My critic suggests:

“…my problem with Keith Preston’s approach is not that he suggests identifying and allying with criminalized, marginalized, or lumpen people. My problem is, first, that he has what I consider a disastrously selective view of whose criminalization and marginalization counts as legitimate libertarian concern (=). And, secondly, that he has the wrong idea about what the process of building such an alliance, and the terms on which allies might ally themselves with each other, looks like.

How “selective” am I? These are some the planks in the American Revolutionary Vanguard Twenty-Five Point Program:

1. Recognizing that the United States of America is rapidly degenerating into a totalitarian police state domestically and steadily being brought under the rule of a global corporate state internationally, American Revolutionary Vanguard is established for building a unified resistance front among all groups, organizations and movements opposed to the common enemies.

2. American Revolutionary Vanguard is non-partisan, non-ideological, non-racial and non-denominational. Our allies and supporters may come from any political party, ideological background, ethnic group or religion. We make no distinction on the basis of gender, nationality, sexual identity, physical disabilities, cultural identity, age or class origins.

4. American Revolutionary Vanguard seeks to network with and form alliances with all groups and individuals engaged in active resistance including decentralists, non-supremacist separatists, constitutionalists, autonomists, patriots, populists, anti-corporate libertarians, anarchists, sovereigns, common law advocates, regionalists, anti-state conservatives, non-statist nationalists, agorists, mutualists, syndicalists, individualists, guild socialists, council communists, individualist anarchists, collectivist anarchists, national anarchists, municipalists, Georgists, farmer liberationists, agrarians, radical traditionalists, micronationalists, Luddites, radical environmentalists, deep ecologists, non-reactionary third postionists, geonomists, geolibertarians, libertarian socialists, non-racist militias, anarcha-feminists, libertarian feminists, queer activists, anti-globalists and non-statist class struggle advocates of every kind.

10. American Revolutionary Vanguard supports the development of cooperatives and guilds for the provision of affordable health care to the poor and workers, care for the sick and elderly, provision of reliable information to consumers and the organizing of tenants in opposition to slumlords and public housing authorities without reliance on statist, classist “zoning” laws, “building codes”, “land use” regulations and other forms of government interference.

14. American Revolutionary Vanguard works for the creation of special organizations for the defense and protection of youth, students, runaways, the homeless, the mentally ill, street vendors and other small-time enteprenuers, prisoners, addicts and prostitutes. These classes of persons are the most victimized and brutalized by the present system and are therefore in need of special assistance and recognition of their plight.

15. American Revolutionary Vanguard works for the abolition of all laws criminalizing consensual adult behaviors including drug laws, gun laws, sex laws, prohibition of alternative medical treatments, prohibition of suicide, seat belt and motorcycle helmet laws, zoning laws, involuntary civil committment and drinking ages. Only acts of physical aggression against other people and their possessions can justly be considered crimes.

16. American Revolutionary Vanguard supports the abolition of jails and prisons which are simply the modern version of slavery. Persons who do minor harms to others should be required to compensate the victims in some way with economic sanctions being the primary means of enforcement. Serious criminals should be sent to separate, penal communities where they will work ordinary jobs, live in ordinary housing, wear ordinary clothes, etc. but pay restitution to compensate victims and finance whatever supervision they may require.

22. American Revolutionary Vanguard seeks dialogue and mutually advantageous cooperation with non-political outlaw organizations including street gangs, motorcycle clubs and prison gangs. We applaud those organizations of this type who have negotiated truces among themselves and who have sought to take up political struggle. We seek similar dialogue and cooperation with non-political, non-governmental clubs, leagues, orders, guilds, unions, fraternities and sororities of every kind.

24.American Revolutionary Vanguard opposes all military aggression by the government of the United States against other nations. The natural allies of American revolutionaries are nationalist, separatist, anti-globalist, populist, anarchist, libertarian and class struggle movements throughout the world. The peoples of the earth who desire sovereignty for themselves are asked to support the struggle of domestic American revolutionaries, whether they be Arabic or Islamic nationalists, European separatists, anarchists or anti-globalists, indigenous peoples everwhere and Latin American rebel forces.

It’s a little hard to imagine what could be more inclusive than this. In the essay “Liberty and Populism” I wrote:

“…our core creed must be “Anarchy First!” applied within context of decentralism, populism and libertarianism. Here is a set of potential “first principles” for an anarchist-led libertarian-populism:

1. Minimal and decentralized government organized on the basis of community sovereignty and federalism.
2. A worker-based, cooperative economy functioning independently of the state, the corporate infrastructure and central banking.
3. A radically civil libertarian legal system ordered on the basis of individual sovereignty, individual rights and restitutive justice.
4. A neutralist, non-interventionist foreign policy and a military defense system composed of decentralized, voluntary militia confederations.
5. A system of cultural pluralism organized on the basis of voluntary association, civil society, localism, regionalism, decentralism and mutual aid.
6. The achievement of the above through an all-fronts strategy of grassroots local organizing, local electoral action, secession, civil disobedience, militant strikes and boycotts, organized tax resistance, alternative infrastructure and armed struggle.”

“…we have not even begun to touch on the possibilities for building a radical movement rooted in part in marginalized social groups ignored, despised or persecuted by the establishment. These elements include the handicapped, the mentally ill, students, youth, prostitutes and other sex workers, prisoners, prisoner’s rights activists, advocates for the rights of the criminally accused, the homeless and homeless activists, anti-police activists, advocates of alternative medicine, drug users, the families of drug war prisoners, immigrants, lumpen economic elements (jitney cab drivers, peddlers, street vendors), gang members and many others too numerous to name. On these and other similar issues, our positions should be to the left of the ACLU. Adopting this approach will bring with it the opportunity to politically penetrate the rather large lumpenproletarian class that exists in the US with little or no political representation. At the same time, the last thing we should wish to do is emulate the mistakes of the new left by adopting an ideology of victimology and positioning ourselves as antagonists of the broader working masses. Nothing could be more self-defeating. The defense of marginal populations way beyond any efforts in this area offered by the left establishment should be part of our program, but only part. Our main focus should be on the working class itself, the kinds of folks who work in the vast array of service industries that comprise the bulk of the US economy.”

“…It is of the utmost importance that the working masses view us as the champions of their economic interests. Nothing less will be sufficient. Our populist coalition must include rank and file blue collar workers, working class taxpayers, union members, small businessmen, farmers, the self-employed, the urban poor, single moms and the homeless. We do this not by promising entitlement rights to all, but by eliminating state-imposed obstacles to economic self-determination and self-sufficiency, placing state or state-corporate industries and services directly into the hands of the workers and consumers, developing alternative economic arrangements independently of the state, eliminating taxes from the bottom up and gradually phasing out archaic state-assistance programs, with poverty relief and social security programs being the last to go once the corporate state has been fully dismantled. This is precisely the opposite of the “cut taxes and regulations at the top, eliminate subsidies to the bottom” approach favored by the right-wing corporatists. Our approach should be “cut taxes and regulations at the bottom, eliminate subsidies to the top”. On these matters, authentic fiscal conservatives and authentic class war militants should be able to agree. We should describe our economic program as neither “conservative” nor “socialist” but as simple “economic justice”.

“There are indeed many areas where the radical Left and the radical Right have much in common. One obvious area of possible collaboration would be opposition to imperialist warfare and military interventionism on behalf of ruling class interests. Another is on libertarian-populist economic issues of the type mentioned above. There is certainly no reason why the libertarian-left cannot endorse the civil liberties issues of the right such as freedom of religious practice, the right to have homeschools, Second Amendment rights against the gun-grabbers, personal property rights against eminent domain and asset forfeiture laws, opposition to the use of anti-racketeering laws to harass anti-abortion activists, abusively anti-male “child support” and other divorce-related laws, speech codes, self-defense rights, tax resistance, intrusive zoning, licensing, or environmental laws and so on.

Once again, it is difficult to imagine what could possibly be more inclusive than what is outlined above. Racism?

The matter of implementing such a settlement to America’s historic ethnic divides brings with it certain complications. The “pro-white” aspects of the settlement proposed above would be simple enough to enact. It is merely a matter of repealing particular laws (like antidiscrimination statutes) and policies (like affirmative action) and ending subsidies to particular interests (like “minority set asides”). The “pro-black” aspects of the settlement are a little more difficult. On the question of sovereignty, various black nationalist factions have proposed widely divergent ideas. It would seem that the best approach would be one that involved the least amount of disruption possible. Some years ago, the Peoples’ Democratic Uhuru Movement proposed that the majority black section of St. Petersburg, Florida be separated from the rest of the city into a sovereign municipality. There is no reason why such an arrangement could not be put into place in all American cities with sizable black sections. The only serious criticism of this approach is that the disconnected black communities might degenerate into Bantustans of the type the former South Africa was famous for. At least a partial solution to this problem would be for sovereign black muncipalities and their satellite towns and villages to be federated into larger “black nationalist” states on a national or regional basis. There is certainly sufficient precedent for such a territorially disconnected nation. One need only think of the United Kingdom at its height with its scattered island states and protectorates.

Civil liberties, police powers, and incarcerated persons?

It is well-known that the United States maintains the world’s largest prison population. More than one quarter of all the world’s prisoners reside in US prisons. A grossly disproportionate number of these are blacks or other minorities. A comprehensive amnesty program is essential to any serious effort to dismantle the US Leviathan state. As a model for amnesty, we might look to that implemented by Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq, prior to the commencement of the current war. Most prisoners were given full amnesty, foreign spies excepted. Thieves were pardoned on the condition of victim restitution. Even violent criminals had their sentences communted if the victim or the victim’s mother agreed to a pardon. If this was good enough for Saddam Hussein, it ought to be good enough for anti-state radicals in North America. Under such a general amnesty, the only remaining prisoners would be those who refused to compensate victims or whose crimes were serious enough to discourage the victim from granting a pardon. The rest of the prison population, from tax evaders to drug vendors to owners of “illegal” firearms to those convicted of violations of arcane regulatory statutes, would simply be cleared out. Likewise, those imprisoned for self-defense, whether against common criminals or the government (for example, Leonard Peltier, the surviving Branch Davidians or those resisting “no-knock” raids) should also be granted amnesty. Additionally, panels of legal experts should be commissioned to review the cases of those convicted of even the most serious crimes. Given the notorious incompetence of the US legal system, it is likely a significant number of these are innocent.

On crime, I propose the following approach: We should be tough on crime, but equally tough on cops, courts and laws. On the issues of legal restrictions on the investigative and arrest powers of the police, the powers of the courts to prosecute the accused and impose sentences, and the powers of penal institutions to hold incarcerated persons and the conditions they are held under, we should take positions as “liberal” as those of the ACLU, the National Lawyers Guild and beyond. However, when it comes to the right of private citizens to keep and bear arms, to use them in defense against criminals and to form private organizations (neighborhood watches, militias, posses, private security guard services, vigilance committees and common law courts) for the purpose of mutual self-protection against crime (including government crime), we should take positions as “conservative” as the Gun Owners of America, the Michigan Militia and beyond.

Now, we would not want to interfere with general free speech rights by prohibiting panhandling. Nor would we want to interfere with geuninely poor or disabled people, runaways kids or others who wish to be peaceful beggars. Nor do we want to kowtow to bourgeoise elements who object to the presence of such lumpen elements as an “eyesore”, “blight” or, more specifically, a perceived threat to real estate values. We certainly do not want to turn public streets into “Official Police Property”.

The perspective offered here is far more “liberal” than anything put forth by the Democratic Party or even the Green Party in many instances. Indeed, this outlook could be classified as “rightist” only in the sense that it rejects univeralism, utopianism, and radical egalitarianism, and the necessarily and inevitably totalitarian nature of these. As for the question of “what the process of building such an alliance, and the terms on which allies might ally themselves with each other, looks like”, this is from “Philosophical Anarchism and the Death of Empire“:

Indeed, domestic American politics tends to be driven by single-issue movements and organizations rather than ideological ones. Raw ideology pushers tend to find little success in US politics. With this consideration in mind, the question becomes one of how to best formulate a successful single-issue anti-state movement. Several possible constituents for such a movement have already been discussed. The emergence of a single issue anti-state party or organization that included the agendas of each of the various localist and regionalist movements would likely be a good start. There is no reason why there cannot be a party, or alliance of parties, that simultaneously favors the independence of Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Texas, the South, numerous local communities, and religion/ethnicity based separatists like the Nation of Islam, Christian Identity, Aztlan, indigneous peoples and others. Such advocacy of regional/local autonomy should be accompanied by an emphasis on populist structural changes. Norman Mailer’s suggestion of decentralizing the governments of large metropolitan areas down to the neighborhood level coincides nicely with the objective of sovereign townships or county supremacy found in the patriot/constitutionalist milieu.

The efforts of the American Civil Liberties Union to defend the civil rights of all sorts of groups who come under attack from the state, ranging from neo-nazis to pornographers, might also be emulated. There are many such groups who are currently ignored by mainstream political organizations. These include home schoolers, “cults” or marginal religious denominations, intentional communities, so-called “hate” groups, prisoners and their families, opponents of the war on drugs, gun rights militants, tax resisters and many others. It is important to remember that a movement for political decentralization should employ a decentralized strategy. This means that the same tactics will not be appropriate in all situations. For example, anarchists working in urban or metropolitan areas should naturally take a political line that is considerable further to the left than anarchists working in rural areas or among more conservative population groups. The anti-racist/feminist/gay rights cultural paradigm that dominates the modern left might well be applicable in those communities that it is suited for, such as large cities with huge minority populations and where the prevailing values are cosmospolitan in nature. However, this would clearly not be an appropriate model for rural Kansas. For anarchists to persistently push “the right to bear arms” in liberal Connecticutt would probably be a waste of time. For anarchists to agitate for gay causes in small Tennessee towns would likewise be rather futile. So-called “extremists” from all points on the political spectrum might be rallied as the core constituents of the anti-System forces.

It is essential to remember that the anarchist movement itself (properly and constructively organized) is not necessarily a mass movement per se but only the intellectual and activist vanguard of a broader populist movement containing many different tendencies. The role of the anarchists is serve as the coordinating mediators conceived of by Mark Gillespie or the principled militants envisioned by Mikhail Bakunin. The decentralized organizational efforts of the anarchists would necessarily involve a scenario where the character of the anti-System movement varied considerably in its specific ideological, cultural, religious or ethnic orientation on a geographical or institutional basis. Across the American heartland, in the Deep South and in the mountainous regions, the anarchists might assemble a coalition of tax resisters, home schoolers, gun nuts, conspiracy theorists, pro-lifers, Christian fundamentalists, common law enthusiasts, farmers rights advocates, land rights advocates, “cults”, racists, libertarians, militiamen and other elements common to the political culture of rightwing populism. In large metropolitan centers, inner-cities, border areas and coastal regions, a similar coalition might include militants and separatists from the various minority groups, advocates for all sorts of class based social issues (gentrification, housing, environment), gays and other “sexual minorities”, all sorts of countercultural groups, students, street gangs and other official outlaws, communists, left-wing “anarchists” and others.

Among the affluent elements of American society, such as the realm of suburbia, it is probably best if the ranks of the revolutionaries draw heavily from the youth population. Opposition to the great oppressor of youth-the state’s school systems-might be the key issue. It is also important to note that class distinctions in modern liberal democratic states are somewhat more blurred than they may have been in previous times. Any authentic populist revolutionary movement would naturally have to include persons from all class levels. The task of the genuine anarchists, who will always be a small minority, even in Official Anarchist circles, is to coordinate and guide formal and informal alliances among such disparate groups. The kinds of issue and ideology based constituent groups being described here would provide the grassroots base for the broader anarchist agenda. But there remains the question of how to appeal to the broader public. A party/organization that combined local and regional autonomy, defense of social groups under attack by the state, recruited disparate elements from the cultural fringes as its activist/support base and maintained a decentralized infrastructure would also have to develop a populist program for the masses.

What my enemies and critics really object to is my refusal to endorse their program of cultural leftist universalism synthesized with mass immigration (which are incompatible goals anyway, and not particularly radical or anti-establishment goals) and not any lack of “inclusivity.”

Says one of my critics:

“…my problem with Keith Preston’s approach is not that he suggests identifying and allying with criminalized, marginalized, or lumpen people. My problem is, first, that he has what I consider a disastrously selective view of whose criminalization and marginalization counts as legitimate libertarian concern (=). And, secondly, that he has the wrong idea about what the process of building such an alliance, and the terms on which allies might ally themselves with each other, looks like.

(=) Hence, for example, his bizarre efforts coddle pseudo-populist Right-wingers who support the immigration police state and the mass criminalization of people without papers. Whereas on my view, if you’re concerned about identifying with the most criminalized, marginalized, exploited and oppressed, it would be harder to find a better place to start than with standing up for the rights of “illegal alien” workers confronting the border Stasi without government papers.”

The first problem here is the fact that the Stasi were oriented towards keeping people inside the German Democratic Republic, rather than keeping immigrants out, and repressing political dissent among East Germany’s captive native population. Beyond that, however, is the wider question of whether immigration limitation by itself requires a police state. No doubt there are plenty of anti-immigration enthusiasts who would like nothing better than a police state hunt-down of suspected illegal immigrants. No doubt the militarization of U.S. law enforcement generated by the various “Wars on…” (pick one) drugs, crime, guns, gangs, terrorism, vice, cults, racism, sexism, poverty, urban blight, child abuse, animal abuse, et. al. ad nauseum has at times included police state tactics in immigration enforcement as well (see the shenanigans of Uber-PIG Joe Arpaio).

But is a fascist police state essential to the restriction or limitation of immigration? Iceland  and Switzerland are among the most restrictive of the European nations concerning their immigration policies. Yet both of these are widely considered to be among the most progressive and libertarian of all nations anywhere. Iceland has no standing army, and bars nuclear weapons from its territory. Neither of them maintains the death penalty, and neither will extradite fugitives to the U.S. who may face capital punishment. Some years ago, an Icelandic court refused to extradite a fugitive to the U.S. because of the conditions found in U.S prisons. Switzerland is one of the world’s most non-belligerent nations. There are certainly no signs of fascism here.

Does immigration restriction even require a state of any kind? If the Spanish anarchist militias had been triumphant in the civil war, could they not have proceeded to safeguard the borders of the Spanish territory following victory? The Hezbollah militia of Lebanon is a non-state entity, yet it is an effective fighting force. Hezbollah is not only capable of guarding the Lebanese border, but of repelling an actual Israeli occupation. Likewise, the Armed Forces of the Colombian Revolution are a non-state entity, yet they have at times successfully held substantial portions of Colombian territory. Could not the FARC also safeguard its territorial boundaries?

What about all of the different kinds of territories within the United States itself where entry is restricted? These include industrial parks, office complexes, shopping centers, schools and universities, recreational facilities, country clubs, gated communities, stadiums, private neighborhoods, airports, bars and nightclubs, and private homes. All of these territories impose at least some degree of limitations on who may or may not enter. Those who do not buy a ticket are forbidden from entering theaters and stadiums. Those who do not pay a cover charge or have an ID are refused admission to bars. Those without a membership are denied entry to private clubs. Entry into schools is typically restricted to students, parents, employees, and others with authorized business. Even ordinary commercial facilities impose some minimal requirements for entry: “Shirts and Shoes Required”; “No Smoking”; “No Playing Loud Music”; “No Pets or Animals”; “No Rude or Aggressive Behavior.”

Of course, it might be argued that all of the aforementioned are private or semi-private institutions and organizations, as opposed to public streets, sidewalks, thoroughfares, lands, waterways, and airways. Yet most of these things are currently owned not by “the public” but by the state, which anarchists and the most radical libertarians ostensibly consider to be illegitimate. If the state were to disappear, into whose hands would such “public” areas fall? The anarcho-capitalist solution is to place these in the hands of private landowners, whether individual or collective in nature. The geo-anarchists prefer land trusts. Left-anarchists and libertarian-municipalists would prefer community control on the basis of some kind of Athenian model “direct democracy.” Syndicalists might prefer that all public services be put under “workers’ control,” meaning that, for instance, public streets and highways would be under the management of the highway workers’ and street maintenance workers’ unions. Mutualists might prefer “consumer control,” meaning, for instance, airports might be managed by, say, associations of frequent flyers or consumers of airline services. Whatever model or combination of models one prefers, it is quite possible that at least some of these kinds of entities would enact entry requirements at least as restrictive as those currently in existence.

There are other possibilities. Upon the demise of the state, perhaps all public properties and areas could be ceded to “squatters’ rights.” The first person to show up and pitch a tent on a piece of land in Yellowstone Park gets to keep the lot. Perhaps all public areas could simply be declared “No Man’s Lands” akin to present day Antarctica or remote desert or mountainous regions. Perhaps these might be areas where everything is a free-for-all, and where even ordinary criminal laws do not apply. I confess that if such a proposal came up for vote in a national referendum, the nihilist in me might well take over and I might not be able to resist the impulse to vote in favor of it. But how many people really think this would be a desirable state of affairs?

Either way, from where can the principle be deduced that a stateless or near-stateless society, nation, or territory would necessarily maintain unrestricted entry? Even if public areas were “No Man’s Lands” could not a xenophobic militia simply organize and drive away unwanted migrants? In contemporary Western-model societies, much of the mass immigration we presently observe is not simply occurring according to natural patterns of population movement, but is actively encouraged, promoted, and subsidized by the state. See here and here for some examples of how this works. I suspect this trend could be reversed if the support given to mass immigration by state and corporate policies was simply ended. Much of this immigration is economic in nature. Take away the economic incentives, and the overall amount of immigration should diminish. Indeed, there are some signs that the present economic situation is having such an effect.

I’m not going to go into the problems with allowing mass immigration from the Third World into the West. I’ve already written about that in the past and have really said all I have to say about the matter. See here and here. Critics already understand the potentially rather severe consequences of this. Proponents of mass immigration generally make it clear that they don’t care about the consequences. But when Islamic revolutionary parties start becoming competitive in European elections, and there’s a replay of the Mexican War complete with good old fashioned ethnic cleansing in the U.S. Southwest, don’t say us dirty, rotten, fascist, racist, nationalist, right-wing, reactionary, xenophobic bigots didn’t warn you. 

Some interesting articles on immigration:

How Can An Armenian-American Oppose Immigration? It’s Easy! by John Attarian

Liberalism and America’s Immigration Policy by John Attarian

Beyond Open or Closed Borders by Laurence Vance

Immigration Symposium by David Gordon

Nader on Immigration by Matt Welch

An American Indian View of Immigration by David Yeagley

From the Great Society to the Great Betrayal by Rob Freeman

Switzerland: A Model for America on Immigration by Srdja Trifkovic

Why Read the Sunday Papers When You Can Read AttacktheSystem.Com!

Community Organizing and National-Anarchism presentation by Andrew Yeoman

Tribal Anarchism Video Series Parts One, Two, Three, Four

United Anarchism Vs United Nationism 

Quotes of the Week:

“Genuine tragedies in the world are not conflicts between right and wrong. They are conflicts between two rights.”

“Governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deducted from it.”

“Mere goodness can achieve little against the power of nature.”

“Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion.”

“Once the state has been founded, there can no longer be any heroes. They come on the scene only in uncivilized conditions.”

                                                                         -Georg Wihelm Friedrich Hegel
 
First Circle: Liberty Has Been Lost by Paul Craig Roberts

Faith in the System is at an All-Time Low by David Brooks

Interview: Taylor Somers of Occident from Amerika.Org

Feminist Gulag: No Prosecution Necessary by Stephen Baskerville

The American Elite by William Blum

Small Government Conservatives Who Worship the State by Kevin Carson

Full-Spectrum Civilian Disarmament by William Norman Grigg

Three Cheers for the Swiss by Paul Green

Fake “Journalist” Defends a Forgery by Justin Raimondo

Nuclear Poker With Iran by Pat Buchanan

The War on Terrorism Is About Scaring People, Not Protecting Them by Gary Younge

The Pictures of War You Aren’t Supposed to See by Chris Hedges

The Long War: Who’s Winning?…It Ain’t America by Justin Raimondo

Robert Owen: Welsh Radical and Co-operative Pioneer by Troy Southgate

A War We Can’t Afford by Doug Bandow

Serial Catastrophes in Afghanistan Threaten Obama Policy by Juan Cole

The Fear Decade: We’ve Embraced Our Inner Coward by Ted Rall

They Hate Us for Our Freedom by Glenn Greenwald

Gerald Celente’s Predictions for 2010 by Amy Judd

Protect the Children: Shut Down the Schools by Jerome Kohn

Our Prole-Inducing Public Schools by R.C. Murray

Understanding the “Unserious Empire” by Karen Kwiatkowski

New Hampshire Looks to Nullify Federal Gun Laws by Michael Boldin

Stop the Western Left Before It Kills Again by Robert Lindsay

Are U.S. Forces Executing Afghan Kids? by Dave Lindorff

The Ugly Fortress  by Patrick Cockburn

Revenge and Retaliation in Gaza by Lynda Brayer

How China’s Attempts to Censor the Internet Are Failing from Techdirt

Bummer by Cheryl Cline

The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves by Thomas Knapp

You Are In Control by John Robb

Presidential Lunacy by Walter Williams

Yet Another Reason to Secede by Patrick Samuels

The CIA, Narcotics, and the Underworld Doug Valentine interviewed by Susan Mazur

The Food Crisis for Dummies by Eric deCarbonnel

CIA Killings Spell Defeat in Afghanistan by Doug Valentine

First It Was Cigarettes, Now It’s Food by J.H. Huebert

Your Kids Belong to Us by William Norman Grigg

France to Ban “Psychological Violence” by David Kramer

Marijuana Reform for Czechs by Manuel Lora

Drones to Patrol the Skies Above American Cities by Charles Featherstone

Joan Rivers Barred from Flying by David Kramer

More Than 40,000 New Laws by Manuel Lora

Old Blackwater Keeps On Rollin’ by Jeff Huber

Where’s the Beef, Mr. Murdoch? by Philip Giraldi

Counterterrorism in Shambles; Why? by Ray McGovern and Coleen Howley

A Dual System of Justice by Jacob Hornberger

Good Morning, Yemen? by Leon Hadar

Another Iranian Revolution? Not Likely by Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett

Bodyscanning Captain Underpants by Julian Sanchez

Civilian Trials and the So-Called Rule of Law by Glenn Greenwald

History Will Judge War on Terror Architects by Olivia Ward

Getting Away With Torture by David Cole

Vanunu: Our Duty to Speak Up by Duncan Campbell

Peter Hitchens and the British National Party by Bede

Ron Paul Slaps Down Dick Cheney by Red Phillips

Steve Forbes to Endorse Rand Paul by Red Phillips

The War on Afghanistan’s Environment by Josh Frank

The Media Vultures by Ramzy Baroud

Panic in Needle Park: Return of the Fear Mongers by Anthony Papa

When Does It Become Genocide? by Nadia Hijab

Dennis Steele for Vermont Governor in 2010 by Matthew Cropp

More Than Left and Right by James Leroy Wilson

Rapists on Patrol by Rad Geek

From Anarcho-Capitalist to Libertarian Socialist by Francois Tremblay

The Sheriff is Coming! The Sheriff is Coming! by Katherine Mangu-Ward

That’ll Show ‘Em by Kevin Carson

Ben Franklin on Patents  by Sheldon Richman

The Backfiring of the Surveillance State by Glenn Greenwald

The Collapse of Elite Authority from Armed and Dangerous

Only the Guilty Need Fear-But We’re All Guilty by Kevin Carson

Anarchy 2010: The Time Is Now by Alex R. Knight III

The Coming Food Shortage by Arthur Sim

It’s Illegal Not to Be a Government Victim by Bill Sardi

33 Conspiracy Stories That Turned Out to Be True by Jonathan Elinoff

The CIA, AFL-CIO, and Drug Smuggling by Doug Valentine

The Big Blue Crime Wave by William Norman Grigg

Heroin High School by James Ostrowski

Perverted Police by William Norman Grigg

John Stockwell vs the CIA by Lew Rockwell

Anarcho-Africa by John James

Yet Again: Don’t Call 911 and Don’t Help the PIGS by William Norman Grigg

Our Stupid Foreign Policy by Jack Hunter

More Cause and Effect In Our Ever Expanding War by Glenn Greenwald

The Naked Truth About Airport Scanners by Steve Chapman

What’s the Difference Between Obama’s Anti-Terrorism Policies and Bush’s? by Jacob Sullum

Afghan Nobody Faces Trial By Military Commission by Andy Worthington

Acting Responsible  by Alexander Cockburn

How the Teamsters Beat Goldman-Sachs by Andrew Cockburn

Giving the Homeless the Cold Shoulder by Walter Brasch

Pakistan and the Afghan Insurgency by Brian M. Downing

Naked Empire by Saul Landau

Officer Involvement from Rad Geek

Chomsky’s Augustinian Anarchism by Roderick Long

Conservatism vs the Past from Rad Geek

The Broken Logic of Statism by Don Cooper

Resistance Is Not Futile by Josh Eboch

Big Government and Big Business: Cojoined Twins by Thomas Knapp

Why Africa Has Gone to Hell by James Jackson

Democracy: Another God That Failed by Pat Buchanan

“The Italians were called wops, the Jews were called hymies, I was of course a greaseball, and every Hispanic was a spic. Well, we all got along famously! It was rough, but it was fine.”

                                                                -Taki Theodoracopulos

They Hate Us for Our Foreign Policy Michael Scheuer interviewed by Scott Horton

Afghanistan and Vietnam Daniel Ellsberg interviewed by Scott Horton

The Permanent Crisis Eric Margolis interviewed by Scott Horton

The Forged Iranian Nuclear Documents George Maschke interviewed by Scott Horton

America, Get It Together Cindy Sheehan interviewed by Scott Horton

How Not to Run a World Empire Philip Giraldi interviewed by Scott Horton

Hastert and Heroin Sibel Edmonds interviewed by Scott Horton

PIGS Will Be PIGS  

How To Flex Your Rights During Police Encounters 

“The “clash of civilizations” is, in a very literal sense, a clash of God and Mammon. The Islamic revolutionaries are driven by a fanatical devotion to their god and the promises they believe he has made to them if only they take up arms on his behalf. The nations of the West are driven by an almost as fanatical devotion to Mammon, that is, to wealth, luxury, power, pleasure and privilege. Further, the culture of the West combines this unabashedly materialist ethos with rejection of strength and discipline in favor of a maternalistic emphasis on health, safety, “sensitivity”, “self-esteem”, “potential”, “personal growth”, “getting in touch with one’s inner child”, “feelings” and other concepts common to pop culture psychobabble. Of course, the socio-cultural ramifications of this is to create a society of weaklings, mediocrities and crybabies.”

                                                                                                   -Keith Preston

Long Time by Angel

Jet Boy by the New York Dolls

Delilah by the Sensational Alex Harvey Band

Please Don’t Judas Me  by Nazareth

Strange Band by Family

Lord Have Mercy On My Soul (Halls of Karma) by Black Oak Arkansas with Ruby Starr

Burnin’ Whiskey by Ruby Starr and Grey Ghost

D.O.A.  by Bloodrock

(hat tip to Chris Donnellan for the following links)

Small Town America’s Growing Voice of Rage Is a Force to Be Reckoned With 

Pareto Redux 

“Racist”-A Word Invented by Leon Trotsky

Pray for Michael Brewer 

No, Obama Isn’t a “Far Leftist” 

Hemp Oil and Cancer 

An Introduction to American Third Position 

Window Cleaning Chemical Injected Into Fast Food Hamburger Meat 

Tolkien and Politics 

U.S. Maoist Says Revolution Is Near 

The Mind-Expanding Harvard Psychedelic Club 

Lawrence Welk Meets Velvet Underground 

Americans Job Satisfaction Falls to Record Low

Keeping the Ruling Junta in Power 

Real Video Footage of Custer Veterans 

Obama-Bernanke Recovery Is Actually a Dangerous Bubble

A Nation of Sheep, Ruled by Wolves, Owned by Pigs

The Revolution Within Anarchism 

Forty Years in the Wilderness? 

Liberty and Populism: Building An Effective Resistance Movement for North America

Organizing the Urban Lumpenproletariat

National Anarchy and the American Idea

“The king is most wounded by ridicule.” -Thomas Hobbes

http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/shoulders-our-freedom-fighters/3085-black-liberation-army-europeans-view.html

The Black Liberation Army (BLA) was a rare phenomenon in the annals of modern American terrorism: a group that intended to kill and did kill multiple times, and that killed with guns rather than bombs. Beginning in 1971 the BLA went to war against the police in several big cities across the country. Its members ambushed patrolmen and assaulted police stations in an effort to expel the “pigs” from their communities. In turn the BLA guerrillas were intensively hunted, and many were killed or wounded in shoot-outs with the authorities. Even from jail they continued the war, organizing escape attempts and freeing captured comrades. In later years remnants of the BLA robbed banks and armored cars, shooting guards and police officers who resisted. Their last job left a bloody mess at an on-ramp to the New York State Thruway on October 21, 1981.

Origins

Rule number six of the Black Panther Party (BPP) stated that “No party member can join any other army force, other than the Black Liberation Army.” The rules were drawn up in 1968, about two years after the founding of the Panthers, and BLA clandestine units were probably first established in that year. But these were self-defense squads; they did not engage in offensive actions at the start or issue communiqués. While some Black Panthers were involved in police shootings by the late 1960s, or engaged in crime or fought with rival groups, this violence did not rise to the level of terrorism. The BLA only turned to terrorism when the Black Panther Party was coming apart, in the first months of 1971.  The split occurred when Huey Newton, Minister of Defense of the BPP, expelled Eldridge Cleaver and his followers in the New York branch of the party. The rift in part reflected philosophical differences — Newton was pulling back from armed struggle in 1971 while Cleaver believed that the war had already begun. But the clash also stemmed from personal jealousies, and it was intensified by government manipulation. The FBI’s COINTELPRO (Counter-Intelligence Program) initiative spread false rumors within the party and inflamed the suspicions of the two camps. Newton ousted the Cleaver faction on February 26, 1971, and the two groupings soon drew blood from one another. On March 9 the West Coast Panthers assassinated Robert Webb, a Cleaver loyalist. The East Coast Panthers retaliated on April 17, killing Samuel Napier, the circulation manager of Newton’s paper. Napier was bound, shot, and then set on fire by men who would begin a war with the police a few weeks later in the name of the BLA.

These men were loyal to Cleaver, but Cleaver did not direct the BLA or participate in its actions. At the time he was living in exile in Algeria as head of the International Section of the Panthers. He would return to the United States in 1975, become a born-again Christian a year later, and eventually join the Republican Party. But in 1971 Cleaver and his allies believed that “we have to fight a revolutionary struggle for the violent overthrow of the United States government and the total destruction of the racist, capitalist, imperialist, neo-colonialist power structure.” Blacks were living in Babylon, slaves to a fascist despot bent on the genocidal destruction of peoples of color across the globe. They had to fight back, “forcing all those responsible for oppression to realize that they too can bleed, they too can feel our pain. Only when this is realized … will we be conceded our right to self-determination.”  A prison poem by one of the captured BLA guerrillas suggests the logic of armed struggle:

i believe a people wronged
are duty bound to make it right
valid claims long gone unanswered
justifies the fight.
“Liberation and Land”
is my slogan
war without terms
on the ruling class
no pie for me, you see
i want some ass
Off the Pigs!

War without terms commenced on May 19, 1971, the birth date of Malcolm X. Two officers guarding the residence of the prosecutor in the Panther 21 trial were lured into a trap. A car drove the wrong way down the street and the squad car gave chase. A few blocks away someone in the fleeing vehicle opened fire with an automatic weapon, seriously wounding both officers. Two days later the press received the first communiqué from the BLA:

The armed goons of the racist government will again meet the guns of oppressed third world peoples as long as they occupy our community and murder our brothers and sisters in the name of American law and order. Just as the fascist marines and Army occupy Vietnam in the name of democracy and murder Vietnamese people in the name of American imperialism are confronted with the guns of the Vietnamese liberation army, the domestic armed forces of racism and oppression will be confronted with the guns of the black liberation army, who will meet out in the tradition of Malcolm and all true revolutionaries real justice.

That very day, May 21, the BLA struck again. Two patrolmen were ambushed outside a public housing development in Harlem, struck from behind and at close range with automatic-weapons fire. Both were killed. One of the officers was black — a traitor to his people according to the BLA.
Two weeks later, on June 5, there was a break in the case. Four men were arrested during an armed robbery at a private social club in the Bronx. Three of the men were BLA members and had been indicted for the murder of Sam Napier. Ballistic tests on their submachine gun revealed that it had been used in the May 19 shooting. The next attacks claimed by the BLA came in late August, after the death of “Soledad Brother” George Jackson during a prison breakout. Jackson was an articulate and fiery advocate of armed struggle, revered by far-left revolutionaries. Although three guards had their throats slit during Jackson’s escape attempt, his advocates insisted that Jackson had been set up or killed in cold blood.

Weatherman bombed the California State Department of Corrections after Jackson’s slaying, harming no one, but the BLA wanted blood. Several BLA members belonged to the Panther 21, and the Panther 21 had chastised Weatherman for its bloodless terrorism. The Panther defendants insisted that “just to be ready to die does not make a revolutionist.” Militants “MUST be ready to KILL to change conditions. Revolution is ARMED STRUGGLE — revolution is VIOLENCE — revolution is WAR — revolution is BLOODSHED.”

Acting on this philosophy, a black man walked into the Ingleside police station in San Francisco on the night of August 29, 1971, and fired a shot-gun blast into the chest of the desk sergeant, killing him instantly. Outside, his accomplices peppered the station with gun fire, wounding a female clerk. Two days later the authorities received a note claiming the assault in the name of the BLA. A communiqué published in Cleaver’s journal Right On warned that “if one drop of Black Blood is shed, the sons and daughters of Malcolm will rise and pig blood will flow like a river wherever pigs exist. Woe unto those who cannot swim.”

But it is not clear whether the San Francisco assailants were connected with the New York BLA. The Black Liberation Army was not a disciplined and hierarchical unit able to coordinate attacks across the country. Rather, it was a concept and a name which black militants could employ to communicate their agenda and express solidarity with other African Americans engaged in armed struggle. The label was not trade-marked and the BLA issued no membership cards. You were in the BLA if you took up the gun and used it in the name of the organization.

The San Francisco BLA perpetrated other attacks during the last week in August. It fired a 66 mm. anti-tank gun at the Mission police station and firebombed a branch of Bank of America. Two militants pulled alongside a squad car and tried to spray it with an automatic weapon, but the gun jammed. They were captured and the pistol of one of the officers killed on May 21 in New York was found in their possession. Meanwhile the New York section of the BLA fled the city in late summer to escape the intense manhunt. They rented two houses in Atlanta, stockpiled weapons and explosives, produced false identification, and trained daily in the yards. They also robbed banks and stores to raise funds for the war. Three of them were captured on November 7 during a holdup in a supermarket; they were suspected of having killed an Atlanta police officer four days earlier. But before the investigation was concluded the three managed to escape from the DeKalb County jail on December 12.

After the arrests in Georgia, the Atlanta cell scattered. On November 11, several were stopped by a sheriff’s deputy in Catawba County, North Carolina. The deputy was shot and killed but four BLA suspects were captured after a chase. On December 20, a patrol car in Queens was demolished by a grenade as it pursued a BLA vehicle. The officers were not injured by the explosion but the suspects escaped. On the last day of December another BLA member was cornered by FBI agents at a Florida motel and gunned down in an exchange of fire.

But on January 28, 1972, the BLA once again took the offensive. Two NYPD officers were ambushed on the Lower East Side, cut down by submachine-gun fire. The assailants stood over the fallen officers and emptied their magazines into the bodies. Shortly thereafter the authorities received a communication from the George Jackson Squad of the Black Liberation Army:

No longer will black people tolerate Attica and oppression and exploitation and rape of our black community. This is the start of our spring offensive. There is more to come. We also dealt with the pigs in Brooklyn.

The last sentenced referred to two recent incidents in which officers had been wounded by unknown attackers. The BLA next showed up in St. Louis on February 15. A gun battle erupted during a routine traffic stop and one officer was wounded. Others returned fire, killing one suspect and wounding two more. A search of the car turned up one of the pistols taken from the officers who were ambushed on January 28.

But then the trail went cold for almost a year. January 1973, however, was a bloody month. On the twelfth a BLA suspect wounded two off-duty housing detectives in New York. Twelve days later the NYPD cornered three BLA members at a bar, killing two in the shoot-out. In retaliation, the BLA ambushed patrol cars on January 25 and 28, wounding four officers. In its communiqué the BLA urged black cops “not to take arms against us and refuse to be pitted in mortal combat against their own people, defending a system which has enslaved, still exploits, brutalizes and murders black people.”

Another huge manhunt followed, but suspects were only captured after a traffic stop on the New Jersey Turnpike on May 2, 1973. The BLA fugitives opened fire, killing one state trooper and wounding another. Other troopers returned fire, killing one man and wounding a woman. A third suspect escaped. The woman was a reputed leader of the BLA, Joanne Chesimard (Assata Shakur). The authorities dubbed her “the soul of the Black Liberation Army.” But the organization was not broken yet. On June 5, 1973, a BLA member was chased by transit authority police in the Bronx for jumping the turnstile. He drew a gun, killing one patrolman and wounding the other. But the dying officer returned fire and hit the suspect, who was captured shortly thereafter.

The first phase in the life of the BLA came to an end on November 15, 1973, when one of the last BLA fugitives was gunned down on a street in the Bronx. During the arrest he pulled a gun and wounded an FBI agent, two police officers, and a bystander before being killed in a hail of bullets. He was the seventh BLA member to be killed by the authorities. Nineteen others had been apprehended by then, including the only white associate of the group, Marilyn Buck. She purchased weapons and ammunition for the BLA at gun shows but was arrested in March 1973.

In 1974 a group in Jacksonville, Florida, began abducting and murdering white youths. The group took credit for the killings in the name of the Black Liberation Army, declaring that the victims were “executed and made to pay for the political crimes that have been perpetrated upon black people.” But this BLA was not connected with the New York BLA and the four members were caught and convicted for the murders in 1975.

Busting Out

The second phase in the BLA’s war was fought in courtrooms, jails, and prisons. Several BLA members were acquitted or had charges dismissed or reduced, but most were convicted and received long sentences. Many did not resign themselves to this new Babylonian captivity, however. They plotted with comrades on the outside and made numerous attempts to escape. Several were successful. One BLA prisoner escaped from a county hospital on September 27, 1973, but he was recaptured a week later. On December 27, four BLA sympathizers were caught trying to break into the Tombs through the sewer system. Another four tried again on April 17, 1974, using a small blow torch to cut through a steel partition in a visitor’s booth. The attempt failed and the four fled. Several were tracked to New Haven and captured on May 4 after a shoot-out in which two police officers were wounded. On August 5, 1974, a woman was caught trying to sneak a hacksaw blade in her shoe to a BLA convict. A week later that convict and two other prisoners overpowered their guards and tried to scale a fence at the Brooklyn House of Detention. The BLA prisoner was shot and recaptured.

On February 17, 1975, BLA commandos in wet suits paddled rafts to Rikers Island and tried to free 11 comrades held there, but the attempt failed. On May 12 sympathizers smuggled explosives, mace, knives, wrenches, and lock picks to three BLA members on trial in the New York Criminal Courts Building. The materials were hidden in large envelopes and sat on a courtroom table all day before being discovered in the holding pen. Two weeks later two more BLA members broke free from their cell and tried to climb down a wall at the Brooklyn House of Detention. The improvised rope broke and one escapee plunged 100 feet to his death. The other inmate was recaptured at the outer fence.

There were other attempts too. A prison uprising in New Jersey was organized by a BLA convict. Marilyn Buck walked away from a prison furlough and went back underground. But the most famous escape attempt liberated “the soul of the BLA,” Joanne Chesimard. Several armed men forced their way into the minimum security facility where she was being held and led her out safely. The getaway vehicles were driven by Buck and another white woman from the M-19 organization. Chesimard was then spirited out of the country and into exile in Cuba. Her escape was a media sensation.

The Family

The final phase of the BLA story involves the Family, a mixed group of BLA members, white revolutionaries, and ordinary criminals. They were not an assassination team, as the earlier BLA had been, but instead robbed banks and armored cars. Some of the proceeds from the robberies were funneled to black nationalist groups, but the rest of the money was distributed within the Family.

The Family was headed by Nathanael Burns (Sekou Odinga), one of the Panther 21, who had fled underground in 1969. He was involved in a plot to bomb a police station in New York that summer but the plan was foiled by an undercover agent, who replaced the plastic explosives with an oatmeal concoction. Burns joined Eldridge Cleaver in exile in Algiers. When Cleaver fell out of favor with the Algerians, Burns returned to the United States in January 1974, after most BLA members had been captured. But he remained committed to the cause and helped organize the liberation of Chesimard.
The Family began its robbery spree in December 1976. Its attempts were not always successful, but with practice the sophistication of its attacks grew. The Family recruited a small, white revolutionary organization into its operation. M-19 (May 19 Communist Organization) was formed by a handful of ex-Weathermen (David Gilbert, Kathy Boudin, Susan Rosenberg, and Judith Clark) who remained underground after that organization disintegrated in 1976. M-19 provided cover for the BLA core of the Family; the whites drove the getaway vehicles to fool the authorities, who would be looking for black men.

On June 2, 1981, the Family netted nearly $300,000 from an armored car in the Bronx. But they killed one guard during the robbery and wounded another. The carnage was even greater, however, in their last job. The plan was to rob an armored car at a mall in upstate New York. Some of the proceeds were to be used to bomb a Brooklyn police precinct where one of the BLA members had been held. The robbery started well but ended badly. The gang made off with $1.6 million in cash but killed a guard and wounded two others in the process. A few minutes later the getaway truck was stopped at a roadblock. The white radicals were driving and the blacks burst from the back of the truck with guns blazing. They killed two police officers and wounded another. One of their own was mortally wounded by the return fire, and Marilyn Buck shot herself while pulling a pistol from her boot. The team then piled into several cars, but the one with the cash crashed during the chase and four members of the Family were apprehended. Others were captured in the days to come. The Black Liberation Army had come to an end in a hail of bullets.

Aftermath

Over the course of a decade BLA members killed at least 14 guards or law enforcement officers and wounded more than 20. Nine of their own died in action and more than two dozen were convicted of various crimes. At its height the police believed that the BLA (or at least its New York branch) consisted of 25 or 30 hard-core activists and another 75 sympathizers. Sixteen people belonged to the Family, including the M-19 associates.
Although they had no faith in the criminal justice system, several BLA members were acquitted at trial. Joanne Chesimard’s first trial ended in a hung jury; in the second she was acquitted of bank robbery; but in the third she was convicted of first-degree murder for the shooting of the New Jersey State Trooper. Henry Brown was acquitted for the murder of two police officers in January 1972 but convicted of several other charges. Richard Moore was found guilty in 1973 for the first BLA shooting, but eventually his conviction was thrown out and he was paid a large cash settlement by the government.

All of those involved in the October 1981 Brinks armored car robbery received long prison sentences. A few in the second tier of the Family have been released in recent years, but many participants will not be eligible for parole for several more decades.

__________________
Nov 2, 2009 “Assata Shakur Liberation Day” marks 30 yrs of freedom for our Comrade Assata Shakur, Our Warrior was liberated from a NJ prison by Comrades In The Black Liberation Army click here to read more or here www.assatashakur.com

The Bong and the Rifle

Not all stoners are passive in their loathing of the War on Drugs–the pot-loving Green Panthers are preparing for armed struggle and the possibility of a separate stoner nation. Sound like the plot of Kurt Russel’s next post-apocalyptic flick? Read on

By Cletus Nelson

The tactics used by activists to voice their dissent against the prohibition of marijuana have changed very little since the 1960s. Despite the fact that the drive to legalize cannabis began in an environment that spawned such violent, armed groups as the Weather Underground and the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), today’s hemp advocates are firm adherents to the peaceful protest.

Each year a myriad of non-threatening marches, candle-light vigils, demonstrations, and sit-ins are held in the hope of ending the herb’s illegal status. Although the tireless efforts of these many tie-dyed warriors are to be commended, the war against America’s pot smokers keeps escalating.

Casualties of war

The government’s own statistics betray this fact. Consider the FBI’s 1995 Uniform Crime Report, which shows a record 600,000 Americans arrested on marijuana charges. Of these, 86 percent were charged with the simple possession of a substance that has caused far fewer fatalities–zero, to be exact–than alcohol, tobacco, prescription medications, or aspirin.

Will Foster is a living example of a victim of the hysterical anti-pot crusade popular among politicians. The father of three and successful owner of his own software company sits in an Oklahoma prison after being handed a 93-year sentence for the “crime” of growing a few plants to help assuage his painful arthritic condition. High Times magazine reports that over 25 percent of the 1,630,000 prisoners in America’s prisons and jails are doing time for drug crimes, with the majority of these non-violent offenders serving sentences for growing or possessing marijuana.

“In 1994, at least 25 marijuana users were killed by police officers or died while in custody,” hemp activist Ed Rosenthal notes in “Why Marijuana Should be Legal.” This statistic alone gives evidence that these laws which were originally intended to protect the health of the public have long since strayed from their dubious goal. As the criminal prohibition of a herb that has yet to be linked to a single death continues, those who aren’t arrested (or dead) often live in constant fear of anonymous tips, urine tests, asset forfeiture, and other components of the “zero tolerance” juggernaut that continues to victimize law-abiding citizens.

Fighting the police state

Today, many a casual smoker must fearfully wonder if a paramilitary team of black clad “no-knock ninjas” brandishing semi-automatic weapons will break down their door in a dramatic pre-dawn raid. Out of this miasma of fear, oppression, and intolerance emerge the Green Panthers.

Shifting their focus from protest to resistance, the Panthers–referred to as the “fanged mouthpiece” of the hemp movement–are adjusting their tactics to a drug policy they predict will one day devolve into outright bloodshed on the cannabis using community. They openly reject the posture of non-violence and pacifism adopted by their ideological peers and have given up trying to “change the system.” This loosely based cadre of activists is boldly choosing to move in a different direction.

When a militia … isn’t a militia

Fiercely asserting their Second Amendment right to bear arms, the Panthers represent an interesting social phenomenon: They are the first marijuana group preparing to openly espouse armed rebellion against federal drug policy. Their strong defensive position is not unlike today’s burgeoning patriot movement. Although the two may share a common mistrust of the federal government and a firm belief in the right to own and bear arms, Terry Mitchell, one of the founding members of the Panthers, finds the comparison inaccurate.

“We found with very few exceptions–[members of] the militia movement think the drug war is a good idea,” he scoffs. The WACO siege, a rallying cry for militia groups, registers little with these new-model pot heads who have a strident dislike of drug war supporters. “As a group the Panthers have very little sympathy for them [Branch Davidians] because they were anti-druggies–Heaven’s Gate, too,” Mitchell says. Opinions such as these have not endeared him to local patriot groups and he says they have threatened his life on four different occasions.

However, they aren’t dealing with your typical bong-toking peacenik. “I can shoot the asshole out of a rat at a thousand yards,” snaps the native Texan.

Pipe bombers?

Headquartered in Cincinnati, OH, these hard-liners are mainly recognized by drug policy activists for their incendiary publication Revolutionary Times. However, if events occur as they predict, they may be the forward guard in a revolution among the nation’s tokers. The Panthers foresee a time when stoners will be forced to take up arms for their right to use what they call the holy herb.

“The actual dynamics of an armed struggle haven’t formed up yet,” says the 47-year-old activist. Articulate, well-read, and politically astute, Mitchell is emblematic of a growing segment of society who at one time “played by the rules,” but now view the Washington establishment as corrupt, and any attempts to change the system futile. Far from a backwoods political neophyte, the ex-’60s radical carries extensive experience as National Director of the Libertarian Party and in 1988 served as Assistant Director for the Washington, D.C. office of the National Organization for the Reform Marijuana Laws (NORML).

Armed pot-riots

The Panther finds no ethical dilemma in activists arming themselves. “We think an armed society is a polite society,” he says in his rich Texas twang which crackles over the phone like machine-gun fire. Mitchell believes the virulent anti-gun stance found among the modern left is unrealistic in the post-WACO 1990s.

“That actually is some hangover politics from the ’60s,” he observes. Above all, Mitchell says the Panthers hope to sound a much needed wake-up call to those who still believe these pernicious laws can be reformed.

“What we’re trying to convey to the pot movement is that the system isn’t the one we grew up with. ..the Tenth Amendment is a myth,” he says bitterly.

Birth of a movement

The genesis of the Panther weltanschaung began ironically in the backyard of the nation’s most powerful drug war hawks. Some eight years ago, a small core of firebrands gathered in Washington, D.C., hoping to provide a “new wrinkle” to end the senseless criminalization and harassment of America’s estimated 10,000,000 pot smokers.

Seeking to provide tools, strategy and political focus to other groups across the nation, they began to study the tactics used by fellow dissidents with other agendas.

“We had to get out the narrow focus of the pot movement,” Mitchell says. Analyzing the methods of such successful political factions as Aids Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP), Queer Nation, and Earth First!, Panther experts came to an interesting conclusion: The entrenched powers had quickly learned how to nullify these confrontational tactics, which the Panthers are convinced have become obsolete.

“Our enemies learn real fast–you try these methods of direct action now and you’ll get zilch,” he says heatedly.

Birth of a nation?

Their continued studies led the Panthers to come upon what Mitchell calls an “endgame strategy”: secession. “Once the US starts to rumble like the old Soviet Union did, that is when our people have the biggest opportunity in our cultural history,” Mitchell says enthusiastically.

He envisions a day when a repressive federal government will declare martial law, and the nation will be plunged into civil war–not unlike the post-Cold War conflicts that arose in many nations, such as the former Yugoslavia. When this time comes, the Panthers plan to be prepared.

The armed pot smokers and their supporters hope to stake out a coastal strip of land 20 miles from the Pacific Ocean beginning due north of San Francisco and extending 10 miles south of Portland. If they succeed, they will create what they call the first “Stoner Homeland.”

The nation will be based on libertarian values, community-based government and the Gross National Product will be high quality marijuana, and the many other products which can be produced with the versatile Cannabis sativa plant. Mitchell is a fatalist who is convinced this is the only choice left for the pot community.

“If we don’t win, nothing is lost. We were marked for extermination anyway,” he says.

A trend toward secession

Today’s post-modern mindset may find such an idea laughable, but a number of similar movements already dot the national landscape. The Nation of Islam, the Aryan Nations, and the well-publicized Republic of Texas are the most visible examples of the many divergent factions who view secession within America’s borders as the only antidote to an oppressive federal government.

The national Libertarian Party has noted this growing trend; their 1998 platform includes a plank calling for the “right to political secession–by political entities, private groups, or individuals.”

The Panther’s designated homeland was chosen for a number of reasons other than the high-quality buds indigenous to the region. Mitchell’s previous experience with NORML and the Libertarian party gave him insight into the marijuana-sympathetic demographics of the Pacific Northwest. While examining databases for both organizations, he found that the majority of the nation’s libertarians and card-carrying members of the pot legalization lobby reside in this small section of the country.

There is already a steady flow of bud smokers who have been relocating to the Pacific Northwest since the 1960s to escape draconian marijuana laws in their respective states. Terry believes the recent increase in arrests has exacerbated this trend.

“According to our sources in the areas, the migration has sped up considerably over the past five years due to the Drug War– with property seizures being the way they are, they have fewer things to move anyway,” he comments.

The new prospective country already has its own set of by-laws based on the U.S. Constitution, the Articles of Confederation, and other landmark documents.

“Some of the best forward thinking minds came up with the by-laws,” he says.

Will the armed Panthers expect resistance from the government when they declare their sovereignty? Mitchell doesn’t expect it to be an obstacle.

“When our roadblocks go up on the highways and our voices start coming over the radios and televisions … we expect most of the cops and National Guard will have left their non-paying jobs and there won’t be much trouble with them,” he says optimistically. Those who choose to remain and possibly obstruct the new homeland will be promptly asked to leave.

“This will probably not be pretty,” Mitchell says. “But it is a political imperative. This calls for leadership that has nerves of steel and an iron determination not to be stopped,” he adds.

Maintaining the network

Currently, the Panthers believe the first step in achieving their homeland is providing vital intelligence to other dissident groups who stand opposed to the War on Pot. Their efforts include their unique “diagram of the war on drugs.”

Posted on their website, the chart tracks major anti-drug policy from the United Nations Office of Drug Control Policy in Vienna, Austria all the way down to what they term “snitch groups,” like the Girl Scouts of America and Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) Mitchell says the schematic that alleges the United Nation micro-manages US anti-narcotic policy was originally met with skepticism by the reform community.

However, Terry points out that Global Days, a series of demonstrations held worldwide in June to protest the UN’s role in drug prohibition, was directly influenced by their efforts. ”

“A lot of people thought we had made it up–now we’re starting to see a real focus,” he says.

The information war

Gleaning information from teachers, scientists, police officers, military veterans, prisoners, and others, the Panthers publish Revolutionary Times (formerly the Revolutionary Toker), providing excellent coverage of the drug war. The small periodical scooped Time magazine and their non-mainstream competition last year when it reported on experiments conducted on behalf of law enforcement in the use of allegedly “non lethal” weapons, such as infra-sound technology.

Their publishing house, Panther Press, sells important survival materials for the ’90s pot smoker. Like a pot-focused Paladin Press, the Panthers distribute publications on building resistance groups, surviving police encounters, “guerrilla growing,” cold weather survival, and other vital resources for renegade bud smokers. They also furnish free legal referrals for busted potheads, and their POW support project raises the awareness of the prison population by sending free copies of Revolutionary Times to inmates.

On toward a “Stoner Homeland“

These many activities lend credibility to a group of activists who appear to take themselves and their mission seriously. Could we one day see a stoner homeland enriched by hemp-related commerce flying their own flag–a white field bearing a large green pot leaf?

Mitchell hopes that if enough people get involved, America’s “last outcasts” will join them in fighting for their “light at the end of the tunnel.”

“I believe that the odds for the pot culture are better now than they ever have been for the formation of an independent Homeland,” he says. Mitchell grimly foretells a day when many will be faced with the choice of joining the Panthers or death.

“It’s either gonna be a Stoner Homeland or a stoners last stand,” he warns.

http://libcom.org/history/1992-the-la-riots

“There’s a difference between frustration with the law and direct assaults upon our legal system.”
– George Bush Snr., May 3rd, 1992.

The first rocks started to fly as the four LAPD officers who beat Rodney King and the jury who acquitted them were leaving the courtroom in suburban Simi Valley. Subsequent to the acquittal, on the afternoon of April 29th 1992, thousands of people began pouring into the streets of Los Angeles. In a few hours rioting spread across the LA metropolitan area. Conditions rapidly approached the level of civil war. The police withdrew from the main areas of fighting, ceding the streets to the insurgent poor. Systematic burnings of capitalist enterprises commenced. More than 5,500 buildings burned. People shot at cops on the street and at media and police helicopters. Seventeen government buildings were destroyed.

The Los Angeles Times was attacked and looted. A vast canopy of smoke from the buildings covered the LA Basin. Flights out of LA airport were cancelled and incoming flights had to be diverted due to the smoke and sniper fire.

The rioting was the single most violent episode of social unrest in the US in the twentieth century, far outstripping the urban revolts of the 1960s both in sheer destructiveness and in the fact that the riots were a multiracial revolt of the poor. In the initial phase of the LA riots, the police were rapidly overwhelmed and retreated, and the military did not appear until the rioting had abated.

The New York Times noted:

“Some areas took on the atmosphere of a street party as black, white, Hispanic and Asian residents mingled to share in a carnival of looting. As the greatly outnumbered police looked on, people of all ages (and genders), some carrying small children, wandered in and out of supermarkets with shopping bags and armloads of shoes, liquor, radios, groceries, wigs, auto parts, gumball machines and guns”.

The 30,000 square foot military enlistment centre for all nine counties of Southern California was burned to the ground on the first night. The state portrayed the rioting as an episode of indiscriminate mayhem where rioters attacked each other like sharks in a feeding frenzy.

While most media coverage and subsequent histories have focussed on a few negative events, such as the horrific beating of truck driver Reginald Denny, in fact crimes against people, such as rape and drive-by shootings, virtually disappeared as previously atomised working people of different colours and ethnicities came together in mass collective violence, proletarian shopping [looting] and a potlatch of destruction. There were far fewer rapes and muggings during the period than there are in LA under the normal rule of law. on a conservative estimate, more than 100,000 rebel poor in the greater LA area have now collectively experienced, in arson, looting and violence against the police, the intelligent use of violence as a political weapon. The number of participants in the uprising is well into the six-figure range. We know this because there were around 11,000 arrests (5,000 black, 5,500 Latino, 600 white) and the vast majority of participants got away scot-free.

Following the lead of events in the nation’s cultural capital, mass spontaneous rioting spread to several dozen cities across the US. In San Francisco more than a hundred stores were looted and rich areas were attacked. One of the large posh hotels had its windows smashed by a gang of youths chanting “The Rich Must Die”. Protesters marched o­nto the Interstate Freeway, causing a massive tailback affecting several hundred thousand car commuters. In San Jose, students looted and attacked police cruisers. Police were shot at in Tampa, Florida, and in Las Vegas, armed rioters burned a state parole and probation office. Armed confrontations between the police and locals continued in Las Vegas for the next 18 days. In Seattle a burning police car was pushed into police ranks and there was loads of looting, smashing and burning in downtown Seattle. Similar events happened all over the US.

On May 2nd, 5,000 LAPD, 1,000 Sheriff’s Deputies, 950 County Marshals and 2,300 Highway Patrol cops, accompanied by 9,975 National Guard troops, 3,500 Army troops and Marines with armoured vehicles and 1,000 Federal Marshals, FBI agents and Border Patrol SWAT teams moved in to restore order and guard the shopping malls. Hundreds were wounded. Most of the people killed in the uprising were killed in the repression of the revolt. After much fighting and the largest mass arrest in US history the LA 92 insurrection came to a close.

Edited by libcom from an article in Anarchy – A Journal of Desire Armed, No.34, Autumn 1992. Photo by Hyungwon Kang (kang.org)

Why Read the Sunday Papers When You Can Read AttacktheSystem.Com!

Community Organizing and National-Anarchism presentation by Andrew Yeoman

Tribal Anarchism Video Series Parts One, Two, Three, Four

Quotes of the Week:

“Formerly, when religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine; now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic.”

“The system isn’t stupid, but the people in it are.”

“Punishment is now unfashionable… because it creates moral distinctions among men, which, to the democratic mind, are odious. We prefer a meaningless collective guilt to a meaningful individual responsibility.”

“People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates.”

                                                                                                            -Thomas Szasz

The Troops Protect Our Freedom, and Other Lies I Learned in School by Kevin Carson

America Under Barack Obama Nat Hentoff interviewed by John Whitehead

Uncivil Liberties: The Empire’s War On Its Citizens by Carolyn Baker

Relocating Guantanamo by Paul Craig Roberts

Obama in the Shark Tank by Ralph Nader

From Bush to Obama: A Seamless Transition on the War by Ralph Nader

Vices Are Not Crimes by Murray Rothbard

Who Mourns the Murdered Mundanes? by William Norman Grigg

Is Revolution in the Air? by Justin Raimondo

Stunning Statistics About the War That Everyone Should Know by Jeremy Scahill

Pakistan’s Refugee Disaster by Stewart J. Lawrence

New World Order: How the 1989 Panama Invasion Set the Course for the Future of U.S. Foreign Policy by Ted Galen Carpenter

The Case Against Iran Sanctions by David Henderson

Elliot Abrams and “Neocon-ing” Obama by Robert Parry

U.S. Turburlence Buffets Pakistan by Eric Margolis

Time to End the Neocon Con Game by Bruce Cameron

Weapon of Monetary Destruction by Lew Rockwell

Automatic for the People: The AK-47 by C.J. Maloney

PIGS Murder Mentally Ill Man by William Norman Grigg

Afghan Affair More Than “Nitpicking” by Linda McQuaid

A Fistful of Dynamite by Daniel McCarthy

The Travails of the Young War Criminal by Gwynne Dwyer

One War Obama May Curtail by Kelley B. Vlahos

Motivation for Jihad by Charles Pena

PIG Brandishes Gun on Snowball Throwers by William Norman Grigg

PIGS Engage in Gang Assault on High School Student by William Norman Grigg

Rush Limbaugh Is a Turdball from the Huffington Post

Spanish Anarchist Arrested for Letter Bomb from Infoshop.Org

A Left-Environmentalist Expresses Skepticism of Global Warming  by David Crowe

The Thin Blue Line Is Cracking Up by Aaron David Ward

Obama, You Should Have Listened to MacArthur by Eric Margolis

The Recession Is Over, But the Depression Has Just Begun by Edward Harrison

The Nullification-10th Amendment Movement Is Growing by Thomas Woods

Blow It Out Your Ass, Supreme Court!! 

The Awards by Justin Raimondo

Mondragon Collective Opens Sacco and Vanzetti Grocery Store in Winnipeg from Infoshop.Org

The New Prohibitionists  by Caleb Stegall

Sexual Politics in the Age of Obama by David Rosen

America’s Party  by Pat Buchanan

War Against Christmas 2009: A Jewish Perspective by Marcus Epstein

From the Great Society to the Great Betrayal  by Rob Freeman

Libertarians and Junk Science by Kevin Carson

God of War? by Jeff Taylor

The Humane Vision of Ivan Illich by Chase Madar

Losing the Bill of Rights by Jacob Hornberger

Bring Back the Bad Guys by Jeff Huber

Gun Sales Up, Murder Rates Down 

Sean Hannity: Paid Shill for the Merchants of Death by Martin Hill

Hyperinflation and Rioting in the Streets John Williams interviewed by Phil Maymin

The Empire Recruits Worldwide by Rick Rozoff

Does the New World Order Leave Anywhere to Run? by Janet Daley

Dr. Mengele Reappears in Israel by David Kramer

10-Year-Old Busted for Distributing Peppermint Oil by David Kramer

My Christmas Prayer for the Little Town of Bethlehem by Ron Holland

French Kids Protest School Dress Codes from Infoshop.Org

Disappointments in Samarra by Alexander Cockburn

What It Takes to Build A Movement by Mark Rudd

The Year’s Best Books by Ralph Nader

Palestinians on the Brink of Explosion by Nicola Nasser

War and Peace by Pat Buchanan

“The Italians were called wops, the Jews were called hymies, I was of course a greaseball, and every Hispanic was a spic. Well, we all got along famously! It was rough, but it was fine.”

                                                                -Taki Theodoracopulos

50,000 U.S. Troops Have Quit Their Jobs Michael Prysner and James Circello interviewed by Scott Horton

The Bipartisan Empire Glenn Greenwald interviewed by Scott Horton

Political Prisoner Denied Medical Care Candace Gorman interviewed by Scott Horton

The GULAG by Matthew Raphael Johnson

The Middle Ages by Matthew Raphael Johnson

The New Right vs the Political Left Alex Kurtagic interviewed by Tom Sunic

“The “clash of civilizations” is, in a very literal sense, a clash of God and Mammon. The Islamic revolutionaries are driven by a fanatical devotion to their god and the promises they believe he has made to them if only they take up arms on his behalf. The nations of the West are driven by an almost as fanatical devotion to Mammon, that is, to wealth, luxury, power, pleasure and privilege. Further, the culture of the West combines this unabashedly materialist ethos with rejection of strength and discipline in favor of a maternalistic emphasis on health, safety, “sensitivity”, “self-esteem”, “potential”, “personal growth”, “getting in touch with one’s inner child”, “feelings” and other concepts common to pop culture psychobabble. Of course, the socio-cultural ramifications of this is to create a society of weaklings, mediocrities and crybabies.”

                                                                                                   -Keith Preston

Holiday in Cambodia by the Dead Kennedys

Emerald by Thin Lizzy

Great Big Coffin/Looking for Mary  by Screaming Lord Sutch

Ladys Boy by Twisted Sister

(hat tip to Chris Donnellan for the following links)

U.S. Military Suicides Outnumber Out Number Soldiers Killed by Enemy in 2009 

Evangelical Church Opens Doors to Gays 

Jimmy Page’s Soundtrack to Kenneth Anger’s Lucifer Rising 

Bill Ayers: Americans Must Rise Up Against War 

Bill Ayers: “Life in a Bubble Will Explode in America’s Face” 

Rapper AKIR: America Is Definitely a Police State 

Ron Paul on “Foolish” Troop Surge, “Audit the Fed” Bill and Competing Currencies

Communists Living the American Dream 

First World War in Color 

William McKinley 1892 Campaign Speech (in memory of Leon Czolgosz)

Israel’s Neo-Nazis 

The Haight Street Kids 

Saving the Indians 

Asian-Americans and Poverty 

The Military-Industrial Complex Always Gets What It Want 

Las Vegas Teacher Accused of Denying Holocaust 

U.S. Set for Drastic Changes as White America Becomes a Minority in 2042 

Dying Detroit 

Merry Christmas and a Rockin’ Yule from a National-Anarchist

Sixty Percent of Russians Nostalgic for the Soviet Union 

Distributism: The Roots of the Catholic Worker Movement

Economics of the Catholic Worker Movement

The Fraud of “Representative Democracy” 

A Nation of Sheep, Ruled by Wolves, Owned by Pigs

The Revolution Within Anarchism 

Forty Years in the Wilderness? 

Liberty and Populism: Building An Effective Resistance Movement for North America

Organizing the Urban Lumpenproletariat

National Anarchy and the American Idea

“The king is most wounded by ridicule.” -Thomas Hobbes

by Valerian of Inland Empire National-Anarchists

Why Read the Sunday Papers When You Can Read AttacktheSystem.Com!

Community Organizing and National-Anarchism presentation by Andrew Yeoman

Tribal Anarchism Video Series Parts One, Two, Three, Four

Quotes of the Week:

“Power is not an institution, and not a structure; neither is it a certain strength we are endowed with; it is the name that one attributes to a complex strategical situation in a particular society.”

“If repression has indeed been the fundamental link between power, knowledge, and sexuality since the classical age, it stands to reason that we will not be able to free ourselves from it except at a considerable cost.” 

“Prison continues, on those who are entrusted to it, a work begun elsewhere, which the whole of society pursues on each individual through innumerable mechanisms of discipline.”

“The strategic adversary is fascism… the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us. “

 “Freedom of conscience entails more dangers than authority and despotism.”

                                                                                      -Michel Foucault

2010: The Year of Severe Economic Contraction by Mike Whitney

The Strange Consensus on Obama’s Nobel Address by Harrison Bergeron 2

How Bush Redefined American Freedom by James Bovard

The Federal Bureaucracy-Plutocracy by Robert Higgs

Tortured in the “Dark Prison“ by Andy Worthington

The Crybaby Thugs of Maricopa County by William Norman Grigg

The Rush for Iraq’s Oil  by Patrick Cockburn

The Israeli Stranglehold  by Paul Craig Roberts

All U.S. Government Employees Must Be Pro-Israel by Stephen Walt

George Kennan, Yes! Reinhold Niebuhr, No! by Grant Havers

Possible Unintended Consequences of Regime Change in Iran by Stephen Walt

The War Democrats by Justin Raimondo

Fat City by Pat Buchanan

How Islam Beheads Democracy by James Jackson

We’re Watching Big Brother by Kevin Carson

Paul Gottfried: A Life in the Right by Karen De Coster

Anger With Federal Government Not Enough by Chuck Baldwin

Starve the Iranians? No! by Ron Paul

Do Antiwar Libertarians Hate the Military? by Laurence Vance

The Bill of Rights is Dead: The Feds Killed It by Kevin R.C. Gutzman

Pain Relief for Cancer Victims 

A Review of Norman Finkelstein’s The Holocaust Industry by Richard Hotse

Leonard Zeskind’s Blood and Politics by Hunter Wallace

King Alfred the Great by Troy Southgate

The Looming Racial Chasm by Kevin MacDonald

The Financial Engine of the Left by Kevin MacDonald

The ADL: Managing White Rage by Kevin MacDonald

Why I Broke Up with the Anarchist Community from Infoshop.Org

Serbian Anarchists Arrested for “International Terrorism” from Infoshop.Org

Freedom for Quail, Pheasants, Hens, and Boar  from Infoshop.Org

D.C. to Pay $8.25 million in Lawsuit Over Mass Arrests from Infoshop.Org

Homeowner Spraypaints “Help!” “Foreclosure!” Onto House from Infoshop.Org

Meet the Vermont Independence Campaign Candidates from Second Vermont Republic

Read Orwell and Huxley to Understand America by Jim Quinn

The New World Order in Science by Henry Bauer

Secession and State Militias by Russell Longcore

Why I Will Let My Children Drink Alcohol by Cassandra Jardine

Turning Children Into Orwellian Eco-Spies by Frank Feredi

Shakedown in Copenhagen by Pat Buchanan

The Feds Are Addicted to Pot by Paul Armentano

Time to Rethink AIDS by Henry Bauer

Modal Libertarians: A Movement for 12-year-olds? by Justin Raimondo

Critical Questions for the Patriot Movement from Phoenix Class War Council

Dakota People Occupy Fed Land from Infoshop.Org

Anarchist Heroically Defies Grand Jury from Infoshop.Org

Venezuelan Anarchist School Founder Dies from Infoshop.Org

Turning Trick, Cashing in on Fear by Alexander Cockburn

The Sovereignty of Muslim Nations: A Casualty of U.S. Foreign Policy by Ali Khan

Pot Specialists to Study New Strains by Fred Gardner

The Tragedy of Rural Health Care by Jim Goodman

Windows Into Non-Western Cultures by Charles Larson

Faces of the Emerging Power Elite (thanks, Ean)

“The Italians were called wops, the Jews were called hymies, I was of course a greaseball, and every Hispanic was a spic. Well, we all got along famously! It was rough, but it was fine.”

                                                                -Taki Theodoracopulos

The Police State Continues to Grow Will Grigg interviewed by Scott Horton

Free Speech and Historical Revisionism Carolyn Yeager interviewed by Tomislav Sunic

More Land War in Asia Tom Engelhardt interviewed by Scott Horton

“The “clash of civilizations” is, in a very literal sense, a clash of God and Mammon. The Islamic revolutionaries are driven by a fanatical devotion to their god and the promises they believe he has made to them if only they take up arms on his behalf. The nations of the West are driven by an almost as fanatical devotion to Mammon, that is, to wealth, luxury, power, pleasure and privilege. Further, the culture of the West combines this unabashedly materialist ethos with rejection of strength and discipline in favor of a maternalistic emphasis on health, safety, “sensitivity”, “self-esteem”, “potential”, “personal growth”, “getting in touch with one’s inner child”, “feelings” and other concepts common to pop culture psychobabble. Of course, the socio-cultural ramifications of this is to create a society of weaklings, mediocrities and crybabies.”

                                                                                                   -Keith Preston

Paper Money/I Got the Fire  by Montrose

Willie the Pimp by Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart

Up by Black Oak Arkansas

Black Juju by Alice Cooper

(hat tip to Chris Donnellan for the following links)

Battle of the Bulge: Eisenhower’s Biggest Folly? 

Single-Payer Health Care Plan Dies in the Senate 

White Americans’ Majority to End by Mid-Century 

The Psychology of Social Status 

Catalans Vote for Independence 

Australian Government to Introduce Internet Filter 

Obama Awarded the Nobel Because He’s a Liberal, Democrat, and Black 

Israel is a Semi-Theocracy 

Indian Gangs Grow on Reservation 

Citizens of the World, Divide! 

Population Boom Threatens Africa 

The Pathology of the Rich Socialist 

Racial Groupings Match Genetic Profiles, New Study Says 

Self-Styled Vampire Jailed for Threatening Judge 

A Nation of Sheep, Ruled by Wolves, Owned by Pigs

The Revolution Within Anarchism 

Forty Years in the Wilderness? 

Liberty and Populism: Building An Effective Resistance Movement for North America

Organizing the Urban Lumpenproletariat

National Anarchy and the American Idea

“The king is most wounded by ridicule.” -Thomas Hobbes

by Keith Preston

In their discussion of Edward Said’s concept of “Orientalism,” Appelrouth and Edles make this observation:

The source of the West’s superiority lies not in its own “advanced” civilization but, rather, in constructing non-Western cultures through negative terms that project onto the colonized all those traits that the West cannot possess if it is to legitimate its position as the center of progress and the beacon of humanity….Thus, when a politician remarks that Muslims “hate us for our freedom,” this claim is dependent on a purified notion of what Western freedom has promoted around the world, in turn justifying an ennobled aggression against those who are “against freedom.” (Appelrouth and Edles, 2007, p. 616)

The kind of dualism and cultural chauvinism described in the above passage is the hallmark of the ideological and rhetorical framework utilized by Western, particularly American, imperialism in its efforts towards the political, economic, and military conquest of the Islamic world.  According to this paradigm, the Islamic nations are plagued by political repression, anti-intellectualism, retrograde cultural values, and severe social underdevelopment. By contrast, the Western nations are believed to bemanifestations of higher levels of enlightenment, progress, prosperity, “freedom,” “democracy,” and cultural evolution. Caricatures of this type dominate depictions of East-West relations. Such caricatures can be found both in the American media and in the statements of American officials. Numerous case studies involving examinations of the actual inner workings of Islamic societies show this to be a false dichotomy. Among the most compelling of these examples are Lebanon’s Hezbollah, contemporary Iran, and Ba’athist Iraq.

 Hezbollah’s Democratic Pluralism

 An essay by Daniel Byman in Foreign Affairs, the journal of the Council on Foreign Relations, describes Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia as “responsible for more American deaths than any other terrorist organization” prior to the incidents of September 11, 2001. According to Byman, Hezbollah has a “record of bloodshed and hostility” and “its highly skilled operatives have committed horrifying attacks as far away as Argentina.” Little mention is made as to why Hezbollah might have done these things, other than perhaps a pathological love of violence or an equally pathological hatred of Americans. Richard Armitage, a former U.S. deputy secretary of state, claimed that “Hezbollah may be the A team of terrorists, while Al Qaeda is actually the B team.” (Byman, 2003)

From such depictions, one might be inclined to regard Hezbollah as a band of bloodthirsty tyrants, driven mostly by quasi-medieval theocratic fanaticism. Yet the actual political practice of Hezbollah in its home nation of Lebanon reveals a much different picture. The journalist Nir Rosen described a rally attended by over a million people in Beirut on September 22, 2006 in celebration of Hezbollah’s largely successful military confrontation with Israel months earlier. According to Rosen, Hezbollah is “the most popular political party in the Middle East.”  The celebration included the “flags of  Palestine and Palestinian movements, Lebanese Christian movements, the Communist Party, Sunni and Druze movements, as well as secular nationalists.” Hezbollah supporters also included a great deal of cultural pluralism: “Although many of the celebrants were men with beards or women whose hair was covered, many were not. There were youths in trendy attire, girls in tight jeans with hair exposed and who had turned their Hezbollah T-shirts into stylish form-fitting fashion statements.” Rosen further described the contents of a speech delivered at the celebration by Hezbollah’s leader, Seyid Hassan Nasrallah:

He told his audience that they were sending a political and moral message to the world that Lebanon’s resistance was stronger than ever. Their victorywas a victory for every oppressed, aggrieved and free person in the world, he said, and an inspiration for all who rejected subjugation or degradation by the United States. He mocked Arab leaders for not using their oil resources as a strategic weapon, for prohibiting demonstrations, for not supporting the Palestinians and for kowtowing to Condoleezza Rice. He extended his people’s hearts, grief and empathy for the Palestinians who were being bombed and killed daily, and whose homes were being destroyed while the world, and in particular the Arab world, was silent. (Rosen, 2006)

Within the wider context of Lebanese politics, Hezbollah operates as a democratic political party, holding seats in the parliament. The Hezbollah militia also serves as the de  facto national defense forces of Lebanon as the army is weak and inept. (Butters, 2006) Additionally, Hezbollah maintains a vast network of social services, hospitals, schools, charities, and news organizations. (UNOCHA, 2006)

Iran: More Democratic Than the U.S.?

 A lead editorial published by the New York Times on June 18, 2005 described Iran’s democratic institutions as a “sham.” The Times editorial writers further argued that “the world would be better off if Western leaders used their little influence to press for more authentic democracy in Iran.” (New York Times, 2005) Yet a serious examination of Iranian institutions provides a somewhat different perspective on which nation’s“democracy” is best regarded as a “sham.” The current Iranian constitution was approved through general referendum in 1979, with voting rights being universal and inclusive of women. Both the president of Iran and the parliament are democratically elected, and seats in the Iranian parliament are reserved for religious minorities like Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians. As of 2004, ten separate political parties held seats in the parliament. Critics of the Iranian system will point out that the Council of Guardians, a body of Islamic clerics, has veto power over legislation enacted by parliament, and can also disqualify candidates and parties for parliament. Yet the Council of Guardians was included in the original constitution that was approved by popular vote in 1979.  It is also somewhat unclear as to how this system is less democratic than the American system, which has only two parties represented in Congress, and where competition from otherparties is either cost prohibitive or rendered de facto illegal due to highly restrictive regulations concerning ballot access. Further, it is also unclear as to how the role of the Council of Guardians in the Iranian system is fundamentally different from that of the United States Supreme Court, which also has veto power over legislation enacted by the elected bodies of government. Indeed, elected legislative bodies, unelected federal agencies, and U.S. courts have all, at times, overturned or simply ignored laws enacted by popular referendum. (Wright, 2001; LaTulippe, 2004)

It should also be pointed out that while Iran is considered an enemy of the United States, with Iran’s supposed “undemocratic” nature ostensibly being a partial justification for this, many American allies in the Islamic world operate as individual autocracies (Egypt, Uzbekistan), absolute or near absolute monarchies (Kuwait, Morocco), or feudal fiefdoms (Saudi Arabia). Further, the Iranian referendum of 1979 was in fact a restoration of democracy which had not existed in Iran since 1953. During that year, Iran’s elected government was overthrown in a coup organized and directed by the United States, with the result being autocratic rule by Shah Reza Pahlavi for the next twenty-six years. (Hedges, 2009)

Iraq: The Achievements of the Ba’athist Revolution

An article by Harvey Sicherman published in February, 2007 by the Foreign Policy Institute, a think tank comprised of former U.S. diplomats, members of the National Security Council, academics, and journalists, surveyed the years of Saddam Hussein’s rule in Iraq. The article focuses primarily on the achievement of power by Hussein in 1979 and events that transpired in Iraq during the time between the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. To the degree that there is any discussion of Iraqi politics or society between 1979 and 1990, it is mostly limited to references to the repression of opposition forces. There is no discussion of Iraq during the time between the Ba’athist revolution of 1968 and Hussein’s ascension to the presidency eleven years later. (Sicherman, 2007)

Ba’athism is a secular, revolutionary, pan-Arabist outlook that stands inopposition to both capitalism and Marxist communism. Ba’athists have also been the governing faction of Syria since 1963. During the years of Ba’athist rule in Iraq from 1968 until the first Persian Gulf War of 1991, Iraq was arguably the most progressive of any Arab or Islamic nation. Because misogyny is one of the most frequently expressed criticisms of Middle Eastern societies by Westerners, it may be instructive to examine the condition of women during the peak period of Ba’athist rule. Anne Alexander offers this summary:

A broad spectrum of middle class urban women, from all religious communities, saw their horizons widen in terms of opportunities to study and work. The 1970s, despite the consolidation of the Baath Party in power and horrific repression of opposition groups, were remembered by many middle class women as “days of plenty”. Skyrocketing oil prices and the regime’s rapid expansion of the public sector brought prosperity to a relatively large layer of households. Rising affluence took visible form in the shape of huge chest freezers which had pride of place in the living rooms of the middle classes. “Our society will remain backward and in its chains unless women are liberated, enlightened and educated,” declared Saddam Hussein. The state pumped money into childcare; it encouraged women to study, and enter professions such as medicine and engineering. Unlike many women in Britain (or America) today, middle class Iraqi women in the 1970s and 1980s could expect to receive full pay while on maternity leave and benefit from an extensive system of state-subsidized nurseries.

But the most important factor in the dramatic decline in Iraqi women’s social, political and economic position over the past two decades has been the assault on Iraq by the Western powers, led by the US and Britain. Sanctions gutted the Iraqi public sector, the main employer of Iraqi women, and destroyed the state welfare system, which provided healthcare, public transport and education. As a result, women’s participation in the workforce collapsed from 23 percent in 1991 to 10 percent in 1997. With public sector salaries below subsistence level, marriage, not education, appeared to be the only way to secure Iraqi girls a decent future.

Since 2003 the occupying forces have not only failed to rebuild the economy and welfare system; they have killed and injured hundreds of thousands of Iraqi women and their children. Millions of Iraqi women remain trapped in their homes as a result of the spiraling violence. They live in fear not only of the occupying forces but also of violent crime, the militias attached to the sectarian parties that the occupation has strengthened, and radical Islamist groups. (Alexander, 2007)

As a secular regime, Ba’athist rule also repressed Islamic fundamentalist and theocratic movements, and allowed a relatively high level of freedom of religion. Religious minorities, such as members of Iraq’s Assyrian Christian community, were allowed high ranking positions in the government. The fall of the Ba’athist government has resulted in large-scale persecution of the Christian minority by Islamic fundamentalists, and many Iraqi Christians have fled to Ba’athist controlled Syria. (Baghdadi, 2004)

Perhaps most interesting of all is the prisoner amnesty program implemented by the government of Saddam Hussein prior to the beginning of the present war in 2003. The program offered amnesty to “prisoners, detainees, and fugitives…including those under sentence of death, inside or outside Iraq.” Persons imprisoned for murder were granted amnesty only if the victim’s mother agreed to a pardon. (BBC, 2002) This is certainly a far more magnanimous gesture than any American head of state would ever likely engage in. Indeed, the prisoner population in Iraqi has continued to escalate since the American invasion, occupation, and installation of a puppet regime. Still, at the end of 2007, only one in 470 Iraqis were held in penal or detention facilities, as opposed to one in 140 of persons within the domestic United States itself. (Gilmartin, 2008)

Conclusion

The case studies examined above indicate that Islamic societies, and particularly the politics of Islamic nations, are far more complex that what is typically depicted in the Western media. These biases and misconceptions can also be found in the mainstream of Western academic scholarship. The evidence indicates that Edward Said is correct in arguing that the treatment of the Islamic world by Western thinkers reflects a rather profound cultural chauvinism and unjustified attitude of moral and cultural superiority. Specifically, the common perception of Western societies as centers of enlightenment and progress, and Islamic societies as centers of reaction and obscurantism is rooted in demonstrably false assumptions.

Bibliography

Alexander, Anne (2007). Nadje Al–Ali, Iraqi Women: Untold Stories from 1948 to the Present. Zed Books, 2007.

Baghdadi, George (2004). Anguished Iraqi Christians Flee to Syria. LewRockwell.Com, August 9, 2004.

British Broadcasting Company (2002). Iraq Empties Its Jails. BBC News, October 20, 2002.

Butters, Andrew Lee (2006). Who Will Disarm Hezbollah? Not the Lebanese Army. Time, August 4, 2006.

Byman, Daniel (2003). Should Hezbollah Be Next? Foreign Affairs, Council on Foreign Relations, November/December 2003.

Editorial (2005). Iran’s Sham Democracy. New York Times, June 18, 2005.

Gilmartin, Ciara (2008). The “Surge” of Iraqi Prisoners. Foreign Policy in Focus, Institute for Policy Studies, May 7, 2008.

Hedges, Chris (2009). Iran Had a Democracy Before We Took It All Away. Truthdig, June 22, 2009.

LaTulippe, Steven (2004). A Few Thoughts Before We “Liberate” Iran. LewRockwell.Com, November 24, 2004.

Rosen, Nir (2006). Hezbollah, Party of God. Truthdig, October 3, 2006.

Sicherman, Harvey (2007). Saddam Hussein: Stalin on the Tigris. Orbis, Foreign Policy Institute, February, 2007.

U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (2006). Lebanon: The Many Hands and Faces of Hezbollah. March 29, 2006.

Wright, Robin (2001). The Last Great Revolution: Turmoil and Transformation in Iran. Vintage Books, 2001.

Readers and supporters of AttacktheSystem.Com and American Revolutionary Vanguard should consider becoming involved with the North American New Right. The NANR Facebook page can be accessed here.

Articles by and about the New Right can be accessed here.

The online broadcasts of Dr. Tomislav Sunic, a leading scholar of the New Right, can be heard here.

The platform of the NANR is posted below. I wasn’t personally involved in writing the platform but it’s more or less the same ideological framework of ATS/ARV, though perhaps more moderately stated.

-For as much decentralization as possible to the local, state, and provincial levels as a reflection of the great regional, cultural, ethnic, and racial diversity of North America, up to and including the right and necessity of regional secession. Based on current economic and demographic trends, we foresee the eventual fragmentation and breakup of Canada, Mexico, and The United States of America in their present forms, and the emergence of new nations, autonomous regions, and ethnostates in place of these existing polities.

-For an end to economic globalism and a return to local and regional based economies, with a premium on independence, self-sufficiency, and diversity rather than corporate based control and monoculture. We would like to see the present system of transnational capitalism replaced with an economy organized along Communitarian, Distributist, and Syndicalist lines, with family farms, small and medium sized businesses, joint partnerships, and co-ops as the foundation.

-For Non-Interventionism in Foreign Affairs and an end to all Imperialist Wars and ‘Police Actions.’

-For an end to Global Capitalist spurred Mass Immigration and its never ending quest for cheap labor at any price, and total opposition to anti-Western ideologies of Political Correctness and enforced Multiculturalism.

-For a system of internal improvements, public works projects, universal health care for all citizens, and a social safety net to prevent mass unemployment, poverty, and homelessness. Some of these services could be provided by non-governmental community or regional based institutions, and we are open to new ideas or suggestions in this area.

-For sensible environmental protections and ecological stewardship. We believe we are entering the age of Peak Oil and stark limits on sustainable economic and population growth.

-For moderate social conservative positions on most moral and social issues. We believe heterosexual marriage and a stable family unit are a bedrock of any healthy society.

-For an end to prohibition and for full legalization of most narcotics…and an end to the prison-industrial which costs taxpayers billions of dollars a year on wasteful and constitutionally questionable efforts to stem narcotics consumption.

-Our primary influences are The Distributists, Red Tories, Communitarians, the economists List and Carey, Samuel Francis, Patrick J. Buchanan, Russell Kirk, John Attarian, Michael O’Meara, Guilliame Faye, Alain De Benoist, and similar thinkers.

-We are skeptical about Mass Democracy, Unrestrained Populism, and the unconstrained egoism and chaos which results from Lassiez-Faire and Free Market economics. We value tradition and heritage, but not in the reactionary sense, as is the case with many Paleoconservatives. We represent a school of Conservative thought beyond Neoconservativism, Paleoconservatism, and the blind market worship and extreme indvidualism of The Libertarians.

-Our Values are centered around Community, Family, Region, and Nation.