|
|
What the anti-war/peace, anti-racist
and feminist movements are missing: A Revolutionary Analysis!
It is commonplace now to hear progressive activists calling for “taking
back our country.” Their lament is that subversive right-wing
elements have “stolen” what was once a proud, compassionate,
generally good-natured democracy and are now shredding our civil liberties,
stomping upon a glorious Constitution, and insidiously introducing
fascist techniques of social control. Millions of dollars and activist
hours are being poured into an “unseat Bush” campaign,
with white males Kucinich and Dean out in the front-running, even
as anti-racist white activists speak of coalition-building with peoples
of color and a “Feminists for Kucinich” group ignores
Carol Mosely Braun.
What is wrong with this picture? If we actually look at the bloody
origins of this nation with no blinders on, we will be able to recognize
the fact that genocide, slavery, patriarchal subjugation of women
and children, white supremacy and military conquest have meant that
we have NEVER had a proud, compassionate, just or democracy-loving
nation or government. From 1492 onwards to today, Indigenous, African,
Mexican, Asian and female and young people have NEVER had access to
generous civil liberties, safety and freedom, constitutional protections
or economic prosperity. That glorious right to vote we hear praised
as our ticket to freedom has only been “granted” to women
for one hundred of the last five hundred years and is still being
denied to people of color. The curtailing of civil liberties that
white progressives are crying over now is no new story to the Black
Panthers, the American Indian Movement, the Young Lords and all the
other victims of the FBI’s COINTELPRO programs thirty to forty
years ago.
In short, the Truth is not that right-wing conservative elites have
just recently “stolen” our great and wondrous nation,
but that the great and wondrous nations of the Indigenous peoples
of this hemisphere who were living for perhaps as many as 100,000
or more years here in harmony with creation, were stolen by militaristic,
greedy, power-lusting European settlers five centuries ago and that
crime has NEVER been accounted for or reconciled. Indigenous and other
peoples of color, and women, have never tasted justice or freedom
or any constitutional protection of their basic humanity, and any
current organizing to merely un-seat Bush or repeal the Patriot Act
is not going to seriously alter that basic reality.
What the anti-war/peace, anti-racism and feminist movements now are
lacking is an analysis based on these facts. A correct and logical
analysis would tell us that based on genocide, slavery and sexism,
the entire economic, social and political systems of this country
have always been corrupt and rotten to the core, and no election that
will merely substitute one white man for another, without actually
transforming the capitalism, imperialism, white supremacy and patriarchy
that we live under now into an entirely new configuration, will constitute
any REAL gain. Nader was right when he said there was no real difference
between the democrats and republicans (they are all paid lackeys of
the corporate elites), but he was not ready to present any radical
transformative scenario either and therefore was still a subscriber
to the basic capitalist, white supremacist and patriarchal regime
we are forced to endure. As long as we continue to ignore the beginning
of the story we are living in now, we will never be able to re-write
the plot.
What is to be done? The brilliant, eloquent and beautiful Arundhati
Roy said it plainly in New York City a few weeks ago: “It is
called revolution.” Visionary and cartoonist Aaron McGruder
said it through Huey P. Freeman: “It’s revolution time!”
What does this mean and how can this revolution be accomplished without
reverting to the same bloody, revolting techniques that our militarist
regime wreaks upon the people here and around the world?
First, we need to wake up from our zombie-like state of acceptance
of false authority and actively deconstruct all the lies and illusions
we have been taught about the origins of this country, through small
collective study groups that utilize Paolo Freire’s liberation
pedagogy to tear away the many veils of misperceptions.
Second, we need to study ancient history and consider the indisputable
fact that the subjugation of women (by what we can call patriarchy)
preceded (or came before) the origins of private property, the origins
of slavery, the origins of white supremacy and hetero-supremacy. Why
is this so important? Precisely because the systems of oppression
we suffer under now: capitalist imperialism (which subjugates the
entire planet and is looking to take over the solar system next),
white supremacy, male supremacy, hetero-supremacy and religious fundamentalism
of all stripes are all based upon the underlying dynamic of the oppression
of one segment of humanity over another, which we can call hierarchy.
This hierarchical dynamic of oppression is the very same dynamic that
led males to assert physical, and then legal and economic, authority
over females. While the trappings of patriarchal oppression may have
changed and transmuted, the basic underlying dynamic of one element
suppressing another is exactly the same. In other words, war is a
patriarchal issue; racism is a patriarchal issue; poverty is a patriarchal
issue; child abuse is a patriarchal issue; and of course, rape, domestic
abuse, sexism and all that it entails, are patriarchal issues. Hierarchy
is a patriarchal issue.
Third, once we have started working together to erase the lies from
our consciousness and realized that all oppression is linked by one
singular dynamic of internalized and externalized hierarchy, we can
see the light of how to revolutionize and transform today’s
systems of oppression into actual humanization and liberation. We
must combat hierarchy with collectivism. In terms of economics this
means the absolute rejection of capitalism and adoption of socialist
means of production, where labor is no longer exploited for the gains
of the wealthy elites, but put to work for the benefit of the entire
society. In terms of white supremacy, the lie of “race”
must be deconstructed as the murderous technique of divide-and-conquer
control it has always been, and the truth of one human species re-adopted
into our consciousness. In terms of male supremacy, males have to
relinquish control over women and children, and similarly, patriarchally-identified
females have to relinquish the “oppressor within.” In
terms of hetero-supremacy, heterosexuals must abandon the idea that
gender and sexual identity is an either-or scenario and learn to embrace
the continuum of identity. Real social and systems change will not
occur unless ALL of these elements are addressed. Even if we manage
to transform capitalism into socialism and erase racism, if women
are still oppressed, we will not have accomplished our mission. Similarly,
if women are liberated but white women still oppress women of color,
we will not have accomplished our mission. Electing Dennis Kucinich
or Carol Mosely Braun, while they may certainly be preferable to W.,
will not transform this murderous capitalist system into a humanizing
socialist one. Our transformation must be total and complete!
We are so fortunate to have a model for this kind of transformation
right in this hemisphere with our neighbors to the South. Granted,
Venezuela has a visionary in Hugo Chavez that the United States may
not yet have on the national scene, but we can still follow their
example of electing a radical, even revolutionary leader who will
then resolutely begin the process of rewriting the constitution with
the actual participation of the masses of the people, redistributing
the wealth and power of the nation from the elites to the masses.
Granted, our public may not have the courage of the Bolivians who,
like their Argentine neighbors, took to the streets to demand that
the government resign and succeeded, but we can still continue to
take our massive protests to the street, demanding a whole lot more
than a “no-war” policy. We can follow the brilliant and
powerful example of the Zapatistas who demand dignity and justice.
We can take to heart the work of Rigoberta Menchu as she travels laboriously
through the villages teaching simple but effective methods of resistance.
We can look up to the Mothers of the Disappeared who have torn down
the lies of the generals with eloquent WomanPower. We can borrow the
mechanism of the Venezuelan Bolivarian Circles and the Cuban Committees
for the Defense of the Revolution and organize our collective lives
from the hearts and minds of the masses. If Venezuela can do it, so
can we!
If liberals and progressives would display the courage and right-on
analysis that it will really take to change this world, and become
radicals and revolutionaries, the guns, tanks, missiles and laws of
this government would be no match for the power of the people!
Samantha Smart
Something to think about
President Bush just signed a $401.3 Billion defense
appropriations bill; this is in addition to the $87 Billion dollars
he recently authorized for military spending in Iraq ($20 Billion
of which goes to pay Cheney crony Halliburton et ux to clean up
the mess we made). Of course, none of this includes the $86 Billion
that our invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan have already cost us.
Where is this $574 Billion going to come from?
This huge, unimaginable amount of money could have been spent to
improve the U.S. adult literacy rate, which is lower than Denmark,
Finland, Norway, Australia, Czech Republic, Germany, England, France,
Japan, North Korea, Poland, Hungary and many others (but higher
than Cuba, the Philippines and Chile). Or improving our life expectancy,
which is also behind that of many countries including Greece, Cyprus
and Spain (but better than many African nations). Or improving our
standard of living, which is similarly behind many other countries
(but better than Iraq). Bush is ignoring homegrown poverty, illiteracy,
pollution, struggling seniors and 9 million unemployed. But there
is some good news. The wealthy are getting much wealthier, albeit
at our expense.
Angela Bradshaw
|
|
|
