A-Infos (en) US, LA, Latest issue of Turning the Tide, v18 #2 now out

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The latest issue of "Turning the Tide: Journal of Anti-Racist Action*,
Research & Education," Volume 18, Number 2, May-June 2005, is now out. The
issue features editor Michael Novick's piece, "Gentrification: What it is
and How we can fight it," a review of "The Greening of Cuba" by Avon
Leekley, "Haiti: A Nation in Struggle," by L.A. teacher Mabie Settlage, who
recently visited the island with supporters of Lavalas and ousted President
Jean-Bertrand Arisitide, and a first-person account of a visit to the MST,
"Landless Workers' Struggle in Brazil," by NY social worker Basha
Schanberg. Susan Burton reports on the upcoming Los Angeles Peace & Justice
Summit, initiated by the former prisoners' organization, "All of Us or
None." New Afrikan Artaymis Ma'at from Mississippi reports on "people's
lawyer" Chokwe Lumumba's struggle against a suspension by the white
supremacist bar and court system in that state. Roberta Franklin, Director
of "Families and Friends of Incarcerated People," issues a call for an
August 13th March on Washington for prisoners' rights.Marissa Raigoza
contributes a poem, reprinted from the San Diego COMD, "To the Recruiters
on Campus," challenging the military deceit involved in finding more cannon
fodder in the schools. The issue also includes a report on solidarity
efforts with environmental political prisoner Jeffrey "Free" Luers, a call
for submissions to the 2006 Political Prisoner and Prisoner of War Calendar
from QPIRG in Montreal, and is rounded out with Mumia Abu-Jamal's essay
from Death Row, "What Kind of 'Democracy' Is This?", and ARA-LA/PART's
Perspective: "Turning the Tables on the Empire," reprinted below.

Sample copies are free to addresses in the US. Subscriptions for 6 issues
are $16 a year in the US to individuals, $26US to foreign subscribers and
institutions, payable to "Michael Novick" at ARA, PO Box 1055, Culver City
CA 90232. Bulk prices for bundles are available upon request. "Turning the
Tide" has been coming out for almost 18 years as a grass-roots, independent
voice of anti-racism and anti-colonialism, without government funds,
partisan or sectarian subsidies, corporate money or foundation grants. It
depends on the generosity and support of readers who value its unique
perspective.

Here's the editorial from the new issue:

ARA-LA/PART's PERSPECTIVE:
TURNING THE TABLES ON THE EMPIRE

More than two years ago, Emperor George W. Bush declared, "Mission
Accomplished" in Iraq. He proclaimed that the war was essentially over.

The Iraqi people's resistance has given the lie to that most arrogant of
the many lies Bush has told about the colonial war in Iraq. Thereby they
have taught us two very invaluable lessons. First, a concerted resistance
can withstand and thwart the imperial ambitions of even the most powerful
military force on the face of the earth, in the history of the world.
Second, any declaration of victory, of the "end" of a war of conquest by an
imperial power, is always a lie.

In fact, no colonial war is ever "over." Colonialism, especially settler
colonialism, means a constant state of war to maintain the conquest. The
Empire must wage war unrelentingly, because it can maintain its domination
of colonized people and land only by means of war. Sometimes, that means
"low intensity" war; but when anti-colonial resistance is stronger, the war
becomes more intense, more naked.

Since the very survival of the colonized people is an act of resistance and
defiance, a condemnation of the illegitimacy of the conqueror's claim to
the land, then war by any other name is a constant reality of colonialism.

Both lessons are of supreme importance as we confront the Empire inside its
self-proclaimed "Homeland." Because despite U.S. government claims that the
Indian Wars and the Mexican War were "won" and are "over," despite the
existence of treaties that supposedly prove their claims, colonial war is
no more "over" inside the borders of the United States than in any other
region of the Empire.

Reich-Minister of War Rumsfeld proclaims that he has no exit strategy for
Iraq, only a victory strategy. He is seeking to apply to the latest theater
of war the same approach that the U.S. has used since the first settler
conquests in North America, before the founding of the current state.

The U.S. has never voluntarily ended a single military occupation. The U.S.
has military bases in every corner of its "national territory" because it
is in fact territory stolen from indigenous peoples, populated by colonized
people and settlers. The U.S. still has military bases in Cuba, in Germany,
Japan, and Korea. The U.S. still has troops in the Philippines, and in over
100 countries all around the planet. The "invisible hand" of the market
only operates behind the mailed fist of military might.

What people in the U.S., particularly in the white left, have persistently
failed to recognize is that this is just as true inside the borders of the
settler colonial U.S. State as it is in every far-flung corner of the
empire. The war on indigenous and colonized people in the U.S. is still
being waged just as fiercely as ever. This was evident in the 1960s and
70s, not only with COINTELPRO and Wounded Knee, but in the use of the
National Guard, military intelligence and the US Army itself in the streets
of US cities against Black and Mexicano rebellions and against anti-war
protesters. It is no less true today, with the militarization of the
schools, the police, and the border and the Emperor's assertion of martial
law powers to declare even US citizens to be 'enemy combatants' outside the
reach of either the Constitution or international law.

The problem is not just Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, but the entire system of
Empire and settler colonialism. We must learn the lesson that ALL colonial,
imperial war is endless, not just Bush's 'War on Terror.' Then we can begin
to apply the other lesson being taught so well by the Iraqi people, that
resistance is fertile. Resistance by any and every means is justified and
essential. War will be waged against us in any event. War will be extended
to Iran, and ultimately to China unless we prevent it. The war that
industrial/imperial society wages on the planet will continue without cease
until either we stop it or the devastation is so total that society
destroys itself along with a functioning biosphere.

The contradiction between planetary and human survival on the one hand, and
the Empire on the other, is utter and irreconcilable. Our only choices are
resistance, and thereby the possibility of victory, or surrender, and
thereby the certainty of death.

As we begin to recognize and act on these truths, we can turn the tables on
the Empire, because it exposes the fundamental weakness hidden behind the
system's economic and military might. The power the system wields comes
from the people it oppresses. The wealth it amasses, it extracts from the
people it exploits and the future of the planet.

As we defy their lies, as we resist, we automatically weaken the forces of
oppression and exploitation, and strengthen the forces of liberation. We
begin to shift the balance of power. Unanswered repression breaks our
spirits and our confidence. But when repression is met with  resistance,
with non-collaboration, it inspires further resistance and greater
solidarity. It builds our confidence and our hope in the prospects of the
future.

Resistance begins as an internal struggle and commitment, breaking the
bonds of identification with the oppressor and internalization of
oppression, of white supremacy, neo-colonialism and class collaboration.
But resistance must extend itself to effective action, to organization, to
solidarity, to interference with the operations of the Empire. In this
period of open imperial war, we must resist the draft and induction, refuse
to put our bodies on the line for the Empire, and begin to put our hearts,
minds, spirits and bodies on the line against it.

We must learn to re-indigenize ourselves, to inculcate resistance as a way
of life, a self-critical expression of love and creativity. We must defend
ourselves and the Earth by every means necessary and every method
consistent with our beliefs and goals.
=================================
* [Ed. Note: ARA is an antiauthoritarian anticapitalist
social struggle direct action network.]
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