The Therese Defarge school of Social evo

History for those engaged in creating it. Comprehensive activism and applied memetics.

Labor laws and actions

Many of the liberal spokes people who have written commentary on the CWC (Change to Win Coalition) split of several major unions from the AFL are not very aware of the history or politics of labor beyond the fading yellow pale regulated under the national labors relation board. While it violates the illusion of one big happy family so fostered by the democratic leadership council Labor gains have always been made by unions unaffiliated with the AFL. Almost every progressive group has some kind of boycott, but few remember the prominent grape and lettuce boycott of the United Farm workers. Those who do seldom understand it was not a primary but secondary boycott, a tactic the AFL demanded Caesar Chavez and UFW forsake before they where accepted into their ranks. A secondary Boycott is not a consumer refusing to buy a particular item, but the refusal to buy any products sold at a store that carry the boycotted item. During the TABD (trans Atlantic Business Dialogue) protest in Cincinnati Floc (farm workers organizing committee) called for Krugger's to stop carrying Mount Olive Pickles in order to create the opportunity for consumers to shop at stores that did not carry their product. The AFL did not support this action but I was one of 2000 anarchist who surrounded Krugger's corporate headquarters in a black block action.

Another successful tactic the AFL put an end to was Local 1199C High noon tactic. 1199C is a hospital workers union. Under the restraints of the national labor relations board a union needs to be certified by a majority vote of workers. This might seem very well for someone without a clear awareness of the inherent power imbalance and vulnerability of an unorganized low income worker. Without Union protection workers who organize are easily fired. In the case were activism has created enough energy that some form of organization may be unavoidable pro company unions may be brought in to challenge legitimate unions in an elections. What high noon involved was to organize a third of the hospitals workers and walking into the boss' office at high noon on a day and shift when pro-union workers are on schedule demand the Boss sign or face an immediate walk out. During the 80's the high noon tactic made 1199C the hottest thing in labor, but the AFL forced them to give this up.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney is a good man who has fought hard for Labor. His strategy of tying the unions to the less than dependable Democratic party has moved him away from the fighter he was before becoming leader of the mainstream union movement. It is not his fault but he is fighting under rules set up for labor to lose. This was what Natlfed and the Eastern Farm workers association was about, overturning the board that was set up when the national labor relations act was passed.

This is the problem with those liberals, progressives and those who often post on indymedia who insist on referring to Eastern Farm workers association as a “FRONT” , a term created by the anti-communist networks that drove the red scares . Front implies a facade that exist only to hide something else, and fails to acknowledge the reality of our oppressive laws. I see both the AFL and Natlfed as failed efforts in labor history, but it is important to recognize that Eastern Farmworkers was the first successful organizing drive of farmworkers on the east coast and be aware of whatever advantage that gained or could have gained the labor movement. The major action of EFWA was the I.M. Young Potato strike, a strike of migrant workers who graded potatoes. It should be remembered that Farmworker's are one of a group of workers specifically excluded from the national labor laws.

I highly recommend “in Dubious Battle” by John Steinbeck for a sense of the logistical difficulties and dangers in organizing migrant workers, as well as rereading Mitch Cohen's recollections of EFWA early days on portland's indymedia. Migrant workers are recruited to come in to work and are provided housing, often in open squad bays, the cost of which may be taken from their future pay. Labor actions face an immediate difficulty in that the workers housing is controled by their employer so that any job action may result in homelessness. Once quarters are clear the employer need only fill their hovels with new workers recruited from far away. While waiting for the prices to come up potatoes are easier to store in the ground and the strike began when workers who arrived much earlier were falling deeply in debt to their employer while waiting for work to begin. EFWA and I.M. Young engaged in heated court struggles over the eviction of workers from the camps bringing to the fore front the question of the legal status of the workers, both as workers and as tenant. (In one case during this time a judge is reputed to have ruled the workers indentured servants).

At this point it was possible that EFWA could have thrown all it's efforts behind an all out effort to repeal the national labor relations act and forced the issue for all it was worth in Suffolk county. This was a minority position backed by Gino, amongst the organizers. To my knowledge this was the last time that Gino took a definite position with those within the party who called for a more offensive stance. The Majority felt that more work needed to be done to create a national organization before an offensive action of that scale could be benefited from. A focus instead was made on horizontal geometric expansion of the organization. From 1976 until 1979 the organization expanded into 16 locations on both the east and west coast and in 1979 a new offensive period was called for and begun with the Organizing of Temporary workers in New brunswick New Jersey. The New Brunswick office was supported by another office in trenton, where picket lines where done on the trenton commons outside a state consumer protection agency responsible for the regulation of temporary agencies. My involvement in this line included getting meterials donated to make the signs carried, and drawing a picture of TWOC president in a black mask. People walking the line wore masks because the temp agencies where known to blacklist workers they felt were trouble makers, informing other agencies that the worker was involved in unionizing efforts. On the evening before the third day of the line TWOC received a call from the attorney general of the state of New jersey agreeing to meet with TWOC as a representative body of temporary workers over the issue of blacklisting. This was a second first for Natlfed, and why they refused to take advantage of this issue is a little more complicated and perhaps a little less honorable, than in the case of the IM Young strike.

Elizabeth Parenti Soba 31 July 2005

posted by: EzizabethParentiSoba at 21:07 | link | comments |

Western civilization

The term western civilization has gone somewhat out of use in part because it's reference is not apparent without some familiarity with a recurring development pattern of economic/agricultural growth that spanned several centuries. It can be applied to the Greek civilization that grew on the western lip of the Sumer and then Persian empires. It is also applied to the western political sphere, after the brake up of Roman and of Alexander's empires. It is also difficult to understand because of the values given to the term civilization, taught by civilization itself to be a positive essential for human life while destroying traditional cultures in order to grow. Civilization refers directly to the city state economy, being the geographic area domesticated to serve that economy. To those who support civilization areas not domesticated are wild or waste lands, while to those who oppose it those areas not dominated by civilization are free.

One significant factor in the development of western civilization is that it required an existing civilization, that of the fertile crescent and later the Nile valley, to exist on the outer lip of. These civilizations developed around the production of grain allowing for massive stabilized growth of populations under a royal administrations. Much of the bureaucratic duties of the state revolved around the effective managing of grain, including the prediction of floods, storage and distribution. The peasant farmers could not be called free, and they could be called poor, but their was not the same economic demand for excessive life crushing exploitation. War and expansion existed, as did trade of the production of the farmers that benefited those who ruled but not at the cost of survival of the farmers. East of the fertile crescent was large stretches of plains that nurtured pastoral populations that tended to over populate and would periodically overflow into the regent bring new ideas and technology as well as social chaos.

Significantly the growth of these populations around food production and, even with the storing of excess for emergencies, brought about the ability to export food allowing populations to grow, such as in Greece and later Rome, beyond the ability of the land to sustain that population. The city states of these area developed along with far greater social strife and conflict as their civilization was not backed up by the stabilizing influence of an economy built around an abundance of basic necessities represented by a stable food supply and a strong central bureaucracy created by managing this economy. While this created a great deal of social conflict between hopeful leaders vying for power that would influence future systems of oppression, I want to focus on it's effect on less affluent class'.

In areas whose population grew beyond the regional ability to feed the population economic downturns led to starvation or debt secured with ones person (debt slavery). This was meant at first by the laws of Draco, that attempted to bring control strife through the uses of brutality. In his Life of Solon Plutarch report's "And Draco himself, they say, being asked why he made death the penalty for most offences, replied that in his opinion the lesser ones deserved it, and for the greater ones no heavier penalty could be found." This included the death penalty for stealing a single cabbage. Solon was an economic reformer whose constitution is the basic claim of Athens to being the birthplace of western civilization and democracy. It is important to note that the essential focus of this constitution is the introduction of a Timokratia, an oligarchy with a sliding scale of rights determined by property and productive capacity, dividing the population into four classes. The Thetes, or or manual laborers, could not hold political office but could sit in the assembly or on juries for which they where paid one half days wages. This along with a law that anyone who refused to take sides in a revolution would lose all civil rights, and laws prohibiting the exportation all agricultural resources excluding Olive Oil created a great degree of social reform.

The other classes included a yomantry called the Zeugitai (tillers) who owned at least one pair or yoke of oxen and where worth 200 bushel per year. Hippeis (knights) whose income of 300 bushel per year could afford to maintain a horse and the Pentakosiomedimnoi “500 bushel men” whose minimum wealth of 500 bushels allowed them access to the highest levels of political power. The defining of social and political class strictly defined by wealth connects the Athenian constitution to the historic development of another fundamental supermeme of western civilization, capitalism, a concept that continue to mature through antiquity. Another Greek city Lydia in asia minor had develop electrums which where coins of a silver gold alloy and most likely the first standard currency.

Solon made a lot of compromises in his reforms, wealthy were angry at his freeing of the debt slaves and forgiveness of debt while the poor where dissatisfied with the level of advantage his reforms not only allowed the wealthy to retain but was validated by the Timokratia. Understanding the reforms would be better established without his presence he left Greece to travel and trade for 9 years. Much of his constitutional reforms were actually implemented by the tyrant Pisistratus. ( Note that at this time Tyrant referred to the lack of inherent right to rule without denoting despotic inclinations the word implies today. ) Solon's constitution defined a political structure based on economic class in regards to a political system of Juries, assemblies, elected part time non-professional rulers aided by a professional bureaucracy of full time civil servants while leaving in tact the clan loyalties of the three indigenous Tribes of Attica. Cleisthenes reorganized the population by disbanding the three tribes into ten tribes without geographic or cultural definition, for this he is often seen as the creator of Greek democracy, when his actions established the pattern of civilizing a population by braking down organic or indigenous cultural forms to facilitate the running of the city state. This pattern is more noted in imperial or colonial situations than when it happens internally but it can be seen in the role of popular media replacing folk traditions, development or industrialization braking down organic communities and displacing populations.

I want to wrap up with a final development of the state that occurred in Athens. A silver deposit had been found near athens in the village of Laurium. the silver was understood as a communal resource of the citizens of the city. There had been some proposals for how this money should be used, that included dividing the profits out to each citizen. Themistocles convince athenian citizens to place common wealth from silver mines into building a powerful fleet. This had a powerful democratizing effect which is a recurring cycle in military and political development. In cultures dependent on Cavalry and chariots an elite, noble warrior class develops and possesses overwhelming political power. Those depending on heavily armored Hoplites developed oligarchy of wealthy men who can offered equipment. A naval power such as Athens that had a fleet of 200 ships requiring a navy of tens of thousands of citizens begins to require some common popular access to minimum political participation called democracy.

When, after defeating Leonidas and his Spartans at Thermopylae the persians advanced on Athens, The Athenians abandon their city to lead the Greek Resistance from their ships. Although a small percentage of citizens stayed to provide a minimum defense of the citadel and was slaughtered the rest of the population abandon Athens in mass. Traditional cultures involved a connection between a people, the land they lived on, and the cycle of life that interconnected them and the land and each other through the passing of the seasons of the year. The Athenians no longer had the lands agricultural or the cities economic process to maintained cultural cohesiveness but maintained a group identity through the abstract notion of state and it's physical manifestation as a national navy. At this time this was a radical notion that amazed the other Greeks and allowed the Athenians to use their leadership role in fighting the Persians to develop into the first democratic empire based on trade backed by a powerful naval force.

Elizabeth Parenti Soba

27 July 2005

posted by: EzizabethParentiSoba at 13:12 | link | comments |

Catching breath 21 July 2005

I knew when I began covering some of the history regarding Largo I would need to get out a lot of information right away in order to be clear at all. Although I have not reached the point I would like to have I realize I must start slowing down. I am going to wrap up much more abruptly than I would like. In the future I am going to be posting more on the order of 2 times a week. I will provide more historical information about Largo and other effected history, but I will not make it a focus of more than one posting a week. I image the project will take several months.

I think it is of value to post a link to the one source of interior history on level with this, this being a discussion involving 2 former CPUSA-P party members and cadre Robin Spellman and Gnomon as well as Mitch Cohen, part of the red balloon collective who worked closely with Gino and other party founders Mary Seeber and Polly Gardner during the I. M. young potato strike and the founding of the First Natlfed field entity Eastern Farm workers association, which despite attempts to invalidate it and regardless of Natlfeds structural implosion in the late 80's, remains the first successful warm labor organizing drive of farm workers on the east coast;

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2002/12/37128.shtml

I welcome communications and inquiries from former or current cadre interested in mature and mutually respectful discussion. Please understand I have only have presented some of the information. It will be harder to provide useful insight if conclusions are jumped to. For any of us deeply involved in these times they had thier pain, including myself. 

posted by: EzizabethParentiSoba at 20:28 | link | comments |

In march of 2003 a sergeant in the 101^st Airborne knocked out the electrical generated to his units three command tents then rolled a grenade into each of the three tents. Although information about this incident has been largely repressed my understanding is that he had formally requested to not be assigned to the war zone because, as a Muslim, he had strong ethical conflicts in participating in war a war that seemed to target people of his faith. His superior office refused to pass on his request informing the sergeant that he would be required to serve and that his fitness report would reflect the request as an act of insubordination and possible treason.

A not so different incident led to the strike of a division of the U.S. Army in Vietnam. In this case an arrogant captain had ordered his company to pull out leaving behind a squad of troops trapped by enemy fire. A single fire team refused his orders and conducted a flanking movement that allowed the trap squad to escape. Feeling he had undermined his authority the captain retaliate by repeatedly assigning the fire team to point and other dangerous positions. This became a foco point of dissent that spread throughout the company. One Morning the captain was awoken by his men who took him prisoner and placed him on trial. Before noon they had reached a decision, drawn lots for a firing squad, marched him into a field and executed him. Fragging, the assignation by a soldier by a superior officer, is usually a far more subtle affair out in the field. The most common scenario was to throw a hand grenade into the latrine they had entered after shouting a cry of incoming which resulted in anywhere from dozens to hundreds of rounds being fired and the historical documentation of a fire fight even if no enemy where actually involved. This execution by firing squad was not so easily ignored and the attempts by military authorities to investigate and discipline the situation resulted in expand the unrest into a general strike against the war by tens of thousands of armed US troops out in the field. Viet Cong learned of the action and where quickly sent word to the troops that they honored the strike and would not seek to harm the troops as long as they where no longer engaged in the war. fear of this strike spreading was a strong incentive for the Nixon administration to speed the withdraw of troops from Vietnam soil. Soldiers involved where never disciplined, but where given priority in being demobilized as the military down sized at the end of the war. I heard this story first had from a combat photographer who was on the ground at the time and witnessed the captains execution.

The middle class tend to think of those who use the gun in the terms presented by the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger whose role at the RNC was to simulate a war heroes endorsement of the president. This is not a role he could fill without the collaboration of liberals and pacifist who distance themselves from the violence on which their privilege is based by alienating the working class that is economically forced into the armed forces. War does not exist because people in the military are violent but because our economic policies of global exploitation require the use of force. The privilege of the jet setting anti-globilization activist, ecotourist or corporate businessman all require the U.S. to maintain a military built along the requirement to fight many countries at the same time. The historically unprecedented size of the U.S. military requires responding increases of militarizes across the globe. Liberal elitism desires the believe that the American culture is historically non-violent when the reality of the privileged they enjoy is the result of histories most war like and militaristic society. Non-violence is not the middle class privilege of not getting your own hands dirty and until liberals begin to question their own privilege they will have the spirit of blood on their hands.

Largo is said to sprung from a discussion that took place as the talkers, skilled machinist, where constructing mortars, and was first told to me by Polly while we where cleaning shut guns. the stories been told while fixing leaky faucets, installing light fixtures and repairing furnaces. It's a story of nuts and bolts work that has a strong emphases on cause and effect, hard work, and the grounding of ideas into the reality of manifesting the ideas into practice. I can't really share it any other way, anything I write here is only a comment on what you may have heard already.

Prior to BARU split over the question of armed struggle, Gino had worked within the farm worker organizing movement mainly by running union alcohol treatment programs based on the application of shuofu - persuading by talking- within a peer group setting not different from that used by Moa in China to create a largely decentralized form of organizational structure. While this format has often been abused by introducing mechanism of authority and marginalization into it's practice it has a historical role in liberation struggles. The focus of Largo in 1970 was to use the energy toward armed struggle to create a geographic area of organized popular support in which a guerrilla movement could successfully operate.

Think a little about what activism and the political community is like in a town or city today. Maybe you'll go to a Living Wage protest run by some labor oriented group and a few days later eat at a food not bombs then afterwards go to a coffee house to see a film produced by animal liberationists about a recent rescue operation. Maybe one of the two folks presenting the film also drove chants at the protest while the other washed dishes at food not bombs, certainly some of the faces in the crowds have changed but many of them or the same. Now think about the bay area as described in the genesis, when BARU split it was over the focus on armed struggle, those who began organizing with a stronger focus on armed struggle where part of that split. The main work singled out by Vinceremos Central committee was out reach in Prisons that eventual led to the formation of the Symbionese Liberation Army, which Franklyn denounced turning away from his advocacy of armed struggle before returning to the protection and privilege he has alienated himself from.

Largo was focusing on recruitment and outreach while prepping a rural area of resistance that I believe was already planned on being abandoned. Members agreed to the rules of the guerrilla, some 10 to a dozen rules meant to form a common discipline, while failing to comprehend how those born to different class interrelate with each other and with rules in different ways. one effect was that middle class people tended to overlay their class interest in property in a way that a disproportionate number of working class cadre where reported for petty theft by middle class cadre. I see no reason not to believe that those reported may have ended up going to cuba for military training but by the time the bulk of the organization had relocated to the east coast that they where sent to NOC to be trained though an internal organizational process I hope to cover some tommorrow.

I have seen sufficient reasons to believe that this method of recruitment for the military resulted in the middle class cadre beginning to brake down their own class perceptions as the result of their own actions, although i have seen equal opportunity for this to be used for psychological blackmail and guilt tripping. I think a fair accounting requires how all those involved where ready to internalize whatever lessons the interrelationship involved. It definitely instilled a sense of joint commitment involved all around that resulted in a professional and commited force, at least within the period between the early 1970's until the mid 1980's.

 storms on the way and I have to shut down the computor, More tommorrow

Elizabeth Parenti Soba 19 July 2005

posted by: EzizabethParentiSoba at 21:10 | link | comments |

The Communist truth Squads

It will be of great value in understanding the history of what I am relating today if you can find and read “the the Storm” by Yue Daiyun. Yue was a dedicated revolutionary and sent down cadre of the cultural revolution and her first person account should be considered valuable reading to all who want to end oppression. the title comes from a favorite poem she had written in school but was later forced to burn. In many ways I see “To the Storm” as part of the compendium called forth By Robert Graves that I mentioned some days ago.

Gino's father was a wobbly who disappeared or died during the time of the united front against fascism. Gino grew up during the period of extreme political oppression known as the Red scare as a child of of one of it's targeted victims, the inherent violence of this period is often neglected. I can say quite truthfully that 4 members of my family died and the lives of 3 more where destroyed as a result of this period. The effects of this oppression are very active today because our society continues to confront it's history. The common misconceptions about the red scare is related to a focus on the participation of right-wing republicans and minimizes the degree of liberal participation in the oppression.

I see three ways the red scare still is in effect within this country. The most obvious being that the Bush administration represents a political tendency that grew out of this oppression. Nixon used the red scare and the house unamerican affairs committee to rise to national prominence. Very Liberal democrat FDR had given J. Edgar Hoover an extraordinary level of oppressive power while encouraging the FBI director to routinely investigate political rivals. Hoover later began collaborating with Nixon as his man on HUAC, feeding him useful information to use against members of the Truman administration. Reagan served as Hoovers man in Hollywood where Reagan managed and directed the Black listing of actors. When the use of federal police and intelligence organizations for personal political gains where exposed during Watergate, Bush Sr came into the administration as press secretary as damage control. I remember when I was a teenager that Reagan was the most successful fund raiser during the 76 campaign that put Jimmy Carter in as president, even though he had lost the republican primary to Gerald Ford. Not actually having to spend this money for the main political campaign it was, somewhat legally at least, funnelled into reorganizing the informal anti-communist network into the anti-gay pro life faction that helped him win control over the white house. He may also have been helped by the intelligence community effected in part by Bush Sr involvement in the Iran hostage situation. for the republican nomination, which factored significantly in Fords loss to Jimmy Carter. Reagan was the most successful fundraiser of the election Today Bush Jr, along with many of the same people who worked for Nixon and Reagan who advice and control him, are using the same strategies and methods that define them as a easily recognizable political entity with a visible history US educational institution prepare middle class citizens to ignore. This tendency can be traced back to the mid 1860's. The same Pinkerton detectives who killed my grandfather brought the tactics they used into the FBI in the form of Conter-intel-pro a tactic it had developed much earlier in framing western resistance to the corruption and vice involved in the building of the first trans-continental railroad. ( “hear that lonesome Whistle Blow” by Dee Brown is good to read in understanding the development of both corporate political control over american political process.) Today the Bush administration still enlist the aide of the Pinkerton corporation, who design and co-ordinate homeland securities regulation of foreign entities. this practice has expanded to include the corporate mercenaries who where involved in abu graib scandal.

Another way the red scare never ended was in higher education. HUAC had no authority over the universities, the purged of radical intellectuals from the universities was a voluntary act by these liberal institution and where large conducted by Trotskites, social democrats, socialists, moderates and liberals who had been working within the anti-communist networks even during the radical era of unionization in which my grandfather was murdered. This has the effect of alienating political theory from political practice, allowing the largest and most powerful capitalist imperial country to have a large “Marxist” contingent that, as my step father was so fond of saying “would not recognize a worker if they shoved a pitch fork up their ass”. This also creates an impression held by many middle class people to assume they should alternately talk down or dictate radical politics to the lower class, who they assume have no understanding of their own political, social and economic oppression. I have often had an occasion where I have mentioned an act of State oppression that resulted in the death of someone I knew, which I witnessed or which had been described to me by my mother, uncle, father or other relative and then be advised to read Howard Zinn's book. This is an incredible insult middle class folk's don't get, the people's history is in their own stories not in your stupid book. I have read Zinn's book and would not recommend it as a very good foundation to learn about American political history as it is not very well balanced. If it was not called the people history it would provide a fair primer. I would strongly suggest you read at least some of the sources Zinn uses, rather than just accept his version as that of the peoples. If you need to read to understand the peoples history I would suggest you start with the Foxfire books, including the process of how they where collected by high school students who where working to preserve their own culture to begin understanding what makes a up a people's history.

The third effect of the red scare we still see today deals with authority and the docile acceptance of it. The red scare instilled into the American conscious a para dyne of worth and respectability based on being a law abiding citizen who accepts the authority of institutions, experts and official sources of information, even in the presence of preponderance of evidence that contradict those authority. An example of this is with the last presidential election. American's depend on certain methods of establish proof in order to fly and drive safely, eat, shelter themselves. When these principles are applied to an analysis of the discrepancies that can be documented in the electronic voting machines it demonstrates that the last presidential election was stolen, but unless the same authority that stole this election the real questions around political fraud will not be raised. Nixon was not impeached by petition. It took daily demands in the form of protest, civil disobedience and at times violence for almost 3 years to force democrats and republican politicians to address watergate. On one tape you can hear Nixon instructing a secret service agent to hire a drug addict from a near by park to beat the crap out of a protester who he noticed came every day. Even after being forced to act the congress used the resulting lowering of activity to co-operated fully in the deals that allowed Nixon to arrange his own pardon.

Now consider Jeff Whitnacks history of Gino growing up in a small town where the local anti-communist network would be represented by the American legion and Ku Klux Klan. Where everyone remembers how it was his own fault his broken legs never healed right and how his father had run off and never come back. Jeff historical work is just very sloppy if not self-serving. My understanding of the check fraud was that it was a direct action done against a business man involved in the local anti-communist network before Gino left town. When I first heard the Genesis I noticed right away his age was not quite right, but I could see the evidence written on his body. It was not just his leg, he had all the scars he needed to show he done his part to resist even as a child and teenager. My understanding is that he was defending communism and anarchism by disputing lies about what communism and anarchism where about, in part at least because he was defending his father. During the red scare radicals that stayed political active had to go underground, which usually meant leaving their homes and families. As long as he was still alive I believe Gino's father, as other radicals did, would when he could sneak home at night for a visit, probably bringing along whatever comrade he was working and traveling with at the time. I am sure that his father and his fathers friends would have honored Gino efforts by validating them as political work. In the manor of Jorge Luis Borges' short stories “Emma Shuntz” of “the Shape of the sword” I think Gino story of his participation in the communist truth squad was as close to the truth as some of the people listening where able to hear. I remember some of my mothers stories of that time, One of her mothers relatives was a catholic priest involved in the anti-communist network. He once stopped Mass and refused to contenue until that “Godless molly McGuire “ left the church. This family disowned her mother, who along with 2 of her children died of poverty and starvation after her husbands murder. This priest who had thrown her father out of church became my guardian. He arranged for her to be raised at a catholic boarding school raised by nun who on his orders stole the only picture she had of her dead mother. I think part of the reason history can say american's purge was bloodless and non-violent was that they don't look at children. This history also does not include what happen to longshoreman, postal workers and others who lost their incomes, at times completely because of this repression. I think for people like my mother and Gino it would not be too strong to say this was a holocaust.

Elizabeth Parenti Soba 16 July 2005

posted by: EzizabethParentiSoba at 20:45 | link | comments |

The Games of men and wolves



      there is a much repeated story concerning my step father that provides a good example of how people who live within different para dyne can process information in entirely different ways.  Jeff Whitnack provides one example in his article for the public eye of  how a failure to take into account the real revolutionary nature of  U.S. society during the Nixon era results in a conscious yet invalid way:
 http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v04n3-4/Cadre_or_Cult_1.html

         I want to digress a second to point out some effects of the effects of modernism and postmodernist approach to both history and journalism serves to support the status quo of world visions that support class status. Jeff begins with the writing conventions of a hook and an angle by using this story to create the story of the beginning of an organization he wants to marginalize as paranoid and coltish. He writes in 1984 about an event in that occurred in 1971 yet gives no historical background information and alters or omits facts that do not fit into a young white male middle class liberal of the reagan years world view.
         First understand that this was less than 4 years since the detroit riots, it was after the vice president was forced out of office when a speech he made calling for a harder hand against youthful rebellion resulted in the killings at Kent state university. The president of the united states  used a team of mercenary intelligence operators to conduct covert actions against the political party in opposition to him. And their was a call put out to begin serious work toward mounting armed resistance to the federal government. One of the common first steps a guerrilla operation does to prepare an arena of operations is to prepare catches of food, weapons, clothing, medicine and other vital supplies in the rural or wild areas they plan to create as a stronghold. When Jeff Witnack heard this story it was clear they where not “digging a hole to hide in” but burying illegal guns, but within Jeff's para dyne that refuses to look at the actions of these 13 individuals within the scope of the actual period of time these actions took place these are both absurd notions. Under a postmodernist view it makes more sense to express Jeff's thoughts and feelings rather than convey the reality of the moment he is describing “digging a hole to hide in” is a more accurate description even though it is not historically as factual. In the same sense I feel a good working description of postmodernist historical work as “making shit up”, which retains a great deal of historical accuracy while conveying by emotional reaction to this form of cultural elitism.
      their was a related experience when Journalist Jane Davenport covered the jail solidarity protest that followed the FTAA meetings in Quebec city. The protest/riot had significant disrupted the meeting as some 70,000 people besieged the leaders of the industrial world in the western hemisphere. The various forces of the state, in the form of the local police, provincial paramilitary forces, and let us not forget the famed “mounties” armed with large armored vehicles and a vast array of modern weapons struggled to maintain control of a few city blocks while conceded control of the rest of the city to the protesters.  When it was apparent the capitalist leaders could not complete their agenda they streamlined it to a general statement of intent agreeable to those present and not objectionable to those invited who could not or would not penetrate those arrayed against the FTAA. This allowed them to release an official statement (the only established fact possible within the para dyne that accepts a post-modernist epistemology) saying they had complete their meeting, succeeding while the protest had failed. Ms Davenport went about outside the Jail offering cigarettes to those who would give her interviews. Taking advantage of the difficulty some of the protesters from the middle class had with property destruction she was able to create the angle of her story “ Events offer unexpected lessons for protesters” writing a story of the peoples defeat by the triumphant state. Ms Davenport was a nice enough person, she did not do this out of evil or intending to deceive but rather was applying the literary method she was taught to best fill her role as a reporter for a capitalist owned newspaper. On any given day the average college educated professional supports the oppressive class structure in the same way in a number of transactions without ever allowing themselves to look beyond their elitist attitudes.
     An even bigger failure of middle class people who approach this story is they know nothing about guns or cops, or more importantly guns and cops. I grew up confronting cops, hearing an army story about when my father pulled an M-1 carbine on a cop or when my mom intimidated a cop into tearing up a traffic ticket. Being outrage at those cops who copped a feel (ever wonder where that term came from) as they frisked poor girls (black or white) as they forced them and their boy friends to move on from the few locale hangs out available in a crowded city that was not designed to facilitate working class teenagers. When the privileged middle class intellectuals like Bruce Franklyn  suddenly opens their eyes to the world of the invisible oppressed class whose oppression is the source of privilege they suddenly start telling people how to correct a problem they themselves are still struggling to ignore. If Gino was hiding guns he handled that cop perfectly.
      One concept I see middle class people failing to comprehend in illegal actions is how to deal with a cop and understand his feelings and thinking. I first learn this with my step fathers dedicated but somewhat dense Aide de camp Susan when i pointed out what a cop was going to assume in the process of an illegal act we where planning, her responce to my observations was "we will tell him...". I have since heard this from many middle class people before they have their first mister Bill experience with Mr policeman. You want a cop to assume the right answer before he starts asking you questions or you are likely to be in big trouble. If a game warden sees a bunch of people digging a big hole in the woods at night he is going to look closer, one of the basic tasks of maintianing order through enforcement of the law is to look for things that seem out of order. If what a game warden finds y'all doing is stashing a bunch of guns in preparation to attack the state he is not going to ask question that you have to answer. In all reasonableness understanding of the historic situation you will have to kill him, which is what would have happened if Susan, Bruce or Jeff where running such an operations. Gino snatched up a rifle and made his now somewhat infamous remark about bagging a big buck. If you ever really had any meaningful connection with a cop you will understand that their major life para dyne is the commitment to establish good order through establishing lawful authority for which they serve as the physical manifestation, the body and muscle of the state. When the game warden showed up, Gino provided him an easy way to establish state authority, “ better not do it son, it's not deer season yet”  reducing this young buck to ridicule the cop went off feeling he had established his own authority and power while leaving Largo free to bury their guns as plan, (I am curious if this game warden knows who he is).
       No I don't think Gino had any plan in these guns any time soon if at all. The times where revolutionary, but too many people active in the bay area where not. This has taken longer than I thought it would, tomorrow I want to begin explaining what I think he was doing, which involved a brutal but successful memetic device for constructing a potential insurrectionist formation. 

Elizabeth Parenti Soba  15 July 2005

posted by: EzizabethParentiSoba at 20:14 | link | comments |

When the revolution was televised In 1967 the Tac Squad, elite team of racist cops raided an after hours drinking club in which a group of some 80 African American's where celebrating the return of two neighborhood people from Vietnam. Although unprepared for so large a number the officers decided to arrest everyone, protest of the arrest soon irrupted into rioting that continued into the next day. Although news coverage of the riots where suppressed the conflict soon spread and after 48 hours Michigan Governor George Romney called in 8000 National Guard troops who proved insufficient force to suppress the outrage of a population who had suffered violent police brutality in response to the spread of the civil rights movement to the industrial Northern United States. Romney and Then President Lyndon Johnson disagreed over the deployment of federal troops, Johnson felt it was illegal for him to order in troops unless Romney declared the city was in a state of insurrection. Romney was unwilling to make this declaration citing concerns that it may remove insurers from their obligation to cover property destruction could result. It should be remembered here that at that time their was no official “war” in vietnam, successive administrations avoiding congressional debate on policies around the war by insisting it was a policing action. This political ploy sustained by Both Johnson and Nixon meant that until The Carter administration those who returned home from the war where denied the status of veteran. They had no right to job protections are the normal assistance in re-establishing life as a civilian after returning from the traumatic experiences of combat. This is the big lie behind the right-wing cry of support our troops, thousands of returning soldiers ended up in the streets because it was in the interest of those who promoted the war to deny them their status as serving in the war. In the end Johnson gave in and sent in the 82nd airborne, the elite “all American team” of the U.S. army, who finally beat back the civilian population. As the national Press interviewed black enlisted men of the 82nd airborne in bewilderment questioned their use to suppress their own people after coming home from fighting foreign wars and their white officers indicated that they where unwilling to order their men into U.S. Cities again. This was some of the intensity of the political world I grew up in, I lived in New York city and best remember the prison riots as well as the closer to home Newark Riot where riots engaged the state police and national guard for 6 days before the state restored it's order. I was and am of the social order some would call urban white trash, not very well educated I believed that Black people where in the majority within the country I was born. After the murder of her Wobbly parents my mother had become an orphan, then grew up an alcoholic and drug addict. many of my family had been labor organizers when that activity had been illegal and dangerous, many had been economically destroyed because policies of extreme political suppression that followed the second world war. I tagged along with my older brother in leafleting for McGovern for president and joined a bunch of hoodlums led by my younger brother who having stole Abby Hoffmans book where learning how to best rob stores and houses. One of our older neighborhood friends had returned from vietnam and told stories about his job, traveling deep into enemy areas and murdering the civilian officials of small villages with a high powered rifle. Not just the government and the conservatives but also the liberal middleclass tries to bury this history, it's something of a deep dark secret that the non-violent civil rights movement was stumped as it moved out of the south, non-violence had failed to end the war. But unwillingness to face the truth can never be a victory for either those who believe in non-violence or those who seek to overcome oppression, our history is necessary for us to understad om order to create our future. Retelling and history that fail to understand the energy of the events, that convey no understanding of the revolutionary moment of the times, and obscure the underlying illegitimacy of the social order the rioters where in good faith disturbing is itself an act of violence which precludes the truth of their times and struggles. I think the lack of understanding the times as they where lived and the reality of how close to insurrection our country had come is one of the major reason my step fathers oral presentation called the genesis was so misunderstood. Elizebeth Parenti Soba 14 July 2005

posted by: EzizabethParentiSoba at 22:31 | link | comments (1) |

I hope this is not succeeding in being to obscure for others to absorb. One of my purposes in writing is to present some insight into American history that lifts away some of the shadow of political suppression. This largely involves sharing information that traditionally is presented through an oral tradition of first person narratives. To same degree reading an oral narrative on the Internet is like watching a movie instead of reading the book. One of my current short term goals is to provide a commentary on the controversial first person narratives that presented the genesis of the provisional wing of the communist party USA, as well as that of LARGO. My motives for doing this is that, contrary to a popular myth the first personal narrative actually does provide insight into the political energy of the late 60's and early 70's that led to embryonic attempts at armed struggle. Second because these oral traditions started before Gino and natlfed, they are part of our own folk culture that is constantly being suppressed by the droning mechanical force of popular media and I want to address the question of truth with which all these traditions are undermined by misconceptions perpetuated around Gino presentation. I also find the exercise helpful in developing my ability to presenting my own first person narratives, which even if they recount events from different times and places grow out of the same culture and are interwoven. For the purpose of providing information over the Internet I want to be clear of my sources. Although I was not involved with Gino and did not live in the Bay area at the time, I was politically active for my age and heard news reports in the mainstream media that reported on the Largo attack on an armored car carrying captured members of it's organization. I was also aware of the activities of the Riverhead Black Panthers, I have heard one first person account of it's development that confirms it's connection with Largo. I have met personally two largo members who where involved in farmworker organizing prior to the opening of the little red bookstore and a third who was involved in founding Largo. I also heard a first person account from a lover who involvement predated the formation of the Symbionese Liberation Army and is useful in understanding the political ties between Vinceramous the SLA and Largo. Like any area of history in which source materials are by nature week a lot will remain unknown, but if anyone who is interested in this history would like a useful model for understanding what can be learned I am willing to try and provide this. Although I consider my own sources to be rich in comparison to the very little hard information to be found, In order to not have to argue over which individual fact may or may not be true and allow this commentary to be seen as what I intend, a useful model for understanding, I welcome readers to approach it like it where just a historical novel in order to gain understanding of individuals involved as people in a real life drama and not intellectual abstractions of the ideas and ideals they put forth. One important thing to remember is that Gino was far more honest in his first person rap than most people are willing to allow. It always had near the beginning the statement regarding the method of looking at history was NOT about great men and great events but about the political movement and energy of the people who made up these political movements. It is through the framework of great men and great events that the split over armed struggle in the Bay area radical union is defined by the political position of Standford University professor and Vinceramous Central committee member Bruce Franklyn who later denounced both the the SLA and Largo. I have never met Frankyln but from my understanding of the political situation he disowns a lot of responsibility for the outcome related to the positions he put forth and retreated into his class patterns of escaping back to the routes of his privilege when others began to die because of his immaturity, while the oppression that was sought to be addressed continued and grew worse. I guess I should direct some words to Ann ribar and whatever genuinely inspired cadre may follow her within Natlfed. My contracts with my step-father where not with you and I own my own historicality with the work I conducted with him. My understanding is that Gino was already making plans for Ribar to replace and renounce him after his death, and the sudden discovery of Gino's gun store that resulted in arrest that cleared your way to leadership fit very much the ugliest parts of when his methods turned to deceptions even if you where uninvolved. If you can gain a firmer understanding of your political location in history it may help you move to a place of power free from the shadow of that quite dead institution, I assume you will rather dismiss me perhaps in ways I would rather not hear. I cannot say we are not by our self-definitions somewhat hostile to each other, but I am not writing to attack you. I think you are misguided, power hungry and I do not trust you, I do not know much about your part of this history and I do not intend speaking to it outside of how it relates to my own. I have been tending to be to wordy in this, I am leaving off today, tomorrow I want to cover some background information about my understanding of the historical development of the State in western civilization, then in 2 to 3 days I wish to convey my understanding of the genesis of Largo, again this is not the same as a traditional first person presentation but in lieu of that being available I hope it will be useful in establishing some historical contents. Elizebeth Parenti Soba

posted by: EzizabethParentiSoba at 15:52 | link | comments |

Ours are both the best and worse of times I want to bring us back to the war poets I began speaking about. Graves is not often assocated with the war poets because after introducing Sassoon to examples of poetic realism, he saw Sassoon, but to a far better Owens balance the poetic symbolism with the realism of those at the point of conflict. Graves felt his own work was inadequate and focused instead on developing a grammer for poetics as mythic inconoclasm and preaching for a reintroduction of mystisism into western epitomology including as a next step the establishment of a familier compendium from which a modern poetic language could be drawn. Coming myself from an oral tradition of a culture of struggle, I am of the believe that in some case the compendium is best recognized by those who live outside the dominate para dyne and who engage life in what could be seen as an effectively revolutionary way. I see the tale of two cities an effective and useful model in understanding the dynamics of class war, oppression and resistance. One of the reason it was so was that it's creator Charles Dickens, who represented a resistance to the oppression of the industrial revolution based on the believe in the compasion of Christ trying to reach out an understand a woman as aleinated and hatefilled as Terese Defarge and her knitting needles. It is important to understand that the needles is a reference to the culture of struggle in england not france. traveling weavers who connected circles of spinners along thier routes where the underground organizing network of the reformation. The grandchildren of these weavers, displaced by the power loom, where filling the ranks of Luddites and other organized resistance efforts. He holds up at the same time the contrasting struggles of oppression in London and Paris with a significant of the reformations effect on both institutions of oppression as a model to understanding the class struggle of his own time. From "three days in algeirs" and "Metropolis" to a rapper singing "how many niggers are willing to die" the basic mechanics of hopeless oppression and the anger and potential violence it creates can be understood within the political and social success and failures of each of it's characters to manafest thier world vision into thier reality. I think the redemption of compasion is most seen in the sad but strong sacrifice of the young seamtress who might as easily been of the family whose right to vengence Terese claimed. I think about how for some people hearing the oral presentation my step father would use as an organizing medium would be effected and in someways seperated by the para dynes through which they heard it. Those who heard the story heard words like focoisemo, Blaquism, Proundhon, and they where labels that sometimes precluded looking and understanding deeper. I use to get Blaque and Bakunin mixed up, but I understood the basics of the human dynamic. I remember in an insurrectionist office where the local organizing drive was resisting Reagans economic underminding of the most economically vulnerable elements of society by welfare advocasy. It was almost Christmas and an ops-manager was on the phone trying to reach the most hated case worker in south Philadelphia. After three days of trying she finally caught him in order to attempt to begin an appeal. He outright refused, he pointed out that every single client he had was currently cut off and he did not really care, he was at a party and he plan on having a good time and she should call him back first thing on monday. I saw the waves of emotion pass through this womans face, disgust in his rudness, humiliation as she imagined herself needing to walk into the next room to tell a woman on the coach they would have to wait until after chirstmas to try to get thier check back. This meant in most likelihood it would not happen until after new years and likely not till well into the next month. I saw her steel herself in her own heart, before she left the room she looked me in the eyes, and we both knew that if thier was ever an insuccetion she led in that city that man would die. We need to understand the likes of Robespiere, Blaque, and Defarge as far less shallow as we like. We have to understand that to overcome violence we need to look into part of ourselves and our relationship with others we may find dark and ugly. We need to see the anger of those who are oppressed as human, and we must recognize when thier humanity is taken away. Elizebeth Parenti Soba 12 July 2005

posted by: EzizabethParentiSoba at 19:53 | link | comments |

Understanding cult from a place free of bigotry, and back to memetics 10 July 2005 I am inspired somewhat still by my contact at rainbow with the Hare Krishna's, and as well by the recent discussion between Robin Spellman and Ice Gnomon about my step father that was posted on an indymedia site discussing Natlfed. It is an interesting coincidence that when I was still close to Gino, during the Reagan administration the Krishna's where the target of a federal campaign to reduce civil rights. It was centered around their outreach work at airports. Those interested in containing individual freedom as professed in the Bill of rights chose the Krishna's because they where vulnerable; a Bizarre and alien cult. The legal issue involved was the expression of free speech and the right of association and how it applied to a space. In the past large areas where people congregated as a waiting area where considered places of public assemble where the practice of free speech made the most practical sense. As my step father so often pointed out, as a political practice freedom of speech only makes sense in a politcal content when it includes agitation, calling for action, not thinking not knowing but doing. This includes asking for volunteers, converts, resources, money, as well as acts such as signing petitions and resolving to vote some way. In taking away the right of Hare Krishna's to ask for money gifts at airports to support their believes, the Reagan administration succeeded in stopping anti-globalist today from having a literature table at a shopping mall, and liberal America has been neck deep in fascist filth for well over half a century. Today the right of gated communities to prevent door to door social activism is being attacked in Pennsylvania by targeting the Jehovah Witness', and because this is a group the liberals would prefer not to talk to they will likely let those who support the suppression of cults win and limit all social freedoms. Understand what a cult is, go back to our discussion about “I love you Brother” so often spoken at rainbow. Understand that we are educated to know what we know from a very limited epistemology. We are allowed to experience the surface image of many ideas as long as are fundamental world vision does not shift in a way that challenges the permanent para dyne. Most people in the U.S. will acknowledge that G.W. Bush is an immoral moron, but so long as they do not let this information influence their interactions with him. We are interconnected, he is our president and he sets the policies by which we as a people effect the world and no one in the US is totally clear from that compromise so long as we allow him the mandate he holds without sufficient disobedience or challenge to repudiate that mandate. This then is what a cult is, those who believe in a para dyne outside the mainstream, WHO actually embrace that para dyne and practice it in their day to day life. In the negative this a group of people who are not willing to experience a shallow surface change in their world vision but our sincere in their desire to change their world and themselves. A basic understanding of social evolution is that most of these cults will be misguided, but that at least some of these cults will hold the only key to the future. This is based on the assumption, easily understood by anyone who will take the time to look honestly at our world to understand that what we have today does not work by anyone's criteria. How we allow ourselves to understand the world is at the heart of how we can move ourselves forward materially. If you are reading this you understand the world through English. Long ago a king of the Wessex, lacking the military and economic strength to defeat his rival kings in battle began committing resources to the collections and translation of manuscripts into his own tongue. By doing so he insured that those who professed the budding scholastic system would think in a way similar to himself, in a way in fact shaped by himself, and so become Alfred the great first king of the English people, when in fact his military and political sphere of influences was pathetically small. Language as a fundamental building block, the basis of our epistemology our how we are able to know what we know often disserves us in ways we do not recognize. Alfred's actions of tying the political future of his people through their language to the political future of the scholastic movements that had developed in late antiquity was just a beginning. One strong tendency within the growth of western civilization is the striping of mysticism from systems and methods of understanding the universe, perhaps this is way English does not allow the double negative. When the Bible says “ Do not do on to others what you would not have them do on to you “ proper english demands it be changed to “Do on to others what you would have them do on to you”. Within the two concepts are a world of difference, subtle in that the former factors in an unknowable, what each of the various others in your life want, with a practicable course of action toward them that factors in that unknown. Since English seeks to achieve a concise efficiency through a narrowness of meaning, the vagueness or depth of the double negative is undesirable. As proper English continued to develop both as a means of defining Class status through education and as a means of communicating exact statements for science and commerce it's efficiency has made it the dominate language of global trade and negotiation while the basic component of it's memetic structure is one that limits the depth of it's content to the tangibles values of importance to capitalism while excluding intangibles necessary for humanity. I should point out briefly that this political positioning of the English language is just a single component of how the dominate para dyne dominates our ways of thinking. Nor is the ability of delivering precise communication something undesirable, it is when this tool becomes a master that dictates where my conscious thoughts may flow that I find it a danger. My younger brother in a comic routine once voiced the questions “ So your thinking out of it but it's still THE box.” It should be understood that we need some para dyne from our mind to work, we need a way of understanding the world in order to take in knowledge. This is the shallowness of the western civilized mind associated with the new ages cultural imperialism. It is the same thing refered to by the tale of the zen master who pours a western scholar an overflowing cup of tea so that he will himself realize his cup must be emptied. If you have any power or privilege in the western society it is because of that box, that para dyne that says you are in your power because you are more learned and better able to reason. To understand those things that dominate para dyne exclude you must think outside of it, in someways giving up your power and privilege. Think of times you have attempted to listen to someone who is explaining a way of being strange and new to you. How much information you need to understand any way of life, an anthropologist knows she must take in as much information as possible before accepting any picture beyond building up on a blank slate. The same is true for most of us who have lived in an oppressed status, we understand that our social betters, those who have more power by virtue of their class, speak in a separate para dyne from the para dyne we must hold to preserve our human dignity and even our sanity. To survive we shut ourselves and our truth up, it is a fundemental element of oppression that the oppressor forces the oppressed to speak the language that takes away their power. But someone who has received higher education and whose power is based on the notion that their superior ability to know, understand and reason when trying to grasp the concept of another way of life will not wait through the foggy moments in which a picture of life is being painted with words, it needs trusting another to be in their power in what they understand and you do not. Referring back to the difference between the “cult” Krishna's and the love they express while feeding others and the “I love you” and “Welcome home” expressed so often with less sincerity. Please accept this is not coming from feeling they are naturally insincere but rather because they do not have a means of living that creates the space for that kind of love. In the dawn of the hippie movement it was understood that to be enlightened (Hip) to the natural flow and love of the world one had to cut materialism out of your life. As imperfect as the Krishna's methods might be it does dependable provide moments in which they are free from materialism and able to live their love in sincerity. This then is what I think a cult is, a group that truly embraces a para dyne outside the mainstream and in sincerely following that path become alienated to varying degrees from what is the acceptable to society. In the interest of it's survival and consistent with it's predatory ways the dominate para dyne is hostile to these alien entities. If though you understand, as I do, that what we have today is not working, then we must understand that if hope exist it will be called a cult. By nature most new expression para dyne will falter and have flaws, but we can not advance by dismissing them simply because they genuinely profess their believes by attempting to enact them, which seems to be what we do with the label cult. Elizabeth Parenti Soba 10 July 2005
On love at rainbow and london bombings. On my last night at rainbow I was cuddling with a friend when a long line of State troopers came through. It was unusually in that it was well after dark and with each call that warn of their approach came two calls of incredibility, that they knew better than to come around after dark. This is not surprising, they where likely ordered to march in by someone who himself knew nothing and afterward learned nothing of the realities of what was happening. That is a basic of hierarchy, the individual officers who marched through the dark would have known better. Would understand how demeaning and vulnerable it feels to move forward as a force of intimidation when you are easily seen but cannot well see. For authority based on force impotency is farce and ridiculous, and no one whose personal world vision of self was at risk would hazard such a vulnerable and demeaning situation. At one point someone followed them singing that although they had guns in the church they loved them anyway. One officer freaked out ordering him to be quiet. My friend found herself saying she loved you but cut herself short, feeling her own lack of sincerity, then centering herself said again she loved them in a way that might truly have presented love. A good a thought as this may well be I do not think it is sincere in that I do not think it acknowledges the person or lack of person said loved one is in the moment. When a human commits an act of violence and aggression, which an armed pack of men marching through a peaceful assemble represents, that human cuts off the humanity not just of those they commit violence too but too them selves as well. When an individual takes on the persona of the force of law manifest and begin to bully and cower others into submission, they shut off their humanity. In shutting off their humanity, they allow you to know no part of them to love. What a hazard it is to envision loving one we do not know, because we risk shutting a door, never quite seeing who they truly are and where they have come from. I felt more sincerity around the kitchens of the hari karishnas, but they chanted over food and the gift of the cycle of life, within their own mythology. That was a flow of love that was not shut off, and they nurtured that love along the way as they prepared it. I felt very deep and beautiful sincerity in their love, but I would not agree with one of them who said they loved one they made invisible to themselves. You can not love the beauty of another without accepting their whole ; seeing and acknowledging their ugliness, and to do that we must often recognize the parts of ourselves we may find ugly as well. Today Londoners are having a great difficulty dealing with ugliness, but there is a greater ugliness of their own they are hiding when they seek comfort in the war against terror. As citizen of England they are allowing their country to engage in a lop sided war where Iraqi are killed in mass every month. Those in England, the U.S. and other imperialist countries need to recognize the danger to their world vision. How much does the reaction of the press, even the indymedia, reflect a horrible brutal and unjust value system. For the past 15 years, Iraqi have been dying each month due to aggressive imperialistic policies for which both england and the US play a major role. If we understand that war and violence is wrong, if we feel the need to denounce al-queda while supporting “Our Troops” , we buy into an understanding that the life of a middle class citizen of the industrial west is worth more than hundreds or even more than thousands of other lesser human creatures. I can feel for those who where in the london subway because I have seen death come in like a storm. I know the fear and the urgency and I know the confused guilt of having survived a situations which if only for a second, minute or hour might seem hopeless. Londoners Today, feeling the fear of being at war and forgetting that yesterday was just a small example of what they, by compliance to the authority of their government. I cannot stand with those who stand firm in a war against terror, which seems to say that it is more wrong or only wrong when for westerners to die in war. London is an aggressor, the difference between the 70 who died and london and the thousands who die in Iraqi is that London could choose not to be in the war.

posted by: EzizabethParentiSoba at 16:40 | link | comments |

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