Here’s what we’ve got so far.

- In the early 1970’s, an international communist movement so mired in mistaking parasitic first world populations for class allies of the world proletariat that even otherwise genuine Maoists in China were committing the same deadly error.

- An international proletariat highly suspicious that in the 1970’s it was already quite late in the material day for communists to be fucking up on this issue on such a grand scale.

- An international proletariat highly suspicious that this grand fuck up can be attributed to a massive ideological lacuna afflicting the ICM throughout the 20th century, that lacuna itself being symptomatic of virulent infection of the ICM by a particular form of bourgeois ideology, the theory of the productive forces.

- A global form of the theory of the productive forces that draws its pernicious and lethal potency from the showcase populations of the first world labor aristocracy.

- And, finally, the lie behind the lie, the root deceit propping up this international form of the enemy lie of the TOPF: the lie that the whole world can have a first world standard of living. The succinct version being, that the whole world can live like amerikkkans.

Simply put, the theory of the productive forces is a lie in prescriptive form peddled to the oppressed and exploited: do this, and you’ll get that. The “this” is the invitation to forget class struggle, to focus instead on building up the forces of production, acquiring technology, etc. – in fact, it’s the invitation to do anything but remember class struggle. The “that” is the proffered reward to the oppressed and exploited for this good behavior. And the international form of the TOPF offers a stunning illusory payoff: hey, you’ll get to live like amerikkkans, because that’s how they got where they are.

Let’s once again go over the broad economics of this to see just how very stunning such an offer is. The first world populations are far and away the richest on the planet. Nearly every single first worlder is part of the world’s richest 15%. The majority of amerikkkans, that paradigm population of parasite “prosperity,” are among the world’s richest 10%. Even those at the economic bottommost of the first world nations live whole levels above the world majority, who by contrast live at subsistence level and less.

So naturally at this point the video says, in referring to these first world parasite populations, that they are “the wealthy few of the planet.” Because that’s beyond refutation.

Continuing on then, the video says, “And, as Maoists, we know that the wealth of the few comes from thievery.” You just don’t get much more elemental in your basic Marxism, your basic proletarian internationalism, than that: the wealth of the few derives from the impoverishment of the many.

Marxists are supposed to know this. So Maoists are supposed to know that the TOPF is, in all its forms, local and international, a lie. The first world populations did not obtain their riches in the manner their TOPF prescribes to the world’s oppressed and exploited majority. First worlders did not acquire their wealth by building up their productive forces and becoming technological whiz kids. There is nothing “innovative” in the genocide by which they stole a continent. There is nothing “new and improved” in enslaving a nation to build your own nation. And the military/political agenda of the few (the first world) dominating and exploiting the many (the Third World), well we know, if we’re Marxists, that that’s old hat, not high tech.

Of course, as with all things of first world origin, the opposite of what is claimed is true. It is only the centuries old continuous theft of wealth from the Third World and all oppressed nations that makes possible all that gleaming blood-drenched first world advanced technology.

Not for one instant in all those centuries did the first world populations forget class struggle. It was by keeping class struggle against the oppressed nations topmost on their political program – keeping the politics of oppression and exploitation in command – that got these parasites the riches of decadence that they possess today. 

So the international theory of the productive forces is a lie because Marxism is correct: exploitation exists. And therefore the entire world cannot live at the economic level of the world’s richest 10%, or the world’s richest 15%. The international TOPF is a lie because, for the entire planet to live like the first world, like amerikkkans, a whole new planet, several times earth’s population, would have to be discovered, conquered, oppressed, exploited and sucked off of just as the first world for centuries has sucked off the Third World. That’s not hard to see. For a rich minority to become a rich minority, they have to oppress and steal from an oppressed majority. And, yes, the same thing goes for the process of remaining a rich minority.

The lie of the international TOPF is just not that theoretically complex, and the raw facts of the worldwide class analysis it entails are not hard to come by. Is anyone arguing that nearly all of the first world is not part of the world’s richest 15%? Is anyone arguing that most amerikkkans are not part of the world’s richest 10%? Is anyone arguing that nearly half the world does not live on less than $2 a day? No, the facts of first world hegemony are all just common, everyday prima facie stuff.

But then we come right back to the international proletariat’s nagging suspicion that the parasitic nature of the first world populations has been prima facie stuff pretty much throughout the entire last century. How long has it been, for instance, that amerikkka has been globally acknowledged as the land of milk and honey? Not just for the rarefied tip top economic strata of amerikkkans, but for all amerikkkans – the land of money, honey. How long has it been, for another instance, that the economic disparity between the first world populations and the Third World has been, shall we say, conspicuous?

And so the international proletariat is to be forgiven for then asking quite bluntly, where in the fuck was the great bulk of the international communist movement for the last century while it was tasked with exposing just such pernicious enemy lies as this international theory of the productive forces?

Further, the international proletariat is to be forgiven for its as yet un-allayed suspicion that the bulk of the ICM was in fact for most of that century asleep at the wheel, drugged out on dreams of the oppressed and exploited “advancing” toward a parasite first world standard of living. Just plain drugged out on the international TOPF.

We explained in Part 3 that the potency of the international TOPF derives from the showcase populations of the first world labor aristocracy. You can think of it this way. Would any proletarian forces buy a bit of this lie if the vast majority of the first world lived on $2 a day? An international TOPF like that, that promised do this (forget class struggle) and you can get this (a subsistence level existence just like the one you have now), would ring up precious few sales among the oppressed. 

But with the actual first world labor aristocracy on parade – millions of Dicks and Janes who look for all the world like garden variety “regular folks” but who enjoy a standard of living stratospherically above the world majority – then you’ve got a huckster’s shill that’ll draw in a crowd. And that, the international proletariat suspicions, is exactly what happened to the ICM. The promise of first world richness for the world majority was too enticing to turn down, to disbelieve, so by the multitudes the ICM stepped right up, forked over a goodly portion of their precious revolutionary responsibilities, and bought themselves a heaping helping of the lie of the TOPF, the bogus amerikkkan dream peddled to the oppressed and exploited.

Now, discerning readers will have noticed that we’ve continued to stress the proletariat’s suspicions about the ICM’s errors on the international TOPF in the 20th century without mentioning that today the ICM is for the most part every bit as fucked up on this question as it has been for the last century. By all means we’ll get to that.

But we cannot fully understand the enemy’s contemporary ideological victories via the TOPF if we do not fully grasp the power and reach of the international TOPF as fueled by the first world labor aristocracy. And that means comprehending the enormity of the ICM’s past defeat by this imperialist ideological weapon, a defeat that extends back over scores of years and has been nearly absolute. And the efforts toward the investigation and study aimed at fully comprehending that defeat have, sadly, begun only recently.

Fortunately, we have some good and capable comrades leading the way in this investigation and study. The international proletariat demands to know what part this massive enemy ideological victory has played on the two main fronts of the proletarian struggle: the struggle for national liberation of the oppressed nations, and the attempts to build socialism in the former socialist nations. In Part 5 we will consider the possible damage done by the international theory of the productive forces in a particular instance of latter area, the murder of socialism in the People’s Republic of China.

In that Part we will make much use of Prairie Fire’s fine article posted at MSH, Some notes on lines within the Chinese Communist Party in the Maoist period. This article is an excellent example of the kind of theoretical and investigative work demanded by the international proletariat to assure the defeat of the imperialist weapon of the international TOPF and to hasten the defeat of the first world itself. So read that work well in the meantime.

Put simply, conversancy with the language of the oppressed is measured in terms of capacity to speak the truth and comprehend the truth when truth is spoken. Like everything else, “truth” is a political construct. How much truth gets spoken is determined politically. The greater the significance to the oppressed, the more truth expressed, and, in turn, the greater fluency demonstrated in speaking the language of the oppressed.

Bartolomé de Las Casas was a goddamn liar. In the terms just explained this means that Las Casas lied about things that were of critical significance to the oppressed, like what is the proper response to oppression (Las Casas said it was surrender) and who the oppressed should count as friends (Las Casas said it was the imperialist Spanish monarchy). By definition the liberal imperialists like Las Casas will always be goddamn liars – if they told enough of the truth to no longer deserve the label of goddamn liar, then they would have changed their class stance sufficiently so as to no longer be liberal imperialists. And Las Casas sure maintained his class stance as an oppressor and a goddamn liar.

So how do we make good on our title’s claim that Las Casas was in fact somewhat conversant with the language of the oppressed, since that necessitates speaking truth? Well finessing that little bit of analysis is actually a breeze if we remember that liberals can at times be of some use to the oppressed. Take Comrade John Brown’s war on amerikkkan slavery. To the extent that Comrade Brown received any outside financing it was mainly amerikkkan liberals who contributed to this glorious venture. Sure, they had to be tricked into it, or at least not fully informed. And sure, after Harper’s Ferry most of these liberals ran and hid and denounced Comrade Brown like the liberals they were. But for a time they had been of some use to the oppressed. Or, probably more importantly, take the liberals who were among those making up the Underground Railway, spiriting slaves to a degree of safety in the north. The existence of the Underground Railway made feasible Comrade Brown’s battle plan of guerilla war and building an independent state of Black resistance in the north. In both cases liberals were helpful to the oppressed. Of course Comrade Brown didn’t succeed in fomenting a Black rebellion against white slavery. But he did succeed in dividing the white enemies against themselves to the point where they killed off each other by the hundreds of thousands and gave the Black Nation a little breathing room. Liberals were helpful in the good outcome of that venture.

The oppressed can take from this that at certain times and for brief periods these genuine enemies can be of use, and such opportunities shouldn’t be missed. But don’t hold your breath – that’s the indispensable corollary. Case in point: Las Casas.

You don’t really have to do any analysis to see that, although fundamentally a lying oppressor, this liberal imperialist spoke enough of the truth to be of some possible use to the oppressed. Throughout this article we’ve featured Las Casas’s illustrations of the Spanish genocide of the Americas. In their stark depiction of the carnage, the drawings themselves speak an important truth and thus display some conversancy with the language of the oppressed. The same goes for Las Casas’ writings:

“They saw themselves each day perishing by the cruel and inhuman treatment of the Spaniards, crushed to the earth by the horses, cut in pieces by swords, eaten and torn by dogs, many buried alive and suffering all kinds of exquisite tortures …” (1)

You’d have to say telling this much of the truth about the European genocidal butchery in the Americas sounds every bit like the language of the oppressed. And this would seem to have potential benefit for the oppressed. Of course in Las Casas’ time no benefit to the oppressed was realized. Because Las Casas, being the goddamned liar he was, wrapped this truth in so many foul layers of oppressor ideology that the truth had no discernable impact.

But the Las Casas descriptions and images, sans the Las Casas lies, can indeed helpful. The oppressed can sure use the documentation. Of the real genesis story – the birth of the first world in the bloody carnage of the Third World. For the oppressed that’s handy to keep in mind.

Further, it’s helpful to the oppressed to have a reminder there were few Europeans like Las Casas who even took enough notice of their genocide of a continent to even remark much on it. Reminds the oppressed of what to expect from the oppressor nations when it comes to friends and enemies. That’s a help.

Also, the oppressed can always use another exposure of oppressor nation liberalism. Here we’re finding a use for Las Casas but it’s, like, 400 years later. So don’t hold your breath with the liberals.

And there’s one more way in which Las Casas is conversant enough with the language of the oppressed to be of help. But to explain that we’ll have to admit that to this point we haven’t given Las Casas his full due in terms of his truth-telling abilities. Because he did say, however belatedly and briefly, a bit more of the truth than we’ve reported so far; he spoke the language of the oppressed a little more fluently than we’ve reported so far. We didn’t really hide it. We actually began this article with a quote demonstrating it. We’ve just neglected commenting on it so far. Here’s the quote again:

“I believe that due to these godless, evil and ignoble acts perpetrated in such an unjust, barbarous and tyrannical manner, God will direct his ire and fury upon all Spain, as all Spain has taken its part, large or small, of the bloody wealth usurped at the price of much ruin and many massacres.”

This is actually a shitload of truth. It’s almost an indictment of imperialism. Oh, there’s some slippery ambiguity – there’s some room to think that if the “bloody wealth” had been “usurped” with less “ruin and massacres” everything would’ve been ok. And there’s no real hint that the proper response to oppression is to destroy the oppressors; so we don’t know exactly what ideology Las Casas is offering the oppressed here. But still, it’s not the usual Las Casas celebration of imperialism. Moreover, there’s that “all Spain” part, which presumably includes the monarchy that Las Casas is usually wont to exonerate from the genocide of the Americas. So we have to admit that here Las Casas is not much of a goddamned liar at all.

Now, this doesn’t contradict all our previous discussion of Las Casas nearly so much as it seems. Because Las Casas came to this take on things pretty late in life – the quote above is taken from his will. Rest assured that he lived the great bulk of his life as every bit the goddamned liar we’ve claimed. But he did become more truthful in his very last years. Those very last years were of course after he had lived his entire life watching genocide right under his nose, and then, finally, he stopped lying so much. It’s not the political stance generally associated with Las Casas because it’s not the politics that he preached or acted until he was almost dead.

Our interest, though, isn’t in the persyn but the politics. Especially the part about “… all Spain has taken its part, large or small, of the bloody wealth …”

This is extremely truthful as the needed indictment of the entire Spanish nation for being beneficiaries of the holocaust in the Americas which they supported. That’s very instructive generally for the oppressed today as a class analysis of the first world. It’s a big help.

And more particularly it’s a help to the oppressed in sizing up the reactionary first world so-called “left.”

Look, here we’ve got a guy, a liberal imperialist, who’s an outright jubilant celebrant of imperialism even when millions are being slaughtered right before his eyes and the loot is just pouring into Spain. Genocide historically unparalleled, right before his own eyes. A full long lifetime of watching this horror while still cheering on the Spanish monarchy before, finally, he admits the truth. But he does, essentially, admit it: “all of Spain” has a vested interest as enemy of the indigenous peoples of the Americas – “all of Spain” has an interest in the genocide of national oppression.

And that one pathetically late admission, by a proud and certified agent of imperialism, is light years of political advancement beyond today’s first world so-called “left,” who are constitutionally inadequate to the task of admitting this one simple and manifest fact about their own respective parasite nations. Who are constitutionally inadequate to the task of speaking the language of the oppressed by admitting that the truth that the first world is wholly enemy to the Third World. Whose lies fronting for the first world enemies of the oppressed can easily and fully match Las Casas in his glory days as a goddamn liar fronting for imperialism.

Previously on Shubel Morgan we’ve gone over in detail the profound extent to which the all-amerikkkan white nationalist so-called “left,” the standard bearer for the first world “left” generally, is inadequate to the task of speaking the language of the oppressed. Here we’ll just say that if the Las Casas lesson for the oppressed regarding liberals is to proceed with caution and don’t hold your breath, the Las Casas lesson for the oppressed regarding first world so-called “leftists” is don’t touch ‘em with a 10 foot pole. The oppressed would be better off with a 400 year old priest whose life was dedicated to cheering on the most massive genocide in history.

Sources:

Stannard, David E., American Holocaust, New York, 1992.

1. Stannard, p. 74.

Nuff said.

Stay tuned to the hard working RAIM-D for up to date info on Colorado’s anti-kolumbusalooza.

And tune in to our comrades at Monkey Smashes Heaven for the theoretical how-to’s of ending kkkolumbus day in amerikkka, i.e., ending amerikkka itself.

Update. Available in DVD format via torrents. Some have experienced difficulty with the previously announced DVD offering of this video. Those problems have been resolved and a new DVD is available. Search mininova for the title: Amerikan Holiday

We will have more to say about Kolumbus. And we will especially have more to say about the $panish priest mentioned in the video, Bartolomé de las Casas.

For those who have diligently read our previous articles, the answer in advance is no, it won’t turn out that Kolumbus spoke the same language as Ward Churchill, or John Brown, or the German communists of 1945.

But it may well be that de las Casas did. It may just turn out that de las Casas shared some remarkable similarities with that white nationalist liberal, William Lloyd Garrison. Including the ability to speak a credible version of the language of the oppressed.

In the event things do turn out that way, we’re thinking of titling the article, “Why one 16th century religious colonialist was more politically advanced than all of today’s white nationalist “leftists” put together.” Sorta has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

We began this article a long time ago by noting how very different were John Brown and William Lloyd Garrison, the one a revolutionary nation-traitor, the other a white nationalist liberal. And we explained how, even coming from opposite ends of the national oppression spectrum, these two could speak the same language about amerika’s primary political fact at the time. And it turned out that was mainly because they both spoke the truth: white amerikans as a nation were enemy to the enslaved Black Nation. They told the truth for different reasons, to be sure. Garrison to save amerika, John Brown to destroy it. But as to the assessment of forces in this war, they spoke the same language because they were each in a situation that demanded the truth if they were to accomplish their respective aims.

Then we talked about Ward Churchill and the German communists of 1945. And about how those communists were speaking Ward Churchill’s language when they acknowledged the overwhelming class content of their nation as oppressors and exploiters. John Brown, we concluded, was speaking the same language as well. They could all talk.

William Lloyd Garrison wouldn’t like all that Ward Churchill-John Brown-communist talk, coming as it does from the side of the oppressed.   But you can bet he would understand them. Just like they would him. And simply because they all told the truth.

“I am ashamed of my country,” was how Garrison put it, “our guilty land.” That’s how the better white nationalist liberals put it then. So he could talk to John Brown. Or the German communists. Or Ward Churchill.

Then we discussed the all amerikkkan white nationalist so-called “leftists.” And how they’ve made it absolutely manifest that they can’t talk to Ward Churchill.

Well maybe they could talk to the German communists of 1945. Let’s see, how would that go? “Gee comrades, sorry your white nation didn’t get the exemption clause we got over here in white amerikkka. Now you got yourselves a bunch of outed Little Eichmanns to deal with. Well good luck with that.”

Or maybe it’d go like, “Don’t worry, comrades, they can’t really be Little Eichmanns – they’re white, just like us. Must just be a vicious rumor, it’ll blow over.”

No, probably not much conversation to be had there.

Well then, how about John Brown? “Hey, just hold on a minute, now, John Boy, don’t you see all them white “worker” allies yonder coming over the hill rushing to join up with you? What’s your hurry, boy? They’ll be here directly.” But more likely it’d be, “Damn, John Boy. Just when the Blacks and whites were about to really get together with each other, you have to go and spoil the whole thing by splittin’ ‘em up. Cryin’ shame, that’s what it is.”

Yeah, just like with the German communists of 1945, John Brown wouldn’t be able to make out a word of the language of all-amerikkkan white nationalist so-called “leftism.” Just wouldn’t make a bit of sense to him, that’s all.

And all they’d have to do, to get into the conversation, these clowns, is just say what the better 19th century white nationalist liberals could say: white amerikkka is a guilty land. Even “I am ashamed of my country” would do. But they can’t. Too much near the precipice of the truth’s slippery slope.

So you can see how William Lloyd Garrison has it all over the all-amerikan white nationalist so-called “left” when it comes to brute political development. It’s not much of a contest, is it?

But let’s be fair. Remember back when we talked about how it’s when fundamental contradictions get exacerbated that you get liberals like Garrison who are forced to tell the truth to save their own asses? We should have specified “exacerbated for the oppressors,” since the contradictions weighing on the oppressed are always exacerbated. The contradiction between the Black nation and the oppressor white nation was pretty much exacerbated in Garrison’s time. And so the credit for Garrison’s truth-telling really goes to the heroes of the Black Nation, who died exacerbating the contradiction for the oppressors enough to scare all white amerikkka rather shitless.

No contradictions are that exacerbated today for the oppressors, and white amerika has stayed cozy safe and full of shit for a while now. In that state there are still liberals, of course. But the necessity for belting out bare truth isn’t as pressing. So liberals are different – quieter, and not quite as direct. If William Lloyd Garrison could be with us today, he’d probably be one of those. Maybe he’d be running the Global Rich List, which is “trying to make people aware of the big injustices in the world.” The Global Rich List is a charity organization which is trying to resolve the primary contradiction in the world, between the oppressors of the first world and the oppressed Third World, through donations.

Of course we think Maoism has demonstrated a better track record at this sort of thing. But still, look at how refreshing it is to have even the truth-value of that somewhat indeterminate statement, “the big injustices in the world.” If you’re a first worlder, and you probably are, go plug in some numbers at the Global Rich List – yours, your friends’, anybody you can think of – and we guarantee you’ll get more truth about the world’s primary contradiction than attending 10,000 all-amerikan white nationalist so-called “leftist” rallies. At any rate, that’s what the better liberals look like today, and they too have it all over the white “leftists” for political advancement.

Which means, then, that these “leftists’ aren’t even decent liberals. It could be that when the primary contradiction gets more exacerbated they’ll get turned into decent liberals. You know, like when the Third World gets to breathing down white amerika’s collective white neck. Maybe a few of these white nationalist “leftist” will get turned into William Lloyd Garrisons.

But the odds are against it. Remember, there weren’t all that many William Lloyd Garrisons in his time. Don’t forget half the white nation was ready to die – to have their husbands and wives, children and grandchildren and every bit of their extended cracker families just plain fucking die – rather than give up owning the Black nation as slaves. And that would have been fine for most of the rest of the white nation, if they could have slept without an eye open.

So, yeah, chances are even when push comes to shove internationally, these white nationalist “leftists”, will be, like their brethren, just more of what they are now, and that’s white nationalists, period.

And now, these clowns. 

Pictured here undisguised and au naturel, these are individuals and organizations who call themselves “Marxist” of some sort – “socialists,” “communists,” “Marxist-Leninists,” or even “Maoists” – while frantically waving the good ol’ red white and blue banner of parasite amerikkka. 

But even in the full camouflage of their self-designated “Marxist” regalia these jokers are easy to spot. Just ask them, for instance, about Ward Churchill.

You’ll get (a) silence, (b) grudging support for “free speech” but silence on the substance of Ward Churchill’s remarks on amerikan Little Eichmanns, (c) wild and vociferous support for “free speech” but silence on Little Eichmanns, or (d) some of (b) or (c) tacked on to an all out denunciation of the substance of Ward Churchill’s words. 

To simplify, here’s what you won’t get: (e) Ward Churchill is right about the amerikan Little Eichmanns he fingered, and upholding this correctness is the obvious primary political task of revolutionaries in the Ward Churchill struggle. 

It’s a litmus test of foolproof design and construction. Query an alleged “Marxist” of any of the variants above about Ward Churchill, and if you don’t get (e) straightaway, then for sure you’ve got yourself an all-amerikkkan white nationalist so-called “leftist.” 

The test derives its infallibility from the fundamentally white nationalist politics of these “leftists” that confer upon the white nation an exceptionalism the sweeping dimensions of which are all but unimaginable to mere mortals. Amerikans, for these “leftists,” are just simply and comprehensively exempt from any charge of Little Eichmannism, period, end of discussion. By the laws of physics or those of logic, and most probably both, Amerikans simply cannot be guilty of any of the crimes committed by their white nation – just can’t happen, dude, so do not even go there. 

We’ll clarify how we’re interested in the concept of “guilt.” We have no interest in metaphysical concepts determining who gets to sit at the right hand of god or who winds up damned for all fucking eternity. Our interest is in “guilt” as a shorthand class analysis: those who are “guilty” of crimes against the world’s truly oppressed and exploited are just those who are much more likely than not to line up as enemies of the oppressed and exploited. Again, Maoists are in large part about the business of determining friends and enemies of the oppressed, and the concept of “guilt” can often be helpful as a broad indicator in this enterprise. 

For the white nationalist “leftists”, the corollary to the immunity of Amerikans from Little Eichmann guilt is of course that Amerikans are and have always been the indisputable friends, allies, and all round good buddies of the most oppressed and exploited. That’s cause, it goes without saying, Amerikans are and have always been exploited and oppressed themselves. Amerikans are the oppressed and exploited, don’t you know. If Amerikans are “guilty” of anything at all, it’s that they have “false consciousness” and don’t realize just how very, very oppressed and exploited they really are. But even that isn’t really their doing – it’s the “brainwashing” they get from “the imperialists.” So, see, guiltless again. 

Well, that’s their class analysis and are they sticking to it! Talk about your Homeland Security and your Star Wars Defense Shield …  Amerikans are nothing if not safe under the impenetrable ideological protection of these “leftists.” Bring up 400 years of amerikans siding with their reactionary leadership in oppressing and exploiting entire nations – doesn’t matter. Genocide of the First Nations? Doesn’t matter. Slavery? Nope. The fact that the whole empire was built on stolen land by an enslaved Black nation? Oh, they’ll say, white Amerikans didn’t benefit – some of them didn’t get as much of the plunder as others – and where’s the fairness in that? Well name one instance in 400 years when Amerikans, in anything approaching a majority, stood on the side of one of the multitude of oppressed nations that the whites have attacked and plundered. They can’t, but it doesn’t matter – there was still a “ruling class” that didn’t hand out the loot fairly. 

Or you can try economics. What about the fact that almost all Amerikans are in the world’s richest 15% – where did that come from? Hard work and thriftiness, don’t you know. It doesn’t mean they’ve profited from the ruthless Amerikan empire building they’ve consistently supported? Nope, they’re still exploited – they’re not trillionaires yet, are they? Well what about the fact that most Amerikans are in the world’s richest 10% while nearly half the earth’s population lives at subsistence levels or less? Doesn’t this make you even a tiny bit suspicious that Amerikans might be guilty of sharing in the plunder of the oppressed nations? Why on earth would it? 

You can even lead them through a whole exercise in economic comparison. Like this. Take “poverty.” The white nationalist so-called “left” likes to think amerikans are “exploited” rather than guilty exploiters, so they like to talk about how much “poverty” there is in amerika. Let’s talk specifics then. In 2006 the U$ government designated the “poverty level” for a family of three as $15,769. By this definition there are something less than 40,000,000 people “in poverty” in the u$. That’s the total number of individuals “in poverty” in the u$ – wage earners, unemployed, adults, children, etc. (Note that these stats will inflate the number of “impoverished” individuals because they don’t reflect just the “poverty” of the white nation of amerika but lump in the captive oppressed nations as well. We can live with that overestimation for our purposes here.) 

Ok, take that $15,769 for a family of three. Let’s figure a rough average of the “poverty” population by taking the midpoint of that ”poverty” income – $7884 (half of $15,769). Now we need individual incomes for this exercise, so we’ll divide that estimated average by 3 (the number of family members) – that’s $2868. So roughly estimated, the average individual “in poverty” in the u$ has a yearly income of about $2868. 

Before proceeding, some may have already noticed something odd. The World Bank, which keeps stats on world poverty, sets the definition of poverty at $2 a day, or $730 a year. Almost half the world lives at that level. That’s subsistence level. Nothing to lose, you might say, but their chains. So right off the bat we’re defining “poverty” for amerikans by a different standard. Just more Amerikan exceptionalism. Amerikans can still be “in poverty” while receiving almost four times the income of the great mass of the world’s truly exploited. But that’s only the beginning. 

Take our $2868 for an average ”impoverished” individual in the u$. Now go to the Global Rich List. That’s why we needed individual incomes here, because the Global Rich List tells you in a flash how an individual income stacks up against incomes in the rest of the world. So plug in $2868. That 14.93 that you get tells you that an individual with that income is richer than 85% of the world – that individual is in the world’s richest 15%. That’s the average “impoverished” individual in the u$. 

That individual’s income is roughly midpoint for the 40,000,000 “in poverty” in the u$. Half of those 40,000,000, or 20,000,000, have a higher yearly income. The other 20,000,000 have a lower income and may not be in that world’s richest 15%. But out of a u$ population of 301,139,947, at least 281,139,947, or 93%, are. Including, as we’ve just seen, at least half of those that the white nationalist “left” likes to prate about as being “in poverty.” And the other half of the u$ “impoverished”? Well we won’t take you through the calculations here, but it will turn out that many of them are still in the world’s richest 15%, and every single one is in the world’s richest 20%.

And we can refine this much further. Like, most of those 93% of amerikans in the world’s richest 15% are actually in the world’s richest 10%. Like, even amerikans with a nominal income of $0 can still get more than $2 a day somehow – free food, free housing, etc. – and even these individuals are better off than many Third World workers. Like, the $7884 midpoint used in this example is extremely generous to the white nationalists. Many more families will be closer to the $15,769 income than to $0. And as these variables are refined the proportion of amerikans in the world’s richest 15%, including those “in poverty”, will inch precipitiously close to 100%.  But we’ll just stick with the broader brush for now.

So, anyhow, here’s the white nationalists’ prime and shining proof that amerikkkans are victims of amerikan imperialism rather than its blood-guilty benefactors. That small minority of the white nation that this “left” claims as living in “poverty.” And look, we can easily and clearly demonstrate to them that this showcase population is actually mostly a part of the world’s richest 15%. And so we ask, again, does such an example even raise a reasonable suspicion that amerikans might be on the imperial bankroll, is it enough to even warrant some further investigation into whether amerikkkans might have benefited all along from national oppression, might be sucking off the Third World even as we speak, and might have some material basis such as material gain for their 400 years of reactionary behavior? 

The all amerikkkan white nationalist so called “leftists” wouldn’t so much as bat an eye.

Now our goal here is still to weigh the level of political advancement of these individuals and organizations along side that that of another white nationalist, William Lloyd Garrison. That comparison will now have to wait for Part Five, but that’s ok since we’ve spent this time wisely in sizing up these quack “leftists” in the detail required for a comparison of substance and consequence.

Sources:

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/threshld/thresh06.html

http://web.worldbank.org/

Here’s what we’ve got so far. From two disparate sources, a concurrence of mid nineteenth century class analysis. Each concludes that an entire nation of whites is enemy to an enslaved Black population. From the side of the oppressed, John Brown needs as accurate an estimate as possible of potential allies – there are almost none. From the side of the oppressor nation, William Lloyd Garrison needs an equally high level of accuracy to assess the dangers to white amerika and provide proper warning. He finds the danger pervasive: all amerikans are at risk because they have all conspired in the oppression of Blacks. We then observed that at times useful class analysis can be just this simple. Sometimes, we said, such useful class analysis can just be the most important honest thing to naturally say about a political situation.

Take Germany in defeat, 1945. That was such a time. It was all pretty simple. The German people had fought for the Reich’s bloody imperialism till the bitter end. Why?

“Precisely because so many Germans did in fact benefit from Nazi Germany’s campaigns of plunder … The Nazi leadership did not transform the majority of Germans into ideological fanatics who were convinced they were part of the master race. Instead it succeeded in making them well-fed parasites.”(1)

That’s Gotz Aly, in Hitler’s Beneficiaries, which details how Germans devoured with the “euphoria of a gold rush” the Nazis’ disbursement of the plunder derived from their genocidal campaigns. The priming force for the ease with which Germans by the millions embraced well-fed imperialist parasitism had of course been German colonization of Africa. That imperial venture thwarted, the great majority of the German people hardly missed a beat in supporting the turn of attention to a KKKolumbus style conquest of Europe and the Soviet Union for the same spoils of war and oppression. Like fish to water. Like parasites to hosts.

In terms of class analysis, what was the most important honest thing to say about this political situation? The German communists thought it was quite simple:

“Not only is Hitler guilty of the crimes that have befallen humanity! Ten million Germans also bear part of the guilt, those who in 1932 in free elections voted for Hitler … Part of the guilt is also borne by those German men and women who, spineless and without resistance, watched Hitler grab power … Guilty are all those Germans who saw in the armaments build up a “Greater Germany” and perceived in bestial militarism, in marches and exercises, the sole sanctifying redemption of the nation.”(2)

Taken together this assessment pretty much covers most all Germans. The German communists thought that far and away the most important thing to say at the time was that great wide swaths of the German population had chosen bloody imperialist conquest and subjugation with all the reactionary resolution of the German imperialists themselves. And bore consequent responsibility for that choice. That’s a class analysis. Of the German populace as constituting a parasitic oppressor nation. Of Little Eichmannism on a national scale.

Now, unlike the 1945 German communists, Ward Churchill doesn’t have the reinforcement of the victorious Soviet Red Army ensuring his right to freely speak the most important honest things to naturally say about amerikkka and amerikkkans. That’s regrettable. He identifies just a paltry few Little Eichmanns by name and boom, after recovering from a collective fainting spell, amerika erupts in witch-hunting, railroading, and full blown kangaroo kourting.

Ward Churchill, in naming names in amerika, speaks for the oppressed against the oppressors and their functionaries. Others who in the past spoke for the oppressed, could they be with us now, would say point blank Ward Churchill is right. The communists of Germany, 1945, would say yes, we’ve seen this Little Eichmann movie before, and Ward Churchill is right. And is there any doubt where John Brown would stand? He stood against the Little Eichmanns of slavery and would certainly stand against the Little Eichmanns of imperialism. Old John Brown the revolutionary, could he be here, would bear witness to the now global “crimes of this guilty land” and declare Ward Churchill to be absolutely right.

We could use those voices now, as we have only a few pockets of full support for Ward Churchill. The J. Sakai influcenced anarchists, some national liberation movements, the real Maoists, and a few others. Otherwise it’s all of white amerika assembled phalanx fashion against truthfully calling things by their proper names. That reactionary formation includes, of course, the all-amerikkkan white nationalist so-called “left.”

We realize that that last term is a mouthful and is in need of explaining. A full and proper explanation will require extending this article to a Part Four. At that time we’ll also bring back William Lloyd Garrison, the white nationalist liberal. And he’ll shine like nobody’s business in comparison with the current clowns of the amerikan “left.”

1. Gotz Aly, Hitler’s Beneficiaries (New York: Henry Holt, 2007), pp.2, 324.

2. Eric D. Weitz, Creating German Communism, 1890-1990 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), p.319.

Yes, the long anticipated DVD formatted “Borders” video, “a film about national oppression and the bogus ‘borders’ of a freak white empire.”

Jam packed with your favorite artists giving the performances of their lives for anti-amerikkkanism. Bing Crosby. The Ramones. And Busby Berkeley? You bet. All backed by anti-imperialism’s own glorious wall of sound, that fine, fine hate-amerikkka beat.

Search mininova for the title: Amerikan Borders

This article was supposed to conclude in Part Two. It won’t. Maybe in Part Three. It’s just how things turn out sometimes.

Anyway, here’s William Lloyd Garrison replying to some fan mail in 1855. The note reads: Wishing you a happy new year and that this may prove the long-desired jubilee to all the enslaved in our guilty land.

Our interest is in the meaning of the last three words, “our guilty land.” Garrison’s intended referent for “our guilty land” had been clear at least since an 1829 speech on slavery. “Before God, I must say that such a glaring contradiction as exists between our creed and practice the annals of 6,000 years cannot parallel. In view of it, I am ashamed of my country.”

There’s no doubt or ambiguity here. By the phrases “our guilty land” and “my country” Garrison is without question referring to the nation of white amerika. These are political phrases. They indicate a political entity, a nation, that whites together constituted. And these political phrases are themselves integral to the political statement that Garrison is making in these two fragments. The political statement concerns the behavior of that political entity, that nation, which he has precisely referenced. In full, the political statement asserts that these whites, as a nation, have oppressed, in fact have enslaved, a people – we would of course say an entire nation.

Garrison’s statements identifying white amerika as an oppressor nation and Blacks as the subject of this oppression are by definition a class analysis. What we want (well, what Maoists want) in a class analysis is some good idea of who are the truly exploited and oppressed, who are their friends, and who are their enemies. Garrison provides all this very sufficiently. In this situation the Black Nation constitutes the most oppressed. They have virtually no genuine allies close by. And their enemy is – the white nation, as a whole, in toto, and without significant quantitative exception.

This class analysis was exceptionally honest in its accuracy. It reflects the kind of honesty you can sometimes get from the better oppressor-nation liberals like William Lloyd Garrison when their feet are to the fire, i.e., when the threat from the oppressed is sufficiently clear and present. And that was certainly the case at the time. Garrison rightly perceived each reported slave revolt as potentially “the first step of the earthquake” that could rock white amerika right off its oppressor foundations.

The candor of Garrison’s class analysis is a job well done in the service of saving his oppressor nation from this Black cataclysm. As a good white nationalist his very first responsibility was the duty to warn, to ring the alarm bell loud and clear for the white nation. “Loud and clear” meant a categorically honest assessment of the risk at hand. No shuck. No jive. It absolutely would not do for the whites to have any misconceptions and make even one little misstep based on an overly optimistic appraisal of the situation. It was no time for foolishness.

So you heard Garrison getting very, very real with his white audience. “My country,” the white nation, is “guilty.” Read: “Remember the horror story about ‘Three savage negroes rushed into my house and killed my wife and my child before my face  …’? Well that’s what’s in store for each and every one of you because each and every one of you is complicit in the oppression to which such resistance will be a response.” It was a warning of such honest accuracy as to do white supremacist liberalism proud.

Now, as it turned out, John Brown couldn’t have agreed more with William Lloyd Garrison’s class analysis. “The crimes of this guilty land,” said John Brown’s own class analysis in similar wording, “will not be purged away but with blood.”

The difference, of course, was that John Brown arrived at that assessment from the point of view of the oppressed rather than, like Garrison, that of the oppressor. Comrade Mao would say that Comrade Brown correctly identified the primary contradiction at the time: the enslavement of the Black nation by the white nation. John Brown was greatly moved by all of the oppressions and exploitations he saw around him. But it was clear as day to him that the enslavement of the Black nation was absolutely the main thing going on from Kalifornia to the New Yorkkk islands, the main thing that needed fixing because it was the location of the greatest exploitation and oppression. So he agreed that Blacks were the most oppressed. And he agreed that Blacks had few true allies. John Brown had spent his whole adult life looking for real allies of the Black Nation among the whites. He had come up with the Harper’s Ferry handful. Consequently he was in fast agreement with Garrison that the white nation was just plain enemy.

And it turns out as well that Maoists too are in full agreement with the class analysis that Garrison advanced. Like Comrade John Brown, we see the circumstances from the ideological perspective of the oppressed rather than that of the oppressors. But also like John Brown we arrive at the same assessment of the balance of forces as did Garrison. See, sometimes serviceable class analysis doesn’t have to approach the mathematical complexity of an equation from quantum mechanics. Sometimes it can just be the most important honest thing to naturally say about a political situation.

Which brings us of course to Ward Churchill. Well not quite. First we have to talk about how the German communists dealt with their own nation of certified Little Eichmanns after the war. And then Ward Churchill. And then the oppressor nation white nationalist so-called “left.” All in good time. And maybe all in Part Three.