Welcome to The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show. Episode 84 beginning our Third Season—[The RNL Show film crew cheers off camera]. My name is Andy Zee. I’m the host of The RNL Show coming to you from Los Angeles, California.

Since we began this show three years ago we have said that the name of our show is not a mere stance, an edgy title, or a marketing slogan. A REAL REVOLUTION AND NOTHING LESS is what we are about and what we work to bring to you every week.

THIS YEAR, SEASON 3 brings a different beat to our mission and show... a harder and accelerated beat of shaking things up and recruiting for this revolution now in a time that is different than when we began.

Today’s show we begin with what our harder, faster beat is all about... we are going to be on the move this year—in what we say, what we show, what we do and where we are... After this opening presentation with film clips we have put together of the new different changed political situation that is opening up, I am going to speak with my co-host Sunsara Taylor about one of these important changes, and then we are going to feature a segment from the film of a talk by Bob Avakian from which we take our name: BA Speaks: Revolution—Nothing Less!

ADELANTE .... LET’S GO!

This is a rare time—a changed political situation where the rulers of this country are so divided that they can’t even agree on facts. Last week was the first anniversary of a failed first attempt at a coup bringing widespread open talk of the possibility of a second civil war in America. The Republican Fascist party prepares to reseize national power by rigging elections this year and in 2024 or failing that, by violent means. People sense the horrific danger of the future that would bring. Yet, as the revcoms and The RNL Show have been digging into for the past eight months the fact that this situation also contains within it the liberating potential of a political situation where a real revolution to overthrow the oppressive and exploitive capitalist-imperialist system that we live under has become possible. To make this possibility, this responsibility, real is what this third season of The RNL Show dedicates itself to. We are picking up the pace, heading out in the world, recruiting and fighting like hell for the people who need this revolution—all of you watching and millions more to shed illusions and delusions that you can ride this out, to stop looking in the mirror of your selfie and become the people, the force to emancipate humanity.

This system causes tremendous unnecessary suffering all over the world as it is literally destroying the earth and threatening humanity’s very survival.

We live in a moment in history when the ground first rumbles and shakes portending the potential tremor of an earthshaking quake.

In a song, “All Along the Watchtower,” Bob Dylan wrote:

There must be some kind of way outta here
Said the joker to the thief
There's too much confusion
I can't get no relief

Indeed, a third winter of pandemic, the Republi-fascist party abandons the truth in pursuit of a fascist future of unrestrained white supremacy, patriarchy and xenophobia, while brazenly discarding the rule of law—rewriting law and custom, while cancelling and purging all who oppose them while their violent thug wing prepares to impose their rule through open terror...

The Democrats remain relatively paralyzed and impotent—hemmed in, constrained by the reality that it is the same system of capitalism-imperialism, that they preside over and that as a ruling party they must, and they will, defend, that has given rise to this fascism.

Dylan continues in “All Along the Watchtower” with its most famous line:

So let us stop talkin' falsely now
The hour's getting late

In a time of lies and lunacy, danger and unspeakable unnecessary brutal oppression and repression, a time of so much confusion... there is a light in this darkness, there is a road forward to a bright emancipating future for humanity the world over, and that light, that scientific analysis, that strategy for a liberating revolution is now in the work that will frame The RNL Show’s third season, a work for this moment in history from the revolutionary leader and author of the new communism, Bob Avakian:

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

If you do nothing else after you watch this show, go to revcom.us and read this, think about it, then re-read it as if not just your future, but the future, depends on it... because it does. That’s no lie.

Right at the beginning Bob Avakian goes to the heart of the matter:

Here is the heart of the matter: Many people—including someone like Martin Luther King—have argued that attempting to carry out a revolution to overthrow this system is suicidal, particularly for Black people in this country—when, in fact, Black people, and masses of other oppressed and exploited people, profoundly and desperately need this revolution. The reality is that such a revolution can succeed, but this is possible, particularly up against powerful ruling forces, like in this country, only in rare times and circumstances. And here is a very important truth: This is one of those rare times and circumstances.

This rare time must not be wasted, squandered, thrown away. Rather, revolution must be actively prepared for and vigorously, consistently worked for—now, and in an ongoing way—to build up the scientifically oriented and powerfully organized forces for, and to prepare the ground for, this revolution.

There is nothing else that comes close to what Bob Avakian does in SOMETHING TERRIBLE, OR SOMETHING TRULY EMANCIPATING…” This is a framework that gets to the root of the specter, that we have said on this show, that the January 6, 2021 attempted coup at the U.S. Capitol was but a prelude, a dress rehearsal, why a second civil war looms, why and how all of this is a product of the problems that this capitalist-imperialist system confronts in today’s globalized world as well as the particular history of the USA in genocide, white supremacy, and U.S. imperialist domination and exploitation of the Third World.

Others have insightfully described some of these phenomena, but none but Bob Avakian get to the root and on that foundation can even imagine a roadmap beyond the horrors of today and the greater horror to come if we do not act to overthrow this system... I repeat, none but Bob Avakian get to the root and on that foundation can even imagine a roadmap beyond the horrors of today and the greater horror to come if we do not act to overthrow this system.

[Andy Zee continues after film clips on the nature of the problem and the political situation we face:]

SOMETHING TERRIBLE, OR SOMETHING TRULY EMANCIPATING… provides a roadmap for how we need to go about urgently preparing now to bring about the situation where a revolution could be attempted with a real chance of winning. He puts forward the challenge and the task for right now—that he sums up like this:

Everything depends on bringing forward a revolutionary people, from among the most bitterly oppressed, and all parts of society, first in the thousands and then in the millions, as a powerful revolutionary force, organized from the start and consistently with a country-wide perspective, impacting all of society and changing the terms of how masses of people see things and how every institution has to respond. Everything must be focused now on actually bringing forward and organizing this revolutionary force.

Over the coming weeks—starting today—we are going to be bringing reports from the revcoms fighting to bring forward a revolutionary people. Together with all of you getting involved, sending reports, going where things are sharply posed, filming sharp substantive debates over reform vs. revolution, showing the writing of the rebels on the hard and broken-down streets, with as the song says “the words of the prophets written on the tenement walls” as well as in the school and college dorm halls. We are going to be on the move to struggle with daring and resolve.

All of this is for a future that before now people could only dream of, as we wrote on our website, revcom.us:

...all of this must and can be for revolution, nothing less—not another round of the murderous cycle of capitalism-imperialism, in whatever new wrappings it will try to come in, but a whole new world—a socialist system designed to support revolution worldwide and overcome the scars of the past, taking care of the environment and working toward a communist society without exploitation, without oppression of any kind, indeed without any antagonistic conflicts whatsoever between groups of people. That vision is possible—and there is a sweeping vision and concrete blueprint embodied in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, by Bob Avakian where you can see this real alternative… what we must be fighting for in the struggles to come.

Bob Avakian in his New Year’s Statement last year concluded with this:

The road to a better world is not, and will not be, an easy one—this cannot be accomplished without determined struggle and, yes, great sacrifice. But continuing on the current course, under the domination of this system of capitalism-imperialism, means a continuation of the horrors already being perpetrated in the world today, the far worse horrors that are immediately threatening, and the very real existential danger that is increasingly looming.

In the face of the fascist juggernaut that is still threatening and gaining strength, large numbers of us who are deeply sickened and outraged by this, and who aspire to something much better, have raised and rallied to the call that science and truth matter and must be our guide. Let us now be brave enough, and bold enough, to apply this in an unhindered way, determined to seek the truth and follow the truth wherever it leads, overcoming all obstacles to this, including any cherished illusions and ingrained prejudices that run counter to reality and scientifically-established truth. Let us dare to act to make a reality of what science reveals as possible: a radically different and far better world and future for humanity.

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Watch the full opening of Season 3 of The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show featuring important film clips from Bob Avakian’s recent work and a cool TikTok from the Revcoms.