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/

Pick Up Lines #2

RAIM is proud to be featured in the latest issue of ‘Pick-Up Lines,’ a pamphlet series which features reviews, debates and polemics from Third Worldist organizations.

Study up, comrades!

Table of Contents-

By the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement:
-Code Pink: Pigs for More Pie
-Review: Arun Gupta asks, ‘What Anti-War Movement?’
-Seven Years of Ongoing U$ Imperialist Slaughter in Iraq
-Review: Raj Patel, the Value of Nothing
-Earthquake Strikes Haiti, Imperialism is a Disaster

By Monkey Smashes Heaven:
-MSH on Healthcare, NPR on Barefoot Doctors
-A Quick Look at Some of Mao’s Errors
-RCP Elaborates on the Tragic Oppression of NFL Millionares
-What About the RIM
-Review: Nickel and Dimed, On (Not) Getting by in America
-On Sectarianism

RAIM-S on the WTO 10 Year Anniversary

RAIM-Seattle on the recent WTO 10 year anniversary

originally published, December 21st, 2009 by RAIM-Seattle

(www.raims.wordpress.com)

The imperialist media hype around the recent slayings of police (the enforcers of empire) in the Seattle and Lakewood, and the predictable show of support for the kkkops by the general cracker population, overlaps the ten year anniversary of the “Battle of Seattle”. RAIM-Seattle doesn’t believe in conspiracy theories per se, but the coincidental timing of all this shit is not lost on us in the least. If these recent events did not take place, the imperialist media would have been more than likely (just for a “story”) to do a piece noting the 1999 WTO rebellion. The resulting reports would have reminded these kop loving crackers how pig repression extended itself into the white communities from its usual mandate in occupying oppressed nation communities. This would have exposed the imperialist hypocrisy around “free speech” with former mayor Paul Schell’s “Free Speech Zones” and the resulting swine assault upon any expression outside of those zones. In turn, this would have demoralized the white oppressor nation’s faith in the Amerikkkan system, and we at RAIM-Seattle think this is a good thing. Instead, because of recent events and its coverage by the media, you have a more united white oppressor nation against “those people”. That is, those people of the internal oppressed nations. People hungry for justice should consider their moves carefully and with a sense of overall strategy. It is plainly and tragically obvious that individuals just shooting pigs within the u$ (as deserving of the death penalty as they might be as enforcers of the system) outside of a legally solid (presumably) self-defense context, doesn’t lead to liberation. In fact, it leads to more repression, more kkkops, more prisons, and more of Amerikkka in general. Likewise, praising or defending kkkop assassinations promotes that type of strategy-less focoism instead of promoting solidarity with active and organized resistance to imperialism in the Third World.

With that out of the way, RAIM-S is going to do what the Amerikan imperialist media conveniently wasn’t going to do: Revisit the 1999 WTO rebellion!

Brief history of the WTO up to 1999

The WTO was originally founded in 1947 as the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade, or GATT. GATT, in turn, had its origins in the 1944 Bretton Woods conference as the proposed but never implemented “International Trade Organization” (ITO). The GATT, along with other Bretton Woods creations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, essentially made the rules of global capitalism (on international trade, “development” loan packages, property rights, some interest rates, currency exchange rates, etc.) for the post-WW2 period. Alongside the Marshall Plan, the resulting agreements helped forge a “new imperialism” of a parasitically united First World, headed by the united $tates, to jointly exploit the Third World. This was the true origin of a “New World Order” of imperialism, as opposed to the kind of inter-imperialist wars for colonial spheres of dominance that characterized the first half of the 20^th century. The Soviet bloc (referred by some as the historical “Second World”) and the so-called “Cold War” was both the top exception and the chief impediment to the blooming of this united imperialist corpse flower.

These international institutions of free trade were only so in name, as the united $nakes and the rest of the First World would always insist upon special exceptions (like agricultural subsidies for cracker-settler Amerikkkan farmers) to prop up their privileged status as “developed” nations. Resistance to imperialism by the peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America from the early 1950’s to the late 60’s was a key factor in smashing the old Bretton Woods system (the u$ dollar fixed to a gold standard as the global reserve currency). The imperialists had their revenge by replacing the original Bretton Woods with a floating exchange rate system. The consequences of this lead to further disruption of some of the only means of Third World nations to generate national capital; their own natural resources and agriculture. (1)

This predatory battering of the Third World by these First World expanded with the fall of the rival Soviet bloc in 1991. This event was infamously marked by George Bu$h Sr.’s announcement to the u$ congreSS of this New World Order finally coming into fruition; right on the eve of the “multilateral” imperialist attack on Iraq in 1990. (2) With the all potential challenges to this New World Order (really the New Amerikkkan Order) neutralized, from the Soviet Union to Saddam Hussein, the First World kicked up its exploitation yet another notch during the Uruguay Round of GATT in 1994. (3) These deck-stacking measures moved beyond “business as usual” for the imperialists with regard to tariffs and price controls, and into uncharted economic territory involving agricultural products, intellectual property, services, etc. This renewed global economic framework culminated in the founding of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995. Naturally, the agenda of the world’s exploited majority and all those who resist imperialism was shutting down the gathering of imperialists at the WTO. All this came to a head at the Seattle conference on November 30, 1999.

The “Battle of Seattle” (of 1999, not 1856!) (4)

RAIM-S won’t bother recounting all the various events around the WTO shutdown. Both the righteous direct actions of the anarchist John Browns and the pig mobs running wild from mayor Paul $chell’s “State of Emergency” in response has been covered countless times in the independent media (5), and mostly mischaracterized and scandalized in the corporate media. A Hollywood feature film was even made. A recounting of the minutia of details around the protest is not our purpose here. Ours is an account of the where the margins of class struggle are in this movement for justice against the globalized machinations of imperialism.

The direct actions were successful in shutting down the first day of the conference, preventing delegates from entering the convention center and cutting off pig supply lines. The pig counterattack was a brutal and massive military operation that utilized tear gas, rubber bullets, beatings, mass arrests, and an invasion and occupation of the nominally progressive Capitol Hill neighborhood. The world attention of the WTO protests and the police repression helped to bring certain contradictions inside the following days of the WTO Seattle conference to a head, thus derailing the entire conference. The story for most ends here, with the narrative of the germinating “brand new left” (local and/or globetrotting) to oppose various imperialist dominated gatherings as the future of “left wing” resistance. Now RAIM-Seattle has to stink it up a little bit, for the sake of the truth, with the following remark from some Black Nation youth to some radical white youth as they pushing back against the pig assaults:

“Hey, where were you when we were getting beat down by the police?”

This brings up a larger issue to RAIM-S of the class outlook of the various groups involved in the protest. Is there some kind of white Amerikkkan exceptionalism within the outlook of many on the so-called “left”? Is this how many activists in the First World feel exempted from confronting the relative privilege of white “workers” and their parasitic i$$ues, even as they claim to support the issues of the internal oppressed nations and the Third World as a whole? Did fantasies of u$ “revolutionary working class” lead to a white dominated politics? Did this, in turn, keep away too many oppressed nation peoples from representing their nations at the WTO protests? That’s not to say that oppressed nations and the Third World weren’t represented, but let’s take a hard look at the following account from Betita Martinez to examine where RAIM sees this problem (6). Martinez quotes Jinee Kim of the Third Eye Movement:

“I was at the jail where a lot of protesters were being held and a big crowd of people was chanting ‘This Is What Democracy Looks Like!’ At first it sounded kind of nice. But then I thought: is this really what democracy looks like? Nobody here looks like me.”

This is not to say that individuals of white background, even as an organizational majority, cannot contribute to a net gain for global justice. That would put an incorrect subjectivist primary focus on who a person is versus what a person does on the one hand. Indeed, Martinez documents the solid discipline, knowledge, and organizational skills of many settler-descended activists, as well as its positive reception from the relative minority of oppressed nation activists. However, “democracy” is something more than gathering to protest and for voter registration drives. The struggle for democracy is overwhelmingly a torturous, long term armed struggle for national liberation in the Third World. The white so-called “left” needs to be aware of its First Worldist subjectivism with regard to concepts like democracy. RAIM-Seattle thinks that the best democracy that can exist is that of “one person, one vote” on a global scale. Because of imperialism, the mechanism for this global democracy, in the full utilitarian sense, does not exist as of yet. Since those of us in RAIM like to think of themselves as being consistent global democrats (small “d”; fuck the Demokkkratic parasite Party), we uphold the interest of the global majority in the Third World against the global minority in the First World. This makes it possible for us to act in a way that respects the “general will” of the global majority the best way possible, lacking the practical ability to count 6 billion votes under imperialism. Betita Martinez then shows RAIM the economic origins of this “left-wing” self-deception on “democracy”:

Unfortunately the heritage of distrust was intensified by some of the AFL-CIO leadership of labor on the November 30 march. They chose to take a different route through downtown rather than marching with others to the Convention Center and helping to block the WTO. Also, on the march to downtown they reportedly had a conflict with the Third World People’s Assembly contingent when they rudely told the people of color to move aside so they could be in the lead.

This is the crux of the issue for RAIM. In the midst of all this righteous militancy, where were the John Browns (traitors to the white oppressor nation) in the march to shut down Jimmy Hoffa Jr.’s parasite goons? Who was there to defend the nominal Third World leadership against imperialism? Perhaps it is because of a continuing fantasy among the “left” about some “natural” role for the Amerikkkan worker as some kind of leading “revolutionary” force for progressive change. RAIM holds that the only societal change that Amerikkkan labor can bring is fascism. Observe (7):

“The Seattle summit will be a historic confrontation between civil society and corporate rule”, says Mike Dolan. He works for the American consumer watchdog group Public Citizen founded by Ralph Nader. Public Citizen is connected to the IFG and initiated the campaign against the MAI treaty. Dolan now acts as the great coordinator and spokesman of the counter movement in Seattle. Not everyone seems to be happy with him, but little can be done about his presence. He sits in the middle of the web, like a spider. On the one hand Dolan supports the American PGA caravan with several thousand dollars, on the other he speaks up for the extreme Right Pat Buchanan, now a candidate for the American presidency, representing the Reform Party. “Whatever else you say about Pat Buchanan, he will be the only candidate in the 2000 presidential sweepstakes who will passionately and unconditionally defend the legitimate expectations of working families in the global economy,” Dolan writes. Indeed, Buchanan supports American workers. As long as they are conservative and obedient and not unemployed, black, gay, female, lesbian or Jewish. He’s also not particularly fond of left-wing workers. Buchanan on Argentina: “With military and police and free lance operators, between 6.000 and 150.000 leftists disappeared. Brutal: yes; also successful. Today peace reigns in Argentina; security has been restored.”

And this:

Former Republican big shot Buchanan is known for his sharp attacks on international trade treaties like GATT, NAFTA, MAI and now the WTO. “Traditional antagonists as politically far apart as Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan are finding some common ground on trade issues,”says IFG member Mark Ritchie. He is also director of the American Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, which supports small farmers. Reform Party spokesman in New Hampshire John Talbott agrees with Ritchie. “If you close your eyes, it is difficult to hear much of a difference between Ralph Nader on the left and Pat Buchanan on the right when they talk about the devastating effect of free international trade on the American worker and a desire to clean big money and special interests out of Washington.”According to Buchanan this big capital is mainly in the hands of “the Jews”. He presents himself as “the only leader in this country who is not afraid of fighting against the Jewish lobby”. Buchanan calls Hitler “an individual of great courage” and doubts whether the holocaust really was that big an event. But “Jewish capital” isn’t the most important reason why Buchanan wants to be a candidate for the presidency. No, in the first place he wants to end “illegal immigration”, that is, according to Buchanan, “helping fuel the cultural breakdown of our nation”. The populist Buchanan is probably the foremost representative of the extreme right in the US. His constituency consists of Christian fundamentalists, militia members and neo-Nazis. These millions of people might explain Dolan’s flirt with Buchanan. Together with his enthusiastic commentary Dolan sent around a newspaper article in which Buchanan openly says: “American workers and people first.”But Buchanan is not alone with that opinion. Also the big right-wing trade union AFL-CIO wants to make “the rights and interests of US workers a priority”. The union also mobilises their rank and file for the demonstrations in Seattle.

Make no mistake: The fascist agenda of the Amerikkkan organized labor is not the “false consciousness” of Amerikkkan workers ideologically swindled by Patrick Buchanan the AFL-CIA (yes, that’s how we spell it) and other u$ labor leaders. The protectionism, racism, and militarism of the Amerikkkan labor aristocracy are, in reality, their true class consciousness. The imperialist structure of the world set up by the Bretton Woods conference, with all its various phases, have made 90% of Amerikkkans among the world’s richest 15%! (8,9) Why in the hell would they want to change the very exploitative basis for that privilege? (10) Unless, of course, these crackkkers are complaining about Third World and oppressed peoples driving down their parasitically inflated wages, taking “their jobs”, or driving up the cost of “their” gasoline for their pick-up trucks and SUVs. This is the “Amerikkka first” fascist agenda, not a progressive global justice one. It is an agenda that the left-wing of parasitism keeps giving space to with their fantasies of a white-worker led revolution. The common “left” narrative of strategy goes something like this: Win the “90% against the 10%” in within country by country, rather than on a overarching global scale. Treating every country, both in the First World and Third World, as if they all have progressive national majorities will only lead to disaster. One can see where this white populist fantasy leads: to the teaCrackkkers and the goddamn minuteKlan. To RAIM, this is NOT what democracy looks like… This is what DUMBokkkracy looks like.

J. Sakai quotes ideological founder of fascism Benito Mussolini (11):

[Mussolini understood] his need to put forward the most “left” face possible on his way to State power. Mussolini even spoke favorably about the spontaneous workers councils movement that was taking over factories and calling for anti-capitalist revolution:

“ No social transformation which is necessary is repugnant to me. Hence I accept the famous workers’ supervision of the factories and equally their cooperative social management; I only ask that there should be a clear conscience and technical capacity, and that production be increased. If this is guaranteed by the trade unions, instead of by the employers, I have no hesitation in saying that the former have the right to take the latter’s place.”

Again, does today’s third position fascism sound more radical than that? Not hardly.

Never forget class struggle!

RAIM-S gives a clenched-fist salute to those John Browns of the global justice movement in their continued harassment of the imperialist states at the various international policy conferences around the world, including at the recent Copenhagen conference. Never forget that First World “labor” is not the friend of the world’s exploited and oppressed. Your real friends are the freedom fighters of the Third World proletariat who are landing the hardest blows against imperialism (12,13).

Fuck the AFL-CIA! Up with the Third World!

Turn the World upside down!
Notes:

1. Steven M. Suranovich, International Finance Theory and Policy, chapter 100, http://internationalecon.com/Finance/Fch100/F100-1.php

2. http://www.al-bab.com/Arab/docs/pal/pal10.htm

3. The Uruguay Round, http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/fact5_e.htm

4. http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=5208

5. John Tarleton, Love and Rage in Seattle: The Day the WTO Stood Still, http://johntarleton.net/wto.html

6. Elizabeth ‘Betita’ Martinez, Where Was the Color in Seattle?: Looking for reasons why the Great Battle was so white, http://colours.mahost.org/articles/martinez.html

7. Merijn Schoenmaker and Eric Krebbers, Seattle ’99, marriage party of the Left and the Right, http://www.savanne.ch/right-left-materials/seattle-marriage.html#13

8. US Census Bureau, 2006; income statistics for the year 2005

9. http://globalrichlist.com/how.html

10. J. Sakai, Aryan Politics & Fighting the W.T.O, http://colours.mahost.org/articles/sakai2.html

11. J. Sakai, excerpt from Confronting Fascism: Discussion Documents for a Militant Movement, http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/books/fascism/shock.html

12. http://monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/venezuela-bolivia-iran-africans-denounce-us-and-other-first-world-countries-at-copenhagen/

13. https://raimd.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/in-indian-forests-grow-with-naxalite-peoples-war/

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

RAIM-Seattle: Thankkksgiving reportback on Olympic resistance organizing

(http://raims.wordpress.com)

In the name of troublemaking on the settlers’ gorge-fest known as Thankkksgiving, RAIM-S now gives a reportback on a recent presentation by representatives of No2010.com and the Olympic Resistance Network (ORN) in downtown Seattle*. The presentation was promoting the Anti-Olympic Convergence in Vancouver in February, 2010. The speakers from the ORN and No2010.com filled the room with inspiration as the crimes of past and continued Kanadian settlerism against the First Nations** of so-called “British Columbia” were thoroughly exposed:

(Image courtesy of No2010.com)

A Hi$tory of British KKKolumbia and KKKlanada: False Entities Legally, Real Oppressor-Nations Materially

The underlying historical theme of the speakers goes beyond the parameters of the slogan, “No Olympics on Stolen Native Land”. In fact, as one of the speakers pointed out, the First Nations covering most of the territory within the legally fake borders so-called “B.C.” never surrendered their land and never signed treaties in the first place! All of the so-called “Land/Indian Acts” of the late 1800’s/early 1900’s were duly never recognized. The resulting land grabs, dislocations, the resource stealing, the massive Indigenous child abuse, the poisoning of the Earth, the sexual assault and murder of Indigenous women, and the outright genocide of the First Nations were righteously resisted by the Indigenous Peoples’ Warriors, as they do to this day. As far as the history of white settler nations go, there doesn’t seem to be a treaty they sign with First Nations that they don’t break. If there’s no treaty for Crackers to break to begin with, them RAIM-S sees this contemporary position as bringing a radical, “no compromise” progressive nationalist spirit to the Indigenous Peoples. This revolutionary spirit gives strength to their righteous struggle against these imperialist settler states, and in particular, the upcoming genocidal First Worldist “Five-Ring Circus” known as the Olympics.

The 2010 Olympic Game$ as a concentrated imperialist campaign of land stealing and genocide against the First Nations

The speakers laid out for the audience the ongoing conquest of Native land by the capitalist-imperialists backing the 2010 Olympics. One of these latest settler assaults on the First Nations is the ravaging of Eagleridge Bluffs by contractors for the expansion of the Route 99 “Sea-to-Sky” highway leading to Whistler ski resort. In 2006, about two dozen protesters were arrested blocking the highway expansion, including Native elder Harriet Nahanee. B.C. Supreme Court pig “Justice” Brenda Brown gave Harriet Nahanee an effective death sentence for contempt of “court” for her righteous defense of Native land, and was subsequently martyred on February 24, 2007.

Harriet Nahanee died fighting the devastation to the Earth wrought to Eagleridge Bluffs and the surrounding area, and in the interest of preserving the land and traditional Native culture for these and coming generations of First Nation youth. The resulting deforestation from the continued cracker Olympic onslaught led to an alarming increase in the deaths of black bears and other land mammals, as well as disrupted bird habitats. Concurrently, the gravel and sand mining to supply some of the materials for the highway expansion and other Olympic kkkonstruction projects has resulted in the deaths of 2 million salmon in 2006.

The toll of the Olympic fiasco on women that happen to be involved with the sex trade will also be magnified. Male tourists from the First World flip their polite “p.c.” patriarchal inhibitions with privileged white females into crude patriarchal privilege of sex slavery, rape, and murder upon many Native women in the B.C. area. National oppression seems to connect itself to gender oppression here in such a way as to show where the priorities of real feminists should be; fighting imperialism. The speakers touched on the horrific numbers of Native women gone missing, not all of whom were even involved in the sex trade per se, but were nevertheless kidnapped, tortured, raped, and murdered. Some of these women heroically escaped or survived their ordeal to tell their horrific accounts of the ways these vicious, male Cracker Klanadians and Amerikkkans perpetrated their sexual assaults on Native women. The following from “Why We Resist” on No2010.com explains the current situation and its prospects best:

Events such as the Olympics draw hundreds of thousands of spectators and cause large increases in prostitution and trafficking of women. In Vancouver, over 68 women are missing and/or murdered. Many were Native, and many were reportedly involved in the sex trade. In 2007, the trial of William Pickton occurred for six of these murders, and he is to be tried for an additional 20 more. In northern B.C., over 30 young women, mostly Native, are missing and/or murdered along Highway 16. The 2010 Olympics and its invasion of tourists and corporations will only increase this violence against women.

What’s different about RAIM from other groups is that we recognize that, like what is stated above, its not just the corporations but the tourist “mASSes” that will contribute to this patriarchal assault on Native women. By attacking this aspect of gender oppression at the node, RAIM-S believes that national oppression can be attacked at the same time! The all-round global approach utilized by RAIM makes tackling the main enemy, imperialism, as principal. By smashing imperialism, the “node” at which gender and national oppression seem to meet, there’s no telling how far humanity can go in saving the Earth and eliminating ALL exploitation and oppression.

Fascist KKKrap a hallmark of Olympic Game$’ past

The two following excerpts from No2010.com exposes the history of these Olympics as being consistent with the current atrocities being committed today:

1. Massacres and Concentration Camps: The Bloody History of the Games

The modern Olympics have walked hand-in-hand with political repression and violence. The 1936 Olympics in Berlin (held despite a call from the Jewish community to boycott the games) actively promoted the Nazi regime. IOC members who opposed holding the Games in Berlin were dropped from the organization. Witnesses reported that there were more swastikas on stage at
the opening ceremony than Olympic flags. By the time the Games opened, a concentration camp was operating just half an hour’s journey from the Olympic site. As well, the Nazi regime initiated the modern Olympic torch relay as a way of promoting fascism throughout Europe.
Hundreds of people (mostly students) were massacred by a special forces unit called the Olympia Brigade in the Tlateloco Plaza in Mexico City ten days before the Olympics began in August 1968. A recently declassified document written to President Lyndon Johnson reported that “… the current tensions in Mexico City point toward the possibility that the Olympic games will be used as a focal point for demonstrations and actively favoring leftist, subversive, and militant radical elements.” Other documents show how the US Government directed the FBI to actively investigate any Americans planning to go to Mexico to protest the Olympics. These documents show that there was active pressure on Mexican President Diaz Ordaz to quell any student rebellion before the start of the Games.

Repressive laws and security build-ups are hallmarks of recent Olympic Games. The Games have been used as a convenient cover for permanent repressive laws and to create new police and military units. In Sydney there were four cops for each athlete at the Games for a total of 35,000 police and security guards, 4000 troops and elite commando units, and Black Hawk helicopters.

The Sydney Olympics were also used as a pretext to allow the Australian government to introduce permanent legislation that allows the military to be called out to quell domestic unrest. Steve Martin, the Labour Party’s Defense Critic, called the Olympics the “catalyst” for the bill. The Olympics Arrangements Act was passed giving the police the unfettered use of cameras and recording devices, and the powers to prevent the distribution of materials, and the powers to search and detain people in both Olympic and public spaces…

2. Racism and Racial Profiling

Increased Olympic security has also led to the increased racial profiling of immigrants and people of colour by both police and immigration authorities.
During the 1984 Games in Los Angeles, police cordoned off the mostly black neighborhood surrounding the Olympic Village and required identification from everyone entering or leaving the area. There was a similar lock-down of the Black community in Atlanta during the 1996 games.

During the 2004 Athens Olympics, Islamic communities in Greece were subjected to state surveillance of places of worship, and mass document-checks and inspections. A spokesman for the Greek branch of Amnesty International warned that “security for the 2004 Olympics is used in Greece as a pretext to systematically break international treaties on the right to refugees.”

This from the No2010.com FAQ:

FAQ: Why don’t they just leave the Olympics in Greece, where they started?

Good question… Although that would be unfair to the people of Greece. It is interesting to note that the Olympics are an archaic European tradition that have only become a global phenomenon due to the expansion of Western Civilization through colonialism and imperialism. Maybe the Olympics should just be abolished!

RAIM-S would add to that: “…and abolish KKKlanada and AmeriKKKa while we’re at it!”

Good News For First Nations

The speakers brought up a couple great points about the prospects of First Nations resistance:

1. The Native Youth Movement (NYM) is spreading among Indigenous Peoples worldwide, including solidarity with the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico. Recent actions by NYM supporters include interrupting Olympic schmooze-fests with “native” sellouts like AFN Grand Chief Phil Fontaine, protesting the 2010 Cracker invasion and in honor of elder Harriet Nahanee. Other heroic acts by NYM supporters of the Native Warrior Society include the taking of the Olympic flag from its flagpole at Vancouver City Hall, and releasing a statement honoring Harriet Nahanee and in defense of the Native land and Mother Earth.

2. The other good news for the First Nations 2010 Olympic Resistance is that, today, most Natives are under the age of 25! Let the IOC and the First World tremble…

The RAIM (Seattle) Conclusion – Resist the Five-Ring Circus!

A recent report from the Vancouver Sun reprinted on No2010.com says the following:

VANCOUVER — B.C. residents are more skeptical than average Canadians about the potential benefits of the 2010 Olympics, but a majority still believe the Games will have a positive impact on the province, according to an Angus Reid survey.

The online poll found that 57 per cent of British Columbians expect the Olympics will benefit B.C., compared with 76 per cent of all Canadians who feel the province will gain from hosting the Games.

Twenty-eight per cent of B.C. residents feel the Olympics will have a negative impact on B.C., more than triple the nine per cent of Canadians who feel that way.

The heroism of NYM against the 2010 Olympics is obviously demoralizing the local B.C. Cracker population vis a vis the Klanadian population at large, but there are still a majority of those settler descendants who support the ongoing “Whiter Games” genocide against the First Nations. This polling information above confirms RAIM’s point about the overwhelming majority of Klanadians and Amerikans being the enemy of the world’s oppressed.

A RAIM-S comrade asked the speakers after the event what they believed would make these settlers realize the human cost of their consumerist circuses like the Olympics, and their continued privilege from stolen land and labor. The speaker’s response was absolutely righteous with regard to the RAIM view on First World settlerist privilege (here paraphrased): If the descendants of settlers could imagine a great tidal wave, earthquake, or some great force of nature wiping out all the privileges from stolen land they live on, perhaps then they would become conscious of how to live without exploiting humanity, other living things, and Earth itself.

RAIM also believes that justice for Indigenous Peoples ultimately relies upon the elimination of First World privilege. The resistance to imperialism worldwide is itself like a great tidal wave that sweeps across the globe. Ending the settler mythology around Thankkkstaking and the Olympic Game$ are two great starts to this global movement to eliminate the AmeriKKKan and KKKlanadian scourge from the Planet.

Join the convergence in Vancouver, Feb. 10-15, 2010!

* Kudos to Common Action and Democracy Insurgent for hosting this outstanding event!

** Terminology Clarification: First Nations = (Indigenous or Native Peoples/Oppressed Nations/Friends); First World = (White Settler Crackertopian Scum/Oppressor Nation/Enemies) Crackers are good with tomato ketchup on Thankkksgiving…

RAIM-Seattle

Watch out Cascadia!

The first West Coast RAIM chapter, RAIM-Seattle, has arrived. We are excited to make this announcement and look forward to working with RAIM-Seattle in a joint effort against imperialism and the First World.

So what the fuck are you waiting for? Check them out now.

Lyndon Johnson’s second Presidential term was both tumultuous and a defining period in Amerikan history. No where was this better evidenced than during his 1966 State of the Union address.

Occurring on January 12th, the difficulties faced by the US, those stressed in the speech, were the related problems of tackling domestic social and economic disparities through social democratic measures embodied in the Great Society programs and similar reforms; defining a reasonable, winnable strategy amidst escalation in Vietnam; and addressing through foreign policy and public rhetoric Amerika’s role in the world.

Reactions to the speech were largely supportive domestically and hostile from those Johnson singled out internationally. In retrospect, while Johnson’s themes and ideas may not have bore fruit immediately, all of the pressing issues of the day would eventually be resolved in a reasonable. yet not entirely permanent way.

Vietnam, the Great Society and Amerika’s Global Role

Of the issues touched upon during the 1966 State of the Union, the war in Vietnam took preeminence. Johnson, before mentioning anything else, references the conflict, calling it “brutal and bitter.” Together with the broader strokes of the US’s global policy, foreign concerns vastly overshadowed other topics and themes of the speech.

Johnson’s address occurred in the context of prepping public opinion for escalating US aggression in Vietnam. Already, there were 190,000 troops in Vietnam and the US was engaged in negotiations with its adversary in what was called a “peace offensive,” yet it was clear that the south Vietnamese government was teetering on collapse. Part of the problem faced by Johnson and his administration, was the inability to articulate a clear winnable strategy to stop Communist succession in a united Vietnam. Nevertheless, Johnson premised increased US involved on a historic legacy put forward by Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy, stating, “[the ] conflict is not an isolated incident, but another great event in the policy that we have followed with strong consistency since World Ward II.” Promising to “stay until [Communist] aggression is stopped,” eight days later, on January 20th, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara announced a US troop increase to over 450,000 troops.

Johnson, as the leader of the self-proclaimed free world, spoke appropriately and engaged in no small amount of narrative building. He described the Vietnam People’s Army and the National Liberation Front as attackers and conquerors. Beyond the rhetoric, Johnson was able to articulate the strategic importance of Vietnam, stating that yielding in Vietnam would set the wrong example and embolden Communist forces elsewhere, that if the U.S. did not remain in Vietnam it would mean “abandoning Asia to the domination of Communists.” Had the US not escalated then, he reasoned, Vietnam surely and quickly would be reunited under Communist rule.

During the State of the Union, Johnson also promoted a social democratic domestic policy. Embodied in the ‘Great Society’ programs and other proposed reforms, Johnson conjured up an image of a prosperous Amerika where everyone benefitted.

While there was certainly an amount of mythmaking involved, Johnson’s promotion of social democracy was intended to both showcase Amerika as a capitalist success story and stem an increasing radicalization domestically. Johnson highlighted recent progress already made including rises in wages, employment and corporate after-tax earnings. Additionally, Johnson promoted legislation regarding the “war on poverty,” civil rights, ‘urban renewal,’ the environment, government reform and extending welfare. Though he declared because of the war in Vietnam, “we may not be able to do all we should” and that “time may require further sacrifice,” he stated that Amerikans shouldn’t sacrifice the “hope and opportunities of their poor.” Johnson insisted that the Great Society programs should be carried through during the war, and made doing so a central theme in his speech.

The last theme of Johnson’s third State of the Union address was a familiar one: the Cold War and Amerika’s international role.

Johnson portrayed the US as eternal defenders of freedom and independence against “Communist aggression.” He outlines US foreign engagement as based on what he describes as five continuing lines of policy: military supremacy, maintaining the rhetoric of peace, strengthening ties with non-Soviet-aligned state actors, the selective use of food aid, and a controlled end of colonialism.

At times, Johnson co-opted leftist language to describe US foreign policy aims. He said the US is committed to “national independence” and described the Soviet Union as an eroding “Stalinist empire.” Johnson sought to cast the US as containing a open, fair social system and contrast it to the oppressive, closed, expansionary one embodied by the USSR in defining Amerika’s role in the world. Johnson described the the US in as playing a progressive role globally, fighting for the “self determination” and “freedom” in south Vietnam and elsewhere.
Johnson’s lofty language and the empahsis he place on Amerika’s progressive role seemed in almost direct correlation with the amount of violence, destruction and subjugation the US was dishing out. Whilst Johnson’s claimed he was fighting for independence, he made clear what places needed US-imposed “independence” the most: Berlin, Korea, Cuba and Vietnam. In reality, “independence” and “freedom” carried little weight and were applied selectively within US foreign policy. For example, the year prior, the US invaded the Dominican Republic in order the prevent the overthrow of the ruling, CIA-installed military junta by leftists; and in another event, allowed a military coup to overthrow the popular Indonesian Sukarno-led government while supplying a list of 5000 soon-to-be-executed Indonesian communists to the coup-mongers.

Regarding Vietnam, Johnson drew upon Cold War themes and engaged in a fair amount of narrative building surrounding the history of the conflict:

“Not too long ago Vietnam was a peaceful, if troubled, land. In the north, was an independent communist regime. In the south a people struggled to build a nation, with the friendly help of the United States.

“There were some in the south who wished to force Communism on there own people. But their progress was slight. Their hope was dim. Then, little more than six years ago, north Vietnam decided on conquest.”

Here Johnson omits that in 1955, the south Vietnamese government, led by Deim, canceled national elections and began the ‘Denounce the Communists” campaign in which Ho Chi Mihn’s supporters in the south were arrested, imprisoned, tortured and executed. The next year, Diem, who was receiving direct US aid to maintain power, instituted the death penalty for communists.

Through rhetoric, Johnson kept peace on the US’s side. Johnson claimed that the US was at the forefront of efforts to control, reduce and eliminate arms proliferation and the spread of nuclear weapons. This claims is made shortly after Johnson authorized Operation Rolling Thunder, a broad bombing campaign which dropped over 850,000 tons of bombs onto Vietnam between May of 1965 and December of 1967. Such is the ability of the US President to craft reality from rhetoric.

Johnson also focused on aid to the Third World, claiming that the US would “conduct a worldwide attack on the problem of hunger and disease and ignorance.” Johnson promoted the idea of earmarking 1 billion to this global cause, 4.8 billion short of what he was expecting to spend on Vietnam that year.

The idea that aid is in and of itself peaceful is not entirely true. Afterall, the same type of nominal aid delivered by the Soviets and Chinese would have been looked at skeptically and in conjuction with military support would be seen as evidence of Communism trying to extend its influence. This is no different in the US’s case.

Aid itself was seen by some in policy-making circles as economically beneficial to the US in that it provided an immediate market for US exports and helped  orient national economies along the lines most favorable to US Capital. . More importantly, Johnson hoped it would place the US in an altruistic light and saw foreign aid as part “peace offensive.” During the 1968 presidential campaign, Richard Nixon would be more frank, stating, “the main purpose of US aid is not to help other nations but to help ourselves.” The effects of US aid come into display in 1974, when Bangledesh, a country which had become dependent of Western grain shipments, suffered upwards of 100,000 deaths in a man-made famine, caused when the US intentionally delayed, then canceled, food aid in order to secured concessions over trade deals. Though Johnson highlighted food aid as part of a humanitarian commitment, the idea of gaining cooperation on the part of foreign governments was never far behind.

Reactions

Global reactions to Johnson’s 1966 address ranged from supportive to hostile and accusatory.

On the supportive side, the vast majority of US society rallied around the themes presented Johnson’s addressed. This included the media, Time Magazine for example, and Republican congressmen, who found little in the way of fundamental objections. On the accusatory side, the Peking Review, the Chinese state-ran national publication, acted as a global focal point of opposition to the United States and ran no less than two articles in response to the state of the Union address. Ho Chi Mihn too challenged Johnson’s narrative surrounding the Vietnam conflict in a letter years later.

Republicans in the United States congress registered no large complaints with the speech from the president, who Time Magazine described as “aloof from partisan politics.”

In a televised “little State of the Union,” the Senate Republican Leader, Everitt Dirksen, commented that the US “should continue to seek peace and wage war– intensified war if that is necessary– in Vietnam.” Dirksen largely parroted Johnson, stating the US would stay ” until aggression has stopped,” and characterized Amerika’s role in Vietnam as guaranteeing “freedom and independence for the Vietnamese.” Dirksen questioned the effectiveness of foreign aid and called for an auditing of such programs to see whether there would be “dividends in the form of good will and real devotion to peace and freedom.” Gerald Ford shared the camera, expressing his “loyal dissent” and more vigorously attacking Johnson on domestic issues. He challenged government waste and inefficiency, the size of the federal budget and the top-down approach of many of Johnson’s reforms. “We must liberate the war on poverty from waste, controversy and the bad odor of political bossism,” he was quoted as saying.

In its reporting, Time Magazine described the speech as somber and straightforward, one in which Johnson stated “his belief that the US has the strength to fight the war and simultaneously improved its society at home.” Yielding much of there own reporting to Johnson’s remarks on the escalating conflict on Southeast Asia, Time states, “He managed to discuss a white-hot situation without so much as a hint of belligerence. Yet there was an unmistakable undertone of strength and determination.”

On the opposite end of the spectrum was the Peking Review, the weekly magazine published in the People’s Republic of China. Globally at the time, communist-led national liberation movements sought to overthrow colonial and neo-colonial rule, radical youth and civil rights movement disrupted the status quo within Western societies and the Soviet system came under criticism within the International Communist Movement. The Peking Review, though not fully representative of the diversity of each of these trends, did support them at one time or another, was the single most influential publication covering them and was the furthest removed from, or most hostile to, the themes of Johnson’s message. Whereas Johnson’s State of the Union role could be described as building public opinion in support of US interests, the Peking Review was one of the main institutions, at the time at least, propagating worldwide opposition to US imperialism and war.

The Peking Review ran two notable articles in response to Johnson’s speech. The first, entitled ‘Johnson’s Challenge, Comments on US President’s State of the Union,’ and another a week later, ‘Johnson Administration’s Self Exposure.’

The first article, a commentary, summarized Johnson’s message as two-fold: ” for expanding the aggressive war in Vietnam [and] intensifying the attacks on the Amerikan people.”

The Peking Review described the US war in Vietnam as one of “military adventure” for control of Asia. “The United States wanted to ‘stay’ in Vietnam because it would not abandon Asia,” it noted. “From the State of the Union message,” the Peking Review stated, “one can only draw the conclusion that Johnson is determined to switch the US war machine into high gear and speed it along the road of a wider war of aggression.” The article remarked of Johnson’s “peace offensive,” stating “‘peace’ tactics are always used to cover up and help war tactics.”

The Peking Review described the Amerikan people as under attack and burdened by the war. Despite steady rises medium income since the ’50’s and a reduction of poverty which lasted decades, Chinese commentators described Johnson’s message as one of pulling the wool over the Amerikan public’s eyes in preparation for more “fascist” measures.

‘Johnson’s Challenge’ also noted Johnson’s message of expanding trade with Eastern Europe’s Soviet-bloc countries, and used it is as evidence of political “revisionism” and a conciliatory attitude towards the US on the part Khruschev.

Peking Review’s second article,  ‘Johnson Administration’s Self-Exposure,’ written after the announcement that US troop build-up would increase to 480,000, made the claim that Johnson is pursuing and aggressive war. It stated, “facts have again irrefutably proved that the louder the U.S. aggressors sing the tune of “peace,” the more feverish are their efforts to fan the flames of their aggressive war in Vietnam.” Commenting the the Johnson’s ‘peace offensive,  the article said that as”‘peace’ tricks failed,” the US would redouble its military focus in Vietnam.

Ho Chi Mihn, the leader of the Vietnamese Communists, also responded to parts of Johnson’s speech, particularly Johnson’s narrative of the coflict, though a year later and in a letter to the US president. “Vietnam is thousands of miles away from the United States. The Vietnamese people have never done any harm to the United States. But contrary to pledges made by its representative at the 1954 Geneva conference, the US has ceaselessly intervened in Vietnam, it has unleased and intesified and war of aggression in North Vietnam with a view to prolonging the partition of Vietnam and turning south Vietnam into a neocolony and a military base of the Unites States. For over two years now, the US government has, with its air and naval forces, carried war to the Democratic Republic of (North) Vietnam, an independent sovereign country.” Ho described the destruction caused by the war and noted the bombings of towns, villages, factories and schools and said the vietnamese people had united for the just cause of “genuine independence, freedom and true peace.”

Concluding remarks

Though many contemporary critics were soon to find fault with Johnson and rally against him, his presidency was hardly be said to be a failure, especially over the longer run. Of the three major themes of Johnson’s speech that year, the intentions of each were fullfiled in a reasonable, though not always glaring massive. Though the US not be able to stop the Communists from taking over the country, the massive devastation wrought by the US as well as the unfulfilled peace terms effectively prevented the progressive social programs and changes that might have otherwise been instituted, the ‘Great Society’ programs, though many sat aside the next year, were in combination with Civil Rights reforms and general prosperity to close inequalities and mute mass discontent. The US was able to help induce the collapse of the Soviet Union and establish itself as the dominant super power, though a new opposition movement would arrises in the form of Muslim Fundementalism. Johnsons more out there and limited reforms, those related to the environement.

every trend described, did at one time or another

‘Dirksen Asks Peace Efforts Backed by War,” Toledo Blade Jan 18th, 1966
‘The Presidency: the Union and War.” Time Magazine. Jan, 22th 1966. http://www.time.com
‘The Presidency: back in the ring.” Time Magazine. Jan 28th, 1966. http://www.time.com
Renmin Ribao, ‘Johnson’s Challenge, Comments of US President’s State of the Union Message.’ Peking Review. Jan 21st 1966. http://www.massline.info
Renmin Robao, ‘Johnson Administration’s Self-Expousure.’ Peking Review, Jan 28th, 1966 http://www.massline.info
Ho Chi Mihn, Letter to Lyndon Lohnson, Feb 15th, 1967, http://www.massline.info