Nepali Maoism and Prophet the “Outcast” Leon Trotsky

This article was written by a Trotskyist from Nepal, about an article a Maoist from Nepal wrote, admitting Maoism is a dead end, and that Maoist cadres in Nepal are interested in the revolutionary ideas of Trotskyism. This post I admit to my readers isn't for everyone. Just like on rightist blogs, some discussions are more for their own group. I disagree with the comrade's conclusion about Maoists and Trotskyists uniting. I believe unity is based totally on common principles.



70 Years after the brutal murder of Bolshevik Revolutionary Leader Comrade Leon Trotsky by Koba’s criminal regime (Joseph Stalin), Nepal’s Maoists for the first time have accepted that, in the current context of the globalised capitalism, the revolutionary ideas of Leon Trotsky are “more relevant” than those of his killers (Koba Stalin).

In a recent Maoist Publication “Rato Jhilko” (The Red Spark), Maoist ideologue, Baburam Bhattarai writes: “Today, the globalization of imperialist capitalism has increased many fold as compared to the period of October Revolution. The development of information technology has converted the world into a global village. However, due to unequal and extreme development inherent in capitalist imperialism has created inequality between different nations. In this context, there is still (some) possibility of revolution in a single country similar to the October revolution; however, in order to sustain the revolution, we definitely need a global or at least a regional wave of revolution in a couple of countries. In this context, Marxist revolutionaries should recognize the fact that in the current context, Trotskyism has become more relevant than Stalinism to advance the cause of the proletariat”. (The Red Spark, July 2009, Issue, -1, Page-10, our translation from Nepali language).

So far, Maoists were trying to hide the truth about the life and contribution of comrade Leon Trotsky from their own cadres. But after our intervention on this issue through the internet, it seems that, Nepali Maoists could not hide the truth about comrade Trotsky any more. As the 14 year old Maoist campaign in Nepal based on Stalinism and Maoism is heading to a dead end, and as the party cadres are demanding explanation from the Leaders, the latter have been forced to speak the truth about Bolshevik Revolution in general and about comrade Leon Trotsky in particular.

This recognition is also an indication of the fact that, Maoists are trying to draw a balance sheet of their decades long campaign, and have come to face the truth about the fallacy of Stalinism and Maoism.

We appreciate this positive first step of Nepali Maoists to embrace the truth, and urge them to educate their cadres about the life and work of comrade Leon Trotsky and his teaching on “permanent revolution”.

We also urge the Maoist leadership to take immediate steps to bring the Maoists and Trotskyists from different nations together in order to establish a global nucleus of revolutionary forces to fight imperialism more effectively.

RENEGADE EYE

Open Thread

I want to do more Food and Blogging posts, but I'm running low on recipes. If you send me a recipe by emaailing me at my profile email address, I'll print the recipe, and plug your blog. I eventually post every recipe, even if it takes two years as Mehmet Çagatay found out. I prefer recipes with simple ingredients, low cost, themed etc.

Taking Woodstock **1/2

A well acted, directed, and photographed trite movie. The times and the subject deserve more than a coming of age story. Liev Schreiber as a drag queen was the best part.

I finished reading Moby Dick. It took me forever to read through the dense middle. If only the plot was the book, it would be a thin well written book. If you read Moby Dick, what do you have to say about it?

One of my favorite UK blogs is Dave's Part. I'm not sure why he calls himself an ex-Trotskyist. I find his posts really well thought out and readable.

The East Dakota take on the recent Afghan elections is insightful.

American Left History deserves more readers. It has very well written posts on American history and culture, from a Trotskyist view. Markin loves history and good music, and it shows on his blog.

This is an open thread. Take advantage of it.
RENEGADE EYE

The Stalin-Hitler Pact

Today is the seventieth anniversary of the infamous The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, known as the Hitler-Stalin Pact. This article is a good analysis from a Marxist viewpoint, about the several wars together called World War II,.

Written by Ben Peck
Monday, 24 August 2009



In the early hours of August 24 seventy years ago Germany and Soviet Russia signed a "non-aggression pact", which divided the states of Northern and Eastern Europe into German and Soviet "spheres of influence", effectively slicing Poland into two halves. Ben Peck looks back at what happened and explains why such an incredible event could take place – and the price that was paid

Be sure to read the rest of the article HERE

RENEGADE EYE

The Curious Case of Dana Ali

I was asked by the blog The Third Estate to cross-post this article. I think this is of interest to my readers.

This post was written by Salman Shaheen on August 21, 2009

Dana Ali, faces deportation after an alleged Home Office blunder fails to recognise his marriage to a British citizen.



Dana Ali was born in 1975. He grew up in Halabja, the Kurdish town in northern Iraq that the world first heard about on March 16th 1988 when 5,000 people were massacred by Saddam Hussein’s chemical weapons. “Many of my family died in that attack,” Dana tells me. His story is the story of the Kurds, a stateless people facing the brutal repression of a tyrannical regime. It is little wonder, then, that Dana became a vocal critic of Saddam’s government. “When I grew up, I began supporting the Worker-Communist Party of Iraq,” he says. Dana would distribute leaflets and newspapers for the party. That was how he came to the attention of the Islamic Movement of Kurdistan, an Islamist group that held power in the region. “They saw us as a threat to them,” Dana says. “They arrested me and I was threatened by them. I had to leave in the end. If I had stayed there, they would have killed me.”

Fearing for his life, Dana fled to the UK in July 2000. After being granted a work permit, he found a job at Buxted Chicken Factory in Suffolk. It was there that he met his wife, Taina Mason. “I was Dana’s boss,” Taina tells me. “We hit it off so well. We went out together for about eight months, then we were talking romantically and discussed getting married. So we eloped.” Dana moved to Lowestoft to live with Taina and they married in 2003. The year that Britain and America invaded Iraq, Saddam’s regime was toppled and the Islamists in the Kurdish north were crushed. “I didn’t support the invasion,” Dana says. “I was glad that they got rid of Saddam, but so many civilians were killed.”

Even in the darkest days of the occupation, with hundreds dying every day and the country on the brink of a civil war between Shi’ahs and Sunnis, Kurdish Iraq was held as a success story. That elusive island of calm in a sea of chaos. Dana, however, has no desire to return. “I don’t know if I will be safe,” he says. “There are still kidnappings in northern Iraq, the media here don’t cover that really, but if you look at the Kurdish newspapers you can see it, and I don’t know if the people who made me leave are still about.” Dana’s wife tells me he has no family left there. “His family are here, there’s no reason for him to go back. He’s worried he might be arrested or shot.” Hoping to settle in the UK to start a family with his new wife, Dana applied for a marriage visa and it should have been a happily ever after.

“We heard nothing back from the Home Office,” Taina says. She tells me that despite sending their passports and marriage certificate, the Home Office curiously failed to recognise their marriage. Taina believes that her husband had been confused with another person called Dana Ali. “We kept getting police phone calls and credit card companies saying you’ve taken out loans. They were looking for someone in Yorkshire. And we said that’s not him. He’s not allowed a credit card, he’s not allowed loans, he’s never been to Yorkshire.” Mistaking him for the other Dana Ali, the police turned up at 3.30 in the morning one day last year and arrested him. “They had a picture of this guy and they realised they’d mixed the papers up.”



The situation was soon resolved, but Taina believes that the mix up of the papers is the reason her marriage was never recognised and Dana was denied a visa. “At first they approved my application,” Dana says. “Then they said my leave to remain paper was a mistake because my file had mixed me up with someone else.” A UK Border Agency spokesperson denied the allegation that the papers had been muddled up, but declined to comment as to whether a marriage visa application had been received. “We would not remove anyone from the UK while there are outstanding applications or representations on their case,” the spokesperson said.

“They told me to go home and wait 3-6 months,” Dana says. “I waited and nothing happened. My solicitor phoned them and sent letters to them. After a couple of years, they just refused me.” As a result, Dana was forced to leave his job at the chicken factory. He has been out of work since 2004, unable to claim benefits and unable to help his wife with the mortgage, living in the country pending immigration investigation. “They told us, when they want him, they’ll come and get him,” Taina says. “He was getting so down; he just wanted to get out of the house. So a couple of nights a week he would help out his friend at the kebab shop and have coffee with him. He wasn’t working there and he wasn’t getting paid, and the manager told the Home Office that, but the authorities said that he was working and they issued him with a form telling him he had to sign in at the police station every month.”

Told that if he was caught helping out his friend again, he would be arrested and the owner of the kebab shop fined £5,000, Dana has been reporting to Lowestoft police station once a month since March. One day, however, he didn’t come home. When he turned up at the police station on July 31st, they took him into custody without warning. “I asked them why and they told me they had papers to remove me from the United Kingdom,” Dana says. “I haven’t been home since that day.” Dana has barely seen his wife since they took him to Oakington, the Cambridgeshire immigrant detention centre exposed by a 2005 BBC documentary for the violence and racist abuse carried out by some of its staff. “You think you’re not going to do anything ‘cos a white person tells you what to do. Well I’m afraid you’re wrong,” employee James Martin was filmed saying to a detainee. “My great-grandfather shot your great-grandfather and nicked his fucking country off you for 200 years,” he says before tipping the immigrant out of bed. In December last year, inspectors investigating Oakington declared it had “lost direction” and inmates felt unsafe.



“I think it’s like Auschwitz,” Taina tells me. Whilst it is probably a little unfair to compare Oakington Immigration Reception Centre to the Nazi concentration camp in which over a million people were killed, hearing Dana describe the razor wire, the guards, the dogs and the cramped conditions, it is easy to understand why he and his wife are frightened. “He’s had to see a doctor and a psychiatrist since he’s been there,” Taina says. “On one of his arms, he started scratching his skin to bits. He doesn’t realise he’s doing it, he’s so stressed. They’ve put him on anti-depressants, which took over a week for him to get. Even the doctor said she’s disgusted at how he’s being treated.”

“I’m being treated like a criminal,” Dana says. In the past, the British government treated the country’s poor as though they were criminals. Now that status is accorded to its immigrants. Dana has lost a lot of weight since his detention. Hearing about his experiences, it is not hard to imagine Oakington as some kind of Dickensian workhouse. “When we go for dinner, if you ask for one more piece of bread, they won’t give it to you. When I’ve complained, I’ve been told, I’m illegal in this country, I shouldn’t be here, why am I asking questions? This camp, the way they treat you, it’s somewhere else, it’s not England.”

His wife, Taina, is in quite a unique situation for a woman in Suffolk, a county seemingly immune to demographic changes, to mass immigration and to ethnic diversity. In fighting Dana’s corner through the years of alleged blunders and stalling from the Home Office, she has written to local MP Bob Blizzard, to Tony Blair, to George Galloway, and she has approached the national papers, but none of them took up her case. Married to an Iraqi immigrant, part of the problem she faces comes from the right-wing tabloids and the relentless stream of anti-immigrant propaganda they publish. “The government pays attention to the Mail,” writes Nick Davies in his book, Flat Earth News, describing the paper’s tendency to omit all the benefits of immigration in its reporting, quoting highly selective and distortionary figures to sell its own reactionary, and often false, line. “I’ve become immune to it, really,” Taina tells me. “Dana is such a loving person. Before this happened, he was the soul of the party, he’s such a brilliant host. When people start saying the immigrants come over here and get this and that, I think, well my husband’s not like that.”

Dana desperately wants to return to his wife. “There are many people here in the same situation,” he says. “They’ve been here for a long time, and they’re married, and they just want to work and get on with their lives and their families. Some of them have kids as well.” He tells me he’s hoping to start a family with Taina. “I want to have children. We haven’t been able to because I have a sperm problem and need to have IVF treatment. But that costs a lot. If I were allowed to work, I could afford it. I would like to have one baby or two.”

Having once again submitted his documentation to the Home Office, Dana is awaiting their response. Taina says that if they do not recognise their marriage and his eligibility to remain in the country, she will take the case to the High Court. “I spoke to my solicitor last night and he said if we go to the High Court it will probably cost £5,000 to get him free,” she says. “Where is the justice in this world if you have to pay for someone’s freedom?”

Dana’s life story, from his fight against Islamists in Halabja to his fight to remain in Britain, is testament to the fact that the price of freedom can be very high indeed.

Dana’s niece, Claire, has set up a Facebook group in support of their campaign

The Third Estate
RENEGADE EYE

Food and Blogging: The Turkish Edition

I asked several bloggers, to send me recipes; preferably easy to prepare, common ingredients, ethnic etc. In addition if I print the recipe, I'll plug your blog. Send recipes to me at the email address at my profile. I was going to print them all in one post, but I acquired too many. Political agreement doesn't matter. Atleast every month I'll continue this series. Leave comments about food, the blog, restaraunts etc. Everyone who sent recipes, will eventually have them published. I'm going in random order

Today we visit Turkish cuisine and blogging. One blogger lives in Turkey, moved to the US, and one who presents Kurdish/Turkish food.

Turkish Marxist/Laconian Mehmet Çagatay. He says about Batrik, I had spent my childhood in Mersin, a southern city of Turkey. There was a sort of salad (Batirik) that is uniqely belong to the region. That was my favorite food in these times

Batrik

For 7 People:

1.5 cups of fine bulgur wheat
1 cup of warm water
1 Tbs sesame seeds
3Tbs tahini
1/2 cup olive oil
1 big onion, grated
1/2 Tbs salt
2 tsp cumin
1 Tbs pepper paste (could be found in Middle East stores)
1/2 bunch of mint and parsley
4 mid size tomatoes, peeled and chopped finely
4 scallions
3 anaheim peppers
2 pickling cucumber
2 leaves of lettuce
6 – 7 cups of cold water
Lemon juice, or pomegranate juice to taste

How to make it:

Put the bulgur in a deep dish and pour warm water over it. Let it soak
In a nonstick pan, fry sesame seeds finely and add tahini. When the mix becomes too thick, take it off the heat and add to the bulgur
While making sure all the ingredients are mixed well, add the grated onion, pepper paste, cumin, olive oil, salt and start kneading it. If necessary, add little amounts of water to help mixing
Add the peeled, chopped tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce leaves and mix again
Add the cold water, to get a very think cold soup consistency
Add lemon or pomegranate juice to taste

Now to America via Turkey comes from one of my favorite bloggers recipes. Nevin presents carrot rolls (havuc kafte). She says, Here is a recipe that my kids grew up with. I have been very conscious about their eating habits ever since they were babies. I have always prepared "real" food and never taken them to fast food restaurants. I have a lot of great recipe's for kids especially.... :) (if you wish any more, I got tons up my sleeve)

This dish originated in the Ottoman Palace kitchens.. It is very typical of Istanbulian style of cooking. Not hot or overly spicy. Healthy and great for kids....

Havuc Kofte (Carrot rolls)

Serves 4 people:

- What do you need?

10 medium sized carrots, peeled and sliced
2 slices bread or bread crumbs
6 dried apricots, finely sliced
3-4 spring onions, finely sliced
2 tablespoons of pine nuts
2-3 cloves of garlic, crushed (this is totally up to the cook, depending on how much you like garlic)
1 egg
finely chopped parsley and dill
salt and pepper
Few tablespoons of thick creamy yogurt
Flour

- How to prepare it?

Steam the carrots until soft. Drain well and put them in a large bowl. Mash with a fork...
Then add the bread crumbs dried apricots, spring onions, pine nuts, garlic, salt, pepper, 1 egg, parsley and dill.

Tip: If there is unnecessary liquid in the mixture, add more breadcrumbs.

Mix everything together. The mixture should be moist and sticky.
Make small size oblong shapes.

On a separate flat surface, place some all purpose flour and dip the carrot rolls in it. (This may seem difficult as the mixture is so sticky, but once dipped in flour the "Kofte" are easy to handle) After dipping each carrot rolls in the flour, put them a side.

- Cooking?

Heat a thin layer of oil in a large frying pan and place the kofte in it. Roll them over to brown on all sides.
After cooking all sides, place them on a paper towel to get rid of unwanted oil.

Transfer to a serving dish and put a large spoon of creamy yogurt on top.

And now I return to Kurdish Turkish cuisine. Rastî presents Cacik--Cold Yogurt and Cucumber Soup. ,i>This soup is eaten all over Turkey, including the Kurdish Region. It's included with meals or is used as part of a meze selection, and it's wonderfully cooling on hot summer days.

Cacik--Cold Yogurt and Cucumber Soup

1/2 lb. cucumbers--preferably "Persian" cucumbers (available at Asian markets)
2 cups whole milk, whole fat yogurt--don't even think of using that nasty low-fat/no-fat kind
2 tsp white vinegar
1 tsp olive oil
2 tsp fresh mint, finely chopped or 1 tsp dried
1/2 tsp fresh dill, finely chopped or 1/4 tsp dried
1 tsp salt or to taste
ice cubes

If you use regular cucumbers, peel and seed them, then coarsely grate. "Persian" cucumbers only need to be grated. In a large bowl, whisk the yogurt until smooth. Mix in the grated cucumber, vinegar, olive oil, mint, dill, and salt. If the yogurt seems thick, add a bit of water to thin it. Put the cacik in the refrigerator for a couple of hours until it is very cold. Serve in individual bowls, adding ice cubes for extra chill.

Alternately, mash one garlic clove and stir it in with the other ingredients. Leave the clove in the cacik while it chills, but remove it before serving. It will add just a hint of garlic flavor to the cacik.

Blogs Listed:
Mehmet Çagatay
The Nevin Politology
Rastî



RENEGADE EYE

Has Obama Sold Out Already?

Louis Proyect here compares present day Democrats, to the old Whig Party: In 1820 a dispute arose over the extension of slavery into Missouri, which was not then yet a state. Henry Clay worked out a compromise in Congress that made Maine free and Missouri slave. This maintained the balance in the Senate, which had included 11 free and 11 slave states. Except for Missouri, it would ban slavery north of Arkansas. The Missouri Compromise sounds exactly like the kind of legislation that the Democrats would come up with nowadays, especially in light of Mukasey’s approval and the continued funding of the war in Iraq. That describes the Democrats on healthcare.

Obama had no mandate to take Universal Health Care (UHC) off the table. Now it looks like even the "ublic option is history. Even if the public option was passed, it only allocated a fixed number of clients.

This time the pendulum will not swing right. The right has no program for the economic or healthcare crisis. No ideas period. It's time for the union movement to break from its main enemy, the Democratic Party.

RENEGADE EYE

District 9 ****

This is the scifi picture, you've been waiting for. It's the Schindler's List of the genre.

The movie starts documentary style. The aliens have landed of all places, in Johannesburg. Their craft sputtered around for years, and stopped. The inhabitants are malnourished. They came leaderless, and without intentions of war or new technology. The creatures were stranded, without fuel for their craft.

They were housed in a closed shanty town establishment called District 9. It was overcrowded and militarized, turned into a slum. Mass protests hit South Africa, because the creatures who are contemptuosly called "prawns," are accused of taking up social service benefits, that belong to humans. There are signs everywhere, humans only. They have an insatiable appetite for cat food. Nigerians start a cat food scam.



A private company called MNU (Multi-National United) is contracted to relocate the aliens from District 9 to a new camp outside the city limits. Of course, MNU is secretly interested in figuring out a way to use the sophisticated alien weaponry, which apparently can only be activated using alien DNA.

Sharlto Copley plays Wikus van der Merwe, an MNU operative, assigned to lead the eviction of the prawns. He is a back slapper type, who during an eviction, accidently spills a cylinder of alien material on his skin, causing his slow transformation to a prawn. His value is he has both human and alien DNA, and could be exploited by MNU, for their goal of the weaponry. Sharlto is a young DeNiro quality actor.

Director/writer Neil Blomkamp grew up in South Africa. The story is based on District Six, Cape Town is the name of a former inner-city residential area in Cape Town, South Africa. It is best known for the forced removal of over 60,000 of its inhabitants during the 1970s by the apartheid regime — a historical basis for the MNU's eviction and relocation of the "prawns".

RENEGADE EYE

Thoughts On the Town Hall Disruptions

By Louis Proyect
August 09, 2009

On August sixth, a Marxmail subscriber posed the question of “proletarian defense guards for Democrats, specifically Democratic congress members attempting to hold town hall meeting.” He, as the rest of us, must have realized how anachronistic such a term was but added:

It sounds weird, true, but I was contacted today as part of a mobilization to confront the hysterical collection of Ron Paulites, birthers, and other associated storm troopers who will be attempting to shut down a discussion of health care tonight by our aging congressman. In other parts of the country liberal representatives have had to flee of be escorted out by the police. The UAW is also supposed to lend some rank and file militants to this so we shall see how things turn out.

Does a proletarian defense guard for an aging Democratic hack make any sense to anyone here? It is true that the local right wing is particularly virulent and I noticed several “Death to communists” at the “tea party” tax protest. It brought to mind the fact that all the Obama signs/ stickers I saw on campus were defaced with a Soviet flag stickers. Given how incensed these people are one wonders what they would do if a real socialist were in any elected office.

I am not going to agonize now over the popular front overtones about all this but I really hate these creeps and I can be as loud as these assholes any day of the week. The larger question remains is that what is the correct path in this era of political polarization and the increasing virulence of the neo-Nazi faction of the Republican Party. I would appreciate other comrades’ experience and thoughts on this issue.

A Huffington Post article fleshed out the Marxmail subscriber’s report on trade union involvement, as well as the frenzy that this had driven the rightwing into:

Union officials continued to receive a barrage of threats on Friday evening and into Saturday punctuated by warnings that if organizers were sent to counter-demonstrate at health care town halls they would be met with violence.

An official with the AFL-CIO, a federation of labor organizations, passed on what he described as a “pretty direct threat” to those union hands who were showing up to balance out anti-Obama demonstrations being waged at local Democratic forums.

“I will be going to a local town hall this weekend, all you union members BEWARE!” an emailer wrote at 9:40 Saturday morning. “We will be waiting for you. better make sure you have arrangements with your local ER. today is the day when the goon meets the gun. see you there.”

The rightwing has been posting Youtube clips about these confrontations. The one below shows the trade union defense guard clearing them out of a town hall meeting organized by Kathy Castor, a Democratic Congresswoman from Florida. It reminded me of some of the assignments I had defending meetings in the 1960s but I was about half the size of these guys.

So far most of the violence at these meetings has consisted of pushing and shoving from the rightwingers, but we cannot rule out an escalation at some point especially in light of the recent murder of an abortion provider in Kansas. For the last several months, talk radio, Fox TV, Lou Dobbs on CNN, the “birthers”, and the far right wing of the Republican Party in Washington has worked itself into a lather around a number of seemingly unrelated issues: whether Obama was born in the US or not; the supposed possibility that health care reform will lead to old people being thrown to the wolves; and a general sense of economic vulnerability.



When the evening newscast the other night was showing footage of the chaos at another one of these town meetings, I told my wife that it reflected the basic difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. The Democrats do everything they can to demobilize their base, who are seen as inconvenient and extraneous to their main way of getting things done, namely through closed door meetings with corporate executives and nonprofit honchos over how to screw the American people while giving the opposite impression. Meanwhile, the Republicans are much more reliant on an activist base because their social support is much narrower. As a party that rules directly and openly in the interests of the moneyed elite, it requires all sorts of grass roots organization to push its filthy agenda forward.

But in practice, this means that the grass roots is almost always reliant on seed money from deep-pocketed foundations and corporate benefactors. Conservatives for Patients’ Rights takes credit for interventions at these town meetings. A character named Rick Scott, who is a millionaire investor and formerly head of the Columbia/HCA health-care company, leads CPR. A fraud investigation in the 1990s resulted in the Columbia/HCA pleading guilty to charges that it overbilled state and federal health plans. It ended up paying a record $1.7 billion in fines. According to Politico, CPR has raised $20 million to fight health care reform. You can bet that this is more than enough to pay for transporting mobs from one town hall meeting to another, including the one that just got the heave-ho from trade unionists in Florida.

It is impossible to predict what the next four years have in store but you cannot rule out such confrontations being repeated with some regularity given the sharpening of class tensions in the U.S. over what looks like a protracted L shaped recession. Even though the Dow-Jones index is heading toward the 10,000 level, the job and housing situation remain bleak.

Obama will do everything in his power to convince those who voted for him to remain patient while he carries out what amounts to a third Bush term, but there will be more and more defensive measures by the poor and the working class in defense of its own class interests. One can be reasonably assured that the level of discontent in the US will rise despite the African-American President’s clear gift for demagogy and deception.

And as the workers and the poor begin to fight for their rights, the retrograde social forces churned up from a capitalism in decay will become more and more violent and inclined to direct action. While this does not pose any immediate threat of fascism, largely a function of the unlikelihood of a revolutionary socialist movement gaining the necessary numbers and influence any time soon, there will be a need to study the 1930s just as the Marxism list subscriber alluded to when he referred to proletarian defense guards—the sort of thing that hasn’t been seen since then.

For one of the best introductions to the period, I can recommend Leon Trotsky’s Whither France, a sharp polemic against a Popular Front Government that like Obama’s tried to keep its social base demobilized while the fascists were taking over the streets. Trotsky wrote:

It is not the spirit of combination among parliamentarians and journalists, but the legitimate and creative hatred of the oppressed for the oppressors which is today the single most progressive factor in history. It is necessary to turn to the masses, toward their deepest layers. It is necessary to appeal to their passions and to their reason. It is necessary to reject the false “prudence” which is a synonym for cowardice and which, at great historical turning points, amounts to treason. The united front must take for its motto the formula of Danton: “De l’audace, encore de l’audace, toujours de l’audace.” To understand the situation fully and to draw from it all the practical conclusions, boldly and without fear and to the end, is to assure the victory of socialism.

I imagine that everybody will have no trouble understanding Danton’s French, but it turns out that he was saying: “Audacity, again audacity, and always audacity.” Given our weakened state, most leftists have difficulty thinking in terms of audaciousness. But if the period we are entering is marked by open conflict between workers and their class enemies, we have to dust off our weapons and march off to the class war once again.

RENEGADE EYE

Nathalie Cardone - Che Guevara

RENEGADE EYE

The Anti- Jokes of Neil Hamburger

Food

Why are M&M's full of chocolate?
Because it would be illegal to fill them full of shit.

Why did ET the Extra Terrestrial love Reese's pizzas so much?
Well because they have the same flavour that cum does on his own planet.

How do you keep your pet dog from licking his balls?
Coat them in Domino's pizza sauce.

Why did God create Domino's Pizza?
To punish humanity for their complacency at letting the Holocaust happen.

Why do Pringles employees get laid so often?
Because they can.

Why does Arby's put so much mayonnaise on their sandwiches?
It makes it easier to flush them down the toilet.

How do you keep flies from landing on your Big Mac?
Unwrap it.

Why did Ronald McDonald have sex with his sister?
His judgment was impaired from all those years of eating junk food.

Why does KFC come in a bucket?
So you have something to throw up into afterwards.

Why did the Sanders girls, Colonel Sanders' daughters, absolutely refuse to eat KFC's extra crispy fried chicken?
Well because it brought back too many bad memories of their late father's foreskin.

Why did Colonel Sanders keep his eleven herbs and spices a secret?
Because he was ashamed of them.

And why, why did, on his deathbed, why did Colonel Sanders on his deathbed reveal the secret of his eleven herbs and spices to Academy Award-nominated actress Sally Fields?
Well, because he was desperate for a handjob... Would that have been funnier if we had a black gospel choir behind me?

Celebrity

Why didn't Santa Claus give anything for Christmas to Osama Bin Laden last year?
Because he blew up the World Trade Center. No Sony Playstation 2 for you, Osama.

What do Osama Bin Laden and Chevy Chase have in common?
Neither one has released a new film in the last year.

What did the godfather of soul, the godfather of soul Gerald Ford have in common with disgraced vocalist James Brown and activist Saddam Hussein?
Well, all three men were very well hung.

Why did Angelina Jolie, sexual actress Angeline Jolie, and sensual actor Brad Pitt, choose to have their baby in a primitive medical facility in Namibia, a third-world hellhole?
Well, simply to have a scapegoat when the baby was born retarded... Did you get that on film asshole, huh? Sick creeps.

Why did Vice-President Dick Cheney shoot Texas attorney Harry Whittington.
Well, it was in retaliation for the Biggie Smalls murder... Hey they loved that joke in Dubai, I'm telling you.

Why did Julia Roberts rub shit on her vagina?
Because she was horny. Hey, don't blame me. I stole that joke from Kris Kristofferson.

What did Santa Claus give Paris Hilton for Christmas?
Well, he raped her.

Why did Robert Redford stick his cock in a jar of Paul Newman's spaghetti sauce?
Lots of spaghetti sauce fans in the crowd tonight. Good to see. Sauce enthusiast. For those... to repeat... for those whose ears are encrusted with venereal disease: Why did Paul Newman, no Robert Redford right, stick his cock in a jar of Paul Newman's spaghetti sauce?
Well, the two men have been friends for over 40 years, do you think he's gonna stick his cock in a competitor's product?

Why did God send Terri Schiavo to hell?
For the sin of sloth.

Why did God create herpes?
So Robin Williams could give something to his female fans that they couldn't just turn around and sell on eBay.

Did you guys hear the one about the paparazzi with the heart of gold?
He stole it from Princess Diana as she lay dying in her car.

Why did the United States government hire a former hotdog vendor to pull the switch that executed Timothy McVeigh?
Well, they thought he might relish the job.

Did you read that Timothy McVeigh killed a million more people the night before he was executed, huh? Yeah. He ejaculated onto the floor of his cell... [When no one laughs:] Could this be a generation gap.

All right, for his final meal, why did Timothy McVeigh request a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, a can of Pringles potato chips, a Nestle chocolate bar, and a Mountain Dew?
Because he had endorsement deals with all those companies... Sorry about that one.

Why did God create the Paris Hilton sex video tape?
Well, so that the mentally retarded would have something to masturbate to.

Hey is it just me, is it just me, or is George Bush the worst president in the history of the United States, huh. Am I right? Which makes it all the harder to understand why his son, George W, is the best president we've had in the United States.

[Alternative version: But these are difficult times, and it helps to have a sense of humour, doesn't it, ladies and gentlemen, with some of the things we've been going through in this country. I gotta tell you, I'm sure a few of you will agree, George Bush is the worst president this country has ever had, huh? Which is why it's so hard for me to understand why his son, George W Bush, has turned out to be the best president this country's ever had.]

But I'd like to take this opportunity to publicly thank the people of Italy for their help with the war effort. As you may have read in the newspaper today, the Italians were involved, they sent over Pavarotti into Iraq to eat all the Iraqis' spaghetti in an attempt to demoralize them... [When people groan:] Hey, come on, I have cancer.

Well I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the Phoenix Greyhound Park for hosting this annual event, because this is a great annual event, isn't it, ladies and gentlemen. It's just like Woodstock '99, but without all the rapes. And this is being filmed tonight for a DVD, although we will be editing that line from the broadcast. Been saddled with some substandard material here tonight, sorry about that.

Musicians

Hey what do you call it folks, friends, what do you call it when decrepit old dogs regurgitate garbage just before dying -- what's the medical term for that?
The Rolling Stones in concert.

Why did Metallica cut their hair?
Their hairdresser said it was the only way to get all that matted cum out of it.

Why did God give Smashmouth three top ten singles?
Well, it was a clerical error -- he meant to give them all AIDS.

Why did the farmer start a punk rock band?
Well because he was tired of Haulin' Oats.

Why did Sir Mick Jagger shove a carrot up his daughter's ass?
He mistook her for a fan.

What do you get when you cross Elton John with a sabretooth tiger?
I don't know, but you'd better keep it away from your ass.

But you know the thing with this war that really confused me was why the United Kingdom was involved at all. I don't think we needed those guys -- do you? I mean, their military is in terrible shape. Look who they've got. They've got Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Elton John, Sir Mick Jagger, I mean these are hardly the knights of the round table... Okay. Well, moving right along.

Why did Jim Morrison, the dynamic lead singer of The Doors, die in a bathtub?
Well, he overexerted himself trying to clean the grime off of his balls.

Why did God give Motley Crue such abnormally large penises?
So that they'd be better equipped at dealing with the pain of life.

Why does Britney Spears sell so many millions of albums?
Because the public is horny and depressed.

How about Britney Spears' tits. Why didn't we just drop those on Iraq, huh. Talk about your biological warfare. I guess in her case it could more accurately be termed chemical warfare.

What do you call the creatures who are growing in the pile of potato chip wrappers and discarded g-strings behind Britney Spears' house?
Her children.

Why did Kevin Federline spray Britney Spears' caesarean section with Lysol disinfectant?
So it would be safe for fucking.

What do you call a senior citizen who can't refrain from exposing their genitalia in public?
Madonna.

Why did Madonna feed her infant baby Alpo dog food?
Well, she had no choice. That's just what came out of her breasts... These drug addicts like it, huh, why can't the rest of you.

Reach into my bag of tricks here, or more accurately my bag of shit. Why did Madonna wear a hat on the cover of her last two albums?
To try and cover up her bald spot.

What does British filmmaker Guy Richie have in common with Cheetos?
They both come in a plastic bag.

Times are tough for Michael Jackson. Over at Neverland, he recently had to shut down the juvenile VD clinic.

Why did Michael Jackson turn down $10,000,000 to advertise for McDonalds?
Because he doesn't find obese children at all sexually appealing.

Why did Michael Jackson dangle his infant son over the balcony of his hotel room?
He was punishing him for refusing to finish his plate of sperm.

Why did Michael Jackson put chocolate sauce on his hot dog?
So his children would eat it.

In keeping with the tradition he's had with his past albums of titling them after his various personality traits -- you know -- "bad", "dangerous", "off the wall" -- he's titling the first of these two new albums, to be released in July -- he's titling this first album "gay", and that'll be followed up in November with the second album, you know, "mentally ill".

What do you call five fingers that are grasping a small boy's penis?
The Jackson Five.

How many Red Hot Chilli Peppers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
Well it depends on how recently they've shot up... [When no one laughs:] Well, we've got a few junkies here tonight, huh. Call the police, you people make me gag. Clean up your act, you're a disgrace to this clean city.

Did you guys hear, this was in the news, did you hear that Anthony Kiedis, the Grammy Award-winning composer of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, finally joined the mile high club.
Yeah, he raped a woman in Denver.

Did you guys know that the Red Hot Chilli Peppers are the United States' foremost supporters of the mentally disabled.
That's right. For the past 20 years, without any public fanfare, at their own expense, they have been hiring these poor souls, the mentally disabled, hiring them to design their tattoos.

What is the only thing worse than a new album by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers?
9/11.

Why did the Red Hot Chilli Peppers cross the road?
Well because they were running away from the rehab clinic.

Why are the Red Hot Chilli Peppers' veins in danger of collapsing?
Well because the band has had so many hits.

What do the Red Hot Chilli Peppers have in common with George W Bush?
Well both of them like to shoot up everything in sight.

What's the difference between the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Harriet Taubman?
Well of course the great Harriet Taubman was a heroine to the slaves, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers are slaves to the heroin.

Why did the Red Hot Chilli Peppers go under the bridge?
Because there was a plate of shit there they wanted to jack off into.

What do you get when you cross the Red Hot Chilli Peppers with an octopus?
[Something] with eight arms to shoot up into.

What did the Red Hot Chilli Peppers do when their management informed them that they were not all happy with the band's latest tracks?
Well, they went out and bought long suede shirts.

All right, here's a crowd pleaser. Why did Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper all retire from the music industry in 1959?
Well, because their vocal cords were all damaged in an accident.

How many Backstreet Boys does it take to screw in a light bulb?
They don't screw in light bulbs -- they're too busy screwing their audience.

Hey, here's one for you gang. What was Elvis Presley's worst ever release?
Well, the ejaculation containing Lisa Marie.

Why does Eric Clapton close his eyes during all of his guitar solos?
Well, because his audience is so ugly. That was in the news.

Why did Al-Qaeda burn in a public town square in Kabul, Afghanistan, over 10,000 copies of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" album?
Well, because it's a horrible album.

What was the name of the historical event at which hundreds of thousands of children were brutalized by a fascist dictatorship and then left out in the sun to die?
The Vans Warped Tour.

Why did NASA send a titanium copy of the latest Linkin Park album to every planet in our solar system?
Well, to kill off any interest that the aliens may have had in invading earth.

Why did two teenage boys crawl down into the bottom of a portable chemical toilet, down into the holding tank, and wait there for 15 hours?
[Alternative version: why did two teenage boys spend 15 hours in a holding tank of the chemical toilet?]
Well, because they wanted to meet Aerosmith.

What is the difference between Courtney Love and a porcupine?
Well, if you get pricked with a porcupine's needle, you're not likely to get AIDS.

What do you get when you cross the latest album by Courtney Love with a boomerang?
A shitty album you can't get rid of.

More about Neil Hamburger here

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Bella Ciao Iran (The Partisan Song)

About the song:
(From wikipedia) The song Bella Ciao was sung by the left anti-fascist resistance movement in Italy, a movement by anarchists, communists, socialists and other anti-fascist partisans. The author of the lyrics is unknown, and the music seems to come from an earlier folk song sung by riceweeders in the Po Valley. Another interpretation has been given following the discovery in 2006 by Fausto Giovannardi of the CD "Klezmer - Yiddish swing music" including the melody "Koilen" played in 1919 by Mishka Ziganoff.

The song has been recorded by various artists in many different languages including Italian, Russian, Bosnian, Kurdish, Croatian, Serbian, Serbo-Croatian, Hungarian, English, Spanish, Finnish, Kabyle, German, Turkish, Japanese, Tagalog, Breton and Chinese.

Singer of this version is Lidija Percan.

Lyrics
Una mattina mi son svegliato,
o bella, ciao! bella, ciao! bella, ciao, ciao, ciao!
Una mattina mi son svegliato,
e ho trovato l'invasor.
O partigiano, portami via,
o bella, ciao! bella, ciao! bella, ciao, ciao, ciao!
O partigiano, portami via,
ché mi sento di morir.
E se io muoio da partigiano,
o bella, ciao! bella, ciao! bella, ciao, ciao, ciao!
E se io muoio da partigiano,
tu mi devi seppellir.
E seppellire lassù in montagna,
o bella, ciao! bella, ciao! bella, ciao, ciao, ciao!
E seppellire lassù in montagna,
sotto l'ombra di un bel fior.

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