Guerrillera/os de la Pluma, Summer 2010

Summer 2010Journal of the Raza Press and Media Association

GUERRILLERA/OS DE LA PLUMARaza Press, Media, and Popular Expression razapressassociation.org

see “CHICANO” pAge 8

• La Verdad • La Calles y La Torcida • Voz del Pueblo • Venceremos • Pueblo Unido • Clavo En El Corazon •

By anTonio a. VELásqUEz

“WHaT WE HaVE HERE is a FaiLURE To CoMMUniCaTE”

This August 29 will mark 40 years since the memorable anti-war march and rally of the Chicano

Moratorium that took place in Lincoln Park, now named Ruben Salazar Park after what has always been alleged by all of us a Sheriff murder of a Los Angeles Times journalist that day. As a fellow media worker, I guess there is a sort of pleasure in having a pub-lic facility named after a writer martyr for our cause. Preferably, it would have been better that it have been named for the two Chicano Brown Beret members, also fa-tal victims (along with Gustav Montage, a Sephardic Jewish supporter) of the police riot that day. In my opinion, they more tru-ly embodied, then as now, the principles of the event, if not the entire Chicano or Brown Power Movement. What are their names? Ironically, most reading this will ask the same ques-tion. However, this forgetfulness is not that at all. Our community has perpetuat-ed a common fundamental flaw ever since on much greater levels that has made us fall victim, both psychologically and physi-cally, to a perpetual war of terrorism that has been, and is being waged against us on many fronts. One could debate any number of reasons why this has occured. But fun-damentally, I contend this has been due to the misplacement and subsequent con-fusion of interests, goals, and objectives, which in this case has been to attribute public political recognition to celebrity come to by compensated skill or task and

not by actions linked to a thankless com-mitment to principle and cause. In other words, not that it is not deserved, but we would celebrate the indi-vidual person that reported rather than the one(s) being reported about that personi-fied the reasons behind the actions - and through the Los Angeles Times, a con-trolled corporate media conglomerate and not through the large established Chicano press existent at that time. After forty years, why we as Raza in the U.S. emipre have still not come to a communal understanding of the conditions that had been so clear in the early sixties and that had motivated entire population struggles throughout the world subjugat-ed or colonized by the concepts of Empire and Imperialism? Why after all this time we still have those that would see more importance to want to argue with police on how many people attend an immigration reform march they had no control over, as was done this May 1st, 2010 in Los Angeles, Califas, and significantly disre-gard the messages that had been given to those participating? So now, we are im-migrants? We admit our illegality? We want forgiveness for our trespass? Who controlled the message? Chicano activism had shown promise in the late sixties of becoming a part of a larger hemispheric anti-impe-rialist movement in step with the student movements south of the imposed border, Europe, and with an anti-colonialist push in other parts of the globe. However, it seemed that after the climactic events of October 2, 1968 in Mexico City with the massacre in Tlatelolco, different and con-flicting ideological tendencies took our movement straight into the arms of those being fought against.

In this political environment, what has emerged has been a distracting pro-cess where feigned institutional concern has been interpreted as either a false sense of community empowerment or a willingness on the part of the political ma-chine to change itself. We in turn have floundered in this self-deception. We saw how in Mexico the pub-lic was sucked into the political process

REMEMBERING WHAT CHICANO MEANTAFTER FORTY YEARS, WHAT GIVES?

ONLY AN EDUCATED AND POLITICALLY CONSCIOUS

PEOPLE CAN BE TRULY FREE

With this issue, the Raza Press and Media Associa-tion (RPMA) continues in its

efforts to be more efficient and impact-ing in its work. Key to this effort is our decision to concentrate the material in our journal, Guerrillero/as de La Pluma, around a particular theme. To the RPMA, identifying a theme represents a struggle against vagueness and lack of focus that has often plagued our work. It was felt that by focusing the articles in the journal around a specific topic it would guide us towards a sharper, more combative, and precise media. At our last general meet-ing (12/18/10) we concluded that the next two issues of the journal would be centered on questions that are of critical importance to the Mexican-Raza commu-nities. Two issues that everyone present saw as of a great concern were the ques-tions of “Education” and “War-At Home And Around the Globe.” It is for this rea-son that the articles in this particular issue of Guerrillero/as de La Pluma are related in some form to the question of the War-At Home and Around the Globe. J

Guerrillera/os de La Pluma

2 Raza Press, Media, and Popular Expression

RPMA CONSTITUTION(RATIfIed JANUARy 24, 2008)

Objectives:• Create a MoveMent of Progressive and revolutionary Media Work-eRS

• to establish a raza neWs Wire serviCe.• hold on-going WorkshoPs and ConferenCes to advanCe raza Press, Media, and PoPular exPression.• establish an editorial board to oversee Joint PubliCations.• Pool existing resourCes to assist PubliCations and to establish neW ones.• establishMent of a ColleCtion of PeriodiCals, Past, and Current.

PrinciPles Of Unity :• Must be raza PubliCations/Media Workers Who are indePendent of governMent agenCies.• MeMbers Must suPP ort raza self-deterMination.• Must adhere to deMoCratiCally reaChed deCisions.• Must suPP ort general obJeCtives of the assoCiation.• Must suPP ort the struggles of other indigenous PeoPle, latino aMeriCa-nos (raza), and all oPP ressed PeoPle Within and outside the u.s.

MeMbershiP Privile ges/benefits:• adMission to all rPMa events (ConferenCes, suMM its, etC.)• MeMbershiP Card and rPMa Press Card .• rPMa referenCe (for eMP loyMent, grant PurPoses etC.).• teChniCal assistanCe in Media ProduCtion.

• voiCe in the direCtion of the rPMa.• knoWing that you are fighting for JustiCe, PeaCe, and liberation

strUctUre:• Mesa direCtiva/editorial board Will Consist of a) Coordinator, b) events, C) MeMbershiP, d) PubliCations, and e) MeMber at large.• Mesa Will serve as Coordinating body to insure CoMM uniCation and CoMP letion of tasks.• Mesa Will also serve as editorial board for all rPMa

PUblicatiOns:• standing CoMM ittees Will be established as needed.• Mesa direCtiva Will organize a yearly suMM it or ConferenCe.

Guerrilleros de La Pluma

Guest EditorJose G. Moreno

Co-EditorsErnesto Bustillos

Luis Moreno

ProductionLuis Moreno

ContributorsErnesto Bustillos

Antonio A. VelasquezPablo AcevesMax Elbaum

Louie H. Moreno

Raza Press and Media Association

Editorial Board2010-2011

Ernesto BustillosFrancisco Romero

Antonio A. VelasquezLuis Moreno

Raza PRess, Media, and PoPulaR exPRession

Journal of the Raza Press and Media Association

STaTemenT From The raza PreSS and media aSSociaTion

SToP The FaSciSm and raciSm in arizona

on Friday, April 23, 2010, Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona (land stolen and under illegal U.S. occupation), signed

Senate Bill 1070 into law. It will give local and state law enforcement personnel the authority to stop anyone, anywhere, to demand proof of citizenship based only on “reason-able sus- picion”. Senate Bill 1 0 7 0 r e q u i r e s po l i ce to check for proof of status docu-mentation from anyone who is suspected of being in Arizona “illegally”, and obligates them to arrest those not pro-ducing it. Furthermore, this law provides further encouragement to racist-vig-ilante groups like the Ku Klux Klan, Minutemen, and other like groups, to escalate their violent attacks against Raza men, women, and children. The passage of SB 1070 should surprise no one. History is clear that the dis-placement of Mexicanos/Indigenous peoples from our lands and exploitation of our labor by White/Europeans in the Southwestern U.S. states (stolen from Mexico) for over 160 years has been made possible by the terroriz-ing and murder of Mexicanos and other non-Europeans. The white workers, in the majori-ty, have been duped by the ideology of “white supremacy” (racism) or have become willing collaborators in our oppression as a way of holding on to the stolen resources and land upon which they currently live. It is our responsibility to inform and raise the consciousness of our communities

to the reality that it doesn’t matter if you were born on “this side” or the other side of the “border”, a large sector of the White/Euro-pean population hate us and will do anything in their power to keep us from living in peace and as human beings. This is what SB 1070 is all about. Therefore, we support all forms and means of resistance that Raza in Arizona, or any part of occupied America, use to pro-tect our human rights and the safety of our families. Our position is clear, there can be no peace without justice.

We demand: J Immediate repeal of SB 1070. J End to all forms of oppression of

Mexicanos and other non-European peo-ples. J That Sheriff-pig Joe Arpaio, Governor

Jan Brewer, and the major supporters of SB 1070, be arrested and brought to

trial for crimes against humanity.

We caLL UPon: J All Raza media workers to join

the struggle to expose to the world the rac-ist oppressive nature of the U.S. ruling class, hypocrisy of the U.S Government, and deep seated racism found in U.S. society in gen-eral. J All Raza groups and individuals who are serious about defending the rights of our communities to join militant, disciplined, and anti-colonial/capitalist organizations, as this is the only way to end oppression and achieve our liberation. J All Progressives and Revolutionaries of the international community to support our struggle against racism/oppression of Raza in Arizona and throughout the U.S.

Summer 2010

3www.razapressassociation.org

By ERnEsTo BUsTiLLos

in the history of humanity, there has never been an imperialist power that has waged so much violence and

brutality, in so many different ways, and throughout so much of the world –all at the same time– as has the United States. For more than two hundred years, U.S. imperialism has waged terror on most of the world’s people. Along with other European imperialists, from the very first day that they set foot in what today is called “America”, they have waged the most brutal, genocidal, and terroristic wars against its indigenous people –simultaneously enslaving mil-lions of Africans, colonizing most of Asia and the Pacific Islands; killing and torturing all who re-sisted, or simply got in their way.

TRansFoRMinG LiEs inTo THE TRUTH Furthermore, no impe-rial power in history has been as effective, as has been the United States, in hiding and con-cealing its genocidal history. As violence alone cannot sustain colonialism and exploitation, psychological terrorizing of the oppressed must go hand-in-hand with physical terror. Hence, the imperial-ist propaganda institutions –the media, schools/colleges/universities, churches/missionaries, cultural centers (museums, etc.) and “think tanks”– have been utilized to turn history upside down– transform-ing the truth into lies, and the lies into the truth. It is the power of propaganda (along with violence) that has enabled the U.S. capitalists/imperialists (along with some confused colonized people) to refer to White-European settlers as “Americans” and Indigenous people (Mexicans) as “il-legal aliens” –and the stolen land that they occupy as “their homeland”. Moreover, no imperial power in history has enjoyed the support of its working class masses. The great major-ity of the white population have willingly

Terror and nazi-coLoniaiSm iS The naTUre oF The BeaST

arizona PiT BULL raciSm iS JUST The TiP oF The ice BerG!

supported the U.S. imperialist campaigns of war, genocide, and plunder, of other nations and peoples. From volunteering in “militias” to kill the native peoples and evicting them their homelands, to putting down slave rebellions, or “patriotically” joining the military invasions of peoples outside its borders –most white people have been zealous supporters of imperi-alism. “As white people”, explains Penny Hess, “we have always voluntarily and en-thusiastically upheld colonialism; we have

participated in it, been exhilarated by it, gotten rich by it, [and] used it as the solu-tion to our problems.” (1)

CoLoniaL PUPPETs anD CoLLaBo-RaToRs What’s more, and critical impor-tance to those involved in the liberation struggle, is the fact that no imperial power has been so successful, as has the United States, in turning elements within colo-nized people themselves into “neocolonial puppets” and collaborators. These traitors and vendidos have assisted the capitalist- imperialists in the terrorizing and oppres-sion of their own people. The neocolonialists in the Unit-ed States are embedded, most often than not, among the “Latino” petty bour-geois who hold administrative positions in government institutions (agencies and schools), elected to some “political office”,

work as professionals (lawyers, etc.), own businesses, and so forth. Often claiming to be “leaders” or “representatives” of our communities, but in reality they serve the interests of capitalism-imperialism –as whatever material comfort or social status they hold, is based on the existence of the capitalist system itself. They are a counter revolutionary force, and will do anything in their power to “opposed to any movement that has a revolutionary class character... as this would be in contradiction to their

economic and social interests.” (2)

LiFEsTyLE oF sETTLERs nE-CEssiTaTEs soME FoRM oF RaCisM The great majority of white settlers refuse, no matter what the facts are, to accept the true his-tory and nature of U.S. Capital-ism-Imperialism. They have been “convinced”, by propaganda and affluence, to collaborate with the terrorism waged by U.S. capital-ism-imperialism against people within its borders and throughout planet earth. They understand that there is a material connection

between their racism and the lifestyle that they enjoy. As Omali Yeshitela of the Afri-can People’s Socialist Party tell us, “There is an objective relationship between world slavery and U.S. affluence, and up until now the North American [White] popula-tion, opportunistically and demagogically led by their stomachs, pocket books, and corrupt leadership, have chosen the con-tinue enslavement of the world.” (3) The truth is, that without internalizing and ex-pressing some form of racism, white peo-ple cannot continue to illegally occupy the lands and live off the wealth of other na-tions and peoples. It is within this context of the na-ture of U.S. imperialism that the question of racism has to be defined and explained. It is an understanding that informs us that “Racism” was born as, has been, and con-tinues to be, a weapon of terrorism used by the capitalists to colonize and exploit

see “ARIZONA” pAge 10

“IN TRUE WHITE SUPREMACY FASHION, PIG-SHERIFF JOE APRAIO CONTINUES THE LEGACY OF THE KKK.”


Guerrillera/os de La Pluma Journal of the Raza Press and Media Association

By PaBLo aCEVEs

2010 marks the 40th anniversary of the East Los Angeles August 29, 1970, Chicano Moratorium

March against the Vietnam War. The August 29, 1970, event was the largest Mexican and Chicano anti-imperialist and anti-war demonstration that ever occurred in the US empire. This historical gathering was the culminations of over two years of teach ins, protests, and marchas denouncing the Vietnam War and the right wing attacks against the Chicano and Mexican com-munity. M o r e than that, it was connected to the Vietnamese po-litical conditions and their heroic struggle to free them-selves from the chains of racism, exploitation, poverty, and oppres-sion that was similar to our struggles within the US empire. This political and ideo-logical struggle was able to challenge US Imperialism to its foundations within and without its illegitimate borders. For over a decade the “Chicano Power Movement” (1965-1975) was at its political height and it was the era of Brown Power and Brown is beautiful. It was a time when “Chicano” was not a negation of our Mexi-canidad but a reaffirmation of our cultural pride. It was a time when we were proud to be brown and indigenous for the first time in our long history in the Americas. Historically our people have been known for fighting in imperial wars, and for being the most decorated “ethnic group” in the US empire. This historical movement took over buildings and demanded for Chicano Studies and bilingual education from the U.S. political system. The culmination of this was on August 29, 1970, with over 30,000 Raza

and supporters converged on a hot Satur-day in East Los Angeles. August 29, 1970, protest against Vietnam War, showed our solidarity with the Vietnamese people and all oppressed and colonized people around the global. It demanded Chicano and Mexican Self Determination, the right to define and decide our own economic, political, cultural, and social past, present, and future in our own land. With all the

thousands of marches and pro-tests that occurred during

1960s and 1970s, the Chicano Moratorium

march was cited in former US Presi-

dent Richard Nixon personal memoirs as a major factor in deciding to end the Vietnam

War. In seeing a colonized people

in an organized way, not only protest the war, but state

clearly that we were on the “same side” as the Vietnam-

ese people in the struggle against US im-perialism showed how deeply imperialism was shaken and were on the ropes dur-ing the 1960s and 1970s. None other than Richard Nixon, the war criminal who tried to bomb Hanoi “back to the stone age” and who escalated and expanded this imperial war in the face of massive protests right at the White House later said in his memoirs that one of the most influential elements in his decision to end the Vietnam War was the Chicano Moratorium and Anti-War Movement. Nixon, a politician from California knew the tremendous potential that the Chicano Power Movement had on making a connection between our po-litical conditions at home and aboard. The galvanization of the Black Revolution, the Chicano Power Movement, and the up-rising of the American Indian Movement, which would culminate in Wounded Knee in 1973, were now able to articulate anti-

Imperialism struggles and connected our people to other oppressed and colonized peoples around the globe.

RPMA Reading List

AZtlAN ANd VIet NAm: CHICANO ANd CHICANA expeRIeNCes Of tHe

WARBy Jorge Mariscal

tHe sHOCk dOCtRINe: tHe RIse Of dIsAsteR CApItAlIsm

By NaoMi KleiN

pedAgOgy Of tHe OppRessedBy Paulo Freire

¡RAZA sí! ¡gueRRA NO!: CHICANO pROtest ANd pAtRIOtIsm duRINg

tHe VIet NAm WAR eRA By loreNa oroPeza

OCCupIed AmeRICABy rodolFo acuNa

tHe pROblem Of tHe medIA: u.s. COmmuNICAtION pOlItICs IN tHe

tWeNty-fIRst CeNtuRyBy roBert McchesNey

eduCAtION, CHICANO studIes, ANd RAZA lIbeRAtION!

By erNesto Bustillos

blACk, bROWN, yellOW, ANd left: RAdICAl ACtIVIsm IN lOs

ANgelesBy laura Pulido

bROWN-eyed CHIldReN Of tHe suN: lessONs fROm tHe CHICANO

mOVemeNt, 1965-1975By Jorge Mariscal

40Th anniVerSarY oF The chicano moraToriUm march oF aUGUST

29, 1970

see “1970” pAge 12

Summer 2010


Editor’s Note: This article is re-printed from War Times/Tiem-po de Guerras, Washington’s Wars and Occupations: Month in Review #61 (May 31, 2010) with permission.

By Max ELBaUM

“First the execution, then the trial.” “Stop them if they look illegal - round ‘em up and deport ‘em.” “Lock ‘em up and throw away the key.”

excerpts from an unused script for the just con-cluded TV show “24”?

Lines from a B-grade Western where cowboys in white hats triumph over Indians and Mex-icans? Or sentiments fanned daily by a powerful right-wing media machine and embraced by a substantial chunk of the U.S. public? Apt if crude de-scriptions of policies increas-ingly embedded in the struc-ture and day-to-day practice of government in this country? Unfortunately for peo-ple here and around the world, this is no Hollywood fantasy. Recent events from Arizona to Afghanistan to Gaza and be-yond ought to be a big wake-up call about the dangers at hand. Especially ominous is the tight connection between the resurgent impulse to rely on repression, military force and violence to address social and political problems and the demonization/criminalization of entire groups of people. There’s plenty of resis-tance to some of the most bla-tant features of the anti-popular

miLiTariSm rUn amoK:

aFGhaniSTan, Gaza, arizona onslaught. And the terrain of battle is complicated because - at least according to the for-mal terms of the 2008 election - a majority of voters rejected the kind of fear-mongering and expansion of state repressive power that is again so promi-nent. These are sources of hope that indicate the poten-tial for beating back the latest threats. But the overall picture also shows how deeply impe-rial militarism and a “use force” mentality - interwoven with racism and national chauvin-ism - has become implanted in the country’s institutions and political culture.

ExECUTions WiTHoUT TRiaL, ToRTURE, inDEFi-niTE DETEnTion According to investiga-tive journalist Seymour Hersh, U.S. forces in Afghanistan are carrying out “battlefield execu-tions” of prisoners. Hersh, who broke the Abu Ghraibprison abuse story in 2004 (and the My Lai massacre story in 1968) says that com-manders in Afghanistan “tell the troops, you have to make a determination within a day or two or so whether or not the prisoners are Taliban… And if you cannot conclude they’re Taliban, you must turn them free. What it means is, and I’ve been told this anecdotally by five or six different people, battlefield executions are tak-ing place. If they can’t prove they’re Taliban, bam.” It’s not just Afghans being executed without even the semblance of a trial. The New York Times reported May 13 that the Obama administra-tion authorized the CIA to kill a terrorism suspect who is a

U.S. citizen living far from any current battlefield. Slated for execution is radical cleric An-war al-Awlaki, now in hiding in Yemen. The Times reported the matter with total under-statement: “The notion that the government can, in effect, execute one of its own citizens far from a combat zone, with no judicial process and based on secret intelligence, makes some legal authorities deeply uneasy… To eavesdrop on the suspect intelligence agencies would have to get a court war-rant. But designating him for death, as CIA officials did early this year with the National Se-curity Council’s approval, re-quired no judicial review.” Then there’s torture and indefinite detention. Ac-cording to the White House, the U.S. no longer tortures prisoners as it did during the Bush years. But there is strong evidence that the same tech-niques are still employed at the U.S. airbase in Bagram Afghanistan. The BBC reports that the Red Cross confirms the existence at Bagram of a facility for detainees - a so-called “black jail” - separate from the main prison, despite Pentagon denials. At least nine former prisoners told the BBC that they had been subject to torture techniques in that facil-ity. Meanwhile a federal appeals court ruled May 21 that three men who had been detained by the U.S. military for years without trial in Afghani-stan had no recourse to U.S. courts. The Obama adminis-tration claimed the same pow-ers as its predecessor to hold detainees indefinitely without any kind of trial and praised

the decision. The detainees, two Yemenis and a Tunisian, say they were captured outside Afghanistan and are innocent of any wrongful activities. If it stands, the ruling will allow the military and government to im-prison any non-U.S. citizen for as long as they want, the only proviso being they are held in a prison outside the U.S.

MaJoR ExPansion oF CLanDEsTinE MiLiTaRy oPERaTions These are not isolated items. The New York Times reported May 24 that the new orders from the top U.S. com-mander in the Middle East mandate a big expansion of clandestine military activity. A secret directive signed last September byGeneral David Petraeus au-thorizes sending Special Op-erations troops to both “friend-ly” and “hostile” nations in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa. The order includes Iran, and officials said the order permits recon-naissance that could pave the way for possible military strike against that country. This new directive gives the military more lati-tude than it had even under the Bush administration. Bush had approved some clandes-tine military activities far from designated war zones, but government officials speaking anonymously stated that the new order “is intended to make such efforts more systematic and long term.” Exposed by the Times just a few days before the Obama administration issued its first formal National Secu-rity Strategy, this expansion of

see “WAR” pAge 6

military power appears to be counter to the spirit if not the letter of the President’s policy. In contrast to official doctrine under Bush, the new Strategy document stresses multilater-alism over unilateralism and declares that the U.S. cannot sustain extended military op-erations abroad indefinitely. It even says that key to national security is addressing prob-lems of the U.S. economy, education, energy and climate change. These are good con-cepts. To the degree they actually become the driver of Washington’s concrete ac-tions, it would mark a step in the right direction. But these declarations remain paired with insistence that the U.S. maintain “military superiority” and that Washington will, if it deems necessary, act alone with whatever military force the administration feels is needed. Unfortunately it is these parts of the document that are driv-ing the latest round of U.S. ac-tions. These constitute an ex-tremely dangerous expansion of militarism and state repres-sive power, even if they are not conducted under the Bush-era rhetoric of “might makes right” and a “permanent war on ter-ror.”

PRoTECTinG isRaEL, EVEn aFTER PiRaCy anD MURDER Other important as-pects of administration policy this month also show a dis-connect between rhetoric and action. For months the admin-istration has been publicly criti-cal of Israeli settlement build-ing. Top U.S. military leaders have declared that indefinite blocking of an Israel-Pales-tine peace agreement under-mines U.S. strategic interests. This public posture has made Obama the object of vitriolic attacks from the far right. But

what is the administration doing in practice? Earlier this month it requested an additional $205 million in military aid to Israel on top of the record-breaking $3 billion already present in the 2011 budget. And as most of the world reacts with outrage to last night’s Israeli attack on an the Gaza aid flotilla – an act of international piracy and murder – Washington is posi-tioning itself once again to give Israel diplomatic cover. In an especially bit-ter irony, this is taking place at a time when a new level of criticism of Israeli policies has broken out right within an important sector of U.S. Zion-ism. Former New Republic editor Peter Beinart sparked a firestorm with a New York Review of Books piece that pilloried Israeli government policies and defense of them by the major U.S. Zionist or-ganizations. In defending his article, Beinart burnished his “no- one-can-accuse-me-of-not-loving-Israel” credentials by saying that he “does not de-mand that Israel give its Arab citizens equal rights” but stood his ground as far as condemn-ing the Israeli right wing by writing:

“The prime minister of Israel has re-peatedly compared the establishment of a Palestinian state to the Holocaust. His foreign minister, and protégé, has flirted with advocating the physical ex-pulsion of Israeli Arabs. The spiritual leader of his government’s fourth-larg-est party has called for politicians who advocate ceding territory to the Pales-tinians to be struck dead. West Bank settlements are growing at triple the rate of the Israeli population, and ac-cording to a recent Tel Aviv University poll, 80% of religious Jewish Israeli high schoolers would refuse orders to dismantle them. One-third of Jewish Israelis favor pardoning Yigal Amir, the man who murdered Yitzhak Rabin… there is only one decent response to these truths: fury. If you’re not angry, you’re either not paying attention or you don’t care.” Full text of Beinart’s article: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/ar-chives/2010/jun/10/failure-american-jewish-establishment/?page=1

With such indictments coming even from prominent pro-Isra-el U.S. Jews; with ambitious general like Petraeus imply-ing that Israeli stonewalling is a threat to U.S. interests; with almost the entire politi-cal class screaming about the budget deficit; and with Israel now boarding ships and killing unarmed humanitarian activ-ists in international waters, one would think the time was favorable for talking about cuts rather than expansion of mili-tary and diplomatic assistance to Tel Aviv. But the House vote on Obama’s aid-Israel request was a staggering 410-4. And Washington stands alone in its failure to resolutely condemn Israel’s latest brutality. These constitute the very opposite of a policy shift on this key volatile conflict. They are en-dorsements of militarism and occupation and signs of just how hostage to that “big mud-dy” combination Washington’s Middle East policy remains. No wonder the banner head-line across Israel’s Maariv newspaper’s front page May 27 - “Netanyahu: ‘I Won’” - in-dicated the glee of those who plan not only to permanently occupy Palestinian land but drag the U.S. into war against Iran.

TRooPs To aRizona Then there is the de-cision to send National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico bor-der. Obama has joined the chorus of criticism against that state’s draconian anti-immigrant law, SB1070, a wel-come addition to the campaign to expose and counter the anti-Latino bias that lies at its core. The President also con-tinues to call for comprehen-sive immigration reform that would include a humane and workable path to legalization. But when it comes to positive steps on the ground, all we have so far is a Justice Depart-

ment “studying and investigat-ing” whether it will act to block SB1070. There are no orders to end - or even reduce - the family-busting, inhumane raids that ICE has been conducting all over the country. Instead, the President accepts a right-wing demand and deploys the National Guard. The step only rein-forces militarization of society and buttresses the “force is a solution” mindset. The only thing it could possibly accom-plish is making more peoples’ lives harder and whetting the appetite of the “Deport-‘em-all” Lobby for even more re-pressive force. The roots of large-scale south- to-north migration lie in economic and social conditions, unequal re-lations between the U.S. and Latin America, displacement of people from their homes as multinational corporations dis-tort local economies, the drive of U.S.-based employers for a pool of vulnerable and cheap labor, and so on. Walls, troops and raids will not stop any of this. They will only inflict mis-ery and perpetuate bigotry as corporate interests laugh all the way to the bank. The specifics of Ari-zona are obviously different from the Middle East. But the conflict between U.S. corpo-rate interests, local elites and vulnerable populations has many parallels. Life in the U.S.-Mexico border region es-pecially is becoming more and more similar to life under occu-pation, with the Border Patrol and now the National Guard functioning as a the occupy-ing force. As in Afghanistan or Palestine, military and military-type force does not address - in fact, exacerbates - the un-derlying causes of conflict; and the longer one travels the road of seeking military solutions, the harder it is to climb out of an ever-deepening hole.


6 Raza Press, Media, and Popular Expressionsee Next pAge

fROm “WAR” pAge 5


Summer 2010

URGEnT, MULTi-LEVELED FiGHTBaCK The resistance to all this is and will be complex. The mix of factors tilting for and against us is complicated. The big outcry against Arizona’s law from prominent figures in the worlds of sports and en-tertainment as well as politics is heartening. And it was a boost to see Mexico’s Presi-dent Felipe Calderon issue a forthright anti-racial profiling message while speaking to the U.S. Congress, something few U.S. politicians seem to have the guts to do. Despite all that polls show a narrow ma-jority of the U.S. people saying SB1070 “gets it about right.” A great deal will depend on how much momentum and broad reach the grassroots move-ment springing to life against SB1070 can acquire in the next several months. Building on the National Day of Action May 29, preparations are un-derway for a host of activities in Arizona and nationwide; Alto Arizona athttp://www.altoarizo-na.com/ is one good place to get full information. Regarding Afghani-stan and the general use of direct U.S. military force in the Middle East, the landscape is somewhat different. Public opinion has soured on these adventures over the last sev-eral years. Majority sentiment is skeptical that the U.S. will accomplish anything positive in Afghanistan (or Iraq.) And each week news reports and admissions from Washington’s own commanders indicate that these are indeed lost causes. But antiwar activism at the base level is muted, and de-cisions to authorize more co-vert activities or hold prisoners indefinitely without trial that would have led to significant protests had they been made by Bush do not spark the same level of resistance with Obama in office. To change this will

require an antiwar movement that finds new ways to com-bine educational activities, mass public protests and in-tegration of antiwar and cut-the-military-budget efforts into the growing fights over jobs, services, immigrant rights, and environmental protection. Fighting to end blank-check U.S. support for Israel occupation, meanwhile, in-volves a whole set of special challenges. But the glaring disconnect between even the most minimal respect for hu-man life or (per the U.S. Dec-laration of Independence) “a decent respect for the opinions of mankind” vs. Israel’s recent actions opens up new possibil-ities for broad educational and protest activities. All these will be most effective if a consistent anti-militarist theme is struck as often as possible. “Shoot ‘em and lock ‘em up” demagogy can grip popular sentiment for some time. But it has no real solutions to the actual prob-lems that afflict an increasingly inter-connected and fragile world (which is why its diehard adherents retreat steadily into a world where fantasy and cra-zy replaces reality.) This creates opportu-nities for advocates of peace and justice to offer a solve-real-problems message on a variety of levels. In a time of extended economic hardship, catastrophic oil spills and wars that threaten to engulf entire re-gions, our arsenal ranges from the full critique of empire and imperial-era racism through the call for fair-play and com-mon sense to an appeal for everyone to think about the very survival of this generation and the next. Dr. Martin Luther King saw things clearly four decades ago when he argued that in today’s world “We will live together as brothers and sisters or perish together as fools.” J

Barrio March San Diego, CA

MAY DAY 2010

Oxnard, CA

Photo by Luis Moreno

Barrio BookFest

2010

Los Angeles, Ca

Photo by Cristina Lares

NACCS 2010

seattle, WA

Photo by Luis

Moreno

Barrio BookFest

2010

Los Angeles, Ca

Photo by Oscar Michel



to change the 60-year-old Partido Revolucionario Insti-tucional (PRI) stranglehold on Mexican politics. The re-sult was only to experience massive U.S. emipre con-trolled electoral fraud against the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD), a po-litical party led largely by sidelined PRI former mem-bers gradually emerging from the ruins of that activ-ism. The significant change was to have the New York mafia-funded Republican-wing Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) take center stage with the seating of Vicente Fox, a U.S. soda pop corporation former employee. Immediately follow-ing the hand over was the attempt to realign the flow of money from both legitimate and illegitimate sources, in particular government and drug trade revenue inflows. The outgoing administration in Mexico was generously rewarded with the spoils of successfully passing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) before slipping not so covertly the political baton to the PAN. However, it was a different story when it came to the presumed hidden economy of drug trafficking, and profits derived from that trade were not to be hand-ed over so easily as can be seen by the bloody war being waged by differently spon-sored Mexican drug suppli-ers. The combined problems of these two developments have drastically affected us due to economic forced mi-gration and increasingly Dra-conian legislation brought on by the manipulation of ter-ror relating to the so-called gangs and drug wars. This process of realignment and its results, more than any-

thing else is what has destabi-lized life in Mexico and is now directing our community’s po-litical focus and future. Developments in the U.S. emipre have not been much different from the other side of the border. The back-drops to our Chicano Power activism were the Black Power and subsequent Civil Rights Movements that, right or wrong, gave perimeters to our activity. Our relative ideological isola-tion, political inexperience, and ignorance of history took us on a narrowly defined road following a complaint strategy inherent in the Civil Rights Movement that assumed ac-ceptance of the so-called Melt-ing Pot theory, rather than in our case demanding clearly a return of our stolen land. Raza, as did Africans who had been brought here as slaves but now legally free, demanded instead an end to discriminatory treatment (as is happening now in Arizona) by the occupying power and not ridding ourselves of the occupier. Herein the self-de-ception, as when has foreign invasion and occupation been fair? We want in, the message shamelessly continues to say. Does it matter that the reason someone is at the next door is that the big bad wolf has stolen his or her house? With no clearly ideo-logical direction what was ini-tially an aggressive bottom-up led Chicano/Brown Power Movement gradually degener-ated into a self-centered and increasingly controlled political development. We came under the influence and direction of emerging national organiza-tions doing mostly the bidding of the Democratic Party ma-chine in which our truly pro-gressive Raza groups were relegated to minority status within the larger organizing

fROm “CHICANO” pAge 1


Art By Louie H. Moreno

Summer 2010


see Next pAge

community. Many of the so-called national Raza organization emerging from the sixties and those misleadingly named with a Raza connotation, having resources to affect Raza pub-lic opinion by passing along party or corporate positions, were in fact covertly created or controlled by the partisan par-ty gangs and their moneyed supporters, quiet as it’s kept. Much of what passes today as independent organization is in fact functioning as mere appendage to political party or union politics and had its start as a control mechanism to manage the so-called minority anger. This can especially be said of many of those first gen-eration 1960’s civic and liberal organizations in both the Afri-can American and Raza com-munity. Distinctly outside this equation were the Nation of Is-lam, The Black Panther Party, the African People’s Socialist Party (APSP), the Crusade for Justice, and the Brown Berets. These and a small number of others with uncompromising messages, not surprisingly, were attempted to be dis-mantled or rendered ineffec-tive through police infiltration, agent-manipulated internal di-vision, and system murder. Many of the present day so-called leaders have emerged from this created and controlled minority politi-cal foundation. They are now churned out by these main-stream agencies en mass through leadership workshops and the like, much as law en-forcement operates its citizen academies to build support for continued terrorism against our communities. Also, it would not be surprising that from the embedded law enforcement elements infiltrated into our organizations during the six-

ties and never exposed, that some may still be active and self-proclaiming themselves as leaders as they had before, sowing disunity and keeping our communities from going forward in any meaningful way. Seen in this light, this might help to explain the rea-son why some of these super-fluous organizations and indi-viduals emanating from them, along with individual agent holdovers are still around as apologists for the Democrat-ic Party machine under the guise of any number of cre-ated alphabet soup-sounding organizations, some of which ridiculously refer to them-selves as Raza, progressive or socialist. Whereas violent suppression only stalled the efforts to rid Mexico of US-controlled political corruption, with few exceptions here as there, there was a gradual shift toward institutionalization of activity on both sides of the imposed border with the ag-ing of the generación del ‘68. Slowly through the systemic appropriation of many of the protest issues, relating mostly to educational access and oc-cupational opportunity, much of the impetus driving genu-ine protest against U.S. Impe-rialism (now under a variety of new-marketed labels and slogans) was extinguished or sidetracked. Although there have been many instances in the past of migrations to the U.S, and under different circum-stances (Bracero Program, for example), in our relatively recent past, a reason we can attribute to the rise in the no-ticeable Raza community nu-merical growth and its effect on our political development have been two U.S.-caused forced migrations north over



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the masses of the people. It has served as the perfect weapon to divide and conquer the masses, and convert most white people into mercenaries of the U.S. ruling class (capi-talists).

aRizona PiT BULL RaC-isM Has iTs HisToRiCaL FoUnDaTion In Arizona and throughout Occupied America, it is the fear of losing the land upon which they illegally exist that scares the hell of out of the settler-white population. A fear that slaps them in the face every time they have to look at a Mexican. It is a phobia based on the fact that colonized people someday will develop the power to bring them to a court of justice in which they will have to pay reparations to Mexicans-Indians, Africans, and Asians, for the hundreds of years genocide, slavery, theft of land and resources, colonial exploitation, and eco-logical destruction of planet earth. It is a profound guilt of knowing, but constantly deny-ing, that they, and they alone, are the “real” illegal aliens. It is within this denial that we find the current pit-bull racism among white people in Arizona –who refuse to un-lock their bloody jaws from necks of the Mexican people. It is the fear of “reparations”, which moves them to support racist laws such as 1070 and the banning of “Ethnic Stud-ies” classes in the schools. They are fighting to maintain the prevelidges (the best jobs, schools, housing, etc.) histori-cally reserved for them, not by the power of their labor, but by the power of white supremacy. What we are witness-ing in Arizona is but the tip of the iceberg when it comes to racism and terror. They are laws and policies of Nazi-colo-nialism that white people have

historically imposed on non-white people. A short survey of the history of the Arizona informs us that the current racism and violence is not new; take for example:J It was in Arizona (throughout the late 1800s) where some of the most brutal “Indian Wars” took place. It was the scene where white settlers, con-spired or led, the massacres of thousands upon thousands of Indian/Indigenous women and children, “cleansing” the lands of its natives and “herd-ing them off like animals” to prisons called “reservations”, to suffer and die.J During the U.S. Civil War (1860s), the majority of the white settlers in Arizona open-ly supported the slave owning Confederacy (South). The only thing that stopped them were Mexicans and other Indig-enous peoples who united to defeat the confederate armies invading from Texas.J Like the Texas Rangers, the “Arizona Rangers” were estab-lished as a special police force who use main objective was, through the use of murder and terror, to keep Mexican-Indians and African peoples in “their place”. J During the 1900s, hundreds of Mexicans were killed during strikes and thousands were “deported”, when they strug-gled to improve working condi-tions in the mines and agricul-tural fields.J In support of rich white capitalists, hundreds of “white workers” joined special “mi-litias”, and along with the Ari-zona Rangers, crossed the border (into Sonora) to attack and murder Mexican workers during the Cananea Miners Strike of 1906.J Arizona was also where, in Oct. of 1904, the notorious kid-napping by “white town folk” of dozens children who had

see Next pAge



the imposed border. The first occurred in a noticeable way in the mid 1980’s resulting from the U.S. military inter-vention in Central America and then in the 1990’s after the dispossession of land and small farming business due to NAFTA and other trade agreements. This situation was further enhanced with the consequent disconnect of U.S. emipre born youth through consumer and lin-guistic cultural assimilation, and subsequently in higher enrollment in colleges and universities of engabachado middle-income and apolitical youth over initial recruitment campaigns to bring in poor or campesino targeted bar-rio youth with axes to grind. Chicana/o Studies Programs across the nation that were defined initially by a militant Plan de Santa Barbara have been of little help as mostly vendidos have stuck around to deal with the institutional, and pardon the term, bullshit. Now, to ensure their own pro-fessional goals and longevity, they are largely defanged and selling assimilation. But will we ever admit this? Eventually what was ideological protest became political (in the sense of com-ing under the control of main-stream systemic discourse and decision-making pro-cesses) and was manipulated to function within the confines of the two-party political ma-chine and their agent groups ranging from labor unions, party funded paper organiza-tions, to non-profit or advo-cacy organizations. The latest stage of this terror against our com-munity is being seen in how our natural ally, the Euro-American worker, next on the list to be dispossessed by the

country’s economic reorgani-zation, is being swept into a blind xenophobic reaction to assist politicians to pass even more restricting legislation controlling individual move-ment and expression. “WE HaVE MET THE EnEMy anD THE EnEMy is Us”

Unfortunately, the condition previously discussed is where it is destined to stay while current system-led activ-ists are in control and acting as mere appendages to the ma-nipulations of those that man-age the two-party machine, its media associates, and now even the Catholic Church. Ironically, some of these cur-rent covert sell-outs and overt system agents masquerading as leaders, at least in the Chi-cano/Mexicano community, are aging holdovers that had been the most vociferous ideologi-cal chest beaters of how left, radical, and vanguardist they were and should know better. They had been so hard to see then that now they force them-selves by any means, even at the expense of historical com-munity interests and their per-sonal dignity and integrity. There is no clearer example as the current push to fill the ranks of the Demo-cratic Party by these defeated individuals, now pragmatist re-formists desiring still a place in the celebrity sun. They func-tion as imbedded collaborators masquerading as activist orga-nizers or self-proclaimed strat-egists and following the dic-tates of system complicit labor unions, political parties, and opportunist politicians. For ex-ample, Today We March, To-morrow We Vote, cannot make it any clearer. In a strictly con-trolled two-party system, are slogans like these supposed to be a threat? To whom?

fROm “ARIZONA” pAge 3

Summer 2010


been adopted by Mexicans families took place. White people “went foaming-in-the mouth crazy” when they found out that “white children” were living with Mexicans, and with the support of the town police, beat and terrorized Mexicans until they “gave up” the adopt-ed white children.J Throughout late 1800s and up to the 1940s, Arizona was also a location where white people, jealous of the Japa-nese and Chinese workers’ ability to improve their lot, en-gaged in anti-Asian campaigns of bloody violence and ethnic cleansing. Most whites in Ari-zona were all too happy and saw it as their “patriotic duty” to sponsor the concentration camps where thousands of Japanese Americans were im-prisoned during the World War II.J For years, Arizona has been the “incarceration capital of the western United States”, with the ninth highest incarceration rate in the U.S. It has twice the regional average of peo-ple in prison, and has locked up women, Raza and African Americans at higher rates than other states in the south-west. It was from the Arizona of Department of Corrections, where some of those recruited to torture Iraqi prisoners (Abu Ghraib) came from. J Arizona is also the home of such white heroes as the Pig Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who gets a kick of terrorizing Mexican families by having his deputies round up men, women and children, where ever they can find them. It is also the home of the decrepit racist Sena-tor John McCain who voted against establishing a federal holiday in Dr. King’s honor and who today supports the anti-Mexicans laws of Arizona; and who by the way, many confused Mexicans voted for president during the last elec-

tions. The truth is, white people in the United States, in general, have been the most racist and backward working class in history, even more so than their relatives in Europe. It is this “backward unity” that white people have with imperi-alism that explains a situation where we witness corpora-tions such as British Petroleum (BP) creating one of the worst ecological catastrophes in his-tory; workers dying in unsafe mines of Massey Energy Co (West Virginia); banks (Gold-man Sachs, American Interna-tional Group/AIG, etc.) ripping off trillions of dollars; auto cor-porations (GM, Ford, Chrysler, etc.); executives make millions from public funds; hundreds of thousands of people losing their homes through swindles perpetrated by loan sharks (Countrywide, etc.); more than one fourth of the population unemployed, underemployed, or without health insurance; public education is being de-stroyed and access to higher education limited to the upper classes; a massive gambling casino known as “wall street” playing with money of the masses; gentrification (rede-velopment) destroying whole communities for the benefits of the rich; wars for profits and plunder are labeled as wars against terrorism (Iraq, Afghanistan, Somali, etc.); – and yet– most (white) people in Arizona take the asinine po-sition that blames Mexicans for all their problems.

a WHiTE CaPiTaLisT-iMPE-RiaLisT aMERiCa is noT THE ansWER, anD nEVER WiLL BE The masses of the Mexican and other colonized peoples must be won over to understanding the seriousness of the current situation we face within the United States. We



Furthermore, from these individuals is where the most damaging comments are originating against a new generation of Raza militants. Using system-tested discred-iting tactics, this hidden agent element attempts to derail le-gitimate advocacy to realign political activism within a his-torical framework by label-ing these efforts as idealistic, naïve, immature, juvenile, sectarian, radical, or violent, among many other such terms, although they would use thug tactics to accomplish their goals. Clearly, there is a certain philosophical, histori-cal and leadership disconnect when through their efforts, the exploited are ending up not clenching fists but with fists clasping little American flags and wearing white t-shirts with God Bless America on them. Still, more egregious is that there is no generalized con-demnation and attempt to de-mand an end to this shameful public display by the real di-rectors of these parades, like the lackey Reform Immigra-tion for America (RIFA) and unions that come in to buy the show. The do-and-say-your-own-thing mentality has overtaken Raza community interests and one needs to ask quite seriously when look-ing at results, who and what in hell is really benefiting from this entire circus? Even the gusanada from Cuba that marched last March 26th against the Cuban Revolution in Los Angeles and Miami, Florida seem to have a better handle of their ultimate goals and objectives. Led by second-rate actor Andy Garcia, and in Miami by over-rated singer Gloria Estefan, who now claims to have been approached by the CIA in her late teens to spy on her com-

munity, this group who the census also counts as Raza, are reactionaries in exile be-cause they are pissed that a redistribution of a wealth gained by exploitation was taken from their ilk. On its surface, one can understand the blind rage and reaction; after all, that first wave of fugitives expe-rienced land expropriation and lost servants; and it is their nostalgia for its return, if only in dreams, what fuels the blindness in their sons and daughters. This irrationality was manifested during their march in Los Angeles, when after attacking members of a small counter demonstration, proceeded to act like a pack of insane fools as they had a feeding frenzy tearing apart a Cuban flag imprinted with the semblance of Che. Most Raza, however, outside of little Havana in Mi-ami have been victims of out-right U.S. foreign policy terror-ism, whether it be by direct or surrogate military or economic invasion and occupation. Why then should the immigrant re-form movement be allowed to take Raza on the same re-actionary path, albeit lighter, by parading wrapped up in American flags rather than condemning and demanding? Why and how could Gloria Es-tefan, supporter of terrorism against her own country, ever get to the podium at the May 1st, 2010 Los Angeles march and as news reports noted, kick off the march? How low and contradictory can these self-proclaimed leaders get? How can we continue to allow this? Agreed, the so-called immigrant community is com-posed of many different na-tionalities but it is only the Mexicano/Indígena who has had the land stolen from under

see “ARIZONA” pAge 13



Dollar Cafe. In the aftermath of this, the US empire was able to silence a journalistic voice that defended the rights of our people and political struggles. It is on the 40th anni-versary of this historical march that the political and ideologi-cal struggles of the 1960s and 1970s are more relevant today than ever. We can see that 40 years later, the US political machine are in the nations of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as Latin America under the pretext of “terrorism” and “drug wars” using our people as can-non fodder for their imperial wars. At home, we have all out war by the US political system, ICE, and racist laws like the ones that passed in the great state of Arizona. Over the last decade, there has been all-out attempt to erase our history and culture, as well as our his-torical claims to our land and language. Over four years ago, massive marches were called for by the Democratic Party “hispanic leaders” and tame or-ganizations telling us to march with American Flags and white shirts, not to yell too loud or be too Mexican and we would get “reform.” We heard “hoy mar-chamos, manana votamos.” Now it is four years later, and there are Democrats every-where. What are our political and social conditions? More Raza and Af-ricans are in prison, the US government continues to try to bully Latin America and wipe out the heroic Cuban Revolu-tion, the fence that cuts our historical land in half is three fences, and Obama has de-ported more people and sepa-rated more families in the last year than Bush II! Clearly the politics of “go slow” “be nice” does not work. We need a po-litical struggle for national lib-eration that will organize the masses of our people to be the

at their site. By the end of the day, the cops had gotten a run for their money and finally had been run out of East Los Angeles. However, the cost was high due to hundreds of beaten, gassed, wounded and arrested marchers in the after-math of the police riot. In addi-tion, three people died due to the police and political repres-sion against marchers. The three that fallen in the aftermath of this march were: two Brown Berets, Lyn Ward and Angel Diaz, and Los Angeles Times journalist Ruben Salazar. The Brown Berets deserve to be mention because these young camara-das were part of an organiza-tion that surged ahead and for many symbolized the Chicano Power Movement. The Brown Berets defended the commu-nity, developed self-determina-tion politics, and advanced the struggle at the ground level. They had over 90 chapters in communities all over the US empire. The Brown Berets provide our people a primary example of a militant struggle that led to COINTELPRO at-tacks and political repression in our communities. Indeed, our movement in the present day owes much to the Brown Berets and the Chicano Power Movement generation. Ruben Salazar was an important Raza journalist, especially when most current Hispanic mainstream jour-nalists are talking heads that defend the US empire and political repression in our com-munities. Whatever, they can or call themselves progressive but they are afraid to take a political stand against the US empire. Ruben Salazar took on the LAPD, racism, and the Vietnam War. On the day of the march, as the people bat-tered the Sheriff pigs down Whittier Blvd Ruben Salazar was assassinated at the Silver

makers of their own future den-sity. For this we need a political organization committed to true change-revolutionary change. As the Chicano Mora-torium gets closer to its fortieth commemoration, we need to strengthen our commitment not only to the political strug-gle but also to making sure the truth gets out to the masses of our people. Today most of our Raza are spoon-fed a right wing false illusion by the U.S. mainstream media and it “his-panic” media counter parts of Univision, La Opinion, Tele-mundo, TV Azteca, and Televi-sa-pseudo journalists. Instead of defending our people (their safe “immigrant rights” rhetoric aside) do nothing but uphold the values of capitalism, war, and the attack against our social movements in the Americas. Our political struggle needs a vibrant and strong Raza press that not only criticizes but also mobilizes against U.S. impe-rialist wars on Raza at home and abroad. A capitalist model only condemns our people and communities to poverty. Most importantly, we need a Raza press that can challenge, ex-pose and unseat the pseudo journalist vendidos, can bring the real information to our bar-rios, and help provide an ac-tion solution for our national liberation in the US empire. J

fROm “1970” pAge 4 This historical march was peaceful and was a giant outpouring of Raza and our al-lies throughout the streets of East LA. In the film Requiem 29, you can see the enormous support the organizations and the marchers had during that historical gathering. Our com-munity, like the majority of people around the globe at that time period were abuzzied with the words of liberation, self-determination, and revolu-tion on its lips. In another film March in the Rain covering the Feb-ruary 1970 march, showed the exuberant but resolute feeling and outpouring of Brown Pride and solidarity was in mood and air during that historical era. It was thought that this historical march would be the culmina-tion of an agenda of liberation and would strengthening our movement organizations. Many people know what happened when the marchers reached Laguna Park (now Salazar Park), how-ever it bears repeating. The first speaker, Corky Gonzales had practically just begun his speech when the Los Angeles Police and Sheriffs, charged into the park, from the west entrance shooting their bullets and tear gas, beating and club-bing everything in sight. The “official reason” (sanctioned lie) was that the liquor store just outside the park was being robbed and that the “suspects” had run into the park, but no evidence of this was ever pro-duced to this date. These pigs charged into the park without provocation attacking, beating and gassing young people, children and the elderly that attended the march. As a re-sult of the law enforcement attacking, marchers started to fight back every inch of the way down Whittier Blvd, resist-ing with everything they had

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must drive home the point that assimilation into “Capital-ist/Imperialist America”, is not the answer, never was, and never will be; and that a new world is necessary, otherwise we are all doomed. “We need to separate ourselves from a European AmericaKKKan system”, writes Juan Parrino, “…a white settler state whose very existence is based upon the geno-cide of our ancestors”. (4) This calls for raising the consciousness of our people to the truth and reality –no matter how unsettling and terri-ble this may be. History has taught us that all so-cial progress has come about through struggle. Key to the pro-cess of liberation is the understanding that in the world, it is not we ¬but rather white peo-ple– who are the minor-ity. But the realization that we are the majority calls for the creation of real solidarity and unity with our natural allies: Africans, Asian, Pacific Island-ers, and all Indigenous/Indian peoples. We are talking about a process that says: we unite with those we need, neutral-ized those we can, and fight those we must. Likewise, we have to convey to white people that there are consequences and a pay back for their ongoing racism and terror. They must understand that they cannot continue with their genocidal ways and pretend that the world doesn’t know about it; or that history will forget the

our feet, not to mention that we comprise the overwhelm-ing majority of this impacted population. Perhaps it is time to end the self-delusion and reanalyze our current political condition. The false assump-tion that we are what is caus-ing the mass protest action, when in fact these actions are now legitimized, and are more a result of organized funneled money, only serves to feed egos but does nothing to empower our people. In a way, the suc-cess on one level is a bigger failure on another front. Not being in control of the action one exposes the community to show clearly that the ace is held in the controller’s hand - allowing this for so long that they can now manipulate us on call. If we do not expose this, we will never be allowed to take initiative and much less reach our own conclu-sions. We are constantly at-tempting to remake ourselves in the many images of what they tell us is important – now it is gang member, illegal, and alien, and gang member is al-ready legally a street terror-ist. We do not focus, as we become everything and any-thing that does not become us. What next? One thing though, history will not look kindly on those that have sold out our community at so many levels for comfort, convenience, ex-pediency, or their 15 minutes of fame. Oh, and by the way, their names were Lyn Encicio Ward and Angel Diaz. Re-member their names Raza; they died for your sins. J

talking about a movement that leads us to the creation of a real democratic society (so-cialism) where there will exist no rich or poor, no oppressor or oppressed.” (5) The aim of all Raza whether they are teachers or media activists, prisoners or professionals, barrio youth or workers, is to unite and form

this type of organization. As without such an orga-nization, Mexicans and other oppressed nations will continue to suffer the injustices, exploitation, and terror of the colonial capitalist system and its flunkies, the racist white middle and working class. While we call for rev-olutionary change, we understand, that all pro-gressive struggles must be supported. Hence, in the meantime, the boy-cotts and demonstrations taking place around the opposition to Arizona’s Nazi-colonialism and pit bull racism must continue. These must be put forth as lessons of struggle

where our communities (and the world) learn about the con-tradictions and realities of rac-ist White America. J

noTEs:(1) Overturning The Cultural Of Violence, by Penny Hess(2) “As Part Of The Counterinsurgency, Neo-Colonialist Vendidos Are Calling On The Government To Destroy The Movi-miento”, La Verdad, Sept-Dec 1996(3) The Road To Socialism Is Painted Black, by Omali Yeshitela(4) Advancing The Chicano Mexicano Movement, by Juan Mexicuautli Parrino(5) “Cutbacks, Layoffs, Racism, and War: Capitalism Is The Problem, Revo-lution Is The Solution”, Guerrillera/os de La Pluma, Journal of the Raza Press and Media Association, Spring 2010

see “ARIZONA” pAge 11see “CHICANO” pAge 11massive crimes that they have

already committed. White peo-ple must decide whether they will join humanity and become part of the struggle to liberate all people, or be buried in the save grave as oppressor.

CREaTinG THE MEans To FiGHT BaCK Only a vanguard orga-

nization of disciplined, commit-ted, and ideologically advanced members with the necessary resources –can raise the con-sciousness of the people and fight back against the violence of the oppressors. We need an organization with the abil-ity to build a “mass movement that is armed with a revolu-tionary program and whose goal is to destroy the entire capitalist-imperialist system. A movement that enables us to think critically and motivates us into taking action in defense of our interests as oppressed and colonized people. We are

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Raza PRess and Media association

P.o. Box 620095san diego, ca 92162

Website: http://razapressassociation.org • e-Mail: [email protected]

StAteMent Of PuRPOSe:The Raza Press and Media Association is the only national group of progressive journalists working towards winning justice, peace, and freedom for all Mexicano-Latinos (Raza). We meet on a regular basis, have an organiza-tional structure, principles of unity, objectives, and we consistently published journal, Guer-rilleros de La Pluma.

In response to the continuing and growing assaults on the right to information and free-dom of expression, especially as it relates to Raza and other oppressed nationalities and peoples within the current borders of the United States, the Raza Press Associa-tion (formerly known as the Chicano Press Association) is making another call on Raza (students, journalists, community activists, and academicians) active in the field of media (journalism, radio, TV, popular art, spoken word, computer information, etc.) to submit articles related to the question of The Role of Raza Press, Media, And Popular Expression In Our Struggle For Democracy, Justice, And Self-determination.

A Call for Articles On Raza Press, Media, And Popular expressionfor the upcoming Issue...

The articles must address the historical/cur-rent onslaught on progressive and alternative thought. We see this fascist-racist attack com-ing down both “within the belly of the beast” from FBI, Police, Mainstream Media, Christian Right, Vendidos, etc., and externally from the CIA, Military Industrial Complex, Global Capital-ism, and so forth.

A major objective of these attacks on progres-sive thought is a conscious racist-capitalist ef-fort to eliminate all programs which were initially developed for the purpose of advancing the educational and cultural development of the Raza community; for example: Chicano Stud-ies, Ethnic Studies, Progressive Publications and Programs at Colleges and Universities, Raza Cultural Celebrations at elementary and high schools, Centro Culturales, and Bilingual/Multicultural Education.

Selected articles will be published in the Guer-rilleros de la Pluma. Issues of Guerrilleros de La Pluma are distributed widely. Copies are circulated at political actions, colleges, librar-ies, and conferences; they are mailed Raza

prisoners and a subscribers list; the journal is also posted online (Internet). Literally thou-sands of people read the journal.

CRIteRIA fOR ARtICLeS:(1) articles must be between 3 and 5 pages (no longer please), typed and doubled space (Fonts 10 or 12 points). If you submit a re-search type working paper, when quoting, or referring to data, use footnotes or endnotes and a bibliography for documentation pur-poses. Writing styles that could be use are the following; Chicago, APA, and MLA. (2) send your articles via e-mail ([email protected]) or on a floppy disk/CD (i.e. MS Words, etc.) to the following ad-dress:

RAzA PReSS And MedIA ASSOCIAtIOn

Attn: GueRRILLeROS de LA PLuMAP.O. BOx 620095

SAn dIeGO, CA 92162\

Guerrillera/os de la Pluma, Summer 2010

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