ALL PB

>>22322916, >>22322930, >>22322983, >>22323139 LA Mayor Karen Bass TOTAL FAIL

Karen Ruth Bass (/ˈbæs/; born October 3, 1953) is an American politician, social worker and former physician assistant who has served as the 43rd mayor of Los Angeles since 2022.[1] A member of the Democratic Party, Bass previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2011 to 2022 and in the California State Assembly from 2004 to 2010, serving as speaker during her final Assembly term.

A Los Angeles native, Bass attended college at California State University, Dominguez Hills and the University of Southern California. She spent her career as a physician assistant and community activist before seeking public office. Before her election to Congress, Bass represented the 47th district in the California State Assembly for six years. In 2008, she was elected to serve as the 67th Speaker of the California State Assembly, becoming the first African-American woman in United States history to serve as a speaker of a state legislative body.[2][3]

Bass was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010. She represented California's 33rd congressional district during her first term, though redistricting moved her to the 37th district in 2012. She chaired the Congressional Black Caucus during the 116th Congress.[4][5][6]

Bass won the 2022 Los Angeles mayoral election, beginning her term on December 12.[7] She is the first woman to serve as mayor of Los Angeles[8] and the second Black person to serve after Tom Bradley.[9][10] During her early tenure as mayor, she made major announcements about facilitating affordable housing construction to alleviate the Los Angeles housing crisis, but ultimately reversed herself and imposed restrictions on affordable housing construction in the city.[11][12]

Early life and education

Bass was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Wilhelmina (née Duckett) and DeWitt Talmadge Bass.[13] Her father was a postal letter carrier and her mother was a homemaker.[14] She was raised in the Venice and Fairfax neighborhoods of Los Angeles and graduated from Alexander Hamilton High School in 1971.[15]

Witnessing the civil rights movement on television with her father as a child sparked her interest in community activism. While in middle school, Bass began volunteering for Robert Kennedy's presidential campaign.[16]In the mid-1970s she was an organizer for the Venceremos Brigade, a pro-Cuban group that organized trips by Americans to Cuba.[17] She visited Cuba eight times in the 1970s.[17][18]

She went on to study philosophy at San Diego State University from 1971 to 1973, and graduated from the USC Keck School of Medicine Physician Assistant Program in 1982. She then earned a bachelor of science degree in health sciences from California State University, Dominguez Hills in 1990.[19][20] She also received her master's degree in social work from the University of Southern California in 2015.

>>22323381

>In the mid-1970s she

w>>22323381

>In the mid-1970s she was an organizer for the Venceremos Brigade, a pro-Cuban group that organized trips by Americans to Cuba.[17] She visited Cuba eight times in the 1970

Venceremos Brigade

Cuban propaganda poster welcoming brigadistas to the island

Formation 1969

Type Political organization

PurposeSolidarity with Cuba

Location

United States

ServicesTravel to Cuba

Fields Volunteer labor

Key people

Carl Oglesby (Creator)

Bernardine Dohrn (Director)

Parent organization

Students for a Democratic Society

Affiliations Antonio Maceo Brigade (inspired)

Website vb4cuba.com

The Venceremos Brigadeis an international organization founded in 1969by members of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and officials of the Republic of Cuba.[1] It was formed as a coalition of young people to show solidarity with the Cuban Revolution by working side by side with Cuban workers, challenging U.S. policies towards Cuba, including the United States embargo against Cuba. The yearly brigade trips, which as of 2010 have brought more than 9,000 people to Cuba, continue today and are coordinated with the Pastors For Peace Friendship Caravans to Cuba.[citation needed] The 48th Brigade travelled to Cuba in July 2017.[2]

HistoryOriginal brigades

Further information: New Left and Revolutionary Offensive

The 1959 Cuban Revolution was a key event that galvanized and inspired the growing New Left in the 1960s. Cuba became viewed as a radical and anti-imperialist third world country worthy of praise by many of the radical activists of the 1960s.[3]

In 1969, SDS was composed of competing factions with individual priorities and visions.[4] SDS delegates travelled to Havana, and were inspired by Fidel Castro's New Year's Day speech, in which he called on Cubans to help with the sugar harvest.[5] Although the Americans originally offered to help by taking industrial jobs displaced by the massive sugar harvest, Fidel reportedly responded that if North Americans were to help, they would cut cane.[6] Hoping to unite SDS members behind a new project, the leaders began planning a trip, bringing American activists to Cuba to cut sugar cane.[5] Carl Oglesby originally presented the idea to members of SDS, but was ousted from SDS before it came to fruition. Bernardine Dohrn appointed Julie Nichamin and Brian Murphy to organize the trip.[7] Allen Young was also partly responsible for the organization and negotiations with Carlos Rafael Rodríguez and other members of the Cuban government. While in the US, the group met occasionally by regions to supervise, recruit, and fundraise for the trips.[6] The trip cohort, the Venceremos ("we shall triumph" in Spanish language)[8] Brigade, was promoted as an inspiring and educational experience.[6] The brigade itself was designed to encompass members from all radical movements in the United States, from black power radicals to anti-war student activists.[3]

In November 1969,[8] the first brigade of 216 Americans travelled to Cuba from Mexico City to skirt the U.S. government's restrictions on travel to the island.[8] The participants were to contribute to Cuba's monumental ten million ton zafra (harvest) of 1970, as well as to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Cuban Revolution. The second Brigade arrived in February 1970, to cut cane and learn about Cuban life. Although the zafra did not reach ten million tons, the Brigades continued.[6]

Later developments

The Antonio Maceo Brigade was formed as a Cuban solidarity group of Cuban American radicals that first traveled to Cuba in 1977. Many Cubans who joined the brigade were motivated to prove that they weren't counterrevolutionary "gusanos". At the time the Venceremos Brigade refused to allow Cuban exiles to be members believing them all to be middle class and counterrevolutionary "gusanos".[9]

The FBI has questioned individual brigade travellers over the years. Michael Ratner, who had represented members of the Venceremos Brigade, said that visits by FBI agents were most prevalent in the 1970s and 1980s and dropped off during the 1990s. In 2010, at least 10 brigade participants were visited by FBI agents.[1

>>22323406

>Venceremos Brigade

Biden VP Favorite Karen Bass’ Journey From the Radical Fringe

California congresswoman was active in the Venceremos Brigade in the 1970s

by

Armin Rosen

July 27, 2020

One of the major long-term trends in American political culture is the migration of ideological hardliners from the fringes of the left to the more moderate and moderating mainstream. New Left radicals became rank-and-file Democrats; a youthful Saul Alinsky acolyte made it to the White House, where he governed as a fairly standard neoliberal.

And if there’s ever been a taboo against former committed Castro regime enthusiasts making it to the highest levels of national politics, it might be on the verge of being broken, too.

In the mid-1970s, California Congresswoman Karen Bass, who is now under consideration to be Joe Biden’s running mate, was an organizer for the Venceremos Brigade, according to several contemporaneous media accounts and an interview with the future congresswoman published in a 1996 Ph.D. dissertation. The brigade organized six-week work trips for American leftists of all tendencies who wanted to visit and support Cuba—think of a more overtly activist version of Birthright, but for people whose promised land was an anti-American, anti-gay communist dictatorship 90 miles off the coast of Florida.

An event blurb in an October 1975 issue of the communist Daily World newspaper describes Bass, then 22, as “leader of the Venceremos Brigade in southern California.” Bass herself explained her work for the brigade to a doctoral candidate working on a 1996 Ph.D. dissertation submitted to the Fielding Institute, titled “Women Activists of Diverse Backgrounds: A Qualitative Study of Perceived Influences and Values.” “Another critical influence for Bass began, at age 19, and spanned the next five years: Cuba,” reads the document, written by Dawn Noggle, who is currently the director of mental health services for the Maricopa County correctional system. “As a ‘brigadista’ and then organizer for the Venceremos Brigades, Karen visited Cuba every 6 months.”

When reached for comment about Bass’ involvement with the Venceremos Brigade on Monday, a spokesman for Bass’ office wrote the future congresswoman “wasn’t a leader—she went with other volunteers to build houses. She’s been to Cuba several times because she believes, like she said on MSNBC last night, the best way to improve relationships is through communication and diplomacy. It’s why she’s on the Ronald Reagan-founded Board of the National Endowment for Democracy, it’s why she went with President Obama, it’s why she went with Secretary Kerry, it’s why she went to visit USAID prisoner Alan Gross.”

The Venceremos Brigade’s pilgrimages to Cuba—the group was founded in 1969 by members of SDS and the Cuban government—were a magnet for the most radicalized and often delusional cadres of the American left, including overtly Maoist and pro-Soviet communist groups that preached the imminence of a U.S.-style workers revolution. The culture clash between American radicals and Cuban communist functionaries at times erupted into intense conflict during the early 1970s, most notably when it came to the Cuban government’s insistence that homosexuality was a form of illegal social deviance and that gay activists—and often individuals suspected of being homosexual—should be incarcerated under brutal conditions, for decades at a time.

Interestingly, Bass’ work in Cuba helped the future congresswoman reject the cultural looseness that 1960s radicalism had often championed. “Cuba was for her what psychotherapy is for others—a process through which she re-examined her values, her behavior, her relationship with her family, and her future goals,” Noggles’ dissertation concluded. “The irresponsibility and drug-taking of the ’60s had to be discarded; family was and is to be treated with respect; egotistical, self-indulgent behavior was to be confronted and changed. She still speaks of the experience and the individuals she met in Cuba with respect and a certain awe.”

>>22323418

>California congresswoman was active in the Venceremos Brigade in the 1970s

Bass was one of numerous young radicals for whom a Venceremos trip proved formative.Joel Schwartz, a participant in an early brigade and a veteran labor activist, said his six-week, ground-level glimpse of the Cuban communist experiment was “life-transforming,” and added that he would “never say anything bad about anyone who went.” Schwartz also recalled that Brigadistas received threatening letters from the State and Treasury Departments, although the government never followed up on them. The leftist historian, author, and indigenous rights activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz remembered heading to the island with “500 squabbling Americans” of all different leftist persuasions when she traveled there on an early brigade. “It’s proof of the transformation they went through down there that they were actually not fighting at the end.”

The Venceremos Brigade’s links to the Cuban state were the subject of intermittently paranoid congressional hearings in July of 1972—witnesses alleged that a host of late-1960s radicals including Bernardine Dohrn and the sister of Angela Davis had been Brigadistas,and cited “Cuban underground” sources in claiming that a 1971 brigade had served as cover for a meeting between American leftists and North Vietnamese officials. In 1983, a former Cuban Directorate of General Intelligence captain who defected to the United States told the FBI that Cuban intelligence officers working under diplomatic cover at the Cuban U.N. mission in New York and the country’s interest section in Washington, D.C., controlled the brigades and selected their participants. Still, the brigade trips have continued into the present day—the 50th Brigade was held last year. While there are reports of trip participants being questioned by U.S. law enforcement over the years, no one has ever been successfully prosecuted in the United States for any brigade-related activity.

Bass’ Cuba-related work drew the attention of the Los Angeles Police Department, which had successfully infiltrated the local wing of the Venceremos Brigade. Per a 1983 LA Times article, a 1973 LAPD intelligence documentdescribed Bass as a “leader” in Venceremos,which was alleged to “train revolutionary-prone Americans in terrorist tactics and guerrilla warfare while claiming to harvest sugar cane.” Bass, then a 30-year-old physician’s assistant, acknowledged to the Times that she had traveled to Cuba eight times in the 1970s and had been active in the brigade, but said the only firearms training she had received had come from an undercover LAPD officer who, according to Bass, had “encouraged many different folks who had leadership responsibilities in the LA progressive community to learn how to use weapons.” Bass was later one of several plaintiffs in an ACLU-led class action lawsuit against the LAPD and 12 undercover officers over the department’s allegedly illegal spying.

>>22323418

>>22323434

>a 1973 LAPD intelligence documentdescribed Bass as a “leader” in Venceremos,wh

When reached for comment, a spokesman for Bass said that the lawsuit was eventually successful, and that the case alleged more than just unlawful surveillance. “The Chief of Police fancied himself to be the Los Angeles version of J. Edgar Hoover. He kept files on activists and elected officials including the mayor and members of the city council. Rep. Bass was spied on and harassed by LAPD as were the more than 100 activists that were plaintiffs in lawsuit and that’s why they won.”

Neither Bass’ long-term involvement with the Venceremos Brigade nor her being targeted by a possibly illegal police operation have made it into accounts of Bass’ career after the mid-1990s. A June New York Times article about Bass discussed the congresswoman’s leading role in police reform efforts on Capitol Hill, but did not mention that she was herself targeted in a legally questionable police spying ring. A 2016 LA Times article about Bass’ participation in President Barack Obama’s landmark trip to Cuba says that she frequently traveled to Cuba in the ’70s for volunteer work, but does not name the Venceremos Brigade. The brigade and the LAPD spying scandal currently don’t appear in the congresswoman’s Wikipedia page.

Bass’ involvement in the Venceremos Brigade is hardly the most important feature of the congresswoman’s career, although it does help illustrate her larger political trajectory. Bass is no dilettante community organizer. She did not get involved in activism as an elite resume-padding exercise, or as a jumping-off point to some other, more lucrative career. She wanted to solve problems in the community where she had spent her entire life, and then dedicated the next several decades to doing exactly that—she was only elected to the California state legislature in 2005, at the relatively late age of 52. For the 20 years before her election, she had founded and led organizations like the Community Coalition, which focused on the effects of the crack epidemic in LA and organized against the opening of new liquor stores in minority neighborhoods.

At the same time that she became one of LA’s most prominent activists, Bass was working as a physician’s assistant, a suitably skilled yet working-class career for someone who would go on to represent her community in the state legislature and in Congress. She is a Southern California lifer, earning degrees from San Diego State and Cal State-Dominguez Hills, rather than Harvard or Stanford. Somewhat unbelievably from our present vantage point, Bass was the only African American woman in the California state legislature when she was first elected in 2005. By 2008, she was California assembly speaker, and the first black woman in American history to lead a state legislative chamber.

It is worth asking how Bass’ career might have been different—and, perhaps, less consequential—without the radicalism of her 20s. According to that 1996 interview, Bass was in contact with Angela Davis when the future congresswoman was still in high school.

An undated, typewritten document uploaded to a Wiki page in July of 2016 that appears to have been written by an activist with the organization Line of March lists a “Karen Bass” as one of the “forces working directly under the guidance of the rect. line” in Los Angeles. In the context of the document, “rect.” is short for “rectificationist,” referring to communists who opposed the revisionist turn typified by Khrushchev’s condemnation of Stalin and Deng Xiaoping’s repudiation of Mao. In 1977, West Coast rectificationists formed Line of March, which consolidated the efforts of activists affiliated with the Union of Democratic Filipinos, the Northern California Alliance, and the Third World Women’s Alliance (an organization that grew out of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC). When reached for comment about Bass’s possible involvement with Line of March, a spokesperson for Bass said that the future congresswoman had “attended events.”

Like Bass herself, the rectificationists’ political journey soon turned into evidence of the magnetic pull of the American political mainstream and its remarkable ability to internalize a vast range of obscure and even semi-exotic political tendencies, the same way American pop music ate punk and grunge.

>>22323443

In a July 2008 interview, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz recalled that in San Francisco, Line of March and other far-left groups “got radicals into key local positions, which has had a permanent effect on local politics.” When reached by Tablet, Dunbar-Ortiz recalled that “quite a few Line of March activists did go on and work in civic organizations. It became pretty standard.” She recalled the group as being “kind of cult-y,” and remembered that it published a “scholarly, kind of academic journal” of Marxist theory that she found “unreadable.” Dunbar-Ortiz said she did not know any of the LA-based Line of March activists and could not recall one way or the other whether Bass was a member of the group.

According to Paul Saba, an Arizona-based grant-writer and former attorney and an archivist of the American anti-revisionist movement, many rectificationist activists including those grouped under the Line of March umbrella became involved in Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign, which provided them with a gateway to mainstream politics.

“Most of them have blended in relatively smoothly to a kind of left wing of the Democratic Party,” said Saba. “They came out of the wilderness of ultra-leftism and found a place in the political system where they thought they could really make a difference and stayed there ever since.”

A Bass vice presidency might turn out to be the ultimate test of whether the system changed these activists more than these activists changed the system.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/karen-bass-biden-venceremos-brigade

>>22323443

>An undated, typewritten document uploaded to a Wikipage in July of 2016 that appears to have been written by an activist with the organization Line of March lists a “Karen Bass” as one of the “forces working directly under the guidance of the rect. line” in Los Angeles. In the context of the document, “rect.” isshort for “rectificationist,” referring to communists who opposed the revisionist turn typified by Khrushchev’s condemnation of Stalin and Deng Xiaoping’s repudiation of Mao.In 1977, West Coast rectificationists formed Line of March, which consolidated the efforts of activists affiliated with the Union of Democratic Filipinos, the Northern California Alliance, and the Third World Women’s Alliance (an organization that grew out of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC). When reached for comment about Bass’s possible involvement with Line of March, a spokesperson for Bass said that the future congresswoman had “attended events.”

>>22323450

>>22323381

>In the mid-1970s she was an organizer for the Venceremos Brigade, a pro-Cuban group that organized trips by Americans to Cuba.[17] She visited Cuba eight times in the 1970s

>>22323406

>Venceremos Brigade

>Cuban propaganda poster welcoming brigadistas to the island

>Formation 1969

>Type Political organization

>PurposeSolidarity with Cuba

>>22323418

>Biden VP Favorite Karen Bass’ Journey From the Radical Fringe

>>22323482

Reminder about Harris connections to Cuba

Many in their circles saw a link between the civil rights struggle and independence movements outside the country, said Mr. LaBrie, a member of the study group who became a lifelong family friend.

“It was just kind of a seamless flow between civil rights and those who supported the Cuban revolution,” the Congolese independence leader Patrice Lumumba and the Algerian revolution, Mr. LaBrie said. “There was an easy flow. People weren’t labeling themselves.”

In 1963 and 1964, five members of the group joined a trip to Cuba organized by the Student Committee for Travel to Cuba, in defiance of a State Department travel ban, to see how Afro Cubans lived under Fidel Castro’s government. Ms. Williams and another member, James L. Lacy, recalled first hearing about the trip at a gathering organized by the Harrises.

“Those of us who called ourselves nationalists, we were very much encouraging the people of Cuba and South America and Central America to do what they were doing,” said Mr. Lacy, 85, a retired professor.

Mr. Harris said he did not recall taking part in any activism around Cuba, which could have jeopardized their immigration status. “We were certainly very much aware of, and scrupulously careful about following, the rules and regulations governing our role as foreign students,” he wrote.

>>22323418

>Biden VP Favorite Karen Bass’ Journey From the Radical Fringe

>>22323505

>Reminder about Harris connections to Cuba

> https://archive.org/details/VenceremosBrigade/page/n6/mode/1up

Venceremos Brigade

by

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Usage

Public Domain Mark 1.0Creative Commons Licensepublicdomain

Topics

FBI, FBI file, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Revolutionary Union, Revolutionary Communist Party

Collection

nsia-fbi-files; nationalsecurityarchive; additional_collections

Language

English

Item Size

809.3M

>>22323599

> Venceremos Brigade

Bill Evers

America’s Maoists: The RU And Venceremos

First Published: The Stanford Daily, Volume 161A, Issue 4, 30 June 1972.

Transcription, Editing and Markup: Paul Saba

Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.

The House Committee on Internal Security (formerly the House Committee on Un-American Activities) has issued during the last week what it considers to bean expose of two Marxist-Leninist groups which have been very influential in the Midpeninsula.

The first effect of the report,entitled America’s Maoists: The Revolutionary Union, The Venceremos Organization,may be to catapult the two groups into national prominence, as past statements by this congressional committee and by the late J. Edgar Hoover have served to alert the mass media and America’s poorly informed radical community to the militancy of the old Black Panthers and to the growth of the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party.

Secondly, the issuance of the report may severely increase petty police surveillance of members of these groups and their associates. One result of this would be less political liberty atStanford. a major center of Venceremos activity in the past.

Thirdly, the report may serve as a weapon in the corridors of power in Washington. The committee may cite it in efforts to expand its budget and influence. The report may be brought up in the present struggle among political decision-makers between the sophisticated ones who wish to use bilateral trade agreements and political co-operation to move China’s policies in the direction of corporate liberal America and the more parochial elements who will focus on the RU and Venceremous as actual or potential espionage agents for the Chinese government. The latter view of the two groups is expressed in the “Analysis and Conclusions” of the committee’s report.

Finally, the report contains information of interest and value to those who have observed or participated in the radical movement in the Bay area in the last several years.

Distortions

It should be emphasized at this point that some of the report is inaccurate or distorted. For example, probably one of the most frequently cited portions of the report will be its police-dossier profiles of over one hundred members of the RU, Venceremos, and the Intercommunal Survival Committee of the Black Panther Party. Yet, this section is in some cases wrong and outdated. Its lack of fullness, furthermore, on Stanford area and East Bay membership of these Marxist-Leninist groups reflects the report’s limited sources – basically, the Stanford Daily, Pamoja Venceremos, several RU newspapers, and the testimony of a husband-and-wife team (Lawrence and Betty Sue Goff) of fundamentalist Protestants who infiltrated the San Jose area RU for the FBI.

The most enlightening material in the report pertains to the split in the RU in late 1970 which produced Venceremos in its present form.

At the time of the breakup, one of the positions taken by the Venceremos group was that the RU was too heavily politically influenced by old members of the Communist Party, USA. The material in the House Committee report does seem to substantiate both the claim of significant personal influence being exercised by middle-aged veteran communists and the claim that the present-day RU political stance resembles a position taken during certain past periods by the American Communist Party.

The split in the RU had its origins in a position paper (called Position Paper A) written by Bruce Franklin and others, and outlining a strategy for armed insurrection in America. The response by those who disagreed (like Barry Greenberg and Bob Avakian) was referred to as Position Paper B.

Protracted Guerrilla War

Position Paper A, which enunciated the view of those RU members who later joined Venceremos, predicted that increasingly intensified urban guerrilla warfare on a protracted basis would be the process of successful revolution in America and said that this process was going on now. The Venceremos group saw the key to social change in America as the situation of racial groups like the blacks and Mexican-Americans and not the condition of white industrial workers.

Position Paper A was written, in the view of its supporters, on the basis of the “principle of protracted war: the accumulation of small acts, engaged in by more and more people, constitutes strategic action.” This viewpoint was expanded upon as follows:

>>22323636

>Bill Evers

>America’s Maoists: The RU And Venceremos

“A strategic application of protracted war recognizes that only through armed struggle can the masses liberate themselves, but at the same time sees this armed struggle not in terms of glorious campaigns and actions but as the sum total of a war of attrition conducted by the masses against the ruling class. . . .

“The struggle will be characterized mainly by small unit operations on a constant and expanding basis, punctuated by mass uprisings. Since the revolutionary forces will be operating ’integrated with the enemy,’ it will be difficult, except in the final phase of the struggle, for relatively large military formations to come together. On a day-to-day basis the fight will be characterized by ambushes, acts of sabotage, and interdiction of supply and communication facilities, and executions by small units using their ability to quickly concentrate and disperse to harass and create havoc among the enemy.

“But since the revolutionary struggle is a war of the masses, and given the deterioration of the entire system, periodically the essentially guerrilla character will take on insurrectionary form, with strikes, mass demonstrations, rioting, and even mass armed uprisings. As the situation becomes more desperate for the ruling class and contradictions become more acute, the spacing between such uprisings will probably be shortened, and their development become more generalized so as to erupt in many areas simultaneously. . . The present-day Revolutionary Union stance is that the role of a communist is “to build the mass movement, integrating revolutionary violence as a secondary aspect,” and looking toward “the eventual mass onslaught, the insurrection, and civil war.” In addition, this group decided to concentrate its work in the industrial working class because the situation in the United States, a major power with world-wide hegemony, is such that only during a depression or political crisis would conditions be ripe for revolution. Those supporting Position Paper B further saw the American situation as fundamentally different from the objective situation in a colonized country where conditions were always ripe, given proper leadership and understanding, for a mass-based revolution against the colonizers. In Position Paper B, those who stayed with the RU said:

“Our real task is to build the mass movement, especially in the working class and to contribute through this mass movement to the further development of the contradictions of U.S. imperialism. The main part of this work will be open political work, not illegal military work. [The term “military” here refers to armed revolution, not to the U.S. government’s armed forces.] Armed struggle, in this period, will unfold as a secondary aspect of political work; its main value will be political – helping to mobilize the masses for political struggle, most of which will not involve armed struggle. .. .

“In a colonial or semi-colonial country, the masses are always in a revolutionary situation; in an imperialist country, the masses, the majority, are in a revolutionary situation only during a period of extreme economic and political crisis. . . .

“Our organization must develop as a Marxist-Leninist cadre formation, not convert itself into a guerrilla force, or an embryo of some future People’s Army or try to be both at the same time. A separate apparatus must be developed, outside the main cadre formation, to carry on military work.”

Ultimately, the two groups severed relations. Venceremos saw the RU as “revisionist” because Venceremos perceived the RU leadership as unwilling to put any theory of armed struggle into practice. The RU saw the Venceremos leadership as “adventurist,” incapable of the long-term work of mass-base building and preparation for an eventual armed insurrection followed by civil war.

>>22323509

>An mp4 overview.

noice

good summary

o7

>>22323482

>>22323505

>>22323599

>>22323636

>>22323639

Aaron Manganiello Obituary

Aaron Manganiello On September 28, 2009 we lost Aaron Manganiello. Aaron was a loving father and husband. Aaron had a celebrated life, including a PhD from Stanford, riding with theSoul Brothers Motorcycle Group, playing jazz trumphet with Dizzy Gielespi, and counseling people to recover from drug abuse. Aaron loved life and we will always love him. Aaron was a member of the Brown Bere's, the mexican equivalent of the Black Panthers, he also was a founding member of the venceramos. Aaron is survived by two sons, John and Mario; and daughter, Lisa.Graveside Service: Belmont Memorial Park Fresno, CA. Wednesday, October 7, 2009 @ 10:00 a.m. Memorial: Emmanuel Lutheran Church Clovis, CA. Wednesday, October 7, 2009 @ 11:00 a.m. FAREWELL FUNERAL SERVICE 660 W. Locust Avenue, Fresno (559) 440-0484 www.farewell.com. Remembrances to: National Kidney Foundation 131 Steuart St., #520, San Francisco, Ca. 94105-1240.

To plant trees in memory, please visit the Sympathy Store.

Published by San Jose Mercury News on Oct. 4, 2009.

>>22323911

>Aaron Manganiello Obituary

Venceremos: Arming for a Fight

The late 1960s and early 1970s were a time of awkward cultural juxtaposition, both in the nation at large and here in Palo Alto. Today, pop culture sometimes simplifies those years as a time when the whole society turned into LCD-dropping, free-love-making hippies. But in reality, most Americans - especially outside big cities - were living a life a lot closer to the 1950s. While the counterculture certainly had a large influence on mainstream life, most Americans were still living

according to the rules of the “silent majority.”

In a small university town like Palo Alto, the juxtaposition could be even stranger. While hometown locals might be marching in the May Fete Parade on Saturday morning, campus radicals would be clashing with police on Saturday night — all on the same street. It was a time when two countries existed side-by-side, sometimes engaging in a cultural civil war, sometimes pretending the

other didn’t exist.

One example of this odd Palo Alto political juxtaposition was Venceremos, the Communist radical group headquartered in and around Palo Alto in those years. Founded in 1966 by Aaron Manganiello, the originally Latino left-wing protest organization was named for Che Guevera’s battle cry, “We will prevail!” By 1970, Venceremos had evolved into a multicultural Maoist/Communist revolutionary brigade that was a mainstay at any mid-Peninsula protest in those years. Under the leadership of Stanford Professor and Melville scholar H. Bruce Franklin (fired in 1972 for leading a student takeover of the university’s computer

lab), Venceremos took an active role in community issues and demonstrations.

And these guys weren’t fooling around. Venceremos believed that “an unarmed people are subject to slavery at any time” and held vast amounts of weaponry to back it up. They had secret stashes of rifles, grenades, pipe bombs, and other explosives and they urged members to stay armed at all times — advice that was apparently followed. With their rifle logo and violent rhetoric, Venceremos startled the local population and caught the eye of federal law enforcement. Many believed they were one of the largest revolutionary groups in the country and a 1972 House Internal Security Committee Report called the group “a potential threat to the United States.”

Venceremos’ ultimate stated goal was the overthrow of the government. On their way to armed insurrection,their platform called for (among many other things): “The firing of…profit-motivated murderers, like David Packard and Richard Nixon,” “an end to the Fascist court system and fascist judges,” and “an education which exposes the lies and oppression created by the corrupt court system and teaches us the true history of oppressed people.” Venceremos were also enemies of the police and were convinced that “the best pigs are always dead pigs.” Pretty radical stuff.

But Venceremos stressed actions over rhetoric. In 1970, they opened a revolutionary community college ina Redwood City storefront that lasted until it ran out of money two years later. They were actively involved in an anti-drug campaign on the streets of Palo Alto in the summer of ’71 and later with the Palo Alto Drug Collective. They often showed up at City Council and School Board meetings in Palo Alto with a verbal aggressiveness never before seen in the city’s politics. At an August 1971 meeting, for instance, Jeffrey Youdelman shouted down school board members as “racist, fascist pigs.”

They also tried to win elections. In May of ’71, Venceremos ran Jean Hobsonfor City Council; she only garnered 798 votes, some 7,000 short of victory. Undaunted,Youdelmanran as a candidate in 1973, but he fared no better. Venceremos memberDoug Garrettalso ran for Palo Alto School Board and

Joan Dolly ran in the 1972 Menlo Park City Council elections.

Venceremos was also part of the ever-present street protest scene that marked Palo Alto counterculture life in the late 1960s and early ‘70s. Every Saturday night at 7:00 PM, Venceremos held a rally with speakers and bands at Lytton Plaza, which was dubbed “The People’s Plaza.” This often led to clashes with police as the hour grew late and the music got louder.

The beginning of the end for Venceremos came in 1972, when a number of its members were involved in a headline-grabbing murder. The incident centered around a Venceremos recruit and prison inmate named Ronald Beaty. A habitual stick-up artist and con, Beaty was serving time for armed robbery and kidnapping

at Chino Prison. He apparently had romantic ties to Jean Hobson -the former Venceremos candidate for Palo Alto City Council - that would lead to an attempt by the organization to help him escape.

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>Venceremos: Arming for a Fight

On October 6, 1972, two unarmed prison guards were taking Beaty to a court appearance in San Bernardino when they were ambushed. According to police and Beaty, who would become the prosecution’s star witness, the government car was forced off a remote highway road near Chino. Four Venceremos members jumped out of two vehicles to set Beaty free. As they prepared to flee the scene, 23-year-old Venceremos member Robert Seabok shot both guards at point blank range,killing 24-year-old Jesus Sanchez and wounding his partner George Fitzgerald.Venceremos members Hobson, Seabok, Andrea Holman Burt and Benton Burt were named as the other ambushers. Both Hobson and Seabok were Palo Altans and neighbors, residing at 656 and 666 Channing Street.

Hobson and Beaty, possessing a trunkload of weapons, were arrested two

months later on the Bay Bridge by San Francisco police without incident. Now wanted for murder on top of past convictions, prosecuting lawyers convinced Beaty to sing. He named the four members who helped him escape, fingered Robert Seabok as the gunman, and described how other members of Venceremos

helped hide him in a rural San Mateo County mountain cabin for close to a month. Beaty pleaded guilty for his involvement in Sanchez’ death and received a life sentence.

All four Venceremos members would eventually be found guilty in subsequent trials. Jean Hobson, 19 year-old Andrea Holman Burt and 31 year-old Douglas Burt were all found guilty of second degree murder in 1973 and 1974, while Seabok got life imprisonment and a first degree murder conviction.

Following legal difficulties related to the incident at Chino, Venceremos began to come apart at the seams. Arguments erupted between various factions in the organization and members began to pull out and join other groups. Venceremos founder Aaron Manganiello also blamed a dope addict in the group’s central committee for stealing thousands of dollars from the treasury. By September of 1973, Venceremos had officially disbanded.

Many ex-Venceremos members went on to other organizations, including the Symbionese Liberation Army group that assassinated Oakland superintendent Dr. Marcus Foster at a School Board meeting in November 1973 and then kidnapped newspaperheiress Patricia Hearst in February of 1974. While the SLA never operated in Palo Alto, law enforcement saw substantial links between the two groups.

Today Venceremos has either been forgotten by Palo Altans or is remembered as part of the city’s wacky early '70s counterculture. But at their height in 1971 and ’72, when they were leading weekly rallies, advocating violent action and shouting down School Board members, Venceremos had more than a few Palo Altans spooked.