Freedom is the Right to Secession
Amerikans are real upset to see raza waving flags of their homeland as they stand up to fascist ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids in Aztlán in recent weeks. Aztlán is the Chicane homeland, stolen by the U.$. from Mexico in 1848. The people living in Aztlán, of various nationalities, have been battling in the streets from San Antonio to Los Angeles. These street confrontations with ICE kidnappers have been waged by brave people all the way up the West Coast, to Minneapolis, across to New York City.
These events are demonstrating the divisions in the population of this not so united country. Some of the same Liberals who led the charge of “fascism” against Trump are now criticizing people for confronting ICE. ICE is serving as the first wave of a militarized fascist force here in occupied Turtle Island. That is because the regime believes ICE cannot be held accountable in the courts. If you’re not okay with people trying to stop them, you are allowing the very fascism you claimed to be against.
Meanwhile there is a whole range of people from outright fascists, to supporters of the protests in Los Angeles who want the protestors to replace their flags with Amerikan flags. The latter don’t get it that it is people who identify least with the Amerikan nation that are the targets and the resistance to this repression.
The bourgeois press has asked U.$. Attorney General Pam Bondi why the protestors in L.A. warrant military response when those who violently stormed the Capitol on January 6 were all pardoned and freed by eir administration. Bondi gave a non-answer, because the answer is politics. Of course those insurrectionists waved U.$. and Confederate flags, and they were all euro-Amerikan supporters of Trump. The U.$. and Confederate flags have always represented two sides of the euro-Amerikan nation. As scholar Gerald Horne says, this divide was between those who wanted to enslave Africans and those who wanted a “white-only” country. Today slavery is off the table, so far, and the division is between integration and exclusion. The Trump regime is trying to deport “non-whites,” following an era that was the closest this country has come to integration so far.
The Trump regime has also been verbally sparring with California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has publicly opposed and condemned the deployment of National Guard and now Marines troops in Los Angeles. But we are seeing the toothlessness of these so-called “sanctuary cities” where LAPD is operating alongside ICE and San Francisco police have arrested around 240 people – about the same as Los Angeles, where there was a lot more property destruction. While it is doubtful that Newsom has the will, or the ability, to mobilize any real opposition to Trump, the dialogue is shifting.
Amidst the battles with ICE, Trump claimed he would “liberate Los Angeles from the Migrant Invasion.” A 2022 Ipsos poll found that the majority of Amerikans had been convinced that there is an “invasion” of immigrants crossing the U.$. border.(1) The poll also found that most Amerikans had all the facts wrong about what was going on at the border. Not surprising when the current President is saying things on TV like the protestors in L.A. are paid actors. While the term “invasion” can be used as a metaphor, Trump is actually trying to argue that laws for times of invasion by a foreign military apply to the current situation. Aztlán does not have a military, nor have any military forces from countries to the south been involved whatsoever in the southwest states. In the last few months we have seen maps carving up the United $tates and Kanada in ways that used to be reserved for niche Maoist discussion groups make their way into mainstream forums. And the CalExit ballot measure to create a commission to study secession claims it has hundreds of thousands of signatures to get it on the next state ballot.(2) But this is currently at the stage of being a meme, with no oppositional military in the region to stop ICE.
Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United $tates, is majority Raza. Trump claims they are sending troops there to “liberate” the city. And many Amerikans see the foreign flags waving in demonstrations validating this call.
On page 2 of every issue of ULK we cite Lenin’s position on the right of nations to secede. This is a right that must be recognized if the U.$. claims to be a “free country.” The reality is, that integration was largely a response to the Soviet Union’s support for true national self-determination. The communist world offered a better alternative to the capitalist status quo, which forced the hand of the Amerikan imperialists during the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s.
Today, the imperialists have little competition but each other, and the oppressed nations are being targeted for removal again, from Palestine to occupied Turtle Island. But sending the oppressed to El Salvador and Guantanamo Bay isn’t going to work. First Nations, Chicanes and New Afrikans need the ability to determine their own destinies free of this inhumane treatment and tyranny.
Fuck Your Flag
Free Aztlán
NOTES:
1. methodology should be considered as this was
an opt-in poll, Ipsos,
18 August 2022, On immigration, most buying into idea of “invasion” at
southern border
2. ABC10,
California secession: LA protests help movement’s
momentum
