To the Youth Who This System Has Cast Off:
This Dialogue Is for You

October 10, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

From an ex-prisoner:

To the youth who this system has cast off and counts for nothing, but who can actually count for a great deal:

The Dialogue on November 15, 2014 between Bob Avakian and Cornel West is for you. This is a conversation between two people who have a deep love for people just like you. With everything that keeps you fucked up and doing fucked up shit to each other, neither one of these two people are willing to turn their back on you.

The main reason I am going to be there is because I want to see Bob Avakian (BA). I feel a strong connection to BA because his writings transformed me. I was caught up in the senseless shit that goes down in the neighborhoods, spent too many years of my life behind prison walls and treated by this system as less than nothing. Through BA, I learned the world doesn’t have to be this way, that we could make a revolution and that we have to start working on that now. Through BA, I learned that even though this system treated me as human waste, I could count for a great deal by being a part of the movement to get rid of that system. BA helped me understand all these complex things I couldn’t understand before, things that used to go right over my head. I recognized in BA a precious leader that we really do need—that his leadership could actually get us out of this shit.

I want to see this Dialogue unfold—the whole conversation, I want to be there as it happens. And I really, really, really want to see BA. It’s a rare opportunity to see BA speak publicly, live and in person.

Bob Avakian is the leader of a group that aims to make a revolution. Yes, a revolution. A physical overthrow of the system that rules over society. That group is the Revolutionary Communist Party and its ranks are filled with people who have stepped up and are down to lead this whole process. From building the movement for revolution today to a future revolutionary situation, when this revolution can fight to go all the way in defeating the repressive forces of the state, not just the police but all the other forces this system will send to crush this, including the army. This will be difficult and it will involve a lot of sacrifice. But they’re not waiting for people to agree that this is a good idea—they have a strategy for revolution and they are calling on you to be a part of this.

Even while people down here are caught up in all kinds of fucked up shit fighting and killing each other, making money from selling drugs to people whose life is even more fucked up than theirs… even with all that, BA and the Party he leads believe that people down here will be the backbone for this revolution because we have nothing to lose and everything to win. It’s the fact that we are all “down here” that we get caught up in this fucked up shit in the first place. That’s why BA and CW (Cornel West) have so much love for people on the bottom of society—even when they are caught up in shit that involves hurting each other. Because BA and CW understand, on different levels, why this shit keeps happening and that we are capable of so much more.

BA especially understands that it will keep happening until people are living under a whole different system—a system that doesn’t treat so many Black and Brown people as less than human, a system that values the lives of people like you, a system that doesn’t allow pigs to keep killing unarmed youth and never paying for the lives they’ve destroyed.

Like I said, this Party isn’t asking anyone permission to stop all this shit. They are building a movement now to seize on the next opportunity this system itself throws up to wage the struggle for power. And they’re out to recruit people just like you.

Revolution and Religion; The Fight for Emancipation and the Role of Religion. This Dialogue is for you and you need to be there. This Dialogue is about freeing people from the fucked up conditions that causes them to be fucked up to each other, and the role of religion in all of that.

BA and the Party he leads are atheists. They don’t believe in god. They don’t think praying to the sky will change anything. They know that no matter how much or how hard mothers, like the mother of Michael Brown or Ezell Ford, pray for their sons to come home safe, there will be pigs ready and willing to pump them full of bullets. BA and the RCP believe that the idea of an imaginary god stands in the way of people fully understanding why shit is so fucked up throughout the world and what people can do to change it. At the same time, they don’t turn their backs or look down on people who believe in a god. And they don’t tell people they can’t be part of making revolution if they hold on to those beliefs. They unite with people all the time who believe in a god as they fight the power while building a movement for revolution.

Cornel West is someone who, coming from his religious and moral beliefs, hates what’s happening to poor people under this system and at the hands of the police. He sharply exposes all kinds of shit that is done to people under this system. He’s passionate about people around the world and has a deep love for the oppressed.

With this Dialogue, people who don’t believe in god, and people who do believe are coming together to say no more to all this oppressive shit. They’re saying, to quote BA, “No more generations of our youth, here and all around the world, whose life is over, whose fate has been sealed, who have been condemned to an early death or a life of misery and brutality, whom the system has destined for oppression and oblivion even before they are born…” Both BA and CW understand that, whether you pray or not, making that “no more” a reality is going to take concrete actions. They understand that it’s going to take millions of people both religious and not religious rising up to change this. And it’s going to take people digging into the biggest questions of how to get free, including ones that will take them out of their comfort zone, challenging them to play a radically different role than they are playing now.

If you’re sick of being dogged and degraded by this system… if you’re sick of seeing young women tricked out as someone’s property… if you’re sick of the pigs having free reign to kill and brutalize unarmed youth… and if you want to see people here and all around the world finally free from this shit… then this Dialogue is for you.

Now is the time for you to raise your head above the day to day bullshit, playing this system’s game with no prospect of ever winning. Get into BA and get ready to hear him in dialogue with Cornel West, get ready to hear him speak directly to you. Set aside the time. Get there, get others there. Be part of raising funds to get this known throughout your neighborhood and across the country. Saturday, November 15, doors open 1:30 pm—be there. This is for you.

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