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In Loving Memory of Lauri Carleton and Rage at Her Murder

Lauri Carleton, murdered by a Christian fascist for displaying pride flag

 

Lauri Carleton, murdered by a Christian fascist for displaying pride flag    Photo: Twitter/@bridgeteverett

On August 18, 66-year-old Laura Carleton, called “Lauri” by friends and community and known for her life-long passion for fashion and her generosity and care for others, was shot and killed in Lake Arrowhead, CA. We don’t yet know all the details, but  since Lauri opened her shop in 2021, the pride flag that she displayed in front of her store had been a target of vandalism and taunts that Lauri never backed down from. The shooting that resulted in her death was carried out by a man who was disparaging Lauri and the LGBTQ flag.

The murder of Lauri Carleton is heartbreaking and outrageous! It is an intolerable result of a nationally coordinated fascist movement: Republican legislatures passing hundreds of laws attacking LGBTQ people; school boards introducing and passing policies to vilify LGBTQ youth; campaigns to “eradicate” LGBTQ people from public life. All this is whipping up fascists, religious fundamentalists, and deranged lunatics who feel justified in terrorizing and even murdering people.

Peoples' tributes outside Lauri Caroleton's shop

 

Peoples' tributes outside Lauri Carleton's shop   

It’s time people really wake up to the reality that the Republican Party is now a fully fascist party that intends to impose its genocidal, white supremacist, male supremacist, xenophobic, theocratic, divorced-from-reality insanity over the whole of society. This is a country  that has not been this deeply divided since the Civil War, with those who have ruled over it for so long in a unified way—no longer able to.

Radical change is coming. It’s going to be murderously oppressive, or we wrench a whole different emancipating future for humanity out of the grips of the rule of capitalism—a system of brutal exploitation and murderous oppression.

A whole different way to live is possible! We need, we demand, a whole new way to live, a fundamentally different system. This is not just a dream. In the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, authored by Bob Avakian, ending oppression based on nationality and race, sex and gender—will be the fundamental purpose and goal of a society aiming for the abolition of all exploitation and oppression.

The bridge to that world is revolution, a real revolution to overthrow this system. And the possibility for this revolution is much greater NOW in this time of acute crisis, where the country and the ways it’s been ruled is coming apart.

Now is the time to start working with the revcoms to Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution: involving masses of people in rising up to resist the continuing crimes of this system, and defending people from attacks on their rights and their lives by racist, women-hating and anti-LGBTQ thugs, in and out of government... as part of building up forces for, and re-aligning society for, a real revolution to end this capitalist system that is a threat not just to the humanity of LGBTQ people but to humanity the world over.

Lauri was an example of someone who stood with LGBTQ people even as she herself wasn’t a member of the LGBTQ community; she cared about others, not just herself. This is a call for everyone who refuses to live in a world where people are under attack, to get with this revolution. To fight for a world that really is worth fighting for, to not allow future generations to be condemned to the same or worse, if they even have a future at all. This is the time to find your courage and conviction to stand up and not allow another person’s life to be cut short because of these fascist attacks, as part of bringing into being a truly emancipating future.

DONATE to revcom.us
DONATE to the revolution.

From the genocide in Gaza, to the growing threat of world war between nuclear powers, to escalating environmental devastation… the capitalist-imperialist system ruling over us is a horror for billions around the world and is tearing up the fabric of life on earth. Now the all-out battle within the U.S. ruling class, between fascist Republicans and war criminal Democrats, is coming to a head—likely during, or before, the coming elections—ripping society apart unlike anything since the Civil War.

Bob Avakian (BA), revolutionary leader and author of the new communism, has developed a strategy to prepare for and make revolution. He’s scientifically analyzed that this is a rare time when an actual revolution has become more possible, and has laid out the sweeping vision, solid foundation and concrete blueprint for “what comes next,” in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America.

The website revcom.us follows and applies that leadership and is essential to all this. We post new materials from BA and curate his whole body of work. We apply the science he’s developed to analyze and expose every key event in society, every week. Revcom.us posts BA’s timely leadership for the revcoms (revolutionary communists), including his social media posts which break this down for people every week and sometimes more. We act as a guiding and connecting hub for the growing revcom movement nationwide: not just showing what’s being done, but going into what’s right and what’s wrong and rapidly learning—and recruiting new people into what has to be a rapidly growing force.

Put it this way: there will be no revolution unless this website not only “keeps going” but goes up to a whole different level!

So what should you give to make 2024 our year—a year of revolution?
Everything you possibly can!
DONATE NOW to revcom.us and get with BA and the revcoms!

Your donations contribute to:

  • Promotion of BA on social media and the Bob Avakian Interviews on The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show
  • Strengthen revcom.us as an accessible, secure, robust website able to rise to the challenge of meeting the extraordinary demands of navigating the storms and preparing for revolution in this pivotal, unprecedented year
  • Fund revcoms to travel to national “hotspots,” where extreme contradictions are pulling apart the fabric of this country and creating the possibility of wrenching an actual revolution out of this intensifying situation
  • Expand the reach and coverage of revcom.us
  • Printing and distribution of key Revcom materials including the Declaration “WE NEED AND WE DEMAND: A WHOLE NEW WAY TO LIVE, A FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT SYSTEM” and the Proclamation, “WE ARE THE REVCOMS (Revolutionary Communists)