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    50 years later – What can the Black Panther Party teach a new generation of revolutionaries?

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    Originally published at Liberation News on October 18, 2016

    Fifty years ago in October 1966, the Black Panther party exploded onto the political scene in the United States, striking fear into the racist ruling class and inspiring a new generation of revolutionaries to “seize the time.”

    Today, there is a renewed interest in the Panthers and what they stood for. The slogan “Assata taught me” is widespread in the Movement for Black Lives. Huey P. Newton’s Revolutionary Suicide, Bobby Seale’s Seize the Time, Assata Shakur’s self-titled autobiography and George Jackson’s Soledad Brother, among many other books by former Panthers, are staples of any revolutionary library.

    In the face of the ongoing racism, police terror and segregation that Black people and oppressed people face today, it is more important than ever to review the history of the Black Panther Party, and examine how it dealt with these same issues.

    The meteoric rise of the Panthers

    Revolution seemed to be on the agenda during the 1960s – in the United States and around the world.

    In plain view of a television audience of millions, the police departments of the South employed attack dogs, batons, water hoses and other weapons to repress the right of Black people to vote and to uphold segregation. After much sacrifice, the Civil Rights movement won the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Even though these acts declared Jim Crow practices illegal, the majority of Black people, in the South and in the North as well, still lived a precarious existence in either urban slums or impoverished rural areas, where they faced unemployment, substandard housing, disproportionate poverty and police harassment.

    Inspired by the anti-colonial and socialist struggles worldwide, many came to the conclusion that nothing short of a revolutionary overturn of the entire system could defeat white supremacy. As the 1960s went on, the epicenter of struggle shifted from the south to the cities and suburbs of the north, and from tactical non-violence to active self-defense.

    Malcolm X became the most influential voice of the Black Power movement. Local North Carolina NAACP leader Robert Williams, the Harlem 9’s Mae Mallory and organizations such as the Deacons for Defense armed themselves to stand up to the racist terror of the Ku Klux Klan and sheriff departments across the South. In Alabama, the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)-affiliated Lowndes County Freedom Organization selected a black panther as the symbol of their struggle. LCFO Chairman John Hulett explained the symbol’s significance: “The Panther is an animal that when pressured moves back until it is cornered, then it comes out fighting for life and death. We felt we had been pushed back long enough and that it was time for Negroes to come out and take over.” (see Black against Empire: the History and Politics of the BPP by Joshua Bloom and Waldo E. Martin).

    A pivotal moment had arrived in the history of the Black liberation movement.

    In October of 1966, a year after the assassination of Malcolm X, college students Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale formed the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in Oakland, Calif., to stand up to police terror and continue the struggle for Black self-determination. The revolutionary political organization they formed became a lightning rod for oppressed Black youth and went on to become one of the most advanced expressions of working and oppressed people’s organization in the history of the United States.

    The Panthers gained national prominence after a dramatic action on May 2, 1967, when 30 Black Panthers—dressed in black leather coats, and armed with unloaded shotguns—entered the capital building in Sacramento to protest the Mulford Act, a measure designed to outlaw citizens’ right to carry weapons. As Governor Ronald Reagan and other politicians scampered away, BPP chairman Bobby Seale read a statement to “the American people in general and the Black people in particular,” detailing “the terror, brutality, murder, and repression of Black people by the racist power structure of America,” and concluding that “the time has come for Black people to arm themselves against this terror before it is too late.” As reporters and cameramen shuffled to capture tomorrow’s headline, one reporter shouted out “who are you?”

    Sixteen-year-old Bobby Hutton, who would be martyred after a confrontation with police the next year, capturing the militant attitude that now gripped the nation, responded, “We’re the Black Panthers. We’re Black people with guns. What about it?”

    A few months later, Huey Newton was arrested and charged with murdering a police officer. The Panthers formed a broad coalition of radical and progressive organization and individuals that carried out a massive campaign to save him from execution. The demand “Free Huey!” echoed across the country, and in 1970 Huey Newton was released from prison.

    By 1969 the Panthers were a national organization of 5,000 members with a median age of 19. The majority of Black Panther members were women.

    The Panther’s guiding philosophy: Marxism-Leninism

    Black Panther Party Chairman Bobby Seale wrote in his book Seize the Time, the “historical experience of black people, translated through Marxism-Leninism, is really the ideology of the Black Panther Party.”

    The Black Panther Party was born into a world where socialist revolution had tremendous prestige. From the Soviet Union  to China to Cuba, over a third of the world’s population lived in countries whose governments aspired to build socialism. The Panthers saw their struggle against racism and national oppression as part of this worldwide movement to break free of imperialism.

    In China at that time the Cultural Revolution brought millions of young people into the streets, sparking interest worldwide. Bobby Seale and Huey Newton raised money for the newly formed Panthers by selling copies of “Quotations from Chairman Mao,” popularly known as The Little Red Book.

    The Panthers were heavily influenced by Malcolm X. They also had the highest regard for the writings of Franz Fanon and the Marxist classics as the best guides for developing their own strategy for revolution and their own tactics for uplifting their communities. As Panther Field Marshal George Jackson said, “I met Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Engels, and Mao when I entered prison and they redeemed me.”

    Building off of the slogan and ideology of the Chinese Communist Party, “to serve the people,” the Panthers established breakfast programs in hundreds of cities across the country. In a sense, the BPP invented the term “grass roots,” developing a series of survival programs that responded to the complex problems that plagued oppressed communities, such as hunger, inadequate housing, drug and alcohol addiction, gangs, sexual violence and internalized self-hatred.

    They saw these survival programs, and their armed cop watch patrols, as a way to elevate the morale of their communities and attract people to socialism. The Panthers emphasized building a revolutionary united front because they understood that only the toppling of the white supremacist, capitalist order and the establishment of a socialist system would begin to seriously resolve the needs of all oppressed communities.

    What the Panthers did: Centralism, training and internationalism

    The Panther leadership developed a 6-week training program for the youth who lined up across the country to join them. They encouraged the party membership to read an average of two hours per day and study the origins of the class and race oppression that affected Black America. The Black Panthers operated according to the organizational model of democratic centralism, where there is unity in action and members are held to a high standard of discipline and dedication.

    The BPP educated the youth and they put them to work in the community. The Panthers’ leadership and confidence helped thousands of young Black people establish a new, revolutionary identity. Claudia Chesson-Williams, a teenage member in Corona, Queens describes the galvanizing effect the Panthers had:

    “No longer did we have to argue and fight about ‘What are you looking at me like that for?’ and ‘Don’t step on my sneaker’ and ‘This is my block.’ Now, we really had something to fight for. We had a people to fight for. That was bigger than any gang or any club. We had a goal. We had something to look forward to, which was the betterment of Black people.”

    The panthers developed 35 survival programs. They distributed free food and served free breakfasts for children (at one point for 20,000). They organized liberation schools, GED classes, benefits counseling, free clinics, plumbing and maintenance programs, martial arts programs, a Sickle Cell Anemia research foundation, a visiting nurses program, legal aid and more.

    Their political organ, the Black Panther: Black Community News Service, was read nationally.

    Chairman Fred Hampton formed the original Rainbow Coalition in order to unite different revolutionary groups and ex-gangs into one united front.

    Before many groups dared to take a stance against the oppression of LGBTQ people, in 1970, just one year after the Stonewall Rebellion, the Panthers took a public stance recognizing that LGBTQ liberation was an important part of the liberation of all oppressed people.

    The Panthers were among the strongest proponents of international solidarity. The Panthers not only opposed Washington’s war on Vietnam, they also offered their members as soldiers to fight on the side of the Vietnamese against the Pentagon. In 1970, the Panthers gave full support to Palestinian liberation when few groups did.

    The Panthers’ example inspired other national liberation struggles within the American “prison-house of nations” – a term coined by Lenin to describe the Russian Empire but one that also applies to the United States, where the oppressed Black, Chicano, Puerto Rican, Indigenous nations and others are denied self-determination. The American Indian Movement, the Young Lords, the Brown Berets, the Grey Panthers and other groups emulated the Panthers’ example of self-sacrifice and centralism. We should remember that it was in a Chicago jail cell that Cha Chi Jimenez, the founder of the Young Lords, met Chairman Fred Hampton.

    State repression

    Despite these amazing achievements in just a few years, the Panthers were never allowed to reach their full potential.  The U.S. government intervened to repress them. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover classified the Panthers as “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country.”

    Why did the U.S. government see the Panthers as a threat? Mumia Abu-Jamal explains, “It was terrified that the [Panthers] had the ability to put forward leaders to channel the mass defiance of the 1960s, growing especially militant among African American communities, into a potent revolutionary movement.”

    What differentiated the Panthers from other service organizations and what made them dangerous to the ruling class was their analysis that popularized a socialist revolution to overthrow white supremacy. For instance, Assata Shakur wrote:

    “I wasn’t against communism, but i can’t say i was for it either. At first, i viewed it suspiciously, as some kind of white man’s concoction, until i read works by African revolutionaries and studied the African liberation movements. Revolutionaries in Africa understood that the question of African liberation was not just a question of race, that even if they managed to get rid of the white colonialists, if they didn’t rid themselves of the capitalistic economic structure, the white colonialists would simply be replaced by Black neocolonialists. There was not a single liberation movement in Africa that was not fighting for socialism … The whole thing boiled down to a simple equation: anything that has any kind of value is made, mined, grown, produced, and processed by working people. So why shouldn’t working people collectively own that wealth? Why shouldn’t working people own and control their own resources? Capitalism meant that rich businessmen owned the wealth, while socialism meant that the people who made the wealth owned it.”

    A fighting organization with a wide following among the people and this type of ideological orientation was nothing short of an existential threat to the U.S. ruling class.

    COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) was a sophisticated FBI effort to infiltrate and liquidate the BPP. In conjunction with police departments across the country, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover coordinated a massive campaign of misinformation, infiltration and extermination against the Panthers. 28 Panther leaders were assassinated, among them Bobby Hutton, Bunchy Carter, John Huggins, Fred Hampton, Mark Clark and George Jackson.

    It was not until years later that the Senate’s Church Committee would show how pervasively the FBI worked against the Panthers and how much it influenced press coverage. It encouraged urban police forces to confront Black Panthers, planted informants and agent provocateurs, and intimidated local community members who were sympathetic to the group.

    While the state liquidated the Black freedom fighters with one hand, they implemented token reforms with the other. The liberal wing of the establishment propped up networks of non-profits and CBO’s (Community-Based Organizations) to give the illusion that the government was involved in rendering basic services. These two strategies of “pacification” were aimed at removing the true forces of liberation from the heart of oppressed communities. The new “grass-roots” were funded and directed from on high, from the outside, so that they became dead-ends for popular energy and anger.

    Panther leaders like Mutulu Shakur, Mumia Abu Jamal and Russel “Maroon” Shoatz continue to languish in prison today because of their uncompromising defense of the right of Black people to self-determination. Assata Shakur, who describes herself as a modern day run-away slave and maroon, is in exile in Cuba with a $2 million bounty on her head. Anyone who repeats the meaningless cliché that “the U.S. is the freest country in the world” should study the history of the Panthers.

    But for all the repression, 50 years later the Black Panther spirit lives on. Its historic legacy – and the active mentorship still provided by former Panthers to a new generation of radicals – can never be erased. The task ahead of us is to revive the revolutionary movement, construct the revolutionary party and seize power to build socialism – we will win!

    South Bronx man beaten senseless by police

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    Originally published at Liberation News on June 9, 2014

    On June 2, Liberation received a call about a showdown between police and community residents outside of an apartment building at 157th St and Courtland Ave in the South Bronx. Eyewitnesses describe a brutal police beating of 39-year-old Raul Garcia, which left the street covered in blood. (see photo)

    Footage obtained of the incident shows Garcia’s limp body being carried into a police vehicle while the community surrounds and denounces the officers responsible, trying to stop the abuse.

    Eyewitness Christian Johnson told Liberation the incident began when a man set a fire outside of Mr. Garcia’s door, with Mr. Garcia’s family trapped inside. After firefighters arrived to put out the fire, the police then arrested the alleged arsonist, but failed to remove him from the scene. As a result, an altercation developed between the man and Mr. Garcia, but instead of separating them, the police then mercilessly beat the victim, Mr. Garcia.

    According to Johnson, around 50 community members spontaneously challenged the police for their abuse, despite officers pushing them back, and threatening to beat them as well. “They made it seem like if we said anything to protect the individual, they would beat us up as well. Some of the police officers pushed pregnant women, old ladies,” Johnson remarked. “We were just tired of it … Some people were afraid but they had the guts to still stand up to the police because they knew that what was being done was wrong.”

    Mr. Garcia is reportedly being charged with criminal assault. No other community members were arrested at the time.

    Every Night

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    Originally published at Young Communist USA in November, 2003

    Every night is an opportunity to
    break night
    to vanquish sleep

    To listen
    to the broken dreams and broken men
    to the whispers and howls
    the midnights and daybreaks
    the weddings and the funerals
    to listen to the flow of the sewers and seas

    To study the sounds of wolves, winds and wounded wings
    Dialects, tempos and centuries’

    To dream to the rhythm of harrowing rains
    and awake in harmony with the land ís pulse

    To awake
    Armed with receptive ears to
    fallen souls
    and scorched flesh’

    Stalking time
    collecting the tears of accursed centuries
    organizing the scars in my memory
    Storing the testimonies like grenades deep in my chest

    Listening to the intimacy of
    death and victory
    anguish and love.

    Amilcar Cabral and the national liberation movement of Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde

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    Originally published at Liberation School on January 26, 2011

    For 500 years, Portuguese colonialism was built upon the slave trade and the systematic pillaging of its African colonies: Mozambique, Guinea Bissau, Sao Tome e Principe, Angola and Cape Verde.

    Marxist historian Walter Rodney summarized Portuguese’s colonial rule in Africa: “The Portuguese stand out because they boasted the most and did the least. After close to half a thousand years not a single medical doctor had been trained in Portuguese Mozambique. As for Guinea Bissau, Portugal confessed open neglect of this territory.”

    Amilcar Cabral was born in Bafatá, Guinea Bissau, to Cape Verdean parents in 1924. He was the son of Juvenal Lopez Cabral, a schoolteacher and anti-colonial activist, and Iva Pinhel Evora, a seamstress and laborer in a fish supplying factory. At the age of eight, his family moved back to the Cape Verdean Islands, where he excelled as a student and poet.

    There were several droughts in Cape Verde in the 1940s leading to the deaths of over 50,000 people from starvation. The impact of the drought was felt even more sharply because of Portugal’s indifference to the suffering and starvation. The contradictions of colonial rule across Africa inspired the 20-year-old Cabral to vow to wage a life and death struggle to free his people from the yoke of foreign domination.

    The Portuguese empire offered a few scholarships to students from the colonies in hopes of co-opting and training them to be future functionaries of the Portuguese colonial government. Because of his exemplary intelligence, in 1945, Cabral received a scholarship to study in the colonial center of Lisbon, where he came into contact with other African students from the Portuguese colonies of Angola, Sao Tome e Principe, and Mozambique.

    His arrival in Europe at the close of World War II coincided with a new stage of struggle throughout Africa, the Middle East and Asia. In country after country, colonized populations began to demand independence. Even the intellectuals who had been trained in Europe and traditionally argued that colonialism brought “progress” began to assert otherwise.

    Interacting with his counterparts from British and French colonies in Africa, Cabral formed the African Studies Center in 1948 in Lisbon. He worked closely with Augustinho Neto, the future leader of Angola’s liberation struggle, and Eduardo Mondlane, first president of FRELIMO (the Liberation Front of Mozambique) in an underground study group to discuss political theory, including Marxism, and solutions to the African colonial question.

    Trained as an agronomist, Cabral returned to Guinea. He traveled the countryside to study his country’s soil topography and crop production, generating the first and best scholarly study on the topic.

    His travels throughout Bissau and Angola familiarized him even more with the psychological and economic features of colonialism and the cultural life of his people. For instance, he realized that some of the conventional demands of the left towards the peasantry—such as land reform—were not the most pressing; in the Guinean countryside, small private landholdings were already common.

    Instead, peasants experienced the burdens of colonialism most heavily through their interactions with Portuguese merchants: their exploitative trade rates, insistence on single-crop production and daily personal humiliations. These experiences would have a profound influence in his writings and outlook on how to defeat Portuguese rule in Africa.

    Though Cape Verde is a series of islands 500 miles off the coast of Africa, the nations of Cape Verde and Guinea share a similar history. The Portuguese rulers sought to divide the two nations by favoring the Cape Verdeans, who were thought to be lighter-skinned than the Guineans. Cabral saw the destiny of the two nations as inseparable and in 1956 formed the African Party for Independence (PAI), which would later become the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), declaring open armed struggle as the way forward.

    National liberation and the ‘road of socialism’

    Cabral was part of a trend in the worldwide anti-colonial movement that, drawing inspiration from the Chinese and Vietnamese examples, argued for the supremacy of the urban and rural masses in national liberation struggles. Cabral believed revolutionary socialism was the only genuine solution for colonized peoples: “In our present historical condition, there are only two possible paths for an independent nation, to return to imperialist domination (neo-colonialism, capitalism, state capitalism), or to take the road of socialism.”

    Cabral divided history into three epochs related directly to the development of the means of production: society before classes (of which he called for more study), class society, and a future communist society in which private property and class divisions would be eliminated. Guinean pre-class society had already given way to class divisions prior to Portuguese colonialism, but the latter had stunted the colonies’ economic and cultural development.

    The objective for Cabral was to seize the national productive forces, further develop them and utilize them for the common good. He argued that only mass, popular resistance—not just negotiation conducted by a small stratum of intellectuals—could ever be successful in truly completing these tasks.

    Guinea, as a super-exploited colony, had a small urban working class and Cabral looked to the peasantry as the social force capable of defeating the Portuguese. He emphasized the unreliable nature of the native bourgeoisie, which developed as a service class for colonialism. He warned that they would seek to inherit the state apparatus and continue to siphon off the wealth of the nation to imperialism as long as they received their share. “If we accept the principle that the liberation struggle is a revolution and that it does not finish at the moment when the national flag is raised and the national anthem played.”

    Instead, “we are fighting so that insults may no longer rule our countries, martyred and scorned for centuries, so that our peoples may never more be exploited by imperialists not only by people with white skin, because we do not confuse exploitation or exploiters with the color of men’s skins; we do not want any exploitation in our countries, not even by black people.”

    Cabral directly addressed intellectuals and called on them to abandon their loyalty to other class interests and the agents of imperialism. Instead, the role of the revolutionary intellectual was to march shoulder-to-shoulder with the most oppressed sectors of society. The latter were the only social force truly capable of carrying out a social revolution. (“Return to the Source,” 1974)

    In the process of struggle, guerrilla leaders would undergo “a reafricanization of the spirit.” In short, this meant that picking up arms against the colonial rulers would puncture the mythology of the latter’s “greatness and invincibility” and restore African people’s identity, dignity and self-determination.

    In his famous “The Weapon of Theory” address at the 1966 Tricontinental Congress in Havana, Cabral expressed the desire and determination to emulate the Cuban people’s example of overthrowing all forms of exploitation through armed struggle. Like Che Guevara, Cabral emphasized the human dimension of the liberation struggle, hoping that out of the struggle for a new society, a new man and new woman would develop elevated beyond egotism and self-interest.

    Maria da Luz “Lilica” Boal, an original combatant with Cabral who oversaw the school for children in the liberated territories in the late 1960s and early 1970s, described to Liberation the character of his leadership. She recalled how Cabral checked in at the school every morning gently adjusting the children’s school uniforms and having a laugh with them before he left to oversee the ideological and political training of the PAIGC cadre.

    Cabral’s internationalism

    Undoubtedly familiar with Lenin and the general line of the Communist International in the wake of World War I, Cabral also viewed national liberation as part of a worldwide struggle against capitalism in its imperialist stage. In 1970, Cabral visited Alma Ata, the capital of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Kazakhstan, for a conference on oppressed nation’s self-determination. Cabral called Lenin “the greatest champion of the national liberation of the peoples.”

    In fascist Portugal, all references to Marxism and class struggle were punishable by imprisonment, torture and even execution. It was in Africa that many conscripted Portuguese soldiers, of rural and working-class backgrounds, first came into contact with ideas about democracy and socialism. The steadfast resistance and determination of the peoples of Cape Verde and Bissau wore down the conscripted Portuguese army and emboldened them to rebel against their commanding officers in 1974.

    Thirteen years of war against the African liberation movements had moreover over-extended the Portuguese military and become a burden on the economy. In an interview with Portuguese poet and politician Manuel Alegre, Cabral spoke directly to the 20,000 Portuguese conscripts urging them to consider their class interests above and beyond the national chauvinism their ruling class fed them.

    Portuguese officers began to refuse orders on African battlefields, and formed an Armed Forces Movement (MFA) that supported the demand for independence. In today’s terms, this would be equivalent to the rank-and-file of the U.S. military declaring their solidarity with the Iraqi resistance—imagine the impact!

    The MFA led a rebellion against fascism at home, which ended more than 40 years of rule under António de Oliveira Salazar and Marcelo Caetano. It opened the door to a popular upsurge that nearly claimed power for the Portuguese workers. These social convulsions in the imperial center in turn facilitated the independence of Portugal’s African colonies.

    Each wave of revolution builds on and draws from the victories of the past. Just as the Cuban revolution received invaluable support from the Soviet Union, the national liberation struggles in Guinea and other colonies likewise received invaluable assistance from the Cubans, who sent an international mission under the leadership of Victor Drake to train PAIGC cadre.

    You can kill the revolutionary, but not the revolution

    The PIDE—the Portuguese secret police—functioned both at home and in the colonies to harass, jail and squelch all resistance against the ruling junta. They had Cabral killed on Jan. 20, 1973. It was only a few months before the victory of his people over Portuguese colonialism and the declaration of the independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde.

    Cabral is only one in a long list of African revolutionaries and visionary leaders assassinated by the colonialists and their elite allies. That list includes Eduardo Mondlane of Mozambique, killed by a PIDE letter bomb in 1969. It includes Félix-Roland Moumié, a Marxist Cameroonian leader murdered by French intelligence in 1960. It includes Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, Thomas Sankara of Burkina Faso, and Chris Hani of South Africa.

    These figures, and the movements they led, contrast sharply with all of the racist, bourgeois clichés about corrupt, inefficient, vainglorious, tribal African leadership and failed states. Instead of inter-ethnic conflict and the enrichment of a tiny elite, they projected broad African unity premised on the public ownership of the continent’s vast resources. This vision—which cut to the very heart of imperialist control—remains potent, ready to be picked up and expanded by the next generation of African revolutionaries. From Tunisia to South Africa, and everywhere in between, the stage is set for a new era of class and anti-imperialist struggles. Amilcar Cabral’s legacy and thought remains valuable today.

    Margaret Thatcher: imperialism personified

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    Originally published at Liberation School on April 10, 2013

    While the ruling class mourns the death of one of their most loyal politicians and mouthpieces, the British and Irish working classes and oppressed peoples the world over are certainly not mourning Margaret Thatcher’s passing. From the streets of Belfast to the streets of Brixton, we are seeing a different response from working-class communities who remember all too well the “festival of reaction” that Thatcher reigned over.

    Thatcher’s term as prime minister and Ronald Reagan’s as president symbolized U.S. and British imperialism’s brutal offensive against the working classes of their two countries and increased military aggression abroad. “Thatcherism” and “Reaganism” represented union-busting, greater poverty and an enriched elite.

    Thatcher’s track record included the intense suppression of the Irish liberation movement, military invasion in Latin America and a war against the interests of British workers.

    Ireland—the oldest colony in the world

    Nowhere was Thatcher more hated than in Ireland, meaning that she believed the six northern counties of Ireland were part of the United Kingdom. Ireland was in fact divided by British imperial dictate in 1921, leaving the six northern counties under the jurisdiction of the British crown.

    When Thatcher became prime minister in 1979, “the Troubles” had already raged for over 10 years. She continued the repression against the Irish Republican forces. Republicans in Ireland are those who advocate an Irish Republic free from British control.

    The “Troubles” refers to the two decades of intense violence that began in 1968 when the oppressed Catholic population in northern Ireland—who began massive civil rights marches to demand the end of systematic repression and discrimination—were brutally attacked by the fascist Royal Ulster Constabulary. Armed resistance arose by the republican forces against the pro-British terrorist paramilitaries.

    Thatcher refused to recognize the legitimacy of the Irish resistance, the fighters having been stripped of their political-prisoner status in 1976. She infamously stated: “Crime is crime is crime. It is not political.”

    In 1981, the Republican prisoners went on a hunger strike to protest being treated as criminals and not prisoners of war. Thatcher stood by callously as one by one, the beloved Irish revolutionaries died in a series of 10 continuous hunger strikes that popularized Ireland’s struggle across the world.

    In retaliation, the Irish Republican Army narrowly missed killing her in 1984, exploding bombs at the Conservative Party conference in Brighton, killing four other Conservative Party delegates and seriously wounding members of Thatcher’s delegation.

    In 1988, she introduced a broadcasting ban in the six counties making it illegal to broadcast the views of the political party Sinn Fein “to deny terrorists the oxygen of publicity on which they thrive.”

    Despite her best attempts to break the back of Irish resistance, that freedom struggle pushed on with hundreds of thousands of people coming into the streets in support of the hunger strikers. Before his death, Bobby Sands said: “They won’t break me, because the desire for freedom, and the freedom of the Irish people, is in my heart. The day will dawn when all the people of Ireland will have the desire for freedom to show. It is then that we will see the rising of the moon.”

    An imperialist abroad, a racist at home

    Thatcher oversaw Britain’s role in its war with Argentina over the Malvinas islands, which are situated 8,000 miles away from London in the south Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Argentina. Britain first claimed the islands in 1833 as part of its global empire.

    In April 1982, the Argentinian ruling junta under fascist general Jorge Rafael Videla ordered the military to retake the Malvinas in an attempt to distract workers from the dictatorship’s repression and tap into long-standing Argentinian anger at Britain’s claim on the islands. Despite having helped the Argentinian dictatorship come to power, U.S. imperialism sided with its British imperialist ally by providing intelligence and transport help.

    Thatcher gave direct orders for the British nuclear-powered submarine called “The Conqueror” to attack an Argentinian naval vessel even though it was outside the area of conflict. In that attack, 323 Argentinian sailors were killed. Britain continues to claim the Malvinas because of their interest in plundering the oil in the region.

    The 1980s represented a sharpening of global class war from Nicaragua to Mozambique to Moscow. Thatcher and Ronald Reagan worked hand in hand to carry out a neoliberal agenda and quell liberation movements worldwide. Thatcher was a close ally of General Augusto Pinochet in Chile and other infamous fascist dictators. She allowed the U.S. Air Force to bomb Libya from airbases in England. She supported Boris Yeltsin and Mikhail Gorbachev, who would oversee the restoration of capitalism in Russia. She supported apartheid in South Africa even as governments around the world began to impose sanctions on the apartheid regime. She labeled the freedom-fighting African National Congress “terrorists.”

    Within Britain, Thatcher’s role was to carry out a vicious ruling-class agenda to dismantle the social safety net and crush the voices of oppressed sectors of British society.

    In 1981, a social rebellion swept across Britain sparked by high unemployment and unequal social conditions. The racist police brutality against the Black Caribbean population of Brixton in South London was the spark that led to months of insurrection. When confronted with this pressure from below to address segregation and provide opportunities to youth, Thatcher rejected the idea that social conditions had anything to do with the unrest. In her typical inhumane, cold-blooded fashion she stated: “What absolute nonsense. … No one should condone violence. No one should condone the events. … They were criminal, criminal.”

    Thatcher sought to break the power of labor unions—attacking nationalized industry, upholding the “free market” and waging a war against the “welfare state.”

    Thatcher presided over the 1984 privatization of the coal mining industry in Great Britain. The denationalization meant that 20 coal pits were shut down resulting in the loss of 20,000 jobs. Many families in the north of England, Scotland and Wales lost their primary source of work

    On June 18, 1984, near Rothertham, thousands of police brutally attacked striking miners in what was dubbed “The Battle of Orgreave.” Seven miners were killed in the conflict by the police who functioned as the shock troops for capitalist interests.

    While Thatcher herself has died, Thatcherism, the legacy of unfettered attacks on workers and their right to live in peace continues. There is still saber rattling against Argentina over the Malvinas. Irish Republicans continue to be targeted for harassment and violence by the British state. Oppressed communities continue to be scapegoated and ruined.

    We should not be misled by the Obama White House’s statement: “The world has lost one of the great champions of freedom and liberty, and America has lost a true friend.” The truth is that the pillagers and looters of the world lost one of theirs. We have no reason to mourn the loss of this loyal servant of our exploiters.

    “The Coronavirus is Man-Made:” the Conspiracy Theory Trap 

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    Originally published at Counter Punch on April 1, 2020

    In this trying time, have you heard some of your friends say that the U.S. government created this pandemic or that the pandemic is not real at all?

    It is worth responding to these outlandish claims because in times of social tumult, there are no lack of conspiracy theorists irresponsibly tossing these ideas around. It is right to distrust the people in power and “it is right to rebel.” Poor and oppressed people instinctively know this system does not work for them but it is important that we critically read the mainstream news and back up our counter arguments with history and science.

    The Battle of Ideas

    Overwhelmed by the spread of the virus, and the plague of poverty and injustice, our people are searching for answers. Deprived of history and a critical education, some of our friends come up with all types of ideas. Religious zealots say that the coronavirus is the work of god on high intervening in earthly affairs to “clean things up.”

    The liberatory perspective sees things differently than conspiracy theorists or bible thumpers. An organization that defends human life and the environment puts forth a worldview and program to challenge the social class that today seeks to dominate us whereas reactionary worldviews, consciously or not, buttress the power of the dominant social class because they offer justifications of the status quo. It is important to be able to understand all strands of thought and their social origins, such as religious ideology, liberalism, fascism, conspiracy theory and of course Marxism. History will judge our line of thinking and program for action, especially whether we have done all that is feasible, used democratic procedures, and acted to defend all human life by transforming the prevailing capitalist system.

    Where does conspiracy “theory” lead us?  

    We should all be reading far and wide to understand this virus and historical moment. The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense encouraged their cadre to read the news for two hours every morning. Today this remains relevant. Wake up and read The New York Times, CNN, Foxnews, BBC and then read what the Chinese, Russian, Iranian and Venezuelan leadership is saying. With a dictionary by your side, (or nowadays with dictionary.com saved as one of your favorite websites) read what CounterPunch, The Gray Zone, Liberation News and other critical media sites are saying.

    Yes political education is hard work and takes years of training. How much easier to just throw your hands up and say: “it’s the government!” or “its the hand of god!” Don’t waste your valuable time on conspiracy theorists because they only entertain ideas which confirm their own narrow view. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

    To ignore the dangers of the virus is to also ignore the resistance of working people.

    Detroit bus drivers went on strike and won greater protection from the virus. Amazon workers are on the frontlines of struggle right now. Peasants in Haiti are forming networks through WhatsApp and organizing teams on pickup trucks with bullhorns to raise awareness about the virus. The people and leadership of Wuhan, China coordinated an entire campaign to overcome the coronavirus. In another example of medical internationalism, China and Cuba are now sending doctors to dozens of countries to assist in the global fight against corona. In the column marked new deaths, which skyrockets every day in the West, the Chinese column has read zero for three consecutive days. We also cannot ignore the enormous hardships imposed upon the Iranian people who have a duel battle — one against the coronavirus and the other against an airtight U.S.-led military and economic blockade.

    This unforeseen historical moment is pregnant with conversations and possibilities for building a new world in the aftermath of this pandemic that we could not have imagined last month.

    Understanding the State

    When we are walking down Utica, 149th or 125th St. we see the conspiracy documentaries. They are readily available. These conspiracy documentaries do more to retard and isolate than advance the struggle. They shroud the class enemy in mystery instead of exposing it. Why can’t you find any revolutionary documentaries or books in our communities? Because they are a threat to the powers that be.

    How do the rich maintain their stranglehold over society? Through the state, universal surveillance, and the armed repression of one social class by another.

    There is now extensive documentation exposing the government’s role in the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and the need to neutralize any other “Black Messiah,” as the FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover put it. Just in 1969, the FBI and local police departments tracked hundreds of Black leaders and assassinated 28 of them. This was not merely the doing of a handful of specific individuals who were pulling some invisible strings. This was an entire system that is antagonistic to true empowerment of the Black community and all oppressed communities. The state is presently a tool of class oppression because corporate power is entrenched in the three branches of government; the elites created the police, courts, prisons and military to protect their monopoly over the wealth of society.

    Know your Enemy

    Conspiracy “theorists” are not theorists in the critical sense at all but charlatans who make it seem like the enemy aka the ruling power structure is a mysterious, shady worldwide network that is unable to be pinned down. As 3.3 million Americans applied for unemployment last week and millions of other families anxiously await a meager check of $1,200; the billionaires are right before us in plain view, with their companies, property, mansions, yachts and stunning accumulation of wealth. As our families have to decide between intensified poverty because of layoffs or continuing to work and putting our loved ones at further risk, the bosses hide behind their laptops, cutting millions of jobs and moving billions of dollars.

    The same individuals who run General Electric or Disney also own and run NBC, Telemundo and CBS. The social class that owns the means of production also controls the images, information and ideas that circulate through society. It’s up to us to challenge them, using every means of communication at our disposal.  Conspiracy theories do not encourage us to fight back; they distract our attention when what we really need to do is organize around real-life issues.

    Most of the big endorsers of conspiracy theorists are privileged dilatants who are just interested in promoting themselves and their “theory.” As we saw with the “9/11 truthers,” the “Zeitgeist” people and those obsessed with the “Illuminati,” their style leads to a cultish gathering around one “enlightened” thinker but organizes very little, if anything, for our communities. Show me a conspiracy theorist who does anything besides talk! It is a dead-end.

    Which Way Forward? Fight to Learn, Learn to Fight

    Cowering before such mesmerizing challenges, many good people fall into the conspiracy theory trap. But we propose another way forward. Join a union, student or tenant organization or study group.

    We believe in the formation and training of multinational leadership and we believe in a broad struggle organized around every issue that affects our class i.e. access to healthcare, a people’s bailout, budget cuts, sexism, police brutality, wars of recolonization and military recruiting in our neighborhoods.

    What will ever free us from the dictatorship of the rich and spare the planet more abuse by the corporations? Unity and struggle behind a program that seeks to overcome the multiple hierarchies of domination and create a democratic socialist economy aimed at meeting people’s needs rather than private accumulation.

    Colombia’s Other Pandemic: Unchecked State Violence in the Time of COVID-19

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    Originally published at Counter Punch on June 26, 2020

    The human rights group Indepaz reports that 800 activists have been killed in the past three and a half years in Colombia, since November 24, 2016, the date the government signed “the Peace Accord” with the FARC.[1] Taking advantage of society’s fear and distraction, and the demobilization caused by the novel coronavirus, state and paramilitary actors have intensified their violence against organizers and their communities. Human rights activists refer to themselves as “sitting ducks,” explaining that they are pinned down by the pandemic and cannot as easily flee and hide from the forces of repression.[2]

    While state and non-state military actors are notorious for violence in Colombia, the police are also guilty of human rights crimes. On May 19, Anderson Arboleda, a 21-year-old Afro-Colombian was beaten to death by the police for supposedly “violating the quarantine” in the Pacific department of Cauca.[3] The police killing of Arboleda — which many compare to the Minneapolis Police Department murder of George Floyd — was not an isolated act. Journalists have found that black and indigenous Colombians have suffered the highest rates of institutional discrimination and police violence.[4]

    Human Rights Watch conducted an investigation into Colombian police violations of the rights of peaceful protesters the past year as hundreds of thousands of Colombians took to the streets against budget cuts and political assassinations. They found 72 cases of extreme police brutality. No officer was ever held responsible.[5] One of these cases was that of 17-year old Dilan Cruz. On November 23, Cruz was at a protest when he was killed by the Escuadrón Móvil Antidisturbios (the ESMAD or Mobile Riot Squad) which fired live ammunition at him from a close distance.

    COVID-19: double down crisis on poor Colombians

    Colombia now has more than 71,000 cases of COVID-19 and has experienced 2,300 deaths.[6] In Latin America, Colombia trails only Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Peru and Mexico in terms of the total number of cases and deaths from COVID-19.[7] At El Cumbe Internacional Antiimperialista, Afrodescendiente y Africano (The International Gathering Ground of Antiimperialists, Afro-descendents and Africans) on June 14th, former Colombian senator and lawyer Piedad Córdoba stated: “COVID-19 lays bare the moral, medical and political infrastructure of our country, especially in the poorer Afro-Colombian regions of the Pacific and the Caribbean. Our people have been the most beaten down by the pandemic.”[8] Senator Córdoba went on to speak about the “hurtful image of a young Black man from Quibdó in the Pacific department of Choco who died on a stretcher in front of a hospital without receiving care for the coronavirus.”[9]

    Despite this unprecedented public health crisis, president Iván Duque and his government seem to be more concerned with suppressing the freedom of speech of activists, criminalizing  resistance and encircling its neighbor Venezuela than seriously confronting the pandemic.

    War as state strategy

    The negotiations in Havana, Cuba from 2012 to 2016 resulted in a historic peace deal meant to end a 50-year war that cost over 220,000 lives and left 7 million displaced.[10] The centrist presidency of Juan Manuel Santos received a Nobel Peace Prize in 2016 for his role in the negotiations, though none of the peasant organizations on the other side of the war who endured decades of displacement, torture and death were ever mentioned as a candidate for the  prize or in the ceremony. The government promised a Truth and Reconciliation Committee, land reform, reintegration of former guerrilla fighters, demilitarization of the conflict zones and political openings for the left. The June 2018 electoral victory of Iván Duque, a protégé of far right wing Alvaro Uribe, spelt immediate doom for the Havana peace accords. The government reneged on all of its promises and the areas where the FARC once commanded saw the highest rise in politically-motivated assassinations.[11] According to the United Nations, more than 170 former fighters have been murdered since the peace deal was signed.[12]

    In response to these charges, Duque and the Colombian media dismissed the FARC dissidents as “narco terrorists,” despite their legitimate status as demobilized non-belligerents.[13]

    Analyst, surgeon and the founder of Pueblos en Camino (The People in Motion), Manuel Rozental explains that the rich in Colombia do not want the military conflict to end because war has always been their cover for appropriating land and resources.[14] Colombian elites and transnationals, such as British Petroleum, Occidental Petroleum Corporation, Exxon Mobil, Coca Cola, Drummond and hundreds of others, use the war as a pretext to clamp down on social movements across Colombia.[15] War is their strategy to displace and dispossess. Any peasant or social organizations who stand in their way can easily be dismissed as coercive or criminal elements. Joel Villamizar is one example. Villamizar was a leader of La Asociación de Autoridades Tradicionales y Cabildos U’wa – ASOU’WA. When he was ambushed and murdered earlier this year the media and authorities simply dismissed him as a guerilla terrorist.[16]

    “A War on Drugs?” or a “War on Sovereignty”?

    According to all reputable data, Colombia is the main supplier of cocaine in the world and the U.S. is the main consumer.[17] The U.S. allegations that Nicolás Maduro oversees a narco government are politically motivated and not backed up by facts on the ground. Approximately 70 percent of cocaine that arrives in the U.S. comes from Colombia via different supply routes, many through the Pacific ocean.[18] The U.S. Navy is surrounding and blockading Venezuela, not to stop the flow of cocaine into the streets of the U.S., but rather to stop the progress of the Bolivarian process.

    It is also worth pointing out that the drug epidemic in the U.S. is not caused principally by cocaine but rather by opioids, many of which are legally prescribed by doctors. According to the Center for Disease Control, over 70 percent of the 67,000 overdoses in 2018 were from opioids.[19]

    On March 26th, Attorney General William Barr formerly accused the Venezuelan government of “narco terrorism” without even clarifying which drugs are killing Americans and where they come from.[20] This spoke to the political motivations behind the claims which were really trumped up charges designed to provide the legalese to ratchet up the war on Venezuela. Meanwhile, Washington takes no action against the government of Honduras, accused by even U.S. courts of being involved in drug related crimes, including Juan Orlando Hernández’s family and the president himself.[21]

    The US Navy sent ships to further blockade Venezuela’s Caribbean coast on April 1[22] and the Southern Command deployed 800 more special force soldiers to Colombia on June 1.[23] This ignited a national debate in Colombia about the question of sovereignty. The Colombian Congress never agreed to allow foreign soldiers into their homeland.[24] Aida Avella, senator of the Patriotic Union party, stated: “The U.S. military cannot enter Colombian territory above Congress to advise the fight against drug trafficking. We reject the use of the country for wars and invasions of other countries.”[25] Lenín Moreno ceded “a new airstrip” in the Galápagos Islands of Ecuador for use by the U.S. military.[26] The U.S. military currently has nine bases in Colombia, twelve in Panama and 76 total in Latin America.[27] The US has deployed between 500 and 1,500 troops to Soto Cano air base in Honduras under the guise of humanitarian and drug-fighting operations.[28]There is also some evidence that the Colombian military may have supported the mercenaries who trained in Colombia before launching incursions into Venezuela in early May in a botched attempt to capture the Venezuelan president.[29]

    Resistance is everywhere

    Distrustful of the government’s commitments, thousands of government opponents have returned to the mountains or sprawling slums of Colombia’s cities.[30] Calling for a second Marquetalia Republic, in reference to the autonomous zones armed peasants held after La Violencia in 1948, rebel commanders like Iván Marquez and Jesús Santrech and their soldiers have taken back to the mountains.

    Not all social actors embrace this strategy however. Warning that war is a trap, social movements drafted a letter to the FARC discouraging them from playing into the hands of the state. Around 70 percent of all casualties in the 50-year and running civil war have been civilians.[31]

    In an interview on June 16 with Colombia’s Caracol Radio, representative of the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) [32] and the head of the Dialogue Delegation of the guerilla army, Pablo Beltrán, explained their perspective. Beltrán said the ELN desires a cease fire but not as long as Duque brings in more U.S. soldiers, making a clash with those troops inevitable in Norte de Santander and Arauca on the border with Venezuela. The ELN has expressed that the priority should be alleviating poverty and keeping people safe from the coronavirus.

    As the coronavirus impacts the poorest and most vulnerable sectors of Colombian society, there is little trust that Trump’s faithful partner, the notorious anti-Bolivarian Iván Duque, will respond in a comprehensive way to the health and economic needs of the population. Three national strikes convulsed Colombia between November and December last year because of the neoliberal cuts implemented by Duque. Unable to resolve the needs of their own population, the Colombian elites participate in the destabilization of one of its neighbors. The external and internal contradictions of Colombian society continue to sharpen, promising the playing out of a 50-year national liberation struggle Washington has always feared and sought to contain.

    End notes.

    [1] “Colombia: How armed gangs are using lockdown to target activists,”

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-52661457

    [2] “Colombia: How armed gangs are using lockdown to target activists.”

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-52661457

    [3] “Indignación en Colombia por un caso similar al de George Floyd: un joven negro murió tras una golpiza policial”, https://www.infobae.com/america/colombia/2020/06/04/indignacion-en-colombia-por-un-caso-similar-al-de-george-floyd-un-joven-negro-murio-tras-una-golpiza-policial/

    Translated into English by Danny Shaw

    [4] “Muerte de George Floyd: cuál es la situación de la población negra en América Latina (y el parecido a la de EE.UU.)”,

    https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-52969557

    [5] “Colombia: Abusos policiales en el contexto de manifestaciones multitudinarias”,

    https://www.hrw.org/es/news/2020/03/10/colombia-abusos-policiales-en-el-contexto-de-manifestaciones-multitudinarias

    [6] Worldometers.info, by June 22nd 2020, https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/colombia/

    [7] “Where Is the Coronavirus in Latin America?,”

    https://www.as-coa.org/articles/where-coronavirus-latin-america

    [8] “Afro-Respuestas Frente al Racismo y El COVID-19,”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oq02CUZj2tc&t=7090s (2:30:30)

    [9] “Video: hombre sospechoso de covid-19 murió en plena calle de Quibdó,”

    https://www.eltiempo.com/colombia/otras-ciudades/video-del-hombre-que-murio-de-coronavirus-en-plena-calle-de-quibdo-choco-506612

    [10] “Colombia’s President ‘Wants War,’ FARC Dissidents Comply,”

    https://therealnews.com/stories/colombias-president-wants-war-farc-dissidents-comply

    [11] “The Slow Death of Colombia’s Peace Movement,”

    https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/12/colombia-peace-farc/604078

    [12] “FARC killings a challenge to peace, but some criticism political: Colombian official,” https://www.reuters.com/article/us-colombia-peace/farc-killings-a-challenge-to-peace-but-some-criticism-political-colombian-official-idUSKBN1ZX2QD

    [13] “Colombia Farc rebels: President vows to hunt down new group,”

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49516660

    [14] “Colombia’s President “Wants War,” FARC Dissidents Comply,”

    https://therealnews.com/stories/colombias-president-wants-war-farc-dissidents-comply

    [15] “Global Reach: US Corporate Interests in Colombia,”

    https://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/colombia/corporate.html

    [16] “Asesinan a dirigente indígena colombiano en Norte de Santander”,

    https://www.telesurtv.net/news/asesinan-dirigente-indigena-colombiano-norte-santander-20200601-0021.html

    [17] “Colombia coca crop: Trump tells Duque to resume spraying,”

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-51722456

    [18] “What Lockdown? World’s Cocaine Traffickers Sniff at Movement Restrictions,”

    https://www.insightcrime.org/news/analysis/world-cocaine-traffickers-lockdown/#

    [19] “Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Opioid Overdose,” https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/opioids/index.html

    [20] “Attorney General William P. Barr Delivers Remarks at Press Conference Announcing Criminal Charges against Venezuelan Officials,”

    https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-william-p-barr-delivers-remarks-press-conference-announcing-criminal

    [21] “US prosecutors tie Honduras president to drug trafficker,” https://apnews.com/e85a0f7b43264a5eb6b879701356e1f3

    [22] “Trump: US to Deploy Anti-Drug Navy Ships Near Venezuela,”

    https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2020-04-01/ap-sources-us-to-deploy-anti-drug-ships-near-venezuela

    [23] “US soldiers arrive in Colombia under widespread criticism,”

    https://www.plenglish.com/index.php?o=rn&id=56269&SEO=us-soldiers-arrive-in-colombia-under-widespread-criticism

    [24] “Colombian Political Figures, Activists Reject US Troops’ Arrival,”

    https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Colombian-Political-Figures-Activists-Reject-US-Troops-Arrival-20200531-0007.html

    [25] “Colombian Political Figures, Activists Reject US Troops’ Arrival,”

    https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Colombian-Political-Figures-Activists-Reject-US-Troops-Arrival-20200531-0007.html

    [26] “Galapagos Islands will not host US military base, Ecuador president says,”

    [27] “U.S. military presence in Latin America & the Caribbean,”

    http://en.granma.cu/mundo/2018-08-15/us-military-presence-in-latin-america-the-caribbean and “Bases militares de EE.UU. en América Latina y el Caribe. El Plan Suramérica”,

    http://www.granma.cu/mundo/2018-08-09/bases-militares-de-eeuu-en-america-latina-y-el-caribe-el-plan-suramerica-09-08-2018-17-08-04

    [28] “Deep in the mountains of Honduras, few know what this US military task force does,”

    https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2019/08/12/deep-in-the-mountains-of-honduras-few-know-what-this-us-military-task-force-does

    [29] “Venezuela seizes empty Colombian combat boats days after failed invasion plot,”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/10/venezuela-seizes-empty-colombian-combat-boats-days-after-failed-invasion-plot and “Venezuela: captured US mercenary claims he planned to abduct Maduro,”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/06/venezuela-maduro-abduction-plot-luke-denman-americans-captured

    [30] “Many Of Colombia’s Ex-Rebel Fighters Rearm And Turn To Illegal Drug Trade,”

    https://www.npr.org/2020/05/19/855567659/many-of-colombias-ex-rebel-fighters-rearm-and-turn-to-illegal-drug-trade

    [31] “Colombia Farc rebels: President vows to hunt down new group,”

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-49516660

    [32] “Colombia. Pablo Beltrán (ELN): ‘Es muy probable que haya enfrentamientos armados con las tropas de EE.UU.’”,

    This is Not a Crisis, This is a Rebellion: a Report from the Front Lines of Haiti

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    Originally published at Counter Punch on May 17, 2021

    All of Haitian society is in revolt.

    A mambo and hougan—the traditional voudou priestess and priest—lead ancestral ceremonies before rallies take the streets and block the central arteries of Port-au-Prince, Cap Haïtien, and other Haitian cities and towns. After one of their members was kidnapped, leaders of the Protestant Church directed its congregation to halt all activities at noon on Wednesday and bat tenèb. Bat tenèb, literally “beat the darkness,” is a call for all sectors of Haitian society to beat pots, pans, street lights and anything else as a general alert of an emergency. A Catholic church in Petionville held a mass with political undertones against the dictatorship. When marchers from outside took refuge from the police inside the church, the Haitian National Police tear gassed the entire congregation.

    Ti Germain, a well-known Lavalas activist, was hauled away by President Jovenel Moïse’s henchmen for protesting in the downtown Chanmas Plaza last week and has not been seen since. Peasants come together to form self-defense units against land grabs by the Haitian Tèt Kale Party (PHTK, or Haitian Bald Headed Party) and their foreign backers before mobilizing in the streets themselves. With the spiritual hymn of resistance blaring from a sound truck, “A fight remains a fight. My sword is in my hand, I’m moving forward,” tens of thousands of protesters move toward police lines guarding the Delmas 96 entrance, which seals off the Haiti of the 0.01 percent from that of the 99.99 percent.

    Chanting “The People Poetry Revolution!”, young writers and poets took to the streets on May 3 calling for a Haiti where youth have a future. A cultural worker, Jan Wonal, asserts, “They [the imperialists] fashion themselves the messengers of art, literature, history of art. So, for us, cultural revolution against cultural imperialism is an imperative.”

    All of Haitian society is in revolt.

    Who Cares About Haiti?

    CNN, MSNBC, Fox, and the full gamut of mainstream media outlets have paid scant attention to this social insurrection. The headlines—if they mention Haiti at all—have focused on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Biden regime’s deportation of Haitians to the “civil unrest” of Haiti. The anti-neoliberal rebellion goes unmentioned.

    According to one protestor at a mass demonstration, “If we were Hong Kong, Taiwan or in any country the U.S. lists as an enemy, there would be everyday coverage of our movement.”

    The corporate press only mentions Haiti in the context of a natural disaster, a deadly disease or chaos. Millions of people in motion in a U.S. neocolony like Colombia, Chile or Haiti are not deemed newsworthy. The dominant narrative is people in the streets protesting is not a revolt, but a “political crisis.” It is not convenient for a neocolony to make noise and rise up against the empire’s handpicked lackeys and puppets.

    In response to the media whiteout, Haitian intellectual Patrick Mettelus emphasized, “Our national liberation struggle is first and foremost a battle of ideas; it is an informational war. How can we counter the dominant narrative and show what is good, beautiful, encouraging and hopeful from our homeland?”

    Showdown: Haiti vs. Imperialism 

    Ignoring months and years of widespread anger, Moïse continues to say resigning is not an option. The United Nations and Organization of American States (OAS) agree the U.S.-backed despot has another year remaining in his presidency, even though the 1987 Constitution stipulates his term ended on February 7. Former president Jean Bertrand Aristide called the UN, OAS and United States “the troika of evil” for the heavy-handed role they have played in Haiti’s historic destiny. This alone explains why Aristide was twice the victim of coup d’etats orchestrated by these neocolonial forces.

    Moïse went before the United Nations General Assembly on February 24. In a 28-minute display of arrogance, the tone-deaf puppet patted himself on the back for supposedly carrying out ongoing socio-economic reforms. Adding insult to injury, Moïse now intends to brazenly overturn the 1987 constitution. This constitution was the result of consultations among hundreds of local committees representing all sectors of society一women, peasants, poor neighborhoods, etc.一coming together on the heels of the 1986 dechoukaj (uprooting) that overthrew dictator Jean Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier. Enshrined in the constitution is protection of Haitian cultural and economic sovereignty, and women’s empowerment, among other democratic rights. Today, these same sectors, representing the vast majority of Haitian society, are taking to the streets against Moïse and his dictatorial scheme to overturn the people’s constitution.

    The reformist wing of the opposition has propped up a transition president, Joseph Mécène Jean-Louis, who has been in hiding since February 7, in fear of persecution of Jovenel’s National Intelligence Agency (ANI). Ruling class families such as the Vorbe/Boulos faction, which supported Jovenel (and Michel Martelly before) have now turned on Moïse and want to replace him without systemic change.

    Kidnappings have reached epic proportions. The djaspora (Haitians in the diaspora) are afraid to travel back home. The Center for Human Rights Research and Analysis reported 157 kidnappings in the first three months of 2021. This lawlessness is representative of a society that has lost all confidence in Moïse. The most oppressed layers of society have been overwhelmed by the weak gourde (1 U.S. dollar equals 87 Haitian gourdes), widespread joblessness and no hopes for a dignified future. According to the UN’s World Food Program, half of Haiti’s 10.7 million people are undernourished. This bleek social reality has pushed the most castaway to resort to armed violence and taking hostages.

    The fundamental demand of the popular sectors is a “sali piblik,” or a united transition away from dictatorship and neocolonialism that involves and empowers the masses of Haitian people.

    While the corporate media silences Haitian voices, the Committee for Mobilization Against Dictatorship in Haiti (KOMOKODA), Leve Kanpe, the U.S./UN Out of Haiti Coalition, and other diaspora and anti-imperialist organizations across the United States and the world are standing with the historic Haitian rebellion.

    “The ‘Core Group’ is a cabal of predatory countries and institutions created by the United States of America after the overthrow and kidnapping of President Aristide in 2004 to give a veneer of international legitimacy to their domination over Haiti,” KOMOKODA stated as the group protested May 3 in front of the French embassy in Port-au-Prince, “Join us as we stand in solidarity with the Haitian people, who are in the streets fighting for their liberation and their emancipation.”

    What is Behind “the Canal Conflict” Between the Dominican Republic and Haiti?

    0

    Originally published at Counter Punch on September 21, 2023

    Last week, headlines across the Dominican Republic accused Haiti of “illegally building a canal” that will divert waters from The Massacre River.[1] Dominican president Luis Abinader and his administration took swift actions, supposedly in retaliation for the ongoing construction, closing the border and denying all visas to Haitians. On Friday, the largest transportation union in Santo Domingo announced no Haitian is allowed to travel on buses, taxis or any public transportation. The statement, translated in its entirety below, reads like something straight out of the Bull Connor playbook, warning that “Haitians are a security risk…and in most cases carry knives & work tools.” Due to concerns about international pushback, the Dominican government was forced to walk back their position and a separate employee on each bus is now checking every Haitians’, or anyone perceived as Haitian, legal documents.

    This is the first time the Dominican government closed the border since November 2021 when Port-au-Prince was engulfed in gang warfare and paramilitary gang violence against civilian communities. There are three border crossings, all of which are multiple hours away from the violent hellscape that is Port-au-Prince. The proxy gang war has intensified, and 2.5 million Haitians are trapped in the capital city as warring, marauding paramilitary factions burn down stable, working-class communities, raping, pillaging and massacring neighborhoods with rich traditions of resistance. The images are too ghastly to show, but a generation comes of age seeing horrific violence to a point where they have been desensitized and demoralizing. The revolutionary movement MOLEGHAF teaches its young militants: “Comrades you will not share Black Death Pornography on WhatsApp. We build our people’s self-esteem, not destroy it.”[2]

    This manufactured “canal crisis” has nothing to do with a river and everything to do with opportunistic politicians, nationalism and the pending U.S.-sponsored foreign invasion and occupation of Haiti. Luis Abinader has traveled to the United Nations this week to further advocate for a Core Group invasion of Haiti. Closing the border and deporting thousands of Haitians adds more gasoline to the already existing conflagration and takes away an important economic escape valve and source of remittances. With the effective indoctrination campaign emanating from the mainstream Dominican and U.S. media, it is important to provide a counter-hegemonic narrative that contextualizes this fabricated showdown that pits two oppressed people against one another.

    A Battle over Narratives

    The dominant narrative the Dominican media is spinning is that the Haitian government and rich Haitian businessmen are diverting the water of El Rio Masacre to develop their own agricultural project. On the Haitian side of the border, masses of dispossessed farmers and everyday people have mobilized in hopes of distributing the water through a tributary that will irrigate their farms. From the Haitian popular perspective, this is a kombit, or collective work, to build something beneficial for the most marginalized.[3] Masses of people have come from around the northeast of Haiti to support the engineers and technological experts who are finishing the construction. For a nation bracing to endure the fourth U.S.-led, foreign invasion and occupation, the tributary has emerged as something to believe in.

    Who owns the central arteries of the Dominican media? Like any loyal neocolony, an elite group of families own and manage the media apparatus. Bonetti, Marranzini, Corripio and Vicini are some of the biggest, billionaire (or almost billionaire) last names in DR who have inordinate influence over the manufacturing of consent. Given that “the ruling ideas of a given epoch are those of the ruling class,” it is clear why the Dominican masses see Haiti, Haitians and the Haitian revolution through the eyes of their oppressors. For example, it is widely accepted across the country of over 11 million people that the Haitian slave general and liberator, Jean Jacques Dessalines, was nothing more than “a wild, vengeful Black man who sought to kill all whites.” This is the symbolism and imagery that constitute for several generations, the manufactured “Dominican pesadilla (nightmare).”

    Haiti’s politicians have been both incapable and uninterested in responding to the paramilitary gang’s destruction of neighborhoods and displacement and slaughter of tens of thousands of families. Opposed to the puppet Core Group lackey Ariel Henry, some of the politicians who were part of the former parliament are joining the patriotic parade to the border as it has become a populist cause. Grassroots activists have decried the motives of opportunistic politicians on both sides of the border which at times appears to enter into the theater of the absurd. It is even rumored that some of the most ruthless warlords like Kempes in Belè and Ti Lapli in Gran Ravin have pledged to stop raping, burning, plundering and murdering in Port-au-Prince to support the construction of the canal.

    The Centrality of History

    History is contested ground. The class forces in power use their own version of history and manipulate it in order to promote myths that advance their interests. The ruling class’ “take” then becomes the accepted version of events.

    The Dominican nationalist version of history paints the western 1/3rd  of the island, Haiti, as a dark specter that seeks to “re-invade the peaceful, democratic” Dominican nation, which must protect itself at all costs. The reality is the opposite; Haitians have been the victims of Dominican state-sponsored racism, forced displacement, and massacres. In October 1937, Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo oversaw a week-long extermination campaign along the border. More than an estimated 20,000 Haitians were murdered in the “Parsley massacre,” and thousands more were displaced. Anyone who could not pronounce the word parsley in Spanish, “perejil,” with its rolling r, was hacked to death. Rayanos, or mixed people who were bilingual in Spanish and Kreyòl and grew up around the border, at the intersection of both cultures, were also murdered.

    The Dominican Republic is the only oppressed nation that celebrates its “independence” from another oppressed nation. The DR has two days to celebrate their independence, February 27th, when they separated from Haiti in 1844 and August 16th, when General Gregorio Luperón led the defeat of the Spanish empire in 1865 in what is known as the War of Restoration. The Dominican mis-educational system has lied about this history. For example, in 1822 Haitians sought to unite the island against French, Spanish and English colonialism and reenslavement. The ancestors of the Haitians freed the slaves on the Spanish Empire’s side of the island and broke up the Catholic church’s monopoly on land. Emerging Dominican oligarchs resented the Haitian unification of the island against white supremacy and created myths that are widely believed in DR today and even taught in the schools. For example, there are cliches repeated everyday about Haitian soldiers from 1822-1844 tossing Dominican babies in the air and chopping them up with machetes. There are individual Dominicans and a movement in solidarity with Haiti but it is relatively fractionalized and weak these days versus two decades ago because of ideological and state repression. Dominican scholar Professor Silvio Torres-Saillant emphasizes that “many of his descendents, specifically the darker-skinned ones lived much better with the arrival of the Haitians than before.”

    Dr. Lorjia García-Peña’s The Borders of Dominicanidad: Race, Nation, and Archives of Contradiction is a deep dive into this history of anti-Haitianismo and anti-Blackness. Dominican oligarchs, who are mostly Spanish-descended elites have successfully flipped history on its head. They have cast themselves as the victim and conveniently glossed over the true culprits of a blood-curdling history. Today, extreme Dominican nationalists invoke Trujillo’s memory and remember the massacre with nostalgia. The battle over history continues to be a vital part of the class struggle and the anti-imperialist struggle.

    Beyond a Canal

    On Feb. 20, 1929 representatives of the Haitian and Dominican government signed “The Treaty of Peace, Perpetual Friendship and Arbitration.” This treaty “established the right of the two nations to use the waters of the rivers that are in the border area in a fair and equitable manner” and “that the work being carried out on the Massacre or Dajabón River for water capture does not consist of a diversion of the watercourse.” Context is important here. In 1929, Haiti was still occupied by thousands of U.S. marines and these same marines had only recently left DR in 1924 after establishing a pliant National Guard with the infamous Rafael Leonidas Trujillo at its head. Jovenel Moise and Luis Abinader recognized the language of this treaty in a meeting in 2021. It was only the U.S.-backed assassination of Moise that stopped this infrastructure project.

    Suddenly, last week, president Abinadar decided to take such drastic measures over a tributary? As Port-au-Prince experiences its worst violence, since arguably 1803 when General Leclerk and Napoleon applied a scorched earth strategy to Haiti in hopes of renslaving its population, the Dominican government expresses rage over a canal? What is the real reason this disagreement over the use of the 55 kilometer river has exploded into a crisis of diplomatic proportions?

    Nationalism. Votes. Social control. Scapegoating.

    The Dominican state has mobilized for a war. But a war against who? A corrupt non-existent neocolonial Haitian state? Against hundreds of thousands of internal refugees? Against farmers who finally have an infrastructural project that could bring them some relief? Against murderous gangs that have received some half a million high-grade weapons trafficked illegally from the United States?

    3,000,000 Dominicans still live under the poverty line (measured as a family of 3 surviving on less than $370 dollars per month). 2.5 million Dominicans have already fled their homeland as economic refugees, roughly half to New York City.  With municipal and presidential elections slated for next May, Abinader and his ruling Partido Revolucionario Moderno (PRM) are posing as “the defenders of the nation.”

    Dominican opinion-molders do more to obfuscate the situation than provide any clarity. They  take video clips, like this one of the Haitian masses cheering on police headed to protect the building of the canal, as incontrovertible proof that the “savage” Haitians seek to invade their homeland. This manufactured uproar over local farmers in the northeast of Haiti accessing water is a straw man argument, a fallacy and distraction to again paint Haiti as the aggressor nation. Politicians with reelection aspirations and talk show hosts searching for sensationalism and click bait are cashing in on this moment to be “patriotic.” Blaming and attacking Haitians in DR is as common as Trumpian scapegoating tactics here in the U.S. El Anti-Haitianismo, an anti-Haitian ideology of sensationalism and violence, is the unofficial religion of the Dominican ruling class. Many true Dominican patriots and anti-imperialists have asked why doesn’t our state mobilize to protect and nationalize ​​the U.S. and Canadian exploited gold in Cotuí, the nickel in Bonao, the tobacco of El Cibao, the U.S.-run sweatshops and tourist industry and all of the natural resources plundered by foreign powers?

    The Dominican Republic is not a monolith

    While nationalist tempers have flared, the ruling political cliques are divided on the question of closing the border.

    Former president Leonel Fernandez, his political party Fuerza del Pueblo and an array of unions and civil society organizations have critiqued the border closure from day one and the impact it will have on the Dominican economy. According to Ariel Fornari, a retired military intelligence officer and political analyst in Santiago, “barely hours after Abinader’s intemperate and precipitous border closure decision, many Dominican patana drivers (18-wheeler flatbed semis), complained to the press about the border closure holding up their long lines of trucks with tons of cement sacks bound for Haiti.” Fornari went on to report: “There are entire sectors of the Dominican econòmy, agricultural and construction sector, which are almost exclusively dependent on Haitian labor. Some Dominican economists estimate that the Haitian diaspora’s contribution to D.R.’s tax base via the ITBIS (VAT) is in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually.”

    Haiti is the Dominican Republic’s third biggest trading partner. Small merchants and vendors are the most impacted by the border closure. Per year there is over $1 billion in exports to Haiti and $11 million in imports. This does not include the hundreds of millions of dollars in informal trade at the border. Chino Villalona, longtime community leader in Dajabón told the author this morning: “The Haitians and their canal are not the threat. We don’t believe in extreme decisions. The threat are U.S. and Canadian companies who steal our natural resources and are building a mine now to further exploit us.”

    Haitian and Dominican Solidarity

    It is important to highlight the often unknown and downplayed instances of solidarity between the two nations.

    As a blockaded, maroon state that defeated the French empire in 1804, Haiti supported liberation movements throughout the hemisphere. Simón Bolívar and the anti-colonial movement in El Gran Colombia looked to Haiti for arms and support. Venezuelan freedom fighters sewed and flew their first flag in Jacmel, Haiti in 1803 as Francisco de Miranda prepared his anti-colonial expedition to confront Spain. They supported their one-time adversary, the Dominican mulatto general, Francisco del Rosario Sanchez, against Spain’s next round of encroachments. The great Cuban revolutionary José Marti set sail from Haiti when he set out to fight for Cuban independence from Spain.

    A century before Ernesto “Che” Guevara was born, the Haitians were the original internationalists. A century before the blockade against Cuba, Haiti was already sanctioned.

    The influence of the Haitian revolution was also felt throughout the United States. The southern slavocracy trembled before the idea that slaves could fight back and win. Denmark Vessey ─ a slave born in the West Indies and forced to travel to the South as the assistant of a slave trader ─ led a historic revolt of slaves in Charlestown, North Carolina. He wrote to Haitian President Boyer in hopes of expanding the insurrection across the southern states. During periodic, xenophobic round-ups throughout Dominican history, many Dominican families ─ risking their own lives ─ have hidden Haitians who were escaping the machete and gun-wielding military. The 23-year-old poet Jacques Viaux and other Haitians fought and died alongside Dominican revolutionaries in the “constitutional war” of April 1965, resisting the invasion of 42,000 U.S. Marines sent to squash a movement for popular democracy. When Haitians were forced to flee U.S.-backed coups against the democratically elected president Jean Bertrand Aristide in 1991 and 2004, the Dominican solidarity movement received them. The Dominican Republic was the first country to respond to the 2010 earthquake that rocked Port-au-Prince. When the prior government of Danilo Medina passed the law 168-13 in 2013, denying more than 200,000 Dominicans of Haitian descent citizenship, a multinational movement led by both the Dominican and Haitian communities, in the D.R. and the U.S., organized to overturn the law. Today there are many left-minded organizations in Haiti who support the Dominican, South American and global resistance movements.

    Trapped

    Officially there are 579,933 Haitians in DR which constitutes 5.6 percent of the total Dominican population. The nationalist discourse inflates this number by 10 to exaggerate “the fifth column” claims. What does all of this political grandstanding mean for them?

    There is a history of harassment, bullying, extortion and violence against Haitians in DR by the police, the military and civilians. If an individual Haitian is accused of being a thief, the punishment is often collective against all Haitians. If an individual Dominican robs or attacks a Haitian, that is considered by most business as usual. The General Direction of Migration (DGM) reports deporting roughly 60,000 “illegal Haitians” every 6 month period. The police trample on families’ dignity and rights, even separating children from their parents. While many on the Dominican side will claim they are victims of Haitian crimes, the truth is always concrete. El anti-Haitianismo is a one way street of violence against the most vulnerable and downtrodden. Understanding the violence meted out by white supremacists, both covert and overt, in the U.S. against Black America is an oversimplified but fair enough historical analogy.

    The biggest public transportation union in Santo Domingo (FENATRANSC) has announced that no Haitian is allowed to get on a bus, public motorcycle or taxi. Any Dominican driver who picks up a Haitian will be punished. Union president Mario Díaz said: “We have prohibited the transportation of people of Haitian nationality in our vehicles, whether undocumented or not, both in Greater Santo Domingo and in the other provinces of the country, as of next Monday, for security reasons and because Haitians have become a very risky problem for us and the passengers…It would be prudent for all transport unions in our country to take the same measure as us, since the safety of our inhabitants is at risk & those Haitians who travel daily in any vehicle unit, in most cases carry knives & work tools.” Though the union had to partially walk back their apartheid policy, the racist language speaks for itself.

    There are thousands of Dominican families and Rayano families (mixed descendancy) who can testify to the culture of anti-Haitian fear, extortion and violence on the Dominican side of the border. Since 1998, the author has crossed that border dozens of times and sought to document the humiliating stop and frisks, robberies and human rights violations of Haitians. There was never any disrespect or disorder on the Haitian side of the border. Crossing was always calm. These are the Dominican Republic’s dirty little secrets which the oligarchs and politicians want to cover up but the Dominican people have been participants in and witnesses to the abuses of Haitian immigrants for decades. This is the ultimate fear. The usual demagogues are riling up nationalist feelings which will lead to more state and individual hate crimes against Haitians.

    On Wednesday, President Abinader will travel to the United Nations and on the sidelines meet with Kenyan President William Ruto who has pledged to spearhead the next invasion of Haiti. The Core Group countries, led by the U.S., Canada and France, have sought to use first the Bahamas, then Jamaica or another Caricom nation, and now Kenya to lead what will be the fourth foreign occupation of Haiti in 100 years. The imperialist invasion, in blackface, is not the solution for Haiti. Only a solution where Haiti’s diverse social actors are empowered to choose their own non-aligned, international partners could be a step in the right direction of Haitians exercising their own self-determination. As long as Haiti is under the boot of U.S. domination, paramilitary gangs will continue to dominate life in Port-au-Prince and Haiti will hemorrhage its children to lands far from home where they face a precarious, apartheid-like existence. Malgre tout defi lakay se lakay.[4]

    Notes.

    1. The river is called the Dajabón River by many in the Dominican Republic. It earned the name Massacre river because of a battle between competing colonial powers in 1728. The 1937 massacre of over 20,000 Haitians in the area by the Trujillo dictatorship is covered later in the article. ↑

    2. Partial List of Leftist, Anti-Imperialist Organizations in Haiti

    MOLEGHAF: Mouvman pou Libète Egalite sou Chimen Fratènize Tout Ayisyen

    OTR: Òganizasyon Travayè Revolisyonè

    SOFA: Solidarite Fanm Ayisyen

    Rasin Kanpèp

    Konbit Òganizasyon Politik ak Sendikal yo

    Tèt Kole Ti Peyizan

    KOMOKODA: Committee to Mobilize Against Dictatorship in Haiti (based in Brooklyn)

    Sèk Gramsci

    JCH Jeunesse communiste haïtien

    Sèk Jean Annil Louis-Juste

    Jounal revolisyonè: La Voix des Travailleus Revolutionaire

    Haiti Action Committee (based in San Francisco)

    Batay Ouvriye

    Platfòm Ayisyen Pledwaye pou yon Devlopman Altènatif

    SROD’H: Syndicat pour la Rénovation des Ouvriers d’Haïti

    ROPA: Regwoupman Ouvriye Pwogresis Ayisyen

    OFDOA :Oganizasyon Fanm Djanm Ouvriye Ayisyen ↑

    3. All words from Haiti are in the native Kreyòl, not French, the language of the colonizer. ↑

    4. Haitian proverb: No matter what, home is home. ↑

    Did the Iranians Bomb Themselves, Too?

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    Originally published at Counter Punch on January 9, 2024

    Will any Western media admit that Israeli and U.S. intelligence bombed an event commemorating the 4th anniversary of the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani in Tehran yesterday? How can we be sure who it was? Who has murdered all of the Iranian Nuclear Scientists to maintain a monopoly over nuclear weapons in Western Asia? Who murders children and families relentlessly in Gaza? Who thinks they are invincible and are “the chosen people,” surrounded by “savage Indians?” Whose Department of Defense spends $1.52 Trillion per year? Who has 2,000 nuclear warheads? Who has over 5,000 nuclear weapons? Who kept ISI*S on a short leash? Who bombed at least 3 countries in the region to sabotage their nuclear reactors? Who has waged terrorist attacks in Beirut, Baghdad, Sana’a and across the world, with absolute impunity? Who thinks they are the Gods of the Earth, Wind and Moon? Why were we punished on social media when we mentioned the terrorist attack on General Soleimani? How come ISIS never attacked Israel? Who bombed over 5,000,000 Koreans into the craters of the earth until no building was standing, and Korea was divided? Who has waged a Hybrid War and blockaded Iran since 1979? Who bombs, sanctions and invades whenever, whoever, wherever they want? How did a ragtag, half-starved, blockaded, occupied group of Apache kids sneak out of the concentration camp and strike the colonizer?

    Who waged an anti-Russian coup in Kyiv in 2014 and has spent hundreds of billions of dollars to wage a proxy war in Ukraine until the last dead Ukrainian? Who invents boogeymen and controls your mind? In 2020, who murdered Gen. Soleimani, the slayer of ISIS and the most popular unifying general of the region? Who is drooling to draw Iran into a regional war so they destroy this ancient civilization as they have Iraq, Syria, Libya, Palestine, Yemen and Afghanistan? Who lies to you everyday on CNN and Fox? If this is not fascism, what is it? Whose media has never said one positive word about the Palestinian nation? If this is not a Genocide, what is it? Can Nazis ever emerge from Nazism to see themselves as Nazis? How come ISIS only attacks Muslims? Why did ISIS apologize when they fired at Israeli troops in the Golan Heights? Why is the West obsessed with “Sunni-Shiite hatred” when no one in the Arab world talks about this? Why did Western colonizers introduce tribal and national differences when they never existed in Africa and the Middle East? Who offers a fascistic form of magic realism and censors accounts for breakfast, cancels actors for lunch and eats Palestinian children for dinner? Who has been bombing the Global South since the 1890’s? Who promotes Islamophobia so we doubt our own common sense? Who accuses who of bombing their own hospitals? Has the world ever seen such a bully? Whose religion is money? Why do they label you “anti-Semitic” when the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Revolutionary Yiddishland and Abram Leon’s courage give you goosebumps?

    Has Frankenstein outgrown his master? Who drives trucks around Cambridge and Manhattan with young, oppressed, Arab women’s faces on them in order to intimidate them? Who obliterated their own language in order to invent a modern version of an ancient tongue? Who thinks they are hated by the world, but hates the world? Who starved and destroyed life in Yemen for the past decade? Who claims a superstitious relationship to unrelated ancestors? Why do they censor so many words, like “Genocide, Zionist, Extermination and Decolonize?” Who fled Europe because of European savagery, only to become agents of this precise white man’s savagery? Who never read James Baldwin? Why are they so obsessed with Hamas when they helped support Hamas in 1987 to drive a wedge in the united leadership of the Palestinian Liberation Organization? Have you ever seen so many Biden-voting cowards in your life? Who will vote for one of two genocidal candidates in 10 months? Why do we have to write like this: “Stop the Ge n * c Id e. Zi1o9n4i8sm is a ge7n5ocidal disease?” Whose neighbors despise their colonial arrogance? Who are the punks who hide in the sky in F-16 jets and hide behind entire TV networks that masquerade as democratic?

    Who dropped 6,000,000 tons of napalm and chemical agents on the Vietnamese peasantry? Who intimidates you, making you betray your own “principles?” Who sicced rabid dogs on you and your family in Ramallah, Alabama? Who practiced the lynching of Black America as a sport? Who took photographs at these Georgia festivals? Who goes to TikTok to make fun of the lynched, bombed and starved Palestinians? Who lives 12 miles from the Gaza Genocide, goes to techno parties at night and sleeps soundly? Why do you hate and exterminate life? Is there a word more evil than Zionism? Could anyone be more decrepit than Genocide Joe? Who destroyed Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Palestine, Libya and Syria? Who invented the United Nations and Israel in the same years to ignore and disempower one and Frankenstein and nuclearize the other? How come your liberal friends never call you back when you are trying to have the Genocide Birds and the Bees talk? How come they are offended by the lead banner at the march which said “Palestine will be Free By any means necessary?” How come the Obama voters disrespect Malcolm?

    How come the colonizer complains about the threat of a looming genocide as the bloodlines of the colonized die out? Who denies Palestinians are a people? Who slaps, humiliates and imprisons Palestinians for colonial kicks? Who has overinflated by one thousand the striking capacity of Hamas? What Israeli or American would be brave enough to walk through Gaza to smell the scent of gen*c^de? Who is high off war and drunk off sadistic pornography? Who has not read Frantz Fanon and Albert Memmi? Who did Martin Luther King call “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world?“ Whose bombs left little girls deaf in Panama and little boys limbless in Grenada? Whose colonialism has defuturized the Congo and Sudan? Who lied about “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq, “beheaded babies” in Occupied Palestine, “viagra-fueled” militias in Libya and disconnecting “babies from incubators” in Kuwait? Who fires college presidents for being tepid liberals who still have a morsel of moral resolve and critical thought left from their Ivy League training? Who is the greatest threat to Jewish safety in the world? Who laid the Zionist Death Trap? Who tells the entire Global South that their money is worth a fraction of the Almighty U.S. dollar, British pound and neocolonial Euro?

    What 14 capitalist countries waged the “Iran-Iraq war,” selling weapons to both sides and bleeding both countries of hundreds of thousands of lives? Who feigns concern for Tibet, the Uighers, Hong Kong and Taiwan so they can Iraqize, Libyize and Syriaize the mighty Asian colossus? Who is in bed with 20,000 perverse princes of Wahhabism and medieval darkness in Saudi Arabia? Whose military blockades one-third of the world’s people, relegating them to hunger and dependency? Whose liberals care more about policing language than indigenous life? Who never read WEB Du Bois nor Claudia Jones? Who are the punks who prey upon children? Who brought those white people to the Middle East? Who are citizens “of the most powerful country in the world, a country which stands upon the wrong side of every liberation struggle on earth?” Who has dumped upwards of 1,000,000 guns in Haiti and smuggled half a million to Mexico? Who has no anti-colonial training? Who treats their Doberman pinschers better than their neighbors? Who raises nickels for immigrants as they create entire nations of refugees? Whose economy ticks to the pulverization of native bones? Who is a historical model of apartheid? Who burns books, libraries and the elderly?

    Who coups wherever they want? Who attacks college students, college professors and college presidents? Whose favorite bleeding hearts cry over the threat of fascism every day, as they perfect the craft? Which empire has been more global and wicked in history? Whose entire ethos is based on greed? Who treads on our fake 1st Amendment Rights? Why does a Rabbi own pornhub? Whose Secretary of State engages in Shuttle Genocide Diplomacy? Whose politicians promise to eradicate indigenous people and receive more U.S. weaponry? Whose hearts are full of hatred and Orientalism? What was Revolutionary Yiddishland and what was the human material made out of who transcended pogroms and resisted barbarism? Who is the biggest terrorist since Hitler? How stupid do they think we are? Who will stop this gen*c^cal madness? Who has half a billion Arabs, 2 billion Muslims and 8 billion human beings trembling in sync with the children of Gaza? Who are you? What role do you play?

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    The essence of a revolutionary is their ability to stand up to bullying in all of its manifestations.

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