New PCWC Poster: Boycott Rosita's - No Love for Rightwing Tacos!

Our new PCWC poster "Boycott Rosita's: No Love for Rightwing Tacos" is finished and ready to be posted around town! It recently came to our attention that the Rosita's location in Tempe had quietly been the hub for rightwing and anti-immigrant organizing in Tempe, this included hosting Tea Party groups and a Sheriff Arpaio speaking engagement. The owners at Rosita's took their anti-immigrant and anti-worker activities a step further by firing a longtime employee in retaliation for posting about the Tea Party events on an anti-Arpaio facebook page. This news was all the more disturbing because we have been patrons there for years, all the tacos, burritos, and beers we'd bought were lining the pockets of a rightwing Mexican restaurant. We'd been funding our enemies!

In early July we were tipped off that Sheriff Arpaio was in Tempe speaking to supporters at Rosita's, so we made some calls, got a few friends together, and booked it over to crash the party. We missed that old bastard Arpaio by just a few minutes, but there was still a few dozen Tea Party people in the main dining room where the walls were adorned with a number of Republican "Tea Party" candidates' campaign signs. We were given the boot pretty quickly by management, who insisted they have the right to host Arpaio, the Tea Party, and whoever they want, regardless of how uncomfortable or fearful it makes the customers or employees.

One worker wasn't having it, so he went to the facebook group "People against Sheriff Joe Arpaio" and posted a call out for people to come down to Rosita's to confront the anti-immigrant gathering.

A disclaimer: We did not learn of this event from this employee, in fact a friend was eating lunch at Rosita's and saw Arpaio arrive and speak, it was this person who hit us up to tell us this was going down. I want to address this because the employee who wrote the post on facebook was fired a couple of days later, and that if the worker was fired because of our appearance at the restaurant it was not because of the post on facebook, because we hadn't seen it.

I've since met the worker, he told me that when he came to work a couple of days after the Arpaio-Tea Party event that his manager was waiting for him with a printed copy of the facebook page in hand. It struck me as bizarre that his boss would think to take a look at the anti-Arpaio facebook group for some evidence behind our interruption earlier that week, as this is a page that is monitored by Arpaio's security detail, and possibly other law enforcement agencies, it's not unlikely that the management was in collusion with MCSO. While this information could have been provided to Rosita's by one of Arpaio's goons, it also could've been a customer who saw the post and called it in, or some rightwinger keeping an eye on the anti-Arpaio site who reported it to the management.

This isn't the first incident in recent months of workers being fired in retaliation for standing in solidarity with immigrants, or taking action against rightwing anti-immigrant groups . In June I wrote in support of the 13 Latino Pei Wei workers who were denied a day off to attend the large immigrant demonstration back in May, these workers defied the company's orders by taking a wild cat strike to join the thousands of other people at the march. Like the Pei Wei workers, the Rosita's worker took action by blowing the whistle on the rightwing organizing going down in the restaurant, but unlike the Pei Wei workers this came from a white worker who took the initiative to go public on Rosita's love affair with the authorities and the racists from the right.

For all of the efforts of media outlets, politicians, and anti-immigrant activists who continue to exacerbate tensions between white workers and workers of color, these incidents show that while action by workers is isolated, there is an undercurrent of class solidarity that could grow to push the debate on SB 1070 in a liberatory direction. Along these lines, it may be surprising to workers who fight back to find that, whether brown or white, the capitalist has a pink slip waiting for those fighting against the white supremacist order by fighting for their dignity, or for those who defy their perceived elevated status on the class/race hierarchy to stand with workers struggling below them. This is the fragile truce between white workers and the capitalist class, a system that rewards white people with a series of privileges in return for their loyalty to the system of private property and profit that benefits the rich and powerful at the expense of our counterparts from communities of color.

The disciplining of workers who challenge the white supremacist order and the collaboration between the owners and the rightwing and anti-immigrant groups cannot stand, we ought to discipline the bosses who find it acceptable to bring this level of terror into the workplace and community. In this "right to work" state an employee can be fired with or without cause, so taking walk outs, strikes, or other forms of collective action almost certainly guarantee getting laid off.

We are calling for a permanent boycott of the two Rosita's restaurants in the valley, not with the intention of harming the workers, the owners of this restaurant do that enough by hosting the enemies of working people. We want to drag these cheer leaders of repression into the light, to shame them publicly, and to withdraw any monetary support for them since they've used so much of our money spent there to attack immigrants and communities of color, this is unacceptable. In these times it's important to "out" businesses that provide shelter or a space for anti-immigrant, rightwing, racist, and/or fascist groups.

General Plutarco Calles, Dec 1924

Perhaps the owners of Rosita's (Rosa's son and his wife) would do well to look at a little history, it could be easy for them too, they wouldn't have to start any further than their own restaurant's menu. Rosa Keeme, the founder of Rosita's, would probably have never made it to Tempe or opened a restaurant fifty years ago if her family had to contend with the border, movement, and immigration controls that Mexicans face these days. Rosa's mother, Maria Jesus Calles-Moreno, benefited significantly from the lack of border controls, in fact it may have saved her life.

If the biography on the menu is to be believed, Rosa's great uncle was Plutarco Elías Calles, a Mexican general, politician, and later a president and dictator-like figure who founded the group which later became the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the corrupt and brutal political body that ruled Mexico for seventy years. Plutarco ruled formally as president for awhile and then informally after that through his political machine until he was finally forced into a short exile in the United States. So, the Calles family, like many Mexican families during this era, was forced to flee to Sonora, Mexico to escape political repression. Over the years, the family moved back and forth from Sonora to Arizona, to Sonora, and back again, not all together any different than thousands of other Mexican workers who had to travel to the U.S. and back for decades doing seasonal work, or the millions of families that NAFTA uprooted and divided with the border wall.

We can't change capitalism, it has to be abolished, so we won't pretend that even if the owners of Rosita's came to their senses and put a stop to their cooperation with the anti-immigrant groups, that their restaurant, or virtually any other workplace, will be a workers' paradise. At the end of the day it's still an underpaid, overworked, misery inducing job, but I'll be damned if we let those who seek to actively lower our material conditions have an open place from which to propagandize and organize to keep us all down.

Shutdown racist, anti-immigrant, and rightwing organizing in Tempe, boycotting Rosita's is just the start!

Photo of the day

"Oil companies do not value our life; they want us to all die. In the past two years, we have experienced 10 oil spills and fishermen can no longer sustain their families. It is not tolerable."
-Williams Mkpa, a community leader in Ibeno, Nigeria

Vandalized BP service station in NYC.

Despite the massive PR campaign coming from the bastards at British Petroleum, it's reassuring that some people have long memories (see above photo). It's not as though BP suffered a severe enough economic backlash from the destruction they unleashed on the Gulf either when service stations reported only a 5% drop in sales across the board. Perhaps the BP spill was just little too close to home for business as usual to go on, BP reported a $15 billion dollar loss in the second quarter due to the costs of managing the spill, a large scale ecological collapse for the region.

Europe's second largest oil corporation has little to fear in the long run, just check out the track record of Exxon Mobil or Shell, 40 years of oil spills and systematic destruction of the earth and human communities in the Nigerian Delta has had little effect on long term profits or public perception, due to their massive PR operations and the general lack of action from the west over just about any atrocity in Africa. Despite all of their baggage, 2nd quarter 2010 profits from Shell were $4.5 billion dollars, Exxon Mobil pulled in $7.56 billion, both companies are party to the continued repression of the resistance to their operations in the Niger Delta.

If the Nigerian model is any sign of what's to come, the impunity of oil companies will continue to varying degrees whether in the Delta, the Gulf, or perhaps even the Mediterranean soon enough. So don't hold your breath for any of these oil companies to be reigned in by any state actor anytime soon either, the demands for profit and the explosion of the eco-crisis have gone hand in hand for decades now with little consequence for those in power. Without the intervention of a popular and effective direct action movement aimed at destroying the worldwide menace of industrial capitalism, we will no doubt continue to see this disaster spread to every corner of the earth until the bitter end.

Freedom of movement is no joke: The Daily Show catches on to the contradictions of every day white supremacy in Arizona

Bravo to the Daily Show! Aside from the pass given to the pro-camera group, the Daily Show does a great job of highlighting one of the most glaring contradictions at work in the right-libertarian/constitutionalist milieu here in Arizona. For sometime now, PCWC has taken aim at the tension between white peoples' demands for free movement, with the expectation of increased policing for immigrants, coupled with the militarization of the border.

The Daily Show reporter Olivia Munn gets it right, demonstrating that the anti-camera movement's reactionary call for "cops, not cameras" is essentially a back door to a racist argument that says "free movement for whites, increased policing for everyone else". This position was probably best served up by the Tempe "Santas Against 1984" who disabled the traffic cameras a few years back and delivered a solid message against all controls on movement. Their youtube video went viral back in 2008, and takes Munn's send-up of the anti-immigrant/anti-camera tendency a step further by attacking both the cameras, and those who would control movement with borders.

The two videos are posted below, enjoy!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Arizona's Photo Radar
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes

The "Revolution" we really, really DON'T Need...

A constant for those of us in Arizona who have been in the streets since the passage of SB 1070, has been the troubling presence of political opportunists, or "the hacks" as we're now accustomed to calling them. A "31 Flavors" of Left-wing political groups, most of them looking to jump on the anti-SB 1070 band wagon as a means to get their name out there, recruit new members, and/or using the human rights disaster we face to raise funds to build their presence.

For months now, the Trotskyist sect, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), have shown up at pro-immigrant/anti-Arpaio demonstrations hawking their paper, "The Militant," and setting up a table to sell their books. Meanwhile, the ANSWER "coalition" has appeared overnight and called for a demonstration the day before the law goes into effect. As it's been documented over the years, ANSWER is a front for the Party for Socialism and Liberation, a Leninist group that broke away from the Stalinist line of the Workers World Party a few years back. From where we stand, these groups, who parachute in with their own agenda, offer no answer from any of their party building, paper selling militants, or disingenuous front organizations for the crisis in Arizona.

With the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), there are plenty of opportunities for a well meaning person to get caught up in their web of front groups. Whether you're looking to fight police brutality, stop the U.S. military occupations abroad, free political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, or (perhaps their most bizarre attempt at recruiting through fronts) join the international supporters of the murderous Shining Path guerrillas in Peru, the RCP has it covered. The last time the RCP poked around the valley it was during the heyday of the anti-war movement and the birth of the immigrant rights movement, and they didn't stick around for long. A small group would attend demonstrations, in their World Can't Wait attire at anti-war marches, and as the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade at an immigrant rally, but were told off each time they surfaced by valley anarchists. As they were unable to intervene, or uninterested in the political situation in Phoenix four years ago, the RCP has returned to the valley, sans front group...sort of.

Paying homage to the 1964 Mississippi civil rights campaign, groups from across the state have called for a Freedom Summer in Arizona, a campaign of activism and awareness, most prominently reflected in the campaign organized by No More Deaths and Tierra Y Libertad down in Tucson. The Freedom Summer name has also been put into use by the aforementioned Workers World Party's Stalinist youth group "F.I.S.T.," who are calling for more of the same, a united front to combat the far right-wing, while their Maoist competitors at the RCP have their own ideas on what this summer should look like.

The RCP's "Arizona Freedom Summer" is a particularly unique brand of left intervention, because unlike the other Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist-Maoist tendencies, the RCP's activists are building their organizing around one objective, promotion of their leader, Chairman Bob Avakian. In the call for "Arizona Freedom Summer" the authors(s) state:

Arizona Freedom Summer is about radically changing this whole dynamic, defying this whole direction, and setting new terms. "The days when this system can just keep on doing what it does to people, here and all over the world… when people are not inspired and organized to stand up against these outrages and to build up the strength to put an end to this madness… those days must be GONE. And they CAN be." (from "The Revolution We Need… The Leadership We Have," A Message and A Call from the RCP, USA)

Their "Freedom Summer" project is being treated as another opportunity to roll out the latest mass line from Avakian, this being one of two paragraphs in the article that outlines the type of organizing the RCP wants to bring to the table, the other is once again an opportunity to promote Avakian as the leadership the RCP thinks we all need. A selection from the second paragraph (below) embeds more of the Avakian worship within their otherwise banal political rhetoric:

There needs to be a broad and defiant resistance that refuses to comply with this law, and there need to be many thousands of people in the course of building this resistance finding out about the revolution we need and the leadership we have, coming to see that it is this system and the rulers of this country that are totally illegitimate and that another world is possible. (Emphasis added)

Let's not forget their fundraising either, one of the RCP organizers, who has moved into town, let it be known that they are planning on printing up one million copies of their new poster. What poster could be so important that they need one million copies? It's the latest bilingual statement from Avakian "The Revolution We Need...The Leadership We Have." Unbelievable. The grassroots groups on the ground have very little money, as in virtually none. We have comrades who are struggling to stay out of the clutches of the state, neighborhood projects that are entirely self-funded, community spaces for youth and indigenous people that struggle to keep the lights on, and indigenous initiatives against the border and destruction of traditional lands here in occupied O'odham land. It's outrageous that they can spend tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of dollars on their latest piece of propaganda, while the projects I've listed, and many more, are fighting for survival.

The cult-like devotion to Avakian, should be of major concern to anyone swept up into one of the RCP's front groups, and it's a worthwhile exercise to call this out, but we at PCWC aren't interested in correcting their errors. As anarchists we're naturally opposed to their centralized leadership and promotion of the "mass line" of the Maoist organization, but this alone is not where we break with many of the Marxist, Leninist, and/or Maoist persuasion.

We believe that the radical possibilities of total liberation from authority are far more transformative and intoxicating than any steps to a revolution as prescribed by any so-called revolutionary chairman. Take their stance on Arizona as an example, one of their demands "No more troops! Demilitarize the border!", this is not only a conservative stance amongst revolutionaries, but it shows that once again the people are ahead of their revolutionary "leaders." The RCP, like many on the left, are afraid to state the obvious, that millions of people have already disregarded the legitimacy of the border line, they have to move across it every day, regardless of the law. Further more, by solely opposing the militarization of the borderlands they join in a colonial tradition that attacks the indigenous people of these occupied lands, as tribes are indeed separated by the border wall. By holding the legitimacy of the state over those of the individuals and communities struggling to preserve their ways of life, the RCP become de facto ideological enforcers of the border.

Their other slogan for their Arizona Freedom Summer is "We don't gotta show no stinkin' papers!", this slogan, if in fact reflective of their actual political stance, is similar to their call for a demilitarization of the border in that they do not call for an end to these movement controls. As anarchists, we do not hesitate to call for the complete abolition of all borders and identification papers, these are tools the authorities use to repress, genocide, and maintain power over people. We want to leave no ideological room for the defense of the state, something the RCP is unwilling to do, because in the end, like all statists, they recognize that they too will make use of the same apparatus of control. A world with out borders is a stateless world, one in which the walls of the rich and powerful have fallen, thus signaling an end to the movement of people for the extraction of the surplus value from their labor. So why is the RCP reluctant to advocate for such a vision, here and now?

As anti-capitalists and anti-authoritarians we say there is no better time than now!

We in PCWC believe in the potential of a revolution, one that can transform our day to day social affairs, as well as our relationships to power, and what that power means for all of us. The Revolutionary Communist Party, like all authoritarian left formations, offers none of these things, but more of the same: lifetimes of work, misery, and obedience (to the state, the party, the chairman, etc).


*For some interesting history on their inability to build a revolutionary communist movement, check out dissident former RCP member Mike Ely's "9 Letters to Our Comrades" a critical analysis of the failures in their mass line, the cult of Avakian, and their inability to draw any level of consistent mass participation in their Maoist outfit.

*Finally, for the second installment of our week of anti-RCP posts, I'd like to turn to an older piece written by our own Phoenix Insurgent on his old blog. Although the piece is five years old, it's a good refresher on the RCP, specifically when it comes to their long history of using front groups to manipulate and recruit.

Understanding World Can't Wait and the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP)by Phoenix Insurgent

The rise of the most recent RCP front group, The World Can't Wait, provides a good opportunity for me to offer some links to criticisms of the RCP, its strategies and leader, Bob Avakian. In the past, the RCP has attempted to utilize front groups like Not In Our Name and the October 22nd Organization (O22).

Its strategy is similar to that of another Stalinist sect, the Workers World Party, which for several years has operated through its front group International A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now To Stop War and End Racism). Both groups hope to use their fronts in order to manipulate folks who honestly oppose the policies of the Bush regime and the war. In the case of World Can't Wait, the steering committee - apparently self-appointed - is stacked with RCP members, disproportionate to their numbers and influence in the anti-war movement as a whole.

People who care about the future of the anti-war and other movements are right to start looking for alternatives to the stale, boring local scene, dominated as it is by Democratic electoralism and liberal candle-holding. But World Can't Wait brings us nothing that we can't do for ourselves. And it brings several disadvantages we can ill afford.

Four things we can do instead: (1) Break out of the vigil, anti-Bush rut - let's start picking meaningful targets that get to the root of the problem; (2) Focus on militant direct action aimed at targets that have a real impact on the war and its supporters; (3) Link up and support local struggles, especially those of the poor and people of color; (4)

Ditch the political parties - our demands are clear and can be articulated and accomplished without the mediation of a third party.

For some good reading on the RCP and its history, consider the following articles:

This October 22, the RCP follows the anarchists
This short piece, from the Anarchist People of Color website, looks at some of the current changes in the RCP and why they may have made them. It also cautions anarchists and others to be skeptical of coalition work with them.

Mythology of the White-Led "Vanguard": A Critical Look at the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA
This is a classic piece, though it focuses on the RCP as it was a few years ago. It's is worth reading to see where the RCP came from. Highlighted are its homophobic roots, amongst others. Though the RCP has reorganized some since this came out, most of the criticisms are still very valid. In an interview here, the author updates his criticism.

The Maoist cultism of the RCP is anti-Marxist
This is a pretty good analysis, though it comes from another authoritarian communist group. Not all of it's criticisms are valid, especially the more sectarian ones. However, the points about the cultish nature of the RCP and its pro-middle class orientation are worth reading.

These are three good places to start. In the end, though, the RCP is a deceptive, centralized and authoritarian organization. If we want to bring the war to an end and, eventually, bring about revolution in this country, we need to stick to decentralized and democratic forms of organizing because those reflect the world we want to replace the current one. And we need to keep our eyes on the real cause of the war, which goes beyond particular politicians or particular business interests. It's time to start talking about capitalism, the State, white supremacy, imperialism, patriarchy and the other systems that have brought us this and every other war. To stop them, we need a new direction in Phoenix, but we don't need World Can't Wait or the RCP.

There's an old anarchist saying, "If you want to know what a communist is saying, look at his hands." That means, the rhetoric is just that - rhetoric. Forget the words, look at what they are doing if you want to know what they really mean. We need to keep an eye on the RCP and WCW.

***

For the book readers out there, check out Daniel Cohn-Bendit's "Obsolete Communism: The Left-Wing Alternative" for a good treatment of communist parties as they operate in modern technological societies on the verge of revolution. Cohn-Bendit was a major player in the May Days of 1968 in Paris and had plenty to say after the communists sold the revolutionary movement out in France.

http://phoenixinsurgent.blogspot.com/

Fuck the RCP: New PCWC Poster

I suppose it was only a matter of time. What with all the movement hacks from the Left Coast making their cameo appearances here since SB1070 passed, I was a little surprised that we hadn't yet heard from one of the worst of the worst: the self-described "Revolutionary Communist Party". Naturally, no sooner had I evoked his name but the devil himself appeared.

So now the RCP's been sniffing around Phoenix, hoping to prey on well-meaning warm-blooded anarchists in order to get their necrotic vampire hands on the movement here. The dead require fresh blood to live, they say. Naturally then, PCWC was approached by a cadre looking for support for their shenanigans. Of course, we told them an unequivocal and unqualified "Hell, no!" And not just because they're an authoritarian cult! There is no way that we would work with the RCP and there's no reason that anyone who believes in human freedom and equality ought to either.

Not only that, but the RCP obviously hadn't done their research. PCWC is composed of members who cut our teeth at mass actions in LA in which the RCP revealed their sketchy manipulations and anti-anarchist skulduggery. These types always come from outside. It was in fact our experiences with the fallacy of the big leftist tent that taught us to be deeply skeptical of the authoritarian left. They talk a big game about all being in for the same thing, but the truth is anything but! Of course, looking to the history of anarchist-authoritarian communist relations only reinforces that.

No doubt the RCP will whine about how we're being divisive for calling them out and refusing them aid. But do we call the prisoner who fights her jailer "divisive"? Of course not! We won't bend to this bullshit fake logic. We are under no obligation to show them any quarter. It is the authoritarian communist, after all, who has to answer for the crimes, lies and distortions of her ideology. We, having been for so many decades on the shit end of that stick should have to offer no further explanation than that we will not continue the pattern of abuse.

Naturally, being PCWC, we will of course offer further explanation. It is our firm commitment that the left -- especially the authoritarian left -- is in fact an impediment to revolutionary struggle. After all, it's always they who swoop in at the last minute and save capitalism. Or who impose bureaucratized state capitalism. Or who sell out the wildcats. Or who imprison the militants. Or who argue for the popular front. Or who build the labor camps. None of which takes us a centimeter closer to the revolution that the RCP's creepy leader, American ex-pat Bob Avakian, claims to want in his Left Bank pontifications. On the same note, we always believed that the one good thing Arizona had going for it was no left to speak of and a strong libertarian bent amongst the right.

Since learning the true nature of these left fascist bastards, you can imagine our frustration at the massive flood of them that has followed the celebrity of SB1070. One parasitic leftist operation from out of town after another has parachuted into the Valley of the Sun and proceeded to lecture the locals on who we should be working with and why, to seek to impose their myopic, petty and narrow view of our conditions and struggle, and to generally make a nuisance of themselves, trampling over legitimate local projects and organizing in the process.

So, because of that, I'm announcing a week of anti-RCP posts here on Fires Never Extinguished. We'll have something for you pretty much every other day for this week. Essays, links, media, even a book (the poster above should fit on a 8.5" by 14" sheet of paper). Things that will help you understand what the RCP is, why it should not be welcomed here and, in the broader sense, to help you develop a critique of Leninism so that you can stand up to these revisionist creeps.

Long live anarchy!

Support the Arpaio Five!

This is a reminder that several comrades of ours still face charges stemming from the police attack on the Dine', O'odham, anarchist/anti-authoritarian contingent (DO@) at the January 16th anti-Arpaio march. If you visit the support page, you can read updates and donate money for the defense. Please consider helping out our friends in their fight against this bullshit.

Rereading the DO@ statement lately, I'm impressed with how prescient it was, as well as how the problems within the movement that were highlighted in it remain with us. Indeed, the statement was a clear, unambiguous call for a new kind of movement that recognized that the fight against white supremacy and colonialism transcended the crass and limited opposition to Sheriff Joe Arpaio. This is a point that was brought clearly home the day that SB1070 passed and the movement in general was forced to recognize the truth, even if (as usual), the people who made that point earlier have continued to be ostracized and attacked.

In addition, it critiqued the boring repetition of useless marches and predicated and called for the rise of a direct action-oriented movement, which was ridiculed at the time but has since come to pass. There is certainly a time for marches and vigils, but I think it was clear to all of us involved in organizing and writing that statement that that time had long since passed, given the situation in Arizona. As I said, that logic, though lost on the conservative movement leadership (and other non-profiteer types outside the state) and various self-appointed gatekeepers, has found fertile ground in many people these days, as we saw most recently with the lock down of the Tucson border patrol office by an affinity group of anti-authoritarian, anarchist and indigenous militants.

But, perhaps most of all, it called for a broadening of the movement, of a reconsideration of the composition of the movement and for a radically democratic and participatory movement to replace the rigid, leftist, hierarchical movement that currently holds power. We see more and more evidence of this emerging these days, whether in the student self-organized walkouts during the week SB1070 passed to the neighborhood assemblies now forming in several cities in the Valley, originally initiated by anarchists and other residents in Tempe (including PCWC), that have begun to spread, prefiguring a new way of resisting the law and racism in general that bypasses both statewide government and the movement hacks, and determines to drill down as small as it takes to get a core that can set up resistance in collective, accountable and democratic fashion.

As men and women willing to stand up and defend that vision with their bodies and their futures, the Arpaio Five deserve our support. Please visit their page and make a donation. And continue to fight for the movement we want.

Nazis patrol Pinal County, a history of the resistance so far, and the always looming question of why the Right suffers no hang up about non-violence.

Today I want to highlight three things that I see as related and I think some readers will, too. As the situation gets worse and worse here in Arizona, even as we chalk up some successes here and there, it's worth taking a moment to consider the circumstances of our revolt and ways to consider the ideas and movements that manifest around us and in which we participate.

As leftist organizers, movement hacks, non-profiteers, wannabe politicos, student dreamers and all the other assorted movement professionals pour into Arizona to celebrate their "Freedom Summer" at our expense, I find the need to reflect particularly pressing. And, believe me, I can feel these movement types pressing in from all sides these days. I wonder, do they know what they are in for? Not that ignorance would stop them from telling me what I ought to do while they're on vacation in the state I've lived in my entire life.

If I said in an earlier article that those people who move here bring their biases with them, for which we are collectively blamed, the same is true for activists from out of state. In an era of "Freedom Summer (redux)" and SDS (respawned), how could it be otherwise?

Force for liberation or recuperation? Or attack on radicals and those who have already made up their minds not to compromise? "Freedom summer" certainly begs the question. One thing for sure, those of us who live here almost certainly will be left to clean up the mess when the Fall semester comes and the boys and girls of Summer have gone back to their leftist ghettos to update their resumes.

THE NATIONAL SOCIALIST MOVEMENT PATROLS PINAL COUNTY

Check out, for instance, the always amusing (if still sometimes wrong) Feathered Bastard column over at the Phoenix New Times, where Stephen Lemons writes about the local NSM chapter (who we confronted last year). Lemons points out perennial tubby bear Nazi JT Ready's call out to his racist comrades to conduct armed patrols in Southern Arizona for migrants.

The article is interesting for a several reasons, but one of the things I picked up on was Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu's failure to denounce the Nazi composition of the patrols. Sure, he says that he doesn't think the patrols would be helpful, but it seems as if Babeu, like the local media (with the exception of Lemons), has opted to treat Ready's little Nazi crew as legitimate, giving him a pass on his white supremacist beliefs and his many violent threats. Consider the fact the two media headlines about the event identify the NSM in the title only as a "militia", not as Nazis or even a "Nazi militia". A more honest characterization would surely change the way people view the action.

Indeed, when asked by Lemons about what he thought about the patrols, Babeu said, "Local law enforcement can't handle this on our own, yet it will only complicate our concerns to have untrained and armed citizens, who are not from Pinal County - patrolling our desert areas." Well, sure, I suppose it might. But is there anything particularly remarkable about those armed patrols being conducted by the National Socialist Movement, Babeu? Not worthy of comment? This reflects the general climate here in Arizona these days.

For me it's particularly noteworthy because I pointed out in my analysis of the anti-speed camera movement last summer the inherent problems of the leaders of main anti-camera group allying with Sheriff Babeu precisely because it opened the door to the reinforcement of white supremacy, rather than taking the opportunity to challenge it that rejecting his support (and, later, that of Sheriff Joe) would have provided. Instead, ideologically unable to articulate a strictly "no-cameras" position, they chose an argument that offered more police as a substitute for cameras, which naturally brings with it the well-known racist enforcement Arizona police are known for. This weak-kneed comment from Babeu, either because he sympathizes or because the radicalism of the fascist NSM has mainstreamed enough that he worries about challenging it, seems to go towards further proving that point.

One last point before I move on. The boldness of the NSM lately in carrying their firearms to rallies, to interviews, in displaying them to the media, in carrying them on patrols and in sporting them at counter-protests, ought to give everyone pause, not least of all any anarchists who are not currently able to defend themselves. Self-defense ought to be on everyone's mind these days. Never forget that Nazis like these aren't just the voice of white reaction against people of color and for the defense of the privileges of whiteness, they are also the sword tip of Capital's attack on those who would truly challenge the capitalist order, such as anarchists.

THE MONSOON STORM LOOMS IN ARIZONA

Next, I want to point out to readers the excellent article posted up yesterday by our comrades at Survival Solidarity out of Tucson. Just in time for the monsoons that alternately scorch and then drench Arizona day after day this time of year, they have provided for us a map of where we have been and where we may be going, at the same time they cleverly reveal the way the border imposes itself in relations far beyond those at la linea.

I like this analysis because it fits very well into the (not strictly) insurrectionist view of Capital reproducing itself everywhere at all times not just in our social relations but likewise even within the contradiction between Capital's demand for cheap, precarious labor and it's concomitant fear of the need to self-organize in defense of its every day and never-ending attacks. Of course, perhaps outside that, or at least parallel to it, lies the demand of American capitalism for a reactionary white working class that will lead the way in attacking its most exploited elements.

The piece does a really good job of making clear the violence, generally unspoken, that underlies and pervades the enforcement of these social relations and, naturally, which must at the same time be reflected in the fight to define ourselves against these illegitimate impositions. As Derek Jensen has, I think, quite usefully pointed out, violence that goes down the social hierarchy generally goes unremarked on while violence that with an upward trajectory, aimed at the exploiter, always elicits condemnation from the system and its defenders. Perhaps there's more than a little of this in the media's hysteria over the largely non-existent problem of migrant-caused violence versus the normalization afforded unmistakable violent threats to people of color represented by the NSM.

NON-VIOLENCE PROTECTS THE STATE AND THE COLONIAL MASTER

Lastly, I want to share an audio interview with Peter Gelderloos and Gord Hill. Gelderloos will be known to folks familiar with PCWC's "Beer & Revolution" social night. Traveling with the Greek anarchists, Gelderloos is perhaps best known for his book "How Non-Violence Protects the State" (PDF here) which, I'm happy to say, quotes a little pamphlet I wrote many years ago a couple times.

Hill, perhaps less familiar to people, is most recently the author of "500 Years of Indigenous Resistance, the Comic Book", in which Hill sets out to accomplish the admirable goal of demolishing the myth of the conquest of Indigenous peoples of North America: that on one hand they were felled by disease or that on the other defeated by the violence of an inherently superior settler state. In fact, he asserts, there was plenty of resistance, taking a variety of forms, and that that resistance often succeeded in dealing severe blows to the colonizer.

In the interview, with features both of them, the two do a wonderful job of breaking down the ideological underpinnings of non-violence/pacifism, in particular the class relations that infuse them. Hill takes a swipe at the non-profit industrial complex as a key element in maintaining the domination of the often a-historical assertions of the effectiveness of the strategies. It also tackles head on the tendency of the enforcers of non-violence/pacifism to act as the vanguard of state repression while claiming to be protecting the movement. This is accomplished by singling out those militants who deviate from the orthodoxy. I know we've seen this here in Arizona many times.

As the professional managers of revolt race to take their well-paid positions here in Arizona, these points are worth paying attention to. I think Gelderloos and Hill also successfully demolish some of the key mythologies that the defenders of non-violence/pacifism uphold, including exposing the false idea of the "public" as a construct of the media itself. The inherent authoritarianism of non-violence/pacifism likewise get a good working over.

WELCOMING THE CRISIS BY NAME

Overall, I think that regular readers of this blog will find the three pieces cited above to be quite complementary and well-worth your investigations. The fact is, as Survival Solidarity points out (and perhaps even the boneheads in the NSM understand), we stand today on the verge of social explosion. Perhaps we can feel the winds sucking in as the spark even now demands more and more oxygen. Or maybe that's us holding our breath in this blazing heat. It's hard to tell these days.

Who knows what's coming? The white supremacist system continues to descend into crisis, driven by the demands of its white working and middle class base for the respect of their petty privileges in an age of economic collapse. It's the bastard class politics of whiteness. We at PCWC continue organizing in our neighborhood, intervening in movements and working in close solidarity with our comrades in struggle both to defend against the attack but also to turn the crisis in another direction, one in which whiteness is not the means of capital's assault, but instead the collapse of which opens the door for a broad and much-needed house cleaning.

Still, the rising strength and boldness of the reactionary right combined with the complete and utterly predictable impotency of the liberal left give pause for careful thought. In a year that has already seen several small outbreaks of violence from the right, I would be surprised if there wasn't a violent and remarkable -- even by media standards -- explosion from them or those they inspire at some point before the summer's flame is finally extinguished. Clearly that is their goal.

I'm thinking today of a line from the song "This Gun Is Not a Gun" by the British songwriter, Chris T-T: "This cowardice is not cowardice/ We're just taking a breath before we do this."

Inhale and then into the fight!

Not in my Hood: Tempe residents organize against SB1070

by Jon Riley

As Arizona veers closer to becoming a white supremacist police state, there can be no doubt that many in the immigrant rights movement are wondering what's next. The pickets, rallies, and marches organized by the mainstream movement have failed to stop the attacks on Arizona's immigrant and Latino communities. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants and Latinos have "self-deported" from Arizona for years, and with the passage of SB 1070 many thousands more will likely follow. Even when the marches were absurdly long (often in 100+ degree weather), or the movement leadership sold out radicals and marginalized indigenous people, year after year we attended these events to show our solidarity with immigrants.

Up until the signing of the law, our primary activities had been supporting our O'odham friends in their struggles and campaigns against the border militarization and ecological destruction effecting O'odham communities. Our own projects reflected our deep commitment to attacking white supremacy and the ongoing colonialism in the Southwest.

We intervened both in word and deed in many of the right libertarian/constitutionalist movements in Arizona, specifically those opposing the speed/red-light cameras and the border patrol check points. Within their agitation to the police state we saw contradictions that could challenge whiteness and create the fissures needed for white working class movements that challenge the police state and engage in projects of solidarity with communities of color.


It was after this recent May Day rally at the state capitol that some us started discussing our tasks for the coming months, and asking ourselves some important questions. The most important question was how do we go about building areas safe from SB1070 in our town, and in what ways shall we attempt this. The first and most obvious step was reaching out to like minded people, so we went back to our communities, our neighborhoods, and began working with others residents opposed to the racist and anti-immigrant social order.

In Tempe, a mixed group of politically active folks and first-timers put a week's worth of afternoons into fliering local neighborhoods. Calling for a neighborhood assembly and picnic, this flier presented a reasonable stance given the many diverse communities that would be threatened by the new law. Open to all who want to see a non-compliance/no enforcement stance from the city of Tempe, it attracted more than 40 people who shared ideas and got to know one another. Most importantly, the residents took the initiative. In a week's time there were yard signs (pictured below), a website, a neighborhood protest against SB1070, a banner and sign making party, a hot marching band for the demo, and even more fliering on a much larger scale.


Our unpermitted demonstration drew over 100 residents. Folks from the neighboring town of Guadalupe, a few hacks from the mainstream immigrant groups, students, teachers, small business owners, workers, mothers, and radical resisters showed up. We took the streets, snaked through the hood, and saw our neighbors come outside and give us a thumbs up. A handful of others came out, cursing Mexicans, immigrants, and/or the demonstration, most folks ignored them and walked on. We stopped at Mill Ave. & University -the busiest intersection in Tempe- and residents in the march spoke passionately on a megaphone, sharing their knowledge and solutions. After resting a minute we marched to the city council building where more speeches were given, the final speaker discussed how the proposed comprehensive immigration reform actually calls for the militarization of indigenous lands along the border. People in the crowd defiantly shouted back
"Mr. Obama, tear down this wall!"
"Tear down the damn fence!"
"We need open movement."


This demonstration is a first step in the campaign towards creating safe places from racist laws. We are inspired by the leadership and initiative of our neighbors as we participate in the only campaign in Maricopa County against the enforcement of SB1070 in a city organized solely by its residents. We are excited by the future possibilities for freedom in our neighborhoods across the valley.

Fired workers and Phoenix Wobblies picket Pei Wei restaurant in Chandler

Cheers to the laid off Pei Wei workers, supported by wobblies from the Phoenix IWW , for taking action after thirteen Latino employees were fired for participating in the large mobilization against SB 1070 two weeks back. Over 20 people, including the workers fired for resisting SB 1070, held a protest outside of the Pei Wei chain's Chandler location last Saturday. In the words of one employee: "We decided not to go to work because we don't want SB 1070 to go through," said Maria Laurean, who works at Pei Wei. "It’s nothing against the company. It's just to show the American people, 'who's going to run the restaurants?'"

In the video below, one of the fired workers discusses the hypocritical and racist decision making of the management, as a white worker who no-showed was given a slap on the wrist, while the Latino workers, who are fighting back against state sanctioned racial profiling, are given pink slips. This isn't the first time that Pei Wei has fired workers for standing up against anti-immigration policies, a couple of years back a store manager was fired after telling four Maricopa county deputies “You are the guys arresting all of my kitchen staff." The thin skinned cops complained to Sheriff Joe, who in turn wrote a letter to the parent company of Pei Wei, P.F. Chang's, and the worker was promptly fired.

It's heartening that Phoenix wobblies are throwing down to support working people under attack, through projects of solidarity lies the possibilities for a free world. A world where a job is no longer an impediment to spending a day lounging in the sun, resting from an illness, or relaxing with a lover. Or, for that matter, taking to the streets to fight back against racist laws that will target communities of color across the state.

Solidarity to all those struggling under the regime of capital!

Tomorrow: Community meeting to organize against SB1070 in Tempe

Tomorrow at Mitchell Park in Tempe (9th Street and McKemy) at 5pm, residents of Tempe will be gathering to meet and organize towards forcing Tempe to take a non-compliance/no-enforcement position on the racist law SB1070. People will be grilling and eating food, talking and finding common ground towards this goal.

Flier below: