Millions Without Power Following Election

http://www.theonion.com/articles/millions-without-power-following-election,30247/

WASHINGTON—According to widespread reports, roughly 314 million Americans across the country have been left without any power following Tuesday’s devastating presidential election.

As many struggle to cope amidst the continued outage, experts have predicted that due to the severity of the presidential contest, which cut a wide swath of carnage throughout the entire United States, it’s very possible that power won’t be fully restored to the general public for at least another four years, if ever.

“By our estimates, power is out in roughly 150 million homes throughout the country, and many residents—especially the poor, the middle class, and ethnic minorities—will have no power for a long, long time,” said Cornell University political scientist Dr. Paul Kucharski, adding that the power infrastructure, which was originally put in place in 1789, has become increasingly problematic and unreliable over the past 200 years.

“Given that we have an outdated system that is so prone to failure, an outage of this magnitude was inevitable.”

“At this point,” he continued, “with the number of citizens whose lives have been completely devastated by this election, I think it’s fairly clear that the whole system needs a complete overhaul.”

[…]

Gatsheni and the bleeding lessons from Marikana

by Dinizulu Mbikokayise Macaphulana

http://www.newzimbabwe.com/opinion-9543-The+bleeding+lessons+from+Marikana/opinion.aspx

A PART of the good reason why Slavoj Zizek has been titled “the most dangerous philosopher in the West,” is his courage and obscene honesty.

Speaking and writing from the West, in his light and entertaining manner, the Slovanian failed actor and successful philosopher has pronounced that, in spite of the anger, the denialism, the depression and occasional acceptance, Eurocentric capitalism is tittering towards a cataclysmic collapse.

Drowning in the global financial and social crisis, the self-confessed political prefects of the world and patrons of Western modernity have no clue as to the way forward, hence the new scramble for Africa disguised in the grammar of human rights, democracy, peace and other gifts from the Greeks that have seen Africa being the new focus of attention as dramatised in Libya and the murder of Muammar Gaddaffi recently.

It takes a good sense of danger and that of humour to tell bad news to the owners of power. There is a price for telling bad news, however true. From Zizek to Julius Malema and from Frantz Fanon to Patrrice Lummumba, the penalty is either a label of idiocy, an accusation of insanity or a clear dismissal as a noise maker of no categorical consequence, if not death.

Yet, what has kept Zizek above the wave and off the sink, to the point of being an intellectual celebrity, is the undeniable truths he tells about a society that he belongs to, and which he still intelligently defends.

Undeniable and ordinarily pricey truths is what impressed the crowd, most of whom travelled far to listen to Professor Sabelo Gatsheni Ndlovu's “Decolonising Development Studies” lecture that he gave on October 16, in acceptance of his full professorship at the University of South Africa and which coincided with his assumption of the leadership of the Archie Mafeje Institute of Research.

Used to the usual inaugural lecture, most of us expected a romantic narrative of how the toddler Professor Gatsheni hunted squirrels in the woods and chased rabbits in bare foot before he thought about school, or some other intellectual rags to riches rendition involving favourite primary school teachers, witches and wizards, blessings and curses or such other usualities that accompany the rituals of inaugural lectures as we have become used to them.

Away from the usual mundanities, Gatsheni delivered an hour of what Professor Peter Stuart, the discussant and the head of the school of Development Studies said “has left development studies and development theory in tatters.” And what fundamentally did Gatsheni say or do that left an entire academic discipline like Development Studies and a total province of thought like development theory “in tatters”?  The answer is the subject of this short article.

What has been called “the African condition” by African scholars like Ali Mazrui, and the “African curse” by others in the Afropessimist school or the “African predicament,” by some historians is the troubling paradox where Africa is rich in natural resources and industrial raw materials, richer than most continents, but the people of Africa constitute the definition and name of poverty, disease and misfortune under the sun.

Not only that but as Eric Williams says, “every brick that built Western civilisation is cemented with Negro blood” and sweat. In slavery, mercantilism, colonialism and neo-colonialism Africa built the West, the West that Zizek has warned of collapse. And the West that is the hegemonic power in the globe as we experience it now.

Contributing to a growing family of ideas generated by combative African intellectuals in the shape of the late Arhibald Mafeje, the departed Dani Wadada Nabudere and the insightful Paul Tiyambe Zeleza and Adebayo Olukoshi to name but a few, Gatsheni asked and answered such questions as to why “Western modernity  has created” for the world “modern problems for which it has no modern solutions,” and why the West has promised to Africa and the rest of the global South, civilisation, development, economic prosperity, peace, human rights and heaven, but in place of all these grand “sugar-candy” promises it has delivered illusions and no realities.

In raising the question of illusions that currently occupy the space of realities within the African political and economic condition, Gatsheni tore into the curtain that continues to hide the true challenge that confronts Africa but has eluded scholars including the grand fathers of African liberation like Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere. The African experience continues to be the experience of coloniality in its racial, ethnic, gender and social manifestations.

Nkrumah’s “seek yeh first the political kingdom and all other things will be added unto you” dictum was one of the most poetic mistakes of the African decolonisation project that sold to Africans one of the most stubborn illusions to date. Africans sought the political kingdom, they earned the right to vote, replaced white leaders with black ones, designed beautiful flags and sang new melodious national anthems but for money or for love, nothing has been added unto them.

The 44 dead bodies of poor black miners in Marikana, gunned down by a squad of equally black and equally poor police officers on the orders of those who control platinum in South Africa, using their black mouthpieces in the government, should jolt all serious Africans to hard thinking about the continuing reality of apartheid that is disguised behind the illusions of “a rainbow nation” and a “South Africa that belongs to all who live in it.”

The political theatre in Zimbabwe is even more illusory than the one in South Africa. Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF are bearing the brunt of the stick from the West in form of sanctions and threats of prosecution for crimes against humanity. On the other hand, Morgan Tsvangirai and MDC-T are eating the carrot of rich sponsorship and funding to fight the tyranny of Mugabe and Zanu PF. Through their stick and their carrot, the Euro-American alliance are still the owners of the game in Zimbabwe, except for many slogans and wishes to the contrary by a ruling party and an opposition political party that are entangled and imbricated in a web of Western puppetry and coloniality.

In their fight, Zanu PF and MDC-T have provoked such a dust and arrested so much media attention and kept SADC and AU without sleep. There is nothing to be gained by ordinary bread eaters in Zimbabwe. As this happens, the knowledge is in the public domain that the Chinese are harvesting the bounty of diamonds in Zimbabwe and in the global diamond black market America and her allies still buy Zimbabwean diamonds in prices far cheaper than they would be in the formal market, never mind that “Zimbabwe will never be a colony again!”

In addressing his lecture to the presence of illusions instead of realities of independence and development in Africa and the entire global South, Gatsheni was inviting serious thinking about such paradoxes that are symptomatic of the African condition like the Marikana massacre and the illusory political and economic stalemate in Zimbabwe.

So much African intelligence and energy is expended in pursuit of illusions while realities lie unattended to. Using decolonial thought as his spectacles with which to scrutinise the world, Gatsheni was deploying a combative liberatory school of thought  whose geneology is traceable to world systems philosopher Immanuel Wallerstein and Latin American liberation philosopher Anibal Quijano and their students, among them activist scholars Ramon Grosfoguel and Nelson Maldonado-Torres.

Decolonial thought as a way of looking at the world and life, is a school of thought that refuses to swallow impressions and illusions but is only satisfied with the smell behind the perfume. Together with the African Decolonial Research Network (ADERN), a group of young scholars in development studies, political science and political communication, Gatsheni is geared to contribute to a wealth of insights on where African liberation movements went wrong in the decolonisation of Africa and how Africa can be recovered from coloniality and navigated back to realities of economic and political independence.

His forthcoming book, 'Empire, Global Coloniality and African Subjectivity'will be a must read. The path of Gatsheni and ADERN, like the paths of other Afrocentric scholars before him is going to be a thorny one. There is no consesus in African scholarship on where Africa should go. The fierce debates over issues concerning the African destiny that clashed Ali Mazrui with Archie Mafeje, Wole Soyinka and Ali Mazrui have not gone away.

There are still some professors in the African academia who are megaphones of Western stereotypes of Africa who regard combative Afrocentric scholarship as a pursuit of “the power of the false” as Achille Mbembe has offensively argued. The ground is fertile for fierce intellectual tussles, but away from university seminar rooms and comfortable hotels, the painful lessons about the true African condition of coloniality and enduring subjection are the blood of Marikana and the politics of illusions and myths that occupies many in Zimbabwe and the rest of Africa where ruling parties and their rivals in the opposition still remain tools of the same Empire.

International Days of Solidarity against Political Repression in Russia

http://chtodelat.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/international-days-of-solidarity-against-political-repression-in-russia/

A Call for International Days of Solidarity against Political Repression in Russia, November 29—December 2, 2012

An appeal from Russian leftists to their comrades in the struggle

Today we, members of Russian leftist organizations, appeal to our comrades all over the world for solidarity. This appeal and your response to it are vital to us. We are now facing not just another instance of innocent people sentenced by the punitive Russian “justice” system or another human life wrecked by the state. The authorities have launched a crackdown without precedent in Russia’s recent history, a campaign whose goal is to extinguish the left as an organized political force. The recent arrests, threats, beatings, aggressive media attacks and moves towards declaring leftist groups illegal all point to a new general strategy on the part of the authorities, a strategy much crueler and much less predictable than what we have seen in recent years.

The massive protest movement that began in December 2011 radically changed the atmosphere of political and social passivity established during the Putin years. Tens of thousands of young and middle-aged people, office workers and state employees, took to the streets and demanded change. On December 10 and 24, 2011, and, later, on February 4, 2012, Moscow, Petersburg and other major Russian cities were the sites of massive rallies, demonstrating that a significant part of society had undergone a new level of politicization. The “managed democracy” model crafted by the ruling elite over many years went bankrupt in a matter of days. Political trickery stopped working when confronted by real grassroots politics. The movement, whose demands were initially limited to “honest elections,” quickly grew into a protest against the entire political system.

After the elections of March 4, 2012, during which Vladimir Putin, using a combination of massive administrative pressure on voters, massive vote rigging and mendacious populist rhetoric, secured another term for himself, many thought that the potential for protest mobilization had been exhausted. The naïve hopes of the thousands of opposition volunteers who served as election observers in order to put an end to voter fraud, were crushed.

The next demonstration, in whose success few believed, was scheduled for downtown Moscow on May 6, 2012, the day before Putin’s inauguration. On this day, however, despite the skeptical predictions, more than 60,000 people showed up for an opposition march and rally. When the march approached the square where the rally was to take place, the police organized a massive provocation, blocking the marchers’ path to the square. All those who attempted to circumvent the police cordon were subjected to beatings and arrests. The unprecedented police violence produced resistance on the part of some protesters, who resisted arrests and refused to leave the square until everyone had been freed. The confrontation on May 6 lasted several hours. In the end, around 650 people were arrested, some of them spending the night in jail.

The next day, Putin’s motorcade traveled to his inauguration through an empty Moscow. Along with the protesters, the police had cleared the city center of all pedestrians. The new protest movement had demonstrated its power and a new degree of radicalization. The events of May 6 gave rise to the Russian Occupy movement, which brought thousands of young people to the center of Moscow and held its ground until the end of May. Leftist groups, who until then had been peripheral to the protest movement’s established liberal spokespeople, were progressively playing a larger role.

Those events were a signal to the authorities: the movement had gone beyond the permissible, the elections were over, and it was time to show their teeth. Almost immediately, a criminal investigation was launched into the “riot,” and on May 27, the first arrest took place. 18-year-old anarchist Alexandra Dukhanina was accused of involvement in rioting and engaging in violence against police officers. The arrests continued over the next few days. The accused included both seasoned political activists (mainly leftists) and ordinary people for whom the May 6 demonstrations were their first experience of street politics.

Nineteen people have so far been accused of involvement in those “disturbances.” Twelve of them are now being held in pre-trial detention facilities. Here are some of their stories:

⁃ Vladimir Akimenkov, 25, communist and Left Front activist. Arrested on June 10, 2012, he will be in pre-trial detention until March 6, 2013. Akimenkov was born with poor eyesight, which has deteriorated even further while he has been in jail. His most recent examination showed he has 10% vision in one eye, and 20% in the other. This, however, was not a sufficient grounds for the court to substitute house arrest for detention. At Akimenkov’s last court hearing, the judge cynically commented that only total blindness would make him reconsider his decision.

⁃ Mikhail Kosenko, 36, no political affiliation, arrested on June 8. Kosenko, who suffers from psychological disorders, also asked that he be placed under house arrest rather in pre-trial detention. However, the court has declared him a “danger to society” and plans to force him to undergo psychiatric treatment.

⁃ Stepan Zimin, 20, anarchist and anti-fascist, arrested on June 8 and placed in pre-trial detention until March 6, 2013, after which date his arrest can be extended. Zimin supports his single mother, yet once again the court did not consider this sufficient grounds to release him on his own recognizance.

⁃ Nikolai Kavkazsky, 26, socialist, human rights activist and LGBT activist. Detained on July 25.

Investigators have no clear evidence proving the guilt of any of these detainees. Nevertheless, they remain in jail and new suspects steadily join their ranks. Thus, the latest suspect in the May 6 case, 51-year-old liberal activist and scholar Sergei Krivov, was arrested quite recently, on October 18. There is every indication he will not be the last.

If the arrests of almost twenty ordinary protesters were intended to inspire fear in the protest movement, then the hunt for the “organizers of mass disturbances” is meant to strike at its acknowledged leaders. According to the investigation, the so-called riot was the result of a conspiracy, and all the arrestees had been given special assignments. This shows that we are dealing not only with a series of arrests, but with preparations for a large-scale political trial against the opposition.

On October 5, NTV, one of Russia’s major television channels, aired an “investigative documentary” that leveled fantastical charges against the opposition and in particular, against the most famous member of the left, Sergei Udaltsov. This Goebbelsian propaganda mash-up informed viewers of Udaltsov’s alleged ties with foreign intelligence, and the activities of the Left Front that he heads were declared a plot by foreign enemies of the state. By way of decisive proof, the broadcast included a recording of an alleged meeting involving Sergei Udaltsov, Left Front activist Leonid Razvozzhayev, Russian Socialist Movement member Konstantin Lebedev, and Givi Targamadze, one of the closest advisors to the president of Georgia,. In particular, the conversation includes talk of money delivered by the Georgians for “destabilizing” Russia.

Despite the fact that the faces in the recording are practically indiscernible and the sound has clearly been edited and added separately to the video, within a mere two days the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation Prosecutor General’s Office (the state law enforcement agency playing the lead role in organizing the current crackdown) used it to launch a criminal case. On October 17, Konstantin Lebedev was arrested and Sergei Udaltsov released after interrogation, having signed a pledge not to travel beyond the Moscow city limits. On October 19, a third suspect in the new case, Left Front activist Leonid Razvozzhayev, attempted to apply for refugee status in the Kyiv offices of the UNHCR. As soon as he stepped outside the building, persons unknown violently forced him into a vehicle and illegally transported him across the Ukrainian border onto Russian territory. At an undisclosed location in Russia he was subjected to torture and threats (including regarding the safety of his family) and forced to sign a “voluntary confession.” In this statement, Razvozzhayev confessed to ties with foreign intelligence and to preparations for an armed insurgency, in which Konstantin Lebedev and Sergei Udaltsov were also involved. Razvozzhayev was then taken to Moscow and jailed as as an accused suspect. Razvozzhayev has subsequently asserted in meetings with human rights activists that he disavows this testimony, which was obtained under duress.

However, police investigators have every intention of using it. We know of the existence of “Razvozzhayev’s list,” a list beaten out of him by torture: it contains the names of people who will soon also become targets of persecution.

The scope of the crackdown is steadily growing. The Investigative Committee recently announced an inquiry into Sergei Udaltsov’s organization, the Left Front, which may well result in its being banned as an “extremist” organization.Pressure against the anti-fascist movement is likewise building. Well-known anti-fascist activists Alexey Sutuga, Alexey Olesinov, Igor Kharchenko, Irina Lipskaya and Alen Volikov have been detained on fabricated charges and are being held in police custody in Moscow. Socialist and anti-fascist Filipp Dolbunov has been interrogated and threatened on several occasions.

It is hardly accidental that most victims of this unprecedented wave of repression are involved in the leftist movement. On the eve of the introduction of austerity measures, curtailment of labor rights and pension reforms in Russia, the Putin-Medvedev administration is most afraid of an alliance between the existing democratic movement and possible social protest. Today’s wave of repressions is the most important test for Russia’s new protest movement: either we hold strong or a new period of mass apathy and fear awaits us. It is precisely for this reason, faced with unprecedented political pressure, that the solidarity of our comrades in Europe and the entire world is so crucial.

We appeal to you to organize Days of Solidarity against Political Repression from November 29 to December 2 outside the Russian Federation embassy or any other Russian government misson in your countries, demanding the immediate release of those who have been illegally arrested and termination of the shameful criminal cases and preparations for new “Moscow trials” based on torture and fabrications. We also ask that you use the specific names and details we have provided in this appeal in your own protests and demands. This is crucial for every person now behind bars.

Please send your reports on solidarity actions and any other information or questions to the following email address: solidarityaction2012@gmail.com

Solidarity is our only weapon! United, we will never be defeated!

Russian Socialist Movement, Autonomous Action, Left Front

Случай из полицейской жизни

Логика реакции

Илья Матвеев

Филиппу 19 лет. Он учится на факультете культурологии ГАУГН, на кафедре изучения западной культуры.

Филипп антифашист, мой хороший знакомый и товарищ по Российскому социалистическому движению. Он умный, смелый и ответственный. Филипп участвовал в защите Химкинского и Цаговского лесов, вместе с нами готовил многие акции РСД. Ходил на оргкомитеты, раздавал листовки и газеты — обычная активистская рутина.

Днем 25 октября к Филиппу домой ворвались оперативники и с угрозами, под крики родителей, потащили на улицу, к машине. Но началась эта история раньше.

Филипп дружит со Степаном Зиминым, анархистом и антифашистом, арестованным по делу о «беспорядках» 6 мая. Когда Филипп узнал, что Зимина арестовали, он связался с адвокатом Василием Кушниром. Выяснилось, что во всем деле о т.н. «беспорядках» (по которому сейчас проходит почти 20 человек, включая Зимина, 12 из них в тюрьме) нет ни одного свидетеля.

Дать показания по Зимину был готов житель Кирова Алексей Орлов, но на него надавила местная полиция, и он отказался. Тогда Филипп решил сам стать свидетелем, потому что был 6 мая на Болотной площади, в самой гуще «беспорядков» (избиения полицейскими митингующих), и видел, что Зимин никаких противоправных действий не совершал.

Две недели Филипп и его адвокат ждали повестки в Следственный комитет, но она так и не пришла.

25 октября Кушнир подал второе ходатайство о привлечении Филиппа в качестве свидетеля. В тот же день — может быть, совпадение, может, и нет — к нему пришли полицейские и, не дав вызвать адвоката, повезли в Следственный комитет.

Всю дорогу Филиппу угрожали. Остановили машину возле леса — Филипп живет в Балашихе — и сказали, что все теперь зависит от того, как он будет разговаривать. Если будет молчать, можно поговорить и в лесу. «Выйди, покури в последний раз».

Из второй машины вышел оперативник с камерой, Филиппу начали задавать вопросы. Он отказался отвечать. Полицейский развернул его голову — «Смотри в камеру, сука!»

Его снова затолкали в машину. У здания Следственного комитета Филиппа встретил следователь Тимофей Грачев словами «Петухом быть не хочешь? Будешь со мной дружить».

Начался допрос. Для начала Грачев дважды ткнул Филиппа кулаком в лицо, дал подзатыльник: «Не смотри на меня, как на говно, а то сам в говно превратишься». Потом расслабился.

Один из стоявших тут же оперативников стал угрожать Филиппу, что позвонит своему знакомому, начальнику Бутырской тюрьмы, и договорится о том, чтобы Филиппа отправили в камеру с блатными.

Вопросы Филиппу задавали следующие: что он делал на Болотной площади, знает ли Константина Лебедева, Леонида Развозжаева, Сергея Удальцова, давно ли участвует в движении протеста и что он думает о фильме «Анатомия протеста-2». Ни на один вопрос Филипп не ответил, ссылаясь на статью 51 Конституции («Никто не обязан свидетельствовать против себя самого, своего супруга и близких родственников»), указывая, что ему не дали вызвать адвоката.

Тогда перед Филиппом оказался протокол, в котором было указано, что он отказался отвечать по ст. 51 Конституции (Филипп дописал, что ему не был предоставлен адвокат), и начался допрос без протокола.

Помимо бесконечного мата и угроз Грачев придумал новое средство — стал говорить, что привезет в Следственный комитет мать Филиппа, та будет в слезах умолять, чтобы он дал показания. Участковый по телефону передал, что мать Филиппа приедет — но этого так и не произошло.

После допроса (в общей сложности продолжавшегося пять часов) Филипп еще полтора часа просидел один в запертом кабинете. Потом на него надели наручники и повели на улицу. У КПП он увидел адвоката Дмитрия Аграновского и успел ему сказать, чтобы тот распространил в сети информацию о его задержании по делу 6 мая. Вскоре мы все — мои друзья, я сам — начали получать обрывочные сведения о том, что происходит.

Филиппа повезли домой, проводить обыск. Он сидел в наручниках, но в кармане куртки оказалась книга, — «Искусство и политика» Грамши, — и всю дорогу он читал.

Дома начался обыск. Без подлостей не обошлось и тут — оперативники запугивали деда Филиппа, ветерана войны, отвели в другую комнату мать и стали рассказывать ей, что ее сын экстремист.

Дома у Филиппа обнаружили «Манифест Коммунистической партии» и уже хотели изъять, но потом спохватились — похоже, не запрещенный текст. Для надежности оперативник проверил по Федеральному списку экстремистских материалов на ноутбуке — и правда, не запрещенный.

В итоге изъяли системный блок, пять сим-карт и тот самый том «Искусство и политика». Составили протокол обыска и под конец вручили повестку (!) о вызове свидетелем на тот же день.

Сейчас, видимо, Филипп проходит свидетелем по делу Удальцова-Лебедева-Развозжаева. По поданному им ходатайству его, возможно, еще вызовут в СК. И все-таки в тот день его не задержали. Но для других ужас продолжается.

Для Владимира Акименкова, который почти ослеп в СИЗО, но которого суд оставил под арестом до марта 2013 года, потому что препятствием для ареста является только полная слепота.

Для Леонида Развозжаева, которого похитили и пытали, добиваясь признательных показаний.

Для остальных узников Болотной. Для Константина Лебедева.

...зачем писать об этом так подробно? Я хочу, чтобы как можно больше людей узнало о том, что происходит. Пожалуйста, помогите мне распространить эту информацию. Ведь у кого-то, возможно, сохраняются иллюзии, что бросают в тюрьмы и судят только каких-то опасных «подпольщиков», которые «знают, на что идут». Нет, репрессируют обычных активистов — студентов, художников, ученых — ваших знакомых. Это как инсталляция Кабакова «Туалет» — мерзость прямо у вас дома, рядом с обеденным столом, и сделать вид, что все в порядке, не получится. Следите за информацией в сети, помогайте ее распространять, ходите на митинги солидарности с политзаключенными, пишите им письма.

В заключение хотел бы повторить слова, которыми заканчивается наше заявление по аресту Константина Лебедева:

Те, кто сегодня чувствует себя безнаказанно, ответят за все. Ни одну их подлость мы не забудем и не простим.

31.10.12 8:13