What Is It Actually Going to Take to Stop This War on Women?
August 18, 2013 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
The following is a speech from a member of a Revolution Club at the August 3 rally for Abortion on Demand and Without Apology in Fargo, North Dakota, as part of the Abortion Rights Freedom Ride.
So as we have been out here on this Abortion Rights Freedom Ride, some people have said, "Abortion is controversial enough, why you gotta bring in revolution and communism?"
And the question we have to pose back to people is, "Well, what is it actually going to take to stop this war on women, and ultimately bring to an end all the horrors of the system under which we live, that system being capitalism-imperialism?"
This country was founded on genocide of the native peoples and the enslavement of Black people. It has always been might equals right and, as far as the first European settlers were concerned, right meant Christianity, patriarchy, and white supremacy.
When you get right down to it, none of these things have fundamentally changed. As people began to raise their sights in the 1960s, all of these things were deeply challenged, and this system was recognized for its illegitimacy. Black people, Puerto Ricans, and native peoples were no longer going to accept criminalization, police brutality, and basic rights being stripped away as a routine way of life. Queer people were no longer going to accept the confines of gender and the idea that their lifestyle was not worthy of respect or compassion. And women were no longer going to accept their predetermined role in society as docile wives and breeders. They were no longer going to accept having to risk their lives in order to control their reproduction.
Revolution was in the air. At the time, China was in the middle of a revolution and groups in the U.S. such as the Black Panthers looked to this for inspiration and insight on how to make revolution in the U.S.
And so we are here today, 40+ years later, and we are still fighting because the movements of the '60s and '70s did not go far enough. Revolution was not made and we are now facing the backlash. Don't get me wrong, incredible gains were made during this time, consciousness was raised, and this system was rocked to its core. So much so that the state felt it necessary to step in, take out leaders, and then blame the people for all the chaos that followed. The push for a return to tradition and further criminalization of oppressed nationalities ensued, and so today we see it in the manifestation of the war on drugs, mass incarceration, and the fight to control women's reproduction.
When you really look at what is happening here and all over the world, that the stakes have never been higher, it is easy to understand why people need to be out fighting for what is right. But all too often, people get demoralized by what they are told about revolution and do not believe it could actually happen in a country like this.
But people don't realize, that there is a party that was forged during this revolutionary time in the '60s that never gave up on revolution and that created a strategy of how we could actually make a revolution in this country, because it IS going to take a revolution and nothing less to end the horrors that this system creates and perpetuates. People who are serious about ending the horrific oppression of people here and all over the world need to get into this and can do so by digging into the work of the Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, Bob Avakian, who has worked tirelessly over the past 40+ years on developing this new synthesis of communism, because he has looked at past revolutions, analyzed their gains and their shortcomings, and developed a strategy that could work today, even in a country like this.
I am a part of the Revolution Club, which is carrying out the strategy of Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution, and this Abortion Rights Freedom Ride is part of that as well, because this system, cannot do without the oppression of women; it is why we are in the situation we are in today, and it is why it is going to take a revolution and nothing less to bring this to an end.
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