Durham Bill of Rights Proclamation Monday and Loose Change on Communist Voice

The 9th annual Bill of Rights/Human Rights Proclamation will be presented at the beginning of the Durham City Council meeting December 5th at 7pm in City Hall.  The Durham Bill of Rights Defense Committee invites people to attend and it can also be seen live on cable's DTV8. 

 

Communist Voice is showing a one hour version of Loose Change - Final Cut this month, starting this Tuesday at 6-7pm on both Durham Community Media and The Peoples Channel.  Loose Change is a famous 9/11 truth documentary, available in several versions covering many of the holes in the official story and this version leaves out some questionable claims in previous versions.  This cable access version was provided by www.911tv.org.  There are enough shows on 9/11, US war crimes, Soviet history, leftist music, etc. available now and our cable access channels have space for new programming, so Communist Voice now has an hour every week on Tuesdays.     

Commemorating the Russian Revolution on TPC/DCM

The October Socialist Revolution began November 7th (October 25th by the calendar the Russian Empire was using at the time), 1917, so this month's showing on Communist Voice is the 1986 Soviet video Chronicle of October - 1917, starting tonight.  The Occupy Movement should study the proletarian revolutions in Russia and elsewhere, instead of relying on small capitalist discourse, as it seems to right now.  Chronicle of October has been shown in full on The Peoples Channel before, but the Cyrillic credits and the opening scenes in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) had to be cut for space.  The video was donated by the US Friends of the Soviet People.  Communist Voice might soon switch to an hour long time slot, probably around the same time.      

IAC statement on NATO's war against Libya

Below is a statement from the anti-imperialist International Action Center (www.iacenter.org) on the NATO attack on Libya.  Whether it is Bill Clinton attacking Iraq and Yugoslavia, George Bush attacking Afghanistan and Iraq, or Barack Obama attacking Libya, these are wars of aggression for geopolitics, markets, and resources, justified as "humanitarian intervention."  The US government claims to have humanitarian concern for Libya, but rewards the bloody repression in Bahrain, which hosts a US naval base.  Russia and China allowed the war against Libya to have UN Security Council approval, and then protested as if they didn't know NATO intended to topple the government.   

People who opposed Bush's wars were duped by Nobel Peace Prize recipient Obama or revealed that they believe in imperialism as much as Obama and the Democratic establishment does.  The strange result was that Republicans were referred to as anti-war in the media.  The media, including NPR and Amy Goodman's Democracy Now attempted to delegitimize the sovereign government of Libya by referring to "Gadhafi forces" and the media in general trumpeted opposition statements that turned out to be false, such as the claims about Viagra and sub-Saharan African mercenaries.  .     

With its success in Libya, and the killing of Gadhafi in a way reminiscent of what the Afghan warlords did in the early 90's, NATO might now turn to Syria and Obama may be creating the foundations for an attack on Iran.  Since this statement, it has been revealed that Somalia is being secretly bombed by the US, in addition to Yemen and Pakistan.  

- Murder of Gadhafi is next step to wider U.S. wars in Africa

INTERNATIONAL ACTION CENTER STATEMENT ON LIBYA: Lynching in Libya – Made in U$A

The brutal lynching of Moammar Gadhafi, the leader of Libya, is the latest criminal act in NATO's seven-month war of regime change and conquest.

Gadhafi died resisting to the very end U.S.-NATO war, as he said he would. He refused to negotiate with NATO an ignominious departure for himself or to surrender. He chose a martyr's death for Libya's independence and sovereignty. Despite ridicule in the West, in Africa Gadhafi will be remembered as an anti-imperialist fighter.

The gross and disrespectful behavior of the National Transitional Council (TNC) in the display of Moammar Gadhafi's body confirms to the world in the most graphic way that these elements, who the imperialist powers have given official recognition, are in fact crude, low-life gangsters.

Instead of burying Gadhafi within a day as required under Islamic law, they chose to display Gadhafi's battered, half naked body -- bloody, unwashed and uncovered -- on a soiled mattress in a meat locker at a shopping center.

This affront to religious and national custom will further deepen outrage and resistance.

TNC militias did no real fighting. These divided, competing military bands operate as scavengers or vultures, calling in air strikes and lying in wait to pick over the death that NATO bombers have blasted in front of them. In seven months of NATO bombing they have shown themselves capable of firing endless weapons in front of cameras and brutalizing Black Libyans, yet incapable of conducting any independent military action.

U.S. and NATO forces bear responsibility for this latest crime and the way it was carried out. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sounded like a gunslinger in a Hollywood western in Tripoli the day before Gadhafi's murder, demanding his capture – dead or alive.

Loyalist forces in the city of Sirte, Bani Walid and several other cities have held out heroically two months after NATO seizure of Tripoli.

NATO bombers targeted Sirte and Bani Walid's electrical grid, communications, food storage, the city water supply, the water towers on apartment buildings and even the water tower on the roof of the hospital. Again and again the TNC has announced that all resistance in these small cities have has been destroyed, only to be driven out each time.

The imperialist war in Libya is reminiscent of past colonial wars in Africa and Asia. Targeting of any civilian necessities, such as water, food, medicine, and communication is specifically prohibited under international law and considered a war crime under the Nuremburg and Geneva Conventions. Yet during seven months of war those are exactly the civilian targets that NATO planners focused on again and again.

The bombing of lines of cars fleeing the NATO besieged city of Sirte that led to Gadhafi's capture is an example of systematic targeting of civilians.

U.S. British, French and Italian imperialist forces claimed to be protecting civilians and implementing a United Nations Security Council No-fly zone. But the Libyan government used no aircraft at all. U.S. and other NATO jets ruled the skies and civilians were their targets. This is an expanding war. Today U.S. drones strike with impunity at defenseless peoples around the world.

Gadhafi's greatest threat to the imperialist countries was promoting a development plan for an African Federation and a stable African currency backed by Libya's $90 billion reserves to help Africans free themselves from the IMF and World Bank's onerous dictates.

Forty-two years ago Libya was one of the poorest, least developed countries of Africa. Gadhafi and other young military officers overthrew the Western-supported Libyan monarchy of King Idris in 1969, then held the imperialist's off as the Libyans built with nationalized oil revenues a series of modern cities and infrastructure. Before the NATO bombing this year, the Libyan people had achieved the highest educational and health standards in Africa, according to UN development statistics.

In the same week that Secretary of State Clinton traveled to Tripoli and that Gadhafi was murdered, President Barack Obama ordered U.S. Special Forces and military advisors to Uganda, South Sudan, Central Africa Republic and Democratic Republic of Congo. These are countries that hold a vast reservoir of strategic minerals, including cobalt, coltan, industrial diamonds, copper in Congo and newly discovered oil in Uganda and South Sudan.

Anyone who expects that U.S./NATO forces or their corrupt collaborators will rebuild the schools, hospitals, modern housing, sports complexes, vast underground water system, electricity, advanced communications, reorganize free health care or reconstruct essential infrastructure that they have laid waste to in months of bombing need only look at their ignominious record in Iraq after eight years or in Afghanistan after ten years. The promised peace, national reconciliation, democracy and development were empty words.

Today, the vast majority of Iraqi people, even in the capital city of Baghdad, still struggle with a few hours of electricity a day. Potable water is a memory of a past, pre-occupation epoch, so is free education and health care. NATO is a war machine for corporate profit, not a social service agency. It has shown itself as incapable of reorganizing a decent life.

In Afghanistan after a decade of occupation, the rubble of U.S. bombs and rusting tanks still litter the roads. None of the promised social progress has reached beyond Pentagon press releases and politicians visits.

In Iraq the indignities and humiliations were so numerous and such an affront that even the government of compliant collaborators established by the U.S. has been forced by mass sentiment to refuse immunity to U.S. troops scheduled to remain in Iraq as relabeled trainers and advisors.

As in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen the resistance in Libya to U.S. NATO domination will continue and take on new forms.

The imperialists never expected mass mobilized resistance to their plans. They predicted a war that would be over within a week. Instead a small population of six million, spread across a largely desert country, managed through mass mobilizations of millions of people, military resistance and emergency measures to withstand more than 200 days of non-stop bombardment, more than 9,000 air strikes.

U.S., British and French corporate looters are planning a new assault on Africa, but they are finding that this is not the world of 100 years ago.

The tens of thousands of youth occupying sites in cities across the U.S. and Europe need to stand in solidarity with resistance to corporate domination at home and to imperialist wars abroad.

Occupy Wall Street!

NOT Libya, Iraq or Afghanistan.

Part Two of Truth and Politics Starts 10/4

Part 1 of Truth and Politics: Unanswered Questions About 9/11 / A Talk by David Ray Griffin ended rather abruptly, so viewers contacted me thinking it was cut off, but there is a Part 2, starting on Communist Voice tomorrow evening. Because of the time limit, a few minutes had to be cut at the beginning and the end.

 

Part 1 left off with Dr. Griffin questioning why the Secret Service didn't rush Bush out of the Florida elementary school he was visiting that morning, in contrast to how they hurried Cheney into a bunker. He says this reflects the 9/11 Commission's typically uncritical acceptance of whatever officials say, and that when questions were asked, they were not included in the final report. Griffin says the 9/11 Commission Report's general consistency indicates that it was edited by one person, Executive Director Philip Zelikow. The 9/11 Commission did not examine the numerous very general to very specific warnings received before 9/11, and in his remarks Griffin mentions San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown being warned not to fly on 9/11 and how Attorney General John Ashcroft stopped taking commercial flights that summer. Part 2 starts with a discussion of how Ashcroft rebuffed former Clinton impeachment prosecutor David Schippers, who was trying to bring to Ashcroft's attention a group of FBI agents who knew six weeks beforehand the general time and location of the attack in New York, who would carry it out, and how it was funded.

 

The credits also had to be cut:

 

Videography: Jim Terrell, Celestine Star, Lee Beale, Brad Larsen, and Gabriel Kish

 

Video Recording: Hummux

 

Graphics: www

 

Editor & Technical Director: Ken Jenkins

 

They recommend that viewers educate themselves and others, and support these organizations:

 

911truth.org

justicefor911.org

septembereleventh.org

9/11 Truth on DCM/TPC

A new episode of Communist Voice is premiering tonight on Durham Community Media and The Peoples Channel, part 1 of Truth and Politics:  Unanswered Questions About 9/11, which is a recording of a 2004 address by philosophy of religion professor and leading 9/11 truth author David Ray Griffin.  Griffin and others raise many important questions about the al Qaida conspiracy theory put foward by the government to explain how 9/11 could have occurred and what happened that day.  It is clear that the government knew an attack was coming, and knew at least some of the details, and benefitted from the attack.  I'm more agnostic about issues like what crashed into the Pentagon and whether explosives were planted in the three buildings that collapsed at the World Trade Center.  Defenders of the official theory argue over these issues, rather than the evidence that the Bush Administration knew 9/11 was going to happen, and let it happen so they could invade Afghanistan and Iraq and carry through their domestic policies.

 

It should be noted that I critically endorse the content of Communist Voice, and the programs may or may not have been created by members of a communist party.  I have no reason to think David Ray Griffin is a Marxist, but I think it is important for people to hear his arguments and communists should not join capitalist media and opportunists in attacking the 9/11 truth movement with a broad brush, as some have.     

 

 

Manchuria - August 1945

Starting this evening, the Communist Voice series on The Peoples Channel and Durham Community Media will be showing Manchuria – August 1945, a Soviet documentary about the USSR's role in liberating northeastern China from Japanese occupation. The program was donated by US Friends of the Soviet People. In September 1931 Japan attacked China and seized Manchuria, and in July 1938 the Sino-Japanese War began, lasting until the defeat of Japan in 1945. In this way WWII's roots extend back to the 20's and 30's, and in a few decades, US aggression against Iraq in the 90's and the invasion in 2003 may be seen as the quiet beginning of the next inter-imperialist war.

As the Allied powers had agreed at conferences, the USSR was to have a role in the war against Japan, but by August 1945 Roosevelt was dead and President Truman wanted a free hand. Japan's fascist government, all but defeated already, knew it had lost when the USSR and Mongolia entered the war, but the US still dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima August 6^th and on Nagasaki August 9^th. It can be argued that, other than the radiation, there is not a huge difference between being incinerated or boiled by a nuclear bomb versus the conventional firebombings that struck other Japanese and German cities. Two cities were destroyed and tens of thousands of Japanese and Korean civilians were killed so the US would be the sole occupier of Japan and could intimidate the USSR, an attempt which failed (ml-review.ca/aml/AllianceIssues/All30iii.htm). The US went on to preserve part of Japan's fascist leadership for use during the Cold War, divided the Korean nation, and fomented the Korean War (ml-review.ca/aml/China/KoreaNS.htm). China liberated itself from imperialist domination and feudalism, and helped defend the DPRK, but its revisionist leadership did not build socialism, and now openly advocates capitalism and supports imperialism, from Haiti to Libya.

There is an annual vigil in August commemorating the atomic bombing of Japan at the Chapel Hill Post Office on Franklin Street.

Karl Marx featured on Communist Voice this month

Karl Marx was born May 5, 1818, so Communist Voice is featuring the first half of Karl Marx: the Scholar, the Revolutionary, and the Man this month.  The time is also moving, to Tuesday evenings at 8 on The Peoples Channel and 6pm on Tuesdays on Durham Community Media (but the Life of Vladimir Lenin will continue a week or two into May on the Durham station).  

 

    

Events this week

In honor of the great Russian communist leader VI Lenin's birthday, April 22, 1870, this month's episode of Communist Voice is the Soviet film The Life of Vladimir Lenin, more for its unique archival footage than for its political clarity.  Communist Voice is available on cable Mondays 4-4:30pm on The Peoples Channel in Orange County and parts of Chatham County and on Durham Community Media. 

 

April 22 is also Earth Day and the 25th annual Pilgrimage for Peace and Justice is this week, and stops in the Triangle area April 21-22 (see www.ncjustice.org/?q=node/793#thu for the schedule). 

 

Please let me know if you know of events planned for International Workers' Day/May Day.  The annual marijuana legalization rally will probably happen May 1st at the State Capitol, but I am not aware of any labor events planned in the area. 

France and other imperialists launch war with Libya

Below is a message from the International Action Center (www.iacenter.org/anti-war/stop_the_us_war_on_libya_and_bahrain/) exposing the hypocrisy of the Obama administration and the other imperialists, who have started a war with Libya to aid the opposition, but stand by or encourage the bloody crackdown in Bahrain, and prevent UN action against Israel whenever it attacks its neighbors and targets civilians.  Bush is unpopular and many Americans now see that he is a warmonger, but now the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize is supporting a new unjustified war in the Arab world the day before the anniversary of the start of the Iraq War.   

 

STOP THE U.S. WAR ON LIBYA AND BAHRAIN!

The International Action Center calls on all anti-war and social justice activists to call Emergency Response STOP THE U.S. WAR AGAINST LIBYA AND BAHRAIN actions in their areas on Friday, March 18 or Saturday, Marcy 19, or to mobilize support for any already existing anti-war demonstrations called to mark the anniversary of the Iraq War, with this statement and signs to STOP THE U.S. WAR AGAINST LIBYA AND BAHRAIN, as well as to intensify the mobilization for the April 9th and 10th Anti-War demonstrations in New York and San Francisco called by the United National Antiwar Committee.
 
On March 17, 2011, Washington showed its true intentions by pushing through a U.N. Security Council resolution that amounts to a declaration of war on the government and people of Libya.
 
A U.S. attack is the worst possible thing that could happen to the people of Libya. It also puts the unfolding Arab revolutions, which have inspired people across North Africa and Western Asia, in the gravest danger.
 
The resolution goes beyond a no-fly zone. It includes language saying U.N. member states could "take all necessary measures" ... "by halting attacks by air, land and sea forces under the control of the Gadhafi regime."(CNN.com, Mar 17)
 
The new resolution not only calls for attacks on Libyan aircraft and air defenses, but authorizes the strafing and bombing of ground forces as well. The U.S. and French governments immediately announced that they were ready to go. Britain and Italy are aiding. In essence the former colonial powers have begun an armed attack on the Libyan government and its people, backing one side of a civil war.

No matter how one feels about Libya today and the role of the Gadhafi government; regardless of how one evaluates the Libyan opposition, a U.S.-led war or intervention in Libya is a disaster for the Libyan people, and for peace and progress around the world.

BAHRAIN EXPOSES THE LIE ABOUT "PREVENTING ATTACKS ON CIVILIANS"

 
The U.S. and its allies are repeating over and over the lie that they are trying to "prevent attacks on civilians" and are acting from humanitarian motives. But nobody should be fooled. Consider these "humanitarians" and how they react to Bahrain.
 
The U.S. Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain, which is an absolute monarchy. Its people have been valiantly trying to change their government for weeks. They had some initial success. The king responded with deadly repression and later with hints at reform.

On March 14, however, hours after Secretary of Defense Gates visited Bahrain, the Bahraini government commenced a brutal crackdown, backed up by Saudi Arabian troops. Helicopters, tear gas, rubber bullets, and live ammunition were used, killing and injuring many people. Nearly all of Bahrain's security forces are foreign mercenaries.
 
Unlike the Libyan rebels, the Bahraini people have absolutely no arms. But there has been no talk of a no-fly zone over Bahrain, let alone attacks on the murderous Bahraini and Saudi armies.

NO BLOOD FOR OIL

 
This is because the real motivation for the U.S. and its allies in both Bahrain and Libya, and indeed the whole region, is to control the OIL! It is Washington's main strategic interest and a primary financial interest for U.S. big business.
 
This is true even though the U.S. is not directly dependent on imported oil from Libya. Oil is a worldwide commodity, and any country which imports oil must deal with a world market, no matter from which individual country or countries they import the oil.
 
Of even more importance to the U.S. and Europeans is who controls the flow of oil. A military presence or a reliable puppet in Libya would give Washington --and to a lesser extent the European imperialists -- control of the oil spigot to Europe and also establish a military presence in North Africa from which to influence or prevent the development of the revolutions, especially in Egypt and Tunisia.
 

ARAB LEAGUE "VOTE" FRAUD

Not only a demonization campaign against the Libyan leader, but every form of fraud and propaganda is being used to push for this intervention, including a supposed "vote" by the Arab League supporting the latest U.N. resolution. Left unsaid is the fact that only 11 of the 22 members of the League even attended the meeting, which was held behind closed doors. Two of these 11 attending members, Syria and Algeria, made clear that they were completely opposed to military intervention in Libya.

Meanwhile the corporate media has ignored a resolution by the African Union, representing 53 countries, which adamantly rejected a no-fly zone or other intervention.
 

WHAT ABOUT GAZA?

The U. S. blocked any UN action, even a toothless resolution, during the massive Israeli bombardment of Gaza in 2008 and also during the Israeli bombing and attempted invasion of Lebanon in 2006, as well as the continued bombardment of Gaza as recently as this week!.
 
It is important that peace-loving and progressive people around the world develop a consistent approach opposing ALL U.S. intervention. This is the only way to avoid becoming just an echo of the U.S. State Department and Pentagon.

U.S., French, British, Italian hands off Libya!
NO to the U.S. supported attack on the people's movement of Bahrain!
U.S. Out of Arab and African Lands!

Some events this month

The annual Durham Creek Week is March 19-26; see http://www.durhamcreekweek.org/ for a calendar of events. There will be trash cleanups throughout Durham on the Saturday and the 26th, hikes, kayak excursions, workshops, and storytime events throughout the week, a panel discussion at the Hayti Heritage Center on the 24th, etc.

The first Friday after March 15th is also Arbor Day in North Carolina.

March 20th is the anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003, though murderous sanctions and bombings had been going on for over a decade. Lots of events in the USA and elsewhere are listed at warisacrime.org/content/upcoming-events, but nothing in North Carolina. [ Actually, a rally March 26th in Fayetteville is listed by ANSWER: www.answercoalition.org/national/news/march-19-day-of-action.html ]. NC Peace Action's Spring Lobby Weekend is this weekend in Washington. The weekly peace vigil in Chapel Hill continues on Fridays at Village Plaza, and is probably on the summer 5-6pm schedule starting Friday, instead of 4:30-5:30. There is also a monthly vigil, 12-1 on first Wednesdays at the Raleigh Post Office, 300 Fayetteville Street. The Durham peace vigil might still continue 12-1 on Saturdays at Brightleaf.

I believe "humanitarian interventionism" in Iraq and possibly soon in Libya (but not in Bahrain or Yemen or any other Arab country) only masks imperialist aims, and now the Arab people are carrying out their bourgeois democratic revolutions without the US having to invade and devastate their countries. The Arab revolutionaries should be wary of imperialists trying to subvert their revolutions, and halt them at the overthrow of authoritarian leaders, before they can go deeper.

The 100th anniversary of International Women's Day was March 8th, and the media here was praising women leaders like Hillary Clinton and Condolezza Rice. According to Wikipedia, International Women's Day began with American socialists, the Second International, and later the USSR, and it is only a legend that it originated in an 1857 demonstration by female textile workers in New York. Whatever the truth about its origins, I did not hear about any local commemorations for peace, socialism, or economic justice to post about.

Khrushchev Lied

I recently came across a so-called museum of communism online, with a board of directors including Grover Norquist, and a national anti-communist monument planned under Clinton. The website has a hall of heroes, but strangely enough, they left out such great anti-communists as Franco, Hitler, Syngman Rhee, Suharto, Augusto Pinochet, the Colombian AUC paramilitaries, Gulbuddin Hektmatyar, Osama bin Laden, and Luis Posada Carriles. They also left out Khrushchev, who damaged the communist cause on a global scale with his lies and social imperialist policies.

The website ends with Stalin in its list of Soviet villains, and no wonder, because under Stalin's leadership the USSR provided an attractive political and economic model to the international working class and had the diplomatic skill and economic and military might to protect the gains of the October Revolution and aid allied countries. Khrushchev's betrayal began the process of counterrevolution that ended with Gorbachev and Yeltsin, fractured the communist movement, and aided revisionists in taking control of most of the parties with state power.

Scholarship in the USA is dominated by anti-communists who accept nearly every allegation made by counterrevolutionaries from the former USSR, but a blow has been struck with the publication of Montclair State University professor Grover Furr's book Khrushchev Lied, first in Russia and now in the USA. It is time to challenge the anti-communists who control the history curriculum at UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke, and the Durham Public Schools.

From the publisher, Erythros Press (www.erythrospress.com/store/furr.html):

Khrushchev Lied The Evidence That Every "Revelation" of Stalin's (and Beria's) Crimes in Nikita Khrushchev's Infamous "Secret Speech" to the 20th Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on February 25, 1956, is Provably False In his "Secret Speech" of February 1956 Nikita Khrushchev accused Joseph Stalin of immense crimes. Khrushchev's speech was a body blow from which the worldwide communist movement never recovered. It changed the course of history. Grover Furr has spent a decade studying the flood of documents from formerly secret Soviet archives published since the end of the USSR. In this detailed study of Khrushchev's speech he reveals the astonishing results of his research: Not a single one of Khrushchev's "revelations" is true! The most influential speech of the 20th century—if not of all time—a dishonest swindle? The very thought is monstrous; the implications for our understanding of Left history—immense. Basing their work on Khrushchev's lies, Soviet and Western historians, including Trotskyists and anticommunists, have effectively falsified Soviet history. Virtually everything we thought we knew about the Stalin years turns out to be wrong. The history of the USSR, and of the communist movement of the 20th century, must be completely rewritten. Reviews and Comments on Khrushchev Lied "Khrushchev Lied is a marvelous piece of work, formidable in its research and reasoning, clear and precise in its writing, and breathtaking in its findings and implications. Revisiting old sources and using new material from the Soviet archives, Grover Furr's study demands a complete rethinking of Soviet history, socialist history, indeed world history of the 20th century." - Roger Keeran, Empire State College, co-author of Socialism Betrayed: Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union. "Grover Furr has performed a valuable service to the field of Soviet studies by grappling in depth with Nikita Khrushchev's Secret Speech of 1956. … While some of the charges Khrushchev made have long been rejected in the West and in Russia, for example the idea that secret police chief Lavrenty Beria was a foreign agent, many other points Grover Furr raises are new and worthy of a great deal more attention." - Robert W. Thurston, Phillip R. Shriver Professor of History, Miami University; author of Life and Terror in Stalin's Russia, 1934-1941. "Grover Furr has written an intriguing book that challenges much of the existing historiography of the Stalinist 1930s. His insights and the sources he brings to bear question many of the views held by historians for decades and deserve our consideration. This book raises issues and questions that most scholars in the West today would not and does so in a sober and penetrating manner. He reaches fascinating conclusions, debunking much of what we thought we knew about the Stalinist era. … The translation of this pathbreaking work, which has already made quite a splash in Russia's academic circles, into English is long overdue." - Jeff Jones, Associate Professor of History, University of North Carolina at Greensboro; author of Everyday Life and the "Reconstruction" of Soviet Russia During and After the Great Patriotic War, 1943-1948.

 

Communist Voice premiering on Durham Community Media Monday

Starting next week, the Communist Voice series is coming to Durham Community Media (cable channel 18) at the same time it is on The Peoples Channel (channel 8 in Orange County and parts of Chatham, www.thepeopleschannel.org), Monday afternoons at 4. The new episode starting Monday, after being delayed by technical problems, is Part 1 of Felix Dzherzhinsky: Champion of the Revolution. Dzherzhinsky was a leader of a Polish-Lithuanian socialist party separate from the Bolsheviks and he led the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (the Cheka), which fought sabotage and counterrevolutionary plots in the early years after the Russian Revolution.

Let me know if you want to sponsor the series so it can be broadcast in Raleigh or elsewhere, or have an idea for future programming. Non-Soviet videos will probably start this fall.

US Friends of the Soviet People is seeking volunteers in the New York area and money and material contributions to digitize and distribute an archive of around 300 Soviet films in Russian with subtitles.

Vigils 2/1 in support of undocumented students in NC

A bill has been proposed in the General Assembly to bar the children of undocumented immigrants from the community colleges and the UNC system.  There will be protests in Raleigh, Greensboro and other cities Tuesday evening.  Below is the announcement: 

 

MEDIA ADVISORY: Vigils set for Feb 1 in support of access to education

MEDIA ADVISORY: Vigils in support of access to education spring up around the state

This Tuesday, the Adelante Education Coalition [adelantenc.org/], the American Friends Service Committee and supporters will hold vigils in Raleigh, Greensboro, Charlotte, Greenville and Asheville

Who: Community members who support access to education

What: State-wide vigils in defense of Education

Where: Raleigh, Greensboro, Charlotte, Greenville, Asheville

When: Afternoon and Evening, Feb. 1, 2011

RALEIGH (Feb. 1, 2011) – On Tuesday, Feb. 1, the Adelante Education Coalition and supporters will join together to hold vigils across North Carolina in defense of access to higher education for all.

The key to creating jobs, stimulating the economy and reducing the state deficit is to invest in educating all people of North Carolina. Exclusion and re-segregation would cost North Carolina dearly now, at a time when it can least afford to do so.

The Adelante Education Coalition will join with supporters and community members on the anniversary of the 1960 Greensboro sit-ins by NC A&T students to stand together for education for all.

 

Vigils will be happening across the state, at the following locations:

* Raleigh, 7 p.m. in front of the NC General Assembly, Jones St.
Contact Bart Evans (919) 660-0704 or Nayely Perez-Huerta (919) 433-6055

* Greensboro, 7 p.m. at New Garden Friends Meeting, 801 New Garden Rd. (at Friendly Ave.)
Contact Eric Jonas (336) 379-0037, Lori Khamala (336) 491-0039 or Wooten Gough (336) 306-3252

* Charlotte, 6pm at Marshall Park MLK statue
Contact Lacey Williams (704) 879-1298

* Greenville, 6pm at New Covenant Community Church, 1212 North Greene St.
Contact Juvencio Rocha Peralta (252) 258-9967 or Dani Martinez-Moore (919) 533-9203

* Asheville, 4pm at the Vance Memorial at Pack Square, Downtown
Contact Diego Lopéz (828) 460-8112 or Molly Hemstreet (828) 230-8937

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT: Bart Evans (919) 660-0704, Nayely Perez-Huerta (919) 433-6055

News from the Tunisian Revolution

Below is the founding platform of the 14th of January Front, translated from French by a comrade:

Tunisia: The 14th of January Front

On the 20th of January 2011 a number of Tunisian radical left organisations, notably the PCOT (Communist Party of the Workers of Tunisia ) and the PTPD (Patriotic and Democratic Labour Party), constituted a Front. This Front was named the «14th of January Front» in reference to the date of President Ben Ali's rout.The object of the 14th of January Front is to undertake the organisation of the resistance against the present transitional government, which still includes leaders of Ben Ali's party the RCD (Rassemblement constitutionnel démocratique), and to build a popular alternative based on the existing vigilante committees that have been constituted in a number of neighbourhoods in Tunisia with the aim to defend the inhabitants against the terror disseminated by RCD thugs and the presidential police. The call is addressed to all the progressive political, trade-union, associative forces, asking them to fulfil the objectives intended by popular Tunisian revolution.

Here is the founding text: (http://www.albadil.org/spip.php?article3675 ):

In asserting our commitment to the revolution of our people who has been fighting for its rights to freedom and to national dignity, and has made great sacrifices, dozens of martyrs, thousands of wounded and imprisoned, in his struggle to overcome internal and external enemies and to thwart aborted attempts to crush these sacrifices, we have constituted the "14 of January Front", a political framework «which will work for the advancement of the popular revolution for the realisation of its objectives and oppose the forces of counterrevolution. This framework consists of parties, progressive and democratic national organisations.

The Front's immediate urgent tasks are as follows:

1 – To overturn the present Ghannouchi government or any other government that adopts the old regime's symbols and its antinational, anti-popular policy that benefited the fallen president.

2 – To dissolve the RCD, confiscate its head-office, property, assets and funds, given that they all belong to the people.

3 - To form an interim government enjoying the trust of the people and the progressive militant political, associative, trade-union and youth forces.

4 – To dissolve the House of Representatives, the Senate, all fictitious organs as well as the High Magisterial Council. To dismantle the political structure of the old regime and to prepare the election of a Constituent Assembly, which within a year at the most, is to formulate a new democratic constitution and lay the foundations for a new juridical system covering public life, and guaranteeing political, economic and cultural rights to the people.

5 – To dissolve the political police and adopt a new security policy founded on the respect for human rights and the primacy of the law.

>6 – To bring to justice all those guilty of having stolen public funds, committed crimes against the people such as: repression, imprisonment, torture and humiliating treatment – from decision taking to execution –, and finally all those found guilty of corruption and embezzlement of public property.

7 – To dispossess the old ruling family, their kin, associates and all civil servants who misused their position to enrich themselves at the expense of the people.

8 – To provide jobs for the unemployed, urgently grant unemployment benefits, improve social care, increase the purchasing power of wage earners.

9 – To restructure the national economy so that it serves the people and ensure that the State supervises vital strategic sectors. To re-nationalise the institutions that have been privatised by the previous regime and to set an economic and social policy that will break away from capitalist liberal approach.

10 – To guarantee civil and individual liberties, particularly the freedoms to demonstrate, to organise, of expression, of the press, of information and thought, the release of prisoners and the promulgation of an amnesty law.

11 - The Front salutes the support of the Tunisian revolution by the popular masses and the progressive forces in the Arab countries and internationally, and invites them all to pursue their support by all possible means.

12 – The Front calls for resistance to the normalisation of relations with the Zionist entity and its penalisation, and the support of national liberation movements in the Arab countries as well as worldwide.

13 - The Front calls all popular masses and nationalist and progressive forces to pursue the mobilisation and the struggle in all legitimate forms, particularly in the streets, in order to achieve their objectives.

14 - The Front greets all committees, associations and forms of popular auto-organisation and invites them to enlarge their area of intervention in all that concerns the exercise of public affairs and other aspects of daily life. 

Glory to the martyrs of the Intifada and Victory to the revolutionary masses of our people.

Tunisia, January 20th, 2011

** Ligue de la gauche travailliste [Left Labour League]
** Mouvement des unionistes nassériens [Nasserite Unionist Movement]
** Movement of the nationalists democrats (Al-Watad)[Nationalist Democratic Movement]
** Courant Baasiste [Baasist Current]
** Gauche Indépendante [Independent Left]
** Parti communiste des ouvriers de Tunisie [Communist Party of the Workers of Tunisia]
** Parti du Travail Patriotique et Démocratique [Patriotic and Democratic Labour Party).

Raleigh protest on National Day of Action Against FBI Repression, 1/25

An announcement from the Triangle Committee to Stop FBI Repression:

What: Protest on 1/25 to Stop FBI and Grand Jury Repression of Antiwar and Solidarity Activists
Where: Federal Building, 310 New Bern Ave, Raleigh, NC
When: Tuesday 1/25 at 9:00 AM.
RSVP: ncstopfbi at gmail dot com or Facebook

WE NEED YOUR HELP. Join us at 9:00 AM on January 25 for a protest in Raleigh to coincide with National Day of Action against FBI Repression

On September 24th, 2010, FBI Agents conducted coordinated raids on the homes of anti-war, labor, and international solidarity activists in Minneapolis and Chicago. Fourteen activists were served with subpoenas that demanded they appear before a grand jury in Chicago. All fourteen refused to participate in the FBI's fishing expedition. In December 2010, under the direction of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, the FBI delivered nine new subpoenas in Chicago to anti-war and Palestine solidarity activists. Patrick Fitzgerald’s office is ordering the nine to appear at a Grand Jury in Chicago on January 25.

On January 25, as anti-war activists who were resubpoenaed make their first appearance before the Grand Jury, demonstrations will be organized across the country to show solidarity with them, with all the activists whose homes were raided by the FBI, and to demand an end to FBI and Grand Jury repression of anti-war activists.

We'll be gathering in Raleigh at 9:00 AM for a press conference and rally at the Federal Building. Putting pressure on politicians and the FBI is essential to keeping these and other activists out of jail for activities--dissenting speech, travel and education--that are protected by the constitution and necessary to the democratic process. While initial media coverage of this issue was strong, continuing pressure requires action. WE NEED YOUR VOICES AND YOUR BODIES. Join us in taking the fight against the FBI's witch-hunt to the streets of Raleigh, in solidarity with those targeted and those fighting government repression in the United States and abroad.

For more info, please visit http://stopfbi.net/ or check us out on facebook, http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=126101957455734
You can also contact us at ncstopfbi at gmail dot com. Please RSVP to let us know you plan to attend.

An African statement on Cote D'Ivoire

I get suspicious when imperialists like the US, UK, and France (the former occupier of Cote D'Ivoire), and the UN they control interfere in the internal affairs of a small, but sovereign, country, even calling for a war to depose a leader.  Consider this statement signed by several African leftist organizations:    

 

NO TO FOREIGN MILITARY INTERVENTION:

NEITHER OF THE ECOWAS [Economic Community of West African States],
NOR THE UN NOR FRANCE!

FOREIGN TROOPS OUT OF THE IVORY COAST!

UNITY AND NATIONAL SOVEREIGN IVORIAN DEMOCRATIC AND PEACEFUL SOLUTION TO THE POST-ELECTION CRISIS!

After the barely veiled threats of Sarkozy and Obama on behalf of the so-called "international community" made up of France, England, Germany and the United States, now there is an ultimatum from the Heads of State of Cape Verde, Benin and Sierra Leone in the Ivory Coast.

As if there had been agreement on sharing roles, the Western powers pushed ECOWAS to take the decision on December 24 2010 for an armed intervention in the Ivory Coast to dislodge GBAGBO from power if he did not yield to the injunctions brought to him by a final mission of these three Presidents in the name of the ECOWAS.

Thus, the Western powers that cannot intervene directly worked behind the scenes to push their men in power in Africa to commit the infamies that they dare not take on publicly.

The USA, EU, the IMF, World Bank, the International Criminal Court, the same ones who carried out and funded the military coup that overthrew the legal and legitimate President of Honduras Zelaya, are using servile African puppets to kill and impose a criminal war on the Ivorian people.

The same imperialist powers and financial institutions lied to the whole world about the "weapons of mass destruction and complicity with Al Qaida" to attack, overthrow and occupy Iraq and murder its Head of State

This is why the signatory organizations affirm that the solutions to the post-election crisis in Ivorian society must come first and foremost from the Ivorian people themselves.

This is why we denounce any foreign armed intervention in the Ivory Coast and demand the withdrawal of all foreign forces present on Ivorian territory, whether they are official (United Nations Mission to the Ivory Coast, 41st BIMA [Marine Infantry Battalion]) or unofficial (mercenaries).

Long live the sovereignty of the Ivorian people! Long live Pan-African and internationalist solidarity!

December 27, 2010

Signatories: Fernent/ Pan-African Workers Movement – Senegal (F/M.T.P-S), Yoonu Askan Wi Senegal, RTA [Union of African Workers] – Senegal, Revolutionary Communist Party of the Ivory Coast, Communist Party of Benin, Actus Prpe [Action for Unity and Socialism / Popular and Ecological Revolutionary Party] Chad, CP Togo, CP Tunisia, Democratic Road of Morocco, PADS [Party for Democracy and Socialism] Algeria, UP [Union of the Populations] Cameroun, Sanfin Mali, CP Congo