FORDREDR LR [ axs A cnkivuninp & 8 FOREDRLDIR KD We Who Stand the Most By, Hybachi LeMar DEDICATION 3 For my love "Celestria"; my cousin Kiki & all suffering on Death Row; the social outcest and all I've wronged before becoming Conscious (except the State). For the struggling mother; the 'cutter' & contemp- lator of suicide. The desperate & lonely addict: the homeless; my dead homies, & french-inhaling spliff- rollers holding their heads in the Struggle. For the broken-hearted Jover & those who lose sleep in the night. To P.K in Frackville, the comrAdes @ Ely; South & N.W. Chicago ABC;220;A.P.; the Hungry & every 'hood consumed with the [ire to Resist,Rebel & Defy. BACKLASH "Hanged in Chicago, Beheaded in Germany, garroted in Xerex, shot in Barcelona, guillotined in Mont- brison and in Paris, our dead are many: but you haven't been sble to destroy anarchy. It's roots grow deep. It sprouts from the bosom of a rotten society that is falling apart; it is a violent backlash against the established order; it stands for the aspirations to equality and liberty which have entered the lists against the current author- itarianisn. It is everyvhere. That is what makes it indomitable..." - Emile Henry (1872-18%) to his jailer shortly before his execution for detonating a hand-made exlosive . at the Gare Saint-Lazare. THE SHELL: The observable exterior - it appears easy to grasp; to conveniently manipulate or kick sround at ones own dis/pleasure. Common, it seems; insubstantial and harmless. But existing deep within its seemingly passive & controllable state lies a core, a nerve-center within which harnesses all which the fingers of society, & the existing order has manufactured & discarded into the resevoirs of the collective social subconscious. Its Potential; unacknowledged. Its Volatility: Obscured. Beware, any tyrant or tyrannical institution who would s0 carelessly (mis)handle such an one. Anonywous In An Anonymous Crowd Uefore the switch was pulled on Sacco & Vanzetti; before the last words: "Long live Anarchy!" were transmitted from the reluctant restraints of the electrocutioner's chair®, Italian anarchist Bartolemeo Vanzetti described himself in his A Proletarian Life as "anonynous in an anonymous crowd. * Nicola Sacco, "Viva 1'anarchial” Bartoleneo Vanzetti Nicola Sacco Upon his arrival into the States on June 19,1908 the dreams of entering a country rich with the nmystique of new optimisms were shattered as were those of many other emigres who migrated into the bowels of the amerikan “hell pit". In fact, though he lived fairly decently in his native Jand - moving principally to "put the seas S between" him & the grief of losing his mother to cancer - he found civilian life in this country much crueler & much harsher than the one he'd left. In a letter to his aunt, he conveyed how he'd: seen human greed and egotism poison every mout! ~ful of food...darken the glory of the sun, violate natural law...nurture corruption, plant hatred...every kind of shame, every kind of misery.” The repressive round-ups of radicals, people being killed on picket lines, mass deportations & framing of thousands of socialists - many who were anarchists - protesting Exploitation as wel! as the Great War, were becoming countered with the knee-jerking reflex of Propaganda By Deed. It was a time when violent retributions were called to the fore, & frustrated radicals across the country were responding to the cal Tngeniously crafted home-made explosives wers nailed to heavy-duty exploiters across the country, including John D.Rockefeller himself, in manila envelopes concealing metallic , slug- laced dynamite sticks & slim vials of acid. Inconsolable communiques from The Anarchist Fighters denouncing the tyrannical institutions of the amerikan power structure reverberated with the detonation of midnight bombs in New York, Pittsburgh, Boston, and New Jerse Moreover, a Red Scare was beginning to include a a number of fearless blacks. A manual, entitled " La Saluts (" The Health is within Galleani, further educated many with a short fuse for government violence in the incendiary craft. In one instance, one unfortunate ( but brave ) & attentater accidentally blew himself up after tripping on porch steps down the street from the not-yet President Franklin D. Rosevelt's home in a D.C. suburb. In 2008, as the buzzing gate clinked behind me upon my discharge from SCI-GREENE, I couldn't help but feel anonymous in an anonymous crowd, and I'm sure many ex-offenders & have-nots perambulating the urban pavements across Amerika can relate; an understanding "intimately felt" in those of us who find it harder & harder to ignore the creakings of our conscience which those who govern our lives so tempermentally tamper with. As inheritors of the disinherited Voice which calls for EQUALITY WITHOUT COMPROMISE and FREEDOM WITHOUT RESTRAINT, let's further examine the state of society we co-exist in; how ve how we relate to others in STRUGGLE across the world; and see where we can try and push the envelope toward activating a more idyllic way of life without trippin and blowing ourselves up in the process. AN_UNDERSTANDING OF SOCIAL FORCES While cthe quote which opens this writing may bombard some with feelings of apprehension & antipathy, many from other walks of life - including our own - can relate in a way that may appear taboo to the more privileged of this world. From the vater polluted slums of Haiti to the single mother struggling to make it - even crying - deep into the night of Amerika: the excessive demands we've been thrown by an exploitive establishment are cocktailed with perpetual Inequality, inexplicable Oppression & pervasive violence of prison guards & a host of other supp- ressive realities bombarding the underprivileged masses. And fortunately, for society and the love necessary to develop & nurture its growth; you can only hold down so many upside-down cups in the sink of Poverty for so long until ome, then two shoots up and rises to the surface. 7 Emma Goldman relates these fierce bombardments to to the brewing of a stor: "To the earmest student it must be apparent that the accumulated forces in our social and economic life, are similar to the terrors of the atmosphere, manifested in storm and lightening." and that: " To thoroughly appreciate this view, one must feel the indignity of our social wrongs; onme's being must throb with the pain, the sorrow, the despair millions of people are daily made to endure.” (3) While it is a necessary step - forward for soci- ety to evolve from the primitivity of violence, it would be naive to ignore the hostile hand so many have so honorably resisted with practical,as well as idealogical refutation. From the peaceful Salt-March protests of Ghandi in the face of the arms-wielding imperialist government of Britian over India - to the "By Any * Means Necessary" defiance against Power of Malcom X, and the demonstrations tear-gassed in the face of the parasitic G-8 Commission, in Pittsburgh at the end of 2009. It's been a historic struggle against the ides of dominance; and until Liberty is no longer an empty word, our inner being " throbs " for the inception of this higher ideall An understanding of social forces is a pivotal step in the life of an individual and society en masse. b4 It's the Peculiar Awakening within the human being. It's the hour the light "turns on" in the faculty of Reason. It's the moment we look inte the mirror, and "questio: The first step in resolving a crisis is to first recognize that a crisis “exists." The every-day crises we struggle in subjection to are ( and quite literally ) overwhelming; and it makes its presence known in a restless way. Outside ( and even “within" ) the wired monot- ony of social life today in amerika, we wonder why we feel so uncompromisably isolated; so relentlessly held back and subjected to the un- yielding scourge of these intolerable forces. These pressures are what becomes of life within the demeaning hands of dictation & coercive authority. To exist so unnaturally bound to the mercy of a foreign will, summons within, an existential " war - cry " that refuses to be ignored, calling forth all the latent forces of the soul which inhibitedly aches beneath the bridles it's been belligerantly leashed to. Alexander Berkman gave this careful attention when he noted how: " Beneath the spirit of intolerance and ' persecution is the habit of autority: coercion to conform to dominant standards, compulsion - moral and legal - to be and act as others,-according to precedent and rule." '( "ABC OF ANARCHISN" ) When we look at our 1i es & of those around us, we see that many of our lives (many "millions") have been turned upside - down due to poverty, imprisonment, dis-ease, & the arduous struggle to £it into Something in which our nature forbids. We know that noone deserves the hand from this "set-deck" we're perpetually dealt - that it doesn't "sit right" in us knowing that we serve such an insatiable " machine " which so apathetically ignores the grumbling in the hunger pain of Conscience. It's a painful truth for this country to swal- low that many of us find suicide* a more tolerable alternative than life under these seemingly unresolvable conditions. " Government " is nothing more than a pawn - mover which serves to gratify the appetite of of a parasitic elite. And the advantage of Privilege among the elite is only as secure as the disadvantage mainta- ined by the masses they dis-empower. The princes of eastern India went so far as to use living people in chess games on checker- board pavements from the veranda they amused themselves on in their courtyard. - Much like prisoners & society, today; but with less rhetoric and upgraded sophistication. The philosophy of Anarchism teaches that when we move without kings ( presidents, land- lords, bosses as well as any other who would govern our existence ), the fundamental strife that comes with "advantage" & "disadvantage” would not only cease to exist, but would be a practical & rational advantage to all - morally, economically, & spiritually, as well. "No man has the right to govern another man." - Francisco Ascaso *It's estimated that one person every 20 min- utes commits suicide in the U.S: 30,000 per yr Of Sedition, the Vices of Established Morality, & the Inlination io Toward Universal Rebellion " Many claim that it is insane to resist the system; but actually, it is insane not to. " An insurrection against constituted authority. 2. Conduct consisting of writing, or acting against an established gov- ermment. or seeking to overthrow it by unlawful means: resistance to lawful authority. tany inquisitively ask:'"Why Revolution? Life is more than Revolting; it's more than Rebellion/ to which T reply that to abstain from standing up to a life of injustice is to fall in cooperation with every injustice extant. History is loaded with seditious spirits unafraid to challenge the “morality" of their respective era - mot only ideclogically, but "practically"as well. In ancient Rome, when the slave-owner Lentulus Batiates satiated his moral appetite by pitting his trained slaves against each other in gladiator school, 76 of his prisoners (including the infamous Sparticus) decided to revolt against their condition - devising a well-planned insurrection *Humia Abu Jamal managing to steal knives from the cook shop, ultinately leading to their escape & eventual organizing with local agricultural slaves who I/ swelled their numbers. No longer would they bend the knee of their Conscience to the dictates of their Roman lords. In the not-so-istant past, the moral constitution of amerika was also met with seditious opposition by many of its slaves & their abolitionist camrades who understood all teo intimately the necessity in rebelling against the mores of the established order ( mich to the reproach of the riost adamant authorities ) - even in the face of Death itselft These were the Nat Turners and the John Browns of the era whose defiance remind us that our humen dignity is a code more worthy of living by than custons & values Capitalism seeks to confine us to. Oriental Sedition. Moreover, before the Soviet Revolution brought Leninisn to China (1917), the majority of social- ists on the scene were anarchists who challenged the institutional mores. ""They elogquently put forward ideas of egalitari- anism, especially emancipation of women from femily bonds and of the peasantry from exploita- ion that would become part of the Chinese vocab- ulary of revolution."* Proudhon, Kropotkin, & Bakunin were studied, & with articulation the need to revolt against the aristocratic Confucianism was indefectibly broken down: This seditious ideology of Bquality went 2geinst every moral principle the ancient dynast- ies of imperial rule had stood for. * John Fairbank, "China: A New Ristory," 1992 IL's the weed of “civilizing" which chokes mun's reasoning powers that he may grow accustomed to the idea of forfeiting his liberty at another's convenience. = But when the individual - stunted from reachiny the Ideal his or her essence is destined to attain becomes fed up with feeling disempowered, the individual then becomes aware that s/he's been deceived - that in actuality, it is government which is the inventor of war; that it is its legislations which evokes "disorder" and the chaos which all of us see manifesting itself in the here & now. And when he overstands that to be compelled to pay for "rent", and tithe taxes for such life-necessit- ated requirements as water & food, that it boils down to nothing less than "legalizedextortion", the individual awakens, disenchanted from the pendulum of the amerikan dream that subdues him. He sees his right to resist. Though the vices which virally predominate society are as old as established society itself, we can begin to purge ourselves from its dementing stronghol d by dismembering its moral fiber & foundations and rebuilding our lives with the vitues of anarchist theory and practice. The world , of coursewon't be entirely free of imperfections, but considering the countless & life- arresting struggling destroying us day in & day out, we can understand vhere Alexander Berknan was coming from with better clarity when he stated: “Certain other crimes will persist for some time, such those resulting from jealousy, passion, and from the spirit of coercion and violence which dominates the world to-day. But these, the offspring of authority and possession, will gradually disappear under wholesome conditions with passing avay of the atmosphere that cultivated them." Fueled with well-articulated resistance, the Chinese anarchists played a significant role in the overthrowing of the Manchu Dynasty; which before 1911, was a pre-occupying ambition in radical circles. 13 One of the founders of Chinese anarchism, Li Shizeng, defiantly ‘voiced that while radicals for the new republic “advocate overthrowing the Manchu government just because it is Manchu.™ (there were racial tensions between the Han & the Manchu) the mhixu,onflieoflmhmd,“advouleflvfimlvwilutbeMmu government just because it is government.” (Anarchism and Chinese Political Culture, by P. Zarrow) Among the reasons for this was in Shizeng’s shared view that “wWomen’s oppression was certainly shaped by the class system...Much of the blame (was placed) at the door of superstition and a *false morality,” promoted by men to enforce their power over women, as well as by authoritarian philosophies like Confucianism.” (see Black Flame, Schmidt & van der Walt) ‘While historic unrest was unraveling in China, two other martyred anarchists in Japan voiced Sacco’s seditious “Viva I'anarchia!™ outery from their very own native tongue: the same defiant proclamation escaped the lips of Denjiro Kotulku and the “lotus flower” Sugano Kano, who were among 12 sent to the gallows in the 1911 High Treason incident. “It is necessary to arouse the people of society, " Kano enticed amidst the throes of heavy government violence, “by instigating riots, undertaking revolutionary action. and engaging in assassinations. " Kotuku — who'd already translated the Communist Manifesto before getting pinched for anti-imperialist activities ~ emerged from his prison pit with a new, seditious translation of Kropotkin's ‘The Conquest of Bread. In the Philippines, the anti-authoritarian translations of Reclus’ writings circulated in the Tagalog language. as well. From Eastto West: the unyielding spirit of virtue has known the existence of government as a vice - a vice worth universally rebelling against. 1y (It is necessary) to rally not a few, but all, countries in a single plan of action (for an) international revolution... (toward) universal world-wide revolution. ” ~ Mikhail Bakunin The Wisdom of Sedition Berkman also goes on o refute the idea of “laziness,” describing & so-called lazy person as a “square man in a round hole... the right man in the wrong place;” expounding that we become “lazy” when we're overwhelmed with doing things we don’t want 10 do: when we're pressured to do things that our hearts are simply not into. The wisdom of sedition teaches that once we subtract inequality from the equation in the social environment; correspondingly, the amount of envy will naturally decrease. Make the capitalist state a thing of the past; and consequently, the less gluttonous the future of any society will become. Privileged skeptics & those in positions of power promote the idea that sedition is immoral, worthy of nothing but confinement and condemnation. But is such seditious proclamations are truly immoral, then Immorality itself is undeserving of the ethical cross to which mankind has nailed it. Lok oul for mumber one is a prescription for demoralization, corruption, & ultimately general catastrophe... Cooperation for the common good & concern for the rights & needs of others must replace the dismal search for maximization of personal power & consumption i the barbarism of capitalist society is 10 be overcome. Noam Chomsky (Radical Priorities) In conclusion. In Anarchist Morality, Peter Kropotkin relates Human Thought to the swinging of a Pendulum, which-through the course of time "frees herself from the chains with which. ..rulers, lawyers, ...have carefully enwound her. “She shatters the chains," he went on to elucidate."she subjects to criticism all that has been taught her." The brevity of life & its circumstances confirm that it's time for us to utilize the momentum of our restrained desires & free ourselves from the leash of every governing force holding us back: Here and abroad. T One NPR broadcast recently aired, for example how many emigres are voicing how desperately the N.Korean government insulates the masses from the "outside world." While their love for their country's profound; its when many flee to S.Korea China, etc. that they're able to see - from the outside looking in - how deceptively medi -a had distorted their world-view. Where repression is this severe, there there can only (naturally) grow an inclimation toward an ever-amassing wave of popular rebellion. The repressive force is, consequentially,able to give rise to a resistance reminiscent (but unique) of the infamous 1919 uprising against the Japanese occupation, and the Uiyoltan (Band of Heroes), Korean Anarchist Federation ( KAF ) & Black Flag Alliance which arose in its wake. Ib "Reminiscent": in that mass resistance is a conceivable threat should the people at large resist their own invasive government, its nuclear threat and media-muscling (tecknology) . "Unique"-"in that whereas major revolts (like the Kirin Revolution in neighboring Manchuria [ 1929-1931 ]) were primarily peasant uprisings, the dynamics of resistance are shifting toward a more urban setting. As mentioned - they definately have anti- authoritarian roots. KAF, alone, had branches in Manchuria (KAF-M) and China (KAF-C) as early as 1929. And there was already an East Asian Anarchist Federation which, according to Schmidt & van der Walt, "linked anarch- ists in China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan (Formosa), vietnam, i and apparently India."* They- as exampled - have a history which Shin Ch'aeho swings in their favor as we do in the West! Without a doubt, we share a common thread with anti-government forces throughout the world who we-in more ways than one- move in ideological sync with. Who of us in the prisons & slums o £ amerjka can't relate to Korean anarchist Shin Ch'aehos "Korean Revolution Manifesto"**. - That seditiously resonant call to rise to "destroy the system of economic exploitation, ...destroy servile cultural thoughts... We can't help but feel an inalienable 7 affinity with the heart of every have-not who knows that "moral decline" is a product of government power ! It'd be "unethical” to turn our heads away from the truth that world - wide liberation calls for the organization of universal rebelliont * TBlack Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism & Syndicalism" ** 1923 African Socialism Sam Mbah & I.E. Igariwey Like Kropotkin, Errico Malatesta (1853-1932) observed that humanity is “enslaved from the triple viewpoint, econonic, political,and moral.” | § In having devoted this chapter to the third view point, it should finally be remembered that there’ll alvays be people in this world who attack you morally in the struggle toward a self-actualized existence. Whether you're dealing with people in positions of pover, or the judgemental § self- righteous who get off on demoralizing and bringing you down in the streets: The key is to make a mental note of it & move on; refusin to be enslaved. (Enslavement of every form is the very it we ain to destroy. everything which imprisons, thin be it cconomically, politically or "morally" motivated.) It's u priority that we share as responsible, dedicated (and radical) beings. And it's a daring, courageous defiance against our previous faults as well as all such moral assassination attempts. Chomsky poignantly stresses the importance of this in recalling tha "Anger, outrage, confessions of overwhelming guilt may be good ctherapy; they can also become a barr- ier to effective action, which can always be made to seem incommensurable with the enormity of the crime. Nothing is easier than to adopt a new form of self-indulgence, no less debilitating than that the old apathy. The danger is substantial. Tt is hardly a novel insight that confessions of guilt can be institutionalized as a technique for evading what must be done.” To free ourselves from this self-destructive indulgence, it's dmportant we never lose sight of our Purpose in a world that needs us to not give up when we're moment- arily thrown to the ground. Remembering you're never alone - regardless of wherever you are in life - is grounded in as much truth as Lou Marinoff's words, when he advises the morally-targeted reader to: ] 7 "See if you can practice moral self defense by refusing to accept an offense next time it is offered to you. At the elementary level, do not take the offense personally: you are not obliged to." (Therapy for the Sane) Regardless of whatever history you may have had, remember that noone's is flawless & that it's our call to see the stumbling blocks in our lives as stepping stepping stones, that we may be able to overcome them; and not only this - but to help the world around us overcone them as vell. The future depends on us reexamining the pitfalls of our past. It depends on the rebellious breaking - away from individual as well as universal coercion. "Struggle! To struggle is to live, and the fiercer the struggle the intenser the life. Then you will have lived; and a few hours of such life are worth years spent vegetating." - PETER KROPOTKIN 20 2/ Notes for lanovative Defiance iatism Officially born in 1916, the Dada movement ‘was, according to Cnlthuu\kim,“mmemmjnsumfimlpiuwmdm society Mloflfledil;m:lmdadmythingmvmfiand& sacrosanct - government, literature, art... “(It) itself was never an art movement. It was first and foremost a revolutionary state of mind, a violent assault on all accepted values.” Hatehed from the upheaving flame of defiance agains! the 1% World War, its ideological vein extends as far back as the anarchism, which convlsed the order of Europe throughout the 1880's. Young, anti-conformist minds rebelliously withdrew from their warting counties to the neutral town of Zurich, Switzerland, where this contorted, amalgamating creature was given its breath, It emerged as the ant-art movement. The slanted print amidst a world of straightencd convention. The mustache on the Mona Lisa of moral custom & value. More than simply a nest for artistie nibilism, the Cabaret Voltaire (see preceding page) became a large, narrow room for daring idealists to breathe rebellion into it nostrils; animating the revolting wings of the movement. It sucked its teeth at the. mundane imagination of established order, taking Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, pop Art & every artistic expression Jean Arp ~ one remarkable innovator from the Cabaret — Jess imagination than a worm & has, in place of a heart, a lrger. than-life-sized com which troubles him where there is change in the weather - the stock exchange weather,” Artstic revolutionary Marcel Duchamp upheld the Dada mnvflnemhehelpedinililr,m“amofnihflifln...lwnymw outof a state of mind - {0 avoid being influenced by one’s iwunedinmvimmmbythepux‘mgulw-yfivmdiflh&— (o get fre.” -a freedom that was certainly ached-afer by one typographical outlaw (Jules Heuberger), who spent a lot of time in & out of the slammer for publishing anarchist leaflets. ‘What we can do today is bring something signature to the world of artistic expression. We can tum our very own basements that we: record in over spliffs, into incubators of next-level radical culture. Al it takes is delving deeper into the freer, untapped side of our spirits & uilizing oue immediate resources in an imaginative way. Hakim Bey's transcending 60-paged work on “Immediatism™ (1994) cradles the potential of nciting the type of radicalization ‘which can sister (or even ‘mid-wife") the social revolution we're working on building. A rejection of capitalist socicty’s work / consume / die structure, Bey’s Immediatism reminds us “the body itself s the least mediated of all media.™ A direct outlet with lfe, as living beings, s a iving revolt against virtal slavery - a alling-out rom the marching-in-lockstep “zombification” (as Anthony Rayson puts i) pervading society. In unmedisted gratification, esp. in this programmed & over. survellanced & insitutionalized age, les germ of a counter- new life for the movement — if only for its anti nature, alone. It can stimulate in a sense - a higher form of freestyle. A self-actualizing existence & from an authentically anarchist platform at that! Bey analyzes where it can head when he writes that: “If Immediatism begins with groups of friends trying not just 1o overcome isolation but also to enhance each other's lives, soon it will wan 10 take a more complex shape: - ruclei of mutually self-chosen allies, working (playing) 10 occupy more & more time & space outside all mediated structure & control. Then... a horizontal network of such autonomous groups ~ then, a “tendency” ~ then, a “movement” — then, a kinetic web of *temporary auionomous zones'" We're ready to culturally ovolve. Society's itching for a social revolution. Iftaken seriously, Immediatism can give to our counter-culture spiitually’ what the union can give to it materially & living, autonomous expression of freedom. Resist Tmperialism Imperialism (n.):The policy of extending a nation's authority by acquisition of Lerritory or by the establishment of hegen- omy (the influence of one state over others) over other nations. 24 1o impoverished blacks, hispanics & all other aon-whites & macginalized in Amerika sharc an inalienable affinity with all who systematic ally Lhrive in the throes of class struggle. And the advantages of resisting the state machine isn't confined to the prison crisis & day to day survival in the streets:it's Gavantageous to the underpriviledged masses whose hands are tied behind our backs in avary city,prison, & capitalist-run nation srd the world! We lived menaced by its get-down-on-the- ground dictalions and only through a pa ate display of solidarity can we unharness the love which will uplift us from its para- s Despair.We'll return to this; but bfore : a List of countries the U.S governmen has bombed. * B3 Aene *since Wi " China: 1945-46 Grenada: Korea: 1950-53 Libya China: 1950-53 E1 Salvador Guatemala:1954 Nicaragua Tndonesia:1958 Panama : Ccuba :1959-60 Irag : Congo :1964 Sudan Laos :1994-73 Afghanistan : Peru :1995 Yugoslavia 73 Afghanistan Guatemala:1967-69 Irag Cambodia:1969-70 Vietnam: 19! 2§ 1983 1986 1980+ 1980+° 1989 1991-99 1998 1998 1999 2001- 2001- A WORLD OF SLUMS: BREEDING GROUND FOR A GENERATION OF ANTI-IMPERTALISTS il Half of the entire world is urbanized-over 3.2 billion people; and with the rapid 2.2% percent annual urban growth the Census beaureau antici- billion mark in 2017; and 4.9 billion by the Year 2030- Considering 47.4 Million living in poverty in this country, have a significant share in this Ganned nko the —heavily populsted urben ress- fs7vel1 Cateutated 24 The “acquisition of territory: has been an obvious method for control since colonialism began. The surving 0.9 % of Mative amerikans Kknow it and so do many of we. though the matrix of this pseudo-reality we wake up & close our eyes to can obscure & blow its authoritarian motives from the palm of our everyday thought- life in the streets. In the havoc of the mania of trying to mentally make it to the next day. In the struggle to make it out the walls af a marginalized existence we feel closing ummerci- fully in on our potential. Researchers Peter and Ginger Breggin-in over looking this develop- ment-focused in on this colonialistic pheno- menon as early as 1998, observing that: "Over many decades following the Civil War, blacks were driven from their land [in Amerika] and forced to migrate to major cities in search of industrial jobs and domestic work;" calculating calculating how: "Black 1and loss exceeded ; 6 million acres by 1974.” That's a whole lot of production pover to be expropriated, to say the least. The imperialist government of Amerika Flexes its muscle on every country it can raise is arms in, coerce, impose its force upon and exploit. With about 1.3 million servicing its reserves world wide, an incredible 20.6% percent of gover- nment spending was on "National Defense" in 2008: million serving its armed forces in vearly 1 tories." 5. and its "terri 27 Over 85,000 throughout Europe. Some 70-0dd thousand force-servers across Russic E.Asia & the Pacific. Over 8,000 throughout Afrika, the near Fast & South Asia, including 2500 in Afrika's sub- saharan regions. ¥hile many may imagine that such "Occupational leverage" is safe & well-intentioned & that foreign policy is patriotically favorable from ¥hat's seen on t.v., the streets ain't slow and we've long been internationally disillus- ioned. Take Haiti, for instance. It's no coincidence that such a relief effort for the hundreds of thousands of impoverished lives lost in the January 2010 earthquake has been broadcasted the way its been during war-time. A warotime in which even many right-wing conservatives are groving to loathe & demonstrate alongside those on the left against. Haiti has been utterly suffering as the poorest country on the western hemisphere for years. It says alot, when not even 2 years prior-when var-time sympathizers were a little more visible-the U.S. Government,"itself" was being charged with withholding $54 million from Haiti for political leverage over the country.-toney meant to provide clean water. It speaks volumes to reflect how when the pic— tures of torture (water-boarding) of political prisoners were unearthed in Guantanamo Bay, President Obama refused to expose the images to the media to show the public,to show just how much change we can believe in. It sheds light on the reality that despite its shimmering fascade, the Government is Capita- listic and the imperialist empire of Capitalism has no conscience. 2¥ Occupational Amerika is a missle-magnet for the foreign & domestically disinherited who openly Geclare a "get away £rom me-I'm not for you; if Snything I'm against you' outcry of resentment. Cindy Sheshan and the Code Pink people are bull horning anti-war rallies in the face of govern- ment mijitancy in California; and during a Dec- ember 4°% 2009 protest I was active in,the president's limo was welcomed with vulgarity on the left and shouts of "go home" hostility on the right, here in PA. Though the current war has the Middle East in the spotlight of the everyday get-byers in Amerika who've long have lost respect for the system, the hoods in the Middle East have shared hostility toward the Establishment for decades. Understanding the U.S. Government's use of Istael as a strategic asset in the wake of Istael's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Thomas L. Friedman cited these widely-held sentiments of one Senior Kuwait official: "You have lost where it matters most-on the humanitarian level. Whatever respect there was in the Arab world for the United States as a moral authority has been lost." (Published in the New York Times, Nov.22, 1982) In a more recent article, Diana West, a writer for United Feature Syndicate,asked Iragi, Parliamentarian Ayad Jamal Alden whether or not Shiite Iran would work with Sunni al-Oaiida & Sunni Taliban (to test him on a "Washington myth*), he replied: "They all have one enemy. The U.S. -Shia and Sunni differences don't matter to them when it comes to the common enemy." This “common enemy" realization is what prompted Flack Panther Party co-founder Huey P. Newton to shake hands with Arafat in their momorable photo the generation preceeding our own. Prisons as Breeding Ground for Anti-Imperialist A Make for Good Conversation. "The treatment of prisoners gives a certain insight into the nature of the conquering army." -Noam Chomsky 29 I think if a prisoner in the States celled-Up with an imperialized prisoner of war abroad,it'd make for some interesting conversation. Provided Of course, one were bi-lingual or had a cell- neighbor to interpret while ear-hustling through the vent. 1t'd be intrigueing to see how much empathy can be shared between the two who aren't maive to the fact that it's an existential necessity to resist oppression from the psyche, cell, and society alike Surely it'd leave an impression on the mind to watch them read from the same paper on the war and nod their heads in agreement that liberty is supressed wherever Government s are found to exist. And to hear the personalized backgrounds of both respective cultures & how both have shared 2 sense of disdain toward the bourgeoise which exist in both countries & how their gene- ration before theirs-their mothers, uncles & aunts-have felt the same way,as well. The same malevolent grin the beaten & bare-naked pile of prisoners observed in the face of Charles Graner as the torture photos at Abu- Ghranib were being flashed in 2004, is the same face U.S. prisoners vere looking into at SCI- GREENE less than 5 years before, in Pennsylvania USA. (PA prisoners filed numerous Grievance Reports on Graner only to have them returned to the prisoners' cell, as "Frivolous") Though Lebanon may tend to desert the everyday mind in Amerika as nothing more than a distant geographic locale,the fact that an 87% of the Lebanese live "urban® alongside a rising 82% of us in the U.S. reveals a correspondence that's not so far-reaching. Though our cultural lives may differ respect- ively, both share a marginalized existence. Both have hoods which are armed to the teeth and are “hungey . 30 Inside-outside. Exploitation world wide is the cultivator of the resistant sentiments it incubatorily breeds. The 'Hood As Breeding Ground For 3 Anti - Imperialist Rebels Those of us who know what it's like to turn on the kitchen light at night to the scatter of roaches; to open the refriger- ator door with nothing - or next to nothing inside it, with nothing in the freezer but ice. A can or two of evapor- ated milk on the cabinet shelf - we know what it means to be "marginalized We know what it feels like to have our ch touching our back. To face being turned away after standing for over an stor hour at the bread-lime that runs on a lst come - lst served basis. To have the thoughts of selling crack race through the mind before the idea of RESISTING to live a life manipulated by an established order is entertained. ) It'd be naive to ignore that our day-to- day struggle has an impact on our view of government which demographically dominates us. It's exciting to know that more of us are refusing to ignore any longer that we exist more as the "possessed” than the Possessors ( over our very lives! 32 With the middle class dismantling, the divide between the rich & the poor cont- inues to visibly widen. Amidst the rubble exists maneuverable terrain for urban gorillas from the destitute margins of society who see the logic & necessity for organizing resistance across the slum-belt. Tt isn't hard to see why the government faces hostility in its foreign policies abroad & concentration of power here - why it's threatened with popular rebellion at home and beyond. The genocide - reduced slums, bridge- bottom homeless camps & cardboard-box cities in this country is lst world Amerika's domestic third world. Jean-Paul Sarte brings to our attention that: “The name given by the French to their *conquests’ - possassions d'outre mer (overseas possessions) - indicates clearly that they had managed to obtain them only by wars of aggression. The aggressor seeks out the adversary on his o ground. ..in the under-developed coun- Fries..." Whether we look at it through the eyes of a fore- inor who feels the heat of imperialist occupation, or through our own when they redden in blood-dhot resentment when racially-profiled on these streets 're ‘colonialized’ in: - 33 No relief from the occupying forces on "foreign soil", nor from the brutality & surveillance saturating the city streets will be found without a collaborated effort to overthrow it L ¢ 1t 111 " [Nlothing will change until mass popular movements develop, here and abroad, that can struggle effectively against the violence of the state, directed and organ- ized by those who rule the state by virtue of their unchallenged domination. - Noam Chomsky ("Radical Priorities") Capitalism On A Broader Scale Inperialism - being capitalism on a broader scale - is a powder keg packed with the potential of explo- ding in any territory it can roll into. It alvays affects the poor: those of us who exist marginalized & locked in perpetual struggle within a system which socio-politically "beast: In fect, V. Dedijer, in his study On Military Qonventions, analyzed how the true nature of capitalist societies engage "in the process of giving birth to the monster of total war." 3y One reason - due to the fact that: "Rivalry between industrial nations, who fight over the new markets engenders the permanent hostility which is exoressed in the theory & practice known as "bourgeois nationalism' #hat is a bourgeois nationalist A 'bourgeois nationalist' is a middle-class opooser of class struggle who represents a nation that cap- italizes on the disadvantaged & have-nots. In the 'hood, we largely view them as internat- ional wedgie-havin' cut-throats who snip the ribbon on power deals while severing ties with those of us who can see past their facade of "success." (Not the type of success that serves to uplift the people from poverty;but the kind of success that the less naive of us suck our testh at.) Political tensions between the elitist pwers are losded with "permanent hostility" between they & the offended and disempowered masses whom they exploit. This may come off somehat twisted to mamy; but frankly speaking - many Of us from the streets start off mutating into "bourgeois nationalists", curselves. 35 Without a doubt ~ many of s have never even heard of the words, It alone knew what they meant; but we fell prey 1o its disempowering ideology, while “cookin’ up,” slangin® & bangin’ How? ‘Well, “pushin’™ enough, can quickly raise anyone on the grind to middle-class (and even upper-class) status. This, in tum also leaves you with now facing the permanent hostility from those who've already comered the market. From those who “locked the spot down” & who'l always see you as competition in the streets where political tensions between elitist powers are microcosmically mirrored. In essence ~ it becomes a war over money & occupying turf in their city (or suburb) not much different than that of US. troops deployed in Afghanistan & beyond. And if the individual happens to rep. @ (gang) flag — whether onc realizes it or not — by the very definitive act, it not only makes him (or her) “boojee,” but as bourgeois nationalist as the govermment politician. S0 we see, an individual doesn’t necessarily bave to walk with theif pants up their butt to fulfil the qualifications of being “baojee.” And for those of us who grew up on the sireels — we know just ‘bow much a society of cut-throats is “always in the process of giving birth to the monster of total war;" whether we speak of cultural genocide or nuclear warfare. RESIST BEING BOOJEE AT ANY COST! 36 Social takeover. “Revolution is rebellion become conscious of its aims."® In the streets that we struggle in & in the prisons 1ie a resevoir of repressed life-energy just aching & throbbing to be released. Ue've been looking for every possible way to let it out so it doesn't consume us; every possible way - except the one in the direction which is the Source of our struggle. ¥hile this everyday struggle can consume us with an appetite to destroy: to go out set-trippin' & bangin', or even putting the gun to our own heads; the result has alvays ended up_being that an extreme dissastifaction with life remains. That we still inevitably feel like valking time-bombs; regardless of the havoc we wresk. The Establishment remains unmoved by the madness & still stands. This falls in line to vhat Alexander Berknan taught vhen he wrote that: “|CJonditions are not destroyed by breaking & smashing things. You can't destroy vage slavery by wrecking the machinery in mills and factories. .. You won't destroy government by setting fire to the Vhite House." Channeling this repressed energy in o more "constructiv vay will arm us vith the necessary instruments for teking aver our lives. For some, this may be through the the outlet of writing (propaganda). For others - through insurrection. For wany more, artistic expression will stimulate the culture consciousness as much as music. And perhaps more portantly is getting it into our minds the need for rhe wage-slaves & the unemployed to take over the work- Alexander Derkman speaking at an TW rally at Union Square,N..C., 1914 vd concerning the lacter out & those of us frustrated . for those of us th scraping what ve to survive - is long overdue. About 952 of those in prison ( roughly 2 million ) are ant ©d Lo step out of the Revolving Door at some point Like many of us vith a criminal record in the 'hood, th released prisoner has the most odds stacked against hin/ her in finding a job to meke ends meet. It leads many to Feelings of despair & of giving up, and