Under Lock & Key

The complex issue of dealing with homelessness here in the imperialist center has led to much debate within our party. In our current stage, we are engaged in consciousness building and raising public opinion, while it is our proletarian morality which compels us to struggle against oppression in all arenas. Homelessness is a crisis more serious than fentanyl and yet the capitalist state via its “supreme kourt” has recently determined that codifying homeless “sweeps” of encampments and criminalizing the homeless for being displaced is their remedy for the economic depression that capitalism creates. Surely communists can think of a far more humynizing solution.

At the same time, our responsibility here in the First World is not to follow the capitalist state around with a rag to wipe up its spills and a dust pan and broom to pick up its litter. We are not brainstorming to create reforms that simply make life in the occupied territories more bearable. We must fight oppression while serving the revolution.

Homeless Have National Oppression to Blame

The capitalist system is ultimately behind all social ills, and it was capitalism that first created a “surplus population”, which includes much of the homeless. However, looking particularly at recent rises in homelessness in the so-called United $tates, we can see how national oppression played a significant role in who became homeless.

During the 1960s and 70s, as the national liberation struggles peaked in the United $nakes, the movement suffered extreme repression from the U.$. government. Death and prison helped Amerika scale down the rise in resistance among the lumpen. As the 1980s arrived, so too did the introduction of crack cocaine to the ghetto streets – and soon followed mass incarceration. It’s important to note that during the 1960s and 70s there was not a homeless epidemic and there were no massive homeless encampments in every large city as is currently seen now. While statistics are not good, it’s possible that homelessness in the mid 1980s had reached rates that were double what they are today.(1)

Mass incarceration served the state in preventing another wave of revolutionary resistance. “Tough on crime” laws were enacted to curtail any efforts from the movement in the U.$. to regroup and reorganize the lumpen. As a result, the 1980s and 90s saw a mass capture of non-whites not seen on that level since the time of the middle passage. This mass incarceration – or mass kidnapping, to be more precise – led to the disruption and dissolution of the family unit while simultaneously injecting drugs on the scene. This mass kidnapping then led to mass displacement as single parents struggled to stay afloat often succumbing to escapism and criminalization themselves, only to be released to homelessness. Though the massive prison boom did allow for a shift of a significant portion of the lumpen from the streets to cages.

And while it is unclear how today’s rates compare to the 1980s, we are currently seeing a record in homelessness since the HUD started a more systematic count in 2007. And this has disproportionately hit oppressed nations again:

“This year’s big jump was driven by people who lost housing for the first time, which Biden administration officials say reflects the sharp rise in rent. The largest increase was among families, and the count also finds a significant rise among Hispanics. Nearly 40% of the unhoused are Black or African-American [who are only 12% of the general population -editor], and a quarter are seniors. The annual count does not include the many people who couch surf with friends or family, and who may be at high risk of ending up on the street.”(2)

We Don’t Want Peace with Amerikkka

Homelessness affects all of society in one way or another. Financially, it costs over 2 billion per year for former prisoners who are homeless.(3) If we look at it holistically, homelessness affects everything from mortality rates, healthcare, education, marriages, parenting, divorce, child welfare, the environment, etc. It’s unknown how this will affect future generations. What is known is that many of those in the homeless encampments, like most of those in the prison kamps, are Brown or Black. This all translates to economic oppression that the oppressed nations face with mass imprisonment, gentrification of their historic neighborhoods and of course being squeezed into homelessness. For those who support the empire, crumbs are flung their way, but for the lumpen who have no interest or intention to contribute to the U.$. capitalist system, an I.V. drip of violence, displacement, threat and trauma is fed to this population. When the United $tates describes “peace” for Aztlán, it is describing Chican@ capitulation to Amerikkka. To this, we decline, as we don’t want peace with Amerikkka, we want to be free. Our efforts to heighten the contradictions to step closer towards our goal of revolution and independence is what should guide us as we move toward our national interests.

The Nature of the Homeless

Marxism taught us that the natural laws can be harnessed in the interests of the masses. Under capitalism, there is a whole sector – the lumpen-proletariat, or the First World lumpen in the non-proletarian countries – who are systematically locked out of the production process and whose very lives are sacrificed in the name of profit and seen as castaways of society. The First World lumpen make up the vast majority of the homeless here in these false U.$. borders. Capitalist ideology here in the U.$. has been shaped by a long chain of oppression that has squeezed the colonized internal nations into our current state. White supremacy and slavery helped forge capitalist theory and practice and helped accelerate class development even surpassing Europe in many ways. Indeed, even James Bryce in “The American Commonwealth” documented the early stages of the U.$. petit bourgeois nature of the 1800s when he made several trips to the U.$. and wrote:

“In Connecticut and Massachusetts the operatives in many a manufacturing town lead a life far easier, far more brightened by intellectual culture and by amusements than that of the clerks and shopkeepers of England or France.”(4)

By the late 1800s, Amerikkka became increasingly bourgeoisified in many areas. By the early 1900s, U.$. imperialism would begin to exploit abroad, bringing the blood money back to these false U.$. borders and distributing it to buy off sectors of workers as investments to its future survival. But capitalism can never provide full employment and this means the alienated masses turn to the underground economy to survive. For many ex-prisoners, the underground economy is the only way they can survive. And for the homeless – which consists in large part on Injustice-impacted people – the underground economy is, for some, the only game in town.

When we examine the homeless population in the United $tates, we find that it is made up of many ex-prisoners(5). The internal semi-colonies are the majority percentage-wise.(6) This highlights the class contradictions within the United $tates as well. The state has imported European immigrants in their scramble to counter their social reality. The 2022 U.$. Census data shows that the white population in the U.$. would have decreased had it not been for 391,000 white people immigrating to the U.$. from Europe.(7) This approach to maintaining demographics favorable to the oppressor nation is nothing new, of course. Sakai points out how in the decades following the Haitian Revolution of 1791, it became “increasingly obvious that a ‘thin, white line’ of a few soldiers, administrators and planters could not safely hold down whole oppressed nations” which was the political impetus behind several waves of immigration from Europe in the 19th century.(8)

We can even trace the interconnection and evolution of homelessness and criminalization in the United $tates from pop culture to the prison gates. In the 1950s, Hollywood movies depicted the classic train riding “hobo” while prisons were filled with chain smoking conmen. Both populations were whiter than meemaw’s tuna casserole. Today, both populations are mostly Brown and Black, and yet the revolutionary movement here within the occupied territories have yet to bring us closer to finding a remedy with teeth. Only a remedy that helps the oppressed nations while undermining Amerika will be sufficient in this scenario. While searching for the consideration of homelessness in the occupied territories let us not lose focus of how national oppression ties into the equation, despite Amerika flinging crumbs to a myriad of agencies, case managers, construction companies, advocacy groups and so-called social services.

On the surface it appears as if the capitalists are using the profits they accumulate through exploitation to help soothe the very social ills that they create. Nothing can be further from the truth, as the Maoist Internationalist Movement’s Prison Ministry put it:

“Under capitalism, the anarchy of production is the general rule. This is because capitalists only concern themselves with profit, while production and consumption of humyn needs is at the whim of the economic laws of capitalism. As a result, people starve, wars are fought and the environment is degraded in ways that make humyn life more difficult or even impossible. Another result is that whole groups of people are excluded from the production system, whereas in pre-class societies, a group of humyns could produce the basic food and shelter that they needed to survive. Capitalism is unique in keeping large groups of people from doing so.”(9)

Indeed, the capitalists lock entire sectors out of the production process and create social band-aids that do not eradicate this mess. Imperialism creates a network of petty bourgeois jobs for Amerikans that feed off this population that we call the lumpen but which most know as the “Homeless”. The capitalists have devised a way to make the lumpen useful for keeping others busy and paid, while preventing the lumpen themselves from being productive for their own humynity.

The Prison Parallel

As mentioned above, another place we find concentrations of lumpen are the prisons, where they are treated similarly. A recent example of this is in California where the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (known as CAL/OSHA) recently attempted to address climate change and adapting to a rising heat epidemic. The State of California recently created heat standards for California workers. This would include more breaks and cooling and ventilation in all state buildings that respond to climate change. CAL/OSHA excluded California prisons and jails from the new regulations.(10)

The jails and prisons are lumpen centers where prisoners are often subjected to subhuman conditions, torture, medical maltreatment in HELLth care, not to mention outright murder by the state. The heat is also used against those prisoners who challenge the state in general and revolutionary prisoners in particular. Indeed, our Party has heard first hand accounts from some of our members who have been held in the U.$. concentration kamps (prisons). Our Chairman himself was held and tortured for a decade in the state’s Security Housing Units (S.H.U.) in solitary confinement, so our understanding of the conditions of prisoners is in depth. Some of the accounts we heard were that in the most humid prisons where temperatures in the summer rise to 110°F (43°C) the prison officials will turn on the heaters in the cells, while in the coldest prisons, even where it snows, the prison officials will crank up the air conditioning to make the cells like “ice boxes”. One comrade described how at a particular prison they were at, it was so hot in the cell that this comrade would pour water on the cement floor and lay on the floor only in underwear as it was extremely unbearable. Another comrade described that it was so hot at one Central Valley prison that it felt as if eir “insides were cooking”.

Science tells us that excessive heat also increases risk of stroke and other health problems. Those with pre-existing conditions or failing health will have their conditions exacerbated in extreme heat. The excuse cited for excluding prisoners from these new climate related protections was cost. It’s too expensive to humynize the lumpen. This points to another example of the lumpen simply being useful at this time to be given the bare minimum to exist another day in dehumynized conditions.

The lumpen are in a precarious position to say the least, here in the United Snakes and in any society for that matter. First World lumpen can have a hand in emancipating humynity here in the imperialist center or end up succumbing to its demise like the old couple who had been married half a century and when one dies the other spouse quickly follows. The lumpen plays a vital role where it can be bought off as foot soldiers for capitalism in its fascist development or as the lumpen developed in Maoist China as some of the fiercest fighters for the revolution in the form of the Red Guards.(11)

Marx hinted at this when he said:

“But capital not only lives upon labor. Like a master, at once distinguished and barbarous, it drags with it into its grave the corpses of its slaves, whole hecatombs of workers, who perish in the crises.”(12)

Today, in the First World, most “workers” are in the labor aristocracy and not the slaves of capital that Marx describes here. The lumpen, however, can be seen as “runaway slaves”, those who in many ways have cast off the tethers of capitalist society.

It is important that we understand that social control determines the mass influx of planation-like facilities which prisoners in the U.$. are compelled to endure as well as the lumpenization that comes with it. The future of the Chican@ Nation relies on us grasping this and responding in a way that advances Aztlán closer to independence.

Concrete Analysis of a Concrete Situation

The lumpen who mostly comprise the “homeless” within the U.$. are a resourceful bunch who organize in unprecedented ways within these false U.$. borders. In our party’s study, we have interviewed dozens of homeless people living in various modes of existence. Some homeless exist as couch surfers living persyn to persyn, some live in cars or RVs, some in cardboard boxes on sidewalks across the U.$., some live in mental facilities, jails or prisons and yet some live in abandoned buildings, parks, creeks and in homeless camps. About 62% of homeless in the general population are “sheltered”, while only 50% of former prisoners in the homeless population are “sheltered.”(13)

The encampments are of special concern, as they are the most organized of the homeless population. In the State of California, recent numbers show the homeless population at 181,000.(14) These are the numbers that could be documented, so we suspect the actual count to be much higher, probably in the range of 200,000, as there are many who live in the shadows and for many different reasons refuse to be counted by the state. It should also be noted that it was in San Jose, California some years back where some have called the largest homeless camp in the U.$. was found. This camp even had a name that the lumpen gave it – “The Jungle” and this encampment had up to 10,000 people living there, 10,000 lumpen, mostly Chican@s who existed for over a decade as a camp.

It is also interesting that the State of California which is not just a state within Aztlán but currently includes the heart of what the capitalists call “silicon valley” also has huge swaths of homeless people. So much wealth and privilege exists alongside such misery, poverty and hunger in this place where people’s lives are reduced to nada if those lives do not build capitalism. This reminds us what we are fighting.

The homeless camps are comprised of lumpen of all ages, including babies and the elderly. There are teens who have lived much of their lives in the camps. Many children are illiterate and relocating from camp to camp or from camp to “flying homeless” (i.e., living on sidewalks or in cars).

The larger and more established camps have a main organizer who acts as a warlord of sorts. These larger camps tend to be organized more on the model of U.$. youth survival groups, which the capitalists call “gangs” rather than lumpen organizations. These main camps have rules and penalties that go with them. The high crimes in these camps are crimes against children, for which the penalty can be a beating and banishment or even death depending on the severity of the crime.

The shot-callers within the main camps have hystorically been male, although the shot-callers tend to be more permanent while the rest of the community tends to be more fluid, with many relocating regularly or ending up in jail. In our study, all of the shot-callers have been imprisoned in some form, whether that be in county jail or prison.

Those who comprise these main camps “surface” to the streets sporadically for food, showers or to tap into the underground economy by any means necessary. Camp life tends to revolve around food, water and drugs. “Communal” living in the main camps is often injected with drugs. Drug use is rampant in the camps, although not all homeless in the camps are users. Some are sellers who slang dope in the camps making thousands in profits off their fellow lumpen’s misery and addiction. The prime drugs of choice in the camps being meth, heroin and crack. The dealers on the streets ensure that the main camps stay flooded with dope.

Most of the main camps are located in creeks, industrial areas, or under freeway bridges and underpasses. Many of the camps have electricity from stolen generators and power lines. Contrary to what people believe, many of the homeless do not bathe in the creeks even when their camps are in the creek. Many use camping showers or seek showers at community centers or at the homes of friends and family.

The factors contributing to the epidemic known as homelessness have been formulated elsewhere, we know that the heart of the problem remains to be capitalism. We understand that factors like hunger afflict the homeless population and throwing the homeless something to chew on has continued to be done by both liberals and religious conservatives alike and to no avail. As communists, we need to take action that translates to radically different terms and which is more impactful and deep reaching.

Identifying and heightening the contradictions here in the occupied territories of Aztlán while aiding the Brown masses and pushing the national liberation struggle forward on these shores is a key tenet of our party. Homelessness is one of the major fractures within the empire in which the development of resistance is likely, the other being the U.$. prison system. It is our duty to nurture these factors. In order to properly carry out our duties, we need to understand how the lumpen are currently responding to these capitalist assaults on their humynity.

Cultural Revolution

“Due to the precarious stratification of the lumpen, and the imperialists’ refusal to let us fully integrate into Amerika, our allegiance to the imperialists is more tenuous. As the lumpen experience oppression first hand here in Amerika, we are in a position to spearhead the revolutionary vehicle within U.$. borders” (15)

Social practice is the remedy which will deliver the Chican@ masses to national liberation. A heightened consciousness nurtured by and forged in the fires of political theory is the vehicle that we have awaited since colonization. As we struggle to rebuild the resistance that we need, the capitalist bribes sway our people to the tempo of their blood stained rhythm, and we listen to Lenin and dig deeper within the people to find those elements that continue to have nothing to lose but their chains. Here in the First World, those elements are the lumpen.

During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR), which took place from 1966 - 1976 in revolutionary China, revolutionary intellectuals were sent from the cities to the countryside to take revolutionary culture to the peasants and politicize them, learn from them, to engage them so that they can take their rightful place in contributing to the revolution. To many at the time, the thought of venturing out to the countryside was not inviting. To those truly seeking to contribute to the revolution, the sacrifice of having no running water or indoor plumbing was miniscule. This practice of sending urban intellectuals and professionals to do practical work in the countryside was also done in the Soviet Union from the very earliest days of revolutionary power.

Here in the First World, the lumpen (which includes the homeless population) are a potential revolutionary force that must be tapped. Marx taught us that capitalism prevents us from solving the social ills like homelessness and that only through socialist revolution will we realize this truth. Mao’s China solved many social ills amongst the lumpen including drug addition and prostitution, both of which are activities found amongst the lumpen (homeless) throughout the U.$. and as we begin this work of politicizing the homeless, or of bringing revolutionary culture to them, we are in essence preparing the lumpen for the revolution.

We believe that it is not a question if we should go to the homeless camps to bring revolutionary culture to the lumpen, we believe that it must be done. Our party has begun this task. Lenin describes our task ahead:

“We can (and must) begin to build socialism, not with abstract human material, or with human material specially prepared by us, but with the human material bequeathed to us by capitalism. True, it is not an easy matter, but no other approach to this task is serious enough to warrant discussion.”(16)

Although we are not “building socialism” now, we are building the conditions for revolution which will advance us toward socialism. We must take action, social practice amongst the homeless – on their turf. Cheerleading for the homeless in front of City Hall or sliding them a burrito is cute and subjectively fulfilling to an extent, but it moves the lumpen not one iota towards resistance or revolution. Comrades, we must do more than the churches and more than a liberal non-profit. As communists, our role is not to make the lumpen more comfortable under capitalism, rather we must prepare the lumpen for insurrection.

It is important that we work towards transforming the homeless camps into political bases, safe zones with Chican@ cadre in every camp throughout Aztlán. But we should also take our endeavors in this field seriously, as the state has captured or killed Chican@ revolutionaries for lesser ambitions. Amerikkka is deadly serious in its repression, we should be just as serious in our evasion and resistance and utilize a strong security culture as we move through the camps. There is much potential in the lumpen encampments and the enemy knows this.

Marx taught us that the lumpen were indeed the “dangerous class”. We agree that there is a certain danger in interacting with the lumpen, just as there is a certain danger of interacting with the capitalist state, not to mention the white settler nation in general. History has taught us that to be colonized is dangerous as well, so we have learned to struggle through generational danger and in many cases to do so armed and ready to resist.

At this stage, we only seek to bring revolutionary culture to the lumpen encampments as we see it as complimenting our efforts to raise public opinion. At the same time, we stand firm that ultimately it will be through armed struggle that Aztlán will be free and the lumpen will play a key role in the national liberation struggle here in the internal semi-colonies. Here we agree with Fanon when describing the lumpen, he said:

“…that horde of starving men, uprooted from their tribe and from their clan, constitutes one of the most spontaneous and most radically revolutionary forces of a colonized people.”(17)

As Fanon suggests, the lumpen moves differently. It is not a class which succeeds at town hall debates or boycotts. Hit the lumpen up when it’s time to boogie, when violence explodes in the metropole and the capitalist state feels the slugs of liberation, for this is the arena in which the lumpen excels. Forged through oppression, the lumpen will perform on the stage built by the bourgeoisie and their collaborators. But the party must perform as well and the movement more broadly must perform. We must perform agitation and propaganda (agit/prop) and do so well amongst the lumpen.

In “Combat Liberalism”, Mao discussed how liberalism prevents people from acting on living up to their obligations as communists. Among other things, he points to failing to show concern for the masses and not engaging in agit/prop. There are many reasons why people practice liberalism. In many ways, some have fallen into liberalism here in the occupied territories. Many within the movement have opted out of reaching back into the lumpen encampments to those alienated not only from labor but from society as well. In this sense, the party seeks to combat liberalism in this field.

Some have wondered what is to be done with the lumpen encampments, “what is possible?” some ask. There is much work to be done. We need our presence felt, we need to become a regular presence in the camps and begin to inject them with revolutionary culture – with art, literature and teatro. We need to gain their confidence and to teach and learn – from the masses, to the masses.

The Chican@ movement of the past never dealt with the homeless in this way, although the homeless epidemic was not in existence to today’s levels we must be honest that scant attention was given to the homeless in general. Today’s Chican@ movement must do more as the next generation must in turn do more than us and continue to build.

The lumpen encampments are self-governed as the pigs or other state agencies rarely ever go into the camps. We see that there is potential in these zones, especially with their concentrated amount of lumpen. We believe that by focusing our energy on this demographic, it will complete our overall strategy of winning this struggle for national liberation. There is much work to do in these camps, but political education is essential and a stepping stone to developing dual power in these zones.

Let us be clear that any weakening of resolve about the task ahead only helps Amerikkka and hurts the struggle for national liberation. At the same time, our efforts are not to set up re-entry services for the homeless lumpen, on the contrary, our efforts are to set up and recruit the lumpen to serve the people. We are not seeking reforms, nor do we believe in them, rather we agree with the BLA that

“reform of the oppressive system can never benefit its victims: in the final analysis, the system of oppression was created to insure the rule of particular racist classes and sanctify their capital. To seek reform therefore inevitably leads to, or begins with, the recognition of the laws of our oppressor as being valid.”(18)

Reform is only tactical in getting the boot off our neck long enough for us to breathe to fight and resist the oppressor nation another day. Likewise, the oppressors laws and kkkourts mean nothing to us, as they are illegitimate to the core, we only navigate them in order to plot the demise of Amerika.

The lumpen encampments, like the prisons, are fertile grounds for resistance. In the First World, we are forced to dig deeper into the social forces to find those who are not bribed by the profits stolen from the Third World pockets. Our efforts today are for the Third World.

^{Notes:
(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_the_United_States - gives a homeless rate of 0.09% in 1990, but mentions this was probably an undercount; it gives 200-500 thousand as the homeless count in 1984, which doubled by 1987 - at the high end this would put homeless rates at 0.22% and 0.42% respectively; the 2023 rate was 0.19% the highest rate since HUD began gathering data more accurately in 2007
(2)Jennifer Ludden, 15 December 2023, Homelessness in the U.S. hit a record high last year as pandemic aid ran out, All Things Considered.
(3) “The Economic Burden of Incarceration in the U.S.”, from the Institute for Advancing Justice Research and Innovation”, October 2016, George Warren Brown School of Social Work.
(4) “The American Commonwealth”, by James Bryce (1888-1959, Vol II, pp.557-58).
(5)According Prison Policy Initiative analysis of HUD data, formerly incarcerated have 2% homelessness rate compared to 0.21% of the overall population. A Harvard Business review article says there are about 5 million formerly incarcerated in U.$.; 2% of 5 million is 100,000; .21% of 350 million is 735,000. Based on these estimates, formerly incarcerated are less than 15% of homeless in U.$. streets.
(6) about 61% of homeless are oppressed nations according to stats in “Defining and Measuring the Lumpen Class in the United States: A Preliminary Analysis”, by MIM(Prisons), July 2016.
(7) U.S. Census Bureau.
(8) “Settlers”, by J. Sakai (2014, pg. 52).
(9) “Defining and Measuring the Lumpen Class in the United States: A Preliminary Analysis”, by MIM(Prisons), July 2016.
(10) “Prisons are a Cruel Exception to Heat Rules”, by Nicholas Shapiro and Bharat Jayram Venkat, the Mercury News, July 14, 2024.
(11)Wiawimawo, October 2018, Sakai’s Investigation of the Lumpen in Revolution, ULK Issue 64.
(12) “Wage, Labor and Capital”, by Karl Marx.
(13)Lucius Couloute, August 2018, Nowhere to Go: Homelessness among formerly incarcerated people, Prison Policy Initiative.
(14) “Newsom Orders Sweeps of Camps”, by Ethan Varian, The Mercury News, July 26, 2024.
(15) “Chican@ Power and the Struggle for Aztlán”, by a MIM(Prisons) Study Group, 2015, 2021, pg. 14.
(16) V.I. Lenin, “Left-wing communism – an Infantile Disorder”, Collected Works, Vol. 31, pg. 50.
(17) “The Wretched of the Earth”, by Frantz Fanon.
(18) “Collected Works of the Black Liberation Army”, pg. 111.}

The recent Zionist attacks on Rafah signaled to the world that the imperialists are in lock step as they cut a hideous path of genocide through Palestine. U.$. imperialism has given the nod and wink to forge ahead as we all watch, as we all mourn.

The imperialists have circled the wagons despite the world responding in disgust. The people should also come together, all sectors here in the internal semi-colonies also known as the United Snakes.

Of special interest is two sectors who defy the pull of capitalist bribes. This defiance arrives from different paths and yet our party feels they are both anti-imperialist in nature. These sectors in the United $tates are the prison movement – made up of prisoners, former prisoners and outside supporters, and the other sector being the student movement – being the students on school campuses across the country.

These two sectors have the least to lose and the most to win when it comes to revolution. Both bring that passion and fire needed to ignite the flame of real resistance and thus should find ways to resist in tandem.

A free Palestine, like a free Aztlán, will only happen when anti-imperialism is exercised in a united front between all oppressed and allies. The world sees that Palestine is deserving of peace, for it is life while Israel signifies death!

The student encampments that were attacked by the state and their goons were a glimmer of hope that the youth here in these false U.$. borders hold on to their humynity in the face of repression. Standing up for the national liberation of Palestine, putting their freedom and their lives on the line so that the Israeli settler colonialists stop the attacks on Palestine.

Chican@s stand with Palestine because we are also colonized by imperialists. The Chican@ nation stands with the students who dare to struggle. Imprisoned Aztlán awaits our student allies in the concentration kamps so we can build and solidify our struggle with a common political enemy.

The Chican@ movement struggles against imperialism too, we stand up to settler colonialism, and genocide as well. Imperialism is what creates the conditions where kids in cages is normalized whether we are talking about in U.$. prisons or Israeli prisons.

We have a moral obligation to stand against the genocide in Palestine. We are obligated as conscious people to stand with oppressed people always.

Power to the people!

I$rael’s war on Palestine is without a doubt a genocide.

There has been a groundswell of support from people around the world that conclude that the settler state of I$rael needs to be brought to justice and that Amerika has given the “greenlight” for the genocide to ensue.

At a recent protest over I$rael bombing an Iranian consulate in Syria, killing several Iranian military intelligence personnel, Hamas responded with a statement saying among other things that Amerika has given the green light for this bombing by not denouncing it. We would agree and go further by stating that Amerika has green-lit genocide since it first arrived here in Turtle Island over 500 years ago.

It strikes us as odd that the world would be shocked about Amerika standing by in the face of the genocide happening to Palestine when Chican@s, First Nations and New Afrikans know first hand that the United $tates is not only a client but a pathfinder in the realm of genocidal settlerism. We should remember it was Amerika who inspired the likes of Hitler in honing his genocidal craft, an evaluation of evidence supports our point.

In the mire of the oppression being rained down on Palestine, especially with I$rael assassinating those it has targeted even in other countries – or in embassies! – we just glean what lessons are available as the world gets a bold example of what colonization looks like today.

If we are in fact at the conclusion that Amerika – who gives I$rael billions of aid each year – is giving a wink and a nod to assassinating government officials of sovereign countries, it poses the question: how might revolutionaries here in the imperialist center of the world prepare and respond?

We should start by understanding that in today’s world genocide arrives via stages of development by the imperialist agencies. These stages are 1) Intelligence. 2) Analysis. 3) Logistics and 4) Operations. What we are seeing happen is war plans, whether we are talking about the streets of Gaza or the barrios of Califaztlan it all starts with intel.

The oppressor nation identifies its threats and its assets – on the ground or online. Because we are in the stage of building public opinion here in the United $tates we can be vulnerable to data mining that is employed by agencies globally. Search bots that are known as “spiders” search the internet 24/7 mining through open source material and all public records to find any links to revolutionary data, i.e. people, groups or theory. They snatch everything: Facebook posts, chat rooms, blogs, news stories, financial records, visa applications, etc… which can all be harvested quickly on a daily basis, programs like starlight or spire can then sift, cross reference and separate non-essential material while then targeting links that lead back to intended targeted people or groups within the movement. In this way the state is able to closely monitor not only a movement’s vanguard but anything that metastasizes out of the movement as well, that is everything in its realm of influence. Once data is compromised with the help of programs like Analyst Notebook, it reveals the internal structure of an organization and its international links as well. All of this intel helps the oppressor nation develop its genocidal programs which not only furthers its own interests but the interests of its allies like the settler state of I$rael.

Here in the occupied territories that some call Amerika, the internal semi-colonies have long known about Amerika’s stance on genocide. Chican@s and other oppressed nations who languish in the prisons, in the control units, and on Death Row overstand that Amerika green-lights genocide. The Brown and Black people, gunned down every day by Amerikan police know this as well. The Chican@ nation and other oppressed know because our land and resources are occupied and controlled by the capitalists who neutralize us when we threaten the occupation.

End The Genocide!

The methods employed by the U.$. government that are directed at the internal semi-colonies are vast. Although counter insurgency is a practice taken up by many oppressor nations globally, it is unique within the U.$. empire because of the magnitude of national oppression in the form of mass imprisonment of the internal nations and the fact that the carceral state has in fact created the very conditions that uphold and nurture insurgency from its very bowels. U.$. counter insurgency has had a program in place which changes names but stays consistent in targeting its enemies within the prison system in general and those within the prison movement in particular. Methods employed today within U.$. prisons and especially prisons within Aztlán (the so-called “U.S. Southwest”) are meant to declaw our young Jaguars and to seduce the nation into a role that is at war without shield nor spear.

It is this clear persynal experience in being a target of COINTERLPRO which led to the culmination of this paper. Our party sees the need to begin this conversation in the nations so that not just Aztlán but all who fight colonization and the hyper-policing, frame ups, state-sponsored terror, and assassination can begin the hard work of guarding against counter insurgency in an era that demands our boots on the ground to stomp out the rising tide of repression.

Revolutionaries are organizing daily in the occupied territories to raise consciousness and heighten the contradictions whenever they arise through agitation and political education. The state and its apparatus is also working hard daily to subdue our efforts and seduce our young jaguars into the temptation of empire and all the trappings of U.$. imperialism.

Chican@ units and organizations that influence the nation to challenge the state and set out on the path of liberation and independence are targeted. The imperialist state will do everything in its power to prevent socialist revolution from developing in Aztlán and beyond. Our role as Chican@ revolutionaries should be to hold workshops in every barrio of Aztlán where the ideas of socialist revolution are realized and embraced, it is the duty of Chican@ communists to respond to U.$. counter insurgency in this manner. Only by mobilizing the entire community, the entire barrio in this way, will we ever finally get over the obstacle of U.$. counter insurgency.

Political Line Is Decisive

In our analysis we uphold the idea that ideology is key in how we move. Political line helps guide us in our political endeavors and we must constantly make adjustments and test our theory in order to maneuver in ways which push not just the Chican@ movement forward but the whole International Communist Movement (ICM) forward as well. We realize that the trappings of living in the imperial core among the world’s labor aristocracy pushes many to believe that revolutionary organizing is not a life-or-death choice. The Communist Party of Aztlán (CPA) feels otherwise. Indeed we see that – even here in the First World where most “workers” are bought off by blood stolen from the Third World – revolutionary organizing is a matter of life or death to the Chican@ nation. If we do not set out on the task of organizing Aztlán and revolutionize our nation it will succumb to capitalist roaders. For this reason this paper serves not just as a study guide for oppressed nations but also as a cri de coeur (cry of the heart) for the raza to grasp the urgency that we see in the great task ahead or our nation may die.

Although we have a huge responsibility positioned here in the heart of imperialism, as we combat counterinsurgency and mobilize the people we have no confusion about the fact that the Third World leads the ICM and our efforts here in the First World merely compliment them. Maoism as an ideology is clear on this despite the eye rolls from the trots, who have never led a single successful revolution.

It is crucial that Aztlán comes to grasp the reality of the class structure in the United $nakes – as well as in Aztlán – as being made up of petty-bourgeois class forces. The exploitation of workers does not exist on the scale that it did in Lenin’s Russia, on the contrary, what exists today in the occupied territories for the most part is a labor aristocracy whose life support remains connected to the value extraction from the Third World. We need to move from this perspective and understanding. Aztlán’s future demands that we grasp this. Political line must be decisive in order for our tactics and strategies to be effective in our struggle for national liberation in the midst of the counterinsurgency offensive. Ideology allows us to identify our friends and separate them from our enemies. This does not mean we will not take losses to state repression. it simply means that we will be better equipped to continue in this beautiful struggle against oppression.

As Maoists we realize that being triumphant over U.$. counterinsurgency efforts and the occupation of our homeland will only happen when the U.$. government has been completely overthrown and a complete revolution on these shores has occurred. Anything short of that will prevent real liberation from being realized for Aztlán.

As a party for the Chican@ nation we believe the Maoist concept of mass line is the way forward. It is the Chican@ masses who define the path by their ideas which are synthesized by our party. The raza will make hystory. Ultimately, our job is to engage the people into realizing their power.

The U.$. government is at war with Aztlán, yet the tactic of low intensity warfare pulls the wool over our eyes and clouds our social reality from being realized except for the more politically conscious. Even among conscious raza in general, and communist raza in particular, one of the things which separates revolutionaries is the understanding, which Mao pointed out, of class struggle continuing not just under a socialist government but even within the party itself as a bourgeoisie develops within. Understanding this Maoist doctrine in pre-revolutionary times is perhaps more crucial than even picking up the gun in revolution. Even in our current battle of raising public opinion and evading counterinsurgency tactics by the state, grasping this doctrine helps anchor us on the path to liberation rather than the capitalist road.

Raza of all political stripes may be targets of the imperial counterinsurgency campaign. Many may even be successful in evading state repression, yet evasion per se is not the objective, our aim of course is national liberation. As a semi-colony existing in the world’s imperialist center Aztlán’s primary objective is national liberation. We cannot help free other nations if we are not yet free. At the same time we should also identify that in order to win a war for national liberation we need a Raza Army, a Raza Army that is led by the CPA.

U.$. Counterinsurgency

Counter-insurgency is a military concept meant to partake in certain actions that neutralize insurgents. The United $nakes target and identifies politically conscious and revolutionary folks within the occupied territories as insurgents and has designed a program that aims to destroy us and our efforts. This program attempts to neutralize us “legally” according to its own illegitimate “laws”, but will resort to cold-blooded murder if necessary.

Most of those targeted come from the oppressed nations. This is not to say that most anti-imperialists or revolutionaries are from the oppressed nations, but that the U.$. knows that it will ultimately be the internal nations that tip the scale in our favor come civil war. AmeriKKKa has worked hard to brainwash the oppressed and although they have managed to ward off the seizure of power by the oppressed they truly never gained real legitimacy in the eyes of the raza. At the same time the imperialist center has not held on to the internal colonies and its global influence for nothing, indeed they pour billions each year in its various agencies in order to hold onto white power.

Communists often say we are “professional revolutionaries” because we take our role seriously and understand that many times our very lives are at risk as we organize here in the Snakes. We should also grasp that the imperialist state also sees itself as professional oppressors because it is their lives that are in peril should revolution succeed.

The oppressor’s counterinsurgency methods rely largely on intel. Information about the intended target is essential. Knowing everything about a target is vital to take that target down cleanly. The state agents are like hunters at this stage of struggle, one of their roles is to stalk their prey, find its habits and activities so that when it’s time to hunt they’ll know whether to use a bullet, crossbow, knife or simply poison the water hole. We give them this intel wittingly or not because they can only find a trail that we ourselves leave.

In the year 2023 our party took some hits by the state. It’s interesting that in the California prison system the number 23 is a known symbol of white power so in some sense we anticipated the white power structure to strike in some way. But 2023 was also a year of growth and development for the CPA. We were able to learn a lot from the repression that was rained down on us when our Chairman was kidnapped.

National oppression in the form of imprisonment is one of the weapons the state uses in its counterinsurgency campaign. When targeting revolutionaries the state will often raid a cell or do a round up sweep but allow one or two to “get away”. This tactic is meant to study the regrouping method and allow the one or two “lucky ones” to lead them to the others. It reminds me of an ancient Chinese tactic, where Chinese families for thousands of years have caught cormorant birds on Weishan Lake and tied string around their throats, letting them dive in lakes for fish while being unable to swallow, in this way recruiting a fleet of slaves for the master fisher. This is also akin to probation/parole.

The state also employs agents of various stripes who do in fact infiltrate revolutionary groups and cells. Counterinsurgency aims to neutralize insurgents. The state identifies those who take up agitation and/or organizing in order to reach our goal of national liberation. Once identified these individuals, groups, or organizations become the state’s target. Various methods are used in surveillance, but of course human intel is always preferred by the state. Plants who give the state the ins and outs of a target’s daily functions as well as goals and objectives or war plans are golden.

The FBI and CIA both utilize various assets for COINTELPRO – like operations which spawn various counterinsurgency actions. Their assets may be a partisan, prisoner, or paralegal. Most people can be utilized so nothing should be a surprise and people should be on a need-to-know basis from a comrade to a lover. We should also understand that the $tates’ wet dream is to in fact have the comrade or lover of a target as an asset, it is the golden egg in the realm of counter-insurgency.

Assets

Assets come in many forms as has been stated. The state may employ a deep cover asset which would provide undercover intelligence and assist the state in gauging the threat. By alerting her/his controllers to an impending “crime” which can be real or imagined, for example the deep cover asset may report that a target has an arsenal of firearms at their residence which may not even be true, the controllers will either obtain probable cause for a search warrant or will send in an undercover informant within the scenario who can then corroborate the asset’s intelligence. An informant’s job will be to record conversations (wear a wire or plant bugs) and to get up on the stand in open court to swear on their undercover “evidence”. With regard to revolutionaries, this “evidence” is usually the most outlandish story imaginable so long as it neutralizes the target. An informational informant would be one whose only role is to gather intel to feed to the agents but would never reveal themselves nor get on the stand in open court. Such informants usually work for years in this way and almost always join the movement in some way, in an organization, as an occasional protester or in today’s world as some sort of online activist . . . the point is they will attempt to stay familiar to revolutionaries and to gain the raza’s trust in some way.

COINTELPRO

We can never hear too much about COINTELPRO, (counter intelligence program) which the U.$. government unleashed on the people in the 1950’s. Initially COINTELPRO was used during the “Red Scare” when communists in these false U.$. borders were targeted and terrorized. The state would infiltrate communist organizations and even study groups gathering intel in order to strike. In the 1960’s the repression continued this time on the oppressed nations.

AmeriKKKa trembles at the thought of a Leninist cadre organization developing on its shores, its stomach turns when professional revolutionaries are conceived in its putrid womb. Our existence can only be realized if security measures are upheld to guard against COINTELPRO attacks.

The state employs COINTELPRO tactics to entrap or even assassinate our leaders. It develops moles of all types and agent provocateurs to get our cadre killed or captured. It slanders our brightest and most dedicated and frames those who can’t be neutralized any other way. The imperialist state does the unthinkable in order to keep the slaves holding their own blinders and covering their own ears. Just as the unjust cruelty is unleashed on the Third World, our most cherished acts and ideas are thoroughly violated in order to inflict the most damage to the movement. Not only are emotions like love defiled, in some cases they are weaponized to serve the imperialist masters.

Today we have the memory of COINTELPRO and even of the pigs that have been mostly etched out for us from seasoned revolutionaries or from the dusty pages of library shelves. But we define a pig as the MIM defined it in their pamphlet “What’s Your Line?”:

“A pig is a police officer or other representative of the government’s repressive apparatus, especially one who breaks down people’s doors or quietly infiltrates a movement.”

We often think of a pig as a uniformed badge-wearing slave hunter but, according to the above definition, how many pigs are really out there?

Our party has enacted security precautions because of COINTELPRO attacks that we suffered in 2023. We do not name members of our party. How can organizations that are seeking to seize power identify themselves to the enemy who will come to kill them when the revolutionary war arrives? Why would we arm the state with a list of those it should round up? Why would we hand them the thread to pull apart the fabric of our party?

Those who scoff at the warnings of COINTELPRO are those who consciously or not believe in the fantasy of U.$. “democracy”. They have a disdain for those who attempt to raise the alarm of COINTELPRO and who raise consciousness around these matters. These Ti@ Tacos usually embed themselves in progressive orgs and wallow in cultural nationalism if they are raza. They essentially feel safe in the United $nakes. We should identify these Toms and learn to never feel safe among them or their kind.

Most recently it was reported in the corporate U.$. news that the settler state of I$rael assassinated the leader of the Palestinian resistance in its current war on Palestine. We hear these selective strikes happen all the time yet many are still oblivious to the fact that the oppressor nation and its agencies always keep lists of revolutionaries. Their flow charts list leaders of the movement it has identified and will strike at will. We should move like we know this.

Hystorical materialism teaches us to learn from hystory in order to transform the future, and COINTELPRO in the 1960’s taught us lessons when it came to the Black Panthers. For example, the FBI sent in informants and agents who identified what groups the Panthers were funking with, and one such group was the black nationalist organization United Slaves. The feds ordered their agents to foment conflict and heighten tension. Within the Chican@ movement today we see this play out in various forms. In order to guard against this we need a no tolerance policy in this area.

Tactics

AmeriKKKa has been very creative in its efforts which have helped to stunt the growth of any real rebellion that confronts U.$. imperialism. Since colonization the state has employed various tactics to the oppressed nations, often utilizing others among the oppressed to do the $tates’ bidding. An early record from the U.$. army from Geronimo touches on this:

“Reliable Indians will be used as auxiliary to discover any signs of hostile Indians, and as trailers. This is the fifth time within three months in which the Indians have been surprised by the troops . . . given them a feeling of insecurity”

The above gets into the mindset of the imperialist state. It tells us that – despite many among the oppressed internal nations feeling as if they are mere fingerlings in the geo-political landscape – the state sees us as extreme threats. The U.$. government wants to know who the hostile people are, who the rebels are, the anti-imperialists, the revolutionary nationalists, and all the enemies of the state. The state also wants to psychologically harass and confuse us, at one time this was accomplished by horseback and today it is via the internet.

Prisons are also a target. The state knows very well that when revolutionaries are captured they continue with their duty to raise consciousness and to politicize the very concentration kamps they are held in. La lucha don’t stop in any sense of the word, if anything the struggle accelerates because of the uncut repression that prisons and prisoners experience.

The FBI actually created a prison activists surveillance program (PRISACTS) in 1970. This was meant to crush the prison movement. The methods used were military tactics which Orisanmi Burton calls “carceral spaces as zones of counter-revolutionary warfare” in Targeting Revolutionaries. This government project displays the lengths to which the state is willing to go to neutralize revolutionaries even when they are imprisoned. We take these methods serious as all people should as we all have comrades who have been captured if we are truly fighting imperialism.

Outro

The state ultimately works to seduce our raza with financial incentive, integration, or intimidation. We need to build a stronger security culture which strengthens our efforts in the anti-imperialist movement. Counterinsurgency efforts by the state are real. Our role in the empire is real.

We need to build stronger networks that nurture and support our imprisoned and captured comrades. We cannot forget about those who sacrificed their lives by being on the front lines. The front is wherever we find ourselves, even behind the razor wire and in the concentration kamps. All Power To The People!

Communist Party of Aztlán

The October 7th attack that was launched by Palestine in the war for national liberation is but a response to their colonization from the hands of the settler colonialist Israel. For decades the Palestinians have maintained a consistent push for freedom to live without the threat of genocide at their doorstep. The Chicano nation overstands the need to struggle under the brute heel of colonization, our occupied territories – like the Palestinians – will not be free until the oppressor nation is overthrown point blank period! For this reason Aztlán stands with the Palestinian people in their freedom struggle.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry since 7 October 2023, 2,670 Palestinians have been killed [as we go to press that number has doubled] and Israel has continued to spread its disinformation in regards to the cause of the savagery unleashed by Israel. The truth is the Israeli war on Palestine has the full backing by Chief Colonizer in the World – the United Snakes. The U.$. completely ignores the decades of war crimes Israel has unleashed on Palestine, from white phosphorous cluster bombs to terrorizing generations of Palestinians with death and psychological warfare.

Today the U.$. propaganda “news outlets” snivel about 20 alleged U.$. citizens being supposedly held in Gaza. [By the time this article went live, Hamas had released two elderly prisoners who reported being handled “gently” and seemingly treated better than many prisoners who read Under Lock & Key in the United $tates.] Once again the people here in these occupied territories are being fed snake oil in preparation for U.$. Special Ops to enter Gaza and provide full technical and logistical support for its settler brethren. For this reason we hear a lot about allegations of violence from groups within Palestine. But how about the Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah who was murdered on Friday the 13th of October 2023 after Israel unleashed a brutal shelling on Palestine?

The Chicano nation stands with Palestine and welcomes the wrath of resistance that oppression harvests.

Viva Palestine! Viva Aztlán! Free Palestine! Free Aztlán!

The Old Gringo
by Carlos Fuentes
1985

Fuentes has written a couple dozen novels and many consider him one of Mexico’s literary icons. I previously picked up one of his novels that I never got to finish so when I stumbled upon this novel I was determined to complete it and learn more about how Fuentes sees the social reality of Mexico.

This novel is set during the Mexican Revolution, depicting the mystery of a real life dissapegrande in 1914. Protagonist “The Old Gringo” is an Amerikkkan journalist who travels to Mexico “to die”.

Fuentes is a skillful storyteller who nudges you through the story with comedy and nuance. At the end of chapter 2, Fuentes quotes “The Old Gringo” as saying: “To be a gringo in Mexico . . . Ah, that is euthanasia”.

Ahh if only . . . It’s known through historical records that during the time of the Mexican Revolution, at least with Pancho Villas line, being a gringo in Mexico actually was euthanasia. Villa at one point gave ‘gringos’ 24 hours to leave Mexico or get the wall. The white oppressor nation was 86’d, but today, sadly Amerikkkans are welcomed by the Mexican bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie who partially are dependent on dollars from El Norte. Mexico’s economy overall depends largely on U.$. dollars.

The Mexican Revolution was essentially a revolution against capitalism internally and U.$. imperialism externally, which in the form of “foreign investors” was exploiting Mexican resources while the people starved. On page 29 Fuentes writes on this and the remedy:

“. . . flee from the Spanish, flee from the Indians, flee from the servile labor of the encomienda, accept the great cattle ranches as the lesser evil, preserve like precious islands the few communal lands, the rights to land and water guaranteed in Nueva Vizcaya by the Spanish Crown, avoid forced labour and, for a few, seek to preserve the communal property granted by the King, resist being rustlers or slaves or rebels or displaced Indians, but, finally, even they, the strongest, the most honorable, the most humble and at the same time the most proud, conquered by a destiny of defeat, slaves and rustlers, never free men, except by being rebels”.

Here Fuentes skillfully walks us through the dilemma of landless people who even out of the most humble circumstances are left with one choice to be free: rebellion. Fuentes also hits on a struggle close to the Chicano nation, which is the land grant struggle enshrined in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Mexican@s, like Chican@s were given land grants that were to honor contracts and titles for communal lands that families and villages held since the arrival of the Spaniards. Much of these lands had been held in common “communally” for even hundreds of years BEFORE Spanish colonization. During the time of the Mexican revolution the capitalists on both sides of the false U.$. border began to disregard land titles and confiscate communal lands by force. Fuentes rightfully highlights that rebellion is the remedy.

It was refreshing to see Fuentes mention the encomienda system, something rare in novels these days. The encomienda system was a debt peonage system in Mexico where, although Mexico is commonly touted as ending slavery before AmeriKKKa, it continued with this plantation-like labor servitude before during and after the Mexican Revolution of 1910.

A good chunk of the book is spent on bourgeois ideas of ‘The Old Gringo’ and the White Teacher, Harriet Winslow who is actually his daughter. Lots of descriptive wordage is spent in an attempt to captivate the reader in an agonizing trip that results in a yawner. But every now and then Fuentes shakes us out of our literary coma with a sharp and vibrant realness that pulls us back into captivating fiction, as on page 64 when he quotes Villa’s General Arroyo:

“Ask yourself how many like me have taken up arms to support the revolution,, and I am talking about professional people, writers, teachers, small manufacturers. We can govern ourselves, I assure you, Senorita. We are tired of a world ruled by caciques, the Church, and the strutting aristocrats we’ve always had here. You don’t think we are capable, then? Or do you fear the violence that has to precede freedom?”

Fuentes captures the reality of freedom. It is a process that can only be birthed through the canal of violence. Capitalism leaves no other option. The reformists will have us attempt to vote freedom into reality, which has never been realized. Even many so-called “revolutionaries” have not developed the correct line on liberating a nation, the truth is that the oppressor will never relinquish their power willingly. Although conditions today are not ripe for armed struggle and we do not promote that stage of resistance today, the truth is as Mao put it: political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

‘The Old Gringo’ travels to Mexico to join the revolution. A journalist and veteran of the U.$. civil war, he goes to die in Mexico. Perhaps tired and demoralized from an AmeriKKKan life. Yet, he ends up being the conscious voice of the white nation, especially when Harriet Winslow defends the “forefathers” in an evening debate with The Old Gringo. He hands it to her by replying “We are caught in the business of forever killing people whose skin is of a different color”. And forever killing non-whites has indeed been AmeriKKKa’s business since its inception. Fuentes delivers the stark reality of the white nation. Our ancestors in their graves confirm this and would applaud Fuentes for translating this even in novel form.

I have read many novels but none that analyzed William Randolph Hearst, the media magnate/U.$. propagandist. In this novel ‘The Old Gringo’ is a journalist working for Hearst before leaving to ‘die in Mexico’.

Hearst was known for war-mongering and saber rattling through his bourgeois rags in the interest of the U.$. empire. When the Mexican Revolution popped off Hearst had front page headlines urging AmeriKKKa to act, prodding the U.S. government to intervene formally.

Fuentes goes past merely mentioning this and even provides a succinct but excellent political analysis of this in the most simplistic way where on page 81 he describes The Old Gringo participating in the propaganda campaign aimed at Mexico during the revolution:

“This land . . . He had never seen it before; he had attacked it by orders of his boss Hearst, who had enormous investments in ranches and other property and feared the revolution; but as he couldn’t say ‘Go protect my property’ he had to say ‘Go protect our lives, there are North American citizens in danger, intervene!’”

In a nutshell Fuentes deciphers U.$. imperialism. Protecting property abroad for U.$. interests, well put Fuentes. Many of the wars in the modern day stem from this protection of U.$. interests. This war was brought to the surface some years back when U.$. Vice President Chaney , who had been part owner of Halliburton, was outed when the public learned Halliburton profited from the very war that Dick Cheney endorsed. Capitalism profits from death.

‘The Old Gringo’ ends with General Arroyo shooting and killing ‘The Old Gringo’ after The Old Gringo begins the papers (land grant deeds) identifying that the communal lands belonged to the people. The papers destroyed, the land is no longer the peoples’. One can say that ‘The Old Gringo’ in the story represents AmeriKKKA, that old land thief AmeriKKKa who one day will face justice.

I have long been a fan of novels, particularly those revolutionary gems that capture a world not yet here. Culture, which books and art fall into, is powerful and a huge tool for our battle in the realm of ideas. Proletarian literature is crucial to our movement globally and particularly the Chicano Movement (CM). The CM hasn’t churned out a lot of revolutionary novels based in dialectical materialism that depict our social and economic reality. Fuentes could have dug deeper, perhaps inserted characters from political trends or parties of the time in order to analyze these political lines, or highlight the fallacies in them. Nonetheless, despite the shortcoming in the book, it did highlight some key points and does so in an inviting way and is worth a read.

Last year prisoners in Texas took the opportunity of the declaration of a federal holiday on Juneteenth to launch the Juneteenth Freedom Initiative (JFI), triggering a repressive response from the state prisoncrats at the TDCJ. The JFI campaign said:

“As you may know, Juneteenth has now been made a federal holiday in amerika. On this day many will sing the praises of Our oppressors or otherwise negate the reality of the lumpen (economically alienated class), that according to amerika’s 13th amendment We are STILL SLAVES. While We do not wish to nullify the intensity of the exploitation and oppression that New Afrikan people held in chattel slavery faced, We must pinpoint to the general public, those upcoming generations of youngsters looking to follow Our footsteps, that to be held in captivity by the state or feds is not only to be frowned upon but is part and parcel with the intentions of this amerikan government, and its capitalist-imperialist rulers. We say NO CELEBRATING JUNETEENTH until the relation of people holding others in captivity is fully abolished!!”

The Juneteenth Freedom Initiative put forth demands and calls for action including:

End Solitary Confinement! End Restrictive Housing Units(RHU)!

End Mass Incarceration!

Transform the prisons to cadre schools! Transform ourselves into NEW PEOPLE!

The history of utilizing Juneteenth to fight the torturous long-term isolation cells in U.$. prisons didn’t start last year with the campaign to shut down the RHU. At the 2011 Juneteenth celebration in Berkeley, CA, MIM(Prisons) did an extensive outreach campaign in support of the first round of historic hunger strikes to protest the SHU in California. These we see as proper ways of honoring the spirit of Juneteenth, which is a holiday that was kept alive for over a century by the New Afrikan nation before the United $tates took it as its own.

In his 2022 book on the history of Texas, historian Gerald Horne points out some holes in the story of Juneteenth being paraded by the bourgeois Liberals of the Biden regime. He points out how the Emancipation Proclamation did not really extend to the territory of Texas that remained beyond the jurisdiction of the Lincoln government. Texas was an independent state of Euro-settlers claiming territory from Mexico in 1836. Texas remained its own country until 1845 when it joined the United $tates. By 1865, Texans were strongly considering rejoining Mexico, which was temporarily under the rule of the French puppet Maximillian in order to maintain the system of slavery. While this did not happen, slavery continued in many parts of Texas for many years after the historic date known as Juneteenth. According to one source, “two-thirds of the freedmen in the section of country which I travelled over have never received one cent of wages since they were declared free…” Horne cites another source saying “the freedmen are in a worse condition than they ever were as slaves.”(Horne, p.457) Texans were determined to hold on to their slaves until the U.$. government came in to compensate them for their “property.”

Some fifty years after so-called emancipation, the war continued to wage between the newly coalesced white oppressor nation and the oppressed nations in the region of Texas.

“However, given the dialectic of repression generating resistance – and vice versa – it was also during this same period that Jack Johnson, the heavyweight champion from Galveston, was forced into exile in order to elude spurious charges and wound up in Mexico City during the revolutionary decade. There he sought to establish a beachhead against Jim Crow. It was also then that the monumental “Plan of San Diego” was crafted, which was said to involve retaking the land seized improperly by the U.S. during the war of aggression of the 1840s and establishing in its stead independent Black and Indigenous polities."(Horne, p.565)

In 2017, USW comrades launched a campaign to commemorate the Plan de San Diego each August, as the military operations carried out in southern Texas by units of 25 to 100 men against the Euro-settlers reached their high point in August and September of 1915. If you want to commemorate this revolutionary history this August, write in and ask for copies of the Plan de San Diego flier to use for outreach and get more ideas for how to honor that history.

^{NOTES: Gerald Horne, 2022, The Counter-Revolution of 1836: Texas Slavery & Jim Crow and the Roots of U.S. Fascism, International Publishers, New York.}

VariegatedCrot0n on Reddit: [this was posted on reddit.com in response to the announcement of the founding of the Communist Party of Aztlán] I’ve been researching the debates on Aztlan & Chicano nationalism. It seems to me the line of the League of Revolutionary Workers (ML) and the RCP-USA, and the rest of the NCM (New Communist Movement emerging from the late 1960s) in support of Chicano nationalism was inherited by MIM and now continued by MIM(Prisons). The entire conception of Aztlan and Chicano nationalism has some serious problems, that I hope MIM(Prisons) reckons with sooner, but I think they have been very invested in this idea for quite some time now.

As I understand it, Chicano nationalism draws heavily from Indigenismo – an ideology of the settler colonial Mexican state that says that all the inhabitants of Mexico are indigenous, all are Mestizos, and so on. Such an ideology is fundamentally anti-indigenous as it seeks to indigenize Mexican settlers. The conception of Aztlan is similar – it is a land claim based on the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo – land taken from Mexico during the Mexico-American war. It’s worth noting that the treaty itself distinguishes between Mexican settlers in this territory and Indigenous “savages”.

While it is true that a section of the colonized proletariat of the America is from Mexico, I am convinced that they are not members of an oppressed Chicano nation. They are more often members of Indigenous nations in Mexico displaced from their homelands.

Chicano nationalism is ultimately a form of settler nationalism. It expresses the class interests of mainly Euro-Mexican settlers against Euro-American settlers. It disguises the legitimate claims for decolonization by oppressed indigenous and African nations in Mexico and the American Southwest, by pretending that all Chicanos are descendants of ancient Aztecs. It is extremely unfortunate that this ideology has taken hold in America’s prisons by people who are not connected to Aztec/Nahua people, culture or elders.

I’m not an expert in this, I’m still learning much about it. But I’m just letting you know that the issue is a lot more complicated than it seems from the outset. There’s lots of liberal carry-over on reddit where I see people lumping all POC together and assuming they are revolutionary. Which is just not the case.

Xipe of the Communist Party of Aztlán responds:

On Indigenismo

Chican@ revolutionary nationalism has often been misunderstood. Our belief is that this is due to the Chican@ Nation not meeting its responsibility in addressing a correct political line to the ICM (International Communist Movement) on the one hand and in the ICM’s mostly incorrect analysis of the social forces within these false U.S. borders.

To be clear the CPA does not draw heavily on indigenismo – which is steeped in metaphysical trappings. We draw heavily on materialism. As materialists we recognize that not all inhabitants of Mexico are indigenous – although according to Jack Forbes most are! What’s more We disagree with your understanding that Chicano nationalism believes all are “mestizos” in Mexico, the CPA(MLM) believes that the term Mestizo is actually a label deriving from the colonizers agit/prop that strips Chican@s of many features of nationhood. “Mestizo” is anti-materialist, that as Jack Forbes suggests, is better suited to describe many of the European nations such as Italy, Sicily, etc.

Our analysis overstands that the inhabitants of current day Mexico are a combination of bloodlines that include indigenous, Spanish colonizer, African and others. And yet blood quantum don’t define a nation. We draw from Stalin on the national question for what defines a nation and we thoroughly address this in the book Chican@ Power and the Struggle for Aztlán.

On Land

It seems to many that the political line of some Chican@ cultural nationalists is interpreted as the political line of the entire nation, this is incorrect. Our stance on land does not simply derive from the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, although we certainly cite this treaty in much of our agit/prop surrounding our struggle for national liberation. To rely simply on the colonizers treaty to validate our struggle for national liberation is akin to anti-imperialists within these false U.S. borders simply relying on the U.S. Constitution to validate its anti-imperialism. Although one can use the imperialists’ words and articles against them, we are not reformists who simply want our class enemies to re-word a document or follow its own law. We want a complete transformation of society and to free the tierra! Our lucha for land is for a Chicano Socialist Government not for permission from the colonizer to own acres of land under an imperialist rule.

Those who confuse Chican@ revolutionary nationalism with the settler need to study the development of nations, specifically the book Chican@ Power and the Struggle for Aztlán, which includes the political line of the CPA when it comes to a nation. We ask those who are curious on our line to read the Chican@ Red Book (Chican@ Power and the Struggle for Aztlán).

Even if the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was never written our national liberation movement would be just. Chican@s developed in what is now the “U.$. Southwest” as surely as Africans developed in what is now Haiti to become Haitians. Our line is not anchored in us believing we are descendants of ancient “Aztecs” – although some actually are! We overstand that the term “Aztlán” was used 50+ years ago within the Chican@ movement as a rallying cry and point of unity for Chican@s of the time and we see the relevance of using it in our struggle today.

The state has once again kidnapped the comrade Jose Villarreal (JV) on trumped up charges. After over a decade in the deepest dungeons of Pelican Bay State Prison’s Security Housing Unit, JV was released to the streets in January 2017 following the historic California hunger strikes and the Agreement to End Hostilities (AEH) between the largest lumpen organizations in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) at the time. This is the second time JV has been arrested since eir release. In addition, ey has faced armed raids by the pigs at eir place of residence.

The first arrest following eir release from Pelican Bay was on 2 August 2020 from an incident where JV may have saved someone’s life, but was charged as an accomplice instead. Eir arrest this winter was almost completely fabricated, with no basis in reality. And due to having been a certified member of a “Security Threat Group” (STG) in Pelican Bay ey faces gang enhancements on both sets of charges. Gang enhancements are a way to punish the oppressed for free association with others in their nation.

While the circumstances of the 2020 arrest are suspect, as are any when a revolutionary leader is targeted, the 2022 arrest is based on fabricated testimony rather than an actual incident. This testimony is coming from someone who presented emself as a revolutionary Chican@ nationalist. If the 2020 incident was a setup, then JV diffused it by eir righteous actions in a dangerous situation. Perhaps the state learned its lesson and decided it must fabricate charges in a he-said/she-said case.

In the six years since eir release from CDCR, JV has become most well known for eir radio program Free Aztlán on Poor News Network’s KEXU 96.1 FM in Oakland, California. Over the years JV featured Chican@ authors, researchers, artists and activists of many stripes. They advocated for the “kids in kages”, the migrant field workers, prisoners, and even did a series on the abuse of young people in spiritual movements targetting Chican@ nationalists. Ey was a regular promoter of the book Chican@ Power and the Struggle for Aztlán and the struggles for national liberation around the globe. JV also was apart of Aztlán Press, which published the second edition of Chican@ Power and the Struggle for Aztlán.
Listen to the CPA(MLM) announcement (starting at 8:00)

On the last episode of Free Aztlán before eir recent arrest, JV hosted the public announcement of the founding of the Communist Party of Aztlán (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist). Eir track record of advocating for national liberation, and eir support of the foundation of the Party in particular, is clearly behind the state’s machinations to imprison JV once again on trumped-up charges.

While MIM(Prisons) recognizes CPA(MLM) as a fraternal organization, it is no secret that we promote a cell structure strategy of organization. We’ve received push back on this in the form of calls for a centralized organization, a movement that spans the country, and a center for training and developing scientific leadership. These are some of the things the CPA(MLM) felt that Aztlán needed. They felt a party was needed to combat/compete with the parties that now mislead the masses under bourgeois political lines.

JV’s connections to various projects, and the connections between different chapters of the Republic of Aztlán are public record on the internet. We do not promote this form of organization. We see the hybrid of online and irl (real life) organizing to favor the strengths of the state over the weaknesses of the masses.

Lest we need reminding, the repeated targeting of JV exposes the lengths to which the state will go to suppress even a young emerging movement like CPA(MLM). JV has been tireless in eir work in the Chican@ community to promote positive change. No proletarian court would convict em of a crime. A socialist justice system would uphold JV as the best-case example of what someone can make of emselves after decades in an oppressive, abusive, torturous prison system.