Those who remain stuck in the past—basing themselves on the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, written by slave-owners and capitalist exploiters—will never be able to recognize, and accept, this fundamental truth: This is not the time of rising capitalism, hundreds of years ago, overthrowing and replacing feudal society, which was ruled by kings and other monarchs, and so-called “nobles,” fattening themselves through the exploitation of serfs— powerless poor farmers. This capitalist system that we are now forced to live under has long since developed into a system of international exploitation and oppression— the system of capitalism-imperialism. This system is long outmoded—long past its expiration date, long past any circumstances where it could play any positive role.

And here is the most profound and essential truth in all this: With all the very real horror this has involved, the development of human society, up to and through capitalism, has created the basis for a world without all those horrors. The basis exists now—the technology, knowledge and scientific foundation—to provide a decent and continually enriched life, in an all-around way, for everyone on this earth, without any oppressive divisions among human beings.

And the basis exists for human beings to finally become fit caretakers of the earth as a whole.

The fundamental force preventing this from happening is this system of capitalism-imperialism, which rules in this country and dominates the world. This system treats as the “private property,” of a few, the productive capacity and productive knowledge of human beings, which has been produced through the physical and intellectual labor of masses—of billions—of people. This system is driven by ruthless competition and conflict between different capitalist exploiters and different capitalist countries—leading to the ongoing, accelerating destruction of the environment, and the continual wars, posing a growing danger to the future and the very existence of humanity.

This system has to go—and be replaced by a system based on collective ownership by the people of the productive means that human beings everywhere have created—utilizing this for the benefit of human beings as a whole, now and for future generations: a socialist system, aiming for a communist world where relations of exploitation and oppression, and the culture that goes along with and reinforces those relations, will be eliminated and uprooted, and humanity can truly flourish—with a continually developing scientific approach, building on everything from the past that can contribute to this emancipating future, drawing from the rich diversity of human beings, enabling a flowering of all the people who make up the human race, in the context and on the foundation of cooperation and mutual benefit.

This is not just an impossible dream. It is a real possibility—a possibility that can be made a reality through the revolution that sweeps away the truly monstrous system of capitalism-imperialism and sets humanity on the road to communism.

In previous messages (especially numbers One through Eleven), I have made clear why this communist revolution is urgently necessary, and why and how it is possible—not in some far off future, but right in this time we are living in, now. I have talked about the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, which I have written—setting forth a sweeping vision and concrete blueprint for a radically different and truly emancipating society and world. And I have exposed some really wrong and harmful ways of thinking and acting that stand as big obstacles to bringing about this revolution.

In future messages, I will get into this further, and I will answer lies about communism and speak further to the new communism— a whole new framework for human emancipation—which has been brought forward through work I have carried out over decades, learning from the positive and negative experience of previous communist revolutions and from a broad range of human experience.

For now, I will end with this, drawing from my work Communism and Jeffersonian Democracy:

When we think of what is represented by the communist revolution, and we weigh that against even the most “ideal” expressions of capitalist democracy, we can grasp how communist revolution, and its emancipating goal, represents the struggle for a freedom, for an emancipation of humanity, that is in a whole other dimension beyond what is possible—or is even thought about—by the founders and rulers of capitalist society, or anything else that has existed so far in human history. Grasping this emphasizes the necessity, and should heighten our determination, to struggle through the obstacles that lie in the path of actually bringing this into being.

This has even greater meaning, and immediate importance, now, in this rare time when this revolution is not only urgently necessary but is possible.