THE HANDSTAND

june 2005


We need a new anarchist movement!
by Rob Los Ricos

http://victoria.indymedia.org/news/2005/04/40285.php

Never forget that almost every "white" person has a god complex. They feel like they are entitled to determine how other people think, act and feel. Also, most of us are not accustomed to the level of privilege that middle class white Americans enjoy. Back in the 1970s, when the U.S. police forces began attacking the Black Panthers, a few of their white "comrades" came out to help. When push came to shove, very few white people of privilege will stand by our sides.


A lot of ya'll reading this probably don't know much about anarchy and anarchism, so you might have a lot of questions. Too bad this medium doesn't allow for back and forth discussion, because I'd love to answer your questions, but to give you an accurate account of anarchist history and theory would require a book or two. And a lot of that history and theory has been rendered obsolete by the current New World Order. The media tells us that the world changed forever on 9/11/01. The NOW was already functioning before then and had been in the process of being implemented for a century. But that , too, is another long story. What I want to do is let you know where I stand as a Tejano, working class political prisoner in a movement dominated by white middle class students and activists.

Anarchy? The simplest explanation is the best: no rulers, or no authoritative power.
Anarchism: the theory that all forms of government are oppressive and should be abolished.
Anarchism is what I believe is obsolete in this day and age. It's a 19th century ideology that lost relevance when it became clear that capitalism would win out over socialism as the dominant social order in the industrial west. This was in questions until recently. When capitalism won, we entered the New World Order.

Back in the day, anarchism was the most militant, revolutionary branch of the socialist milieu. Anarchists played vital roles in the revolutions in Mexico, Russia and China. They were active throughout Latin America, Asia and Africa. Anarchists staged their own revolution in Spain, which was crushed by the fascist armies of Franco, Hitler and Mussolini. [ "The Spanish Anarchists" by Murray Bookchin (the only subject he's written about that is worth reading) and "The Bonnot Gang" by Richard Parry (Are anarchists terrorists?)]

But that was in a different era, when technology and progress seemed like they would give the world a future of unlimited abundance shared by all. The disintegration of the Soviet Union cleared the way for a newly unified global economic and social order. Now we can all go about the business of fueling the engines of capitalism as consumers.

In the real world, however, wealth is being reserved for increasingly fewer people, natural resources are being used up and it's getting more difficult to provide for oneself, economically. The promise of a world of material abundance was a lie, and many people didn't fall for it. [ "The Imagination of the New Left: A Global Analysis of
1968" by George Katsiaficas and "The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many" by Noam Chomsky]

Worldwide Uprisings and the other American Revolution >From 1968-1972, people all over the world rose up to challenge the established states for the control of their own lives. It didn't matter if they were communist or capitalist: students, workers and peasants worldwide protested, organized and revolted against the pettiness their lives had acquired.

The most significant uprising took place in France, where a coalition of students and workers nearly succeeded in overthrowing the government and the intellectual shackles of Marxism.

The Situationist International describe life as having been so trivialized by social and economic forces that people were nothing more than spectators in their own lives. [ "The Society of the Spectacle" by Guy Debord and "The Situationist International Anthology" by Ken Knabb] This was a brilliant insight, and it's a shame that they didn't cast off their Marxist dogma as they had shed their roles as passive witnesses to history.

Here in America, people inspired by the civil rights movement and the determination of the people of Vietnam also rose up against our government. We fought a revolutionary war here in the U.S. from 1970-1972, though many fought on throughout the 1980s. This is where many of our current political prisoners come from. Try to find THAT in your history books! You'll have more luck looking through back issues of newspapers.

The government ultimately won, but it was not an easy battle. Anyone who researches that time will find massive mobilizations of police, National Guard and U.S. Armed Forces in almost every major city and most universities. Activists, revolutionaries and union organizers died and tens of thousands were imprisoned. Though a few groups reformed and continued to fight, most of us were left wondering where we went wrong. It seemed at the time that we were winning, that radical change in the way the world was evolving was possible.

It was this period of self-reflection that eventually led to new questions, a deeper analysis of society and the crises the future would bring us. And anarchists, for the most part, were the ones asking the questions and looking for answers, even if these inquiries led in unexpected directions.

Alienation The key point to understand in the current anarchist scene is ALIENATION. Alienation is so central to the NOW that it can't exist without alienation. As a matter of fact, as more history and archeology students began to make critical examinations of the "progress" of history, it became all too clear that, not only do we not live in the best of all worlds, but the ascension of the west to world domination is a catastrophe rather than a divinely ordained blessing. Especially when one considers how our technological civilization treats the Earth-as
both a source of wealth to plunder and as a garbage dump.

The thought that human beings are apart from the natural world, rather than a part of the Earth, is the original source of alienation. This is what made civilization possible. Once people began to build cities, they developed a feeling of superiority over their fellow humans. So, first people became alienated from their habitat, then from one another. The rest, of course, is history.

One point an anarchist scholar highlighted was that few people became civilized willingly. [ "Against His-story, Against Leviathan" by Fredy Perlman (hard to find), "Rebels Against the Future" by Kirkpatrick Sale, "My Name is Chellis Glendinnign and I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization" by Challis Glendinning (easy to find and a great read)] They were either conquered by the armies of the "civilized" people or adopted civilized ways in order to prevent such conquests. People often equate the ability to conquer with the level of a civilization's development. But let me ask you, is the desire to kill on a massive scale in an efficient manner a sign of a healthy intelligent society? How do wars of conquest affect the warriors? And how will they, in turn, affect their society when they return to their families? Also, how does such a conquest mentality affect the society as a whole?

You see, alienation is the root of all of civilization's problems. We are alienated from our environment by the belief that we are its masters. We are separated from other cultures by feeling we are rivals. We are in competition with our neighbors and struggle for domination within our own households. Our short-term desires can supercede our commitments to and relationships with the people in our lives. Our lives are so determined by alienation that almost everyone is resigned to live lives that bear no resemblance to their innermost desires. Not only that, but most people actively pursue daily routines that will prevent them from living rewarding, fulfilling lives. Alienation from our own selves is so entrenched in our social consciences that we think, "Well, that's just the way it is."

No, that's not the way it is. That's the way YOU make it. Things could be very different, but we will have to MAKE it different.

And Now For Something Completely Different It is not possible to create a new society, one based on integration with other people, our inner (higher) selves and the world at large within the context of our current society. A new society must be built outside of this one. By working "within the system," one is only integrating oneself further into the system. That's how the New World Order works. Anything that expands or requires economic activity feeds the system. It's what is expected of us. We are going to have to create new lives outside of the realm of economics and alienation. That means devoting our life energy to making these changes, as opposed to working for wages or otherwise acquiring money. This may sound scary and weird, but let me clue you in on something: Many native peoples have festivals where everyone gathers together and gives away all their possessions. At first, some people may have a lot more than others, but by the end of the festival, everyone pretty much as an equal share. Such outpourings of communal devotion are such a threat to civilized alienation that they are illegal in Canada and the U.S. Ponder over that for a moment.

It is evident then that not only must a new social order arise outside of the current one but it must be done in secret. The government will not allow it.

A Fugitive Future It is up to us, ourselves, our friends and the people we love, to create a future we can truly believe in, one that produces healers instead of serial killers, that cherishes teachers, not athletic rapists. To anyone who reads this, that means sacrificing a lot of privileges. It means facing times of peril, material deprivation, even hunger. But what is the alternative? Nearly universal poverty, famine and internal wars of attrition like the War on "drugs" and "terrorism." Does a worldwide police state appeal to you? I doubt it, or you wouldn't be reading this. [ "Nation of Terror" by Noam Chomsky, "Snitch Culture" by Jim Redden, "Lockdown America" by Christian Parenti (highly recommended)]

And never forget that almost every "white" person has a god complex. They feel like they are entitled to determine how other people think, act and feel. Also, most of us are not accustomed to the level of privilege that middle class white Americans enjoy. Back in the 1970s, when the U.S. police forces began attacking the Black Panthers, a few of their white "comrades" came out to help. When push came to shove, very few white people of privilege will stand by our sides. The ones that will are rare and awesome folks and should be cherished. But for the most part, the white kids will run crying to Mom and Dad after their first arrest, and certainly after the bullets start to fly. The ones with the most to lose will likely become informants, too. ["Pacifism as Pathology" by Ward Churchill and "The War at Home" by Brian Glick]

I know you have experience dealing with issues of trust. All I can add now is to nurture your hearts and stop doing things that don't make you feel proud for being who you are. One of the most hideous aspects of the NWO is how it encourages a sameness in all of us. Cultural and ethnic divisions become marketing gimmicks. Obscure languages disappear, taking with them their people's oral histories, folk tales and other folk wisdom. In the NWO's schemes, we are all Americans, ready and willing to sacrifice our lives in service to the creation of wealth and privileges for an elite. We must resist this by embracing our uniqueness.

I could go on and on, but I hope I've given you enough to think about. The challenges the present and future present us are formidable, but not insurmountable. The NWO wants you to believe that it is omnipotent. The truth is, it requires our cooperation to function. Creating new lives for ourselves won't be easy, but the rewards are unimaginable. Giving birth is always this way.

see also:
http://victoria.indymedia.org/news/2003/09/16680.php
anarchy in black and white

"Inevitably, some black radical groups work on issues that many anarchists are opposed to. For instance, most anarchists are just as opposed to black capitalism as they are to white capitalism. Most anarcho-activists recognize the danger of entering different communities and evangelizing there. This is elitist and can also be interpreted as being racist, since so many anarchists are white."

http://www.defenestrator.org/roblosricos/writings/We%20need%20a%20new%20anarchist%20movement!.htm

Wachovia apologizes for slavery ties of predecessors
http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-bz.slavery02jun02,1,2547971.story?coll=bal-business-headlines
--------------------
By Laura Smitherman
Sun Staff
June 2, 2005


Wachovia Corp. publicly apologized yesterday for two predecessor institutions that owned slaves or allowed them to be used as collateral, and it revealed that two of Baltimore's oldest banks profited indirectly from slavery. The nation's fourth-largest bank disclosed its ties to the slave trade in a 111-page report to comply with a Chicago ordinance requiring companies that do business with the city to determine whether they had profited from slavery, which was abolished by the ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865.

"I apologize to all Americans, and especially to African-Americans and people of African descent," said G. Kennedy "Ken" Thompson, Wachovia's chairman and chief executive officer. "We know that we cannot change the past, and we can't make up for the wrongs of slavery, but we can learn from our past and begin a stronger dialogue about slavery and the experience of African-Americans in our country."

Wachovia hired a research firm, the History Factory, this year to draft its report. A seven-person team spent more than 1,800 hours mining records from sources including the Library of Congress and the Maryland Historical Society. The team pored over old bank ledgers, newspapers and personal letters. It looked at 400 institutions that dated to 1781 and eventually became part of Wachovia, focusing on 19 of them.

Companies have launched historical fact-finding missions after Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Detroit passed similar laws calling for disclosure of financial links to slavery. Meanwhile, lawsuits have sought billions of dollars in reparations for descendants of slaves from such corporations as R.J. Reynolds Co., Aetna Inc. and CSX Corp. JPMorgan Chase & Co. disclosed that a predecessor bank in Louisiana allowed slaves to be used as collateral. The company apologized in January and set up a $5 million college fund for students in the state.

Wachovia plans to work with community groups to further education about African-American history. The Wachovia researchers found that the Georgia Railroad and Banking Co., founded in 1833 to complete a railroad between Augusta and the interior of the state, used slave labor and owned at least 162 slaves. The company later sold the railroad business and became part of First Union Corp. in 1986. First Union bought Wachovia and took its name in 2001. The Bank of Charleston, founded in 1834, accepted at least 529 slaves as collateral on mortgages or loans and took possession of those slaves when customers defaulted. Wachovia's connection to the bank can be traced through a 1991 merger with South Carolina National Corp. The researchers also looked into the Bank of Baltimore, which was established in 1795 and came into the Wachovia network through First Union. Its founders owned an undetermined number of slaves. Baltimore County records showed that one founder, George Salmon, emancipated a slave, thought to be a 20-year-old named Sulky. The researchers said the Bank of Baltimore profited indirectly from slavery through its relationship with Maryland, which was a slave state that had $174,000 invested in the bank's stock. The Savings Bank of Baltimore, established in 1818 to cater primarily to the poor and working classes in the city, indirectly benefited from slave labor through antebellum stock investments in Virginia, which also was a slave state. The researchers also noted that they uncovered references to the accounts at that bank held by free blacks.

Wachovia spokesman Scott Silvestri said a public housing development project in Chicago prompted the bank's soul-searching. "While that brought the need for the research, we thought it was important for us to be completely up front about everything," he said.

Copyright (c) 2005, The Baltimore Sun
Link to the article:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-bz.slavery02jun02,1,2547971.story?coll=bal-business-headlines


Thoughts on 13,000 J.P. Morgan Chase Slaves in Louisiana in 1830

Kweku, a brother working tirelessly for African Reparations over in Europe recently posted some comments about the recent news about J.P. Morgan Chase's apology for their profits from 13,000 slaves in Louisiana in 1830 through two of their original corporations. Chase has announced a $5 million scholarship fund for slave descendants in Louisiana. Listen to how Kweku crunches the figures on the $5 mil.

"It is only limited to 5 years. Where is the unlimited time frame? Due to higher cost, this amount ($5 million) is nothing because the universities are charging more and more each year. So who really wins financially educating our people, Black or White Colleges/Universities? From $5 million at about 30 grand a year for college means that only 166 Blacks can attend school for 1 year today. Chase said it gives $5 million and yet Chase had 13,000 slaves as collateral which equals $384.6153846 per head, a mere and pitiful $384.00 and .61 cents per person for about 1 year back in 1830. Where is the interest and the labor fees our ancestors are due? How long did they work hourly, monthly and yearly? 1830s until the Civil War? Not until the Civil War but should be calculated for today and each passing day. Why let the bank limit this only to the State of Louisiana
because some of our ancestors affected left or ran away from the State which are not accounted for nor thought of."

The slavemaster class, among other methods, maintains control through the control of concepts, the control of history. So Europeans/or European Americans have divided up our history and or reality into various schisms. There is the myth of the North and the South, that slavery was a southern thing. The fact is that Massachusetts was the first Colony to legalize slavery; and remember Wall
Street, Newport and the rest.

Another piece of magic is the year 1865. Time stopped at 1865 and began again in 1866 since we were "free". However, slavery is still with us. "Either we are free or we are slaves" (Frederick Douglas). Yet another great European schism is African American versus African, and somehow African Americans are not really African because we have so-called been mixed by Europeans. Never mind that the whole world is of African descent in anatomical and physiological terms. And that doesn't mean that White People get African Reparations either.

So, as Kweku intimates, we are supposed to accept Chase's territorial schism, that they just abused slaves in Louisiana. So we are supposed to permit the slavemaster class illegally transport us to another jurisdiction by force of arms and we are supposed to accept that we are Louisianaians or Americans or whatever without a plebiscite (referendum). Yet the U.S. wants everybody else to make sure they have a referendum and forces them to have one. Well, what about a national Black Plebiscite to see who wants to be a Louisianaian or whatever. We never had any choice, so we are not obligated to stick with their territorial definitions of what and who we are.

The legal fact is that what occurred to us was one continuous act and not all these various territorial, temporal or philosophical schisms. It goes like this according to Attorney Dr. Robert L. Brock:
1) A priori our enslavement existed in the mind of the European who traveled to Africa to capture bodies into slavery. There was no trade intended. There were also no African kings or queens in Europe when Europeans
2) decided to invade Africa for bodies. They did not come in trading, but came in blowing off heads with guns to demonstrate their superior war machinery. It was war, not trade; burning down villages, raping our women, sodomizing our men, and writing volumes on the average size of the Black Man's penis (see Livingstone in Africa).

So then there was the
3) War of Enslavement. Our military resistance to our
enslavement and colonialism is well chronicled (Michael Crowder, ed., West
African Resistance, Africana Publishing Corporation, New York, 1971.) There were
other African Resistance Movements all over Africa. The South Africans fought
the Europeans from the latter part of the 17th Century to 1910 when Bambatha and
his 500 men were defeated and Bambatha's head was paraded through the streets by
the Europeans. But African Resistance was not yet over in Southern Africa. The
ANC, SWAPO, FRELIMO in Mozambique, MPLA in Angola, Cabral in Equatorial Guinea
and on and on.

After the War of Enslavement came
4) Capture ad Seizure. You know, we didn't agree to get on the ships and there were no Black captains. So this was
5) Forcible Expatriation from our domicile (s) of origins, so how did we become Louisianaians and Americans without asking us? Nor did the Europeans ask us if we wanted to be Americans. What we are is, we are "enemy aliens" captured and seized,
6) illegally transported by force across ocean and seas (Maritime Law) into a forced jurisdiction, made
7) chattel slaves then made
8) physical slaves and no we are mental slaves who don't know we are still in slavery. So it is all one continuous act of enslavement and using slaves as collateral in Louisiana is the same as using African slaves as collateral Boston or Newport. It is the same People under the same circumstances. The Chase trick is to create the schism. So we will get all frustrated about the Tulsa Blacks suing for Reparations like that is different, or Rosewood, like that is different, or Tuskegee, like that is different and so on ad infinitum. We need to unite so that they will have to deal with us. A $5 million "gift" from Chase has no legal bearing on Restitution (it is not Reparations) unless the Class of People to whom it is directed agree to the amount and determine how it will be used through plebiscite and duly elected representatives. Hey y'all, don't let the Europeans break this thing up into pieces. It is all about what they did to us as Africans, not as Louisianaians or Americans, or free blacks or negroes or coloreds. We never called ourselves negroes. Where is negro land? We are illegal enemy aliens taken from our domicile (s) of origin into a forced jurisdiction. Even Moors over here came under forced jurisdiction. And the Washetaw themselves were seized. The slavemaster class can't prove they have any legal jurisdiction over based upon our mutuality any more than we can prove that we are U.S. Citizens. It never happened based upon law.

Omowale Za
African Reparations Activist
http://ReadingDoctor.com/atrocity/