Tag: Communist Party

The “Mock Revolution” at Mosinee: On The Racism of Anti-Communism in the US

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)
British Pathé

For most of the last one hundred and fifty years, anti-communism has been a defining aspect of American political culture, both domestic and foreign. As historian Nick Fischer has argued, after the Civil War, anti-communism was deployed to suppress an unruly underclass of people, including the working poor, women, and Black Americans, and prevent any real attention on their working and living conditions. This anti-communism was deployed by an “elitist” class who sought to divide working people among themselves, and prescribe acceptable behaviors, including patriarchal heteronormative familial relationships. When those same people made demands for equal treatment, or even just decent treatment, the epithet “communist” or “socialist” has been deployed to delegitimize their claims to rights.

The “Mock Revolution” at Mosinee: On The Racism of Anti-Communism in the US

Red Scared: Revising history at the Victims of Communism Museum

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

“THERE IS NO WAY he is a victim of communism,” my partner quips, pointing to a photo of the late Pope John Paul II. We are near the end of our visit to the new Victims of Communism Museum, standing in an elevator-size lobby with photographs of “victims” screen-printed all over the walls. Among the many victims and honorees: Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, the Dalai Lama, Romanian writer Herta Müller, Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong, and Hungarian neofascist Viktor Orbán.

Red Scared: Revising history at the Victims of Communism Museum (archived)

For some in St. Petersburg’s Black communities, Uhuru raid ‘doesn’t smell good’

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

For some in St. Petersburg’s Black communities, Uhuru raid ‘doesn’t smell good’

Some tactics at play in the Uhuru ordeal are indeed “straight out of COINTELPRO,” or more formally, the Counterintelligence Program, said Michael German, a former FBI agent who is now a fellow at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice.

The attention-grabbing raids, a meeting with select Black leaders before the indictment announcement, the implied involvement of the Uhurus despite the lack of arrests — all echo the FBI’s old playbook.

The aim then was to discourage Black groups from activity protected by the First Amendment, German said. Some of those tactics have re-emerged as “disruption strategies” since 9/11.

“It creates actual harm, because there’s no (legal) forum for these individuals to defend themselves against particular charges,” German said.