We urge all principled Communists to form a primary organization or take their existing primary organization out of the dead “parties” and begin the work of unification. Please contact us if you have questions.

To: CPUSA National Committee & District Leadership

From: “Disco Ambition”

Re: Formal Resignation

Date: 09/07/2025 (effective immediately)

After due consideration of the facts and my experiences within this organization, I hereby resign from any role in the Communist Party United States of America (CPUSA). Currently that role is chair of the Sedgwick County Club.

I am a Revolutionary Communist, in that while I recognize the usefulness of acting within the political field for delivering the message of Communism and reaching the masses, I do not hold to the idea that our liberation can be achieved via democratic or political means. I have no respect for the opinion that we can achieve anything by voting in a nation that has never had a real democracy, and I hold a commiserate level of respect for those who hold that view.

I came into the party, as many do, because of its legacy within the world communist movement. A legacy I see now is capitalized on by those in charge to serve their own ends. I was also foolishly unaware of the party’s entanglement with liberal politics and deviation from Communist principles until much later. I wanted to fight fascism. But fascism is here.¹ People are dying in the streets while the party that is supposed to be fighting it commits itself to singalongs and holds hands with the kinder face of the capitalist class in their vile support for the Democrat Party.

A Communist party is supposed to be the vanguard of the workers revolution. It must therefore be capable of meeting the needs of any moment in time by adapting to current material conditions. It is also supposed to maintain its independence from bourgeoisie movements and political parties. The current CPUSA is structurally incapable of meeting any of those requirements. This is because the leadership is an inbred structure composed entirely of liberal democratic apologists put in place through non-democratic means based on loyalty to leadership rather than competence² or Marxist-Leninist views. More unfortunate is the fact that the general bulk of the party is made up of passionate and committed Communists, which creates a revolving door of members as they come to realize the limitations the party has imposed on them and the movement as a whole. All this has resulted in an organization that takes up space in the cause for Communism while being at its heart distinctly anti-Communist in its refusal to conduct open dialog (material dialectics) and rejection of democratic methods of decision making (while decrying itself as conducting “democratic centralism”). These good members are left blindly organizing their communities while party leadership continues its uselessness.

Due to the time and effort I had invested in this organization³ and my belief in the need to change it from the inside, I too long ignored the lack of democratic decision making and stagnant leadership in the hopes that I could help build the party to the revolutionary Communist organization that it purports to be, problems which result in the party being impossible to change, even if there were enough people attempting to do so. In order to allow that new trajectory for the party, I saw as important two main goals. Those were the eventual reunification of the many Communist organizations in the U.S. and the reorganizing of the current party under a more democratic and flexible system, built to develop leadership and facilitate advancing Communist theory. My attempts at initiating formal procedures to those ends were met with years of neglect due to the incompetent and indifferent leadership of this organization at all levels.⁴

At the local level, I tried initiating a system similar to that which I outlined in a Reorganizing Proposal,⁵ hoping to demonstrate its benefits to national leadership. However, it has become more apparent that leadership is made up of people not interested in developing the party or advancing the cause past writing articles for a newspaper nobody reads or giving lectures on topics they are not qualified to give  in a desperate bid to remain relevant.⁶ Using the methods I outlined there, we had taken our club from two people holding infrequent meetings at a bar, to within three years a group that is playing a leading role in local activism composed of dozens of people across the state of Kansas. We did this while our apathetic district leadership were members of a defunct club of retirees.

While I was spending mental energy and time trying to convince non-members of the virtue of our organization and prove that virtue with tangible action, I faced accusations of having bad intentions regarding this party, being called a “wrecker” or participating in factionalism.⁷ The patronizing attitudes I have seen expressed to myself and others trying to effect change in this organization is demonstrative of a culture of elitism and a focus on dogmatic adherence to a misconception of Communist theory and its processes, where structure has been replaced with formality and work has been replaced with words, despite the known dangers of bureaucracy becoming the focus of a party.⁸ 

More patronizing was the constant attempts at gas lighting by some of our members demanding concrete proof of instances of undemocratic actions that we personally witnessed, such as those that occurred at the 32nd National Convention. I will not beat that dead horse more than necessary, but suffice to say that calling something a democratic decision does not make it so, and trying to convince people that witnessed it that they require proof of what occurred for their views to be considered valid is a childish act of bad faith. It is revealing of the direction of this party that most of those I met at that convention, people chosen by their Districts to represent them at the national level, have been either forced out of the party⁹ or have left due to their own frustration with it.¹⁰ I had remained in an attempt to raise the objection to the way things were done while hearing from my now non-member Comrades of the success they have experienced in different organizations that are more committed to ML doctrine.

Recently, I brought up a question for discussion on our club chat concerning a phone call I had just had with a club member who is part of the National Committee. In the effort to present the options for actions we could take in regards to our use of “Kansas Communist Party”¹¹ vs “Sedgwick County CPUSA”.¹² As it pertained to our relationship with our close allies in the local activist community, I also asked for their views on the matter in order to inform my own.¹³ This was seen as a breach of club discipline. This member has, in nearly every instance, raised objections to the presentations of questions or actions before the club or has attempted to subordinate the club to the views held by the leadership he is so unquestioningly devoted to, even when those views run counter to those held by the club members. Many of these objections have been based on an unoriginal devotion to obscure party lines or rigid readings of theory that this party has widely misapplied.¹⁴ It is tedious and interrupts the work being done, but at least it’s in keeping with the party leadership as a whole.

Another instance which now shines bright in my memory is my experience attending the “Peace Conference” in New York City in 2023. During my stay in the assigned dorms, I overheard “Noah”, a member from Illinois speaking about how they had purged members for not being sufficiently supportive of the Democratic Party. When I brought up my concerns with that claim at a club meeting in which Joe Sims was in attendance, Joe called me a liar and demanded proof of those statements, perhaps thinking that I would be carrying a tape recorder wherever I went, but more transparently in an attempt to silence any criticism or concerns with the party (this is made all the more hypocritical due to articles written in which he makes even more damning and unsupported claims, including accusing Kansan clubs being led by “ex-communists”, and other outright lies¹⁵). I later met that same Comrade at the 32nd Convention,¹⁶ in which he called me “chauvinist” for questioning the leadership’s continuing hold on power despite the obvious stagnation we are experiencing.

These stories outline a repeating pattern in the Party in which its leadership ignores its own bylaws and processes and then works fast to expel, silence, or otherwise exclude any member who raises objections to their policies. In the immediate past, the Party has done things like putting people in governing roles as a reward for loyalty, rather than due to competence or the will of those they will be governing, or refusing to issue the required financial reports to what is supposed to be the organizations highest authority¹⁷ (the Delegates of the National Convention). For an example, when the District Organizer position was about to open up in the Kansas/ Missouri district, rather than consult the membership, as is required by the CPUSA Constitution,¹⁸ the leadership unilaterally and unanimously decided to put in place the previously mentioned local club member without any vote or consultation with the membership.¹⁹ Due to these types of actions, we see good members leaving the party in favor of those who do not delve too deeply into the Party’s history or methods of “activism”. The Party cannot fathom itself as anything but the leader of any and all movements, even as they continue to prove themselves unworthy of leadership.

A great Comrade of mine once asked me “at what point [am I] fighting for an acronym”. I can no longer offer my support or participation in the CPUSA. I am tired of making excuses for a bunch of liberals and pork choppers more interested in what they consider journalism and singing than in the success of communism. I’m tired of trying to build a party only interested in perpetuating itself for the benefit of a few in leadership²⁰ while taking up space in activism. I’m just plain tired.

I know it will not happen, but I would encourage this document to begin a series of self-criticism within the party leadership. I would also encourage the present membership to use the structure we have built in the Kansas Communist Party as an example of the way to unite the U.S. Communist movement (at least locally) rather than putting it into the control of the CPUSA.

Update: Since sending this letter to the District and National leadership of the CPUSA, they have engaged in the predictable course of accusations against me, declaring that I am a “wrecker” and removing me from chats they control (overriding a club vote to do otherwise), as well as attempting to gain control over all the assets I created for the use of all local activists (they are claiming that my work was the work of the party, in an echo of the claims used by capitalist corporations when an employee leaves). Furthermore, they claimed entitlement to the name “Kansas Communist Party”, and have decided that they will not work with any organization I am a part of without permission from the national leadership , who will now directly oversee all local elections. They are perhaps forgetting that the entire sequence of events around my final decision here involved the confusion created around having two names for the same organization, and how we created the KCP to be under the sole control of the members as a group and not the national party, even including bylaws to that effect (objected to from those close to leadership). It is clear that the Leadership takes issue with any club acting independently, even when those clubs are doing the work they are supposed to be doing. It does not matter to Joe Sims or Rossana Cambron if the cause is benefiting, if they themselves are not getting the credit and a cut.

“Disco Ambition” – Previous Chair Sedgwick County, KS CPUSA

1. We live in a heavily militarized police state ruled by oligarchs & currently engaged in a genocide. ︎
2. Ex: After over a year, we were unable to get a list of present members contact information from the National or the District. ︎
3. Spent-cost heuristic is something I knew could happen, but ignored. ︎
4. My contacts in other clubs had faced the same, even when we proposed similar plans. ︎
5. See: Reorganizing Proposal. S.G.G. II. ︎
6. Such as the arrogance required for coastal city dwellers to talk about things such as rural engagement (& how Obama was good for us). ︎
7. Despite the party leadership itself having seemingly little understanding of that term. ︎
8. See: The fight against bureaucracy in the Soviet Union under Stalin | The Communists. Carlos Rule. 01/25/2022. ︎
9. I’m constantly told that these purges were “District Actions” in another patronizing and transparent attempt to protect the national leadership. ︎
10. On Why I’m Leaving the Party – The Red Clarion. Comrade Khadija. 08/01/2024. See also Why I Left the CPUSA – The Red Clarion. ︎
11. Registered openly as the “Kansas Communist Association” Kansas nonprofit, rather than by use of shell companies (see also) owned by party leadership (there are no Communist entities registered in NY). ︎
12. My analysis of the question can be found here, and the response can be found here. ︎
13. I, whenever possible, attempt to inform my opinions with those of people around me connected to the issue. ︎
14. I have long wondered if anyone constantly citing “Left Wing Communism” has actually read it. ︎
15. CP National Committee says “Keep your eyes on the prize” – Communist Party USA. Joe Sims. 07/22/2024 ︎
16. Where he was made a member of the NC for his devotion. ︎
17. Violating the CPUSA Constitution, Article VII, Section 1. (accessed 2025) ︎
18. Violating the CPUSA Constitution, Article II, Section 4, & Article V, Section 4. (accessed 2025) ︎
19. Minutes of the CPUSA National Executive Board. September 3, 2025 ︎
20. Ex: John Batchtell, the head of The People’s World and committed democrat, (I previously had access to IRS records indicating his income, but have since lost that access). ︎

At a time when the fury of the popular classes has manifested such actions as the daring execution of Brian Thompson, it is curious that the many leaders of the two hospitals have not considered what is happening right now in homes across Connecticut. Parents are being told that their children are likely to suffer, perhaps even kill themselves in the coming years. There are names and faces associated with this suffering, and they aren’t some distant faceless bureaucrats in Washington, protected by the many miles and layers of red tape.

Oh, yes, the executive order that set this tragedy in motion came from Washington. It was drafted by some staffer in some back room. It was signed by the inhuman flesh-puppet Donald Trump. The blame for his election can be equally shared between GOP members and Democrats. So yes, there is plenty of blame to go around.

But gunmen and bombmakers aren’t likely to be interested in them. At least, not for now. The untold legions of parents that found out on July 24 that their children have been sentenced to suffer and perhaps to die aren’t likely to be hunting for figures in Washington to punish.

They will be looking for the people in their community that caused this tragedy. And they will find them.

Curious that these people haven’t built bunkers, hired private security, and gone off the grid.

Because they should.

1. CEO: Christopher O’Connor. ︎
2. CEO: James E. Shmerling. ︎
3. YNHH Board Members: Thomas Balcezak, William J. Aseltyne, Gail W. Kosoyla, Pamela Sutton-Wallace, Alan Friedman, Anne Diamond, Frank Ciminiello, LIsa Stump, Michael Angelini and Pam Scagliarini; CT Children’s Board Members: Bill Agostinucci, Jonathan M. Carroll, Bob Duncan, Paul Dworkin, Matthew Farr, Bridgett Feagin, Christine Finck, Paulanne Jushkevich, Sarah Matney, Lawrence Milan, James E. Moore, Deb Pappas, Lori R. Pelletier, Juan C. Salazar, and R. Moses Vargas. ︎

It’s election season in the USA, and once again, we are being asked to choose between the lesser of two evils. On one hand, we have Donald J. Trump with his dangerous racist rhetoric, his misogyny, his open bribery and crimes. On the other hand we have Joseph R. Biden with his uncritical support for genocide, his repetition of zionist lies, and his continuation of Trump’s fascist border policies. How is one to choose and proudly cast a vote for either of two obvious evils? 

Comrade George Jackson in 1969 expressed this conundrum succinctly, “The fascists already have power. The point is that some way must be found to expose them and combat them. An electoral choice of ten different fascists is like choosing which way one wishes to die.”

As communists, we should analyze this election scientifically. We can look at present and historical conditions to reach our answer of what is to be done.  

Rajani Palme Dutt in 1935 spoke on the dangers of lesser evil voting, “the continued hesitation and retreat of the reformist working class leadership at each point (policy of the ‘lesser evil’) encourages the growth of fascism. On this basis, fascism is able finally to step in and seize the reins, not through its own strength, but through the failure of working class leadership. The collapse of bourgeois democracy is succeeded, not by the advance to proletarian democracy, but by the regression to fascist dictatorship.”

We understand that, throughout history, liberals have always sided with fascists. [Editors: Liberals here mean not only the left “aisle” of the U.S. state, but the entire tradition behind liberalism; these liberals — private property owners opposed to absolute monarchy and systems of privilege — definitely turned on the movement for liberation when it attempted to extend its work to property in the middle of the 19th century and have been implacable enemies of anti-propertarian ideologies ever since.] Liberals vote and govern in ways that protect their private property and bourgeois interests. While working class liberal-minded folks can be reached with a message of class solidarity, the professional managerial class will always protect their interests. 

Scratch a liberal, and a fascist bleeds. 

Tailing the Democratic Party is out of the question. This major party is fully beholden to the corporate interests that finance it. The DNC is the party of Silicon Valley, of defense contractors, and is now the party of war in Ukraine and genocide in Gaza. We, not only as communists, but as humans, cannot back Joe Biden for president in 2024. 

It should go without saying, but we also cannot back the Republican Party. They are the party of Christian Nationalism, of right to work laws, of abortion bans and homophobia. No, we will not support the GOP nor Donald Trump. 

Section Four of the CPUSA Party Program states:

Both Democrats and Republicans have collaborated over many decades to restrict ballot access for ’minor’ parties, massively increasing signature requirements to get on the ballot and increasing the percentage of votes needed to remain on the ballot over several election cycles. Many media outlets also restrict democracy by focusing on the horserace and personality aspects of elections, reporting endlessly on polls and perceptions rather than on coverage of the issues of importance to voters.

We, as the Communist Party, are considered a minor party. We are running several candidates in local and state races, but we are not running a POTUS candidate in 2024. While we recognize that electing socialists and communists into the bourgeois system will not change it (only revolution can accomplish that goal) we understand that electoral struggle is one method to spread our message of working class solidarity, and to show the masses that the system under which we live is the cause of our pain. We can and should utilize bourgeois electoralism to advance our cause. 

There are many minor parties running candidates with platforms that align more closely to our goals than those of the major bourgeois parties. So the question now is: “Shall we form a United Front against fascism with one or more of these minor parties?”

The Party for Socialism and Liberation is running a presidential campaign in 2024, and standing with them could be a great opportunity to form a United Front against the fascism of the neoliberal Democrats and the MAGA Republicans. 

The PSL candidates, Claudia De la Cruz and Karina Garcia, have seven major policy goals stated on their website: 1. Seize the Biggest 100 Corporations, Create A New Economy for the People, 2. Overthrow the Dictatorship of the Rich — Build a Democracy That Serves the Working Class, 3. End the Rule of Money and Lock Up the Corrupt Elite, 4. Cut the Military Budget by 90% — Peace, Not War with China & Russia, 5. End the War on Black America, 6. Defend Women’s Rights, Full Equality for LGBTQ People, and 7. Save the Planet from Capitalism. 

These seven simple goals are not wholly different from the CPUSA party program goals. Claudia and Karina are also under no delusion that they might win the election or if they were to, that their victory would fundamentally change the United States. It couldn’t, but, as Lenin explained, running socialist candidates at all levels is one way to spread our message of socialism, and this is their goal in 2024. 

Many CPUSA members have a lot of experience working with Party for Socialism and Liberation comrades on the ground in our communities. We understand that they are good, principled comrades. PSL has been incredibly active in the FREE PALESTINE movement, they rallied with us against the Dobbs decision, and have worked with us on lobbying city councils regarding issues of policing. 

Dr. Cornel West, while not a Marxist, is running a progressive campaign for president as an independent candidate. His platform contains the following pillars: 1. Economic Justice, including a $27/hour minimum wage and breaking up monopolies, 2. Worker Justice — establishing a workers bill of rights and ending “right to work,” 3. Environmental Justice, 4. Health Justice by nationalizing the entire healthcare industry and protecting women’s and LGBTQ healthcare, 5. Racial Justice, including reparations to Black Americans, 6. Transformative Justice — ending mass incarceration and investing in alternatives to policing, 7. Voter Justice — instituting ranked choice voting, 8. Education Justice — canceling all student debt and making community and state colleges tuition free, 9. LGBTQIA Justice, 10. Gun Violence Justice, 11. Immigration Justice, and 12. Global Justice. 

The Communist Party has worked with Dr. Cornel West in the past through the Poor People’s Campaign. He has never claimed to be a Marxist, but he is an anti-imperialist. Take a closer look at his twelfth campaign pillar, Global Justice. This plan includes the goal of an expeditious closure of global U.S. military bases, disbanding NATO, and ending all weapons shipments to Ukraine to instead invest in peacemaking; ending military aid to Israel, ending zionist apartheid of the Palestinian people, and pressuring the U.N. to establish a program for Palestinian dignity and liberation; ending the embargo on Cuba and normalizing relations by removing the nation from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list; and no intervention, military or otherwise, in Haiti. 

Dr. West’s platform of anti-imperialism is well thought out, and stands in stark contrast to the stances held by either leading bourgeois party in the United States. Working through an independent grassroots campaign like his is one way we can spread our message of working class solidarity and anti-imperialism. He is a candidate who has aligned with us in the past, and would likely welcome our alliance in this election cycle. 

If we want to stop the rise of fascism in the United States, we need to work together with other progressive forces, and this election season is an opportune time to reach out. We have built-in allies in the PSL, the Dr. West campaign, Palestinian liberation and anti-war groups, labor unions, and workers all over the country disillusioned with the two corporate-aligned imperialist parties. We can use our collective power to show people that we don’t have to settle for an “evil” candidate, but that we can demand a different way of life. We can disrupt this election cycle, and use it to bring working class Americans into the struggle. 

So, let’s form a true United Front against fascism in 2024. Let us join forces with other socialist and communist parties, unions, and unaffiliated comrades. Let us work together to defeat all the faces of fascism, including both major political parties in the USA and their corporate overlords. Let us stand firmly against zionism, and all aspects of settler colonialism. Let us collectively say “No!” to militarization of the southern border, “No!” to the oppression of women and trans people, and “No!” to the over-policing of Black and Brown neighborhoods. 

Let us say “Yes!” to solidarity, “Yes!” to working class power, and “Yes!” to socialism. Let us say “Yes!” to a United Front against the fascist threat. We have nothing to lose but our chains.

As a former Sergeant who served in the U.S. Army for almost a decade, I can relate strongly to the guilt that Comrade Bushnell felt from the realization of his complicity. I too, much like Aaron, was prepared to take my life in an act of defiant protest against the crimes I realized I was committing. I was going to shoot myself at a range in front of my battalion command team as an act of desperate protest.

I’m glad I didn’t follow through on that plan, because now I’m able to commit myself to the cause of liberation. I also get an opportunity to raise my children with these values — something that dead people can’t do. I bring this up not to make it about me, but rather to emphasize that l know exactly what drove him to commit self-immolation. 

I never met Bushnell, but it pains me I will never have an opportunity to meet someone with whom I feel so much solidarity. What I see, besides a younger me, is someone willing to forgo a comfortable life of privilege, an awesome DevOps career, and a whole life in front of him. He was willing to forgo all of this so that he could offer himself in service of colonized people he’d never met, half a world away, simply because he viewed them as human beings deserving of liberation. Comrade Bushnell’s selfless love for humanity is the highest example of all that a Communist should strive to be.

I can’t change the fate of Comrade Bushnell, but I do know that I can reach the other Bushnells in the military. I know they’re out there. They aren’t common, and I never met one while I was in service. But I know they exist, because I was one. And Comrade Bushnell martyred himself as one. They’re out there, and they would make invaluable servants to the cause of liberation.

All comrades, civilian or military, are worth more to our struggle alive than dead. This is not said to detract from Aaron’s heroic sacrifice, but it has to be made clear: burning yourself alive does not disrupt the flow of weapons. It does not impact things materially. As Marxists, it is the material which we care about.

It is in that spirit that I want to reach out with a heartfelt plea of solidarity to all United States Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines. To put the bottom line up front: I challenge you to be bold, fearless and principled, just as Aaron was. I will close out this brief letter assigning you a mission and laying forth my commander’s intent. You are responsible for executing the principles of mission command to reach the desired end-state.

My commander’s intent to you, American Soldier, is to disrupt the flow of weapons to the Zionist Entity (so-called “Israel”) by whatever means are available to you. The desired end state of this operation is for the United States Military to cease the shipment of arms to the Zionist Entity. It’s a broad vision; I trust in your creative faculties and outstanding leadership to fill in the blanks, draft up your own OPORD, and iteratively implement the Military Decision Making Process. Only you know what you are best equipped with and able to accomplish.

With that said, ensure that you are creative in your thinking, intelligent in your planning, and do not limit yourselves. Be realistic, but be bold. The revisionist Michael Harrington developed the poisonous slogan “Left Wing of the Possible”; I’m telling you fuck that, the sky’s the limit, and the world’s your oyster.

You may feel scared. You may ask yourself “This would be disobeying orders, I’d get in so much trouble by my commander!”  And while I completely understand where you’re coming from, it’s also a misconception. Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice states that soldiers have a duty to obey all lawful orders. Genocide is illegal, according to both United States Law and Article 6 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The penalty for those found guilty of Genocide is life imprisonment, with the possibility of execution. 

Just Following Orders is no excuse under the law. Neither is rank. A private can be just as guilty as a general officer. This is the precedent that the United States herself set during the Nuremburg Trials. Ask yourself if you want to risk being executed after being found guilty of genocide. The only defense against such charges is an explicitly refusal to comply, or better yet, active resistance to such illegal orders.

Signed,

An anonymous NCO who wants you to do the right thing

TO CONTACT THE NCO, PLEASE EMAIL ANONYMOUSNCO@PROTON.ME

It is vital to see this vitriol for the nonsense that it is, but dispelling myths and propaganda on a subject is only the first step — lies must be displaced by facts rather than emptiness. In the interest of seeking “truth from facts” about Hamas, we sought resources that interviewed Hamas leaders, Hamas members, and Palestinians not affiliated with Hamas. A stark contrast from much of the material casually available or presented algorithmically in the West, Hamas: From Resistance to Regime by Paola Caridi, Decolonizing Palestine by Somdeep Sen, and Gaza under Hamas by Bjorn Brenner all treat both Hamas as an organization and the Palestinian struggle as a whole with the respect these subjects deserve.

Hamas: From Resistance to Regime is a general history of Hamas, covering its foundation in 1987 until the book’s 2012 publication. It’s worth noting that the text was originally titled “Hamas: From Resistance to Government.” We can speculate as to why this change was made. The text addresses the zionist lie that Hamas is not a democratic organization and that its leadership is somehow disconnected from the Palestinian people. Caridi illustrates  that Hamas functions according to the principle of freedom in criticism, unity in action, and that its commitment to democratic principles is so rigorous that it has even been a detriment to the organization. For instance, Caridi explains how contents of the 1988 Hamas charter, the Mithaq, were brandished by the zionists as proof of the organization’s commitment to antisemitism, as well as the proof that Hamas were Islamic ideologues who could not be negotiated with and needed to be destroyed. Rather than discard or even revise the charter immediately, which would have been politically expedient, Hamas strictly followed its democratic principles: they didn’t create a new charter until all four of their member constituencies — Gaza, the West Bank, Palestinian prisoners, and Palestinians living abroad — had been extensively consulted.

Another of the zionist’s frequently-made false claims is that the leadership of Hamas lives abroad, siphoning aid money meant for Gaza, and living lavishly while the masses are left in abject poverty. Caridi’s text explores the pragmatic origin of Hamas’ dispersed leadership, demonstrating that the practice emerged as the organization’s survival mechanism against continuous assassinations and arrests by the zionists. As proven by the January 3rd, 2024 martyrdom of Saleh al-Arouri by a zionist strike in Beirut, the cowardly zionists have no qualms about killing Hamas members, even on foreign soil and in flagrant transgression of international law. The practice of dispersal prevents the organization’s leadership from being annihilated in any single zionist attack.

Similarly, the importance of prisoners’ political lives to Hamas, to the extent prisoners have their own constituency within the organization, also emerged from necessity. Caridi notes that, since over 700,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned by the zionist entity at some point since 1967, “the experience of jail, therefore, is so widespread, so common, and so constant in the history of Palestinian society that particularly as far as political party militants are concerned, it is never considered a hiatus from active political life.” 

 Politically, Hamas adheres to the principle of freedom in criticism, unity in action. Decisions and actions undertaken by the organization are subject to debate and critique by its membership, but once a collective decision is made, “everyone is committed to abiding by it, irrespective of their own positions.” Although the zionists tout their project as “the only democracy in the Middle East,” members of their political system aren’t bound to democratic principles of this nature. Political gamesmanship, as it transpires in the U.S. when one or two senators dissent against their party in order to stymy legislation, is not possible within Hamas.

In addition to its analysis of Hamas’ political workings and history, Caridi’s text also examines the role of women within Hamas, and Hamas’ conflict with one of the most prominent Palestinian parties, Fatah. 

For anyone seeking a text that examines the organization from a more theoretical perspective, Decolonizing Palestine by Somdeep Sen may be more enticing. Decolonizing Palestine draws upon the works of Frantz Fanon, particularly Black Skin, White Masks and The Wretched of the Earth, to explore the challenges that Hamas faces as an anticolonial group who must govern as though they are no longer colonized. This is a unique position, as opposed to many of the familiar revolutions where the oppressors were entirely or mostly overthrown prior to the oppressed group seizing political power.

The text is primarily a reflection on what it means to be colonized and what it means to be liberated through the lens of the Palestinian struggle. The Palestinian focus is not to the exclusion of other examples; the author is Bengali, and brings their perspective on the oppression of the Bengali people into the text. In present-day India and Bangladesh, Bengali Muslims may be considered a liberated or post-colonial people, since the region achieved independence from Britain. However, vestiges of colonial control remain in the form of economic dependence, as well as in transference of the role of oppressor to India and Pakistan. Sen utilizes these comparisons to grapple with questions of how Palestine will look when the zionist occupation falls.

The author applies Fanon’s conclusions on the colonized subject to the Palestinian struggle, arguing that liberation cannot be condensed to the singular moment when the colonizer leaves or suffers an intractable defeat. Instead, the moment the zionists are defeated will constitute the beginning of the Palestinian peoples’ emancipation. Sen emphasizes that anti-colonial and post-colonial conduct are lived and continual modes of existence, rather than singular events. Hamas, as a dynamic and multifaceted organization that operates in the interstice between government and resistance group, and between secularism and theocracy, not only represents Palestinians in the literal sense, but also demonstrates that “liberation is not just about liberation. It is as much about the colonized’s perceptions of who they were, who they are, and who they ought to be in their liberated future.”

The book’s appraisal of violence is also firmly rooted in the Fanonian tradition. Too frequently, assessments of violence are either dismissive or superficial. But Sen correctly explores the roles violence plays in forming the Palestinian identity. The zionist’s fervent need to erase the Palestinian people — both physically and metaphorically — is struggled against through both physical and symbolic acts of violence. Acts of violent resistance are given a sacred status by the colonized because they are proof that their suffering can be unmade, and actions towards unmaking that suffering are under way. Each act of resistance is emphatic proof, a declaration, that Palestine exists, that Palestinians exist. Despite their best efforts to ignore and erase the colonized, settlers can only live in fear and discomfort that boils out from the realities of their trespassing.

The Al-Aqsa Flood Operation enunciated Sen and Fanon’s theories about violence from theory into reality. The October 7th attacks unequivocally proved that Palestinians will not be erased — they will not quietly perish on their oppressor’s terms. No matter the level of surveillance, the strength of the walls around Gaza, the brutality of the prisons, or the defensive power of the Iron Dome, the resistance will ensure that settlers can only live in anxiety. Ultimately, it is not the military aspect of the Al-Aqsa Flood that was most successful, although it was a significant tactical accomplishment, but its psychological impact upon the zionists. The facades of colonial supremacy and invincibility are crumbling. Evidence is emerging that many of what the colonizer calls “atrocities” from that day were carried out by the zionists themselves, or are outright fabrications. It increasingly appears that many of the deaths on October 7th were caused either by disarrayed and panicked zionist forces or by active invocation of the noxious zionist Hannibal Directive, which authorizes the IOF to prevent the taking of prisoners through the indiscriminate murder of prisoner and captor alike, whether the prisoner is an IOF soldier or a so-called “non-combatant.” In subsequent months, the zionist military has been humiliated, has failed to achieve its objectives, tens of thousands of settlers have fled, and the entity is increasingly gripped by a burgeoning crisis between its military and political leaders. Every desperate strike by the zionists against the children, women, and men of Gaza only reinforces the justness and inevitability of the Palestinian cause to millions of people around the world. In this way, violent acts not only unmake the colonizer, but cause the colonizer to unmake themselves. The Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on its own did not liberate Palestine in one dramatic punch, but marks a new development in what Sen would term Palestine’s “long liberation moment.”

Finally, Gaza Under Hamas by Bjorn Brenner is a contemporary examination of Hamas after the 2006 elections. It assesses Hamas’ response to what the author identifies as the three major problems confronting Hamas, beyond the obvious one which is the occupation of Palestine by zionists. These are: Hamas’ governmental conflicts with Fatah, its political rival which governs the West Bank, who have proven themselves to be complicit with the occupier’s agenda, Hamas’ handling of Salafi and Jihadist groups, and its general approach to social order within Gaza.

This text dismantles the common Western canards that Hamas are “Islamic supremacists,” “Arab supremacists,” or “authoritarian.” It examines in detail how serving the needs and interests of the Palestinian people has led to Hamas’ style of governance balancing between theocratic and secular, democratic and authoritarian. It showcases Hamas’ pragmatic and grassroots nature, and its responsiveness to the needs of Palestinians. This is contrasted with how the Palestinian Authority functions under Fatah’s leadership.

Brenner’s work examines Hamas’ conflicts with groups who ascribe to more fundamentalist interpretations of Islam, such as Salafi-Jihadist groups and ISIS, whose politics and compradorship are beyond the scope of this article. Drawing attention to these conflicts is important as it illustrates that Hamas are not the Islamic extremists they’re construed as in Western media. Notably, many members of the fundamentalist groups are former Hamas members who were disillusioned by the organization’s secular and democratic qualities, and its lack of radical nihilism.

Gaza Under Hamas also investigates the pragmatic balance that the organization must maintain between its own survival, the need for social harmony in Palestinian society, and respect for individual rights within Palestinian society. Brenner concludes that Hamas prioritizes communal security over notions of justice or individual rights as they’re commonly understood in the West. He describes how Hamas’ governance is a unique combination of Islamic customary codes (urf) and Islamic religious law (sharia). While the organization is democratic, they may act beyond democratic norms in order to resist the zionists and preserve Palestinian society.Overall, Gaza Under Hamas by Bjorn Brenner, Decolonizing Gaza by Somdeep Sen, and Hamas: From Resistance to Regime by Paola Caridi strive to paint a comprehensive portrait of a complex organization. The various analytical and theoretical perspectives utilized by the three authors are a welcome refrain from the reductive and bombastic drivel that permeates Western discourse on this subject. As the zionists come under increasing social, political, and military pressure from the resistance, so too will their efforts to slander Hamas and the Palestinian people intensify. In this context, texts like these, which humanize the resistance of the colonized and aspire towards an objective understanding of Hamas, become increasingly essential.

Dear Youth of America, 

So, you’ve read Bin Laden’s letter and your mind is blown. How could such an obviously evil man have a somewhat correct analysis of the Palestinian conflict? I’m very sorry to have to blow your mind further. Osama Bin Laden isn’t really the anti-imperialist fighter he seems to be in that letter. 

Osama Bin Laden was born into the family of a billionaire construction magnate with close ties to the Saudi royal family. He first gained recognition in the West as a Mujahideen leader in the Afghan-Soviet War, in which he was funded by the CIA in order to foil the USSR. At the tailend of the 80s, guided by his extreme interpretation of Islam, he founded Al Qaeda in order to conduct Jihad against America and its allies. This included operations in Sudan and Somalia. However, operations conducted by his Mujahideen in Bosnia between 1994-1996 draw into question whether Bin Laden was ever truly free of his handlers in Washington, or always serving as their useful idiot.  

Bin Laden gained further notoriety in the West for allegedly financing the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, though he denied involvement. Eventually he would gain international infamy as the architect behind the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, though he remained ambiguous about his involvement for years afterward. Ultimately, by allowing the United States to create a terrorist mastermind mythos around him, Bin Laden was helping the ruling class to obscure an important detail about 9/11 — that everyone, from the CIA and FBI, to the zionist intelligence agency Mossad, to the Saudi royal family, was in on the plot, and could have prevented the attacks. If they’d wanted to. But why didn’t they want to?  

Saudi Arabia’s monarchy has been America’s second most solid ally in West Asia, surpassed only by the zionist occupation of Palestine, commonly referred to as “Israel”. These countries serve as the frontline for the U.S. Empire’s regional imperialist interests — they do America’s bidding, and are granted a degree of autonomy and a share of the spoils. They aren’t the only two regional pawns, however. The United States originally helped Saddam Hussein come to power in Iraq, but he proved to be an unreliable ally whose nationalism exceeded his loyalty to the Empire. Hussein disobeyed his overlords and they overthrew him. They garnered popular support to achieve this through now infamous lies such as Colin Powell’s assertion that Hussein “possessed weapons of mass destruction” and the Nayirah Testimony — in which Iraqi soldiers were accused of dumping premature babies out of incubators. Like Saddam Hussein, Bin Laden was a comprador who disobeyed and invoked the metropole’s ire. In Bin Laden’s case, his mistake was calling for the destruction of Israel and the overthrow of the Saudi royal family, who he accused of straying from Islam. Allowing 9/11 to occur gave the U.S. Empire a necessary excuse to solidify its regional control, and dispose of an asset who had outlived his use. 

Nobody went after the Saudi royal family for their role in 9/11 because they continued to obey America in every way. They normalized relations with the zionist occupation and continue to stoke the flames of the Wahhabi Islamic conservative movement. This strain of Islam is despised by millions of Muslims around the world because it’s insanely hateful to Muslim people who don’t follow its extreme interpretation of the religion. It’s similar to how the Christian fundamentalist movement hates any American Christian who doesn’t follow their interpretation of Christianity. It’s convenient for the U.S. to encourage Wahhabism abroad so they can stoke the fires of Islamophobia and fear of Sharia Law at home.

But what does this have to do with Palestine? Bin Laden’s letter talks about large “Jewish capital” taking control of the American state apparatus, and using it to attack Palestine.. This is a convenient lie for the large capital interests that actually control America (90% identify as Christians, for the record). It serves to disguise who is in control, and makes it seem that Israel is in control, when in fact the current president has said multiple times that Israel protects America’s interests in West Asia. Osama Bin Laden was highly educated and could have easily dispelled this myth, which is the most common and misinformed antisemitic myth on the planet, yet it appears in his letter. In fact, it’s clear from other letters and communications in which he distinguishes between Zionism and Judaism, that Bin Laden himself knew it to be untrue. Yet it appears in his letter. Of course this man, who was born into great wealth, could never tell everyday people that the real enemy is people like him and his family, that the wealthiest people of any country, including America, are their real enemies. 

This, my friends, is what we call shared class interest or class solidarity. The very wealthiest people pretend to fight one another in public, in front of us, but actually help each other behind closed doors. They teach us to suspect each other and prevent us from achieving the class solidarity that they have. They will always try to turn everyday Muslims and Christians against everyday Jews (including countless anti-zionist Jews), because that’s exactly what serves their interests most. Although Bin Laden’s letter rightly decries the occupation of Palestine, by misidentifying the enemy he still performs a useful role to the bourgeoisie. They try to set us against each other in many other ways — along racial lines or lines of gender and sexuality. All of it serves the purpose of a smokescreen, to prevent us from identifying them as the real enemy.

The ultimate result of 9/11 was the American government stripping its citizens of their constitutional rights through the Patriot Act. It was the pretext to re-invade Iraq and invade Afghanistan. Though 9/11 may seem like an attack on America, it allowed the ruling class to consolidate its interests. Though Bin Laden’s letter seems anti-imperialist, it serves imperialism by misleading the people about who their enemies are.

But having been misled is not an excuse for working class zionists in the West who engage in Islamophobic rhetoric to justify Israel’s occupation and genocide of Palestinians. If Osama Bin Laden’s letter can go viral and be widely read, there’s no reason the work of real anti-imperialists, such as Ghassan Kanafani, Leila Khaled, and George Habash shouldn’t — except if you consider the ruling class wants and encourages you to read Osama Bin Laden instead.

At a certain point, working class zionists are choosing to engage in cruel bigotry and sophistry, despite their class interests. They are no better than working class Christians who join the KKK or working class Muslims who joined ISIS. Like Bin Laden, they’re not fighting the real enemy. To paraphrase other genuine decolonial writers Aimé Césaire and Frantz Fanon: “Those who try to dehumanize others, in fact forfeit their own humanity. By justifying the murder and maiming of the civilians they oppress, oppressors sign away their own right to liberty.” The fate of such oppressors should be no less than that of Julius Streicher, who was rightfully convicted along with his Nazi friends, even though he never personally killed a Jew in the Holocaust. His hands were the bloodiest of all, because he published an antisemitic magazine which inspired countless others to take up arms against their neighbors.

The wars I’ve mentioned in this letter, from the two Afghan wars, to the two Gulf Wars, to the Bosnian War, murdered and maimed countless civilians in dozens of Global South countries. The survivors of these wars, who live with permanent disabilities, survivor’s guilt and immense grief over their lost loved ones, have for decades hated America. The writer of this piece is just one of millions of Global South citizens who have suffered incalculable losses because of America’s “foreign policy.” We don’t hate America or you because of your “freedom” — this is another lie your government tells you. We hate you because you allow your government to butcher us and destroy our freedoms.

You may feel it’s unfair of us to hate you — after all, you’re not in control of what your government does. But that doesn’t absolve you of your responsibility to the almost 200 other countries that you purposely repress (whether as allies or enemies). We’ve all been told that the American government is the Best Democracy on the planet and it’s this exemplary democracy that justifies forcing the same system on all of us. But America is no democracy — it’s a dictatorship of the ruling class. Everything the ruling class does — from the grandiosity of 9/11 to the viral Bin Laden letter, serves some role in their class interest. It’s designed to keep you from recognizing your class position, and that you don’t live in a democracy. 

When you don’t live in a democracy, it’s your responsibility to overthrow the political system which represses your voice and murders everyone else. It’s your responsibility to correct the historical errors of the country you claim as your own, and the first step on this journey is properly identifying who the real allies — and real enemies — are.

In Solidarity,

Comrade Leila’s Whitest Stan

Beyond approving the funding, the vote actually doubled the public cost of the project due to a little reported unlimited leaseback agreement with the Atlanta Police Foundation. The city is leasing the 85-acre plot of the Weelaunee Forest to the APF for about $10 a year, and councilors voted to lease it back for access to the training facility for $1.2 million per year for the next 30 years (about $36 million total). This flies in the face of the nearly two year Stop Cop City movement; it also ignores  the many commentators who pleaded with the councilors to redirect this funding toward Atlanta’s marginalized populations, the major housing problem, and to help the 20% of the city’s children and 14% of adults who face daily hunger.

In the city council’s previous election, there was a major turnover, largely due to the rejection of harmful policing policies after the murder of George Floyd and Atlanta resident Rayshard Brooks, bringing in seven new officials. The new city council was touted to be younger and more “ideologically progressive” than previous iterations. But the vote tally in favor of doubling funding for Cop City was 11-4, with eight of the eleven being Democrats. Once again, the fascist ideology of capitalism has held firm thanks to its stabilizing left wing, the Democratic Party. In a struggle with the far right for dominance in government, they have eagerly served the interests of the ruling class, despite their hollow words.

One of these new councilors, Byron Amos, has been fueled by developers and airport concessionaires throughout his political career. Another younger member, Matt Westmoreland, who has served since 2018, used his post as the Chairperson of the Community Development/Human Services Committee to cut time for public comment in half. He has also come under scrutiny for violations of the Open Meetings Act, which requires details of all votes to be recorded. In one meeting, Westmoreland appears to have falsified the votes of his colleagues in order to discuss legislation in a private, executive session. In a video, nobody, not even Westmoreland himself, was recorded voting on the motion before it was approved.

The true purpose of these offices — to serve the interests of the ruling class — is illustrated by Councilor Westmoreland’s former Chief of Staff, Wayne Martin, who came under investigation for conflicts of interest in 2019. The staffer became an employee of Comcast a few months after leaving his government post, which is a clear violation of Georgia law. According to the ethics complaint which triggered the investigation, his employment was a reward for helping the company secure another seven year franchise agreement with the city. While working for Comcast, Martin twice addressed the council, and personally lobbied them during the debate about the Comcast Franchise Agreement. He used his relationships and knowledge about the council process to secure the contract with a unanimous vote. Although Martin was careless enough to get caught, his is not the only example of the city government’s service to capital.

The City Council has awarded many lucrative contracts to corporations in the name of improving public safety with little evidence to prove that these new investments actually deter or prevent crime. One of these initiatives, One Atlanta – Light Up the Night, expands the city’s network of streetlights in areas with higher crime rates and traffic accidents. Georgia Power has installed 10,000 new LED street lights with multi-node capabilities, meaning that many of these lights are equipped or can be equipped with two cameras, microphones, A.I. filtering technology, and 5G capabilities. The partnership combines technology from GE, Genetec, AT&T, and CivicSmart that allows for detection of illegal parking, surveillance of the street and sidewalks, and uses ShotSpotter, which is an audio detection technology that alerts police to loud sounds that may be gunshots, and has a track record of being used to violently target Black and Latino communities.  In Chicago, it was a ShotSpotter alert that deployed police to Little Village, a majority Latino neighborhood, who then chased down and murdered 13-year old Adam Toledo. There, researchers at Northwestern University MacArthur Justice Center found that at least 90% of ShotSpotter alerts yield no evidence of an actual gunshot, meaning that system produces dangerous, racist over-policing.

Georgia Power has also gotten a contract with the city through APF’s Operation Shield, selling them surveillance and license plate reading technology. Operation Shield has made Atlanta the most surveilled city in the U.S. Empire. The license plate reading tech is made by FlockSafety, whose products are now being used across the empire after being tested in Atlanta. Georgia Power and Flock Safety are both donors to the APF.

Corporations not only get contracts through the APF, but this foundation, like all other police foundations, are a means for private direction and guidance of municipal police forces. The police are molded to more effectively serve powerful interests. The over-policing of the U.S. Empire’s nationally oppressed communities, like Atlanta’s historically Black neighborhoods, goes hand in hand with their accelerating gentrification. This results in increased police murders and terror, which has led to many uprisings across the empire this past decade. The state is building Cop City in response to these uprisings; it was first proposed in 2017 and approved shortly after the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. In this training ground for domestic occupation, as Kwame Olufemi of Community Movement Builders in Atlanta puts it:

They [will be] practicing how to make sure poor and working class people stay in line. So when the police kill us in the streets again, like they did to Rayshard Brooks in 2020, they can control our protests and community response to how they continually murder our people.

The council’s vote comes not out of dismissal of the empire-wide movement against racist police terror, but because of it. Fear is growing in the hearts of the capitalists, as can be seen with the staggering $28.1 million in revenue the APF had in 2021, triple the amount from the year before. This is higher than the New York City Police Foundation, and with a population 6% of its size. As cities across the empire double down on escalating police violence, a pattern seems to emerge: an endless barrage of police terrorism and murders that will inevitably result in more uprisings. This is a self-fulfilling prophecy that increases the already egregious funding and militarization of the police, and siphons more public funds to megacorporations.

[From the Editors: This letter is directed at the members of the National Guard or its reserves. While other comrades who didn’t enlist in the imperialist armed forces to serve the capitalist state may find it illuminating, this anonymous comrade is speaking directly to those who have.]

So, you enlisted in the National Guard or the Reserve components. Perhaps you joined because you were poor; maybe you were seduced by the promise of a military pension and GI Bill benefits. Perhaps you were “lost” and looking for a sense of community and purpose. Or, maybe you consider yourself a patriot, and believe so strongly in “American values” that you joined to “serve” a country you think you love.

But now, you’re beginning to feel that something is wrong. You know something is wrong.  Except you can’t quite put your finger on exactly what it is. You can’t find the words to express it.

Take it from me: I was an active-duty Sergeant in the army for seven years. I deployed twice: once to Poland, once to Iraq. I worked as a 25 Series soldier, and my job mostly involved routers and switches, with the occasional SINCGARS or Harris radio network. I know where you’ve been, because I’ve been there, and I’ve experienced a lot of the same things you have: shitty commanders, abusive first sergeants, nit-picking NCOs, unlivable barracks that should be condemned, pay issues… The list goes on and on. 

I’m writing this so that you can hear these words from someone who’s been in your position and knows exactly what you’re up against. Whatever you might think of socialists, communists, “reds,” you can rest assured that this socialist does not hate you. I see myself in you — my past self — and I want to help you, just like I wish I could go back in time and help him.

And that’s why I share these truths with you — because you won’t hear them from anyone else.

Here’s the BLUF: Your command team does not give a fuck about you. You do not serve the American people. Despite what your officers and NCOs tell you, I promise and assure you that you are a human being with free will; no amount of “lawful” orders or army regulations can change that. You do not, in fact, have to comply — especially when those orders violate your spiritual, moral, and ethical beliefs! When your conscience tells you to disobey orders, you can listen to it! You don’t need to sacrifice your humanity! No matter what you’ve already done, it’s never too late to start doing what’s right.

Your command team hates you.

On both of my deployments, I worked closely with National Guard units of all stripes, from many different states, as well as Guam and Puerto Rico. There were a few common issues that they all had, regardless of where they came from. For instance, the loophole that commanders use to save money: putting soldiers on back-to-back 29-day orders so as not to have to pay BAH. Another variation of this is when your command calls you for AT (active training, the “two weeks a year,” with a very “generous” interpretation of the length of two weeks), but only puts you on 29-day orders.

Your two-faced commanders talk a big game about how much they care about you, how you’re their brothers and sisters in arms, and how they’d “never leave a fallen comrade behind.” But riddle me this: why would an authority figure who claims to love you as if you were their own kin, work so hard to shortchange you of the money you need to support your family? Think for yourself! What is your commander’s real priority? Do they care about you and your family’s well-being? Or do they care about pleasing their bosses to get that top-block OER? 

It’s common knowledge that career-oriented officers and NCOs would gladly throw their soldiers under the bus to impress their bosses. You know, deep down, that you are disposable to them; they would sacrifice you in an instant to advance their own careers. Occasionally you’ll come across a decent one who legitimately cares for their subordinates, but their OERs and NCOERs don’t reflect that. When you are evaluated by your superiors, and your superiors are the only ones whose input materially impacts your evaluations, it shouldn’t be a surprise that your superior’s opinion of you is what counts most for a promotion.

Let the servants sleep in the barn!

I recall reading in 2021 that National Guardsmen were forced by their command to sleep in parking garages in the middle of winter during Trump’s Beer Hall Putsch on January 6^th. For all the praise of the Guard for their service in securing our so-called “democracy,” how were you actually rewarded by your commanders and the politicians who called upon you? They made you sleep in a parking garage. They “housed” you like machinery. They put you in a warehouse, in  the middle of January, at night, in Washington D.C. — in our country’s capital. The same capital, by the way, where the same slimy legislators you protected — both Republican and Democrat alike — wax poetic about promising “our nation’s veterans” the world, while dumping them  on the street. Riddle me this: what country treats their “heroes” this way? 

The sad fact is that you’re not their heroes. You’re their servants, their executioners, their human shields. The ruling classes of big businessmen, landlords, developers, bankers, and financial speculators don’t see you as heroes. They don’t even see you as human beings. They see you as killing machines and meat shields, “built” to do their dirty work for them. In other words, they see you as disposable. You are literally no better than used parts to the ruling classes! 

They’re all too eager to disrupt your lives by summoning you to protect them at a moment’s notice… but why should you protect them? They would never, in a million years, extend the same courtesy or service to you and your family. Do you think that United States Senators and Congressmen make themselves sleep in parking garages? I promise you, they do not! So why should you — why should anyone?

And don’t forget: While Guardsmen were sleeping on concrete, command teams were yakking it up in high-class hotels.While their subordinates froze in a parking garage, your officers were sipping champagne on freshly made beds. As you and I both know, this is just one high-profile incident that happened to get leaked to the press. This kind of shit happens all the time, and rarely makes the news. Again, ask yourself: What kind of people, who claim to love you as if you were their brothers and sisters, would ever force you to sleep outside in a parking garage in winter, with no beds, no bathrooms, and no heating, while they party at the Marriott?

Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) – Not Much of A Relief At All!

Guardsmen also must deal with the complications of “part-time” military service. This usually means having to balance a civilian career in addition to one’s National Guard obligations. On paper, it’s true that you are legally protected by the SCRA from getting fired if and when your military service interferes with your civilian career. On paper, it seems like a good law. The SCRA states that employers are not allowed to fire Guardsmen and Reservists from their careers if they come down on military orders to deploy that are longer than 30 days, and the law imposes heavy fines and penalties on businesses found guilty of breaking it. Sounds reasonable, right?

But, in reality, the SCRA is a paper tiger. Everybody knows at least one person who’s gotten hemmed up by their civilian job in spite of this law! In reality, what ends up happening is that your boss starts building up a case against you  for random infractions, such as being 3 seconds late to work, and then fires you anyway, once they have sufficient “evidence.” While you and I both know that the real reason you were fired is that your military service interfered with your boss’ profits, on paper, they can say to the court, “Hey, we fired him because he was tardy! Not because he’s in the Guard!”

What real, tangible benefits does the Guard really provide for you and your family? What do you get out of being in it? You get dehumanized by your command teams; they sleep in hotels while you sleep outside in the winter. They play tricks with your schedule to cut your pay. There’s an epidemic of sexual harrassment and assault. Your service can oftentimes result in you getting fired from your day job.And the list goes on!

The Case of 2LT Nazario – Camouflage Uniforms Won’t Hide Your Race From Killer Cops

In 2020, George Floyd was murdered by Derek Chauvin and his fellow Minneapolis Police Department pigs, and in the aftermath, the masses rose up in the biggest rebellion this country’s seen in decades. You and I both know these kinds of murders-by-cop happen in this country on a daily basis. Killer cops are just a fact of life in the United States — especially for Black people. In 2020, in a bout of righteous anger, the people stood up against their oppressors. They told the state and the capitalists who run it that they would not stand quietly as members of their community were gunned down, hanged, or choked to death in the streets. The rebellion struck terror into the oppressors, leading politicians in 34 separate state governments and Washington, D.C. to activate their National Guard units — not to help during an emergency, not to protect the demonstrators, not to provide medical assistance, and certainly not to stop the waves of police murders that the “boys in blue” commit every single day. Instead, the National Guard was placed on riot control duty, to assist in “containing the insurgency,” to protect the private property, bought politicians, and corrupt institutions of the ruling capitalist class.

Some of you reading this were most likely deployed during the 2020 rebellion. I’m not here to judge, condemn, or castigate you. Instead, I am here to ask you to reconsider this event in a different light from what you’ve been told. Were you really serving the “American people,” or were you serving the ruling capitalist class, their state, their politicians, and their killer cops? Were you protecting the people, or were you protecting the system that oppresses them — that oppresses all of us? 

Despite what your command has told you, you have more in common with the protestors than you do your command team, the police, and the wealthy exploiters whom you’ve been made to  serve and protect.

Consider the case of 2LT Caron Nazario. Lieutenant Nazario is an Afro-Latino man serving in the Virginia National Guard. When Lt. Nazario was pulled over by the police, he did everything he was “supposed to do.” Maybe he mistakenly believed that these pigs were his brothers-in-arms. Maybe he thought that since they both receive taxpayer-funded salaries, they must both be “serving the American people.” Maybe he assumed, “Our uniforms might be different, but we have each others’ six.” Unfortunately for Lieutenant Nazario, he couldn’t have been more wrong. Out of concern for his safety as well as the safety of the officers, Lt. Nazario did not immediately pull over his vehicle. Instead, he kept driving and waited until he could pull over in a well-lit area — a gas station. Lt. Nazario wanted to ensure that the police would be safe during the traffic stop, because it was nighttime in a rural area. Upon pulling over in a gas station parking lot, the two cops — Joe Gutierrez and Daniel Crocker, both white men — approached Lt. Nazario’s vehicle — guns drawn. They shouted commands at him like a dog. One of the cops threatened to electrocute Nazario with his taser. Lt. Nazario attempted to diffuse the situation by respectfully asking officers what the issue was. He tried to hand them his military ID card. When Nazario said that he was afraid to leave his car, because the cops had repeatedly threatened to murder him, they replied, “Yeah, you should be,” and pepper sprayed him. (Side note — pepper spray is considered a chemical weapon under the Geneva Conventions.) When Nazario reached out of the vehicle with his hands up, he clearly displayed the OCP uniform top of the United States Army. The cops violently pulled the lieutenant from his car. They drew their weapons and pointed them at the lieutenant, with every intention of shooting at the slightest perceived provocation. The cops then proceeded to beat Nazario, repeatedly striking him with their knees until he fell to the ground, at which point they repeatedly stomped on his body with their combat boots. The cops also illegally searched Nazario’s car. After the initial beating, other officers arrived at the scene, and put a stop to the excess. The other officers told Gutierrez and Crocker that they were in the wrong. Even so, these two white stormtrooper-cops threatened to ruin Nazario’s military career with fraudulent felony charges, if he dared to speak out or file a lawsuit.

The brutality Lieutenant Nazario suffered at the hands of the racist police is not exceptional; it is the norm for Black people in this country. The cops treated the lieutenant with all the same brutality and violence afforded to Black people by law enforcement every single day. Lt. Nazario’s camouflage uniform, his military ID, and the respect he showed his fellow “soldiers” did nothing to protect him from this brutality. The cops saw right through that army camo to the only thing that mattered: the color of the lieutenant’s skin. Why were the police so violent in this instance? Because that is their real job. The role of the police in the United States isn’t to protect and serve the people; it’s to protect private property and the state, to serve the property-owning classes, and to enact White Terror against the racially oppressed masses.

The police you work alongside, when you’re activated for riot control duty, will never see Black people as human beings, let alone as soldiers “serving their nation.” If you’re Black, they see you as a potential criminal and a threat to the established, oppressive order, and they’ve already decided your fate: imprisonment or death. You are no different than the thousands of racially oppressed people who suffer the same brutality every single day in America.

Tying It All Together

Your employer, the United States Armed Forces, is not on your side. In fact, it is your enemy; it is your oppressor. It will work you ragged to the bone, push you until your body literally falls apart, crush you under psychological stress, and then throw you back onto the streets once you’re no longer useful. You endure all of that suffering and misery not to “serve your nation,” not to “protect the American people,” but to protect the interests of powerful men who couldn’t care less if you live or die, and who won’t take notice when you and your family go hungry, when you can’t afford rent, when you’re left to rot with untreated chronic pain and PTSD.

We live in a capitalist society, a society organized around  the production of commodities for the profit of the rich. Every facet of our lives has been designed to ensure that businesses can maintain their profit margins. We are paid unlivable wages, so that we can spend more than half of our incomes on unlivable housing that quite literally poisons us and our children. The capitalist class, the property-owning class, the class that employs the politicians and the police as its public servants and stormtroopers, is constantly devising ways of keeping the masses poor, overworked, underhoused, and desperate for scraps. Why? Because the less they have to pay us in wages, the more profit they get to keep for their greedy selves! 

Consider your boss at your civilian job. Why are they so eager to fire you the minute your service interferes with their business? Because keeping you on the books is a business expense. Because your civil rights cut into their profits. Even if they’re not paying your wages, from their sick perspective, they’re still paying for your health insurance and your retirement benefits; they’re still clogging their computer systems with your information; the list goes on. When you’re deployed overseas, you’re no longer producing commodities for your civilian boss, which means you’re not actively making them a profit. So, they see you as just another wasted expense to be eliminated. Who is profiting from your deployments? KBR, by selling you food that isn’t fit for a pig. The myriad U.S. military contractors, by manufacturing all kinds of worthless equipment that does nothing but sit in a conex (shipping container) until the next cyclic inventory. The overpaid contractors who make bank off providing you with whatever training. The monopolist oil companies, whose overseas investments you risk your life and murder civilians in foreign countries to protect. The predatory industrialists, who send dollar-per-day jobs abroad to the sweatshops that spring up in every country that the U.S. military terrorizes, invades, and occupies.

Although your command team is not a profitable enterprise, they are still bound to the logic of capitalism. They have budgets to manage and deadlines to meet, and your BAH is, from their perspective, nothing but an enormous drain. So, even if your commander is not a capitalist per se, even if they don’t own a factory or a sweatshop or an oil company, they’re still bound by the logic of capital, and they still ultimately serve the monopolists who rule this country. The politicians beholden to the greedy capitalists who pay your bosses are always looking at the property book and asking “How can we work these soldiers harder, while cutting costs? What spending cuts can we make to their housing, nutrition, and other benefits?” 

But you don’t need to be the dutiful servants of our common oppressors. You don’t need to “just follow orders.” You, a Guardsman, share more in common with the workers, the dispossessed, the racially oppressed, and the desperately poor masses of this country — the very same masses whose righteous rebellions you are periodically ordered to suppress with bullets, chemical weapons, and tanks — as well the working and poor people of all countries, than you share with the capitalists and landlords, whose property you defend, the politicians who use you for cheap political leverage, and your abusive commanders.

The ruling class has something called solidarity. They can look past some of their differences to unite around shared political, militaristic, and economic goals. The basis for this solidarity among capitalists and other oppressing classes is that, in order to maintain their rule, they must cooperate to suppress the struggles of the oppressed. But the ethos of solidarity isn’t just for the ruling classes; in fact, it’s often impossible for them to band together, because they’re always undercutting each other in the capitalistic competition of the “free market,” always trying to get a leg up on each other. The working and dispossessed masses, too, can have solidarity with one another. Solidarity is the ethos of  striking workers, trusting their co-workers to strike at their side. Solidarity is the ethos of houseless folks looking out for one another. Solidarity is the ethos of an uprising — of the masses uniting to fight back against our oppressors. The people on your side, the people to whom you truly owe allegiance, and with whom you should be standing in solidarity, are the working and dispossessed folks you are often called on to violently suppress, such as those who rose up during the 2020 George Floyd Uprising. As a former army soldier, as someone who used to be in a similar position, I implore you to choose the side of the people over the side of your employer — your oppressor.

Betraying your commanders and disobeying their unjust, inhumane orders will be the ethical decision every single time. It is the only decision that will allow you to sleep peacefully at night; it is the only decision that will allow your  conscience to rest; it is the only decision that will preserve your connection to your fellow human beings, and to your own humanity. If you suffer from PTSD, like I do, then you already know that this peace of mind is invaluable.

The Debt Repaid

Maybe you didn’t want to kill people. Maybe you didn’t sign up to oppress the millions of poor and oppressed people in this country and the billions in countries subjugated by American imperialism across the world. Maybe you don’t want to serve the capitalists who rule this country, who use the U.S. Armed Forces to plunder the Third World, and whose greed is strangling this planet through global warming and ecocide. Maybe you really believed the bullshit they taught you growing up — after all, the ruling classes spend a lot of money trying to convince us that they’re the good guys and that the United States of America is just trying to make the world a better place, one imperialist war at a time. Maybe you didn’t know — or didn’t realize — that this was what you signed up for.

Still, the fact is that you did sign up. You volunteered for a job that might require you to murder poor and oppressed people, in this country or abroad, in service of the imperialist ruling class.

But now you know better. Now you’re beginning to question everything you’ve been taught. You’re beginning to question whether your allegiance should be to the U.S. Empire and its rulers, or to the poor and oppressed people of this country, and the poor and oppressed people of the world.

Now, the only question that matters is this: If and when you’re given the order to turn your rifles on the oppressed and to open fire, will you obey?

Whose side are you on?

You made a horrible mistake. You volunteered to be a foot soldier for American imperialism and to take an active role in the oppression of the masses. But your mistake doesn’t need to be final; you don’t need to surrender your humanity to the U.S. Empire, once and for all, body and soul. Now that you know better, you have an obligation — a moral and ethical obligation, a class obligation, a religious and spiritual obligation (for those of you who belong to various faiths), and at all times an obligation to your humanity — to do something about it. You owe a debt, not only to the poor and oppressed masses within the U.S. Empire, but to the people in every country terrorized, invaded, occupied, and plundered by American imperialism. The salaries and benefits you’ve earned as a Guardsmen were earned by serving a globe-trotting imperialist power — the most powerful empire in human history — that has used you — your bodies, your labor, your very lives — to maintain its stranglehold on the world. And in order to repay this debt, you have an obligation to disobey orders.

Don’t shoot. Disobey orders. As soon as you can, get out. Help other Guardsmen get out, too. You don’t want to stand in the ranks of history’s genocidaires; you don’t want to be lined up alongside Goering, Himmler, and Tojo, or, for that matter, alongside George Washington and Andrew Jackson. Your name shouldn’t be read next to theirs on the roll of history’s monsters; you don’t need to reserve yourself an exhibit in the museum of fascist empires. You don’t want to give your life to the American Wehrmacht. Did you sign up to be a hero? Did you sign up to protect and serve the people? Then be like Major Hugh Thompson, the man who stopped a massacre in its tracks by planting his Hiller OH-23 Raven between his fellow U.S. soldiers and the fleeing civilians at Sơn Mỹ and Mỹ Lai. Be like the soldiers who fragged their officers, rather than murder innocent people and freedom fighters in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Korea.