Angry White Kid

Massacre in Gaza - Take action!

The news out of Gaza is devastating. Hundreds have been killed, cowardly slaughtered from the air by Israel's U.S.-supplied tools of destruction. Protests against the continuing siege and slaughter are planned for the coming days across the U.S. and the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation has a list of actions to take. The video footage below is heartbreaking. As are the reports. Please check it out, spread the word, and take action.

End the siege! End the genocide!

 

International Witnesses speak out from Gaza.

Gaza massacres must spur us to action.

'An earthquake on top of your head'.

Uncritical Exuberance? Judith Butler's take on Obama

I really appreciate this essay by Judith Butler on the election of Obama and the salient points she makes. Since I couldn't find it online, I've decided to post it in full.

Uncritical Exuberance?
Judith Butler

Very few of us are immune to the exhilaration of this time.  My friends on the left write to me that they feel something akin to "redemption" or that "the country has been returned to us" or that "we finally have one of us in the White House."  Of course, like them, I discover myself feeling overwhelmed with disbelief and excitement throughout the day, since the thought of having the regime of George W. Bush over and gone is an enormous relief. And the thought of Obama, a thoughtful and progressive black candidate, shifts the historical ground, and we feel that cataclysm as it produces a new terrain.  But let us try to think carefully about the shifted terrain, although we cannot fully know its contours at this time.  The election of Barack Obama is historically significant in ways that are yet to be gauged, but it is not, and cannot be, a redemption, and if we subscribe to the heightened modes of identification that he proposes ("we are all united") or that we propose ("he is one of us"), we risk believing that this political moment can overcome the antagonisms that are constitutive of political life, especially political life in these times.  There have always been good reasons not to embrace "national unity" as an ideal, and to nurse suspicions toward absolute and seamless identification with any political leader.  After all, fascism relied in part on that seamless identification with the leader, and Republicans engage this same effort to organize political affect when, for instance, Elizabeth Dole looks out on her audience and says, "I love each and every one of you." 

It becomes all the more important to think about the politics of exuberant identification with the election of Obama when we consider that support for Obama has coincided with support for conservative causes.  In a way, this accounts for his "cross-over" success.  In California, he won by 60% of the vote, and yet some significant portion of those who voted for him also voted against the legalization of gay marriage (52%). How do we understand this apparent disjunction?  First, let us remember that Obama has not explicitly supported gay marriage rights. Further, as Wendy Brown has argued, the Republicans have found that the electorate is not as galvanized by "moral" issues as they were in recent elections; the reasons given for why people voted for Obama seem to be predominantly economic, and their reasoning seems more fully structured by neo-liberal rationality than by religious concerns.  This is clearly one reason why Palin's assigned public function to galvanize the majority of the electorate on moral issues finally failed.   But if "moral" issues such as gun control, abortion rights and gay rights were not as determinative as they once were, perhaps that is because they are thriving in a separate compartment of the political mind.  In other words, we are faced with new configurations of political belief that make it possible to hold apparently discrepant views at the same time: someone can, for instance, disagree with Obama on certain issues, but still have voted for him.  This became most salient in the emergence of the counter Bradley-effect, when voters could and did explicitly own up to their own racism, but said they would vote for Obama anyway. Anecdotes from the field include claims like the following: "I know that Obama is a Muslim and a Terrorist, but I will vote for him anyway; he is probably better for the economy."  Such voters got to keep their racism and vote for Obama, sheltering their split beliefs without having to resolve them.

The Morelia attack is atypical of the drug cartels. Is a rightwing neo-Nazi party being born?

A Mexican soldier stands guard as experts investigate the crime scene in Morelia, Michoacan, where two grenades were hurled into a crowd during Independence Day celebrations, killing eight and wounding hundreds.

The Morelia attack is atypical of the drug cartels. Is a rightwing neo-Nazi party being born?

September 17, 2008

By Pedro Echeverria V.
Translated by Scott Campbell
[Spanish original]

1. Members of drug-trafficking cartels have shown (up to today) that they don't kill people by throwing bombs at them, like what happened in Morelia on the night of September 15. These cartels, for all they've done, only kill those who go after them, deceive them, and speak out against them, be they members of the same cartel, police officers, soldiers and their commanders, journalists, and, certainly, they are always ready to put an end to the politicians who order them hunted down. Ostensibly, they kill people by producing and selling them drugs, but according to published accounts, the humble inhabitants begin to care for them because they are the only ones who help, giving them jobs and gifts (Escobar Gaviria, Caro Quintero, etc.). Though the drug-traffickers could have changed their strategy, we should consider this fact, avoiding accepted wisdom and propaganda.

2. On the other side, a leftist guerilla organization always fights for the exploited, poor and oppressed. That's what it's born to do. Genaro Vazquez, Lucio Cabanas, the EZLN, the EPR, etc., never acted against the people, but very much to the contrary, arose from the people to defend their rights. Some have attacked banks, have kidnapped business and land owners, to obtain money for their struggles, but they've never gone against their own ideology which is to fight for the indigenous, the peasants, the workers.  When they carry out propagandistic actions, placing bombs, they've always sought to ensure that no one dies. This has become more than clear through the experiences in Mexico and the world. No leftist organization would be able to keep their name if it didn't defend the interests of those from below.

3. On the contrary, Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Pinochet, Videla, Somoza, representing the economic and political interests of businessmen, having the conception of inferior and superior races, considering that the poor should only produce because they are incapable of governing, always showed disdain for the people.  Do you happen to remember that all of these disastrous rightwing military dictators immediately massacred the people when they were protesting against their miserable living conditions? Who killed the student masses on October 2, 1968 and June 10, 1971? To throw a bomb into a poor and miserable crowd can only be an action of those who are against the crowd, of those they consider incapable of doing anything that isn't working, to produce wealth for the exploiters.

4. The question then should be: Is a rightwing Nazi party being born, like the various ones in Europe and the U.S., to persecute and kill the people and the forces associated with them? How many businessmen and powerful priests would support with great determination an extremely radicalized Yunque/PAN party?* People such as the "friends of Fox," Velasco Arza (adviser to Fox), Salinas Price and his son Salinas Pliego (owner of TV Azteca), Servidje (owner of Nestle), Azcarraga (owner of Televisa) and a thousand other businessmen most certainly would be very pleased at the appearance of armed, anti-communist commandos, such as those that have appeared in Germany, Italy, Spain, or the U.S. Their objective is to stop the struggles of the people and to assassinate those political activists who assist in the strikes, the taking of lands, and the takeovers of unoccupied homes.

Justice for our sister Marcella Sali Grace!

Version en espanol sigue despues del link.

10/2 UPDATE: Not really an update, just wanted to share this drawing, "Ramonita triste por Marcella Sali" by Kalvellido that I found to be very touching.

10/1 UPDATE: Yesterday, on what would have been Sali's 21st birthday, a march was held in her honor and memory here in Oaxaca. View my summary and photos here.

At the rally in front of the Cathedral, this statement by Sali's mother, Barbara, was read (in Spanish):

I would have people know that my daughter Sali was the light of my heart.  Sali taught me love, patience, and acceptance.  She taught me to work joyously, hard, and to fight like hell for what you believe in.   Sali’s father, her step mother, her brother and sisters, all of her family and I have an unfathomable depth of grief over the loss of her love and spirit.

We feel the outpouring of love coming from Sali’s people in Oaxaca, in Mexico, and across North America.  We appreciate all that you have been, have done, and will do for Sali and in Sali’s memory.  We thank you for your every effort to continue to seek justice in the death of our darling Sali.  It means everything to us as a family.

And this drawing, by Sali's half-sister Claire, was distributed. The day before Sali's family learned of her murder, Claire was at a friend's house and came home with a drawing, of which this is a part. She said her drawing was of a dead girl, and that this image was "the dead girl waving goodbye." It is Sali waving goodbye to all of those she loves.

9/29 UPDATE: Here's the my translation of the announcement for the march tomorrow in Oaxaca.

9/28 UPDATE: Friends, I don't have much of an update. More information is coming out in the Mexican press. For those who read Spanish, the local Oaxaca daily Noticias has an article, as does the national La Jornada. Those close to and who Sally worked with here should be producing a new statement or article shortly. Anything that comes out, I will translate and post here. There will be a march through town here on Tuesday for Sally. Thank you for the touching notes you have been leaving.

9/27 UPDATE 2: The AP has posted a mostly-accurate story about Sally's murder. Kristin Bricker has an accurate accounting of the lead-up to the arrest of Yoguez Singu.

9/27 UPDATE: Friends, there have been many developments in the past two days. More information will become available soon, but it can be confirmed that through the hard work of activists in San Jose del Pacifico, Oaxaca, and Mexico City, Sally's killer, Omar Yoguez Singu, has been identified and arrested in Mexico City, and transferred to Oaxaca. People here are confident that what happened to Sally was not "political" in the sense that it did not happen as a result of her political activities. Of course violence against women is very much a tragic political aspect of life under patriarchy.  And regardless of the reason, it does not make her murder any less appalling or the loss any less severe. Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments section. I will post more when it is available. Sally Grace, presente! Ahora, y siempre!

Please read and sign the below call to action. The Spanish version follows my translation. This event is beyond tragic.

Oaxaca de Juarez, Oaxaca.
Thursday, September 25

Justice for our sister Marcella Sali Grace!

Brother and sisters,

Our hearts are full of sadness and rage because our sister Sali was brutally raped and murdered 20 minutes from San Jose del Pacifico and up to this moment the Oaxacan Attorney General's Office, as is its custom, is not doing anything regarding the fact that there exist witnesses who have information to identify those responsible.

Marcella Sali Grace was born in the United States, with a big heart in solidarity with just causes. She had many friends because she was always inclined to help, using her artistic talents to paint a banner or a wall or doing Arabic dance to raise funds for the struggle, or putting on punk shows, or giving self-defense courses for women because she knew very well how the men accosted them. This was one of her struggles, that women were free and respected. Sali was so involved in the struggle that she was an international accompanier of brothers and sisters who felt harassed by the bad government of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz.

Unfortunately, on September 24, a woman's body was found with the physical characteristics of Sali, in a deserted cabin twenty minutes from the village of San Jose del Pacifico and at the moment when a village member went to feed some dogs around that area, he was struck by a fetid odor coming from this cabin and notified the municipal authorities of the village, who proceeded to remove the body which was already in a state of decay, and after these events, they did not give any more information to the people in the village.

Yesterday, companera Julieta Cruz (who knew Sali was headed for San Jose del Pacifico) was informed that a young, foreign woman was at in the Miahuatlan amphitheatre, where she went, and where she recognized the body of Sali because of the tattoos she had, as her face was unrecognizable. Julieta thinks it is because of burns, but it doesn't explain why the rest of her body has less visible damage. When we asked for the case number we were denied as well from seeing the results of the autopsy, as they argued with us that because we weren't relatives they couldn't give us any information.

Due to her solidarity work with the popular struggle of the people of Oaxaca, in other struggles in the world and against the racism on Mexico's border with the U.S., on different occasions and to different people, Sali mentioned that recently in Oaxaca she had suffered political persecution and surveillance. This makes us think that her cowardly murder is related to the widespread repression against the social movement and directed particularly at international observers. Because of this, we don't dismiss that the intellectual authors are the same who ordered the repression against the people of Oaxaca in their struggle for justice and freedom.

In the face of these bloody events, and for the brutal cruelty used against companera Sali, we don't disregard that this could be a clear message directed at all the people of Oaxaca, as well as the companeros in solidarity from different parts of the world; we say this based on the recent national and international news which says that "APPO members were the ones who killed U.S. journalist Bradley Roland Will" and as there is no justice in Oaxaca, we worry that the distortion of information could interfere in procuring true justice for our companera and the clear bureaucratic slowness with which the involved authorities are already treating this investigation.

In the face of these lamentable events, WE DEMAND:

The immediate speeding up of the investigations.
 
The immediate clarification of the facts.

Punishment for the intellectual and material murderers.

Justice for our sister Marcella Sali Grace!

Enough is enough with of the murders, violence and hatred against women who fight for justice!


We ask you to sign on (at the email indicated) to this demand for justice and to become a part of the urgent activities to demand the clarification of these cowardly acts.

[email protected]
Information: (01 951) 5178190 CIPO

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 25

9:00 am Presence at the U.S. Consulate in Oaxaca
(Santo Domingo Plaza, Col. Centro, Oaxaca)

12:00 noon Rally at the State Attorney General's Office: To demand the case is brought to Oaxaca and to speed up the bureaucratic procedures for the administration of justice.
(Domicilio conocido, San Antonio de la Cal, Col. Experimental).

Signed:
Encuentro de Mujeres Oaxaquenas "Compartiendo Voces de Esperanza"
Colectivo Mujer Nueva
Consejo Indigena Popular de Oaxaca Ricardo Flores Magon
Voces Oaxaquenas Construyendo Autonomia y Libertad
Colectivo [email protected] Somos [email protected]
Encuentro de Jovenes en el Movimiento Social Oaxaqueno
(...)

Where is the front?

My translation, revised by Machetera, of a column by Gustavo Esteva. Esteva is a Mexican activist, writer and founder of Universidad de la Tierra in Oaxaca. [Spanish original]

Where is the front?
By Gustavo Esteva
OaxacaLibre.org
Monday, August 25, 2008

Security? To protect us from what or from whom? The general concern over security is continually increasing while at the same time the reach and meaning of it are diluted.

The Zapatistas' situation is a good allegory for this condition. They don't have problems with "internal security." There is a convivial relationship between neighbors and the communities know how to resolve conflicts and violations of societal norms, fairly and calmly. But the people live under a continuous "external" threat: military and police harassment and the belligerence of paramilitaries. The government authorities themselves are the security problem for Zapatista villages.

In the rest of the country, "organized crime" is also concentrated in the government. The disorder and incompetence that characterizes it masks the concerted dedication, of the criminal variety, present in the three levels of government. It combines an unhinged zeal to take for oneself someone else's property, the root of all forms of corruption, with the systematic use of violence as a means to impose one's will and subjugate the people.  Mafias thrive in this culture of escalating impunity, in which it is increasingly difficult to distinguish the criminals from the police, judges or government employees.

Drug traffickers and kidnappers are used as a pretext and smokescreen to hide this criminal association. But the "war on drugs" does just the opposite: it makes clear the nature of the dominant regime and the function of security as a justification for the illegitimate use of domination and control.

And All of France Finds Itself Stuck in a War

My translation, along with Machetera, of an article by Fausto Giudice. Also published on Tlaxcala.

Fausto Giudice
August 21, 2008

This past August 20th, in the middle of the summer holidays, while the good people of France meandered worry-free between replete beaches and TV screens to follow the heroic deeds of the athletes in Beijing, making it possible to forget the stress of the impending return to the routine of "working more and earning less", the news burst like a thunderclap in a serene sky: ten young and brave French soldiers just died in remote Afghanistan, in an ambush by the horrible Taliban 50 kilometers outside of Kabul, raising the figures for French military deaths to 22, since 2002, minutiae against the hundred British who've lost their lives and still less when compared to the thousands of murdered Afghans.  And when I say Afghans, I refer to armed men, unarmed men, women, children, and the aged.

And, unexpectedly, the good people of France discovered that their army was involved in the war in Afghanistan. Six years had to go before the French realized that they were physically engaged in a war.

A world war? No. A local war? Not that either. It is treated more as a "war of the worlds". Two worlds facing off in the mountains and plains of Afghanistan: on one side, the good guys, the "coalition" that gathers 70,000 soldiers from some 40 countries. Officially, they are not there to make war, but peace, to rebuild the country and, especially, to liberate the women, these poor Afghan women locked in their prison-like veils. On the other side, the "bad guys", the long-beards, the "terrorists", the Taliban, al-Qaeda. So  those soldiers are also there to fight against terrorism, the fight George Bush calls "the worldwide war against terror". Except that apparently, the Afghan "terrorists" enjoy the support of a large part of the population.

During the six years that have elapsed since the beginning of the conflict, French public opinion hasn't cared at all about this war that officially is not one. Neither the soft left nor the extreme left have organized a single demonstration. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Silence on the radio and total consensus.  It hasn't been different in Spain nor in Italy where the institutional left removed their troops from Iraq the better to place them in Afghanistan.  There was more agitation in Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and in Canada, although without great impact on events: "We're here to stay", is the slogan of the coalition forces, christened with the acronym ISAF*.

In fact, the allies of the US, the invader, were assigned the job of logistical and civil support, at the service to "the boys", who are supposedly doing the dirty work, that is, the war crimes and bombing of the civilian populations with depleted uranium.  For their part, the French and Europeans try to keep their hands clean, dig some wells and a help  few women deliver.
But,  "What were the French soldiers doing in that mess?", was the immediate question the average citizen of the French Republic. "Indispensable work,"answered the president, while Jean-Marie Bockel, his "Secretary at War", called for"national unity" and warned that this was not a good time for criticism.

ANSWER's big plan revealed

Confounded as to why anti-war sentiment in the US has been steadily increasing while attendance at their demonstrations (in monotony) has been decreasing, the ANSWER Coalition (who I've made clear I'm no fan of) released a proposal yesterday, asking What Should the Anti-War Movement Do Now?:

It is clear that the anti-war movement is not sufficiently strong at the moment to bring this criminal and despised war to an end. Every organization must ask why is this so and most importantly what can be done to change the situation immediately.

The first question to ask and answer is: Can a people's movement in the United States overcome the commitment of the White House, Congress and the Pentagon to authorize, extend and finance the war and occupation in Iraq?

If the answer to the question is yes...we must assess various factors and craft a strategy that will be fundamentally different from the current path of the anti-war movement. [Emphasis added]

So what's this great "new" strategy?  Unfortunately, it doesn't involve ANSWER dissolving and us rejoicing.  It involves...hold your breath...one big protest!  Taadaa!  Because that new/old strategy of organizing big protests has been working so well, ANSWER wants to get one million people to march on DC.  In six months to a year's time.  In the meantime, you can all take a nap.

Brilliant!  Why didn't anyone think of having a big protest in Washington, DC before? 

Oh wait, they have? 

Oh wait, and the war is still going on? 

Oh wait, no one pays attention to a "movement" that only involves showing your face once or twice a year at a boring, cop-coordinated rally?

Is this really the best that the "leaders of the vanguard" at ANSWER could come up with?  I guess adherence to Stalinism really does stifle creativity.

No wonder the US left is a worldwide laughingstock.  It's been co-opted (willingly) by the likes of ANSWER and their cult of banality and faux-dissent.

At this point, I think Bill Hicks and I are going to go watch American Gladiators.

Tragedy in Lebanon

What a disgraceful situation in Lebanon.

The Lebanese Army shows that while it will have tea with Israeli invaders, it is more than happy to indiscriminately shell Palestinian refugees. (And of course the US is always willing to pitch in when it comes to killing Palestinians.)

The media tries to paint Palestinians as terrorists, though the members of Fatah al-Islam are nearly everything but Palestinian.

Instead of condemning the massacre of Palestinian civilians, the American Task Force on Palestine (which hangs out with the AIPAC-financed WINEP) and the American Task Force on Lebanon send out a press release expressing "support for Lebanon" and condemning the "assault on Lebanese sovereignty, stability and security."  They call for merely "minimiz[ing] civilian casualties." And to top it off, in the same press release they manage to do away with the right of return - asking instead for the refugee camps to be made into nicer places to live.

And the Palestinian refugees, expelled by Israel and already facing horrific conditions in Lebanon, are left to fend for themselves.

Here is info on the Nahr el Bared Relief Campaign.  Here is an insightful interview with As'ad Abukhalil.

SSA shut down at Port of Oakland

My crappy cell phone photo of the picket.

This (early) morning a community picket successfully shut down the war profiteer SSA (Stevedoring Services of America) at the Port of Oakland.  The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) locals decided to honor and not cross the 100+ strong community picket. 

Therefore SSA, which was at full capacity with three ships waiting to be loaded and unloaded, wasn't able to do any business this morning.  The picket is continuing as the second shift of longshore workers arrives at 4:30PM, hopefully to meet with the same results.  I'm sure more photos and reports will go up at Indybay. May this only be the beginning.

UPDATE: SSA was indeed shut down all day by the picket. From a obnoxiously sectarian reportback:

When scores of picketers blocked the gates at the SSA terminal beginning at 7 a.m., the company eventually gave up and called off the shift. In the evening, an arbitrator ruled that this was not a bona fide “health and safety issue” and ordered the workers to go to work. However, the dock workers collectively refused.

Saturday: Picket to shut down the war profiteers