[Marxism] NY Times: Delbert Africa, 74, Convicted in Radical Group’s Clash With Police, Dies

[Alan Ginsberg via Marxism]

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As a member of Move, he spent four decades in prison and was released in
January. His beating by Philadelphia police officers in 1978 was broadcast
nationwide.

By Neil Genzlinger June 17, 2020

Delbert Africa, a member of the radical group Move who spent more than 40
years in prison after being convicted in a 1978 confrontation with the
police in Philadelphia that left a police officer dead, died on Monday at
his home in Philadelphia, only months after his release. He was 74.

His daughter Yvonne Orr-El and members of the Move organization announced
his death at a news conference
,
at which they said Mr. Africa had received inadequate care for a kidney
condition while in prison.

“Had my father received the treatment he needed,” Ms. Orr-El said at the
news conference, “the healthy, strong, smiling, humorous, sarcastic man
that I call my father would still be here today.”

He was paroled in January.

Mr. Africa was one of nine Move members, all black, who were convicted of
third-degree murder in the 1978 clash.

In surrendering to the police, hands in the air, he was knocked down,
kicked and beaten — an arrest captured by cameras and broadcast nationwide.
The images became a symbol of police brutality to some, especially in
Philadelphia, where police relations with black residents and other
minority groups were strained.

Three officers were later charged with assault. At their trial, the police
commissioner, Joseph O’Neill, testified that the officers’ actions had been
justified.

“Delbert Africa wasn’t a man, he was a savage,” Commissioner O’Neill said.
“When you’re dealing with a savage, you don’t know what he may do. I have
seen a person handcuffed and on the ground kick an officer in the groin.”

In 1981, as jurors were preparing to hear closing arguments in the case, a
judge acquitted the officers in a directed verdict.

The Move organization, a largely black religious as well as political group
that was often described in the news media with words like “revolutionary”
and “anarchist,” coalesced in the 1970s around John Africa, whose original
name was Vincent Leaphart. He espoused a back-to-nature, anti-government
belief system.

The group’s presence at a compound in the Powelton Village section of
Philadelphia was a thorn in the side of Mayor Frank Rizzo, a former city
police commissioner who had been accused of harassing black residents and
condoning brutality against them. The authorities said that the compound
was a health hazard and that Move members were stockpiling weapons.

In August 1978, as the police tried to evict the group, gunfire broke out,
and a police officer, James Ramp, was killed. Mr. Africa and the others
charged maintained that a police bullet had killed Officer Ramp.

Move re-established itself at another location in the city, and in 1985 the
police dropped a bomb on its new compound, igniting a fire that destroyed
more than 60 homes. Eleven people died. One was John Africa. Another was
Delbert Africa’s daughter Delisha.

“I wanted to strike out,” Mr. Africa told The Guardian in a 2018 interview,
describing his reaction when he heard the news of the bombing in prison. “I
wanted to wreak as much havoc as I could until they put me down. That
anger, it brought such a feeling of helplessness.”

Delbert Orr was born on April 2, 1946; like other members of Move, he took
the surname of the group’s founder. Before encountering Move, Mr. Africa
served as an airman in Vietnam from 1966 to 1969, according to Richard Kent
Evans, a research associate at Haverford College in the Philadelphia
suburbs and author of the new book “MOVE: An American Religion.”

Mr. Africa then returned to his hometown, Chicago, and joined the Black
Panthers, Dr. Evans said. After he was seriously injured in a car accident,
he moved to Philadelphia in March 1970. It was during walks around the
block trying to rehabilitate his injured leg and back that he encountered
members of Move (who render the name in capital letters) on a street
corner, talking their version of revolution.

“He attributed his recovery from his car-crash injuries to the teachings of
John Africa,” Dr. Evans said by email, “converted to MOVE, adopted a new
name, Delbert Africa, and served as MOVE’s Minister of Confrontation and
Security.”

In that capacity he was the one the police often heard in their various
exchanges with the group before the 1978 clash, and that made Mr. Africa a
target for a beating when he was arrested, Dr. Evans said. In the interview
with The Guardian, Mr. Africa described his arrest:

“A cop hit me with his helmet. Smashed my eye. 

Re: [Marxism] On the NASCAR's Banning of the Confederate Flag and its Social Implications

[A.R. G via Marxism]

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Speaking from an entirely personal perspective -- I am neither black nor
white and I am not from the South (though I live there now) nor am I a fan
of NASCAR or country music, though I am a fan of classic rock which appears
to use the Confederate flag quite a bit until recently -- I am not sure it
proves anything. I am also thinking of films like Gone with the Wind. Not
only is the film a celebrated classic, the book is an international
best-seller. It was sold even in India where my dad and his college friends
read it and enjoyed it.

I am guessing it is different for Southerners, both black and white. For
people in other places I'm not sure the flag or other
Confederacy-sympathizing kitsch like GWTW hold any particular significance
at all. Maybe they should -- I mean, GWTW in retrospect is just 3 hours of
Confederate propaganda -- but I don't think my dad or anyone else in India
saw it that way. My dad took me to see it in a theater once when I was a
kid. I was confused that the slave characters were so friendly with their
former "owners," but beyond that I didn't really follow the plot and fell
asleep.

On the other hand, the author of GWTW has a house in Atlanta that now
functions as a museum to her works, that is driving distance from my
apartment. I was told by black activists in the community that in previous
decades, when the area had not been gentrified and laced with security
cameras, that activists had repeatedly attempted to burn it down.

To me the issue is that insofar as parts of American culture are indicative
of racism, it is not limited to the Confederacy. Indeed, I do detect some
degree of hypocrisy. We are expected to throw out the Confederate flag, but
we are told not to condemn the Union flag which was the flag of those who
colonized the Western parts of America where indigenous people were
brutally massacred (not to mention the wars on the rest of the world that
are ongoing). We are also not allowed to burn the Israeli flag -- in fact,
if we do so, then *we* are the racists. That is, of course, not a reason to
whitewash Confederate symbols but as someone who associates most of
American culture with racism and jingoism it is hard not to notice the
contradiction, particularly given that much of the Confederate kitsch is,
like many parts of American culture writ large, treated as banal and does
not have *apparently* racist connotations because it is mixed with so many
parts of American culture that have no apparent link to the Confederacy
(such as NASCAR or Lynnard Skynnard). I recall that when I visited Durham,
NC some time ago, the statue of a Confederate soldier had been toppled by
activists and there was simply an empty platform. But only a few feet away,
another statute for American soldiers commemorating the war on Vietnam was
left curiously untouched.

Amith R. Gupta


On Wed, Jun 17, 2020 at 2:04 PM Jeffrey Masko via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

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> *
>
> This  took me by surprise and I am interested how this will pan out as the
> fabric of social life is much more centered on sport and entertainment than
> on more formal institutions like police deps. Any meaningful change in
> policing must be accompanied by a win in the war of position, so to speak.
> Of course, there are virulent puritanical streaks in the U.S. left that
> dismiss sports in a opium of the masses type Frankfurt school idea of
> deluding the stupid working masses. As John pointed out, how the fan base
> reacts at large will be interesting and can be compared with how antiracist
> messaging has worked (and not worked) in world football. Also interesting
> is how dedicated the English Premier league is to honoring George Floyd,
> even having Black Lives Matter on the back of their kits.
> _
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[Marxism] Kashmir -- "‘We Have Been in a Lockdown for Three Decades’

[Alan Ginsberg via Marxism]

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NY Times Op-Art, June 11, 2020

By Malik Sajad

Mr. Sajad is a graphic novelist from Kashmir.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/11/opinion/kashmir-lockdown-india.html
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[Marxism] (99+) (PDF) Alf Hornborg. 2017. How to turn an ocean liner: a proposal for voluntary degrowth by redesigning money for sustainability, justice, and resilience

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://www.academia.edu/32372050/Alf_Hornborg._2017._How_to_turn_an_ocean_liner_a_proposal_for_voluntary_degrowth_by_redesigning_money_for_sustainability_justice_and_resilience._Journal_of_Political_Ecology_24_623-632

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[Marxism] Belgium’s colonial crimes in the Congo

[Ken Hiebert via Marxism]

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Belgium’s colonial crimes in the Congo. A duty to remember
https://www.cadtm.org/Belgium-s-colonial-crimes-in-the-Congo-A-duty-to-remember 



This policy eventually triggered an enormous international campaign against the 
crimes perpetrated by the regime of Leopold II. Black pastors in the United 
States were protesting against this situation, then were joined by British 
activist E.D. Morel. Morel worked for a British company in Liverpool, and was 
regularly called on to travel to Antwerp. He observed that while Leopold II 
claimed that Belgium was undertaking commercial exchanges with the Congo Free 
State, ships were returning from the Congo with cargoes of elephant tusks and 
thousands of kilos of rubber, and the return cargoes were mainly arms and 
foodstuffs for the colonial forces. Morel considered this to be a very strange 
kind of trade, a strange kind of exchange. At the time, those Belgians 
supporting Leopold II never acknowledged this truth. They declared that Morel 
represented the interests of British imperialism and only criticized the 
Belgians in order to take their place. Paul Janson, a member of parliament who 
gave his name to the main auditorium of the Free University of Brussels, 
declared, I shall never criticize the actions of Leopold, because those who 
criticize him, especially the British, do so only in the spirit of ‘move over 
and make room for us’.

However, criticism grew, with books such as Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, 
and The Crime of the Congo, a too-little known work by Arthur Conan Doyle, the 
creator of Sherlock Holmes. An international campaign against the exploitation 
of the Congo generated demonstrations in the United States and also in Great 
Britain, finally producing results. Leopold found himself obliged to set up an 
international commission of enquiry in 1904, which met on the spot, in the 
Congo, to take evidence. The testimonies received there are overwhelming. They 
are available in manuscript form in the Belgian state archives.
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Re: [Marxism] On the NASCAR's Banning of the Confederate Flag and its Social Implications

[Jeffrey Masko via Marxism]

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This  took me by surprise and I am interested how this will pan out as the
fabric of social life is much more centered on sport and entertainment than
on more formal institutions like police deps. Any meaningful change in
policing must be accompanied by a win in the war of position, so to speak.
Of course, there are virulent puritanical streaks in the U.S. left that
dismiss sports in a opium of the masses type Frankfurt school idea of
deluding the stupid working masses. As John pointed out, how the fan base
reacts at large will be interesting and can be compared with how antiracist
messaging has worked (and not worked) in world football. Also interesting
is how dedicated the English Premier league is to honoring George Floyd,
even having Black Lives Matter on the back of their kits.
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[Marxism] [UCE] 3381. To Do Away With the Police, We Must Do Away With Locks

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://forhumanliberation.blogspot.com/2020/06/3381-to-do-away-with-police-we-must-do.html

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[Marxism] Seadrift; The Pollinators | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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In 1979, the village of Seadrift, Texas, about 3 ½ hours south of 
Houston, became a major focus of TV and newspaper coverage when clashes 
between Vietnamese and native-born fishermen climaxed with Sau Van 
Nguyen shooting Billy Joe Aplin to death. This in itself was enough to 
make the headlines but when a jury found Sau not guilty, the shit really 
hit the fan. Seadrift, already a magnet for the KKK because of earlier 
violent but non-fatal clashes, became a battleground between two camps 
that superficially had the same goals, to become wealthy fishing for 
crabs and shrimp just like Gary Sinise’s character in “Forrest Gump”.


---

Although I have been reading any number of articles about the honey bee 
decline in recent years, this deeply informative and politically urgent 
documentary contained many new revelations, starting with the fact that 
most pollination taking place today is not done by “free range” honey 
bees but by commercial firms that transport truckloads of hives to 
customers, mostly in California, who pay hundreds of thousands of 
dollars to make sure that their almonds, apples, apricots, etc. can bear 
fruit.


full: https://louisproyect.org/2020/06/17/seadrift-the-pollinators/

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[Marxism] The War Has Arrived Inside the Assad Family

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Foreign Policy
The War Has Arrived Inside the Assad Family

Syria’s dictator crushed an uprising—but the ground may be crumbling 
beneath his feet.

BY ANCHAL VOHRA | JUNE 15, 2020, 4:23 PM

In the 1920s, Ali Sulayman al-Wahhish earned the nickname Al-Assad, or 
The Lion, for entreating the French to protect the minority sect of 
Alawites in a Syria dominated by Sunni Muslims. “Al-Assad” had a ring to 
it, so Ali made it his last name. Little did he know that his progeny 
would not only rule the country but one day squabble over the spoils of 
a state lying in ruins.


The rift was visible in the early 1980s as Ali’s son Rifaat allegedly 
tried to dethrone his elder brother and then-president, Hafez al-Assad, 
who himself had usurped power in a coup a decade earlier. Hafez 
successfully sidelined Rifaat and taught his son Bashar al-Assad how to 
stop rebellions—familial and otherwise—in their tracks. Bashar paid 
close attention, as attested by his bombing of cities across Syria and 
the killing and displacing of millions who stood against him in the 
uprising that began in 2011. He also kept a tight grip on his dozens of 
cousins through a combination of monetary incentives and an ever-lurking 
threat to their lives.


Last month, however, the unthinkable happened. Rami Makhlouf, Bashar’s 
maternal cousin and one of the family’s richest members, challenged the 
president’s decision to charge him $230 million in back taxes, shredding 
the frail veneer of family solidarity. Since then, several Assad cousins 
have publicly questioned the efficacy of Bashar’s government, indirectly 
taking aim at him. Makhlouf’s criticism seems to be an inflection point 
for the Bashar regime. If Bashar loses the loyalty of his family and 
other co-religionists, it’s fair to wonder whether he can survive in 
power at all.


While Makhlouf seems to have interpreted the imposition of back taxes as 
a provocation, Bashar may have seen it as a demand for reciprocity. 
Makhlouf is estimated today to be worth $5 billion, wealth he only 
acquired because his businesses—which include Syriatel, the country’s 
biggest telecom company—had the blessing of the regime. Now that the 
Syrian state has been plunged into crisis by economic sanctions—the 
Syrian pound devalued from 50 pounds per U.S. dollar in 2011 to more 
than 3,000 pounds per U.S. dollar in 2020, and 90 percent of people are 
believed to be living in dire poverty—it wants Makhlouf’s assistance to 
keep it afloat. But that rationale has not proved persuasive for Makhlouf.


In May, Makhlouf published several amateur video clips online that, 
while wrapped in courtesies, warned Bashar that he risked losing the 
support of the broad swathe of Alawites—including militiamen—on the 
tycoon’s payroll. Makhlouf exploited old sectarian tensions as he 
insinuated that the fault lied with the president’s Sunni wife, Asma, 
who he alluded was trying to steal Alawite money, thus casting doubt on 
Bashar’s own commitment to his sectarian group.


The dispute has given fresh hope to Bashar’s challengers within the 
regime. They hope that Makhlouf may have weakened him irreparably among 
Alawites and opened space for challenging his role atop the regime, even 
as it is widely taken for granted that Bashar would violently resist any 
direct opposition from within his family.


Indeed, that has been a consistent pattern. Ribal al-Assad, the 
45-year-old first cousin of the president and his uncle Rifaat’s son, is 
one of those who have been at the receiving end of Bashar’s ire. In 
1994, outside the Sheraton Hotel in Damascus, Bashar called him names 
and the altercation turned ugly. Frightened, Ribal’s father booked him a 
flight and asked him to leave. At the airport, gun-toting presidential 
guards fired shots and hung around for two and a half hours to arrest 
Ribal. He was apprehended but let go after Rifaat threatened Hafez 
al-Assad that he would fight in every street in Damascus “if a hair on 
his son’s body was harmed,” Ribal told Foreign Policy.


Ribal now lives in Spain in self-imposed exile and was at home in 
lockdown when he got a text with Makhlouf’s first video clip. He 
described it as a “menacing gimmick” and said he laughed when he first 
saw it. “I personally know Rami; he is a coward. He won’t go against the 
regime. He is nothing without Bashar,” Ribal said. “You can lose your 
life for much less, let alone challenging Bashar on social media. This 
is just a show. Bashar is using Rami to tell the Russians that he will 
lose support among the Alawites and that it would affect their interests 
in the coastal area where the Russians have their naval base 

[Marxism] On the NASCAR's Banning of the Confederate Flag and its Social Implications

[John A Imani via Marxism]

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Comrades,

I watched the beginning of the Nascar event in Homestead, Fl.   The
announcers began with an explication as to why the action had been taken
not only to divorce the association with the previously rife displays of
the Confederate flag but to outright ban it on their cars on the tracks, in
the stands on the fans, and at any associated NASCAR sponsored social
events.  The "Dukes of Hazard" and their 'General Lee'
,
in the language of their minds, would be *verboten*

At the beginning, the NASCAR' spokesmen said what would be expected:  an
admission that *"yes, the shit we put down was fcked up...but we better
now"*.   Least that's what I heard them say.  Apologies had to come there
and have come or will come anywhere and everywhere, wherever, they have
been or are being forced to react to the momentum of the streets.  Even
some cops taking a knee.  Politicians.  Club owners in other sports.  All
talking about racism (and having to admit how wrong they are and have been,
i.e. really only affirming what could not be denied) but little about the
socio-political effects of not just racialist capitalism but the economic
discordance of capitalism itself and the tragedies it spawns and births.
It is, again, as if no one wants to tell that emperor that he has no
clothes.  All the mouthpieces speaking about racism, talking out the side
of their necks.

In spite of all the still not considered spite, I consider this change from
NASCAR's image as a most positive cultural thing.  Even significant.For
when a movement is able to win victories in battles such as these that it
has not yet even joined then that movement has momentum.  That movement is
winning.

I believe that there will be reactions from a part of their fanbase.
Peckerwoods spouting sht like "First Amendment" and sneaking 'Rebel' battle
flags into the race or proudly driving up with stars and bars on their
pck-ups and their cars.  But actions such as these are but skirmishes,
meanwhile the battle still rages even thouh the war has yet to even be
declared.  Thus at every opportunity we need to show this and that
inequity's relationship to capitalism.  As effect from cause.  As cause
from effect.  Each, with the other, in a vicious, non-virtuous,
self-reifying spiraling-'society'-downward circle further and further and...

But apart and away from this arena or that stadium and that stage,
attention needs to be paid to the construction and discussion of a plan, of
a vision of society and how it is that that would work.  Occupy became
occupy when no society-challenging demands were being promulgated,
discussed and taken to, and for, the ones who really matter, the
overwhelming numbers of us in our neighborhoods.   That is the main
battleground.  The battlefield, that in the end, dictates the outcome of
the war.  And if mere marching and mere moving and not real movement
building remains the remains of the day then this movement will be unable
to go where it needs to and ought be, could be and should be.

This does not mean that there are not already substantial gains in the
actions that began with the George Floyd murder and amplified by the BLM
movement and our multi-racial allies and comrades.  As the '50's and '60's
there were changes, real changes, victories that were won, triumphs that
were achieved (e.g. Brown v Bd of Ed of Topeka, KS, affirmative action,
college and university black and other's studies depts.  The legal right to
vote in areas where local law and cop and vigilante terrorism had
proscribed it.)

And here, today, there will be unerasable changes effected.  But as the
civil rights marchers crossing bridges in the '50s, and, the '60's civil
disturbances on Northern streets and colleges--with black militancy in our
hearts, our bodies, our visions our hair, in our fist and in our *arms*,
while leading to lasting changes, they did not bring The Change that was
seen, evoked and propagated and preached by the visionaries among us who
were only giving voice to the mass consciousness that was our soul.

After what was lost in injuries and deaths, and imprisonments and
disillusionments, the progress that was won, these changes that were made,
at best, only drew us even with the damage to the lives, the heartbreaks,
the sacrifices, the efforts that these gains cost.

But as for the NASCAR's move, where I grew up in Mobile, AL there is a
museum.  One of the exhibits is a scale replica of the CSS Alabama
 and, for a
warboat as a blockade runner, it is a most handsome vessel.  

[Marxism] Workers United Branch Calls on AFL-CIO to Expel Police Unions | Hamilton Nolan | In These Times

[Kevin Lindemann and Cathy Campo via Marxism]

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https://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/22603/workers-united-labor-expel-police-unions-afl-cio-racial-justice


Sent from my iPhone

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[Marxism] In defence of Hugo Blanco

[Ken Hiebert via Marxism]

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Some of this is in Spanish and those parts that are in English appear to be 
translated by a computer program.
ken h

 Comrades all! 
 
 
 I am Carmen Blanco Valer, Hugo's eldest daughter and I make use of the list of 
subscribers of Lucha Indígena and contact them for the following: 
 
 
 Following the Peruvian alternative means Wayka proyectase by the networks last 
week the documentary "Hugo Blanco G, - River Deep" 
https://www.hugoblancofilm.com/  have emerged 
virulent reactions from right - wing groups against my father and against the 
filmmaker Malena Martinez. 
 
 
 Both the Fujimorista Marta   Chavez, like ex-military groups, civil guards, 
etc., have been publishing press releases in which they accuse Hugo of serious 
crimes against Human Rights and are outraged by the support given by the 
Ministry of Culture to the screening of the film. 
 
 
 Faced with these serious accusations, a group of comrades took the initiative 
to vindicate Hugo and his struggles and drafted a text to which he would ask 
them to adhere in solidarity.   Once we can gather a significant number of 
signatures, it will be published in Peru. 

 Sincerely: 
 
 
 Carmen Blanco Valer 
 
 
 carmincha.blancova...@gmail.com  
 
 
 
 
 Here is the text and below the link you can make the accessions. 
 
 
 
 In demand of Hugo Blanco 
 
 
 Concerning the exhibition of the award-winning documentary “Hubo Blanco Río 
Profundo”, a group of former military officers colluded with a series of former 
right-wing politicians, together with journalists from virtual publications 
with titles like El Montonero, have issued some pronouncements naming the 
former member of the 1978 Constituent Assembly, deputy and senator, 
democratically elected by the sovereign people, Hugo Blanco Galdós, as a 
terrorist and murderer. 
 
 
 We, the undersigned, citizens of Latin America and beyond, repudiate those 
words that, fifty years after the events that raised the impoverished peasants 
in the Valley of the Convention, seek to criminalize and discredit the 
politician and activist for the rights of the nature. Today, at 85 years old, 
Hugo Blanco Galdós, is considered one of the most important internationalist 
leaders for the struggles of agrarian reform, and against extractivism that 
pierces the bowels of our territories. 
 
 
 Hugo is an example for his tireless commitment to justice and to the people, 
whether in Pucallpa, Cajamarca, La Convencion, Chiapas or Cauca. Also because 
he is one of the few leftist leaders who today has been able to take a 
significant turn towards another fight for protest: for the environment. Blanco 
summarizes it relentlessly: "Before, it was fighting for socialism, today it is 
about the fight for the survival of the species." 
 
 
 This life dedicated to the fight for justice, democracy and the defense of 
Mother Earth has been masterfully represented by Malena Martínez in "Hugo 
Blanco: Rio Profundo", which has caused the unacceptable reaction of these 
emblematic characters of the Right caveman, who consolidate in their ranks the 
harshest of Peruvian authoritarianism, and who fear the example of this son of 
the hills of Cusco, where even today the cry "land or death: we will win" 
resounds. 

To sign:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScRC5hrZYPj6UeT5vlkXkQdOTMZXXK-3YAeK3iwXF4aLhpGVw/viewform
 

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Re: [Marxism] Edén Pastora, ‘Commander Zero’ in Nicaragua, Dies at 83

[Richard Fidler via Marxism]

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When he defected from the FSLN, Michael Baumann headlined his Militant article 
at the time: "Comandante Cero lives up to his name."

-Original Message-
From: Marxism [mailto:marxism-boun...@lists.csbs.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Louis 
Proyect via Marxism
Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2020 10:20 AM
To: rfid...@ncf.ca
Cc: Louis Proyect
Subject: [Marxism] Edén Pastora, ‘Commander Zero’ in Nicaragua, Dies at 83

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(Paul Berman used to attack the Sandinista government all the time in 
the Village Voice, touting Eden Pastora as the democratic alternative.)

NY Times, June 17, 2020
Edén Pastora, ‘Commander Zero’ in Nicaragua, Dies at 83
By Robert D. McFadden

Edén Pastora, a hero of the 1979 Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua who 
was known by his nom de guerre, Commander Zero — and who later turned 
against his victorious comrades in arms in a long counterrevolutionary 
war of words and guerrilla attacks that failed to budge the socialist 
regime in Managua — died early Tuesday in a military hospital in that 
city, the capital of Nicaragua. He was 83.



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[Marxism] Fwd: H-Net Review [H-Japan]: Damian on Smits, 'Maritime Ryukyu, 1050-1650'

[Andrew Stewart via Marxism]

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-- Forwarded message -
From: H-Net Staff via H-REVIEW 
Date: Wed, Jun 17, 2020 at 10:23 AM
Subject: H-Net Review [H-Japan]: Damian on Smits, 'Maritime Ryukyu,
1050-1650'
To: 
Cc: H-Net Staff 


Gregory Smits.  Maritime Ryukyu, 1050-1650.  Honolulu  University of
Hawaii Press, 2018.  Maps. 318 pp.  $68.00 (cloth), ISBN
978-0-8248-7337-0.

Reviewed by Michelle Damian (Monmouth College)
Published on H-Japan (June, 2020)
Commissioned by Martha Chaiklin

"This book is an interdisciplinary, revisionist history of the Ryukyu
islands": from his opening sentence, Gregory Smits unabashedly
challenges the widely accepted narrative of the islands (p. 1). For
most who study Japanese history, the Ryukyu islands are often largely
absent from our general studies, usually being relegated to a brief
nod in their role for facilitating trade in the premodern era and
then taking on a greater prominence in the modern imperial and
postwar eras. Smits notes that many of the modern views on Okinawa
come from George Kerr's _Okinawa: A History of an Island People_
(1958) and that there has been no substantial reconsideration of
Ryukyuan history since. This volume effectively encourages the reader
to rethink our perception of the Ryukyu islands.

Smits's work makes a number of valuable points, but I would like to
highlight three here. First, a primary takeaway from this volume is
the importance of marginalized places--in this case, the Ryukyu
islands. Smits highlights not just the significance of the islands
but also what they mean to the even more important control of the
seas. This concept tends to be overlooked in favor of the main
narrative of history in Japan (and elsewhere), which often focuses on
control of the land: who owns how much land, who inherits the land,
and how the land is overseen. Here, however, as the book's title
itself states, it is maritime Ryukyu that matters; the sea is an
active character. In Smits's analysis, the Ryukyu islands therefore
were more than an afterthought in the discussion of a historical
trajectory. They were instead a coveted archipelago, and control not
just of the islands but of the seaways shaped that trajectory.

The second point of note is the methodologies Smits uses to arrive at
his conclusions. As he states, this is an interdisciplinary approach.
He accesses sources in Japanese, Chinese, and Korean (albeit
sometimes translated into Japanese). While he begins with the
official histories describing the Ryukyu islands and incorporates
other sources traditionally used by historians, such as military
chronicles and household records, Smits also brings in less
"standard" sources, such as monument and temple bell inscriptions,
archaeological and landscape analyses, and even a collection of over
1,500 songs and chants (_Omoro sōshi_). I believe that this type of
multifaceted approach to historical studies is of critical importance
to the wider field, as it is through these nontraditional sources
that we are able to better glean an understanding of those who do not
feature in the "official" histories. Indeed, it is the use of the
songs especially that allows Smits to flesh out his revisionist
history of the archipelago, as he points out such instances as when
the official recorded histories portrayed a ruler as evil, but the
songs created and sung by the local residents praised him as a
king.[1]

Smits's willingness to reinterpret traditional histories allows him
to reconsider the role of _wakō_ as well, which is the third point
to consider. Often translated as pirates, this term immediately calls
to mind a particular preconceived image. Smits uses a phrase that I
particularly like for wakō, referring to them as "seafarers on the
margins" (p. 39). Note that this does not mean they were
marginalized; they were simply operating away from the traditional
centers of power. In doing so, he allows the wakō to take on a
different kind of agency, showing them as influential intermediaries
connecting Japan, Korea, China, and the Ryukyu islands. They became
proxy warriors in the struggle between Japan's Northern and Southern
Courts in the fourteenth century and facilitated trade with the Ming
court. Wakō were the ancestors of kings and influential lineages
throughout the Ryukyu archipelago and, again, were critical figures
in shaping the control of the islands and the seas around them. They
also were cultural carriers, bringing rituals and legends from the
Japanese mainland with them to the Ryukyu islands. By focusing on the
margins, Smits moves the wakō to the center of the story. In
conjunction with prioritizing the maritime nature of the Ryukyu
islands, he highlights 

[Marxism] Edén Pastora, ‘Commander Zero’ in Nicaragua, Dies at 83

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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(Paul Berman used to attack the Sandinista government all the time in 
the Village Voice, touting Eden Pastora as the democratic alternative.)


NY Times, June 17, 2020
Edén Pastora, ‘Commander Zero’ in Nicaragua, Dies at 83
By Robert D. McFadden

Edén Pastora, a hero of the 1979 Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua who 
was known by his nom de guerre, Commander Zero — and who later turned 
against his victorious comrades in arms in a long counterrevolutionary 
war of words and guerrilla attacks that failed to budge the socialist 
regime in Managua — died early Tuesday in a military hospital in that 
city, the capital of Nicaragua. He was 83.


A grandson, Álvaro Pastora Gutiérrez, said the cause was a heart attack. 
He said Mr. Pastora had been gravely ill when he was admitted to the 
hospital, though he did not identify the nature of the illness.


Mr. Pastora’s wife told a local newspaper that the cause was 
bronchopneumonia. His family had denied rumors that Mr. Pastora had 
contracted Covid-19. The government has been widely accused of listing 
pneumonia as the cause of death in Covid cases as a way to dispel 
reports that the pandemic was out of control in Nicaragua.


Nicaragua has resisted adopting the strict measures that have been put 
in place around much of the world to curb the spread of the disease, 
refusing to close schools and businesses and allowing, and even 
organizing, mass events.


Mr. Pastora, in a life of danger and adventure that stretched from the 
jungles of the Miskito Coast to the halls of Congress in Washington, was 
instrumental in toppling the military dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza 
Debayle, the last of the line in a repressive family dynasty that had 
ruled their Central American country for nearly a half century.


But deprived of a major role in the revolutionary government he had 
helped to install, and increasingly disillusioned by its 
Marxist-Leninist tendencies, Mr. Pastora went into exile and for years 
challenged the regime, led by Daniel Ortega, first with an international 
campaign of political pressures and later with hit-and-run guerrilla 
attacks inside Nicaragua.


Along the way he courted sympathizers and bankrollers in the United 
States, Europe and Latin America; took money and air support secretly 
from the Central Intelligence Agency; attacked cities in Nicaragua; was 
denounced by Managua as a traitor and tried in absentia; was seriously 
wounded by an assassin’s bomb that killed eight people; and once ran for 
the presidency of Nicaragua. He lost — and two years later, in 2008, 
announced that he had reconciled with the Ortega government.


Known for bold stratagems that captured world headlines and romanticized 
his daredevil exploits, Mr. Pastora was an early leader of the 
Sandinista National Liberation Front and a charismatic figure in the 
struggle against a dictator who had looted the national treasury and 
ordered the deaths of countless opponents, including Mr. Pastora’s father.


On Aug. 22, 1978, Mr. Pastora, a former medical student, led some 25 
Sandinista guerrillas on a daring raid into the National Palace in 
Managua. The invaders killed or disarmed the palace guards and seized 
more than 1,000 hostages, including the entire Nicaraguan Congress and 
most of the senior officials of the Somoza dictatorship.


For three days, as a shocked world watched, the revolutionaries held out 
until General Somoza capitulated to their demands for the release of 
scores of political prisoners, a $500,000 ransom and safe passage to 
Panama. The spectacular raid established the legend of “Comandante 
Cero.” Photographers caught him as he mounted the steps of the escape 
plane: a triumphant swashbuckler in a dark beret, clutching a rifle, his 
chest crossed with bullet and grenade bandoleers.


The raid reignited a revolution that had been simmering for years. 
Within days, six cities rose in revolt. Insurrections soon spread across 
the country. By spring, a civil war was underway, pitting General 
Somoza’s well-equipped National Guard against a ragtag coalition of 
rebel forces. Mr. Pastora commanded the southern front in an offensive 
that slowly closed in on Managua.


With battles raging on the city outskirts, General Somoza resigned on 
July 17, 1979, and flew to Miami. As triumphant rebels drove through the 
city firing automatic weapons in the air, a Junta of National 
Reconstruction was installed. The war had left 50,000 people dead and 
600,000 homeless.


A year later, General Somoza was assassinated in Paraguay by Sandinista 
commandos, who blew up his limousine with an anti-tank rocket.


Despite his efforts for the 

[Marxism] How a March for Black Trans Lives Became a Huge Event

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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NY Times, June 17, 2020
How a March for Black Trans Lives Became a Huge Event
By Anushka Patil

West Dakota, a drag queen in Brooklyn, was checking in on a fellow drag 
queen and mentor when they began discussing what they said was a painful 
reality about the George Floyd protests: Black transgender people are 
disproportionately the victims of police violence, but attending 
demonstrations against police brutality can often put them in further 
danger.


Her mentor, a drag queen named Merrie Cherry, who is black, said she had 
seen silent marches in other states and would have felt safer attending 
an event like that, West Dakota recalled.


And so she had an idea: a rally for black trans people that would evoke 
one of the most notable protests in New York history, the Silent Parade, 
when the N.A.A.C.P. assembled nearly 10,000 people in 1917, all wearing 
white and silently marching down Fifth Avenue to demand an end to 
violence against black people.


Two weeks later, West Dakota’s idea blossomed into one of the most 
striking demonstrations that New York has seen since the killing of 
Floyd, a gathering of thousands of people in a sea of white. Its size 
and intensity stunned bystanders, participants and the organizers 
themselves.


Though crowd turnouts for marches are often difficult to determine, 
organizers said 15,000 people took part. The police have not released 
their own estimate, but videos from the scene showed a sea of people 
stretching several blocks from Grand Army Plaza, down Eastern Parkway, 
with some eventually making their way to Fort Greene Park. [Here is 
video of the event.]


The vast majority of the protesters wore masks, and safety teams 
stationed along the route gave out hand sanitizer. But the crowd was so 
large that six-feet social distancing was often not possible. Officials 
have expressed concerns that the Floyd protests could lead to the spread 
of the coronavirus, though there is no evidence of that so far in New York.


One speaker at the rally was Melania Brown, sister of Layleen Polanco, a 
transgender woman who was found dead in 2019 in a cell at Rikers Island.


“Black trans lives matter! My sister’s life mattered!” Brown said in her 
speech. “If one goes down, we all go down — and I’m not going nowhere.”




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[Marxism] Air Force Sergeant With Ties to Extremist Group Charged in Federal Officer’s Death

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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NY Times, June 17, 2020
Air Force Sergeant With Ties to Extremist Group Charged in Federal 
Officer’s Death
The sergeant had expressed his allegiance to the so-called boogaloo 
movement, an extremist ideology that seeks to overthrow the U.S. government.

By Neil MacFarquhar and Thomas Gibbons-Neff

An Air Force sergeant linked to an anti-government movement was charged 
with murder and attempted murder on Tuesday in the shooting death of a 
federal security officer outside a courthouse in Oakland, Calif., last 
month.


The sergeant had expressed his allegiance to the so-called boogaloo 
movement by writing with his own blood on the hood of a white Toyota 
Camry and had used the recent protests against racial injustice as a 
cover to attack law enforcement, according to the F.B.I.


Staff Sgt. Steven Carrillo, 32, is accused of firing an assault rifle 
from the open back door of a moving vehicle and gunning down the federal 
officer, according to the criminal complaint.


The driver of the van, Robert Alvin Justus Jr., 30, who had met Sergeant 
Carrillo on Facebook, was charged with aiding and abetting the murder of 
Dave Patrick Underwood, 53, the officer killed in the shooting, the 
complaint said. Both men were also charged with the attempted murder of 
a second officer who was gravely wounded.


“They came to Oakland to kill cops,” John F. Bennett, the special agent 
in charge of the F.B.I. in San Francisco, said at a news conference on 
Tuesday.


Evidence tied Sergeant Carrillo to the boogaloo, an extremist ideology 
that seeks to bring about a second civil war to overthrow the United 
States government.


Sergeant Carrillo had previously been charged with the shooting death of 
a sheriff’s deputy in Santa Cruz County during a gun battle on June 6 
that led to his arrest.


In that showdown, Sergeant Carrillo used his own blood to scrawl “Boog” 
and other phrases linked to the movement on the hood of the car he had 
stolen.


Sergeant Carrillo is the latest person tied to the movement to be 
arrested in recent weeks. All of them have sought to exploit protests — 
first against the coronavirus lockdowns and then around the death of 
George Floyd in police custody — to accelerate their apocalyptic vision.


The term, initially derived as an inside joke from the 1984 cult classic 
film “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo,” is used as shorthand on internet 
forums for a brewing second civil war.


However, boogaloo does not represent a cohesive or singular ideology. It 
has been connected to what some consider humorous memes, as well as with 
occasional physical violence and militaristic shows of force (similarly 
to armed militias such as the Oath Keepers or III Percenters).


The reference migrated offline from social media platforms like Reddit, 
4chan and Facebook with volatile speed in recent months. Adherents often 
wear distinctive Hawaiian shirts, a reference to the fact that they 
sometimes transform their name into the “Big Luau” or the “Big Igloo.”


Subscribing to the boogaloo ultimately translates to one core tenet: a 
belief that the United States government has failed and that the 
country’s divisions, inflamed by the news media, will result in a 
violent internal war.


“This is a very violent movement even if they are wearing Hawaiian 
shirts and using funny memes to try to soften what they are doing,” said 
Kathleen Belew, a history professor and the author of “Bring the War 
Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America.”


Sergeant Carrillo’s case follows the arrests last month in Las Vegas of 
an active-duty member of the Army and two veterans, who were charged 
with trying to provoke violence between the police and protesters at 
Black Lives Matter marches. Those men were also found to have ties to 
the movement.


There have been other arrests of boogaloo adherents in recent months in 
Colorado, Texas and Ohio, each involving plots to ambush law 
enforcement. In addition, followers of the movement have backed the 
conservative effort to reopen the Texas economy amid the coronavirus 
pandemic. Armed men have showed up outside some businesses to support 
them as they reopened in defiance of the lockdown.


The movement attracts both far-right white supremacists and some armed 
men who joined the Black Lives Matter protests because of their anger at 
the police and other symbols of government authority. The 1992 siege by 
federal law enforcement agents over firearms charges at Ruby Ridge in 
Idaho, which left two people dead, has long been a rallying cry.


Members often express admiration for training and other benefits that 
come with being a military veteran. 

[Marxism] Why Workers Need A Political Party – The Call

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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A six-thousand word article by Jacobin/DSAers Nick French and Jeremy 
Gong about the need for a new working-class party that has the same old 
bullshit buried within the radical-sounding rhetoric:


"Second, we need to run class-struggle candidates, who will be 
effectively independent of the Democratic Party even if they use its 
ballot line for now."


https://socialistcall.com/2020/06/15/bernie-2020-workers-party/

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[Marxism] 1973: Ernest Mandel on Marxism and ecology, 'The dialectic of growth' | IIRE

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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http://www.iire.org/node/924

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[Marxism] UAW to take action

[John Reimann via Marxism]

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The UAW announces that they will be shutting down assembly lines for the
infamous 8 minutes and 46 seconds on Juneteenth. This comes after the
Amalgamated Transit Union has made sure their bus drivers don't become
"bust" drivers for arrested protesters and the ILWU is shutting down the
West Coast ports on Juneteenth. The general social turmoil is starting to
have an effect on the union bureaucracy. That is all the more reason that
rank and file members should organize to push their unions forward,
including getting mass union participation in the street protests plus
getting the cops out of the AFL-CIO.
https://uaw.org/uaw-action-racism-june-19-2020/?fbclid=IwAR2VLE71TtE-cK2ytoekxuQ3LNICmv1k_z-pKFT6aXwp11uIitQLEKmitus

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[Marxism] The Romanian “economic recovery” plan and the impoverishment of Romanian Workers | Lefteast

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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https://www.criticatac.ro/lefteast/the-romanian-economic-recovery-plan-and-the-impoverishment-of-romanian-workers/

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