The Antifascist Struggle in the USA
The current situation in the USA:
Free Mumia Abu Jamal!
Fascism, like in Nazi-Germany, is a transformation of the state; a systematically reduction of the people's rights, the Antifascist struggle does not begin when the state becomes an openly oppressor of the people, but whenever the rights of the people are attacked.
Mumia Abu Jamal is a black journalist in the USA known as "the voice of the voiceless" because of his very outspoken commentaries about the social conditions in and outside the USA, and for and about the people who are oppressed by those.
Now he's on death row in the USA.
As Antifascists we need to condemn this 'legal lynching' profoundly!
More info can be found here.
And here's the Free Mumia Coalition.
Expose the Right! Campaign
On January 16, People for the American Way/Action Fund launched a
national campaign - the Expose the Right! Campaign. The broad purpose
of the campaign is to expose to the American people the dangerous
agenda of religious political extremists and others on the far right.
And, to force the 1996 Presidential candidates to either repudiate or
embrace that extreme agenda.
Antifascist punk compilation record
An attempt to put a compilation record together called "Face Off Fascism" to educate kids about fascism, and to raise money for various Anti-Fascism activist organisations.
Interview with Dhoruba Bin Wahad
Veteran Black Panther and 19-year political prisoner Dhoruba
Bin Wahad (formerly Richard Moore) won his freedom in 1990 after
a New York State judge found that the FBI had suppressed evidence
that could have helped clear him of his 1971 attempted double-cop
murder charge.
Rally in S.F. for Leonard Peltier
Leonard Peltier is another political prisoner in the USA, a rally was held on February 6th, when American Indian Movement Leader Peltier is in prison for 20 years.
From: [email protected] (through the Antifascist Info Bulletin).
** Topic: Rally in S.F. Leonard Peltier **
** Written 9:27 AM Feb 2, 1996 by [email protected] in
cdp:reg.mexico **
PRESS RELEASE
February 6 rally for Leonard Peltier in San Francisco gains
momentum.
In San Francisco members of the American Indian Movement, Leonard
Peltier Support Group, Earth First, Food Not Bombs, Emergency
Committee to stop the War, Pelican Bay Prison Project, Belfast
Brigade and more have joined forces to protest the continued
imprisonment of Leonard Peltier.
February 6th. marks 20 years since the U.S. government imprisoned
American Indian Movement Leader Leonard Peltier. The U.S.
Justice Department has admitted that they donUt know who killed
the two FBI agents and they have proven themselves that
LeonardUs weapon was not the weapon that was used to kill the
agents. Why! 20 years for a crime he did not commit?
WACO and RUBY RIDGE were minor operations compared to the war
against the American Indian Movement, Black Panther Party, MLN.
Puerto Rico, MLN. Mexican and white opposition groups to the
United States Government.
Demand Freedom for Leonard Peltier
Demand a Senate investigation against the FBI into its criminal
war against the American Indian Movement and other Political
opposition groups.
Demand Freedom for Mumia
Demand Food not bombs
Join us and demand justice for Leonard Peltier on February 6th,
1996 at the U.S. Federal Building 450 Golden Gate. San
Francisco, California.
If you want to join the Nation wide effort to Free Leonard
Peltier: call the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee (913)
842-5774
For More information contact:
(415) 386-4373 Leonard Peltier Defense Committee Region 11
office. e-mail [email protected]
FREE LEONARD PELTIER
BOBBY CASTILLO
INTERNATIONAL SPOKESPERSON,
LEONARD PELTIER DEFENSE COMMITTEE
*****
From: Wells H. Tipley
Hello. I am at the begining stages of trying
to put together a compilation called Face Off Fascism.
The basic goals of this project are 1)To educate kids
about fascism. & 2)Raise money for various Anti-
Fascism activist orginizations. (ALL proceeds to charity)
What I want to do is use the marketability of
punk rock as a vehicle for information. I would like to
get 4-6 political oriented punk bands to each donate a
song with at least a vaguely anti-fascist message.
Preferably, at least a couple of the bands would have
national name recognition, in order to actually sell the
records. I would also like to assemble a collection of
anti-fascist writings, info, rescources, contacts, etc. into
a pamphlet to acompany the record. The pamphlet
would be geared toward someone new to the anti-
fascist movement. You see, what I am trying to do is
assemble a package that the average kid will buy for the
bands and the music... and from there she/he will be
presented with a very basic introduction to what fascism
is and why and how we should fight it. It will be a brief
overview of the anti-fascist movement and recource guide
to learning more and taking action.
The details- I plan to use about 900 dollars of
my own funds to finance the project. 1000 records will
be pressed for around 650 dollars. The covers and the
pamphlets, I will try do get done for free with the help
of some generous person w/ a photocopier. (If YOU
can do the copies let me know). Postage for getting
the records from the press and mailing them out to
all the customers will be around 200 bucks. (If you
can mail in bulk or run that kind of service get back
to me w/ info and possibly deals for a good cause) I
would also like to include a anti-fascism slogan sticker
and/or button in each pacackage. I am hoping that one
of the anti-fascism orginizations can front the money
and produce the stickers and/or buttons. The money
will be repaid to them w/ donations from the profits.
The button/sticker thing is important, stuff like that
is a really useful tool in getting people involved. (If
you are an orginization with the power to produce
1000 sticker/buttons... and want to... let me know)
So let me know if you can....
do a zine and would like to provide free ad space, and
or write about this project in you zine.
write for the pamphlet or have any writing pertainant to
the pamphlet. or have any info to be included in the
pamphlet.
can photocopy the pamphlet
have any art stuff for the pamphlet
know a band or are in a band that could be on the
record.
have the ability to press 1000 records for cheaper
than united record press in nashville.
are an anti-fascist orginization worthy of donations
are an anti-fascist orginization who would like to help
w/ buttons/stickers
have any internet rescources.... there will be a page on
the www to promote the record and contain info.
let me know if you can help in any way at all or
have any questions.......
PLEASE HELP IN THE FIGHT AGAINST FASCISM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
MAIL ME AT [email protected]
To: The Progressive Community
From: Craig Brown/Expose the Right! Campaign
Date: January 24, 1996
Re: Expose the Right! Campaign in high gear.
New Web Site Unveiled: http://www.mainelink.net/expose/
On January 16, People for the American Way/Action Fund launched a
national campaign - the Expose the Right! Campaign. The broad purpose
of the campaign is to expose to the American people the dangerous
agenda of religious political extremists and others on the far right.
And, to force the 1996 Presidential candidates to either repudiate or
embrace that extreme agenda.
Today, January 24, the Expose the Right! Campaign has unveiled its new
web site, located at: http://www.mainelink.net/expose/. The site will
detail the campaigns activities and will change daily for the next 4
weeks to reflect the campaign event of the day and serve as a dynamic
source of information for the larger progressive community to Expose
the Right!. (Note: The People For the American Way permanent web site
is currently under construction and will be located at:
http//www.pfaw.org/)
WE NEED YOUR HELP! LINK TO US!
As an organization of committed progressive activists, you understand
exactly how we are all affected by the destructive agenda of the
radical right. We must work together to expose their real agenda.
Provide a link from your organizations web site to ours. You can do
so right now by downloading the attached .gif file and adding it to
your web page with our url address.
E-mail us at [email protected]. Or, I can be reached at People
For the American Way in Washington, DC at 202-467-2323. The Expose
the Right! Campaign offices can be reached at: 1-800-294-0126 in Des
Moines, Iowa ,or,
1-800-294-0128 in Manchester, New Hampshire.
Let us know how else you can help. Thanks.
What is the Expose the Right! Campaign?
Over the past few years, Americans with progressive values have
witnessed an onslaught of Christian Coalition and Religious Right
activists dominate the political arena. They are widely credited with
shaping the outcome of the 1994 election and continue to implement
their agenda through the Contract with America and Contract with the
American Family.
On issue after issue, their well organized voices are overpowering as
they continually shut down switch boards with thousands of calls, clog
voice-mail and overload fax machines in Congress and the White House.
With each success, their momentum increases. They have now set their
sights on the 1996 Presidential campaign.
Their goal is to take over our political process and shift it
dramatically to the right. They have been very successful doing it.
Now, the Christian Coalition has made it their priority to organize
and shape the outcome of the 1996 Presidential election.
In a recent mailing Pat Robertson said, "Our staff at the Christian
Coalition is working day and night to make sure that we generate a
record-breaking Christian voter turnout in the Iowa Caucus and New
Hampshire Primary...if we turnout at least 85% of the eligible
Christian vote in the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire Primary, you can
be sure that concerns of Christians and pro-family voters will then
become the focal point of this 1996 Election Year -- a year which will
set America's direction into the next millennium."
Meanwhile, Americans with progressive values watch the rise of the
Religious Right with growing anxiety, frustration and anger.
It is time to fight back.
People for the American Way is planning to organize our activists
members, supporters and other progressives to expose and confront the
Religious Rightis grip on the Presidential nomination process.
The Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary are perfect venues for the
CC to flex their muscles: small conservative rural states with strong
CC chapters and events where turning out the hard core is everything.
They will use their political power to force the winning Presidential
candidate to have a pocketful of IOUs to the religious political
extremists.
Iowa and New Hampshire are also perfect venues for progressives to
challenge the Christian Coalition by exposing their extreme agenda and
what it will mean for Americais future -- and to hold Presidential
candidates accountable who embrace those extreme positions. That is
exactly what People For the American Way plans to do.
We intend to engage the Presidential candidates in a dialogue -- a
discussion about the Religious Rightis agenda for America and what it
will mean in concrete terms for our future.
Leading a movement of progressives, we will expose the extreme agenda
and then aggressively challenge the Presidential candidates to either
embrace or repudiate it. This will be done at every campaign stop of
every major Presidential candidate. They will face PFAW activists
asking questions about the extreme right agenda and what that agenda
will mean for American families and Americais future. Candidates will
be asked to make a choice: stand up to the Religious Right and their
extreme positions or be clearly identified as embracing those
positions. If they refuse to answer a question or clearly identify
their position at one campaign stop, they will face a follow-up
question at the next. If they repudiate the Religious Right, we will
hold them to it. If they embrace it, weill make sure it comes back to
haunt them.
The candidate who wins Iowa and New Hampshire will probably go on to
win the Republican nomination. Regardless of who that candidate is,
People for the American Way will have them on record, taking a clear
position on the Religious Rightis agenda. And, we will be telling a
story to the American people about what the Religious Rightis extreme
agenda is and what it means for our families.
The campaign aims to expose the ways that the radical right has taken
over the Presidential nominating process, most immediately, in Iowa
and New Hampshire, and long term, throughout the country in this most
important election year.
From: Jeffrey Jarrad
POWER ABUSED
By John Tucker
Director of the
Racial Justice & Equity Project
January 1996
Recently I have watched a series of white men in power positions abuse
their power. Both nationally and locally these men, and in some instances
women who imitate their masters, have engaged in this abuse of power. The
University of Vermont is the most recent. Unfortunately people of good
will entered into the fray allowing themselves to be cannon fodder for
these men. I'm speaking of the grievous use of power in the dismantling of
the Commission on Racial Equality, without any dialogue or process. Staff
and students who gave of their time, without any financial rewards, were
unceremoniously dismissed. Shame. The Administrative powers, mostly white
men, repeated lessons that all people of color have learned -- if you are
not "good people," we will crush your dissent without mercy.
I hope that the students of color and others, will take this lesson to
heart. The persons who did this acted in the only way they know how: when
you have power, use it, not wisely, but with arrogance. The persons who
replaced the Commission by sitting on the new committee with the person or
persons who exercised the power, need to heed this action well, and act
accordingly. Those of you who sit on this committee and call yourselves
teachers, need to look at what you have modeled to the student body, black
and white, for in my experience, the really great teachers model socially
what they teach academically. Young people are constantly watching to see
if you not only "talk the talk" but can you "walk the walk." In this
instance, my personal opinion is that you have failed. If this Commission
needed to be dismantled, you went about it in a manner that would befit
Attila the Hun. On a personal note, I am glad that my three children have
never had the opportunity nor the displeasure of interacting with you in
any official capacity either as students or staff. For I would have had to
intervene on their behalf. To the students and those staff who understand
the gist of the action that has been taken, I offer my support.
I'm saying this: the Racial Justice & Equity Project's doors are open to
anyone who has suffered inequity based on race, religion or any other form
of inequity. These are difficult times. Racism, sexism, homophobia,
ageism and classism are running rampant in this society. It would seem to
me that institutions that claim to teach our young people would be in the
business of demonstrating that they value the diversity in our society.
However, this still does not seem to be the case, the mindset is intact;
"my way or the highway" still persists. Human beings are still being
trampled and abused. Change in any meaningful way has not been initiated
and young people are not being valued.
Malcolm X once said the following: "I believe that there will ultimately be
a clash between the oppressed and those who do the oppressing. I believe
there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality
for everyone and those who want to continue the system of exploitation. I
believe that there will be that kind of clash, but I don't think it will be
based on the color of the skin."
On this quotation I rest my case. I believe that the time of people who
abuse their power is running out. We must continue to assault the wall of
deceit and broken promises, and never relent in combating the great ills of
our society.
From: Emiliano Zapata
To: Multiple recipients of list AFROAM-L
Subject: A PLEDGE OF RESISTANCE
The following message is in reference to the now 41 day long hunger
strike occurring at the University of Vermont. Maneshkona Shontae
Praileau is calling attention to a National Disgrace which many students
of color (and former students) know to exist all across this country.
Institutionalized racism in higher education infects the national soul.
Although subtle and difficult to comprehend in all of its manifestations,
racism on campuses must be confronted by the citizenry of this country.
How much longer can we be unquestioning supporters of a multi-billion
dollar educational enterprise that is infecting the culture with a deadly
dis-ease?
This dis-ease is not about overt acts of racial bigotry on college
campuses so much as it is about the unquestioned white racial domination
of the academic enterprise in all of its facets, and the tangible ways in
which such domination results in the destruction of human lives,
communities, and in the extreme, entire cultures.
College and university presidents, boards of trustees, tenured faculty
and vested administrative staffs can no longer be trusted to address the
deep and pervasive nature of institutionalized racism within the confines
of the "hallowed halls", unaccountable to the stakeholders of the very
enterprise who make wages, research monies, grants, fellowships, tuition
dollars, enrollments, status, prestige, cultural influence, and political
support possible. Anti-racist activism carried out by an informed and
trained multi-racial citizens movement, with leadership by people of
color (African, Latino/a, Asian, and Native American...ALANA), is the
only vehicle for transforming the Amerikkkan Academy.
The challenge is ominous. Although this call to mobilize will be
ridiculed by many people who still believe that the problem can be solved
by its creators and perpetuators, it does not mean that we, as lovers of
truth and justice, should not examine and implement the necessary
transformational strategies in order to end this National Disgrace, the
sacrificing of our young within an oppressively dysfunctional social
order that is Amerikkkan higher education.
******************************************************************************
******************************************************************************
As I watch the Vermont campus where Maneshkona lives, I observe the
confusion in people wrought by the racism which infects it. Maneshkona
is strong and she resists. Maneshkona sleeps not far from a grove of
pines. The Abenaki women who love her told me once that they call these
trees "The Old Women". I used to sit there with my students during our
days of struggle together. We dreamed together of the community we would
build from our resistance and the love for our people. Maneshkona was
one of many builders, one of many dreamers. The story of this time will
be told some day to those who would have ears for listening.
Near to where The Old Women stand are three sacred ash trees. We planted
them following the 1991 Waterman Takeover. Our wish was to signify that
we, as people of color, as African, Latino/a, Asian, and Native American
people, that we believe in our struggle to remain true to our heritage
and the obligation therein to determine who we are, and who we shall become.
The sacred ash trees are symbols of our faith and resolve to reclaim
what racism has taken from
us through the high cultural institutions, the colleges and the
universities of the so-called United States. Although the University
"owns" the sacred trees we planted, it is our love and our spirit of
resistance that ensures their survival and growth: the love of
Maneshkona, Zapata, Kurihara, Mooko, Patterson, Trusclair, Tshikororo,
Heard, Bigelow, Wong, Chi, Fajardo, Jagbandansingh, Razo, Fuster, Abreu,
Kusakabe, Wiener, Keith, Choudhuri, Worsham, Douglas, Suares, Urgent,
Torres, Hawksblood, Means, Karenga, Akbar, Slater, Martinez, Moses,
Jaime, Senziwadia, Betgevargis, Takayama, Pena, Garcia, Barton, Lee, da
Cruz, Mun Wah, and legions of others past and present.
I know this place in Vermont where Maneshkona makes her stand. It is on
less than one acre of land-Abenaki land at that. It is a place where
decades of struggle gave rise to a bold liberatory consciousness,
witnessed briefly by a small group of ALANA students, elders, and our
allies. We have seen it. We have nurtured it. We know its
transformational power and potential. It is the anti-thesis of
institutionalized racism.
We planted the sacred trees to mark a beginning. The beginning is a place
on this Earth where ALANA people could come together in remembrance of
the First Nations from which we are descended; where AIM warriors sang
the true anthem of a Nation, where Benito Torres prayed quietly while
making the prayer ties for our deliverance in this Seventh Generation.
At the planting of the third tree, two dogs began to fight visciously
until their brawling broke the Circle where we stood. It was as if the
violence between the two domesticated animals foretold of the turmoil and
destruction which have befallen Maneshkona's community. These are scenes
from her life which bind me to her as her Brother, in the same way that
many have bonded together by our struggle in Vermont.
Now Maneshkona brings to our table the same question asked in 1991, when
ALANA students made a pronounced stand in resistance to institutionalized
racism, when they occupied the President's Wing of the administration
building for several weeks. As it was then, the question today for all
of us is "How far are *you* willing to go to undo racism?"
This question speaks to one's convictions, to one's beliefs, to what one
does in broad daylight in front of others, and to what one does in the
solitude of one's heart.
Maneshkona chose to go without food. What will we choose? As Maneshkona
goes without sustenance, what will we come to understand about
institutionalized racism? What will we learn regarding the ways and means
of institutionalized racism in colleges and universities which imbue
their respective "missions", their "administrative structures", their
"power arrangements", their "organizational cultures", and their
"resource allocations"?
Will we comprehend what Maneshkona sees in her current role as an ALANA
student leader, the symptoms of a pervasive national disorder about which
so many thousands of people are in absolute denial?
Will we develop the courage to simply admit that institutionalized racism
is a problem within our sacred Amerikkkan cow, "higher education"?
Will we be willing to go so far in our thinking as to move toward
organizing for the peaceful transformation of these vital cultural
institutions so that future classes of ALANA students will be spared the
academically sanctioned ritualistic degradation that constitutes higher
education today?
A PLEDGE OF RESISTANCE AGAINST INSTITUTIONALIZED RACISM IN AMERIKKKAN
HIGHER EDUCATION
I will fast for one year in resistance against racism in higher education
and in solidarity with ALANA students who are organizing themselves
across the United States. Beginning 6 January 1996 I am engaging in a
cyclical fast in four day increments. The four days coincide with the The
Four Directions. For three days I will fast, and will rest on the
fourth. Following the fourth day, I will resume fasting for another
three day period. I will repeat this cycle for one full year.
The purpose of this fast is to call prolonged attention to this National
Disgrace which Maneshkona has named in Vermont and which students of
color across the country continue to wage struggle against at great
personal expense. Through my prayers, meditation, physical and mental
training, teaching, writing, organizing, and communicating, I will
contribute my spirit to a strengthening effort, an effort to bring ALANA
people together for this Long Walk. More of us will stand with
Maneshkona across the country in order to bring institutionalized racism
in Amerikkkan higher education into the light, lessening its power over
us. I will dance the Sun Dance in Maneshkona's name.
Throughout the year I will invite ALANA students (and former ALANA
students) to share their stories of survival and beyond so we might never
see them be silenced again. And all of the former students who are now
GateKeepers for wages in the "belly of the beast", will be invited to
sign a National Pledge of Resistance that will circulate throughout the
remainder of the 1995-96 Academic Year. Each signature will pledge a
specific act of resistance which is in support of ALANA student struggles
to peaceably establish a racism-free academy.
The National Pledge of Resistance Against Racism will be published in the
Chronicle of Higher Education in September of 1997, the first month of
the new Academic Year when the actions will be carried out across the
country. A World Wide Web Page will go on-line in March of 1996 to
expedite communication.
There will not be room for lip service, me-tooism, kum-ba-ya feel good
nonsense. The National Pledge is about resistance for the sake of
initiating a transformational movement against institutionalized racism.
If not now, when will ALANA people rise up in peaceful collaboration to
acknowledge the FACT that Maneshkona's oppression, and that of ALANA men
and ALANA womyn on college campuses, represents a contemporary form of
human sacrifice, a sacrifice of Spirit, a compromise of her humanity, a
desecration of her ancestors who wished for her to live in freedom and
with justice.
I was once a student at a more than predominantly white institution of
higher learning (Notre Dame, Class of '77). At that time I was not aware
of its power, the coercive nature of it assimilating processes, the
transformational push and pull which could seduce a young mind into
becoming a bleached and cultureless consumer. It was the Maneshkonas at
the University of Vermont who taught me about the Struggle to Reclaim, to
recover from lost heritage, lost integrity, lost humanity.
To Maneshkona, I pledge resistance and love for Our People. In the words
of Hawksblood, "I will never learn words which mean goodbye."
*****This message is hereby entered into the public domain for the sake
of undoing racism. Quote extensively, print it out, clip and paste,
cross-post, do whatever....just make sure people know that the author was
Anthony J. Chavez and that he takes full responsibility for its
contents. Comments, feedback, condemnation, and roses can be sent to the
access points contained in the signature below.******
*----*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*
---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*-
Anthony J. Chavez 131 Main St. Suite 607
*FIRST CIRCLE* Burlington, VT 05401
Race & Culture Education [email protected]
Resources Group Home of Chihuahua Press
*The SunFather to Geronimo *
"I see that you possess strong legs and that you have a brave heart for
fighting, and that your arms are strong. Yet I wonder if you live in
shadow or sun...She who bore you will bear you up, and I who forged you
will give you power."
*Shontae Praileau loves her people*
---*----*---*----*---*----*---*----*---*----*---*----*---*---*----*---*----*--
Viva Villa! Zapata Vive! Justice for Peltier Now! Mumia Must Not Die!
*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*---*
Interview With Dhoruba Bin Wahad
Interview by Bill Weinberg
Veteran Black Panther and 19-year political prisoner Dhoruba
Bin Wahad (formerly Richard Moore) won his freedom in 1990 after
a New York State judge found that the FBI had suppressed evidence
that could have helped clear him of his 1971 attempted double-cop
murder charge.
Since his release, he has returned to outspoken political
activism, and has been particularly vocal against the War on
Drugs. With his newly-organized "Black Coalition on Drugs", he
advocates decriminalization and "harm reduction" strategies.
After 19 years in prison - seven of them in solitary confinement
- Dhoruba Bin Wahad has no apologies and no regrets. He spoke to
us a week after speaking at the Cures Not Wars rally against the
Drug War in New York's Washington Square Park on May 6.
Photographer John Penley also participated in the interview.
BW: Have you seen the flick Panther? What do you think of it?
DBW: Yeah, I saw Panther. I mean, everybody hates the movie who
has some political consciousness. I see this movie in the context
of my own experience, rather than in the context of where we're
at now in 1995 in terms of the consciousness of African American
people and people in general about radical alternatives. One of
the things that people don't realize is how effectively radical
analysis has been removed from the debate around issues that
affect people's lives. There are very few radical or
revolutionary alternatives presented in debates around issues.
This is a direct consequence, of course, of the
Counter-Intelligence Program. The FBI's Counter-Intelligence
Program effectively changed the political landscape of this
society. It delegitimized militancy, it delegitimized
revolutionary consciousness. And the way it delegitimized that
was by criminalizing revolutionaries and criminalizing the
movement. And the criminalization process is continuing today in
the African American community.
For instance, you can talk about the War on Drugs. The face
of the War on Drugs in America is the face of African people, its
the face of Latinos. Its the face of people of color - that's the
face of the quote-unquote "criminals" who are the targets of this
War on Drugs. And this image, this illusion, is perpetrated by
the mass media, which plays upon people's emotions to gain
support for the War on Drugs. For instance, we have this new term
"narcoterrorist", which combines fear of a drug-ridden society
with the image of people who hate America and just want to kill
Americans. And the face of "terrorism" is usually Islamic
fundamentalists, or foreign revolutionaries. And of course the
ability of the state - and I think this is the bottom line - to
control the democratization of technology is directly contingent
upon its capacity to get the masses to subsidize and support
their own repression through the creation of foreign or domestic
enemies.
BW: What do you mean by the "democratization of technology"?
DBW: Because of the giant strides of technology, especially in
the realm of organizing information through computers and
electronic media, this technology is readily accessible to
anyone. You can buy a PC and CD ROM system and tune in to some of
the most sophisticated levels of organized information in the
world. You can tap into mainframe information banks. This was
unheard of as little as 20 years ago. As young people come up in
a society that's increasingly dependent upon information, if they
have this kind of access they could influence debates, they could
begin to think for themselves, they could begin to search out
other like-minded folks.
This you see in its most bizarre form in the right wing's
use of the Internet. They were building bombs on the Internet!
But this same technology means that people all over the world can
exchange information and have access to the same type of
information. Information is intelligence, the ability to make
intelligent decisions.
BW: OK, so how is this process of the democratization of
technology being controlled?
DBW: Its being controlled in a whole host of ways. You've noticed
the recent brouhaha of the Clipper Chip? We know that technology
is the modern means by which the rich utilize the labor of the
poor to transfer wealth to themselves. Technology is now very
important in criminal law enforcement. It is very important in
the state's ability to control its own vast bureaucracy. So the
state is completely dependant on technology, and of course the
state is a creature of the rich. So, they are trying to control
who has access to certain types of information. They say they
have to write new laws to deal with freedom of speech in the
electronic age. There's security concerns, where you might access
someone's business files or bank account. They're moving away
from cash to plastic, so they'll have to have a more efficient
way of identifying people. They want one universal number, maybe
your Social Security number. Look where we're moving. We're
moving to restrict people's access to certain basic resources
unless they go through a certain type of electronical processes.
And I don't want to sound like someone who's afraid of
technology - I'm not. What I'm saying is that what people don't
understand is that the organization of information is a
revolutionary phenomenon that is happening right now as we speak.
And as long as this organization of information is in the hands
of a system which has had a history of utilizing its military,
its police forces and any other tools at its disposal to control
its people, to usurp people's rights, their lands, their lives_we
should be very suspicious, at the minimum, of this process; we
should question this process. And its happening on a multiplicity
of levels under different guises.
For instance, you would not be able to create Robocop if you
didn't have the justification for Robocop. The War on Drugs, the
war against so-called terrorism, have managed to divert millions
of dollars which would have gone into the defense industries of
the United States and other European nation-states into the
police and security apparatuses. Remember all the billions of
dollars that were spent during the Cold War to develop the atomic
bomb and the security apparatus to maintain it. Meanwhile, in all
of the Third World nations, you have reactionary regimes tied to
European nation-states like the United States, France and
Britain, who are carrying out genocidal policies against their
own people, who are depleting their own natural resources in
order to maintain a certain economic level in the developed
nations. So even between North and South, between haves and
have-nots, this is being carried out. So, this is the point.
Increasingly domestic policy is translated into U.S. foreign
policy, in culture, in terms of training military and police, in
the development of infrastructure and institutions - they're all
beginning to mimic the European nation-state model. And with
that, of course, is this inherent ideology that the citizens of
the state are potential subversives.
BW: What has all this to do with movie Panther?
DBW: The movie Panther - even though it is not an accurate
portrayal of the Black Panther Party - shows how the police were
very brutal and racist and functioned in a way that was above the
law because they had a mandate to terrorize the African American
community. And it shows that the way that we dealt with that was
to organize in our communities around those issues that related
to people's lives. And we showed that we were ready to stand fast
against that type of repression, and indeed, if necessary, kill
in our defense of these ideals. And three, that drugs - hard
drugs, heroin - were introduced into the African American
community for political reasons, to control, to misdirect and
ultimately to defuse the development of revolutionary
consciousness. These three messages come across clear in the
movie. And it is for those reasons that I appreciate the movie.
What it didn't show was that the consequence of developing a
revolutionary consciousness would inevitably mean that you were
going to become the targets of the state. And once you became the
targets of the state, there were no holds barred. And the way
they went about doing that, of course, was to first demonize the
Black Panther Party in the minds of white people, so the police
would be seen as having a difficult time at best, and therefore
you couldn't be too critical of how they act. And that plays, of
course, off of the racist mentality that underlies this society,
especially among white males, in relationship to black people and
black males.
For instance, when we something like Rodney King happen, the
jury can come back and acquit these individuals because they
rationalize, "Well, this was a big, black dude, you know, he just
wouldn't lay down, they had a hard job, so they had to do what
they did, how else were they gonna survive in that ghetto, so
what?" So once you realize that we are going to struggle against
these conditions by any means necessary, that means that there
are going to be those of you who are going to be framed, who are
going to be murdered, who are going to be forced into exile.
BW: That's what happened to you.
DBW: That's what happened to me, and that's what happened to
Mumia Abu Jamal. That's why Mumia Abu Jamal is on death row.
Which of course brings us to another issue - the death penalty in
this country. And if we really deal with the death penalty in
this country, and its administration and its purpose, we can only
conclude that the death penalty does not protect its citizens. In
fact, it legalizes the murder of citizens under the guise of
protection and law enforcement. In those states which have the
death penalty, homicide is not appreciably deteriorated. But the
new Omnibus Criminal statute significantly increases the crimes
that are punishable by death. And they make struggle by the
oppressed - when defined as terrorism - punishable by death as a
means of intimidating those who would stand up against tyranny.
This is what happens, you get electrocuted, you get a lethal
injection.
People are beginning to participate in this frenzy. With the
new election of Congress, you had this right-wing upsurge in the
United States, with the Newt Gingrich gang. This is an indication
that people in this country, especially white people, are
completely baffled by the machinations of the national security
state. They are creating a society that will have nothing to do
any more with democracy, if it ever did. Just yesterday in the
newspaper, Giuliani was praising Mussolini!
BW: Yeah, I saw that. He met with some Italian neo-fascist
legislator who is openly nostalgic for Mussolini, and he defended
him to the press.
DBW: Now could you imagine if Mayor Dinkins had praised Idi Amin?
If he has said that at least under Idi Amin, Africans ran their
own resources because he ran all the non-Africans out... I mean,
can you imagine what would have happened? You see, what I'm
saying is that nobody sees these things as a contradiction no
more.
BW: You did 19 years in prison for attempted murder of two New
York City police. And in the interim, new evidence came to light
indicating that you had been framed. How did that new evidence
come to light, and what is your current legal status?
DBW: It came to light as a consequence of a long struggle to
prove my innocence. In 1975, four years after I was captured. I
filed a suit in federal court, in the Southern District in New
York. At that time they had the Church Committee hearings on
government excess as a consequence of Watergate and all that
stuff, and it was revealed that the FBI had carried out this
massive Counter-Intelligence Program in the African American
community and especially against the Black Panther Party. So when
I heard this - knowing that I was innocent, of course - I knew
that the FBI must have information about my case and I filed my
suit. They danced around for five years, and then in 1980, the
federal judge ordered the FBI to turn over all of their documents
that they had on me and the Black Panther Party in New York. And
they turned over 300,000 pages. And when we went over these
documents we found material that indicated that they were working
with the New York City Police Department every step of the way
and that at major junctures in the investigation into the
shooting, they had been present, and that they had taken in the
same information. But, unlike the New York City Police
Department, they didn't make like they had lost theirs. Because
they needed their information to be accurate. So I got some of
these documents. They were heavily excised, heavily deleted. But
after fighting over each deletion, we got enough evidence to go
back into state court and overturn my conviction. That was
another three-year process.
So in 1990, I was released as a consequence of this. I was
the first and only member of the Black Panther Party leadership
to overturn a conviction based on evidence received from the
Counter-Intelligence Program.
BW: Is there going to be a retrial?
DBW: No, they surrendered.
BW: How's your case going? Are you still suing the FBI and the
New York State prison service?
DBW: Well, yes. They're starting to surrender too.
BW: You think they're going to settle?
DBW: Yes, I do.
BW: How did you survive 19 years in prison?
DBW: Shawshank Redemption! [Laughs]
BW: I didn't see that one.
DBW: Its actually quite a good movie. How did I survive? Doing
chin-ups, man. "Drink plenty of water and walk slow" - that's
what they say inside. Don't let it get you. I survived by
focussing my attention on the struggle, on the outside.
BW: There's a scene in Panther where the Panthers raid a heroin
warehouse. You were involved in similar incidents.
DBW: Yeah, there was a place that the police let operate in
Harlem; it operated with their knowledge, and their pay-offs. We,
the Black Liberation Army, the underground in the black
community, had a policy of anti-heroin interdiction. A lot of
these guys who I grew up with in the South Bronx who were selling
heroin - they knew that what they were doing was having a
debilitating effect on the black community. They knew it wasn't
right, but they were just in it for the money. So the only way
that you could deal with these individuals was to deal with them
on a level that they could understand. They understood violence.
They understood intimidation. They understood controlling
territory. So we had to wage that type of struggle with them. Of
course, they had the police on their side.
So we would try to identify where they hung out, where their
processing places were, and we would knock them off. The most
heinous drug dealers, of course, we would have to try to make an
example out of. I can't go into that.
But the police used the drug dealers as their network
against the black underground. They would tell them, look, you're
not dealing any drugs here unless you give us what we want. So
they would use their network of drug dealers and informants in
order to get information on the Black Liberation Army.
This is not inconsistent with the government's relationship
to hard drugs and to heroin historically. We can look at the
Vietnam war, look at the secret wars in Cambodia and Laos, where
the U.S. subsidized the northern war lords, many of whom were
renegades from the Koumintang who were run out of China. They
brought their opium to the processing labs in Hong Kong and
trans-shipped that heroin to the United States and the African
community. And this was subsequent to the initial contacts with
Lucky Luciano and the Italian Mafia in World War II, in which
Luciano, in exchange for his freedom and carte blanche to
reorganize the Sicilian Mafia, promised the U.S. they would have
no labor problems with the longshoremen and that they would have
in place an underground network when they invaded Italy and
Sicily. And after the war, of course we all know that the mob got
lots of war surplus goods, they got fat off the Marshall Plan in
Italy, just like the old Nazi-collaborationist industrialists did
in Germany, the Krupps and the Farbens. So its not inconsistent
that the police worked hand-in-hand in the black community with
the heroin dealers.
BW: So these actions against heroin dealers were carried out in
1971 by the Black Liberation Army. Did the BLA develop from
elements within the Black Panther Party here in New York City?
DBW: This is true. It developed that way as a consequence of a
split within the Black Panther Party. It was an ideological
split, but it was also a split that was manufactured by the
Counter-Intelligence Program, and in certain respects by the
cocaine addiction of people like Huey Newton and David Hilliard.
The Counter-Intelligence Program was able to focus in on these
weaknesses in the leadership, and that led to a split in the
Party which, absent the government's involvement and absent a
certain amount of paranoia on the part of the leadership, could
have been resolved. But because these forces were there to make
sure these contradictions were never resolved, the Party was
split. And then the government really went after the most
militant faction, the so-called Eldridge Cleaver faction which
was mainly in the eastern United States. And this was the
beginning of the Black Liberation Army.
On the other hand, the West Coast faction of the party went
more into electoral politics and, not ironically, into
gangsterism. When they went into straight electoral politics
without the revolutionary nationalist perspective that we had on
the East Coast, they resorted to gangsterism. Bobby Seale and
Elaine Brown ran for office, and that really set the stage for
the first election of a black mayor in Oakland. I'm not saying
that their involvement in electoral politics in the Bay Area
didn't have a significant empowering impact on the black
community there. I don't think that was ever the criticism. But
its not coincidental that at the same time that they did that,
they were into gangsterism. The Party lost all relationship to
the organization that I had joined - politically, ideologically,
morally.
BW: Tell us about the work you're currently doing in Africa.
DBW: I'm trying to set up a Database Institute for the
Development of Pan-African Policy. Which basically hopes to
embody Kwame Nkrumah's axiom that before Africa could achieve
economic unity it first must achieve political unity. And I think
that one of the keys to organizing the African American community
here is to organize Africans everywhere, internationally, around
a common vision and a common perception of the African condition.
So I'm trying to set up an institute that will develop policies,
programs, and ideas, and bring together people from the African
diaspora around the world.
We have NGO status in Africa. We are trying to train
Africans in the diaspora and Africans on the continent into a
common language and a common organizational network, and
organizing information through the Internet. It'll be a database
institute much like the RAND Institute, much like any other
institution that studies problems and presents solutions and
analyses to heads of governments and people in positions to make
these policies into viable programs. For instance, we have a
center that studies the contemporary political, social and
geographical problems of Africa, and presents its findings to the
various governments in the Organization of African Unity.
BW: Tell us about your current work here in the U.S..
DBW: I work with the Campaign to Free Black and New Afrikan
Political Prisoners in the U.S.. One of the things we are doing
now is raising petitions for Mumia. Right now we have about 2,000
signatures. We're going to present those names not only to the
governor of Pennsylvania, but also to the president of South
Africa, Nelson Mandela, who we have a relationship with, and
hopefully encourage him to speak out against the death penalty in
general and against Mumia's execution in particular.
We also are currently starting to develop a mobilization of
young people around an independent political movement in this
city. Its still in its infant stages at this point. But there's a
considerable amount of potential. We think the time is right in
this city for an independent black political party. At the same
time, we feel the time is right for a coalition in this city that
transcends class and caste and gender. People in this city are
sorely oppressed, whether they're black, white, male, female,
gay, straight. We are all subjected to the Giuliani and Pataki
economic program, which is subsidies for the rich and subjection
for the poor. So I think that this city is ripe for a grassroots
political movement, ripe for an insurgency within rank-and-file
of organized labor. I think that all of these potentialities are
here, but many of us who claim to be activists are not willing to
come together and deal with them in any type of coherent fashion.
BW: What would be the stance of this party towards the left wing
of the Democratic machine, Dennis Rivera, Ruth Messinger, et
cetera?
DBW: Well, of course an independent political tendency in this
city would have to see the Democratic Party and the Republican
Party as part-and-parcel of the same thing. However, we realize
that there are progressive people in the Democratic Party who are
black, and who are white and who are Latino. And there may be
progressive people who have gotten into the Republican Party as a
means of organizing from within. That may well be. But we think
that if they are truly progressive, that they will support within
their own party the same kind of agenda that we support. So the
presence of an independent political party can only strengthen
their hand inside the Democratic or Republican party, it can only
enhance their position. So we don't see them as being mutually
exclusive.
I think that black folks and poor people want results. And
they can't get results inside an institution that's ultimately
controlled by people like Stanley Hill and other opportunists who
pull $100,000 salaries, who have no relationship to the masses of
people. I don't think that the communities want that kind of
political representation anymore.
BW: You've spoken against the militarization in the name of the
War on Drugs. What kind of solutions do you see to the drug
crisis? Do you support legalization?
DBW: I support decriminalization, because I think that
decriminalization is in the interests of poor people in the
African American community. I think its very important for people
to understand what a political pretext for repression the War on
Drugs is, and how the War on Drugs has translated into a war on
black America. Its important for us to understand that the entire
militarization of the police department in our community has gone
on in the past ten years under the rubric of the War on Drugs.
The erosion of our civil rights has occurred to a significant
degree as a consequence of the War on Drugs. We have to
understand that 80 to 85 percent of the people in prisons,
especially state prisons, are in prison for so-called
drug-related crimes. So we have to take the criminal justice
system out of the drug problem. We need to see the drug problem
for what it is.
We need to see people who are addicted to hard drugs, first
of all, as people who should have help. They don't exist in a
social vacuum. The largest segment of people who are addicted to
drugs are addicted to legal drugs. They are the Stepford Wives,
you know, the everyday office worker who's under pressure. So the
use of drugs to relieve the pressure and cope with the quality of
life in the developed societies has to be seen as a consequence
of the alienating process, a wholistic alienating process that we
have to begin to address.
I think decrim has shown that it works in places like the
Netherlands. Its true, these places tend to be more homogeneous.
But at the same time, the Netherlands is no longer quite so
homogeneous as it used to be; especially in the cities, its quite
cosmopolitan. I think the breakdown of traditional borders in
Europe and the creation of a new superstate is going to
increasingly lead to an understanding that drug problems cannot
be solved purely by law-enforcement, that its much more complex
than that. I think that the United States needs to get with that
program. I think there's a developing consensus within the
African American community for decriminalization. The U.S.
government remains involved with the importation of cocaine and
heroin. But decrim would undercut the profits.
BW: What's your take on Ibogaine, the African psychoactive plant
that purportedly interrupts addiction?
DBW: I've been one of the foremost advocates in the African
American community of a coherent policy towards the development
of Ibogaine. I think if Ibogaine can do what people say it can
do, and what some preliminary studies indicate it can do, then it
can be of enormous benefit in a wholistic approach to drug
addiction. Again, we're talking about decrim, we're talking about
use of Ibogaine in a community-based setting in which the
community determines the agenda and the program.
It now costs between 7 and 10,000 dollars to detox a heroin
addict, just to clean them up before they can even enter a
recovery program. Now if Ibogaine could interrupt this addiction
in one or two treatments, and enormously reduce the time and
money spent, that means we could take hardcore heroin addicts in
off the streets, subject them to perhaps a one-week
detoxification program that's safe, that's community-based, and
get them into a program immediately.
I think the idea of treatment on demand is an essential
component of decriminalization. I think clean needles is an
essential component. All of these things go into a certain
mindset that is saying, here's an individual who is strung out on
these drugs, and this is what the community can do for him; if
you want to get rid of this physical addiction, we can do that.
You don't have to be a state dope-fiend maintained on methadone
for the rest of your life, OK? If, however, you can't make that
transition now, you aren't ready yet, you are not going to be
busted just because you're a user. You know? You can have access
to some type of treatment, you can get clean needles. I think
these things are important.
JP: What's your take on groups like the Partnership for A
Drug-Free America, which, now that there's an upsurge in the use
of heroin, are pushing an anti-marijuana campaign on America?
DBW: Yeah, that's a political campaign. It has to do with the
consolidation of the right in this country. Because marijuana use
is one of the most social uses of drugs, it occurs in a very
social milieu. It's also the drug of choice of an entire younger
generation of urban youth who are not into so much alcohol and
are not into the harder drugs.
You have to understand that hard drugs were pushed in the
black community in a number of ways. There was first, of course,
the heroin. Then there was the PCP, "Angel Dust", which just
drove people crazy. And then cocaine, which in its original form
had this glamour and glitter attached to it. It was associated
with movie stars and rock musicians, because you had to have a
lot of money in order to sniff coke.
BW: Until 1986, when crack came along...
DBW: Yeah, until they managed to break it down into a cheap
derivative and make it accessible to poor folks, just like they
did heroin. But unlike heroin, it didn't put you in a stupor.
Heroin took you out of the political realm and put you in a
stupor, but you weren't no threat that would justify a police
army. But crackheads were likely to go out in blaze of gunfire.
It became more of a justification for the police militarization.
So now going after marijuana is a way of going after a
certain level of society that tends to be more conscious and
rebellious and more social and participatory. Of course, abuse of
any substance can lead to dysfunction. When I talk about decrim,
I'm talking about understanding addiction as an illness that has
its social and familial roots. And you really have to deal with
it that way, as opposed to a crime. Then there are the medicinal
aspects of marijuana and certain drugs, which are valid if you
look at it in that context. But that's not the social context
now. I think people's attitudes have to change. If the person
smoking marijuana is considered a social pariah, he's not going
to have the attitude to use the drug medicinally and wisely. Its
a different attitude.
JP: Can you tell us about your recent meeting with the Drug
Policy Foundation?
DBW: I think the DPF is beginning to realize that this struggle
has to have a strong leadership and vocal component coming from
the African American community, coming from the communities that
are impacted by this War on Drugs. And I think that component is
absent in their current struggle, because they have no
relationship to the African American community. That's why we
think the Black Coalition on Drugs is a very important ingredient
in the whole political mix.
The Black Coalition on Drugs is still trying to struggle out
of relative obscurity. We're still looking for funds. But
basically the idea is to put into practice some of the things
I've been discussing, putting on forums and debates in our
communities so we can better understand issues around drugs and
law enforcement and Ibogaine. That's the first mission of the
Coalition, to educate people. Once that education occurs, then we
have to have some kind of vehicle to translate that education
into political utility and mobilization. This has to occur in the
context of what's happening in the African American community and
the poor communities in this society, in this city. We have to
bring together activists and professionals in the African
American community who are looking for a vehicle to express these
ideas.
The sentiment for decrim becomes deeper as it becomes
clearer and clearer that the War on Drugs is a sham and is not
working.
JP: ...while building prisons has become one of the biggest
industries in America...
DBW: ...as people realize that there is a war on them, especially
on youth.
I think black people are confused by the current crop of
political leaders, who are still trying to deal with making the
transition from an old-style black leadership to the new-style
black leadership. In the old style, your relationship to white
folks was very important. In the new style, you can't have that
relationship anymore, not upfront.
Now our Coalition's only relationship to white people is an
equal relationship with white radicals. We don't hide our
relationship to Cures Not Wars, or to the white supporters in the
struggle for Mumia Abu Jamal...
JP: A lot of black nationalists don't want to have anything to do
with white organizations.
DBW: I understand that. But that's because of the old-style
"Negro" leadership. I mean, look at Jesse Jackson - this is why
he has no credibility. It is clear that he derives his capacity
to even be seen as a national leader from his relationship with
white folks. But the Black Panther Party were the first ones to
come up with the idea of a Rainbow Coalition. The original
Rainbow Coalition was of Chicanos, white radicals and the Puerto
Rican Young Lords Party, and Asian radicals. We always realized
that we had natural allies in communities that had the same
issues with the state that we had, in communities that didn't
look that much different from ours in terms of services, in terms
of economic infrastructure, in terms of how the police reacted
and dealt with them. So, we've always had the position that e
should have a face-to-face relationship with our allies and enter
into coalitions with them. We didn't believe in back-room
politics, you see? Plantation politics, where secret deals are
made behind closed doors. We felt that leadership should come
from the grassroots up, that people should be able to mobilize
themselves, empower themselves. I mean, what the fuck are we
talking about? Empowerment - that's what we're talking about,
right? Not so much organizing people from the top down.
The black bourgeoisie have always done that - organized from
the top down. There was a time when black clergy organized from
the bottom up, because they were always outside of the mainstream
of white institutions. But that has changed. Increasingly, black
clergy are beginning to have a top-down mentality. So the masses
are basically left to shift for themselves. They are adrift in
the information age with no modem.
BW: In 1995, the most well-armed, radical, uncompromising
movement in America is on the right. What's your take on the
militia movement?
DBW: Two weeks before the bombing in Oklahoma, who was on the
cover of Soldier of Fortune? The Michigan Militia. Saying they
"defend America." OK, Soldier of Fortune isn't your mainstream,
you know, Life magazine.
But if you look at the current militia system, much of it
was instigated and organized under the Federal Emergency
Management Agency's direction. These militias grew out of the
United States government. You notice that Clinton was reluctant
to condemn the militia even after the Oklahoma bombing. He said,
well of course they have a right to march around on the weekends
in uniform and of course they have a right to bear arms, and we
shouldn't paint everybody with the same brush as these two evil
individuals. Now could you imagine the president of the United
States saying that about the Black Panther Party?
BW: Well, do you think the militia has the right to bear arms and
march around on the weekends?
DBW: I don't think that's the issue. I think the issue is that
the climate that was created by the traditional right, by
so-called conservatives in government, and by big business, has
engendered these attitudes on the part of white males. They
define these people as "angry white males with apocalyptic
visions." I mean they're just making excuses for that shit.
Their vision of the U.S. government isn't all that crazy,
you understand. Its just that they go to extremes, with talk of
Russian troops on the borders and all that. But their vision of
government, and how government treats the small person and
relates to the people, is not all that different from ours. Which
gets back to my point about the development of the European
nation-state into a national security model that sees all of its
citizens as potential subversives.
BW: So where do you see the militia fitting into this?
DBW: They fit in just like the Ku Klux Klan fit in during
Reconstruction. If you recall, during Reconstruction in this
country, they used the veterans who had lost the war on the
Confederate side, with the complicity of certain Union elements,
to organize the Ku Klux Klan to terrorize black people away from
the polls, to terrorize the newly-freed slaves back into
submission and back onto the plantation under share-cropping.
That was their role. And they marched on Washington a hundred
thousand strong.
BW: So how do you see the analogy to the militia in 1995?
DBW: Just like law enforcement was involved in the Ku Klux Klan;
law enforcement is involved with these militias. The military
belonged to the Ku Klux Klan, and trained them; the military is
involved in these militias - many of them from covert ops, many
of them special teams, like SEALS and special commando units that
are indoctrinated with the anti-terrorist theology of the state.
OK? So the relationship is that whenever they needed to terrorize
the African community or terrorize poor people, they have given
rein to the right wing - and then used the reining-in of the
right wing as a justification for repression on the left, and
against poor people all over again! And that's exactly what
they're doing now!
JP: And there are public figures who were part of the Ku Klux
Klan who are now involved in these militias.
DBW: Right. And this phenomenon is rapidly occurring throughout
the spectrum of the European nation-state. Its happening in
France, its happening in Italy...
BW: With Jean-Marie LePen and the Mussolini nostalgia people...
DBW: Yeah! I mean look what happened with LePen in France, he got
almost 20 percent of the vote! And what's his platform?
Anti-immigration. And what's the platform of the right-wing
militia here? That people of color and slime-balls from the Third
World are diluting America. What's LePen's position on France?
That France has to reassert itself as nation with a great
mission, which is the same fascistic vision that Hitler had for
Germany. What's the right in the United States talking about?
About reasserting the old values that made them great. OK? These
aren't coincidences. These are things that are happening in a way
that accrues to the benefit of a particular elite in this
society. Why are working white folks, so-called "white trash",
attracted to the extreme right? What was the greatest element in
support of slavery in the antebellum south? "White trash." They
didn't even own slaves. But the existence of slavery was the only
thing that made them special. Otherwise they would have been
slaves.
Now one of the things that the militia talks about is how
the government has bent over backward to deal with poor people,
with people of color, to give things to black workers, to Latino
workers, to the exclusion of white males. That's the same
rationale that poor white trash used in the antebellum south
about slavery - _if you freed the slaves, where would that leave
a self-respecting white man? That's why the Ku Klux Klan became
necessary - to terrorize them back into submission.
The bombing of the federal building can be looked at from a
number of perspectives. If we believe in conspiracy theories, we
can say that its really a fantastic "black op" on the part of
U.S. intelligence. Or perhaps we can say that it was something
that was set into motion that got out of control. Or we can say
that the government had absolutely nothing to do with it because
they never suspected that they would need a justification from
the right in order to do what they are going to do to the
American people. I think it might be a combination of all three.
Look at how the new legislation is being pushed through.
They're saying, if you don't push this legislation through,
you're soft on terrorism. But look at states like Israel, which
is a completely militarized national security state - and they
can't stop attacks on their civilians. So what makes the United
States think they can?
BW: To simultaneously oppose the militia and oppose the
anti-terrorist measures which are being taken to ostensibly crack
down on the militia seems to put us in a difficult position...
DBW: I don't think it puts us in an awkward position at all once
we understand the role of the extreme right wing in curtailing
the rights of progressive movements in this country. We know that
the United States is able to do what it does abroad by stealing
the rhetoric of liberation struggles. They defined the Contras as
"freedom fighters." They'll steal the rhetoric of liberation and
they'll use the culture of the oppressed and portray it as
American culture. So why should we be in a dilemma to define the
right wing as part and parcel of the entire white male support
apparatus of the national security state?
These rural white males see the U.S. government as the
personification of all the frustration in their lives. And the
fact of the matter is that the U.S. government is in their lives,
and is in our lives, to the detriment of our interests. That's
the fact.
BW: What do you think of the "Zapatista" revolutionaries in
Mexico?
DBW: Look at Mexico's relationship to the United States. Here's a
full-blown peasant revolutionary movement that came out of
nowhere, nobody even knew about it. That shows you how in touch
they were with the rural Indian population.
Increasingly in the Third World, and particularly in Latin
America, we see the browning of the population. The population is
browning again after the first wave of the European
conquistadors. Every state in Latin America is a European settler
state. Every one. Just like South Africa, just like the state of
Israel. And almost throughout the history of Latin America, only
those who resembled the light-skinned conquistadors were in
positions of power, up to the point where some of them even have
German names. But with the browning of the population, these
light-skinned descendents of the conquistadors are becoming
increasingly isolated. They are depleting their resources at a
phenomenal rate to maintain their position, while the descendents
of Indians and of African slaves are reasserting themselves and
reasserting their rights and reasserting their majority status.
The United States talks about democracy. But what kind of
democracy is there for the black kids in the shanty-towns in
Brazil? What kind of democracy was there for those who
"disappeared" in Chile and Argentina? And we can even see it
here. Increasingly, the immigrants from Latin America are looking
more and more Indian.
BW: And whites are going to be the minority here in the U.S. in
another 25 years or so if demographic trends continue...
DBW: Exactly. So the only way white males can continue to control
everything is if they have in place the entire apparatus of the
European nation-state as a mechanism for the transfer of wealth
and power to themselves at the same time that it's being
subsidized by the masses of people because they believe it's
there to protect them from some type of enemy.
BW: What do you have to say about so-called "gangsta rap," and
people like Tupac Shakur, whose mother was a Panther but who has
obviously embraced a certain kind of nihilism?
DBW: We have to understand that the reason rap is so
controversial is that it reflects the reality of lower-class
black youth. And this reality has come into conflict with the
black bourgeoisie, the black middle-class professionals who want
to portray themselves as the success story of African America.
Culture is a legitimate arena of the struggle for liberation.
Just like rock in its initial form was a music of rebellion, a
music that expressed the nihilism of white youth who were fed up
with this white mom-and-pop picket-fence reality that didn't
reflect the terror that was going on behind the picket fence...
you know? The rape and brutalization of youth behind the picket
fence.
So look at rap music and look at where it came from. It came
from out of the South Bronx. It came out of Brownsville, it came
out of Harlem. These were kids who had no place to go, who had no
movement to go to, because the Panthers were destroyed, to whom a
hero was nothing but a fish sandwich. So they would gather
together in the park or in the basement of vacant building and
they would play tapes and rap over the music, or they would go
get their mom's and pop's old records and scratch on them, and
they created a whole genre of music that was first attacked as
being transitory, irrelevant. But it was white males who
controlled the music industry that made gangsta rap - the 2 Live
Crew genre of rap, the misogynist rap, the homophobic rap - the
type of rap that was popular. They didn't gravitate towards the
positive rap, because most of the positive rap was black
nationalist, that reflected the ideology of organizations like
the Black Panther Party. You see? This genre of rap was
completely ignored.
But at the same time it enjoyed a considerable amount of
credibility in the African American community, among the youth. A
lot of the DJs came from this scene. They were taken out of the
clubs and put on the streets overnight, like Red Alert, Dr. Dre.
Some of them came out of the black bourgeoisie and had street
affectations, but many of them came up out of that milieu.
And it was activists who had a problem with misogynist rap,
it was activists - myself and others - who had a problem with
homophobic rap, that had a problem with reactionary rap, and
criticized the rappers for this. And it was only after the
rappers began to respond to us in a positive way, to search out
images of Malcolm and the Black Panther Party, that the black
bourgeoisie came up and started talking about how they weren't
gonna take it no more. Black clergy led demonstrations against
rap, and some of the major black stations like 107.5 WBLS in this
city - owned by Inner City Broadcasting of Percy Sutton, who was
Malcolm's lawyer and is also a big businessman in this city -
started playing what they called "classic soul." Now, classic
soul was the music of my generation, OK? But the "classic soul"
that they played was classic soul that didn't have no political
message either - I mean the love songs, ballads and so forth.
BW: What's your message today to the kids in Bed Stuy and the
South Bronx?
DBW: The same message that the Black Panther Party called forth.
That they organize to defend the integrity of the African
American community on all levels, and that they understand that
because violence is as American as apple pie, they have to
organize the community's capacity to carry out revolutionary
violence in its own self-interest. I say that with the proviso
that as long as we don't have control over law enforcement
agencies that brutalize and murder us, then we have to deal with
racist attack on that level.
BW: And what's your message to white folks who are going to be
reading this?
DBW: They have to really understand that the European
nation-state that they live in sees all of its citizens as its
enemy, and unless they stop the consolidation of those forces of
the rich who are in control of this state, that are determining
the parameters of debate, that are increasingly encroaching on
our democratic rights - unless they wake up and deal with this,
then all of us are going to be subjected to the same type of
repression and control. Fascism isn't just a word. It's the
organization of state power and finance capital into a system
that controls everybody.
(Source: "The Shadow" via Mediafilter's WWW pages:
)
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Arm The Spirit is an autonomist/anti-imperialist collective based
in Toronto, Canada. Our focus includes a wide variety of
material, including political prisoners, national liberation
struggles, armed communist resistance, anti-fascism, the fight
against patriarchy, and more. We regularly publish our writings,
research, and translation materials in our magazine and bulletins
called Arm The Spirit. For more information, contact:
Arm The Spirit
P.O. Box 6326, Stn. A
Toronto, Ontario
M5W 1P7 Canada
E-mail: [email protected]
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