Chris Rock – Crackers (Outkast’s Hey Ya Spoof )

A fitting message to the white settler nation.

The Amerikkkan electorate: militarist and chauvinist

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Amerikkkan electorate: militarist and chauvinist

raims.wordpress.com

U$ imperialists, of both parties, appeal to the chauvinism and militarism of the Amerikans this election cycle. Then again, our readers will be asking by now, “What’s new?” For the past couple years, talking heads and ideologues from both of the main partisan wings of the US system have been rallying their respective “bases” in preparation for the contentious midterm elections. In just the past few weeks, the imperialist media had been inundated with political ads and substanceless, vitriolic rhetoric.

On the Republican side, their Amerikan grassroots “Tea Party” movement has whipped up a white chauvinist frenzy right in time to derail the “Obama phenomenon.” In the midst of this racist uprising by the recently dispossessed Amerikan settler white nation, the favorite target has been migrant labor from Mexico. The most egregious example of the consequences of this radical reaction is the “Papers, please” legislation in Arizona, on Mexican land stolen by Amerika no less! (1) Fast forward over 160 years later, and over 70% of Amerikan are in favor of some similar draconian and fascist legislation. (2) Another side-effect was the recent inflammation of Amerikan chauvinism against Islam in general, which had exceeded levels beyond anything seen during the Bush era. (3)

On the Democratic side, the Obama-lovers are attempting to paint the Republicans as “shipping Amerikan jobs overseas.” (4) This thinly-veiled “pro-labor” racism serves to merely shift the chauvinism of Amerikans towards Latinos, to chauvinism directed towards Asians. To pile onto this chauvinism, the White House itself is attempting to paint their GOP opponents with the “Chinese money” campaign corruption card. (5) As if US imperialism hasn’t attempted to influence political processes by whatever means, monetarily or militarily, worldwide.

The two political parties of US imperialism aren’t just battling over who Amerikans should be more chauvinist against. They are also battling for Amerikan public opinion over which Muslim-majority country to invade and occupy. The Republicans’ latest superstars have been some the most fervent Zionists, with a warmonger’s eye towards toppling the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Democrats’ “common-sense” militarism has its eyes toward continuing the existing occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan in a “non-direct, supervisory form,” as well as continuing the incursions into Pakistan. Long gone are the anti-war voices from the political spectrum, from either “libertarian” Republicans or “progressive” Democrats. One Tea Party-backed congressional candidate in North Carolina includes a US pig soldier suspected of killing two unarmed civilians in Iraq. (6) On the other side, Democrats in Washington State appeal to the votes of “workers” from Boeing, a major imperialist arms manufacturer. One such political ad, from a Democrat no less, makes a simultaneously chauvinist and militarist appeal to Boeing workers. The ad says, in essence, that Amerikans should continue to be paid handsomely for building and maintaining the imperialist war machine. (7)

What else is new with politics in the US empire? Certainly not the brain dead response of the First World so-called “left” to Amerikan elections. The constant meme coming from them states that the top two imperialist parties don’t really represent the “will of the [Amerikan] people.” The supposition here is that the Amerikan so-called “masses” are inherently progressive (if not “revolutionary”) in their majority. (8) Nothing could be further from the truth. One question for our First Worldists: If Amerikans are so inherently “progressive,” why do the two top imperialist parties pour billions of dollars into filling their airwaves with this chauvinism and militarism? (9)

A “democracy” that does not represent the will of the world’s oppressed and exploited majority is not democratic in any real sense. Bourgeois democracy in the First World seeks to affirm the unity of the imperialist populations against the global majority. RAIM struggles for a world where the needs and will of the global popular majority, who make less than $2.50 a day, are placed first per the democratic principle of “majority rules.” (10) To create a truly democratic society, the world must be turned upside down.

Notes:

1. http://antiimperialism.wordpress.com/2010/10/14/long-live-mexico-in-commemoration-of-the-100th-year-anniversary-of-the-mexican-revolution/

2. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/12/94050/most-americans-approve-of-arizonas.html

3. http://www.lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis201.html

4. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2013264531_bruce27.html

5. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/ap/china-bashing-is-bipartisan-in-us-races-106366768.html

6. http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/gop-candidate-killed-unarmed-iraqi/

7. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyk3QLaX2nQ

8. http://revcom.us/Constitution/constitution.html

9. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/us-politics/8093993/US-midterm-elections-2010-Campaign-spending-set-to-reach-2.5-billion.html

10. http://raims.wordpress.com/2010/10/01/the-anti-kolumbus-day-manifesto/

This is not your land, white man

The Anti-Kolumbus Day Manifesto

The Anti-Kolumbus Day Manifesto

(www.raimd.wordpress.com)

Every year in October, in cities throughout the US and occupied America, celebrations and parades are held on Kolumbus Day, in honor of Khristopher Kolumbus. And every year, though in fewer cities, these celebrations are met with resistance by those concerned with indigenous sovereignty and colonialism. This year, the protests continue.

We oppose Kolumbus Day because it is a de facto celebration of conquest, including the genocide and land theft waged against First Nations. Upon arriving in modern-day Haiti/Dominican Republic and viewing the native Tainos, Kolumbus remarked, “with fifty men, we could subjugate them all.” Thirty years after his arrival, the island’s Native population had declined by 90%. This pattern would be recreated across the Americas, particularly in the United States, where a campaign of genocide was waged against First Nation peoples by White settlers. Kolumbus would also pioneer slavery in the Americas, a phenomenon that would officially last nearly 400 years yet remains in the form of exploitation of the masses south of the militarily-imposed US-Mexico border and throughout the Third World.

We oppose Kolumbus Day because it is a de facto celebration of imperialism, the exploitation of subjugation of many peoples by a handful. Kolumbus’s original voyage was a landmark of Spanish imperialism, yet Kolumbus Day transcends this original meaning. Today, the United States stands above the rest of the world, dominating various peoples, in part by operating over 700 military bases around the globe. Today, over a billion people are faced with undernourishment, yet virtually every Amerikan is part of the world’s richest 15%. Kolumbus Day is a celebration of this ongoing imperial legacy.

We oppose Kolumbus Day because it is a celebration of parasitism and imperialist decadence. The ritualistic Kolumbus Day parade, usually consisting of closing roads for slow-moving processions of large vehicles filled with flags-waving crackers, is one made possible only through the exploitation of various countries, including their oil resources, for benefit of a decadent First World population. We protest Kolumbus Day in solidarity with those who suffer for the luxuries Amerikans receive 365 days a year, not just on this or that imperialist holiday.

Though a good start, ending Kolumbus Day alone doesn’t cut deep enough into the problem. Therefore, The Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement presents the following program:

1) The end of all US territorial claims; national liberation for oppressed nations. Return of land to First Nations throughout the US and Klanada. National liberation for Mexicanos on both sides of the militarily-imposed border and reunification. National liberation and sovereignty for Puerto Rico and for the Kanaka Maoli of Hawai’i. National liberation and self-determination for the Black nation. The surrender of all US-controlled land throughout the world.

2) The imposition of a globalized democracy of the world’s oppressed and exploited masses upon the United States and First World. The creation of zones throughout the current US and elsewhere to be used as the global proletariat sees fit.

3) The massive payment of reparations from Amerikans to the Third World, to be accomplished through the redistribution of land, capital and through labor.

4) Relocation of many Whites, including to the Third World, and reeducation for all Amerikans, resulting in the liquidation of much of the White nation and eradication of their parasite culture.

These are the demands of a world that suffers from deep problems and requires truly revolutionary solutions. Until these demands are met, resistance will continue.

The Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement-Denver

The Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement-Seattle

October 1st, 2010

Norman Finkelstein lays down on Zionist tools at University of Waterloo

So….This is why we like Finkelstein. He’s on point and doesn’t back down under intimidation…

Israel Commits Massacre on Freedom Flotilla to Gaza

Israel Commits Massacre on Freedom Flotilla to Gaza

(raimd.wordpress.com)

ISSrael on Monday attacked an aid flotilla heading to Gaza, killing several international activists.  The flotilla was attempting to break the Israeli blockade imposed since 2007 and deliver 10,000 tons of needed supplies to the 1.5 million people of Gaza imprisoned by the Zionist entity.

Israeli commandos from 14 warships and military helicopters, reportedly 1/4 of the Israel navy, boarded one of the Turkish ships and began shooting.  Recent news reports at least 19 dead civilians.  This was all done in international waters, violating international law.  But as shown before, no international law or condemnation has deterred aggression by the terrorist nation of Israel.

The pigs in the Israeli government and military said they were acting in “self-defense” and the activists attacked them.  This is the typical excuse given by Israel when it uses its occupation military on those who resist.  It has shown in the past that it will use violent force on international activists as well as Palestinians.

Israel is a settler state, formed by terrorist occupation of Palestinian land by Zionist imperialists.  Just like Amerika, Israel is based on subjugation of native peoples and exploitation of their labor, land, and resources.  It is no surprise that Israel and United Snakes are deep allies, as they desperately keep their parasitic way of life going through brutal military force.  This way of life is supported by the majorities of each of these countries.  Although there will be a few in the imperialist countries to voice opposition to these acts, most of these settler citizens will actively and passively support these policies.  The oppressed and exploited majorities of the world should not wait for the imperialist country citizens to wake up.  It is right to resist imperialist occupation, and the struggle is now.

There are protests happening all over the world right now in response to this atrocity.  We encourage all supporters to assist and organize where they are to stand in solidarity with Palestine and agitate to bring the end to illegitimate terror nations like Israel and Amerika.

Down with all settler states!
Israel and United Snakes!

Video: Immigration Check Point

We at RAIM support the crackdown on all these damn illegal Europeans.

No Love For Land Grabbers, Deport the Tea-Klanners

Politics Are Over created this awesome graphic, inspired by our last protest against the racist Tea Party.  We are honored:

They have much more sweet revolutionary agitational art at their site, check it out: politicsareover.wordpress.com

Code Pink: Pigs For More Pie

Code Pink: Pigs For More Pie

(raimd.wordpress.com)

Times have been tough for the remnants of the antiwar movement in the United Snakes.  Liberals crossed over to Obama, a recession has driven down donations, and healthcare reform and Tea Party opposition became the focus in Amerika.  Code Pink, led by non-profit profiteer Medea Benjamin,  is working to “extend an olive branch” to the  reactionary Tea Party, using their anti-tax rhetoric  to focus on military spending.  Benjamin sent an open message to teaklanners and Code Pink supporters:

“Don’t relax on tax day. Your country needs you to start a difficult conversation right now. Because building peace means reaching out to the other side, CODEPINK is extending an olive branch to the Tea Party. If the Tea Party is really against runaway government spending, then certainly we can work together to cut a slice out of the military pork that is bankrupting our nation. After all, one way to shrink big government is to rein in military spending.

Similarly, we are asking you to reach out to your conservative family members, friends and co-workers, with this very special e-card to start a conversation about how a bloated military budget is affecting our share of the pie. Maybe you will find common ground!”
http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/424/t/4589/postcard.jsp?postcard_KEY=470

And a graphic:

Besides the total lameness and lack of direction, Code Pink’s most recent campaign gives a clear message about “our share of the pie.”  According to Benjamin and Code Pink, Joe Amerikan  should be fat too, not just those at the Pentagon spending his tax dollars.

Certainly, Code Pink isn’t lying about the great amount of Amerikan tax dollars which go to war-making.   Obama’s “defense” budget for 2011 will be $663.7 billion, making up 42 percent of all the worlds military spending.  This is compared to China with 5.8 percent of world military spending and France with 4.5 percent of world military spending.  However, the real victims of this militarism are those killed by Amerikan bombs and locked into imperialist exploitation, not Code Pink and the Tea Party’s reactionary parasite constituency.

The Tea Party almost never brings up the spending on military.  In fact many of them are current or former troops and embedded in military culture.  Many Tea-baggers wear military caps and insignia and flirt with armed insurrection against the federal government.  Their message of reducing taxes and spending is one based on narrow labor-aristocratic interest, not of concern for non-Amerikans facing direct and proxy aggression from the US.

In their attempt to find “common ground,” Code Pink’s politics in essence are shown as no different from the Tea Party’s. Both pander to the base interests of Amerikans; neither question where Amerikan wealth truly comes from. Rather than raising principled opposition to the most murderous system the world has ever seen, US-led imperialism, Code Pink reveals their chauvinism as they opportunistically  ignore the blatant racism and jingoism of the Tea Party movement. Code Pink will likely find few supporters within the Tea Party movement, as many of the latter consider the former no more than traitors and subversives. Medea Benjamin and other modern Don Quixotes, rather than standing in principled solidarity with the world’s people, comes off as big chauvinists in an attempt to find and activate a mythical progressive Amerika majority.

The Amerikan right and the Amerikan “left” agree on one thing: Amerikans should have more. They do not question that Amerikans should have so much, just an argument over how it should be directed.  We at RAIM say the opposite, Amerikans deserve less.  They got their wealth from the beginning of their history  through stolen land, labor, and resources.  They already get a disproportionate share of the wealth of the world, maintained mainly through the expenditure on the military.  We realize this message will not get us supporters, money, or fame, but we say it anyway because it is the truth based on fact.  Half the world lives off only $2 a day or less.  So we can care less about the menial troubles of an average First Worlder about taxes, gas prices, healthcare, etc.  The oppressed and exploited peoples of the world, in the final analysis, will be the ones who in the end bring down Amerikan imperialism and subsequently all oppression.  We stand with the majority of the world who wants liberation, not for Amerikan morons wanting more.

Definitions video

Net-Exploitation by the Numbers (Hypothetically)

Net-Exploitation by the Numbers (Hypothetically)

(https://raimd.wordpress.com)

RAIM often talks about Amerikan and First World workers as net-exploiters.

In order to discuss this further, we must first define exploitation. For our purposes, exploitation can be roughly defined as earning through work less than the full product of that work. For instance, a person might work for a day, make 10 widgets; yet only earn in wages enough to purchase six widgets. This would be exploitation.

The modern economy is arranged globally. A minority of First World countries exploit at gunpoint the Third World. Subsets of workers with vastly different functions, wage-levels and standards of living exist. Only in such a situation could a worker be a net-exploiter.

Hypothetically speaking, in today’s capitalist-imperialist economy, we might see a situation where two different workers each create 10 widgets, or 20 total. The first worker, from the First World, might earn enough wages to purchase 11 widgets whereas the latter worker, from the Third World, only one. Through the extreme exploitation of the Third World worker, the First World worker receives wages over and above what they actually created. In this situation, the First World worker gets a small ‘cut,’ the equivalent of one widget, from the 9 widgets produced by the Third World worker yet not included in the latter’s wages. In other words, the First World worker is a net-exploiter.

First World workers are net-exploiters: a class which through its relation to the capitalist-imperialist system lives in great part upon the exploitation of the Third World.

Video: RAIM Confronting Tea Party Racists

On November 14 2009 there was a nationwide “Tea Party Against Amnesty”,  to spew hate against,  and promote violence against, non-white migrant workers. RAIM Denver went to confront these racists a few months back (see here). Someone sent a video from their side to us, here it is with some added comments.  RAIM pointed out that these crackers are on stolen land, that this is not only Mexican land but Cheyenne land and other indigenous lands.  We urged youth liberation by urging their youth to marry non-white people to piss off their parents.  Also, the tea-crackers claimed not to be racist; yet their racism comes out and is exposed, as they shout wetback, puta, and sneaks at us.  Crackerdom should be confronted whenever it pops up, and RAIM stands against settler Amerikkka.

Program of the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement

We want to smash this world and build a new one. Today, the median global income stands around $2.50 a day. Over 1 billion people face chronic hunger and a child dies every five seconds of starvation. This same situation is killing the planet at an unprecedented rate. Meanwhile, a global minority lives in comfort, unconcerned with their effect on the world. We aim to change this.

We understand that there is a causal relationship between wealth on one hand and poverty on the other. On a global level, the First World is rich because it exploits the impoverished majority, the Third World. This global divide, called imperialism, is the principal feature of the world today.

We side with the Third World masses and support their struggles for liberation. Exploiters are not going to hand over freedom to those they exploit. Only through struggle can the oppressed free themselves. We support the right of resistance- and revolution- for oppressed peoples against their oppressors. We support unity of the Third World masses against imperialism.

We reject First Worldism: politics which panders to or assumes that First Worlders are a social base for revolution. The “masses” of the First World are a global minority: a petty-exploiter class which regularly supports the imperialist system from which it benefits. Global revolution demands a just and egalitarian distribution of the world’s resources and wealth. Thus, over the course of global revolution, First Worlders will receive less, not more.

We are John Browns, staunch First World allies of the Third World. We are few and far between and behind enemy lines; there is little direct effect we can have. We consider our circumstances and focus on areas where we can effectively contribute to the revolutionary struggle.

We openly represent revolutionary anti-imperialism and work to build public opinion for Third World liberation struggles. We interject revolutionary, anti-imperialist politics into political arenas such as speaking events and protests; contribute to publishing and distributing revolutionary literature such as the RAIM Global Digest; and conduct group education through study collectives, practical tasks and informal discussion. We seek out and educate those who can be won over to consistent anti-imperialist politics.

We encourage direct participation and involvement, promote personal development and push people to become more valuable to the larger, global revolutionary movement. In part, RAIM is a ‘university of revolution.’ Through direct involvement with RAIM, we encourage people to become more proficient both politically and technically. A large part of RAIM’s purpose is to make individuals more of an asset to the Third World majority.

We encourage Third World-oriented, revolutionary political work. Though RAIM fills a roll by providing a public presence for and entry-level work into revolutionary politics, it is not the end-all-be-all of revolutionary political work. We encourage and support revolutionary, Third World-oriented politics being applied as part of different types of projects and efforts.

-Adopted by RAIM-Denver and RAIM-Seattle, November 23rd, 2009

A Speech by a RAIM Comrade on the 8th Anniversary of the Invasion of Afghanistan

The following was delivered by Comrade Hector of RAIM-Denver on October 7th, 2009, the 8th anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan. In the speech, the RAIM comrade tells the audience of anti-war and police brutality activists, anarchists and RAIM supporters that the problem is not Bush or Obama, it is Amerika.

“Leonard Peltier is a political prisoner – an artist, a writer, a father whose life has been stolen. Locked away for defending his land. Locked away in Amerikkka’s dungeons. He just sent an open letter to the president. To paraphrase: ‘I am not Bush’s political prisoner. I am your political prisoner now.’ He is Obama’s responsibility. This is an important point, especially for the liberals here whose politics begin and end with ‘throw out the Bush regime.’ Well, Bush is gone. Surprise, surprise. Amerikkka is still at war. Two wars wasn’t enough. Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Pakistan. And Iran is in the cross hairs. A recent poll shows a majority of Amerikans, Republican and Democrat or “Independent,” want to use force on Iran right now. Iran is in the crosshairs and it’s Obama with his finger on the trigger and your average Joe Amerikan cheering him on.

These wars are not just wars of the ‘right wing,’ or ‘conservative, or ‘Republican’ wars. These aren’t Bush’s wars. They are Obama’s now. More accurately, they are Amerika’s wars. And, it will take more to stop these wars, and the next war and the one after that, than marching in the streets holding signs. This shit goes back to 1492, even earlier. The crusaders, KKKolumbus, Manifest Destiny, chattle slavery, the endless imperialist wars of the last century.

In 1492, KKKolumbus sailed the ocean blue.. then he landed and killed everyone who wasn’t European.  Exterminated the Taino peoples. That’s the real story.

Yesterday, it was the US genocide of South East Asia, the propping-up and financing of death squad states in Latin America, the rape and enslavement of Africa. Today it’s killing Pakistanis with unmanned drones. What will it be tomorrow?

The problem is bigger than Democrats and Republicans. Bigger than Bush and Obama. The problem is Amerika, and Amerikans. We can’t let Amerikans, and the Amerikan working class off the hook. Even the poorest Amerikan benefits from imperialism.

Yet Amerikans have the hypocrisy to point their fingers at the Third World. They call the Iranian president a “holocaust denier.” Yet Amerikans are the biggest holocaust deniers on the planet. It was the US that largely exterminated the whole continent of North America, from sea to shining sea — the largest genocide in history, thousands of civilizations gone forever – tens of millions killed by Uncle Sam.

In Zimbabwe, a recent report condemned Mugabe because he ‘only’ paid three percent in compensation to the imperialists during his land reform program. Let me get this straight. The imperialist come to Africa, they steal the land from the Africans, they disrupt the African traditional way of life, the imperialists impose white supremacist terrorist states on Africans, then when those Africans take their land back, the imperialists call it ‘theft’ and impose sanctions to strangle Zimbabwe, to punish the Africans, to make them OBEY. When Mugabe turned the tables and gave land to the poor Africans, he is a ‘thief,’ yet the imperialists think nothing about stealing whole countries as was the case in Zimbabwe or whole continents as was the case in the Americas. The only compensation the Africans received was the whites imposing a terroristic white supremacist state to keep them in bondage. The only compensations the Indigenous received in North America was to be killed or herded into reservations on the worst land, to have their children stolen and culture stripped away.

Remember the pigs earlier today who dared us to cross their invisible line on the ground? The pigs told us that we could not stand on parts of the sidewalk in front of the building? Who the fuck are they to say anything about where we can and can’t go on this land? This is Mexican and Indigenous land. It’s Uncle Sam who squats here on borrowed time. This land will be returned to its rightful owners. These crackers will get a taste of socialism – the power of the Third World over the First World. RAIM opposes the war. More than that, RAIM opposes Amerika and Amerikans.

The vast majority of humanity in the Third World barely survives on about $2.50 a day. Yet, Amerikans and the First World as a whole plop themselves down in front of their stupid boxes, one hand glued to a remote controller, the other in a bag of Cheetos. Amerikans waste their lives away on the back of others. RAIM is out to settle the score. RAIM is going to turn the tables.”

John Brown Led Raid on Harpers Ferry, 150 Years Ago Today

October 16 is the 150th anniversary of the raid of Harpers Ferry in 1859.  Led by abolitionist, nation traitor, and revolutionary John Brown, this failed raid was intended to arm Black slaves in a rebellion against white Amerika and for freedom for the Black Nation.  Democracy Now shows a reading of John Brown’s last words at his trial, as well as a reading by Frederick Douglas on John Brown:

Maoist-Thirdworldist agitation artist Shubelmorgan (named after an alias taken by John Brown) presents a video introduction to John Brown:

Anti-imperialists from oppressor nations should take on the example of John Brown.  As the video states, though, John Browns will be a minuscule minority of members of oppressor nations, so oppressed peoples and their allies should have no illusions.

40th anniversary of “Whitey” on the Moon.

On this day, 40 years ago, two Amerikan settlers landed on the moon. In typical settler fashion, they even placed an Amerikan flag on the surface of the moon.

We at RAIMD look to this moment with great hope. One day, we hope to send all Amerikan settlers to the moon. Those oppressors called their moowalk , “one giant leap for man-kind.” However, the real leap will come when humanity must no longer suffer the oppression bestowed on it by the United Snakes.

The Farce of July

New Agitation Handbill: America Sucks!

Just in time for the Farce of July weekend:

America Sucks!

Class Today and the Struggle for a New World

(https://raimd.wordpress.com)

“We want a better world. We want a world based on equality and mutuality. We envision a future in which the full potential of humanity is realized: one without unequal power relations and one of ecological harmony. Creating such a world is our common cause.” Such is the revolutionary refrain.

However pious the statements are, they stand disconnected from the world today: one full of inequality, oppression, coercion, violence, poverty and so on. If we really seek to create such a new, ‘utopian’ world, one thing is clear- we have a lot of work to do. Before we embark on this huge project, we need a plan or some sort of road map. Before we can chart a course towards the world we’d like to see, we must understand where we are now.

The world today is marked by extreme inequalities and stratification. The vast majority of people, around eighty percent, subsist on less than ten dollars a day. (1) Theirs is a world of poverty, toil and deprivation. Contrasted to this is a privileged minority noted for affluence, consumption and waste. Generally speaking, this social divide breaks down geographically: vast impoverishment being the norm of the ‘Third World’ and widespread affluence characteristic of the ‘First World.’

The scope and depth of this situation is unimaginable. In India alone, seven hundred million people live on less than two dollars dollars a day. (2) This is roughly equivalent to the entire English-speaking world. Around half of the world, about 3.5 billion people, live on less that $2.50 a day. (1) The human effects are devastating. For example, every year over 2 million people die of water born disease and every five seconds a child dies of starvation or malnutrition. (3) (4) All of these deaths are preventable: on a daily basis Amerikans alone have an average intake of 3,700 calories, throw away almost a third of their edible food and use 5.8 billion gallons of potable water just for toilets. (5) (6) (7)

The squalor of the of Third World and the squander of the First are directly related. Each world’s respective condition is the direct result of exploitation. The modern system of exploitation, whereby a global minority in a few rich countries lives at the expense of the impoverished global majority, is called imperialism. That is to say that in relation to the imperialist system and the Third World masses, those in the First World are beneficiaries of the former and a petty class of exploiters towards the latter.

Imperialism is currently the most widespread, fundamental form of oppression. This does not mean that other forms of oppression do not exist. Rather, imperialism is currently the dominant form of oppression: it touches the most people in the most fundamental way; it is the foremost determinant of life-options and class; and other forms of oppression are almost always negated, heightened, co-opted or superseded by imperialist exploitation. Imperialism drives social life today.

Attitudes and trends of thought, or ‘class consciousness,’ confirm this social reality. Whereas apathy and post modernism are common in the West, this is due to the lack of a functional need for a politically charged population. When First Worlders do express political views they are almost always supportive of imperialism. Mindless consumerism, a natural aspect of any society fattened on stolen wealth, is also a major phenomenon in the First World. On the other side of the social world, those in the Third World naturally resist their oppression. Radical Islam, the fastest growing social movement of the last thirty years, is in many regards an opposition movement against imperialism. This amalgamation of religion and anti-imperialism is no accident. Rather, it is evidence of two truths. First, the main social antagonism today is between the Third and First World. Second, oppression and resistance are inseparable.

Insofar as imperialism is the most fundamental form of oppression, resistance and revolutionary struggles are regular features in the Third World and at the margin. It is the Third World’s anti-imperialist struggle which is both the most widespread and common struggle amongst the global masses and by definition one against the core of global power. Containing amazing diversity, flaws and potential, the global anti-imperialist struggle is the struggle of the world’s exploited majority.

The anti-imperialist struggle is the modern day revolutionary struggle. The struggle of the global masses who are exploited by imperialism is of primary importance for those who seek a fundamentally better world: one that cannot freely evolve from the current one.

Anti-imperialist initiatives and revolutions in a single country or territory weakens the imperialist system as a whole and gives a new impetus for further, more widespread change.  It is as part of the global fight against imperialism that the foundations for a new world are built and of this process itself from which further revolutionary potential emerges. In our period, the complete abolition of capitalism, patriarchy, youth oppression and other unequal structural relationships as well as arriving at a state of mutuality and ecological harmony are directly tied the destruction of the current order via anti-imperialist struggle.

For revolutionaries around the world the current task is to advance and support the ongoing struggle against imperialism as part of our radical vision of a world free from all oppression. Those revolutionaries in the First World, who owing to class composition are few and far between and separated from the struggle of the world’s exploited masses, naturally find this task daunting. Nevertheless, for all those who desire a new world, this is the struggle we must engage in.

No doubt, the path before us is long and arduous. However, the place to begin is here; the time to start is now.

(1) http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats
(2) http://www.usaid.gov/locations/asia/countries/india/
(3) http://www.pacinst.org/reports/water_related_deaths/water_related_deaths_report.pdf
(4) http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/y7352e/y7352e03.htm#P1_34
(5) http://www.pacinst.org/reports/water_related_deaths/water_related_deaths_report.pdf
(6) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/18/weekinreview/18martin.html?partner=rssnyt
(7) http://www.fypower.org/res/tools/products_results.html?id=100139

RAIM-Denver May Day Program: Fuck the Border, Support Mexican National Liberation

Fuck the Border. Support Mexican National Liberation.

Amerika’s borders are militarily imposed. They were established as part of a genocidal expansion onto the North American continent. Amerika and its borders are illegitimate.

Amerika’s borders are currently a means to imprison the masses of the ‘Global South’ in abject poverty. RAIM-Denver supports their free movement into the United States. Those who oppose the free movement of oppressed peoples into the U.S. are enemies of the oppressed.

Mexicans are not “immigrants.” Amerika stole nearly half of Mexico. As is often the case, Mexican “immigrants” are returning to the “Southwest”: Occupied Mexico. There is nothing “alien” about Mexicans either. Mexicans have far more in common with the people of North and South America; they are far more representative of the world’s people. Amerikans are the real illegal aliens.

RAIM-Denver supports the revolutionary struggles of oppressed people. While this struggle is primarily one of people directly overthrowing imperialist exploitation in the Third World, it is clear that this struggle must also strike at the heart of imperialism. This fact, Amerika’s history and other factors, all necessitate the dismantling of the United States as a sovereign entity.

RAIM-Denver supports the creation of a Mexican state in the “Southwest” and its reunification with a revolutionized Mexico. As part of the complete overthrow of imperialism, RAIM-Denver supports dividing Amerika into different territories administered by oppressed peoples in alliance with the revolutionary Third World masses. Amerika has stolen much and its debt grows larger by the second. With the division and the ultimate destruction of Amerika, oppressed peoples around the world find common cause.

We are the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement- Denver. We promote the revolutionary transformation of society through the global struggle of the oppressed. Find out more at https://raimd.wordpress.com

Ben Whitmer: Why I Support Ward Churchill

(raimd.wordpress.com)

[Ben Whitmer is a long time supporter of Indigenous struggles and has been at the forefront of the local campaign to support Ward. Currently, he maintains the Ward Churchill solidarity blog, wardchurchilltrial.wordpress.com]

I’ve spent four years defending Ward Churchill in every way I could think to do so.‭ ‬And not because of any esoteric principle of academic freedom.‭ ‬If my time in universities has taught me anything,‭ ‬it’s that trying to inject principle into academia is as worthwhile as trying to train geese to shit indoors.‭ ‬Likewise,‭ ‬though I’m about as vehement a proponent of the human right to free expression as you’re likely to meet,‭ ‬I find the idea that it’s routinely abrogated‭ – ‬both by the right and the ‘left’‭ – ‬about as shocking as the daily sunrise.

I defend Ward Churchill because he was the first to write the obvious about the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks on September‭ ‬11,‭ ‬2001.‭ ‬That the technocrats on the upper levels of the World Trade Center weren’t targeted because they provided some symbolically metaphysical representation of American power‭; ‬they were targeted because they made their living on the bodies of Arab children.‭ ‬This is not to say that everyone in the World Trade Center was a‭ “‬little Eichmann‭”‬,‭ ‬a point Churchill made clear.‭ ‬He used a different term for the service workers and children in the World Trade Center,‭ ‬one popularized by the US military.‭ ‬They were‭ “‬collateral damage‭”‬,‭ ‬a miraculously precise and objective term that,‭ ‬as the reaction to Ward Churchill’s essay evidences,‭ ‬is divested of all precision and objectivity when one is staring at the corpses of their own dead.

In other words,‭ ‬I defend Ward Churchill because,‭ ‬not in spite,‭ ‬of his little Eichmann metaphor.‭ ‬It does everything a good metaphor should do.‭  ‬It manages to convey new meanings to both the subject and the object,‭ ‬and to expand the discourse surrounding both.‭ ‬From Churchill we learned a new way to perceive the technocrats at the top of the World Trade Center,‭ ‬just as we learned a new way to perceive Eichmann.‭ ‬And from these perceptions,‭ ‬many of us learned something indispensable about the bureaucratic functioning of power.

Churchill’s essay captured the national discourse in a way I can’t remember a piece of writing doing in my lifetime.‭  ‬That conservative talk shows from O’Reilly on down spent a three-month chunk of airtime feverishly denying Churchill’s metaphor,‭ ‬only speaks to its uncomfortable aptness.‭  ‬And one wasn’t able to open a leftist publication for months after the scandal broke without finding dozens of essays,‭ ‬letters to the editor,‭ ‬and opinion columns that‭ (‬1‭) ‬stated general agreement with Churchill on principle,‭ (‬2‭) ‬provided a typically tepid criticism of US foreign policy,‭ ‬and then,‭ (‬3‭) ‬moved to eviscerate him for the imperfection of his metaphor.‭  ‬Of course,‭ ‬these betrayed more about the authors‭’ ‬misunderstanding of metaphor than Churchill’s misuse of it.‭  ‬A metaphor is imperfect by its nature.‭  ‬That’s the point.‭  ‬A perfect metaphor,‭ ‬after all,‭ ‬would be a synonym.

That’s why I defend Ward Churchill,‭ ‬because his imperfect metaphor that was far more apt than any of the grotesque gibbering about heroism and innocence that flooded the nation after‭ ‬9/11.‭ ‬Because his was the only voice to question the sanctification of the economic interests that the World Trade Center represented.‭ ‬To quote Mumia Abu Jamal,‭ “‬it is not enough for us to merely,‭ ‬dumbly intone that Churchill has the right to write what he does.‭ ‬No we must do more,‭ ‬we must insist that Churchill is right,‭ ‬and no one,‭ ‬not some rabid talk show parrot,‭ ‬nor political whore like governor Bill Owens,‭ ‬has a right to demand what is wrong.‭”

In other words,‭ ‬I defend Ward Churchill because,‭ ‬as RAIM has so eloquently put it,‭ ‬I defend the right to call little Eichmanns little Eichmanns.

Remember Oscar Grant: The Struggle Is Not Over

This New Years Day 2009 in Oakland, California another tragic incident of police terror against a young Black man occurred.  Oscar Grant III, 22 years old, father of a 4 year old daughter, was shot execution-style by a transit cop.  Videos of the incident clearly show he was shot in the back while face-down on a subway platform, unarmed and posing no threat.

The incident was filmed by bystanders, and police attempted to confiscate most of the videos.  But a few made it to Youtube and were viewed around the world.  Outrage at this incident spread, with protests and rebellions happening in response to this atrocity in the Bay Area and elsewhere.

John Burris, a civil rights lawyer for the Grant family, called this murder one of the worst cases of police terrorism he ever witnessed.  Recently Johannes Nehserle, the pig shown on the video shooting Grant, was charged with murder after he quit the BART police force and fled the state to avoid questioning.  Along with calling for criminal charges against the cop, Burris is helping file a 25 million lawsuit for Grant’s family.

Although this case may be one of a few where justice is brought against a killer cop, it will be too little too late.  Terrorism and injustice are nothing new for Black people in Amerikkka.  It enslaved and killed millions of African people in one of the most brutal slavery systems known to man.  It subsequently lynched thousands of Blacks in its long history of colonial and neo-colonial oppression.  Other non-white peoples have been victims of Amerikkka in its long history of exploitation, land theft, and genocide.

With oppression comes resistance.  The Black Liberation struggle and the leaders it produced have long been an inspiration to oppressed peoples in every corner of the globe.  We take this time on Martin Luther King Jr. Day to remember that spirit of resistance.

This year’s celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day coincides with the inauguration of Barack Obama, the first “Black” president of the United States.  While objectively historic, it should be seen as it is, a reinvention of U.S. imperialism as a multicultural empire with a Black figurehead.  As seen by the murder of Oscar Grant, the Obama presidency will not end the police killings of non-white youth.  It will not end the huge incarceration rates of non-white peoples inside the United States.  It will not free Mumia Abu-Jamal and the hundreds of other political prisoners who are continually denied freedom and justice.  It will not end the U.S. instigated bloodbaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. support for Israel’s aggression against Palestine, or U.S. harassment against independent nations like Venezuela and Bolivia.  And it will not end the parasitic capitalism that steals resources and labor from the Third World to fuel Amerika’s opulent consumerism.

Even Martin Luther King Jr. saw the realities of the political, economic, and military imperialism the United States was inflicting not only to oppressed nations inside the country but all around the world:

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, ‘This is not just’” (“Beyond Vietnam”).

The investments they continue to use to take profits from poor nations were received from previous thefts the U.S. committed throughout its history.  This cycle must stop.

At the same time Oscar Grant was killed, over 1000 Palestinians lost their lives in Gaza by the settler occupation of Israel, funded by the United States.  True freedom and justice will not come by accepting a bigger part of U.S. imperialism but by rejecting and abolishing it outright.  Oppressed nations everywhere must gain their freedom and determine their own destinies.  These freedom struggles are in solidarity with all oppressed peoples in the world, in bringing about a truly just world where an end to oppression with no concessions is more than just a dream.

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It’s Right to Rebel Against Amerika’s Education

In Amerika ‘education’ means social programming. It means you must learn to conform to Amerika’s fucked up values and norms. It means instead of learning to think critically or independently, you are taught to be another Amerikan. This is the ‘education’ in store for you.

According to Amerika, your job is to fall in line and accept your ‘education.’ Your job is to become an Amerikan. Everything Amerika teaches you is part of this demand. For example, you are not taught the history of those trampled by Amerika. You are not taught about the nations exterminated, enslaved, attacked and exploited by Amerika. Instead you are taught history from the perspective of the oppressor. You are taught from the perspective of Amerika.

If you see through this rotten system, if you want to be more than another mindless Amerikan oppressor, if you want to build a new, fundamentally better world, you need more than the ‘education’ forced on you. You need a real education. You need an education which embraces the best aspirations of humanity and is rooted in the cause of the oppressed. You need a revolutionary education. Amerika’s prison schools cannot give you a revolutionary education. They can only make you a reactionary Amerikan, complacent in the tyranny Amerika projects on the people of the world.

If you want a revolutionary education, you must take up this task yourself. You must arm yourself intellectually. You must gain critical knowledge to counter the dominant thinking forced upon you. It means looking into and learning things outside of school, forming your own thoughts independent of what Amerika expects you to become.

Fortunately, the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement is here to help. Our constantly growing body of revolutionary texts (covering topics such as political economy, culture, current events, reports on actions) makes RAIM a great resource for rebellious youth. Additionally, the core group operating in Denver provides a group-model in which others can participate in and continue their revolutionary, intellectual development. Quit waiting around for Amerika to program you, start educating yourself!

It’s Right to Rebel Against Amerika and its Bullshit ‘Education!’

Stand up with the oppressed, get with RAIM!

“The North-South Division”

The following is an excerpt from a essay titled The Socialist Project in a Disintegrated Capitalist World, written by Greek writer Arghiri Emmanuel in 1976.

The North-South division

It is largely accepted today that development and under-development are not autonomous and juxtaposed phenomena which can be examined each within its own terms, but that they are phenomena organically and functionally interrelated.

That is a common place. What is less familiar is the observation that not only is development of the periphery blocked by the very existence of the center, and the growth of the center reinforced by the resources drawn from the periphery, but that this center is today over-developed to the very same extent that the periphery is under-developed.

What can this over or under-development be measured against? It may be measured in relation to the level of development which the existing economic system, in this case the capitalist mode of production, can, under present historical conditions, secure at the level of the whole of mankind.

This means that the United States can be the United States and Sweden can be Sweden only because others, that is, the two billion inhabitants of the Third World, are not.

This also means that every material equalization from the top down is excluded. If, by some miracle, a socialist and fraternal system, regardless of its type or model, were introduced tomorrow morning the world over, and if it wanted to integrate, to homogenize mankind by equalizing living standards, then to do this it would not only have to expropriate the capitalists of the entire world, but also dispossess large sections of the working class of the industrialized countries, of the amount of surplus value these sections appropriate today. It seems this is reason enough for these working classes not to desire this ‘socialist and fraternal’ system and to express their opposition by either openly integrating into the existing system, as in the United States of America or the Federal Republic of Germany, or by advocating national paths to socialism, as in France or Italy.

This is not a question of principles, but a question of interests. A few global figures will be enough to show this. In 1973, the average annual wage in the USA amounted to around US$10,500. The population of the entire capitalist world at that time was about 2.6 billion, and there was a little over a billion economically active. To pay all these economically active people on an American scale would require close to eleven trillion dollars. However, the total national income of these countries in 1973 amounted to only $2.7 trillion.

This means, even if all income earned without the counterparts of labor, profits, rents, interest rates, etc., (which are all components of surplus value) were abolished and mankind resolved to be satisfied from now on with simple reproduction, relinquishing all progress and consuming its entire product, it would not, under these hypothetical conditions, be able to reach more than an average wage of $2,500 per year, that is, a quarter of the American wage.

It is precisely this that severs solidarity between the working classes of the center and the periphery. While all the working classes were subjected to exploitation, no matter how disparate its degree, even when one was 90% exploited and the other 10%, they had an interest in uniting and fighting arm-in-arm, and together expropriating their exploiters, despite the fact that this expropriation improved the situation for some considerably more than for others. But from the moment the workers of certain countries ceased to be the suppliers of surplus value (no matter how little) and became recipients, the situation was reversed and the positions of the working classes became antagonistic to one another.

It might be maintained that this comparison in terms of dollars or surplus value rates is too abstract and illusory. I will suggest another, in physical terms. Today, the citizen of America consumes an extraordinary amount of basic raw materials. Were all the inhabitants of this planet to follow his example and consume the same amount per person, all known deposits of iron ore would be exhausted in forty years, copper deposits in eight years, tin deposits in six years, and petroleum in five and a half years!

However, exhaustion of deposits and reserves is not the only factor that prevents world equalization from above. Ecological limits represent another.

If today’s developed countries can still rid themselves of their wastes by dumping them into the sea or the air, this is so because they are the only ones doing it; similarly, if their citizens can still travel by plane without great difficulty, that is because others have not the means to fly and leave them the privilege of clogging the skies, etc., etc.

These calculations involve no unsubstantial and slippery concepts such as surplus value, capital, etc., or such computable categories as profit, interest rates, etc., but of the consumption of palpable materials. Hence, it is the great mass of the population, the wage-workers themselves who are involved.

It follows from this that apart from all other considerations and all other antagonisms, under today’s objective natural and technological conditions, and in the foreseeable future, the people of today’s rich countries can consume all the things that make up their material well-being and which they seem to value, only because others use them either very little or not at all. They can reprocess their wastes simply because others have nothing much to reprocess. Otherwise, the ecological balance would be fatally imperiled.

This is what makes the antagonism between the center and the periphery irresolvable and transforms the entire working class of certain countries into the worker aristocracy of the earth.

From:

”The Socialist Project in a Disintegrated Capitalist World” by Arghiri Emmanuel. From Socialist Thought and Practice : A Yugoslav Monthly, vol. 16, no. 9, 1976, pp. 69-87.

Translated by the Maoist Information Website. Read full article here.

Obama, “Black” Messiah for White Amerika

Liberals, even some calling themselves ’revolutionaries,’ have a chronically false ideal of Amerika. Instead of seeing historical injustices carried out by Amerika as part of its overall development, liberals see such things as disconnected aberrations which can be resolved through in a piecemeal fashion through progressive determination. They see Amerika, though flawed, as an unfinished experiment in freedom and democracy.

Revolutionaries see Amerika as a product of unending injustices carried out upon oppressed peoples. Revolutionaries see Amerika and all the decadent elements which constitute it as something that needs to be destroyed as part of the global struggle to build a better world. While revolutionaries hate Amerika, liberals love Amerika: they are always trying to save it, to reform it, to make it realize its so-called historic potential.

To this end, an Obama presidency marks a major step. White liberals are projecting their own hopes and aspirations regarding Amerika onto Obama. Having a Black man lead a nation founded on the slavery of Blacks is for many a confirmation that Amerika is still the land of hope. An Obama presidency represents evidence that even into the 21st century, Amerika is still becoming a better, more perfect democracy. Because of this, the historical narratives spun around Obama are endless. For much of Amerika, Obama is a near-messianic figure.

Within the liberal paradigm, by electing Obama, Amerika can go from a country shamed by the Bush administration to one reformed, made better. An Obama presidency proves that Amerikan democracy works. Amerika can arrive as a more pluralistic open society whose legitimacy as the leader of the world is reaffirmed. An Obama presidency represents the continuation of Amerikan supremacy without Bush’s overtly hee-haw element. Obama represents a form of imperialism which liberal Amerikans can be proud of.

But liberal love-amerika types are not the only force driving the Obama campaign. Within the imperialist camp, many view the overly belligerent Bush administration as a disaster. Over the last 8 years, Amerika’s actions have rightly inspired hate and resistance the world over.

Loosing the iron fist and taking up the velvet glove is understood by many to be a more effective approach to imperialism. Within much of the imperialist camp, a popular Obama presidency is seen as more conducive to their own long term interests. Obama is seen as a figure who can recover what power Amerika has lost over the last 8 years.

Obama, and the forces behind him, are not revolutionaries. They are not trying to end Amerikan imperialism. Rather, for those who benefit from imperialist exploitation, Obama is seen as savior, a messiah who can bring the return to Amerika’s power and so-called greatness. These are the social forces that will, in all likelihood, drive Barack Obama to be the next president of the United States.

National Liberation and Anti-Imperialism

By Nick Brown

The Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement- Denver is a movement for global equality. We stand for the end of the imperialist system: the system whereby a handful of powerful nations exploit the peoples of the world. We see the termination of imperialism as a necessary first step to a world of lasting peace and real equality.

Anti-imperialism is foremost a fight for national liberation. Most broadly construed, national liberation is the struggle to not be exploited by outside oppressors, but to exist as a self-determining, free nation.

National liberation struggles happen throughout the world on a variety of levels. Venezuela is an example where a progressive section of the ruling class is now leading a campaign for national salvation; providing much needed reforms for the masses while challenging U.S. supremacy on a regional level. There are the numerous armed groups in Mexico, numbering in the mid-teens (not just the Zapatistas), who are fighting a comprador government. Hezbollah, the patriotic Islamic party in Lebanon, has challenged Western influence in the country, provided social welfare for the people and aligned with various Lebanese parties [including Christian ones] in their struggle against Amerikan/Zionist aggression. And we cannot forget the heroic Iraqi resistance.

These forces, taken together, form a worldwide movement against Western imperialism. These diverse individual movements, insofar as they are challenging imperialism, should be supported by freedom and peace loving peoples everywhere.

If Third World anti-imperialist struggles are capable of cutting vital lifelines [of wealth and resources] to imperialism, national liberation struggles internal to the U.S. are capable of delivering blows from within. In the grand scheme of things, within the worldwide movement towards anti-imperialism, these national liberation movements represent a mighty ally, behind enemy lines, within what is geographically called the United States. Because of this, and because these struggles are so close to home, national liberation for internally oppressed nations hold a special significance for us.

While national liberation is not currently the dominant trend amongst oppressed nations within Amerika, national struggles themselves are part of the dialect of everyday life. These struggles manifest in a variety of ways but carry common themes.

For Mexicanos, Indigenous Peoples and Blacks, theirs is the struggle not to be criminalized and disproportionately held captive in White-Amerika’s prison system. It is the struggle to not have their cultures mocked, repressed, co-opted and whitewashed. It is the struggle to not have the lowest life expectancies within the United States. It is a struggle to practice one’s national culture with pride; to be treated as equal members of society; to exist free from the oppression leveled on them by Amerika.

Typically, national struggles take one of two routes: one, the route of liberation as a nation, and the other, integration into the imperialistic, Amerikan oppressor society.

The latter, integration into the Amerikan oppressor society, is the main trend today. This is the path favored by poverty pimps, white chauvinists and the state. The integration route was made widely available through the widening and deepening of exploitation abroad while given impetus by the explosive successes of national liberation struggles during the 1960s and 70s. The reformist integrationist route, while also a national struggle, is antithetical to revolutionary national liberation. Ending oppression through integration means being absorbed into Amerika’s “multi-cultural” oppressor society. It is the democratization of imperialist privilege and the diversification of the labor aristocracy. Integrationism is not revolutionary and is not in the least bit anti-imperialist.

For oppressed nations inside Amerika, the struggle for national liberation is mainly tied to the struggle for a territory on which a free nation can exist. Without such a land, oppressed nations are doomed to live within White-Amerika–forced to suffer oppression while at the same time being lured by trickle-down imperialist privilege. While the goal of national liberation struggles is the creation of sovereign national territories, the planting of seeds for such political power is a necessary first step.

While full-blown national power will not develop quickly or easily, national liberation movements themselves are of utmost importance today. The strengthening of national liberation movements, the expansion of networks and the creation of independent spaces from which these networks and broader movements can operate is a task for which the outcome will weigh heavily on the future.

As success for peoples of the Third World build up, national liberation struggles inside the U.S. can become a destabilizing force within the heart of imperialism. This will make the prospects of revolution greater. At the same time, national liberation struggles will be a focal point of revolutionary gravity within the First World. In the long term, successes made today in creating the basis for independent national power [for oppressed nations within the U.S.] will translate into much wider successes for all people oppressed by U.S. imperialism further down the road.

It is with these considerations in mind that we champion national liberation struggles within United States. We do so not to advance ourselves or to look edgy. We do so from our general anti-imperialist perspective. For us, any single movement for national liberation here is part of the broader international revolutionary struggle to end oppression once and for all.

May Day Around The World

In our ongoing coverage of Denver’s May Day events we’d also like to take the time to report on events from the rest of the world.

First to Turkey where demonstrators and police clashed. This was the first May Day protest in Istanbul since a 1980 military coup. Prior to that, in 1977 a May Day massacre left 34 radicals dead.

In Kabul student protestors burnt and beat an effigy of George Bush and shouted “Death to Amerika” type slogans. It looks like in Afghanistan students are embracing a revolutionary education.

Hezbollah attended the annual Cairo conference. There they encourage a united resistance to U.S. aggression in the middle east and also championed Iran as a main obstacle against U.S. supremacy in the region.

The Venezuelan state under the leadership of Chavez seized the last privately held oil fields in a move that has nationalized all oil production in the country. Venezuela also formally announced that they would be pulling out of the IMF and World Bank: another blow to western imperialism.

And worldwide, 24,000 people died from starvation or malnutrition.

So what will you be doing between now and next year to fight imperialism?!

FUCK THE TROOPS

The myth of the all-powerful richest 1%

While it is true that the ruling class of ultra-rich are the ultimate enemy of the world’s people, the fact that they are the current “ruling class” does not magically keep them in power- nor does it mean that they are solely responsible for maintaining their rule. If the ultra-rich pitted themselves against an overwhelming majority of people everywhere, they would be quickly overthrown. To counteract this, imperialism has adopted a strategy of building social and material alliances with its national working class. When such an imperialist class forms an alliance with the “masses” of its own nation in respect to oppressing peoples all around the world, this nation, in its entirety (its imperialist bourgeoisie and its bought off working class), is called an oppressor nation. Amerika is the leading oppressor nation today and this social reality is reflected in all aspects of Amerikan society.

The soldier who is only doing his job

As already mentioned, the fact that U.S. Imperialism exploits and dominates the entire world permeates every aspect of Amerikkka. This is especially true with the United Snakes military. Essentially the U.S. military is the armed wing of U.S. imperialism: the rent-a-pigs for the global ruling class. But when we look past simple analogies we see the true nature of the troops: they are there to exert direct armed aggression for the purpose of maintaining Amerikkka’s financial dominance over the world. This includes killing people towards that end. So the “job” of any soldier, regardless if they ever enter into direct combat themselves, is to facilitate armed aggression against oppressed people- to kill and enslave people for imperial conquest.

The “innocent” Nazis

When the Nazis got the shit kicked out of them by the Soviet Union, the rabid German aggressors were made to answer for their inhuman crimes. These Nazi war criminals came up with a number of rather weak excuses for their genocidal undertakings just like Amerikkka troops and their sympathizers do today. They said, “I was only doing a job,” “I never killed anyone,” and “if I didn’t do it someone else would have.” The main difference between Nazi Germany and its fascist troops and Imperialist Amerikkka is that Amerikkka has yet to be brought to justice.

The bottom line

RAIM-Denver is a group of humanitarians. We do not like violence. Unfortunately, U.S. Imperialism is the most murderous and exploitative system that the world has ever seen- its violence is unparalleled. We can’t ignore this and we can’t ignore the fact that it is U.S. troops that murder Iraqi people. RAIM-Denver is not a liberal organization. We don‘t tip-toe around issues. We don’t pretend to be supportive of fascists and we aren’t friendly to people who kill for empire. We don’t pretend to support the troops. Instead, we support the people who are being killed by U.S. troops. We support the real victims, not fascist murderers. Fuck the Troops.

Beat Back Oppressors and Aggressors Everywhere!

Death to AmeriKKKan Imperialism!

Victory to Iraq!

Victory to the Oppressed!

Also check out Fuck The Troops: The Video