This Black History Month it’s—Donald DeFreese

Our last Black History month rebel is Donald DeFreeze, the one time leader of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA).

 The following was originally printed in Otto’s War Room on February 29, 2012:

Our final tribute to Black History month is to Donald DeFreeze, also known as Cinque Mtume or Field Marshal Cinque. He was the leader of the American guerrilla group Symbionese Liberation Army, in the early 1970s.

The group was small, probably not numbering more than 30, with a few hundred supporters. The group had an emblem, a seven headed Cobra. DeFreeze picked it because it symbolized the seven principles of Kwanzaa, with each head representing a principle. He was the only black person in the organization

They became world known for kidnapping media heiress Patty Hearst.

The SLA moved to Southern California to try and recruit from the Black Community there. Instead they were discovered by police in a safe house. Police had a shoot-out with them. The house was set on fire and cops let it burn to the ground. Some witnesses claim some members of the group tried to surrender but where shot down. The Fire Department was prevented from putting out the fire to make sure all inside where killed. Not all members were killed, but the major leaders in the SLA were lost and the groups soon fell apart. No political leftist group has tried such an armed rebellion since that time. -សតិវ​ អតុ

Did African-American Slaves Rebel?

The Nat Turner Slave Rebellion is by far the most well-known slave rebellion in US history. Why it is so well known of is hard to say. There have been several other slave rebellions and this article claims to list the five top rebellions. This is Black history month so I am reposting this PBS article. 

-សតិវ​ អតុ

Here is the PBS article with a list of those five rebellions:

by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. | Originally posted on The Root

One of the most pernicious allegations made against the African-American people was that our slave ancestors were either exceptionally “docile” or “content and loyal,” thus explaining their purported failure to rebel extensively. Some even compare enslaved Americans to their brothers and sisters in Brazil, Cuba, Suriname and Haiti, the last of whom defeated the most powerful army in the world, Napoleon’s army, becoming the first slaves in history to successfully strike a blow for their own freedom.

As the historian Herbert Aptheker informs us in American Negro Slave Revolts, no one put this dishonest, nakedly pro-slavery argument more baldly than the Harvard historian James Schouler in 1882, who attributed this spurious conclusion to ” ‘the innate patience, docility, and child-like simplicity of the negro’ ” who, he felt, was an ” ‘imitator and non-moralist,’ ” learning ” ‘deceit and libertinism with facility,’ ” being ” ‘easily intimidated, incapable of deep plots’ “; in short, Negroes were ” ‘a black servile race, sensuous, stupid, brutish, obedient to the whip, children in imagination.’ ”

Consider how bizarre this was: It wasn’t enough that slaves had been subjugated under a harsh and brutal regime for two and a half centuries; following the collapse of Reconstruction, this school of historians — unapologetically supportive of slavery — kicked the slaves again for not rising up more frequently to kill their oppressive masters. And lest we think that this phenomenon was relegated to 19th- and early 20th-century scholars, as late as 1959, Stanley Elkins drew a picture of the slaves as infantilized “Sambos” in his book Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life, reduced to the status of the passive, “perpetual child” by the severely oppressive form of American slavery, and thus unable to rebel. Rarely can I think of a colder, nastier set of claims than these about the lack of courage or “manhood” of the African-American slaves.

The top five are:

1. Stono Rebellion, 1739.
2. The New York City Conspiracy of 1741.
3. Gabriel’s Conspiracy, 1800.
4. German Coast Uprising, 1811.
5. Nat Turner’s Rebellion, 1831.

For more information click here.

Journals of a Lumpen-Proletariat—Life among the trailer parks

“Now reigns pride in price [wealth]
And covetousness is deemed wise
And lechery without shame
And gluttony without blame.
Envy rules with treason,
And sloth is in great season [is popular]
God help us, for now is the time.”—John Ball (1338-1381)[1]

Most of us have heard the expression “trailer trash.” Anyone who has watched the Jerry Springer Show has heard that label almost every time they watch the show. But that brings to mind an interesting question. Why would poor people from the “trailer trash” class come on a show where they know they will be surprised by a wife/girl friend/ best friend or a family member who is stabbing them in the back? Outside of any money to be made—why would anyone go on a show were they know they will be ridiculed by millions of people watching television and waiting for someone to make a fool of him or herself?[2]

The theme of this lumpen-proletariat journal entry is: ‘Life among the trailer parks.’ The first thing to point out is that the stereo type promoted by Springer and others is obviously false. There are some trashy people living in trailers—prostitutes, drug users and dealers and welfare queens—but there are also regular working class people who work a 40 hour week and live relatively normal lives.

Trailers are cheaper than other buildings that people commonly rent or buy, so a lot of poor people do live in them. Some trailers are quite large and those who live in them are not that poor. I once had a friend who worked as a full-time cook, making good money, and he lived in a large well furnished trailer. He did not fit the stereo type of a poor “white trash” trailer park person. He was a regular skilled proletariat.

I have lived in trailer parks twice in my lifetime. In the mid 1980s, I had just earned a BA in Journalism and I moved to Osceola, MO, in order to begin working at my first newspaper job for the St. Clair County Courier. I found a trailer to rent for a reasonable amount of money. I moved in and shortly after that, my wife moved in with me—about six months later. I was working full time, earning a professional salary. I was a law abiding citizen, even though I drank a lot, at that time. But drinking is legal. At that time I did not consider myself a lumpen-proletariat. By that time I had risen up to become a regular proletariat.

I was a lumpen-proletariat the first time I lived in a trailer park in Lawrence, KS, during the 1970s, when I was still married to my first wife, I will call Diane (not her real name). It was September and Diane thought she had a new apartment lined up for us to move in. I was working at a minimum-wage, part-time job washing dishes at a restaurant in the Kansas Union, a building at Kansas University, and Diane was still getting some unemployment. She found an apartment she wanted to move into, but the land lord, a middle aged woman, kept stringing her along, telling her “I might be able to rent this to you, but I haven’t decided yet.”

“It’s humiliating,” Diane said. “She obviously looks down on us and wants to find someone she thinks is better than us. She is looking for a better renter, possibly someone who makes more money. I take offense to the fact that she is stringing us along and will only rent to us if she can’t find the renter she wants. This is an insult to us. I’m tired of her stringing us along as chumps.”

I agreed with her. The woman was being an elitist snob. So we didn’t take the apartment and we stopped asking her about it.

We spent day after day racing to the newspaper office and then running to see the rooms, apartments and homes the towns people had for rent. At the same time we were trying to beat the other students, in town, trying to compete with us for the same spaces to rent. We finally got an offer to rent a very small trailer.

Once we signed the papers and money changed hands we were living in a trailer park court. It was a long driveway shaped like an oxbow lake. There were probably 30 trailers in all. Ours was one of the smallest.  It was a small metallic trailer and very cramped. It had air conditioning and yet on a hot August day, it just didn’t get very cool. There were no trees in the park—nothing to break the sunshine and the heat it caused in the little metal capsule.

When we first moved in it was a rainy and cloudy day. It was a cool day, so it was a few days later when we had a good dose of what the rest of the summer would be like. Even if we had known, it would not have mattered. We couldn’t afford to wait around anymore. We needed a place to live. So we would have moved in regardless of how hot it was inside.

It was also cramped. We barely had room to invite people over and since I was in my mid 20s and we had just moved to Lawrence a few years before, having guest over was important to us.

In just a few days we met our closest neighbors. They were Rob and Molly with their 9 year old daughter Amy. They were Native American Indians. They were at least 99 percent assimilated to life in the trailer park and the ways us white folks live. There was nothing wrong with that. They never discussed what tribes they were from or anything to do with their Indian heritage. One thing we all had in common was our fondness for drinking alcohol (except the 9 year old).

 I remember one afternoon, I thought back to a documentary by some Disney outfit were a young boy went to visit some Indians on a reservation and he got to observe their many traditions. I thought about what it would look like if I made a documentary about Indians I knew living as every other American—what they ate for food, what they did for a living, their living quarters—all the same as any other American people only they are assimilated Indians. It seemed kind of funny—not hilariously—but good for a chuckle just the same.

“I should be able to get unemployment in a week or two,” Rob said. “I don’t see any point in looking for a job when I can just collect unemployment for a few months.”

As with any proud lumpen-Proletariat Rob was willing to take free money from the government for as long as he could and felt no obligation to get a job and contribute to society. That was especially true for those of us who were under 30. When we are younger, six months sounds like a real long time. As we get older, it seems as if that time seems to get shorter and shorter. By the time we are in our 40s, six months seem very short and being laid off creates a sense of panic in us. We worry that we will not get a job before the six months ends. It is a purely practical reason for us to look for a job.

However, avoiding work is more than simple laziness. Rob probably learned as I did that we rarely get a decent vacation unless we keep the same job for at least five years. With all the lay offs and the instability of the working world, it is best to take at least a few weeks off before seriously looking for a job. It is also a way of getting back at the establishment for treating us as if we are just expendable machine parts rather than working people who have value for what they contribute to the various corporations we work for.

By the time I got divorced from my fist wife, I had developed a bitter streak in me that is still there today. My brother and I noticed that going to work for the first time is when we learn that the companies we work for want to get as much out of us as they can for as cheap as they can. They constantly run a scam off of us to take as much from us for as little money as they can get away with. They don’t trust us and for those of us who wise up to them, we never trust them. Part-time, full-time, minimum wage, higher pay—it all boils down to a relationship that is never fair and we never actually trust each other. That was the one constant of everyone in the trailer court and it never changed as I went from being a lumpen-proletariat to a full-blown proletariat.

We got to know the other people in the trailer park. There was a mother and daughter two trailers down. The mother is on welfare and going to school. She told me she would rather work, but she needed health care for her seven-year-old daughter and welfare was the only way to afford it. If she got a job she could not get or afford health insurance.

At the other end of the trailer park were Vicky and James. They had a little girl about three-years-old. Vicky was dark haired, part Indian. James had blond hair and was tall and stocky. He dressed as a bicker with a vest and a wallet with a chain on it. He would come over from time to time when I bought a friend’s Talwin[3] scripts. We both had a taste for that drug, which resembled the affects of morphine, and we all liked beer. They two were married and they ran with a rather Rough crowd. James was working at the pork and bean factory I had once worked at. But James hurt his back and was on disabilities.

The trailer structures are not suited to withstanding tornado and hurricane attacks, which has led to the stereo type label “tornado food.” So some of the people fit the stereo types of “trailer trash” and many did not. I remember an old man in the town of Clinton, MO, who I interviewed  for a newspaper I worked for after a drug raid staged in that town by the police, during the mid 1980s:

“They don’t have decent jobs here, many people are on welfare, they have nothing to do—what they (local authorities) expect them to do?” he said loudly. “Of course people are going to use drugs.”   

- សតិវ អតុ 

"Wig in a Box" - Hedwig and the Angry Inch

---

[1]John Ball's letter to an unidentified community, 1381, http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Letter_to_an_unidentified_community

[2]“Better to be king for a night, than schmuck for a lifetime."—Rupert Pupkin, character from The King of Comedy, 1982.

This quote above says it all. Desperate and poor people with little to show for their lives can become instant celebrities for just one afternoon, as on the Jerry Springer Show. As the above quote suggests, it is better to be the center of attention and a celebrity for one after-noon—than to be a poor person who will live their whole life unnoticed by anyone. Even being the butt of jokes and playing the fool is better than being unnoticed. So Springer takes advantage of that desperation by poor people to make his fortune and ratings.

[3] Pentazocine is a synthetically prepared prototypical mixed agonist–antagonist narcotic(opioid analgesic) drug of the benzomorphan class of opioids used to treat moderate to moderately severe pain. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentazocine

US Backing the Destabilization of Venezuela

They used to have two main parties in the country which were not that different from each other. That is two parties and that isn’t very democratic—a lot like the US. - សតិវ អតុ

Ukrainians die for themselves, not East or West

From A World To Win;

By Paul Feldman

The portrayal of the uprising against Ukraine’s government in Kiev and other cities as simply an East-West tug-of-war is a superficial viewpoint that insults those slaughtered by snipers on the streets of the country’s capital yesterday. Ukrainians are actually dying to remove a corrupt regime that represents only the oligarchs.

Neither should anyone be fooled by the crocodile tears shed by the White House and the EU for the dead of Kiev. Safe to say that if protests against governments in any of their capitals reach the fever pitch shown in Kiev, troops and armed para-militaries would quickly be on the streets and a state of emergency declared.

While it is true that far right forces around Svoboda are prominent in the fighting, there is no clear, unifying agenda in Maidan Square. People of all classes have rallied to an anti-government movement but without a perspective of what happens next. This is characteristic of global uprisings that began with the Arab Spring and that have spread to many countries since, taking different forms each time.

In Ukraine, opposition political parties, who play with populism just as much as Victor Yanukovych’s Party of the Regions, do not control the crowds that have taken the square. The direct action Common Cause group has seized many buildings and is for the dissolution of the state while the fascists draw their support from disenchanted workers in western cities and the middle-class in Kiev. But as one observer put it:

Yet they do not go there [Maidan Square] for the West or against the East. They go for themselves and against the regime that victimises them… not in the name of a political system or even a particular politician, but for the rule of law and open borders.

The fact that the fighting has spread to the mainly-Russian speaking city of Kharkiv in the east adds substance to this point. "The price of freedom is too high. But Ukrainians are paying it," Viktor Danilyuk, a 30-year-old protester, said in Kiev yesterday. "We have no choice. The government isn't hearing us.”

They may not seem revolutionary enough for some people but these demands, as modest as they appear, are sufficient to produce a violent confrontation with a government and state that cannot rule for Ukrainians as a whole. Where that leads depends on other factors, including the crucial question of leadership and organisations that can transcend nationalism and the rule of the oligarchs.

Ukrainian oligarchs control large parts of the country's economy and are prominent in the ruling Party of the Regions, and control over 80 MPs. Orysia Lutsevych, researcher for the Chatham House think tank, notes:

In Ukraine, the fusion of business and politics is more the rule than the exception. Holding high legislative and executive office provides access to a patronage system, protection for business, access to public finance, and immunity from prosecution.

The businesses of Ukraine's richest man, Rinat Akhmetov, the main financial backer of the regime, obtained 31% of all state tenders in January 2014. The president’s son Oleksandr tops even this, having "won" 50% of state contracts in the same period. Father and son have stashed away vast sums of wealth in Western Europe.

Ukraine’s economy has been badly affected by the global crisis, particularly since the middle of 2012. Borrowing heavily both from Russia and the International Monetary Fund has left the Yanukovych government caught in the middle. Russia wants Ukraine drawn into a customs union of its own while the European Union sees 50 million potential new consumers.

Either way, the prospect for Ukraine’s workers is lower living standards either within an authoritarian, Russian sphere whose capitalist economy is badly affected by falling oil prices or an EU dominated by austerity and mass unemployment. Not so much an East-West tug-of-war as an East-West nightmare. Revolutionary solutions that rise above borders beckon.

Criminals with guns are less dangerous than idiots with guns

When the debate began over the conceal carry issue, many people including myself voiced concerns that road rage and other forms of confrontations, that don’t have to end in violence, will end that way with people running around carrying guns.

I was never concerned about criminals getting hand guns—they already have them. My biggest fear was that idiots would legally get and carry them. These are people who are too stupid to know when they can and can’t shoot someone with a gun.

Conceal carry advocates assured us that ONLY a law abiding person would go through the legal loops and red tape it takes to get such a license. “Why would these law abiding citizens break the law,” the all argued in such public forums as the local newspaper’s letters to the editor.

Now my worries about idiots who have no business carrying guns in public are starting to show up. I and others like me could not stop the popularity of these bills getting passed. But it never seems enough. I wasn’t that worried about those bills at first. But then new laws keep getting passed forcing government agencies to let these “law abiding citizens” carry guns everywhere and anywhere. Soon they will force businesses to let their employees come to work “packing.” Conceal and carry owners needed a “stand your ground law” to protect them if they shoot the wrong person or if they have gotten in a minor altercation with an unarmed person.

I was able to live with the law when they first passed it. All I need to do is pay $150 for a two day class on how to safely use a pistol, then another $150 for the license. Businesses, such as bars, could put up signs warning that they don’t allow people to bring guns in their places of business. But that’s not enough for the canceled carry bunch. They keep wanting laws to force the rest of us to allow them to take their guns anywhere. After all, what fine upstanding law abiding citizen would lack judgment just because he or she is stinking drunk in a bar?

And my fears have materialized. With the popularity of paranoid citizens to buy and carry guns in public places increase, the idiots I hoped would stay in the wood work have come out shooting.

Black teenager Jordan Davis of Jacksonville, Florida died after Michael Dunn shot into a vehicle with several other teens who were shot at because Dunn felt threatened when they wouldn’t turn their music down. In a rare twist a jury found Dunn guilty of attempted murder for firing into the car where Davis and other teens were sitting, but were deadlocked on whether Dunn was guilty of murder. Usually in these cases, as with Trayvon Martin, juries find the shooters completely innocent, as they did with George Zimmerman. If the shooters have a gun and it is, by law, for self defense, even if the shooter starts the fight, as Zimmerman did, he isn’t guilty of a crime.

And it doesn’t stop there. Near Atlantic City Officers arrested a man, recently, on weapons offenses after he allegedly pointed a gun at someone in a bar “subsequent to a heated verbal argument,” police said.

“Jose Ramos, 28, of Wildwood, was charged with aggravated assault and weapons charges, police said. He was held in Cape May County jail, police said, for lack of $130,000 bail.”

In WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY, TV 3) –Police are investigating a bar fight they say sent one person to the hospital for head injuries after someone pulled out a gun and it misfired.

“Just after midnight, officers were called to 5920 Wrightsville Ave., to help EMS following a fight that broke out at Triangle Lounge. Wilmington Police say when they got there, they found a man had been beaten and knocked out.

Police say the suspect pulled out a .45 semi-automatic handgun and tried shooting the beaten man with it. Officers say witnesses told them the gun misfired when he tried to shoot it.” – Press of Atlantic City.

So after all this time and all the warnings that this was the likely outcome, pro-gun idiots pushed ahead and continue to push for a more armed society with more people than ever carrying guns. And that means more idiots carrying guns. And the idiots are the problem. They have a strong hold on the National Rifle Association, NRA. I would not be surprised if they insist on letting high school and middle school students bringing guns to school. More guns in the hands of so called “law abiding citizens” seem to be their motto. And the rest of us have to deal with armed angry drivers, armed angry drunks and armed IDIOTS in general who will shoot us for playing our music to loud.   -សតិវ អតុ  

Pix from www.impactlab.net.

Elections in Ecuador: Maoist call for boycott and no vote

Elecciones en Ecuador: los maoístas llaman al boicot y al voto nulo

From Maoist Road;

Nota – El próximo domingo 23 de Febrero la burguesía burocrática de Ecuador ha convocado elecciones a prefectos (gobernadores provinciales), alcaldes, concejales municipales y vocales de juntas parroquiales rurales ante las que los maoístas de Ecuador han llamado al proletariado, al campesinado pobre y a las masas populares al boicot de las mismas y al voto nulo. Reproducimos a continuación los llamamientos y carteles del Partido Comunista del Ecuador – Sol Rojo http://pukainti.blogspot.com.es/ , del Frente de Defensa de Luchas del Pueblo http://www.fdlp-ec.blogspot.com.es/ y el cartel editado por el Comité de Reconstrucción del Partido Comunista del Ecuadorhttp://edicionesvanguardiaproletaria.blogspot.com.es/

A Google Translation:

Elections in Ecuador: Maoist call for boycott and no vote

Note - On Sunday 23 February the bureaucratic bourgeoisie of Ecuador has called elections for prefects (provincial governors), mayors, municipal councilors and members of rural parish councils to the Maoists of Ecuador have called the proletariat and the poor peasantry masses to boycott them and no vote. We reproduce below the appeals and posters of the Communist Party of Ecuador - Red Sun http://pukainti.blogspot.com.es/, Defense Coalition Struggles People http://www.fdlp-ec.blogspot.com. is / and the poster published by the Reconstruction Committee of the Communist Party of Ecuador http:/ / edicionesvanguardiaproletaria.blogspot.com.es /

Black History Month: Progressive black musicians across the years

Progressive black musicians across the years

Paul Robeson - Chinese National Anthem

Charlie Parker - "Groovin' High"

Living Colour - Cult Of Personality

Not all information comes from a book—Journals of a lumpen-Proletariat—Homelessness

IV. WITHOUT INVESTIGATING THE ACTUAL SITUATION, THERE IS BOUND TO BE AN IDEALIST APPRAISAL OF CLASS FORCES AND AN IDEALIST GUIDANCE IN WORK, RESULTING EITHER IN OPPORTUNISM OR IN PUTSCHISM

Do you doubt this conclusion? Facts will force you to accept it. Just try and appraise the political situation or guide the struggle without making any investigation, and you will see whether or not such appraisal or guidance is groundless and idealist and whether or not it will lead to opportunist or putschist errors. Certainly it will….

V. THE AIM OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC INVESTIGATION IS TO ARRIVE AT A CORRECT APPRAISAL OF CLASS FORCES AND THEN TO FORMULATE CORRECT TACTICS FOR THE STRUGGLE

….This is our answer to the question: Why do we have to investigate social and economic conditions? Accordingly, the object of our investigation is all the social classes and not fragmentary social phenomena. Of late, the comrades in the Fourth Army of the Red Army have generally given attention to the work of investigation,  but the method many of them employ is wrong. The results of their investigation are therefore as trivial as a grocer's accounts, or resemble the many strange tales a country bumpkin hears when he comes to town, or are like a distant view of a populous city from a mountain top. This kind of investigation is of little use and cannot achieve our main purpose. Our main purpose is to learn the political and economic situation of the various social classes. The outcome of our investigation should be a picture of the present situation of each class and the ups and downs of its development. –Mao Zedong[1]

In this quote Mao was trying to explain to communists that it isn’t enough to read a book on the various classes. It was important to meet and get to know some of them. The same can be said today, especially of the younger communist who may mean well, but lack the experiences that books can’t give them. A few years ago I remember reading about groups of people trying to duplicate the experiences of being poor and/or homeless. I can understand the desire to want to know “what it is like.” But trying to live in the streets for a few days or a trailer for a few days really won’t do any good. These experiences don’t allow people to feel the stress and fear that people who experience these things feel for real. The problem is that the experimenters can just go home if they get tired or demoralized. Once they get home they can kick back, watch TV and forget the problems they didn’t really HAVE to live with. The real people don’t have that option and that makes a big difference.

Rosa Harris, wrote a piece called “Not broken: Striving in a society with no future for us” for the Kasama Project and suggested I share my experiences. So I decided to write about my days as a lumpen-Proletariat[2] in the late 1970s. The idea is to let the reader know what it really feels like to be one of society’s throw-away people. So here is my piece on homelessness—my first article in this series:

It was in the summer of 1980 that I found myself without a home. I was living in Lawrence KS and I was going to school off and on.

I came from a middle class family and my dad had agreed to pay for my college costs. But I met a girl I wanted to live with. He disapproved of me living “in sin” so he cut me off from the money for my college education. After one year, I married the live-in girl friend and we moved from Wichita KS to Lawrence, about 300 miles away. We got married and after one year we got divorced. So I stayed in Lawrence believing I could make a living on my own and go to college off and on over the next few years, until I got a degree that was suppose to allow me to get a great job, making lots of money.

I was living with a room-mate, a guy about my age, who I met at a previous job. It was a large spacious house and we both had our own bedrooms. We shared a kitchen and all the other rooms in the house.  The house was conveniently located in an old neighborhood in the middle of town. After two years my room-mate decided to move elsewhere. I could never afford rent for the entire house. Almost 1/3^rd of my income went to paying for my share of the rent. So staying in this big house alone was just not an option.

While he was moving out, I had just got fired from my job at a Van Camps pork and bean factory. I had been involved in a strike that lasted about three months. [3] I had refused to cross the picket line, so when it came time to call us back to work I was told they “didn’t need me.” I was not the only person who got fired or not allowed to come back, but that didn’t help my situation.

Since I was technically laid off, I was able to get unemployment. That was the good part. However, I was now without a home. I had a friend, Red (not his real name) who I occasionally hung out with at parties and at the house of a girl, Frieda (another fake name), we both knew.  He was a bit of an intellectual and he liked to party. He had been introducing me to a lot of punk rock bands I was unfamiliar with. Punk rock was still new to most of us in Kansas, so at that time I was trying to learn all about it. He knew I was looking for a place to live, so he agreed to let me stay at his modest apartment on the edge of town. There was just enough room for the two of us and I kept a lot of my stuff packed up since I only planned to stay there for about a month or two. As for pets, I had an aquarium with about one fish that was left. So I put the fish in a Styrofoam cooler and cleaned out the aquarium for storage until I could set it up again.

While I was used to working full time, I also tried to make a little extra money by selling small amounts of drugs, such as locally grown marijuana. A few friends and I had been harvesting plants that were ripe and ready. One night after harvesting several garbage bags full of marijuana, I had taken it to my bed room to let it dry.

At that time, many counter culture people thought drug dealers were heroes. Also it seemed as if it was a very exciting and an action packed lifestyle. After all, the TV cop shows were full of successful drug dealers—until they got caught. Throughout history many lumpen-Proletariats have been petty criminals of some type, such as drug dealers or prostitutes.

 In real life that excitement and adventure turned out to be an illusion. I rarely made enough money to make it worthwhile and I averaged no more money than I could make at a minimum wage job.

The marijuana led to some real problems with my new room-mate. One night I came home and found he had removed the drying bags of marijuana. After waking him up and yelling “where’s my pot!” it turned out that it bothered his sinuses and he put it outside. After that night I decided to leave. I was then living in my car.

Having nowhere to live I called my old land lord to see if he had anything he could rent to me. When he asked where I was working I told him I was on unemployment. That was a big mistake. I soon realized that he and every land lord in the town would not rent to someone on unemployment. So even though I had the money to rent a room or small apartment, no one would rent to me. It was like a “catch 22” situation. If I had a home, I would have an easier time looking for a job. Without a job I had no way to rent myself a home. Landlords in that town were careful and checked to make sure their renters had a steady income. I did not, so I had no place to live. I ended up living in my car a lot longer that I had planned on. 

So what is a typical day like in the summer when a person is living out of their car? I had arrangements made with a friend to have my unemployment check sent to his house. He also let me store a few things there and one of them was my pet fish, which I had to check on at least every other day to make sure he was OK and to feed him.

The hardest part of the day was finding a place I was allowed to be. I often visited friends.  We would sit around discussing a number of topics and that allowed me to be someplace where I could relax and not have to buy anything.  

There were many days when I spent a lot of time in bars, where my presents was tolerated. After all, a lot of places would kick me out if I spent more time than money in them, such as a store or restaurant. Bars put up with my presence as long as I bought a drink once and a while.

Sometimes I went to parks or public places in the country, such as a swimming lake, where I could relax and enjoy the scenery free of charge.[4] But in town there is not much sympathy for those who are homeless.

At the end of the day I had to find a place to spend the night.  It was time to go home—a home that really didn’t exists. One place I stayed was an old abandoned farm house in the country about five miles out of town. There was a driveway, a stone wall structure that still stood and piles of old boards and remnants of the old home inside the walls. That building was absolutely useless. So why stay there? First there was a drive way that went behind the house and I could park there without being harassed for loitering, trespassing or a number of other legal offenses. The motto of most businesses was “don’t stay here unless you are spending money on my business.”

If the weather was pleasant I could put out a blanket and sleeping bag and sleep under the stars. If it were raining I could put the blanket or sleeping bag in this large empty silo that stood near the deserted farm. It was not a comfortable place to sleep, but it did have a roof so I didn’t have to get wet while I slept at night. 

Some nights I was invited to sleep over at a friend’s house. He was very generous to let me stay there but I didn’t want to wear out my welcome and stay there every night. So I tried to stay there just a few nights a week.

Right after pay day, I often stayed in a motel for the night. That gave me a chance to clean up and get a good night sleep.

The worst part of being homeless is the stress that comes from always having to BE SOMEWHERE. All readers of this who go home, sit in a chair or couch, grab a beer or favorite beverage, and sit down in front of a TV—to rest and relax—imagine not being able to do that—EVER!

Our society has few places outside our homes where people are welcome to just make themselves at home. Most restaurants, bars, stores, etc. want you to buy something or you are just taking up their space for no pay off.

My car was filled with my stuff. My car was actually my home and it was very cramped when I had to sit in it or sleep out of it at night.

My life would have gotten a lot worse if I had to live there through the winter. I have no idea what I would have done in the long run to live out of a car during the frigid cold of a Kansas winter.

My problem ended when a friend and I got arrested for trying to steal a few cases of beans[5] from the factory I used to work at. I finally contacted my parents who came to Lawrence, bailed me out, and invited me home. They told me I should have let them know I was in so much trouble. I moved to my parent’s house in Wichita, got a job and began to go back to college. I also quit selling drugs permanently.

I really don’t recommend trying to intentionally become homeless just to understand that problem. But trying to duplicate it in some way is just plain stupid and it doesn’t work. I do recommend going to places where it is possible to meet homeless people and hear their stories. Not all homeless people have the same story I have. Some don’t have cars. Some have never sold drugs.

My story was that of a middle class kid who moved out of his parent’s house only to find himself falling into “life on the streets,” which is how most Americans refer to the lumpen-Proletariat. I fell down to the bottom and learned what it was like to be hated by the rest of society. Street people are often talked about as if they are human trash and hopelessly destined to be losers.

Thankfully I had studied Maoism and other Marxist theoreticians that taught me to struggle for a better world, where people don’t get “kicked when they are down and out.” I didn’t have to accept being a loser. Not only did I change I found ways to fight back at this society.

Through my writing and political activities I can strike back against the empire. -សតិវ អតុ  

---

[1]毛泽东, OPPOSE BOOK WORSHIP, May 1930, http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-6/mswv6_11.htm.

[2]This term has been used by both Karl Marx and Mao. It represents a sub-class of poor people who may work, full or part-time or may not work at all. They are below the actual proletariat and they often use criminal activities to survive. Mao took a much different approach to them. While Marx wrote them off as being useless, Mao had a different view:

“Apart from all these, there is the fairly large lumpen-proletariat, made up of peasants who have lost their land and handicraftsmen who cannot get work. They lead the most precarious existence of all. In every part of the country they have their secret societies, which were originally their mutual-aid organizations for political and economic struggle, for instance, the Triad Society in Fukien and Kwangtung, the Society of Brothers in Hunan, Hupeh, Kweichow and Szechuan, the Big Sword Society in Anhwei, Honan and Shantung, the Rational Life Society in Chihli  and the three northeastern provinces, and the Green Band in Shanghai and elsewhere  One of China's difficult problems is how to handle these people. Brave fighters but apt to be destructive, they can become a revolutionary force if given proper guidance.”

[3] This will be another story I’m working on for later.

[4] Just recently Sedgwick County, where I live, voted to charge “user fees” in all public parks were a person might fish, campout or just picnic. It seems that local governments today just don’t want poor people to have anything to do at all.

[5] I also plan to write a story about the US prison system and my view of it from the inside.

Pix from www.theguardian.com.

Bolivia—On the Communist Party—Marx and Engels

A Google translation from Frente Revolucionario del Pueblo (MLM) de Bolivia;

Marx and Engels understood from the beginning the need for the proletariat has its own Party and the Communist Manifesto is the express statement of that need as outlined in his Preface , this manifesto ... is " a detailed theoretical and practical program , for advertising that would serve the party program " (Marx and Engels , Preface to the German edition of the Manifesto PC, 1872).

This understanding of the organic need is present in the practical activity of Marx and Engels in the Communist League and the International Workers Association (known as the First International ) , an organization that coordinated the political work of all Communists in different European countries , with local sections had by working the spread of communist ideology and treatment of specific problems from the point of view of the working class. The General Statutes of the International Association synthesized and this need for organization of the proletariat " in its fight against the united power of the propertied classes , the proletariat can not act as a class rather than constituting himself and in different political party opposed to all old political parties created by the propertied classes "but also argued that this constitution Party" is essential to ensure the triumph of the social revolution " ( General Statutes of the Association ... 1871).

The distorters of Marx have said that this is not the party organization conceived as an organization of the most advanced and confined to the rigors and requirements that the struggle against the reactionary state imposed upon him , that the conception of the Party as the vanguard of the working class is a Leninist misrepresentation ! Marx conceived the Party as 

an open and alliances with trade unions organization. However, the reality and actual practice made ​​by Marx and Engels refute those distortions.

Marx at the time realized the need for conspiratorial character of the League of Communists against the power of capital in the Circular of the Central Committee of the League (1850 ) he fully justifies early performance in " secret meetings and clandestine writings "also comprises the actions of militants in the forefront of the class struggle in celebrating their participation in the first line of workers' struggles , " on the barricades and battlefields . "

Marx 's conception of the Party is a conception of time , ie , general conceptions of the organization but also specific details about the nature of the organization of the proletariat are present. There are times when you see the performance of the class as match the overall performance of the proletariat and at other times as the actions of the Communists , though Marx and throws light elements on the need for secrecy of communist organizations and disciplined action of its members .

Marx demanded a strong organic cohesion of the Party to participate in the class struggle and not " march trailer of the bourgeoisie" instead argued that workers must establish , on a par with legal organizations , secret sections of the Party to act independently of bourgeois influence (Marx , Circular of the Central Committee ... 1850)

All this thinking is exhibited in the work of the League of Communists through circulars and publication of the Communist Manifesto , as well as the resolutions of the International Working Men's Association on the political action of the working class that Marx and Engels worked hard .

Apart from the characteristics of political and organizational management , Marx and Engels laid the foundations for the vanguard party . In the Manifesto of the Communist Party defined the action of the Communists within the proletariat in general, " the Communists are therefore practically more determined the hand, pushes forward for all workers' parties of the world " that defines the character vanguard of the communist organization , the role of advanced highlighting Marx militants League and this is due to the theoretical conception held by communists, Marx clearly says "theoretically [ Communists ] , to take advantage the great mass of the proletariat the clear view of the conditions , and the ultimate results that must the proletarian movement " (Marx and Engels , Manifesto , 1840). The Communists are for Marx the conscious element which has the working class, the proletariat in general as usually differentiate the Communists are part of that class but are the most advanced , the proletariat alone is not obtained consciousness but through his art , is not a group of "enlightened " as often petty adocenado replica Marxists , Marx is explicit in saying that the theoretical positions of the Communists forged or rest on principles discovered by any redeemer of mankind, but that this view is " widespread expression of the material terms of a struggle of real and vivid Role of a historical movement that is developing at the sight of all " , yet also notes that the immediate aim of the Communists is " form the class consciousness of the proletariat."

In all this thinking about Lenin 's conception of the party is anchored in reality Marx laid the foundations on which the Leninist theory of the party rises.

Another key element in the conception of Marx about the actions of the working class and its party 's ideological independence . Marx always demanded that independence , especially when the party of the working class loses cohesion to engage in the economic struggles of the democratic movement . Marx's always requires the game not to lose sight of the strategic objective for which it was created , to raise the proletariat in general to engage in the struggle against the political power of the ruling classes , that is, always keep in mind the political struggle for power and not get lost in the economic struggle , the struggle for demands to link the struggle for political power . At times Marx explicitly states the rejection of alliances with other parties or organizations that could subordinate the goals of the proletariat to the bourgeoisie.

Marx is very enlightening us just at the moment when the Bolivian Marxists and pseudo reformism and opportunism embarked on the project of Evo Morales attempt to present the thought of Marx and within that contradiction medley called "government of social movements " . Marx never conceived the project of a new society without the leadership of the proletariat , precisely because his vision of a new society based on social scientific analysis is the project of the proletariat and the dictatorship. Marx also put the proletariat to tow other classes (as suggested by the vision of a "government of social movements " ) , even within the popular movement with the petty bourgeoisie, Marx always demanded the political and ideological independence and fight for the direction , much less raised class conciliation with " national business sectors " as usually speak when Morales government throws its "inclusive " concept (which is nothing but bourgeois liberal conception ) , let alone Marx political action the proletariat to expect some spontaneity as " Marxists" linked to " change process" or the leaders themselves permanently when they criticize the regime of "political " actions of the sectors of the popular movement , in fact Marx was always concerned with the proletariat and his party not to lose sight of the ultimate goal of the conquest of political power and it was necessary to be clear at the outset that the economic struggles should be subordinated to the political objective of the working class

The entire battery of theoretical conceptions of the regime of Evo Morales and the revisionists argue that arch is designed to conceal the class nature of his regime and keep the level of disorganized and spontaneous popular movement struggles to manipulate corporately. Lack of awareness in the character of the struggle of the popular movement , which many MAS complain is not just the responsibility of the neoliberal period , but it is because the regime MAS has prefacing, from their political needs, opportunistic practice and dealer of many popular leaders .

Returning to the thought of Marx , the primordial conspiracy and art duties assigned to the Party can not fit into an organization of union and open social alliances because such an organization could not fulfill the role of ending the old bourgeois society , the thought of Marx is off the frontage claims of armed and unarmed revisionism and extremely out of horizontalists conceptions small academic bourgeoisie pass intended Marxist.

The conception of Marx and Engels and the Communist Party is that they , out of the ranks of the proletariat or assuming this ideology are the most advanced and conscious element, the party of the proletariat and the proletariat in general do not differ when defend the same general interests , but differ in the sense that they represent a sector of the proletariat and the sector is its element edge and are tasked with raising the consciousness of the working class as a whole in their struggle for political power.

Marx and Engels did not circumscribed the struggle for political power in electoral participation , in fact Marxism in its foundation opposes the electoral method as a strategy to seize power and Marx was quite clear about it in different works, particularly in the 18 Brumaire. This is seen even in the prologue of Engels to Class Struggle in France, where , despite noted as correct participation German Social Democratic Labor Party in elections to the circumstances that the European working class lived and particularly after the French the defeat of the Paris Commune , clarifies that this serves only to muster the forces of the proletariat and propagandize the agenda of the working class , but revolutionary violence will have to catch up sooner or later.

Actually another fundamental tasks conceived by Marx for the party of the proletariat is the revolution that dispute the political power of the bourgeoisie and that occurs, according to the thinking of the founders of scientific communism , through revolutionary violence , not otherwise. Marx conceived that to ensure the victory of the proletariat must proceed to the general arming of the people , " the arming of the entire proletariat with rifles , guns and ammunition" to "prevent the resurgence of the old bourgeois militia." These were initial sketches on the exercise of the violence and dictatorship raised even before the experience of the Paris Commune, and showing us that Marx had no illusions in bourgeois parliamentarism.

Relocating the political thought of Marx and Engels to our context (the " process of change " qualified pompous and demagoguery of "revolutionary" ) it certainly remains subversive and dangerous. The Morales regime , despite the hypocritical verbiage of sympathizing with communists , socialists and declared in favor of something that does not understand ( Marxism -Leninism ) , no doubt apply repressive violence the popular movement and the progressive sectors with lackluster display of their officers run .

The thought of the founders of Marxism on the Communist Party be synthesized at the stage of the proletarian revolution with Lenin who developed the theory of the Party and the application in the first victorious proletarian revolution of the twentieth century.

For the original in Spanish, see:

Revolutionary People's Front of Bolivia (Marxist Leninist Maoist)

North Korea vs. UN hypocrisy—imperialist liars of a feather flock together

Once again the US has orchestrated a campaign against The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and this time it has managed to use the United Nations as a ploy to make it look like the US has the whole world behind it. In reality the US is the most powerful empire in the history of the world. While the UN used to be a place where nations work out their differences, today, since the fall of its rival The Soviet Union, it is just an extension of the US and European imperialists to bully smaller and weaker countries.

There is also the new UN Human Rights Council, in Geneva Switzerland, designed to look like the court that put NAZI war criminals on trial after World War II. However, it is just a court designed to put small third world dictators on trial for crimes that the US and its allies have immunity. No one would dare put the so called “US Democracy” on trial and no one ever will.

The irony here is that the US has been considering a drone strike to kill an American citizen for a crime he might commit in the future. There is NO TRIAL—NO JUDGE—NO JURRY—JUST AN ASSASINATAION. This the kind of respect the US has for international law and yet it is allowed to enforce international laws on smaller weaker countries. It is a case of “the powerful do what they want—the week suffer what they must.  

Every time the US wants to promote “regime change” against an uncooperative adversary there is that parroting of said leader to be “just like Hitler.” If we look back at President George H.W. Bush said that about Saddam Hussein (صدام حسين). From PBS:

“Good and Evil
Bush, a World War II veteran, condemned the aggression(before his Iraq war) and spoke of it in terms of "good and evil," often comparing Iraqi president Saddam Hussein to Adolf Hitler.” 

Sure enough—according to an article in the UK Guardian;

“North Korea human rights abuses resemble those of the Nazis, says UN inquiry

Inquiry chairman Michael Kirby writes to Kim Jong-un (김정은) warning he could face trial at The Hague for crimes against humanity
UN's dossier on North Korea's rights abuses – the main points
Sketches of prison abuse submitted to UN….

…..At a press conference to launch the report, Kirby said there were "many parallels" between the evidence he had heard and crimes committed by the Nazis and their allies in the second world war. He noted the evidence of one prison camp inmate who said his duties involved burning the bodies of those who had starved to death and using the remains as fertiliser.” 

Some of these charges may be real, but some sound like outright phony propaganda. The most ridiculous charge against the DPRK is that the government internationally tries to starve its people. The reality is that the US and its allies have tried to use sanctions to starve those people and use that as a weapon against that country. Now those same people who perpetuated that crime against humanity now turn the tables on the DPRK and try to blame them for crimes the imperialists have committed.

Typical of past pro-US regime change schemes are the call to action, without stating how Kim Jong Un will be captures and brought to justice. According to The Telegraph, (UK);

“North Korean security chiefs and possibly even Kim Jong Un, the leader of the country, should face international justice for ordering systematic torture, starvation and killings comparable to Nazi-era atrocities, UN investigators said.”

And how will the UN carry out this ultimatum against the DPRK’s government?—There can be only one answer and that is war. We know the US is not afraid to invade that regime. With the help of some allies to give it the allusion that this is the “whole world taking action” the US could easily roll into the DPRK’s territory and simply take over. It has done that in two other countries before. And if the atomic bomb gets used, we here in the US can safely bet only a few hundred thousand Korean people and few foolish US soldiers will die from that. -សតិវ អតុ

The Next Just like Hitler!

Put whoever’s face you want!