Under Lock & Key

Yesterday, U.$. Presidents Trump and Biden announced a cease fire deal between their military outpost called I$rael and the Palestinian resistance, primarily represented by Hamas. Palestinians are celebrating in the streets for this potential respite from the 15 month onslaught that has turned Gaza to rubble and murdered 47,000 Palestinians officially and closer to double that in reality. Despite these heavy losses, the cease fire is a victory for the Palestinian resistance that has not folded after 15 months of fighting a much more heavily funded occupier. The United $tates says that the fighting forces in Palestine have increased in numbers since 7 October 2023.

At this writing, the peace deal has not begun and has not officially been signed by I$rael. I$rael has continued to murder Palestinians in recent days, including one reporter who had just announced the planned peace deal to the world. And the imperialists continue to spread lies about Hamas holding up the deal. Investigative reporter Jeremy Scahill says ey saw a signed deal by all of the Palestinian resistance representatives days before the deal was announced, when Biden was claiming they were waiting on Hamas.

The deal is a victory for the Palestinian resistance, in meeting their immediate demands, including a prisoner exchange that is supposed to release some who were sentenced to prison for life by the I$raelis. The deal will also involve I$rael’s withdrawal from and the rebuilding of Gaza. At this time no details are public.

I$raeli press has credited Trump with forcing the deal that has been drafted during the Biden presidency and is scheduled to begin the day before Trump’s inauguration. Trump had demanded a deal happen before he gets into office. The Trump administration has continued to call for the total elimination of Hamas, and the deal seems to also force a demilitarization of all Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip. While the majority of Amerikans opposed the bombing campaign of the last 15 months, they do not support a liberated Palestine. Trump seems to be willing to at least pause the slaughter that Biden supported and to appease the minimal demands of many Amerikans, but he is no friend of the Palestinian people. Those who demanded “Ceasefire Now!” may have their demand met, but this is not the first time Palestinians have celebrated in the streets after a deal is struck with I$rael. There is an antagonistic contradiction between the I$raeli settlers and the Palestinians of the land that is far from resolved. And indications have already been made that I$rael does not intend to see the deal through past the first phase. Only time will tell how the imperialists will behave in Palestine in the coming weeks and months. But the struggle for the national liberation of Palestine lives!

Greetings Revolutionaries, activists, thugs, radical students, pimps, hustlers, players, strippers, sex workers, and all the thoroughbred Runaway Slaves in the First World; this is strictly addressed to the First World Lumpen. Marxism has taught us how to operate and harness the laws of the universe in the interests of those systematically locked out of the production process, those who finance-monopoly capitalism continue to dehumanize in its relentless, dogged, determined pursuit of endless profits.

Fascism is the word of the current movement. Trump’s election represents that certain heightening of contradictions we have been looking for; when Biden dropped out of the presidential race, eyebrows were certainly raised, but with his affirmed election to the White House, this is a sign of the imperialists recognizing their need for that strong persyn to move this space into its more authoritarian direction, into its more authoritarian disposition.

We have to be vigilantly on the prowl for the emergence of fascism, social commentary should center primarily on building public opinion in this direction. We must not squander opportunities to combat its emergence; just like fascism – even its embryonic stages doesn’t miss out on any opportunities to undermine the working-class revolution and smash working class organizations; First World and Third World.

It is time to crack open the history books and practically apply the dialectical-materialist analysis of history. There is nothing else at the moment that warrants any more attention. Period. 2020, though a moment, a flash point in social development, like I said previously in some past article was not in any way contradictory to the U.$. empire; nor was there any easing of tensions between law enforcement and those of us trapped in the ghettos that pockmark this landscape.

In 2022, actual U.$. military expenditure exceeded $1.52 trillion – more than twice the officially acknowledged level of $766 billion. Overall military spending are not included in the empire’s “defense budget” strategically. To estimate actual U.$. military spending, dialectical materialist methodological approaches must be utilized; do your due diligence and consult the proper authorities on this matter. I recommend publications like Monthly Review and what-have-you.

Nothing will be gained at the expense of the Third World because of our lack of genuine effort to combat our First Worldist dispositions. We in the ameriKKKan heartland must sit down and focus on studying fascism. We most definitely have the leisure time because of the labor aristocratic essence of the working class demographic in these parts. The class of people in the First World who are excluded from the productive process, by virtue of living in the First World, on average receive more material benefits from imperialism than the global proletariat. This is the First World lumpen. But the radical student movement is now with us, thanks to the gunshots let off on October 7th last year in Palestine and its people’s struggle to free their land from i$raeli and ameriKKKan aggression.

We have to have a completely scientific understanding of the concrete reality of our situation. George Jackson once spoke of this. I believe his classic work Blood In My Eye must be resurfaced and consulted for the best, most in-depth theoretical analysis of the current moment. Fascism and its historical significance was the point of his whole philosophy on politics, and its extension, war.

George posited how corporate-fascism’s nature advanced world-wide socialist consciousness after WW2. U.$. imperialism emerged after the Western powers had already divided up most of the most important markets in the world. The aftermath of WW2 left those same Western powers severely weakened, the U.$. became head honcho.

Nothing has changed. Social development continues to march ahead towards its logical conclusion – via stages of course. All the forces of reaction and counterrevolution have localized themselves and continue to radiate their oppressive energy in the now emerging ameriKKKan corporate-fascist state. Despite the presence of political parties, corporate politics is all that truly matters here. Corporate personhood command all state power.

We hear about the corporate political maneuvering of entities like Amazon, IBM, Facebook, Samsung, Apple, and many more. The modern chip industry speaks to the authority large private corporations have over state bodies. Just as steel a century ago was the essential commodity for economic development, the chip is the 21st century repeat. Chips are central to the technology pivotal to the present order. I say that to say that possibly by 2030, China’s chip industry could rival Silicon Valley’s influence; so this means something, the implications are beyond disruption of U.$. tech firms and trade flows, we are talking about a reset of the balance of military power.

Huawei has been at the center of all sorts of geopolitics in recent years. I think it’s time USW comrades study Huawei, and learn what makes this entity’s political maneuvering such a nightmare for Western imperialists, and sidestep amerikkka’s “Russian threat” distraction with the whole bogus fabricated Uhuru 3 persecution.

The African People’s Socialist Party are posing a very serious question that all revolutionaries active at the moment should sit down and reflect and ponder over: Did the FBI conspire with Russian intelligence to frame up Black activists in the United $tates?

The Uhuru 3 free speech trial has positioned me as an historical singularity, as that historical singularity who sees all angles, all sides, who sees the furthest ahead and who more than anyone at the moment understands the line of march the New Afrikan liberation movement should be taking, as fascism continues to kick its boots at our doors in the First World.

I will be waiting to hear your thoughts soon. In the meantime, all efforts on our boycott campaign should center on Securus. No opportunities to vilify Securus between December 6 and December 13 should be missed.

MIM(Prisons) adds: We have not received any further reports on the outcomes of Jailhouse Lawyers Speak Week of December 6-13, but welcome your reports. As to fascism and the new presidency, we’ve written more extensively on the previous Trump regime to say that it was not fascist, but merely business as usual.(1) Blood In My Eye is an excellent book that we distribute, but we think there is strategic significance to distinguish between fascism and bourgeois democracy, the two faces of imperialism.(2)

We agree with the author that the re-election of Trump indicates that the imperialists are looking to reshape things. In 2019, we wrote about how the absence of a real proletarian threat makes fascism unnecessary and unlikely. The threat that has emerged since then is the Palestine heightening it’s war of national liberation, which has forced all parties involved in the region to make their positions clear. In addition to this shakeup in the Middle East, there has been the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its affects across Europe. What seems likely is the imperialists are seeing cracks in the previous world order and signs of economic crisis that require a shift in strategy.

Trump remains erratic in his speeches, and we have no great predictions for how this next term will go at this time. What is clear is that the need to build a strong movement against imperialism and fascism is now. There are opportunities on the horizon, and we hope you will join us in preparing for them.

<sup>Notes:
1. MIM(Prisons), April 2019, “Fascism, Imperialism, and Amerika in 2019”, Under Lock & Key 67.
2. Wiawimawo of MIM(Prisons), November 2016, The Strategic Significance of Defining Fascism, Under Lock & Key 53.</sup>

As a person who has been the target of long-standing censorship campaigns, i would like to give my voice to the discussion around censorship in this time of organizing against this tool of counter-insurgency.

Recently, in Texas’ prison system, an anthology that speaks to the torture of solitary confinement was censored. The reason given is that it purportedly contains content that threatens the security of the prison by encouraging prisoners to engage in disruptive behavior such as strikes, etc. i took part in this anthology and to be clear there is not any language speaking to the disruption of the prison system. There is language that speaks to the dismantling of long-term/indefinite solitary confinement, which is illegal in many places, is considered torture internationally, and which the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) itself admits may cause harm or damage to the mental health of the affected person. So the thinking of the thought police is that it is a threat to security to speak out against torture, but it is not a threat to security to maintain torturous conditions. What sense does that make?

This censorship is of the second volume of this anthology series called Texas Letters (see: texasletters.org). Volume one, which contains the same sort of content from many of the same writers, is approved. So what happened between the time of January 2023 and May of 2024, the respective release of each volume? A one word answer: Success. The first volume was released at the beginning of the last state legislature session. A session where a coalition of people were behind House Bill 812 (HB812), a bill intended to end indefinite solitary confinement. As a way to increase the popularity of the bill the book was distributed to all the law makers. Ultimately the bill didn’t pass, however the promotion of the direct letters and experiences of those incarcerated in solitary confinement in Texas grew. The prolific female writer Kwaneta Harris, who has been in solitary confinement for years, was featured in various high profile publications including The New York Times, speaking to the experience of solitary confinement in Texas, particularly how it is in prisons designated for women. Al-Jazeera and NPR featured interviews on the book and the experiences of Texas solitary confinement. Advocates continue to build momentum and public opinion against the use of solitary Confinement, and it is upon this back drop that when Texas Letters Volume 2 appeared, it was censored throughout the state prison system.

This is a move tyrants use to quell social discourse; to control the narrative and therefore evolution of the system never comes. This is a move to quell any form of resistance. Even that which is peaceful becomes a “threat to the security of the institution”, those who take part in such actions become “threats to the security of the institution” people known for “organizing and influencing other inmates” and therefore are confined in solitary confinement or held in said confinement if already there.

This process of events is no surprise. It is a reflection of the practices coming out of the highest level of government in the state, directly a representation of the tyrannical regime Greg Abbott desires and runs himself.

See, in Texas, the Governor appoints the Executive Director of TDCJ, the Texas Board of Criminal Justice, and the parole and pardons board. The Director’s Review Committee (DRC) is the body that governs censorship inside the prisons. This committee is appointed by the Director. So what We end up with is a DRC of political appointees, appointed by a political appointee, a gang of political careerists, all kissing the ring of the top man, the governor of Texas, all falling in line with his neo-confederate agenda. As such We have a prison system that is over saturated with Christian fundamentalism, stale reforms, faith-based programs, and because any volunteer program has to go through the chaplaincy department there is no secular, dissident voices, programs or activities. All because TDCJ is in the business of cultivating ZOMBIES, those who talk when and how they’re told, walk when and how they’re told, think when and how they’re told. This is considered reform and anything outside of that is a threat to security worthy of censorship.

This type of tyranny should be important to everyone because We should want to stop this sort of government over-reach before it becomes too extreme. Tyranny only becomes emboldened with time and a lack of resistance of its subjects.

We just wrapped up our Fourth of You-Lie annual fundraiser. The results so far aren’t great. We’ve only received about a third of the number of donations we got from comrades inside for all of 2023, and less than a third in the amount received. That means we need to get twice as many donations in the next 6 months as we got in the first 6 months of this year to maintain where we were. And ideally, we want to be increasing the percent of funding that comes from donations from prisoners. The amount of donations we receive from prisoners is one way we measure mass support for our work and whether we should keep doing it.

Our education programs continue to develop. We’ve mailed out the first group response to our University of Maoist Thought study group on the Collected Works of the Black Liberation Army. We’ve completed an update to our study guide for The Fundamentals of Political Economy, a must-read text. Comrades on the outside also completed a study of MIM Theory 14: United Front that is reflected in the content of this issue. We will likely continue this theme in ULK 87, looking at the united front in Palestine more and printing your reports on building united front for the September 9th Day of Peace and Solidarity.

We are also entering Black August as this issue hits the cell blocks. And soon after that, the September 9th Day of Peace and Solidarity. Besides the Runaway Slaves Coalition statement on the United Front for Peace in Prisons, we did not get any submissions on these topics. But as always we have our September 9th Organizing Pack that prisoners can request to get more information on the history of this day, and countless books and pamphlets on the Black liberation struggle that you can get from our Free Books to Prisoners Program in exchange for political work.

The week of December 6-13 has been marked as a week of solidarity by Jailhouse Lawyers Speak. Over the years comrades have suggested a boycott of any activities that financially benefit the prison system. This is the tactic being implemented in December, with the campaign focusing on ending prison slavery and overall abolition of prisons in general. Our next issue will be out in early November. So if you are organizing for this week of solidarity, send in art or articles to share for ULK 87.

This issue features content produced by United Struggle from Within comrades as part of our campaign to connect the prison struggle to the student movement for Palestine. Some of these materials were also used in a pamphlet put together and distributed on the streets, to get these messages into the hands of students and outside supporters.

As we finalize the content for this issue, reports are coming in of the disproportionate deaths of prisoners in the recent heat waves. Prisoners and prisons are being excluded from new worker protection laws dealing with heat. This June was the hottest on record. And yet the imperialists still aren’t getting serious about reducing CO2 emissions to slow global warming. We welcome your reports on heat and climate change, especially organizing efforts and how to build a united front around these campaigns, for the next issue of ULK.

Amerikan Elections

Finally, i thought we should say a few words on the upcoming U.$. presidential election. For those that don’t know, our slogan is, “Don’t Vote, Organize!” We aren’t too interested in who becomes president because there is no anti-imperialist option.

As has become the trend, the Democratic Party wing have been campaigning hard to “stop fascism”. Our line has not changed since 2016, when we argued that Trump was not instituting fascism as president then either. But that does not mean we should not be vigilantly looking for the emergence of fascism and opportunities to combat it.

Comrades in Texas have reported on lumpen gangs being used by the state as enforcers in Coffield Unit and Allred Unit. Another reader in Allred more recently reported that staff using drugs to bribe prisoners has continued:

“The prison administration here at Allred Unit have been getting away with killing prisoners for so long with the help of these so-called gang members that they fear not the possibility of accountability.”

The use of gangs to police prisoners is not new in Texas history. However, in the past this role was filled by the euro-Amerikan prisoners who enjoyed privileges in exchange for enforcing discipline on the oppressed nation prisoners.(see Robert T. Chase’s book We Are Not Slaves) While we have written extensively on the revolutionary potential of the First World lumpen, and even lumpen organizations, these organizations also have this reactionary potential, making them an unreliable ally of the proletariat.

In fact, it is quite damning that these L.O.s are consciously working for the imperialists to violently repress other oppressed nationals. We address this further in this issue with the ongoing campaign (and debate) around “Stop Collaborating!” Of course we see the same thing in Third World countries around the world where the imperialist have built death squads by bribing various lumpen and military men. And we do recognize such death squads as a form of exported fascism with no real base in the Third World itself.

Here in the heart of empire it is more typical to see the euro-Amerikan petty bourgeoisie play the role of fascist foot soldiers. We saw a glimpse of this in the attacks of bands of young white men on the UCLA encampment for Palestine as cops idly stood by. And we’ve seen it in various street clashes over the last decade with groups like the Proud Boys attacking radical left demonstrators or gender-non-conforming events.

But these remain fringe events. While Trump represents a certain heightening of contradictions in this country, the U.$. state is still very stable. No one can become president of the United $tates without support from the imperialists. The current support of the ultra-rich for another Trump presidency has been pinned largely on the possibility of Trump era tax cuts expiring if Biden wins a second term. So this is hardly a sign of the imperialists recognizing the need for a strong man to move this country into a more authoritarian direction. On the contrary, it is a sign of a further eating away at the stability of the United $tates by undercutting state funding through neo-Liberalism. Yes, the contradictions are heightening, no it is not time to join in united front with Joe Biden, Kamala Harris or whoever ends up being the more status quo option they give us in November.

Hip hop artist Macklemore released a song and music video, called “Hind’s Hall”, unapologetically supporting the students fighting to stop U.$. funding of genocide in Palestine. This is a unique statement that we have not seen from Amerikan celebrities after over six months of bombing and invasion.

Besides saying “fuck the police” and “free Palestine”, to the question of voting for Biden, Macklemore says “fuck no” in this song. This last point puts em ahead of the so-called Communist Party - U$A and Revolutionary Communist Party - U$A, which have both implicitly and explicitly campaigned for Democratic presidential candidates, including Joe Biden. We’d say Macklemore is doing a better job of representing the interests of the Third World proletariat on this point, than the so-called communist parties. In the past Macklemore has sported an Amerikan flag, and campaigned for the Democrats as well. But ey’s an individual, and a rapper. We gotta expect a little more from a communist party that is supposed to be a source of truth and to lead us to ending oppression.

Of course, the MIM slogan has been “Don’t Vote, Organize!” So not voting for Biden in itself isn’t the call for change; rather the recognition of the need to make and change history ourselves instead of casting a vote for this or that celebrity politician.

While it took 6 months and U.$. student protests for this song to come out, it appears that Macklemore has been involved in the anti-war movement since October when ey signed a statement supporting ceasefire. Ey is also donating all proceeds to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. So good for em, and it is a good thing to use eir voice as a popular artist to reach more people. We hope this cracks open the door for other more popular artists who have been quiet on the genocide.

In the new song, Macklemore also asks “who gets the right to defend? who gets the right to resistance?” flashing pictures from Ukraine and answering that it has to do with skin pigment. This is a righteous defense of the resistance in Palestine that is condemned as terrorism by the same people chearleading the resistance in Ukraine as a natural humyn right. However, skin color is a superficial explanation. Though racism, orientalism, and anti-Arab sentiment is a strong driving force behind the average oppressor-nation Amerikkkan’s stance on Palestine, ultimately the U.$.’s position derives not from disdain for certain skin colors but rather from imperialism. Ukraine, and Zelensky, stand as a junior partner to Amerikkka against their current greatest imperialist enemy, Russia, while the potential of a freed Palestine poses a threat to Amerikkkan and I$raeli imperialism in the Middle East.

Students at Columbia University occupied Hamilton Hall after the university rejected most of their demands, including to divest from weapons manufacturers. During the occupation, they renamed it “Hind’s Hall” after Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza City while trying to get assistance from the Red Crescent Society after her family had been killed by an Israeli attack.

In mid-February on H-pod here in the ECB [Expansion Cell Blocks] prisoners got together and submitted 30 grievances about lack of dayroom and outside rec which G-5, G-4 and G-2 are all experiencing here in the ECB. The response from Warden Smith was that they are “understaffed”. I may submit my own grievance just to see if I get the same response though I have to be careful as the guards are using the gangs to police the prisoners and some of these fucking “Homeboys” do the pigs’ work for them violently. But I thought I would call your attention to an interview of Bryan Collier in the Nov-Dec 2023 and Jan. 2024 Echo Newspaper. In the January edition Collier admits to having “staffing” problems. So both Collier and Smith are aware of this understaffing but still it continues and they are not releasing anybody or hiring enough to quell the problems.

Two weeks ago it is rumored that a prisoner was raped by his celly. The word is this is the reason one of my classmates has been missing. I don’t know if a FOIA can be filed and help his family to get these motherfuckers? But being understaffed is dangerous and cruel for all of us.

These 30 grievances from G-4’s in H-pod on ECB and the January 2024 interview of Collier show corroborated “Deliberate Indifference.” Maybe I should also grieve this and send my copies to a supporter who can coordinate with prisoners, legislators, and the D.O.J. I’m sure Genocide Joe would love to get a piece of Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton for the bad press they have given him on the border?? We should take advantage of these asshole politicians whenever we can!!! Anyway, if you have any extra ULKs sitting around and can afford to send me another bulk mailing, please do so, so that I can distribute them here.

Securus advertises package pricing for movies I think that are about $12 a month but they are not offering these packages. Instead we have to pay from 6-12 dollars per movie rental! And they blame Hollywood Studios for this price gouging. I wonder if Hollywood knows about how they are exploiting us and our families? We should get Netflix for $16/month or something but 4.99-19.99 before tax is too much to charge “slaves” who do not get paid for their mandatory work!

MIM(Prisons) responds: It’s ironic that Abbott is fighting to militarize the border, but can’t find enough people to run his prisons. Though it’s our understanding that many Texas prisons are already being staffed by Nigerian immigrants working on visas. Meanwhile they have gangs working for the state, implementing repression and keeping the population sedated on drugs, while the staff sit around doing nothing. Though Biden has no qualms about supporting genocide, he does like scoring political points on Greg Abbot. This comrade might have a good idea here.

Seems clear that the United State’s lurch to the right is a done deal. On a quantitative scale, how much so is still an open question, but it is an astonishing thing to see and one we better get better at grappling with.

The Biden administration has recently vetoed a UAE brought emergency meeting to vote on a Gaza ceasefire in Israel’s “unceasing” assault on Gaza. Time magazine of 10 December 2023 and virtually all U.S. media describe it as a campaign to eliminate Hamas. Always the materialists, they never forget to remind that it is due to Hamas terrorist attack of October 7, its alleged sexual assault and taking of hostages etc. In fact, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Robert A. Woods states as his reasons for vetoing this emergency resolution that it was “an imbalanced resolution that was divorced from reality and would not move the needle on the ground in any concrete way.”

Woods goes on to state the U.S. couldn’t understand why the authors declined to include language condemning “Hamas’s horrific terrorist attack” and “the resolution failed to mention Israel’s right to defend itself.” Indeed the U.S. did propose adding language about its “role in diplomacy, increased opportunities for humanitarian aid, encouraging release of hostages, the resumption of pauses in fighting, and laying the foundation for peace” the Time article wrote. But Wood says the “recommendations for peace were ignored.”

The Time article was further confirmed by a clip of Wood’s speech aired on Democracy Now! (11 December 2023), which then went on to play a clip of Jamie Raskin’s outrage of U.S. society’s obvious lurch to the right in regards to the ousting of an MIT president for trying to defend bourgeois free speech. However, Democracy Now! makes no mention of Raskin’s earlier calls for the need of Israel to eliminate Hamas or his refusal to call for an immediate peace agreement or even his stance on the UN resolution for an immediate cease fire. All this clearly, even on the part of such petty bourgeois outfits as Democracy Now! to accept and adjust to this obvious social shift, but still find some space to claim to be left or progressive etc. It should be noted Amy Goodman often has Raskin on to help her with her Trump and MAGA bashing and to tell people to vote for their democracy.

Back to Woods, he states the U.S. wants a 2 state solution, but doesn’t support an immediate ceasefire as “this would only plant the seeds for the next war because Hamas has no desire to see a durable peace, to see a 2 state solution.” This stupid equivocation could only be logical to a bully on the verge of victory. Recall he told the same council it was due to the resolution not giving the U.S. its props for all the fine things, like 4 hour “humanitarian pauses” and the U.S. aid for Palestinians, not being in the resolution.

A “good thing” one could point to is how isolated the U.S. is on this and the exposure of its hypocrisy on a world scale. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas stated after the U.S. veto that the U.S. is “complicit in war crimes” and the vote was “aggressive and immoral.” China’s U.N. rep Zhang Jun accused the U.S. of “double standards”, “claiming to care about the lives and safety of people in Gaza.” Russian U.N. rep Dmitry Polyansky stated “our colleagues from the U.S. have literally before our eyes issued death sentences to thousands if not tens of thousands more civilians in Palestine and Israel.”

Even domestically, social democrat Bernie Sanders, who has consistently (see below) refused to call for a ceasefire up to now, now states the “U.S. should not be vetoing a U.N. (ceasefire) resolution.” He goes on to his usual duplicitous doublespeak stating “children need food” and “it’s imperative - it remains imperative that Israel puts a premium on civilian protection.” Social democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (A.O.C.) went even farther: “Shameful. The Biden Administration can no longer reconcile their professed concern for Palestinians and their human rights while also single-handedly vetoing the U.N.’s call for ceasefire and sidestepping the entire U.S. Congress to unconditionally back the indiscriminate bombing of Gaza” (Newsweek, 9 December 23)

As for the above comment of “sidestepping” Congress, she is referring to the 13,000 plus, worth $106 million, of tank ammo sold to Israel that Secretary of State Blinken et. al managed to get to Israel in an emergency sale. The Biden administration additionally has a $100 billion package in aid for Israel, Ukraine, and “other national security priorities.” So A.O.C. is likely to get her wish. As to why this sale required “sidestepping” Congress, Blinken stated, “The needs of Israel’s military operation in Gaza justifies the rare decision to bypass Congress.” He goes on, “Israel is in combat right now with Hamas and we want to make sure Israel has what it needs to defend itself against Hamas,” hence the $106 million sale of 13,000 plus ammo (shells) to Israel.

And in case anyone missed it the larger bill which needs Congressional approval is tied to the U.S. immigration issue and its border, “National Security”.

On 10 December 2023, Mitt Romney stated on Meet The Press that Biden didn’t have to tie the border policy issue to the Ukraine issue. But he did so now the Republicans will be holding him to it. Biden, obviously acknowledging he must move to the right, has recently hinted he is willing to make significant compromises on the border. He seems to be saying he needs to be able to say he had no choice. J.D. Vance has stated, “What will $60 billion (going to Ukraine alone) more do that $100 billion hasn’t done?”

In both of the last 2 presidential candidate debates, Vivek has stated he will be smoking the terrorists on the southern border and “Bibi” has to do the same.

Something we can’t go into here but worth mentioning is the conservative Center for Renewing America’s Project 2025 handbook, which is a 1,000 page “Let’s finish what we started” playbook, which is part of the Heritage Foundation’s think tank. This involves many “right flank” organizations, many new to mainstream bourgeois politics. This is to do away with the “deep-state” and in doing so avoid Trump’s 1st term pitfalls of being thwarted by those not willing to go as far as he wished. The point made here is that all Democrats and ol’ fogey Republicans realize this shift is very real and it seems a little conscious compromise is a tactic the bourgeois left is making for its own reasons. Late capitalism is not running on fumes though pixie dust no longer seems to suffice. Now the machine requires the flesh and blood of little boys and girls.

Recently heard our old friend Bill Fletcher on KPFA’s Sunday Show (10 December 2023) saying, like always, 3rd parties are a waste of time, must vote for the Democrat even though he agrees it is genocide in Gaza and Biden administration was wrong for their U.N. veto. Again, according to Fletcher, we must do as he suggested the first time and push Biden to the left.

If only Mao was here and could fight our battles for us. Obviously no real revolutionary is saying this but in practice we are saying these are not revolutionary times and I contend this is why we’re in this situation. Yes these are revolutionary times. We simply must learn and apply the stages of revolution. We may be limited by majority having no current interests in revolution. But we are in no position to be talking about a majority any way. We clearly accept objective factors. Even MIM’s 3 dividing line principles.

But contradictions (all) carry within them their very opposite. It’s a unity of opposites, mere “identity”, not absolute of contradictions. We indeed should be pushing some to the left but not bourgeois politicians who would have no interest in social change in any situation but our own nations, prison class, musicians. And we definitely should be serious about drawing clear distinctions between ourselves and the bourgeoisie with its values and world outlook. This is simply accepting the phase of revolution we’re in. Too many fear armed struggle and fear its adventurist aspects. I contend this means to fear the people or at the very least fear they are unable to grasp revolutionary theory or its requirements.

We’re in the middle of it. This rightward shift is but a shift no more to my mind than a deeper neo-Liberal shift. Only by relying on the bourgeoisie and the fakes should we care if its a rightward shift or leftward shift. Especially if out of our control.

From the outset of this flareup and resulting genocide of Palestine the pretensions of the left media and settler nations obvious new center of gravity has led it to pretend the U.S. is at least grappling with the moral consequences of innocent civilians. Yet Blinken, Biden, and Sanders as well as virtually all bourgeois outlets and mouthpieces have stated “Israel has an obligation to defend itself” Blinken 13 October 2023, Biden “Israel has the right to respond, indeed has a duty to respond” 10 October 2023, and 300 former staffers of Sanders asked Sanders (very nicely) to support a ceasefire saying “We believe in you.” In mid October, Jamaal Bowman was roundly condemned for going to Israel, to see the apartheid for himself, by A.O.C.’s and Sander’s Democratic Socialist of America (DSA). Even MSNBC’s Al Sharpton states “Gaza is not occupied.” We could literally go on and on about how this lurch is not only acknowledged but immediately dressed up and condoned by all progressives, leftists, moderate Republicans, and a great majority of this settler nation.

In the backdrop is always Trump, the MAGA movement, and settler nation chauvinism. Beside Project 2025 mentioned above, recently Trump announced the need for “ideological screening” to “bar Christian hating communists and Marxists” stating “those who come to our country must love our country.” Such is already the practice in Israel. Trump goes on to list things that would be grounds for disqualification: “If you want to abolish the state of Israel you’re disqualified”… Again we encourage all to check this out because this shift is now much bigger than any individuals or even movements. Trump was one of the first to congratulate the Congresswoman who held the 3 college presidents to these new standards.

As stated we are very much in “heightened contradictory times.” Not having the right line on the make up of the U.S. and world economy, nature of settler society, neo-Liberalism, following idiotic communists, and being afraid to rely on ourselves and our own nation has led to very bad practice for years and deprived our people of a prepared and organized fighting force. Lurch to the right or revolution.

The Biden/Harris campaign released the above image criticizing some language coming from recent Donald Trump campaign speeches for the 2024 U.$. Presidential election. Meanwhile Trump continues to lead by a landslide for the Republican ticket, which is not surprising, as Hitler viewed the Amerikan project with envy.

The United $tates has been milking it’s alliance with the Soviet Union to fight fascism for over 75 years now. If it were not for the sacrifices of the Soviet people, over 20 million of whom died in the war fighting fascism, and if it were not for the strategic leadership of the Comintern in building alliances with some imperialist powers to fight others, we might not have had 75 years of self-righteousness to have leaned on by U.$. leaders.

Usually U.$. officials would raise the “Hitler” comparisons when it was time to expand imperialist wars against another Third World country, such as Iraq or Panama. But today the leading Democratic presidential candidate is using it against the leading Republican candidate at the same time that the Democrat is facing legal charges for enabling genocide emself. It seems the mask is coming off.

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed a complaint in federal court in November on behalf of Palestinians that is seeking recognition of the ongoing genocide in Palestine and the requirement for President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to do all they can to prevent Israel’s genocidal acts.(1)

While the occupation of Palestine by I$rael and their imposition of an apartheid state has long been genocidal, the war has reached unprecedented levels since the Hamas-led attack against I$rael on 7 October 2023. By mid-December, a whopping 85% of the population of Gaza has been displaced from their homes and 1% of the population has been killed by the I$raeli onslaught. At least 8 of the murdered and around 100 of those injured were at the hands of “civilian” settlers.(2) Large numbers of the displaced have no access to food or clean water.

Whether the Amerikan courts will recognize what is happening to the Palestinians in Gaza as genocide is questionable according to legal experts. But legal filings continue to be submitted to bolster the case.

The “We Declare Genocide” tribunal held within U.$. borders last year already found the United $tates guilty of genocide against the internal semi-colonies who are facing an ongoing low-intensity warfare.(3) Of course, this finding does not have official legal standing by the United $tates government itself. The CCR suit is attempting to get that for Palestine, and further brings attention to the genocidal acts of U.$. imperialism around the globe.

The United $tates has single-handedly prevented the United Nations Security Council from implementing a ceasefire in Palestine. The United $tates picks and chooses who is allowed to commit war crimes and who is not, and the UN is toothless to stop it.

During the second inter-imperialist war, the United $tates was in a position to play the good guy because of rival interests with the fascist countries and the opportunity it allowed them to exert power over Europe as a whole. I$rael on the other hand is the #1 U.$. client state, receiving far more funding from the Amerikans than any other country since World War II. As Biden said, if I$rael didn’t already exist they would have to create it. This puts the U.$. in a position where it is impossible for them to oppose the genocide in Gaza.

The settler state is by definition a genocidal state. Stalin helped give the United $tates a fig leaf to cover that legacy in the form of supporting the Soviet defeat of Hitler. That fig leaf is drying up and falling off. And the legitimacy of U.$.-run international institutions like the UN and the United $tates itself are coming more and more into question by global public opinion.

<sup>Notes:
1. Center for Constitutional Rights Press Release, 23 December 2023, New Filings in Gaza Genocide Lawsuit: Palestinians Refute Biden Admin Arguments That Court Cannot Review Its Role in Furthering Israel’s Genocide
2. Anna Lekas Miller, 23 December 2023, ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 78: UNSC resolution criticized as ‘meaningless,’ hundreds of thousands evacuate central Gaza, Mondoweiss.
3.Triumphant, January 2022, We Still Charge Genocide: Will The Real New Afrikans Please Stand Up!, Under Lock & Key 76</sup>

Revolutionary Greetings Comaradas! We must address parliamentarism within the empire in general, and reformism in particular. As our nation develops it compels us to deal with the new challenges and obstacles hurled our way by the oppressor nation and its lackeys.

In the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s, the Chicano nation mostly dealt with the two-party trap, that is the Republican Party and its counterpart the Democratic Party. These two wings of the Amerikkkan bird have hystorically bamboozled Chican@s and other colonized peoples into supporting its charade of bourgeois elections. The Chican@ Movement of 50 years past did a good job of alerting the nation of the “Two-Party Trap”, which simply entangles our gente in models of bourgeois politics that in the end uphold U.$. imperialism while preventing the oppressed nations from ever obtaining true liberation.

Today we are faced with the Three-Party Trap. Parties “outside” of the traditional Democrat and Republican camps have begun to lure some of our gente into the swamp of dead-end bourgeois politics in the guise of a “Third Party” option. This Three-Party Trap simply results in imperialism maintaining Amerikkkan hegemony over bourgeois politics.

Muddying the Waters of Revisionism

Some may point to Lenin’s stance on parliamentarism and specifically how in his time it was encouraged for communists to participate in the ballot box as millions of proletarians partook in such ventures. This may have been true of Lenin’s time and for the proletariat of 1917 Russia. This debate also highlights the crucial necessity of studying correct political line as it is easy to take quotes from over 100 years ago and convince some of the masses why it applies today. Yet, without analyzing today’s social reality here in the imperialist center the dogmatists and revisionists will have revolutionaries voting for the best imperialist while raising a clenched fist.

Imperialist U.$.A. is not 1917 Russia, and the millions of proletariat of that time were a vehicle for revolution, meanwhile there is relatively little proletariat within the United Snakes, and most are found in the fields and food production; the migrants. This rote learning of the revisionists and vendidos (sell-outs) who study quotes and dogmatically pass on these weak arguments to the masses attempting to justify why they support U.S. imperialism via its bourgeois politics is what separates the bourgeois or cultural nationalist Parties from the Communist Party of Aztlán (CPA).

Our struggle for self-determination means we must delink from imperialism not uphold it by participating in its politics. As dialectical materialists we move by analyzing objective reality as we believe Marx, Lenin and Mao did. And although a newby to political theory may read something from the classics, a quote that speaks in favor of parliamentarism or trade union organizing, those quotes derive from another country with different social forces and economy, etc. over 100 years ago! Had these revolutionary leaders been alive today in 2023 United $tates, they would have likely had different views and plans of action for the internal colonies today.

The revisionists and vendidos (sell-outs) love to make assumptions on how Marx, Lenin and Mao would feel about the Three-Party Trap and how because of a quote they made over 100 years ago in another country under different economic circumstances with very different social forces that in imperialist U.$.A. today they would support a Green Party, Chican@ Party or any other party outside of the Dems or Republicans, which participates in the ballot box of bourgeois politics. This is absurd at best. Since the revisionists love to make assumptions, we will do so as well and assume that Marx, Lenin and Mao would be against participating in the U.$. bourgeois elections via the Three-Party Trap or through any other vehicle. There’s why, a deep study of the U.$. and its social forces uncovers where the revolutionary vehicle lies.

As communists we study dialectics, the contradictions that exist. Looking to the social forces within these false U.$. borders reveals that the principal contradiction today is that between the white oppressor nation vs. the oppressed nations. Likewise, the small sector of proletariat mostly resides in the fields. The migrants who mostly do not partake in bourgeois elections and many being “undocumented” means they do not even have access to many of the options that paper citizenship brings!

The “work force” for the most part consists of labor aristocrats who most U.S. citizens derive from. These elite workers benefit off the spoils of Third World plunder. The paid sick days and pensions that even many retail workers receive would have the Trotskyites scream exploitation and slave wages, while the proletariat of the Third World roll their eyes from the underground mines and maquiladores where they make pennies a day.

To date, there is no Three-Party line that identifies the concept of the labor aristocracy within so-called “workers” in the U.S. As historical materialism teaches, we look to history on what the ballot box approach has done. The strategy of a peaceful transition that the Three-Party line holds would only lead us down the road to neo-colonialism. We know this to be true through scientific study, because not a single nation has ever been liberated and completely independent from imperialism through a peaceful transition from the ballot box. This is our scientific proof without assumption and without a dogmatic view of historical quotes. Looking at quotes from 100 years ago is good, to learn from hystory is good, but applying Maoism to today’s social reality and environment in order to create change is even better. This is what separates our political line from those upholding the Three-Party Trap and participating in bourgeois politics that uphold imperialism. The trojan horse approach of joining enemy politics in order to change them is a tired dream that has never been successful. And this voting in U.S. elections is not a revolutionary act, it is legitimizing imperialism in the eyes of raza.

Imperialism is Incorrigible

It is necessary to address the left hand of U.$. bourgeois politics and that is reformism. Those of the Three-Party camp commit a political error in lofty ideals of reformism. Although reforms are nice and make existence more comfortable for the oppressed and down-trodden, reforms do not make fundamental changes in imperialism nor put a dent in the colonization of Aztlán or any other of the internal semi-colonies for that matter. In fact, within these false U.$. borders, reforms have pushed people further away from revolution while bald repression has always invited revolution i.e. the Great Pueblo Revolt, The Taos Revolt, and more recently the Watts rebellion, the L.A. Rebellion of 1992, the San Quentin Six, Attica, the Pelican Bay hunger strikes, etc. When has reforming imperialism sparked resistance?

The conditions in any given time will define our path forward. One of the arguments used by those who promote participating in imperialism’s electoral politics is that they believe doing so will somehow bring Raza closer to our goals of a liberated Aztlán. At the same time they scream Chican@ Power! at the street rallies with a raised fist. One with even the least amount of political study must see through this and identify what such behavior really benefits, revolution and independence for Aztlán or upholding capitalism-imperialism?

A correct understanding of this and the so-called Three-Party promoters would be to call this behavior for what it is – petty bourgeois vacillation. Even so-called “independent” parties or Chican@ parties promoting the idea of voting for colonizer in chief or openly flirting with bourgeois politics amounts to crass flattery, to do so is a great disservice to Aztlán and oppressed in the periphery.

One of our long-term goals as communists is in the abolition of class society. How can comrades contribute to this goal by voting another imperialist into the White people’s House, to do so would be acting as compradors, herding the masses into the corral of the enemy politics. A system that cannot be reformed, one that needs to simply be abolished and overthrown. How does voting – even in an “independent” or Chican@ bourgeois party, get us closer to this realization? How does it garner us international support? These are the questions that the Three-Party Trap cannot answer.

As revolutionaries we must be firm and clear on our stance as anti-imperialists. The Trots would have us spending our lives organizing white “workers” in the unions, reformists would have us voting for the next colonizer in chief as our way forward. As Chican@ Communists we see us contributing the most to the International Communist Movement by raising consciousness and providing an ideological center for Aztlán while training cadre who can begin to build base areas within the barrios where forms of dual power may be realized. We see that building a brown labor movement spanning both sides of these false U.$. borders is also an honorable way a Party of Communists should spend their lives building and supporting. For these questions on needs and goals of the Party we must put politics in command.

Mass line is key in a Party determining the needs of the raza. The barrios have the answer to where we need to focus. The ballot box is out, and encouraging party members to knock on doors to vote a colonizer in chief for imperialism is not only a crime against the people, it’s treason to the nation.

The state encourages, and in some cases funds, many of the Three-Party Traps that claim to be independent or even Chican@ in nature. It does so because corralling oppressed people who have a bone to pick with imperialism, in some cases having ancestral rights to the land going back before the white settler nation arrived, is beneficial to the state. Surely a landless field worker or an oppressed lumpen persyn would be less threatening to the state if they took their anger out in the ballot box than if they did so at the gates of the White House. Bourgeois politics provides a release valve while at the same time supporting the absurd notion that we live in a society of civil liberties rather than a prison house of nations. The Three-Party Trap thus ultimately upholds U.$. imperialism and declaws any struggle for national liberation.

The leadership of parties who promote the notion of partaking in bourgeois politics, voting in a new imperialist president, have in many ways become class enemies to the oppressed nations. Partaking in the bourgeois elections in the U.$. is perpetuating a system that has exploited and genocided peoples around the world. U.$. imperialism is the enemy of the global majority, its politics is an ideology that is contrary to Aztlán and the Third World and which supports fascism.

Conclusion

The Three-Party Trap is one we will battle and raise consciousness on, as our predecessors did decades ago with the Two-Party Trap. Today’s trap is probably even more dangerous as these parties are mostly comprised of Chican@s and New Afrikan peoples. To the Chican@ nation We say organize outside of the influence of the oppressed nation. Siempre!

• Communist Party of Aztlán (MLM)