Dr. Muhammad Ahmed, aka Max Stanford, has answered my call that a Black Revolutionary Nationalist stand up and represent the voice of radical intellectualism, largely unrepresented since Malcolm X. Yes, we must think globally yet act locally, i.e., nationally. We may live in the global village but we have national interests that must be addressed.We have more brothers and sisters under the criminal justice system's virtual slavery than when were in chattel property slavery. This should be of great and immediate concern since we have a history of leaders coming from this class of individuals locked down. Mumia Abu Jamal is the most prominent example. Imagine how many other minds are behind bars with solutions that surpass the thinking of our socalled brightest academic minds that are in mental and material prisons far worse than the cell Mumia occupies on death row.
We appreciate Dr. Ahmed's attempt to clarify what's really going on. We need more radical voices to spread their points of view, if only to expand the dialogue. We do not and never shall control the Monkey Mind Media, so we must as Amiri Baraka says, "Stop thinking like Americans," and use the technology at our disposal. We must send and resend vital information such as Ahmed's statement below. Let us link up with each other to do as Baraka says, immediately shoot down any madness they put out. We most certainly have the brains to do it!
Let us move expeditiously to extricate ourselves from a situation that is way past due resolving.
The level of ignorance is abysmal. Information must be repeated over and over to get past the wretched central nervous systems blocked by the rap beats and addiction to cell phone mania.
--Marvin X
5/23/11
What is the Meaning of the Present Situation?
By Dr. Muhammad Ahmed
(aka Max Stanford)
Temple University, Philadelphia
There are several developments that represent a breakthrough in the
global finance monopoly capitalist system presently dominated by the
United States of America (USA). This is the result of the structural
systemic crises which is produced by the increasing use of automation
and robtics in the international production process:
The financial crisis brought on by the expanding use of electronics in
production is continuing to tighten its grip both internationally and
nationally. The cyclical crisis of under consumption is developing.
Automated production drives labor – produced commodities off the
market. In this process, wages are dragged down to the cost of
automated production.
What we have witnessed in the middle east with national democratic
uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen against neocolonial
dictatorships are due to the neo liberal austerity policies of those
regimes on their populations.
The rich got richer and more Westernized and the poor who constituted
90% of the population got poorer and more desperate.
While the figure heads have been removed, the neocolonial system
remains. But the uprisings represent a break in the consciousness of
masses of people and as Samir Amin has said, these movements may
eventually develop into socialist revolutions.
Libya on the other hand is a different situation in which the
imperialist north (U.S. Britain, Europe (NATO) led by the U.S. have
used an “opportune moment to subvert the Libian socialist revolution.
This is due to the world-wide peak in oil and rising competition for
oil, natural gas, water and other mineral resources. China and India
are viewed favorably by those countries who have these resources due
to their non-colonial and non- imperialist past (more on Libya later)
The US and its other capitalist allies, France, Britain, Western
Europe and Japan, have not fully recovered from the Great Recession of
2008. The US government is in great debt and has had to slash it
expenses. The Republican Party has forced Obama and the Democratic
Party to compromise on the budget.
This comes at a time when the Republican Party is on the attack to
attempt to destroy Obama‘s base i.e., Public Sector Workers, unions
and collective bargaining. Public Sector Workers, workers in
Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan New
Mexico and other states are all under attack by the Republican Party.
Barry Finger in, Public Sector Workers and the Crisis in the winter
2011 issue of New Politics says,
Behind the assault is the very real recognition that Public Sector now
has the highest concentration of unionized workers in the American
economy.
The Republican Party representing the reactionary racist fascistic
right wing sector of U.S finance monopoly capital has played the “race
card” with white workers using Sara Palin and the Tea party movement
to whip up a racist false class consciousness among white workers who
are becoming more dispossed due to industrial jobs going overseas and
the bursting of the financial bubble of 2008 which led to mass
mortgage foreclosures. It is these white workers who voted in the
Republicans.
Fascism is not a choice or program. It is arising objectively as the
only possible political superstructure for the economic takeover by
corporate power. It arises within the struggle of the capitalist class
– a class which is itself being transformed - to align the political
superstructure with the changing productive relations.
Dr. Grace Lee Boggs said that “Wisconsin represents the end of the
Welfare State.” Enter the permanent U.S warfare states.
The struggle in Wisconsin and other states can become a
transformational movement if those involved in the struggle recognize
that our current crises are rooted in the decline of the empire which
made possible the welfare state with its thousands of public employees
to take care of tasks for which we the people must become increasingly
responsible.
With the Democratic regime of the Obama administration attacking
Muammar Qaddafi and Libya, Africa it seems like it does not matter
whether the President is white or black, Republican or Democratic, his
or her job is to protect the interests of the American Empire.
Because oil is a global product, the USA’s higher consumption and
dependency means it must act globally to secure supplies. Its interest
in guaranteeing plentiful supplies of oil translates into the need to
secure access to virtually every region in the world, and this
explains why oil has such a widespread effect on America’s global
political strategy
It would not be farfetched to believe that the C.I.A, deprogrammed and
reprogrammed captured Al Qaida militants who were held in the U.S.
army base at Guantanamo in Cuba, released them and sent them into
Libya to fulfill the United States, AFRICOM (African Command)
controlled by the USA to destabilize Libya. Why?
Because Qaddafi has aligned Libya with Cuba and Venezuela and is the
force behind a call for a “United States of Africa” in the African
Union continuing the work of Kwame Nkrumah, past president of Ghana.
Qaddafi has also come to the aid of North African immigrants who have
migrated to Europe and who are being harassed, beaten and are racially
oppressed while living in Europe.
Before the “so-called uprising” and foreign bombing of Libya; Libya
had the highest standard of living in all of Africa.
Libya’s Revolution brought free health care and education to the
people and subsidized housing. In fact students in Libya can study
there or abroad and the government gives them a monthly stipend while
they are in school and they pay no tuition. If a Libyan needs a
surgery that must be done overseas, then the government will pay for
that surgery.
The U.S strategy is one to build Israel which constantly bombs and
subjugates the people of Palestine and to acquire by force Libya’s
oil.
The United States has sought to base its AFRICOM military operation
on African soil for years now. However the African Union has taken a
position, given its member states colonial past, to oppose foreign
troops on African soil. The Libyan situation has created a cover for
the United States for the first time to launch military operations
against Africa under AFRICOM’s new commander, General Carter Ham, who
took over command of AFRICOM just days before military operations were
launched against Libya
With raging battles in Iraq, Afghanistan, parts of Pakistan and now
Libya, the United States has become a global warfare state. As more
breaks in the global system occurs, the increasing momentum for the
protracted world-wide permanent revolution for the overthrow of
capitalism develops. Not reported widely in the establishment media,
is that auto parts assembly workers at Honda plants in China recently
won higher wages and the right to elect their own union officers after
organizing a wave of successful strikes.
Since China now leads the world in manufacturing for export, the
struggles of Chinese workers to organize are crucial both for the
well-being of huge members of human beings in China, and for the
ability of workers in the rest of the world to end the race to the
bottom
With the recent tsunami in Japan and its nuclear meltdown, global
warming is becoming a concern for all of humanity. We must move to a
green economy and way of life or the end of the world as we know it is
near.
The USA produces 35 percent of the world’s transport emissions of
carbon-dioxide. Americans use five times the global average of energy
consumption. The USA is the largest contributor to global warming.…a
major problem is that the entire modern economy’s energy,
transportation, industrial, and residential infrastructure is built on
fossil fuels. It takes many decades to replace a society’s economic
infrastructure. Without fundamental transformation of the
infrastructure, short-term conservation measures and minor technical
changes are unlikely to achieve substantial sustained reduction of
greenhouse gas emissions.
In order to respond positively to the present situation we should
“think globally and organize (act) locally.” On the local level
spread the revolution by creating a local green economy; politically
“uprooting” racist reactionaries and neo-colonial comprador (sell
outs) by running grassroots candidates and “building a resistance
movement against racist- anti worker tactics by capitalists. As we
said in 1963, “Arise! Awake! Your Future is at Stake!”
(Max Stanford)
Assistant Professor
Department of African American Studies, Temple University
4/17/11 Dr. Muhammad Ahmad
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Distributed By: THE PAN-AFRICAN RESEARCH AND DOCUMENTATION PROJECT--
E MAIL: panafnewswire@gmail.com
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Related Web Sites
http://panafricannews.blogspot.com
http://mecawi.org
http://www.world-newspapers.com/africa.html
http://www.africadaily.com
http://www.africa-union.org
http://english.aljazeera.net
http://www.freemumia.org
http://www.herald.co.zw/
http://www.anc.org.za
http://www.caribbeannewspapers.com
http://www.kpfa.org
http://www.wbai.org
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