The Puerto Rican Independence Movement and the Young Lords.

Puerto Rico stands today as the world's oldest colony. Occupied by the Spanish in 1508 and invaded by the United States military in 1898. Though some thought that the United States had arrived to free Puerto Rico from colonization it soon became clear that they were there to stay. The Americans had waged their war with the Spanish not to bring freedom to the colonies but to acquire their own. Revolutionary Puerto Rican Nationalist leader Pedro Albizu Campos said of the invasion:

Within international rights Puerto Rico was a sovereign nation on the date in which the Treaty of Paris was drawn up, and Spain could neither give away Puerto Rico nor could the US annex it, nor the entire world disown it.  This sovereignty is irrevocable and when the United States, through its cannons, forced the Spanish plenipotentiaries to sign the so-called cession of Puerto Rico it was committing a typical North American stick-up.  And this co-action against the Spanish had no part of the Spanish American war, it was never a belligerent against the US or anyone else

In the subsequent years the U.S. erected military bases across the island, repressed national culture and submitted the Puerto Rican economy to US business interests. In the latter half of the 20th century the US accelerated this economic domination with Operation Bootstrap which dismantled the agricultural economy and sold off state assets to private U.S. industrial firms. Massive unemployment resulted and many Puerto Ricans were forced to immigrate to the United States to find work.
In the United States they joined other oppressed nationalities as a super-exploited under class.
While in Puerto Rico groups such as the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and Los Macheteros waged full scale revolutionary war against the colonial government, in the mainland United States the Young Lords organized to defend the rights of Puerto Rican immigrants and to struggle for National Liberation.
On Thursday, February 23rd at 8pm in room LI509 the UVURSU will be receiving a lecture by Augustin Diaz and Joshua West on the Puerto Rican Independence Movement and the Young Lords. Come learn the incredible story of the Puerto Rican people's dramatic struggle for self determination!

Emma Goldman

This week we will be recieving a lecture from Kimmie Wing on the Anarchist and Feminist organizer, Emma Goldman. We will be meeting in room SC213a at 8pm on Thursday, February 15. Today the token elevation of women to positions of authority in the political realm is seen, by some, as a great leap forward in the advancement of women. But there are others who remain critical of the notion that the true liberation of women can be realized by their integration into the oppressive power structures of capitalism. A hundred years ago Emma Goldman took the unpopular stance of being against the women's suffrage movement. Not because she felt that they were incapable of dealing with such responsibility, on the contrary, she was opposed to the very political-economic structures which the suffragettes sought to integrate women into. As is evidenced in this passage from Anarchism and Other Essays:
"The poor, stupid, free American citizen! Free to starve, free to tramp the highways of this great country, he enjoys universal suffrage, and, by that right, he has forged chains about his limbs. The reward that he receives is stringent labor laws prohibiting the right of boycott, of picketing, in fact, of everything, except the right to be robbed of the fruits of his labor. Yet all these disastrous results of the twentieth century fetich have taught woman nothing. But, then, woman will purify politics, we are assured. Needless to say, I am not opposed to woman suffrage on the conventional ground that she is not equal to it. I see neither physical, psychological, nor mental reasons why woman should not have the equal right to vote with man. But that can not possibly blind me to the absurd notion that woman will accomplish that wherein man has failed. If she would not make things worse, she certainly could not make them better. To assume, therefore, that she would succeed in purifying something which is not susceptible of purification, is to credit her with supernatural powers....
The import is not the kind of work woman does, but rather the quality of the work she furnishes. She can give suffrage or the ballot no new quality, nor can she receive anything from it that will enhance her own quality. Her development, her freedom, her independence, must come from and through herself. First, by asserting herself as a personality, and not as a sex commodity. Second, by refusing the right to anyone over her body; by refusing to bear children, unless she wants them; by refusing to be a servant to God, the State, society, the husband, the family, etc.; by making her life simpler, but deeper and richer. That is, by trying to learn the meaning and substance of life in all its complexities, by freeing herself from the fear of public opinion and public condemnation. Only that, and not the ballot, will set woman free, will make her a force hitherto unknown in the world, a force for real love, for peace, for harmony; a force of divine fire, of life giving; a creator of free men and women."
Be sure to attend the RSU's meeting this week for a lively lecture and discussion on the life and thought of Emma Goldman.

Fidel: The Untold Story

Fidel Castro. In the U.S. the name is often synonymous with dictatorship and antiquated Cold War politics, but throughout much of the world the name has very different connotations. The Cuban Revolution was the first successful socialist revolution in the western hemisphere. In open defiance of U.S. business interests and the Monroe Doctrine, Cuba managed to create a nation free from imperialism and the grinding poverty that characterizes many countries in the so called developing world. As such, Fidel and the Cuban Revolution have served as an inspiration to millions across Latin America and the world.

Among his admirers and comrades are Nelson Mandela, Mumia Abu Jamal, Harry Belafonte, Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales and many of the oppressed peoples of the world struggling against exploitation.

US propaganda, aimed at returning Cuba to the status of a puppet state, characterizes Cuba as an impoverished dictatorship, ignoring Cuba's massive achievements in grass roots democracy, ecological sustainability, international solidarity and quality of life for its citizens.
Despite a malicious embargo against their country Fidel and the Cuban people have managed to lead Cuba from the poverty and humiliation of pre-revolutionary times to a country with a lower infant mortality rate and higher life expectancy than even the United States, a country with the highest primary and secondary school enrollment in all of Latin America (despite the fact that only half of the children of pre-revolutionary Cuba were able to attend school at all), a country which has been designated by the World Wildlife Fund as the only nation in the world with sustainable development (i.e. able to maintain a low carbon footprint while still providing for a high standard of living).
Fidel: The Untold Story is a documentary that cuts through the propaganda to give us an honest portrait of Fidel Casto. To learn more about the man, his life, and the achievements of the Cuban Revolution come to the RSU meeting this Thursday, February 7th, at 8pm in the UVU Library  room LI505 for a free documentary showing and discussion.
As per usual, the RSU will also be hearing reports from committees and covering club business.
[The above statements do not necessarily reflect the views of the Revolutionary Students Union as a whole. The RSU is non-tendency but firmly anti-capitalist.]

This Week: Girl Child Empowerment in Zimbabwe

Due to continual power struggles, Zimbabwe presents a particularly volatile context for girls. In addition to facing issues such as the widespread transmission HIV/AIDS, rampant poverty, and the constant threat of hunger, girls face additional discrimination based upon their gender. Such gender-specific abuses include domestic violence, the domestic exploitation of their labor, rape, circumstantially forced prostitution, sex trafficking, forced marriages, genital mutilation, and virginity testing in addition to a general lack of opportunity and resources when compared to boys. Girl Child Network Zimbabwe (GCNZ) is an organization that was established by Zimbabwean child rights activist Betty Makoni in order to organize girls to defend their rights and facilitate their individual and collective empowerment. This presentation will go over the history of Zimbabwe and explain how the conditions in the region have been continually exacerbated by those seeking power at the expense of those most excluded from the system, namely girls, and what GCNZ is doing to empower girls to demand change.

At this week's RSU meeting we will be receiving a lecture from Jessica Burnham on Girl Child Empowerment in Zimbabwe. In addition we will also be hearing reports from committees, covering club business and discussing our action this Saturday against the NDAA and EEA. We will be meeting on Thursday, February 2nd at 8pm in UVU room SC213A.

Protest Against the NDAA and EEA Feb 4

The Revolutionary Students Union in conjunction with Occupy Provo is taking a stand against the ongoing assault on our civil liberties! This Saturday, February 4,  at noon we will be converging on the Provo Courthouse (Center and University Ave) and marching to the Federal Building (90 west 100 north) to protest the National Defense Authorization Act and the Enemy Expatriation Act.
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011, signed into law by president Barack Obama on December 31, 2011, is an assault on the civil liberties of all Americans and should be treated accordingly.
The most terrifying provisions are located within sub-section 1021 of Title X, Subtitle D, entitled “Counter-Terrorism." Provision 1021 affirms the president's authority to detain without trial, via the armed services, any person whether a U.S. citizen or otherwise. Section 1245 is also very worrisome as it places sanctions upon the Central Bank of Iran which effectively block Iranian oil exports to countries that do business with the United States. Pushing us one step closer to war with Iran.
The Enemy Expatriation Act (H.R. 3166) which is being sponsored by Congressmen Joe Lieberman and Charles Dent, allows the U.S. government to take away the citizenship of any American they identify as a
 threat. Unbelievably, as this act stands now, it would allow the U.S. government to expatriate citizens without even bringing them before a court of law.

The Prison Industrial Complex

The United States incarcerates more people than any other country in the world. With just 5% of the world's population, the United States contains one quarter of the entire world's inmates. How can it be that in the "land of the free", we see fit to imprison such a large portion of our population? The short answer is that under capitalism the only freedom that really matters is the freedom to make a profit.

The Prison Industrial Complex is the name given to a system in which prison ownership and management are increasingly being transferred to the private sector. In the same way that the privatization of the war industry has made the invasion of other countries an extremely profitable endeavour the privatization of prisons has had a similar effect on the penal system. The massive shift toward deregulation and privatization since the Reagan era has lead to an explosion in the United States' prison population. As per usual the federal government acted as a tool for corporate interests and enacted various legislation leading to increased convictions and longer sentences for non-violent offenses, such as drug possession.

Many of the draconian measures being taken by certain states against undocumented workers can be directly attributed to the influence of corportations with interests in the prison industrial complex. In a recent article in the Guardian, Alex Cabellero pointed out that:

[Alabam's]HB 56, a de facto criminalisation of migration, replaces any sensible immigration policy with the favorite solution these days: let’s put them behind bars– and we might as well make a profit out of it.

Not only will this law supply fresh inmates to private detention centers in the state – like the one operated in Decatur by LCS correctional corporation – but it will also feed an already bloated national private prison system controlled by two major corporations, CCA (Corrections Corporation of America) and the GEO group, which have a combined profit of more than $5bn a year. CCA, for example, runs the largest facility in the nation in neighboring Georgia and may potentially take a good portion of the detainees in Alabama. Charging $200 a night, this is an opportunity they’ll jump at.

Please join the Utah Valley University chapter of the Revolutionary Students Union this Thursday, January 26 at 8pm in room SC206a for a lecture by Victor Puertas on this topic and to learn how to fight back against the Prison Industrial Complex.
Make sure to check out the National Prison Divestment Campaign as well.

The Crisis of Capitalism: the Housing Market

Pundits and commentators on both the right and left have been quick to find culprits for the economic meltdown; from greedy banks to homeowners living beyond their means. More than a century ago, however, Karl Marx made it clear that economic crises are part of the normal functioning of the capitalist system. This Thursday January, 19th at 8pm at UVU in room LI505 Brett Barrett and Steven Broadbent will be giving a lecture on Marx's theory of economic crises and its relevance to the current recession.
See you there!