Thank-you Chuck Kaufman

https://mailchi.mp/rightsaction/thank-you-chuck-kaufman

Beginning another year of exposing, denouncing and resisting the on-going imperialism of the U.S. and Canada in the western hemisphere, Rights Action adds our thanks for the life, vision and spirit of Chuck Kaufman.

Over the decades, we too learned from and shared the vision and analysis of Chuck, an internationalist solidarity activist who exposed, denounced and resisted U.S. [& Canadian!] imperialism at every step.

Below: comments and articles remembering and honoring Chuck.

In the spirit of internationalism and anti-imperialism, thank-you Chuck.

Rights Action
[email protected]

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29 December 2021

It is with great sadness that the Alliance for Global Justice announces that Chuck Kaufman, our National Co-Coordinator and one of the founders of AfGJ, has died. He passed peacefully of natural causes on Tuesday, December 28, 2021 in his Tucson, Arizona home after a brief illness.

Chuck was a true leader, a visionary, a master strategist and above all, a loving and kind comrade and friend. Through his wise stewardship Alliance for Global Justice grew to become a major force in building the capacity of grass roots organizers throughout the Americas to confront imperialism, neoliberalism and oppression in all forms and to strive to curb U.S. violations of human rights, both within and outside its borders.

Chuck has been a leader of the Central and Latin America solidarity movements since joining the staff of the Nicaragua Network in 1987. He gave up his successful advertising business out of disgust at Congress’ cowardice during the Iran-Contra scandal. He went on his first coffee picking brigade to Nicaragua that same year. Chuck has been in the front ranks of the movements to support the right of people in Latin America and the Caribbean to dignity, sovereignty, and self-determination. He has led delegations to Nicaragua, Venezuela, Haiti and Honduras.

Chuck has written and spoken often about US democracy manipulation programs through the National Endowment for Democracy and US Agency for International Development as well as what he calls the need to look to the Abolition Movement as our inspiration to change the culture of US militarism.

He was a board member of the Latin America Solidarity Coalition and a leader of the LASC’s effort to build a stronger movement to oppose US militarism and the militarization of relations with Latin America. He was a founder of the Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) Coalition and has spoken at most of the major Washington, DC anti-war demonstrations. Through AfGJ, he was a founding board member of the Honduras Solidarity Network.

He held a B.A. in Government and Politics from George Mason University. His first political activism was as a high school student in 1969 when he organized student walk-out in four county high schools in his native Indiana.

We will post more in the days to come. You can find information about Chuck’s memorial service on the website of Alliance for Global Justice (afgj.org) as soon as arrangements have been completed. We request that people wishing to offer gestures of comfort and remembrance of Chuck do so through their continued support to AFGJ and the causes to which he dedicated his life.

The Alliance for Global Justice

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“Solidarity is working to change -- to smash -- US imperialism and Capitalism”

From: Becca Mohally Renk <mailto:[email protected]>
Date: December 29, 2021

I'm so sorry to hear of Chuck's passing. I was very moved by an email he sent the group in June of this year and so I'm sending a portion of it below. It demonstrates what Stan mentioned, Chuck's clarity and steadfastness. –

Chuck Kaufman writes:
“Nicaragua solidarity does not work when it is driven by using reason to get the US to change its policy of imperialism. Solidarity is working to change -- to smash -- US imperialism and Capitalism. That is why our work is never just about Nicaragua. It is about Nicaragua and Venezuela and Cuba, and Bolivia and on and on. The Nicaraguans rose up in a bloody revolution that cast down the Somoza dictatorship and US domination. They have no obligation to play by the rules of Western Liberal Democracy which enslaved them in the first place. The electoral defeat of 1990 was the direct result of that strategy and will sooner or later be the result of an appeasement strategy today. Too many lives were spent to win national liberation to give it away to some oligarchy-rigged nose counting scheme where the rules are rigged.

“I am tired of solidarity that treats Nicaragua as a victim. I want solidarity that treats Nicaragua like the heroic country that it is which feeds its children, keeps them healthy, and educates them to be doctors and teachers and sustainable farmers. We mouth the phrase that Nicaragua is the threat of a good example, but then we go right back to strategies that raise up Nicaragua as a victim. I challenge us to put just as much energy into helping to tell the world Nicaragua's stories of success in the face of unrelenting sabotage by the world's strongest bully as we do emoting about the latest sanctions bill or NYT or Guardian article. I'm not saying don't do those things, but let's give equal time to the incredible Gains of the Sandinista Revolution and what those gains mean for our own struggle for liberation in our own country or countries.”

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Chuck Kaufman ~ PRESENTE

Subject: [Nica Discussion] From Tom Ricker (Quixote Center)
Sent: Sunday, January 2, 2022
To: Nicanet Google Group <mailto:[email protected]>

Chuck
This morning
I heard the news
of your passing.
For a moment
I thought, somewhat selfishly,
that we should have had
that virtual lunch we spoke of,
a few months ago,
but then never planned.
It had been too long
since we spoke,
and now…

The light has been passed on,
or more precisely,
the flame, not extinguished
but shared once more;
diluted in the air above Tucson,
and nourishing the ground.

But this is how you lived,
passing the torch,
one person, one formation.
one movement at a time.

Your life,
or at least that portion of it you shared with me,
was the waves that ripple out
from the stones throw,
- that sinking, all encompassing
call to justice;
waves touching and lifting
those around you.

So, when we say “presente”
it is a presence called into being,
from the many lives you’ve enriched.
Like the water and the flame,
you have been elemental.

And all that said, Chuck,
Mostly, and somewhat selfishly,
I’m just really going to miss you.

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A series of Chuck Kaufman writings
https://afgj.org/category/chuck-kaufman

Chuck Kaufman: A Pillar of Solidarity - Kawsachun News
https://kawsachunnews.com/chuck-kaufman-a-pillar-of-solidarity

In remembrance of Chuck Kaufman, anti-imperialist, international solidarity organizer
By Jim Byrne, December 29, 2021
http://www.fightbacknews.org/2021/12/29/remembrance-chuck-kaufman-anti-imperialist-international-solidarity-organizer

Venezuela Mourns Death of US Activist Chuck Kaufman
https://orinocotribune.com/venezuela-mourns-death-of-us-activist-chuck-kaufman/