PressTV: "Crack Down on 99%ers"

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A political activist says the US one-percent ruling class “is really threatened by the rising movement of oppressed people,” responding with a rise in police crackdowns.


On the six-month anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement on Saturday, anti-corporatism demonstrators gathered together to launch a new series of protests in New York, Los Angeles and the Midwest.

US Occupy protesters have called for solidarity rallies in a show of support to express discontent with the US police brutality and the detention of dozens of demonstrators during the movement.

The protesters have been using the slogan, "We are the 99 percent" to distinguish themselves from the one-percent of Americans that are in possession of the greatest portion of the nation's wealth.

Press TV has conducted an interview with Caleb Maupin from the International Action Center to further discuss the issue. The following is a transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Do you think it's quite significant that these solidarity marches now have more than one message overlapping each other? -It's the anti-Wall Street demos doubled up with a wave of dissatisfaction against US police brutality.

Maupin: Yes. I was actually in the park last night, last evening, when the attacks happened. It was ridiculous. There were people demonstrating in the park, minding their own business in the park which they have the right to do, which there have been numerous court rulings now that said they have the right to be in the park as long as they don’t setup tents, and the result was the police declaring the park to be closed arbitrarily and going in and acting extremely violently.

At one point there was a woman having a seizure on the ground, and the police kept her in handcuffs. There were trained medics who ran up to try and help the woman who were blocked by the police.

And this really shows that the ruling class in this country is really threatened by the rising movement of oppressed people. They chose to respond this way.

They’re so threatened by the idea that people in the US just like to get together and gather in a park and denounce capitalism. They’re threatened by that because they know their system is very weak. At one point in the demonstration people were chanting, “just like Ho Chi Minh, Occupy is going to win,” making clear they were in solidarity with the oppressed people around the world that are fighting against the US bankers and the corporations. That’s a beautiful thing.

Occupy Wall Street is a symptom of a global movement, and the fact that such brutality has been cracked down has been showing what this government has been all about.

Press TV: Overall how would you asses the resolve and motivation of the 99-percenters, given the police tactics used, the wave of arrests and let's not forget the recent signing of the Federal Restricted Buildings act by President Obama?

Maupin: Well, if we know anything from the last six months, it’s been every time they viciously attack Occupy Wall Street, what happens it gets bigger.

And you know, New York City can get very cold in the winter, but the winter’s over. It’s heating up, it’s getting warm here and I think this is just the beginning of a broad Occupy Spring.

All over the country people are getting ready. There’s even a push for a general strike on May 1st - ‘A day without the 99-percent’.

People are saying they will not sell their labor to the Wall Street capitalist class as protest on May 1st - the International Workers’ Day which started here on May 1st which started here in the United States and has not been practiced here in the United States for a long time until it was revived in 2006 by the immigrant workers.

But now it’s been taken up by the entire 99-percent here in the US. Things are rapidly changing here and Occupy Wall Street is a symbol of that. People are ready to fight and it’s very inspiring.

GMA/JR

Vietnamese Communist Party Sends Delegation to Venezuela

From: Vietnam News

HA NOI – A delegation of the Communist Party of Viet Nam recently attended the 14th congress of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV).

The delegation, led by Party Central Committee Commission for External Relations deputy head Vuong Thua Phong, held meetings with General Secretary Oscar Figuera and other members of the PCV Political Bureau, to increase the solidarity and traditional co-operation between the Parties and peoples of the two countries.

The delegation also had discussions with other international delegations.

Themed "Together with the working class and labourers to seize power", the 14 th Party Congress from August 4-7 discussed a political report, updated the platform and renewed the Party Statutes.

The congress affirmed consistent support for the social security policies of the administration of President Hugo Chavez. — VNS

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Nixon Tapes: Late Nights Calls, Wondering About Mao

By Joseph B. White

In late September 1971, rumors flew that Chinese leader Mao Zedong had died. In the White House, President Richard Nixon knew…nothing.

Mr. Nixon and his then assistant for National Security Affairs, Henry Kissinger, speculated during an 11 p.m., Sept. 21 phone call about the rumors, which were spurred by the Chinese government’s abrupt cancellation of an Oct. 1 military parade. A transcript of the conversation was among a new trove of records released today by the Nixon Library.

“Any later reports?” Mr. Nixon asked. Mr. Kissinger replied there weren’t, and added: “My instinct tells me, Mr. President, whatever it is it isn’t the death of Mao.”

The two men pondered whether the Chinese were nervous about a possible attack from the Soviet Union. “They may genuinely think that the Soviets are getting ready to jump them,” Mr. Kissinger said.

Later in the call, Mr. Nixon and Mr. Kissinger turned to the war in Viet Nam. Mr. Nixon raised the idea of giving the North Vietnamese “an ultimatum” to break the deadlock in peace negotiations and secure the return of U.S. prisoners of war.

“Get these prisoners or…that is until they do we are going to blockade them,” Mr. Nixon told Mr. Kissinger, and ordered that the military “try a little war of nerves” by making preparations to mine North Vietnamese harbors, and conduct more air strikes. Mr. Kissinger said U.S. planes weren’t able to hit certain targets “because we were afraid to hit the civilian population when we couldn’t bomb visually.”

“I am not so g—d—ned concerned about the civilian population,” Mr. Nixon replied. “I am not so concerned about it.”

“Well, it would give them a lot of pictures they could use,” Mr. Kissinger replied.

“Maybe,” Mr. Nixon said, according to the transcript. “Maybe. Well, I think you ought to lay it on…”

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Barry Levine: "Who Killed Allison? What had she done?"

Poem from the speech of Barry Levine, close friend of Allison Krause, gunned down and killed at Kent State in 1970, while protesting against the U.S. invasion of Cambodia.

Who Killed Allison? Why? What had she done?

Not us says the Kent Townsfolk.
Those rotten students thought this was some kind of joke
Marchin and yellin, and singing those songs,
Why wasn't she in class where she belonged?
Her parents shoulda learned her better.
Those stinkin kids-don't appreciate what they've got
If it had been up to us, they would have all been shot.
You can say what you want, and say what you must
Just don't point your fingers at us
We're not the ones who made her fall
No, you can't blame us at all.



Who Killed Allison? Why? What had she done?

Not us says the University
That girl was here to get a degree
To Inquire, To Learn, To reflect, and debate.
It wasn't her place to demonstrate - against the State
If she had something to say,
She should have said it clear
In a paper, or in the classroom, where free speech is dear.
And no one can hear, and no one can hear.
Sure she was an honor student, but she should have known better
Than to stand up and speak out in public, where did that get her?
There is a time and a place for freedom of speech
She should have known that because that's what we teach
Here at Kent State University.
But please, don't' point your finger at us
We are not the ones that made her fall,
No, you can't blame us at all.

Who Killed Allison? Why? What had she done?

Not me says the Mayor of Kent
If only those kids knew what it had meant
To burn down ROTC- they left me no choice
They were all chanting "End the war" in one loud voice
I had to call the Guard- it was hard, it was hard,
But I tell you, we needed Law and Order
And anyway, she wasn't my daughter
It's a a shame she had to die that day
But when you throw rocks, well, that's just the American way.
I feel bad, I do, but I didn't pull that trigger
It wasn't me that made her fall
No, you can't blame me at all.

Who Killed Allison? Why? What had she done?

Not me says Tricky Dick
I listened to my advisors, take your pick
Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell and Dean
Agnew, and Colson, they all knew the scene
Those college kids were bums-they needed a lesson
So I put out the word around this great land
To stop those damn hoodlums any way that you can
And Rhodes, he heard me, thank g-d for that
He knew exactly what to do with that group of brats
But you can't pin it on me, don't' you see?
It wasn't' me that made her fall
No, you can't blame me at all.

Who Killed Allison? Why? What had she done?

Not me says Governor Rhodes
The man who made this whole thing explode
Yes, I'm the son of a bitch who pounded the table
and ranted and raved until everyone was able
to hear me call those students Brown Shirts,
the worst element that we harbor in America today
But that was my job, to incite the Guard, and I did it OK
If those kids wanted a riot to create,
They picked the wrong town, they picked the wrong state.
There will be no riots in the State of Ohio, not on my watch, not on this date
Look, the Guard got my meaning , the Guard got my drift
They did what they had to- they laid 'em out stiff.
Its a shame it had to be that way, but who's to know and who's to say
It might have been different had it not been election day.
So what are you going to do? Sue me?
I'm not the one that made the call
And I'm not the one that made her fall
So Fuck You, you can't blame me at all.
Who Killed Allison? Why? What had she done?
Not us says the National Guard
Who chased those kids across the yard,
And through the fields so thick with gas
With our bayonets fixed, it became certain, there was no doubt
We would teach those little bastards what Law and Order was all about
Yes, we're the ones that climbed the hill and turned in our tracks
And aimed our rifles dead center in her back
But if we didn't act, she would have overrun us for sure,
There were snipers, she had rocks, and those curses that we endured.
We had no choice, we had to act- it was her life or ours
Yes we shot her in cold blood, it's true, it's true,
But that is what we were told to do
Don't say "murder," don't' say "kill"

We were only following orders, it was God's will.

Note From Caleb T. Maupin: I grew up in rural, OH near Kent State, hearing maligning stories of Allison Krausse designed to justify the massacre. They were most likely rooted in sexism, as she was the only female victim who was taking part in the demonstration when she was killed. It is disgusting and sad the countless times elderly people from Northeast Ohio who were alive in 1970 tell me she was a "disrespectful" "unpatriotic" followed an additional slew of more openly sexist/male chauvanist insults. When I heard her close friend Barry Levine give these touching remarks on the 40th Anniversary, followed by this work of poetry, I couldn't help but shed a tear. Allison did not deserve to die for protesting. She deserved a medal. It takes courage to oppose the status quo. It takes cowards to condemn those who endure bullets for justice, and "speak ill of the dead" while fearing what they represent.

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Students Demand Food!

by Caleb T. Maupin
Berea, OH

Richard Durst, president of Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio, claims to have served in Vietnam alongside Bob Kerrey, the president of New School University. Both went on orders from the U.S. government to repress the Vietnamese people and their resistance.

Durst and Kerrey are once again repressing justified resistance—this time from students at the institutions of higher education they have directed.

New School students who opposed Kerrey's policies occupied the cafeteria for 30 hours in December. The students demanded more involvement in decision making and recognition of the campus workers’ union. The students’ demands were met and Kerrey resigned from his post as interim-provost.

Durst is now the target of a campaign organized by B-W students for a basic human right: the right to eat. Instead of having a meal plan, like most colleges in the U.S., through which students are assured three decent meals a day, Baldwin-Wallace deposits an amount of money on a campus debit card known as the Jacket Express Card.

When this money runs out, students must pay out of their own pockets for any additional expenses. Financial aid cannot legally cover the additional costs. Students are expected to eat for $4 a day. If the food prices were reasonable, this would be realistic, but they aren’t. The director of auxiliary services at B-W, David Jensen, even confirmed in an e-mail that the average cost of purchases during meal times is sometimes as high as $5.56 and this average includes students who buy only beverages or single items.

Students whose cards have run out and whose parents do not have the resources to add more money have had to steal food. The response of the college to the food stealing has been punishment. When some concerned students approached the cafeteria regarding the problem, they were told that the youth needed to “take responsibility for their actions” and that the $4 allowance was somehow reasonable.

In response, several students—including three members of the B-W chapter of Fight Imperialism, Stand Together (FIST)formed the Baldwin-Wallace Food Justice Council. The group recruited using the Internet and, within 48 hours of announcing its existence, had 142 online supporters, all of whom were B-W students, faculty or alumni.

Members of the council got unanimous support when they distributed leaflets to other students face to face. Students happily grabbed stacks of leaflets to give to their friends. Every dorm on the campus was covered.

Attempts were made on the Internet to redbait one of the group’s founders for being an “anti-Zionist communist.” This failed to stop the group’s growing support. The council still maintains over 140 members on Facebook.

A meeting has been called for March 19 at 9 p.m. in Ernsthausen Hall at Baldwin-Wallace at which students will discuss plans to challenge President Durst when he gives his address on the college budget at an upcoming date. A petition is being circulated among the student body that will be delivered to the campus authorities in a future mass demonstration.

The B-W Food Justice Council has also unanimously voted to endorse the Bail Out the People marches on Wall Street on April 3 and 4.

Just as the Vietnamese people drove Durst and his fellow imperialist occupiers out of Vietnam, the Baldwin-Wallace Food Justice Council hopes to be victorious and win the basic right to eat for the students at Baldwin-Wallace College.

The Food Justice Council can be contacted at foodjusticebw@gmail.com.

Articles copyright 1995-2009 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

40 Years Later: Remembering the Tet Offensive

By Caleb T. Maupin

Published Jan 31, 2008 8:23 PM


On Jan. 30, 1968, Vietnam was divided and in the midst of a war for liberation. The northern part of Vietnam was under the control of a socialist government of workers and peasants. The southern part of Vietnam remained under the control of a regime bought and sold to U.S. bankers and capitalists. Peasants in southern Vietnam remained landless and hungry, and slums and poverty filled Vietnam’s large urban centers. But all throughout South Vietnam, the spirit of resistance was flowing.

In North Vietnam, the soldiers wore armbands showing their solidarity with their southern country folk. The armbands read “Born in the North, Died in the South.”

The Buddhist holiday of Tet marks the Lunar New Year, and was traditionally celebrated in Vietnam in late January and early February. In years previous to 1968, the National Liberation Front of Vietnam had signed peace treaties with the United States to mark the holiday.

The NLF planned an attack on U.S. forces for the Tet holiday, so their people could celebrate the holiday before the vicious bombings that would come from the U.S. in retaliation. They knew the U.S. would respond with brutality.

Already the U.S. was viciously bombing Vietnam. By the war’s end, more bombs would fall on the Vietnamese people than had been dropped in all of the Second World War. When directly bombing North Vietnamese cities and villages failed to weaken the Vietnamese resistance, the U.S. began bombing dams, causing massive flooding and a famine in Vietnam’s agriculture-based countryside.

Some estimate that as many as 4 million Vietnamese people died as a result of the bombing campaigns, which Gen. Curtis Lemay proclaimed were done to “bomb them back into the stone age.” Later, in 1972, the U.S. would drop 800,000 tons of explosives on Southeast Asia in one year alone.

The Tet Offensive struck 36 of the 43 provincial capitals of Vietnam. In each city, the attacks were similar. The guerrilla soldiers of the NLF were able to sneak into villages under the cover of the Tet celebrations. In some cities they were even able to test explosive weapons under the cover of the holiday fireworks.

Once inside the cities, with supporters residing within them acting as guides, they would wage mortar attacks on key sites and do their best to get control.

The attack on Saigon

Saigon, now called Ho Chi Minh City, was the capital city of the puppet government of Vietnam. It was also a city in which many Vietnamese people lived in poverty and longed to resist. The city, which had not been rocked in nearly 20 years, was suddenly the site of a massive insurrection.

NLF guerillas infiltrated and assaulted the U.S. occupiers right within their own embassy, which had been built up with massive security following a bombing. The diplomats were forced to barricade themselves inside inner rooms as the fighting went on, in the equivalent of modern day Iraq’s “green zone.”

After the fighting had subsided, U.S. troops ordered the slaughter of all people within the embassy who were “not American.” This included many Vietnamese people who had been hired to work at the embassy and had had no part in the rebellion.

The National Radio Station, which the U.S. used to broadcast pro-imperialist propaganda throughout Vietnam, was also invaded. Guerrillas were able to liberate much of the station’s $1 million worth of equipment, and destroy what they couldn’t take with them.

During the Tet Offensive, a Saigon prison was busted into by the National Liberation Front. In South Vietnam 65,000 people were in prison, most of them political prisoners. These prisons were known for beatings and torture at the hand of the puppet forces of the South Vietnamese government. Five thousand prisoners were set free from the clutches of the U.S. backed regime and joined the insurrection.

A horrific scene unfolded in the streets of Saigon during the rebellion. A leader of the police forces of South Vietnam carried out an on-the-spot execution of an NLF supporter. Police officers walked the man over to Police Chief Ngoc Loan, who promptly put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger in front of the lenses of Western television reporters. Soon the picture of this killing was on the front pages of newspapers and headlined on the evening news in the Western world. This helped turn many against the war in Vietnam and strengthened the anti-war movement.

Paper tigers

“Imperialism and all reactionaries are paper tigers,” Mao Zedong wrote, and he was proved correct by the Tet Offensive and the eventual outcome of the Vietnam War. All of the countless thousands of U.S. CIA agents and spies in Vietnam could not predict the Tet Offensive. The Vietnamese were able to score massive blows against the U.S. occupiers. U.S. forces clearly had underestimated the strength of the Vietnamese people, who desperately wanted to be free from the clutches of U.S. imperialism and capitalism.

Eventually, the U.S. was forced to withdraw from Vietnam, as resistance flowed throughout the U.S. military itself and the streets of the U.S. were filled with militant youth. Fifty-eight thousand U.S. troops were sent to their death in Vietnam by the rulers of the U.S. Many more came home to spend the rest of their lives disabled or homeless.

It’s been 40 years since the Tet Offensive and since Vietnam has liberated itself from U.S. imperialism and established a socialist government that has redistributed land to the peasants, raised the life expectancy by 14.7 years and cut infant mortality in half.

All of this would not have been possible without the heroism of countless millions of Vietnamese people who fought and died for the liberation of their country—especially those who surged forth, 40 years ago, in the Tet Offensive.


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Hollywood History and The '60s

By Staff Writer Caleb T. Maupin

In Hollywood today, among the writers, it seems there are a lot guys who were lonely in college. Back in the 1960s, when students were revolting, protests were rocking the country, and dissent was “hip”, Activists were getting all the women, and the future screenwriters felt lonely.

In many movies now, like “Forrest Gump”, “Across the Universe”, and even the 1999 TV miniseries “The ‘60s”, we are given a portrait of the 1960s activist males. They are shown to consist of highly charismatic men with beards, who enchant dainty helpless young women. The women need to be rescued from these crazed activists by the “ordinary guy.”

The “ordinary guy”, usually ends up punching the charismatic leftist man, and drawing his blood. In this scene the charismatic leftist is usually portrayed as a “wimp” who is too afraid to fight back. The dainty young woman eventually sees the error of her ways for following a communist, and goes back to “ordinary guy.” Eventually bearded guy ends up making bombs and becoming a “terrorist”, who is supposedly “just as bad as the government.”

History Lesson: The U.S. killed 4 million people in Vietnam. The Weather Underground, the infamous communists known for bombing buildings, killed no one. The only people that died as a result of the Weather Underground’s actions were three people who accidently blew themselves up making a bomb.

Yet, the films seem to be saying that the Weather Underground were just as bad the government.

Most groups weren’t bombing things at all. Students for a Democratic Society was a huge organization of activists, the vast majority of which were not bombing anything. Youth Against War and Fascism was large as well. There were countless activist organizations that were non-violently demanding a fair and just society.
Notice how when the” dainty woman” becomes an activist, and starts talking revolution, she looks like an addict, she seems to be under a spell. I’ve seen people become activists. They usually look great and feel empowered, gaining confidence. Activism is not smack.

As far as the sexism, there were a lot of leaders of the Communist/Leftist movement in the 60s who were sexists, as there are a lot of sexist men in all walks of life. This empowered the feminist movement of the 1970s. Many organizations made big efforts to stop such sexism, and keep it out of the movement.

And why is it that the dainty female character never confronts the bearded leftist bomb thrower guy about his sexism? Why does she need some man to come and punch him in the nose, and whisk her away from a speaking out, something many sexists would want to keep a woman from doing.

Look at Kathleen Cleaver, Bernadine Dohrn, and Angela Davis. These were key figures in the protest movements of the 1960s. They were not dainty women under the spell of a charismatic bearded guy. They were women with strong convictions for another world.
Finally, I’ve been to many protests. They are not scary situations where crazy people are “out of control” like in these movies. Protests are where people, who are sick and tired of the world as it, raise their voices and demand an end to things like unjust wars, the oppression of gay people, sexism, and racism.

We have a great deal to thank the Students for a Democratic Society and other activists for. Without them many of the changes that have made the world a better place would not have occurred. Hollywood needs to do a better job portraying the people who brought us the many of the freedoms we have today, and ended a brutal unjust war in Vietnam.

REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF MAELSTROM STAFF

Viet-Amnesia: Bush's Distortions of that Dirty War

By Caleb T. Maupin
Published Oct 6, 2007 11:27 AM
George W. Bush, in a recent address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention, bemoaned the fact that the U.S. “gave in” and “cut and ran” out of Vietnam. He made it clear that he thought that war should have continued.

“Whatever your position is on that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America’s withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like ‘boat people,’ ‘re-education camps’ and ‘killing fields,’” said Bush.

Like most of the words that come out of Bush’s mouth, this is a big mischaracterization—basically, a lie.

Since the U.S. left Vietnam, the life of the Vietnamese people has steadily gotten better, mainly due to the removal of foreign domination and the introduction of socialist planning.

It is the first freedom and peace the Vietnamese people have known in over a century.

The French conquered Vietnam in the 1860s and made it their colony. In 1940, during World War II, Japan invaded Vietnam but kept the French administrators on as part of their colonial regime. By 1941, a national liberation front led by Ho Chi Minh, a communist, began fighting both the French and Japanese imperialists.

When the world war ended with the defeat of Japan, the Vietnamese liberators declared an independent government but French and British troops rushed in to try to crush them. The French didn’t leave until 1954, after they suffered a huge defeat at Dien Bien Phu.

But the big corporations and banks in the U.S. had their eyes on Vietnam, too. Washington took the place of France as colonial overlord. Troops were sent to prop up a puppet government in the south of Vietnam. This soon escalated into the huge invasion of that country known as the Vietnam War.

In that war, the U.S. dropped 6.7 million tons of explosives on the Vietnamese people. Some estimate that as many as 4 million Vietnamese were killed in the brutal bombing that Gen. Curtis LeMay of the Air Force cheered on with the cry, “Bomb them back to the Stone Age!”

Millions of gallons of the deadly chemical Agent Orange were sprayed from planes; much of the land in Vietnam is still poisoned. Vietnam estimates that even today, a million people suffer health problems because of this chemical that Bush says was to “defend freedom and democracy” in Southeast Asia.

A movement of popular resistance, in Vietnam and then the United States, forced the U.S. to withdraw from Vietnam in 1975.

The Vietnamese finally had their own country back, and they set out to build it in a way that served them, not U.S. corporations and Wall Street bankers. Child care programs, schools and hospitals were set up all across the Vietnamese countryside.

The old rulers of Vietnam who aided the United States in brutalizing the Vietnamese people were punished. Most were not executed, but rather given a chance to reform themselves after doing productive labor for society. Some fled Vietnam to the United States, were they were given automatic citizenship.

So were the Vietnamese government’s policies truly “agony” for the millions of Vietnamese people? Hardly.

According to the United Nations, since 1980 the life expectancy of the average Vietnamese has risen by 14.7 years. The U.N. also reports that infant mortality rates have been reduced to well below half what they were before 1980. Vietnamese children are now guaranteed education at community-run schools. Healthcare is now available to all Vietnamese citizens. Literacy rates have gone up.

In 1980, the new Socialist Vietnam had the honor of seeing Pham Tuan, a hero of the resistance to the U.S., become the first Asian to be launched into outer space, by a Soviet rocket. It was trying to build a socialist society based on social ownership of the land and all production.

But in 1986, the government of Vietnam, faced with weakened support from the larger socialist countries, stepped back from its planned socialist economy and allowed private ownership of land and businesses. However, the Communist Party remains in charge.

Since the thousands of U.S. troops, the B-52 bombers, and the Agent Orange dispensers were driven from Vietnam, along with the U.S. corporations and wealthy capitalists who these forces were defending, life has greatly improved for the Vietnamese people.

If the U.S. had remained in Vietnam, continuing to bomb, pillage and repress the people, it would have meant more and more death and destruction. The heroism and might of the Vietnamese in both north and south, combined with the strength of the U.S. anti-war movement, which spread to the military itself, enabled the Vietnamese to win back their country.

Articles copyright 1995-2007 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.