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  • ARTICLE:

    BOB AVAKIAN 
    REVOLUTION #115:

    The Trump Fascist Regime Must GoNOW—before it is too late!

    This is Bob Avakian—REVOLUTION—number 115.

    On Sunday April 27, RefuseFascism.org is holding emergency assemblies in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, bringing people together to wrestle with the decisive question of how to stop the Trump fascist regime.  Refuse Fascism is based on the orientation that “In The Name Of Humanity, We Refuse To Accept A Fascist America!”—and, as a concrete expression of that, it has put forward the urgent demand that the Trump fascist regime must go, NOW.

    In this message, I am going to speak to some of the crucial questions relating to this.

    In my message number 112, I stated this fundamental truth very clearly: Trump’s fascist rule, like Hitler’s before him, is a regime of horrors—and is completely illegitimate.

    First of all, no matter how it comes to power, fascism is never “legitimate”: It is never “legitimate” to enforce a lawless dictatorial rule over people, trampling on essential rights, treating whole groups of people as less than human, and targeting vulnerable people for cruel and even murderous persecution.

    In the very first days following his inauguration this January, after officially swearing to uphold the Constitution of the United States, Trump openly defied and trampled on that Constitution: He issued an “Executive Order” that was in direct opposition to the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which establishes that everyone born in this country is a citizen of the country.  This Amendment is not a “policy”—it is part of the Constitution itselfWhen this Amendment was passed, right after the Civil War, one of its most important purposes was to guarantee citizenship to former slaves; and, by its very clear language, this Amendment guarantees citizenship to everyone born in the U.S.

    If Trump wanted to legally and Constitutionally change this—which itself would be a very bad, reactionary move—he could try to do so by following the procedures for amending the Constitution that are set forth in the Constitution itself. But that is just the point: Trump does not recognize any limits to his fascist dictatorship—not the Constitution, and not the laws or the rule of law and due process of law.

    After illegally rounding up legal immigrants who have been convicted of no crime, denying them due process and sending them to a torture-chamber prison in El Salvador, Trump has openly threatened to do the same with citizens of this country. If this Trump regime is allowed to remain in power, no one will be safe from its fascist rule: Whoever Trump decides is an “enemy” will be targeted, with no protection from the law; Black people and other people of color, immigrants, women, LGBT people and others Trump regards as “inferior” and “unworthy” will be subjected to discrimination, oppression, persecution, brutality, and murder, without even the pretense of equality under the law, or equality and rights in any sense.

    Relying on the “normal procedures” and “regular ways of doing things” will not, and cannot, defeat this fascism and put an end to its very real, and continually more extreme, reign of terror.

    If the Republican Party were just “conservative,” Trump, Vance, Rubio and the rest would already have been impeached, convicted and be facing criminal charges for their flagrant violation of the law as well as the Constitution. (Back in the 1970s, when the Republican president Richard Nixon engaged in much less blatant and less extreme violations of the law, he was forced to resign, because it was made clear to him that, if he didn’t resign, Republicans as well as Democrats would vote to impeach and convict him.) But the Republican Party of today is not “conservative”—it is fascist—and that is why it continues to support Trump’s open and aggressive violation of the law and the Constitution, and of the rights that are supposed to be guaranteed under this Constitution.

    The Democrats as a whole are both unable and unwilling to fully recognize and act in line with the understanding that the “norms”—“politics as usual” and the “regular way things are done”—cannot stop this Trump fascist regime, which is determined to defy and trample on these “norms,” including the Constitution and the rule of law it establishes. (Right now, major Democratic Party politicians and operatives are “debating” whether it is necessary and “good politics” to stand up for the rule of law and due process of law, in the face of Trump’s flagrant violations of this! No political force that really cares about the basic rights of the people could “debate” whether it should stand up for those rights!) So, along with the fact that elections in November, 2026 (to say nothing of 2028) would be way too late, especially given the crazed speed with which the Trump fascist regime is moving (and its refusal anyway to recognize the outcome of elections it does not like), relying on the Democratic Party is a recipe for defeat—a terrible defeat that humanity really cannot afford!

    To be clear, as people with the scientifically based understanding that it is this system of capitalism-imperialism that has given rise to this fascism—and that the whole system rests on brutal exploitation, murderous oppression, and massive plunder and destruction of people everywhere, as well as the environment—we revcoms (revolutionary communists) also clearly recognize that the U.S. Constitution establishes the legal basis for the rule of this system, even as it provides for certain rights within the framework of this system. That is why, in the Declaration We Need And We Demand: A Whole New Way To Live, A Fundamentally Different System, we state very clearly that “we need a whole different system, with a whole different Constitution—the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America—which will provide much greater rights for the people, including the basic right to have the fundamentally determining role in a new society and government whose purpose and goal is to eliminate all exploitation and oppression, everywhere.” (This Declaration is available at revcom.us.) We are continuing to work for the revolution which is the most fundamental solution to the madness and atrocity of this system—a revolution which will bring into being the emancipating system envisioned in that Constitution for the New Socialist Republic.

    At the same time, our Declaration also makes very clear: “So long as we are still living under the rule of this system of capitalism-imperialism, we will defend people against attacks on their lives and on the rights that are supposed to be guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution.”

    Right now, facing the fascist juggernaut of the Trump regime, defending the rights that are supposed to be guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution—and defending people who are subjected to lawless violation of those rights by the Trump regime—is all the more crucially important, is really a matter of life and death.  In the most basic terms, this means and requires actually defeating this fascist regime—putting an end to its rule, with its very real, and increasingly undisguised, reign of terror.

    This will require courage and sacrifice for the greater good—the greater good of actually defeating this fascism:  not “looking out for self,” nor retreating into things like “mutual aid” among the opponents and targets of this fascism, something which could contribute to the increasingly massive mobilization that is necessary but cannot substitute for, and must not be adopted instead of, bringing forward that massive mobilization.

    This truly life-and-death fight against fascism requires, and needs to involve, rapidly increasing ranks of people, drawn from all parts of society and all walks of life—including Black people, immigrants, college students and other youth, professionals and government workers, women, LGBT people, and others—all who actually have a profound interest in defeating this fascism:  people with a broad diversity of political views and perspectives, uniting all who can be united and overcoming all “divide and conquer” schemes, in order to bring forward the millions who can be the decisive force in driving out this fascist regime.

    Musicians, prominent people in the arts, and others with a public platform, which can reach masses of people, need to use their voice and platform, now, as a major vehicle contributing to and calling forth the massive mobilization that is urgently required. There can be no excuse for any decent person to stand aside from this critical and urgent fight. Not only is active support for this fascist regime a great crime against humanity, but passive acceptance and silence in the face of this fascist regime amounts to collaboration with it and objectively aiding it. On the positive side, actively building for and taking part in the fight against this fascist regime is a great positive good and profound expression of one’s humanity.

    Even the prominent conservative commentator David Brooks has called for “a comprehensive national civic uprising” against this regime; and Robert Reich (former Secretary of Labor during Bill Clinton’s presidency) has called for a sustained general strike to stop this regime. These, and other ideas and proposals for how to defeat this regime, need to be actively discussed and debated—as part of, and in the context of, the overall and crucial process of moving, with the necessary urgency, to bring forward the massive mobilization that will be decisive in fighting for the critical demand that the Trump fascist regime must gonow!

    This massive mobilization could have a major impact on the dominant institutions of the country, with the possibility of creating conditions that could cause major shifts and “realignments” among them.  This is one way in which the Trump fascist regime could be removed from power.  But, one way or the other, this regime must go—and non-violent but determined, sustained and growing mass mobilization needs to be built, as the bedrock force to bring about this crucial and urgent objective, as soon as possible, before it really is too late.

    In The Name of Humanity, We Refuse To Accept A Fascist America!

    The Trump Fascist Regime Must Go—NOW!

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  • ARTICLE:

    Aiming for a Major Mass Impact with Bob Avakian's Voice Among the Furious Millions

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    Millions of people are being actively and constantly jolted by the moves of the Trump fascist regime—people are shocked, agonized, angry and petrified by how quickly this regime is moving. 

    This is leading to protest, profound questioning and deeply-felt concerns. All of a sudden, millions recognize the whole future is on the line.

    In his social media message Revolution #114, Bob Avakian, the revolutionary leader and author of the new communism, said:

    It is a very good thing that people are mobilizing in large numbers to express their outrage at the heartless and lawless actions of the Trump regime.

    At the same time: It is crucial to have a clear understanding of what the Trump regime actually is, where it is rapidly taking things, why it is urgently necessary to defeat this regime before it is too late—and what is the way that could be done.

    This is what people will find—with sharp clarity, consistency and direction—in the leadership being provided by Bob Avakian (BA).

    Through his social media, BA is providing living, direct and clear-eyed analysis for what we're facing, where it's headed, and what must be done urgently to defeat this fascism—uniting all who can be united. He digs into the roots of this fascism in this system of capitalism-imperialism, struggles against illusions and dead-end paths while seeking to unite all who can be united from different viewpoints and perspectives, and digs into the need and basis for a radically different, and far better, world.

    These recent social media messages have been compiled into a pamphlet from The Bob Avakian Institute (and this is now updated with Bob Avakian's most recent message, Revolution #115, and it has been produced in Spanish). Over the last weeks, volunteers have been distributing these across the country—at protests, farmers markets... wherever people are gathered. This has been important, and they've reached dozens and hundreds. But the situation is rapidly changing and there's a great need and hunger for this understanding to reach people at a much greater scale—in the thousands and thousands, and ultimately millions. To this end, The Bob Avakian Institute is raising funds to be able to distribute this pamphlet en masse—really saturating crowds of people. Ask for donations to cover the printing, but the key is to get these in people's hands.

    The BA Institute has done an initial printing of 30,000 and sent these to volunteers across the country. If you'd like to place a bulk order, reach out to info@TheBobAvakianInstitute.org To make a tax-deductible donation towards this, go to TheBobAvakianInstitute.org.

    This should go hand in hand with what THE REVCOM CORPS For The Emancipation Of Humanity is organizing people to bring into May Day protests nationally, with mass distribution of We Need and We Demand: A Whole New Way to Live, A Fundamentally Different System.

    We are also excited to announce that we received a $3,000 matching challenge donation from a generous donor who said, "There is nothing better I could do with it than contribute it to getting Bob Avakian's voice reaching everywhere." We are aiming to match this by next Monday, May 5! 

    Your contribution will fund an online advertising campaign to reach millions quickly with Bob Avakian's real-time leadership via social media, and it will go to a grassroots on-the-ground movement to spread this.

    In addition to raising funds amidst crowds of people, reach out and ask people widely to give generously. Share this pamphlet and talk with people about the urgent, make-it-or-break-it difference it would make if this was the understanding that was reaching and influencing people widely. Pull groups of people together to dig into these excerpts and to watch clips from The Bob Avakian Interviews, 2025, Humanity Does Not Have to Live This Way. Talk with people about what difference it would make now for people to be raising their sights to, and discussing, a whole different way the world could be. 

    The Campaign to Get @BobAvakianOfficial Everywhere has been doing targeted online advertising and revolutionaries have been on the ground spreading this. But this can't continue without funds.

    Donate. Reach others to donate. 

    The Bob Avakian Interviews, 2025

     

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  • ARTICLE:

    MAGA Fascists Intensify Their War on Immigrants, and Due Process, and the Rule of Law

    The Trump Fascist Regime Must Go NOW!

    For weeks, Trump and his minions have been all-but-openly defying federal court orders, including from the Supreme Court. Court orders not to deport hundreds of Venezuelan and Salvadoran men to a hellish prison in El Salvador—defied! Orders to explain how that happened and who was responsible—defied! Orders to provide some shred of evidence that people deported are actually the “violent gang-members,” “terrorists,” and “invaders” the Trump regime claimed they are—defied! An order from the Supreme Court, the highest court in the U.S. system, to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who the government admitted had been deported by mistake to a Salvadoran prison—defied!

    And there are many more instances, too many to even keep track of. Many relate to immigration, but many other spheres as well, in which Trump is implementing his fascist vision of America and is not about to let the courts get in the way. Just Google “Trump defies court order” and see for yourself!

    In the face of resistance from some courts and judges to Trump’s war on due process and rule of law (see more below), the regime has been doubling down—launching new and more outrageous assaults, racing to consolidate a fully fascist state that will be the engine and guardian of the all-around fascist transformation of society.

    ONE: Now They’re Arresting Judges…

     Supporters of Judge Hannah Dugan protest Judge Hannah Dugan's arrest at the U.S. Courthouse, Milwaukee, April 25, 2025.

     


    Protest against the arrest of Judge Hannah Dugan, U.S. Courthouse, Milwaukee, April 25, 2025.    Photo: AP

    On April 25, the Department of “Justice” (DOJ) arrested Hannah Dugan, a Milwaukee County circuit court judge in Wisconsin. She was arrested very publicly by FBI agents outside the courthouse, preceded by a tweet from FBI director Kash Patel and then later statements from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and press statements from the DOJ denouncing Dugan as “deranged,” “radical” and “shameful.”

    Why was Judge Dugan arrested? According to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), Dugan approached a squad of men (presumably ICE agents) in the hallway outside her courtroom, who intended to arrest Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a Mexican citizen on trial before Judge Dugan. Dugan asked the agents if they had a judicial warrant, signed by a judge. They did not. Instead, they were trying to use an administrative warrant (issued by ICE, not by a court) to make the arrest. 

    Dugan indicated that would not be enough, told them to talk to the chief judge about it, and directed them to his office. DOJ considered that “obstruction.” After Ruiz’s court session was over, Dugan showed him a way out of the courthouse that wouldn’t lead him smack into the arms of the ICE thugs. ICE calls that “concealing an individual to prevent his discovery and arrest.” Ruiz was caught outside the courtroom anyway and is now in ICE detention. 

    But there is more to this than just trying to deport one person. On one level, it is part of the Trump regime’s ongoing attacks on “sanctuary” cities and states—areas under Democratic control that have pledged to minimize cooperation with ICE against their residents. While sanctuary jurisdictions provide only partial protection for immigrants, their existence has created a lot of practical problems for the deportations campaign. And they also promote a whole different ideological stance among people of standing up against oppression. Not only that, the sanctuary jurisdictions stand in the way of what fascists perceive as a need to control the whole of the U.S.—even, and to a degree especially, in those areas in which Trump/MAGA fascism is broadly despised.

    But there is another level, even more ominous. Although most of the judicial opposition to Trump has come from the federal courts (whereas Dugan is a county judge), arresting a judge sends an extremely powerful message to judges at all levels: Get in line with what we are doing, or we are coming for you too.

    TWO: Trump Says Trials Just Get in the Way, Let’s Stop Having Them

    Prison Without Due Process Is A Concentration Camp, sign, April 19, 2025.

     

    Tucson, Arizona    Photo: @ArtCandee

    On April 21, a Trump post on social media had this to say about the most core principle of due process and rule of law, the right to a trial when accused of violating the law:

    We have thousands of people that are ready to go out [i.e., be deported]. And you can't have a trial for all of these people. They emptied out insane asylums into our country.1 We're getting them out. And a judge can't say, no, you have to have a trial.

    And if anyone didn’t get the point, Trump made a similar statement in the Oval Office the next day. Vice President JD Vance, “border czar” Tom Homan and others in the Trump regime have also made similar statements.

    Take a minute to let that sink in: The most powerful official in the U.S., the head of the executive branch whose constitutional responsibility is to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” is openly telling us that trials are intolerable, that they get in the way of carrying out punishment! But the absence of trials means that in Trump-world, “accusation”—by any agent of the state—will equal “guilt.” And, of course “guilt” will bring punishment—including truly horrific punishment, like being sent to torture-camp prisons in El Salvador. 

    Yes, here Trump is “only” talking about depriving non-citizens of their right to due process and a trial. But the exact same logic and outlook applies to citizens. In fact, Trump has already begun talking about deporting “homegrowns”—U.S. citizens that he considers “criminals”—to torture prisons in other countries, as he is already doing to non-citizens.

    THREE: DOJ Says We Don’t Need Warrants to Break into Your Home

    On April 25, a DOJ memo was exposed that instructed federal law enforcement officers that they could enter, without a warrant, the houses of immigrants they allege are gang members, and could deport them from the U.S. without any judicial review. To quote the memo: “a judicial or administrative arrest warrant is not necessary to apprehend a validated Alien Enemy.” And the memo specifies that after being seized in this lawless way, suspects are “not entitled to a hearing before an immigration judge, to an appeal of the removal order to the Board of Immigration Appeals, or to a judicial review of the removal in any court of the United States.” So from start to finish, “suspects” are completely at the mercy of federal agents, and will never set foot inside a courtroom.

    What does DOJ mean by “Alien Enemy”? They are applying—or using as a pretext—the Alien Enemies Act of 1798,2 which says that an immigrant from a country that the U.S. is at war with, or that is “invading” the U.S. can be deported without due process. How do they know if any individual is part of this “invasion”? DOJ has a scorecard which registers tattoos and “gang-style” clothing as “evidence”—and in practice, that has included things like “autism-awareness” tattoos and Michael Jordan sweatshirts!

    Also in the view of these fascists, no judicial review or Congressional approval is necessary—it is up to Trump to decide what nationalities are “alien enemies,” and then it is up to agents under the authority of the executive branch (i.e. Trump) to decide if you, or someone who lives with you, or someone they think might be at your house, is an “invader.” 

    Currently, this law is being wielded against people from Venezuela. Of course, the U.S. is not at war with Venezuela, so Trump’s justification is that a Venezuelan street gang has “invaded” the U.S. Obviously, with this kind of twisted logic, virtually anyone could be accused of being an “enemy alien” and subjected to Gestapo raids, deportation and/or imprisonment.

    FOUR: Racing Towards Fascism

    BobAvakianOfficial - REVOLUTION #115

     

    Bob Avakian (BA) speaks to the essence of this in his social media message Revolution #115

    Trump does not recognize any limits to his fascist dictatorship—not the Constitution, and not the laws or the rule of law and due process of law.

    A number of pundits, commentators and politicians have been pointing to growing protest around this, and especially opinion polls that show support for Trump is dropping, and drawing the conclusion that now Trump will have to back off. (To a large extent this assessment is based on the notion that Republicans are worried about the 2026 election and will “modify” the regime’s actions with that in mind.)

    But the fascists are not waiting for 2026, nor do their plans hinge on having the support of the majority. Instead, as BA says, “This regime is moving with crazed speed to deny and eliminate basic rights for everyone who does not conform to their fascist rule, and to forcibly use the powers of government against anyone they regard as ‘enemies’—terrorizing/disappearing/torturing and silencing any opposition.”

    And that is why the lawless attacks on immigrants and on due process continue to escalate in spite of serious blowback.

    In response to developments like these, Holly Cooper, an expert on immigration law, commented that “it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say this is a life-or-death situation to provide fair procedures for our immigrants and for people who aren't even immigrants who are citizens. Those traditional procedural protections that have demarcated us as a democracy are completely eroding before our eyes.” Cooper also said that she may start advising U.S. citizens to carry ID. 

    Again, take a minute to think about this—we are fast entering a situation where any U.S. citizen who “seems” foreign could be confronted by fascist enforcers demanding “show me your papers”—and with the power to abduct, detain and deport them on the fascists’ say-so. In fact, this has already happened in at least one case—a U.S. citizen was detained by ICE in Florida for 48 hours under a state law making it illegal for undocumented immigrants to cross into the state. He says he repeatedly declared that he was a U.S. citizen, but those detaining him “were just laughing in my face” because he is Spanish-speaking.

    Trump and his regime are moving to hammer fascism into place. And they will continue on this course until they are stopped  through truly mass, determined, defiant, nonviolent resistance from all quarters of society acting behind the unifying demand: The Trump Fascist Regime Must Go—NOW!. There have been some very positive moves and mass sentiment in that direction in recent weeks, but much, much more is to be done—quickly!

    In The Name of Humanity, We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America!

    The Trump Fascist Regime Must Go—NOW!

    _______________

    FOOTNOTES:

    1. This claim is itself absolutely “insane”—and really just amounts to a fact-free way of whipping up hatred of foreign-born people. [back]

    2. The law was used to put 120,000 people of Japanese descent, including citizens and legal residents, in concentration camps during World War 2. [back]

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  • ARTICLE:

    Trump Regime Attacks on Science: Slashing Research, Threatening Scientists, Spreading Dangerous Unscientific “Theories”

    In its first three months in office, the Trump regime has unleashed an all-sided full-on assault against science. Program after program has been cancelled or slashed. Scientists and scientific institutions themselves have been slandered and threatened for refusing to go along with or publish the profoundly anti-scientific lies demanded by the regime. The attack on science both serves their fascist program of unlimited economic plunder and the necessity of the regime to foster an unthinking society. The fascists promote ignorant belief in conspiracy theories, fundamentalist and fanatical religious beliefs, and pseudo-scientific “theories” to “justify” and reinforce racial and gender oppression.

    Here are some of these attacks on science just in the first three months of the Trump fascist regime.

    Stand Up for Science rally at Civic Center Plaza, San Francisco, March 7, 2025.

     

    Stand Up for Science rally at Civic Center Plaza, San Francisco, March 7, 2025.    Photo: AP/SF Chronicle

    ● Defunding major health and science research: The universities are where a lot of important scientific research is conducted in the U.S. This research is in danger because of Trump’s threats of major funding cuts unless universities like Harvard agree to the regime’s fascist demands. So far, Trump has cancelled or frozen $6 billion in research grants and contracts at various universities and may cut even more. On top of that, the National Institutes of Health has slashed at least $2.3 billion in research funding, with the biggest cuts in “the study of infectious diseases, heart and lung ailments, and basic research into fundamental biological systems,” according to the website STAT.

    On March 31, nearly 2,000 doctors, researchers, and scientists—members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine—put out an open letter against the Trump administration’s slashing of funds for science: “The funding cuts are forcing institutions to pause research (including studies of new disease treatments), dismiss faculty, and stop enrolling graduate students—the pipeline for the next generation’s scientists….” The science journal Nature points out that these cuts affect a wide range of research such as “test for lead contamination in water, a project to measure the oldest light in the Universe and a study of heat and drought’s effects on the brain,” among many, many others.

    ● Undermining life-saving vaccines: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., head of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is infamous for his stand against vaccines, which he calls “dangerous.” This flies in the face of the truth that vaccines have helped to wipe out deadly diseases like smallpox, which used to kill millions of people, and polio, which took the lives of 3,000 children and paralyzed many more just in 1952, before the polio vaccine was developed and used widely. During his Senate confirmation hearing, Kennedy claimed that he supported the use of vaccines—but the actions he has taken since as part of the Trump regime show that he was lying.

    Demonstrators march in Cincinnati, Ohio, on April 19, 2025.

     

    Protest in Cincinnati, Ohio,  April 19, 2025, against Trump regime's cuts in funding of science and education as well as actions against immigrants, trans people, and the rule of law.    Photo: AP

    Among other anti-vaccine actions under Kennedy, the HHS halted dozens of scientific research projects related to use of vaccines and reasons people have for being hesitant to receive vaccines; stopped studies for vaccines for future pandemics; shelved a campaign to promote the flu vaccine; cut major funding to states for modernizing childhood immunization programs; and forced the resignation of the top official at the Food and Drug Administration overseeing vaccines.

    ● Spreading misinformation about measles vaccines: Measles is a highly contagious disease that is most common in children. According to Dr. Peter Hotez, a pediatrician and leading expert on viral diseases, “Measles, at one time, was the single leading killer of children globally. And it caused hundreds of deaths annually in the United States in the pre-vaccine era.” Since January of this year, there has been an outbreak of measles in Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico affecting at least 800 people so far. Those affected are mostly children who have not received the measles vaccine. This is the largest single measles outbreak in the U.S. since 2000, when measles was declared “eliminated” in the U.S. because of the vaccine. 

    Kennedy has long pushed the claim that the measles vaccine causes autism—a claim disproven by mountains of scientific evidence. At one point in the current measles outbreak, Kennedy did say that the vaccine is the most effective response. But he has taken actions that actually undermine the vaccine and spread disinformation. He hired someone known for promoting the unscientific claim about the measles vaccine causing autism for a study on that supposed “link.” He has promoted various “alternatives” to vaccines, which have no proven effects against measles or actually could be harmful to a person’s health. Promoting such fake “alternatives” has the effect of pulling people away from the measure scientifically proven as the most effective against measles—the vaccine.

    ● Threatening to prosecute medical journals: Medical journals are an important source of scientific information and advances in different areas of medicine. According to the New York Times, Edward Martin Jr., the interim U.S. attorney in Washington, DC, recently sent threatening letters to at least three medical journals. The letters “accus[ed] them of political bias and ask[ed] a series of probing questions suggesting that the journals mislead readers, suppress opposing viewpoints and are inappropriately swayed by their funders.” 

    The letter sent to the journal Chest (published by the American College of Chest Physicians) accused them of being “partisans in various scientific debates” and demanded answers to a series of questions, such as whether they made sure there was “viewpoint diversity.” (What the MAGA fascists mean by this is not vigorous scientific debate but, for example, giving “equal time” to bogus claims about vaccines causing diseases.) At least two other journals received identically worded letters.

    Kennedy made an even more open threat against medical journals last year before becoming the HHS head: “I’m going to litigate against you under the racketeering laws, under the general tort laws. I’m going to find a way to sue you unless you come up with a plan right now to show how you’re going to start publishing real science…” (Again, what those in the MAGA regime mean by “real science” is whatever serves their fascist program, while science that presents roadblocks to their aims—such as evidence of climate change—is labeled “fake.”)

    ● Viciously attacking people with autism: Aside from promoting the falsehood that autism is caused by vaccines, Kennedy has spread other harmful untruths. He directly contradicted findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that increases in the number of people with autism in past few decades are connected to better screening and diagnosis and access to services. Instead, Kennedy claims that this increase is mainly caused by “environmental toxins” and that autism is an “epidemic” and a “preventable disease.” There is much that is still unknown about the complex causes of autism, but an April 17 statement by leading autism organizations points out about Kennedy’s statements: “Claims that Autism is ‘preventable’ is not supported by scientific consensus and perpetuate stigma. Language framing Autism as a ‘chronic disease,’ a ‘childhood disease’ or ‘epidemic’ distorts public understanding and undermines respect for Autistic people.” The statement also notes: “At the same time, federal proposals to reduce funding for programs like Medicaid, the Department of Education, and the Administration for Community Living threaten the very services that Autistic individuals and their families rely on.”

    And now, Kennedy is starting a national “registry” to gather information from private medical records about people with autism, in the name of “research.” One parent of two children with autism says in an online petition opposing this registry: “[W]hen you strip away the language, you’re left with something chilling: They are building a list. A list of people like my children. A list of autistic individuals—tracked, labeled, and filed under the guise of public health. This is not support. It is surveillance….” A Democratic political strategist wrote, “Let’s be clear: this echoes the darkest chapters of history, when regimes like Nazi Germany used medical registries to target and dehumanize vulnerable populations.” (For more on current scientific understanding of autism, see Democracy Now! interview with Dr. Peter Hotez.)

    ● Shutting down climate science: As part of its fascist program around the environment, the Trump regime is moving to cripple the science of climate change and attack climate scientists—at a time when the world is accelerating toward catastrophe because of global warming. Go here for an article by the Revcom Environmental Writing Group for more on this MAGA fascist assault on climate science and scientists.

    The stakes in this are high. We need more, much more, scientific research as well as broad scientific education among non-scientists if humanity is to deal with the huge challenges now being posed by climate change, pollution and the potential for new pandemics. Science under capitalism—despite what are often heroic and very self-sacrificing efforts of many scientists—is typically warped and held back both by the channeling of scientific resources to military use and to the extraction of greater and greater profit, and by the orientation of the educational system and media to the relentless requirements of a profit-driven capitalist system. 

    To get a sense of what could be possible in a socialist society freeing itself of those chains, go here. Yet the Trump fascist regime “resolves” this contradiction by going after any science or scientific research that contradicts or could potentially call into question its fascist tenets, including the religious fanaticism it relies upon and fosters, and/or that might cut against the overall ignorance of science and the scientific method. The stakes could not be higher.

    BobAvakianOfficial - REVOLUTION #115

     

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  • ARTICLE:

    High-Stakes Battle for Universities, Society, and the Future

    Harvard Stands Firm Against Trump Attacks, Unleashing Broad Support, New Collective Resistance 

    Harvard students and faculty demonstrate for their university, April 17, 2025.

     

    Harvard students and faculty demonstrate for their university, April 17, 2025.    Photo: AP

    The intense battle between Harvard and the Trump/MAGA fascist regime over who will control the university continues to escalate. Very significantly, Harvard is drawing broader and more diverse support, seemingly by the day. 

    The Trump regime has been waging an aggressive campaign against U.S. universities, with Harvard and other elite “Ivy League” schools in the crosshairs. On April 11, the regime sent Harvard a five-page letter demanding they cede control of their internal workings—curriculum, hiring, research, and admissions—to the government. If they didn’t, they would lose their federal funding. 

    On April 14, Harvard became the first university to say No. In a two-page response, Harvard said the demands in the Trump regime’s letter violated the U.S. Constitution and trampled on university prerogatives, or rights, long recognized by the Supreme Court. 

    In a letter to the university, Harvard president Alan Garber wrote, “No government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.”1

    Harvard is the oldest, wealthiest and most prominent university in the U.S. and its defiance galvanized other universities to resist, and gave heart to millions of people. 

    Universities: A Key Battlefront in Trump Drive to Consolidate Fascism and Reshape Society

    Students, faculty and members of Harvard University community protests attacks on academic freedom, April 17, 2025.

     

    Students, faculty and members of Harvard University community protest attacks on academic freedom, April 17, 2025.    Photo: AP

    The fight for control of U.S. colleges and universities is a key battlefront in the fascists’ drive to consolidate power and forcefully lock down and reshape all of society in horrific ways—including how people think and what is even allowed to be taught.2

    Why are the fascists compelled to take on the universities? 

    At their best, universities are bastions of the most important advances of the Enlightenment3, which arose in Europe several centuries ago in opposition to religion’s stranglehold on society. As Bob Avakian has written, “What is essentially involved in this division [between the Christian fascists and those people who are not religious fundamentalists] is the acceptance, or the denial and rejection, of evidence-based rational thought, including the importance of critical thinking, that has, in a broad sense, been the extension of the Enlightenment.”

    This promotion of evidence-based rational thought means that universities can be and have been places where the ideas of the rulers can be subjected to critical analysis and debunking. And this is also a key reason why college campuses have historically been one of the main places where new oppositional ideas and movements arise. This has dramatically been the case with the righteous, ongoing struggle against the U.S.-Israeli genocidal onslaught against Gaza, which has swept at least 140 campuses in nearly all 50 states since October 2023.

    Evidence-based rationality and critical thinking have always been highly contested, even under “normal” bourgeois rule. But with the rise of fascism in the U.S., any semblance of critical thinking is increasingly seen as a threat. 

    Harvard Sues: “The stakes are so high that we have no choice”

    The Trump regime responded to Harvard’s letter rejecting its demands by freezing $2.2 billion in federal funds, and it was reportedly planning to cut another $1 billion

    Harvard again responded with defiance. On April 21, it sued nine Trump regime agencies involved in the cuts4 for undertaking an arbitrary and unconstitutional campaign to “punish Harvard for protecting its constitutional rights.” 

    The lawsuit demanded that Harvard’s federal funds be restored because the Trump administration had illegally frozen them “as part of its pressure campaign to force Harvard to submit to the Government’s control over its academic programs. That, in itself, violates Harvard’s constitutional rights,” the suit stated.5

    The suit also debunked the Trump regime’s claims that it was fighting “antisemitism” at Harvard. The funding freeze “has nothing at all to do with antisemitism and Title VI compliance,” the lawsuit stated. "The Government has not—and cannot—identify any rational connection between antisemitism concerns and the medical, science, technological and other research it has frozen that aims to save American lives.” (From Harvard’s Complaint against the regime.)6

    After Harvard rejected the Trump regime’s demands, but before it had filed its lawsuit, Trump officials made repeated attempts to reopen talks with the university.7 Harvard refused, and then filed its lawsuit, even as it knew it was in for a titanic battle with no assurance of success. 

    In an interview with NBC, Harvard President Alan Garber said the lawsuit was essential to protecting Harvard’s independence and constitutional rights, as well as the future of higher education. “We will not compromise on certain issues,” he said. “We’ve made that very clear.”

    When asked whether it was a fight he could win, Garber said he did not know the answer. But, he said, “the stakes are so high that we have no choice.”

    220+ University and College Leaders Join Together to Condemn Trump Attacks—Trump Counterattacks

    The day after Harvard filed its lawsuit, more than 220 leaders in higher education signed a joint statement condemning the Trump administration’s campaign to control higher education. 

    Their Call for Constructive Engagement began, “[W]e speak with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education. We are open to constructive reform and do not oppose legitimate government oversight. However, we must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses.” It was the first time U.S. colleges and universities banded together against the Trump regime’s assaults. 

    In response, Trump put out a statement on social media that “Harvard is a threat to democracy.” And then he went on a rampage of executive orders, signing seven targeting education, especially focused on wiping out any remaining efforts to combat discrimination in admissions, hiring and discipline or to teach the true history of the U.S. and the oppression and exploitation that America has perpetrated on masses of people here and all over the world. 

    All this stands very much unresolved. Within Harvard itself, there are big donors now demanding that the school “compromise” with Trump. 

    The question now is not only how to further carry forward this crucial battle, but how to join this battle to a massive, society-wide fight determined to remove this fascist regime from power NOW.

    BobAvakianOfficial - REVOLUTION #115

     

    _______________

    FOOTNOTES:

    1.  For background, see Harvard Rejects Trump Demands—Inspiring Courage, Galvanizing Resistance, revcom.us, April 21.  [back]

    2.  “Trump has launched investigations into dozens of colleges and universities and stripped billions in research grants from schools. The administration has issued demands ranging from direct government oversight of academic programs—or in the case of Columbia University, oversight of the whole institution—to dictating disciplinary policies and controlling hiring decisions. It is targeting students for exercising their First Amendment rights, and revoking visas for students, faculty, and staff. The administration’s intent is to remake America’s higher education system in its image through blunt force.” Harvard's president says the school will 'not compromise' on its rights with the Trump admin, NBC News, April 23.  [back]

    3.  For more on this, see "Marxism and the Enlightenment" by Bob Avakian.  [back]

    4.  Harvard’s lawsuit names the Department of Education, Department of Justice, General Services Administration, Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Health and Human Services, and the National Institutes of Health as defendants as all have been involved in cutting off federal funds.  [back]

    5.  “The Government’s demands on Harvard cut at the core of Harvard’s constitutionally protected academic freedom because they seek to assert governmental control over Harvard’s research, academic programs, community, and governance,” the complaint stated. Experts Say Harvard Has a Strong Case in Legal Battle Against Trump, Harvard Crimson, April 23.  [back]

    6.  Harvard’s President Garber has also said that the Trump regime was using antisemitism as a pretext for a campaign to take control of the university.  [back]

    7.  As Harvard Is Hailed a Hero, Some Donors Still Want It to Strike a Deal, New York Times, April 22  [back]

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  • ARTICLE:

    Two Events that Show—Once Again—That Israel Is Committing Genocide in Gaza... and that the U.S. Backs It

    Israel’s Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said the way to eliminate the problem of Gaza is to relocate Palestinians. Displaced Palestinians flee Gaza City after Israeli evacuation orders, April 11, 2025.

     

    Displaced Palestinians flee Gaza City after Israeli evacuation orders, April 11, 2025.    Photo: AP/Jehad Alshrafti

    As Israel’s relentless, U.S.-backed slaughter continues in Gaza, two events this past week sharply exposed the genocidal intent driving this slaughter, and full U.S. support for it. 

    One: Israel’s Finance Minister says that eliminating “the problem of Gaza” by “relocating” Palestinians—NOT “freeing the hostages”—is Israel’s main goal

    Israel has tried to justify its slaughter in Gaza by focusing public attention on the plight of its hostages there. “In international media, government spokespersons frequently cite the hostages as the primary reason for the ongoing war in Gaza,” the Israeli newspaper Haaretz writes.8

    On April 21, Israel’s powerful Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, blew a big hole in this lie by speaking an “inconvenient truth,” as Haaretz put it. Smotrich admitted that saving the hostages was not Israel’s “most important goal.” 

    “We have promised the Israeli people that at the end of the war, Gaza will no longer be a threat to Israel,” Smotrich said. “We need to eliminate the problem of Gaza.”

    And how should Israel eliminate the “problem” of Gaza according to Smotrich? Israel should focus on fully taking control of the Gaza Strip and relocating the local Palestinian population out of the coastal enclave, Haaretz reports, “rather than prioritizing the rescue of the hostages.” And then re-populating Gaza with Jewish settlers. 

    In short, genocidal ethnic cleansing!9

    Two: “Trump-Washing” Terror and Genocide—U.S. Cracks Down on Foreign Students, Welcomes Rabid Israeli Advocate of Genocide

    The Trump/MAGA fascist regime has been busy clamping down on foreign students who want to study in the U.S., but it saw no problem in welcoming a rabid racist, terrorism-supporting advocate of genocide against the Palestinian people. 

    We’re talking about Israel’s National Security Minister and key member of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s cabinet, Itamar Ben-Gvir. Ben-Gvir is a fascist Jewish settler from the occupied Palestinian West Bank. He’s called for the deportation of all Palestinian citizens of Israel, and for years displayed a photo of Baruch Goldstein, the Zionist fanatic who massacred 29 unarmed Muslim worshippers in Hebron in 1994.

    Ben-Gvir began a 10-day trip to the U.S. on April 21. He landed in Miami and attended a lavish fundraising dinner with leading Republicans and businessmen at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate (Trump wasn’t there). Ben-Gvir, who oversees Israel's prison system and police, also toured the Everglades Correctional state prison and met with the Miami Police Department. He’s spoken before Jewish groups in New Haven, Connecticut (near Yale), and Brooklyn, and will be heading to Washington DC. 

    Ben-Gvir hasn’t been hiding his views. He’s said Israel should bomb food storage facilities in Gaza. He’s said that Israel should implement Trump's plan to forcibly relocate Gaza’s Palestinians to other countries. He’s bragged about hardening of prison terms for Palestinian prisoners, saying they had "lost weight" since he took office. He posted on X that his audiences “expressed support for my very clear position on how to act in Gaza and that the food and aid depots should be bombed in order to create military and political pressure to bring our hostages home safely.”

    Ben-Gvir has been met with protests and denunciations, in particular by Jewish people, everywhere he’s gone. One rabbi said his congregation had been “shaken” by Ben-Gvir’s visit. "It's absurd that while students are silenced, Ben-Gvir is getting a welcome."10

    Ben-Gvir may not have met with Trump and top regime officials this time around, but his visit itself represents a big “thumbs up” from the Trump regime for Israel’s fascists and their depraved genocide of the Palestinian people.11

    As if to underscore the message, a few days before Ben-Gvir landed, the Trump administration approved the sale of the thousands of assault rifles destined for Ben-Gvir. These rifles are likely to be used to escalate the violent terror and forced displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank.12

    Case Of Israel Bastion Of Enlightenment Or Enforcer Of Imperialism

     

    Palestine, Israel, U.S. Imperialism and Revolution

     

    _______________

    FOOTNOTES:

    1.  On October 7, 2023, the Islamic fundamentalist organization Hamas carried out an attack inside Israel which killed almost 1,200—mainly civilians—and took 250 Israelis hostage. Killing civilians or taking them as hostages is reactionary and a war crime. None of this, however, justifies Israel’s far, far, far greater crimes against the Palestinian people.  [back]

    2.  “The Netanyahu government, at this point, is using the suffering of the hostages and their families as a way to garner international support and sympathy, while telling the Israeli public that the hostages aren't all that important, and that their fate should not outweigh Smotrich's messianic vision for Gaza,” Haaretz writes.  [back]

    3.  Sources: Protests Erupt on Yale Campus Ahead of Visit by Israeli Far-Right Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Democracy Now!, April 23, 2025; Haaretz, April 24, 2025; Trump-washing Israel's Kahanist Far Right: Ben-Gvir's U.S. Trip Is a Radical Pivot From the Biden Years, Haaretz, April 21, 2025.  [back]

    4.  U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent previously hosted Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Ben-Gvir's ideological running mate, in Washington.  [back]

    5.  Biden had held up the sale of these weapons, and banned Ben-Gvir from visiting the U.S., in line with his administrations assessment of how to best strengthen Israel and advance the interests of U.S. imperialism in the Middle East.  [back]

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  • ARTICLE:

    On the Fight to Defend Academic Freedom and the Fight Against U.S.-Israeli Genocide in Gaza: Toward Principled Unity in the Overall Fight Against Fascism

    Protest in Cambridge as part of Day of Action. Banner says: Free Speech includes Palestine

     

    Harvard University community rally in Cambridge, Massachusetts, April 17, 2025.    Photo: AP

    The crushing of academic freedom has been a long-standing goal of the fascist movement that has amassed behind, and been accelerated by, Donald Trump. They want to see an end to the university as any kind of space for critical thinking, open debate and inquiry. The widespread protests on college campuses last spring against the U.S.-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza have become an excuse and cover for this repression.

    With fascism rapidly accelerating, the attack on academic freedom AND the attack on the anti-genocide, pro-Palestine movement are closely intertwined. The protests of the past nearly two years are exactly the kind of thing the Trump regime wants to stamp out, as part of their overall assault. All this must be fought—and must involve people coming together from different perspectives and viewpoints behind the unifying demand: The Trump Fascist Regime Must Go—NOW!

    The Trump regime is aiming to wipe out the movement in defense of the Palestinian people, and any movement that doesn't fully support American interests. Note well that Trump’s Director for Counterterrorism, Sebastian Gorka, argued recently that anyone protesting against Trump's mass deportation plan should be seen as "aiding and abetting" terrorism: “There’s a line that divides us. Do you love America, or do you hate America?” While Biden was all-in on backing and funding Israel, this has taken a leap with Trump who has called for, and approves of the full-out removal of Palestinians from Gaza.1

    The Trump regime wants anyone and everyone who would speak out against this to be terrified into silence: kidnapping international students for writing op-eds, defunding universities under the guise of ending anti-Semitism, putting whole academic departments under government oversight, and much more.

    Cops with riot shields viciously dismantle encampment for Palestine at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, May 4, 2024.

     

    Cops with riot shields viciously dismantle encampment for Palestine at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, May 4, 2024.    Photo: Cal Cary/The Daily Progress via AP

    Some of this repression began before Trump was in power, with mass arrests of student protesters and a public inquisition of Ivy League presidents for not cracking down hard enough on demonstrations on their campuses. The fact that most of the Democrats went along with this attack, even if at times in more “moderate” form, shows how, for many, what they deem as core interests of U.S. imperialism will be ranked higher than opposition to fascism.

    But this has taken a qualitative leap, and is now a battering ram for the larger fascist program.

    The collaboration and capitulation to fascism on the part of university administrators must stop now. Too many administrators at the schools under attack have proven willing to throw pro-Palestinian students under the bus and, in particular, to sacrifice any green card or visa students who have been part of this movement, barely raising a peep of protest. This desperate bid to appease the fascist persecutors has been shameful. Whatever these administrators think of the content of what the pro-Palestinian students are fighting for—they should put themselves on the line for the space, and the academic freedom, to fight for it. It has also been shown that this appeasement will not work. The Trump/MAGA fascists have made clear that they are not stopping with half-measures, they are going for total control.

    As the attack on the university and the attack on those who would speak out for the Palestinian people are intertwined, so must be our resistance.

    What is needed now is a coming together. The university administrations and faculty must vigorously defend the space for scholars, teachers, researchers and students to work, to research, and to protest U.S.-Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people and the systems in both countries. They must in particular do everything they can to defend those foreign students active around Palestine now being jailed and deported, allowing space once more for organizing and acting against the genocide and for the rights of the Palestinian people. 

    At the same time, all the students and faculty who have put themselves on the line against the genocide in Gaza must speak out against the assault on the universities. Even if you disagree with what your university has done, what is at stake now is the extreme danger that a fascist America will mean to people here, and all over the world. While you continue to shine a light on, and protest against the genocidal terror and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, this should not be made a dividing line in the fight against fascism. To these students, professors and others who have set an example and refused to back down: bring the understanding that you have into this crucial battlefront as well.

    All these strands of protest must come together in unity—while we debate and discuss our differences. 

    In his recent social media message, "The Trump Fascist Regime Must Go—NOW—before it is too late!,Bob Avakian, the revolutionary leader who has brought forward the new communism, said:

    This truly life-and-death fight against fascism requires, and needs to involve, rapidly increasing ranks of people, drawn from all parts of society and all walks of life—including Black people, immigrants, college students and other youth, professionals and government workers, women, LGBT people, and others—all who actually have a profound interest in defeating this fascism: people with a broad diversity of political views and perspectives, uniting all who can be united and overcoming all “divide and conquer” schemes, in order to bring forward the millions who can be the decisive force in driving out this fascist regime.

    In The Name of Humanity, We Refuse To Accept A Fascist America!

    The Trump Fascist Regime Must Go—NOW!

    @BobAvakianOfficial

    BobAvakianOfficial - REVOLUTION #115

     

    _______________

    FOOTNOTE:

    1. While not yet official policy, the Israelis in recent weeks have made it increasingly impossible for Palestinians to even survive at bare minimum in Gaza, and now the Israeli Minister of National Security and open expulsionist Itamar Ben-Gvir is touring America to spread his poison.  [back]

    Ben-Gvir

     

    Itamar Ben-Gvir in Connecticut, near Yale    Photo: AP

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  • ARTICLE:

    A call from THE REVCOM CORPS For The Emancipation Of Humanity

    May Day 2025: 

    Take to the streets! Become part of a serious, organized, revolutionary force—THE REVCOM CORPS For The Emancipation Of Humanity!

    Serious about defeating Trump/MAGA fascism.

    Serious about fighting for a whole new system.

    Revom Corp slogans: In the Name of Humanity We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America! -- This Whole System Is Rotten and Illegitimate: We Need and We Demand a Whole New Way to Live, a Fundamentally Different System!

     

    This May Day, as tens of millions are being jolted awake and shaken to their core by the illegal, illegitimate, and depraved moves of the fascist Trump regime, and as thousands come into the streets to oppose that criminal regime, join THE REVCOM CORPS For The Emancipation Of Humanity in putting forward this powerful message:

    TRUMP MUST GO—NOW! IN THE NAME OF HUMANITY, WE REFUSE TO ACCEPT A FASCIST AMERICA!

    THIS WHOLE SYSTEM IS ROTTEN AND ILLEGITIMATE—WE NEED AND WE DEMAND: A WHOLE NEW WAY TO LIVE, A FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT SYSTEM!

    This May 1st and in the days that follow, we will join with and build protests called by RefuseFascism.org, and by others opposing Trump/MAGA fascism... or where there isn’t one locally, call for one! 

    We will manifest as a bold, disciplined, organized force that is serious about defeating fascism and serious about getting rid of the whole system that spawned it. We will act together in a unified way to have an impact that is greater than our numbers so that, around the country, people are inspired and challenged to become part of this. And we call on YOU to join with us in waging this monumental political fight, and lifting people’s sights to a whole new way humanity could be living.

    May Day is a revolutionary holiday throughout the world. As Bob Avakian (BA), the revolutionary leader and author of the New Communism, said in his New Year’s Message:

    There is no good reason why the world has to be the way it is, with all its very real horrors.

    There is no good reason why, beyond the massive death and destruction of World War 2, in the time since that war ended (in 1945) more than 500 million children have needlessly died from starvation and preventable disease, fundamentally because of the way the world, and in particular the poorer countries in the world, have been dominated by capitalism-imperialism, with the USA the number one” imperialist predator.

    There is no good reason why anyone, anywhere in the world, should go hungry, or be without decent housing, health care, and other basic necessities—or live in constant fear of going without these necessities.

    No good reason for the endless wars and accelerating destruction of the environment, for which this system is fundamentally responsible.

    No good reason why the dominant culture and ways of thinking should serve to reinforce murderously oppressive relations, while drilling into people’s heads the ridiculous notion that there is no positive alternative to all this.

    No good reason why the long night continues in which human society has been divided into masters and slaves, and the masses of humanity have been lashed, beaten, raped, slaughtered, shackled and shrouded in ignorance and misery.

    There is no good reason for all thisbut there is one basic reason: the fact that the world and the masses of humanity are still forced to exist under the domination of this system of capitalism-imperialism.

    This system is completely absurd—criminally, monstrously absurd—and completely outmoded: long past its expiration date, past the time when it can lead to anything positive for humanity—and, on the contrary, it stands as the direct barrier to the emancipation of humanity from all this madness, atrocity, and unnecessary suffering. The rise of fascism, in many other countries as well as in the U.S. itself, is a glaring sign of the thoroughly outmoded nature of this system and the heightened danger it poses to humanity as a whole.

    We are now at the point where it is more and more urgently necessary to move beyond this whole monstrous system—beyond a situation where people are forced to struggle just for individual survival, with everyone compelled to be in competition and conflict with others, and the masses of people everywhere are chained down by outmoded oppressive relations, while the future, and the very existence, of humanity is increasingly endangered.

    And it is possible now to move beyond all this.

    May Day 2025:

    “[J]oining with THE REVCOM CORPS For The Emancipation Of Humanity, working actively and urgently for this revolution—putting our lives on the line not for ourselves alone, or for a narrow circle or clique, but for the emancipation of humanity: that is something truly worth living for and dedicating your life to.” 

    —Bob Avakian

    Times and Places

    New York:
    @REVCOMCORPS_NYC

    • 12 Noon at Union Square. Look for our table at the May Day rally
    • 4 pm at Washington Sq Park. Join us at the Refusefascism.org protest, 
    • marching to Foley Square May Day event at 5 pm

     

    Bay Area: 
    @revcomcorps_bay

    San Francisco Civic Center at 4:00pm

     

    Chicago
    @revcomcorpschi

    Union Park 11 a.m.

     

    Houston
    @txrevcoms

    4:00 pm, Houston City Hall Plaza, 901 Bagby. 
    Look for our Banner and table at May Day March and Rally

     

    Los Angeles
    @revcomcorps_la

    Join the Refuse Fascism meetup:
    8 a.m. on East 12th Street and South Figueroa

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  • ARTICLE:

    From the Revolutionary Communist Organization, Mexico:

    Let’s Get Rid of Capitalism Before It Gets Rid of Us! Join the International Struggle for the Emancipation of Humanity!

    Editors’ note: This statement appeared on the blog Aurora Roja, voice of the Revolutionary Communist Organization, Mexico (OCR). It was translated from Spanish into English by revcom.us volunteers.

    On the occasion of May Day 2025. May Day is not simply “Workers’ Day.” It is a day of celebration of the international struggle for the liberation of humanity from all the heavy chains that smother and extinguish the lives, creativity, and future of billions of our sisters and brothers across the globe.

    Yes! A day of celebration of the struggle for another future, for a world of cooperation for the common good, for a community of the human race, of unleashing the potential and creativity of every human being, of caring for the planet and all the beautiful and diverse forms of life that spring from this common home we call Earth.

    “The triumph of such a revolutionary society is not inevitable, but it is possible. It depends on the conscious and determined struggle of the people… This struggle is already underway.”

    If such a bright, and possible!, future seems so distant, so impossible to achieve, this is due to the dark brutality, cruelty, and atrocities that stalk us in today’s world. The Israeli-U.S. genocide of the Palestinian people. The incessant mutual slaughter of Russians and Ukrainians in pursuit of the criminal ambitions of U.S./NATO imperialism and Russian imperialism in Ukraine. The economic war that threatens to escalate into a nuclear world war between U.S. and Chinese imperialisms for world domination, which would reduce the planet to radioactive ash. Global warming and other environmental destruction driven by the relentless capitalist pursuit of maximum profits, which threaten to wipe out the lives of many species, including our own. The cruel operation of the global capitalist-imperialist system that drives millions from the South to flee the devastation in their homelands and then to face the deadly cruelty of the Migras of the countries of the North, increasingly dominated by racist, woman-hating fascist governments. The macro-criminality fueled by that same system around the world which in Mexico has resulted in nearly half a million—half a million!—murders, 126,000 missing persons, and 70,000 unidentified bodies.

    How can we speak of hope, much less of a world of liberation, in the face of such a dire present? Precisely because humanity no longer only faces the alternative between the current outdated and perverse system and a much better socialist system. Today, this situation which people face is between the very possible extinction of civilization and even of human beings, whether due to environmental disaster, or a world war, or a real liberatory revolution. And the very crises, upheavals, and calamities of the current system force us, and will increasingly force us, to confront this real contradiction, whether we like it or not: Either we get rid of the system of capitalism-imperialism, or the system gets rid of us.

    Some try to shrink from this reality, while that very same reality drives others to fight. The mothers who, amid tears and fierce fury, search for their loved ones and all the missing people, facing the murderous threats of the slippery tricks and criminal collusion of the authorities. The women and men who, with the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom,” have shaken Iran’s obscurantist fundamentalist regime to its foundations. The women around the world who, amid a sea of purple and green, demand the end of patriarchy, of the oppression of women by men. The growing protests of our sisters and brothers across the Río Bravo/Grande demanding that “the Fascist Trump Regime Must Go.” The combative masses of South Korea who were able to drive out the reactionary government that wanted to impose martial law on them.

    We must greatly appreciate the heroic women and men fighters who risk and even give their lives for the hope of something better for others. We also need to understand the fundamental problem and the solution. We need to understand that the root, the source of so much oppression and evil, is the current capitalist system, and that the solution is a real revolution to overthrow this system and bring into being a new, radically different and much better socialist society in which we all would want to live.

    We are not talking about the “socialism” in the countries in today’s world which call themselves “socialist,” which they are not. We are not even talking about repeating the best of the great achievements of true socialism of the past in Russia and China, before the restoration of capitalism, but we are talking about avoiding the serious errors in those experiences. We are talking about a New Communism, the new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian, by summarizing, among other sources, the lessons of almost two centuries of struggle for a world without exploitation and oppression and by making a qualitative leap in the revolutionary science founded by Marx.

    It is a new communism which corresponds to the new conditions of today’s world that needs to be applied to the specific conditions of each country. It has a deeper understanding of the danger of capitalist restoration, and how to fight to prevent this restoration, and advance this revolution in the world. It offers a vision of another possible society which is both inspiring and realistic, in which dissent, debate, and critical thinking are not only permitted but encouraged, which at the same time supports and fully promotes the people’s struggle to end all forms of exploitation, oppression, social inequality, and discrimination.

    The triumph of such a revolutionary society is not inevitable, but it is possible. It depends on the conscious and determined struggle of tens, then hundreds, thousands, and finally millions and billions of people. This struggle is already underway: in the actions of THE REVCOM CORPS For The Emancipation Of Humanity in the streets of the United States; in the battles and resistance of the Communist Party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist) in the dungeons and streets of Iran; in the struggles of the Revolutionary Communist Group of Colombia; and in Mexico with the Revolutionary Communist Organization, Mexico, among other supporters of New Communism in various parts of the globe. This struggle, this light, this hope for a much better world is still in its beginnings; it has not yet gained much numerical strength, but it has deep and real scientific foundations that are essential to overcome the sinister present and future of the current system and to open up a new tomorrow of hope and liberation for humanity.

    The question is, what will you do? The future of humanity is at stake, or whether it will even have a future. Will you enclose yourself in your personal life, hoping that the misfortunes that afflict others will not affect you and your loved ones? Will you hide behind the excuse that everyone else is not taking action to justify you also doing nothing? Or are you one of those valuable people who do care about others, who are concerned about so many injustices, and who does dream of another liberatory world? If you are someone who cares about the unnecessary suffering of others and the future of humanity, please contact us. Learn about the new communism as we unite in the fight against so many crimes, atrocities, and unnecessary misery, and for a better world.

    Join the International Struggle for the Emancipation of Humanity!

    Aurora Roja

    Voice of the Revolutionary Communist Organization, Mexico

    auroraroja.mx@gmail.com | aurora-roja.blogspot.com

    April 2025

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  • ARTICLE:

    Update on the “Revcom Cases”

    HANDS OFF! DROP THE CHARGES!

    Last week, THE REVCOM CORPS For The Emancipation Of Humanity held “Hands Off The Revcoms!” days on April 22-24 to let people know about the outrageous charges and prosecutions of four revcoms in three cities for speech and nonviolent protest against Trump/MAGA fascism, and to enlist people in demanding HANDS OFF! DROP THE CHARGES!

    Heres an update on what happened, along with video messages and messages of support from the “Hands Off” days. For more info on the arrests and charges, and the stakes involved, we will link to fuller articles and statements on the cases.

    In Harlem demanding HANDS OFF THE REVCOMS! DROP THE CHARGES!

    Noche Diaz, National Spokesperson for the Revcom Corps, speaks before hearing

    Revcoms are facing serious charges for speech and nonviolent protest against Trump/MAGA fascism

    Luna Hernandez, Los Angeles—On April 22 the judge in Luna’s case denied her lawyer’s motions to dismiss, and denied entering important evidence and testimony about the political nature of the prosecutor’s office and their pattern of selectively prosecuting people based on their political views. The prosecution of Luna began in 2022, and is now set for trial on May 28. For more on what happened in court, and background of the case, read “LA Goes Forward with Its Unjust Persecution of Luna! Judge Denies the Motion to Dismiss, Drop the Charges! Hands Off the Revcoms!

    David, Bay Area—David’s case was up for arraignment on April 24, where the charges against him were confirmed to be misdemeanor vandalism charges. About a dozen supporters came to court and had their presence noted by the judge, and public defenders have enthusiastically volunteered to take up his case. The next step in his case is a pre-trial hearing on May 30 and a trial date set for June 4.

    Noche and Leo—On April 24, the two attorneys who have taken up Noche and Leo’s case made their first appearance in court and were able to file discovery motions and subpoenas for police body cam footage. Their next day in court is May 28, which is set for hearing further motions. Find out about the petition to drop the charges, more about the arrest, and statements of support for Noche and Leo here

    Noche and Leo received the following statement on April 24 from Latoya Howell, mother of 17-year-old Justus Howell who was murdered by Zion, Illinois, police in 2015:

    No Justice No peace!
    The very reason why we have boots to the ground in these streets is because they try to strip us from not only our constitutional rights but our God given Human rights! 
    We are the people we are in control no racist incompetent Un loyal unlawful unjust insubordinate systemically racist fascist cruel ass government is going to hold us down! 
    We have spoken we will get justice or we will have to shut this system the fuck down! 

    Noche our brother our comrade our family deserves as we command JUSTICE AND IF WE DON’T GET IT SHUT IT DOWN!!!
    Too many times have we been beaten up shot up lynched killed sabotaged set up locked up silenced broke up broke down by these killer cops and this murderous good ol boys system 

    WE DEMAND AN END!
    WE WONT BE SILENCED WE WONT BE STOPPED!!!
    FREE OUR PEOPLE NOW!!!
    NO JUSTICE NO PEACE!!!✊🏽
    Now

    Update from David on My Case

    This past Thursday was my arraignment. I’m being charged with misdemeanor vandalism—a charge I am not guilty of. My trial is set for June 4, with a pre-trial hearing on May 30.

    Why was I arrested? For leading people in urgent and powerful chants on April 5 in San Francisco:

    “In the name of humanity, we refuse to accept a fascist America!” and “Trump must go!” This was part of nationwide “Hands Off!” protests against the full-on Trump fascist assault—targeting immigrants, women, LGBTQ people, the environment, and fundamental rights.

    My arrest is part of a dangerous trend of repression aimed at silencing protest—protest that dares to call out Trump/MAGA fascism or that stands against the genocide in Palestine. And I’m not the only one—Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi, Rumeysa Ozturk, and many others are facing more serious consequences. There are also three other Revcoms (revolutionary communists) in different parts of the country who are facing charges for nonviolent protest.

    I’m not backing down—and I challenge you to step up. Let’s work together to build a movement powerful enough to stop this fascist program cold. Join RefuseFascism.org with the unifying demand: The Trump Fascist Regime Must Go NOW!

    If you value free speech and don’t want to see people brutalized or criminalized for using it, raise your voice: HANDS OFF THE REVCOMS! DROP THE CHARGES!

    And if you see that this capitalist system is fundamentally rotten—and you want to fight for a real alternative while developing as a revolutionary leader—join THE REVCOM CORPS For The Emancipation Of Humanity.

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  • ARTICLE:

    Voices of Resistance

    Updated

    We are featuring here some of the voices of individuals and organizations—coming from a diverse range of political perspectives and viewpoints—who are courageously speaking against the brutal inhumanity of the Trump/MAGA fascist regime. Now is a time to unite all who can be united to demand: The Trump Fascist Regime Must Go NOW! In the name of humanity, we refuse to accept a fascist America!

    Voices of Resistance, January 21 to April 6, 2025 >>

    [TEMPLATE] Voices from [mo] [date] to [date], 2025
    Voices from April 21 to 27, 2025

    Kneecap, an Irish hip hop trio from West Belfast, Northern Ireland, known for being anti-Zionist and anti-Trump, leads crowd at Coachella to chant "Free Palestine" 

    In the days after their Coachella performance, Kneecap was viciously attacked, with their booking agency refusing to continue to represent them, attacks on social media, and with threats that their work visas would be cancelled. They issued the following statement:

    Since our statements at Coachella—exposing the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people—we have faced a coordinated smear campaign. For over a year, we have used our shows to call out the British and Irish’s governments complicity in war crimes.

    The recent attacks against us, largely emanating from the US, are based on deliberate distortions and falsehoods. We are taking action against several of these malicious efforts. 

    Let us be absolutely clear.

    The reason Kneecap is being targeted is simple—we are telling the truth, and our audience is growing. Those attacking us want to silence criticism of a mass slaughter. They weaponize false accusations of antisemitism to distract, confuse, and provide cover for genocide.

    We do not give a f*ck what religion anyone practices. We know there are massive numbers of Jewish people outraged by this genocide just as we are. What we care about is that governments of the countries we perform in are enabling some of the most horrific crimes of our lifetimes—and we will not stay silent.

    NO MEDIA SPIN WILL CHANGE THIS.
    OUR ONLY CONCERN IS THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE.
    THE 20,000 MURDERED CHILDREN AND COUNTING.
    THE YOUNG PEOPLE AT OUR GIGS SEE THROUGH THE LIES. THEY STAND ON THE SIDE OF HUMANITY AND JUSTICE.
    AND THAT GIVES US GREAT HOPE.

    KNEECAP

    Two weeks ago, talk show host Bill Maher had a private dinner with Donald Trump. He gushed about how personable Trump was. In response, comedian Larry David wrote this op-ed in the New York Times.

    ***

    Larry David: My Dinner With Adolf

    April 21, 2025
    By Larry David

    Mr. David is a comedian and writer who created “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and was a co-creator of “Seinfeld.”

    Imagine my surprise when in the spring of 1939 a letter arrived at my house inviting me to dinner at the Old Chancellery with the world’s most reviled man, Adolf Hitler. I had been a vocal critic of his on the radio from the beginning, pretty much predicting everything he was going to do on the road to dictatorship. No one I knew encouraged me to go. “He’s Hitler. He’s a monster.” But eventually I concluded that hate gets us nowhere. I knew I couldn’t change his views, but we need to talk to the other side — even if it has invaded and annexed other countries and committed unspeakable crimes against humanity.

    Two weeks later, I found myself on the front steps of the Old Chancellery and was led into an opulent living room, where a few of the Führer’s most vocal supporters had gathered: Himmler, Göring, Leni Riefenstahl and the Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII. We talked about some of the beautiful art on the walls that had been taken from the homes of Jews. But our conversation ended abruptly when we heard loud footsteps coming down the hallway. Everyone stiffened as Hitler entered the room.

    He was wearing a tan suit with a swastika armband and gave me an enthusiastic greeting that caught me off guard. Frankly, it was a warmer greeting than I normally get from my parents, and it was accompanied by a slap on my back. I found the whole thing quite disarming. I joked that I was surprised to see him in a tan suit because if he wore that out, it would be perceived as un-Führer-like. That amused him to no end, and I realized I’d never seen him laugh before. Suddenly he seemed so human. Here I was, prepared to meet Hitler, the one I’d seen and heard — the public Hitler. But this private Hitler was a completely different animal. And oddly enough, this one seemed more authentic, like this was the real Hitler. The whole thing had my head spinning.  Read more.

    A petition on change.org:

    Stop the National Autism Registry: Protect Our Children’s Privacy and Human Rights

    The Issue

    The federal government is compiling a national database of autistic individuals — collecting private medical, behavioral, and even biometric data from families across the country. Many of these families have not consented.

    This initiative, led by RFK Jr. and supported by the NIH, claims to be for research. But when you strip away the language, you’re left with something chilling:

    They are building a list.

    A list of people like my children.

    A list of autistic individuals — tracked, labeled, and filed under the guise of public health.

    This is not support. It is surveillance.  Read more

    The University of Alabama College Democrats (UACD) released a statement railing against the announcement that President Trump will deliver a commencement address at the college in Tuscaloosa on May 1.

    UACD is shocked and disgusted to learn that our unpopular, divisive, and authoritarian President will be involved in commencement for the graduating class of 2025. This insult will not go unanswered.

    The last time the disgraced criminal visited campus, he was able to turn the Alabama-Georgia game, the biggest college football game on our campus in years, into a political sideshow. We cannot allow this to happen with our commencement ceremonies.

    For all of his meddling in UA affairs, Donald Trump lost our campus to former Vice President Kamala Harris last semester. UA is not a fascist playground.

    The Trump administration kidnapped one of our PH.D. students for no reason a few weeks ago and is holding him without bond at an ICE black site in Louisiana. There is no greater insult than this.

    Given that the White House has pulled federal funding from colleges and universities across our country, we understand if the Bell administration may be stuck between a rock and a hard place. We simply don’t want UA to be turned into a backdrop for MAGA propaganda.

    UACD and its partners are actively mobilizing in response to last night’s news. We will have more updates whenever possible, and we hope to update everyone in the next few days.

    The University of Alabama College Democrats

    JOINT STATEMENT from CFT President Jeff Freitas and UC-AFT President Katie Rodger:

    California’s educators stand with Harvard University in courageously rejecting the Trump administration’s unlawful overreach and protecting student and faculty rights to safety and freedom on campus. California’s university students are already being swept up in Trump’s deportation machine and facing attacks on diversity policies. We call on our state’s higher education systems to also lead with courage and conviction.

    Academic freedom and the First Amendment right to freedom of speech are cornerstones of our democracy and a critical bulwark against authoritarianism. For generations activism and protests by university students have helped propel the civil rights, women's rights, and other justice movements forward – which is precisely why Trump sees our colleges and universities as a threat.

    Higher education is a public good that directly bolsters real democracy in our communities and in our country, and now is the time for us all to join the students, faculty, and workers who are fighting for it.

    Jeff Freitas, CFT President
    Katie Rodger, UC-AFT President

    Day 4 of the pro-Palestinian hunger strike at Occidental College 

    Students demand the college divest from weapons manufacturers with ties to Israel, bolster protections for international students among other demands.

    Letter from faculty members at New York University School of Law:

    “We are faculty members at New York University School of Law, writing in our individual capacities, to affirm our support for the independence of academic institutions, lawyers, and judges, and to oppose the federal government’s attacks on those values—attacks that threaten to undermine democracy, the rule of law, and long valued constitutional rights, among them freedom of expression and basic due process….

    “The Administration has pursued executive actions targeting universities, their faculties, and their students in ways that undermine academic independence and the free exchange of ideas. If such actions continue, the damage to our intellectual communities, which depend on the lawful freedom of expression and open exchange of ideas, could be immense. So too would be the danger to basic due process values that protect each and every one of us. In saying this, we in no way discount the gravity of concerns about antisemitism and other forms of bias, which must be taken seriously. 

    “We further share a commitment to the rule of law and to the role of lawyers and judges in preserving that rule of law. As the American Bar Association states in the preamble to its Model Rules of Professional Conduct, “[a]n independent legal profession is an important force in preserving government under law, for abuse of legal authority is more readily challenged by a profession whose members are not dependent on government for the right to practice.” The Administration’s executive orders targeting individual lawyers and law firms have no basis in law and are contrary to the protections of our Constitution. Requiring lawyers to acquiesce to improper demands or face such punishment places them in a position inconsistent with the essential role of lawyers as independent advocates for their clients. Similarly, government threats to impeach judges based on disagreements with their judicial decisions are inconsistent with the fundamental principles underlying judicial independence, principles that have been respected by political actors of all stripes for over 200 years. An independent judiciary is essential to the preservation of the rule of law and our most basic constitutional rights.”

    See list of signatories here. >>

    Voices from April 14 to 20, 2025

    Holocaust Scholars Defy Flawed Antisemitism Definition
    Powerful new letter from Mahmoud Khalil writing from ICE detention in Louisiana:

    Mahmoud Khalil: What does my detention by ICE say about America

    A democracy for some is no democracy at all.

    April 17, 2025

    Mahmoud Khalil

    It’s 3 a.m. as I lie sleepless on a bunk bed in Jena, Louisiana, far from my wife, Noor, who will give birth to our baby in two weeks. The sound of rain hitting the metal roof masks the snoring of 70 men tossing and turning on hard mats in this detention facility run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Which ones are dreaming about reuniting with their families? Which ones are having nightmares about becoming the Trump administration’s next “administrative error”? 
    Read more

    What the Trump administration is doing now is demanding a loyalty oath...

    Michael S. Roth, president of Wesleyan University, interviewed by Christiane Amanpour on CNN

    “For the federal government to just show up one day at your door and take you away because of the ideas you express, that is anti-American, anti-educational, and undermines our freedom... I am appalled that people who support Israel will ally themselves with an administration that is using scapegoating, racism, and which has no trouble supping with nazis when it's convenient for them... I myself believe strongly in Israel's right to defend itself. I'm critical of the current government in Israel. But all of that shouldn't matter... What the Trump administration is doing now is demanding a loyalty oath. They are demanding that schools express loyalty to the president and his current beliefs. This has nothing to do with anti-antisemitism. And Jews who align themselves with leaders because they think those leaders are picking on other people, eventually the Jews find themselves the targets of that same abuse...”

    Michael S. Roth, President of Wesleyan University, on CNN

     

    As DOGE cuts hit SoCal cultural spaces and libraries, Little Tokyo museum fights to keep programs alive

    From the LAist

    "Despite losing more than $1.45 million in federal funds, leaders at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo have been publicly saying they won’t stray from their defense of civil rights to appease the Trump White House.

    ‘We won't scrub any websites,’ said Ann Burroughs, the museum’s president and chief executive, referring to the practice of federal agencies removing references to diversity and inclusion. ‘We stand up for our values, and we aren't prepared to sacrifice those values for federal funding.’”

    Read full article

    Letter in Support of Mohsen Mahdawi on Behalf of Israelis

    (Currently with 409 signatures)

    “We are a group of Israeli citizens in the U.S. who are appalled by the immoral detainment of Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian activist and an advocate of peace, by ICE. Some of us previously wrote against the threat of deportations when the Trump Administration first issued its January 29 executive order, “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism.” We stated then and still assert that this act does not protect us, it endangers us. We reject the use of deportations to suppress free speech under the guise of combating antisemitism. The case of Mohsen Mahdawi in particular reveals that the pretext of protecting Jews is falsely being used to further the Trump Administration's extreme agenda of silencing political voices that do not align with it...”

    Read full letter

    Open letters and commentary from university administrators and faculty members calling for resistance to Trump’s demands

    ICE on train

     

    “A co-worker of mine (who is a judge), traveled by train from Montana to North Dakota for work this week. The train made a stop in Havre, MT, where ICE agents—armed and dressed in full military-style tactical gear—boarded the train. They walked the full length of the train and questioned every single passenger about their citizenship status. According to the conductor, who has worked nearly 40 years on that route, this was a first. In all his decades of service, federal agents have never boarded his train like this.

    “This is not a hypothetical. This is not a scene from a dystopian film. This happened this week to my colleague, on U.S. soil, to U.S. citizens, legal residents, and foreign tourists here on holiday, without a warrant, without probable cause—based solely on geography.

    “Under current law ICE has expanded authority to operate within 100 miles of any border. But HOW that authority is being interpreted and exercised has chilling implications for civil liberties, freedom of movement, and equal protection under the law.

    “This isn’t about politics—it’s about the erosion of rights we’ve taken for granted, and the slow normalization of military-style policing tactics in everyday spaces. Even if technically permissible, these actions reflect a disturbing shift in the balance between civil liberties and governmental authority. The normalization of militarized immigration enforcement in public spaces, without individualized suspicion, risks setting dangerous precedents that erode the freedoms we are sworn to uphold.

    “This is not about ideology—it is about the integrity of our legal system. I am compelled to speak up because there is no justification for circumventing the very rights and principles that define our democracy.

    “The question is not whether you “have something to hide.” The question is how much unchecked authority we’re willing to allow before we can no longer call this a free society.”

    Read the news story Judge Roberts refers to here.

    Voices from April 7 to 13

    Public Statement from Members of 
    Georgetown University’s Jewish Community

    We are Jewish students, faculty, staff, and alumni of Georgetown University. While we may hold varying opinions and perspectives on Israel-Palestine, we all agree that the growing wave of politically motivated campus deportation efforts is an authoritarian move that harms the entire campus community. We encourage Jews and everyone—at Georgetown and beyond—to take action and speak out...

    The Trump administration is waging attacks on our spaces of learning, including by politically targeting, harassing, detaining and attempting to deport Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, international, and immigrant community members, all while claiming to do so in the name of Jewish safety. Exemplified by tweets such as “SHALOM MAHMOUD.,” President Trump is weaponizing Jewish identity, faith, and fears of antisemitism as a smokescreen for his authoritarian agenda, further damaging the campus climate for everyone. Making Jews the face of this autocratic initiative feeds antisemitic conspiracy theories and is dangerous for Jews, on campuses and beyond. For multiple reasons, it is crucial that we as Jewish community members at Georgetown speak out and act against this, and we encourage Jews on and off campuses everywhere to do the same.

    Read the complete statement and see signatories here.

    From an article posted at Techcrunch.com

    Genetic sharing site openSNP to shut down, citing concerns of data privacy and ‘rise in authoritarian governments’

    Techcrunch spoke to Greshake Tzovaras, co-founder of openSNP, a large open source repository for user-uploaded genetic data which he will shut down and delete all of its data at the end of April.

    When reached by TechCrunch, Greshake Tzovaras was blunt in his decision to shut down openSNP now and not sooner. 

    “The ‘why now’ to me is ultimately down to there being what counts for a fascist coup in the U.S.,” Greshake Tzovaras told TechCrunch, a native of Germany. 

    “Seeing people being disappeared from the streets under the most dubious pretexts really can’t be called anything else,” he said, referring to the recent reports of people living in the United States, including U.S. citizens, who have been arrested in immigration raids, some whose whereabouts remain unknown

    Greshake Tzovaras said the “wholesale dismantling of scientific institutions and science itself” since January — the beginning of the second Trump administration — was a factor in the shutdown of openSNP. 

    Read the complete article here and also a blog post from Tzovaras where he writes about his dreams for openSNP and why it's time to pull the plug.

    Excerpts from The Daily podcast from the New York Times. 

    “The University President Willing to Fight Trump”

    April 9, 2025
    Chris Eisgruber is the president of Princeton University. We learn through the course of the interview that he is also the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Association of American Universities whose membership is made up of 71 of the leading research universities in the U.S. like Harvard, Yale, UCLA, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Caltech, Stanford and Cornell. These are short excerpts from the interview. You can hear the complete interview here
    ***
    Rachel Abrams: Over the past few weeks, some of the most prestigious universities in the country have faced a threat to their very existence from President Trump, who has frozen billions of dollars in federal funds in an attempt to rid higher education of what he calls its “woke” ideology. And the question now is, who will cut a deal and who will fight? Today, my conversation with the president of Princeton University, Christopher Eisgruber, who has vowed that he will fight….
    ***
    I want to bring up another one of the [Trump] administration’s critiques, which is something you hear a ton from the right and have heard it for a while, which is that universities, particularly elite universities like Princeton, Harvard, Yale, the Ivies, they are not representative enough of the broader public politically. And of course, that’s important because our judges, our lawyers, people that are incredibly influential in shaping society, often come out of institutions like yours. And so this is shaping not just how students think, but it is shaping American culture more broadly. And that is why it is important to take a strong and aggressive stand.
    I’m curious, what do you make of that argument, first of all? And how important is it for a university to reflect the broader political ideologies of the country? Is it a problem that most universities are probably left of center?
    Chris Eisgruber: It’s not our job to reflect the political ideology of the country. We’re not a Sunday morning talk show that has ideological balance on it. We need to be open to conservative views. We need to be a place where conservatives feel they can flourish. But we’re supposed to be doing something different than just reflecting what’s going on in the country.
    We’re supposed to be having arguments that get at truth and knowledge, and that’s different from a political debating society. It’s different from what goes on in Congress. And it’s different from what goes on in a lot of journalism or from the political distribution in the country.
    There are political divisions about things like climate and vaccines right now. And there is no obligation on the part of the universities to reflect what is the political division of opinion on those subjects or about, say, capitalism and investing.
    … Our job is to have an honest, fair, truth-seeking process. And an honest, fair, truth-seeking process will produce criticisms of society. It won’t just be a mirror to society. So that’s a difference.
    There’s a second thing you said in your original question that also connects to what it is that you just asked about, Christopher Rufo. You quoted some accusations that universities indoctrinate. Universities should never be indoctrinating. And I don’t think we are. And I don’t think that the opinion data or the other serious studies of what universities do supports that. We’ve got to be places where robust arguments take place.
    ***
    RA: Does this mean that you are considering making concessions to the Trump administration?
    CE: I’m not considering any concessions.
    RA: Not at all?
    CE: No.…
    ***
    RA: …do you feel pressure and an obligation to your fellow presidents, to your fellow universities, to the students at institutes of higher education around the country, to really to fight back in some way?
    CF: …It’s important for me to be using my voice, and it’s why, in response to a number of your questions, I’ve said, hey, I can tell you about what’s going on at Princeton, but I don’t think this is all about Princeton. It’s about what’s happening in the United States. I think this would be so much stronger if many more of my fellow presidents were speaking up.
    RA: You’re hoping that they do what you do.
    CE: I really want them to do what I do.

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  • ARTICLE:

    On the 50th Anniversary of the U.S. Defeat in Vietnam:

    Who’s Really Raping—and Been Raping—Who?

    woman tries to carry a child to safety as U.S. Marines storm the village of My Son, S Vietnam

     

    A woman tries to carry a child to safety as U.S. Marines storm the South Vietnamese village of My Son searching for National Liberation Front (“Vietcong”) fighters, April 1965.    Photo: AP

    April 30 marks the 50th anniversary of the final defeat of the U.S. in its war against Vietnam. By the late 1960s, America had over half a million soldiers in Vietnam and overwhelming air power, as well as a million-strong puppet army and armed forces from some of its allies and puppets. America and those under its command slaughtered an estimated three million people in this war, including in the neighboring countries of Laos and Cambodia where U.S. troops and planes also carried out massacre and horror.

    On top of that, America waged chemical war to strip away the forests and jungles in Vietnam that the Vietnamese fighters traveled through. These chemicals, called defoliants, continue to cause terrible birth defects in Vietnam. Yet even in the face of this juggernaut of horror, the Vietnamese people prevailed! The image of the vaunted U.S. Marine Corps scurrying out of Vietnam in helicopters taking off from the roof of the American embassy showed the world that even the richest, most powerful and most destructive and murderous empire in history could be defeated by a people mobilized around a revolutionary cause. While that revolution was later betrayed, the lesson that a force that starts out weak can defeat a much more powerful enemy, so long as it has the support of the masses and a basically correct strategy, cannot be erased and must be learned from. 

    Trump has ordered the U.S. embassy in Vietnam to boycott the commemoration of this victory next week in Vietnam. This goes along with the fascist regime’s crusade to erase the real history of this country—America’s deep roots in genocide and slavery, and its whole history of imperialist war and plunder. Trump actually tries to turn this on its head, whining as if America is somehow the victim of those it oppresses. When Trump imposed his tariffs, he again made his ludicrous claim that “For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike." Vietnam—whose workers, in a bitter irony, are now super-exploited by U.S. capital—was hit with an exorbitant 42 percent tariff, which will have a devastating effect on the people of Vietnam. 

    But who really is raping who… and who has been raping and plundering for nearly two and a half centuries now? These articles are part of answering that question. Today we republish articles on the My Lai massacre; the U.S. bombing campaign against Cambodia; and the brutal sexual exploitation—the literal rape—of Vietnamese women by the U.S. Armed Forces.

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  • ARTICLE:

    LA Goes Forward with Its Unjust Prosecution of Luna!

    Judge Denies the Motion to Dismiss 

    Drop the Charges! Hands Off the Revcoms!

    Elise "Luna" Kelder speaks about charges she faces for fighting for the right to abortion.

    On Tuesday, April 22, the Los Angeles courtroom was packed with attorneys, both prosecutors and public defenders, and nine supporters who came to stand with Luna at her hearing on the unjust charges she is facing for standing up against the overturning of Roe v. Wade. For two days before this hearing, fliers about Luna’s case and about serious charges faced by other revcoms for standing up against Trump/MAGA fascism had been passed out en masse in front of the courthouse—and people around the court house were talking about Luna’s case. 

    Luna Hernandez being arrested at Los Angeles City Hall, July 6, 2022.

     

    Luna Hernandez being arrested at Los Angeles City Hall, July 6, 2022.   

    The charges against Luna stem from 2022 and the courageous actions she and others took in the face of the fascist decision by the Supreme Court, striking down the right to abortion. Luna, a member of THE REVCOM CORPS For The Emancipation Of Humanity, Los Angeles, and a leader at that time of the LA Chapter of Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights, was arrested for carrying out two nonviolent acts of civil disobedience to call attention to this outrageous attack on women’s fundamental rights to control their own lives and bodies. She was arrested in June of 2022 at the Summit of the Americas where Biden was speaking and at Los Angeles City Hall in July 2022, where four women chained themselves to City Hall after washable red paint was poured down the steps.

    While all four women who took part in this righteous City Hall action were arrested, only Luna was charged—with four misdemeanors! The purpose of the April 22 hearing was to hear a motion to dismiss the charges against Luna (called a Murgia motion) on the basis that she had been singled out and selectively prosecuted because of her political affiliations. 

    The motion was denied by the judge, and the case was set for trial on May 28. 

    Attention had been drawn to Luna’s case because her attorney had subpoenaed the former head of the Criminal Investigation Division of the LA City Attorney to testify about the fact that she had been fired for defying the orders from the City Attorney to bring criminal charges against a pro-Palestine protester who had in fact not even been charged by the LAPD. This was part of a whole pattern which had come to light of the City Attorney choosing to prosecute or not prosecute based on a defendant’s political leanings. The firing of this prosecutor had been covered by the local press, and buzz had been spreading about this airing of outrageous and illegal actions by the Democratic LA City Attorney. Attorneys came out to Luna’s hearing to see what would happen. 

    It was exactly this pattern of prosecuting people on the basis of their politics which Luna’s attorney was attempting to demonstrate in this hearing in order to give further evidence about the unfair treatment Luna was being subjected to. In an earlier hearing, evidence had been presented that the LAPD has a history of singling out the revcoms and Refuse Fascism, including having sent an informant into a Refuse Fascism meeting in 2017 and having carried out surveillance on the Revolution Club. All of this illegal behavior by the LAPD had been brought to the light of day during the prosecution in 2019 of Luna and 10 others who protested against the first Trump regime. Those 11 protesters were either found NOT guilty at trial or their charges were dropped prior to trial due to these revelations. This history had been brought before the court to make clear that Luna had in fact been singled out in these 2022 charges because of her politics and past history of resistance. 

    Then on Tuesday, the testimony of the former prosecutor about the whole pattern of selective prosecution being practiced by the City Attorney’s office brought further evidence to reinforce the argument that the charges against Luna were unjust and should be dismissed. The prosecution’s only argument in response was that this former prosecutor had not herself been involved in Luna’s case, completely obscuring the whole reality being brought to light about the unjust actions of the LA City Attorney’s office! Despite all the evidence presented that the City Attorney and the LAPD had clear intent to go after Luna because of her politics, the judge summarily denied the motion and remanded the case to trial. 

    As we wrote on April 7: 

    Luna was arrested and charged for sounding the alarm that taking away the basic rights and humanity of women is part of the rise of Christian fascism in this country being spearheaded by Trump and the Supreme Court he appointed, which was responsible for the overturning of Roe. Everything that has happened in society since then has shown how Luna and the people who participated in these actions were right. They were right to call people out in the streets. They were right then to sound the alarm that the revoking of women's right to abortion was a battering ram for a broader fascist remaking of society. Now with Trump 2.0 this has taken a dramatic and horrifying leap: Women in Texas like Maria Margarita Rojas being the first woman to be arrested under Texas fascist anti-abortion laws, and another woman in Georgia being arrested for having a miscarriage (under suspicion that this was self-induced). Trump is declaring war on all the protections people have in “blue” states like California. And yet the LA city attorney, a Democrat, is aiding and abetting this fascism by choosing to prosecute people who stood up to stop this. People who sounded the alarm and led people to defend this basic right to abortion should be celebrated and not criminalized. 

    It is an outrage that this trial is now going forward. 

    This trial of Luna is coming at a time when revcoms in Chicago and San Francisco are also facing charges—targeted for their righteous political protest against the Trump/MAGA fascist regime. This is a time when decent people from all different political perspectives and affiliations need to stand together and have the backs of all who are targeted for standing up and resisting fascism and standing up for the fundamental rights of the people.

    Everyone who recognizes the grave danger we are facing with Trump/MAGA fascism, and the importance of mobilizing millions to defeat this, should demand: HANDS OFF! DROP THE CHARGES!

    STAND WITH LUNA! BE THERE IN COURT MAY 28!

    Call the Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto—(213) 978-8100—and demand that all charges be dropped on Elise “Luna” Kelder.

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  • ARTICLE:

    From the International Emergency Campaign to Free Iran’s Political Prisoners Now (IEC)

    Women Political Prisoners Defy Execution Republic:

    “What Is Important Is How to Live, Not How Long to Live”

    Revcom.us editors’ note: We received the following from the International Emergency Campaign to Free Iran’s Political Prisoners Now (IEC). Translations from Farsi to English are by IEC volunteers. 

    Varisheh Moradi in the mountains of Kurdistan.

     

    Varisheh Moradi in the mountains of Kurdistan.    Graphic: IEC

    Golrokh Iraee, political prisoner in Evin Prison in Iran.

     

    Golrokh Iraee    Graphic: IEC

    Sentenced to death and denied appeal, Varisheh Moradi continues to bring inspiration and yes, joy and laughter, to Evin Prison women’s ward, as detailed in a letter from political prisoner Golrokh Iraee,8 posted by her supporters on her social media. In a series of three rapidly succeeding messages posted in April, Golrokh spoke poignantly on the needed direction to advance the struggle against Iran’s oppressive regime, especially against its repressive execution surge in recent years. 

    She writes with great insight and camaraderie about the heroic example of Varisheh Moradi, who is a Kurdish activist, of the oppressed Kurdish nation that is spread out over western Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria. Varisheh is sentenced to death for having gone to Syria to fight ISIS9 and provide care for women and children in Kurdish refugee camps.

    For years, she closed the doors behind her and went off to live the watchwords she always has on her lips: “For the high-flying eagle of the skies, what is important is how to live, not how long to live.” She lived out those words in the mountains of Kurdistan on a difficult path full of ups and downs, in an unequal battle with ISIS forces who had come to revive slavery and showed no mercy even to children…. With a strange calmness in the face of the death sentence, she sometimes jokes about it to lift our mood. With a laugh that deepens the dimples on her cheeks, she says: "This sentence will be executed." And we who are angry and laugh think that what she says is not a mockery of life, but the greatness of defeating death, in the voice of a woman who brings death to its knees, by living resistance… Varisheh starts each day with the sentence that she has written on her bed in beautiful handwriting. "O life, we will either adorn you with freedom or we will not live." How beautifully she lives these poems and slogans while honoring the struggle, and never hiding behind expediency. –Golrokh Iraee, April 2025, Evin Prison

    The valor and constancy of Varisheh is sharply contrasted with those who “hide behind expediency” in another post, an urgent polemic by Golrokh shortly before the execution of political prisoner Hamid Hosseinnejad Heydaranlu.

    The IRI Murder of Kurdish Kolbar Hamid Hosseinnejad Heydaranlu

    Hamid Hosseinnejad Heydaranlu in composite with Urmia Central Prison where he was executed in the Kurdistan province.

     

    Hamid Hosseinnejad Heydaranlu in composite with Urmia Central Prison where he was executed in the Kurdistan province.    Graphic: NoToExecution

    Hamid was a Kurdish kolbar, or porter, who fed his family by carrying huge burdens on his back over the precipitous mountain paths between Iranian Kurdistan and Turkey. In April 2023, Hamid was arrested on suspicion of smuggling. But suddenly the charges morphed into “Baghi,” armed rebellion and collaboration with a Kurdish party, with absolutely no proof other than a forced confession in Persian, which he does not speak, and he is illiterate.10 Over and over, he insisted, “I am innocent.” 

    The Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) is especially targeting members of oppressed nationalities in Iran for repression, including executions, particularly Kurds in western Iran, Baluchs in southeastern Iran, and immigrants (many undocumented) from Afghanistan, attempting to terrorize them into silence. At the same time, all this serves the regime’s ability to divide and conquer by drawing in ethnic Persians into toxic supremacist nationalism. 

    Golrokh Iraee fiercely denounced those who consider themselves “progressive” yet turn their faces away from people like Hamid. 

    We have become numb to execution orders. We look on. A sigh, a regret. Sometimes eyes fill with tears - but we easily make excuses to calm our conscience… we check to see whether he is a partisan or a member of some group or if he is affiliated with a particular trend, school of thought, or ideology. Or we find a photograph whose content we did not like… and heave a sigh not of sadness but of relief.

    She condemned society’s indifference to recent executions, and challenged people not to be satisfied with posting on social media, but to stand up and build mass resistance in the public square, including against the horrific execution of 21 Baluch citizens in a single week. 

    We are oblivious to the fact that in order to abolish the death penalty, to end the cycle of systematic killing, which is one of the pillars of the Islamic Republic, we must line up outside the prison doors and shout #NoToExecution face to face with the dictator.

    A third Golrokh letter dated April 19 made clear that the necessary struggle is not for a U.S.-backed monarchist “regime change” that merely changes the faces at the top. She notes that Evin prisoners again held a ceremony in memory of political prisoners murdered 50 years ago by SAVAK, the brutal political police of the U.S.-backed Shah.11

    Every year in the spring and April, the memory of these martyrs of the revolution who fell victim to SAVAK is evoked in the mind and linked to the memory of thousands of political prisoners massacred by the clerical regime in the eighties and summer of 1988. The presence of “we” together in a chain and the preservation of their names in our memory is the continuation of the path full of ups and downs that they walked and rebelled against oppression. Their path undoubtedly continues. #Neitherforgivenorforget –A group of women in Evin

    A significant section of political prisoners in Iran, among whom the women of Evin stand out, have fought to highlight this “chain” of struggle which connects the revolution that overthrew the Shah in 1979 to today’s struggle against the Islamic fundamentalist regime which highjacked that revolution and instituted a fascist theocracy. This positive trend among prisoners, which is not necessarily a clearly defined or unified ideology and which includes people of differing perspectives, rejects the road of relying on sections of the reactionary regime who may break ranks to save their own necks by joining with U.S.-backed, equally reactionary forces. This is the meaning of the #Neitherforgivenorforget slogan, as well as #NeitherSheikhNorShah (where Sheikh refers to the theocratic “Supreme Leader” and Shah refers to the monarchists).

    For this, many of these political prisoners have been viciously slandered and threatened, both in the official press and on the social media of pro-regime “reformists," fanatical followers of the pro-U.S. Shah’s son “Prince” Reza Pahlavi, and various rival fundamentalists. 

    Unite with Political Prisoners to Bring Forward a Liberating Way Out 

     In opposition to the righteous stance of those political prisoners described above who are struggling mightily for another way out that does not trade oppressors, there are those  in the social movements and academia, who promote the erroneous logic that because the U.S. opposes it, the IRI must be anti-imperialist, without any analysis of its actual role as a dark ages Islamic fundamentalist regime that is fully integrated into the imperialist global system, currently allied with the U.S.’s rivals, China and Russia. This leads them to gloss over the crimes of the IRI such as its executions and torture and the horrific oppression of minorities, women and LGBT people. 

    Some of these forces, in the face of the real need to oppose U.S. intervention and war threats against Iran, even promote “Victory to Iran.” This “Victory to Iran” can mean nothing but fortifying the torture chambers and gallows, betraying the women, the LGBT people, the artists, the striking workers, who have put their lives on the line over and over with breathtaking valor. It patronizingly dismisses as U.S. dupes all of Iran’s political dissidents, such as the millions in the Women, Life, Freedom uprising against the hated forced hijab (head-covering) that cost the life of Mahsa Jina Amini in 2022. 

    Supporting the Islamic Republic theocracy in a narrow, pragmatic view of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is not only wrong but dangerous and ironically not only strengthens the oppressive regime in Iran but the U.S. imperialists as well. It empowers them each to point to the other as oppressors—and they are both right! But the U.S. is clearly the bigger problem in the world and in history, and especially now under a fascist Trump regime.

    The prisoners themselves have set an example to follow, struggling under difficult conditions to send statements and letters like Golrokh Iraee’s, calling on the people of Iran and the world, not outmoded governments and institutions, to go to the streets, to amplify the calls to End Executions, to stand with the Women, Life, Freedom rebels. 

    This Campaign to Free Iran’s Political Prisoners Now has been clear on the real need to mobilize people in the U.S. and globally to oppose U.S. war threats and moves against Iran. As the IEC 2021 Emergency Appeal made clear: 

    All those who stand for justice and yearn for a better world must rally to the cause of freeing Iran’s political prisoners NOW….The governments of the U.S. and Iran act from their national interests. And, in this instance, we the people of the U.S. and Iran, along with the people of the world, have OUR shared interests, as part of getting to a better world: to unite to defend the political prisoners of Iran. In the U.S., we have a special responsibility to unite very broadly against this vile repression by the IRI, and to actively oppose any war moves by the U.S. government that would bring even more unbearable suffering to the people of Iran.

    Prisoners’ Hunger Strike Spreads

    The program of “Victory to Iran” is all the more grotesque in the face of the prisoners-led struggle in Iran involving hundreds in 40 prisons. When the daily pre-dawn call to prayers rings out in the fascist theocracy that rules Iran, thousands of prisoners on death row and on political wards anxiously wonder: Whose neck will be broken on the gallows this morning at call to prayer? Whose widow, whose orphans will be left wailing outside these walls? Who will put themselves on the line for our lives and our dignity?

    As the IRI continues to haggle with the U.S. under severe threats of U.S./Israeli military attack, within its borders the regime steps up its vicious executions and prison sentences, killing 316 so far in 2025

    In contrast to that, the “No to Execution Tuesday” weekly hunger strike has expanded now to 40 prisons with the joining of a group of female prisoners in Zahedan Prison in Baluchistan and Azbaram Prison in Lahijan, continuing firm in an unbroken series of 65 weeks. About a dozen protests weekly continue to support them and shine a light on specific political prisoners and executions, protests ranging from small vigils to consistent actions, mostly in European cities with large Iranian populations.

    Tweet URL

    Latest in series of weekly videos in support of prisoners’ hunger strike

    Slogans: Free All Political Prisoners Now!

     

    _______________

    FOOTNOTES:

    1.  Golrokh Iraee is a women’s and civil rights activist serving a six-year sentence for “assembly and collusion against national security and propaganda against the state,” arrested in September 2022 for posting about protests against the murder of Mahsa Jina Amini in custody of the “morality police.” She had already served three years for “insulting the sacred” and “propaganda against the regime” for writing an unpublished story about the stoning of women.  [back]

    2. The group ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, also known as ISIL—the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) is a jihadist group, committed to holy or religious war across national boundaries with the aim of creating an Islamic caliphate in the Middle East. ISIS and similar Islamic fundamentalist forces have never been a force for liberation. See also:  Reactionary Islamic Fundamentalism and the ISIL (or ISIS), revcom.us, June 26, 2014.

    In Fall 2014 ISIS attacked the Kurdish city of Kobani in northeastern Syria, killing thousands of Kurdish civilians and raping and enslaving women, but were ultimately defeated. Varisheh Moradi was seriously wounded while defending Kobani.  [back]

    3.  Authorities claimed his car had been used to transport armed fighters in a 2017 attack that killed 8 border guards. His passport shows that he was with his family in Turkey during this precise time, and the extreme terrain of the border area makes it impossible for him to have sneaked out briefly. There is no physical proof that his car was even present. He was tortured in solitary for 12 months, with zero contact with a lawyer or family, forced to sign a confession in Persian.  Kurdish Political Prisoner Hamid Hosseinnejad Heydaranlu at Imminent Risk of Execution, Iranhr.net, April 17, 2025.  [back]

    4.  For background on U.S.’s role in imposing the Shah, see American Crime Case #98: 1953 CIA Coup in Iran: Torture and Repression – Made in the U.S.A.  [back]

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  • ARTICLE:

    Reposted from RefuseFascism.org

    A CALL TO CONSCIENCE... A CALL TO ACT:

    NO!

    In The Name of Humanity,

    We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America

    We Demand: The Trump Fascist Regime Must Go!

    Revcom.us editors’ note: RefuseFascism.org published A Call to Conscience ... A Call to Act on their website on March 7, 2025. RefuseFascism is calling on people everywhere to distribute, discuss, and sign this call. People can sign online at https://refusefascism.org/

    NOW IS THE TIME WHEN WE MUST RISE UP AND ACT TO STOP THE CONSOLIDATION OF TRUMP MAGA FASCISM. For the lives of people here and around the world we must refuse unlawful and inhumane orders… we must fill the streets and town squares in rising numbers — not stopping until we become millions — not relenting until this regime is no longer able to implement its program.

    In the grotesque form of Donald Trump and his vicious conglomeration of Nazi-saluting strategists and shock troops, a fascist regime has come to power. They have learned and hardened from the last eight years, and they are on an accelerated path to remaking the country in their image.

    The clock ticks toward the midnight hour. Each minute brings new shocks and jolts. Each second shatters lives.

    It is unconscionable and dangerous to act as if fascism cannot happen in America. It is unacceptable to conciliate or accommodate in the name of protecting a few, when each day the mechanisms of fascism are rapidly being hammered into place – locking in a future that imperils all.

    That Trump came to power through an election is no excuse. No election, fair or fraudulent, legitimates fascism.

    “Fascism” is not a curse word. Fully imposed, it is a radically oppressive and repressive form of rule over the people of this country, with devastating impact on the people of the world. The rule of law is shredded. Civil and democratic rights are eliminated. Dissent is piece by piece criminalized. The truth is bludgeoned. Group after group demonized and targeted along a trajectory that leads to catastrophe.

    Government institutions purged and stocked with MAGA loyalists. Violent vigilante groups – now pardoned. From the halls of power to the streets, fascist foot soldiers are primed and unrestrained to enforce the program of the Trump regime. NO! We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America!

    This is a fascist regime fighting to make this a country even more ruthlessly ruled by white supremacy – where diversity is the enemy, racism is openly the law, and ethnic cleansing is carried out and celebrated. NO! We refuse to live in a society where the fight for equality of all people – no matter their race, gender, sex, nationality, or immigration status is mocked, vilified, and even forbidden.

    A fascist regime fighting to make this a country ruled by virulent macho patriarchy – where women are incubators, LGBTQ people are forced back into the closet, and trans people are erased with targets on their backs. NO! We refuse to live in a country where half of humanity are treated as less than human.

    A fascist regime fighting to make this a country ruled by “America First” xenophobia – where the hatred of “foreigners” means terrorizing whole neighborhoods and peoples, tossing millions of immigrants into the shadows and offshore concentration camps and death through deportation. NO! We respect the dignity and humanity of every person no matter where they were born.

    Trump threatens to take over weaker countries and effects a foreign policy that heightens the danger of nuclear war. Never forget that Trump has said: “If we have nuclear weapons, why can’t we use them?” NO! NO! NO! We will not allow this fascist gangster regime to destroy humanity.

    All this while a leading core of the regime advances a theocratic Christian supremacy – where the Bible is taken literally, and there is no separation between church and state and people’s private lives. NO! We know that the right to believe or not to believe is essential to a diverse and thinking people.

    This a regime of anti-science lunacy, accelerating climate devastation and fueling more epidemics and pandemics. NO! And again NO! We will fight with all we’ve got to prevent the destruction of the planet and life on it.

    WE DO NOT ACCEPT THEIR FUTURE!

    The hour has come for each of us to ask: If we do not act to stop this, what kind of people will we become?

    We stand up and fight for a future in which no human being is enslaved, subjugated, or deemed “illegal”… a future in which the planet can heal and people can be fit caretakers of the earth…

    There can be no conciliation or collaboration between the world we want and the country they want. We have no common cause with MAGA fascism.

    There is a way to defeat this. We, the undersigned, call on the decent people who don’t want to live in a fascist America – who are more than half the country – to courageously rise up as one.

    Those who have dedicated their lives to service – to teach children, to heal the sick, to conduct life-saving research – refusing to comply with fascist decrees, backed up by all justice-loving people.

    Students and young people whose whole future is on the line making schools and campuses centers of resistance and filling the streets.

    Women and LGBTQ people who are furious at being enslaved and erased — bringing their defiance and rage into the public square.

    People of color and everyone sick to death of white supremacy refusing to go back, bringing the experience and fury of centuries of resistance into this fight.

    Artists, writers, clergy, and legal scholars speaking in many voices to say NO! bringing their voices into the struggle.

    With this: Millions in the streets not allowing business as usual when that business is cementing fascist rule with the vilest degrading morality down our throats. MANY VOICES AND BODIES DEMANDING: THE TRUMP FASCIST REGIME MUST GO! With this we can and must create a political crisis in which the Trump regime cannot govern and implement their fascist program or even maintain his hold on power.

    Waiting for the next elections will be too late. We cannot rely on the Democratic Party’s leadership who complacently rely on the very norms and processes that the Trump regime shreds by the hour.

    NO! We must organize and struggle as we never have before. We must not allow ourselves to be divided and conquered. We must unite all who can be united from many different viewpoints and perspectives, to foster and draw on a collective spirit of courage and righteous fury and willingness to make the necessary sacrifices, for the greater good of defeating this fascism. We in our millions are a force powerful enough to defeat Trump/MAGA fascism.

    Let it not be said that when there was still a chance to stop an unprecedented threat to the future of humanity, we did not rise to meet the challenge of our time. Let us not allow the watching world today to despair of our silence and our failure to act. Instead, let the world see our determination and courage and hear our righteous demand:

    In The Name of Humanity, We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America.

    The Fascist Trump Regime Must Go!

    Add Your Name Here

    ***

    For a printable brochure of this A Call to Conscience... A Call to Act, download it HERE from RefuseFascism.org

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  • ARTICLE:

    The Need for Dreams (on a Scientific Foundation) in the Time of Fascism

    Making Bob Avakian and the New Communism Known Throughout Society

    In the summer of 2020, the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian wrote: "Radical Change is Coming: Will It Be Emancipating, Or Enslaving—Revolutionary, Or Reactionary?"

    The forces for the reactionary resolution to this question are on the march. The fascist Trump regime is ripping up what millions of decent people have held most deeply and dearly about what it means to be human: Is it dog-eat-dog, kill or be killed, or does it mean caring for each other? Should we drill-baby-drill and conquer the natural world for profit or have an appreciation and wonder for nature and its diverse ecosystems? Should we torture human intimacy into strict dark ages gender roles or let people love who they love? Should we enforce blind-faith lunacy and lies in the service of fascism or foster a spirit of critical thinking and scientific inquiry in pursuit of the truth?

    All this is causing these millions to be agonized to their deepest core. 

    Imagine... 

    But as we unite to confront—and urgently move to defeat—the Trump fascist regime, very few can imagine the positive emancipating answer to the question Bob Avakian (BA) asked in 2020. And this needs to change. There really is a radically different and far better way the world can be.

    And our unity and fighting spirit will be profoundly strengthened if we do so while opening up the biggest questions about this—over what is causing this fascism, and what kind of society we should be living in and fighting for. A vibrant spirit of discussion and debate—comparing and contrasting different views—is part of how we will learn, and it will contribute to raising people's sights. 

    Because of the new communism developed by Bob Avakian (BA), there is a theoretical framework and concrete strategic approach for organizing society on a whole different liberating foundation. We can bring into being a society not based on vicious exploitation and oppression of people of the world, but based on people coming together in a coordinated and cooperative way to meet people's needs and provide the resources needed for the race-against-time in working to deal with the environmental catastrophe wrought by capitalism, and to uproot exploitation and oppression. And we can do this without "turning out the lights" on intellectual and cultural debate and dissent. We can do this in a society that actually and consistently upholds the rule of law, the presumption of innocence. and fosters a morality of humanity first.

    Hard, but Liberating, Truths

    In a time of darkness and danger, it is more urgent to raise our sights. And it is exactly in this moment of great upheaval, where great change needs to be envisioned and can actually be brought into being. 

    As many people can see, Trump fascism hasn't come out of nowhere. There's been a rot in this society that Trump has taken advantage of—a long-standing and festering rot. Trump is, as the revcom.us poster says, "a thoroughly American fascist pig." What caring people haven't felt a deep disquiet about this society?! Why after a Civil War and heroic struggle over decades, can America not get beyond oppressing Black people, Native Americans and other people of color? Why after all this struggle, do women find themselves hated, demeaned and despised in every corner of society, unable to control their own bodies? Why after waves of scientists have sounded the alarm for years, is this country still fracking and burning fossil fuels?

    So as we go forward—as we debate out what kind of positive vision we should be fighting for, let's recognize that not only is the "normal" not coming back, but we shouldn't want it to—it was a nightmare to begin with.

    Even if they don't understand this scientifically, millions of people feel this. Millions have "lost faith" in the institutions of this country: They've witnessed a genocide fully funded and backed by this country for the last year and a half. They worry about having kids on a planet imperiled by capitalist-caused climate change. They worry about not being able to "make ends meet" in a country where millions are one crisis away from homelessness. Millions labor in soul-crushing, meaningless jobs. And many know the wealth and consumer goods in this country rests on the most vicious exploitation in sweatshops and mines—even if they refuse to confront what this really means for people, and why this is—consoling themselves with the lie that they can't really do anything about this. Because they think there is no alternative to this system, many just throw their hands up in despair—in a culture that fosters do-for-self cynicism.

    But as Bob Avakian brings alive in his New Year's message, 2025: A New Year—Profound New Challenges—And a Profoundly Positive Way Forward in the Face of Very Real Horror, "There is a whole new way to live—with a fundamentally different system."

    He says:

    This system is completely absurd—criminally, monstrously absurd—and completely outmoded: long past its expiration date, past the time when it can lead to anything positive for humanity—and, on the contrary, it stands as the direct barrier to the emancipation of humanity from all this madness, atrocity, and unnecessary suffering. The rise of fascism, in many other countries as well as in the U.S. itself, is a glaring sign of the thoroughly outmoded nature of this system and the heightened danger it poses to humanity as a whole.

    We are now at the point where it is more and more urgently necessary to move beyond this whole monstrous system—beyond a situation where people are forced to struggle just for individual survival, with everyone compelled to be in competition and conflict with others, and the masses of people everywhere are chained down by outmoded oppressive relations, while the future, and the very existence, of humanity is increasingly endangered.

    And it is possible now to move beyond all this.

    Read that last paragraph again and think about that: moving beyond "a situation where people are forced to struggle just for individual survival..." 

    What IF We Were NOT Set Against Each Other

    If we weren't set against each other in that individual struggle to survive, think of the new ways that humanity—in all our diversity—can be relating to each other and the planet. In a society that fosters collectivity and community instead of every man for himself, at each other's expense. If we had an economy geared to meeting people's needs and enabling people to become fit caretakers of the earth instead of profit, profit and more profit for a small handful. 

    If we had a society where people's potential was unleashed—to contribute to the greater good, to innovate to deal with the biggest problems of climate change, and disease (and not all the wasted resources that go into how to sell your products, or even sell yourself!). If people sought to learn from the sharp debate about the way forward with the institutions of society funding, and providing space for, that debate, instead of shutting it down or shunting it into the most meaningless margins of society.

    This will be full of struggle and complexity and twists and turns, but it is possible to put an end to so much needless cruelty and immiseration—a society where people could actually breathe... a society that people would want to live in instead of this hellscape of capitalist misery.

    The concrete framework for what this society could look like is laid out in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, written by Bob Avakian (BA). And BA brings this alive in a recent two-part Interview, Humanity Does Not Have to Live This Way!

    Once Again on the Need to Dream

    Bob Avakian often quotes from the singer John Lennon, who in his beautiful song “Imagine” sang about a different world that is possible. In it, he sang: "You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one." And as BA has added: This is not just a dream. There is the material basis in how society has evolved up to this point to make these dreams a reality!

    Now is a time to dig into all this. To open up a real debate over the future. To spread Bob Avakian's work, the ongoing leadership he is providing through his social media messages and insist on a serious engagement. Pull people together—watch these Interviews, talk about them. Now is a time to build revolutionary community, sharing our differences, our questions, our dreams and aspirations for the world.

    If you want to see a better world, you should contribute financially for BA's voice to reach others—reverberating throughout society. 

    As part of the new communism, Bob Avakian has also been analyzing the rise of fascism in the U.S. and around the world for decades—including how it's rooted in the system of capitalism, with its foundation in genocide and slavery. This is gotten into further in the pamphlet titled TRUMP/MAGA FASCISM: What We’re Really Facing, Why, and What Must Be Done to Defeat It Before It’s Too Late. And he is digging into the principles and standards we need to unite across divergent political perspectives—with a spirit of broadness of mind and generosity of spirit—to wage the historic fight for the future that is on us if we are to defeat this fascism.

    There are some who will attack this, and will attack BA in particular because he has been so outspoken, visionary and radical in the struggle against fascism, and the whole system. There are others who will argue with good intentions that now is not the time. But while we are uniting widely to defeat this fascist regime, overcoming divide and conquer, it is exactly the time to ask the sharpest questions and to hear each other out. For our part, we revcoms understand that this fascism arises out of this system of capitalism-imperialism which is also responsible for many other atrocities. And as I've spoken to here, we urgently see the need and basis for a whole different liberating system. We are eager to discuss and debate this—on a principled basis.

    It is the fascists who believe in close-minded uniformity and shutting down debate. We should learn from our diversity, fostering debate, on a principled basis. An appreciation of the need for this kind of process is itself part of the new communism that BA has developed. And it is a process that we can all learn from—while we stand shoulder to shoulder, and work to make real the dreams of a better world.

    What characterized the truly massive movement of the 1960s, with all its different tendencies, was a determination to actually put an end to the outrages that people were rising up against, along with a broad sense of “being in this together in the fight for a better world,” and the generosity of spirit, as well as largeness of mind, that went along with that. One of the significant expressions of this was meaningful discussion and debate about different ideas and programs, within the broad mass movement, where the actual content and substance of opposing positions was gotten into, instead of petty bickering relying on “cheap shots” and distortion of the views of others—or the refusal to seriously engage views that are different from and might challenge one’s own viewpoint.

    - From social media message REVOLUTION #33 by Bob Avakian: "The powerful positive experience of the 1960s movement—the crucial importance of uniting broadly against injustice and atrocity, with open-minded engagement of different ideas and programs and principled debate over differences."

    In a comment about the Interviews, a young professor and volunteer with The Bob Avakian Institute wrote: 

    ...the concreteness with which Bob Avakian spoke about the new communism, and in particular the concrete examples he gave from the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America as applications of the new communism, was revelatory for me. It underscored the fact that the Constitution is a living expression of the new communism by identifying specific approaches to different spheres of society (the legal system, culture, the economy, political structures, the media, etc.) that differed, quite radically, from those of past socialist societies. And in the Interviews, he brought these breakthroughs to life.

    How does the new communism concretely deal with due process, the right to legal representation, the assumption of innocence, etc.? What would the media ecosystem look like in the new socialist society? In as concrete of terms as we can speak. This was really a revelation for me. It connected the dots between the philosophical and theoretical breakthroughs of the new communism and their application in practice, and the role of the Constitution as the hinge. 

    These concrete examples that give life to the new communism, applied in the Constitution to a new socialist society, are also striking in how radically, diametrically different it is from especially the fascist nightmare being rammed down our throats by the Trump regime, but also from what characterizes far too much of the left in this society. The ways in which it differs from the MAGA fascists are obvious, but are also important—they provide the basis for forging a pole of attraction based on the new communism in this period. But the contrast is also quite sharp when compared to the prevailing culture, including, markedly, the progressive or “radical” culture of the day. Revenge, cynicism, a contempt for due process and the principle of innocent-til-proven-guilty, personal attacks and “branding” rather than struggle at the level of line, lack of intellectual curiosity or broadness of mind, etc., etc. This contrast both highlights much of what is (or can be) attractive in the new communism, but also the scale of what we’re up against in fighting for this approach, method, and line. 

    The Bob Avakian Interviews, 2025

     

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  • ARTICLE:

    A Call for Volunteers Who Want to Help Stop Fascism and Bring in a Whole New World

    Do you ache to see this world changed? Are you infuriated—or at times heartsick—as you see the fascist Trump regime rampage on, and want to throw in to stopping it?

    If so, we have a message for you:

    What you do in this time—not just the years ahead, but literally in the days, weeks and months before us right now—will have a magnified impact on whether the world plunges headfirst into a fascist hellhole from which there may be no return… or whether humanity fights its way to an emancipated future. We are a revolutionary bilingual website, rooted in the new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian. To get a sense of how we see today’s crucial situation, go here. To get a sense of our overall mission and method of our site, go here. And to get acquainted with Bob Avakian and what is new about the new communism, go here.

    We need writers, graphic designers, photographers and visual artists, translators, tech wizards and video whizzes and algorithm conquerors, fundraisers and proofreaders and palm card distributors. We need experienced people and enthusiastic amateurs who want to help, or be part of helping, at the level they can and learn while they do.

    To begin, let us know who you are… what you think… why you want to work with this website… and what you can do. Send it in to revolution.reports@yahoo.com. 

    And… let’s get busy!

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  • ARTICLE:

    Readers’ Corner

    Updated

    Readers Corner

     

    Readers’ Corner highlights views that you, our readers, send us on the big questions about making revolution. Questions about building the movement for an actual revolution. Or responses to, and thoughts provoked by, the social media messages from Bob Avakian—the revolutionary leader and architect of the new communism. Thinking and questions you may have on other important documents from Bob Avakian (BA) and the Revcoms. As well as reflections on the new communism brought forward by BA, both overall and in relation to the urgent moment at hand. Now especially is a time for collective scientific grappling.

    Please send these to revolution.reports@yahoo.com. If your submission isn't reposted, it will still feed into our overall enriched understanding of what questions we should be speaking to.

    * * * * *

    The Fight Against Fascism… Before, and After, BA: Internationalism
    From a reader

    I've been returning to and digging into the recent interviews with Bob Avakian (BA): Part 1: On Fascism, Capitalism, & the Way Out of the Madness; Part 2: The New Communism: A Whole New Way To Live, a Fundamentally Different System. As I have, I have been repeatedly struck by a point that was made in a letter from a reader on revcom.us last December:

    In the history of [communism] there is a clear “before” and an “after,” that is delineated by the emergence of the new synthesis of communism developed by BA—yes, building on the many lessons and accomplishments of the past, but, crucially, breaking with and discarding a tremendous amount of wrong thinking, wrong methods, and wrong practices, that, despite best intentions, seriously vitiated and contributed to derailing the first wave of socialist revolutions...

    What BA has developed with the new communism really is a NEW path forward for humanity that is very DIFFERENT, and MUCH BETTER than anything that the first wave of socialism/communism was even able to conceive of, let alone put into practice.

    There’s so much in these interviews that illustrate this. One thing that struck me deeply in these last couple weeks is the question of internationalism, which I want to speak to here. Internationalism is one very important element of the “before and after” spoken to above, though far from the only one.

    Read more

    The World's Most Radical Thinker On Women's Liberation is An “Old, White, Man”:  A Challenge to Put Aside Ill-Founded Prejudice and Engage Bob Avakian
    by Sunsara Taylor

    Bro culture seething with the hatred of women. Gleeful taunts of “Your body, my choice.” Fascist enforcement of patriarchal gender codes. Trump/MAGA 2.0 is moving at lightning speed. Alongside his genocidal racism, his threats against the people of the world, and the sledgehammer he is taking to any remaining democratic norms or basic rights of the people, Trump is pushing for the open enslavement of women and complete erasure of trans people.

    We Stand At A Crossroads

    Never before have so many women in so many parts of the world broken free of so many traditional chains of patriarchy. Women have fought their way into public life and into every profession. In the U.S., women outpace men in higher education. Women dominate pop culture. Growing numbers boldly reject the shame that has long attached to female sexuality, to abortion, and to being a victim of sexual assault. Meanwhile, LGBT people have become widely visible, won important basic rights and achieved growing respect and acceptance.

    Read more

    Letter from a reader
    Appreciating, Wielding and Promoting Bob Avakian's Official Biography

    ....I would like to recommend that people read, and wield, the recently updated “Bob Avakian Official Biography.” THE REVCOM CORPS For The Emancipation Of Humanity in LA has been wielding this in meetings with broader forces who need to be united in a powerful movement built with the very specific aim of defeating fascism along with the series of @BobAvakianOfficial social media messages REVOLUTION #102-111. Additionally, we have been using it with people who have come into the Revcom Corps as a way to learn about the importance of revolutionary theory and to get an introduction to the actual breakthrough in human understanding the new communism is. 

    Bob Avakian - Official Biography book cover

     

    This biography is also really an excellent introduction to the person who is the kind of leader that has never before existed in this country and whose leadership is of enormous importance for the emancipation of all humanity. It gives a history of the formative experiences that made BA who he is, the times that helped shape him and the critical junctures in the development of those times where his leadership has been decisive—from growing up in Berkeley and his early political life to becoming a communist and communist leader, to the restoration of capitalism in China and the end of the first stage of communist revolutions. It gets into how BA was and is the only thinker and leader in the world today to meet this defeat with the interrogation of that experience in a way that has qualitatively advanced the science of communism. Theory that has met the end of a wave of revolutions in a world that is tragically stymied and existentially imperiled—paving not only a path out of this but a path to a future that not only makes revolution viable again but worth fighting for. Paving the way for a new wave of truly emancipating revolutions throughout the world.  Read more

    A Letter from a Reader—To the Revcoms, and All Who Seek a Radically New World

    “A clear before and an after”: 

    What Bob Avakian (BA) has brought forward is not just another big advance in the history of our project.  In the history of our project there is a clear “before” and an “after,” that is delineated by the emergence of the new synthesis of communism developed by BA—yes, building on the many lessons and accomplishments of the past, but, crucially, breaking with and discarding a tremendous amount of wrong thinking, wrong methods, and wrong practices, that, despite best intentions, seriously vitiated and contributed to derailing the first wave of socialist revolutions. 

    We shouldn’t want to repeat any of that! We shouldn’t want even the best of the past socialist revolutions and societies, especially now that we have an even much better theoretical and practical framework to work with! What BA has developed with the new communism really is a NEW path forward for humanity that is very DIFFERENT, and MUCH BETTER than anything that the first wave of socialism/communism was even able to conceive of, let alone put into practice.

    How much do we all really understand and appreciate that? Really agree? Read more.

    Further Grappling with “A Clear Before and an After” with the New Communism Developed by Bob Avakian 

    I’ve been part of a lot of rich discussions responding to the letter from a reader posted here a couple weeks ago: “A clear before and an after.”

    That letter makes the point:

    In the history of our project [a communist world, free from all forms of exploitation and oppression, with an emancipating culture] there is a clear “before” and an “after,” that is delineated by the emergence of the new synthesis of communism developed by BA [Bob Avakian]...

    One thing I’ve kept coming back to in these discussions is what it means to say that “the new communism is a whole new framework for human emancipation.”  Or as it says in the letter, “What BA has developed with the new communism really is a NEW path forward for humanity that is very DIFFERENT, and MUCH BETTER than anything that the first wave of socialism/communism was even able to conceive of, let alone put into practice.” Read more

    What Is Most Important About Bob Avakian's Leadership?

    From a reader

    Several weeks ago, revcom.us published the following statement:

    We will never succeed in having a real revolution in this country—certainly not one really worth having and that is truly emancipating for the vast majority of people—unless and until millions of people are won to become conscious followers of Bob Avakian and the new communism he has developed as the pathway and blueprint for the emancipation of all of humanity.

    There are several important things in this crucial and true statement, but I want to start with what is the most important (and what is, at the same time, still the least understood and appreciated) part of that statement. The most important part of that statement is not merely or absolutely that there couldn't be a revolution without BA, but that any revolution that is not led by the new communism Bob Avakian has forged wouldn't lead anywhere good. Simply put: There is no road to human emancipation without Bob Avakian's new communism. There is no way to continue to understand and change the world in the fundamental interests of humanity as a whole, to overthrow and defeat the old order and build a new society and system that enables people to uproot and overcome all forms of oppression and exploitation, and do so in a way that unleashes and increasingly involves and relies on the masses of people in this process. Read more

    Why Bob Avakian Is So Important

    From a reader

    “Besides the fact that he is the only leader in this country who is talking about a real revolution—and besides the fact that he is actually leading the process of actively working for that revolution—what Bob Avakian (BA) has done, with the development of the new communism, is of world historic importance. It is, in fact, a whole new framework for human emancipationNo one else has done what BA has done. 

    In the Six Resolutions of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party, the sixth one states that while BA is Chairman of the Party, he is “greater than” that. It goes on to say, “As we have emphasized, the leadership of BA and the new synthesis of communism that he has brought forward provides the theoretical framework, the scientific method and approach for a whole new stage of communist revolution, not just in this country but in the world as a whole. BA is not just solving tactical problems or things encountered “on the way,” but BA has actually envisioned what the new socialist society would be based on and tackled the contradictions involved in moving a socialist society toward communism—without putting a gun to people’s backs. This is the historic contradiction and because BA has solved it with the new communism, we can actually say humanity has the understanding to get to a world without exploitation and oppression, to a conscious and voluntary association of human beings solving the problems of society and engaging in debate, creative and scientific activities, enriching humanity materially, socially, intellectually and spiritually in a materialist sense. Read more

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  • ARTICLE:

    Mahmoud Khalil: What does my detention by ICE say about America

    A democracy for some is no democracy at all.

    Written from ICE detention facility in Jena, Louisiana, April 17, 2025

    Mahmoud Khalil

    It’s 3 a.m. as I lie sleepless on a bunk bed in Jena, Louisiana, far from my wife, Noor, who will give birth to our baby in two weeks. The sound of rain hitting the metal roof masks the snoring of 70 men tossing and turning on hard mats in this detention facility run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Which ones are dreaming about reuniting with their families? Which ones are having nightmares about becoming the Trump administration’s next “administrative error”?

    Last Friday, I sat in a courtroom as an immigration judge determined that the government could deport me despite my status as a legal permanent resident and despite that the government’s claims against me were baseless — much of its “evidence” lifted directly from sensationalized tabloids. The decision won’t result in immediate deportation — aspects of my case are pending in other courts.

    Earlier that day, I sifted through letters from supporters. Two postage stamps displayed the American flag, one stating “liberty forever,” the other proclaiming “justice forever.” The irony is stunning, especially regarding what I’ve learned about how the administration exploits immigration law to enforce its repressive agenda. I think about the breakneck speed with which my case was heard and decided, running roughshod over due process. On the flip side, I think about those I am locked up with, many of whom have been languishing for months or years waiting for their “due process.”

    During Friday’s hearing, the government asserted on behalf of Secretary of State Marco Rubio that my beliefs, statements and associations compromise its “compelling” foreign policy interests. Like the thousands of students that I advocated with at Columbia — including Muslim, Jewish and Christian friends — I believe in the innate equality of all human beings. I believe in human dignity. I believe in the right of my people to look at the blue sky and not fear an impending missile.

    Why should protesting Israel’s indiscriminate killing of thousands of innocent Palestinians result in the erosion of my constitutional rights?

    My lawyers have mentioned that a case called Endo might bear on my own. Days later, in my research at a law library, I uncovered the human story behind the legal abstraction. Mitsuye Endo, a Japanese American woman incarcerated during World War II, challenged her captors and brought her case to the Supreme Court. Her victory helped secure the release of thousands of others.

    The incarceration of 70,000 American citizens of Japanese descent is a reminder that rhetoric of justice and freedom obscures the reality that, all too often, America has been a democracy of convenience. Rights are granted to those who align with power. For the poor, for people of color, for those who resist injustice, rights are but words written on water. The right to free speech when it comes to Palestine has always been exceptionally weak. Even so, the crackdown on universities and students reveals just how afraid the White House is of the idea of Palestine’s freedom entering the mainstream. Why else would Trump officials not only attempt to deport me but also intentionally mislead the public about who I am and what I stand for?

    I pick up my copy of Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.” I feel ashamed to compare my conditions in ICE detention to Nazi concentration camps, yet, some aspects of Frankl’s experience resonate: not knowing what fate awaits me; seeing resignation and defeat in my fellow detainees. Frankl wrote from the lens of a psychologist. I wonder whether Hussam Abu Safiya, a renowned hospital director who was abducted in Gaza by Israeli occupying forces on Dec. 27 and, according to his lawyer from the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, has endured beatings, electric shocks and solitary confinement, will write about his ordeal from a medical perspective.

    It’s almost 4 a.m. Thunder crashes. A few rows away, one man hugs a bottle of hot water in a sock for warmth. His prayer mat serves as a blanket, and his head rests on his shoes. A detainee who was praying all night finally lies down. He was caught crossing the border with his pregnant wife and has never seen his baby, now 9 months old. I try to convince myself that this will not be my fate, though Friday’s ruling makes that possibility more real than I want to admit.

    I write this letter as the sun rises, hoping that the suspension of my rights will raise alarm bells that yours are already in jeopardy. I hope it will inspire your outrage that the most basic human instinct, to protest shameless massacre, is being repressed by obscure laws, racist propaganda and a state terrified of an awakened public. I hope this writing will startle you into understanding that a democracy for some — a democracy of convenience — is no democracy at all. I hope it will shake you into acting before it is too late.

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  • ARTICLE:

    U.S. CONSTITUTION: AN EXPLOITERS’ VISION OF FREEDOM—ADDED NOTES (AND BRIEF INTRODUCTION)

    Brief Introduction:

    The following article by Bob Avakian was originally published in 1987. We are republishing it now, because it remains highly relevant in terms of understanding the basic nature of this system we live under—the system of capitalism-imperialism—and the role of the U.S. Constitution as the legal and political basis for this system of ruthless exploitation, murderous oppression and massive destruction. In this republished version, Bob Avakian has provided some Added Notes at the end of the article, to further clarify important points.

    * * * * *

    James Madison, who was the main author of the Constitution of the United States, was also an upholder of slavery and the interests of the slaveowners in the United States. Madison, the fourth president of the United States, not only wrote strongly in defense of the Constitution, he also strongly defended the part of the Constitution that declared the slaves to be only three-fifths human beings (that provided for the slaves to be counted this way for the purposes of deciding on representation and taxation of the states—Article I, Section 2, 3 of the Constitution).

    In writing this defense, Madison praised "the compromising expedient of the Constitution" which treats the slaves as "inhabitants, but as debased by servitude below the equal level of free inhabitants; which regards the slave as divested of two-fifths of the man." Madison explained: "The true state of the case is that they partake of both these qualities: being considered by our laws, in some respects, as persons, and in other respects as property.... This is in fact their true character. It is the character bestowed on them by the laws under which they live; and it will not be denied that these are the proper criterion." Madison got to the heart of the matter, the essence of what the U.S. Constitution is all about, when in the course of upholding the decision to treat slaves as three-fifths human beings he agrees with the following principle: "Government is instituted no less for protection of the property than of the persons of individuals."1 Property rights—that is the basis on which outright slavery as well as other forms of exploitation, discrimination, and oppression have been consistently upheld. And over the 200 years that this Constitution has been in force, down to today, despite the formal rights of persons it proclaims, and even though the Constitution has been amended to outlaw slavery where one person actually owns another as property, the U.S. Constitution has always remained a document that upholds and gives legal authority to a system in which the masses of people, or their ability to work, have been used as wealth-creating property for the profit of the few.

    The abolition of slavery through the Civil War meant the elimination of one form of exploitation and the further development and extension of other forms of exploitation. As I wrote in Democracy: Can't We Do Better Than That?, "despite the efforts of abolitionists and the resistance and revolts of the slaves themselves—and their heroic fighting in the Civil War itself—it was not fought by the Union government in the North, and its president, Lincoln, for the purpose of abolishing the atrocity of slavery in some moral sense.... The Civil War arose out of the conflict between two modes of production, the slave system in the South and the capitalist system centered in the North; this erupted into open antagonism, warfare, when it was no longer possible for these two modes of production to co-exist within the same country."2 The victory of the North over the South in the U.S. Civil War represented the victory of the capitalist system over the slave system. It represented the triumph of the capitalist form of using people as a means of creating wealth. Under a system of outright slavery, the slave is literally the property of the slaveowner. Under capitalism, slavery becomes wage-slavery: The exploited class of workers is not owned by the exploiting class of capitalists (the owners of factories, land, etc.), but the workers are in a position where they must sell their ability to work to a capitalist in order to earn a wage. Capitalism needs a mass of workers that is "free," in a two-fold sense: They must be "free" of all means to live (all means of production), except their ability to work; and they must not be bound to a particular owner, a particular site, a particular guild, etc.—they must be "free" to do whatever work is demanded of them, they must be "free" to move from place to place, and "free" to be hired and fired according to the needs of capital! If they cannot enrich a capitalist through working, then the workers cannot work, they cannot earn a wage. But even if they cannot find a capitalist to exploit their labor, even if they are unemployed, they still remain under the domination of the capitalist class and of the process of capitalist accumulation of wealth—the proletarians (the workers) are dependent on the capitalist class and the capitalist system for their very lives, so long as the capitalist system rules. It is this rule, this system of exploitation, that the U.S. Constitution has upheld and enforced, all the more so after outright slavery was abolished through the Civil War.

    But here is another very important fact: In the concrete conditions of the U.S. coming out of the Civil War, and for some time afterward, wage-slavery was not the only major form of exploitation in force in the U.S. Up until very recently (until the 1950s), millions of Black people were exploited like serfs on Southern plantations, working as sharecroppers and tenant farmers to enrich big landowners (and bankers and other capitalists). A whole system of laws—commonly known as Jim Crow laws—were enforced to maintain this relationship of exploitation and oppression: Black people throughout the South—and really throughout the whole country—were subjected to the open discrimination, brutality, and terror that such laws allowed and encouraged. All this, too, was upheld and enforced by the Constitution and its interpretation and application by the highest political and legal authorities in the U.S. And, over the past several decades, when the great majority of Black people have been uprooted from the land in the South and have moved into the cities of the North (and South), they have still been discriminated against, forcibly segregated, and continually subjected to brutality and terror even while some formal civil rights have been extended to them.

    Once again, this is in accordance with the interests of the ruling capitalist class and capitalist system. It is consistent with the principle enunciated by James Madison: Governments must protect the property no less than the persons of individuals. In fact, what Madison obviously meant—and what the reality of the U.S. has clearly been—is that the government must protect the property of white people, especially the wealthy white people, more than the rights of Black people. It must never be forgotten that for most of their history in what is now the United States of America Black people were the property of white people, particularly wealthy plantation owners. Even after this outright slavery was abolished, Black people have never been allowed to achieve equality with whites: they have been held down, maintained as an oppressed nation, and denied the right of self-determination. Capitalism cannot exist without the oppression of nations, and this is all the more so when capitalism develops into its highest stage: monopoly capitalism-imperialism. If the history of the United States has demonstrated anything, it has demonstrated this.

    The Heritage They Won’t Renounce

    The ruling class of the U.S. today—above all the U.S. imperialists, the large-scale capitalists and international exploiters who dominate the U.S. and most of the world—are indeed, as they proclaim, the direct and worthy descendants of their “Founding Fathers.” And this is why the ruling class and its political representatives, while they feel obliged to say that they are opposed to slavery today (at least in the U.S. itself), solemnly praise and celebrate slave owners and upholders of slavery who were so prominent among the “Founding Fathers” and played so central a part in the establishment of the system in the U.S.: men like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison.

    These imperialists will never admit that their “Founding Fathers” established a system of government that, in its very foundation, is based on oppression and exploitation. They will never admit that their Constitution is the legal instrument for enforcing that exploitation and oppression. They cannot admit this, any more than they can admit their much-vaunted wealth and power has been established and built up by stealing land and resources from the native peoples (and Mexico) through extortion and outright murderous means; by trading in human flesh and harnessing human beings in slave labor; by pitilessly exploiting immigrants in their millions as wage-slaves; by robbing and plundering throughout the world, particularly Latin America, Africa, and Asia (what today is generally called the Third World). They cannot acknowledge that, while the forms of slavery have changed, the U.S. has, from the beginning and down to today, remained a society where enslavement, in one form or another, has been at the very heart of the economic system and the very basis of the political structure.

    There are many (including even Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall) who argue that, because of the upholding of slavery in the Constitution—and other injustices, such as excluding women from voting, and the treatment of the Indians—the Constitution was not such a great document when it was written, but it has been made great through the history of the U.S. and the struggles to create a more perfect Union and a more perfect Constitution. In other words, the Constitution may have had defects in some important ways when it was originally conceived, but the miracle of it is that the Constitution has within it provisions for changing and improving it—for extending democracy and rights to those previously excluded. And, some will add, while the Constitution upholds property rights, it also upholds individual and civil rights (even the statement from Madison cited at the beginning of this article stresses that, some might argue). Let’s look more deeply at these questions.

    Extension of the Constitution … Extension of Bourgeois Domination

    The extension of constitutional rights and protections to those previously excluded from them has gone together, in an overall way, with the extension of bourgeois (capitalist) relations and their dominance throughout the U.S. And, at the same time, it has gone hand-in-hand with the continuation of the oppression of Black people, of Native Americans, of Latinos and immigrants from Latin America (and elsewhere), of the oppression of women, and other forms of oppression and exploitation. All this is not in contradiction to but is consistent with the fundamental principles on which the Constitution is based and the way in which it treats the relationship between the rights of property and the rights of individuals.*

    It is noteworthy that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution (echoing the 5th Amendment) has as its pivotal point the provision that no State may “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.” Especially in the period since World War 2, this amendment has been used as a major part of the basis to extend civil rights for Black people, for women, and for others discriminated against. Yet this amendment was passed right after the Civil War, in 1866; and for many decades this amendment was not used to combat racial or sexual discrimination. Instead, “For many years the Supreme Court applied the due-process clause mainly to protect business interests against state regulatory legislation.”3 It was only beginning after World War 1, and more fully after World War 2, that the 14th Amendment was applied in a significant way to the questions of racial and sexual discrimination. Thus, “in a long series of cases” beginning in 1925, the Supreme Court “gradually expanded its definition of due process so as to include most of the guarantees of personal liberties in the Federal Bill of Rights and has protected them from state impairment. A similar development occurred with respect to the equal-protection clause.”4 These changes in Supreme Court decisions were part of larger changes in ruling-class policy. But these resulted not from some brilliant new legal insight, nor from some sudden flash of moral awakening within the ruling class. Rather, they resulted from the changed situation of Black people in U.S. society and, more decisively, from the situation and needs of the ruling imperialists.

    As noted earlier, the masses of Black people have undergone a dramatic change in their particular conditions of existence—and of oppression—in the U.S. This began during and immediately after World War 1 but developed fully during and after World War 2. Demand for labor in war production and other strategic industry, followed after World War 2 by sweeping changes in Southern agriculture—called forth by technological changes and international economic competition—drove millions and millions of Black people from the rural South to the urban ghettos of the North and South, and into the most exploited sections of the proletariat. At the same time, the U.S. imperialists emerged not only victorious but greatly strengthened from world war that devastated those countries which were much more directly and centrally involved. So, after World War 2 U.S. imperialism was everywhere, scooping up the former colonial possessions of the prior colonial powers and establishing U.S. neocolonial domination in the name of freedom and (usually) in the guise of allowing formal independence. In this situation, it was not so necessary—nor was it so helpful—to openly and blatantly treat Black people as “second-class citizens” in the U.S. itself. So, over the period of the next several decades, concessions were made to civil rights demands and struggles at the same time as deception, vicious repression, and the promotion of “loyal and responsible Negro leaders” were carried out to keep things firmly under the control of the ruling class and in the service of its larger interests. Similarly, recent decades have seen political and legal changes that have brought certain extensions of formal rights to women and certain concessions to their battle against oppression. These have corresponded to significant changes in society and the world, including the fact that in only a small percentage of U.S. families is it any longer the case that the family is supported by just the man working. But, again, these concessions have been confined within limits that fundamentally conform to the interests and needs of the ruling class in the face of changing conditions in the U.S. and the world.

    Would anyone dare say that, because of these changes and concessions, inequality and injustice have been eliminated in the U.S.? The fact is, none of this has in any way eliminated, or come close to eliminating, discrimination against Black people, their overall conditions of oppression, their status as an oppressed nation. Nor have the ruling imperialists ceased to oppress the Native Americans—they have never even stopped trying to cheat and rob them of valuable land and resources. Nor have these imperialists ceased to discriminate against and viciously exploit other national minorities and immigrants. Nor, despite the constitutional amendment (the 19th, in 1919) giving them the right to vote and other concessions to “women’s rights,” have women been granted equality—there has been no end to the subjugation and degradation they have been subjected to: The oppression of women remains a foundation stone of U.S. society, as indeed it must so long as a system of class domination and exploitation is in force. Today, 200 years after the U.S. Constitution first took effect, and after all the changes and amendments, no one can seriously and reasonably argue that the various kinds of oppression that I have spoken to here do not exist or are only a minor aspect of the situation. No one can seriously and reasonably argue that they are not a basic and deeply rooted feature of American society.

    The reason for this is rooted in the very reality and nature of the economic system in the U.S. and the political system that upholds and enforces this economic system, including the Constitution as the legal “cement” of the political structure. The fundamental reason why the “extension” of constitutional rights to those previously excluded from them has not put an end to exploitation, inequality, and oppression is this: The essence of the capitalist economic system is not the competition of commodity owners, all vying equally in the marketplace (equal opportunity for all). The essence is the exploitation of labor as wage-labor, the command by capital over labor power (the ability to do work) as a commodity—a unique commodity—that creates wealth through its use.** (As a dockworker told me years ago: No one gets rich working; the only way to get rich is by making other people work for you.) And the essence of the political structure that goes along with and protects this capitalist economic system is not freedom and democracy for all, regardless of wealth and social position. The essence is the dictatorship of the bourgeois class—its monopoly of political power and armed force—over those it dominates in the economic system, especially the proletariat. Thus, the right to vote and other formal rights for the proletariat and other oppressed masses are in no way in fundamental opposition to the economic and political system of capitalism and bourgeois dictatorship.

    Bourgeois Democracy—Bourgeois Dictatorship

    Bourgeois democracy presents itself as classless democracy: It proclaims equality for all. Thus, the U.S. Constitution does not say that different classes of people shall have unequal wealth and power; rather, it sets forth a charter that appears to treat everyone the same, regardless of wealth and social status. Yet there never has been, and never could be, a capitalist society without tremendous differences in wealth and power, without fundamental class divisions and antagonisms. In fact, a capitalist society without these things is not even conceivable. And in reality, democracy in capitalist society can only be bourgeois democracy. This means there is democracy—equal political rights and the power to make fundamental decisions—only among the capitalist class, the ruling class. For the rest, and for the proletariat especially, bourgeois democracy means dictatorship: It means being ruled over by the capitalists, even while being allowed to vote and even while being governed by a Constitution that sets forth laws that are said to be applied, equally, to all. How can this be?

    First, as for voting, as I pointed out in Democracy: Can’t We Do Better Than That?:

    On the most obvious level, to be a serious candidate for any major office in a country like the U.S. requires millions of dollars—a personal fortune or, more often, the backing of people with that kind of money. Beyond that, to become known and be taken seriously depends on favorable exposure in the mass media (favorable at least in the sense that you are presented as within the framework of responsible—that is, acceptable politics)…. By the time “the people express their will through voting,” both the candidates they have to choose among and the “issues” that deserve “serious consideration” have been selected out by someone else: the ruling class….

    Further, and even more fundamentally, to “get anywhere” once elected—both to advance one’s own career and to “get anything done”—it is necessary to fit into the established mold and work within the established structures.5

    But that is not all:

    If, however, the electoral process in bourgeois society does not represent the exercise of sovereignty by the people, it generally does play an important role in maintaining the sovereignty—the dictatorship—of the bourgeoisie and the continuation of capitalist society. This very electoral process itself tends to cover over the basic class relations—and class antagonisms—in society, and serves to give formal, institutionalized expression to the political participation of atomized individuals in the perpetuation of the status quo. This process not only reduces people to isolated individuals but at the same time reduces them to a passive position politically and defines the essence of politics as such atomized passivity—as each person, individually, in isolation from everyone else, giving his/her approval to this or to that option, all of which options have been formulated and presented by an active power standing above these atomized masses of “citizens.”… [T]he very acceptance of the electoral process as the quintessential political act reinforces acceptance of the established order and works against any radical rupture with, to say nothing of the actual overturning of, that order.6

    And let us remember that one of the main reasons for which the U.S. Constitution was “ordained and established,” as proclaimed in its “Preamble,” was to prevent social upheaval and the overturning of the order upheld by that Constitution—to “insure domestic tranquility.”

    The same can be said of the other aspects of bourgeois democracy and the kind of rights set forth in the U.S. Constitution (including its “Bill of Rights”): They have the purpose and function of reinforcing the rule of the bourgeoisie and keeping political activity within limits acceptable to the bourgeoisie. Thus, “the much-vaunted freedom of expression in the ‘democratic countries’ is not in opposition to but is encompassed by and confined within the actual exercise of dictatorship by the bourgeoisie. This is for two basic reasons—because the ruling class has a monopoly on the means of molding public opinion and because its monopoly of armed force puts it in a position to suppress, as violently as necessary, any expression of ideas, as well as any action, that poses a serious challenge to the established order.”7 The history of the U.S., like the history of all other “democratic” bourgeois dictatorships, is full of graphic illustrations of just how true the above-quoted statement is!

    Formal equality—the treatment of all persons as equal, and specifically as “equal before the law,” without regard to wealth or social position—in bourgeois society actually covers over the relationship of complete subordination, exploitation, and oppression to which the proletariat and masses of people are subjected. If a small group—the capitalist class—controls the important means of creating wealth, then in reality they have the power of life and death over those who control little or none of these. To have such power over other people is, in essence, to hold them in an enslaved condition, whether or not the chains are literal and visible. In such a situation—which is the fundamental condition of capitalist society—how can there be anything but profound inequality economically, socially, and politically? And with such a fundamental division, with such fundamental inequality, there can never be anything but exploitation, oppression, domination, and dictatorship.

    With regard to the law, this will manifest itself in two main ways. First, those who dominate society economically will dominate in deciding, through the political structure, what the laws will be. They will insure that the laws serve their interests. And second, the actual application and enforcement of the law will discriminate in favor of those with wealth and power and against those without them—and even more so against oppressed nationalities, women, and others who are “the last of the last” in society. Everyday life in any capitalist society proves this over and over. Thus, once again, as with the right to vote and other constitutional rights in a bourgeois-democratic republic, formal equality before the law expresses itself, in reality, as profound inequality—and more—as something confined within and conforming to bourgeois domination and dictatorship.

    The basic difference between the bourgeoisie’s view of freedom and democracy on the one hand, and the striving of oppressed masses for an end to oppressive conditions on the other hand, is sharply drawn in recent events in Haiti, the Philippines, and South Korea. The oppressed masses (and students and other revolutionary intellectuals) want some kind of fundamental change in the social system and a breaking of the chains of imperialist domination in their countries. But the bourgeois opposition leaders and parties want only the recognition of bourgeois-democratic provisions and procedures—with elections the highest expression of political activity. Most of all, they want the sharing of power more broadly and “equally” among the upper classes—really, they want their chance to hold the reins of power—while leaving the social system and imperialist domination intact. As for the imperialists, where they become convinced of the need for change in such situations, they make every effort to keep it confined within the framework of imperialist domination and bourgeois rule. Indeed, they try to use such situations to strengthen and perhaps “refine” the apparatus of bourgeois politics—and, above all, of repression—in the countries involved.

    This brings us to a most fundamental point that is so often ignored or glossed over in discussions and debates about democracy in countries like the U.S.: The fact is that even the extent to which rights are allowed to the nonruling classes in imperialist countries depends on a situation where, in large parts of the world under imperialist domination, the masses of people are subjected to much more open and murderous repression. In short,

    The platform of democracy in the imperialist countries (worm-eaten as it is) rests on fascist terror in the oppressed nations: the real guarantors of bourgeois democracy in the U.S. are not the constitutional scholar and the Supreme Court justice, but the Brazilian torturer, the South African cop, and the Israeli pilot; the true defenders of the democratic tradition are not on the portraits in the halls of the Western capitols, but are Marcos, Mobutu, and the dozens of generals from Turkey to Taiwan, from South Korea to South America, all put and maintained in power and backed up by the military force of the U.S. and its imperialist partners.8,***

    But, at the same time, the imperialist rulers and ardent worshippers of bourgeois democracy go to great lengths to try to cover over, or explain away, the brutal repression “at home” that is so essential to the functioning of the system and the maintenance of the established order:

    For there is vicious repression and state terror carried out continually—and not only in times of serious crisis or social upheaval—in the imperialist countries; it is carried out specifically against those who do not support but oppose the established order, or who simply cannot be counted on to be pacified by the normal workings of the imperialist system—those whose conditions are desperate and whose life situation is explosive anyway.

    In the U.S. the hundreds of police shootings of oppressed people, particularly Blacks and other minority nationalities, every year; the fact that jails are overwhelmingly filled with poor people, the greatest number again being Black and other minority nationalities—it is an amazing but true statistic that one out of every thirteen Black people in the U.S. will be arrested each year (and Blacks are incarcerated eight and one-half times as frequently as whites)!—and the widespread use of drugs, surgical techniques, and other means to repress and terrorize prisoners (as well as an astounding number of people not in jail, including allegedly recalcitrant children); the use of welfare and other so-called social service agencies to harass and control poor people down to the most intimate details of their personal lives; this, and much more, is part of the daily life experience of millions of people in the major imperialist countries. Along with all this, of course, is the use of the state apparatus for direct political repression….

    In times of severe crisis and social strain, of course, all this is carried out more intensively and extensively…. Already, right now in the U.S., to cite one important aspect of this, hundreds of thousands of immigrants, “illegal” and “legal,” are being subjected to a campaign of terror—including raids at their places of work and homes, the sudden and forcible separation of parents from children, and the deportation of large numbers of refugees back to the waiting arms of death squads and other government assassins in countries like El Salvador. The same kind of thing is also being directed against immigrants in France, West Germany, England, and other imperialist democracies.

    Through all this, while overt political repression by the state is in one sense the clearest indication of the class content of democracy—in the imperialist countries as well as elsewhere—in another sense the daily, and often seemingly arbitrary, terror carried out against the lower strata in these imperialist countries concentrates the connection between the normal workings of the system and the political (that is, class) nature of the state.9

    A New and Far Greater Vision of Freedom

    In the course of this article so far, in speaking to some essential questions concerning the U.S. Constitution and the system it upholds, I have answered some of the main arguments made in defense of this Constitution and this system, including the argument that the Constitution, if not perfect, is perfectible—that it can be continually improved and the rights it establishes can be extended to those previously excluded. Before concluding, I want to briefly address some of the other main arguments made on behalf of—or in defense of—this Constitution and the principles and vision it embodies.

    “This Constitution establishes a law of the land that is applicable to all—it establishes a government of laws, not of people.” This is closely linked to the principle of “equality before the law.” What is meant by “a government of laws, not of people” is that no one is “above the law” and that what is allowed and what is forbidden are set forth before all, in one set of regulations binding on everyone, and this can be changed only through the procedures established for making such changes. A “government of people” refers to a notion of a government where it is the will and the word of certain people—a king, a despot, a small group of tyrants, etc.—that determine what is allowed and what is forbidden, and where this can and will change according to the dictates and the whims of such rulers: There is no common and clearly spelled-out standard binding on all, even on the political leaders and the powerful and influential in society.

    Like all principles of bourgeois democracy, this notion of “a government of laws, not of people” misses and obscures the essential question. First of all,

    “the rule of law” can be part of a dictatorship, of one kind or another, and in the most general sense it always is—even where it may appear that power is exercised without or above the law, laws (in the sense of a systematized code that people in society are obliged to conform to, whether written or unwritten) will still exist and play a part in enforcing the rule of the dominant class. Conversely, all states, all dictatorships, include laws in one form or another.10

    Most fundamentally, the question is: What is the character and the class content of the laws, what system do they uphold and enforce, which class interests do they represent—of which class dictatorship, bourgeois or proletarian, are they the expression and instrument—and toward what end are they contributing—the maintenance of class division and domination, exploitation and oppression, or the final elimination of class divisions, of all oppressive social divisions, and of social antagonisms? In short, the essential question is not “a government of laws vs. a government of people,” it is which people—which class—rules, and what laws are in force, in the service of what ends?

    “‘We The People,’ that is the heart of this Constitution and the genius of this Constitution: It establishes a government of, by and for all the people.” As a matter of historical fact, this opening phrase of the Constitution, “We the people of the United States,” was not the product of some lofty desire by the “framers” of the Constitution to set forth some universal principle of popular sovereignty. It was the product of their desire to overcome the problem of States posing their own sovereignty against that of the Federal Government—and the desire to avoid the specific problem of not knowing which States would ratify the Constitution: “The Preamble of the Articles of Confederation had named all the states in order from north to south. How was the [Constitutional] Convention to enumerate the participating states without knowing which would ratify? In a brilliant flash of inspiration, the Convention began with the words, ‘We the People of the United States…do ordain and establish this Constitution….’”11

    More importantly, the larger historical context and the actual content of this proclamation—“We The People”—must be made clear. The founding of the United States of America as an independent country represented not just the breaking away from domination by a foreign power. It also meant breaking away from a form of government that vested great power in the person of the monarchy—even while it ultimately served the interests of the bourgeoisie and the landed “nobility.” In general, the rights and the restrictions of power established in the Constitution of the newly founded United States revolved around preventing arbitrary rule by despots and the concentration of too much power in one person or one part of the government. The “separation of powers” and the “checks and balances” of different branches of government was seen as a way of insuring that the government would serve the interests of the capitalist class and (at that time) the slaveowners as a whole. It is in this light that “We the people of the United States,” in the “Preamble” of the Constitution, must be understood. Obviously, “We the people of the United States” did not include all those who were expressly excluded from the process of selecting the government and endorsing the Constitution. For, “Even on the most obvious level, how could the government of the newly formed United States, for example, be considered to have derived its powers ‘from the consent of the governed’ when, at the time of the formation of the United States of America, a majority of the people ‘governed’—included slaves, Indians, women, men who did not meet various property requirements, and others—did not even have the right to vote…to say nothing of the real power to govern and determine the direction of society?”12

    Bourgeois ruling classes generally speak in the name of the people, all the people. From their standpoint, it may make a certain amount of sense: They do, after all, rule over the masses of people. But from a more basic and more objective standpoint, their claim to represent all the people is a deception. If it was a deception at the time of the founding of the United States and the adoption of its Constitution, it is all the more so now. For now the rule of the capitalists is in fundamental antagonism with the interests of the great majority of people, not just in a particular country, but all over the world. Now the decisive question is not overcoming economic and political obstacles to the development of capitalism and its corresponding political system. The time when that was on the historical agenda is long since passed. What is now on the historical agenda is the overthrow of capitalism and the final elimination of all systems of exploitation, all oppressive social relations, all class distinctions, through the revolution of the exploited class under capitalism, the proletariat.

    To get a very stark sense of just how historically conditioned—how long since outmoded and completely reactionary—are the interests and the paramount concerns of the "Founding Fathers" and their descendants, the ruling imperialists of today, let us consider the fact that, in writing their Constitution, Madison and others "For theoretical inspiration...leaned heavily on Locke and on Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws. Both writers had insisted on the need for separation of powers in order to prevent tyranny; in Montesquieu's view even the representatives of the people in the legislature could not be trusted with unlimited power."13 In reading over Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws I could not help but be struck by how thoroughly his frame of reference is that of a bygone age and his outlook that of exploiting classes whose period of historical ascendancy is long since past. As a glaring illustration, consider the following:

    If I had to justify our right to enslave Negroes, this is what I would say: Since the peoples of Europe have exterminated those of America, they have had to enslave those of Africa in order to use them to clear and cultivate such a vast expanse of land.

    Sugar would be too expensive if it weren't harvested by slaves.

    Those in question are black from the tip of their toes to the top of their heads; and their noses so flattened that it is almost impossible to feel sorry for them.

    It is inconceivable that God, who is a very wise being, could have placed a soul, especially a good soul, in an all-black body....

    One proof of the fact that Negroes don't have any common sense is that they get more excited about a string of glass beads than about gold, which, in civilized countries, is so dearly prized.

    It is impossible that these people are men; because if we thought of them as men, one would begin to think that we ourselves are not Christians.14,****

    Let the "Founding Fathers" and their descendants draw theoretical inspiration from the likes of Montesquieu! Let them defend slavery and modern-day exploitation on the ground of property rights, taking their lead from the likes of James Madison, the main author of the Constitution. As for the proletariat, our goal is "Marx's view of the complete abolition of bourgeois property relations—and all relations in which human beings confront each other as owners (or non-owners) of property rather than through conscious and voluntary association."15

    For the exploiting classes, and in a system under their rule, the "bottom line" is to reduce the masses of people to mere wealth-creating property—and today, under the domination of the imperialists, the greatest of all exploiters, the mass of humanity is treated as merely a means to amass even greater wealth and power in the hands of, and for the profit of, so few. And at what cost! This cost must be measured in massive human suffering, degradation, and destruction. Imagine the even greater cost in human suffering, degradation, and destruction that will have to be paid unless and until the oppressed and exploited victims of this system, who are the great majority of humanity, rise up and overthrow this system and finally put an end to all social relations of exploitation and oppression.

    In conclusion, The Constitution of the United States is an exploiters' vision of freedom. It is a charter for a society based on exploitation, on slavery in one form or another. The rights and freedoms it proclaims are subordinate to and in the service of the system of exploitation it upholds. This Constitution has been and continues to be applied in accordance with this vision and with the interests of the ruling class of this system: In its application it has become more and more fully the instrument of bourgeois domination, dictatorship, oppression, conquest, and plunder.

    Our answer is clear to those who argue: Even if The Constitution of the United States is not perfect, it is the best that has been devised—it sets a standard to be striven for. Our answer is: Why should we aim so low, when we have The Communist Manifesto to set a far higher standard of what humanity can strive for—and is capable of achieving—a far greater vision of freedom.*****

     

    NOTES

    1. Quotes from James Madison are from the Federalist Paper No. 54 in The Federalist Papers (New York: New American Library, 1961), pp. 336-341, especially pp. 339 and 337. [back]

    2. Bob Avakian, Democracy: Can't We Do Better Than That? (Chicago: Banner Press, 1986), pp. 110-11. [back]

    3. Edward Conrad Smith, editor, The Constitution of the United States with Case Summaries (New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1979), p. 18. All citations in this article are from the essay “The Origins of the Constitution.” [back]

    4. Ibid., pp. 18-19. [back]

    5. Avakian, Democracy, p. 69. [back]

    6. Ibid, p. 70. [back]

    7. Ibid, p. 71. [back]

    8. Lenny Wolff, The Science of Revolution: An Introduction (Chicago: RCP Publications, 1983), p. 184. [back]

    9. Avakian, Democracy, pp. 137-39. [back]

    10. Ibid., pp. 233-34. [back]

    11. Smith, Constitution of the U.S., p. 12. [back]

    12. Avakian, Democracy, p. 100. [back]

    13. Smith, Constitution of the U.S., p. 13. [back]

    14. Charles Montesquieu, De L'Esprit Des Lois, Paris: Garnier, 1927, livre 15, chapitre 5, "De L'Esclavage Des Negres" (The Spirit of the Laws, book 15, chapter 5, "On the Enslavement of Negroes"), my translation. [back]

    15. Avakian, Democracy, p. 212. [back]

    Added Notes by the Author, Spring 2023

    * A major factor underlying this “extension of constitutional rights and protections to those previously excluded from them” has—especially since the second half of the 20th century—been the increasing globalization of the capitalist-imperialist economy, a worldwide system of exploitation ensnaring literally billions of people, and in particular super-exploitation of masses of people, including more than 150 million children, in the Third World of Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. The relationship of this worldwide exploitation, and super-exploitation, to the situation in the U.S. itself—particularly with regard to the economic structure and social and class relations within this country—is analyzed in depth in the paper by Raymond Lotta Imperialist Parasitism and Class-Social Recomposition in the U.S. From the 1970s to Today: An Exploration of Trends and Changes, which is available at revcom.us. The political dimensions of this are explored in my article Imperialist Parasitism and “Democracy”: Why So Many Liberals and Progressives Are Shameless Supporters of “Their” Imperialism (also available at revcom.us), where the following is made clear:

    [T]his imperialist plunder provides the material basis for a certain stability, at least in “normal times” in the imperialist “home country” (with the U.S. a prime example of this). This relative stability, in turn, makes it possible for the ruling class to allow a certain amount of dissent and political protest—so long as this remains within the confines of, or at least does not significantly threaten, the “law and order” that serves and enforces the fundamental interests of this ruling class.

    At the same time, as sharply demonstrated in mass uprisings which do call into question that “law and order” and/or defy allegiance to the imperialist interests of this system—such as the mass outpouring against police terror in 2020, and urban rebellions and mass opposition to the Vietnam war in the 1960s—the rulers of this country will frequently respond to such opposition with severe repression and murderous retribution.  For example, the city of Wilmington, in Biden’s home state of Delaware, was placed under martial law for months during the 1960s upsurge against the oppression of Black people, and a number of members of the Black Panther Party, most prominently Fred Hampton, were murdered by police, along with many Black people taking part in urban uprisings in that period, while militant mass resistance against the Vietnam war and rebellions among middle class youth and students were in some cases subjected to a vicious, and at times murderous, response by police and National Guard troops.

    It should never be forgotten, or overlooked, that the “law and order” that enforces this relative stability has included the regular murder of Black people, as well as Latinos, by police—resulting in the fact that the number of Black people who have been killed by police in the years since 1960 is greater than the thousands of Black people who were lynched during the period of Jim Crow segregation and Ku Klux Klan terror, before the 1960s. It should also not be overlooked that the U.S. has the highest rate of mass incarceration of any country in the world, with Black people and Latinos particularly subjected to this mass incarceration. [back]

    ** The point here, as emphasized in my work Breakthroughs: The Historic Breakthrough by Marx, and the Further Breakthrough with the New Communism, A Basic Summary, is that the essence of the capitalist economy, and the source of capitalist “wealth” and “economic growth,” is not a bunch of capitalist entrepreneurs and their “innovation,” or their “entrepreneurial genius.” It is the exploitation by the capitalists (the bourgeoisie) of wage-workers (the proletariat). This is different than the question of what is the driving force compelling the capitalists to continue to intensify the exploitation of the proletariat and to continually find new means of doing so. As also pointed out in Breakthroughs:

    Engels, in Anti-Dühring, discussed the motion of the fundamental contradiction of capitalism between socialized production and private appropriation. He pointed out that the working out of this contradiction assumes two different forms of motion that go into the dynamic process of this fundamental contradiction’s motion. Those two forms of motion are, on the one hand, the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat that it exploits, and the other form of motion that Engels identified, importantly, is the contradiction between organization and anarchy, the organization of production on the level of, say, an enterprise—which may be highly organized, with lots of calculations going into it, market estimates and all kinds of things, and may be very tightly organized in terms of how the actual process of production is carried out on the level of the particular capitalist corporation, and so on—while, at the same time, this is in contradiction to the anarchy of production and of exchange in the society as a whole (or today in the world as a whole, today more than ever in the world as a whole). So you have these two forms of motion—and I’ll come back later to a crucial distinguishing aspect of the new communism: the importance of identifying the second form of motion of this fundamental contradiction, that is, the anarchy/organization contradiction, or the driving force of anarchy, as overall the principal and most essential form of the motion of the fundamental contradiction of capitalism....

    In this regard, in the article “On the ‘Driving Force of Anarchy’ and the Dynamics of Change,” Raymond Lotta cited this statement of mine:

    anarchic relations between capitalist producers, and not the mere existence of propertyless proletarians or the class contradiction as such, that drives these producers to exploit the working class on an historically more intensive and extensive scale. This motive force of anarchy is an expression of the fact that the capitalist mode of production represents the full development of commodity production and the law of value.

    And then there is this very important passage:

    Were it not the case that these capitalist commodity producers are separated from each other and yet linked by the operation of the law of value they would not face the same compulsion to exploit the proletariat—the class contradiction between bourgeoisie and proletariat could be mitigated. It is the inner compulsion of capital to expand which accounts for the historically unprecedented dynamism of this mode of production, a process which continually transforms value relations and which leads to crisis.

    (Breakthroughs is available at revcom.us; and the article by Raymond Lotta referred to here, “On the ‘Driving Force of Anarchy’ and the Dynamics of Change,” can be found in the online theoretical journal Demarcations, Issue Number 3.) [back]

    *** As noted in “Imperialist Parasitism and ‘Democracy’: Why So Many Liberals and Progressives Are Shameless Supporters of ‘Their’ Imperialism”:

    Some of the mass murderers in other countries who today play such a crucial role in serving the interests of U.S. imperialism throughout the world, and in making possible the maintenance of bourgeois democracy in this country itself (worm-eaten as it is indeed), are the same as they were 40 years ago, and some are different—but the essential reality remains that the “platform of democracy” in this country rests on fascist terror, along with ruthless exploitation, in the oppressed nations of the Third World (Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia). [back]

    **** In relation to this statement by Montesquieu—and more generally his views on slavery—I am reproducing here the following “A Note from Bob Avakian: On Montesquieu, Slavery and the U.S. Constitution,” which appeared in Revolution #037, March 5, 2006, posted at revcom.us:

    Recently, Revolution ran an excerpt from a pamphlet I wrote, which was originally published in 1987, U.S. Constitution: An Exploiters' Vision of Freedom. In that excerpt, there is a quote from De L'Esprit Des Lois (or, in English, "The Spirit of the Laws") by Charles Montesquieu, an 18th–century French philosopher, who was one of the sources of inspiration for the U.S. Constitution, and in particular the theory of the separation of powers that is incorporated in that Constitution. The quote from this work of Montesquieu's, which was published in 1748, is one in which he recites an extreme and grotesquely racist justification for "the enslavement of the Negroes." In relation to this, it is not infrequently argued that Montesquieu was being ironic here, and deliberately overstating this argument, in order to, in effect, polemicize against the enslavement of African people, and that in general Montesquieu's writings express opposition to slavery. But the reality is not so simple as this, nor does this reflect what Montesquieu was essentially seeking to do in this part of "The Spirit of the Laws." It can be said that in "The Spirit of the Laws" Montesquieu's position is one of general opposition to slavery, and he indicates that slavery is not appropriate in countries like France; but, at the same time, he speaks to various circumstances in which he believes slavery can be justified or reasonable. For example, he argues that in the parts of the world, in particular the southern regions, where the climate is warmer, this climate makes people lazy (indolent), and slavery may be justified in order to get them to work (and he argues that in a despotic country, where people's political rights are already repressed, slavery may not be worse for people in that condition).

    This, and the general discussion of slavery that makes up this part (book 15) of "The Spirit of the Laws," is included in a broader discussion by Montesquieu on the nature of different societies and governments in different countries and parts of the world (this is found not only in book 15 but also books 14 and 16 of "The Spirit of the Laws") in which Montesquieu argues that geography and in particular climate plays a big part in determining the nature of different peoples and the character of their society and governing system. And it is important to understand that, although in this discussion Montesquieu makes logical refutation of certain arguments, including certain defenses of slavery, this is not a polemic for or against slavery, or other forms of government, and its character is not that of moral argumentation, so much as it is an attempt to explain why various practices, and various forms of society and government, have existed (and in some cases continue to exist) in various places.

    Another way to put this is that what Montesquieu is doing, in these parts of "The Spirit of the Laws" (and generally in this work), is attempting to make a kind of materialist analysis of these phenomena, including slavery in many places where it has existed—although it must be emphasized that this is not a thoroughly scientific, dialectical materialism but instead a rather crude and vulgar materialism which is marked, and marred, by a considerable amount of determinism: it is a kind of mechanical materialism that argues for a direct and straight-line (linear) connection between things like geography and climate and the character of society and government. It is a kind of materialism that does not adequately and accurately characterize the real motive forces in the development of human society, and in fact this kind of vulgar materialism has often been used to justify various forms of oppression, including colonial and imperialist domination. While we can, and should, recognize that, in the circumstances and time in which he wrote—about 250 years ago—there are aspects of what Montesquieu was seeking to do that were new and represented a break with the suffocating and obfuscating feudal outlook and conventions, it is very important to understand how Montesquieu's outlook and method were marked, and limited, by the social, and international, relations of which they were ultimately an expression: relations in which one part of society, and of the world, dominates and exploits others. And that is the basic point that was being emphasized in relation to Montesquieu and the U.S. Constitution, in the pamphlet U.S. Constitution: An Exploiters' Vision of Freedom.

    With regard to the specific passage that was cited in U.S. Constitution: An Exploiters' Vision of Freedom, "on the enslavement of the Negroes," there is, in fact, some reason to accept that Montesquieu does not actually agree with the justification for this enslavement that he summarizes, and that he is actually subjecting this kind of justification to some ironic and satirical treatment. A reasonable interpretation of Montesquieu's arguments, as he goes on in this part of "The Spirit of the Laws" (book 15), is that this kind of argument, about the non-human character of the Negroes, is not a valid argument, not one that actually justifies this enslavement. But then he does go on to explore the question of what might actually be reasonable justifications, in certain circumstances, for slavery; and, as spoken to above, he finds such justifications in situations such as those where there is a despotic government, or where—as he concludes, through an application of vulgar and determinist materialism—the warm climate makes people lazy and unwilling, on their own initiative, to work.

    Thus, in looking into and reflecting on this further, I would say that, while it is important to understand the complexity and nuance of what Montesquieu writes here—and it can be said that the way in which I cited Montesquieu in writing this pamphlet on the U.S. Constitution does not really or fully do that—it is not the case that what Montesquieu was doing here was actually making a case against the enslavement of the Negroes, or against slavery in general. Once again, it is important to keep in mind the fact that, although he was opposed to slavery on general principle, and declared that it was a good thing that it had been eliminated in his home country, France, and more generally in Europe, Montesquieu did not think slavery was wrong, or without justification, in all circumstances. And it also seems that Montesquieu did not hesitate to invest in companies involved in the slave trade. In this, there is a parallel with John Locke, the English philosopher and political theorist, who, as I pointed out in this same pamphlet (U.S. Constitution: An Exploiters' Vision of Freedom), was also a major influence in the conception of the U.S. Constitution. As I wrote in Democracy: Can't We Do Better Than That? (p. 29):

    "In sum, the society of which Locke was a theoretical exponent, as well as a practical political partisan, was a society based on wage-slavery and capitalist exploitation. And it is not surprising that, while he was opposed to slavery in England itself, he not only defended the institution of slavery, under certain circumstances, in the Second Treatise, but turned a not insignificant profit himself in the slave trade and helped to draw up the charter for a government headed by a slave-owning aristocracy in one of the American colonies. For as Marx sarcastically summarized: ‘The discovery of gold and silver in America, the extirpation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal population, the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black-skins, signalized the rosy dawn of the era of capitalist production.’" [back]

    ***** In the years since the writing of this article, I have devoted considerable work to the development of what is meant by this “far greater vision of freedom”—what it would mean “in real life.” One very important result of this is the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, which provides both a sweeping vision and a concrete blueprint for a radically different and emancipating society and world. This Constitution is available at revcom.us. [back]

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  • ARTICLE:

    Larry David: My Dinner With Adolf

    New York Times Opinion Guest Essay

    Recently, talk show host Bill Maher had a private dinner with Donald Trump and then talked in glowing terms about it. The New York Times published a satirical piece by comedian and writer Larry David on this dinner.  As part of our coverage of "Voices of Resistance" we are reposting this piece.

    Imagine my surprise when in the spring of 1939 a letter arrived at my house inviting me to dinner at the Old Chancellery with the world’s most reviled man, Adolf Hitler. I had been a vocal critic of his on the radio from the beginning, pretty much predicting everything he was going to do on the road to dictatorship. No one I knew encouraged me to go. “He’s Hitler. He’s a monster.” But eventually I concluded that hate gets us nowhere. I knew I couldn’t change his views, but we need to talk to the other side — even if it has invaded and annexed other countries and committed unspeakable crimes against humanity.

    Two weeks later, I found myself on the front steps of the Old Chancellery and was led into an opulent living room, where a few of the Führer’s most vocal supporters had gathered: Himmler, Göring, Leni Riefenstahl and the Duke of Windsor, formerly King Edward VIII. We talked about some of the beautiful art on the walls that had been taken from the homes of Jews. But our conversation ended abruptly when we heard loud footsteps coming down the hallway. Everyone stiffened as Hitler entered the room.

    He was wearing a tan suit with a swastika armband and gave me an enthusiastic greeting that caught me off guard. Frankly, it was a warmer greeting than I normally get from my parents, and it was accompanied by a slap on my back. I found the whole thing quite disarming. I joked that I was surprised to see him in a tan suit because if he wore that out, it would be perceived as un-Führer-like. That amused him to no end, and I realized I’d never seen him laugh before. Suddenly he seemed so human. Here I was, prepared to meet Hitler, the one I’d seen and heard — the public Hitler. But this private Hitler was a completely different animal. And oddly enough, this one seemed more authentic, like this was the real Hitler. The whole thing had my head spinning.

    He said he was starving and led us into the dining room, where he gestured for me to sit next to him. Göring immediately grabbed a slice of pumpernickel, whereupon Hitler turned to me, gave me an eye roll, then whispered, “Watch. He’ll be done with his entire meal before you’ve taken two bites.” That one really got me. Göring, with his mouth full, asked what was so funny, and Hitler said, “I was just telling him about the time my dog had diarrhea in the Reichstag.” Göring remembered. How could he forget? He loved that story, especially the part where Hitler shot the dog before it got back into the car. Then a beaming Hitler said, “Hey, if I can kill Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals, I can certainly kill a dog!” That perhaps got the biggest laugh of the night — and believe me, there were plenty.

    But it wasn’t just a one-way street, with the Führer dominating the conversation. He was quite inquisitive and asked me a lot of questions about myself. I told him I had just gone through a brutal breakup with my girlfriend because every time I went someplace without her, she was always insistent that I tell her everything I talked about. I can’t stand having to remember every detail of every conversation. Hitler said he could relate — he hated that, too. “What am I, a secretary?” He advised me it was best not to have any more contact with her or else I’d be right back where I started and eventually I’d have to go through the whole thing all over again. I said it must be easy for a dictator to go through a breakup. He said, “You’d be surprised. There are still feelings.” Hmm … there are still feelings. That really resonated with me. We’re not that different, after all. I thought that if only the world could see this side of him, people might have a completely different opinion.

    Two hours later, the dinner was over, and the Führer escorted me to the door. “I am so glad to have met you. I hope I’m no longer the monster you thought I was.” “I must say, mein Führer, I’m so thankful I came. Although we disagree on many issues, it doesn’t mean that we have to hate each other.” And with that, I gave him a Nazi salute and walked out into the night.

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  • ARTICLE:

    What Is Legal and Constitutional for Fascists Should Be Legal and Constitutional for Everyone Else

    “So long as we are still living under the rule of this system of capitalism-imperialism, we will defend people against attacks on their lives and on the rights that are supposed to be guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution. But we need a whole different system, with a whole different Constitution—the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America—which will provide much greater rights for the people, including the basic right to have the fundamentally determining role in a new society and government whose purpose and goal is to eliminate all exploitation and oppression, everywhere.”

    WE NEED AND WE DEMAND: A WHOLE NEW WAY TO LIVE, A FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT SYSTEM

    With outright fascists now coming into positions of dominance in all three branches of government, the above point of orientation from We Need and We Demand assumes even greater importance. As does the following, from Bob Avakian’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:

    This brings up another important dimension of working for revolution—and opposing the fascists as part of doing that: It is necessary to sharply expose and oppose—and fight to politically and practically overcome—the reality that for white supremacists and fascists generally the Second Amendment, the "right to bear arms," has been regularly upheld and given the backing of the law and the courts, and the support of the police and other institutions of the state; while for Black people, other oppressed people, and generally those opposing the oppression and injustice of this system, the "right to bear arms," even in self-defense, has been actively opposed and suppressed.

    This is made graphically clear in the book by Carol Anderson focusing on the Second Amendment—The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America. This book contains (yet more!) searing exposure of the depraved violence visited upon Black people throughout the history of this country, and speaks to how the "right to bear arms" has never applied to Black people, and instead there has been the perverse "right to kill" Black people, on the part of the powers-that-be and racist whites generally. This cannot be allowed to continue!

    And it is not just around what is represented by “the Second Amendment” that a determined fight must be waged, but around the many ways in which the approach to rights that are supposedly guaranteed to people is applied in a highly unequal way, so that oppressed people, and those acting against the oppressive relations of this system, constantly find their rights attacked, “abridged,” or outright denied and suppressed. In waging this fight, it is important to recognize and, to the degree possible, take advantage of this contradiction: In reality, under this system of capitalism-imperialism, rights and liberties are determined, and limited, in accordance with what serves the interests of this system and its ruling class; but, we are constantly told that, under this system, there is “liberty and justice for all,” and the rulers of this system, or at least some of them, feel it is important to maintain this myth. Again, to the degree possible, this contradiction must be seized on, in waging the fight to defeat attempts by the enforcers of this system to violate what are supposed to be basic rights, in their moves to suppress people rising up against this system and its profound injustice.

    But, most fundamentally, this fight must be waged with full awareness, a scientifically grounded understanding, of the essential nature of this system, with the orientation and goal of working toward the overthrow of this system and the dismantling of its relations and institutions of vicious exploitation and blood-soaked oppression and repression.

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  • ARTICLE:

    VIDEO

    Bob Avakian: The Trump Fascist Regime Must Go Now Before It's Too Late! Plus: Andy Zee Speaks in DC

    Episode 245 of The RNL — Revolution, Nothing Less! — Show

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