Revolution #247, October 9, 2011
Voices of those cast off by the system
Revolution issued a call in August to our readers to respond to the 3:16 quote from BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian, “An Appeal to Those the System Has Cast Off.” We received many responses written by those the system has cast off, as well as from many others. In this issue we are featuring responses from prisoners, an ex-prisoner and high school students in an oppressed community. We were able to run a small number of these responses into the print edition of Revolution, and many more are being reprinted here. We will be publishing more responses in future print editions of Revolution. We've made every effort to preserve the voices of those who have written to us, making changes only in cases when not doing so might be confusing to the reader, or to protect the privacy of the authors.
| FROM PRISONERS | FROM HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS | FROM OTHERS |
From Prisoners
Corcoran CA, 9-19-11
Greetings
I just received your letter where you’re asking me to share my thought, drawings, etc., relating to BA’s quote 3:16. I am sharing some of my thoughts on a separate sheet of paper. I appreciate your letter and encouragement. Thank you for listening and your time as well.
In Solidarity
XXX
“An appeal to those the system has cast off” 3:16
I like Bob Avakian’s quote 3:16 because he speaks to people plainly, and [des]cribbed things accurately, while never losing his poetic side.
This system and its enforcers have treated us (the vast majority of people) so much as human material waste. They tell us (by their actions) that if we’re not rich, our lives are worthless. They tell us that if we don’t have any money, we’re not worthy of receiving health care, an education, proper housing or any other of life’s basic necessities. They tell us that if we want to be somebody in life, we have to adopt their views and morals, which are, to put ourselves above everyone else; to see people being worth more or less than others; to always want more—even if there’s people with absolutely nothing! But we have to reject everything that that the capitalist/imperialist try to impose on us. We have to as “BA” so clearly states, “raise our sights above the individual battle to be somebody on the terms of the imperialist, and be the gravediggers of this system and the bearers of the future communist society”. Nothing ever stays the same. Things in this world have to be very diffe[re]nt, and they can be—we can/must make it happen.
In Solidarity,
XXXXXX
Crescent City CA, 9/2/11
PRLF
For so many who have been born and bred in the gutters of society here in America being a “cast off” is a label not only excepted but in some cases it’s one that is inviting. For the many who all that is known is a life in the slums to the prison house this existence is the norm. One becomes the oddball in the Barrio to grow up not one of the “cast offs”, and for prisoners to lift their consciousness out of the prison cell and take interest in world events, this may also be odd in some prisons but the truth is that even prisoners play a role in ‘world events’, prisoners have long been seen as “freedom fighters’ after all it is the prisoners who are bound in chains (literally) in society, most are also bound mentally to chase the dope sack etc. but prisoners are the one’s in a society who once politicized would be amongst the fiercest fighters and the backbone of a revolution. We can see this materialize in looking to past Revolutions where the prisons are emptied to engage in the Revolution and push the peoples momentum forward, yet in Societies where tyrants hold power where the people are enslaved in their own countries and Revolution erupts the state usually will execute all the prisoners, this because it’s known the prisoners for the most part are a potentially revolutionary force.
This ‘appeal to those the system has cast off’ is not a fictional theory or some make believe statement. What occurs in this country is real and millions are ‘cast offs’. The Washington Post released an e-mail on march 27, 2011 from the director of Ice Detention and removal operations that he sent back in Feb of 2011 to field offices. in the e-mail he complains that Ice is currently deporting 437 people and is a low number and they are behind and wont reach their goal etc. What is important when information like this comes out is it show’s that its not just a matter of a law enforcement agency like Ice deporting people they find, it show’s they have numerical goal’s to their methods where a certain amount of poor people are not rounded up, someone nudges them to round up more, not for supposed crimes but for not meeting a quota. The fact that millions set in prison cell’s across america not because of supposed crimes but probably for some quota become alot more clear. The hyper policing in poor communities is not done by accident it is because the state sees these Barrios and ghettos as areas where undesirables dwell, where cast off’s live. This is why most of these slum areas have police patrol cars with military grade surveillance systems, this technology like cameras and iris scanners are becoming more and more common, programs like Guardian, E. Guardian which collects 411 video, diagrams etc opens the door for people to anonymously report their neighbors for suspicious activity, and like any other program designed by the state for poor people it will be abused. The targeting of economically depressed communities with such “programs” is not because the state cares about poor people, not because poor people in its agenda rather it is another way to capture our youth, it is another way to collect any rebellious elements or to put simply it’s the state looking at it as cutting their toenails, a matter of maintenance.
The treatment the “cast offs” here in America receive is not distinct to the U.S. for the U.S. see’s the cast off’s as a global phenomenon. To be truthful here U.S. cast off’s actually are treated with velvet gloves compared to the third world cast off’s. At this time a million Iraqi’s have died since the U.S. occupation. That’s 1 million poor people, 1 million cast off’s sent to the grave yet we never hear any uproar from the U.S. capitalist media. This should be the gauge for what type of society we are currently living in where the media along with large swaths of the masses have become numb with the savagery of capitalist society.
What prisoners need to do is understand that the Imperialist’s do not have our interests in mind, the Kourts offer no chance at justice for poor people in general and the Revolutionary prisoner in particular…
Through the madness of capitalist America, a society in which anything from the state is for sale, where poor people are hunted down like game and have no place to thrive politically only thrown to the dungeon where 2+ million of-us dwell and languish I can say this repression has created something in me that no college classes or Ivy League university could have created for me and it’s a breath of humanity and the essence of what the people should be struggling for.
en la lucha
TX, Sept. 12, 2011
Dear Revolutionary Family,
I first started getting into trouble with the law when I was five or six and I’ve been in jail, on probation or parole, or “at large” for the past fifty years; I learned early this system holds no hope for me nor should I hold any hope for it. And yes, I’ve tried to play it straight and follow the rules, but you know the game is rigged so there must be a steady percentage of losers in order for the “house” to stay afloat. I have “Enemy of the State” tattooed across my breastbone because I came to realize I’ll never be one of the lucky few Bob Avakian spoke about in BAsics 1:11 who manage to slip through the meat grinder of this capitalist system.
I have come to believe Bob Avakian and the Revolutionary Communist Party are the only true friends of we who are forced to live beneath the belly of the beast. Everyone else blames us for our circumstances: We don’t wear our pants at the proper height, or our hair’s too long (or too short)- all these hoops we must agree to jump through in order to succeed in life- and these are all excuses why we failed and the system didn’t. And it’s all a pack of lies!
The truth is the government won’t save us regardless of how we dress or act. Jesus won’t save us no matter how often we pray; nobody is going to save us from this predatory system if we refuse to rise up from the muck and save ourselves. To hope and pray (and vote!) for an 11th hour rescue from above, divine or otherwise, is quite simply a fool’s errand.
But it’s not necessary for us to live like swine, focusing all our energies on muscling our way up to the trough so we can scarf up more than our brother and sister swine. It’s possible to lead a life of dignity and respect- a life with real meaning!- outside of the framework of the present system by dedicating our lives to something greater than ourselves: genuine communist revolution.
I’ll be in superseg until I’ve finished this 25-year-sentence in late 2014, but as soon as I’m released you can be certain I’ll be dedicating the remainder of my life to getting the word out about Bob Avakian and the Revolutionary Communist Party because, frankly, nothing else has as much meaning.
I have nothing but love for my brothers and sisters: Black, white, red, yellow, or brown; and I envision a world in which we truly treat each other like the brothers and sisters we are. But I know that world will never come to pass without revolution, and so I’m sending out a plea to everyone who really cares and has the courage to hope (not Obama hope- which is bourgeois hope- but genuine revolutionary hope), please focus on supporting the Revolutionary Communist Party and the truly amazing work of Bob Avakian. If you think about it, I believe you too will find nothing else has as much meaning.
Together we will make it happen...
Yours for the revolution!
P.S. Hope you’re able to use this heart-felt letter to promote your most excellent cause. I have nothing at the present time but empty words and a deep and abiding love, but I’m forever at your service.
9/10/11
Please be advise I would like to raise my sights above the degradation and madness, so I am requesting the following books be shipped to me expeditiously.
(1) BAsics
(2) Communism and Jeffersonian Democracy
(3) Const. for the New Socialist Republic in North America.
(4) Away With All Gods.
In the Struggle
XXX, A Prisoner from New York
Dear Revolutionary Comrades,
I am writing this letter in response to your letter encouraging us to respond to the quote from BAsics 3:16. I am proud to be able to respond and hopefully my words will become part of the October 9th issue.
We are the downtrodden of society--prisoners, ex-convicts, homeless people, poor folks, and minorities. We are the people the so called "Statue of Liberty" called to America "send me your poor...your huddled masses". this so-called promise of freedom for all.
What freedom? The freedom to be beaten, spat upon, called names, discriminated against, incarcerated in record numbers, and killed everytime some cop gets the urge?!? That is the "freedom" we are offered in capitalist-imperialist America.
While the imperialist continue to proclaim that America is the "land of the free", the great bastion of equality, and the land of opportunity: cops somewhere are mudering an innocent, Neo-Nazis are rallying in West Alssis, Wisconsin and around the nation, American soldiers are murdering civilians--men women, and children--in countries across the globe, children are going hungry in the streets and ghettos across America, and hate crimes are being committed by people who consider themselves "patriotic Americans". If this is the freedom, quality and opportunity America offers the Imperialists must have a different dictionary to define these words.
It is time for the down-trodden masses to rise as one with one voice and proclaim "we are done! we are done being victimized by this system, done being beaten, spat upon, name-called, discriminated against, imprisoned and murdered! Done!" This one voice, the voice of the masses is Bob Avakian.
We can be the "gravediggers of this system". We can be the ones who bring real freedom, equality, and opportunity. We can bring forth a new world, a new society, a communist society. We can! we can and we must.
Thank you for this opportunity to respond to the BAsics. Thank you for all the work you do on behalf of all of us. I look forward to continuing to stand with the RCP and Bob Avakian after my release later this year.
Prisoner from Indiana, Mon. Sept 19, 2011
To whom this may concern,
What does Basics 3:16 mean to me?—a person who’s spent ALL of his twenties and more in prison; who’s sustained multiple gunshot wounds by the hands of the police and nearly died; who’ve personally witnessed many dudes starve of all life after spending numerous years in supermax facilities—some whom committed suicide because they just couldn’t take it anymore; who didn’t read no more than five books before coming to prison, but once he did, finally discovered many of the circumstances that had produced and perpetuated the contempt he once had for life itself. So again, you may ask what it means to me?—a person who’s always felt an omnipresent alienation by this system, but for the longest wasn’t capable of placing a definitive circle around that “thing” which was the responsible entity behind that alienation. What does it mean? George Jackson and everybody who identifies with him is what it means. If he was still alive today, I think he would sum it up with the same words he left us in Soledad Brother 40 years ago:
The men of our group have developed as a result of living under a ruthless system, a set of mannerisms that numb the soul. We have been made the floor mat of the world, but the world has yet to see what can be done by men of our nature, by men who have walked the path of disparity of regression, of abortion, and yet come out whole. There will be a special page in the book of life for the men who have crawled back from the grave. This page will tell of utter defeat, ruin passivity, and subjection in one breath, and in the next, overwhelming victory and fulfillment. (p. 86)
In Solidarity,
Prisoner from South Carolina, September 13, 2011
Dear RCP;
This is in response to Mr. Avakian’s “An Appeal to Those the System Has Cast Off.” It is the story of a close friend of mine, an immigrant, and I feel it represents the thousands upon thousands of others like her who have also been cast off by the system. I am also including a poem penned by myself. Should you use either in the October edition of Revolution, I give you permission to edit them freely as you see fit. While I give you guys much props for standing for a most worthy cause, it is also every conscious individual’s job to awaken the slumbering masses.
While incarcerated on this sentence I serve, a young friend of mine confided in me inside a semi-crowded visitation room that she contemplated selling her body. Now to be a sensitive and thoughtful twenty-five year old mother of two and have been brought to this drastic conclusion in dotcom America seems… out of place. Yet, upon closer inspection so does the continued mass incarceration of blacks and a government that caters largely to the Haves, even while appeasing its oppressed Havenots with gestures that amount to placing “Band-aids” upon “bullet wounds.” Still, I was staggered by my friend’s revelation, and angered. You see, the reason that brought about her bleak contemplations of becoming a prostitute was she was unable to work and thus unable to provide for her two little boys. The reason she was unable to work was because she is an immigrant and the INS -- in the harsher, post 911 Bush era -- caught and acted upon some discrepancy that was made in her paperwork when she came across from her native [country]. What kills is she was all of six years old at the time and the discrepancy was made by her mother, not her. So the INS decided they would strip her of her citizenship, her green card, and planned to schedule a meeting sometime in the indefinite future to see whether or not she was to be deported to her Mother country, which was not quite as alien to her as it is to me. (I’ve never been there, by the way.) Oh, and she was told that should she be deported, she herself would be responsible for her children’s transportation and care. Yet she was flat broke and, with her citizenship revoked, unable to attain a job. Prior to this, she’d been working at a restaurant, raising her boys as a single parent, and planning to take the required course to become a certified nurse. Her dream deferred, she chose to focus on providing for her children, like any mother would. They were seven and nine, attending school and always growing-out of clothes and out of shoes. She decided to act: at the risk of further penalization, she attained a job at a local bar in which she was to be paid under the table. Her employer propositioned her for sex and one of its patrons sexually accosted her upon her first night there. It was also her last. The second, and final, illegal job came months later when she found work with a small construction business that put up sheetrock. Excluding the boss, the entire crew were all Mexican and also being paid under the table. After earning $600 after her first month she felt ecstatic. Maybe this small victory was just a beginning. Maybe the tide had changed for the best and, hell, maybe the wizard would visit the INS mucks and grant them hearts. However, after her second month she was dismayed and shocked when the boss said he wasn’t paying them, that they would have to wait until next pay period -- and, no, there would be no back pay. Another young lady, the only other female besides her, told my friend that he’d done this before, more than once in fact. So, fuming and humiliated, she quit. It was around this time she became diagnosed with cervical cancer and wound up sitting across from me in that visitation room, audibly considering the sacrifice of her body for her kids. Actually considering in earnest what others have hypothetically, due to her circumstances. And what crime did she commit to be left out there, abandoned by her adopted country? None. The fact is America leaves its women defenseless, vulnerable to the wolves, and to quote another author, eats its babies. FIGHT THE POWER!!
Hope’s Hungry by xxx
These snakes be ticking
These clocks be hissing
As time keeps on slipping into the abysmal distance
Into a promising bright future
That promises to be wholly resistant
To your dark, unholy existence
A white future featuring a black past
Though, what I’m really speaking of is the grey present
And it is not a gift
It is simply an intermediate interval
A rift
The revolution will not be televised
Instead it will be compounded into quarks
Encased inside siliconized parts
And then given a web address
Yes, it will be digitized
But don’t goof on your Google search
Or you’ll end up with the Revolving Vibrator, parts one and two
And an unquenchable carnal thirst
While the earth is swiftly being stripped
By the needy (greedy) masses
An earthly stripper languidly spins upon her metal axis
Electric hips gyrate as thumping base pulsates
While in a remote village a sudden earthquake utterly devastates
And it is not sexy at all
In war soldiers collide
Indiscriminate bullets fly, vicious surreptitious missiles explode
Then, dead, enemies lie side by side
Faces composed in the most quiescent repose
Having finally achieved in death what was in life fought so vigorously for
Peace-
And a release from the backstage machinations of madmen
Revered leaders who amount to big boys with bigger toys—
Toys that destroy, that is—
Sadmen
However…
A flower emerged, birthed from the
Overburdened earth’s womb
While a child, nurtured by motherly love,
Bloomed
The child is the son of a dead soldier
The flower grows atop his father’s tomb
And in this way, hope is constantly renewed
Even as it consumes.
TX, June 13, 2011
Dear family,
Greetings from the Texas gulag! I’ve been slowly rereading BAsics and it’s occurred to me I’ve somehow been missing a lot of the finer points Bob Avakian has been saying all along. In this light the caveats and misgivings I’ve brought up in the past look suspiciously like plagiarism; as I say, Bob addressed them and I simply missed it.
There’s a saying in the Jewish Talmud: We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are. Mark Twain observed this common projection phenomenon in this way: He wrote, “{w}hen I was sixteen my dad was so ignorant I was embarrassed to be seen with the old man; by the time I was twenty-one I was amazed at how much he’d learned in five short years.”
This captures my experience with Bob Avakian perfectly. I’m simply amazed at how much he’s learned in the past five years that I’ve been studying revolutionary communist literature. If he keeps this up it won’t be long before he’s fully politically literate!
I only have one criticism of BAsics: I think it was a major oversight not to include a comprehensive index in the back of the book for easy reference by topic. I find myself quoting Bob’s keen observations often and, it’s a pain in the ass without an index.
One passage that really speaks to me is 3:16 (ironically, John 3:16 is a favorite Christian passage I was required to memorize in my youth). Bob addresses the lumpen proletariat—though I’ve never seen him use that term—“{r}aise your sights above the degradation and madness, the muck and demoralization, above the individual battle to survive and to ‘be somebody’ on the terms of the imperialists—of fouler, more monstrous criminals than mythology has ever invented or jails ever held. Become a part of the human saviors of humanity: The gravediggers of this system and the bearers of a future communist society.” These are profound words spoken by a profound man. These words force me to confront an obstacle and an intense terror for me: I can envision no positive future for myself and I’m absolutely terrified of getting out of prison.
My past life before prison was one of drugs and petty crime—it’s really all I know. When I’m released in 2014, I will have been in prison a quarter-century with the last eight years spent in superseg. or permanent solitary confinement; I’ll be one month shy of my fifty-eighth birthday. I simply cannot see myself competing in a stagnant marketplace for a living wage with young men & women with a stable work history and no criminal record; nevermind the stress of being abruptly dropped into a totally alien environment after eight years of sensory deprivation. My release is a fucking recipe for disaster! The pull back into a criminal lifestyle is going to be exceedingly strong and, from where I’m sitting, I see no reasonable alternative. I’m too “gifted” a criminal to sleep under bridges…How I wish the R.C.P. had a revolutionary commune or other place for people to live to escape the “individual battle to survive and to ‘be somebody’ on the terms of the imperialists…”
If a nut job like David Koresh and the Branch Davidians, and other fundamentalist Christians, can build retreats, I know the R.C.P. with its amazing reservoir of brains and talent could create a healthy & wholesome revolutionary environment where society’s “incorrigibles” could go to learn and evolve and develop a symbiotic relationship with the R.C.P. I could really get behind something of this nature. In fact, if any of my family has ideas along these lines please contact me—I want in! (I promise I won’t ask for money or say anything to embarrass you or myself.)
The point I’m trying to make is: I’d love to be a “gravedigger of this system” but I don’t think I can do it alone.
Yours for the revolution, XXXXXX
Corcoran CA, June 15,2011
I hope this letter finds you all in the best of health and as enthusiastic as ever about making revolution.
I am one of the many prisoners who depends on the generous donations given to the PRLF. Without those donations I wouldn’t have been able to receive this copy of BAsics which I hold in one hand as I write this letter. I want to thank all PRLF volunteers and all the donors who have contributed to the campaign to get 2,000 copies of BAsics inside of prisons.
I also want to urge everybody out there to get their hands on this book and to help get it into the hands of others, not just prisoners, but into the hands of youth who are in danger of becoming prisoners themselves. There are kids out there who actually know that life in prison could be part of their foreseeable future. I know because I was one of those kids. Get this book into their hands now before they end up in a cell next to mine for hurting someone in their own community. Direct them to BAsics 3:16, show them there’s another way and bring them forward. Help them unlock their potential and give them a sense of purpose that doesn’t involve killing each other. Give them an alternative to the criminal lifestyle that doesn’t involve conforming to this horrid system. That is what they need, that is what they ache for. They want to rebel, they just have to be introduced to the correct way to do so. Put them on the path to becoming communists and becoming part of the revolutionary army that [when the time comes] will sweep capitalist imperialism off the face of the earth. Keep up the great work
In Solidarity
XXX
TX, August 30, 2011
Greetings, Staff of Revolution newspaper, RCP Publications:
This is in response to your letter of August 22, 2011, An Appeal to Those the System Has Cast Off. I am a new subscriber to RCP Publications’ Revolution newspaper, and you have provided to me a copy of CONSTITUTION For The New Socialist Republic in North America (Draft Proposal) From the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. I have not read BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian.
My involvement in American politics consists of about eight years as a Delegate (or Alternate) to the Texas State Republican Party Conventions in the 1990’s. I was one of the ultra-right wing insurgents that hijacked the GOP in Texas and swung Texas to the “Religious-Right” as we presented many of our so-called Family Values resolutions to the platform. I regret much of what we forced onto the agenda at that time, including prejudicial views that limited personal freedoms, over-criminalizations and punitive justice laws. Now, I have been disenfranchised under the criminal justice system of Texas with the lingering hope that human rights advocacy groups will straighten out some of the problems that I wrongfully helped to construct.
Although I cannot say that I am in support of all that the RCP-USA proposes, because much of the material I have seen so far seems a bit idealistic, I appreciate your view of a world to save-and to win. Certainly most Americans are sick and tired of business-as-usual government, or else President Obama’s “Change” platform would not have succeeded; yet it appears that effectual change is too difficult from within the political institution of US government.
In WHY GOOD PEOPLE DO BAD THINGS: Understanding Our Darker Selves, the author, James Hollis, PhD, in a Chapter entitled. Lowest Common Denominator, explains the shadow of institutions:
We need to create institutions whenever we need to affirm, preserve, and transmit values, perceptions, agendas, causes and revelations. An institution is a formal structure for the purpose of maintaining and transmitting values. As history bears witness, however, institutions over time gain their own identity, their own momentum, and often ironically outlive their founder’s vision and values, even as they continue to grow and complexify from generation to generation. All of us have been victimized by bureaucracies; all of us have felt depersonalized by institutions. Institutions tend to become bloated and top-heavy with administration, and they ultimately evolve their own structure, self-serving values, even if they contradict their original vision. Specifically, in time, institutions devolve to serve abstract principles more than their founding values:
1. The survival of the institution, even after it has lost its raison d’etre, even in contradiction of its founding values.
2 The maintenance, preservation and privileging of its priesthood, whether professors, priests, politicians, or corporate presidents.
So, a question I would ask, and I am sure many of the readers of the RCP Publications’ materials would want to know, is: If the proletarian revolution resolves into the New Socialist Republic in North America with its own founding values, how long will it be until it devolves, and what will it look like? Will we be in a better situation under the RCP than under our current form of representative government?
This issue of Revolution newspaper is dedicated to the bearers of the future communist society, many of whom were degraded, demoralized, victimized or trashed by a governmental system that has become contradictory to its own founding values. I hope that those bearers are so enlightened, and their leadership so visionary, as to guard itself from those same practices.
Respecfully Submitted for Publication,
Signed on August 30, 2011 at
XXX, Texas
Thank you for the invitation to submit my opinions to your newspaper.
Bag of Hot Air
To RCP Publications
Revolutionary greetings. My name is XXX. I am a California prisoner and reader of Revolution newspaper. I wanted to respond to the call that was made to readers to submit letters in response to BAsics 3:16. Not long before I read BAsics I had been inspired by Bob Avakian and the RCP to become a communist so I’d like make a short statement and hope that it reaches you in time to contribute to the upcoming issue. If not I hope that you can at least post it on your on line edition.
I am one of those this system has cast off and counted as nothing and it is my hope that others like me will answer this appeal. This system never has and never will have anything good to offer us. We’ve been caught up in fruitless struggles always at the bottom rung of society, always among the exploited and oppressed, trying to get ahead, scrambling for crumbs, or trying to profit off the misery around us. We never gain anything lasting other than lengthy prison sentences, while those who rule over this system that is based on and thrives on exploitation, oppression, and outright murder never have to worry about setting foot in one of these cells. They leave houses empty even while scores remain homeless, they withhold food from starving children even though there’s enough food to feed everyone on the planet. The right of a few filthy rich capitalists to turn a profit takes precedence over meeting the most basic needs of billions living in the worst kind of poverty and misery and they don’t hesitate to drop bombs on innocent people to keep things this way. Our life could be about putting an end to all this instead of a senseless pursuit to be the baddest muthafucker on the block. The most important and worthwhile thing we can do is answer this call and become “the gravediggers of this system and the bearers of the future communist society.” There is a world to win.
In Solidarity
XXX
Prisoner from Pelican Bay State Prison, September 22, 2011
Dear RCP,
The first thing that popped into my head when I received the form letter from you and read the quote from BAsics was a childhood memory I have from back when I was in Jr. High in the mid-eighties. Back then I had to go church a lot with my family, and one evening after bible studies one of the older guys came up to me and started talking to me about the bible. He suggested that I start memorizing scriptures as part of my religious schooling, so he gave me my first one- John 3:16. It’s the one that says “for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so man should not perish but have everlasting life,” or something close to that. It occurred to me how far I had come over the years to the point of now being a proud and open Atheist with a capital “A.” From that day on I began the task of memorizing the BAsics quote word for word. A difficult task being that it’s so long, but I’m glad to inform you that I’ve registered it to memory- hopefully for good. It also occured to me that as part of my revolutionary studies (rather than religious studies), I would now start the process of memorizing other BAsic quotes. Not necessarily any of the long arduous ones, but the short single ones. I also suggest that others do the same thing. I don’t mean in some superficial, mechanical sense just for the sake of doing so. I mean as part of an educational process. Obviously, it’s important, and necessary, to fully comprehend the lessons within the quotes- or any other revolutionary material you come across for that matter. But if we’re going to be promoting BAsics as the successor to Mao’s Red Book, then we should have certain parts committed to memory so that we’re prepared and ready when we’re discussing and promoting (even debating) B.A.’s work. That’s the reason why religious people memorize verses from the bible, or at least one of the reasons why they do it. And in a sense, BAsics is like a bible- so to speak.
I know this doesn’t get to the heart of what the form letter was looking for in regard to what the quote means to me. But at the same time, this is a way of us raising our sights through the educational, and scientific, process. Knowledge is power, and, in my opinion, this is a way of enhancing our knowledge within our individual studies. I’ve even taken the initiative to memorizing (and fully understanding) the three main points on the second page of every issue of Revolution. I hope this brief and simple suggestion will be of use to some, while I’m sure that others will have a more suitable approach that is in line with their own personal styles of learning. To those, however, who find themselves similarly situated as I am, it’s a great and beneficial way to pass the time in a cell. With that said...
Respectfully, in struggle,
From High School Students
A teacher at a high school in an oppressed community, who has read some of BAsics and saw the special Revolution issue on BAsics, invited a revolutionary to speak to her classes about BAsics. The discussion focused on 3:16, “An Appeal to Those the System Has Cast Off,” and the students were asked to write their thoughts about this quote. Out of five classes, about 50 students responded. The following are some of what they wrote:
“Rising above the individual battle to survive.” I agree with this quote because as me living in [neighborhood] people/society set us up for failure and a lot of let them when we give up. So us as kids should stand up and show the system we can do it and not let the white supremacist cast us out!
People who are being oppressed need to stand up to their oppressors. Because no one is going to defend them. I think that people of color have a big disadvantage when it comes to being treated inhumane but if people would stand up one by one they could all fight the oppressors that create a huge struggle for a whole group of people.
It’s talking about capitalism. It’s also saying that communism is beneficial to them. People who are being cast off are people in jail and black and brown people in general. Also people of diff religious/diff beliefs, gays and lesbians. All these people are being treated as human waste material. Become someone in life and come back and help humanity in your own community. We shouldn’t be stuck on the American dream because maybe that’s not your dream.
I think it’s important to become a savior for humanity because it will show that although you came from a poor community you will be a role model for those who think you can’t become someone because you come from the “hood.” We should become a savior for humanity like stand up to what we think is right and stand up to make a diff like for ppl in 9/11 or war in Iraq.
I think all this is talking about being someone to help out with the revolution. This so called “Revolution” means nothing to me because I personally think it will not succeed, or at least not in my lifetime, because trying to change this government and the world is close to impossible. Even though this government/ country is not even close to excellent it will not change for a while.
This is basically talking about all the injustice in this capitalist society. It’s also suggesting how communism can appeal to the marginalized and criminalized groups. However, to become someone who can think of the whole world and its problems, you have to forget about your problems and your conditions. You have to think about everyone else and their suffering too.
This has made me want to learn the basics of humanity to realize what is going on is wrong. I feel like the challenge of becoming the human saviors of humanity can’t exist as long as we live for money.
This made me realize that our world is full of many atrocious things. Humanity is going to the wrong path. This motivates me to stand up and do what is right. I feel that human savior of humanity is kind of a good idea because that is a way we can change society but it will be hard because every body have their own beliefs. Me, I’m one of those persons I believe in God!
What the quote “An Appeal to Those the System Has Cast Off” makes you think about all the problems in humanity. It says that you have to attempt to try to help those with great struggles in their life. I feel that this is a challenge to everyone because there is no unity in this world. A lot of people are just selfish and choose not to do good things only for themselves. I think that we can have a different world for everyone but people need to do something to be somebody and to survive in this tough world we live in.
The government only thinks about themselves. Sometimes or very often criminals become who they are because of the system. The system is unfair and if we don’t do nothing about it will be the same or worse. We have to all unite and fight for a better world. Our government has become our worsest enemy and very powerful. If we don’t stand up and speak for our rights our government will just become our owners forever.
I feel that this country/nation has lost in what it was founded. The “all men are created equal” in the constitution it seems lost. There’s inhumanity all over this country, as if each race can only stand together as one rather than all races. The individual battle to survive is tough. Especially when you’re a person of color. In this society you are made to fail.
I feel that sometimes people do go to jail for no reason, but then it’s like you were put on this earth to experience life so yeah you go to jail for what you did. That doesn’t mean the police can treat you like you’re some trash. I feel like something needs to change for our society. Because every day something is always focused on something about a black person or latino person. When there’s worse things happening around the world. Things in the police station, jails, prisons everywhere. It’s not only black people that need to change it’s everyone.
I felt that this lecture was a waste of time because they preach all these global issues to us and doesn’t nothing change or no revolution. It’s too late for revolution because the system already has us where they want us.
I think what this article talks about is to stand up for a new world. This article is calling out to the outcast of society the people that the law just up and throw away. We need a change in this world.
What I think this means is that they are speaking upon on people who are going through things that need help with something in life. This relates to how black people get arrested for something they didn’t do or the police harasses them when they want.
What I think this quote is trying to tell people in the world is to be a leader. They want you to be somebody in life instead of being out on the streets.
This make me want to start a revolution because I’m a young black man from [neighborhood] that always gets harass by the police and seen police brutality happens to the majority of the people I know in my community. When I walk to school or coming from school I fear being stop by the cops. I’m tired of seeing homeless people on the streets people my age going to jail and not getting out until a decade pass or they won’t live pass 18 or 21.
When I think about it, the society we are in is getting reckless and out of control. The revolution reminds me of a force that’s getting powerful as people get together to join the revolution. It aspire me to join their force and help with society.
You can’t change the world if you don’t know the basics. You can’t change the world if the people in the world don’t help make a change or effort. You can change the world but can’t change the people in it, but if everyone come together and help make a change this world could be a better place. By changing the world I believe you have to know the basics and what it takes.
In the world I grow up in is sad. There’s nothing but violence and madness. I would love to start a revolution to help change society, if I had kids I don’t wouldn’t want them to grow up in a world like this. I hate everyday how I look around in I see just danger in the world.
There all these people that don’t have money, house, food, clothes. Sometime the government don’t even care what we go through there a lot of drugs messing up people but the only thing that they don’t give is food to the homeless—ever where we go it’s hard to survive because ever where we go we need money to buy thing sometime that how people die because they don’t have money. People are sick from a small thing they could just go to the doctor and make you better but they don’t have money to do that why people die.
I feel as if the government don’t care about people in the lower class community and I feel as if we living in this world blind because we do the same thing most guys do sale drugs or gang bang but that’s just because when they go looking for a job they see you and if you don’t look they way they want you to they won’t give you the job and the reason why we stay here in our low class community is because we get talk about and at time people get scared.
“But there is a world to save—and to win—and in that process those the system has counted as nothing can count for a great deal.”
I think it means that every person that be picked on can do greater thing to the ones they chose. It matters to people that doesn’t really know how to fight back and when to do it.
The system is wrong for many reasons. Just because we’re from a certain hood, ethnicity, or just where we hang out or who we hang out with we’re automatically affiliated. If you can beat the system then make a new one.
From Others
*****
From a day-laborer immigrant:
Well I am one of those discarded one's. First it happened to me in my country of birth. I had to leave because otherwise I may well have died of hunger. Leaving my children my wife behind. Not knowing when I would ever see them again. I left without a penny in my pocket heading to a place I didn't know. There is no work; we stand on the street hoping someone needs some work done. We are treated like criminals like animals you read in the papers about immigrants killed by racists.
I have raised my sights to where I know that we have to talk to the people that we have to do away with this system.
We can let them trap us into just living to survive, we have to see and live for this. There is a world to save and to win. I have never been in jail but I share the same fate as those who have been and those who still are in jail. We must become an active force no matter where we came from or where we are—we are the discarded ones. We must get to the point where everything we do is part of making revolution to free the world.
*****
Richard Brown, former Black Panther, Member of the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CDHR):
Most of us, when we think about prisoners, in our mind we think of them as, "those people," never realizing how much we have in common with them.
If you stop and really think about it, there's not that much difference between us and the ones incarcerated in the inhumane institutions run by CDCR [California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation]. The system refers to them as the worst of the worst. While those of us in the large institutions, commonly referred to as (our community), are referred to as thugs, hoodlums, or just plain old undesirables. Stop and think brothers and sisters. There are those in this society who refer to all black people as "those people," and that's when they're being polite. So where's the difference?
You say prisoners are confined to their cells 23 hours a day, well, we're confined to our communities 24 hours a day, and most young black men cannot even leave the block they live on without fear of being murdered. Murdered by some other young black man, or by the so-called police who invade our community like an occupying force—a para-military organization using Gestapo tactics in order to control the masses, (blacks). So where's the difference?
You say prisoners have no rights! Correctional officers can go into their cells at any time, day or night, and search for contraband. Have you forgotten that the so-called police can come into our homes at any time without a search warrant, looking for drugs, and, or weapons. They stop us on the street, and violate our constitutional rights, by searching our vehicles or our person without probable cause, and if you ask why? More than likely you'll end up being arrested. For what you say? For resisting arrest. So where's the difference?
You say most prisoners work for low or no wages, well, most young blacks have no wages at all, unemployment in the black community is ridiculously high. So where's the difference?
It's time for us to stop allowing the system to place barriers between us and our brothers and sisters by labeling them as the worst of the worst. Therefore encouraging society to turn their backs and allow these men and women to be treated as less than human beings. It's time for us to remember that the only real difference between us and "those people" is that our exercise yard is a little bit bigger than theirs.
Throughout my life I have fought to try and show the community how they are being played upon, and how this game of divide and conquer is being used between those locked down inside and those with a little more freedom.
All of us should relate to the words of Bob Avakian and focus on the real enemy and fight for a truly free society.
*****
Proletarian woman:
I know this is asking me to be serious. This is about risking your life, but making it worth it. I know because it was scary to me when the communists came around the first time; and I had to retire! I had to retire, but now I'm back, 'cause we're the ones being asked to make revolution and this is serious. This is more than just about Brownie (reference to a man killed by police in the hood). This is about a whole new world. There might be some who say it would be going too far, but in a way what choice do we have? They're puttin us in jail and keepin us there; and it's just going to keep getting worse until we get serious with our lives.... People need to know about BA.
*****
Ex-prisoner:
It's real hard; but I'm down for this revolution. I know they're talkin about me when they talk about no job and no home; and here it is my birthday and I'm having to scrape for something to eat. I'm always saying I got to come first. It's hard to "raise your sights" above all this, but this book (BAsics) is really speaking to me about doing it, being a gravedigger of this system... Something's got to give, but we got to be there, and be willing to sacrifice to make it happen. I know that! I want to see Bob Avakian lead this; and I hope to meet him some day. Yeah it's hard, but it's not impossible; and I'm glad y'all are here.
I first read Revolution newspaper—it was called Revolutionary Worker then—while I was locked up and serving an indeterminate sentence in segregation in a maximum security prison. I was one of those millions upon millions of youth that this system has cast off—my family losing our home when I was a teenager and becoming increasingly caught up in surviving on the streets until I was sentenced to serve many years in prison by the time I was 17 years old. A brother in a cell near me had a subscription to the paper, and he would send them over to me to check out. I was a voracious reader, trying to understand the world and the system that created the hellhole prisons and regime of solitary confinement that I was increasingly resisting. For some years I had considered myself an anarchist, beginning from the rather simple yet visceral proposition that if “the State is holding me captive in these horrendous conditions, then fuck the State” to a more theoretical study of anarchist thought.
One thing that immediately struck me upon reading the paper was the realization that there were actually people seriously organizing to get rid of this system, right here in the U.S.A. Not to “reform away the ills of this system,” but to actually sweep it aside and bring into being a radically different society. And another thing that I recall from my initial readings of some of the work of Bob Avakian featured in the newspaper was that “this guy is doing serious work and thinking about how to actually make a revolution!”
Eventually the brother I was getting the newspaper from moved, and I moved to another cell, so I no longer got the newspaper. I continued to develop my thinking and political consciousness, including beginning to see things and analyze things increasingly from a class perspective. And the limitations of anarchist theory were beginning to become more clear to me. As I was approaching being released from prison relatively soon, I once again moved into another cell next to a brother who was getting Revolution newspaper. Revolution presented to me a real analysis of the historical development and functioning of this monstrous capitalist system, a serious strategy for organizing and making a revolution to sweep this system away, and a viable framework in Bob Avakian’s new synthesis for actually running society after a revolution: to increasingly break down the divisions of class society as people struggle together to bring forth a liberated future for all humanity and a society where everyone contributes what they can and gets back what they need to live lives worthy of human beings—a communist world.
My thinking and understanding of course did not change overnight. Both before and after my release from prison, I struggled with many questions—and comrades struggled with me—in making the radical ruptures to becoming a communist. But through the course of that struggle and being involved in many different realms of revolutionary work in building the movement for revolution, I’ve dedicated my life to being an emancipator of humanity.
From oppressed communities under the gun of constant police brutality and repression, to standing with immigrants against demonization and deportation, from discussions in classrooms in high schools and universities to defending clinics and women’s right to abortion, from protesting torture and war crimes to demanding liberation for the LGBTQ community—I’m constantly amazed and inspired by all of the places I’ve been and people I’ve met and gotten to know while engaged in revolutionary work throughout the course of the few years I’ve been out of prison.
It has not been without sometimes extreme difficulty, both in dealing with all of the scars from years of torture in solitary confinement as well as political repression from the rulers of this system who deeply fear the power and potential that those of us the system has cast off have as part of this movement for revolution. Yet even while facing a political prosecution and being locked up again as a political prisoner, having the opportunity to bring revolution and communism to others this system has deemed worthless and learning from their experience only served to increase my dedication to the struggle for a liberated future for all humanity.
To all of you brothers and sisters who are still locked down in America’s hellholes or locked out in survival on the streets, who hate the horrors of this system and yearn for a whole other future for humanity—get with this Party and Chairman Avakian. Take up the science of revolution and communism, BA’s new synthesis. The horrors and crimes of this outmoded capitalist-imperialist system are completely unnecessary and we must step forward to become its grave-diggers and emancipators of humanity.
Translated from Spanish.
Dear Revolution newspaper,
I am a reader of the newspaper who wants to respond to the quote 3:16 from the book BAsics. I am a person who understands and has lived what the quote by Chairman Bob Avakian says that “all those the system and its enforcers treat as so much human waste material… whose life is lived on the desperate edge.”
Imagine that you are a person who lives in the third world and you have to emigrate due to the need to survive. Then when you are here in this country, you face a climate of scorn, humiliation, exploitation, racism, and death. I want to tell a real story about someone who a few years ago immigrated with her husband to the United States due to necessity. Both of them began to work, but soon she began to have trouble finding work, sometimes working, sometimes not. After a year being here, she got sick and due to her legal situation, it was not easy to get medical services, and furthermore, the medical costs are very high. This couple decided that she had to return for a few months to her country to treat the illness and later return to the United States. After getting treatment for the illness, she prepared to return and went to the border and tried to cross, every time she did so, la Migra caught her. She tried to cross several times by the hill, with no success.
At first it was several weeks, which became months, and at one point, she used a false ID and put on makeup to cross the line, but they caught her and sent her to jail for several years. Given their desperation because the money she had was running out and given the threats of the immigration agents, the situation got so bad that she took the dangerous decision to cross through the Arizona desert. Along with two other women led by a guide, they entered the Arizona desert on one of the hottest months of the year. After three days of travel, she was the most tired and they decided to rest one night in order to begin anew in the early morning. When they awoke the next day, they saw that the guide was no longer with them. They wanted to awaken her to let her know that they had been abandoned. She did not respond and one of the women went over to touch her and realized that she had died.
The hellish temperature in the desert and the asphyxiating situation in which the system keeps humanity meant that those final three days of the woman’s life were a horrendous torture, bringing her heart to such a limit that it stopped. Some hours later these women were arrested and deported. Back in their country of origin, they called the woman’s husband to tell him what had happened. The husband called the authorities, who told him that it was going to be difficult to find the body, because on the same day, something like 15 people had died. Also, that month had one of the highest death tolls along the border. Luckily, the woman’s body was found after 15 days. Many of the bodies in the desert are found in an advanced state of decomposition and at times, only the bones are found, and in many cases they can’t even identify them.
Due to the militarization of the border, people cross at the most dangerous points, which often leads to death. For that reason, many say that the Arizona desert is a cemetery of bones where men, women and children die an anonymous death.
The mother of the woman who died in the desert remembers that upon saying goodbye to her, she said that she was going to return in a short while. Here we see how the American dream became a nightmare, since she returned in a coffin just like the lives of thousands and thousands of other people.
It is difficult to remember this story, but it must be told, and it makes me think in the part of the quote where it says that this system and its representatives are the “foulest, most monstrous criminals that mythology has ever invented or jails ever held.”
Today I understand that the problem is not that people make bad decisions, I understand better that the problem is the system and for that reason, we have to get rid of it and wipe if off the face of the earth.
This reminds me of a discussion I had with a family member a few years ago, when I began to wrangle with the works of Avakian, to read and distribute Revolution newspaper in my free time. A family member told me that she saw something “strange” in my behavior because in my free time, I studied and distributed the newspaper. She got on my case for working too much and instead asked why didn’t I rest. She asked me how much they pay me to do that, and then I told her that I was doing it voluntarily. Then, she said to me that I was wasting my time, that instead I should work and make more money. I replied that we have to knock down this system because it causes so much poverty and oppresses humanity. Then she says to me that if I was so concerned about poor people, then why didn’t I divide up my paycheck among the poor. Next I replied that if that could really end poverty in this world, for sure I would do it, but that is not the solution. This was the best way I could answer back then, perhaps at that point the thinking of this person didn’t get transformed, but I was already beginning to understand that another world is really possible.
Those who manage to cross the border and those who are on the other side: to those who the system has destined to a place in the cemetery of bones in the desert, those people can mean much more – as quote 3:16 says, they can be “part of the human saviors of humanity: the gravediggers of this system and the bearers of the future communist society”.
A cloaking seal surrounding my thoughts,
it keeps from thinking, talking, shouting, dreaming;
it traps my aspirations in a whirlpool of darkness.
And though I still breathe, all dies, it’s inevitable!
So it feels at school, work, home,
Disease lives, death is felt;
There is no hope, what can you expect?
And afar that voice is heard: “There is a world to win.”
Oh, really, where?
incredulous, I hear again, closer, stronger,
I am interested —I AM INTERESTED— I LEARN, ¡I LIVE!
And I discover there was no inevitable death, it was oppression;
there was no disease necessary, it was a system;
There was no darkness, there were ideas.
And now what? Again the darkness appears, the death, the disease;
But, now, I know the truth! The darkness will return —or perhaps not—
But I know that there is a return to the truth.
It’s time to return.
THE WALL OF SHAME
Even shame has shame!
¡Of shame!
And, the wall of shame?
Will it be ashamed of itself!
And, they who gave the order to build it,
Will they be shamed by that order?
O, perhaps, will their cynicism be greater
Than their shame?
Oh! What a contradiction and what shame!
They not only applauded, but
They applauded a lot!
When the Berlin Wall fell,
And, now, they are proud
About building the Wall of Shame!
Those acts, do they not involve a terrible
Contradiction?
Those acts, do they not carry great shame?
Or, perhaps, it will be possible within the impossible
That the shame which they now lack
May suffer a terrible metamorphosis
Into unlimited cynicism?
At this moment in time, the Great Wall of China is one of the
Great Wonders of the world,
But, in itself, it does have a diaphanous
And transparent justification.
Its construction was for protecting the Chinese people
From the warring invasions of other peoples.
But, The Wall of Shame!
From what warring invasions is it going to protect
The North Americans?
From the warring invasions of the poor immigrants?
IF is they, by not having resources to survive,
In the land that saw their birth,
Who have been driven and forced to flee, in part,
By the same conditions generated
By Yankee imperialism.
Well, then, whatever they say
The promoters of the Wall of Shame!
Do not have and will never have a clear and
Just justification, its repudiated and vile
Construction.
The Wall of Shame!
THE CRUELTY OF THE GODS
Yes, like all gods, so they have been, so they are and so they will be,
Indifferent and with excesses of great cruelty.
What does it matter whether there are many or just one?
The characteristic is always the same,
The cruelty and the bloodiness unite them and merge them together.
Because if they were gods with much goodness,
They would not have allowed all the horrors of slavery,
Of man by man,
They would not have allowed a few parasites
Of their sons to enslave many millions
Of people who were also their sons.
Those gods of immense goodness
Would not have allowed all the horrors,
Massacres and sacrifices bound up
With the slave mode of production,
And the feudalist mode of production,
They would also not have allowed in
Capitalism and in imperialism
The horrible exploitation and super exploitation
Of hundreds of millions of human beings
By a handful of parasites on our planet.
Those gods would also have not done anything
To prevent the warring invasions
Of the imperialist countries against weaker countries
Both militarily and economically
They would also have not allowed the terrible abuse,
The oppression and the degradation of women
By men since ancient times
Up until today.
If women are the most beautiful creatures of the planet!
Why have they treated them with so much cruelty?
Where have these gods of goodness been?
Gods who can do anything!
But they did not do nor have they done
Absolutely anything to avoid those
Abuses of the social classes who have
Held power throughout history
And who, as well, have brought Wars, genocides!
Horrors and more horrors!
The answer is very simple.
Those gods are neither gods of goodness
And they are also not gods of cruelty,
Those gods only exist in the
Imagination of men.
Because the gods were created or invented
Due to the ignorance of men.
This happened since the farthest reaches of the beginning
Of human civilizations.
AN APPEAL TO THOSE THE SYSTEM HAS CAST OFF
To all those who are in prison,
To all those who are homeless,
To all those who are sick or addicts,
To all those who are gay,
To all those without work,
To all those dissatisfied:
With the capitalist system,
With the system of exploitation,
With the system of humiliation,
I ask you to bring our strengths together,
I ask you to unite our voices
To tell the imperialists,
All the capitalists,
And all their apologists,
That later or sooner,
They will have to fuck off.
From someone who grew up cast off by this system.
Haven't you asked yourself why the world is the way it is? Why are so many people poor, here and other parts of the world? Why? Why do I have to work so hard yet I can't get any relief? Why has my son or daughter had to join the military and die ? Why do my kids turn to drugs and gangs? Why are the kids shooting each other or being shot by a cop? Will this ever end?
Believe me I have asked these question and many more looking for a way to change this shit. But it seemed there was no way out..
But I found out this is a lie! I found answers to these questions. I found out we can change this shit. I found out that yes this can end.
Bob Avakian has answers to all these questions. If you want to change this world get Bob's new book BASIC'S
We can't change the world if we don't have the basic's!
Harlem restaurant worker
Prisons are directly related and connected to capitalism, actually an arm of capitalism. Capitalism functions on how many people it keeps ignorant, poor, and in prison. The prison system is nothing but a natural extension of capitalism. Most people commit crimes out of need, not greed. Most people rob or steal because they can't get money. You still have to eat. Capitalism is the worst possible system that people can live under.
The way to combat capitalism is through unity and organize in a new way, to move people to treat each others like human beings. Prisoners should do it for children, to have a future. This problem will be generational, and has been. A slave plantation and prison is the same thing. The constitution says you're still a slave when you are convicted of a crime. You have no rights which the Federal government or the state has to respect.
In order for this to change you have to organize people. You need people around. Martin Luther King, alone in Mississippi, would have been lynched. You need to organize people around reform, social organizations, etc, but the best way to organize people is around common need, food, clothing, shelter. You organize people around food, clothing, shelter. More have nots than haves.
In African American communities, communism is not new. A Philip Randolph was an active communist in the 1920s. He fought for workers' rights. The problem with organizations, and it's true of religions, civic groups, grass roots, is people might support it from outside but not join. People say—I support from the outside, but if people find out on my job, I might lose my job. That's why few people join organizations; some might support financially but not join. Communism will be one of the things that will help overthrow capitalism, but not the only thing. Some will support it but not join.
Bob Avakian has a crystal clear analysis of the problems facing people all over the world, not just in America. If communism is the latchpin that will overthrow sexism, racism, capitalism, I will support it 100%. Anything working toward the freedom of people, I will support.
A Harlem resident, former prisoner
This is an unjust society and I think the system wants people to think they count for nothing. But even in the bowels of darkness, they contribute to society.
They make things that make industrial society run, the license plates, sidewalk benches. There's hard sweat and labor off these individuals in these institutions. If you can use people for your own financial gain, why can't they be treated like humans? …
They're cut off from any kind of productive work or life in the society. The system desperately keeps them away. They're enslaved. I think it's the 14th amendment that says if you're convicted of a felony you can be enslaved and treated as a slave. You know they changed that right!? …
The American theology is based on equal rights and opportunity. If the system is fair, why would you have it so that you could enslave anyone?
First, This country is supposed to be democratic, which they’re not and they go around invading countries in the name of democracy.
I believe in the common man. But opportunity is slowly collapsing. It’s impossible to do anything for the people anymore. Society now is based more and more on greed—and societies like that – Greece, Rome – never last. I think what Bob Avakian is talking about is that government does not care about day to day people. They work for the wealthy.
The quote is great. I’m one of those people. I’m not doing anything illegal but still I’m constantly harassed by police, we’re stereotyped, I’m always turned down for jobs. It’s frustrating. I find a way to live but the system drives people to desperation. I’m all for revising the system that overlooks so many people.
Troy Davis was murdered. That showed not only the justice system ignored the evidence that he was innocent but the system that coerces the youth and railroads Black people. Killing Troy Davis – that was a great eye-opener. And what Avakian is talking about. Well, in Attica [1971], that was a microcosm of the revolution. They took hostages but they took care of them and they didn’t hurt them. The system looked at them as less than humans. That was a disgrace what they did killing all of them on sight. They all deserved to be treated like human beings even when they committed crimes.
Harlem Resident who is reading BAsics
We don’t count for nothing around here. Nobody supposed to be treated like this! I’m afraid for the future. For the children. I’m afraid of walking out my front door. Not because of the kids but these police. Around here you can’t walk out your own door. I go through this every day. They in the hallway. When I step out and see one of them they got the nerve to say, “What am I doing?” WHAT THE FUCK YOU DOIN?! I LIVE HERE!” I’m afraid to go back in the house thinking I turn around they gonna shoot me! You know how they are!
Oh it’s gonna be a revolution because ain’t nobody up in here no animals. We don’t deserve to be treated like this. They tell me to calm down but I ain’t gonna calm down! People like us we got to speak up. Why is this shit always happening here? Why is this happening to us? It’s always gonna happen until we do wake up and speak up!
Projects Resident Living in the Bronx
"If you're born in America with a black skin, you're born in prison."
-Malcolm X
"Through our pain we will make them see their injustice".
-Martin Luther King
It was interesting when given the opportunity to contribute to this paper, I was in the middle of reading the autobiography of Malcolm X. An extraordinary African American leader and revolutionary who experienced the same tragedy that too many Black and Latinos face today. After reading the Revolution article about Marijuana Laws in a World of Oppression and Discrimination, I was angry but not surprised. One thing I could always count on in this country is keeping the Black man oppressed, they never strayed far from their agenda. In our society we typically place the responsibility to lead and raise a family to the best of their ability, to ensure that they may have the opportunity to live a financially secure and successful life. What would happen then; if a man is stripped of the very things that lay down this foundation? Preventing them to raise their family, forcing them to not only become part of the system that put him in there but depend on them to fulfill responsibilities they are unable to at the time. This goes way beyond degradation and diminishing them as black men but as human beings. And that right isn’t civil but human. To deny anyone of that right signifies a fear, the very root from which RACISM stems from. The capitalist structure that this country was built on also comes with the condition to feel afraid. When people feel threatened by someone or something, they do anything to bring down a force they feel like will harm them whether the threat is real or not. So how do they bring down this force. Strip away not only their rights but their natural resources leaving them weak and forced to depend on them{sound familiar}. A perfect example of this is globalization in Africa, it completely destroyed the country leaving it with so much disease, that you can’t even donate blood.
“The struggle ain’t right in your face, it’s more subtle
But it still comes across like the bridge and tunnel vision.
I try school these bucks, but they don’t wanna listen.
That’s the reason the system makin’ its paper from the prison.
And that’s the reason we livin’ where they don’t wanna come and visit”
-The Roots “Don’t Feel Right Trilogy”
“Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation”. This is part of a verse from the star spangled banner, you know the country's song. But I feel like they forgot a word or two. It should read instead Praise SLAVERY, LIES and IMPERIALISM, the power that hath made and preserved the small “community” that controls the nation. The ones who get to live on “land of the free and the home of the brave.”
“The whole system we now live under is based on exploitation—here and all over the world. It is completely worthless and no basic change for the better can come about until the system is over thrown (Bob Avakian)”-For the prison population in the USA to go from half a million in 1980 to 2.3 million in 2006-an increase of over 450 percent- is due to minor marijuana offenses and the “Stop and frisk act.” This shows that if we don’t end this cycle, it will be the death of minorities. Capitalism is a business, when they see minorities they see dollar signs -a PROFIT and if that means getting rid of us so that it can happen, then so be it. This is one of the worse cases of a Catch22- They profit when we succeed and even more when we FAIL. So why wouldn’t the 37 billion dollar industry use minimal drug offenses as another tool, it’s protect their people. And of course it would be a drug predominantly used by Caucasians, yet they only make up ten percent of the prison population. It’s interesting to me that when it’s sold by the government, it's to test regulated business but if it's sold by individuals, they are criminals, once again they managed to sneak around the fact that they are just as much of a criminal and a drug lord as the criminals and drug lords they choose to persecute and profit from. The smorgasbord of drugs are predominantly found in poor neighbor{hoods} where most minorities occupy and sold in the upscale neighborhoods. Hey it raises job employment but the prison rate as well- Good Ol’ Catch 22!
According to Michele Leonhart of the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency): “the escalating violence on the U.S./Mexico border should be viewed as a sign of the 'success' of America’s drug war strategies.” It has not only contributed to gang violence but organized crime as well. In 2008, there were over six thousand deaths related to Mexican drug cartels, this tragedy was caused the policy established by the US. Cartels are the most successful by transferring illegal drugs across the border into the United States. Naturally what the drug cartels are doing is illegal so they are sent to jail to be caged like animals causing of a rage of violence. The US Office of National Drug Policy says that 60% of the profits gained by Mexican drug cartels comes from the exportation and sales of cannabis into the American market. Statistics show that half of the marijuana consumed by the United States derives from outside of the border. Mexico is the US's biggest pot provider (NorML Blog). Because America leads the world in pot consumption, America will continue to remain the primary destination for Mexican marijuana. An economic assessment done in 2007 showed that US citizens consume over 30 million pounds of marijuana annually. This shows exactly how fucked up this system is and what they are willing to do to “dance” around the very system to keep it on beat while the rest of the nation is forced to play musical chairs.
#29 “This system and those who rule over it are not capable of carrying out economic development to meet the needs of the people now, while balancing that with the needs of future generations and requirements of safeguarding the environment. They care nothing for the rich diversity of the earth and its species, for this treasure contains, except for when and where they can turn this into a profit for themselves…..These people are not fit to be the care takers of the earth.”
-BAsics-Bob Avakian
The time to fight is now!!! We need this Revolution, an evolution of change which is necessary and proper for minorities to receive the opportunity to strive as a race without there being some kind of gain. Becoming blind to color where the only race that exists is human.
“Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, everywhere is war and until there are no longer first-class and second-class citizens of any nation, until the color of a man's skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes. And until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race, there is war. And until that day, the dream of lasting peace, world citizenship, rule of international morality, will remain but a fleeting illusion to be pursued, but never attained... now everywhere is war.”
-Bob Marley
As a long time reader of Revolution Newspaper, I wanted to make sure I sent in a letter for this upcoming special issue on BAsics 3:16. This quote strikes me as one of the most important quotes in Bob Avakian’s new book, as there are literally billions of people across the globe that have been cast off by this brutal and horrific system.
I am currently a college student, but getting to this point was not easy by any means. I spent all of my youth growing up in poverty, surrounded by those “whose life is lived on the desperate edge, whether or not they find some work; to those without work or even homes; to all those the system and its enforcers treat as so much human waste material.” Living in utter poverty, I turned to drugs and spent my high school years as an addict. The idea of a revolution seemed far off to me, as it was impossible for me to liberate myself from the ghetto and from addiction. This is one of the many symptoms of the capitalist disease.
However, in this quote, people like me find not only refuge, but also a vision of a better world. Bob Avakian shows us that a communist world is possible. As he says, “there is a world to save—and to win—and in that process those the system has counted as nothing can count for a great deal. They represent a great reserve force that must become an active force for the proletarian revolution.”
I have been lucky enough to break free from many of the chains that bound me in my youth, but there are so many more that require liberation. We have the leadership in Bob Avakian to take us there and I encourage anyone reading this newspaper to get with Bob Avakian and the party he leads. We can all become emancipators of humanity.
Over the past several years as I have come to understand Revolutionary Communism the more I want to incorporate it into my daily lesson plans. When I put together a lesson, I think about what Revolution and Bob Avakian has taught me about the dominant economic and social relations. As a result, over the years I have been better able to bring into focus for the youth what this system does to people and possibilities of a radically different world where people contribute to society not for personal gain but to be part of lifting up the living standards of all humanity. The students come to discover that another world is possible and they can make decisions in regards to changing their lives and the lives of others. Specifically, from BAsics the most recent work of Bob Avakian it says, “Become a part of the human saviors of humanity: the gravediggers of this system and the bearers of the future communist society”.
However, this has not been easy and the obstacles have been challenging to say the least. For example, getting the students to understand that women do not have to be called “bitches” and “whores” by men including their fellow classmates was an eye opener. Through reading the special issue of the paper on women’s liberation and discussing the issue, students came to realize that they do not have to be called these names. Also, male students in class realized that they did not have to call women “bitches” and “whores”. The male students became conscious of the idea that women are human beings too. As a result, the atmosphere changed entirely by the end of the school. Again, this was not an easy endeavor and took hours of struggling with students and students struggling with each other to reach this point.
Recently, a former student who was deeply impacted by the struggles over women’s liberation visited the school before heading back to college. She told me that Revolution had such an impact on her life that she thought it was important that the paper be available on her campus. This young woman said that she would fight to get it on campus and other former students would do the same. I went home inspired knowing that she is fighting to rise above what so many people are sent off to college to do and that is to get ahead and not to consider the possibility of another world without oppression and exploitation.
Recently, the new year started and getting students to understand that there is a system out there is the first task. Once this has been established then I can start giving examples of how this system brutalizes and degrades people everyday. Just knowing how many children are in poverty is an eye opener for students that think we’re in land of “great freedom and prosperity”. Next week I plan on showing the quote from the current issue of the paper on the nature of the police. This will allow me to lecture and discuss with the students their experiences with the police. Also, we will get past the notion that the police are there to “Protect and Serve” and get real. In the past students came to understand that the police are there to protect a system and kill people that it finds as a threat. I will use statistics provided in the most recent issue of the paper in regards to the prison population and the harassment of black people. The students will come to understand that police need to oppress the most impoverished people in society because of their revolutionary potential. Without Revolution and the works of Bob Avakian, I would never had been able to do this in the classroom.
With this knowledge and understanding the students can make radically different choices in regards to their future. Also, even if the students go to college to get their careers in order the idea of revolution will always be there with the potential of it boiling to the surface again. Again, without Revolution and the works of Bob Avakain, people would not understand to quote BAsics, “Raise your sights above the degredation and madness, the muck and demoralization, above the individual battle to survive and to “be somebody” on the terms of the imperialists—of fouler, more monstrous criminals than mythology has ever invented or jails over held”
(Response to 3:16 from a worker from Latin America. (Translated from Spanish)
I think that the great majority of the workers, not just in this country but all over the world are treated like human garbage. But here we have this book, BAsics, that clarifies why we are cast out. And that those of us who are considered human garbage have a space within the communist revolution where we can be the saviors of humanity. Our efforts can serve in a creative way to develop society and not to just be used as mere beasts of burden. This is something that only this ideology, this science, the communist revolution is the only one that can emancipate those who have been cast out, and all humanity.
For example, those who work in the garment industry sewing, making only $30-$40 a day, sometimes $50, working from 6 in the morning to 6 at night. They pay them only pennies per piece and the pieces are very difficult to finish, you can’t get many done. Even though it is a shit job, a super-exploited job, today there are thousands who are looking for these jobs. What keeps us here then? Why do we stay? Because we can’t go back home to our countries, because everyday it’s worse, massacres, violence, drug addiction everywhere. Who can stop this? Only a real revolution can transform all this, a communist revolution.
People know they are exploited but most don’t know the science that can liberate us. There’s people who start to talk “turn to god, this is god’s will” and they talk about an apocalypse that’s coming in the bible and I tell them, “since I’ve been able to think I’ve heard about this gnashing and grinding of teeth and everyone saying we have to repent – and at the same time the whole world is saying ‘I can’t live on my wages, I can’t pay the rent, I’m sick, my son is in jail’ an infinite number of things and that’s the gnashing and grinding of the masses, the suffering that’s grinding them down.
And this is the future that our children face. It’s like the slave that is born into slavery, the child of the slave will also be a slave. Like the Chairman says in BAsics 1:13, how our children are born predestined to live this way with brutality, humiliation, exploitation.
The kids in this neighborhood are treated like criminals. At a young age, the police start to verbally assault them, they intentionally offend them. One time there were some kids playing in an abandoned house, a little girl and some little boys and I heard the police say to them “don’t tell me all of you are going to fuck her!” Just that stupid. Using those horrible words, what a mentality they have! But that’s a reflection, not just of those police, but of the system. They say it’s only a few police, but it’s all of them, all of them are trained to kill, to attack, to humiliate the people. And the youth who are rebellious and don’t conform to their life the way it is, take the wrong path end up in jail. You can hear thousands of complaints from mothers who are standing in line to visit their prisoners. They tell you all the stories from their sons inside: there was a youth who was depressed, who asked for help so intentionally, they took him up to another level in the prison where he was all alone and he hung himself, he committed suicide. There are youth who have 20-30 days with intense toothache and they sign up to see the dentist and they never take them until they speak with a lawyer, and it has to be a private lawyer, who gets a court order, if not for that, they never go to the dentist. Or they make them line up, the sheriff comes and without any provocation, he hits a prisoner with his stick and breaks his foot and later the other sheriffs come around to the other prisoners with a camera in their face “did you see anything?” or “did you see anything?” And nobody saw anything because how are they going to say “I saw that police break his foot”? That’s the way they intimidate the people. And this happens all the time. But there’s a great potential in the prisoners, especially the youth, they can change their lives. When they read this book, by this author Bob Avakian, it opens a path to follow. It gives the basics, which is like the keys to escape the prison, the darkness that is tormenting the majority of the people in the world.
From a laborer from Latin America –[translated from Spanish]
What does it mean to say the system looks at us as human garbage? It simply means that this imperialist system that has developed, looks at the people as commodities, based on profit. We come from places where there is nothing to live on, not even water, we hear about this nation where there is a lot. So we all come here, but we don’t understand why. That’s why the program of the Revolutionary Communist Party is so important because it explains why the system created poverty in our nations—and these are imperial programs that are going on today – it creates poverty and disarticulates the nations and develops ignorance in the population, in the whole world, not just in the American continent. It’s based in a program to be able to superexploit for profit, and develop the conquest everyday more savagely, put in place programs to turn people against each other. We have the example of Mexico. They’ve brought in a program to kill the population. They put in an impostor president, and a program designed in the white house to push us into this war on drugs. It’s part of the racism of this empire and a part of keeping an advanced revolutionary movement from developing in Mexico. It’s an example of what they’re doing to humanity.
They put in representatives of imperialism, but not of the nations, and not in favor of the populations. All over the world it’s the interests of northamerican yankee imperialism, with their bloody wars.
Here in the United States we see how they oppress the working people and develop their ignorance. That’s why they develop ignorance in us, getting us to think that if we haven’t studied we have to accept oppression and brutality. But we have to get rid of this thinking because even though we haven’t studied we can still organize and fight against oppression. And we have to learn to struggle with ideas, to work with ideas, that’s part of the struggle.
Like the quote Basics 3:16 says that all those who the system has cast out and says that are garbage, we are those who can be the spinal column that can break and end this oppressive system and change the course of humanity in favor of the oppressed. But in order to do this we have to overthrow the oppressors in power. And that’s the task of this revolutionary communist party. We have to follow it and propagate communism as it really is, not how the empire has distorted it.
We in the United States have a leader who has given all of his knowledge and skill to us and so we have to grasp this, and unite around this leader who has taken our side. And what is this leader’s name? His name is Bob Avakian. He is the number one leader in the world, but we have to understand why. You have to check out what he says. You have to study Basics.
Sent from LA:
We must give our coldest shoulders to the heat-seeking snake that is capitalism, for its oppressive system constricts the liberty and life out of its citizens; and yes, I’m talking about the very same “liberty” and “life” that Uncle Sam and his constitution promises to its people, or rather sheep. Sheep because we allow our natural souls to be herded and counted as dollar signs as per our moral passiveness. And so just as Disney and our corrupt media tell us to count sheep to sleep, Uncle Sam counts sheep to eat; eat his fucking potbelly full of shit and deceit! Stop watching yourselves and your peers run in circles and instead run across a linear path towards TRUTH! Our whole system is based on layers of contradiction and hypocrisy, so open your eyes to them i.e. 1) advertising “liberty” and “freedom” yet leaving America’s original inhabitants (the Native Americans) with nothing but “reservations” (casinos); 2) sailing the Seven Seas to rape tons of various cultures and tribes throughout Africa, bring them over as slaves, put them to work, and rape them some more, even impregnating them for the sole purpose of yielding more slaves; 3) funding Egypt militarily $2 billion each year since ’79 in exchange for priority access to the Suez Canal, yet they also fund Israel with the same war technology, leaving Egypt and Israel both in a never-ending cycle of constantly having to outdo each other (an arms race)… and the list goes on.”
(An undergraduate at an elite universtity, who we met last week)
I believe people still have a lot of fight and struggle. We cannot go down in history as retired fighters and let this system and the powers that be get away with extreme crimes around the world. Because we ARE somebody and deserve a better way of life. This is not the time to give up.
A Reckoning
by Jamilah Hoffman
There will be a reckoning.
Enough people have seen too much of
the manifestation of
justice, american style,
to stand quietly in the face
of such hypocrisy.
To go along with the
facade as if this all
makes sense.
(I keep telling this woman that her slip is showing but she just doesn't care)
We are waking up.
Just like an arm or leg that
has fallen asleep and starts
to tingle when its nerves
become active again.
We are waking up.
To the realization that
lies told often enough don't always
become truth
like:
“All men are created equal....”
or
“Only guilty men are put to death...”
or
“Liberty and justice for all...”
I find it difficult to go along.
No longer content to be a
placeholder in your heartless system.
I have rejected your messages
of selfishness and greed.
I am certain there are other ways
of being.
My fight becomes righteous
when it's motivated by love
And I no longer fear
a new day.
To Revolution—
Bob Avakian has a solution, and the solution is NOT this system. What he says is not sheer poetry but for the good of this world. He wants people to sit down and see this is not a joke. I have a lot of faith that it will come to be even though it won’t be easy.
We have to be an active force for good, and to continue to work at it. What BA says about the system—we do need to make a better system and make it better for everybody. It has to be changed completely.
Bob Avakian doesnt have a whole lot of religion. But it is about intelligent, scientific facts. The future society will be better because of BA and Basics. That Basics book is a good book. (It would be nice if the print was bigger.)
There is a separate issue here about getting the message out. Sometimes you can’t really advertise what you are doing, but you have to speak out about how your rights and freedoms are being taken away from you. About how you are being demoralized. This is America, you are supposed to be able to express what you believe. It’s supposed to be a free society but its not. People need to be part of bringing about the basic changes, and understanding the system. From the point of view of “I want to do better and life will be better”. Standing out, talking about it will get people interested. They have to be shown that it’s good.
I believe people’s hearts are in the right place with this revolution and they are trying to do good. If you step into it with a small group, step into it more and you’ll get more accomplished. Most people don’t realize that it is attempting to make a whole new, better world. Most people are not getting a chance to see the good that it is. Get the word out in society. Make it as free as possible to get in the hands of the poor. It takes a lot of money but it needs to be accessible. Revolution on the dot-com, revolution on the shirts and on the hats. I want a emblem to put on my shirt. The bookstore is a good thing. Concentrate on the small booklets and papers that can get around.
Other organizations and leaders may say that you can cooperate with this system. You can’t cooperate with this system and get nothing done. Other groups may bring out the history, but this group is getting out a plan to change the world. Others might have religion intermixed in it. The only thing about religion is to try to shape and & mold people, it is not for change, it’s a faith. But there is no religion here, with this revolution. It is a science, to bring out the things that need to be brought out, to stop genocide and all the trouble on the people.
I am a middle aged Black man who is struggling with poverty and health issues. My relatives were active in the struggle for many years, before I was born it gone on. They had a bookstore in my house with books on communism, socialism. About Emmet Till. It was hard to find those books at the time. I come to realize something is not right with this system, but then I learned when you pursue it there are those who don’t want to discuss it. You go thru a lot of changes when you open up about it, you get more than you bargained for. People want you to understand they don’t like it.
There are games played on you to try to box you in. Trying to keep you from being able to go to the meetings, to where you will have no effect. There is only so much you can do from your room. There are those who don’t want you to get organized, to get people together.
Some people say “you better not talk about it, you might not get your money”. You have to clear up your love for the system to get where you will be able to be free. Tell the truth. Try to express it and keep it going. Don’t let the poverty, the demoralization, or any of these things stop you. They may try to work on you on the sly. I call it the “hush tactics”. People may say, “let that stuff go, it’s nuttin but trouble for you.” They may try to fight it down and keep it from being expressed. If you want to be successful, you can’t let that kind of stuff go down.
I agree the new world will have some problems, but society needs saving. People might think revolution is detrimental, but that’s not true. They might say everything’s going to be all right, don’t worry. Try to act like they looking out for your betterment. But they are not. Take Afghanistan: it wasn’t no real danger to us. But they drummed it up to get this thing going, to try to get it so you cant say or do anything. That’s the way it go with this system.
USA needs to be strong for revolution. Let the revolution come on out. If it is good, let the people know, don’t hogtie it. I like the idea and do what I can. We are not in this business to be liked, it’s in the business of telling the truth, seeing the right way forward. You know it’s one of the best. We got a long way to go. We gotta keep our people free. This system will do wrong for the people. Stick with it, don’t give up.
– Professor Jr.
Revolution,
For many international students like me, because they are in college does not mean they live well. We have seen how the globalization of the imperialists has caused a lot of problems for the world, and for China.
What I see in the US, thinking about the quote from Basics, about the prisoners and those abandoned in society, I have seen a lot of poor people who have to work very hard. I work in a campus restaurant and I know a student who works many hours because he lives and eats on campus and the rent, the cost is very high. I am 21 so I can live off campus and it is less expensive. For those who live on campus here it costs a lot and it is very hard for the poorer students. I have seen a lot of Black people here that are actually very poor. This society is not equal.
It is very important that we have to unite together. Today. Because of the process of globalization in the third world. People in the US and those in the world, poor people and others must be united together for revolution. We have a lot of people, those who are poor and oppressed, but we are not united. The ruling imperialists, they do not have a lot of people, but they are united.
People must realize the cost of globalization on humanity, the problems brought upon the people. If we continue and do nothing, this situation will soon become very very bad. We need revolution.
The U.S. is already bankrupt. But it is not shut down because imperialism invades the third world and grabs the fortunes for the U.S.
Realize the situation. For some students, the situation is not so bad. I want to talk to the students about this, to talk about the truth of what is happening in the world and the U.S.–but they also have to realize it themselves. They may think they live well because they are in college, they may think “right now I am fine”. But they can’t ignore what is going on for long because these problems are all throughout society, and they are part of that, so in a way they are already involved. When the situation gets worse, things will be worse for them too.
Students, people in the US need to know that this is their own government that is responsible. Some may think that people in the third world and other countries hate the people in the US. But what they hate is imperialism. People need to understand how bad are the things that imperialism has done to people of the world. For example, in Iraq and other countries, they have lost their families and their lives.
This is why it is so important for people to really understand and be part of revolution.
– From a Chinese student attending college in the U.S.
This is a statement from a Black 80-year-old minister in Detroit. She is part of a church in one of the most run down sections of Detroit.
This whole system is b…s… If you look at the Congress and Senate, they don’t care about people. They don’t know what people are thinking because first of all they don’t give the people an opportunity to speak. They don’t know how angry people are.
The Democrats and the Republicans are both bad, but look at the Tea Party; they want to take even more from the poor. Now they have a black man who’s running for something as part of the Tea Party. But that doesn’t change anything, it doesn’t fool anyone. They’re nothing but racists.
They think because you’re old you’re stupid. They think because you’re poor and black you’re stupid. They’re going after the poor; they’re taking things away from them.
If you want to get biblical, the bible says that you can’t ride on the backs of the poor. That destroys a nation. You need to be alert to what’s going on and if you watch world news you see that the US is going down, down, down.
You have a Revolutionary Communist Party that wants to change things and the government and the rich want to kill them. But the Party is right, Basics is right and Bob Avakian is right. They have the right solution, they have the right plan, and they have the right ideology.
People who were active with the Party years ago don’t forget what they learned. You may not see them for a long time, but they remember the concepts. But more people need to learn too.
A Black Minister
Poem in response to 3:16 – translated from Spanish
The Voice of Conscious Rebellion
Empire of capital, Civilization, Development
Security, Modernization
“please don’t kill me!!!”
Misery, hunger, death
humiliation, desperation, migration,
crime, drug addiction.
We’re very sorry but you are fired.
Hands up you’re under arrest.
You have 30 days to vacate the property
You are a criminal for crossing the border.
Please give me some money so I can get something to eat.
The honorable court sentences you to...
You can’t change the world so enjoy yourself
Don’t ask questions just follow the rules
Everything you say can and will be used against you
If you work hard and get an education one day you can be somebody.
If there’s nothing in it for you, don’t get involved.
This is not a murder it’s an execution (by firing squad).
Women are to blame for the fall of men
This is the best we can achieve
May god judge and protect them
Join the army and serve your country.
The United States defends humanity.
Only girls cry.
WAKE UP, GET UP AND REACT
Hypocrisy, lies, consumerism, selfishness, manipulation
Expansionism marked by blood and oppression
No borders, no humiliation, no exploitation, no creeds or religion
Struggle, respect, organization, liberty, dignity, emancipation
One...two...three... REVOLUTION
Down with the damn system, BASICS THREE SIXTEEN
Spread the word and long live the REVOLUTION...!!!
Letter to be submitted for your special october issue
The quote from Bob Avakian really pertains to me. I know perfectly well what it's like to be considered of no value in our society. As a post op transsexual woman, I have sufffered in so many ways. Transitioning to womanhood, I lost my job, most of my friends and most of my family. Even now, when going in a store or restaurant, I never know if someone will shout obscenities at me. I have even had teenagers call me vile names just because I'm a transsexual. I used to fall into the trap of voting democrat. But I now will never vote for any political party. This world needs to be transformed by a true revolution. Two of my transsexual women friends have had hate crimes committed against them. One was in a coma for weeks and not expected to live. But she did live. It is insane that people are harmed just because of their sex, race, sexual orientation, gender expression, financial state or being differently abled. As a vegetarian, I know that it is immoral for humans to eat the flesh of a murdered animal, use household products beauty products tested on animals, and using fur and leather. We two legs should not be harming and killing other animal life. Bob Avakian has my admiration and respect. He is trying to create a world free of misery, poverty, war and violence. TRANSPOWER NOW!!! REVOLUTION NOW!!!
“Because we the people have been lied to by every elected official that has taken office Obama including. The people who have this belief that the government process works, you just have to get the right person in office, and so far from the beginning of this process we the people of the whole world have been lied to by them all. We are in great danger and must come to realize this. Nothing RIGHT for the people has come from this voting process for the vast majority of the people. Between religion and politics we have become stuck in slavery again looking for a leader to give us something better. If any of that worked millions wouldn't be homeless and in jail. The book Basics is a very reality call to all the horrible things that the people are forced to live under. For me to sum it all up I go to BAsics, Making Revolution, #10 from the writings “The Coming Civil War and Repolarization for Revolution in the present Era.” It is time for the people to Get, Read and Talk about the Book BAsics and ask yourself, “Do I/we want our children living in a world like this, fighting the same battles that we and our ancestors have already fought for?” Come on, my People, Let’s Get Down With the BASICS.
NICHOLAS HEYWARD
From an ex-Black Panther
Bob Avakian has said: “Raise your sights above the degradation and madness, the muck and demoralization, above the individual battle...” I would add: Join the Revolution. Because it is only during your involvement in the revolution will you arrive at knowing that as a human being you are the most valued entity in the universe and that it’s alright to love yourself, that contrary to what you have been told, you are an intelligent person, that being a revolutionary means you are courageous and decisive. Responding positively to Bob Avakian’s appeal, you would have accomplished a major task: one, you would have saved yourself and you would be significantly contributing to saving humanity. Bob Avakian is a good person!
Hi Revolution:
This quote really spoke to me because it points a way out of this madness and hell that this system has millions and millions of people in, around the world as well as here in the belly of the beast. Every day, I am enraged by fresh outrages of this system—whether it is the lynching of Troy Davis or hearing of a young child in Pakistan die from a drone attack or hearing about another person in this country dying from lack of healthcare or housing- basic human needs. But, being enraged is NOT enough because then you can become paralyzed and then demoralized by it.
There is a way out—and there is a leader—Bob Avakian who has pointed out that revolution and Communism is not only necessary and possible. That people do need to resist this system and all of its outrages and fight to bring into being a whole different way of living for humanity and the planet. The fight to stop the legal lynching of Troy Davis has shocked thousands and thousands of people into political life and to step forward and say, "No, this is intolerable". That a mask of legitimacy is being torn off the face of this system. That "Black faces in high places" are turning out to be just as vicious and illegitimate as the rest of the ruling class—ie: Obama, Clarence Thomas, Eric Holder—all coldly go on committing crimes on behalf of a vicious system against millions of people. It is harder for this system to talk about "humanitarianism, justice and democracy" when it carries out such acts. Three years ago, many people looked to the war criminal ,Barak Obama with hope. Now many of these people are disillusioned and paralyzed—but it doesn't have to be that way. It is up to us to show the world that things can be different.
Look at the prisoners hunger strikers in California—their struggle for their humanity has also inspired people to step forward. For prisoners who have been reading Revolution and Bob Avakian and learning about why the world doesn't have to be the way it is—and that there is a way out this madness—this is all very inspiring. That this shows that people who were caught up in street crap and just concerned about survival can look at the bigger picture and begin to transform the world and themselves. This sort of transformation has happened before. In revolutionary China, the revolution healed millions of people who were drug addicts and prostitutes and gave them a chance of a different future. That these people were given medical treatment, were told that an oppressive system dragged them down to the bottom, but they did not have to live that way. Many of them became part of the new society—working and making a contribution to the revolution as full human beings. Some even became revolutionaries themselves and fought to forward the revolution to the best of their ability. So, it is possible for people to transform themselves and bring forth a future that is worth fighting for—to emancipate all of humanity."
9-10-11
We the People
Are you tired of the hands that hold you down? The illegal searches and seizures? Being stripped of your rights and dignity? Being thrown in jail by any means necessary? Being isolated by your lot in life to be targets of rogue police brutality?
Being charged with crimes with little hope of proper investigation and representation?
Being incarcerated at much higher rates than the general population?
??Who commit similar crimes?
—Babies not having fathers and mothers around? Being disenfranchised and having little chance of getting a living wage job? Keep hearing the same reply.
—You’re a convicted felon. Families being torn apart and the cycle continues.
Something is broken—Could it be the system?
A generation without hope. When will the people unite and say “no more”?
I wanted to comment on the appeal made by Bob Avakian, to "those the system has cast off." When I look around in my community, I see the end result of a system that seeks to keep people so distracted and disoriented that they are unable to see what is really going on. This limited vision works to maintain the status quo. But those of us who are in the belly of the beast see the workings of the system in a way that many of us have yet to experience. While many people may initially disbelieve that a system could be so corrupt, so unjust, many of us who have lived through it can bring the truth to light. There is nothing like life experience. So while many in this country chose to hide behind rose-colored glasses, spouting out the lies we've been told, there is another group that has a lived experience with which to counter the endless propaganda.
We need those voices. We need to hear the real deal! Enough of the parroted propaganda. Actually, the lived experiences of those in the belly of the beast should be our guiding light informing us, challenging us, and pushing us. It is their experience that reveals the exact nature of this system.
Millions of children will be born this year. If they are Black, Latino, or poor their future is grim. Because they are of the group that has the greatest revolutionary potential, this system has them marked, to be silenced, contained, destroyed. We must find a way to demonstrate this truth: that this system is looking for even more ways to silence them; more ways to contain them; more ways to destroy them. If we are able to demonstrate this, we have a real chance at making real progress toward revolution. Those who have felt the boot of this system upon their necks are the best situated to share this reality with others.
One of the best strategies this system has used is its emphasis upon the individual. The focus upon the individual is hailed as an american virtue. Yet we all know that there is strength in numbers. Individually, we are more easily subdued. Only a system that seeks to keep us weak would program its members to live individualism as an ideal. When you couple this "ideal" with the constant focus upon competition, you see a peculiar recipe. This system wants us to "compete" with each other. As one individual competes (or fights) with another, both fail to see how the system is manipulating both. With unity, we could focus our energies on assessing what is going on. Trying to out-do each other leaves us forever chasing our tails and always focused on the wrong objectives. Certainly, no one lives with the consequences of these strategies more than those of us most victimized by this system.
For those of us who have been cast out, we need you. Your life experience makes you uniquely qualified to help others see that they are being played by this system. Your voice has an authenticity that many of us lack. Those millions of children born this year need to know that this system is working every day to silence them, contain them, and destroy them. The next Fred Hampton, Bobby Seale, or Huey P. Newton that is born needs to be told the truth about this system. And there is none who can deliver that message as powerfully as YOU!!!
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