This album, Twenty First Century People's War was originally released by revolutionary cultural groups in Nepal in 2004, but we are reposting it here. It is also available to download or stream as individual songs from the Internet Archive.
The following is an analysis by Advance the Struggle of the occupations and demonstrations spreading across California.
Fully armed, a line of 10 swat team police marched up to the picket line. Half-stunned by their presence, the crowd of supporters hesitatingly jeered the cops. In unison and on command the pigs charged forward and shoved the picketers to the ground. Throughout the day there were various refusals to accept these attacks; they ranged from hurling verbal abuse at the cops with chants like “Fuck the Police,” to acts of physical resistance such as refusing to sit down at the urging of cops and fellow protesters, to minor incidents of exchanging blows with the pigs.
Some of these bold acts of resistance were deplorable to those protestors whose go-to chants were “Peaceful protest! Peaceful protest!” as the pigs violently attacked students. One chant was even directed to the cops themselves: “We are fighting for your kids! We are fighting for your kids!” This brings into sharp relief the widespread confusion about the role of the state in the anti-budget cut movement.
Let’s be clear that the state, with its armed police and military forces, carries out its brute force when peoples’ consciousness begins to transcend capitalism’s ideological chokehold. What has been clearly demonstrated this past week is that resistance to the budget cuts is a class struggle that immediately brings us into confrontation with the force of the state.
The image of a protester violently resisting police brutality has certain activists blaming the victims of the brutality, pleading with militant protesters: “Why are you antagonizing them? You’re only making it worse!” It is an image that represents a political fact that we have been too slow to acknowledge – that education sector budget cuts are a particular point of a struggle involving the whole working class; a struggle against a crisis that presents itself to us as an increase in the overall disciplining of the working class; discipline which seeks to keep workers in line generating profits – especially when we refuse to go on as normal as everything around us falls apart. The escalation in the capitalist state’s corrective violence manifested on the UCB picket line is behind other seemingly disconnected government actions: the murder of Oscar Grant, ICE raids, and the wars in the Middle East. Behind every policy is an army of police.
The occupation of Wheeler Hall at UCB last Friday was a testament to the value of confrontational tactics. The common fear that a bold, confrontational action will look ridiculous and isolate the movement is proven to be out of date. Thousands of students played a spontaneously active role fighting the fee hikes and budget cuts. This action was incredibly democratic, inspiring, and educational because it materially mobilized the power of the people present at general assemblies held the day before. The occupation and the struggle to support it acted as a teachable moment by highlighting the farce that is the capitalist, liberal-democratic state.
The liberal-democratic state is a tool of the capitalist class, a means of bourgeois rule that by definition we, the working class, are shut out of. The question is: how do we resist government policies from our position completely outside the official, “democratic” framework of the state? In the campus movement, the two primary answers to this question have been popular organizing (general assemblies) and militant resistance (occupations). What happened last week at university campuses across California was a step toward a synthesis of these two approaches. UCB’s occupation was approved at a general assembly. This is a good development, but as this synthesis is reached a new contradiction presents itself: what is the role of the education sector (especially university students) in generalizing this wave of campus resistance towards including the rest of the working class? What active steps can students take to introduce the practice of militant struggle independent of ruling class structures?
The following was originally posted on Ground Report.
India has floated its signal of military intervention against Nepal by openly flying its supersonic fighter planes into Nepal’s territories on Monday once again, according to Radio Miremire based in Kathmandu. The radio has based its news coverage of the incident on the reports obtained from many locals of Western Nepal. According to several supersonic fighter planes roamed in the sky above Rolpa, Rukum, Salyan and Darchula, the strongholds of former Maoist rebels.
Nepal government has expressed its unknownness to the incident. However, local intelligence sources have admitted to the violation of Nepali territories by Indian fighter planes.
India had spied against Nepal by flying its fighter planes into Nepal’s territories on 21 October.
Local villagers of Salyan, Rolpa and Darchula, who clearly saw the Indian fighter planes over their villages. found the violation more threatening than before.
Analysts have viewed this incident as a possible symptom of Indian military intervention against Nepal.
Former Maoist rebels have accused the current coalition government as the Indian puppet. They have been campaigning against the government led by UML leader Madhav Kumar Nepal, defeated from constituencies in the Constituent Assembly elections held on 10 April. 2008.
The following was originally posted on Occupy California. We are including several videos along with the article. Special thanks to Alex and Maria for the videos.
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The Regents of the University of California voted, at UCLA, on 32% fee increases for students from November 17 – 19. (The CSU trustees are also meeting on these dates). Students through out the state of California are in an uproar.
UC Santa Cruz: over 500 students are occupying the Kresge Town Hall as of 3:45pm, Wednesday.
the details: hundreds of students rallied at the two entrances to campus shutting it down for several hours. Another group of 300 students entered into the Kresge Town Hall to create an organizing space around the budget cuts. Later in the evening, students at the entrances joined the others in the Kresge Town Hall. Currently, the space is being used to plan further actions.
UPDATE: As of 3pm, Thursday, UC Santa Cruz’s main administrative building, Kerr Hall has been occupied. Check out this indybay article!
Thursday 5:45pm: still occupied, discussing the night.
Thursday 6:30pm: Alma Sifuentes, Dean of Students has arranged to not call the police (the time frame is unclear) as long as students remain non-violent and do not create physical barricades.
Thursday 6:50pm: The administrators refused to provide a written-copy of the previous agreement.
Special thanks to Fabian from the UST Marxist Study Group for sending this our way! The original flier is available here.
Come join the Marxist Study Group to discuss great Marxist texts by Karl Marx, Mao, Lenin, Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg, and other Marxist authors.
The study group meets Thursday nights at the University of St. Thomas @ 7PM in Strake, Room 102.
For more information, email: marxistreadinggroup (at) gmail.com
All are welcome to join!
Note: the UST MSG will not be meeting Thursday, November 26th. The campus will be closed for Thanksgiving, so we will be meeting at 11AM Saturday, November 29th instead at Starbucks on Beechnut and 610. We will be studying On Contradiction by Mao Tse-tung and "Mass Line" from the Red Book.
The following is a summation of a series of counter-protests that took place at the University of Houston by Student for a Democratic Society at UH. These demonstrations we the first major demonstrations at UH in a long time, and brought together many new radical students and organizations. Special thanks to SDS and SFO for mobilizing these counter-protests!
This Monday morning the “Genocide Awareness Project” set up a disgusting and dishonest display in Butler Plaza in front of the MD Anderson library in the heart of the University of Houston Campus. The Genocide Awareness Project is put on by the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform their website (which is full of pictures and videos of aborted fetuses, and is also somewhat transparent in posting Tax returns which indicate that the only 4 compensated staff people are men) which is a California based non-profit organization that travels the country putting up photos of aborted fetuses.
They describe themselves as follows:
The Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) is a traveling photo-mural exhibit which compares the contemporary genocide of abortion to historically recognized forms of genocide.
So, they have photos of dead prisoners at a Nazi concentration camp, and a black man hung from a tree surrounded by white folks in the US South and a picture of an aborted fetus, with the caption “ungentile, unwhite, unborn.” This is a gross distortion of what genocide means, a falsehood designed to provoke emotional responses.
FIRE Collective members are about to speak on Houston Media Source's GreenWatchTV about the revolutions in Nepal and India. Here are a few helpful links to help viewers explore these issues:
Nepal
India
Many people think that radical change in society is not possible. But the events in Nepal and India are showing that revolutions can happen, and that they can liberate people. The FIRE Collective encourages more people to get involved.
Ernesto Aguilar and Eric Ribellarsi from our collective will be appearing live on the Green Party Houston's television show, GreenWatchTV to discuss revolution in Nepal, the Lalgargh rebellion in India, and the massive state repression in India called "Operation Green Hunt." We invite everyone to tune in and feel free to call in during the show with comments, questions, and criticisms at 713-807-1794.
The show airs Wednesday from 9-10PM in Houston on Comcast 17; TVMax 95; Sudden Link 98; and Phonoscope 75.
The show can also be streamed online live here. After the show airs the video should also be available here.
Special thanks to the Green Party for hosting us, and see you soon!
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