Under Lock & Key

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

In my research of Chican@ novelists and storytellers I stumbled upon this book by California Chican@ author Art Rodriguez.

What grabbed my attention initially was that the Author was also an ex-prisoner, as a youth he spent time in Juvenile Hall and the California Youth Authority (CYA) and specifically in Preston School of Industry where I also did a stint in as a rebellious youth.

The cover art was interesting, it was done in the genre of “Aztlán-realism” which is a style developed and coined by California prisoners which focuses on the social reality of the Chican@ nation rather than bourgeois vomit art. Aztlán realism displays our reality while raising consciousness. Rordiquez really delivers in his cover art by showing a one time landmark of San Jose, Califas which is the Jose Theater. The Jose Theater was a theater in downtown San Jose frequented by Chican@ lumpen youth. In the 1960’s the author states movie tickets were 50 cents and that up until the 1990’s tickets stood at a buck or two. Poor barrio youth had an alternative to the streets at an affordable price.

The author also shows an incarcerated Chican@ on the book cover, again, a true depiction of Aztlán: colonized and imprisoned. Although the story “East Side Dreams” is a childhood story of the authors’ life in San Jose, Califaztlan and Rodriquez could have chosen to depict bikini-ied wimmin on a local sports team to warm up to the local Chican@ petty-bourgeoisie who would rather pretend that captivity is not part of Aztlan’s social reality. Rodriquez brings Chican@ mass incarceration front and center which is refreshing.

Reading East Side Dreams brought back so much memories of my own childhood. Cruising around and hanging out with the homies, picking up and just being a Chican@ youth is all there. It’s very clear that Rodriquez didn’t concoct his stories from being raised in some ivy league prep school. He could have been one of my childhood homies, especially when he writes:

“Driving during 1966, sometimes the guys borrowed a car from someone or would take a car without permission. That’s what I would do occasionally.”

The lumpen continue in this tradition of “taking” without permission on a small scale. The lumpen may “take” from other lumpen, especially here in the $nakes where lumpen are not the lumpen of the third world and thus have more material items at hand. But this sentence reveals some truth – the lumpen will not ask permission. It is a “ballsy” lot who are most likely not to ask for permission, we will witness this during a future civil war I’m sure.

The author reveals he is the product of a Mexican migrant father and a white mother who met at a dance hall in the Barrio in East San Jose. As a result he hints at the national oppression that came with this union. For example, his mother’s white father (who was ironically raised himself by his white mother’s Mexican migrant boyfriend) who would tell Rodriguez’ white mother Mildred not to go to the dances because he didn’t want her to interact with the “bad people” (these were Chican@-Mex dances). Sadly though, Rodriguez does not analyze this and unpack why this national chauvinism (“racism”) exists or how it affected him and his homies growing up amidst it. This reveals that Rodriguez’s choice of either not wanting to “take his book there” (political courage), or not having the political consciousness to crack that open for us all to see.

It was nice to read about his mom opposing her father and siding with Rodriguez’s migrant father, eventually marrying him, having children, and even learning Spanish to communicate and to nurture Spanish in her children. As appealing as this biography was to me in depicting barrio life, I must say the parts describing being in the concentration kamp was more interesting to me.

Rodriguez describes a scene where he’s being taken out of Juvenile Hall by a “Chican@ guard” who reveals information to him whereas the white guards were menacing to him. It was interesting that Rodriguez objectively identifies the pig as a Chican@. Most would not, our mistreatment and oppression likely would have many identify the pig as many things but not Chican@. It is true that people identify as they please; a person can assimilate but without knowing what they identify as we can also identify what we perceive them to be (i.e. a blond hair, blue eyes white man or a New Afrikan womyn, etc.). We may not be right, but it’s our initial perception. A pig can be a Chican@ or a Chican@ traitor; but a Chican@ nonetheless.

It would have been nice to read a more political take on this book, but it was enjoyable to read a Chican@ novelist who does not bend to subjectivity in his novel and I look forward to review his other books available.