Ajamu Baraka: “Land and Freedom NOW!”

JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI – While Jill Stein’s guerrilla campaign among the Amish people continues to gather steam, she has chosen a new comrade-in-arms, already deeply engaged in struggle in the so-called “Black Belt”, or “New Afrika”: Ajamu Baraka.

“Land and freedom NOW!” screamed Ajamu Baraka to a cheering crowd of supporters in Jackson, Mississippi, who were waving portraits of Chokwe Lumumba and red, black, and green flags. “Afrikans in this country need to stand up and embrace a real revolution: A national democratic revolution for our people on our land, which we worked as slaves and on which we are still third-class citizens!”

The Black radical’s fiery rhetoric did not spare the feelings of white reformist figures from across the mainstream US political spectrum: “Hillary Clinton’s not going to protect you from fascists like Trump, and neither would Bernie Sanders. They’re all loyal servants of imperialism, and our people have got to stand up for ourselves, liberate ourselves, by any means necessary.”

In spite of his closeness to Jill Stein, he emphasised the need to avoid any illusions about the nature of the system against which the Afro-American people are fighting: “It doesn’t really matter to us who the president is, this system is our enemy, and we’ve got to defeat it. Even if Comrade Jill Stein wins, she won’t be able to change the status quo for our people unless we get organised! We’ve got to recognise Yankee imperialism for what it is: A parasitic enemy of oppressed peoples, including us. This country is built on top of our sweat and labour, our blood and tears! And we’re going to liberate it with our blood and sweat, and really free ourselves, once and for all! Now are you with me?”

Reaction to the speech from the crowd was enthusiastic, but the reactions from the broader US Left, including Afro-American radicals, were mixed:

“Ajamu Baraka is a bourgeois nationalist, no matter what he says,” claimed known Hoxhaite and vocal defender of the DPRK (“in spite of its clear revisionism”) Beyoncé Knowles, between songs at her sold-out concert last night: “Black people do need to question the very core of this system, but the road to ‘Black liberation’ is socialist revolution itself. The police are bourgeois police, the KKK were funded by the big bourgeoisie. This entire country is an imperialist centre with the power to hold Black people down because of capitalism: Racism itself is a product of capitalist attempts to divide the workers.”

“Slay, queen!” yelled APL National Spokesperson Alfonso Casal from the side of the stage, waving a Marx-Engels-Lenin-Stalin flag, as pounding electronic drums announced the start of the next song, to which he enthusiastically bounced, singing along to every word.

“That is completely backward,” responded Ray Light of the Revolutionary Organization of Labor at a secret press conference attended predominantly by ICOR-affiliated foreigners. “Most of the facts are correct, but the Afro-American right to liberation is not dependent on a time table of socialist struggle by the proletariat of the oppressor nation. On the contrary, Afro-American national liberation will deal a powerful blow to imperialism, strengthening the hand of the oppressor nation proletariat.”

Following the delivery of this incisive analysis, he threw a smoke bomb into the crowd and disappeared into the night.

Kshama Sawant of Socialist Alternative, stated that “Jill Stein, even without Ajamu Baraka, is herself doing the job of dividing the working class that so resolutely united behind Bernie Sanders during his campaign. The real answer is Kshama Sawant.”

“Kshama Sawant, Kshama Sawant, Kshama Sawant,” she concluded.

Cornel West, friendly uncle of the US Left, stated that he had not “been paying much attention to what he said particularly, I’m just glad that after that awful Bernie Sanders business, me and Brother Ajamu can be friends again.”

Marxists Returning to their Roots: Lao Tzu

KUALA LUMPUR – Following weeks of review of the situation on the ground, [REDACTED], the Worker’s Spatula cadre assigned to correspondence from and propaganda in Malaysia, has decided the best way forward is to form a reading group with various Marxist elements in Kuala Lumpur, including jaded former members of Sosialis Alternatif. Their task: To understand the CPM’s errors through the careful reading of foundational Marxist-Leninist texts, such as Capital, What Is to Be Done?, and the Tao Te Ching.

“天地不仁, 以萬物為芻狗: 聖人不仁, 以百姓為芻狗” Taoist priest Wang Ping-Kuei informed our correspondent, in a local temple.

“Uphold the correct line,” he responded, “uphold the correct line.”

“I think the Tao Te Ching is actually quite a good text, in spite of being so metaphysical” opined ex-Sosialis Alternatif member “Amir”. “There’s a lot of value in there about how the individual relates to the world around them, but it seems to put the individual before the world around them. As if the point of relation to the world is to be in harmony with it as an individual, rather than the point of individual action being to bring the world into harmony with people.

“You could say that what it needs is to be turned on its head.”

“I agree,” said Padma Rangarajan. “The emphasis on the transience of things is very good, since any true dialectical thinker should eschew fetishisation and understand things as part of a broader process.”

Response has been so positive that reading group member Cheng Chunhua has recommended other classical Chinese texts that she thinks could aid the group’s understanding of dialectical materialism, including the Zhuangzi, the Huainanzi, and the Analects of Confucius.

As of press time, [REDACTED] reports he has been expelled from the reading group he started for “adventurism”, on recommending Sun Tzu’s “the Art of War”.

Kshama Sawant: “Kshama Sawant.”

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON – Kshama Sawant, Kshama Sawant, Kshama Sawant.

Kshama Sawant: “Kshama Sawant, Kshama Sawant.”

“Kshama Sawant.”

Kshama Sawant.

Kshama.

Sawant.

Kshama Sawant.

FRSO Unites with Socialist Alternative

CHICAGO – In a monumental blow to the sectarianism which plagues the left in general and the US left in particular, the FRSO (the Belgian one, not the hipster one) and Socialist Alternative have announced the conclusion of their unity talks. As of now, the two organisations have united under the common banner of the Permanent Revolution Front (Marxist-Leninist).

The new organisation intends to participate both in the International Communist Seminar and the Committee for a Workers’ International, as a symbol of uniting the international communist movement against Stalinist degeneracy, and also in defence of actually existing socialism, if only socialism had ever actually existed.

The new organisation’s points of unity include:

-Support for the social democrat Bernie Sanders against his own degenerate line of support for Clinton and the Democratic Party

-Critical support of Afro-Americans getting angry at the police

-Approval of the colour red

The new organisation could not agree whether to end the statement with “workers of the world, unite” or “workers and oppressed peoples of the world, unite”, and thus compromised with “peoples of the work, unite”.

The organisation is expected to split a few hours after press time.

CWI Ruins Everything for Australian Man

BRISBANE – Men in positions of power unwilling to exercise control over their own dicks have reportedly now destroyed every facet of one man’s Australian childhood.

The country’s Socialist Party has seen a wave of resignations after the organisation was “torn apart by attacks on a woman comrade for coming forward with serious allegations of abuse by a leading male member [sic].”

Brisbane resident Harry Peterson told Worker’s Spatula there was now nothing in Australia left to believe in.

“When I was a kid, you used to have adults around you the whole time you were told you could trust, whether you were a small boy, a young woman or a farmyard animal.”

“You went to Church on Sundays—where you were taught to obey a group of old men on the basis of religious dogma.”

“It was a real shock when I found out it was a hotbed of nonces.”

“After school you went to the Scouts or Boys Brigade—where you were taught to obey a group of old men on the basis of imperialist dogma.”

“That was somewhat less of a shock, I must say.

“And when we were old enough, we joined the CWI, as was the fashion in those days. What could be healthier than going to meetings and selling papers for a group of old men on the basis of Trotskyist dogma?”

“And yet for some reason these powerful men, half-worshipped and apparently untouchable in their own institutions, thought they would get away with sexual abuse.”

Peterson did remember a few instances in his day where members of the central committee had sexually harassed young female comrades.

“Then again, that was usual in those days, wasn’t it? Nothing you wouldn’t have got in the workplace! And what was the CWI but an attempt at reproducing workplace dynamics in politics?”

Was there anything from his childhood that was not now tainted by sexual abuse scandals?

“We liked to put on the radio and listen to the DJs… Umm, no. Saturday morning television. We used to enjoy that. Rolf Harris.”

Mr. Peterson opted not to continue the interview, instead banging his head violently against the wall and screaming.

Campaign to Free Paul Murphy Gaining Momentum

DUBLIN – Ever since Worker’s Spatula incorrectly and shamefully implied that there was a shortage of Trotskyist political prisoners in the world, CWI activists have been quick to correct this misconception. A particularly heinous instance of the harsh repression of the Trotskyist movement to be found in many countries is that of Paul Murphy, a member of the Irish CWI affiliate Páirtí Sóisialach or “Socialist Party”.

Paul Murphy was arrested in August during a protest in Dublin’s Jobstown district, at which the Gardaí beat him thoroughly and screamed “that one Gramsci quote” at him repeatedly, in English, Italian, and Irish Gaelic. Such is the brutality of the Stalinist police of Dublin.

The IRSP has issued a statement of solidarity with the still-imprisoned Mr. Murphy, who was charged with ten years in prison for his revolutionary activity. “We too know the brutality of the bourgeois justice system, and we will not rest until Paul Murphy is freed.”

Paul Murphy, who has been tweeting regularly from his cell, informed us that he had been tortured several times by the “fascist Free State authorities”. In one such case, he was forced to stand naked before the other prisoners and state that no Trotskyist group had ever carried out a revolution, anywhere in the world, at any time.

While he disputed claims that the series of bombing attacks against police stations in Dublin were carried out by Páirtí Sóisialach’s alleged armed wing, the Permanent Brigades, he likewise refused to condemn the attacks.

“These attacks must be understood in the context of the violence carried out by the state against socialist groups such as my own. If the state really wants peace, as it claims it does, it will sit down for direct negotiations.”

“While I appreciate all the solidarity I’ve received from the outside, and sure, I’ve made a great sacrifice, the revolution isn’t just one man, and it’s not just in one country. Let’s not forget our comrades in Greece, Xekinima, who we all couldn’t shut up about a few months back. They’re still a viable force in Greek politics and an important player in the coming world revolution. Up the CWI!”

At press time, our Dublin correspondent was unable to hear us over our mobile connection due to the massive crowds pushing against the Dublin Gardaí screaming “FREE PAUL MURPHY!” and “FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS!”

Do-Nothing Marxist-Leninist Party Reads Worker’s Spatula

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON – Worker’s Spatula, the most revolutionary publication the world over, enjoys popularity unparallelled by any newspaper, website, or newsletter on the Marxist left. From small protests in New York to massive riots in Şırnak to the front of the people’s war in India, Worker’s Spatula is the name that is on every revolutionary’s lips.

So popular is Worker’s Spatula that some parties have even begun to incorporate insights gleaned from the paper into their theoretical study. One such example is the Revolutionary Communist Party of Cascadia, which has added the entirety of Worker’s Spatula’s output to their required reading for members.

“What we enjoy most about Worker’s Spatula is that not only do they share our correct analysis of international politics, but they make fun of all the parties around us who are actually doing shit,” explained ‘Comrade Lucy’, who agreed to be interviewed by us as she changed the RCPC’s Facebook page cover photo from a photo of Mao to one of Pol Pot. “Socialist Alternative, RCPUSA, and some foreign parties we pretend to know shit about, it’s good to see all these parties with some vague connection to everyday politics in their social context lampooned. Frankly, it’s all I read anymore.”

Her Comrade, Dawn ‘Red Dawn’ Wilson, agreed: “Worker’s Spatula gets it, everyone on the left today is basically liberal, and nobody spends enough time defending Stalin, Che, Mao, Jiang Qing, Enver Hoxha, Thomas Sankara, Ho Chi Min, Pol Pot, and North Korea. Defending these dead leaders is much more important than having actual praxis, because any praxis not built upon a solid foundation in anti-revisionism is doomed to failure.”

“Uphold the correct line.”

As the two sat in their party headquarters (the corner table of the cafeteria at Seattle University), exchanging hilarious anti-revisionist memes, we enquired if we could speak to other members of the party.

“Oh for sure,” said ‘Comrade Lucy’. “Our street team, which is to say, Comrade Steve, is usually at the food cart on the corner, handing out our pamphlet, Cascadian Partisan.”

‘Comrade Steve’ was happy to see us, and handed us a copy of Cascadian Partisan, which did indeed contain a quote from a Worker’s Spatula article lampooning Socialist Alternative.

“We hate Socialist Alternative, they’re such opportunists and reformists,” explained ‘Comrade Steve’, as he flicked his cigarette butt on the ground and stepped back on the curb to discuss the finer points of theory, and also to order a plate of halal street meat. “They don’t even uphold the right to self-determination for the Cascadian nation.”

“Cascadia is a nation on the grounds that we think it’d be pretty cool if we seceded from the US. We’d have like, a red base right here in North America. We’d be able to dismantle capitalism by building agrarian communes and shit, like in Cambodia. We’d call it ‘the People’s Democratic Republic of Cascadia’, and our flag would be a black hammer/sickle/Kalashnikov symbol on a red background. Pretty sick, right?”

“You guys should do something about that. Like a piece where you call Socialist Alternative COINTELPRO agents because they’re not helping to raise national consciousness among the Cascadian people.”

“If Socialist Alternative was really serious about revolution, Kshama Sawant would help fight to change the gun laws in Washington so that people 18 and older could purchase a rifle. I’ve saved up, but I’m still waiting until I turn 21.”

“Fuckin’ Trotskyites. They’re good for nothing,” he concluded.

David Harvey Detained at Istanbul airport

ISTANBUL – We have received shocking news that renowned Marxist professor and world famous stunt man in each and every Karl Marx action movie David Harvey has been detained at Istanbul’s Sabiha Gökçen Airport. Our local correspondent received a statement by the Turkish authorities accusing him of being the leader of not one but a whole range of illegal leftist groups. This follows news earlier this year that the Turkish authorities determined that Rosa Luxemburg and Clara Zetkin were members of the outlawed PKK after the Kurdish women’s movement printed their pictures on some of their banners for International Working Women’s Day.

Regarding the Harvey case a representative of the office of President Erdoğan stated: “You know, we had long wondered who that formidably bearded old man was that so many leftists seem to cherish. He was all over their books, their magazines, their banners. MİT worked night and day without success, but thanks to one outstanding officer at Sabiha Gökçen Airport, we were finally able to identify and detain him. This is a very important step for our country and its security.”

HPG leader Murat Karayılan issued a statement in support of Harvey from Kandil: “As you know, we are now currently under intense aerial bombardment by the Turkish state. Thankfully, the Turkish state’s intelligence is so weak that although I’m the target, I personally am not in any real danger. Actually we found some leaflets dropped by the Turkish state while they were bombing civilians stating that if they can’t kill our leadership by their bombing campaign, they’re hoping we’ll get bored to death. I mostly spend my free time reading some of Harvey’s books. Great theory, I like his exposition of the circuits of capital. The Turkish state has him, eh? Is he going to meet Apo? Lucky bastard.”

After Karayılan was informed that Harvey was detained on account of Turkish officials having confused him with Karl Marx, he responded with only mild surprise: “Oh, they confused him with Karl Marx? See, that’s the kind of idiots we’re dealing with here. At least before the AKP the Turkish state were clever fascists, look at what they’ve been reduced to.”

Harvey has received messages of solidarity from Marxists around the world. In one curious case, the ISO retracted their initial solidarity for Harvey after discovering his staunch support for the PYD in Rojava. “We call on the Stalinist tankie crypto-fascist Harvey to shut up about the stupid Kurds and talk about the real revolution in Syria: The FSA, and whatever it’s up to lately.”

MLPD leader Stefan Engel was at the airport around the same time Harvey was detained, on his way back to Germany from his Istanbul holiday, which has been extensively covered by embedded journalists of the party newspaper of Dutch ICOR affiliate Rode Morgen. Engel immediately posted this website to his personal website, along with some extremely flattering photos of the MLPD leader skinny-dipping on a Turkish beach: “This is just further proof of the absolute truth and validity of the political line of the MLPD. We are always where true revolutionaries have to be. We are in full support of Harvey’s support of Rojava. I haven’t read any of his books, but I suppose there is nothing for someone like me to learn from them. You have read my books, right?”

UPDATE: We have received information that Turkish officials have accepted the fact that David Harvey is not Karl Marx. However, a spokesperson for the Turkish Police announced that they were still not convinced of Harvey’s innocence. “Yeah, ok, so he may not be that guy with the white beard, what was his name again? Markus Merk? Oh that’s the commentator on Lig TV? Whatever, a German’s a German. And even if that’s not him, that’s no proof of his innocence. He has spoken at book fairs in Diyarbakır and Mardin. Diyarbakir and Mardin! Do I have to say any more?”

Trotskyist Dating Site Launched

LOS ANGELES – With a limited budget and a busy schedule, the average leftist has great difficulty staying competitive in the dating scene. For Trotskyists, the situation is bleaker still, as the risk of being set up on a date with someone who isn’t a Trotskyist, and is therefore a “Stalinist”, is pretty high.

Los Angeles technical support operator and ISO member Jessica Stone believes her new website, “TrotHotSpot”, could provide physical and emotional companionship for thousands of Trotskyists around the world.

“I wanted to make sure it was properly inclusive, so we have write-in slots for gender and sexuality, with a pretty extensive list of pronouns other users will see when you message them. I also wanted to make sure all the various Trotskyist tendencies were included, except the Pabloites. Pabloites will be pur… er, I mean… expelled from the site.”

Over the course of a mere 48 hours, over 10,000 confirmed accounts have been registered, representing the spectrum of  Trotskyism from Solidarity (US) to ICL(FI), better known as “the Sparts.”

“Yeah, we try to keep the Sparts well behaved.” Stone told us. “We expel them from the site if they send more than 10 accusations of being a “fake Marxist” to a single user in the space of five minutes.”

“So yeah, we’ve expelled almost every single Spart who’s joined the site so far.”

Concerns are already surfacing about infiltration of the site, with internet MLs and internet “MLs” already openly discussing plans to hack the site’s database to retrieve the personal information of users whose profile pictures suspiciously resemble the visages of Bob Avakian and Jason Unruhe. Stone responded:

“I completely understand these concerns. I mean, even for Bob Avakian or Jason Unruhe, it would be pretty embarrassing for everyone to find out that you talk to Trotskyists. We are working around the clock to heighten site security. We want security concerns for our users to be as low as those of actual Trotskyist parties in the United States.”

But the popularity of the site is so explosive that such hacking efforts may be redundant. Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) president Sandra L. Smith publicly admitted to having registered an account.

“Yeah, I’m a dominatrix, and while I have a very satisfying sex life within the Montréal S&M scene, it’s hard to find someone who wants to sub as my ice axe attack victim. I’m hoping through this site I can find someone.”

With Marxist-Leninists joining the site, it’s no surprise that famous Trotskyists would as well: Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant reports already having found love on the site, having been matched with her own duplicate account. A wedding is to take place before the next Seattle City Council election. “I love myself very much, and you should love me too”, she informed Worker’s Spatula, when asked for comment.

Asked if he had any plans to join the site, MLPD Leader and winner of the “Best Dressed” award at his high school prom for three consecutive years Stefan Engel responded: “What do I need a dating site for? Haven’t you seen my homepage?”

Greece in Chaos; KKE to Fix Everything

ATHENS – After the total defeat of Syriza, the situation in Greece has descended into a chaotic mire which is difficult to penetrate at first glance. The Syriza leadership has driven the party to a split through unwavering belief in its strategy of having polite and productive discussions over a cup of tea with the people who intend to crush you. Former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is reportedly still confused as to why his plans were unsuccessful. An unnamed source close to Tsipras claims to have seen him in fierce discussion with Euclid Tsakalatos, former Minister of Finance and successor to Yanis Varoufakis, named “sexiest Greek alive” and “sexiest motorcyclist alive” by People Magazine Ellas. Tsipras was reported to have desperately shouted “why did we not serve them coffee and some sweets too? Should we have brought more olive oil and feta cheese for Schäuble? Should I have changed my name in Tsopanis, so Hamdi Ulukaya could have helped us out like he did Kobanê?”

The international response to developments has been mixed. On the one hand, proven revolutionaries like Leo Panitch, whose credentials of training revolutionaries how to use AK-47s in his Toronto basement are well known and widely admired, were still trying to blame everyone but the Syriza leadership for Syriza’s failed politics, and the most “movementist” components of the organized German Left such as Interventionistische Linke and the Blockupy alliance were supporting the political line of the Syriza leadership using the most statist and bureaucratic logic available to them, thus proving they were more Marxist than everyone else, as one must “dive into the manure of contradictions whilst engaging with realpolitik.”

On the other hand, CWI affiliates around the world continue to praise their Greek section Xekinima for its bold decision to leave Syriza and then cry about how Syriza leadership fails to reflect their views.

Additionally, Stefan Engel, chairman of the MLPD and winner of “most fuckable flabby white guy” at the International Communist Awards five years running (since he dethroned Slavoj Žižek after the formation of ICOR) convened a press conference in Berlin, at which he stated “KOE. I will not be taking any questions”, and promptly left.

Since the left wing of Syriza finally broke away from the party to form Popular Unity, Greek affairs have grown more complex still. Thankfully, the KKE came to the rescue: Dimitris Koutsoumpas, General Secretary of the Central Committee, spoke at a press conference, referencing Ancient Greek philosophy: “We Greeks invented dialectics and so we understand it better than anyone. We are the most dialectical, on racial grounds.” He quoted Heraclitus’s famous dictum that “you cannot step twice into the same river” and added, that “unfortunately, too many Greeks today have been de-Hellenised by EU colonialism and are thus too stupid to understand that. These are the ones who will vote for Popular Unity.” When our reporter at the press conference noted that Heraclitus’s saying may indicate almost the exact opposite conclusion to the one proposed by Koutsoumpas, he responded: “Well, that’s just more proof that you cannot trust petty bourgeois individualist enemies of the people like Heraclitus.”

However, as the average Greek on the street will readily tell you, the KKE’s unparallelled insights put them head and shoulders above all political competition, and they needn’t stoop to “pointless discussion of such moronic concepts as philosophy”. To shed light on the latest confusion. Koutsoumpas declared that the party will release a scale of “different forms and levels of deceitful and obfuscationist anti-people factions.” This scale is supposed to provide the party and the people which it so self-evidently leads orientation in these dark times. “It’s actually quite simple,” Koutsoumpas explained, “everyone but us is an enemy of the people. Syriza and now Popular Unity are just the ‘left’ reserve of the system. There is no difference between any of them, they just dress up in different clothes.” Asked how the people could make use of this scale, he responded: “If you’re curious about a given faction of the Greek left outside of KKE, check our scale, and you’ll see that they are indeed enemies of the people. They just differ in degree of deception of the people. Being on the scale makes something true, so we put true things on the scale.”

“There’s your goddamned dialectics.”

Asked how the KKE intended to concretely engage the current dynamics, Koutsoumpas was visibly stunned. “Isn’t that obvious? We have to strengthen our movement and in order to do that we will form anti-monopolistic and pro-people alliances. We will soon release a catalogue of criteria of political positions that qualify for such an alliance. It is a little bit more complicated than the scale I told you about before.”

After repeated attempts by reporters to glean some cursory summary of what kind of criteria the KKE was looking for, Koutsoumpas gave in and stated: “Alright, if you must know, I can say this much: It would be really helpful if everyone seeking an alliance with us agrees with our party line on every major issue, including our predetermined role as sole saviours of the Greek nation. This is because our party line is quite simply correct on every major issue. And, you know, it’s like Marx said: Die Partei, die Partei, die hat immer recht.” He concluded the press conference by taking a shoe that he had kept on the table throughout the press conference and placing it on his bare foot, thus demonstrating his absolute lack of revisionism.