This blog is being updated again (as you can see)

So I found out that actually on myspace the blog entries get deleted once there's more than 15. So, although I'm still mainly doing myspace, I'm gonna repost all my blog entries here also, so they stay online. My myspace-page is much cooler, though, it's got a new playlist (usually about an hour's worth) of revolutionary & rebellious music (various genres) up every friday. Anybody can read & listen on myspace but I think you need an account (free) to post comments.

factsheet on MK Gandhi, the imperialist lap-dog

This is a short article I found a bit ago, it focuses mainly on his activities in South Africa (where he lived ages 24-35). There's certainly much, much more bad shit about Mr. "Not-such-a-mahatma" Gandhi to be learnt ("mahatma" is not his name, but a word meaning "great soul"), but this is a good concise starting point, especially since it shows how he was not even non-violent. Source: http://www.raceandhistory.com/historicalviews/ghandi.htm


The Myth of Mahatma GandhiBy: Velu Annamalai, Ph.D. velu@home.com

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. might have heard the word of non-violence from Gandhi, but it is certain that Dr. King did not know the true colors of Mr. Gandhi. From the beginning to the end, M.K. Gandhi was loyal to imperialism. The Western news media and their Indian allies by a massive propaganda exercise created the illusion of sainthood around Gandhi and made people believe that he fought Apartheid in South Africa, and in the process of doing so developed a new method of non-violent struggle called satyagraha. Nothing is farther from the truth. Gandhi, for the major part of his life, worshipped British imperialism and too often proudly proclaimed himself a lover of the Empire. He was Kipling's Gunga Din in flesh and blood.

To understand Gandhi's politics in South Africa, it is essential to note the three fundamental trends which all along persisted underneath all his activities. They were:

(1) his loyalty to the British Empire,
(2) his apathy with regard to the Indian "lower castes", India's indigenous population [adivasis], and
(3) his virulent anti-African racism.

Gandhi was once thrown out of a train compartment which was reserved exclusively for the Whites. It was not that Gandhi was fighting on behalf of the local Africans that he broke the rule in getting into a Whites' compartment. No! that was not the reason. Gandhi was so furious that he and his merchant caste Indians (Banias) were treated on par with the local Africans. This is the real reason for his fighting race discrimination in South Africa, and he had absolutely no concern about the pitiable way the Africans were treated by the Whites.

On June 2, 1906 he commented in the Indian Opinion that "Thanks to the Court's decision, only clean Indians (meaning upper caste Hindu Indians) or colored people other than Kaffirs, can now travel in the trains."

During the 'Kaffir Wars' in South Africa he was a regular Gunga Din, who volunteered to organize a brigade of Indians to put down the Zulu uprising and was decorated himself for valor under fire.

Gandhi said on September 26, 1896 about the African people: "Ours is one continued struggle sought to be inflicted upon us by the Europeans, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir, whose occupation is hunting and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife, and then pass his life in indolence and nakedness."

Again in an editorial on the Natal Municipal Corporation Bill, in the Indian Opinion of March 18, 1905, Gandhi wrote: "Clause 200 makes provision for registration of persons belonging to uncivilized races (meaning the local Africans), resident and employed within the Borough.

One can understand the necessity of registration of Kaffirs who will not work, but why should registration be required for indentured Indians...?" Again on September 9, 1905, Gandhi wrote about the local Africans as: "in the majority of cases it compels the native to work for at least a few days a year" (meaning that the locals are lazy).

Nothing could be farther from the truth that Gandhi fought against Apartheid, which many propagandists in later years wanted people to believe.

He was all in favor of continuation of White domination and the oppression of Blacks in South Africa.

In the Indian Opinion of March 25, 1905, Gandhi wrote on a Bill regulating fire-arms: "In the instance of fire-arms, the Asiatic has been most improperly bracketed with the natives. The British Indian does not need any such restrictions as are imposed by the Bill on the natives regarding the carrying of fire-arms. The prominent race can remain so by preventing the native from arming himself. Is there the slightest vestige of justification for so preventing the British Indians?"

Gandhi always advised Indians not to align with other political groups in either colored or African communities. He was strongly opposed to the commingling of races.

In the Indian Opinion of September 4, 1904, Gandhi wrote: "Under my suggestion, the Town Council (of Johannesburg) must withdraw the Kaffirs from the Location. About this mixing of the Kaffirs with the Indians I must confess I feel most strongly. It think it is very unfair to the Indian population, and it is an undue tax on even the proverbial patience of my countrymen."

In the Indian Opinion of September 24, 1903, Gandhi said: "We believe as much in the purity of races as we think they (the Whites) do... by advocating the purity of all races."

Again on December 24, 1903, in the Indian Opinion Gandhi stated that: "so far as British Indians are concerned, such a thing is particularly unknown. If there is one thing which the Indian cherishes more than any other, it is purity of type."

When he was fighting on behalf of Indians, he was not fighting for all the Indians, but only for his rich merchant class upper caste Hindus!

In the Anglo-Boer War of 1899, Gandhi, in spite of his own belief that truth was on the side of the Boers, formed an ambulance unit in support of the British forces. He was very earnest about taking up arms and laying down his life for his beloved Queen. He led his men on to the battlefield and received a War Medal.

Gandhi joined in the orgy of Zulu slaughter when the Bambata Rebellion broke out. One needs to read the entire history of Bambata Rebellion to place Gandhi's nazi war crimes in its proper perspective.

revolutionary translation: May Day report from Colombia

[ for original Spanish & pictures, see below text; unofficial translation by me; source Revolutionary Communist Group of Colombia, their page is here ]


COLOMBIA -- 1 May 2006

Hundreds of thousands of protesters marched this 1 May in the principal cities of Colombia. Although, because of the nearness of the presidential elections, the bulk of the marches in the whole country was characterised by anti-Uribe sentiment and support for the candidate of the traditional "left" (Carlos Gaviria), not all was yellow, the colour of the Alternative Democratic Pole, Gaviria's party. The class-conscious proletariat made itself felt in close to ten cities big and small. From Bogotá, Medellín, and Cali passing through Bucaramanga, Cúcuta, and Pereira, to Barrancabermeja and Sincelejo the internationalist and revolutionary block tinted the landscape red.

Despite the environment of growing fascistisation, of control of the marches by anti-riot police and army, of cameras everywhere, dozens of anti-imperialists and revolutionaries, including Maoists marched raising banners and agitating slogans against imperialist exploitation, oppression, and military aggression in the whole world, as well as in support of the peoples struggles in the whole world, principally the people's wars.

In Bogotá, Medellín, and Pereira the internationalist and revolutionary block, composed primarily of worker, unemployed, and student youths, amongst them many women, numbered more than a hundred people in each of those cities, carrying banners of the World Peoples Resistance Movement (WPRM), the Anti-imperialist Brigades (BA), the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM), and in the case of Bogotá, a hundred of the 1 May posters of the Revolutionary Communist Group [of Colombia] (GCR).

In the majority of the cities, a good part of the participants in the internationalist and revolutionary block were wearing red shirts with the hammer and sickle or images of Marx, Lenin, and Mao, or shirts with the WPRM symbol and in support of the Nepali revolution, which has been very much popularised in the midst of the current Latin American [speaking] tour in support of the revolution in Nepal, which in April came to some cities and rural zones of Venezuela and at the end of May will be in Bolivia.

In cities such as Cúcuta and Barrancabermeja, under strong control of the paramilitary death squads, the masses participating in small marches (between 1000 and 1500 people) valued and became animated at the appearance of detachments of Maoists which were spreading the WPRM and GCR flyers.

Tens of thousands of GCR and RIM flyers were handed out in the whole country not only during the marches but also in the preparatory events carried out in the ghettos and universities.


(to see images below at full size, do right-click & "view image"...)

NEW Outernational songs! (exclusively streaming on their myspace-page)

From Outernational, those revolutionary rockers from NYC:

NEW SONGS PRODUCED BY TOM MORELLO!!

That's right, Outernational just recorded with Tom Morello (Audioslave, Rage Against The Machine) as producer.  ARISE and FOR IT ALL NOW are streaming exclusively on MySpace.

Listen.  Spread the word.

Go listen right now!:

Enter to win a copy of a kick-ass revolutionary book by Bob Avakian

CLICK HERE!
from Utne magazine:

ENTER TO WIN FROM IKE TO MAO AND BEYOND

Looking for a great summer read? Enter to win one of 10 free copies of From Ike to Mao and Beyond, a memoir by Bob Avakian containing three unique but interwoven stories. The first tells of a white middle-class kid in 50s America who goes to an integrated high school; the second of a young man who overcomes a near-fatal disease and jumps into the swirl of Berkeley in the 60s; the third of a radical activist who matures into a revolutionary communist leader. Highly recommended by Cornel West, Howard Zinn, San Francisco Chronicle. Hear Avakian read selected chapters from his book at www.insight-press.com. Enter now!




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DaVinci Code -- Key to a door that don't exist

Look everyone.  Jesus is a fucking myth.

This stupid Tom Hanks movie (has he ever not been lame as hell?) is about some cover-up that he was really married but the Church doesn't want you to know that.  Not that the Church won't cover things up, for example WIDESPREAD CHILD MOLESTATION.  Not that the Church isn't wrong about things, for example "GOD" IS NOT A REAL THING.

For a film about the real Christian cover-up, check out "The God Who Wasn't There" (preview & clips available on the webpage for free).

letter from a TX youth to WCW on the road forward

[The following was sent out by World Can't Wait with the encouragement to seriously think & discuss the issues raised.  I don't have any fully formulated thoughts at the moment, but below I did highlight what seem to be the most thought-provoking parts to me.  A few days and I will post some things on the subject here & on the forum.]

"I Felt More and More that I was Living in a Time of Great Potential Change"

Excerpts of a letter from a youth in Texas after hearing Sunsara Taylor speak.

Please write your comments and views on this thought provoking letter by clicking here.  If you are not on Myspace-please send comments to youth_students@worldcantwait.org

I felt more and more that I was living in a time of great potential change. Seeing the immigration protests, and hearing about youth victories in France, inspired me in particular, I do believe that, despite the general defeated atmosphere this country is mired in, and despite all the impoverished and despairing developments in the world, that there is also such raw potential at this time for something absolutely unprecedented to occur. And I want to be a part of it.

I think that one of the greatest challenges facing this movement, and something that is so crucial to its development and maturation into a force that can really have an impact, is whether or not we can inspire and motivate individuals and communities for whom politics is an abstraction, something that is witnessed, on the television and in the newspapers, but never actually experienced or lived out in our day to day lives.

We have grown used to being the spectators. I'd say we are taught to be spectators in almost every aspect of our lives. And it is easy to be a spectator for a lot of these people, because the majority of them are relatively privileged, and therefore not readily equipped to associate the events occurring in their world with their everyday lives, or they are people whose energies have been focused, as pointed out by a man in our discussion, on just day to day survival, on getting by in a world that is increasingly competitive, and in a way that inherently alienates the individual from themselves, the choices they make and the consequences that follow, and from each other and an overall reaching sense of community.

Somehow it has to be brought home to them that this is their world we're talking about, and that no amount of silence or patience will keep away the future that is steadily approaching them. Somehow an atmosphere has to be created that brings home the immediacy and the urgency of the situation, an atmosphere in which the old diffusing safety valves no longer can keep them from taking charge of the situation and empowering themselves and each other to act.

But there's another side to it.

Everywhere I go, I hear the issues being brought up and discussed. I'm often surrounded by young people, and I'm shocked at how often the conversation turns to the Bush administration. There's a common language developing among the youth in this country. And even with the more conservative of youth, I hear a common tone between them and their more progressive-minded peers when it comes to the government in general, and to authority in general, actually. Whether they're bitching about the police cracking down on pot or the economy or corporate control or the army committing atrocities overseas, there's a common tone, and it's one of disgust and defiance.

But here's the thing: even when there does seem to be an atmosphere of outrage, there is always a reluctance on their part to actually do something. And I think that, while consumerism and a culture of passive spectacle-watching are a big part of it, a great part of it has to do with the nature of political movements in general over the years.

I think there has developed a strong lack of spontaneity, of immediacy, of even joyful activity in political movements over the past few decades. I know what a lot of people think of when they hear the word "protest." They think of a bunch of people gathering signs and marching from point A to point B, with the permission and under the careful guidance of some authority, usually the local police force, at which point they are all subjected to speech after speech, filled with the same fiery rhetoric they've heard a thousand times over, before being told to disperse peacefully once more. Are they any more empowered, after these rallies, to take that collective energy and spirit and apply it to their day to day lives?

I certainly am for mass demonstrations. Any movement with the stated intention of World Can't Wait is going to need, obviously, the participation of millions of individuals from all walks of life, and often in nationally co-ordinated actions that will really lend to the atmosphere we need. But I think that the old forms of demonstrations have grown meaningless for a lot of people, and the general activist spirit has stagnated significantly.

But I think that if we round up a bunch of people and ask them all to be spectators once more, this time watching a bunch of organizers and endorsing intellectuals speak at their rallies, then they will never be evoked or empowered or equipped to bring about substantial societal change. And the taking on of not just a president and his administration, but of their entire program, is a huge shift. You're asking people to do something that is truly terrifying, and something the majority of them have probably never imagined themselves capable of doing.

I really think that new possibilities for what a movement of people could look like have to be considered. I think that if all the energy of the organization is focused on intermittent mass demonstrations then it just won't draw as many people out of their doorsteps as is needed. Or, worse, it may draw people out in mass numbers we could never have imagined, only to have those people find themselves participating in the same politics they've seen before.

If we're really talking about creating this intended environment, I really think that we have to push ourselves to continually exploring new tactics, new ways in which people can contribute, both collectively and as individuals. How many artists and musicians are out there, for example, with amazing resources and local connections who could really give something of value? Are there, alongside solemn or defiant demonstrations, street parties that could be had? Not just acts against this administration, but acts for our communities, acts that create community in a deep and long-lasting yet immediately felt way? What could we do that called for, not just the creativity and organizing skills of a few individuals, but for what everyone has to contribute? Librarians, grandmothers, prisoners, nurses, students, businessmen and women, the homeless?

It's a borrowed phrase, but what could we do to make resistance irresistible?

The actions and demonstrations that so impacted this country during the 60s and 70s were varied and diverse. Some were legal, others were not. Some were planned and organized. Others were more spontaneous and unregulated. There seemed to be room for rage and joy, solemnity and laughter. The whole breadth of human experience and expression.

revolutionary translation: May 1st statement by Revolutionary Communist Group of Colombia

(Unofficial translation.  To read original in Spanish click here.)


Long live proletarian internationalism!
1 May 2006

Proletarian internationalism must be the mark which characterises the 1st of May.  Since almost 120 years ago when it was declared as a day for global actions of the proleatariat, the meaning of 1 May has developed and enlargened: as a day on which class conscious proletarians of the whole world not only evaluate their situation and make plans for the short term but also celebrate proletarian internationalism and declare their decision to bring their struggle to the final goal of communism worldwide.

However, in many parts and for many years, the battle to recover the day's tradition of revolutionary struggle is hard, after decades in which the revisionists (fake communists) have stepped on its character.  It's not simply from "wickedness".  Wrong ideas do not come from a "bad character" of people, the immense propaganda apparatus of the exploiters plays a key part in putting lie after lie into the heads of the exploited themselves, principally with the mass media which influence other forms of creating public opinion.

They say that "communism is dead", that marxism, which today is marxism-leninism-maoism, is "out of style", that the proletariat doesn't need a revolutionary party because that is "imposing ideas", that the dictatorship of the proletariat (which is dicatorship against the exploiters and democracy for the people) like all dictatorship "is totalitarianism", that the people don't have the right to use revolutionary violence to free themselves from exploitation and oppression because that brings one to "authoritarianism".

All these lies, and stupidities, have soaked the workers' and peoples' movement itself and amongst many intellectuals that it has converted into its preachers, not only from superficiality but because the defeat of the great proletarian revolutions of the 20th century, the Russian and the Chinese (which were maintained from 1917 to 1956 for the former and from 1949 to 1976 for the latter) when analysed by bourgeois philosophy, by pragmatism, it brought them to skepticism, to distrust in that a really new world might be possible.

The lies that accompany the political and military offensives of the imperialists and reactionaries obey the necessity to remain in power.  And there is no question that in the realm of ideas, because as Voltaire (a radical French philosopher of the 18th century) correctly said: "those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities".  Not only do they want to put behind them generations of revolutionary and even progressive thought.  Their slander of socialism and communism as "imposing one thought", "only permitting one party", "authoritarianism", "control over individuals' lives", "obsolete", not only is it a string of lies but a grand show of hypocrisy.  All this applies to the imperialists and reactionaries!  One only has to look to find the Bushes and the Uribes and the atrocities they have committed and have had committed.

***

The true sum-up of proletarian revolutions of the 20th century is opposed to the sum-up manipulated by the exploiters, the positive was much much more than the errors (that there were) in the first attempts at building socialism.

Today more than valid it is urgent to develop real revolutions lead by the proletariat in the two types of countries, the imperialist countries and the oppressed countries.  And it is more necessary to build on the foundations established by the Paris Commune, the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution (the new democratic and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution).

In the 21st century there already exist many more material bases for building a completely different type of society in all the world, in a process which can and must be international even as it develops within the framework of the current division into countries and in accord with the particularities of each country.

In the ideological, political, organisational, and military spheres, in the mass work, the line struggle and forging of leadership, the working out of revolutionary theory and practise demand a development on the national level as much as on the international.  And this can only be done with the strengthening of an organic centre.  Such a centre exists at the international level, the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, the embyo of the International of a new type which is required.  And in Colombia also that centre has come to be forged, the Revolutionary Communist Group (GCR), by means of class struggle and line struggle inside the revolutionary movement.

This 1 May, the GCR renews its promise before the proletariat and the people to advance in the construction of the tools for the Colombian revolution as part of the world proletarian revolution, the principal of which is the Party; renews its promise to struggle for the unity of the communists, not as a patchwork quilt but around a truly Marxist-Leninist-Maoist line against the wrong tendencies not only about unity but also about strategy and tactics for the revolution; and renews its promise to elevate its preparation to lead the struggle against the current system based on exploitation and oppression at the same time as resistance against those.

***

This 1 May brings an acute situation of class struggle at the world level.  New waves of resistance are appearing, from the opposition to the yankee imperialists' threats of nuclear attack against Iran, through the struggles of the youth in France or the immigrants in the US, to the struggle against the feudal monarchy in Nepal.

The lessons of the people's struggle in Nepal are many.  On the one hand it clearly shows the importance of a proletarian leadership for real advances of the people.  The revolutionary war in Nepal, under the leadership of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), cleared the path for the peak of the grandiose people's movement against the monarchy which occurred during the greater part of the month of April, and was able to clear the path for truly revolutionary transformations which the people have gained in the revolutionary base areas of support in the countryside under the control of the people's army lead by its Party.  And at the same time it shows how the grandiose people's struggle can lose its impetus if the revolutionary edge is smoothed out as in the case of the alliance of the seven parliamentary parties who postpone the democratic yearnings of the people, succumbing to the pressure of the of the imperialist powers and India.

The Colombian people have a common enemy with the people of France, the United States, and Nepal: global imperialism and reaction.  The imperialist bourgeoisie in some countries and the ruling class lackeys of imperialism in others, have everything in common and allie themselves to exploit and oppress.  For example, Uribe and the classes which he serves are complicit in the crimes of imperialism and are its servants not only in their own country.  The proletariat has no fatherland and no doubt the Colombian proletariat will be at the height of its internationalist responsabilities, from the Andean countries to South Asia and further.  Because, we only want the world!  And we will conquer it with our class sisters and brothers of the whole planet!

switching to myspace completely

AS OF TODAY THIS BLOG IS OUT-OF-DATE
If you want to read my shit, go to my myspace page -- click on the banner below. I'm leaving this page up online but from now on will not change it. So any information might be out of date, links might be broken etc. Anybody can read & listen on myspace but I think you need an account (free) to post comments.

excerpt from Petals of blood by Ngugi wa Thiong'o

[This is actually from the last page, but I don't think it spoils any of the plot.  Source: Petals of blood by Ngugi wa Thiong'o, (c)1977.]

Her voice only agitated further images in motion by her revelations.  Imperialism: capitalism: landlords: earthworms.  A system that bred hordes of round-bellied jiggers and bedbugs with parasitism and cannibalism as the highest goal in society.  This system and its profiteering gods and its ministering angels had hounded his mother to her grave.  These parasites would always demand the sacrifice of blood from the working masses.  These few who had prostituted the whole land turning it over to foreigners for thorough exploitation, would drink people's blood and say hypocritical prayers of devotion to skin oneness and to nationalism even as skeletons of bones walked to lonely graves.  The system and its gods and its angels had to be fought consciously, consistently and resolutely by all the working people!  From Koitalel through Kang'ethe to Kimathi it had been the peasants, aided by the workers, small traders and small landowners, who had mapped out the path.  Tomorrow it would be the workers and the peasants leading the struggle and seizing power to overturn the system and all its prying bloodthirsty gods and gnomic angels, bringing to an end the reign of the few over the many and the era of drinking blood and feasting on human flesh.  Then, only then, would the kingdom of man and woman really begin, they joying and loving in creative labour ... For a minute he was so carried on the waves of this vision and of the possibilities it opened up for all the Kenyan working and peasant masses that he forgot the woman beside him.

my transfer from reserves to active duty

finally on active duty, no longer in the industrial reserve army of the proletariat.

(that means i'm not unemployed anymore.)

yea for me, now i'm directly producing profit for some capitalist instead of indirectly driving wages down & thereby raising profit margins of some capitalists.

(ha ha title got your attention eh?)
(and just to be clear my new employment is not with the military.)