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| photo credit: Jed Brandt |
Winter Has It's End is a blog of revolutionary journalism. We aim to give on the ground reporting, telling the story of the people who are fighting for a better world. We want to provide a picture as their struggle to realize their aspirations unfolds: Who are these people? What drives them to fight? What kind of world are they trying to bring into being? What stands in their way?
We have already given eye witness accounts from Nepal and Greece where people are struggling, living, dying to change everything. We intend to draw lessons from these movements. Our rebellions and our revolution will have much to learn from their trials, obstacles, and triumphs.
We write this as the occupations movement picks up steam in the U.S. It is a shocking, but fledgling movement. It is unclear how it will evolve and where it will go.
But it is something extraordinary.
Read from some of our top stories below for coverage, and lessons, from Nepal and Greece. Stay tuned for eye witness reports and analysis of the uprisings in the U.S. as they unfold.
Eyewitness to Greece: Arriving into a Whirlwind
By Eric Ribellarsi
“I arrived twelve hours ago in Athens, and rushed to find the crowds of street-fighters. The police tear gas has already hit around me about twenty times. Athens’ Syntagma Square has for weeks been the site of the People’s Assemblies, huge rallies that challenge the government’s plans. Tonight this Square, the very heart of Greece, is a battleground where the police and resistors have been fighting face to face, line against line.”
“And even despite all of this, the word is that the austerity measures and budget cuts were passed anyway. People say that tomorrow, they will attempt to storm the parliament.”
Greek Street Challenges Capitalist Austerity and Police Violence
By Jed Brandt
"The Thessaloniki Expo is Greece's equivalent of the US State of the Union speech. The Prime Minister retreated behind barricades for the first time, as he is universally despised for selling the country to European bankers and the International Monetary Fund, and imposing austerity. The current ruling party, PASOK, is nominally social-democratic, but just as Obama is imposing austerity in the US — the "left" face of the ruling class always knows who butters its bread. "
Greece’s Communist Organization: Learning to Swim in Stormy Weather
By Eric Ribellarsi
“On May 5, this movement hit the square with the demand of “real democracy,” consistently drawing crowds in the hundreds of thousands. It occupied the square and cohered a whole movement of youth who were new to political life.”
“The one thing in this experience that I have been most impressed with was the KOE’s creativity and willingness to shift when something unexpected happens, and at the same time holding on to a revolutionary strategy."
Journey to the Maoist Heartland
By Jim Weill
“I had the sense we were being propelled toward a reckoning or a celebration. This was certainly true for most of the passengers, who were coming home from Kathmandu to the embraces of their friends and families. The four of us were heading to the same area, Rolpa. But for me—I hesitate to say all of us—it was a pilgrimage of sorts. Not in a religious sense at all, but a journey to a place that, one day, may be seen as having had a crucial role in building a new world. My expectations, however, were both too optimistic and too shallow.”
A Maoist Performance: Bring the Storm
By Liam Wright
“The whole way over I was excited. I'd been mulling over this for a bit. How would the Nepalese revolutionaries go forward? How would they settle the debate over whether to dissolve their People's Liberation Army or not? Would they move to break through? To go for power? Or would those among the Maoists party’s leadership who want to consolidate a capitalist democracy win the day?”
“But here is what grabbed me: While introducing the song he gave a gentle warning, “Be prepared for sacrifice. We have to bring the storm of revolution. Don't tremble because you have to cross the vast sea.”
Okay, What the Hell is the Kasama Project?
By Mike Ely
We would also like to encourage people to check out the Kasama Project. The Kasama Project is a project and forum of debate for reconception of communist politics and regroupment of the communist movement. We think that such a project is of vital import in preparing for our revolution.
"Keep the necessary, shocking and extreme intentions, cull the lessons from our precious common past, seek contemporary forms of speech, conception and presentation."
"The old socialist right was famous for saying "the movement is everything the final goal is noting." Kasama tries to say (by contrast) "the final goal is our start, the ways of moving there are still emerging for us."