RICARDO FLORES MAGON SEPTEMBER 17, 1873 – NOVEMBER 21, 1922 SPECIAL TRIBUTE TO OUR HERO, OUR MARTYR OF MEXICANO, CHICANO AND ALL PEOPLES OF THE WORLD WHO BELIEVE IN TRUE HUMAN EMANCIPATION
“…..[M]y dreams of beauty and my beloved visions of a humanity living in peace, love and liberty…..will not die with me. Where there is on our Earth a painful heart or an eye full of tears, my dreams and visions will live…..” – Ricardo Flores Magon, March 16, 1922
Given our urgency, and the dialectics of the “ebb and flow” of social movements, many of us, who refuse to bury our heads in the sand like an ostrich pretending not to see the resurgence of the rise of a fascist right wing movement in citizens across AmeriKKKa, we see the forest and the trees and the realities facing the working class and humanity, and fight back in survival.
We cannot sit idly by while another of our sons, daughters, is executed in the public square by racist cops, under a systemic policy of criminalization of a generation, based on skin co!or, poverty, youth, and social dissent while another vicious, deranged racist massacres people of co!or, and other marginalized groups in our cities, instigated by the racist rhetoric of white supremacist politicians to arouse their base, while our rulers use “law” as their favorite weapon of Jim Crow tyranny, saturating court systems with arch-conservative jurists with a history of disdain for people of color, the poor, diversity and human rights, enforcing a right-wing ideology, and sparking, or supporting ZIONIST, imperialist wars to revive a capitalist and imperialist system in crisis, expending our taxpayers’ monies on armaments, while ignoring people’s basic human needs, in housing, adequate medical care, food security and many inequities and injustices in a morally corrupt and bankrupt system.
The dreams and visions of Ricardo Flores Magon become highly relevant as our only shining path towards our total liberation from under the capitalist class rule living in a Paradise of white privileges and a living hell for workers who produce all wealth for the rich, yet get only crumbs. As Ricardo pointed out, the only way out of this abyss is through revolutionary class struggle, starting with a genuine historical, dialectical political education IN ORDER TO DECOLONIZE MINDS, AND CREATE A NEW ETHICS OF COLLECTIVE COMMUNITY CARE, LOVE, EMPOWERMENT AND WORKING CLASS UNITY AND SOLIDARITY IN A NEW HORIZON, and alter the existing social and human relations of slave versus slave master taking our destiny in our own hands, for our independence from predatory capitalist subjugation.
It is not only a matter of freeing labor from the claws of capital accumulation for the rich, but also a matter of survival for planet Earth and civilization, a planet ravaged by our class barbarians of capitalists, imperialists, whose only interests are corporate greed, enrich themselves through their fossil fuel oligarchs polluting our air, rivers, oceans, killing off wildlife, destroying ecosystems, and creating a dangerous climate threatening humankind.
Born in Mexico to indigenous Oaxacan parents, Ricardo Flores Magon was one of the primary forces behind the Mexican Revolution of 1917, along such legendary figures such as Pancho Villa, Emiliano Zapata, and Prexedis Guerrero. He organized the PARTIDO LIBERAL MEXICANO, was a tireless activist and a journalist. He started a widely read newspaper, REGENERACION, a revolutionary theoretical journal addressing contemporary Mexican issues and humanity as a whole. He referred to a “three headed hydra” as the monster of capitalism, the state, and clergy.
REGENERACION boldly criticized the injustices of Mexico’s dictatorship and sought to build a popular people’s movement. His movement activism suffered continuing government repression resulting in arrest and imprisonment. He was exiled to the U.S. but both governments, Mexico and the U.S. hunted him as he organized insurrections south of the border and in Los Angeles, El Paso and San Antonio.
He continued to denounce Mexico’s dictatorship and the atrocities Mexicano, Chicano people suffered at the hands of the notorious Texas Rangers police army militia, in the occupied territories in Texas calling for return of stolen lands, and the uprooting of Yankee settler co!onialism, white supremacy and racial plantation slavery, of two colonial wars of conquest, 1823, 1846-48, against Mexicanos, Chicanos.
Magon was arrested and convicted in a Los Angeles, CA federal court for his revolutionary manifestos, writings, letters and speeches he had generated, and his calls to revolution on both sides of the border. In a document originating with his movement leaders, in the 1917 REVOLUTIONARY PLAN OF SAN DIEGO, TEXAS, calling on unity between Mexicanos, Chicanos and Afrikan Americans to wage armed struggle against Yankee settler colonialism, and plantation slavery, and for the creation of free, independent nations by said oppressed people.
The uprising was violently repressed. Magon was convicted of “seditious conspiracy” and other espionage during the”red scare zeitgeist” that targeted left wing activists, anarchists, labor activists and communists, under the old COINTELPRO domestic spy program.
Evidence used against him was his manifestos, writings and speeches he had generated, including a call to the “Workers in the U.S.” critical of capitalism and social, racial injustices. He was sentenced to 20 year and was imprisoned in Leavenworth Kansas federal prison, known as the “University for Revolutionaries.”
A political prisoner support movement was born, led by feminist, anarchist activist Emma Goldman, Eugene W. Debs, the Industrial Workers of the World, among others, to free Ricardo and other “Magonistas.” Ricardo Flores Magon was assassinated on November 21, 1922 at Leavenworth prison, strangled through his prison cell bars as he slept at night. Prisoners there accused the government and their inmate mercenaries as responsible for his murder.
ALTHOUGH GOVERNMENT AND PRISON FASCISM KILLED RICARDO FLORES MAGON, he will live forever in our minds and hearts, in time immemorial, for, as this tribute shows, racism, capitalism, imperialism, fascism, will never kill our dreams to be free of predatory capitalism and its genocidal, murderous prisons of mass incarceration.
Today, November 21, 2023, 101 Years after his assassination, RICARDO’S dreams and visions did not die with him, and live on, until we are all free of such evil, criminal systems of racism and oppression. Ricardo’s visions become stronger and more relevant as we struggle to free ourselves of the bondage chains of the systems of capitalism and imperialism, as fascism is on the rise.
Our rulers’ interests are for corporate greed, in creating, or sponsoring wars financed by our taxpayer dollars, while ignoring people’s basic human needs to sustain their white privileges and seek out new colonies in third world underdeveloped countries displacing oppressed communities superimposing against them their criminal system of wage-theft robbery for their own enrichment, and polluting our air, rivers, oceans, ecosystems, creating climate crisis that threaten Earth. THE REVOLUTIONARY ETHOS PREACHED BY RICARDO FLORES MAGON MUST TAKE CENTER STAGE IF WE ARE TRULY INTERESTED IN A TRUE SOCIAL, HUMAN LIBERATION!!
We encourage study and struggle revolutionary political education groups to seek out books on the life and times of RICARDO FLORES MAGON such as Dreams of Freedom, 2005, AK Press, Always A Rebel, 1992, TCU Press, Ft. Worth, Tx among other classic issues of REGENERACION still available today, making Ricardo’s ideas highly relevant today during these tumultuous times of revolutionary class struggle against the forces of social and racial oppression and threats to survival of planet Earth and humanity.
Unless we make drastic needed changes in dismantling the systems of capitalism, imperialism, as our house will burn down, and capitalism, imperialism must die, or we burn with the system.
Joseph Orozco, Oregon State University, Peace Studies, manages an excellent podcast on the revolutionary ethics of RICARDO FLORES E MAGON, we urge people to check it out.
NOVEMBER 21, 2023 MCCONNELL SUPERMAX CONTROL UNIT PRISON BEEVILLE, TEXAS, USA
RICARDO FLORES MAGON, PRESENTE !! VIVA EL ESPIRITU REVOLUCIONARIO, RICARDO FLORES MAGON !! MUERTE AL COLONIALISMO, CAPTIALISMO, IMPERIALISMO YANQI !!! EL PUEBLO UNIDO JAMAS SERA VENCIDO !! – Xinachtli, Minister of Defense MOVIMIENTO DE LIBERACION NACIONAL CHICANO MEXICANO (MLN-CM)
www.certaindays.org [***] .
Field Marshall Prison Lives Matter, Texas Region https://supportprisonlives.org
——————————————- [***]. XINACHTLI means “Germinating seed” in Nahuatl dialect. His slave name is ALVARO HERNANDEZ, imprisoned at the notorious Texas prison supermax control unit in Beeville, Tx, USA. He has been in consecutive solitary confinement for 22 years. He is supported by Jericho and other human rights groups. He is a jailhouse lawyer, poet, playwright, human rights activist and leader of the revolutionary prison movement.
Persons wishing to send solidarity messages to him, can do so by writing to him or registering on his Tablet to exchange emails, phone calls with him on his prison issued Tablet, at www.texasprisonphone.com, OR AT, www.securustech.net
US digital Mail, at ALVARO HERNANDEZ TDCJ # 00255735 MCCONNELL UNIT PO BOX 660400 DALLAS, TX, USA 75267-0400 [US mail will be scanned to his tablet, but it is taking over 2 months for him to receive his incoming mail, under the new Texas prison digital mail access]
Received by email.