White Workers Resisting Capitalism and White Supremacy
An Interview with RedNeck Revolt
Devon Douglas-Bowers
Redneck Revolt came out of the original work of the John Brown Gun Club, a working group of the Kansas Mutual Aid Collective based out of Lawrence, Kansas
from 2002-2008. The John Brown Gun Club focused on attempting to simultaneously grow a militant and armed culture within already existing liberatory and
revolutionary movements, and attempting to stem the tide of right wing reactionary recruitment within white working class communities. Our work had two
main focuses then: providing armed community and tactical defense trainings to build the capacity of our movements and demystify the firearm, and to be
present at social and economic gatherings of white working people where groups like the Klan, Minutemen, and white reactionary militias recruited. Over the
course of several years, we trained hundreds of members of social movement organizations from across the country, as well as attended dozens of gun shows
and similar events to head off racist recruitment. When Kansas Mutual Aid ended its work in 2008, the John Brown Gun Club went with it. In early 2009, Redneck Revolt was founded in Colorado, and enjoyed a
limited life within local gun shows as well as being present at Tea Party rallies in the Denver area. Redneck Revolt started to focus less on armed defense
within already existing social movement organizations, and to refocus on the other goal of the John Brown Gun Club: to engage in anti-racist movement
building within the white working class. Redneck Revolt went on hiatus in late 2009. A decision was made to dust off the concept and the project in June of 2016, as the rise of street level
fascism and reactionary ideology has swept across the United States in response to the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump. Several of us felt that it
was far past time for this project...
The Science of Corrosive Inequality
Nicholas Partyka
As the Presidential campaign season begins to get into full-swing, inequality will become a prominent topic, and misleading conventional narratives will
abound. Both the presumptive nominees of the two major political parties have addressed this topic at length already, and will certainly have much more to
say as the general election phase kicks-off. Inequality is a prominent topic because we are still dealing with the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis
that spawned the Occupy Wall-Street movement, which did much to put the issue of economic and political inequality back on the table for discussion. This
is why the topic came up in the 2012 Presidential election cycle, and why during this election cycle one candidate in the Democratic Party's primary was
able to attract a very large following by focusing predominantly on this issue. The success of both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump shows that the issue of
inequality, and its various social, political, and economic effects, still resonates deeply with large portions of the electorate on both sides of the
mainstream partisan divide. This is the case, principally, because a great many non-elite Americans are still living with the economic consequences of the
financial crisis and the ensuing Great Recession.
Inequality, political and economic, not only helped to inflate the bubble whose bursting caused the crash, but it also determined in large measure who
benefited from the bailouts and the "recovery". Rising inequality from the 1970s on helped funnel more and more wealth to the top of the income scale.
These people spend their money very differently from others. When this group has surplus income, they are very likely to purchase financial instruments. As
more and more wealth was channeled into their hands by the economic and political policies..
To Live Among Broken Men
Theorizing Rape and Incest
Danny Shaw
On April 9th, Ronald Savage rocked the hip hop world with his testimony about the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of Zulu Nation founder, Africa
Bambaataa. Initially, the Zulu Nation dismissed the allegations "as nothing more than a continuation of the decades long HIP HOP COINTELPRO campaign to
discredit and destroy the Universal Zulu Nation." However, as more survivors of Bambaataa's abuse emerged, the momentum shifted. It was clear that
Bambaataa had abused children, other leaders had covered up for him and that a thorough investigation and process of healing was necessary.
While many people are understandably shocked that sexual abuse could penetrate the inner-most circles of pioneering Zulu Nation, this is also an
opportunity for our communities to reflect on just how commonplace sexual abuse, incest, pedophilia and rape is.
The May 21st gang-rape of a 16-year-old girl in Brazil by 33 men and Brock Turner's rape of a 23-year old woman behind a dumpster at Stanford
University are the latest high-profile examples of the everyday terror exercised against women.
Ronald Savage's story, my family's story, my story and so many other stories of survival highlight the need for a Marxist historical interpretation of
sexual violence & incest. Marxism-the painstaking, socio-economic investigative method-does away with the vacuous theory that sick, depraved abusers
are merely an aberration of the human spirit. The wide prevalence of sexual violence speaks volumes about the criminal, decadent nature of capitalism.
There is a specific system that engenders the widespread...
Fuelling the Mob
Differences Between the London Riots and Ferguson
Kelly Beestone
For many in the United Kingdom, watching the news of the riots unfolding in Ferguson, Missouri in August 2014, brought to mind images of the aftermath of
Mark Duggan's death in London in 2011. In both cases, police officers responsible for the death of an unarmed black man were investigated and found guilty
of no wrongdoing. In both cases too, the aftermath entailed widespread destruction of property, violence and a deepened distrust of police.
Beneath the surface, however, there are significant differences between the rioting in England and the Ferguson unrest. Most significantly, the English
working-class has maintained a greater ability to collectively confront police injustice due, at least in part, to the history of class-based political
organization in England. This is in stark contrast to the American context where elites have attempted (with a great deal of success) to divide its
working-class through racism.
On August 4th 2011, police gunned down Mark Duggan, a twenty-nine year-old resident of Tottenham, London. Newspapers reported that police had
killed Duggan in self-defence after they discovered he was carrying a gun. The Independent Police Complaints Commission [IPCC] revealed that Duggan was
under investigation by Operation Trident and that two shots were fired by a policeman, known only as V53, which resulted in his death. Ultimately, a lack
of forensic evidence proving that Duggan had ever been holding a gun at all caused several newspapers, including The Guardian, to issue an apology for
misinforming the public...
