The F-Word Blog First Women of Colour & Beauty Carnival kicks off…

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

Soaring blogs:

This Carnival is intended to focus on beauty and what it means to and about women of color. In particular, I would like to see discussion go beyond a focus on the ways in which women of color can internalize self hatred to the ways in which women and communities of color recognize and celebrate beauty.

Submissions from women and men of color are welcome, focusing on these areas:

[Hat Tip: Jess]

Carnival of Feminists No. 59

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

The latest Carnival of Feminists is up at Philobiblon:

Welcome to the Carnival of Feminists, which begins with an apology, for the hiatus since the last, which was due to my disappearing under a deluge of work, from which I’m slowly extracting myself.

So there’s more than a month of nominations here, and I decided the best thing to do was to collect them, to allow a new host a managable run.

And the next host will be Unmana’s words, on July 9. She kindly came asking if I needed hosts. You can use the nomination form to send links to her, or email her at unmana AT gmail DOT com.

Carnival of Socialism 24

The Carnival of Socialism is up at The View from Steeltown:

The theme of this Carnival is Socialism in the Americas.

14th & 15th Carnival of Radical Feminists

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

The 14th Carnival of Radical Feminists is being hosted by Meta Watershed:

Welcome, good folk, to the 14th Carnival of Radical Feminists! I am very honored to be your host for this month’s excellent spread of feminist thought. I’ve selected a bumper crop of 28 submissions for your perusal — one for each day of our lunar cycle. I earnestly hope you will use this opportunity to not just read some choice posts, but to also discover new blogs, add them to your links and blogroll, and continue to grow our community in all its diversity. It’s been a tremendous experience this month. Pass it on! — Maggie Jochild

And the 15th is up at Rage Against the Man-chine:

Hello, my fine-feathered friends, and welcome to the Fifteenth Carnival of Radical Feminists. I’m Nine Deuce, and I’ll be your guide through this round-up of some of the best current radical feminist writing on the internet. I am, quite simply, stoked to be hosting this installment of the Carnival, and I’d like to thank all of the women who submitted these excellent posts, as well as Heart at Women’s Space for putting the whole thing together. I won’t bore you too much with corny platitudes, but I do want to say that I am thrilled that this Carnival exists to provide women around the world with a means to share their experiences, thoughts, and feelings in a free and supportive environment, and to allow us the opportunity to learn from and collaborate with each other in our efforts to make the world a safer and better place to be a woman. That’ll be enough from me. On to the posts…

23rd Carnival of Socialism

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

The Red Mantis hosts the 23rd Carnival of Socialism:

The Red Mantis is proud to host the twenty-third edition of the Carnival of Socialism. After a much needed revival led mostly by Jim Jepps of The Daily (Maybe) and John Angliss of the Labor Left Forum, the Carnival has had a strong showing from all of its hosts. For May Day, the Carnival self-hosted a special edition to commemorate the big day. With all of this exciting activity, I humbly present the next edition of the Carnival of Socialism. Here’s hoping it measures up.

58th Carnival of Feminists

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

The 58th Carnival of Feminists is up at Be a Good Human:

Welcome to the 58th edition of the Carnival of Feminists! I’m seriously, seriously thrilled to have you here. If you missed the 57th edition, go check it out at Pandemian.

(And while I have your attention, please take a quick sec and vote for my new blog name over to the right. Thanks!)

So I’m going to break down these excellent submissions based on things my 13 year old sister has said to me. (Translations in parentheses.)

22nd Carnival of Socialism

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

The latest Carnival of Socialism is up at Socialist Unity:

We have split the carnival into two parts, with a selection from Louise, and a selection from Andy

Louise looks at the issues on left feminist blogs:

…

Andy Newman’s selection on China:

A Call to Allies

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

The Angry Black Woman is hosting the first (and possible only) Carnival of Allies. All posts are due May 5th!

This got me thinking about those white folks who exist in that liminal space where they are against racism but don’t understand how it works and get defensive, hurt, and freaked out when folks point out how they benefit from it without trying…I am wondering how you turn that kind of person into an ally. I’m wondering if maybe I cannot simply because, when they read my words, they are so filled with defensiveness and perhaps guilt, nothing I say can get through. If they can’t listen to me, can they maybe listen to other White people?

…

I call a Carnival. The Carnival of Allies. Where self-identified allies write to other people like themselves about why this or that oppression and prejudice is wrong. Why they are allies. Why the usual excuses are not good enough. I figure allies probably know full well all the many and various arguments people throw up to make prejudice and oppression okay. Things that someone on the other side of the fence may not hear. Address those things and more besides.

And when I say allies, I’m talking about any and every type. PoC can be (and should be) allies to other PoC, or to LGBTQ people if they are straight, or any number of other combinations. If you feel like you’re an ally and have something to say about that, you should submit to this carnival.

Blog Against Sexual Violence 45

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

The 45th Carnival Against Sexual Violence is up at abyss2hope:

Welcome to the Apr. 15, 2008 edition of the carnival against sexual violence.

Thank you to everyone who nominated a post or who wrote a post against sexual violence whether it was nominated/selected or not. Nominations that came in after the nomination deadline will be considered for the next edition of the carnival.

If you support the purpose of the carnival, you can help get the word out about it and all of the posts included in the carnival.

Thanks to everyone who participated in the Blog Against Sexual Violence Day which I coordinated for the second year in a row.

57th Carnival of Feminists

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

The latest edition of the Carnival of Feminists is up at pandemian:

Welcome to the 57th Carnival of the Feminists, Littlejohn Baiting Edition.

21st Carnival of Socialism

[Updated: I knew I would forget something! How could I forget to include a post from Bhupinder?!]

Welcome everyone to the 21st Carnival of Socialism which focuses on South Asian politics as well as South Asian socialist and communist movements. I first want to give a big appreciation and thanks to my friends Bhupinder over at a reader’s words for suggesting some leftist and revolutionary blogs in South Asia and to Krish of Jagadguru for also trying to help me find some blogs as well. I also want to give a big thanks to all of the bloggers at Blogbharti, which was a very valued resource for me in trying to find South Asian bloggers who tackle the issues of South Asian politics. Not all of the blogs here today are from South Asia and not all are trully written by those who perscribe to socialism (as Bhupinder pointed out to me, there aren’t too many blogs like that being written in South Asia) but they do tackle subjects that deal very much with socialist issues; such as poverty, class, caste, and capitalism.

So now, onto the carnival with posts in (relatively) no particular order!

First, any talk about socialism wihtin South Asia immediatly brings up the Communist Party of India (Maoist), or, as there are known, the Naxals. In this blog post Madhukar blogs about the book Red Sun: Travels through the Naxalite Country:

Reading the book, brought back these memories of my “encounters” during last few months. During last couple of months, I had a chance of travelling across the interiors of Jharkhand, Orissa and Chattisgarh in connection to some assessment of NGOs… This was also an opportunity to cross-check the official line that the Maoists - described as “these thugs/ anti-national elements/ criminals” etc. - resist “development” (industrialisation, mining projects, large dams, investments, job-creation, building of infrastruction, etc.), because they feeds on poverty, misery and lack of development and so on.

Here are some snapshots from my “vicarious” experiences:

Jimmy Higgins posts an interview with G.N. Saibaba on the blog Fire on the Mountain (there is a Part II as well):

The Maoist movement in India is not confined to the backward areas. It’s a vast movement, and includes the “developed” areas. Maoists work both in the countryside and the cities. The government says that the Maoists are active in 15 out of 28 states. And these include the major states. The Union Home Ministry says that 167 districts out total 600 districts in the country are covered by Maoists. This is a little less than 1/3 of India.

The Maoists in India follow the New Democratic Revolutionary method proved successful in China under the leadership of Mao. This method follows that the revolutionary movement must put priority on working in the areas where the state is weak. The Maoists work in the backward regions to smash the local reactionaries’ power and establish people’s power. They build revolutionary mass bases in these backward areas. This doesn’t mean that they don’t also work in the cities. In fact, in the Congress of the CPI (Maoist) held in January/February 2007, they decided to increase their work in the urban areas. They have produced a new document concerning work in the urban areas that analyses the work done in the last thirty years. This document sets out a strategy for developing the work in the urban areas.

Bhagatlives blogs about the recent political turmoil in Pakistan and the role of the Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party:

In countries such as Pakistan,unlike Western European societies there have been no bourgeois democratic revolutions (such as the French revolution etc). In our part of the world, capitalism was introduced
through colonization, by the British.

In our country therefore, the proletariat is faced with the dual task of participating in and completing the democratic revolution through an alliance of the poor peasantry and the proletariat (the demands of
the poor peasantry being bourgeois democratic), and the proletariat can only then enhance the sweep of the revolutionary movement to lead the socialist revolution.

Bringing us to Nepal, the blogger at Monkey Smashes Heaven has this to say about the recent death of Azad:

[Update: This post, for some reason, has been taken off the website.  However, there is this post on the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and Prachanda.]

Azad criticized Prachanda’s revisionism on a number of scores. Azad criticized Prachanda’s Kautsky-style reformism. Prachanda is criticized for abandoning Lenin’s theories of the state and dual power. Prachanda is criticized for opportunist obfuscation in the analysis of the class nature of the mainstream parties in Nepal. He is criticized for opportunistically confusing new democracy with parliamentarism alongside a semi-feudal, comprador mode of production. Azad criticizes Prachanda’s statements that prop up the Indian compradors and sabotaged people’s war in India. Prachanda is also criticized for not understanding the lessons of the Cultural Revolution.

Ninotchka Rosca blogs about the Communist Party Nepal (Maoist) and there progressive role in women’s liberation:

Gyanendra assumed the throne in the midst of a burgeoning people’s war waged primarily by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) or the CPN (M), with the twin political call to end the monarchy and liberate women. I confess that when I was first made aware of the latter, I nearly jumped out of my skin, having been engaged in debate for 20 years over class, gender and liberation.

Dipankar Basu blogs about the errors of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and its role in developing capitalism:

This brief historical note has been occasioned by recent attempts to justify the championing of capitalism by a communist party – Communist Party of India (Marxist) – as the vehicle for its industrialization program in West Bengal, India. The justification, which argues for the necessity of capitalism by taking recourse to the distinction between the two stages of revolution, rests on an erroneous reading of international working class theory and practice. While it correctly posits the distinction between the two stages of social revolution, it does so mechanically, formally, and in a one-sided manner; the crucial and related question of the relationship between the two stages is not accorded the attention it deserves. That, in my opinion, is the primary source of error and leads to arguing for the necessity of “deepening and widening” capitalism as against initiating efforts to transcend it.

Update: And continuing on India, Bhupinder has this to say on class and poverty:

In this article (pdf) in the latest issue of EPW (alternate location), economists Arjun Sengupta et al contest the official levels of poverty and indicate that 75% of Indian population is poor, which is twice the official figure. This means a staggering 836 million as of 2004–05.

…

I do hope this stirs up debate around the jingle of ‘trickle down’ economics that one has heard over the last two decades and recognize the darkness in the noon of unprecedented growth rates

Pratyush Chandra writes about the Communist Party of Nepal’s two-teared strategy:

By becoming part of the government that is non-committal to any radical change unless forced, the Maoists perhaps became vulnerable to all the pitfalls of power politics in a competitive set-up. However the greatest strength or safeguard for them is their recognition and commitment to two-line struggle within their own ranks - between the tendencies of compromise and of uninterrupted transformation. They are aware that their radicalism lies in intensifying this struggle at every level. If we find today an apparent inconsistency between the Maoists in the government and those on the streets, it is the open realisation of this two-line struggle, which tempers one another not allowing the former to settle with status quoism. Recent statements by Prachanda, Baburam Bhattarai and Mohan Baidya, where they stressed on the need for giving “top priority to the street struggle at this juncture”, reflect the Maoists’ resolution to remain as forces of democratisation, rather than a stability factor for a democracy of an elitist minority and the depoliticised majority.

With that (very) brief look at communism in South Asia Vidrohi blogs about the life of revolutionary Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh who was killed by the British in 1931:

Bhagat Singh started his political journey when new lines were emerging in the Indian polity. On one hand, the religious jargon was being introduced in the political rhetoric at a mass scale and seculars like Jinnah were getting sidelined. On the other hand, the revolutionary ideas of Lenin and Bolshevik Revolution were trickling into India. Bhagat Singh, like many others who were already disillusioned by Gandhi, was attracted towards experiment of workers and peasants of Russia.

Now to more contemporary analysis of the situation in South Asia we begin with a blog post from Rukhe Zehra Zaidi, who is a member of the Communist Mazdoor Kissan Party :

In Pakistan, the plot of politics is often repeated and rehashed until the performance has become a fine tuned and much rehearsed drama on the ongoing tussle between democracy and the military. Dictators replace democrats, democrats negotiate and bargain with each other and the army, and the masses stand by much like the citizens of fair Verona caught in the crossfire of the fighting between the Montagues and the Capulets. And although the actors change on a seasonal basis, the transition is now almost seamless and perfect. Costume changes require minimal refitting as the Ayubs make way for the Zias and Musharrafs, and the MMA of today steps into the shoes of the Islamic Democratic Alliance of yesterday.

Satyavati blogs about the creation of Bhumika, a feminist magazine in India:

The bridging of knowledge from the macro level to the micro level through articles on women’s issues, the translation of papers/articles from English to Telegu on feminism or feminist theory, and making connections it to lived realities of women’s lives is key factor with potential for promoting gender equality. By providing an alternative discourse to understand and address women’s subordination, and generating discussion on a wide variety of issues, the seeds of questioning and challenging the ‘social given’ are germinated in the minds of women (and men). The issues addressed by Bhumika whether it is Globalisation or Agriculture or Handloom have a strong gender perspective – that both analyses and informs.

Finally, we end with Pardeep blogging about the exclusion of lower caste and Dalits from the history books by Indian upper caste elites:

Brahmin scholars have ignored all the Dalit- Bahujan revolutionaries like Ayyankali from Kerala who fought for the poor Dalits rights. Birsa Munda – Tribal leader from Bihar, Mahatma Joytiba Phule – father of social revolution, EVR Periyar – Great revolutionary from Tamil Nadu, but where all these stands in Indian history? None of these revolutionaries are history books, not much bother to write about all these. It seems Indians have forgotten the struggle of all the greatest revolutionaries. In same way, the women liberator, Savitribai Phule’s (1831-1897) B’day is not celebrated as Teacher’s day, who was the real liberator of poor section of society, 1st teacher who opened many schools for poor Dalits.

Image From:
Siliconeer

Upcoming Carnival of Socialism

I’m hosting the 21st Carnival of Socialism on Thursday April 10th.  The edition will focus on South Asia.  So if you guys having any blog posts or blogs out there to recommend by South Asian folk or blog posts of your own on the subject please leave a comment.

20th Carnival of Socialism

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

The latest Carnival of Socialism is up at Leftwing Crimnologist:

Hi all, Welcome to Carnival of Socialsim 20 - focussing on crime, criminal justice and socialism. Just like Power to the People with the previous carnival attempt to open people’s eyes to internationalism and liberation, I’m intending on doing a similar thing with this topic, however, some of these posts are a little old, but i include them becuase I think they’re quite good.

So let’s begin.

The 22nd Erase Racism Carnival

Cross-posted From Double Consciousness.

As I’ve stated previously I was getting some bad posts e-mailed to me for this months Erase Racism Carnival. So I decided to do some searching of my own to find some posts and, I’m pleased to say, I found some great ones, but not as many as I would have liked. So I please to announce this months (mini) Erase Racism Carnival…(Read More)

12th Carnival of Radical Feminists

Cross-posted from The Blog and the Bullet.

Debs hosts this months carnival over at The Burning Times:

Welcome to the 12th Carnival of Radical Feminists - a celebration of radical feminism! We are sisters, all of us, and with our hearts and minds and actions, we can change the world.