The following article originally appeared on Navigating the Storm, the blog of Kali Akuno. We are reposting it here for study and discussion. The piece is also available as a PDF.

Barack Obama and the New Afrikan¹ “National Question”. Are We Free Yet?
 
by Kali Akuno

Saturday, May 24th, 2008  
 
In Honor of the 83rd Birthday of Malcolm X and the clarity he brought to the New Afrikan revolutionary movement.
 
Since the stunning Iowa victory of Senator Barack Obama in January, a great deal has been said and written about the declining or ongoing significance of “race” and “racial prejudice” in US society and the prospect of a person of Afrikan descent being its President as proof of its substantive social transformation. While this discussion must be regarded as an advance over the conservative moralistic and race-coded discussions that have dominated political debate in the US since the 1980’s, we must acknowledge its critical limitations. 
 
In the main, these discussions individualize the issues and only engage the behavioral and subjective aspects of inequality and oppression. What is fundamentally missing is a critical discussion of the structural and systemic nature of oppression and exploitation within the US and how the Obama campaign “phenomenon” relates to these structures and dynamics. 
 
This paper seeks to investigate the strategic relationship of the Obama campaign to the structural dynamics of oppression and exploitation within the US.  In particular, it will focus on the question of New Afrikan or Black national oppression within the US and how the Obama campaign addresses this oppression. It also seeks to address certain strategic questions that progressive forces within the national liberation and multi-national working class movements must struggle with over the course of the next six months in order to ensure that our demands and interests are advanced – regardless of whether Obama wins or loses the Presidential election in November.   
 
Some of the strategic questions this paper seeks to address are: 
1.  What is Obama’s organic relationship to the New Afrikan or Black nation? 
2.  What class position, alignment and program does Obama represent? 
3.  How does Obama’s campaign strategy and program relate to the historic interests and demands of the Black nation? 

Read more...

Read more...

This was originally posted on kasamaproject.org

By Mike Ely

To put this as bluntly as I can:

The Nepali Maoists are preparing right now (I mean over the next few weeks) for what-may-be a decisive military/political confrontation with the reactionary government and army.

The insurrection they have been preparing so carefully and so long may take place over the next two months.

The Maoists are seeking to mobilize the people (based on the understanding that their enemies will be wanting to act closely with Indian intrigues, and can be isolated by exposing those intrigues.) Their Indian, Nepali and American enemies understand this. Their revolutionary core base knows this. And we need to know it.

I will be ringing this bell loudly, and more loudly… and I want you to join me in ringing this bell.

Read more...

On January 23rd, thousands of pro-life activists and governor Rick Perry descended on the Austin capital to declare Texas a "pro-life state." This is footage from the counter-protest.

Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 9.0.115!

New track from MIA. MIA is a radical hip-hop artist who has unapologetically defended the struggle for Tamil liberation in the face of brutal suppression from the US government and the Sri Lankan state. Also see Sunshowers.

Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 9.0.115!