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Towards a New Amerikan Revolution
Jalil A. Muntaqim


In 1776, North American’s became independent of the British Empire, creating the United States confederation that existed until 1789, after which the United States evolve into a Union. In 1865, the United States enacted the 13th Amendment to end chattel slavery of Afrikans. Approximately three years later, the enactment of the 14th Amendment in 1868, was not only to impose citizenship on Afrikans brought to this country against their will and used as chattel slaves, but also to impose Federal corporate control on sovereign states not made part of the Union as a result of the civil war. Naturally, the ending of the civil war and Afrikan chattel slavery resulted in the need to rebuild the economy; thus in 1871 members of the U.S. Congress and the then President of the United States formally incorporated the United States as a for-profit commerce enterprise. The Act to Provide a Government for the District of Columbia, Section 34 of the Forty-First Congress of the United States, Session III, Chapter 61 and 62, enacted on February 21, 1871, states:

“The UNITED STATES OF AMERICA is a corporation, whose jurisdiction is applicable only in the ten-mile-square parcel of land known as the District of Columbia and to what ever properties are legally titled to the UNITED STATES, by its registration in the corporate County, State, and federal governments that are under military power of the UNITED STATES and its creditors.”1(Emphasis added)

The United States, Inc., comprises a 10-mile radius of Washington, D.C., in accordance with Article 1, Section 8, clause 16 & 17 of the U.S. Constitution, and the corporation adopted the U.S. Constitution as its Articles of Incorporation and bylaws. Hence, as early as six years after the ending of chattel slavery, in 1871, the U.S. Corporation formally began the process of forging economic corporate interest as the foundation for building the nation.

It is extremely important to know these historical facts are not taught in schools. The majority of Americans are unaware that the United States is a for-profit corporate commerce enterprise, and this corporation considers Americans as commerce property of a Federal corporation according to the 14th Amendment of its constitution and bylaws. As such, Americans have relinquished their sovereignty as human beings, and have virtually made a contract with a corporate-governing body to expend their rights and lives as they deem necessary to fulfill the corporate interest of the United States, Inc., as wage slaves.2 Often there are debates about the importance of the Madison and Jefferson papers being the principle architects of both the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation evolving into the Constitution of the U.S. Corporation. However, what is often neglected in any discussion about these Federalists is their disdain for private banking, the control of the United States, Inc. wealth by a private corporate interest. In fact, in 1802, Thomas Jefferson warned:

“If American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks… will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered… The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people. To whom it properly belongs.”

James Madison had warned:

“History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance.”

In 1881, then, President James A. Garfield held: “Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce.” In his Inaugural Address, Garfield stated:

“The chief duty of the National Government in connection with the currency of the country is to coin money and declare its value. Grave doubts have been entertained whether Congress is authorized by the Constitution to make any form of paper money legal tender. The present issue of United States notes has been sustained by the necessities of war; but such paper should depend for its value and currency upon its convenience in use and its prompt redemption in coin at the will of the holder, and not upon its compulsory circulation. These notes are not money, but promises to pay money. If the holders demand it, the promise should be kept.”

Yet, the United States, Inc., as a capitalist system utilizes the financial institutions and private banking of the Federal Reserve System,3 which is obligated to fulfill its mandate as established by the March 9, 1933, U.S. Senate, House Joint Resolution (HJR) 192, 73rd Congress, 1st Session, Chapter 1, page 83, 1st paragraph, third sentence that states:

“Under the new law the money is issued to the banks in return for Government obligations, bills of exchange, drafts, notes, trade acceptances, and banker’s acceptances. The money will be worth 100 cents on the dollar, because it is backed by the credit of the nation. It will represent a mortgage on all the homes and other property of all the people in the nation. The money so issued will not have one penny of gold coverage behind it, because it is really not needed.” (Emphasis added)

On June 5, 1933, this same Congress at Chapter 48, stated:

“The ultimate ownership of all property is in the State; individual so-called “ownership” is only by virtue of Government, i.e., law, amounting to mere “user” and use must be in acceptance with law and subordinate to the necessities of the State.”

This language for all practical purposes implies a socialist notion of government control of property in negation of the espoused democratic ideal about private ownership of property rights. However, as one example, eminent domain, virtually denies the existence of ownership of private property when a member of the plutocracy, and/or corporate entity via the application of state or federal law, decides to take possession of specific property/real estate despite the 5th Amendment proclaiming this should not be done without just compensation. As further verified by the following quote from the “Civil Servants Year Book, The Organizer” of January 1934, informing:

“Capital must protect itself in every way, through combination and through legislation. Debts must be collected and loans and mortgages foreclosed as soon as possible. When through a process of law the common people have lost their homes, they will be more tractable and more easily governed by the strong arm of the law, applied by the central power of wealth, under control of leading financiers. People without homes will not quarrel with their leaders. This is well known among our principal men now engaged in forming an imperialism of capital to govern the world. By dividing the people, we can get them to expand their energies in fighting over questions of no importance to us except as teachers of the common herd. Thus by discreet action we can secure for ourselves what has been generally planned and successfully accomplished.”

Subject to the above, the U.S., is a for-profit corporate enterprise, utilizing a private banking system, the Federal Reserve Bank, to control the wealth and property of the nation, it is not difficult to understand how the housing market is utilized to upend the economy and how easily corporations are able to outsource jobs overseas (NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT, APEC, etc). Although U.S. currency is printed by the Treasury Department, the currency is purchased at cost of printing, procured and distributed by the Federal Reserve Bank.4

Thus, Americans do not own real estate property, houses or cars for as long as they have to pay taxes to the government, rather they are leasing such tangible items from the government, the bankers and corporate interests. If an American is delinquent on their payments of taxes, fees, corporate interests, etc., the government will seize their property(s) and assets, impose a fine and possibly incarcerate them depending on the amount of property and taxes that is unpaid. U.S. citizens by virtue of the 14th Amendment, are considered no more than commerce property, of whom are not to own tangible property, but are duped in the illusion of being able to do so, resulting in permitting the extremely rich and powerful to maintain their quest for capitalistimperialist global hegemony. For example, on February 17, 1950, Senate hearings held concerning the U.N. and its organization, James P. Warburg testified that: “We shall have world government, whether or not we like it. The question is only whether world government will be achieved by consent or conquest.”5

Since the illusion of democracy disguises the reality of a plutocracy, the rich continue to control the seats of government, and write the legislations that preserve their wealth at the expense of common folk.6 American’s deluded belief of living in a democracy is exacerbated by the ideal of the one man-one vote electoral process. However, again, this ideal was blatantly exposed as fraudulent when the 2000 presidential election was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court selection of George W. Bush as president in negation of the popular vote. When consideration is given to the fact the total cost of the 2004 congressional and presidential election was $4 billion, an increase of one billion from the 2000 election, and it is projected the 2008 candidates for the House, Senate and president will double spending to $8 billion dollars to win their elections, one can affirm the reality that the rich rules.7 In “Towards an American Revolution: Exposing the Constitution and Other Illusions,” Jerry Fresia informs, “Never has a U.S. president been elected by a majority of the nation’s adult citizens.”

Given that fact, neither the capitalist economic system or electoral politics benefit the majority of Americans, but rather serve the interest of corporate entities that according to law are persons, as Americans are considered commerce property, it is no wonder there is a need for a new American revolution.

REFUTING ELECTORAL POLITICS

What is the Electoral College and why is the one man-one vote not the foundation of this claimed representative democracy? When considering a populace candidate or the popular vote, it must be understood neither is the basis by which U.S. elections are made. The 2000 presidential election spoke volumes of how a candidate can win the popular vote, but lose the election denying the majority of Americans their chosen representative. In that election Al Gore, obtained 50,992,335 votes nationwide, while George W. Bush received only 50,455,156, votes. However, the U.S. Supreme Court awarded Bush the Florida votes, gaining 271 electoral votes to Gores 266 electoral votes. Such aberrations have occurred throughout the history of national elections, including efforts to block the Electoral College selection of a president and vice president.

• In 1824, the House of Representatives awarded the presidency to John Quincy Adams, although he received 38,000 fewer votes than Andrew Jackson did, because neither candidate won a majority of the Electoral College.
  
  
• In 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes, with 109,000 votes received nearly unanimous support from small states, a one-vote margin in the Electoral College, while the popular vote went to Samuel J. Tilden, a virulent racist, with 264,000 votes. The Hayes/Tilden compromise resulted in Hayes becoming president, although he lost the popular vote.
  
  
• In 1888, Benjamin Harrison lost the popular vote by 95,713, but won the electoral vote by 65, having only the support of six Southern states with 300,000 popular votes, while Grover Cleveland who overwhelmingly had the winning 425,000 popular votes gained from the majority of the country. 8

Nonetheless, the 2008 election presents the idealism that the electoral process is the means and method to change the fabric of America’s socioeconomic, political, domestic and foreign policies. The two principle candidates for U.S. president representing change in the 2008 election were Senators Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, a mixed race Black man and a white woman, respectively, challenging what has been a white man’s domain as offered by all other candidates in the 2008 election. If either of the two were to win the presidency, it would in fact signify a drastic change to the ‘ole boy’ white man inheritance, but little change in how corporate America operates on either the domestic or the foreign front. Either a Blackman or a white woman U.S. president would present a façade, a symbol of change, while keeping in place the reality of capitalist-imperialist hegemony.

This is the principle contradiction found in electoral politics when the electorate continues to be bound by the sociopsychological and cultural dynamics of change from the top down hierarchical structural leadership represented in a two-party system. America’s two-party system is far from being democratic when considering how the Electoral College functions essentially to negate the one-man, one-vote process and the popular demand for fundamental change. It is especially significant when considering the amount of money infused in a political campaign by corporate donors and wealthy individuals.

“Every four years, on the Tuesday following the first Monday of November, millions of U.S. citizens go to local voting booths to elect, among other officials, the next president and vice president of their country. Their votes will be recorded and counted, and winners will be declared. But the results of the popular vote are not guaranteed to stand because the Electoral College has not cast its vote.

‘The Electoral College is a controversial mechanism of presidential elections that was created by the framers of the U.S. Constitution as a compromise for the presidential election process. At the time, some politicians believed a purely popular election was too reckless, while others objected to giving Congress the power to select the president. The compromise was to set up an Electoral College system that allowed voters to vote for electors, who would then cast their votes for candidates, a system described in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution.

‘Each state has a number of electors equal to the number of its U.S. senators (2 in each state) plus the number of its U.S. representatives, which varies according to the states population. Currently, the Electoral College includes 538 electors, 535 for the total number of congressional members, and three who represent Washington, D.C., as allowed by the 23rd Amendment. On the Monday following the second Wednesday in December, the electors of each state meet in their respective state capitals to officially cast their votes for president and vice president. These votes are then sealed and sent to the president of the Senate, who on January 6 opens and reads the votes in the presence of both houses of Congress. The winner is sworn into office at noon January 20. Most of the time, electors cast their votes for the candidate who has received the most votes in that particular state. However, there have been times when electors have voted contrary to the people’s decision, which is entirely legal.”9 (See, 12th Amendment of U.S. Constitution)

With this understanding of the Electoral College, it is noted, general elections are for electors and not necessarily for the candidate of choice. The framers of the U.S., Inc. Constitution never trusted the American population to choose a president according to popular will. This is particularly important to consider knowing the corporate entity, i.e., U.S. government, operates to ensure that the rich get richer, preserving its plutocratic origins. Hence, expecting fundamental socio-economic and political change via the electoral process from a top-down hierarchical approach, absent a radical grassroots movement demanding fundamental change, is ultimately an exercise in delusion.

THE MASS AND POPULAR MOVEMENT

The United States, Inc. is an imperialist empire of monopoly-capitalist dominion. The country’s existence is based upon the domination (colonization) and exploitation of internal (domestic) and external nations. The acquisition of North America by Europeans was by use of force and the genocidal slaughter of Native Americans. The Europeans ability to forge the nation into its present economic and technological condition has been based on hundreds of years of racist exploitation of Afrikans, Asians and Mexicans along with the plunder, colonizing and controlling of national resources, human labor, and institutions of commerce of various Third World countries.

The U.S. corporate empire for a long time has been threatened with the loss of such colonies, as natives of these colonized countries develop national liberation struggles, and fight for their independence. The external colonies’ struggle for national liberation causes the empire to seek alternatives in its capacity to continue to acquire enormous profits from cheap labor and the control of valuable raw materials essential for U.S. imperialist development. As these national liberation struggles succeed in their independence movements against foreign occupation and imperialism, the loss of profits from those colonies eventually affects the socio-economic and political condition of U.S. workers and the neo-colonies. This loss of profits leads to devaluation of the U.S. dollar as is currently happening in comparison with Euros, Canadian dollars and Chinese Yuan.

Thus, American products are lost in the world market, as old markets either limit or close their institutions of commerce to American made goods, industry, corporations, etc. The only alternative the U.S. corporate imperialist has to preserve the accumulation of high profits is to cut back the production of American goods at home, importing more than exporting from their oversea operations. They then develop an energy crisis (petroleum, coal, natural gas) to raise manufacturing costs in industries that depend on these resources, raising the prices of manufactured goods or speeding production in stable colonies where labor is cheap, at the same time increasing productivity in the U.S. with low employment. This ultimately leads to inflation in the American economy; products costing more than the limit of standard living wages because U.S. capitalism has cut back worker’s employment while raising the prices of products. Such commerce laws and business practices, as NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT, APEC, etc., and the outsourcing of jobs overseas further erodes the U.S., Inc. populace employment market in the name of globalization.10

When this situation develops to the point where the American public is unable to buy American products at the inflated prices, the capitalist system develops a recession in attempt to balance the economic disparity of inflation while keeping the economy stable, and without causing the corporate capitalist to lose profits. In this way, the system seeks to allow the American public to purchase products and maintain the system with various stimulus and incentive packages or tax rebates, but this economic condition affects various oppressed nations in the American populace differently.

Because America comprises the neo-colonization of Third World nations, minorities of the American populace are impacted by inflation and recession more harshly than majority of Euro-Americans. The primary reason for this uneven effect of monopoly-capitalist economic affliction on Third World nations, in comparison to the majority of Euro-Americans, is the neocolonial socio-economic domination of these Third World nations and racist national oppression.

The socio-economic, political condition of racist national oppression on domestic neo-colonial Third World nations by U.S. capitalism-imperialism, along with the continued disfranchisement of poor Euro-Americans by the closing of foreign markets virtually determines the essential aspects of the mass and popular movement within the borders of North America. The class and national divisions in the American population establishes every condition in which the revolution will be tested, molded and developed into a mass movement for the destruction of racist capitalist-imperialism. The class struggle of Euro-Americans, united with the class and national determination of Third World nations in the U.S., Inc. will assure the victory of external colonies’ independence movements against U.S. imperialist hegemony.

However, it is necessary that the mass and popular movement in the U.S., Inc. becomes cognizant of its force and power. The power of the people is based upon workers of all nationalities developing a political movement against racism and the neo-colonization of oppressed minorities, and for the end of class divisions, exploitation, and ruling class appropriation of profits from workers labor – the end of monopoly-capitalist ownership of the means of production. Once these political determinations have been forged into a struggle for economic and cultural change in the U.S. corporate-government, the character of the revolution will develop a personality towards the collective ownership of the means of production, and each oppressed nationality having the eternal, inalienable human right to determine their own destiny.

In recent years the mass and popular movements have made strides in socialization. The various domestic oppressed nations have developed united actions and mobilizations over such issues as opposing the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, classwar worker support of the miners’ strike, the farmers’ strike, the auto workers’ and teachers’ strike, anti-immigration laws and against such repressive bills as House Resolution 1599. Furthermore, such anti-racist and anti-imperialist mobilization as those opposing repressive immigration policies on college campuses and in various ethnic communities, as well as, opposing Zionism of Israel; against fascist regimes in Latin America; fighting for the national independence of Puerto Rico; opposing the regime change and kidnapping of President Jean-Betrand Aristide and the destruction of his Fammi Lavalas Party in Haiti;11 exposing genocides of Afrikans in Darfur, and the failure to provide essential HIV/AID medication in Afrika and other parts of the world, all provide strength to the entire mass and popular movement ensuring an anti-racist and anti-imperialist perspective within the class struggle of Euro-Americans. In the same way, various domestic national liberation efforts are developing an international perspective in solidarity with the national liberation struggles of external colonies fighting for independence against U.S. corporate imperialism.

At present, the character of the mass and popular movement is that of a struggle for the preservation of democratic rights and equality amongst the various nationalities and sexes. Although this present stage is progressive, the movement has not taken the initiative to call for the end of monopoly-capitalist ruling class control and ownership of the means of production. In fact, today, the mass and popular movement is little different than when Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in a speech at Sanford University in April 1967 titled “The Other America”, observed:

“In a sense, the greatest tragedy of this other America is what it does to little children. Little children in this other America are forced to grow up with clouds of inferiority forming every day in their little mental skies. And as we look at this other America, we see it as an arena of blasted hopes and shattered dreams… ‘But we must see that the struggle today is much more difficult. It’s more difficult today because we are struggling now for genuine equality. And it’s much easier to integrate a lunch counter than it is to guarantee a livable income and a good solid job. It’s much easier to guarantee the right to vote than it is to guarantee the right to live in sanitary, decent housing conditions. And so today, we are struggling for something, which says we demand genuine equality... ‘And so the result of all of this, we see many problems existing today that are growing more difficult. It’s something that is often overlooked, but Negroes generally live in worse slums today than 20 or 25 years ago. In the North, schools are more segregated today than they were in 1954 when the Supreme Court’s decision on desegregation was rendered. Economically, the Negro is worse off today than he was 15 and 20 years ago. And so the unemployment rate among whites at one time was about the same as the unemployment rate among Negroes . But today the unemployment rate among Negroes is twice that of whites. And the average income of the Negro is today 50 percent less than Whites… ‘Now the other thing that we’ve got to come to see now that many of us didn’t see too well during the last 10 years – that is that racism is still alive in American society and much more wide-spread than we realized. And we must see racism for what it is. It is a myth of the superior and the inferior race. It is the false and tragic notion that one particular group, one particular race is responsible for all of the progress, all of the insights in the total flow of history…”

Over 40 years has past since this speech, and yet, the mass and popular movement finds itself facing a more severe socioeconomic and political condition. As example, with rightwing rollback of affirmative action policies, there is a drastic decline in New Afrikan enrollment in colleges, job hiring, promotions and small business contracts. At the same time, welfare to workforce programs have increased the number of poverty stricken single mothers, while Section 8 housing programs are being cut causing an increase in homeless families. The USDA report Household Food Security in the United States 2004, informs that 38.2 million Americans live in homes suffering from hunger and food insecurity, including 14 million children. Furthermore, the U.S. Conference of Mayors in the December 2006 report titled Hunger and Homelessness Survey 2006, informed that requests for emergency food assistance increased an average of 7 percent. The study found that 48 percent of people requesting emergency food assistance were families with children and that 37 percent of employed adults were requesting such assistance.

Given these general circumstances affecting Americans, the impact on oppressed minorities is exacerbated exponentially by institutional racism. Add to this reality this racist corporategovernment imprisons more of its citizens, approximately 2.4 million people, than any other industrialized nation. Although Euro-Americans comprise 69 percent of those arrested, institutional racism in the criminal (in)justice system incarcerates New Afrikans in disproportionate numbers. It imprisons New Afrikan men three times more than Euro-Americans and four times more than did apartheid South Africa. While New Afrikans comprise 53 percent of those in prison, they are only 12.5 percent of the entire population. Furthermore, with half of the nation’s prison population being New Afrikans, disenfranchising felons has emerged as a modern form of Jim Crow poll tax, effectively suppressing the New Afrikan vote. Today, approximately 6 million people cannot vote due to state and federal laws prohibiting felons from voting. As in a Spring 1964 speech to activists by El Hajj Malik Shabazz:

“You and I in America are not faced with a segregationist conspiracy, we’re faced with a government conspiracy… it is the government itself, the government of America, that is responsible for the oppression and exploitation and degradation of Black people in this country… This government has failed the Negro.” 12

Therefore, to remedy the current situation, it is the responsibility of all progressive and revolutionary organizations and individuals to build the mass and popular movement towards class and national liberation struggle. To establish a theoretical analysis that addresses the masses discontent and disfranchisement beginning from the economic and political crisis of U.S. corporate capitalist-imperialism. This analysis must evolve a political program and national agenda that addresses the problems besetting the oppressed masses. As racism and monopolycapitalism divides the masses on class and national lines, and further divides each oppressed nation into class divisions, such a program must build the masses struggle for the preservation of democratic rights and direct the popular movement towards the progressive evolution of the revolution.

Thus, the oppressed masses’ struggle must be defined in terms of strategy and tactics, with specific goals and objectives to achieve. Each goal must heighten the contradiction between the oppressed masses and bourgeoisie ruling class, and strengthen the criteria from which the struggle for the preservation of democratic rights transforms into an anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movement.

The transformation of the masses’ struggle from a defensive posture demanding civil rights into an offensive popular movement for revolutionary change is conditioned on the popular movements being responsive to the heightened oppressive conditions of the crisis of corporate capitalism and globalization. It is when this crisis develops at levels that the masses are unable to maintain a stable livelihood, that Third World people’s disfranchisement becomes intolerable, such levels of subsistence being the norm of survival, will the transformation of the popular movement become qualitatively different in form from the civil rights demands for the preservation of democratic rights and equality.

It will be the demands of the popular social-democratic movement that will depict the qualitative difference in the overall movement. As example, demands not only for the preservation and restoration of democratic rights and equality, but also for the end of national oppression and neo-colonialism are qualitative. It is when the demands call for the collective ownership by the workers of the means of production – will popular movement take a significant qualitative change and become revolutionary in character.

It is the responsibility of progressive and revolutionary organizations to comprehend the subjective conditions and objective reality of the mass and popular movement. With this understanding, these organizations will be capable of developing national strategies and political programs that accentuate the character of the mass struggle, forging the means for the transformation of the popular movement. The martyred Black Panther Party Field Marshall, George Jackson, advised that:

“Consciousness grows in spirals. Growth implies feeding and being fed. We feed consciousness by feeding people, addressing ourselves to their needs, the basic social needs, working, organizing toward a national left. After the people have created something that they are willing to defend, a wealth of new ideals and autonomous subsistence infrastructure, then they are ready to be brought into “open” conflict with the ruling class and its supporters.”

The subjective conditions are that the oppressed masses’ struggle is essentially determined by the socio-economic crisis and the extent of the crisis as it affects their livelihood. The masses struggle for equality between the sexes and the end of racist domination of Third World people are determinative factors of the subjective conditions. Also unemployment, inequality in education, intolerable health care, and deteriorating moral-social values of cultural significance, and lower standards of living because of the socio-economic crisis, all form the basis for the revolutionary transformation towards the creation of a culture of resistance.

The objective reality is that the socio-economic crisis tends to polarize issues, classes, and nations as the crisis develops. This two-fold effect is the simultaneous consolidation of both left and rightwing forces, while the divisions between nations and classes become more acute. The oppressor nation of Euro- Americans will be affected most by the leftwing Euro-Americans attempt to divide and eliminate the prospects of continued national oppression by developing the class struggle within the oppressor nation.

Euro-American leftwing forces will have essentially two objectives: 1) To develop the contradiction in the class struggle of the oppressor nation to become antagonistic, and to concentrate the contradiction between oppressor nation classes toward the destruction of private ownership of corporate capitalism; 2) To forge the most progressive elements the oppressor nation classes to support the national liberation struggle of domestic neocolonies in combating racism and national oppression. Further, to call for the independence of these neo-colonies in support of their fight for autonomy and sovereignty.

In the same vein, Third World leftwing forces must develop an anti-colonial movement that is anti-imperialist in nature, and must recognize the necessity for international solidarity amongst the various Third World nationalities, oppressor nation progressive and revolutionaries and their class struggles. The anti-colonial movement also has two aspects to develop: 1) Build the class struggle within the oppressor nations to destroy the perverse colonized mentality within the quasi-class divisions of the oppressed neo-colony. Individuals who have gained influential status in the domestic neo-colony and are recognized as spoke-persons of the neo-colony by the imperialists must become responsive to the aspirations of the national liberation movement; 2) To arouse the Third World populace to confront monopolycapitalism from an anti-imperialist political perspective. Essentially, they need to build political decolonization programs and a culture of resistance that broadens the base for raising consciousness and fulfilling the oppressed peoples’ needs in the course of building the mass and popular movement.

Once the mass and popular movement gains momentum in its struggle against capitalism-imperialism, and the polarization of the left and rightwing forces has substantially drawn demarcation lines between contending political forces, the masses’ struggle will have reached its nodal point, transforming from a democratic civil rights movement into a Human Rights movement of revolutionary significance, with international ramifications. El-Hajj Malik Shabazz in his famous speech “The Ballot or the Bullet” advised:

“We need to expand the civil-rights struggle to a high level – to the level of human rights. Whenever you are in a civil-rights struggle, whether you know it or not, you are confining yourself to the jurisdiction of Uncle Sam. No one from the outside world can speak out in your behalf as long as your struggle is a civil-rights struggle.”13

The question of Human Rights raises the mass and popular movement to a qualitatively higher level than when it is concerned only with civil-rights; civil-rights are the minimum political objective. The oppressive relationship between the neocolonies of the Third World nations and capitalist bourgeoisie, and the capitalist bourgeoisie’s relationship with the Euro-American oppressor nation, must be challenged and changed since they effect the basis upon which a livelihood can be maintained for all peoples. The relationship of the workers to the means of production must change until the workers gain collective possession of the means of production. Also, the various Third World nations must be able to determine their own destiny, based upon their socio-economic and political aspirations as expressed during the course of the revolution. Therefore, it needs to be argued the question of Human Rights embodies the collective human will to be free from racist, capitalist-imperialist oppression and domination.

To transform the popular and mass movement for the restoration of democratic rights into a mass struggle for Human Rights is a revolutionary concept. The aspirations of the oppressed masses’ struggle are detached from the context of allowing the capitalist-imperialist to offer reforms and concessions. Rather, the call for Human Rights strips the capitalist-imperialist of any opportunity to subvert the determination of the masses to control their own lives and destiny, demanding they recognize the inalienable rights of all humanity. The call for Human Rights within the mass and popular movement provides impetus towards international anti-imperialist solidarity. 14

Once the mass and popular movement has developed a revolutionary character, the means from which progressive and revolutionary organizations can forge the movement will be enhanced greatly. The political program of national organizations in the mass and popular movement will ensure and support the course of the class and national liberation struggle. These political programs must highlight national goals and objectives, accentuating the anti-colonial, anti-capitalist-imperialist demands of popular movement. Such demands as national health care and services, full employment for all workers, the end of national oppression and racism, all of which are civil and human rights issues give credence to the demands for the end of private ownership of the means of production, and the right of Third World nationalities to independence and their own sovereignty. Thus, the political decolonization programs of national significance by progressive-revolutionary organizations in the mass and popular movement must change the character of the movement in the direction of the class and national liberation struggle.

It is imperative that these political decolonization programs project solutions to the socio-economic and political crisis of corporate-capitalism, and address themselves to specific disfranchised peoples within the class and national liberation struggle. The conditions of disfranchisement and oppression affecting women must be developed thoroughly in a political program of national significance. Distinction must be made between the level of oppression between oppressor nation women and that of oppressed nation women in developing provisions of redress in the masses’ struggle. For Third World women, their national condition of oppression must first be addressed on local grass-roots levels, with the establishment of Third World women community liberation associations, independent of the oppressor nation’s women movement. These Third World women community associations must uphold the demands of the class and national liberation struggle. In this way, national aspirations of Third World women can realize their goals as part of the national liberation struggle and take a leading role in the national liberation struggle.

The conditions of disfranchisement and oppression affecting youth, must be addressed in a national political program. Hereto distinction must be made between youth of the oppressed and oppressor nations, in respects to the nature of their oppression and the criteria for developing a solution in a political program. Essentially, the question of education and unemployment effects all youth, but for the oppressed nations it is imperative that alternative education is established in the Third World communities. Such educational institutions as community liberation schools would have the responsibility to develop youth’s skills in reading, writing and mathematics, but also to broaden their cultural and political consciousness of their relationship to the class and national liberation struggle. These liberation schools may be responsible for the development of future leaders in the class and national liberation struggle, and to organize youth to be more responsive to the needs of the community. This is especially important as it pertains to youth in street organizations (gangs) targeted by the corporate government with gang injunction, laws characterizing them as terrorist organizations, and such wide police sweeps like Operation FALCON.15 Thereby, an essential part of the curriculum of these schools will be the development of skills for the community’s building and preservation. Such skills as plumbing, electrical work, carpentry, as well as printing, typing, and agitation-propaganda, of which is more than obvious considering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

The political program must address the needs of the salaried workers of all nations, especially in the trade unions. Trade unions have the responsibility of confronting the owners of the means of production with the needs of the workers. Also, it is the responsibility of workers to be sure that their trade union representatives develop the issues, which depict their disfranchisement and restore equitable working standards and wages.

Therefore, it is the responsibility of progressives and revolutionaries to move workers and trade union representatives towards the ideals of the revolution. This includes cooperation in ownership of the means of production. The prospects of integrating the trade union revolt in the mass and popular movement depends on the masses arousal (class- consciousness). Such an arousal, through agitation-propaganda and confrontation politics by progressive-revolutionaries must be responsive to concrete conditions of union workers’ socio-economic and political instability. The issues in a national agenda will include rising taxes affecting workers, and the tax cut for big business; the demands for greater productivity from the employed, without considering how the unemployed may obtain work; the huge military budget and cut-backs in social service and public education; the imported products flooding U.S. markets because of cheap labor in U.S. external colonies while exports are decreasing; plus, a homelessness and a national health care program, must all be addressed in a national political program. All of this will serve as an impetus to motivate workers to seek change in the economic system evolving a culture of resistance.

The national political program and agenda must demand that the taxes of workers become stable, while big business taxes be used to subsidize social services and public education; that shorter hours be established at wages comparable to living standards, and that the unemployed be able to gain employment meeting the needs of productivity; that a low ceiling be imposed on imports, allowing American consumers to purchase American products, establishing the export quota towards a more equitable trade balance; the establishment of a universal health plan and ending the housing crisis and homelessness to provide housing for low income people. These demands would serve to induce the ultimate demand for the end of corporate capitalist-imperialism, the nationalization and workers ownership and control of the means of production.

Finally, the mass and popular movement must be directed towards understanding the various aspects of the judicial process, the police, court and prisons, and their functions in a corporate capitalist social structure. The demystification of the judicial system provides the mass and popular movement with an understanding of how the masses are controlled, and manipulated by the courts, congress, and legislative bodies of the corporategovernment for the benefit of corporate monopoly-capitalists. As poverty begets crime and social revolution, it is imperative that the judicial process be exposed as an instrument of controlling the masses along lines of class divisions and national oppression.

Most U.S., Inc. laws serve the continued morass of national oppression and class exploitation, as the police, courts and prisons preserve this system of domestic monopoly-capitalist domination and prohibit the possibility of revolutionary change. It is imperative the progressive and revolutionary forces expose how the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, the Department of Defense and the various branches of the military serve to maintain corporate capitalism-imperialism. Thus, it will be exposed how various branches of the judiciary creates laws which undermine equal justices and uphold the existing system of national and class oppression. This should not be a surprise when considering the FBI’s memorandum of August 25, 1967 describing the purpose and intent of Cointelpro:

“…to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize the activities of black nationalist, hate-type organizations and groupings, their leadership, spokesmen, membership, and supporters, and to counter their propensity for violence and civil disorder.

The pernicious background of such groups, their duplicity, and such publicity will have a neutralizing effect. Efforts of the various groups to consolidate their forces or to recruit new or youthful adherents must be frustrated. No opportunity should be missed to exploit through counterintelligence techniques the organizational and personal conflicts of the leadership of the groups and where possible an effort should be made to capitalize upon existing conflicts between competing Black Nationalist organizations. When an opportunity is apparent to disrupt or neutralize Black Nationalist, hate-type organizations through cooperation of established local news media contacts or through such contact with sources available to the Seat of Government, in every instance careful attention must be given to the proposal to insure the targeted group is disrupted, ridiculed, or discredited through publicity and not merely publicized.

Intensified attention under this program should be afforded to the activities of such groups as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Revolutionary Action Movement, the Deacons for Defense and Justice, Congress of Racial Equality, Nation of Islam. Particular emphasis should be given to extremists who direct the activities and policies of revolutionary or militant groups as Stokely Carmichael, H. “Rap” Brown, Elijah Muhammad, and Maxwell Stanford.”

In another internal FBI memorandum of March 9, 1968, it proposed neutralizing those who promoted fundamental changes challenging socio-economic conditions confronting poor and oppressed communities. The memorandum specifically encouraged neutralizing New Afrikan youths, stating: “Negro youths and moderates must be made to understand that if they succumb to revolutionary teachings, they will be dead revolutionaries.” The history of domestic civil and human rights violations by the FBI and U.S. military has been hidden from the American population. For example, Americans are unaware of the extent the religious pacifist and civil rights leader, Martin L. King, Jr., was a target of the FBI, other U.S. intelligence agencies and Military Intelligence Group. The U.S. Senate Church Committee Report of 1976, entitled Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans, informs:

he “neutralization” program continued until Dr. King’s death. As late as March 1968, FBI agents were being instructed to neutralize Dr. King because he might become “a messiah” who could “unify, and electrify the militant Black Nationalist movement, if he were to abandon his ‘obedience’ to ‘white liberal doctrines’ (nonviolence) and embrace Black Nationalism.” Steps were taken to subvert the “Poor People’s Campaign” which, Dr. King was planning to lead in the spring of 1968. Even after King’s death, agents in the field were proposing methods for harassing his widow, and Bureau officials were trying to prevent his birthday from becoming a national holiday.”16

However, since September 11, 2001, a series of laws has legalized what had been unconstitutional police, FBI and U.S. military domestic activities. In anticipation of U.S. progressive activists opposing this claimed war against terrorism, the federal corporate government has passed new laws broadening the Patriot Act. Specifically, these new laws severely restrict protest, demonstrations and dissent, as for example, the October 17, 2006, signing of the John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007. In a private Oval Office ceremony, the president signed the bill that permits his office to declare a public emergency and station troops anywhere in America, taking control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to suppress public disorder. On this same day, the president signed the Military Commission Act of 2006, that allows for torture and detention abroad, as Section 1076 entitled Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies, essentially puts in place the mechanism for the implementation of “martial law” according to Section 333, which states:

“…the President may employ the armed forces, including the National Guard, in Federal service, to restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any State or possession of the United States, the president determines that domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constitutional authorities of the State or possession are incapable of (‘refuse’ or ‘fail’ in)...”

Most recently, 404 U.S. House Representatives passed HR 1955 titled the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007, which in the series of bills has substantiated the means and method for the application of martial law. This latest initiative establishes a crime for the promotion of ideological terrorism, and Section 899D creates a Center of Excellence for the Study of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism in the United States under the auspices Department of Homeland Security. All of these laws severely erode the U.S., Inc. constitution, violate civil and human rights, and project and promote martial law and a fascist police state agenda.

Domestically, the police, courts and prisons are the primary institutions of repressing the aspirations of human rights the mass and popular movement seeks to achieve, prisons being the last rung in the ladder of judicial coercion. Hence, the mass and popular movement must demand the closing and moratorium on prison building, strengthening support for the prison movement, calling for the release of political prisoners of war, an end to torture of captured revolutionaries, the abolition of capital punishment, and for the end of prison slavery as instituted by the 13th Amendment of the U.S., Inc. Constitution. In this way, the judicial process is explained as being inequitable, indicating how most laws serve to suppress the will of the masses’ aspirations for freedom, and show how the police, courts and prisons are coercive bureaucracies of corporate monopoly-capitalism. This will ultimately demystify the judicial process and will build a mass and popular consciousness to become fearless in confronting the State.17

At this time, the mass and popular movement is factionalized on various issues subject to the socio-economic crisis, and the relationship of the crisis to a particular class or nationality. Such issues include the struggle in the trade union industry, miners, farmers, teachers, social services, and industrial workers’ strike, and various civil rights issues, all are of substantial concern to many progressives and revolutionaries in many different ways. However, factionalism tends to drain the masses enthusiasm in struggle, ensuring their participation in struggle only when their livelihood is directly in jeopardy. This reaction to struggle can preserve competitiveness that will serve to maintain divisions between classes and nationalities.

To remedy factionalism, the progressive and revolutionary forces must build national campaigns and mobilizations developing anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist working class solidarity amongst the many progressive elements within the mass and popular movement. It is in revolutionary internationalist solidarity amongst the most progressive-revolutionary forces combating racist, capitalist-imperialism that will provide the impetus for greater unity throughout the entire mass and popular movement.

The mass and popular movement must evolve a national concept of itself, and become mobilized nationally towards specific goals and objectives. This concept should urge the class and national liberation struggle towards confrontation with the socio-economic and political crisis of corporate capitalistimperialism. The struggle for the preservation and restoration of democratic and civil-rights, must evolve towards a struggle for Human Rights which in turn will take the class and national liberation struggles toward the final and complete destruction of corporate capitalist class exploitation and racist imperialist neocolonialist oppression.

CONCLUSION

The course of the over all struggle depends on oppressed peoples of all nations and classes recognizing they need to change their thinking about how they are governed. They need to realize they in fact have the power to change the means and methods by which their every day livelihood is obtained through their labor. The power of the people first begins by cultivating a theoretical and ideological foundation for political action. Without a revolutionary theory, there cannot be a revolutionary praxis to raise consciousness and inspire the masses to demonstrate and protest for a better future for themselves and their children. During the late 1950s and throughout 1960s, the civil rights and anti-Vietnam war movements succeeded in changing the social fabric of corporate America. There was a culture and a prevailing belief in revolutionary change. In the words of El Hajj Malik Shabazz:

“The time we are living in…and… are facing now is not an era where one who is oppressed is looking towards the oppressor to give him some system or form of logic and reason. What is logical to the oppressor is not logical to the oppressed, and what is reason to the oppressor is not reason to the oppressed. The black people in this country are beginning to realize that what sounds reasonable to those who exploit us doesn’t sound reasonable to us. There just has to be a new system of reason and logic devised by us who are on the bottom, if we want some results in its struggle that is called “Negro Revolution.”

Unfortunately, to reverse the majority of the socioeconomic gains of the social-democratic revolution of the past, the plutocracy employed corporate media and rightwing propaganda throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s.

This was accomplished by continuing FBI Cointelpro operations destroying leftwing organizations; Reagan era of rightwing validation and George Bush (senior) presidency extending imperialist hegemony; Newt Gingrich’s “Contract With America” strategy building a broad-base coalition with evangelical Christians; the influx of CIA procured drugs (heroin from Southeast Asia and Afghanistan and cocaine from Columbia and Peru) devastating oppressed communities with the proliferation of street and drug gangs with it’s supportive culture of “gangster rap” exploited by the corporate music industry; along with the above mentioned reversals of affirmative action and wholesale incarceration of New Afrikans’ and Latinos’ young folks, all of which offers a few dynamics that resulted in the defeat of the previous era of struggle.

Furthermore, the September 11, 2001, destruction of the World Trade Center and damage to the Pentagon, the war in Iraq and subsequent war in Afghanistan, has provided the rightwing respite as the jingoist corporate media propaganda incites the American populace to support the rightwing agenda. Such have given them a broader opportunity to persuade the American populace to support the solidification of fascism on the home front and U.S., Inc. imperialist military globalization. All of which identifies the present condition of rightwing nationalistic sociopsychological- cultural influence and control over the American populace.

The above offers insights as to what needs to be done, the when and how is the decision of the oppressed as expressed to the progressive and revolutionary forces. From the masses to the masses is the guiding principle that must be abided by activist, however, it is obvious there is little choice that revolutionary action must be taken to prohibit the onslaught of fascism in America.

In this regard, it is urged that progressive and revolutionary forces seek the means to organize a broad based National Poor and Oppressed Peoples Convention, for the specific purpose of developing a revolutionary national agenda. The national agenda would then be the principle socio-economic and political platform by which each participate would return to their respective communities to implement. As a revolutionary national agenda would apply to electoral politics, it would be required this national agenda be the platform for politicians to support in order to campaign and win the votes of the oppressed masses. Where politicians refused to support the national agenda, then if desired to do so, progressives would seek to support their own candidate that will campaign for the revolutionary national agenda and platform. However, it must be understood these campaigns are tactical initiatives challenging the status-quo electoral process to raise consciousness towards the class and national liberation struggle.

The development of community committees, associations, coalitions and fronts will be responsible for the implementation of the revolutionary national agenda. In this way, progressives and revolutionaries will, for the most part be speaking with a unified voice, and this national determination will serve to oppose factionalism and sectarianism in the overall movement. Of course, this is not a national strategy or panacea for all of the problems besetting the building of a mass and popular movement. However, it is proposed that such be organized particularly when considering past efforts of the Black Panther Party to accomplish a similar mission.

In November 1970, the BPP planned to convene the People’s Revolutionary Constitutional Convention at Howard University, which preceded the September 5, 1970, Revolutionary People’s Plenary Session at Temple University attended by 10,000 activists. Unfortunately, the convention was not held due to FBI Cointelpro intervention, and subsequent interfering with the principle BPP leaders, and disrupting their ability to organize the convention. Nonetheless, a successful National Poor and Oppressed People’s Convention, today, would certainly challenge present day rightwing fascist politics, and inspire poor and oppressed peoples across the country to begin the process of taking control of their lives in a mass and popular movement.


(Footnotes)

1 Since April 15, 1861, every succeeding so-called President has issued an Executive Order proclaiming a national emergency virtually extending federal military powers and control of the United States, Inc. The introduction to Senate Report 93-549 (93rd Congress, 1st Session, 1973), states in part: “A majority of the people of the United States have lived all of their lives under emergency rule… And, in the United States, actions taken by the Government in times of great crisis have - from, at least, the Civil War - in important ways, shaped the present phenomenon of a permanent state of national emergency.” See, also, November 14, 1994, Executive Order No. 12938, by then so-called President William Jefferson Clinton, where he states: “…Therefore, in accordance with Section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d), I am continuing the national emergency declared in Executive Order No. 12938.”

2 Pursuant to Title 28 U.S.C. 3002 (15) (a), the United States is a Federal Corporation. Title 28 U.S.C. 3002 (15) (3), further informs that all departments of the U.S., are part of the corporation. The Commerce Department acquires birth certificates via county and state governments, which contractually, makes these live births ultimately commerce property of the U.S. Corporation, with a monetary value attached to each certificate.

3 On November 22, 1910, Paul Warburg, Nelson W. Aldrich, then the powerful Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and a group of bankers secretly met on Jekyll Island, Florida, conspired and planned for the development of a central banking system. In 1913, Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act establishing the Federal Reserve System. Title 31 U.S.C. Section 462 (392) states: “All Federal Reserve Notes and circulating Notes of Federal Reserve Banks and National Banking Associations heretofore or hereafter issued, shall be legal tender for all debts public and private.” However, the “fiat money” distributed contradicts and negates the U.S., Inc. Constitution, Article 1, Section 10, that states: “No State shall make any Thing but Gold and Silver Coin a legal tender in payment of debts.”

4 It must be understood the U.S. dollar (fiat money) is a promissory note, backed by nothing other than the credit of the nation, amounting to nothing more than an I.O.U. This was forward by the 73rd Congress of March 9, 1933, holding that: “…it (the new currency) will be worth 100 cents on the dollar and will represent the credit of their nation. It will represent a mortgage on all the homes and property of the people of the nation.”

5 Paul Warburg was a chief protagonist for the passage of the Federal Reserve Act, who in 1913 testified before the House Banking and Currency Committee identified himself: “I am a member of the banking house of Kuhn, Loeb Company. I came over to this country in 1902, having been born and educated in the banking business in Hamburg, Germany, and studied banking in London and Paris, and have gone all over the world. In the Panic of 1907, the first suggestion I made was let us get a national clearing house. The Aldrich Plan contains some things that are simply fundamental rules of banking. Your aim in this plan must be the same centralizing of reserves, mobilizing commercial credit, and getting an elastic note issue.” Paul Warburg was also a representative of the House of Rothschild banking cartel of Europe.

6 Research the Trilateral Commission, Council for Foreign Relations and the Bildenberg Group. Then, Chairman David Rockefeller, in 1991, described Bildenberg Group’s purpose: “We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time magazine, and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost forty years… It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during these years. But the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government which will never again know war but only peace and prosperity for the whole of humanity.”

7 Figures according to www.opensecrets.org

8 See: THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE, by William C. Kimberling, Deputy Director, FEC Office of Election Administration,

9 Quoted from: “How the Electoral College Works” by Kevin Bonsor, http://people.howstuffworks.com/electoral-college.htm/printable.

10 Today, the U.S., Inc., is bankrupt, according to U.S. Treasury report of 2006, it has a federal debt of more than $5 trillion, while Saudi Arabia, Japan, and China governments and corporate investors either control or highly influence major U.S. banking and properties, having purchased close to 100% of that debt. That’s $3 trillion borrowed from the Saudis, the Chinese, the Japanese and others. The Arabs of the Gulf nations took $252 billion in 2005 for OPEC’s oil – and put back $311 billion by purchasing U.S. Treasury bills Latin America borrowed $227 billion at high interest – while lending the U.S. $379 billion at low interest. Americans bought $243 billion in products from China – while China holds nearly a trillion dollars ($800 million) in reserve to buy up the U.S. See, also, January 20, 2008, New York Times article: “Overseas Investors Buying U.S. Holdings at Record Pace – Weak Dollar Lures Foreigners, Reigniting Debate” byline Peter S. Goodman and Louise Story.

11 To learn more about the U.S., Inc. involvement in the February 29, 2004, kidnapping of President Aristide out of Haiti, read: “An Unbroken Agony”, by Randall Robinson, published by Basic Civitas Books.

12 Twelve Point Program of the Revolutionary Action Movement, 1964.

13 Malcolm X, “The Ballot or the Bullet,” Malcolm X Speaks .

14 On December 10, 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted and proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Following this historic act the Assembly called upon all Member countries to publicize the text of the Declaration and “to cause it to be disseminated, displayed, read and expounded principally in schools and other educational institutions, without distinction based on the political status of countries or territories.”

15 An article, “Operation FALCON and the Looming Police State”, by Mike Whitney who won a 2008 Project Censored Award, discusses how the Justice Department has been running exercises to implement a police state as already provided by the Reagon administration’s 1988 “national security emergency” Executive Order 12656.

16 For more information on Martin L. King, Jr., being a U.S. government and military target read: The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI’s Secret Wars Against the Dissent in the United States (Boston; South End, 1990), by Ward Churchill; Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press (Versco, NY 1999) by Alexander Cockburn; An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King, by William F. Pepper (2003).

17 In 1998, two specific organizations were formed for this specific purpose, the Jericho Amnesty Movement and Critical Resistance, and both continues to be a source of information and resistance exposing the overall criminal (in)justice system. Check: www.thejerichomovement.com and www.critical resistance.org. The Jericho Amnesty Movement has also called for the reopening of Cointelpro hearings, on behalf of approximately 100 Cointelpro victims, U.S. political prisoners languishing in prison for 30 to 40 years.

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