Movie Review: Machete and The Baader Meinhof Complex

Movie Review: Machete and The Baader Meinhof Complex

http://www.raimd.wordpress.com

Machete (2010, Ethan Maniquin and Robert Rodriguez) and The Baader Meinhof Complex (2008, Uli Edel) are two recent movies set in imperialist countries, both depicting armed struggle against reactionaries.

Machete garnered criticism prior to its release, including campaigns by White supremacists to have the film pulled from Amerikan theaters, ostensibly for fear its depiction of Mexicans engaging in mass-violence against Whites would spark a real-life ‘race’ revolt. (1) The Baader Meinhof Complex is ‘foreign film’ dramatizing the real-life Red Army Faction, a clandestine group which beginning in 1970 waged armed struggle against the Federal Republic of Germany in the name of communism and anti-imperialism.

While the movies follow dissimilar plots, both deal with the topic of revolutionary armed struggle and reaction. It’s worth noting that we at RAIM-Denver are fairly familiar with the situation involving the national oppression of Mexicans on both sides of the militarily-imposed US/Mexico border, yet are largely ignorant regarding the factual details surrounding the RAF. Thus, our treatment of The Baader Meinhof Complex will be solely as a cultural product, and not as historical analysis of the real-life RAF.

In Machete, we meet the protagonist of the same name (Danny Trejo) as a federal agent of the Mexican state. Fleeing a powerful drug cartel, Machete ends up in Texas where, while searching for work as a manual laborer, he’s forced-hired into assassinating an anti-migrant state senator, played by Robert De Niro. It’s a set-up, however. The botched assassination attempt is pinned on Machete in hopes of building public opinion for even more anti-Mexican legislation, including an electrified fence along the border.

The Baader Meinhof Complex opens in 1967, showing a student protest against the despotic Shah of Iran. The students are beat by goons of the CIA-supported monarchy and by German police as they stand defenseless, backed against a wall. Soon into the film, Ulrike Meinhoff (Martina Gedeck), a sharp-worded, progressive journalist, Andreas Baader (Moritz Bleibteu), depicted as arrogant, extreme and prone towards violent action, and Gundrin Esslin (Johanna Wokalek), a young blonde depicted as rebellious and verbally aggressive towards her parents, decide that words alone will not stop “Amerikan imperialists” or the fact that over “half the people in the world do not have enough to eat,” deciding instead to take up arms against the West German state and organs of Western capital. After going underground and running from the law, the group is apprehended and placed in isolation together as their trial begins. Subsequent ‘generations’ of the RAF arise, continuing the armed struggle but with the goal of freeing the original members. After several years and armed actions by various RAF unit, the imprisoned lead members, save Meinhof who previously died in what was called a suicide, lose hope and kill themselves as well.

People who like Machete for its thematic violence of the oppressed against the oppressor will also find The Baader Meinhof Complex interesting, though the latter is fairly longer and has slower moments towards the end. While Machete depicts plenty of over the top, high-action, fight scenes and climaxes with a ‘battle royale’ between the forces led by Machete and White supremacist militias, The Baader Meinhof Complex depicts a number of gun fights, bombings, bank robberies and even an ill-fated plane hijacking. The Baader Meinhof Complex is also explicitly more political. Cries of ‘Ho Ho Ho Chi Mihn’ are chanted at one gathering; students have Mao posters on their dormitory walls; references are made to ‘May ’68’ in Paris and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.; RAF members meet with members of the Palestinian Liberation Organization in Tunis and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in Jordan; and there is a steady denunciation of the West Germany’s support for US imperialism and “fascism.”

Both movies have strong female lead characters. In The Baader Meinhoff Complex, Ulrike Menhoff is the the eldest founder of the RAF and in charge of propaganda. Esslin Gundrun, the youngest lead character and girlfriend of Baader, is nonetheless shown as passionate and as someone who was pivotal in getting things done within the group. Further into the movie, under the pressure of capture and confinement together, both begin to break down emotionally and increasingly argue with one another, reinforcing the view that women are emotional and weak while discounting the psychological pressure brought to bare on them by the reactionary state.

In Machete, the two female lead characters are initially foes. Lulz (Michelle Rodriguez), shown as righteous and socially concerned, organizes an underground “network” to provide services for oppressed migrants while Sartana (Jessica Alba), a naive, sycophantic ICE agent, harasses her and makes threats of criminal charges. The women come together as part of Machete’s quest for revenge. In the process, Lulz gets shot in the eye and comes back fighting even harder: if nothing else an allegory for revolutionary determinism. Sartana recants her previous position in support of imperialist legalism and declares to a crowd of migrants, “We didn’t cross the border. The border crossed us!”

Unfortunately, Machete does drop the ball regarding gender in a number of ways. In one notable scene of question (of many), Machete gives tequila to the wife and daughter of the man who set him up, sleeps with them and films it for his foe to watch later. While there is no doubt an element of humor simply for the outrage this must generate on the part of actual White supremacists, this scene is symptomatic of the film’s larger depiction of women, i.e. they are not treated as independent agents (with perhaps the exception Luz), but instead act as objects, things to be acted upon in one way or another by Machete or the male viewer.

In both movies nudity is prevalent. In The Baader Meinhof Complex, such is not so one-sided. In an opening scene, children and adults are shown nude at a beach. In this regard, that nudity serves not sexual purposes solely, The Baader Meinhof Complex is less reactionary. In another scene however, while the original RAF are training with Muslims in Tunis, they sunbathe nude in plain view. When told by the camp commander to cover themselves, they respond, “fucking and shooting are the same.” In the scene, Baader and Esslin are rightly depicted as crass, almost as if they are Amerikan vacationers. If fact, this is not an example of anti-imperialist fraternity nor spreading sexual liberation, but imposing the culture of a dominating society under the guise of such.

Revolutionary Violence

While there is much to say about the minutia of the films, the main theme of both is violence in name of the oppressed against the oppressor within imperialist countries.

In Machete, a work of fiction, the violence is over-the-top and gratuitous. In one early scene, the protagonist swings his machete in a circle and decapitates three people who were closing in on him. In another set in a hospital, he uses a ‘bone-scraper’ and several surgical knives tied to a belt to cut up several gun-toting men before using one’s small intestine to jump out the window and swing into the floor below. Likewise, the social setting in Machete is narrow, there being only politicians, main characters, hired guns, a few pigs, border militiamen, migrants and some cholo-type Chicanos. Missing from the picture are Whites- particularly the reactionary White masses, including so-called “workers,” or the imperialist state in full force. This, along with the movie’s revenge-based plot, allows Machete to be a movie with a happy ending, where Machete himself defeats the bad guys and ‘gets the girl.’ By the end though, despite the protagonist’s personal achievements, nothing has really changed. In an ironic twist, the right-wing politician played by Robert De Niro is shot to death near the border by White vigilantes who thinks he’s Mexican. Perhaps Machete will return in a sequel and broaden the scope of the struggle? We won’t hold our breath.

In The Baader Meinhof Complex, supposedly based on true events, the ending isn’t as happy. The members of the RAF, mostly student-aged and young adults, are driven by causes such as anti-imperialism and communism and are sympathetic to the plight and resistance of Third World peoples. They are outraged and disenchanted with the response of everyday West Germans to these phenomena, yet never come out and say as much, nor do they ever make the demarcation and write off West Germans entirely. When they launch their clandestine armed struggle, they envision it as being part of a world-wide revolutionary movement yet make efforts to not harm your average West German, seeing this as pivotal to winning public sympathy. After the founding members of the RAF are apprehended, others from similar backgrounds arise, carrying on the struggle and including “the release of political prisoners” as part of their campaign against German reactionaries and imperialism. This too is ill-fated, as these newer members are all apprehended or killed, leading to the climax that is the apparent suicide of the remaining lead characters.

While certainly not the ‘happy ending’ of Machete, the down conclusion to The Baader Meinhof Complex does leave us asking, “what went wrong?,” a serious question for revolutionaries in imperialist countries. Many would say RAF were ultra-leftist and their militant armed struggle freaked out the west German ‘masses.’ In truth, this is not the case. Rather, the RAF was ultra-“left.” Though their action appeared militant and extreme, it was always predicated on a perceived political alliance and unity with a portion of the west German population, all of which were part of a global petty-bourgeoisie and thus an unreliable ally (at best) to their struggle. The founders of the RAF would have done better to develop their writing capabilities under the direction of Ulrike Meinhof, coordinate real ties to foreign fighters, fall under their discipline when appropriate and develop alternative means of contributing to the global revolutionary struggle, not launch an hasty armed struggle in west Germany with the assumption that west Germans would support them.

The Network

More interesting than any possible Machete sequel or the First Worldist focoism of the RAF would be a film featuring She and the Network. In Machete, it’s stated that Lulz has been busy organizing migrants, helping them cross the border, securing housing and jobs and “making sure they play their part” once they’re settled. The operation is called the Network, and it includes a mythology about a militant female leader known only as “She.” When Machete makes his hulkish last stand, his success is aided b y the connections Lulz has already made.

Today, the situation involving Mexicans migrants is dynamic. Historically, there has been a trend towards assimilation. However, as the numbers of Mexicans and Chicanos rise, particularly in the Amerikan ‘southwest’ (occupied Mexico), a situation may arise where the social basis for national liberation struggles becomes more readily apparent. Ultimately, it will be the type of work typified by Lulz, politicized ‘serve the people’ programs organized outside pre-existing power structures, which will advance and aid this struggle.

Again on Violence

One final note. We imagine many First World viewers will find the presentation of violence in both Machete and  The Baader Meinhof Complex to be off-putting in one way or another.

In Machete, the violence is unnatural, over-the-top, intense, frequent, etc. However, the same could be said with the Expendables or any number of Amerikan-inspired action movies. In Machete, the difference is that the violence is dished out by forces representing the oppressed against oppressors. Simply put: that is why it stands out, why it is good.

Many so-called “leftists” would reject the violence of the RAF on rotten grounds, whether pacifism, charges of being too extreme and “left,” or other liberal reasons. However, the violence of the RAF should be looked at critically and put in the correct perspective.

Nothing is more violent than imperialism. Every 2.43 seconds, someone dies from starvation- a form of structural violence. The violence in Machete by contrast is mild and restrained. Though ultimately misguided at a fundamental level, the same could be said about the RAF. The question is not whether in either movie violence was depicted in a gratuitous way, this answer being obvious. Ultimately, it matters against whom the violence is being expressed upon, and towards what end. And for this, we see no reason to broadly criticize either movie.

Notes:

(1) http://www.stormfront.org/forum/t737495/

Report Back on Anti-Police Demo

Report Back on Anti-Police Demo

(raimd.wordpress.com)

On August 28th, a march against police brutality was held in Denver, Colorado.  The march was held in response to a series of police brutality cases coming to light.

The march was organized by members of Aurora Copwatch, West Denver Copwatch and the All Nations Alliance.  Though the pig media lied and initially reported only “dozens” of protesters, at its height on the 16th Street Mall there were well over 200 participants, including not only much of the more ‘radical’ of the Denver activist scene but also people who had joined in as the march passed by.

The recent cases of police brutality and the reaction they sparked have been unprecedented.  They have led to Mayor John Hickenlooper, who is running for governor this year,  to bring in the FBI to investigate certain cases.  It has also led to city public safety manager Ron Perea resigning,
and the city council settling many cases with millions of city dollars.(1)

The public anger of these cases, and many others not as known, set the mood for this march.  Days before the march a group of religious leaders denounced plans for a march, and instead called for talks with the pigs to reform themselves.(2)  But one cannot negotiate with pigs, and many people outraged about the incidents came out to show it that day.  In the press release announcing the march the organizers announced:  “It is anticipated that Denver police will be present during the march. We want to be clear in our position that due to the actions of its officers, we no longer trust DPD with its ability to protect our community.  We request for the safety of the community members present at the march and rally, and that law enforcement officials keep a reasonable distance from the participants. We are engaging in a peaceful, non-violent exercise of our federally protected First Amendment rights and DPD interference is not welcome.”(3)

The march began by the downtown skatepark, next to where Mark Ashford was beat up by two Denver pigs. He was beaten after speaking with the driver of a vehicle the police had pulled over wrongly, offering to be a witness for the driver in court. The next stop of the march was at 15th St. and Larimer, where Micheal DeHerrera was assaulted by Denver’s grimiest as he was was talking on the phone outside of a club while police were arresting his friend. These two incidents of police brutality were videotaped by H.A.L.O., a network of video surveillance cameras in the downtown area monitored by the Denver Pig Department. The march and protest ended at  Denver’s new $158 million, 1500 prisoner capacity “Justice” Center. There, Marvin Booker, a Black street preacher arrested on drug paraphenalia charges, was killed by the pigs running the detention center. He was beaten to death after he reached to get his shoes, his only possessions of value.  The pigs have refused to release a video tape of the death citing ongoing investigations, but with the similarities to a previous death in police custody, many see an ongoing cover up that has been typical of DPD.

The protesters carried signs and banners. One read, “All Cops are Murderers.”  Others listed the names of recent police victims. RAIM brought signs that read : “Fuck Pigs (And Snitches),” “Self Defense Makes Sense, Defeat Nazi Pigs,” and “Revolution is Good! Resist Amerikkkan Occupation.” Unlike other activist marches in the city, the militancy of this march was evident from the beginning.  The march started with a chant “No Justice No Peace, Fuck the Police.”  Other chants that echoed through the march were “Oink Oink, Bang Bang, Everyday the Same Old Thing,” “Cops, Pigs, Murderers,” and “When Our Communities Are Under Attack, What Do We Do? Stand Up, Fight Back!”  RAIM also did its modest part to raise the militancy of the march, helping lead and initiate such chants through a megaphone.

Overall, like most marches in the First World, the message was mixed to the effect of confusing friends and enemies and in the process miscalculating the actual strength of each.

One positive thing was the rhetorical refutation of pacifism. When the crowd began chanting emotionally-charged slogans, one person put up a peace sign with their fingers. One pacifist type berated a RAIMer for leading slogans against the pigs through a megaphone, saying to us some metaphysical tripe about love conquering hate and peace overcoming violence.  We politely brushed the person off and continued to assist in leading chants. Beyond the inane idea that RAIM-Denver was acting violently with no more power than a megaphone is the ideological wrecking-ball that is pacifism. While ultimately the degree of militancy in a single march in Denver is inconsequential, the idea itself, spread by well-to-do cracker-liberals from places like Boulder and Denver, is poisonous to the struggles of oppressed and exploited peoples globally. In a sense, pacifism is much like Christianity in that it is promoted to Third World peoples by Amerikans and various organizations they support, to the effect of diverting the proletarian from actual strategies for liberation. (We suggest everyone read Pacifism as Pathology by Ward Churchill and Negroes With Guns by Robert F. Williams for arguments against pacifism.)

With the presence and influence of pacifists and deescalaters limited, the march soon took parts of the streets, which isn’t usual for Denver protests. The pigs themselves stayed out of sight the whole time. This was a PR tactic as their presence would have surely escalated the toned of the march further and perhaps created even more instances of brutality. But we are sure that they were observing the march from a distance.

At the end of the march, in front of the Injustice Center, the crowd chanted “Fire to the Prisons” and Asesinos, Spanish for “Assassins.”  There were speeches by activists highlighting the above pig terror cases and by victims of pig brutality telling the crowd their experiences.  A coffin symbolizing the death of Marvin Booker was brought by the marchers and left there at the jail.

Common with virtually all protests in Denver and occupied North America was the great number of stares from people not participating. At times, the march walked past restaurants in affluent neighborhoods. Some protesters expressed affinity with the diners, encouraging them to join the march. Allusions were made that even the rich ‘liberal’ Denverite gawkers would “stand up” against the police.

We ask, why muddy up the picture with outright First Worldism? Rather, these people should be identified, albeit not merely in an agitational manner, for what they are: parasite reactionaries who more often than not support the pigs and the system they represent. Needless to say, the ‘militant’ pleas to shoppers and diners were fruitless.  Ultimately, it was chants of ‘Fuck the Police!’ which got large numbers of passer-by youth to join the demonstration, not pacifism or First Worldism.

At another point in the march, the protesters paused to repeat a chant part of which said that they themselves had “…nothing to lose but our chains” (origanally said by Marx, but of course not attributed to him in the chant).  RAIM didn’t participate in the contrived bit of self-delusion. We ask those who did to compare themselves to the average person from Latin America, Africa or Asia and take an honest account of the many things they could in fact lose. Though such slogans might give oneself a short-lived sense of self-importance, they do little in the long run to advance the revolutionary struggle. It is only by taking a realistic account of the world that one can hope to meaningfully advance the revolutionary struggle.

The contradiction between the police (or more accurately the system they represent) and the majority of Amerikans is not antagonistic, i.e. it will not lead to sustained revolutionary struggle. Not to say that we do not support reform efforts to reduce police terror, but only see the limitations that these reform efforts will do.  There will be attempts by the city to appease the public outrage with more “accountability”, but police brutality is but a symptom of an unjust social order.  Thus it will continue, as in these cases against non-white oppressed nationality peoples and others outside of mainstream society.  Thus RAIM sees any effective revolutionary strategy inside imperialist Amerika as minoritarian, one that effectively repudiates the majority of Amerikans while seeking to work in alliance with the broad masses of the Third World, whom do in fact constitute majorities in their respective homelands. So-called radicals should promote an independent identity and culture of resistance amongst the oppressed in Amerika as well as a spirit of affinity and solidarity with the Third World masses, not a fallacious, reformist and First Worldist ‘unity’ between the oppressed and White activists as a stand in for a non-existent White proletarian.

More actions on these cases will come up, as they have been so publicized they will stay in the spotlight.

==============

Here is a video of the march from West Denver Copwatch.  Check out their website for more information about these cases and their interactive database of Denver pig activity.

Sources:

1.  http://cbs4denver.com/investigates/excessive.force.denver.2.1878320.html

2. http://cbs4denver.com/news/ministers.chief.talk.2.1877579.html

3. http://westdenvercopwatch.wordpress.com/2010/08/26/press-release-for-saturday-march-and-rally/

Killer of Oscar Grant Gets Off: No Justice in Amerikkka

Killer of Oscar Grant Gets Off: No Justice in Amerikkka

(raimd.wordpress.com)

Justice did not materialize in Oakland for Oscar Grant, just as it is delayed and denied for millions of victims of Amerikkka.

The BART pig who killed Grant, Johannes Mehserle, was given the lightest sentence possible short of acquittal, involuntary manslaughter, and the jury rejected the more serious charge of second degree murder. This despite the fact that the shooting was caught on camera and the pig had claimed he was reaching for his taser and not his gun when he shot Grant, who was unarmed.

The people were justifiably angry. There were protests and rebellions in Oakland following, and self-proclaimed community leaders attempted to keep the people calm for the benefit of the system. 78 people were reported arrested in Oakland.(1) Solidarity protests happened across the country, as people all over were outraged.  In Denver a solidarity protest turned out 50 people, organized by the local Anarchist Black Cross chapter at the last minute.(2)

The claim of mistaking a Taser for a gun is so dubious in and of itself. Local author and indigenous rights activist Ben Whitmer, who is also a concealed carry holder, tears apart the ridiculousness of that defense here: http://benjaminwhitmer.com/index.php/2010/07/looking-at-johannes-mehserles-defense-from-the-vantage-point-of-an-amateur-gun-nut/

Of the twelve jurors on the trial, held in Los Angeles, not one of them was Black, and several of the jurors admitted to being friends or relatives of cops.(3) Attorney John Burris, representing the Grant family, said at a press conference, “In my long history being involved in police matters since 1979 and well over 30 homicides with police, never have I had a case when a police officer was convicted of any crime against an African American male.”(4)

Oscar Grant is one of several non-white people killed or brutalized by cops, almost all of whom never get convicted. The fact that the pig got even manslaughter is surprising, only after going to trial following much publicity from being filmed.  Amerikans supposedly pride themselves on being a nation of laws, but look the other way when the law attempts to bring Amerika accountable. There was no convictions with the Rodney King beating in the 1990’s. Recently pigs killed Aiyana Jones with no one being brought to trial. The cases of pig brutality in Amerika are endless. Abroad military troops commit vast atrocities and are never brought to justice. Despite the photographic evidence at Abu Gharib hardly any of the perpetrators were brought to trial. And recently a video of a massacre by Amerikan troops was brought to light throught the Wikileaks site, with no one hurrying to prosecute.

Often in these cases the Amerikan populace comes to support these pig cops and troops. It is considered sacrilege to question the police and military. Even Barack Obama came under heat for saying that the pig who arrested Henry Louis Gates “acted stupidly.” He was forced to apologize and invited the pig to the White House for a beer.  No matter how much mass murder Obama does for the empire, criticizing cops no matter how mildly is frowned upon.

Mao Zedong once observed that political power comes from the barrel of a gun. The Amerikan power that its citizenry wallows in comes from the vast weapons it has and uses. The police and the military of Amerikkka are the shock troops that keep that imperialist system of exploitation running. They bring terror to the populations they oppress, and millions fall victim to the system they enforce. Justice in turn will come to Amerikkka by the oppressed people of the world bringing it to them in turn. It is right to rebel against all reactionaries!

(1) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/10/us/10oakland.html?_r=1

(2)http://denverabc.wordpress.com/2010/07/09/oscar-grant-denver-stands-in-solidarity-with-oakland/

(3)http://racerelations.about.com/b/2010/06/14/no-black-jurors-in-oscar-grant-murder-trial.htm

(4)http://colorlines.com/archives/2010/07/oscar_grant_verdict_whats_inside_the_jurys_ruling.html

UC-Irvine moves to suspend Muslim Student Union

UC-Irvine moves to suspend Muslim Student Union

(www.raimd.wordpress.com)

Members of the Muslim Student Union are facing one-year suspensions for what school officials at the University of California-Irvine claim was an orchestrated violation of campus conduct during a protest of a presentation by Israeli Ambassador, Michael Oren.

The protest, which occurred last February, included Oren being interrupted 10 times by students who walked out while booing and yelling. Oren himself walked off stage and the University Chancellor took the podium to condemn the student protesters. Oren later finished his screed, but the planned question-and-answer session was canceled. The Muslim students claimed they were protesting Israeli policies of genocide directed against Palestinians. “Propagating murder is not freedom of speech,” they yelled. 11 students were arrested for the action.

This is not the first time administrators at UC-Irvine have moved against the Muslim Student Union. In 2009, school officials snitched on the MSU, asking the FBI to look into allegations that the student group was raising money for Hamas, a Palestinian resistance group labeled terrorists by imperialists. As of yet, no action has been taken against MSU in this case.

UC-Irvine and other colleges in the US are bastions of reaction. When they are not teaching students to be spies and pigs, they are teaching them to be promulgators of bourgeois ideology and cogs in the machinery of death called US imperialism. As the recent ruling against MSU indicates, schools in Amerika do not teach students how to fight oppression; they punish those who do.

Righteous students, i.e. those who side with the world’s exploited and oppressed majority in their struggle against imperialism, can only gain so much from Amerika’s piggish school system. Rather than passively accepting what they are told, anti-imperialist students must look deeper to find the truth. Additionally, we must strategically speak out for the truth and the oppressed masses, challenge the most egregious examples of pro-imperialist and First Worldist thought and unite with others who seek a world free from imperialism.

RAIM applauds the righteous students of UC-Irvine for their bravery, both in standing up against Michael Oren and the settler-imperialism he represents and for their struggle with the suppressive backlash their protest has generated. Yet, our struggle, that of such righteous students and even that of Palestinians are but small parts of the global struggle against capitalist-imperialism. Only with the victory of masses and defeat of imperialism internationally can we truly say the world is free.

Victory to Palestine!
Death to imperialism!

Sources:

http://forward.com/articles/128818/
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/06/uci-seeks-to-suspend-muslim-student-group.html
http://www.scpr.org/news/2010/06/14/uci-muslims/

May Day 2010 Denver

May Day 2010 Denver

(raimd.wordpress.com)

This year the May Day events in Denver, as elsewhere in occupied Amerika, were about migrant rights and were influenced by the recent passage in Arizona of SB1070 that would further criminalize migrants without documents.  There were two different events in Denver, each illustrating the different politics around the most recent struggle for migrant rights.

The first event was one RAIM participated in and helped organize.  The May Day March for Social Justice, Human Dignity, and Self-Determination was made up of a loose coalition of more radical and independent tendencies.  RAIM Denver marched with our allies Resistencia Mexicana, with banners featuring Mexican revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata.  At least 500 people participated in this march, which went from the State Capitol through downtown, ending in Skyline Park for a rally.  A Mexica/Aztec dance group performed a ceremony and led the march.

photo by Shareef

This particular march was unique with respect to the diverse makeup of the participants, who had a more clearer understanding of the repressive character of the state’s response to the “immigrant rights” movement.  It showed that there is a progressive sector in Denver that is against reform oriented liberal politics and for more radical change.  There were many beautiful banners and signs, good chants, and a more liberatory attitude. The rally included music, food, tables of the participating groups, and speakers.

photo by Resistencia Mexicana

photo by Resistencia Mexicana

photo by Shareef

The first speaker was Ricardo Romero, a long time Chicano/Mexicano human rights organizer and a leader in the Mexican National Liberation Movement, who brought up the ongoing war against the Mexican people exemplified by the anti-migrant movement.  Romero pointed out that there is a coming fascist offensive against the Mexicano peoples on their own occupied homeland, and highlighted the need to get educated, organized, and prepared for self-defense and national liberation.

Antonio spoke on behalf of RAIMD, stating that the recent struggle in Arizona is only one of many that has happened since 1848 when the U.S. settler empire invaded Mexico and imposed a border on its northern half. Today, the fight continues on many fronts with Third World peoples fighting against the exploiter countries of the First World. Antonio pointed out that it is important to support the struggles against imperialism everywhere.

RAIMD also brought a pinata for the festivities, in the form of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer as a pig.  The elementary school-aged children at the rally enjoyed participating in the beating of the pig Brewer, and tore it open for the candy and toys inside.

Kids getting candy and toys from "Jan Brewer" pinata. Photo by Resistencia Mexicana

At the rally at Skyline RAIMD and other organizations had tables and distributed information.  Here many groups handed out a wide range of literature outside of mainstream discourse.  Our own materials were well received by the participants there.  We distributed: over two hundred of our program in support of Mexican nation liberation; around 75 new and old RAIM Global Digests; dozens of Troublemaker DVDs; copies of chapter eight from Lin Biao’s ‘Long Live the Victory of People’s War’ and some interviews with J. Sakai, author of ‘Settlers, the Mythology of the White Proletariat;’ even some child-sized t-shirts. Our material sparked many conversations and drew both nods of approval and skeptical looks.

The rally ended later that afternoon with some good music and on a positive note.  Despite our real political differences with many of the groups there, overall it showed that there is an organized progressive sector in Denver that is nominally against reform oriented liberal politics and for more radical social change, no matter how small that sector is.

The Other Rally

We should note the other event that went on that day, which was much larger for many reasons.  It was organized by Reform Immigration for America, a liberal reformist group that steers the migrant rights struggle into the safe hands of the Democratic Party realm.  To illustrate their strategy, at their massive immigration reform rally in Washington back in March of this year, they ended it with a televised speech by President Obama promising reform.

While the coalition that did the May Day March for Social Justice was planning this march months in advance, the liberal groups did not want a march at all.  Their last minute changes in response to our organizing and to a changing public opinion show their opportunistic nature.  Their original event for May 1st was going to be a “Grade Your Senators” event at Sunken Gardens Park, where participants would fill out faux report cards on legislators.  Basically directing people into electoral work, using Latinos as another interest group to gain leverage on the legislative level.  The response to Arizona changed this.  The days before there were many school walkouts organized in protest of the law in Arizona.  In Denver on April 30th many schools walked out and ended at a rally at the Capitol that day.  The energy level on May 1st was high, people wanted to march.  Also, the legislative campaign would not appeal to the mostly youth and non-citizens that were mobilized.  So the liberal non-profits changed plans at the last minute and tailed where the mass movement was going in order to regain leadership.

This is what awaited marchers at the reformist event at Sunken Gardens Park

The resulting march that went from Sunken Gardens through downtown and back to the park turned out about 10,000 people at its height.  Their larger turnout was due to the liberal groups larger resource base.  They purchased advertising on Spanish television and radio the day before.  The organizers brought several pre-printed signs and Amerikan flags to promote “We Are America.”  The crowd was encouraged to chant “USA, USA.”

The liberals did what they are expected to do, channel discontent into safe and controllable arenas.  In this case promoting assimilationist and reformist messages.  Their hope is that mainstream Amerika will see that immigrants are “Americans” too.  In the end this strategy, which denies the people the right to their identity, culture, and land, will weaken the necessary independent struggle that is needed to build power to fight against repression.  The non-profit industrial complex serves those that use it to continue to get grant funding and patronage, not the people itself.

Our comrades at Monkey Smashes Heaven said this of May Day:

“May Day, May First, or International Workers Day, originally was a day to commemorate the victims of the Haymarket Massacre in Chicago in 1886.  Chicago workers had called a general strike for the eight-hour workday.  The peaceful strikers were fired on by police. A bomb exploded.

Several deaths of strikers and police occurred. Some of the police deaths were a result of their own hand, “friendly fire.”  [Eight organizers were tried and wrongfully convicted, with some getting the death penalty before they all were exonerated (RAIM)].  Since then May Day has been embraced by revolutionaries and reformists in the labor movement alike.  However, May Day means nothing to the vast majority of First World peoples who have no interest in building socialism or ending imperialism. May Day when celebrated by First Worldists is nothing but a parody.”

This march we participated in gave some mixed messages too,  but created a space where RAIM, Resistencia Mexicana, and others presented alternatives to Amerikan assimilation and to build real power to bring national liberation.

RAIM Protests Teaklanners and Amerikkka

RAIM Protests Teaklanners and Amerikkka

(www.raimd.wordpress.com)

The Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement has always been in the lead of militantly opposing the most reactionary aspects of Amerikan society while bringing to bear larger contradictions. This was certainly the case during the ‘Tea-Party Tax Day Protest’ and concurrent ‘Tea Party Against Amnesty,’ held at the Colorado State Capitol on April 15th, 2010.

RAIM was the first in Denver to put out a call to oppose the Tea Party rally.

Our call-out attracted country-wide attention. Right-wing blog and media personality, Michelle Malkin, quoted our call-out on her website and highlighted the sentence, “Cut loose and let these racist crackers know they’re opposed.” Some find the phrase “racist crackers” to be an oxymoron or ironic. Really though, it’s just redundant. The plug drew thousands of visitors to the RAIM-Denver blog over a period of a few days. Most of these people were racist crackers themselves or of a similar mindset.

The day of the protest was sunny and warm. An estimated 1,500-2,000 crackers and some ‘fort Indians’ gathered to show support for the Republican Party and other reactionary causes. The gist of the Tea Klan Rally was simple: while they don’t mind paying taxes to bomb people halfway around the world, they’re angry about paying taxes to provide services for people perceived as poorer than them (often Blacks, Mexicans, Native Americans, etc). Whereas Obama’s election can be seen as opening up the door for a few others to join the labor aristocracy, the Tea Party Movement is one to contract the labor aristocracy to its core constituents (i.e. Whites).

RAIM isn’t about picking sides in a debate about how to divide up stolen wealth. Our message that day, while including many things, highlighted two points: restorative justice and destroying imperialism and hence the USA.

The night prior, RAIM prepared an awesome and on-point, 50-foot banner which read: ‘TYRANTS, YOU STOLE THIS LAND AT GUNPOINT’. This simple statement was meant to juxtapose the Tea Party’s national and class-centric demands for ‘freedom’  and ‘liberty’ against the reality of the situation.

View of of the Tea Klan Rally, as seen from near the speakers podium.

Another view from the Tea Cracker side.

The counter-protest of around 50 gathered across the street from the Tea Party Rally and berated the racists through two bullhorns. Terryn, a Denver RAIMer, told the racist crowd they were on “stolen land and borrowed time.” She explained numerous times why they are racists: “Colorado is a Spanish word…You stole the land at gunpoint and killed the people. You stole everything you have. You steal the resources and labor from Africa, Asia and Latin America. You bomb people half-way across the world and you don’t fucking care. You don’t have empathy and that is why you’re racists.”

Nick Brown praised those resisting imperialism worldwide, shouting through a bullhorn, “God Bless Iran. God Bless Ahmadinejad. God Bless Venezuela and Bolivia.” RAIMers led chants such as, “Who do we love? Mexicans! Why? ‘Cause they’re people! Who do we hate? Racists! Why? ‘Cause they’re evil!” and, “No love for land-grabbers, deport the teaklanners.” Chants such as “Viva Mexico” and “Sí se puede” also rang out. RAIMers insisted the racists’ grandchildren would learn Spanish and they themselves would be deported to the Third World to “learn some empathy.” One woman even jeered the teaklanners in Lakotah.

In many ways, this is all standard stuff for RAIM. We bring out contradictions and conflicts. It’s what we do; nothing unusual.

However, the real high point was a group of local high school students who were bussed in to do interviews during of the tea klanner rally. The students, who were mainly Chicano, Mexican or Black, found the Tea Party repulsive and chose to hang out on our side. Many RAIMers refused to talk to the pig-media, but we gladly spoke with the youth who found themselves alienated by the pasty patriots. RAIMers explained why the Tea Party Movement is racist, including the real motive behind their anti-tax politics, the role of overt and covert US interventions worldwide and our message of militant global equality and solidarity with the Third World. Many of the students explicity identified as Mexican and were visibly turned off by the crackers, even without RAIM having to make the case. At one point, a racist cracker came over to our side of the street and smugly stated, in front of the students, the US should nuke various countries in the Middle East. A RAIMer called the guy a “fascist cracker” through a bullhorn and encouraged the students to do the same, but this was harshly discouraged by a nearby teacher. Nonetheless, RAIMers got plenty of time to talk with the students, passing out dozens of RAIM Global Digests and Troublemaker DVDs.

Heated exchanges between racist crackers and anti-racists.

Numerous times, racists came over to our side of the street, causing some minor altercations. About 20-30 pigs remained behind the anti-racist counter-protest, preventing more serious fighting from breaking out. No arrests were made.

RAIM’s message, both rhetorically and in practice, is clear: it’s right to hate the USA.

***

Also, check out RAIM-Denver agitating and educating in the first part of this video, exclusively at Denver Open Media.

***

Update 1:

After Michelle Malkin, the concentration camp loving right wing hack, linked us on her blog, we got the biggest number of hits ever.  We were inundated with comments, many with bad spelling, grammar, and logic.  There was the common refrain that we use cracker to describe racist crackers.This just goes to show that Amerika has a lot of crackers out there.

Malkin later went into a tizzy over the term “Tea-Klanner” to refer to her teabagging minions. (http://michellemalkin.com/2010/04/15/tea-klanner-the-lefts-shameless-new-smear/)

Of course this is after this of many comments went up on her board.  Here was an interesting one:

On April 15th, 2010 at 11:06 am, Ignatius Reilly said:

So the commies wanna rumble, eh? I say, Bring it on! and Remember Greensboro! (They need a little booster shot.)

Of course Greensboro refers to the massacre in 1979 in Greensboro NC where a Nazi and Klan death squad shot dead 5 communists and anti-racists at an anti-Klan rally.

This is the common refrain from Tea-Klanners, they are not racist.  Yet it is all there exposed when really pressed.  No one should be fooled.

Update 2:

Along with RAIM many other radicals in the Denver area responded to our call.  There was also a bunch of liberals and Democrats who were there for different reasons.  With much less people and resources RAIM called the action and others responded while highlighting our anti-imperialist, anti-settler, pro-national liberation, pro-migrant and Third Worldist messages.  This is significant because many groups there have hopes that the Amerikan labor aristocracy can be moved for progressive social goals.  We at RAIM factually see the majority of Amerika as benefiting from imperialist exploitation and shaping their politics to it.  This has been the interests of the majority White Amerikan Nation, and also creeping into the captive nations of the United Snakes.  The captive nations are still nationally oppressed although growing economic integration leads to a decline in national consciousness in favor of Amerika.  The Tea Party phenomena visibly shows that privileged White Amerikans when organized go into a right wing and proto-fascist direction.

Steve Struggle discusses Black liberation history

Steve Struggle, a Denver RAIMer and veteran of the black liberation struggle, answers some pressing questions about the history of the movement

In part 1, Steve discusses the Black Panthers, the cult around Huey Newton and the party’s degeneration.

In part 2, Steve discusses places the Black Panther Party’s degeneration in the context of international struggles.

In part 3, Steve discusses the role of COINTELPRO in the demise of the Black revolutionary movement.

In part 4, Steve talks about the revolutionary politics of the Black Panther Party and what black liberation means.

In part 5, Steve talks about the nature of the White labor aristocracy and places the struggle for reparations and national liberation in the context of Third World anti-imperialist struggle.

In part 6, Steve talks about Obama and US imperialism.

In part 7, Steve offers advice to young revolutionaries.

RAIM Global Digest Volume 2, Issue 2

RAIM Global Digest Vol 2; Issue 2

Contents:

-In India, forests grow with Naxalite peoples war [cover]

-RAIM-Seattle on the WTO 10 -year anniversary [cover]

-Net-exploitation by the numbers (hypothetically)

-IDF arrests peaceful resistance organizers in West Bank

-Amerika “disappears” migrants into secret detention facilities

-Movie review: Avatar [by Monkey Smashes Heaven]

-Earthquake strikes Haiti; imperialism is a disaster

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/

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

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!

Your Playstation Has Real Blood On It

Your Playstation Has Real Blood On It

(raimd.wordpress.com)

There has been recent interest in the news lately on a report by the liberal activist group Toward Freedom around what has been dubbed the “Playstation War.” It describes how the demand for a key metal used in the Sony Playstation 2 video game console was a driving force in the ongoing wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Stories about the demand for this metal, called coltan, and the wars behind it in sub-Saharan Africa, are nothing new (1). What is new about this report is that it links one specific consumer product to this conflict.

The Playstation video game console, like others on the market, is solely used for leisure and entertainment. Priced for hundreds of dollars and purchased by consumers in Amerika and other First World nations, the Playstation is a byproduct of the leisure time and disposable income available to Amerikans. Along with the console itself there are thousands of video games that are made for it, along with fan magazines and websites. According to the Entertainment Software Association video game sales reached $9.5 billion in 2007, and tens of thousands of people are employed in this industry to meet consumer demands (2). The indirect economics in terms of research and development, sales, advertising, and marketing are also vast. Video games are just one byproduct of imperialist parasitism, and in the case of the Playstation it is a direct contributor to war and suffering.

Imperialism is a system based upon exploitation and war. The production cycle of the Playstation illustrates the rabid bloodshed and exploitation imperialism brings, and the parasitism that it feeds in the core imperialist nations.

The African World War and the Playstation

The conflict known as Africa’s World War has involved eight nations and over 25 militias. It has killed and displaced millions of people over a ten year period, and its effects still linger today. According to Toward Freedom, this war also became known as the Playstation War. They state:

“The name came about because of a black metallic ore called coltan. Extensive evidence shows that during the war hundreds of millions of dollars worth of coltan was stolen from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The UN and several NGOs claim some of the most active thieves were the Rwandan military, several militias supported by the Rwandan government, and also a number of western-based mining companies, metal brokers, and metal processors that had allegedly partnered with these Rwandan factions…. And while allegations of plundering coltan from a nation in desperate need of revenue seem bad enough, the UN also discovered that Rwandan troops and rebels were using prisoners-of-war and children to mine for the “black gold.”

“Kids in Congo were being sent down mines to die so that kids in Europe and America could kill imaginary aliens in their living rooms,” said British politician Oona King, who was a Member of Parliament from 1997 to 2005.”(3).

Coltan is used to make the metal tantalum, which in turn is used to make capacitors for tiny electronic devices. Up to eighty percent of the world’s coltan reserves lie in the DRC (4). Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of this metal has been stolen from the DRC during this war in order to satisfy the growing demand for electronic items like cell phones, laptops, I-Pods, and video games.

The report links the demand for the Playstation in 2000 to a spike in the price of coltan. At the same time the Rwandan military and its allied militias forcefully took over land in DRC that had coltan mines. A United Nations investigation alleged Western mining companies:

“…directly and indirectly fueled the war, paralyzing the DRC government, and [used] the conflict to keep the coltan flowing cheaply out of the Congo. Some companies were also accused by the UN of aligning with elements of the warring parties.”

Toward Freedom further states:

“David Barouski, a researcher and journalist from Wisconsin, says it is certain that the coltan from this conflict is also in SONY video game consoles across the world. ‘Sony’s PlayStation 2 launch (spring of 2000) was a big part of the huge increase in demand for coltan that began in early 1999,’ said Barouski, who has witnessed the chaos of eastern DRC firsthand.”

Sony of course engages in plausible deniability, saying it cannot really know where everything it manufactures comes from. Really, gee whiz.

Congo’s Long History of Meddling Imperialists

The DRC has one of the lowest per capita incomes in the world, despite being so rich in mineral resources. The cause of this contradiction is its long history of being a victim of imperialist intervention. It has long been a site of theft, plunder, and murder by U.$. and Western imperialism. It was once known as the Belgian Congo, named after its former colonial strangler. It achieved independence from Belgium in 1961. Its first leader after independence was Patrice Lumumba, who described 80 years of colonial oppression as a “humiliating slavery which was imposed upon us by force” (5). Lumumba, a national leader too independent for U.$. imperial interests, became a victim of an assassination orchestrated by the CIA and Belgian intelligence shortly after he took power. He was replaced by a subservient kleptocracy led by Gen. Joseph Mobutu, head of the national army. Mobutu and his cronies went on to steal billions from the nation he renamed Zaire, while starving millions of its citizens. Mobutu also allowed the CIA free use of the country as a proxy to destabilize the rest of the region for U.$. interests against the USSR during the Cold War.

After the Cold War ended Mobutu was of no use to the imperialists, and was finally overthrown in 1997. His replacement also became a pawn of the imperialists. The nation, renamed the Democratic Republic of Congo, was led by president Kabila, who made deals with Western and Amerikan mining companies for access to its valuable mines. He had the backing of neighboring armies who wanted in on its resources. The five-year war that officially ended in 2003 was known as the African World War, the deadliest war since World War II. So far over 5 million people have died as a result. This is just one symptom of the long legacy of imperialism in this region.

Who Plays, Who Works? Electronic Sweatshops

Like almost all consumer products, the Playstation and other electronics are manufactured in Third World sweatshops that take advantage of cheap labor and few regulations.

News reports state that Sony is contracting with Foxcomm, a Taiwanese contractor with factories based in China, to build their new Playstation 3 (6). Other reports about Foxcomm factories that assembled the iPods give an indication of the conditions that these toys are made in. One factory in China has 200,000 workers, and advertises for workers over age 16 (7):

“Inside Longhua, workers labor a 15-hour day building iPods, for which they usually earn about $50 per month. When they’re not on the assembly lines, they live in secluded dormitories that each house 100 people and prohibit visitors from the outside world. The workers are allowed ‘a few possessions; and a ‘bucket to wash their clothes.’”

From one worker:

” ‘We have to work too hard and I am always tired. It’s like being in the army,’ Zang Lan, one of the workers at Longhua, told the Mail. ‘They make us stand still for hours. If we move we are punished by being made to stand still for longer. The boys are made to do pushups.’ ”

The report states the iPod Nano is assembled in a five-story factory that is secured by armed police officers. The super-slim digital music player is said to include over 400 parts which arrive from component manufacturers all over the world (8).

Another factory in Suzhou, Shanghai that manufactures iPod shuffles is completely surrounded by barbed wire. The workers take home $99 a month, with half of that income going to food and shelter. The factory advertises for women workers, because it considers them more honest. China, now under capitalist imperialist exploitation, is touted for its “low wages, long hours and industrial secrecy, [making] the country attractive to business, especially as increased competition and consumer expectations force companies to deliver products at lower prices (9).”

The End Game

“Amerikan imperialism takes the products created by the exploited labor of the Third World and passes it off to Amerika’s aristocratic ‘workers.’ From here, Amerikan ‘workers’ are overpaid to basically tinker around with the products before they are sold. In turn, Amerikan ‘workers’ use their inflated wages to buy these products, thus making possible the final realization of profit for the overall system. In this manner, Amerika uses global exploitation to keep its domestic mall economy afloat and enable its existence as an entire nation of parasites.”

-Parasitism: The Economics of Imperialism (RAIMD) (10)

Amerika’s economy is a service economy. The wealth of this country comes from the exploitation of resources and labor from outside of its borders, all so Amerikans can live overly comfortable lives. The Playstation is no exception. Millions have died and billions suffer for your entertainment. The world’s majority won’t stand for it for too much longer.

Amerikan imperialism will lose in the end. So join with the world’s oppressed majority and become a revolutionary anti-imperialist. It’ll be more fun than your Playstation anyway!

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Sources:

1). http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/5-high-tech-genocide-in-congo

2). http://www.theesa.com/facts/index.asp

3). Lasker, John. “Inside Africa’s Playstation War.” Toward Freedom, July 08, 2008. http://towardfreedom.com/home/content/view/1352/1. All info on the DRC and Playstations, except noted, is from the Toward Freedom article.

4). http://sitemaker.umich.edu/section002group3/coltan_mining_in_democratic_republic_of _the_congo

5). http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/history/2007/0627kinshasa.htm

6). http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/09/18/sony-appointed-foxconn-for-ps3-console-manufacturing/

7). http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/06/06/12/ipod_city_inside_apples_ipod_factories.html

8). Ibid.

9). Ibid.

10). https://raimd.wordpress.com/2007/06/22/parasitism-the-economics-of-imperialism/

From the Mouths of Babes…

We at RAIM like trouble-making punk kids. You know, the kind that piss off Cracker invaders who talk shit in the Mexican homeland. Below are some of our favorites.

Some 5 year olds sticking it to some Cracker-ass Minutemen:

A couple of kids stand up to adult Cracker threats:

Remember, the children are our future.

YIPPIE!: A Blast from the Past!

Abbie Hoffman telling it like it is:

Jerry Rubin freaking out the Squares:

Upcoming Dead Prez Shows

Dead Prez has two shows coming up. Proceeds from both are going to Tent State University and Recreate 68 to support the ‘Festival of Democracy’ and other peaceful protests against the Democratic National Convention.

Tuesday, May 6, 8 pm at the Fox Theatre, 1135 13th St., Boulder
Wednesday, May 7, 8 pm at Cervantes, 2637 Welton St., Denver

As it turns out, last February Dead Prez played at show at Evergreen College. What began as a peaceful protest when campus police arrested a concert-goer, turned into a “riot” only after the Olympia Pig Department ran in brutalizing the growing crowd.

Here’s a short documentary on it.

Here’s more footage, doesn’t include any “riot” footage

Part 1

Part 2

Fuck the Pigs

Dead Prez: They School

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.

Your School is a Prison

Your School is a Prison << Full sized PDF here

Happy Veterans Day!!!

Tryworks beat us to the punch celebrating Veterans Day. Check out their great coverage.

Here’s some more counter to the sick jingoism celebrated by Amerika today.

More fuck the troops fun:

From the great work of Shubel Morgan:

Pigs Assualt Peaceful Protestors