The blockade has been called to protest against the economic dictatorship of the Troika, for democracy, and against austerity.

The Troika (the European Central Bank, the IMF, and the EU) have been in charge of Greece and Italy for several months. They effectively took control of those countries finances, after their governments were unable to pass sufficiently harsh austerity measures.

The recent elections in Greece were a massive popular rejection of austerity, with 60% of the vote going to anti-austerity parties. Yet German capitalism, which bankrolls and profits from the EU bailouts, is demanding that Greece stick to the conditions of its bailout – endless cuts and misery.

With new elections slated for June 17^th, now is the time to rally opposition to the capitalists profiting from the catastrophe in Greece. We need to build an international solidarity movement that can support the Greek people in their rejection of the bosses’ austerity offensive.

The Frankfurt city government have banned all protest during the mobilization, determined to silence opposition. 15,000 police will be stationed in the town just in case the illegal ban fails.

REVOLUTION are sending members from our European sections to join the blockade.

We will also take part in the conferences and plenaries scheduled for Friday and Saturday.

There we will call for concrete demands, which the campaign can base its next steps around.

• For the cancellation of all government debts

• Nationalize the banks under workers’ control

• Rebuild nationwide anti-cuts committees

BLOCKUPY Frankfurt symbolizes resistance to EU-wide austerity and a defense of the right to protest against the millionaires looting public services and destroying jobs across the continent.

Fortunately, such wasn’t the case here. With both of us being so close to the same age, the drive was standard questions (political activity, how much one has done in movements, family life and personal interests, etc) mixed with the typical teenage humor.

The location, a building referred to as only the Solidarity Center, was a spacious location. Built in gravel wheel chair ramp, well-made wooden steps, and an interior meeting area large enough to comfortable seat everyone, this locale would serve our small group well.

My contact and I went inside, helping an organizer carry in some cooking equipment, and settled in. I gingerly waited for more people to arrive.

While in the middle of ice-breaker games, more people did arrive, with some trickling in some time afterward. Our numbers were fated to be small this weekend. All in all, there were perhaps a little over two dozen people in and out on the first day with less permanent numbers the following.

Upon arriving, I would force myself through the various workshops on the agonizing consensus process, be mildly intrigued when it came to the labor union’s local presentation (reformist but sign of progressivist thought here and there), and only be engaged in when came for a Queer activist to give her brief history of the Occupy movement as well as her own personal involvement in the New-York City Occupation.

Her mentioning her partner several times actually brought me back to the awesome fact of the heavy Queer presence there. Aside from myself, there were anywhere from 3-4 other Queer advocates. From an affirming heterosexual, to a lesbian, and a Gender-queer man, I was in good company. Among these people, I chatted often and enjoyed hearing their experience on organizing and life. Eventually, I would gain several of these persons contact information.

Throughout lunch and breaks during the weekend, I was happy to see the progressive politics of the people I worked with. Though many of them still had ideas that prevented them from being classified as revolutionaries (reformist-like illusions, uncertainty about what came after capitalism, and so forth), I do not exaggerate when I say the great majority of those present were anti-capitalist. This fact was even further reinforced when I met some contacts from my own local Occupy who had grown in their anti-capitalist stance since my last visit with them; people who were once “on the fence” about the imperialist system now only condemned it but called it for what it was: imperialism.

There was a single “Democratic Socialist,” the usual assortment of Eco-Anarchists (who made up the majority of the radicals by far), as well as a young women who aside from some minor comments, I was positive was a revolutionary communist. Though I never gained significant political talk time with any of these people, I did manage brief conversations with each one; most interestingly I discovered a person there not only had read, but upheld, the ideas of Karl Marx.

Though sometimes these individuals’ conversations would take a major nose dive into a result which I can only call “Facepalm.” Overall the level of rhetoric had progressed. While at Occupy there were more libertarians than I could usually stomach, here there were none to be found. It made me think that if the political climate continued in this fashion, than eventually they would be a moderately solid revolutionary base.

Eventually the first day came to an end and sleeping was called for. A sleeping bag and floor was all I needed. Rolling up an extra shirt I had brought with me as a pillow I fell asleep after only being mildly uncomfortable.

Waking up the next day, I dressed, rolled up my sleeping bag, had a breakfast bar, and reviewed my workshop. Though this caused me to miss the first part of the second day’s beginning workshop, I couldn’t bring myself to care. Reviewing never took too long, and I eventually caught the middle of the presentation.

Eventually it came time for my time in the sun. Yet, there were some shadows on this day. What had been my only complaint during the entire weekend was that when it came time for my workshop the organizers had lumped it in with another workshop. This meant that now people could choose which workshop they wanted to participate in. This annoyed me some as previously all the workshops were attended by all the people. Since my competition had been the “Know Your Rights” workshop only three people came to attendance.

I am a pragmatic person, however. Of the attendees, there was only a few which I actually wanted to be in attendance which weren’t already. I also realize that knowing one’s rights when being active is a popular event as the possibility exists that those young people may already know how to bring their peers to occupy.

Ultimately I did not mind the low attendance, as I knew that even giving a presentation in front of a small audience was still giving me vital practice for the net event. I made some mistakes, created new strategies for presenting, and knew that what I had learned from giving such a lecture would serve me even better in the future.

After this, I waited for lunch to be over and for the final workshops to start. While at this point I was eager to go home, I still took in the final workshop concerning corporate practices and how they fueled to the birth of the Occupy movement.

Finally, the day ended. My ride and I hopped back in his car and headed back to our home town. The drive back down was more pleasant than the one up, as we talked about how we had enjoyed the gathering and what we liked most. Immensely pleased about our train of thought, we formally exchanged contact information and agreed that if either of us were planning anything in the future we should give each other a call; the beginning of any great social movement, after all, starts with the most humble origins.

Over the past twelve months, education has become, however, just one factor in the demonstrations which have mobilized millions across the country, giving voice to the rising tide of anger at failures to stem Chile’s growing inequality. “We will carry on making history… We students will not give up the fight to make education a public right,” student leader Gabriel Boric told Spain’s Efe news agency.

Although having not achieved their main goals so far, they have contributed to a fall in support for millionaire media mogul and president, Sebastian Pinera, which was measured at 26% in August and has not risen since. Pinera appeared on national television to introduce new tax reforms (around $717m) some of which will be pumped into education. But another tax-payer subsidy to the profiteering private education institutions won’t satisfy students, especially not the huge numbers of school-age students who have occupied their schools and marched in the streets.

The drive to extend state-funded education to all, and to break the power of business over education, reflects the social pressure sustaining the mobilizations. But, like in Quebec, victory is impossible without fusing the struggle for education with a wider working-class struggle which raises the question of who society benefits.

If the capitalist model cannot provide jobs, then it certainly can’t provide free education. That’s why we support an alternative – one based on organizing all society’s productive forces to meet the needs of the majority who create wealth, not the minority who accumulate it.

For the billions in the world for whom education and workplace rights remain a pipe-dream, the enthusiastic resistance sweeping the both North and South America is an inspiration. In all the struggles – from the defensive in Canada to the offensive in Chile, lies the germ of social revolt which demands the social wealth we create is distributed evenly, that the services we have invested in are defended from privatization, and that where no compromise is found, then a genuine alternative is put forward.

Though not much has been told of this event in places removed from Canada’s Quebec province, knowledge about the movement is important for any young person concerned about their future.

Early in February, the Liberal government of Premier Jean Charest, announced a plan to hike tuition costs by over 75% over the coming five years. The news sparked outrage amongst student unions. In short order, a general student strike was called. Once the strike call was made, universities and schools throughout Quebec froze virtually overnight. In the place of monotonous “learning” was action.

Students poured from the classrooms and out into the streets. On the 22nd of March over 200,000 students marched in the streets. They proceeded to blockade banks, roads, and government ministries. Efforts didn’t stop once the sun set, however. For after the sky had darkened, tens-of-thousands of students disobeyed police orders and marched through downtown Montreal; actions such as these paralyzed commerce and brought the city to a standstill.

This happened over two months ago, and yet the actions continue: why? This is because the students have recognize that the system does not work for them. Militancy has gripped the youth. From this militancy has come a realization that more must be done.

This thought came to a head when during student-government negotiations the ruling elites barred CLASSE, the most radical of the student unions, from participating. In a negotiation session originally intended to last a couple days, it went on for just a few hours. When the other student unions discovered that CLASSE had been prevented from joining them, all walked out in solidarity. Since then, police have cracked down hard on the student protesters. Yet such actions haven’t dissuaded, however, the youth to continue apace with their struggle.

In response to state repression, some elements from within the movement have taken to unnecessarily provocative, unproductive behavior – smashing bank windows, throwing paint-bombs at police cars, as well as dispersing smoke bombs within two subway lines and a business complex. Whereas this is understandable (given the situation and the nature of the police response) behavior that cannot be chastised in the same manner as the bourgeois media would present, it does not aid the cause one bit. In fact, it just serves to give the state the pretense it needs to crush the movement with the use of physical violence and force. Similarly, it has a tendency to alienate masses of the people, particularly from those among the working class, compelling them in response to distance themselves from the struggle and from offering the types of real support or solidarity that will be needed to win – strikes, workplace actions, etc.

This is undoubtedly a watershed moment in Canada’s history. Never before has such a student demonstration been launched with the same level of ferocity, militancy, or numbers. Radicalization is taking place daily. From this newly found radical spirit have emerged some key demands. They include:

• A committee to monitor management of universities

• A limit, to 3 per cent, of university expenses that are peripheral to education

An analysis of arrangements between businesses and universities, when it comes to patents

• A two-year moratorium on university funding increases

• A five-year moratorium on construction of new campuses

• An estates-general, or roving consultations, on education

• A freeze on tuition at 2012 level

These demands are a good start to a powerful movement that could bring ultimately about a democratic (based on committees and councils of students, professors, instructors, adjuncts, and campus workers) public-education university system free of charge for all who want it, paid for by taxing the rich and nationalizing the banks under workers’ control. The potential to achieve these goals and more have never been stronger, as can be observed with CLASSE’s demand for free and universal post-secondary education on the minds of many angry youth.

The revolutionary youth, young workers, and students of the world understand the fury of their counterparts in Quebec and support them in every way possible. We stand in solidarity with their goals and urge them onto even greater heights.

At the same time, as such militancy takes hold and struggles magnify in Quebec against tuition, undemocratic control within the public-school system, debt, it is precisely these kinds of battles American students (and future debtors) need to be waging for themselves and in unison and coordination with their neighbors to the north as tuition hikes increase dramatically, debt taken on to pay for school tops the $1 trillion mark (surpassing credit-card debt), and with fewer and fewer good-paying jobs on offer to both eek out a living and pay off loans at the same time, leaving millions of former students in debt-traps for the better part of – if not the whole of – their lives.

The holiday traces its origins back to the struggles of laborers, trade-unionists, and radical activists in Chicago in 1886 where a national general strike was taking place in support of the demand for the eight-hour working day. A struggle ensued – known to posterity as the “Haymarket Riot” – whereby police opened fire on the workers, killing several, after being the recipients of a dynamite bomb thrown by and coming from an unknown individual and location. Since then, workers all over the world have marched with reverence to these labor martyrs, picking up valiantly where they left off. And, in time, and after many heated episodes of class struggle, the first victory was (for some) won: the eight-hour working day.

Since then the struggle for workers’ rights and democracy has experienced its ups and downs. The imperialists have tightened down on their control and ruthlessly expanded global trade at the expense of the working poor and oppressed of the Third World. Yet, the spirit and determination of the proletarian has yet to extinguish. Modern movements such as #Occupy, the recent Quebec student strike, the mass protests and general strikes in Greece, Italy, and Spain, as well as the uprisings and revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa have given the capitalists, the 1% a new fear: revolution, of losing their “freedom” to exploit, impoverish, and immiserate billions.

These contemporary mass movements and struggles can trace their roots directly back to May 4 1886. As workers and youth are the primary participants in these movements, as well as in the 19th century, it is only natural to see heightened class consciousness and militancy whenever May Day comes around. The spirit has not been lost but rather continues to reemerge from a propaganda-induced hiatus initiated by the bosses (they have tried to “re-brand” International Workers’ Day as “Loyalty Day” in the US, dulling as they must our consciousness into passive, sullen acceptance of their power and stolen wealth!)

So on this hallowed day, as the working people, youth, and oppressed of the world under capitalism unite under one banner, we in REVOLUTION: Socialist Youth take our place alongside our class brothers and sisters in resistance to the system and the austerity and poverty it is forcing onto us. The solution to debt, war, discrimination, and wealth inequality does not lie in reforms to the existing order but only in social revolution; a complete purge of the political, social, and economic conditions of our present society is needed to bring about democracy – one participated in, organized around, and for working people – and an economy run to meet our needs, not our bosses’ greed.

May Day was the first step towards this penultimate goal. Our task now is to re-unite those fighting forces opposing capitalist austerity, poverty, joblessness, debt, and the assaults on our democratic rights around a revolutionary program (a strategy for taking power out of the hands of the capitalist 1%), tactics for doing so, and the organization needed to build a new world – one based on working-class power, a democratically-planned economy, and, ultimately, a future without social classes, police forces, armies, “states,” – where “the condition for the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all,” for communism! Let’s make this May Day the beginning whereby we set out together in solidarity and unison towards the achievement of such a marvelous aim.

Forward to the unification of the revolutionary youth in a new Youth International.

Forward to the founding of a Fifth International – a new world party of social revolution!

For the victory of the world proletarian revolution!

A brief explanation of the LRA is put across, made out as a simple good-guy/bad-guy story that just about every teenager can appreciate and relate to. The aim of the video is to engage the world’s youth in a struggle to “make famous” the African warlord for his crimes against humanity. However, the good intentions of the campaign come into question about two-thirds of the way through the video when the aims of the organization are made explicit: to get military intervention to stop the group. In fact, last October Barack Obama sent a hundred advisers from the US Army to support the Ugandan Army in tracking down Kony, something that went largely unnoticed by the public but was hugely celebrated by Invisible Children’s supporters.

But should this organization really be preaching military involvement in a complex and politically unstable area of the world to impressionable viewers? Millions of young people watching this video will be impressed by its slick production value, strong message, and its call for a mass movement, and will undoubtedly want to get involved. Inspiring young people to change the world is fantastic, but Invisible Children are manipulating its viewers into supporting the wrong solution.

There are many reasons why supporting US military intervention in Uganda and neighboring countries is wrong. Firstly, the Ugandan Army, which Invisible Children supports, is corrupt itself, responsible for similar atrocities as Kony’s rebel army, including rape and child abduction. Secondly, there is the practical matter of trying to arrest a warlord protected by an army of child soldiers, in the name of defending children from him, is contradictory at best. The conflict this would result in is disturbing to consider. But, moreover, we should oppose military intervention by imperialist countries on principle.

The USA has a bloody record of destroying other countries in the name of bring “freedom” and “democracy” from Vietnam to Afghanistan. By now we should have learnt that the self-appointed World Police do nothing but worsen the problems of the countries they invade. Sadly, there is no easy solution to the Kony problem. The KONY 2012 video does nothing to explain why Uganda is unstable and violent, simplifying the problem of the LRA down to something that can be solved quickly and cleanly by US guns. But as long as Western countries keep African countries under crippling debt, while simultaneously getting rich by selling arms to groups just like the LRA, Uganda will always be burdened with poverty, political corruption, and threats from rebel groups.

As for the KONY 2012 campaign, it looks likely to wear itself into the ground. Information has been widely shared about the expenses of Invisible Children, of which only around a third is spent on charitable programs in Uganda. The rest is spent on promotion through films. This calls into question the motives of the founders, most of whom are aspiring film-makers. Indeed, Invisible Children has a catalog of videos created to promote themselves, often irrelevant to the issues in Uganda. And with news coming out recently of founder Russell being found vandalizing cars and masturbating in public in San Diego, CA (he is now recovering in hospital from “brief, reactive psychosis”), we can expect endless jokes and memes.

It’s a shame to see such a campaign that raised crucial awareness of an important issue and encouraged people to learn about the history of Central Africa potentially go to waste, but perhaps it is all for the best, as the message of the campaign was not one to be supported. In all likelihood, the US advisers will eventually be removed as their mission is almost impossible. Until then, we should focus our energy on criticizing and building practical opposition to the activities of the imperialist nations that have caused this destruction of African countries and continue to exploit them for their own wealth.

Let’s start with the “fracking fluid” used in the process – frankly, the stuff is nasty. While a lot of what is put into the ground is water, it includes a significant proportion of other substances. Saving a lot of technical jargon, the other components of the fluid are toxic, can cause cancer, and have been linked to brain damage.

Oh, and did we mention that these fluids frequently manage to find their way into our water supplies after fracking? Oddly enough, when you pump millions of gallons of water mixed with poisons underground some of it ends up in the water supply. Also the industry doesn’t seem to see this as a problem, nor do they see it as a problem that fracking uses up valuable water supplies. I guess that’s pretty normal for them though, when it comes to getting rich quick the Big Oil overlords really aren’t too bothered about droughts and poisoned land, gets them benefits quicker, right?

Shockingly, where fracking has already been carried out (like in many parts of the USA) it has poisoned huge underground aquifers (natural-water reservoirs), which the Environmental Protection Agency has reported as being “prohibitively expensive to repair.” Apparently, you can put a price on the basic necessity of all the planet’s life.

Another fact, fracking causes earthquakes. Fortunately they aren’t very big; at worst you might find some cracked plaster in your house if you live right next door. The real story is that it’s actually very hard to tell what the effects of fracking are going to be on earthquakes, all the fluid being pumped underground acts like lubricant allowing different strata – a geological term for layers of rock – to slip and slide against each other causing earthquakes and allowing the fracking fluid to slip far and wide.

This is only the tip of the iceberg; there are many resources about fracking online that can inform you in more depth. As for REVOLUTION’s opinion, we call for:

• The strictest safety, workplace, and environmental regulations at all current fracking sites, determined, overseen, and enforced by committees of workers, environmental groups and experts, and members of the community.




• Severe fines and penalties on those companies responsible for violating such regulations up to, and including, the  public confiscation of their property and assets and the shutting down of their operations.




• Energy supplies are a common inheritance – for the production of energy to be nationalized and put under the control of workers and consumers, to ensure quality control and stop ravenous profiteering.




• Bring an end to fracking and make the energy corporations pay full compensation to those adversely affected by drilling!




• Massive investment into renewable energy such as solar, wind, and wave power; for every dollar the capitalists invest into fossil fuels we would invest in sustainable, renewable energy.




• Free retraining for workers in the natural gas/fracking industry to transition to the renewable-energies sector – paid for by the state, by taxing the rich, and by nationalizing and merging  the banks under workers’ control.

This old man had lived through Nazi occupation, Greek Civil War, and Military dictatorship. The fact that he took his life now is testament to the brutality of the austerity regime. His suicide note read that the “government has annihilated all traces for my survival, which was based on a very dignified pension that I alone paid for 35 years…I see no other dignified end to my life, so I don’t find myself rooting though rubbish bins for my sustenance.”

But even in such a desperate mind frame he remained hopeful that “young people with no future, will one day take up arms and hang the traitors of this country like the Italians did to Mussolini.”

Anger

Within hours of his death thousands poured into the square to pay their respects and to show their solidarity. In a shameful act of disrespect, the government sent hundreds of riot police armed with batons, concussion grenades, and teargas. Clashes soon broke out between rightfully angry young people and the police who had been sent to try and stop attention being brought to the embarrassing and potentially explosive situation. Youth fought the police with stones and petrol bombs, and the police gassed the square and drove off the mourners with brute force.

They attacked especially journalists, hospitalizing several of them, in an attempt to ensure Dimitris would not become a martyr like Mohammed Bouazizi: the Tunisian street vendor who set himself on fire, lighting the spark that ignited the Arab revolutions. His funeral was yesterday and was attended by thousands who promised that they would fight until those responsible were brought to justice. His daughter read out a note that was placed on his shrine “we are 11 million and our name is resistance.”

The misery this man felt, and the anger that millions of Greeks feel, comes from the policies forced upon them by the financial aristocracy. The results are unemployment rates of over 20% and more young people who can’t find work than those who can. 68,000 businesses went bankrupt in 2011 alone. Wages and pensions have lost up to 50% in value in many cases. In many working-class districts, child malnutrition is estimated to exceed 20%. And, significantly, Greece’s suicide rate, which was the lowest in all Europe, has risen by over 40% since the cuts took effect.

These cuts that drive people to suicide are being forced on the Greek people against their will by a government that wasn’t even elected. The Greek government was appointed by the banks and a banker, Lucas Papademos, heads it. The EU replaced Greece’s government when their last PM worried he might lose his head if he pushed through more cuts and suggested that it might be a good idea to hold a referendum on cuts.

The leaders of Europe, horrified by even the mention of democracy, had him replaced in a two weeks! The austerity is pushed through to pay for the debts that are held by billionaires and banking groups. Every bailout from the EU goes to these billionaires, and every bailout come with conditions and instructions to the Greek puppet regime: make the working classes pay through ruthless cuts and austerity.

Why should ordinary people pay back a debt built up by rich politicians who bailed out the banks because of the crisis of capitalism? The Greek ruling class has moved over 600 billion Euros to Swiss banks, which equals much more than the national debt. Make them pay! Why should the working classes suffer in poverty in a futile attempt to save their rotten system?

When capitalism is posed as the choice between defending people’s livelihoods or lining billionaires pockets, the government has shown which class it defends. The Greek people should renounce the debt and refuse to pay.

There is an alternative

But to do this would require workers and youth taking power. Elections are coming up in May and the far-Left has been polling at an amazing 40% and over, but winning elections is not enough. Parliament has exposed itself for what it really is: a pig sty, where politicians all in unison try to legitimize their undemocratic brutal attacks and hypocritically cry crocodile tears for pensioners they have pushed to suicide.

The Greek working class needs to capture state power for itself. The elections will be a great time to call for a socialist alternative, but the real solution to the crisis cannot lie with an institution that has proven so ignorant of the will of the people. Democratic bodies must be formed across the country, in workplaces, especially those occupied, in the form of unemployed youth groups, and in strike committees. These groups need to link up across the country to form a national organization that can replace the sham of a democracy that exists in parliament. These groupings should then organize an indefinite general strike to bring down the government and arm workers and youth to defend it against police, military, and fascist oppression.

This new structure is not a pipe dream, and its embryonic form exists already in Greece: workplaces are occupied on a weekly basis, and workers’ democratically debate what should be done with them. Last year tens of thousands occupied squares to try and set up a popular democracy.

Socialists need to put all their efforts into concretizing these organizations, making them democratic and accountable, and making their leaders and delegates recallable. The parties on the far-Left should get organized in these structures and promise to enact decisions of these bodies rather than parliament. Revolutionary socialists need to organize into a revolutionary party as the best way of directing and encouraging this democratic framework for a new socialist society.

We need to create an organization and structure that is capable of breaking the institutions of capitalism that are on a daily basis forcing misery upon the working masses of Europe and driving people like Dimitris Christoulas to suicide.

However, most of the time the reasons behind the failure are because of complex difficulties in crossing between formats – fitting a thousand pages into an hour and a half, bringing the style of the writing to life on the screen, exposing the story without the author’s omniscient, omnipresent voice.

With The Hunger Games, the film-makers faced a different, but equally challenging, obstacle – large swathes of their prospective audience were fucking racist morons.

Because your brain can’t understand basic adjectives…

Just to clarify for those who don’t speak stupid – this enlightened human being is confused because one of the characters in the film is black. Fair enough that she’s confused though, because they weren’t black in the book.

Apart from the fact that they totally fucking were…

“…And most hauntingly, a twelve-year-old girl from District 11. She has dark brown skin and eyes, but other than that’s she’s very like Prim in size and demeanor…”

That’s the first time Rue is described in the book. Similarly, another character who has been the target for some Twitter vitriol (Twitriol?) has been Thresh. Again, certain people were annoyed that the producer paid such scant regard to the book…

“The boy tribute from District 11, Thresh, has the same dark skin as Rue, but the resemblance stops there. He’s one of the giants, probably six and half feet tall and built like an ox.”

…by casting someone who fits the original description exactly:

Now let’s not jump on these people too quickly! It’s easy to skip over important details in a book – for example if I come across a place name that I can’t pronounce then, in my head, the people live in *mumble mumble*-town for the rest of the story.

So these people were just expressing their surprise that they’d missed that description of the characters and had a different image of them in their imaginations.

Right?

Ohhhhh you motherfucker.

Yeah turns out that these people were not just upset that they can’t read properly. What they really meant was they hated black people, didn’t care when they died and were annoyed that they had stolen the roles of a lovely innocent white girl and a strong, brave Aryan man.

I have 15 different symbols in my name! Don’t you want to be my friend!?!

See the real problem is not that these people had missed the description of the characters in the book. It’s that they then added in their own description in their heads that equated being an innocent, loveable young girl or a strong, heroic man with being white. See the post above: “Why did the producer make all the good characters black?”

This implies that something was lost by them being black, that the good characters were spoiled by having black skin. One of the other Twitter-Twats above said that he felt less bad about the death of a young girl in the film because she was black!

Awkward moment when you out yourself as a terrible racist to the world…

And this is the reason all this is so important because it reveals something much darker and more serious than some idiots being racist on Twitter. It exposes the racist undercurrent inherent in capitalist society. White girls are seen as innocent little angels and black girls aren’t. This is why when little white girls go missing, it’s front page news. When little black girls go missing, it’s buried in the middle of the paper.

It’s a trick capitalism has used throughout its history – from calling black people “subhuman” to justify slavery, to using the images of “hooded youths” selling drugs and carrying guns that lead to things like the recent death of the innocent Trayvon Martin.

And it’s carved it so deeply in the brains of some people that they not only ignore an author telling them a character they like is black, they then picture them as white and get annoyed when the film producer is faithful to the book and casts black actors. It makes them angry, it makes them care less about the characters and care less when they die. And these are characters they previously really liked! Is it any wonder why people can live with thousands and thousands of black children dying in Africa every day, of hunger and poverty? I wonder how different the situation would be if all those children were “little innocent blonde girls.”

Capitalism is the systemic cause for this kind of racism. It is a system where, if you don’t have a job, the first ones to get the blame are immigrants. If you have to pay high taxes, it’s because immigrants are sponging them all. If you are afraid to leave your house it’s because there are “ethnic” gangs waiting to mug you. If you have to give up your civil liberties it is to protect you from Muslim terrorists.

And why are these the first ones to get the blame? Because the bosses and the government know that it’s easy to use racism as a distraction from those who are the real cause of these problems – themselves.

So they stoke racism whenever they can get away with it, to keep people looking the other way.

These idiots on Twitter were not just born racist and they aren’t JUST idiots. There is a deeper systemic reason behind why they behave this way – a dark swirling stew of prejudice that is kept bubbling just below the surface that can be brought to boil whenever those who run society need it.

If any further proof was needed that we do not live in a post-racial society and that the struggle against racism continues, then this is it.

You can see a collection of some of the worst offenders at Hunger Games Tweets.

Edit: I fleshed out the conclusion of the article to explain a little more why the racism behind these tweets is systemic to Capitalism.