Great Commie Blogs

The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here. The famous Russian neo-Nazi video is on this blog here.

Updated May 3:

Two totally great new Commie blogs - People's Movement Support Group and Machetera.

PMSG is out of India with an emphasis on support for the Maoist revolutionaries in India along with the separatists in the Northeast (India's armed Maoists tend to support the northeastern separatists), and it's almost all translated stuff from the world press, but there is a strong emphasis on armed Leftwing revolutionary movements.

Thankfully, he is not a fanatic - he supports Cuba, the Maoists in Nepal and especially in India, the FARC in Colombia, the EPR and EZLN in Mexico, the MRTA in Peru and the NPA Maoists in Philippines. In Palestine, he supports the PFLP! What is interesting about this is that in many cases orthodox Maoists do not support non-Maoists like the FARC or Cuba or surely the MRTA on grounds that they are not Commie enough.

Yay!

He also supports armed separatists in the Basque Country, Kurdistan, Ireland (IRA), Sri Lanka and in India's Northeast.

If there are leftwing maniacs anywhere on Earth with guns and bombs, he backs them up 100% (other than Sendero Luminoso). That's some real consistency and style.

Living here in the US, one thing you notice right away is that almost every single human being you meet (who has an opinion on the issue) absolutely hates all guerrillas anywhere on Earth. This is true even for almost all US liberals, and even, incredibly, for many US Leftists.

The line of the average American is clear: All guerrillas are evil. They are all terrorists. In particular, Americans seem to really hate any kind of armed separatists or separatists of any type. This is kind of odd in that we were birthed via revolution, and there is no reason to fear separatism here as there isn't any armed separatism in the US (or anywhere in the Americas) and probably never will be.

So Americans have turned into some of the biggest state-fetishists on Earth. Only the state can have guns. Only the state must have a monopoly on violence. All guerrillas are terrorists, terrorists are evil, and they all need to be killed to preserve the civilized world. All separatists are scum, states alone have the right to draw borders, and self-determination will never be allowed to anyone.

Death squads are fine and dandy, and every state is a democracy, no matter how murderous. The people never have the right to take up arms against any state anywhere, unless I guess it is Communist.

In other words, Americans have turned their backs completely on the noble spirit of the American revolution and have become the philosophical heirs to King George's colonists. We have also become Israelis. They are colonists too. See any connections yet?

Machetera is definitely a blog after my heart. I get called a Stalinist a lot on here, but that's not necessarily true. I do defend Stalin in some ways, mostly just to counteract the nonsense about "the biggest murderer that ever lived", by pointing out the many great, humanitarian and life-saving things he did. He also killed a lot of people, and I think it many cases that was just plain wrong or even flat out evil.

Honestly, I would really prefer that we Lefties stopped killing people once we got into power. Other than the obvious moral questions, it has given the Right a gigantic shot in the arm by portraying us a the biggest murderers that ever lived. This has been so successful that many people around the world are frightened to let the hard Left back into power due to fear that they may start killing people.

So it is that I am a big fan of Castro's Cuba, a place where the state has hardly killed a single political prisoner since 1970. They put a few in jail, but that's not the same thing. By the way, I think the Cubans should go out of their way to treat the jailed political prisoners well, if only to deprive the anti-Commies of their propaganda snacks.

On the Majority Rights (careful - very nasty WN blog) blog a while back I was called a Castroite. That's not a bad portrayal of me.

There is such a thing, and the Castroite philosophy, a Left, and sometimes an armed Left, that is particular to Latin America, is quite well portrayed on Machetera. So if you want to see what a Castroite looks like, head on over. They've actually long had conflicts with anarchists, Maoists and even some Trotskyites.

The Castroite philosophy could be best seen in the revolutionary movements that arose in Latin America in the 1970's and 1980's. Prior to that, there were a number of small bands in Peru, Bolivia and Venezuela that were wiped out. These were often influenced by Regis Debray's flawed foco philosophy of armed revolution. Che's fated project in Bolivia in 1966 is another example.

The ELN and the FARC in Colombia are very much Castroite (especially the ELN), with the ELN having a very strong Catholic liberation theology flavor. The FARC is probably a bit more rooted in an indigenous Colombian Left with roots in that nation's particular history.

There are now branches of the FARC in Ecuador (FARE), Brazil (FARB), Panama (FARC), Venezuela (FARV) and Peru (FARP). The FARC extend all the way to Guyana, where they tax the gold mines. In 1984, the MRTA Castroites arose in Peru, but were eventually eclipsed by the Shining Path.

The Sandinistas of Nicaragua, the FMLN of El Salvador and the URNG of El Salvador and various small guerrilla bands in Honduras in the 1980's were all Castroites, and the FMLN and the Sandinistas still have Castroite roots, though they have moved to the Right.

Chavez in Venezuela, Correa in Ecuador and Morales in Bolivia are very much in this special tradition.

There are many aspects to Castroism, and it is hard to put it down succinctly. Typically, many are Catholics and there is a lack of hostility to religion. They are less anti-Semitic than most Latin American Catholics (anti-Semitism is big in a continent with few Jews), in part because some of their leaders have been Jewish.

They tend to be much more pragmatic than Maoists, and are often prone to be called revisionists by the latter. There is a strong anti-Yankee and anti-US strain. The cult of Che Guevara is very important. The role of the peasants is very strong, but not in a Maoist sense.

The role of urban workers is somewhat important but not crucial, in part because the area is not well industrialized. But the industrial and professional unions are strongly supported.

There is a lacks of sexual puritanicalism that typified many existing Communist states. There is a significant de-emphasis on the Indian Question (while it is recognized nevertheless. This in contrast to Sendero, who raised the Indian Question to prime status. There is a very flexible ideology that often incorporates electoral democracy and mixed economies.

Class is much more important than race or sex, though the Woman Question is important. Female guerrillas often make up very large percentages of fighters, and in guerrilla ranks all aspects of Latin American machismo that oppresses women are banned.

Machetera is characterized by support for Cuba and the FARC of Colombia. Along the way, there are also shout-outs for Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Rafael Correa in Ecuador. She also supports Peace Palestine, Mary Rizzo's pro-Palestinian blog. The PFLP in Palestine have always had a fondness for Che Guevara and Cuba, and Cuba has long supported the PLO. Furthermore, she is a fine writer, witty and smart.

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