Portrait of Mao and Selected quotes from Mao’s Red Book, The Quotations of Chairman Mao TseTung, ed. by Kiilu Nyasha

Note:   Mao suffered from Parkinson’s disease prior to his death in 1976 at 82.  Since then, the Communist Party has taken the capitalist road and is no longer communist or socialist in practice.  So I rarely use the word “communist” anymore, but replace it with “revolutionary,” because its meaning has been so distorted over the decades. In any case, Mao was the greatest revolutionary leader of the 20^th Century, having liberated women and nearly a billion peasants in China, declaring victory after the incredible Long March in 1949.  Mao also gave active support to the independence struggles in Africa.  He gave Africans the first and only interest-free loan, and provided Chinese workers to work along side African workers at the same pay building the Tan-Zam railway linking the landlocked Zambia to the Port of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Revolutionary culture is a powerful revolutionary weapon for the broad masses of the people. It prepares the ground ideologically before the revolution comes and is an important, indeed essential, fighting front in the general revolutionary front during the revolution.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY! George Lester Jackson, September 23, 1941-August 21, 1971 Ed. by Kiilu Nyasha

“I have a plan, I will give, and give, and give of myself until it proves our making or my end.”

As we honor the birthday of our beloved, Comrade George Jackson, Field Marshall of the Black Panther Party behind prison walls, may we remember his revolutionary ideas and practice, his mentors and his sacrifice.

Author of two books, Soledad Brother: the Prison Letters of George Jackson, a 1970 bestseller reprinted three times and translated into several languages, and Blood In My Eye, published posthumously and recently reprinted.  In a New York Times editorial titled, Death of a Brother, Tom Wicker described George as a “talented writer, a sensitive man, a potential leader, and a political thinker of great persuasiveness.”

Archived Commentary on Haiti

https://archive.org/details/FreedomIsAConstantStruggle20130919_201309

In perusing my files re Haiti, I found this commentary and decided to put it online since it has good information on recent Haitian history.  Here is the link to the show, Freedom Is A Constant Struggle, 9/19/13 on Haiti with an update from guests recently returned from the neighboring Caribbean island- Ayana Labossiere, Aimee Riechel and Ruth Beyene of Haiti Solidarity Club at Mission High School.
http://www.bavc.org. Freedom Is A Constant Struggle. 

Commentary on Haiti for KPFA, Berkeley, 3/14/1992, by Kiilu Nyasha.

Thousands of Haitian boat people picked up by Coast Guard cutters have been detained at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  After fleeing Haiti’s newest military dictatorship, the Caribbean refugees are being imprisoned in tents on a hot airfield fenced in by barbed wire and fed army rations.  Only a small percentage has been granted political asylum.  They’ve been held virtually incommunicado with no access to lawyers, telephones or postal services.  To date, nearly 9,000 men, women and children have been sent back to Haiti where they face arrest, torture and even death. 

       

U.S. Involvement in Haiti has a long history.  In 1915, it was invaded by U.S. Marines and occupied for 19 years during which the U.S. trained a joint military-police guard that evolved into today’s Haitian army.  For nearly 30 years, the U.S.–backed military dictatorship of Francois Duvalier, known as Papa Doc, succeeded by his son Jean-Claude, or Baby Doc, looted the national treasury, trafficked in cocaine, and terrorized Haitians with their Tonton Macoute (Creole for bogeymen).  Yet the dauntless Haitians ran Baby Doc and his entourage out of the country in 1986, when the U.S. had to airlift them to France for safety. 

  

BLACK AUGUST 2013

 http://archive.org/details/FreedomisaConstantStruggleBlackAugust

August 21, 2013, marks the 42^nd anniversary of the assassination of our beloved Comrade George Lester Jackson.  Here are quotes from his two books: the bestseller, Soledad Brother: the Prison Letters of George Jackson (1970) and Blood In My Eye, (1972), published after his death .  It’s remarkable that these statements are as pertinent today as they were 42 years ago, perhaps more so.

"International capitalism cannot be destroyed without the extremes of struggle. The entire colonial world is watching the blacks inside the U.S wondering and waiting for us to come to our senses. Their problems and struggles with the Amerikan monster are much more difficult than they would be if we actively aided them. We are on the inside. We are the only ones (besides the very small white minority left) who can get at the monster's heart without subjecting the world to nuclear fire. We have a momentous historical role to act out if we will. The whole world for all time in the future will love us and remember us as the righteous people who made it possible for the world to live on. If we fail through fear and lack of aggressive imagination, then the slave of the future will curse us, as we sometimes curse those of yesterday. I don't want to die and leave a few sad songs and a hump in the ground as my only monument. I want to leave a world that is liberated from trash, pollution, racism, nation-states, nation-state wars and armies, from pomp, bigotry, parochialism, a thousand different brands of untruth, and licentious, usurious economics." (Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson).

THE ACQUITTAL OF A MURDERER by Kiilu Nyasha (July 14, 2013)

A correction to my piece: I misread a statement about Trayvon's age; It was 21 days before his 17th birthday, not 21 days after his 16th birthday.  Nevertheless, he was 16 at the time of his death.  

The long-awaited verdict in the Zimmerman trial was incredible -- "not guilty."

Listening carefully to the trial judge's detailed instructions to the 6-juror panel (amazing in itself), including complete definitions of 2nd degree murder and manslaughter, I was convinced that were they to follow her instructions, the verdict was bound to be guilty as charged or at least the lesser charge of manslaughter. After over 12 hours of deliberations, my worst-case scenario was a hung jury.   

Yet how could I forget that this trial took place in a judicial system I’ve longnown (through experience!) represents white-supremacist injustice; and one the most racist states in the country – Florida, the nations’ second highest incarcerator and state executioner of Black men.

Off the top, how many other cases come to mind of a young Black man senselessly murdered by so-called law enforcers? Oscar Grant, Allen Blueford, Kenneth Harding, Amadou Diallo.  In fact, a Black person is murdered by law enforcement every 28 hours,  Are their lives valued?

An endangered, stereotyped group, Black and Brown male human beings top the prison populations and those slated for state murder.  Black women and mothers are swiftly gaining a similar fate as more and more Black babies are literally born in prison.

The Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. – April 4, 1968

It was 45 years ago when our beloved freedom fighter, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in what we believe was a conspiracy by the government, particularly the FBI.

I remember exactly where I was when the news came over the radio that Dr. King had been shot. 

I was in New Haven, Conn. driving my 8-year-old son and his friends from Rock Creek Road to a drive-in movie.  I turned the car around and went straight back home. We learned on arrival the shot was fatal and the King of Love was dead. I was devastated.

Happy Birthday, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968

The following quotes from our beloved freedom fighter, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., are as pertinent today as they were when he spoke them, at least 45 years ago.  It now amazes me that he was only 39 years old when he was assassinated in the Spring of 1968. He had wisdom beyond his years.

“In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

“We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. [S]he who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love.”

“Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.”

“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”

"I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."