Statement from Carl Dix, from Charlottesville
August 12, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Groups of white supremacists displaying Confederate flags and white nationalist banners have been roving through Charlottesville all day. They have launched physical attacks on people, and one of them even rammed a car into a crowd of people, killing one person and seriously injuring a number of others. Trump’s response to these horrors was to condemn hatred, bigotry, and violence “on many sides,” and to say we need to love our country, our God, our flag, and our history.
This is double-barreled. This is not about hatred “on all sides,” but about white nationalists glorifying the legacy of the oppression of Black people in this country, and displaying their determination to continue and intensify this oppression.
And love for the country, the flag, and the history of the U.S. is part of what’s being used to weld these reactionary white supremacists into shock troops for the enforcement of fascism in this country. This white supremacist rally was called to prevent a statue of Robert E. Lee, commander of an army that fought to keep slavery in effect, from being removed from a public park. And these white nationalists embraced decades of segregation and lynch mob terror that enforced the subjugation of Black people after slavery was ended. This rally also included celebration of Hitler and all kinds of anti-Jewish poison. This history should not be loved, it needs to be recognized for what it is—a history of savage oppression. It, and the system that spawned it, must be rejected. This history, and the present-day reality, including Trump’s insane threats to bring down “fire and fury, the likes of which the world has never seen” on North Korea, point to the need for an actual revolution, a real fundamental change that brings in a whole different system. And right now these fascists, from Trump down to the white supremacist scum stalking the streets of Charlottesville, are moving quickly to hammer their fascist regime into place. This must be STOPPED, and it’s up to us to STOP it.
What is going on in Charlottesville is a direct outgrowth of the Trump/Pence fascist regime. And it is the outlines of a new civil war in this country. These fascists are serious. And we must wake up and confront them with resistance that is just as serious.
And we need to go from resistance to mobilizing to end the nightmare of the Trump/Pence regime. Right now these fascists, from Trump on down, are moving very quickly to hammer into place their fascist regime and this must be STOPPED. The organization Refuse Fascism has called for people to come into the streets and public squares and cities and towns across the country beginning on November 4 and stay in the streets day after day and night after night until the DEMAND is met: This Nightmare Must End: The Trump/Pence Regime Must GO! For this to happen, everybody needs to be at August 19 regional conferences to organize and mobilize for this.
Beyond that—there is a need to seriously grapple with the whole history of this country and what it has done here and all over the world... the system that has required and enabled all this... and the revolutionary vision and strategy, brought forward by Bob Avakian, for a whole different, and far better, society.
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