubious statistical projections. Such wildly exaggerated mortality numbers are highly contested by demographers and other scholars.

4) Mao and the revolutionary leadership took measures to cope with food crisis and famine. These included emergency deliveries of grain, changing the structure of the communes so that they could better deal with economic matters, putting more emphasis on agricultural production, and scaling back exports. China's historic food problem was overcome by 1970. China's socialist revolution saved millions of lives, as evidenced in the doubling of life expectancy between 1949 and 1976.

To learn more about socialism in the Soviet Union (1917-1956) and in China (1949-1976), readers should go to the Set the Record Straight website, www.thisiscommunism.org.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/285/285-prlf_holiday_cards-en.html

Revolution #285 November 18, 2012

Three versions of Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund (PRLF) holiday gift cards

Here are 3 versions of Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund (PRLF) holiday gift cards:

• To notify the gift recipient that as part of your gift to them, a copy of BAsics has been sent to a prisoner. Artwork from PRLF website
• To notify the gift recipient that as part of your gift to them, a copy of BAsics has been sent to a prisoner.  Artwork from a young person at Occupy Wall Street
• To let someone know that a donation has been made in their name to PRLF. Artwork from PRLF website

These color files are designed to print two cards on each 8.5x11 sheet. When printing, set your printer to "flip on the short side," to make the printed text inside and outside the card be in the same direction.