Repressing online speech
When I logged on today this notice appeared in the Posts section:
"This post was unpublished because it violates Blogger Community Guidelines. To republish, please update the content to adhere to the guidelines."
but I don't see any post marked as removed. This should be something like the 670th [671st?] published post, the 57th this year, and the 8th this month. There are problems with Blogger's system, so maybe nothing has been removed or anything that was removed can be restored. On the other hand maybe it is only a matter of time. People such as blogger Caitlin Johnstone talk about the information struggle online, and there are some possibilities, but companies and governments can easily silence opponents far larger and well-known than this blog, and in recent years have moved against Consortium News, Counterpunch, and Wikileaks, on the left, Donald Trump-associated movements and violent Islamist groups on the right, and media organizations from countries targeted by the US government. Then there are the police powers of governments and the ability to monitor and shut down Internet traffic. There is also old-fashioned direct police repression, such as the raids on FRSO and APSP (conducted by presidents from the Democratic Party), mentioned below, arrests, and harrassment at airports and near the border. [11/27 And under Obama the government began openly assassinating Americans, including children, though so far only abroad. Police forces have admitted to assassinating suspects domestically, including at least once with a robot.] Just a few hours ago I saw a leftist on Facebook denigrating left print media versus publishing online and I can't access Red Star Publishers' website this evening [11/25 - 27 so far].
[Update: Blogger censored "May 6th primary choices," published all the way back in 2008, February 6th at 8:55pm. This is the text and there was a Green Party US press release from the same day:
According to an article in the City & State section of the N&O today, Clinton (www.hillaryclinton.com), Gravel (www.gravel008.us), and Obama (www.barackobama.com) will be on the Democratic primary ballot and Huckabee, Keyes, McCain, Paul, and Romney will be on the Republican ballot, and write-ins do not count in North Carolina. NC Democratic Party chair Jerry Meek submitted the Democratic Party list yesterday and told the N&O that he tried to discuss this with the Edwards campaign but his calls were not returned. State law requiring the ballot to list "all candidates whose candidacy is generally advocated and recognized in the news media throughout the United State or in North Carolina." Apparently this would exclude former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel (and Alan Keyes), because this is the first time in a week or more that I have heard or seen Gravel's name in the media.
I'm thinking of displaying my Kucinich for president pins until May. I was considering a write-in vote for Kucinich, but if it does not count, I might not vote in the presidential primary. I consider Gravel a progressive candidate, but he supports dubious ideas like a national sales tax. He might be a small business candidate, thus the combination of progressive ideas and "small government" ideas like a national sales tax. I don't know if I want to cast a protest vote for Gravel and I could be wrong, but I don't think Obama is left enough that I care if he is the Democratic candidate or not. I've heard of some Democrats who will vote for Obama if he is facing one Republican and not another and other strategic thinking. Obama just does not sound that left, even though he did not vote for the start of the Iraq War, and I am tired of the Democratic Party (and I'm not a Democrat anyway, I just vote for them sometimes) being the left wing of US politics. I won't be their hostage just because a Republican might be worse. I want to vote for someone because I want what they offer, not because I am afraid of what will happen if their opponent wins, unless of course that opponent is truly dangerous. The Republicans are dangerous, but so are the Democrats and I expect more war and rumors of war, except maybe from Gravel or Paul, and Gravel is probably the least likely candidate to try to destroy welfare, social security, etc.
I like some of what Ron Paul says on the Iraq War, 9/11, fascism, etc., but I don't plan to register as a Republican to help him or provide other support, though surprisingly there are prominent leftists who are getting behind him because he is anti-war. Supposedly he has said racist things, though he denies it, and of course he is libertarian on domestic policies, not just on foreign policy.
I don't know if there will be a Green Party primary in NC, maybe not since the NCGP is not officially recognized, but below is some information on their candidates. I voted for Nader in 2004 and I might do so again if he runs, but I think he should try to run on a party ticket and not doing so would be a big error, maybe big enough that I should not waste my vote on him, if he again throws away a chance to get wider ballot access. At least he didn't surrender votes without much of a fight like Kerry in 2004 and Gore in 2000. It is a relatively minor detail, but I think Nader has condemned communists, even if they were the revisionist Chinese, which does not endear him to me. I'm not sure about the Green Party. I like them, but they are so "green," and I should be working for a red or labor party, so I have held off on joining so far. I'm tempted though, even if it is just to snub the Democratic Party.
Several smaller "fourth or fifth-tier" (said someone on NPR) left parties (such as the Socialist Party and the Party of Socialism and Liberation) are running candidates (see www.thirdpartywatch.com), but I assume they will not be on our general election ballot. At least then I could cast a vote for socialism, even if it would probably be a vote for some Trotskyist or even a non-Marxist party. I'm holding out for the time when there will be a mass workers' party, even better if it is for real revolutionary socialism. Some communists will condemn me for even getting wrapped up in the presidential election, and that is looking increasingly true as the field is 'winnowed' for us by the other states.]
[Another update - I found a button to merely request that the probably automatic censorship be reviewed, but in a brief look in the Help section I did not find a way to contact Google to appeal, though people have posted about their problems there.] [There were three comments I missed on the original post, now lost?]
[11/26 AM I received an email from Blogger November 22nd at 2pm saying that the post violated the "Malware and Viruses policy." The post has been restored, but is posted in November 2022 instead of February 2008.]
[11/27 PM I have an email from 1:06am on the 26th saying that the post had been reviewed and reinstated, possibly by a Google employee in Malaysia or a nearby country. A few hours later I saw that the post had been restored as abruptly as it had been removed, and added a note.]
Towards Marxist-Leninist Unity December issue
The November issue of Towards Marxist-Leninist Unity has been published and will be posted at: redstarpublishers.org/TMLU.htm (see also for TMLU's contact information and how to order print copies). Submissions for the planned January issue should be sent in next month [by the end of the year].
Contents:
Proposal for a Working People’s Election Campaign
No to the Privatization of Medicare!
Railroad workers have had enough
Is 5G Safe?
Workers' Communist Party of Denmark on Palestine
Letter from 45 Haitian Popular Organizations
November 25: No more sexist violence
NGOs: The Trojan Horse of Capitalism
Sección en español
25 de noviembre: No más violencia de género
Las ONG: el caballo de troya del capitalismo
TMLU's speech at SIPRAL 22
Speech at the International Seminar: Problems of the Revolution in Latin America, 2022, by Towards Marxist-Leninist Unity (TMLU). The leaflet that appears in the Spanish section is not included here since it was already published in TMLU Vol. 3, No. 6. Translated from the Spanish.
The Inter-imperialist wars and the position of the left within the US
Russia's invasion of Ukraine is the first serious military confrontation between the Russia-China bloc and a "proxy" of the U.S., Ukraine's reactionary government. The U.S., while not directly involved with its own military forces, has sent billions of dollars in weapons to the Ukrainian government. Before this, the most important confrontation was in the form of a trade war, in which former President Trump was raising tariffs against China. Although so far both sides are not prepared for a third world war, which would probably mean a nuclear war, this is a possibility in the future. Everything can get worse.
In inter-imperialist wars, it must be clear that we cannot support one side or the other. Of course, we cannot support, not even indirectly, the most powerful bloc, that of the U.S., the European Union and NATO, for example, by supporting sanctions against Russia (as the Social Democrats in the US Congress, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders have done).
Nor can we give any support to the Russia-China bloc. Here some groups and individuals have made incorrect arguments in favor of such support. Some of them say that Russia, although it is capitalist, is still not imperialist, and that China, although it has made reforms in favor of capital, is still socialist. These arguments can be disproven by facts.
But there are also others who put up more "sophisticated" arguments. They say, for example, that U.S. imperialism is the main enemy, and so we must support the less powerful bloc against the more powerful on. But with this argument, in World War I, should we have supported the German-led bloc, which was less powerful, against the English-led bloc, which was more powerful? Of course not. Another version of this argument is that U.S. imperialism is fascist (which it is not so far), and they refer to the fact that, in World War II Stalin has made an alliance with the US and England, countries which were imperialist but bourgeois-democratic, against fascist Germany. But the situation today is different. In Stalin's time, there was a socialist country, the Soviet Union, which was attacked by fascist Germany, and there were revolutionary forces led by communist parties in the attacked countries fighting against fascism. This is not the situation today.
Different emphasis in different countries
In the U.S., those who recognize that the war in Ukraine is inter-imperialist are the comrades of the American Party of Labor and some groups and individuals. Also, most Maoists take a similar position. The Social Democrats basically support US imperialism. Most anti-imperialist groups, including Workers' World Party and all its splits, support the invasion, or as they say, the so-called Russian "special military operation." Now, we have to classify them, not as anti-imperialist groups, but as groups against U.S. imperialism. That means that they do not understand in a scientific way what imperialism is, in particular how Russia and China could develop into imperialist countries, or how the contradictions between imperialist powers develop. So, they also do not understand (and never understood) what Marxism is.
That having been said, we have to be clear about the positions of Marxist-Leninists in the United States in relation to the united front. My view is that it is not right to place equal emphasis on attacking U.S. imperialism and Russian (or Chinese) imperialism. Basically, we have to attack mainly "our own" imperialism. During the First World War Lenin, although he said it was a war between two gangs of robbers, tried to undermine Russian (Tsarist and, after February 1917, bourgeois-democratic) imperialism. He also wanted to unite all genuine communists from all countries to form a new international, the Communist International. Now, in my opinion, in the U.S. we must unite with all the groups and individuals who sincerely want to fight U.S. imperialism, including those who support Russian imperialism. At the same time, we have to make clear that their position is wrong, and that it means they have no faith in the possibility of the working class and the oppressed nations and nationalities within the US undermining and eventually overthrowing U.S. imperialism.
I hope we can discuss and debate that position in the discussion period.
Recently, the FBI launched raids and made arrests against some members of the African People's Socialist Party (Uhuru Movement), an African-American revolutionary nationalist group. It did this because it said this party was receiving money from Russia, but they only attended a conference in Russia against Globalization.
The war is sharpening all the contradictions of imperialism. It is obvious that war is sharpening the contradictions between the imperialist powers. It is also sharpening the contradictions between the oppressed nations and the imperialists. The prevention of the export of wheat, other cereals and fertilizers from Russia and Ukraine is leading to higher prices in countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, especially Africa. But the rise in the price of oil (in the U.S. it rose from a little over $3 per gallon to about $4.50) and all kinds of food is also affecting working people in the U.S. And the rise in the price of oil and gas for heating is going to have a serious effect on Europe in the coming winter. This is going to provoke demonstrations in the near future.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment