After taking Hillary Clinton's side in previous segments, this weekend's Saturday Night Live ripped into Hillary in this piece that nails her campaigns increasingly blatant appeals to white racism (as well as other not-so-savory aspects of her campaign):

Part of the Left Spot site is a special collections of a somewhat random (but important and growing!) assortment of documents of interest to revolutionaries, communists, and historians of the left. There are a few recent additions to the special collections I'd like to make note of.

There are two new small (but good!) archives for Marxist-Leninist groups from the New Communist Movement period in the 1970s-80s.

One is an archive of documents from the League of Revolutionary Struggle (M-L). The LRS is one of the most important and formidable multinational communist organization formed in this period. It is a shame that more of their materials are not online. I'm hoping to add more over time.

The other is an archive of documents from the Revolutionary Workers Headquarters. The RWH was formed in 1978 out of a split from the Revolutionary Communist Party. In 1985 the RWH merged with other groups to form Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

Polemics on the Black National Question

First I'd like to call attention to two recently added documents. One is a pamphlet written by the Revolutionary Workers Headquarters in 1981, Build the Black Liberation Movement.

This is a pamphlet dated June 1981, putting forward the Revolutionary Workers Headquarters line on the Black national question in the U.S. The pamphlet starts out with a polemic against the RCP's line on the Black national question, then stakes out the RWH's own position. This pamphlet represents a serious attempt to break with the RCP's line and practice on the national question, which did serious damage to attempts to build multinational communist unity in the 1970s.

But not everyone felt that the RWH had gone far enough in breaking with the RCP's line on the Black national question. In December 1981, a polemical response was written to the RWH pamphlet by Amiri Baraka of the League for Revolutionary Struggle (M-L). Baraka's pamphlet RWH on the Black Liberation Movement: Wrong Again! is a sharp rebuke of the RWH line from one of the most important Black revolutionaries of the 20th century.

Along with Baraka's polemic with the RWH, there is another document by Baraka published by the LRS, Nationalism, Self-Determination and Socialist Revolution that is now available on Left Spot. It was originally published in 1982.

Early Polemics With the RCP

Over the last couple years, a number of people have left the RCP and put out public critiques. The Single Spark website, and the Kasama Project website have engaged in polemics with various aspects of the RCP's line and practice. Reading these emerging discussions, it is interesting to look back at the first major split in the RCP in the late 1970s, and particularly at the polemics written by the group that left the RCP, the Revolutionary Workers Headquarters. I have re-read some of the RWH's main polemics recently and have made some of the key ones available on Left Spot. More will come later. Many of the main criticisms coming from Single Spark and Kasama have echoes going back to points made by the RWH comrades in the late 1970s. Of course the new polemics raise other issues too that have come up in the years since then, and also put forward some views that are quite different than the RWH on some key questions.

You can find some of the key RWH polemics on the split in the RCP in Red Papers 8, published by the RWH after the split.

Particularly, Appendix B - On the Class Struggle in the U.S. is a series of polemical documents that make a number of sharp points. So Left Spot now has most of those documents available (with descriptions included here from the original text):

THE FUSION OF THE SOCIALIST MOVEMENT WITH THE WORKING CLASS MOVEMENT

This section discusses the tasks of US Marxist—Leninists in this period and the retreat by the RCP from the battleground of class struggle against the bourgeoisie to the sidelines of “socialist purity” and “left” idealism.

THE FOUNDING CONGRESS OF THE RCP

This section reviews several of the key line struggles around which unity was reached prior to the founding of the RCP, and their repudiation by the RCP today.

JULY 4, 1976 "BATTLE OF THE BICENTENNIAL"

A discussion of the main campaign of the RCP in 1976, a nationwide political campaign against the plans of the ruling class to focus their Bicentennial activities in Philadelphia on July 4, around a call for national unity and celebration of their rule.

CAMPAIGN TO BUILD A NATIONAL UNITED WORKERS ORGANIZATION

A discussion of the focus of the RCP's work in 1977 among the working class, a campaign to form a nation—wide workers organization, a campaign that largely failed and pointed to the beginning consolidation of a "left" idealist line in the RCP.

"THEORY IN ITS OWN RIGHT" IS OPPORTUNISM IN ITS OWN RIGHT

This section covers the distortion of the relationship between theory and practice that characterizes Bob Avakian's leadership in the RCP. The effect of this "left" idealist line on the work in the US is clear. The task of Marxist-Leninists is to reject such an idealist orientation as it applies to the analysis of conditions in the US today. This is crucial for Marxist-Leninists to be able to serve our class on all three fronts of class struggle—-ideological, political, and economic, Our task is to know the world in order to change it in common battle with the broad masses of people.

This video features many great speakers, giving a bunch of reasons that you should be in St. Paul, MN on September 1, 2008 to protest against the Republican National Convention. See ya in the streets!

Hawaiian sovereignty rap!

An oldie but goodie - The Coup burst onto the scene with this song, Dig It!. From the opening line the Coup laid their revolutionary politics on the table: Presto! Read the Communist Manifesto!. Enjoy the video...

(credit: Democracy and Class Struggle blog)

The petition referred to in the prior post - An Open Letter to the U.S. Left from the Hawaii Sovereignty Movement - is really very important. 'The petition' was a petition of native Hawaiians, signed by 95 percent of the Kanaka Maoli (native Hawaiian) population, against the annexation (colonization) of Hawaii by the U.S. Hawaii was finally 'annexed' by the U.S. a year later in 1898, after a decades-long process of attempted U.S. colonization and native Hawaiian resistance.

This petition represented a basically total rejection of U.S. colonization by the native Hawaiian people. That level of unity in resistance to colonialism is remarkable. Yet this petition, buried in the National Archives, was historically forgotten. That is, until Silvia Noenoe uncovered it very recently. She writes about the petition in her book Aloha Betrayed, which documents the extensive native Hawaiian resistance to U.S. colonialism.

This is a hugely important book, because it demolishes the popular idea that native Hawaiians didn't resist U.S. colonialism, and passively (or even actively) accepted it. Noenoe didn't have to look very far to refute this bogus colonizer's history -- all she had to do was go into archives and read the many newspapers in native Hawaiian language written in the 1800s. There it was - all kinds of resistance, easy to document! It seems that nobody had bothered to read what the native Hawaiians were saying in their own newspapers in their own language at the time, all the while proclaiming that they 'accepted' or supposedly didn't resist U.S. colonialism. Talk about colonial arrogance!

Here is a web page from the National Archives that goes into more detail about the 1897 petition against U.S. annexation of Hawaii. The ongoing struggle for sovereignty for the native Hawaiian people is a just struggle that all progressive people should learn more about and support.

This is reprinted from the Nation website.

An Open Letter to the U.S. Left from the Hawaii Sovereignty Movement

The confluence of two forces--a massive military expansion in Hawai'i and Congressional legislation that will stymie the Kanaka Maoli [Native Hawaiian] sovereignty movement--will expand and consolidate the use of Hawai'i for US empire. We are calling on the US left to join our movement opposing these threats and to add our quest for independence as a plank of the broad US left strategy for a nonimperialist America. If you support peace and justice for the United States and the world, please support demilitarization and independence for Hawai'i.

Since 1893, the United States has malformed Hawai'i into the command and control center for US imperialism in Oceania and Asia. From the hills of the Ewa district of O'ahu, the US Pacific Command--the largest of the unified military commands--directs troops and hardware throughout literally half the planet. Since the late nineteenth century, the US military has multiplied in our islands, taking 150,000 acres for its use, including one-quarter of the metropolitan island of O'ahu. Moreover, the National Security Administration is building a new surveillance facility nearby, not far from where urban assault brigades, called Strykers, will train for deployment throughout the world. The US Navy is also increasing training over the entire archipelago, including populated areas and the fragile northwestern whale sanctuary. This militarized occupation has a long history. Ke Awalau o Pu'uloa--known now as Pearl Harbor--became one of the very first overseas bases, along with Guantánamo, around the time of the Spanish-American War. We still hold much in common with prerevolution Cuba--a sugar plantation economy and status as the playground for the rich of North America.

We have suffered from the effects of being the pawn for US wars on the world. Our family members languish from strange diseases brought by military toxins in our water and soil. Our economy is a foreign-run modern plantation serving multinational shareholders and decorated generals. We salute a foreign flag, and the education system instructs us to yearn for a distant continent called the Mainland. Tourists imbibe in sunny Waīkikī, while the beaches in the native-inhabited regions are littered with chemical munitions.

But amid our suffering, we have survived. Our tenacity and resilience have historical roots: in 1897, 95 percent of the Kanaka Maoli population signed petitions that helped to defeat a treaty to forcibly annex Hawai'i to the United States.

The last forty years have seen remarkable change for our people, through the advancement of a grassroots struggle against the political occupation and mental colonization of our homeland. We have been successful in several campaigns: in stopping the bombing of Kaho'olawe Island and Makua Valley, in revitalizing the Hawaiian language and culture in our schools and families, in returning to our indigenous spiritual practices and in making Hawaiian sovereignty a dinner-table topic and an actual possibility. These hard-fought wins are successes in the movement for self-determination and also a threat to America's use of Hawai'i as the purveyor of its empire.

It is against this backdrop that the Akaka bill (the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act) is being discussed in the halls of Congress. Named for US Senator Daniel Akaka, the bill is being promoted by Hawai'i's corporate and political elite as a vehicle for racial justice. Yet the bill would turn back one of the most important victories of the last four decades--the rise of Hawaiian self-determination, including independence, as a political possibility--replacing it with the extinguishment of our historic claims to land and sovereignty.

Our conundrum puts us squarely in opposition to the middle ground of American politics, which has arrived at a consensus that Hawai'i will remain a military colony of the United States. Democratic Senator Daniel Inouye is a major purveyor of pork barrel spending for military appropriations and defense contractors. All three presidential contenders have signaled their support for the Akaka bill. And while the far right wing of the Republican Party opposes the Akaka bill, both major parties have no quarrel over the continuance of the empire's use of our homeland.

In light of this American consensus on Hawai'i, we turn to our nearest political allies, US progressive movements, and seek your solidarity for our independence because it is congruent and essential to your hope for a better world. Please join us in opposing the Akaka bill and the militarization of Hawai'i, and please support Hawai'i's independence as part of your vision for a more humane United States and a more just world.

Ikaika Hussey, convenor, Movement for Aloha No ka Aina
 (MANA)

Terrilee Keko'olani, Ohana Koa/Nuclear-Free and Independent Pacific

Noelani Goodyear-Kaopua, assistant professor of political
 science, University of Hawaii, Manoa

Jon Osorio, director, Center for Hawaiian Studies, University of Hawaii, Manoa

Kekuni Blaisdell, convenor, Ka Pakaukau

Andre Perez, Hui Pu

Kelii "Skippy" Ioane, Hui Pu

Kai'opua Fyfe, director, The Koani Foundation

This is a poem by Alfred Hayes, taken from the Marxist Internet Archive, which reprinted it from the New Masses, May, 1934.

Into the streets May First!
Into the roaring Square!
Shake the midtown towers!
Shatter the downtown air!
Come with a storm of banners,
Come with an earthquake tread,
Bells, hurl out of your belfries,
Red flag, leap out your red!
Out of the shops and factories,
Up with the sickle and hammer,
Comrades, these are our tools,
A song and a banner!
Roll song, from the sea of our hearts,
Banner, leap and be free;
Song and banner together,
Down with the bourgeoisie!
Sweep the big city, march forward,
The day is a barricade;
We hurl the bright bomb of the sun,
The moon like a hand grenade.
Pour forth like a second flood!
Thunder the alps of the air!
Subways are roaring our milllons--
Comrades, into the square!

May 1st is right around the corner. As most readers of this blog probably already know, May 1st is celebrated as International Workers Day around the world. For those that want more information, background and history about May Day, check out the Marxist Internet Archive resource page about it.

May 1st had been largely relegated to a day celebrated by the revolutionary left in the U.S....until two years ago. On May 1st, 2006, the immigrant rights movement shook the whole country, as hundreds of thousands of mostly immigrant workers skipped work and took the streets en masse in cities all over the country, and even a million people marched in Los Angeles. Pouring out numbers of people on the streets that the anti-war movement can't even come close to touching, it became clear that a new social force had made its mark, and May Day was back as a mass holiday in the U.S.

The marches last year on May Day were not as big as 2006, but that's not really even a fair comparison. The impressive point is that a year later, hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers and their supporters took to the streets again on May Day, on a work day.

Here we are in 2008. After the mass movement succeeded in stopping the heinous Sensenbrenner bill from passing, the ruling class has responded by pushing through pieces of Sensenbrenner, moving forward with the construction of the odious border wall, and most of all massively stepping up raids and deportations.

Those raids and deportations have stoked fear and been a large reason for the lower turnout at the immigrant rights marches since 2006. Also the alliances that came together in 2006 have broken down to varying degrees since then, at times coming together and at times falling apart dramatically. And the grassroots movement has gone through its inevitable ebbs and flows.

But here we are. A couple days from May Day 2008. We can continue to make a mark on history by pushing forward again on May 1st, 2008. I hope everyone reading here finds a way to participate in a march or action of some sort on May Day.

Here are some links for May Day 2008:

FRSO statement: May Day 2008: Long Live the Peoples’ Struggle!

Coverage from Fight Back Newspaper:
Chicago: Huge Immigrant Rights march planned for May 1
Los Angeles: Mobilizing for May 1 Immigrant Rights Protest
Minnesota: March for Immigrant Rights May 1st

National Immigrant Solidarity Network's May Day 2008 site with listings of activities in various cities

New York May 1st Coalition

Voces de la Frontera from Milwaukee, which last year had a demonstration of 80,000 people on May Day

March 10th Movement - Chicago did the first mega-march on March 10, 2006. Hosted the national conference on the heels of the 2006 upsurge, and organized huge numbers again in 2007

Latinos Unidos - Michigan organizing a mass march on May 1st in Detroit

MN Immigrant Rights Action Coalition (MIRAc) formed out of the 2006 upsurge and has continued to organize and build since then

This is just a quick start. Please add more links in the comments here if you know of groups organizing marches in other cities.