Thinking on How to Move Outa Hell

[As the first days of the Trump regime take shape, the lurch from the ways things have been is shocking and angering many who have never considered the path now unfolding.  Old plans and assumptions have been tossed into irrelevance.  As the great revolutionary Karl Marx once noted about earlier crises, “All that is solid melts into air . . . . and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.”  Anxiety has spilled into the streets across the US and around the world, and millions discuss and debate the situation and what to do about it.  A powerful analysis begins to dissect what is happening, and chart the contours of the pathways out of the hell that the majority of people face–for many, a continuation and intensification of ago-old nightmares, now joined by many millions more whose lives have been roughly and rudely interrupted, with no prospect of returning to an idealized past.  Moving forward against this tide is the challenge that fills the air. We have received, and share, this article as a first step in joining the debate at hand. — Frontlines ed.]

Build and Fight: Beyond Trump and the Limitations of the United Front

by Kali Akuno and Doug Norberg

On Inauguration Day, we note the considerable range of the opposition to Trump, from traditional activists to very mainstream folks. In many respects the opposition mounted was unprecedented, on a day where patriotic and jingoistic hyperbole is typically concentrated and loudly broadcast more than at any other time, and when, traditionally, new Presidents make appeals to the heart and to democratic unity while all who know how false the claims are, bite their lips, party, and hope for the best. The opposition struggling to find expression is broad and deep. But, nearly all expressions of opposition are resorting to traditional methods of reformist oriented protest while millions of people throughout the United States and the world are discussing and debating how they are going to survive and resist the emerging Presidential regime of Donald Trump and the rise of right-wing populism and a resurgent “America first” white nationalism.

Fifty Years Later, Black Panthers’ Art Still Resonates

The Black Panther Party was founded 50 years ago in Oakland, on Oct. 15, 1966, and within two years it had chapters across the country. The New York Times is taking this opportunity to explore the Black Panthers’ legacy, through their iconic use of imagery and how they were covered in our own pages.

The Black Panther Party is often associated with armed resistance, but one of the most potent weapons in its outreach to African-Americans in cities across the country was its artwork. In posters, pamphlets and its popular newspaper, The Black Panther, the party’s imagery was guided by the vision of Emory Douglas, its minister of culture.

His art came from many sources. As a teenager in San Francisco during the late 1950s and early 1960s, Mr. Douglas found himself incarcerated at the Youth Training School in Ontario, Calif., where he got involved with its printing shop. He went on to study graphic design at San Francisco City College, where he developed a deep interest in the Black Arts Movement, the artistic arm of the Black Power Movement.

What Does Black Lives Matter Want?

by Robin D. G. Kelley, Boston Review, August 17, 2016

On August 1 the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), a coalition of over sixty organizations, rolled out “A Vision for Black Lives: Policy Demands for Black Power, Freedom & Justice,” an ambitious document described by the press as the first signs of what young black activists “really want.” [see https://policy.m4bl.org/ for the complete “Vision for Black Lives” document]  It lays out six demands aimed at ending all forms of violence and injustice endured by black people; redirecting resources from prisons and the military to education, health, and safety; creating a just, democratically controlled economy; and securing black political power within a genuinely inclusive democracy. Backing the demands are forty separate proposals and thirty-four policy briefs, replete with data, context, and legislative recommendations.

But the document quickly came under attack for its statement on Palestine, which calls Israel an apartheid state and characterizes the ongoing war in Gaza and the West Bank as genocide. Dozens of publications and media outlets devoted extensive coverage to the controversy around this single aspect of the platform, including The Guardian, the Washington Post, The Times of Israel, Haaretz, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Of course, M4BL is not the first to argue that Israeli policies meet the UN definitions of apartheid. (The 1965 International Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the 1975 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid define it as “inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.”) Nor is M4BL the first group to use the term “genocide” to describe the plight of Palestinians under occupation and settlement. The renowned Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, for example, wrote of the war on Gaza in 2014 as “incremental genocide.” That Israel’s actions in Gaza correspond with the UN definition of genocide to “destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” by causing “serious bodily or mental harm” to group members is a legitimate argument to make.

profiling….suspicious….I fit the description….

art and everything after

steve locke’s blog about art and other stuff

I fit the description….

This is what I wore to work today.

 

On my way to get a burrito before work, I was detained by the police.

I noticed the police car in the public lot behind Centre Street.  As I was walking away from my car, the cruiser followed me.  I walked down Centre Street and was about to cross over to the burrito place and the officer got out of the car.

“Hey my man,” he said.

He unsnapped the holster of his gun.

I took my hands out of my pockets.

“Yes?”  I said.

“Where you coming from?”

“Home.”

Where’s home?”

“Dedham.”

How’d you get here?”

“I drove.”

He was next to me now.  Two other police cars pulled up.  I was standing in from of the bank across the street from the burrito place.  I was going to get lunch before I taught my 1:30 class.  There were cops all around me.

On the Movement for Black Lives after the Dallas shootings

Kali Akuno of Cooperation Jackson reflects on the movement for the Movement for BlackLives after the Dallas shootings. Recorded at the Common Bound conference in Buffalo for The Laura Flanders Show and New Economy Coalition

Serena Williams Speaks Out On Police Violence, Dallas Shooting

Instagram photo by Shana Renee • Jul 9, 2016

“I feel anyone in my color in particular is of concern. I do have nephews that I’m thinking, ‘do I have to call them and tell them, don’t go outside.’”

07/09/2016

By Martyn Herman

LONDON (Reuters) – Wimbledon champion Serena Williams said on Saturday she was concerned about the safety of her nephews in the United States after two black men were shot dead by police and five law enforcement officers were killed in an assault in Dallas.

The 34-year-old, whose elder half-sister Yetunde Price died in a drive-by shooting in Los Angeles in 2003, was asked about the violence back home shortly after winning her seventh Wimbledon singles crown and 22nd grand slam singles title.

The shooting of two men in Louisiana and Minnesota this week led to a protest march in Dallas where a lone gunman opened fire killing five police and injuring seven.

“I feel anyone in my color in particular is of concern. I do have nephews that I’m thinking, ‘do I have to call them and tell them, don’t go outside. If you get in your car, it might be the last time I see you?’” Williams told reporters.

Citing racial tensions, Bahamas issues travel advisory for U.S.

Ledyard King, USATODAY | July 9, 2016

Thousands Take To US Streets In Protest

Thousands of people took to the streets in U.S. cities on Friday to protest the fatal police shootings of two black men earlier this week. USA TODAY

(Photo: Eric Gay, AP)

The government of the Bahamas is urging its citizens to be careful when traveling to U.S cities where there have been incidents of police shooting blacks.

In a strongly worded advisory issued Friday, the Caribbean nation wants residents, nearly 91% of whom are black, to be aware of potentially volatile situations if they visit the U.S. during the former British colony’s three-day holiday weekend. The Bahamas are celebrating their Independence Day.

“In particular young males are asked to exercise extreme caution in affected cities in their interactions with the police,” according to the advisory issued Friday by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Immigration, “Do not be confrontational and cooperate.”

You Talk About the Collapse of Western Civilisation as If It Would be a Bad Thing

[There is a story told, that when a reporter asked him what he thought of Western Civilization, Gandhi replied: “I think it would be a good idea.”  Whether this is an accurate recounting or not, many have wished for more “civilized” conduct by Western powers, and Western imperialists have long claimed to be the civilizing force throughout the world it has colonized and subjugated for so long.  Now, the leaves are dropping from the Western imperial trees, and the roots of some dying trees are strangling the roots of others.  As some mourn the loss, others celebrate.  In this time and spirit, we re-post this article (from BEFORE the Brexit) by Kalundi Serumaga. —  Frontlines ed.]

Counterpunch, June 23, 2016

by Kalundi Serumaga

Former Greek Finance Minister Yiannis Varoufakis’ crusade to help save the 60 year old European Union from a growing potential disintegration is intriguing. He, and the other activists talk ultimately about the collapse of Western civilization, and more so as if it would necessarily be a bad thing. Some of us –for whom the world is a catastrophe already-, are not so sure.

Coming from a far left perspective, Dr Varoufakis argues that the purpose of the campaign is to prevent the emergence of something worse. That such a rescue mission will inevitably also bolster the economic system upon which the EU rests, not to mention many of the super-rich who derive disproportionate benefits from it, is regarded as a necessary evil.

This could be a mistake.

Certainly, an unraveling of the EU, even partially, would be momentous, particularly in terms of the economic impact on lives and communities there. Those arguing for its preservation –especially those on the Left of the political spectrum- are probably also correct about a resultant vastly increased risk of a return to the earlier pan-European penchant for large-scale war and extreme intolerance as methods of managing political problems.

However, if the matter of the future of the EU continues be treated as a matter for its member states and their citizens alone, then these advocates of progress will find they have become the advocates of the very evils they seek to strike down. Dr Varoufakis may well find himself committing the same kind of betrayal of which he accuses his former boss (Greek Prime Minister) Alex Tsipiras: sacrificing a pig or two so the big bad corporate wolf does not blow the whole house down.

Bloody Crackdown on Mexican Teachers Spurs Crisis

• [Latest News:  200,000 Mexican doctors plan to join the teachers on strike, on June 22: ”
  Doctors’ leaders have condemned the killing of at least eight people during a teacher’s protest last Sunday in the state of Oaxaca.

  As protests led by the militant CNTE teachers’ union in Mexico continue, the country’s doctors are set to join in the job action, calling for a national strike on June 22 to protest a neoliberal reform to the health system imposed by President Enrique Peña Nieto…..The group #YoSoyMedico17, which is comprised of doctors, pediatricians, surgeons, anesthesiologists and nurses, has been joined by more than 200,000 physicians from 32 states in opposing the so-called Universal Health System reform by Peña Nieto. The medical professionals say the measure is a “disguised way of privatizing health in Mexico,” and said doctors were not consulted on the reform, according to Animal Politico…..The doctors’ protest will join the ongoing national general strike by teachers. (Report from Telesur)]

  

  Policemen clashing with dissident teachers in Oaxaca, Mexico, June 19, 2016. | Photo: EFE

Special Report from Oaxaca by Frontera NorteSur,  June 21, 2016

The June 19 government crackdown on striking Mexican teachers culminated in deadly violence in the southern state of Oaxaca, transforming a showdown between the Pena Nieto administration and the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE) into a larger political crisis that once again cast Mexico in the international human rights spotlight.

Even as the controversy over the still-unresolved forced disappearance of the 43 Ayotzinapa college students in 2014 simmers on the world stage, the Oaxaca episode garnered fresh denunciations from non-governmental organizations and activists in Europe, South and Central America, Australia, and the United States.  Jan Jarab, Mexico representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, condemned the latest violence.

Weeks of intensifying protests against federal government’s 2013 education reform, which many public school teachers and their supporters oppose as an infringement on labor rights and a step toward privatization, took a violent turn Sunday, June 19, when federal and state police attempted to dislodge CNTE members and supporters from the town of Nochixtlan, Oaxaca.

Revolutionary dreams of Nepal – a photoessay

[Years of the revolutionary People’s War in Nepal raised the sights and dreams of millions throughout the country, as well as throughout South Asia and around the world.  Peasants in rural areas marched to the fore, battling feudal and semi-feudal oppression and state repression with bold efforts to reshape the society, drawing rich lessons and strategic thought from Maoism.  The People’s Liberation Army was a powerful force, a work-in-progress, until the leadership of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) reversed course, abandoned the rural struggles and liberation zones, moved to the city (Kathmandu), bought into parliamentary-electoral post-revolutionary enticements in a dramatic peace/surrender, and dismantled and dispersed the PLA fighters.  The betrayal was lauded by regional powers like India and Western imperialists and neo-colonialists alike.  The following photo-essay on the former PLA fighters of Nepal brings to mind the famous poem by Langston Hughes:

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore–

And then run?:

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over–

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

What happens to a revolution deferred? “Revolutionary dreams of Nepal—a photoessay” from Nepal by Pooja Pant and Bikkil Sthapit is now part of a traveling exhibition and published online in Raiot.in. —  Frontlines ed.]

June 17, 2016 / Pooja Pant & Bikkil Sthapit

I fell in love with my husband in the camp because he didn’t speak too much. We got the approval from our commander and married two years later. Now we both talk about how the leadership betrayed us.

Janaki Bhatta – Accham, currently living in Lamki, Kailali running a hotel

I get depressed when I look at my personal situation, my party’s situation and my society’s situation. A part of me has tied my dreams, my anger, my fire that I had as a Maoist fighter in a handkerchief and put them aside and another part of me has to work and make a living.

Ishwor Timilsina – Kuika, Accham, currently living in Lamki, Kailali runs a small hotel

Arundhati Roy explains why caste is central to the conflict between the State and its people

‘Since 1947, there has not been a single day where the Indian Army has not been deployed against its own people.’

After the introduction in Tamil, Arundhati Roy’s speech (in English) begins at :45 seconds into the video.

Writer Arundhati Roy doesn’t speak in public often, but she packs a punch when she does. The most recent occasion was the launch of a Tamil translation of BR Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste, which includes a detailed introduction and annotations by Roy.

The writer is currently facing criminal trial for contempt of court for an article she wrote about Dr Saibaba’s incarceration in 2015. Her speech covered topics ranging from civil rights movements across the world to situation in India today.

The Hidden History of Muhammad Ali

Muhammad Ali’s resistance to racism and war belongs not only to the 1960s, but the common future of humanity.

by Dave Zirin

Film footage of Muhammad Ali is used to sell everything from soft drinks to cars. The image we are spoon-fed is the improbably charismatic boxer, dancing in the ring and shouting “I am the greatest.”

The present Muhammad Ali is also a very public figure, despite his near total inability to move or speak. His voice has been silenced by both his years of boxing and Parkinson’s disease. This Ali has been embraced by the establishment as a walking saint.

In 1996, Ali was sent with his trembling hands to light the Olympic Torch in Atlanta. In 2002, he “agreed to star in a Hollywood-produced advertising campaign, designed to explain America and the war in Afghanistan to the Muslim world.”

Ali has been absorbed by the establishment as a legend — a harmless icon. There is barely a trace left of the controversial truth: There has never been an athlete more reviled by the mainstream press, more persecuted by the US government, or more defiantly beloved throughout the world than Muhammad Ali. There is now barely a mention of this Ali, who was the catalyst for bringing the issues of racism and war into professional sports.

The mere thought of athletes using their insanely exalted and hyper-commercialized platform to take stands against injustice is now almost unthinkable. Such actions would break the golden rule of big-time sports — “jocks” are not to be political, except when it comes to saluting the flag, supporting the troops, and selling war.

That is why, when Toni Smith, the basketball captain at little Division III Manhattanville College, turned her back on the flag in 2003, the attack was rabid. The same year, Wake Forest basketball All-American Josh Howard said about the US war on Iraq, “it’s all over oil…that’s how I feel.” Howard was not only derided publicly, but NBA draft reports stated, “Antiwar remarks reflect rumored erratic behavior.”

The hidden history of Muhammad Ali and the revolt of the black athlete in the 1960s is a living history. By reclaiming it from the powers that be, we can understand more than the struggles of the 1960s. We can see how struggle can shape every aspect of life under capitalism — even sports.

Fighting for Justice

No sport has chewed athletes up and spit them out — especially black athletes — quite like boxing. For the very few who “make it,” it is never the sport of choice. Boxing is for the poor, for people born at the absolute margins of society.

“Vanguard of the Revolution” is Liberal History, Strips and Omits Socialism from History of the Black Panther Party

[Bruce Dixon provides an important (but beginning) critique of the new Stanley Nelson film, which portrays the Panther’s iconic nature as helpful survival programs and electioneering.  The film shows the Panthers as beaten by police, but gives no lessons for contemporary self-defense or revolutionary systemic challenge.  The film in this sense plays a similar role as SELMA:  a superficial memorial.  The strengths and weaknesses of the film are being discussed and debated.  Reactionaries and white supremacists hate it, liberals love it, but revolutionary organizers today will not find it contributing much to the materials which could guide new efforts on the ground today. — Frontlines ed.]

Stanley Nelson’s documentary on the BPP is “history” by and for lazy American liberals. He turns the BPP into a pop culture icon a T-shirt. Nelson mentions guns hundreds of times, big naturals and swagger a few dozen times but not the word “socialism” once in 2 hours. The BPP described its Breakfast For Children and Free Medical Clinics every day as “socialism” in person and in our newspaper, to each other and to the neighborhoods we served.

“Vanguard of the Revolution” is Liberal History, Strips and Omits Socialism from History of the Black Panther Party

by Black Agenda Report managing editor Bruce A.Dixon, February 17, 2016

“Stanley Nelson is what Americans call a “liberal” and that’s what Vanguard of the Revolution is…. a liberal’s take on the BPP….”

 

I used to have a Che Guevara T-shirt. It was a pretty good shirt, but it told me nothing about the man or his life’s work. It had Che’s face on it, but by itself the face is just a pop culture icon, shorthand or short-brain for everything you want to know, or everything think you already know about it. That’s what Stanley Nelson’s film, Black Panthers, Vanguard of the Revolution does to the Black Panther Party. He made the movement of my youth an icon. A T-shirt.

On the plus side, it’s a pretty good T-shirt. Vanguard of the Revolution contains some great interview footage from Erika Huggins, Elaine Brown, the freedom fighting Freeman brothers and Wayne Pharr, my old comrade Michael McCarty and several others. On the minus side, Nelson omits and obscures the domestic and global political context the BPP came out of and thrived in. According to Vanguard of the Revolution, the BPP arose out of black northern frustration after the passage of civil rights legislation. It caught on due to the irresistible appeal of its naturals, big guns, the murdermouthing rhetoric of Eldridge Cleaver, downright sexiness, and black is beautiful, all of which earned the BPP pop culture stardom. And pop culture stardom needs no further explanation. Cue the music, fists in the air, and power to the people…

Mississippi Goddam!

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For White Supremacists, is Mississippi the Diehard Confederacy or Anchor of the Ongoing Confederacy?

Mississippi declares April Confederate Heritage Month

Jacob Threadgill, The Clarion-Ledger, February 25, 2016

(Photo: Special to the Clarion-Ledger)

A proclamation from Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant declaring April as “Confederate Heritage Month,” is one that has appeared online in previous years, and similar to ones issued by previous administrations, a spokesman said.

Bryant’s proclamation appears on the website for the Mississippi division of the Sons of the Confederacy, but not on the governor’s official proclamation page, as reported by the Jackson Free Press Wednesday. The governor’s site allows users the ability to request proclamations.

Arundhati Roy Under Attack, Canadian Activists Fight Back

Vancouver and Surrey social-justice activists protest contempt charge against Arundhati Roy

by Charlie Smith | The Georgia Straight | January 2nd, 2016

Arundhati Roy has received a contempt citation for criticizing the arrest of a high-profile Indian human-rights activist. Vikramjit Kakati

The judicial persecution of a prominent Indian author and essayist has riled activists around Vancouver.

Many of them gathered in Surrey to protest a charge of contempt of court filed against Booker Prize-winning Delhi writer Arundhati Roy.

The demonstration included Chinmoy Banerjee, Parminder Swaich, Hardev Singh, Harbhajan Cheema, Harinder Mahil, Jai Birdi, and Avtar Gill, all of whom belong to different progressive groups in the Lower Mainland.