The Source of Hope Within the Madness
The month’s events have been relentless.
First, on May 2, word leaks out that the fascists on the Supreme Court are moving to rip away the right of abortion. The Democrats “answer” with meaningless and futile gestures of opposition—a bill that they knew in advance would fail, accompanied by calls to vote against the Republicans in November—designed to do nothing more than get people under their sway and out of the streets while this right is ripped away in front of our eyes.
Then came Buffalo, and the carnage of a white supremacist who plotted, armed himself, and drove 200 miles to murder 10 Black people who were just out shopping for groceries on a Saturday afternoon in the spring.
Which was followed last week by Uvalde, where children were so cruelly and senselessly cut down… while police cowered in the hallways of the school. Coming on top of everything else, this set loose a wave of helplessness, despair and anger that swept through decent people around the country.
Meanwhile, there were the bills being hammered into law by the Republi-fascists in state after state. Not just the fascist anti-abortion bills, one more punishing than the next, being rammed through the states in the expectation that Roe will soon be overturned. But also the bills to make it harder for Black and other “minority” people to vote and to overturn and disqualify it if they “vote wrongly” in the eyes of the fascists; the bills to persecute and prosecute transgender teens and their parents; the bills to forbid teachers from teaching Black history or anything else that reveals the ugly truths about America; the bills to overturn the pitiful environmental safeguards and regulations now in place… one fascist bill after another being rushed through state legislatures every month, every week.
Yes, the situation can feel relentlessly agonizing. But if the causes are confronted and deeply analyzed, and a course of action put forward based on that understanding, then the agony can be ended.
And the causes of that agony are confronted and analyzed, and the way out of it is deeply set forth, in “Something Terrible, Or Something Truly Emancipating: Profound Crisis, Deepening Divisions, The Looming Possibility Of Civil War—And The Revolution That Is Urgently Needed. A Necessary Foundation, A Basic Roadmap For This Revolution,” the recent and extremely important talk from Bob Avakian (BA) that we highlight on this website every week. BA writes:
…As is becoming more clear every day, there are deep, and continually deepening, divisions not only in this country overall but among the ruling powers of this system. And, as I will get into more fully in a little while, one part of those ruling powers, represented by the Republican Party, no longer believes in or feels bound by what have been the “cohering norms” of “democratic” capitalist rule in this country. This is leading, and will increasingly lead, to further, deepening divisions and bitter clashes throughout society, as well as “at the top.” All the ruling institutions of this system will be increasingly affected by this. The polarization will continue to sharpen, with forces grouped around and led by the Republican Party becoming even more aggressive in insisting on imposing, including by violent means, their vision of what “makes America great,” with all the very real horrors, on top of horrors, that this involves.
All this in itself will have contradictory effects—some definitely negative, but some positive, or with positive potential. And, as this unfolds, this profound truth will be more and more forcefully demonstrated: The crisis and deep divisions in society can only be resolved through radical means, of one kind or another—either radically reactionary, murderously oppressive and destructive means or radically emancipating revolutionary means.
With all this, what is urgently needed, what is possible—and what must be actively, tirelessly worked for, in order for there to truly be a positive outcome to all this—is a fundamentally different alignment in the country as a whole: a Repolarization that is favorable for, and brings forward the necessary forces for, Revolution—a real revolution to overthrow this system, and bring into being a radically different and much better system.
This website is part of the work to bring forward, through tremendous struggle, those radically emancipating revolutionary means. It is part of the work to effect that repolarization. This website struggles with you to question and to change how you are thinking, to face and then go deeper into the reality, to break with the ways of thinking that keep you from seeing the need to act, the possibility to act, the way to act to fundamentally change the future that looms, to bring something truly beautiful out of it. Along with using this website as a resource and tool, we strongly encourage you to tune in each week to The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show on youtube and to watch this with others, and to connect with the @TheRevcoms on social media.
Right now, we revcoms are involved with many others in an all-out fight to prevent a monstrous horror from happening—the ripping away of the right to abortion and the perverse enslavement through forced motherhood of one-half of humanity, women. At the same time, the move to rip this right away is not separate from but is an integral part of the radically reactionary remaking of society these fascists aim to consolidate, referred to above; indeed, it is a battering ram of that movement. These past few weeks BA has written major articles on this: “The Supreme Court Moves to End Abortion Rights: ‘Taking to the Streets,’ And Refusing to Let This Go Down. Bob Avakian Speaks to This Critical Juncture in the Fight for Abortion Rights, the Road Forward, and Avoiding Dead Ends” lays out important orientation for fighting to actually defeat this attack, despite the “odds” against it. And just this past week. we posted his new piece, “THE CRUCIAL FIGHT FOR ABORTION RIGHTS AND ENDING ALL OPPRESSION: Broad Unity and Necessary Struggle,” which not only digs further into controversial questions in the fight right now but also, very importantly, goes into the real relation of this battle to ending all oppression. If you are not getting into and sharing what BA is saying on this, you are depriving yourself—and ultimately others—of crucial understanding and important direction! This issue, we also cover this battle itself—including with videos, photos and accounts of this past week’s activity; an important clip from The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show on YouTube on this; and Sunsara Taylor’s speech this past Thursday (watch / read).
This issue of Revolution also speaks to the horrific massacre of 19 schoolchildren and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas—a monstrous crime that also enters into the larger dynamic laid out above. Our coverage includes our statement in the immediate aftermath of this and three newer pieces: "What Got Revealed When the Uvalde Pigs Stood by as the Children Cried Out for Help?," "You Are Heartsick About Buffalo and Uvalde--and Your Solution Is to Vote Democratic? What Is WRONG with That Picture?", and a report from a comrade who distributed last Thursday’s statement from the revcoms at a demonstration in Texas against a convention of the National Rifle Association, a convention rife with fascists from Trump on down. We have coverage, as well, on the catastrophic heat waves now holding India and Pakistan in their grip, and more besides (see below for full listing of this week’s articles). And given that we post on “Memorial Day,” when the government shuts down to honor those who have killed and died to maintain and defend this criminal system, we are running again a feature that gives just a small sense of the true scope of the crimes that are being memorialized on this “holiday.”
But to return to where we began: these articles are featured in the context of what this site has given main emphasis to every week for these past months, which is BA’s talk, “SOMETHING TERRIBLE, OR SOMETHING TRULY EMANCIPATING: Profound Crisis, Deepening Divisions, The Looming Possibility Of Civil War—And The Revolution That Is Urgently Needed.”
That talk lays out the “necessary foundation and basic roadmap” for this revolution—why this is happening and how we have to move, quickly, to wrest something positive out of the onrushing madness. And in BA’s new interview, there are concrete answers to some of the most life-and-death and literally existential questions humanity faces—climate catastrophe, massive immigration, the relationship between the division of society into classes and the many particular forms of oppression that different sections of people face. This interview gives you a concrete sense to the kind of future we could truly have… the kind of ways humanity could go to work on these burning questions… IF we take up this scientific approach to understanding and transforming society, if we dare to draw and act on the necessary conclusions, and if, in the face of what appear to be daunting “odds” today, we actually go forward to mobilize millions to make the revolution humanity so urgently requires.
If you have never read “Something Terrible, OR Something Truly Emancipating,” and you care about the future, what is holding you back? And if you have read it, now is the time to return to it, to dig deeper, to talk about it… and to apply it.
In this issue:
* The fight for abortion rights
- From Bob Avakian: The Supreme Court Moves to End Abortion Rights: ‘Taking to the Streets,’ And Refusing to Let This Go Down. Bob Avakian Speaks to This Critical Juncture in the Fight for Abortion Rights, the Road Forward, and Avoiding Dead Ends;
- THE CRUCIAL FIGHT FOR ABORTION RIGHTS AND ENDING ALL OPPRESSION: Broad Unity and Necessary Struggle
- Sights and sounds from Thursday, May 26 actions around the country in response to Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights call for “no business as usual”
- "Don't Be A Bystander to Female Enslavement: STOP THE SUPREME COURT FROM ENDING ABORTION RIGHTS!"
Sunsara Taylor's presentation to the RiseUp4AbortionRights National Organizing Zoom Summit on May 29, 2022 - Featured segment from the latest episode of The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show
- Sunsara Taylor speech at Union Square, NYC, rally, May 26 (watch / read)
* Uvalde
- From Buffalo to Uvalde: To Those in Agony at the Insanity They Call America
- What Got Revealed When the Uvalde Pigs Stood By While Children Cried Out For Help?
- Getting Out “The Insanity That Is America” at a Protest at the National Rifle Association Convention
- You Are Heartsick About Buffalo and Uvalde—and Your Solution Is to Vote Democratic? What Is WRONG with That Picture?
* Important recent articles from Bob Avakian
- Working with Black Panthers, Working for Revolution—Not “Woke Identity” Bullshit
- Interview with Bob Avakian
- The War in Ukraine and the Interests of Humanity: A Scientific Revolutionary Approach Vs. Harmful Confusion and Chauvinist Delusion. Bob Avakian Responds to People Who Should Know Better (and Maybe Once Did)
- Ukraine: World War 3 Is the Real Danger, Not a Repeat of World War 2
* South Asian Heat Wave: Dangerously Close to Limit for Human Survivability, by Environmental Writing Group, Revcom.us
* This Memorial Day, Imagine a World Without America, and Everything It Stands For
* Supreme Court to Wrongfully Convicted: “F* you—you should be executed even if you are innocent”