Voice of Revolution

Reject Criminalization of Dissent!
Step Up the Organized Resistance!

U.S. imperialism, in its desperation to maintain its system, is taking increasingly brutal measures against the people. Youth are being targeted and criminalized simply for protesting the war. As a collective they are being branded as “threats” and “prone to violence.” In fact, the police profiling methods to determine “threat assessment” for youth and “threat assessment” of “terrorists” are about the same.

Soldiers are also being jailed for standing up for humanity and refusing to serve in the criminal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Demonstrators and particularly civil disobedience and efforts to force the government to comply with the demand of the people to end the war now are all being branded as “violent” and expressions of “homegrown terrorism.”

Numerous anti-war actions have been organized, and more are planned as increasingly broad numbers of people and organizations insist that the government End the War Now! Bring All U.S. Troops Home Now! Far from recognizing and submitting to the just stand of the people, the government is now planning to pass a bill that criminalizes simply thinking about the necessity for change. Viewpoints that oppose the government and defend the rights of the people are being branded as “extremist belief systems.” The process people engage in to become informed and argue out their views is being branded as a “process of radicalization” that necessarily leads to violence and terrorism. Indeed, it is called the “roadmap to terrorism.” Essentially, no one is to think differently than the government, which is known to be racist, criminal and acting with complete impunity. How can anyone submit to a government out to destroy all humanity!

Solving problems means opening the path to progress, to a new system and new governance that serves humanity. This is precisely what the ruling class is trying to block and why they can only pursue a path of fascism and war at this time. The ruling circles are attacking ideology and thinking as this is necessary to force peoples here and abroad to submit to their fascist and thoroughly reactionary dictate. The government has put in place, both through laws and executive orders, all the means necessary to profile everyone and control their daily lives. These rulers are openly insisting that people submit to government dictate or face indefinite detention or exile from civilian life. They are expecting Americans to stand with these old, rotting, humanity-eating rulers who have no solutions.

It is this refusal to abandon their system that also requires the Democrats to pursue the same path. And let no one doubt that the Democrats will be different than the Bush regime. The bill recently passed by the House of Representatives, which openly criminalizes resistance and the thinking necessary for it, and attempts to enshrine in law that the Constitution only applies “in general” and not as supreme law of the land, was passed by a 404-6 vote. As well, the top presidential candidates for the Democrats all back and support these measures and indeed claim yet more are needed.

The Democrats have systematically supported war and repression. They are not defending rights, they are defending imperialism and representing the drive of the imperialists to crush all resistance to their rotten system. In particular, their role at this time is to try and breath life into a system that more and more people are recognizing as a failure. They are doing this by claiming that having a Democrat in the White House will make all the difference.

Reality tells a different story. The actions of U.S. imperialism at home and abroad show it to be a brutal and vicious system of exploitation, and one that is dying. The Democrats are the ones trying to keep it alive, and are prepared to commit any crime to do this. This includes sanctioning the measures to criminalize and crush dissent and government plans to impose martial law. They are not the answer, they are the lifeline for imperialism.

What is needed to move forward is to bury the imperialist system as one that does not serve humanity. It is time to unplug the lifeline of supporting the Democrats and organize instead for an anti-war government of the working class and people.

The blackmail and threats of the ruling class are designed to frighten, silence and crush the broad movements of the people for their rights. They are aimed at convincing everyone that resistance is futile, that even thinking about resistance and engaging in the work for it is a crime. But the broad and growing resistance taking place across the country shows that people are recognizing the necessity to reject this criminalization. More and more people are responding to the attacks by the government by organizing together and taking actions that defend their rights and the rights of all. Indeed, people are mobilizing with the slogan, Our Security Lies in Our Fight!

What stands out in the current situation is the need to strengthen the organized resistance, including the serious discussions needed to combat the rotten outlook of the ruling circles and advance the outlook of the working class. Arguing out these issues of the role of the Democrats in blocking solutions is one such problem to tackle. So too is the question of how the people can organize to get themselves elected — how to contend for power in the electoral arena. How can obstacles like the notion that anti-war candidates from the workers can never win be overcome? How can decision-making mechanisms that enable the people to select and elect their own candidates be built.

Serious deliberations and arguing out views is an essential part of the struggle to strengthen the organized resistance and develop the common thinking of the people. Defending rights and organizing on a conscious planned basis, guided by our own proletarian thinking, our own outlook and politics, is needed.

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Illinois School Officials Imposing Expulsions
High School Students Organize Anti-war Sit-In

More than 70 students organized a sit-in against the Iraq War and military recruitment on campus at Morton West High School (near Chicago, Illinois). Over the course of the day, November 1, about 200 students joined in.

The action began third hour when dozens of student gathered in the cafeteria and refused to leave. Administrators and police immediately became involved and locked down the entire school for a half hour at the end of third hour. Students chose to stay on school grounds as they wanted their action to be seen by their fellow students and teachers. They also wanted to engage their fellow students in discussion on the issue of military recruiters and opposing the Iraq war, problems that impact all the youth, here and abroad. As one put it, “Basically, the school often has people in our school in military uniforms, and the military gives away prizes for doing pull-ups and doing this and that and what they are basically representing and trying to put out there is murder and killing and war. So we were trying to do something opposite, something peaceful. And yet we are the ones they said are violent and insubordinate.” Military recruiters are at Morton West several times a week.

Students provided School Superintendent, Dr. Ben Nowakowski, who came to the school, with a letter stating their reasons for their protest. School officials at first attempted to get the students to leave campus, telling them to go “march in the streets.” But the students said for this action they did not want to leave school. This was in part because during the massive May Day actions in 2006, leaving school was used as an excuse to arrest many of the youth exercising their right to protest. Plus the students wanted to engage everyone on campus in discussion about the war.

Failing to convince the youth to leave school, administrators then promised there would be no consequences other than that for cutting classes if the youth took their protest outside the cafeteria. Administrators said that doing so would mean the school day would not be disrupted. The students agreed and moved to an area outside the cafeteria where they sang songs and held signs while classes resumed. Police set up a yellow “caution tape” and police line to block others from joining the protest, but about 200 students participated on and off during the day.

Youth brought out that the military is present in their school, with its emphasis on killing and that the youth rejected this militarism. Deans, counselors and the Superintendent tried to convince the protesters to abandon their action, but the sit-in continued, ending at the end of the school day. Far from saluting the youth for taking a stand and organizing discussion, the school suspended some for 3-5 days and arbitrarily targeted about 35 students with 10-day suspensions and expulsion papers. Superintendent Nowakowski is also threatening to have police charge any youth seventeen and older.

Parents quickly organized to reject this attack on the youth. They flooded the school the next day to file appeals (see letter below) and also organized a press conference to denounce school officials and defend the youth. Parents, youth and a number of anti-war and youth groups stood together demanding no expulsions and that organizing protest is a vital learning experience.

Parents brought out that in private meetings with their suspended students and school officials, officials are demanding that students become informants. Officials offered reduced punishments, but only if the youth signed confessions that included branding one student as the organizer of the protest. At the same time, officials refused to provide the students anything in writing and specifically told youth that the confessions would be used against them in deciding punishment. Youth and parents are refusing to sign and rejecting the effort to target the youth organizers.

School officials also sent letters out to all Morton West households from school principal, John Lucas, trying to isolate the protesters. The letter states, “On Thursday there was a minor protest at Morton West that involved about thirty-five (35) students. This disturbance was non-violent and was a protest against the War in Iraq.” It goes on to thank teachers, staff and administrators “for maintaining order” and thanks “students for not joining in the school disruption and for realizing that their education is more important than disrupting school.”

The letter targets 25 students as the “core” of the demonstration and states that these students refused to leave the cafeteria when told to do so and “as a result of this gross disobedience and disruption of the school day, many of these students have been suspended for a number of school days and many of these have been referred for disciplinary action that will include expulsion from school.”

Youth and parents alike rejected these letters. They are together defending the right of the youth to protest in public, including at public schools, and to take their stand against the war. As the youth brought out, it is the war and military recruiting in the schools that is disrupting their education and disturbing the peace, imposing violence and death on youth here and in Iraq. Organizing to defend their rights is an integral part of their education and they refuse to be silenced. They are demanding that none of the youth be expelled and organizing at upcoming School Board meetings to win this demand.

Youth and parents are calling for letters and/or phone calls of support to:

Dr. Ben Nowakowski, Superintendent
District 201
2423 South Austin,
Cicero, IL 60804

bnowakowski@jsmorton.org

(708) 222-5702

Mr. Lucas, Principal
Morton West High School
2400 S. Home Ave.
Berwyn, IL 60402

jlucas@west.jsmorton.org

708-222-5901

Mr. Jeffrey Pesek, President
Board of Education, District 201
3145 South 55th Avenue
Cicero, IL 60804

708-802-1863

For the rest of the Board Members see: www.jsmortonhs.com/board/default.asp. For parent contact: Pam Winstead 708-749-3163, serp@comcast.net; Alma Moran 708-717-4202, qtalmita@yahoo.com; Adam Szwarek 847-687-8849, tsq9743@aol.com

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Letter from Morton West Parents to the Superintendent
Rita Sand, Chicago Indymedia Center

This letter was read at Tuesday’s press conference and delivered to the school district office with copies to the principal at Morton West High School and the District 201 School Board Members.

Staff at the District 201 office would not allow parents to come into the building to deliver the letters. They were instead instructed through the glass door to place them in the mail slot!

* * *

November 6, 2007

Dr. Ben Nowakowski, Superintendent
District 201
2423 South Austin
Cicero, IL 60804

Dear Dr. Nowakowski:

We, the parents and family members of the Morton West students who chose civil disobedience last Thursday to express their desire for an end to the Iraq War, have already requested that both their suspensions and orders of expulsion be dropped, but our requests have been denied. We now demand complete amnesty for our children. We also demand that any references to expulsion and accusations of mob action be removed from their permanent records and that their punishment constitute suspensions already served.

Our children participated in a nonviolent demonstration--a sit-in, which they moved at your request to a location that did not obstruct school traffic. They were under the understanding that they would not be expelled if they moved to the appointed area, but that they would suffer only the usual punishment for cutting classes. According to the Morton West handbook, our children are guilty of loitering. There is no expulsion listed as a consequence of this behavior.

We support a safe and productive learning environment in the school, but we also understand that our children are thinking individuals and a reflection of the larger society. They were expressing the view of an overwhelming majority of Americans that the Iraq War is wrong, a view that was expressed by adults through a large demonstration only five days before in Chicago. These young people were emulating the actions of their elders without the wisdom to distinguish civil disobedience from a permitted march.

Yet, these children, who are aggressively recruited in the school by the military need to be able to express their concerns about their futures in this world. Therefore, in addition to demanding complete amnesty, we request that students be afforded some avenue of legal and acceptable expression about the issues that are relevant to their lives and that they want to communicate to the wider school community.

We are proud that although our sons and daughters endured intense pressure from administrators, paraprofessionals and police, they maintained a peaceful protest. There was no violence, no property damage and the students cleaned up after themselves. They showed themselves to be truly committed to a peaceful world. We believe that these are exactly the students needed to achieve and maintain a safe and productive school environment. We do not seek to squander scarce district funds fighting lawsuits, however, we will not permit any one of these students’ educational future to be so undeservedly destroyed.

Finally, we require a response to this letter by the Board Meeting on Wednesday night November 7th, 2007 so that our children may return to the classroom on Thursday.

Signed:

Signatures of Morton West Parents

cc: Principal John Lucas; District 201 Board of Education Members

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Youth & Parents Continue to Resist
Cicero School Board Continues Expulsion Hearings
George N. Schmidt, Substance Newspaper

Despite protests from more than 60 speakers at one of the longest meetings in the history of the “Morton Township District 210” school board at the Board’s November 7 meeting, the Board continued expulsion proceedings against a large number of students who participated in a November 1 protest against the Iraq war and military recruiting at Morton West High School, one of two high schools in the district. The Board meeting, which lasted for more than three hours, began with discussion among the Board members and District Superintendent Dr. Ben Nowakowski about the incident, and its relationship to an earlier incident in which a student reported a gun in the 3,400 student school less than two weeks before the peace protest.

Board members made clear their support for Nowakowski’s decision to suspend many of the protesters for ten days, a suspension that was being served during the time the Board was meeting. Board members, parents and students also confirmed that many of the suspended students had been told that they might be expelled from the school for their participation in the protest, which everyone agreed had been non-violent. Students who spoke also confirmed that school administrator’s were trying to establish what one called a “rat line” to identify the main organizers of the protest, an attempt, according to the students, to differentiate the punishments.

More than 200 people attended the November 7 meeting in the large Morton East High School building at 23rd and Austin Avenues in the suburb that is just west of Chicago. District 210 has two high schools, Morton East in Cicero and Morton West in Berwyn, to serve the more than 6,000 high school students in the two suburbs, which are generally working class areas.

Public participation in the meeting began by 8:00 p.m. after all of the Board members had spoken, and continued until well after 10:00 p.m. No speaker supported the Board or the administration, and the majority of speakers were from Cicero and Berwyn, many of them students from the schools. Other speakers included peace activists from around the Chicago area, including a large number from local college and university anti-war groups. Representatives from the American Civil Liberties Union, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) and the Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights publicly supported the student protesters and announced that they would prepare litigation if the Board continued its expulsion plans.

Many of those present had hoped that the school board would vote at its November 7 meeting to end the suspensions, send the students back to school, and call a halt to what a number characterized as the “inquisition” trying to locate the organizers of the protest. That did not happen. Instead the Board adjourned immediately after the last speaker and departed behind a line of Cicero police officers, wearing flack jackets, who had been assembled in the school for the school board meeting. The Board announced that it would resume discussion of the November 1 events at its December meeting. It was unclear whether that meeting would be held on December 5 or December 12.

Some observers warned that parents and students who are familiar with students’ rights law since the 1960s might be misled by the “Tinker” Supreme Court decision, which upheld the rights of high school students to non-violent protests. In recent years, the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, led by Circuit Judge Richard Posner, has attacked First Amendment law on a number of fronts, rendering decisions in favor of school boards and school administrators in cases which included Substance newspaper (this reporter being the editor) and student protests in a Chicago elementary school. Those who have followed Posner’s continued attacks on First Amendment rights said that it might be better to view the struggle on behalf of the “Morton West 35” as a political one, rather than putting the fate of the students in the hands of lawyers.

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Military and School Officials:
Stop Disrupting Students’ Lives and Thinking
A Buffalo Teacher

“Disruption.” This is the problem the school officials at Morton West High School in Illinois say they have to deal with after more than 70 students organized a protest against war in Iraq and against military recruiters in their school. The school officials are threatening mass expulsions of students, and have resorted to various kinds of intimidation and bullying against them. Other students, their parents, and large numbers of people locally (and nationally) have defended the youth. The youth of Morton High School, who took their just stand to reject the war in Iraq and oppose military recruiters in their school, have been criminalized for “disruption.”

To criminalize students for speaking out against crimes is a preposterous line of reasoning. It is arbitrary and serves the forces moving society backwards. It flies in the face of any forward-looking notion of the purpose of education.

Aggression, war and occupation — these are the “disruptions”! People are being killed, and society is being destroyed. Normal life is being turned upside down. Rights are being trampled. All logic and civilized norms are being overturned. In the U.S., which is the main source of aggression and occupation the world over, the economy and national budget are organized around the needs of unjust and illegal war, not the needs of human beings. The media, which should be informing people about who is responsible for the war, instead disinforms them about its causes and consequences.

Living in conditions of poverty, exploitation and racism in the United States is a “disruption,” to put it mildly. Having to deal with the military in your own school is a “disruption.” Being expelled for expressing your views is a “disruption.” And here it will not do to put it mildly, because it is much more: It is handing down the most severe punishment for exercising free speech, for expressing one’s views about the most serious issues in the world today.

In this case, in fact, the students complied fully with the school administrators’ request that they move outside. There is no reason they should be treated as criminals. Is the purpose of education to learn obedience, submission, and fear? Should we just accept the war and go fight and kill because we are beaten down with the conditions and propaganda of recruiters?

I think the problem the officials have to solve is how to bring their school into line with the needs of the students and society. The officials should help develop a space for students to engage in the world and think about their role in it, and encourage them to discuss and express themselves. The students of Morton West High School, and students and youth everywhere, are right to protest the war, and they are right to insist that school is a legitimate place for thinking about and discussing the world of which they are a part.

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Chicago Leads U.S. in Public Military Schools

The recent sit-in by students at Morton West High School, from a working class area near Chicago, Illinois, brought to the fore the opposition of the youth to the Iraq war and military recruiters in their schools. Despite repeated protests and broad opposition from parents and students, Chicago has gone forward with increasing the military presence in the public schools. This includes not only having the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) in almost every school, but also recruiters who regularly prowl school hallways and cafeterias. While Chicago, the nation’s third largest school district which has more military schools than anywhere else in the country (five), a sixth military school is being imposed. Chicago is also well known for the fact that its 435,000-student district is more than 90 percent national minority youth.

Students at the military schools are required to join the JROTC, which requires military drilling, learning military norms and history, and military-style uniforms. They are referred to as recruits or cadets, not students and generally are being trained to accept the military as a source of honor and respect. Emphasizing support for the military and imposing the discipline of blindly following orders is the norm. The Navy, Army, and Marines all have their own schools, with about 1800 students currently enrolled. The military refuses to release information concerning how many graduates go on to enter the military. The Air Force will also soon have its own school.

The drilling for imperialist war is also promoted by school officials. Arne Duncan, known not as a superintendent of schools but as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the school system, says, “I love the sense of leadership. I love the sense of discipline.”

The first public military academy opened in Richmond, VA, in 1980, and now there are 16 schools, including those in New York; Sarasota, Florida; Kenosha, Wisconsin; and Sandy Hook, New Jersey. The six Chicago schools mean Chicago accounts for more than a third of all military schools nationwide. Broad resistance to turning public schools into military schools and recruiting grounds has continued.

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A Call to Resistance Against the Border Regime Borderlands Autonomist Collective

An invitation to the 2007 “No Borders Camp” in Calexico/Mexicali, November 7-11:

There is a regime of terror spreading across the land. Racist laws, arbitrary detention, unwarranted prosecution and the deportation of thousands are dividing families and driving a wedge through our communities. An emboldened Department of Homeland Security is attacking people in their homes, workplaces, on the highways, at grocery stores. Police agencies nationwide are collaborating in the attack on immigrants, one of the most visible targets in America’s war against the “other”.

In southern Arizona, we are on the front lines of this war. Every morning more than 2,000 Border Patrol agents report for duty through Tucson and go out into the Altar Valley and Tohono O’odham nation to the west. Remote camera towers monitor every activity of the civilian population. Walls, roads and other enforcement infrastructure have ravaged the fragile landscape. Racist vigilantes have operated for years with virtual impunity. And every year hundreds upon hundreds of migrants die attempting to cross the desert.

There is a logic to this terror regime, and it is by no means unique to this place and this time. Around the world governments have enacted laws and policies aimed at persecuting and excluding indigenous peoples and people who have migrated across national boundaries. Detention centers, surveillance, and militarization are among the hallmarks of this regime.

The border is the flipside of colonialism. It is a physical and psychological weapon meant to assert the perceived entitlement of a settler population, and enforce the global dynamics that maintain power and privilege. The border is not just a line between one country and another — it is an ideology that says: “You should not exist in this space”.

Neo-liberal globalization cannot operate without the border. It is no coincidence that Operation Gatekeeper was launched at the same time as the North American Free Trade Agreement. Initiatives like the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America make this connection explicit by linking the integration of markets and regulations to the integration of security infrastructure. While capital is freed to exploit whomever it wants, wherever it wants, our lives are to be increasingly scrutinized, our bodies controlled.

We who live and struggle in the borderlands grapple with many questions. How do we organize, live alternatively, ensure emotional well being and develop alliances in this low-intensity war zone? What forms of resistance might supersede the militarization of our lives and the divisions that borders impose?

There is hope and active resistance developing all around us. Immigrant communities and their allies are fighting back, organizing migra/(ICE) watch and monitoring the activities of the Border Patrol. Activists are working in detention centers to support those locked up and ensure they are not forgotten; still others have locked themselves to the gates of these centers, temporarily shutting them down. The operations of Minutemen and other vigilante groups are monitored, confronted and disrupted to the point that they’ve been driven out of some communities altogether.

In the southern Arizona desert, volunteers patrol trails every day looking for those lost and on the brink of death, providing medical assistance and documenting the systematic abuse and neglect of law enforcement.

In Bisbee-Arizona and Naco-Arizona/Sonora border communities have held a bi-national fiesta and volleyball game across the international line since before the wall was constructed, making sport of the physical barrier and “serving” to de-legitimize its presence.

In Arivaca, Arizona residents are reclaiming their privacy by turning the Border Patrol / Boeing watchtower bases into picnic grounds. Kites crisscross the sky, amusing the children and frustrating surveillance efforts. Locals are mounting a lawsuit to challenge the existence of surveillance towers outright.

Organizers in Tucson maintain a list of those who have died and disappeared in the desert, and mount searches for the remains of women, children and men in order to reunite them with their loved ones. Members of the Tohono O’odham nation are refusing to allow the border to divide them, continuing cross-border pilgrimages and resisting the presence of the Border Patrol and Homeland Security on their land.

On the south side of the line between “ambos” Nogales — nestled between Mexican customs, people smugglers, the border wall, the U.S. National Guard and the never-ending line of NAFTA trucks — there is a Migrant Aid Station giving support and safety to the hundreds of hungry, sick, and abused people repatriated to Mexico by Border Patrol each day.

Immigrant, indigenous and youth-based community groups are organizing house meetings and conducting human rights trainings to build confidence and resistance against the ICE raids and terrorization of their families and neighborhoods. Even while threatened with harassment and arrest, regular folks in the borderlands and across the United States provide sanctuary and support to those targeted by the security apparatus, in direct refusal of the state’s efforts at criminalization.

In Europe, Oceania and elsewhere movements have been developing for years in response to the state’s violent repression of freedom of movement. Over the last decade, No Borders Camps and other anti-border actions have been organized around the world, continuing this year with No Border Camps in Ukraine in August and near London at Gatwick airport in September.

Together we are developing a politics of resistance in opposition to the border and all that it represents. This opposition is explicitly in solidarity with all the other struggles around the world against neo-liberalism and authoritarianism. We are refusing to be divided by the symbolic borders of race, nationality, language and gender. This movement is just the latest phase in a resistance that has been ongoing in this hemisphere for more than 500 years. Despite all of their efforts, they have been unable to silence us.

An Invitation

This is an invitation to all people of goodwill, to all who are fighting for dignity, freedom, human rights and autonomy. The regime of terror and the homeland security apparatus will not collapse on its own – it must be challenged. We call on you to join us in opposition to the border regime.

Between November 5 and 11, 2007, thousands of people will gather at the line between Calexico, California and Mexicali, Baja California. Throughout this week of action we will engage in opposition to the infrastructure of repression and that of neo-liberal globalization. Together we will create an autonomous zone free of borders and the lies they perpetuate.

This November we will build a place in which, for one week, our dreams of freedom will take shape. A place of action, of symbol, of sharing, communicating, becoming. Bring your plans, for there will be no hourly schedule for you to follow. This time and place will be all of ours, and we will join together to create the future.

Even as we organize during the months leading up to the Camp, we’re not sure what will happen — just as no one quite knew what would happen in Berlin in November 1989, or 10 years later at the end of November in Seattle. Both of these events were complex in their genesis. They were the result of diverse networks of groups, and years of struggle and organizing that added up to something unpredictable. We do not suggest that the No Borders Camp will be a crescendo but rather a leap forward in our resistance, and an affirmative “Yes!” to our shared dreams of freedom.

Join us in this declaration of autonomous space inside the warzone of the U.S./Mexico border! Imagine marches, actions, forums, music; a circus with a thousand performers, murals painted ten feet high along the border wall. Come together with people who are resisting the border regime, and learn what is being done and what can be done in our communities. Celebrate the resistance and solidarity with our comrades around the world. Discuss strategies, network, and send a message from the edge of the empire that says: “This is not about terrorists. This is not about cheap labor. This is about human freedom and our ability to live full lives.”

On November 10, 2007, on the 18th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, actions will be mounted against border regimes in Mexico, Guatemala, the United States, Canada, Israel and Palestine. We call on the people of the world to join us in symbolic and direct action against borders, migration controls, neo-liberalism and regimes of terror wherever they are encountered — because anything is possible when we join our efforts and because no human being is illegal.

Toward a World Without Borders, Borderlands Autonomist Collective, Tucson, Arizona

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Food Not Bombs Organizes for
Border Camp

Hey everyone this is an official call-out to Food Not Bombs. There is this rad event happening November 5-11th on the border of Calexico/Mexicali in response to the ICE raids, to the wall on the border of California and Mexico, the crimes against basic human rights, and for all those who have died trying to cross borders or while trying to create one world united.

Here is the link to more information about the events happening during the month of November: www.noborderscamp.org.

We are specifically asking for a presence from Food Not Bombs at our camp. We currently are in need of cooks, cookware, food and water, stoves, propane tanks and money for propane.

Any help is appreciated, download fliers and pass them out to friends and cooks to pass out at meals or other events, and please pass this email onto your friends that may be able to help us in regards to other things such as fund-raising, food/water, legal help, art projects at the border, medical, or translating; and to anyone you might think would be interested in attending No Border Camp. Thanks friends!

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Oppose Government Terrorism During Fires

Join us Friday, November 9 at 1pm in El Centro, California site of one of the largest federally run detention centers in the United States. Angry at the reaction of ICE and la migra to the San Diego fires? In addition to the amazing aid that folks have provided, it’s time to show our strength — we do not accept the use of a disaster to further terrorize our communities.

The Border Patrol and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have terrorized our communities for long enough! Let’s join together to demand an end to the raids, an end to detention and deportation, an end to violence in our towns and neighborhoods!

Carpools and caravans are leaving from San Diego and busses are provided from the No Borders Camp in Calexico.

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No Borders Report
Conversations at the Wall
Seth Porcello, November 5, 2007

This report listens to voices from both sides of the border fence in Calexico, California, as people meet their loved ones through the barrier that separates them. It is part of the No Borders Camp convergence on the U.S.-Mexico border.

To walk from Calexico, California to Mexicali, Mexico is only a matter of walking down a sidewalk, through some steel revolving gates, and out onto the Mexicali streets. To walk from Mexicali to Calexico however, requires papers, visas, interactions with border patrol, and usually waiting in a huge line.

The two cities, while divided, are economically and socially one. In any other North American city they would be considered different neighborhoods, but here, they are divided by a steel wall, policed on only one side. Families and friends who have been separated by the border, often meet on both sides of the fence to talk, or squeeze money through the steel grid to relatives in Mexicali, and see what little they can of their loved ones.

Standing in Calexico, I interviewed one man in Mexicali through the border fence. He said, “What I can say about this fence, this fence is a form of discrimination. It is a form of discrimination because all Americans can come to Mexico without a problem but Mexicans cannot go the United States. Every American can enter and leave through this fence, but Mexicans cannot. Why? Because they need papers. When I look at this fence, it is something that has no right to exist. Why did they put up this barrier? Is it discrimination against Mexicans; it is something racial.”

I met Maria, who asked that her real name not be used, why she had come to the Calexico side of the border fence. She responded, “Why? I came to see my family.”

“Just looking through the fence?” I asked.

“Yes, through the fence,” she said. She explained, “My family has to be on the other side of the fence, and me inside. It is a difficult situation, yes, but they have to. We have to be strong, for many things, for our families who we do not see, for our homes. For many things, we have to have courage.”

I asked, “And you can’t cross the border?” She replied, “No, I can’t cross the border.”

“Do you think this fence is just?” I asked. “No, it’s not just,” she said, “but what can we do? If it could be done I would go. No, it’s not just.”

For more information see www.noborderscamp.org, get in touch at noborderscamp@gmail.com

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Shut Down Downtown Tacoma!
Against ICE! Against Raids!
Portland indymedia

We want to show the powers that be, that a homeland security detention center will not be tolerated in our communities and in our region. This will be in solidarity with the No Borders Camp that will be happening the same week down south. We plan on sending a very visible, clear message by not allowing business as usual to happen on these days.

Tacoma, Washington has the biggest Homeland Security Detention Center in the Northwest! They have been tearing apart families, separating children born here from their parents and loved ones that were not. Sixty-four people have died in these detention centers nationwide, since 2004. Just recently about three hundred people were made ill from the food provided at the Tacoma Detention Center. We want to show solidarity with those at the No Borders Camp down south who will be resisting the wall, detentions, capitalism and the institutions as well as trade agreements that are responsible for displacing millions of people around the world. We have had enough of this in our communities! Enough of these secret raids! We want this facility out of Tacoma!

Downtown will not have business as usual! We plan on shutting down the downtown area of Tacoma to send a very clear message that will be heard by the powers that be, that we do not want this detention facility any where near us and our communities.

There will be a designated green zone at S. 17th and Pacific on the corner and in the grassy park across from the art museum. In this area only 100 percent legal forms of protest will be taking place! Bring puppets, musical instruments, signs, banners, creativity and passion. The rest of down town will be open to diverse and creative tactics!

But remember the Green zone is 100 percent Legal and those in the Green should not feel obligated to join or participate in anything going on out side of that park and corner. But if you feel comfortable, fed up, and ready, feel free to join in or plan your own actions or marches with your organizations and/or friends and loved ones! Affinity groups welcome! Peaceful Protest Welcome! Street Theater Welcome! Direct Action Welcome!

Community members, immigrants, students, workers, radicals, every one of us! We all want to show Tacoma something diverse, effective and creative. None of us want this place in Tacoma or in our communities. And we all have different ways of protesting and resisting these institutions and laws that effect the lives of us all. Let’s support one another, show solidarity, and make this place that we can not stand disappear.

Plan on being at S.17th and Pacific at around 11am on Friday, November 9th and Saturday, November 10th. This will be the green zone. Other forms of protest and resistance can start whenever and whereever those who plan them decide.

Subscribe to list for updates and networking/planing meetings: https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/smashtacomaice

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Reject Criminalization of Dissent

House Passes Bill Further Criminalizing Resistance and Radical Ideology

The U.S. House of Representatives, by a vote of 404-6, recently passed the so-called “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007” (HR 1955). The bill is the latest in a long series of government measures targeting resistance and radical thought, including the USA PATRIOT Act, the Military Commissions Act and numerous executive orders from the Office of the President. HR1955 specifically targets Americans whose thinking opposes U.S. imperialism, including the process people engage in to reach conclusions on the necessity for resistance and change. The bill brands this process as “radicalization,” leading to “ideologically based violence” and makes such thinking a crime.

HR1955 broadly defines “violent radicalization” as “the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.” The bill does not define what constitutes an “extremist belief system,” so this will be arbitrarily determined by the government. And while hiding behind the terms “terrorism” and “violence,” the bill does not direct itself at acts of terrorism, but rather at “belief systems” that call for political and social change.

“Homegrown terrorism,” for example, refers to “the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.” The term “ideologically based violence” is defined as “the use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual’s political, religious, or social beliefs.”

It is well known that the government and its policing agencies regularly consider civil disobedience, picket lines at strikes, sit-ins at offices of public and school officials, all as “use of force.” Youth in particular are branded as “violent,” simply for standing their ground against the violence and brutality unleashed by police at demonstrations. The broad movements of the people have rejected this police violence and defended the right to dissent. This bill is attempting to directly legalize police violence while targeting all organizing, planning and thinking among the American people that opposes the government.

The bill also serves government plans to take pre-emptive action based on what it determines is the “intent” of an individual or group. No crime is necessary for the government to intervene. In fact, the bill specifically calls for taking action based on “potential radicalization.” HR1955 says, “Understanding the motivational factors that lead to violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence is a vital step toward eradicating these threats in the United States.” To help “eradicate these threats,” it says “State and local efforts,” including spies and informants, are to be used. It says, “Preventing the potential rise of self radicalized, unaffiliated terrorists domestically cannot be easily accomplished solely through traditional Federal intelligence or law enforcement efforts.” Thus the bill attempts to put into law the government crime of eliminating the need for actual crimes to be committed. Policing agencies at all levels are not to engage in law enforcement, but to focus on any intentions, beliefs, or ideas that the government decides has the potential for “self-radicalization.”

The bill is aimed at organizers, those who advocate “radicalization.” Youth are also a main target, with the Internet again being given as a source for “radicalization,” and “violence.” Jane Harman, Chair of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence, who introduced the bill, said that youth who take up the “radicalization process,” have “common traits and characteristics” with those who are “recruited into gangs.” She says youth are going through identity crises and adds, “Combine that personal adolescent upheaval with the explosion of information technologies and communications tools — tools which American kids are using to broadcast messages from al Queda — and there is a roadmap to terror, a “retail outlet” for anger and warped aspirations. Link that intent with a trained terrorist operative who has actual capability, and a “Made in the USA” suicide bomber is born.” Thus, imperialism and its system of war and exploitation has no role to play, the rotten conditions faced by youth have no role to play and the just struggle youth are taking up for their rights has now been turned into “terrorism.”

While emphasizing youth and young men in particular, the bill also brands anyone “prone to violent radicalization.” It says, “Individuals prone to violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence span all races, ethnicities, and religious beliefs, and individuals should not be targeted based solely on race, ethnicity, or religion.” Clearly everyone is fair game.

It should also be noted that “homegrown terrorism,” includes people born in the U.S., as well as those raised here and based here. In this manner, the bill is targeting citizens in particular. An indication that being arrested for “radicalization” may be used to strip a person of their citizenship was given by Hartman. She said, “What causes an individual or group to, first, coalesce around a set of radical principles or charismatic leader — activities permitted by our Bill of Rights — but subsequently embrace a violent agenda, intended to inflict maximum pain and disruption on his neighbors — potential treason — is not well understood.” Why introduce treason here? It is part of the government effort to provide justification for government efforts to strip people of their rights and more specifically to use the blackmail of removal of citizenship to block resistance.

Despite the fact that the content of the bill goes directly against the Constitution, or perhaps because of it, the bill also includes a clause about protecting civil rights. The clause begins, however, by saying “In general, the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to prevent ideologically based violence and homegrown terrorism as described herein shall not violate the constitutional rights, civil rights, or civil liberties of United States citizens or lawful permanent residents.” It should be noted that the Constitution and Bill of Rights applies to all persons in the U.S. or under its control — not just citizens and legal residents. As well, by including “In general,” it means exceptions can be made. Given that the government is already imposing rule by exception, the phrasing in the bill serves not to uphold the Constitution but to put in law that it applies only “in general,” not as supreme law of the land, and only to “citizens and legal residents,” not all persons.

The bill proposes the creation of three key mechanisms to accomplish its attacks on rights and justify rule by exception. The first is a National Commission, to be established within the legislative branch. It is to examine and report on the “causes of violent radicalization,” including connections with people and organizations outside the U.S. It is to recommend legislation and assist with training of policing agencies at all levels. The Commission will have numerous and vast powers to draw on the resources of many other federal agencies and entities. Its reports will contain many recommendations for additional measures to take: for the “preventing, disrupting, and mitigating the effects of violent radicalization.” The National Commission will be restricted to just under two years, in which time the 10-member Commission will produce two interim reports and one final report.

The second mechanism to be established is a university-based Center of Excellence for the study of “radicalization.” This center will “assist Federal, State, local and tribal homeland security officials through training, education, and research in preventing violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism in the United States.” More specifically, the purpose of the Center is to “study the social, criminal, political, psychological, and economic roots of violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism in the United States and methods that can be utilized by Federal, State, local, and tribal homeland security officials to mitigate violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism.” Thus a university, a place for enlightenment and discussing ideas, is to serve as a place for finding the ways and means to impose and justify thought control.

The third and final mechanism identified by HR1955 is learning from foreign approaches to “preventing terrorism,” including that from Britain, Canada and Israel. The law stipulates that “The Secretary [of the DHS] shall, in cooperation with the Department of State, the Attorney General, and other Federal Government entities, as appropriate, conduct a survey of methodologies implemented by foreign nations to prevent violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism in their respective nations.” In this manner, the bill is designed to outlaw connections among the organizations resisting U.S. state terrorism and aggression, while increasing “police sharing and methods” internationally.

Bill 1955 is now before the Senate, which will likely make some amendments to give the appearance of eliminating its most draconian features, while keeping its essence.

Say no to Bill 1955 and all government efforts to attack thinking and organizing!
Resistance is a Right!

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Progress Demands Thinking Americans
Resist the Criminalization of Ideology
Voice of Revolution, October 12, 2006

A major feature of the government’s war of terrorism against the peoples is the effort to criminalize ideology. In numerous speeches over the past month, Bush has emphasized, “The war we fight today is more than a military conflict; it is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century.” He warns that “underestimating the words of evil and ambitious men is a terrible mistake,” emphasizing, “We’re taking the words of the enemy seriously. We’re on the offensive, and we will not rest, we will not retreat, we will not withdraw from the fight, until this threat to civilization has been removed,” (speech to Military Officers Association, 9/5/06).

The threat the imperialists are concerned about is the growing resistance here and worldwide to their failed system. This resistance includes the growing rejection of the ideology of the imperialists. The U.S. ruling circles are acting to target the “different strains of radicalism,” all of which they brand as expressing “absolute hostility towards America.”

The ruling circles are especially concerned with blocking Americans from taking their stand against U.S. imperialism and developing the thinking needed to advance their fight for change. Bush attempts to discredit the anti-war movement by claiming it is part of a media campaign by Osama Bin Laden to “create a wedge between the American people and their government.” He presents support for resistance, in Palestine, in Lebanon and Iraq, as an idea belonging only to foreigners, like Hizbollah.

The ruling circles are attempting to convince Americans that anything foreign is supposedly anti-American. Anything against the government is supposedly anti-American and foreign to the thinking of Americans. Expressing views and standing with the resistance to U.S. imperialism worldwide is, as Bush puts it, expressing “absolute hostility towards America.”

The effort here is to deny that Americans as a people have their own thought material and experience to utilize as they organize for change. We are to accept that we do not have our own thinking and experience that is anti-imperialist and one with the world’s peoples. More than this, we are to stop thinking, stop being political, as this is the requirement for the fascist arrangements the ruling circles are imposing. Everyone is to submit and obey, in Congress, in the schools, in society as a whole.

The ruling circles are also attempting to divide Americans from the one struggle of all humanity rising against imperialism and war and organizing to bring forward another world that serves humanity. They are attempting to fall back on their imperialist chauvinism, but they are failing in this regard. The growing resistance today is rejecting the notion that American lives are more valuable than those of Iraqis or Palestinians. There is rejection of the ruling class view that the main problem with the Iraq war is that it is mismanaged and instead there is the stand of principle — to oppose aggressive wars as crimes against the people and to stand as one with the resistance.

The recent passage of the Military Commissions Act also makes clear that the government has put in place arrangements to enforce its criminalization of ideology and opposition of any kind. The Act specifically gives the Office of the President power to brand anyone an enemy combatant and jail or kill them. The definition of enemy combatant makes no reference to people engaged in armed conflict with the U.S. Instead it defines an enemy combatant as “a person who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States.” Given the direction of government, simply the expression of views different than the President’s will soon be considered hostile.

The effort to block and eliminate thinking is a crime against humanity that must be vigorously opposed by all. Let everyone unite as one to oppose this attack on human beings, as thinking is part of what makes us human beings. Let us together answer Bush’s challenge, that it is we, the working class and people, who will prevail in this ideological battle of the 21st century, in this fight for a new world.

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Bush Speeches, October 2006
U.S. Fears Growing Resistance, Organizes to Criminalize Ideology

In recent speeches outlining the government’s strategy for “the global war on terror,” President George W. Bush has emphasized that “The war we fight today is more than a military conflict; it is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century.” He said, “On one side are those who believe in the values of freedom and moderation — the right of all people to speak, and worship, and live in liberty. And on the other side are those driven by the values of tyranny and extremism — the right of a self-appointed few to impose their fanatical views on all the rest. As veterans you have seen this kind of enemy before. They’re successors to Fascists, to Nazis, to Communists and other totalitarians of the 20th century,” (speaking to the American Legion Convention, 8/31/06). He more generally referred to the need to combat “radical extremism,” and what he calls “absolute hostility towards America.”

Making clear that he is speaking not only as the defender of U.S. imperialism but as the defender of the world system of imperialism, Bush said, “The security of the civilized world depends on victory in the war on terror, and that depends on victory in Iraq. So the United States of America will not leave until victory is achieved.” He elaborated this further when speaking to the Military Officers Association. He presented the vision of the “terrorists” as a “unified totalitarian Islamic state,” stretching from the Middle East to Southeast Asia. He then emphasized, “These violent extremists know that to realize this vision, they must first drive out the main obstacle that stands in their way — the United States of America,” (9/5/06). Again speaking to the need to win the ideological struggle, he added, “All civilized nations are bound together in this struggle between moderation and extremism. By coming together, we will roll back this grave threat to our way of life.” It is this imperialist way of life Bush is defending, against all those who oppose it, including Americans.

The enemies, for the U.S. rulers, are the resistance movements, including those in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Lebanon, countries like Iran, and the resistance here in the U.S. The government is organizing to attack resistance, including targeting people and organizations for their views and words alone.

Bush spent most of his speech to the Military Officers Association quoting the words of those he has branded “terrorists,” like Hizbollah and the president of Iran. The White House released an entire “fact sheet,” titled “In Their Own Words,” with quotes of various kinds. Bush cites, for example, the stand by Hizbollah in support of the Palestinians and against U.S. imperialism. This is expressed in the slogan “Death to America.” The president of Iran is quoted as saying, “I am telling you [major powers], if you do not abandon the path of falsehood and return to the path of justice, your doomed destiny will be annihilation, misfortune and abjectness.” These quotes are included in a section labeled “The Terrorists On Their Absolute Hostility Towards America.”

It does not take much to see that very similar words and banners by Americans, rejecting Bush’s lies, saying “Down with U.S. Imperialism” and similar content, can equally be branded as that of the enemy. The imperialists are recognizing the growing anti-imperialist stand within the U.S. movement and seek to block it by branding it as “terrorist” and the “ideology of radical extremists.” They recognize the danger to their system of Americans taking their stand with the world’s peoples and opposing U.S. aggression and the entire system of imperialist oppression and exploitation.

The government is attempting to discredit the resistance movement inside the U.S. by branding it as the product of a propaganda and media campaign by Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaida. They are preparing the ground to criminalize simply the expression of anti-government and anti-imperialist views.

Bush, and the White House fact sheet, emphasized that Bin Laden has organized a media campaign “to create a wedge between the American people and their government,” and to “create pressure from the American people on the American government to stop their campaign against Afghanistan.” The “campaign” includes putting forward that Americans are being sacrificed for the interests of big business and will suffer losses, financially and in casualties.

In this manner, the government is trying to make it appear that much of the content being raised by a wide range of fighting forces — such as opposing the military budget, opposing the massacres of Iraqis and demanding that all troops be brought home, exposing and condemning the role of the military monopolies pushing war — are all the work of Osama Bin Laden. The notion is being pushed that anyone who is against the government, or reflects these views, are dupes of foreigners, whether it be Bin Laden, the Iranians or Hizbollah.

For the U.S. rulers, resistance to imperialism can only be foreign, not American made. For them, even to think is to be un-American. Instead, Americans are to submit and, as Bush suggested after September 11, go shopping. Anything else is hostile to the U.S.

Bush also specifically attempts to target leading forces, especially the revolutionary and communist forces, in the U.S. and worldwide. He does this with the tried and true method of the imperialists, to attempt to equate communism with fascism, just as there is the attempt to brand the resistance by the Islamic countries and forces as “Islamofascism.”

In addition to comments such as that above, that the resistance movements represent the “successors to Fascists, to Nazis, to Communists and other totalitarians of the 20th century,” Bush specifically emphasizes, referring to the “terrorists,” that “we need to take their words seriously.” After then referring to various quotes, such as those about Bin Laden’s media campaign, Bush refers to Lenin, leader of the proletarian revolution in Russia and worldwide. He specifically refers to Lenin’s work “What is to Be Done?” Two main features of this work are the need for a communist party of the working class and the need for the independent press of the working class as a critical part of its organizing for revolution. Bush next refers to Hitler and the Nazis. He then says, “We’re taking the words of the enemy seriously. We’re on the offensive, and we will not rest, we will not retreat, and we will not withdraw from the fight, until this threat to civilization has been removed.”

It is no accident that Bush targets revolution, the need for a revolutionary press and communist party as an integral part of this ideological struggle of the 21st century. The ruling circles are preparing the grounds to openly attack and eliminate the work going forward to develop an independent press serving the interests of the working class and peoples — work that includes websites, newspapers, radio shows and more.

The effort to criminalize ideology shows that U.S. imperialism is desperate to prevent its own defeat. There is a fierce ideological struggle being waged by the working class and peoples against imperialism and the imperialist world outlook, which says the world’s peoples are nothing, which says there is no alternative to the present chaos, destruction and war, which says there is no future. And this struggle is being led by the communist and revolutionary forces guided by their proletarian world outlook. Two worlds and two world views are in combat and humanity demands and is organizing to insure that the working class and people prevail. (Based on an article from Voice of Revolution, October 12, 2006)

Another World is Possible and Another U.S. is Necessary!

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