The Tour Begins:
Standing Up to Pigs and Trump-Fascists, Spreading Revolution Everywhere

November 14, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

“America Was NEVER Great! Overthrow—Don’t Vote For—This System!”

That’s how the Get Into the Revolution National Organizing Campaign and Tour 2016-2017 kicked off in Chicago and Cleveland in October and November. It was a fierce beginning, right in the midst of intense battles over police terror and social turmoil around the presidential campaign, and then the election of the fascist Donald Trump.

The goal of the year-long Tour is to organize thousands of people across the country into the communist revolution humanity desperately needs to end all oppression.

The Tour is being spearheaded by the Revolution Club and supporters of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (RCP). They’ve been boldly taking the new communism developed by Bob Avakian out to the masses. These revolutionary communists (revcoms for short) are wielding the RCP’s statement “HOW WE CAN WIN—How We Can Really Make Revolution” to build up forces for the time when millions can be led to go for revolution, all-out, with a real chance to win.

Tour organizers say, “Everyone who hungers for a radically different world, free of exploitation and oppression and all the needless suffering caused by this system” should join or support the Tour.

October in Chicago: Standing Up to Pigs, Spreading Revolution

The Tour kicked off on October 18 and focused on Chicago the rest of the month. Chicago is home to many thousands of Black and other oppressed peoples living on some of America’s hardest streets. It’s also home to one of the country’s most prestigious universities.

Chicago is ground zero for some of this system’s ugliest outrages. It’s notorious for naked, racist police brutality and murder, like the 16-shot execution of Laquan McDonald. Not only did the police murder him in cold blood, they confiscated and suppressed video and the whole city up to the highest levels was in on the cover up. Chicago is where Black youth, who this system has vilified, ghettoized, and terrorized have been turned against each other, fighting and killing each other in epidemic numbers, hundreds each year.

For two weeks, the Tour took its message to neighborhoods of the most oppressed as well as college campuses, and organized people to stand up against this system’s crimes. And it brought alive the radically new morality the Revolution Clubs live by and fight for, concentrated in their “Points of Attention.”

The bold breath of revolutionary fresh air was immediately met by outrageous repression by the system and its enforcers, in an attempt to suppress the Tour’s message. On October 22, the National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation, Noche Diaz and three others were arrested for legally marching, even though they had a permit to do so!

On October 26, after taking the Tour’s message to students at the University of Chicago, Noche Diaz was again arrested, violently, as he was peacefully leaving the campus. The University then banned Noche from campus entirely! (Recently three more revcoms have been targeted and arrested during the outpourings against Trump’s election.)

In the face of these attacks, the Revolution Club politically mobilized people and came back stronger. On October, 27, the day after Noche Diaz was arrested at the University of Chicago, students were challenged to “Come Hear What They Are Determined to Suppress” with Carl Dix and Sunsara Taylor in a campus lounge.

The revcoms announced their determination to defy the campus and rally on campus on November 1, and the University newspaper—The Maroon—interviewed Noche about it. When Noche and the revcoms returned to campus on November 1, successfully defying the ban, dozens of students gathered around for an extensive back and forth.

Find out more about the revolution         Find out about BA, the leader of the revolution

A focus for the revcoms was neighborhoods of people hardest hit by the system. Sunsara Taylor reported, wherever the Tour went, it has “connected powerfully with people, inspired and drawn many to checking out and beginning to engage the revolution.”

On October 29, a Get Into the Revolution Organizing Campaign and Tour Rally was held in downtown Chicago at Grant Park to organize people reached and touched by the Tour into the revolution.

Spreading the Revolution and Defending the RNC16 in Cleveland. In November the Tour went to Cleveland to defend notorious flag burner Joey Johnson and the RNC 16 at a November 3 court hearing. The RNC16 are the 16 Revolution Club members who were illegally arrested this summer for burning the American flag at the entrance to the Republican National Convention.

When the RNC 16 showed up at the INjustice Center, all wearing BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! T- shirts and chanting, it was clear this wasn’t going to be business as usual.

After the hearing, a People’s Tribunal put the system on trial outside the Cleveland courthouse. The verdict: “The whole damn system is guilty as hell.”

The next day, revcoms confronted pro-Trump students at Cleveland State. They also prepared to contest any attempts by the Trump-fascists to suppress peoples’ right to vote, even as they spread the Tour’s theme: America Was Never Great! Overthrow—Don’t Vote For—This System. The revcoms understand that, while voting is not the way to end oppression, any attacks on the right of Black and other oppressed people to vote must be fought. The Revolution Club also did this in Phoenix, Arizona, another flashpoint of efforts to suppress non-white voter turnout.

Back to Chicago—Confronting Trump Fascists, Bearing Down on Bringing People Forward

The Get Into the Revolution National Organizing Tour is now back in Chicago.

The Chicago neighborhood of Mount Greenwood became a flashpoint of confrontation between the oppressed and Trump-inspired pigs and fascists. On November 5, at least three off-duty pigs were involved in the murder of a young Black man, Joshua Beal, who was attending his cousin’s funeral. This triggered a racist, lynch-mob frenzy, with gangs of whites gathering and threatening Joshua’s family and gloating over his murder. The revcoms immediately went right into the face of this jeering mob to defend Joshua’s family, condemn his murder, and denounce the fascist pig Trump.

The Tour is also really bearing down on the question of organizing people into the revolution. This means learning how to overcome the obstacles holding people back who have been attracted to, and desperately need the revolution. It means being able to better turn attacks by the enemy into avenues for more people to step forward. And it means wrestling with the big challenge of bringing forward youth, who have such a huge role to play in the emancipation of humanity but who are now caught up in fighting each other, into fighting the system.

Organizers summed up that October and November marked a “real beginning.” Donald Trump’s election poses ominous dangers for humanity, and underscores the urgency of the Tour and its mission.

*****

Contact the Tour at GetIntoTheRevolution@gmail.com to get involved today.

 

For full coverage and the current issue of REVOLUTION click here

Volunteers Needed... for revcom.us and Revolution

Send us your comments.

If you like this article, subscribe, donate to and sustain Revolution newspaper.