The Poverty of Philosophy

The Poverty of Philosophy
By Immortal technique

Viva Technique - this is the true meaning of hip-hop.

Stop the War, London 2008

STOP THE WAR: London 2008 

On Saturday 25th March, we gathered together in London and marched from Trafalgar Square to Parliament Square in demonstration against the ‘War on Terror’, in whatever guise it may appear. Similarly, comrades around the globe united, from Paris to New York, in order to voice their anger at the imperialist agenda.

The mainstream media cited the attendance as a mere 10,000, but the reality saw the streets filled with over 40,000 protesters, still willing to fight against the machine, over five years on. One day, my friends…

Big thanks to Nadeem Baghdadi for the excellent photographs.

DEMONSTRATORS DESCEND ON PARLIAMENT

JEWS AGAINST ZIONISM (www.nkuk.org)

CHURCHILL MADE USEFUL!

PROTESTORS FILL THE STREETS

OUR DAY WILL COME!!!

 

Socialism and Man in Cuba

Socialism and Man in Cuba
By Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara de la Serna (1965)

 

Though belatedly, I am completing these notes in the course of my trip through Africa,^[30] hoping in this way to keep my promise. I would like to do so by dealing with the theme set forth in the title above. I think it may be of interest to Uruguayan readers.

A common argument from the mouths of capitalist spokespeople, in the ideological struggle against socialism, is that socialism, or the period of building socialism into which we have entered, is characterized by the abolition of the individual for the sake of the state. I will not try to refute this argument solely on theoretical grounds but rather to establish the facts as they exist in Cuba and then add comments of a general nature. Let me begin by broadly sketching the history of our revolutionary struggle before and after the taking of power.

As is well known, the exact date of the beginning of the revolutionary struggle — which would culminate in January 1959 — was July 26, 1953. A group led by Fidel Castro attacked the Moncada barracks in Oriente Province on the morning of that day. The attack was a failure; the failure became a disaster; and the survivors ended up in prison, beginning the revolutionary struggle again after they were freed by an amnesty. In this process, in which there was only the germ of socialism, the individual was a fundamental factor. We put our trust in him — individual, specific, with a first and last name — and the triumph or failure of the mission entrusted to him depended on that individual’s capacity for action. Then came the stage of guerrilla struggle. It developed in two distinct environments: the people, the still sleeping mass that had to be mobilized; and its vanguard, the guerrillas, the motor force of the mobilization, the generator of revolutionary consciousness and militant enthusiasm. This vanguard was the catalyzing agent that created the subjective conditions necessary for victory.

Here again, in the framework of the proletarianization of our thinking, of this revolution that took place in our habits and our minds, the individual was the basic factor. Every one of the combatants of the Sierra Maestra who reached an upper rank in the revolutionary forces has a record of outstanding deeds to his or her credit. They attained their rank on this basis.

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara Documentary

Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara Documentary

(46mins) Produced by the Discovery Channel. Hosted at Google Video.

In the recent years, there have been many new documentaries and books that have attempted to re-evaluate the history of the Cuban revolution and demonize its most charismatic proponent - Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara. One such documentary ‘The True Story of Che Guevara‘ should be avoided at all costs.

The documentary film above is a more balanced affair (as far as Anglo-American documentaries go). There are several inaccuracies, such the myth of ‘Che as Executioner’, but the overall narrative remains fairly objective. There is no substitute for the writings of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, but a documentary such as this is a good start for anyone wishing to learn more about the man behind the myth.

‘Disobey’ by John Pilger

Disobey
by John Pilger (2003)

How have we got to this point, where two western governments take us into an illegal and immoral war against a stricken nation with whom we have no quarrel and who offer us no threat: an act of aggression opposed by almost everybody and whose charade is transparent?

How can they attack, in our name, a country already crushed by more than 12 years of an embargo aimed mostly at the civilian population, of whom 42 per cent are children - a medieval siege that has taken the lives of at least half a million children and is described as genocidal by the former United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Iraq?

How can those claiming to be “liberals” disguise their embarrassment, and shame, while justifying their support for George Bush’s proposed launch of 800 missiles in two days as a “liberation”? How can they ignore two United Nations studies which reveal that some 500,000 people will be at risk? Do they not hear their own echo in the words of the American general who said famously of a Vietnamese town he had just levelled: “We had to destroy it in order to save it?”

“Few of us,” Arthur Miller once wrote, “can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the State has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied.”

These days, Miller’s astuteness applies to a minority of warmongers and apologists. Since 11 September 2001, the consciousness of the majority has soared. The word “imperialism” has been rescued from agitprop and returned to common usage. America’s and Britain’s planned theft of the Iraqi oilfields, following historical precedent, is well understood. The false choices of the cold war are redundant, and people are once again stirring in their millions. More and more of them now glimpse American power, as Mark Twain wrote, “with its banner of the Prince of Peace in one hand and its loot-basket and its butcher-knife in the other”.