{"id":15425,"date":"2015-01-10T23:08:55","date_gmt":"2015-01-11T07:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.richgibson.com\/blog\/?p=15425"},"modified":"2015-01-11T11:46:22","modified_gmt":"2015-01-11T19:46:22","slug":"rouge-forum-dispatch-in-2015-we-remember-joe-hill-and-the-best-of-the-iww","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.richgibson.com\/blog\/rouge-forum-dispatch-in-2015-we-remember-joe-hill-and-the-best-of-the-iww\/","title":{"rendered":"Rouge Forum Dispatch: In 2015 We Remember Joe Hill and the best of the IWW"},"content":{"rendered":"

We Say Fight Back!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"joe-hill\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Joe Hill: 1879 to 1915<\/em><\/p>\n

Tariq Ali on “The Maximum Horror”\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0It was\u00a0a horrific event. It was condemned in most parts of the world and most poignantly by many cartoonists. Those who planned the atrocity chose their target carefully. They knew that such an act would create the\u00a0maximum horror. It was quality, not quantity they were after. The response will not have surprised or displeased them. They don\u2019t care a damn for the world of unbelievers. Unlike the medieval inquisitors of the\u00a0Sorbonne they do not have the legal and theological authority to harass booksellers or printers, ban books and torture authors, so they go one step further and order executions.<\/p>\n

What of the foot-soldiers? The circumstances that attract young men and women to these groups are creations of the Western world that they inhabit \u2013 which is itself a result of long years of colonial\u00a0rule in the countries of their forebears. We know that the Parisian brothers Ch\u00e9rif and Sa\u00efd Kouachi were long-haired inhalers of marijuana and other substances until (like the 7 July bombers in this\u00a0country) they saw footage of the Iraq war and, in particular, of the torture taking place in Abu Ghraib and the cold-blooded killings of Iraqi citizens in Fallujah. \u00a0\u00a0 www.counterpunch.org\/2015\/01\/09\/maximum-horror\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Rouge<\/a><\/p>\n

Rushdie:\u00a0\u201cReligion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms,\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

170 Years Ago, Marx wrote, too gently: “<\/em><\/strong>For Germany, the criticism of religion has been essentially completed, and the criticism of religion is the prerequisite of all criticism.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a>The profane existence of error is compromised as soon as its heavenly oratio pro aris et focis [\u201cspeech for the altars and hearths,\u201d i.e., for God and country]<\/span> has been refuted. Man, who has found only the reflection of himself in the fantastic reality of heaven, where he sought a superman, will no longer feel disposed to find the mere appearance of himself, the non-man[Unmensch]<\/span>, where he seeks and must seek his true reality.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a>The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. <\/a>Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. Butman is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man \u2013 state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d\u2019honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the\u00a0fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a>Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the\u00a0opium of the people.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo. <\/strong><\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 www.marxists.org\/archive\/marx\/works\/1843\/critique-hpr\/intro.htm<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Engels\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Engels went Further \u00a0 \u201cpersecutions are the best means of promoting disliked convictions\u201d and that \u201cthe only service, which may still be rendered to God today, is that of declaring atheism an article of faith to be enforced.\u201d \u00a0<\/strong>Frederick Engels, \u201cThe Program of the Blanquist Fugitives from the Paris Commune\u201d, www.marxists.org\/archive\/marx\/works\/1874\/06\/26.htm.<\/a><\/p>\n

170 Years is too long to wait to confront barbarism in all forms.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Heads of the Western Empires declare their defense of Free Speech: The Jailers of Bradley Manning, those who forced Edward Snowden into Exile, the murderers of Reuters’ and other journalists, the persecutors of James Risen, the French who once banned Hebdo, the Catholic fanatics in Opus Dei who helped organize the Mujahedeen to fight the Communists (who weren’t Communists). No, this is about class and empire’s wars, exploitation, racism, un-reasonable savagery, and the rise of fascism from every conceivable, and inconceivable, angle.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

We know now that the soul is the body, and the body the soul. They tell us they are different because they want to persuade us that we can keep our souls if we let them make slaves of our bodies.
\n— Bernard Shaw<\/b>: Ellie, in Heartbreak House, <\/i>act 2<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Congratulations on the Publication of\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Policing<\/a><\/p>\n

by Anthony J. Nocella II<\/a> <\/i> <\/span>(Editor), <\/span><\/span><\/span>David Gabbard<\/a> (Editor)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

What if Nobody Voted?\u00a0<\/strong>Our cautious guess is that turnout in this year\u2019s Congressional races will finally weigh in at around 36 percent of the potential electorate that had legal rights to cast a ballot. That\u2019s a shocking statistic. Across the whole sweep of American history, the momentous dimensions of what has just happened stand out in bold relief. The drop off in voting turnout from the presidential election of 2012 to 2014 is the second largest of all time \u2014 24 percentage points. And the turnout decline this year is broad and to levels that boggle the mind \u2014 rates of voting that recall the earliest days of the 19th century, before the Jacksonian Revolution swept away property suffrage and other devices that held down turnout. Turnout in Ohio, for example, fell to 34 percent \u2014 a level the state last touched in 1814, when political parties on a modern model did not exist and it had just recently entered the Union. \u201d \u00a0\u00a0 www.accuracy.org\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Angel<\/a><\/p>\n

above, Detroit graffiti, treated by police as “terrorism”<\/em><\/p>\n

Three (Count ’em–3) Teachers Refuse to Proctor High Stakes Exams \u00a0<\/strong>Three teachers from P.S. 364 Earth School in New York have informed their administration and Chancellor Carmen Fari\u00f1a that they will not proctor Common Core state standardized tests this year \u2014 or ever \u2014 saying in a letter (see below) that they \u201ccan no longer implement policies that seek to transform the broad promises of public education into a narrow obsession with the ranking and sorting of children.\u201d They join a small but growing number of educators who are taking a strong stand against high-stakes testing, in Seattle last year, Chicago this year and in other places. \u00a0\u00a0 www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/answer-sheet\/wp\/2014\/04\/04\/teachers-refuse-to-administer-standardized-tests\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Mexico<\/a><\/p>\n

Fighting Corruption and Murder–the Bus Tour In Mexico \u00a0<\/strong>Inside a large, open-air bus, a corrupt politician quarrels over the loudspeakers with a fed-up citizen who tells the passengers about the millions of pesos lost in a series of corruption scandals.<\/p>\n

As the scripted recording plays, three security guards sitting on a bench watch in awe at the passing bus before cracking up in laughter, pointing at the bright red and yellow insignia on its side: the \u201cCorruptour.\u201d<\/p>\n

The broadside includes caricaturized faces of the state\u2019s former and current governors. Both grin at passers-by, drawing stares at each of the 11 \u201ccorruption landmarks\u201d that the bus tour aims to spotlight, including the casino where gunmen started a fire that killed 52 people.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have failed to place the issue of corruption at the center of political debate,\u201d said Miguel Trevi\u00f1o, the head of the Corruptour project and founding member of Via Ciudadana, one of many local groups pushing to raise political and social awareness here inMexico<\/a>\u2019s richest city.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to make it tangible and understandable to people, and to explain its direct implications on our everyday lives so they will want to fight it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"MEXICO-CRIME-STUDENTS-MISSING-PROTEST\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Obamagogue Hugs Nieto While Protests vs Murders of Red Students Continue \u00a0<\/strong>This week\u2019s White House meeting between President Barack Obama and Mexico\u2019s President Enrique Pe\u00f1a Nieto had much symbolism but little substance. The empty speeches, handshakes and promises of mutual support served two embattled leaders eager to use the meeting as a publicity stunt but left nothing in terms of concrete outcomes. Obama highlighted his halfhearted efforts to fix, as he put it, \u201cour broken immigration system\u201d and Pe\u00f1a Nieto desperately tried to appear statesmanlike amid the storm that has arisen from the Sept. 26 student massacre in the state of Guerrero and the accusations<\/a> of conflicts of interest against him, his wife and his finance minister over homes purchased from a government contractor.<\/p>\n

In fact, perhaps the only noteworthy part about the meeting was that it sparked dozens of protests throughout the United States against Washington\u2019s blind support for Pe\u00f1a Nieto and the bloody drug war in Mexico. \u201cUSA puts the guns and consumes the drugs, Mexico puts the dead!\u201d one protest sign read, summing up a growing sentiment on both sides of the border.\u00a0\u00a0 america.aljazeera.com\/opinions\/2015\/1\/mexico-pena-nietocorruptionstudentsayotzinapa.html<\/a><\/p>\n

The Little Red Schoolhouse<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n