Sorry: "....but NOT all of its membership." -----Original Message----- From: Richard [mailto:rsierra7@xxxxxxxxx] Sent: Sunday, April 30, 2006 11:29 AM To: NP Subject: FW: [change-links] The American flag and its significance right now NOI keeps moving leftward but all of it's membership. /R -----Original Message----- From: change-links@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:change-links@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Walter Lippmann Sent: Sunday, April 30, 2006 10:46 AM To: CubaNews Subject: [change-links] The American flag and its significance right now The U.S. flag means different things to different people and its meaning varies widely. In Boston during the school desegregation struggle, some racist thugs used a U.S. flag at the end of a big flag pole to assault a Black protester. The image couldn't have been more perfect and the Socialist Workers Party took it and made the image part of its presidential election campaign in a poster. It was just great. Today, as millions of immigrants fight for the right to live and work in the United States, their carrying of the U.S. flag is a mark of astute political judgement. They want the right to be able to live and work here free of harassment and fear of raids by immigration, and with the right to join unions and to partake of all those rights which still remain for citizens of these United States. These are important rights and shouldn't be sneered at, especially by people who call themselves Marxists! Instead of allowing the U.S. flag to divide and isolate them, the immigrants are using it to win the hearts and minds of the public in the United States. Here's a graphic example: http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs594.html Last night the local TV coverage here in Los Angeles featured a series of small segments on the preparations for Monday's massive mobilization. Among the speakers was Minister Tony Muhammad of the Nation of Islam. He spoke perfectly in explaing the need to oppose the divide and conquer tactics of the people who run this country. The Nation of Islam has played a very powerful and role helping to oppose those anti-immigrant forces withing the Black community who ape the racism this society uses against them by opposing the fight by immigrants for full rights to live and work here. Here's one of many examples we could cite from the paper of the Nation of Islam: http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/article_2564.shtml The task which the immigrants rights movement has set for itself includes educating and winning over the great majority of people in the United States, and driving a conceptual wedge between the great majority, and the tiny racist capitalist stupidist minority who want to use divide and conquer tactics to prevent this great majority from focusing on its own interests. This is the point George Breitman was hinting at in his magnificent lectur back in 1962 HOW A MINORITY CAN CHANGE SOCIETY. If you haven't read it in a long time, I cannot recommend it more highly as it's completely timely for the situation in the United States today. Just substitute the phrase "immigrant workers" for "Negro people" in the following paragraph and you'll begin to get the idea which one of my greatest teachers, George Breitman, tried to get us to understand about the powerful implications of Black nationalism and the Black struggle over forty years ago when he gave a great talk on this topic. One paragraph: "A minority can, merely by carrying through its fight for democratic rights without compromise, help to educate and radicalize the American people, especially the youth in whose hands the future lies. In fact, it is already doing so. You in this audience of young socialists and young radicals know better than anyone else how profoundly your thinking about the whole world has been influenced by the Negro struggle; how their fight for equality enabled you to see through the official myths about "democracy" and "the free world," to understand the brute reality of the capitalist power structure, to reach new conclusions about capitalism and socialism. Not only the Cuban revolution, not only the danger of atomic war, but something much closer to home, the Negro revolt, has helped to educate or re-educate you, to shed the blinders of liberalism, and to persuade you to dedicate your lives to the fight for a better world. In this respect you are not so much unique as early, because the deepening struggle of the Negro minority will have similarly healthy effects on other young people and on some of the not completely hopeless older people as well." http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/breitman/1964/xx/minority.htm Finally, if one picture says a thousand words, here are 2000 worth: http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs594.html After that, if you'd like a few more words, try these: A bullet from the back of a bush took Medgar Evers' blood. A finger fired the trigger to his name. A handle hid out in the dark A hand set the spark Two eyes took the aim Behind a man's brain But he can't be blamed He's only a pawn in their game. A South politician preaches to the poor white man, "You got more than the blacks, don't complain. You're better than them, you been born with white skin," they explain. And the Negro's name Is used it is plain For the politician's gain As he rises to fame And the poor white remains On the caboose of the train But it ain't him to blame He's only a pawn in their game. The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid, And the marshals and cops get the same, But the poor white man's used in the hands of them all like a tool. He's taught in his school >From the start by the rule That the laws are with him To protect his white skin To keep up his hate So he never thinks straight 'Bout the shape that he's in But it ain't him to blame He's only a pawn in their game. >From the poverty shacks, he looks from the cracks to the tracks, And the hoof beats pound in his brain. And he's taught how to walk in a pack Shoot in the back With his fist in a clinch To hang and to lynch To hide 'neath the hood To kill with no pain Like a dog on a chain He ain't got no name But it ain't him to blame He's only a pawn in their game. Today, Medgar Evers was buried from the bullet he caught. They lowered him down as a king. But when the shadowy sun sets on the one That fired the gun He'll see by his grave On the stone that remains Carved next to his name His epitaph plain: Only a pawn in their game. http://bobdylan.com/songs/pawn.html Walter Lippmann, CubaNews http://www.walterlippmann.com http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews Change Links Progressive Newspaper. Act. Act in Love and Spirit. New Pacifica Working Group http://www.egroups.com/group/NewPacifica 'Save Our Stations!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NewPacifica/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: NewPacifica-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/