revcom.us, January 27, 2020 through February 2, 2020 (#632)

Voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/631/trump-and-pence-outnow-en.html

Updated | revcom.us

 

Reposted from RefuseFascism.org

Trump and Pence #OUTNOW!

If Trump is acquitted in a sham trial, a fascist regime will barrel ahead with disastrous consequences for humanity.

Protest at the U.S. Capitol

Sunday February 2, 4:00 pm: #OutNOW Mass Meeting in Washington, D.C.
Luther Place Memorial Church 1226 Vermont Ave. NW

 

 

 

Trump is on trial in the Senate. Democrats have finished presenting their argument for conviction and removal, but with Republicans stonewalling the entire process, the most likely outcome is a quick acquittal in a sham trial...UNLESS the people act now, flooding the streets of DC and cities and towns across the country in sustained, non-violent protest demanding removal.

Meanwhile, a fascist movement is advancing. 22,000 heavily armed people converged on Richmond, Virginia on MLK Day with a violent white supremacist program and threats of civil war at its core. Trump presided over the so-called “March for Life,” where 100,000 people, many of them youth indoctrinated into Christian Fascist fundamentalism, marched to ban abortion and force women to have children against their will. THIS is the future if we do not step out in visible, collective, non-violent opposition.

Fascism has been unfolding. Concentration camps on the border... environmental devastation accelerated... war, even nuclear war, threatened... white supremacist rule... fascist mobs and racist mass murderers... truth and science erased... the right to abortion near gone... the rule of law and democratic and civil rights stripped away...

All this and more will be accelerated and locked in if Trump is allowed to remain in power. Imagine the vengeance and entitlement to go forward with a program that puts the entire planet and all of humanity in its crosshairs.

Stop being a spectator. Show up now—when it counts!

The people can change this dynamic if they stop sitting passively back. If masses of people converge on DC outside the Senate, where the eyes of the world will be focused on the outrageous cover up and sham trial, this has the potential to light a political fire that not only swings the impeachment trial to admit evidence and witnesses and move towards removal, but can move even more people into mass sustained non-violent action that refuses to stop until the whole regime has been removed. Everyone around the world who has been wondering what’s wrong with the people in the U.S. for going along with fascism would take heart, and build even more pressure for our demand.

EVERY DAY THAT THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME REMAINS IN POWER THREATENS THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY AND THE PLANET.

It’s time you—and all the people like you who hate this but are standing aside—come into the streets to demand that Trump and Pence be removed NOW! Demand witnesses be heard. Repudiate everything Trump stands for—while the whole world is watching. All over the world people have shown us that hated regimes can be forced out through mass sustained, non-violent protest.

Now is the moment to seize!

RefuseFascism.org is a movement of people coming from diverse perspectives, united in our recognition that the Trump/Pence Regime poses a catastrophic danger to humanity and the planet, and that it is our responsibility to drive them from power through a broad based movement – #OUTNOW! – of non-violent protests that grow every day until our demand is met: Trump/Pence #OUTNOW!

RefuseFascism.org welcomes individuals and organizations from many different points of view who share our determination to refuse to accept a fascist America, to join and/or partner with us in this great cause.

Read, share and endorse the full Refuse Fascism Call to Action here.

Find out more about Refuse Fascism here.

See the full film, excerpts and Q&A of this film

Protest at the U.S. Capitol

Friday, 1/31 - 12pm rally
Delaware Ave NE & Northeast Dr

Sunday February 2, 4:00 pm: #OutNOW Mass Meeting in Washington, D.C.
Luther Place Memorial Church 1226 Vermont Ave. NW

Nationwide: Plan protests and creative actions demanding Trump/Pence #OUTNOW! Find a protest in your area.

Bring signs with your reasons the whole Trump/Pence regime must go, with hashtag #OUTNOW! Demand witnesses, evidence, a real trial, conviction and removal, and most of all demand removal of the whole fascist regime for ALL their crimes against humanity and the planet.

 

ALSO: Volunteer to come to DC to build the #OUTNOW movement demanding the removal of the whole Trump/Pence regime. Volunteer for a day, a few days, or for the whole trial. And sign up to be alerted to emergency actions in response to developments in the impeachment trial.

 

 

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/632/letter-from-a-prisoner-en.html

Letter from a Prisoner:

"We must stop Trump before he can be reelected"

| revcom.us

 

We greatly appreciate receiving these letters from prisoners and encourage prisoners to keep sending us correspondence. The views expressed by the writers of these letters are, of course, their own; and they are not responsible for the views published elsewhere in our paper.

I would like to share my thoughts on what would transpire if Trump is reelected.

If Trump is reelected he will carry out his promises to drive out Mexicans, to round up Muslims, to stop-and-frisk and murder Black people, ban abortion, build more walls on the border, take away the rights of gays and transgender people. To beat, imprison, and torture protesters and revolutionaries, and to murder the families of those suspected of “terrorism.” Intimidate the press. Wage war on those who cross him. Spew hatred and degradation at every opportunity. Set the environment on an even more headlong path to devastation and ruin.

When he says such things, Trump is greeted with (you guessed it) thunderous applause.

We must stop Trump before he can be reelected.

Last night, I was rereading weekly articles from last week. I been receiving first Revolution newspapers and now weekly articles from the revcom.us website since 2015. It is remarkable how far Revolution has developed over the last five years. Keep up the good work. Thank you for sharing this valuable information with me.

Also, would you please send a copy of Hope For Humanity On A Scientific Basis. Thank you!

 

THE PRISONERS REVOLUTIONARY LITERATURE FUND

Graphic imagePRLF is an educational literature fund that has sent Revolution newspaper (www.revcom.us), works from Bob Avakian, (Chairman of the RCP) and other revolutionary and scientific literature to hundreds of prisoners across the U.S. for 10 years. PRLF has fought attempts by prison officials to censor these publications. For example, the ACLU of Southern California successfully represented PRLF in a censorship battle focused on Pelican Bay State Prison with statewide ramifications in California.

Donate here to support the work of the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund.

 

 

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Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/631/from-national-refuse-fascism-team-en.html

Reposted from RefuseFascism.org

From the National Refuse Fascism Team: The Stakes in the Impeachment of Donald Trump and the Struggle to Remove the Trump/Pence Regime...

| revcom.us

 

From the Refuse Fascism National Team to Refuse Fascism Chapters:

January 23, 2020

The following are key points for the next week.

[1] The Impeachment of Donald Trump is now the focal point of the struggle to remove the Trump/Pence regime. This provides the most favorable ground now to advance the program of Refuse Fascism and #OUTNOW! which is mass sustained non-violent protest in cities and towns across the country. A leaflet from the LA Chapter writes:

What’s happening with impeachment? Isn’t it a done deal?

“In December, Trump was impeached in the House of Representatives on two charges: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress for pressuring Ukraine to help rig the 2020 election and then refusing to cooperate with a legal-constitutional investigation. There is now a trial taking place in the Senate to determine whether or not Trump should be convicted and removed from office. In the Senate trial, the Republican Party is trying to ram through a sham trial and a fast acquittal – not even allowing witnesses or new evidence that has been revealed in the last few weeks. Witnesses and evidence that could not only prove Donald Trump’s guilt but also implicate Vice President Pence, Attorney General William Barr, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and several others at the highest levels of this regime.”

Stop being a spectator. It’s time to show up now – when it counts!

“If this impeachment process gets shut down it will green light a fascist who claims this is nullifying his election while he has been caught red-handed rigging the next one, demolishing the separation of powers and the rule of law. It will further unleash this President who has threatened to jail his political opponents, attacks the press as the enemy, who has set up concentration camps for immigrants, openly supports white supremacists and is rallying into the streets armed mobs of his supporters calling for civil war. Trump has threatened not to leave office even if he loses the 2020 election. This is not something YOU can sit out. History will ask what you did when there was a chance to stop him.”

There are real stakes in this Senate trial of Trump. Most important is if he is acquitted, which is now the likely outcome – especially absent a mass outpouring of the people, he will feel vindicated and seek to exact revenge with a vengeance. At the same time, the attention of big sections of liberal and “progressive” people will “move-on” to the primaries and the elections, acting even more oblivious to the sharpening stakes of fascism unfolding – not only the possibility of Trump winning, but possibly refusing to leave office and the specter of a thoroughly enraged fascist base. And, undoubtedly many others will be demoralized. The point: there is a moment to seize now.

There are also stakes in the content of the impeachment beyond Trump’s “cheating” in the next election and threats against his ruling class opponents, stakes that have to do with shredding of the separation of powers – concentrating tremendous unchecked power in the fascist regime. And, the rule of law – such as it has been – will be seriously undermined with objective truth and evidence once again, shown to not matter.

Even worse, and critical to our seizing this moment to mobilize, all of the crimes of the Trump/Pence regime will be further validated and accelerated as the regime claims victory. But here is the rub – if people are called forward to act now in response to the impeachment trial to bring forward the deeply felt interests of humanity, and not only the constitutional issues that are the terms of the Democrats' impeachment indictment, and do so by getting in the streets to demand Trump’s removal for the full fascist program, that could shake things loose – including in the impeachment itself.  We should recognize that when the processes and institutions are not working, when the fascists blatantly refuse to consider evidence and even go so far as to practically announce the verdict ahead of the trial, and, on the other hand, the Democrats are arguing their focused and narrow case with vigor and facts, but concede at the same time that they will likely lose even as their political necks are on the line, and yet they still refuse to mobilize masses of people to act in the interests of humanity, then that holds the potential of a moment when it could be possible for people to break out of their complacency and complicity.

Consider what the impact would be if masses of people were gathering daily outside the Capitol in DC demanding removal for what is spoken to in the Call for #OUTNOW!:

Concentration camps on the border... environmental devastation accelerated... war, even nuclear war, threatened... white supremacist rule... fascist mobs and racist mass murderers... truth and science erased... the right to abortion near gone... the rule of law and democratic and civil rights stripped away...

If this started next week with hundreds drawing forward thousands outside the Capitol in DC where the eyes of the world will be focused on the outrageous cover up and sham trial, as the Democrats put forth more evidence – and if, at the same time, masses of people were standing up with the people’s evidence of the Trump/Pence regime’s crimes this then has the potential to light a political fire that not only swings the impeachment trial to admit evidence, witnesses etc., but can move even more masses of people into mass sustained non-violent action. And, yes, this can and should spread to cities and towns across the country, but we should recognize that the struggle is now principally focused in DC. Think about the difference it would make if the news was forced to show the crowds of people demanding that this regime be sent packing. Consider too how people here and all around the world who have been wondering what’s wrong with the people in the U.S. for going along with fascism would take heart and build even more pressure for our demand.

Yet, even as the Democrats and their mass groups (Move-On/Indivisible, etc.) have thus far not mobilized the people except to donate funds to them for advertising and to call and lobby key senators, RefuseFascism has found that masses of people at marches and in the streets have expressed broad sentiment for “Trump/Pence Out NOW!” which for many encompasses the desire for a “fair” impeachment trial so that people can hear the evidence and witnesses. There could be a moment here. It’s on us to push on it.

[2] The key focuses now are the MASS MEETINGS ON SUNDAY JANUARY 26. People should come and discuss the impeachment battle and the need for the people to act from below, now. Funds should be raised to send volunteers to DC, calls in schools, places of worship, street corners, and on the media/social media to go to DC. Funds are needed by RefuseFascism/#OUTNOW! to sustain DC efforts. Organize people right on the spot to raise the funds, and send people from their chapters to the team now in DC.

And, mass work and protests should go on all over.

 [3] MASS DAY OF PROTEST & ACTION NEXT WEEK: We will be calling for a mass protest focused in DC with actions around the country on the day before the vote for witnesses and evidence to be admitted. This will likely be either Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. The team in DC will be sending out daily dispatches keeping people up on what’s happening, arousing people to come to DC and take to the streets to demand the conviction and removal of Trump, and going to demand the indictment and removal of the whole regime.

To paraphrase John Lennon, people may say we are dreamers, but we aren’t the only ones – what we are putting forward expresses the deeply felt desire of millions of people. There are no guarantees but this is the time. And, DC is a place to be.

From the National Refuse Fascism Team

 

See the full film, excerpts and Q&A of this film

RefuseFascism.org is a movement of people coming from diverse perspectives, united in our recognition that the Trump/Pence Regime poses a catastrophic danger to humanity and the planet, and that it is our responsibility to drive them from power through non-violent protests that grow every day until our demand is met. This means working and organizing with all our creativity and determination to bring thousands, eventually millions of people into the streets of cities and towns, to demand:

This Nightmare Must End:
The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!

RefuseFascism.org welcomes individuals and organizations from many different points of view who share our determination to refuse to accept a fascist America, to join and/or partner with us in this great cause.

Read, share and endorse the full Refuse Fascism Call to Action here.

Find out more about Refuse Fascism here.

 

 

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/632/sights-and-sounds-from-outnow-volunteers-in-dc-week-1-en.html

Sights & Sounds from #OUTNOW Volunteers in DC
Week 1

| revcom.us

 

RefuseFascism.org has called for masses of people to converge and stage nonviolent mass protest in Washington, DC during the impeachment trial in the Senate to demand the whole Trump/Pence regime be removed from power—#OUTNOW!—because they are fascist and pose a catastrophic danger to humanity. Volunteers have responded from around the country and have been on the ground in DC for over a week and the responses they are getting when they take this message out to the people throughout DC reveal a visceral hatred for Trump. However, as of now, growing numbers of people have not yet responded to this call in a way corresponding to the need, or the stakes, of the immediate battle—when a fascist President in the world’s most powerful imperialist country is both under impeachment and attempting to further consolidate his fascist regime. This is a real window, but it could close fast! This is a problem that everyone—in DC and across the country—needs to be part of fighting to transform—by volunteering to travel to DC as part of this effort, by donating financially to support the work going on there, by spreading the word of this effort online, and by organizing or joining #OUTNOW protests in cities across the country. Find plans for a day of mass protest in DC, with satellite actions around the country, on Wednesday, January 29, here.

The following include sights and sounds from some of the efforts that have been undertaken by the RefuseFascism.org volunteers.

Responding to this call from Refuse Fascism, volunteers came to Washington, DC, to seize the moment of Trump’s impeachment trial and step up the fight to get Trump/Pence #OUTNOW!

Several other groups were also in DC “Swarming the Senate” to put pressure on senators.

People got on buses from New York and other cities to come to DC for the January 18 Women’s March. Refuse Fascism and the Revolution Tour both had a strong presence at the march in DC.

One of the volunteers wrote this reflection:

If ever there were a time to protest, this is the time. A journalist from Switzerland told one of our volunteers: “Do people in this country even know what’s happening? Your president’s on trial! Where are all the people?” When I told my Uber driver this story, this resonated with him: “I get embarrassed to travel because people ask me, what is happening in America? Why are people letting this happen?”

Yesterday thousands poured into the streets for the Women’s March in Washington and around the country. Even though the numbers were far fewer than previous Women’s Marches, the people who came were driven by a deeply felt desire to see Trump removed from power. I was on a bus that came from New York City to join the Women’s March. The bus ride itself was transformative for new people who met us. Some people went from wondering why there weren’t more people coming to DC to actually being part of a force consciously working to change that and join the #OUTNOW movement.

We impacted thousands in DC at the Women’s March. People from all over the country joined the #OUTNOW contingent on the spot, taking up the signs, getting out tons of stickers and flyers, collecting donations, buying beanies and T-shirts, taking up our chants very passionately. When we said “Trump/Pence OUT NOW! RIGHT NOW!” people were really feeling the “RIGHT NOW!”

Still the question remains, will this be yet another time where people protest and then go back to normal? Or will we wrench growing numbers of people to see the need to fight now for the kind of sustained, nonviolent, repeated, and growing protest that can drive the whole regime from power? This is the mission of the #OUTNOW! Movement and this is what we brought to the march, are staying in DC to spread, and are fighting to build across the country.

There is a crucial crossroads that we face and what we do now can determine the future. A couple of nights ago, we learned that there were heavily armed NRA supporters, white supremacists, and open fascists gathering in Richmond, Virginia on January 20, supposedly to protest for “gun rights.” Threats have been made against Democratic Party leaders and calls have been made for a “race war.” The Revolution Tour is headed down to Virginia to stand up to this and call for a whole different future.

On MLK Day, the day before Trump’s impeachment trial began, armed militia, white supremacists, and fascists converged on Richmond, Virginia, for a phony “gun rights” rally.

The Revolution Tour, whose mission it is to organize thousands into the movement for an actual revolution based on the new communism forged by Bob Avakian, was the only group to openly counterprotest them and stand for a radically different future right up against them. Read more about this here.

As Trump’s trial began, we went all over DC calling on people to come to the Capitol. A young volunteer who came from Cleveland wrote this:

I’m from Cleveland, Ohio.

I made a 16-hour trip out to DC to be here during the Senate trial.

I did so because eyes are on DC. We are at a pivotal time in history. And I had to make a choice.

Do I acknowledge the importance of taking action in this moment to stand up for what I believe in⏤the future of humanity and condemning this fascist regime for exactly what it is?

Or do I go about business as usual and ignore the immense threat we are facing. Pretend that everything is OK so I can wake up comfortable with a false sense of security—for now? Can I pretend to have faith in some democratic process to halt, to reverse the terror that American chauvinism has promoted?

Can I ignore the crimes against the marginalized communities across this country? Can I ignore the terrifying cruelty of children dying in cages? Being separated from their loved ones? Can I ignore the hateful, racist, sexist & violent agenda of Trump and his regime?

Can I do nothing and allow our power to be stripped away? Can I be complacent?

I can’t.

This is the time to take a stand. Collectively, we the people will be heard.

Drive the Fascist Trump/Pence regime OUT NOW. It is up to us.

I have been apathetic in the past. Overwhelmed by the pain of this existence and choosing instead to put my head in the sand. In fiction. To put faith in distraction and to put blind hope in somebody else taking care of it.

But the history of oppression and revolution has shown us that we can only rely on ourselves.

We are asking you to come out with us. Join our movement in demanding the removal of the fascist Trump/Pence regime.

Let’s demand a better future for all. Stand with us.

Have your voice heard. You are deciding which side of history you are on.

Each day you have a part in deciding what the future will hold for yourself and your fellow humans, across this country and the world.

Don’t let this opportunity slip by you. Don’t be a bystander. Do what you know is right.

Sunsara Taylor delivered a message to Michael Moore and Ralph Nader, and a challenge to everyone:

Meanwhile, the Republicans in the Senate rigged the rules for the trial and blocked every attempt of the Democrats to get documents and witnesses. One of the volunteers in DC wrote this:

I am an organizer with RefuseFascism.org in Los Angeles, but I am writing to you from Washington!

I have been on the ground in DC since January 14. I volunteered to help build the #OUTNOW! movement here during this critical moment in not only this nation’s history, but in world history. The Trump/Pence fascist regime poses a catastrophic threat to all of humanity and the planet itself. The racist, pussy-grabbing fascist president has been impeached, and is now on trial in the Senate facing conviction and removal. This is a moment to seize. We cannot allow this sham trial to steamroll ahead without admittance of evidence or allowing witness testimony.

Yesterday 23 senators left the room during opening arguments. This is just one example of the Republicans not complying with the legal process. Before that, they were not complying with subpoenas. How can we rely on the legal process in itself? Trump and his legal team are claiming impeachment is about reversing the election, and tampering with the 2020 election, when he is actually on trial for doing just that!

The whole world has eyes on DC right now. What difference would it make if there was a movement of people in the streets protesting every day Trump is on trial, demanding a fair trial, demanding the Senate to consider all evidence and testimony, demanding Trump/Pence #OUTNOW! Don’t tell me that flooding the Capitol with protest wouldn’t make a difference.

A core of us have travelled from all over the country to move people in DC into the streets. People who have put their lives on hold and are sacrificing to not only bring the #OUTNOW! demand but to WIN! But we can’t do it alone.

A smattering of people from other parts of the country have come to DC on their own to make their voices heard. Not nearly enough, but this is important, and it shows the potential for many more. Here’s two people we met from Indiana:

A college professor cancelled class, joined us at our daily protests at the Senate building outside the trial, and sent this message to his students:

We are in a singular and critical moment in American history: The President of the United States is on trial for Abuse of Power and Obstruction of Congress. Tomorrow I will be traveling to the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. to demonstrate and stand up for democracy, justice, truth, rule of law, and the moral values of the U.S. Constitution. As a result, we will not be having class on Tuesday, January 21.

I believe that this is the right thing for me to do, and is in the best long-term interest of all my students, despite the adverse impact cancelling class may have on the course in the short term. And I cannot, in good conscience, stand before you to teach while shirking this ethical responsibility.

Trump was the first president ever to speak at the “March for Life,” a/k/a the March for Forced Motherhood.

Two of the volunteers described the ugly scene:

We arrived to the rally where Trump was speaking, and heard the opening band say the U.S. was lucky to have a president that cared about the unborn babies. Why is it no surprise that Trump would have no problem speaking at this rally? Because Trump’s patriarchy goes hand in hand with the patriarchy of Pence and the “pro-lifers.” They have no problem sticking to Trump—even if you don’t particularly like Trump, you can still get behind him because he is willing to go all the way to overturn women’s right to abortion and even birth control, and has already made headway on it. What they can all agree on is the enslavement of women.

Trump needs a rabid base, the end-timers, who don’t give a fuck about the future of humanity and future generations. “Trump wants the baby bump” was a chant that young people were taking up—so grossly misogynistic. Giant banners with a massive contingent that said “tradition, family, property.” They looked like crusaders from the Dark Ages. Tons of indoctrinated youth. All of them marching and cheering for a world where women are forced to have children against their will. When we would agitate about Trump bragging about grabbing women by the pussy, people would cheer and yell Trump 2020.

Sunsara Taylor called out the people who are sitting at home while fascism is on the march.

When Trump started speaking, he was disrupted by these courageous women!

People chanted “Trump/Pence #OUTNOW!” in front of the Supreme Court, where Roe v. Wade1 currently hangs by a thread.

The RefuseFascism volunteers joined a small group of pro-choice counter-protesters, raising chants for “Abortion on Demand and Without Apology” and “Trump/Pence #OutNow!”


1. Roe v. Wade is the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. Trump has pledged to overturn Roe v. Wade, and his appointment of two justices to the Supreme Court could provide the votes needed to do that.

If Trump is acquitted in a sham trial, a fascist regime will barrel ahead with disastrous consequences for humanity!

Read the call to FLOOD DC, Wednesday, January 29

If Trump is acquitted in a sham trial, a fascist regime will barrel ahead with disastrous consequences for humanity.

Wednesday, January 29

11:00 am: Come to DC to Protest! Come to DC to Protest! Bring signs with your reasons the whole Trump/Pence regime must go, with the hashtag #OUTNOW! Demand witnesses, evidence, conviction and removal, and most of all demand removal of the whole fascist regime for ALL their crimes against humanity and the planet. Meet on the SW corner of 1st Street NE and Constitution Ave (on the east side of the U.S. Capitol).

5:00 pm Protest and March thru DC! Gather at the east side of the Capitol, Delaware Ave NE and Northeast Drive to protest and then march into the communities of DC.

Nationwide Plan protests and creative actions demanding Trump/Pence #OUTNOW! Find a protest in your area.

ALSO: Volunteer to come to DC to build the #OUTNOW movement demanding the removal of the whole Trump/Pence regime. Volunteer for a day, a few days, or for the whole trial. And sign up to be alerted to emergency actions in response to developments in the impeachment trial.

Read more

See the full film, excerpts and Q&A of this film

RefuseFascism.org is a movement of people coming from diverse perspectives, united in our recognition that the Trump/Pence Regime poses a catastrophic danger to humanity and the planet, and that it is our responsibility to drive them from power through a broad based movement: #OUTNOW! of non-violent protests that grow every day until our demand is met: Trump/Pence #OUTNOW!

RefuseFascism.org welcomes individuals and organizations from many different points of view who share our determination to refuse to accept a fascist America, to join and/or partner with us in this great cause.

Read, share and endorse the full Refuse Fascism Call to Action here.

Find out more about Refuse Fascism here.

 

 

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/627/join-the-outnow-movement-en.html

| revcom.us

 

Reposted from RefuseFascism.org:

 

Trump and Pence #OUTNOW!

Trump and Pence #OUTNOW!!

Trump has been impeached. He has ratcheted up the danger of war with Iran.

Now is a time for determined struggle by the people to go all the way to demand: Trump/Pence #OUTNOW!

In the first days of January, Trump ordered the assassination of the high ranking Iranian military leader, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani. This is objectively an act of war which massively escalates the threat of further conflict and suffering for the people of Iran and the whole region.

EVERY DAY THAT THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME REMAINS IN POWER THREATENS THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY AND THE PLANET

Everyone with a conscience must face this hard truth. But that alone is not enough—we must now ACT ON IT.

There is a way to remove this whole regime—the #OUTNOW! Movement of sustained, nonviolent protest that doesn’t stop until the regime has been removed from power.

 

Join the #OUTNOW contingents at the Women's Marches and more January plans

#OutNOW contingent at the women's March in DC January 18 meets up at the southwest corner of Freedom Plaza, 14th Street Northwest and Pennsylvania Avenue. Organizers will be there at 9:00 am. People joining the #OutNOW contingent should arrive by 10. March starts at 11.

Sign up

The impeachment of Donald Trump in the House of Representatives is a real advance. For all of us who have looked on in horror as this regime’s crimes escalate—children in cages, environmental protections shredded, violence threatened against political opponents, and more—it is a moment of celebration that at last this fascist criminal is getting a first taste of justice. This greatly heightens the potential for driving out the whole fascist Trump/Pence regime.

At the same time, Trump’s murderous actions in Iraq are extremely dangerous with potentially catastrophic implications for the people of Iran and beyond.

With a new surge of hope and energy from impeachment—and even greater urgency to prevent new U.S. war moves in the Middle East—now is the time to seize the moment and join together, recognizing that only a determined struggle of thousands and ultimately millions taking to the streets in a broad-based movement of continuing protests can create a political crisis from below that could force this whole regime from power.

The stakes have been raised. A great struggle still lies ahead.

The cracks and strains in our political class are more visible than ever. A Republican Party now well-hardened around its fascist core is in full standoff with a Democratic Party that felt compelled to take the momentous step of impeaching a President for only the third time in U.S. history. An impeachment trial is expected in the Senate in January to determine whether Trump will be removed from power. But Trump and the fascist Republicans are in lockstep intensifying their threats and vowing not to convict him. Impeachment without removal would leave the fascist regime intact and full of vengeance and determination to drive forward its program. And in the unlikely scenario that the Senate votes to remove Trump, the Christian fascist wing of the regime, led by Mike Pence, is poised to take over and hammer in their own theocratic vision of society, backed by the Bible taken literally. Now, this volatility is intensified as Trump's act of war against Iran could spiral into even greater conflict and suffering in the Middle East and potentially even sharper clashes at the top of this society.

As the threat of greater war looms and the impeachment of Trump roils, a mass movement of the people demanding Trump/Pence #OUTNOW! must grow... each week making advances and becoming a magnetic force of all who feel that life here and around the world will be unbearable under the fascism the Trump/Pence regime is rapidly imposing.

We must follow the examples of millions all over the world carrying out mass struggle to demand regime change in their countries.

Concentration camps on the border... environmental devastation accelerated... war, even nuclear war, casually threatened... white supremacist rule... fascist mobs and racist mass murderers... truth and science erased... the right to abortion near gone... the rule of law and democratic and civil rights stripped away... THIS IS FASCISM UNFOLDING AND IN POWER.

Our power is the power of the people acting with determination—not to protest one day and go home, but flood the streets, with people of many different points of view acting together, in sustained nonviolent protest—starting in our hundreds week after week, soon becoming thousands, and ultimately millions—refusing to stop until the whole Trump/Pence regime has been removed from power.

 

 

Together, we must make January a month of struggle, building a broad based #OUTNOW! Movement to advance this great cause.

Volunteer to join #OUTNOW in DC during the impeachment trial. Contact us at info@refusefascism.org to volunteer, to donate to cover expenses, to provide places for people to stay.

Saturday January 11 mass protests: Trump/Pence #OUTNOW! No War On Iran! Go to refusefascism.org for a protest near you or how to organize your own #OUTNOW! Protest.

January 18-20: Join in bringing the #OUTNOW demand and program of continuing, sustained mass protest to drive the Trump/Pence regime from power into the Women’s Marches and MLK events.

January 25: Mass #OUTNOW protests in cities across the country that mark a leap in sustained non-violent protest demanding #OUTNOW!

 

ACT! January Times and Places

 

In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America!

RefuseFascism.org | @RefuseFascism | 917-407-1286

December 14, 2019: Andy Zee – How to struggle with people to get into the street to drive out Trump and Pence

RefuseFascism.org is a movement of people coming from diverse perspectives, united in our recognition that the Trump/Pence Regime poses a catastrophic danger to humanity and the planet, and that it is our responsibility to drive them from power through non-violent protests that grow every day until our demand is met. This means working and organizing with all our creativity and determination to bring thousands, eventually millions of people into the streets of cities and towns, to demand:

This Nightmare Must End:
The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!

RefuseFascism.org welcomes individuals and organizations from many different points of view who share our determination to refuse to accept a fascist America, to join and/or partner with us in this great cause.

Read, share and endorse the full Refuse Fascism Call to Action here.

Find out more about Refuse Fascism here.

 

 

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Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/631/fundraising-appeal-from-member-of-tour-en.html

From a member of the National Revolution Tour:

In a time of such hopelessness... HOPE FOR HUMANITY, On a Scientific Basis.

A new year, a new decade... what future for humanity?

| revcom.us

 

We in the National Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour are reaching out to you to donate to and sustain the work of the Tour. The start of this new year has already brought into sharp relief the dire state of the world, and urgent need for a much better world. And we are a cohort of revolutionaries determined to break through the dread and hopelessness with real hope on a scientific basis. We are struggling to take up and apply the leadership of Bob Avakian and the new communism he has forged and fighting to bring forward thousands into the ranks of the revolution.

While the global climate crisis literally heats up, as on display in Australia; while the U.S.’ assassination of an Iranian general brings the world to the brink of war, with people of the world still on the brink of disastrous conflict and subject to the whims of fascist-in-chief Trump and American imperial interests; and while the high-stakes impeachment trial of this fascist-in-chief has begun... we on this National Revolution Tour are working and struggling to wrench out of all this a brighter future for humanity. 

Members of the Tour were in DC for the Women’s March 2020 and will be there during the impeachment trial to strengthen the #OUTNOW movement to drive this fascist regime from power while boldly putting forward that a BETTER world IS possible, and we are making revolution to get to that world. Others on the Tour went to Richmond, Virginia, on Monday, MLK Day, into a gathering of various armed right-wing, fascist, and white supremacist groupings, unleashed and strengthened by the fascists in power. We went into the midst of all that to raise the banners “NO White Supremacy!” “TRUMP/PENCE #OUTNOW!” “REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS!” This gathering prefigured the kind of polarization that Bob Avakian has been pointing to, namely that the sections of society on the side of a virulent white supremacist, male supremacist, American chauvinist fascism are arming for and preparing to carry out a race war/civil war, while too much of what characterizes those sections of people opposed to that are politically pacified, proceeding with politics as usual, or sleepwalking through this nightmare (even while claiming “woke-ness”).

Now more than ever the work of the Tour to put before society that THERE IS A REAL WAY OUT, and to bring forward and train new waves of revolutionaries and revolutionary leaders on the basis of Bob Avakian’s new communism, is both needed and holds potential to radically raise people’s sights and carve a way forward out of the darkness that this system imposes on the world.

So donate generously and consider becoming a sustainer of the Tour, making a regular contribution of funds to meet the Tour’s ongoing needs for food, travel, and housing; donate travel miles (TourMilesToGoFar@gmail.com) reach out with ideas and ways to raise funds and expand the reach and effect of the National Revolution Tour.

For all your contributions past, current, and future, I want to say on behalf of all of us on the Tour, and having in mind the interests of the 7 billion people depending on all of us who see the need for a radically different future: thank you.

Download this PDF and distribute broadly among past, present and future donors.   

Watch January 21 Report Back from Richmond, Virginia by Carl Dix and others from National Revolution Tour

Watch and spread this video everywhere now!

January 20, Carl Dix and others in the Revolution Tour courageously stood up to the white supremacist, gun-toting mob, to represent for REAL REVOLUTION as re-envisioned by Bob Avakian

 

 

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/632/revolution-tour-represents-for-a-radically-different-future-en.html

Facing Down 22,000 Heavily Armed, Mostly MAGA Fanatics
The Revolution Tour Represents for a Radically Different Future

| revcom.us

 

On January 20, members of the National Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour traveled to Richmond, Virginia, and staged the only protest of the day right up in the face of some 22,000 heavily armed, heavily white supremacist, overwhelmingly MAGA-supporting, “gun rights” rally.

From the second they entered the “rally,” the multinational members of the Revolution Tour were accosted with racist comments. Racists at the rally loudly commented that it “smells like fried chicken” as Black Tour members walked through. Other militia-types “joked” about how their automatic weapons were like “bug spray” they couldn’t wait to use to “exterminate the roaches,” clearly referring to immigrants and others they deemed “undesirable.” Donald Trump tweeted out his support for the rally, and the rally-goers frequently returned the love, chanting, “Trump 2020” and “USA! USA!” Anyone who told themselves this was just a “gun rights” rally was deluding themselves. Calling this a gun rights rally is like calling a lynch mob a bunch of “rope enthusiasts.” Not every single person at the protest was a self-conscious white supremacist. But that is what dominated the rally and it is what everyone in the crowd was objectively giving backing to.

In the middle of all this, Carl Dix and other members of the Revolution Tour unfurled four powerful banners, reading, “No White Supremacy!” “Trump/Pence #OUTNOW!” “A Better World Is Possible!” and “Revolution, Nothing Less!” They chanted each slogan together and then Carl Dix and Lucha Bright delivered a powerful message to the world, denouncing the fascism on display and calling people at home to find their courage and stand up to this nightmare, and to turn their faces towards real revolution to get rid of the system that cannot do away with white supremacy and misogyny. They cited the powerful statement made by the revolutionary leader, Bob Avakian, on how there is a “direct line from the Confederacy to the fascists of today” and calling on everyone who is sick of and opposed to this white supremacy and misogyny to get into the leadership and strategy Avakian has forged to make a real revolution and get humanity free.

A young woman who joined the Revolution Tour for the protest and had never been a part of anything like this before described the experience as giving her hope beyond anything she’d experienced before. Another young woman who is a seasoned member of the Revolution Tour said her fear melted away once they began their protest because, by standing up, they were modeling a different future and making it closer by actively fighting for it. A small number of anti-gun protesters held a vigil after the fascists had cleared out of the state capitol which got covered in the media, but it is a crying shame more people did not stand up right in the face of this. It is precious and must be more widely known that there is one force that took responsibility for going right in its midst and calling it out for what it truly was and representing for a whole different world: The Revolution Tour.

January 20: The Revolution Tour & Carl Dix OPPOSE the fascist rally in Richmond.

The direct line from the Confederacy to the fascists of today

Watch full film of THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO! here

 

 

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/631/queen-slim-vignettes-and-reflections-en.html

Queen & Slim: Vignettes and Reflections

by a member of the Revolution Club, Chicago

| revcom.us

 

Editors' note: The Revolution Club welcomes discussion and debate on culture to change the world. Write us.

I am not a fan of love stories. The romance genre is plagued with toxicity like none other. In most movies I happened to see, stories I’ve been told, and observations amongst many people I see, true and genuine healthy love is extremely rare, and even more so the two in a relationship maintaining independent identities is rarely heard of. For this reason—along with the patriarchal binaries, shameless consumer relations and degrading, jarring sex—I had mostly decided the genre had no redeeming qualities.

Or so I thought. Spoilers ahead.

Queen & Slim is a story of two people that grew up in each other’s vicinity but took two very different paths as they grew up. Queen’s an attorney now and Slim I’m not sure of, but it sounds like there is a possibility he didn’t have as much schooling.

After a Tinder date where the two could be no farther apart, a police officer stops them for a traffic violation. He breaks several laws to find something to pin on Slim despite Slim’s cooperation. Angry at the clear violation of Slim’s rights, Queen calls out the pig, but as soon as she steps out of the car she gets shot in the leg, leading to a life-or-death wrestle that puts the pig’s gun in Slim’s hands, shooting to stop the rabid cop in their defense.

After a Thelma and Louise-like adventure ensues (I had originally put Bonnie and Clyde, but after comparing the two references and the fact Queen and Slim were not wrong, I chose another righteous pair), helping them grow as people and as conscious choosers of their lives. They learn from everyone they meet, whether they root for the two or disagree, but do not act in ways that hurt the pair. Till a Judas-like betrayal happens.

My favorite scene is a hard choice between the sex/protest and ending.

The “sex/protest scene” features a back-and-forth cutting between a righteous protest taking up the cause of Queen and Slim and against police murder, and Queen and Slim’s first time making love. It is not only built upon and stylized in a way where you feel like you are there, embracing the feelings of compassion of the two and the passionate, righteous rage of the people, but it marks a turning point.

Up until then, despite the death of the pig being unplanned, the removing of the sheriff as an active hostile force, the encouragement and happiness of a Dad and Son who even ask if they did this as a part of something larger for “the people,” or even the Uncle (Bokeem Woodbine) actually acting outside of the caustic role of a pimp to help the fugitives escape to the East Coast... up until this point the reason they had run away was to purely survive. Queen knew from experience in the injustice center as a lawyer just how cruel the courts can be. (Ironically this is how they first meet, when she takes him as a Tinder date to cope with the impending death of a client and just to be around someone.) The teen son of the mechanic who fixes their car helps pull back the lens to show them a larger context in which their actions take place and the larger ramifications of the choices they have made. He beams at their courage and chatters about how inspirational they are, and how kids and people like him support and wish to embolden the need for actual change simply put as, Stop fucking killing us!

To go back to the Bokeem Woodbine character a minute, to draw out an important point in the movie: Queen makes a very important, hard decision that truly shows her character as a person to legally defend her uncle for accidentally killing her mother. She’s angered at what happened, but the insistence to do what was right because she knew it wasn’t on purpose is a decision many would find hard to come to. It’s a stark contrast with the revenge-blazed retribution that has too much plagued the “me too” movement. How can someone change the arc of their life except when given a chance? This is why Point of Attention #4 not only stresses never losing sight of the potential of the masses caught up in the system game today, but stresses the need to take up leadership in making that happen. Through example, when the rubber hits the road, Queen knew what was true and worth standing up for, even if it pained her to think of what happened.

We see for the first time more of a reaction of the masses outside of those directly in contact with the pair. The way their actions have taken flight and inspired an adamant demanding of humanity. In a way, Queen and Slim finally give in to giving each other a chance and enter into something new and uncharted, of caring about each other more than as just passing friends. It’s a budding of love onscreen.

Meanwhile, the protest heats up at the beginning as a standoff between the people and the forces of repression that wish to quell their anger into manageable pieces. They yell passionately in the faces of the armored pigs as the pigs incite confusion by throwing distractions into the crowd, causing them to temporarily disperse some and the order to leave is called. Your heart burns with the young man’s. The hate of the denial of life by this system is concentrated in the yells challenging them to take him on, daring them to do what they do best: Kill People. It was gut-wrenching watching him pull the trigger at point blank on the pig. He had so much insight and potential. But it was snubbed early by brash actions.

A Heavy But Relatable Thought

In one of the scenes leading up to this crescendo, as we go back to the teenager’s meeting Queen and Slim, we hear about the concept of “Immortality” and what is worth fighting to live for. They are honestly shocked at the way the teenager has already accepted that he won’t live long. The revelation gives the pair strength to fight on. The teen wants his life to contribute to a future where this kind of bloody oppression doesn’t go on.

It’s a heavy but very relatable thought. After seeing the videos after videos after videos in 2015, I came to a similar thought-path upon realizing my own mortality in a way that wasn’t just fear or resignation. As a Black person in this society, you grow up getting taught by peers (Black or not) that your life could be easily snuffed out as your ancestors before you did. The world chooses your “destiny” for you, which you must accept and find a way in the boundaries of oppression to survive.

This looming death sentence only got intensified when the role of the police was made more and more apparent. Vic Mensa crystallizes the raw anger and fightback in his song “16 Shots.” The lyrics make you feel the anger course through your veins but its solution is by no means what we need. Struggle and great timing led me to making the decision, when it was presented, of an alternate, far better world that we can go to work on Now—through Revolution.

The difference between myself and the teenager is that I happened to run into real revolutionary leadership and took up its aims and goals. Not the pent-up, loose-cannon frustration that may feel good now but either you won’t be alive to help anyone and it takes away from why you did it. Point of Attention #6 of the Revolution clearly opposes such action: “We are going for an actual overthrow of this system and a whole better way beyond the destructive, vicious conflicts of today between the people. Because we are serious, at this stage we do not initiate violence and we oppose all violence against the people and among the people.” But let’s get into what the first part of POA 6 even means and what context it’s in.

What I had that the young man in the film didn’t was an introduction to Bob Avakian (BA) and collective vanguard force that took the responsibility to lead me through a process of taking up and wielding the New Communism BA has brought forward. It’s a priceless and crucial step in making the leap from just a concerned angry person—depressed at the state of the world, aimlessly throwing fists at the wind or wrong enemy—to a part of a collective juggernaut that could upend all relations of oppression and lead a process of eternally changing humanity and the planet. Avakian has spent decades even while under heavy blowback from the state, like wanting to sentence him to 240 years, lies and slanders so old and so tired they’d shrivel the paper you wrote them on and heavy misinformation and outright distortion about the vanguard he leads and the path for emancipation he resituated and furthered. Capitalism-imperialism is the system that currently holds global Dictatorship in most 1st world countries and influences the livelihoods of everyone on the planet. It dominates and dictates how countries respond to each other to what makes a child a child, as in the literal denial of childhood in many countries due to child labor, sex trade/human trafficking, child soldiers, and mass displacement by war or climate even here in the detention centers to across the world. The goal of the new communism is to overcome and get beyond all systems of governing, relations, and ideas that are meant to oppress people of any kind over another.

In the movie, the aim is to live the best life you can while you have it, possibly even while under fire. But this is not YOLO [You Only Live Once]—this is about making every moment count and actually opens up the question of what is truly worth living for. Characters that were about only themselves became about something a bit more. It invites Black people to loosen the load of centuries of oppression and straighten their backs a little.

But then it stops, abruptly. The smoke clears from Slim’s bullet-riddled body and blood congeals on Queen’s breast. We are given a small view of their immortality, but is it in memorial to them or to stand with them even after death? There isn’t a clear conclusion but a shaking head moment of “Dog-damn, I knew they were going to die. Right when I got my hopes up.” The theatre I went to both times in two different states left somber. Like we dared to hope, and they were dashed once again.

The ending was complex and multi-faceted. I think it would be a lot to get it all down here and currently I think other aspects of reality need more of my attention than this piece of art alone.

Queen and Slim as a dreamscape

On watching the film a second time. The anxious on edge feelings of “please, please, please survive” is quieted as one accepts their impending death. 6 days. 6 days that changed everything. I was able to feel and look at scenes I had watched previously with love brimming and tears spilling just being there.

Queen and Slim had died from the moment they were in the encounter with the police officer. Every moment afterward was like a “what if?” in a journey that took them into an introspection beyond the superficial world. They were able to look at other people in the world—as the tongs heated up everyone had a choice about what to do with their volatility. And in this peak moment what would you do if confronted by xyz?

It celebrated life. Not in a caustic sense but one that emphasized the will to live.

Now the movie is superb, but it’s not flawless. The tendencies of the Black pig being the good pig, embracing destiny and god, as well as the complicated pimp of an uncle Queen has, are definitely not to be stepped over. But I think the question is posed sharply of what is truly worth living for and dying for. Once that comes to light, it deepens then what is required of us, which is batted around in different ways. The Pimp acts outside his own outlook to help the fugitives find refuge—giving them money, a car and clothes due to Queen’s insistence of coming through for her. The wife of the military vet that served in Iraq too, could have easily called the police or ratted them out, but she gets won to a point of not agreeing with them or what they did but not giving them away. There are many more guests that appear, but for the time being I mentioned these two. It’s almost like a quick run-through of different levels and types of people that need to be won over to the cause of revolution as it gets closer to a revolutionary situation. The friendly neutrals, those that deny intelligence to the enemy, those that wish to align and may carry out something in the name of revolution that does not reflect its strategy, those that may not be the most versed in what the new communism is but know who BA is and how to project what he’s leading forward as they learn more.

Another thing not to step over in the movie was the need for human contact. Sounds vague, right? Humans are social creatures and need relationships of all types. The fact that Queen and Slim met through Tinder is so relatable. The generation that I come from—being born in the nineties and after in the age of the internet—has actually been robbed in some ways of communicating with one another in person. Everything is filtered through crass property relations and measured with the same ruler. It’s like who has the biggest wedding ring to show off and at every moment you meet someone you have to compare rings with before speaking. “Can you give me what I want” is another part that corrupts even the most ground-breaking relations between people and the need to feel like “your investment is being returned.” This isn’t quite the same age as going to the aquarium to meet people and hang out. The focus on constantly honing your brand takes away from any enjoyment. Getting to know one another and even having arguments like the main characters do is seen as personal attacks and probing interrogations replace getting to know each other.

And shout-out to Angel1 (Indya Moore), love how the director and writers let her be a character not defined by transitioning but by her as a person. You don’t see non-binary people, whose gender is not directly correspondent with their sex, in roles where they are who they are.

 


1. I am referring to Moore’s character in Pose, the very well done FX show. It’s a very visceral introspection of what it means to live while the AIDS crisis is in full swing.

Watch BA's whole speech:

Watch clips from speech


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Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/631/support-the-puerto-rican-peoples-parade-7-en.html

From the Revolution Club, Chicago:

Support the Puerto Rican People’s Parade 7!

Updated | revcom.us

 

Update: Thank you to everyone who contacted the office of Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx to demand our charges be dropped on Thursday, January 23—our first “Drop the Charges Day.” We held a successful rally/press conference outside her office with three of the defendants. Four TV stations sent cameras but from what we can tell, they did not show footage. The Chicago-Sun Times (one of the city’s two major newspapers) sent a reporter and photographer. The Sun-Times ran a good article.

After the rally we hand delivered a letter to Kim Foxx’s office from the ACLU which makes clear the defendants were exercising their First Amendment rights of free speech, along with other materials about the case.

On Friday January 24, there was status hearing on discovery. Our legal team had submitted an extensive motion for discovery showing how this case was part of a larger pattern of attacks (arrests, near arrests, and harassment) on the Revolution Club and requesting discovery from the Chicago Police Department (CPD) and others. The CPD have claimed they have nothing. At the Friday hearing the judge was told that if this continues our lawyers will issue a Motion to Show Cause, in an effort to stop the CPD’s stubborn refusal to produce the materials requested.

A status hearing date for this was set for Thursday, February 6. Once again we will be making plans for another “Drop the Charges Day” for the day before the hearing on Wednesday, February 5. Stay tuned to hear about our plans and how you can help support us.

The ACLU letter is here.

 

The Revolution Club, Chicago is stepping up the political battle to demand: Drop the Charges on Noche Diaz and the Puerto Rican People’s Parade 7! Hands Off the Revolution Club! The Puerto Rican People’s Parade 7 are seven members of the Revolution Club, Chicago, including Noche Diaz of the National Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour, who are facing trial stemming from an illegitimate mass arrest by the Chicago Police Department at the 2018 Puerto Rican People’s Parade. On that day the Revolution Club members were surrounded and violently arrested for speaking with people, at a public parade, about the crimes of this system and getting organized for revolution. This arrest is part of a pattern of very similar illegal arrests, as well as ongoing harassment, physical interference and attempted intimidation by the Chicago police of the Revolution Club for speaking in public places. Watch this video, or go here to learn about this case and get involved in the fight to get the charges dropped. Promote this video on your social media.

Join with us on “Drop the Charges Day” this Thursday, January 23. This is the day before a status hearing on our motion for discovery. We plan to organize “Drop the Charges Days” the day before each upcoming court hearing. On Thursday, January 23, noon, we will be holding a “Drop the Charges” rally outside the office of Kim Foxx, the Cook County State’s Attorney, 69 W. Washington.

We call on all supporters of this case to call her office this Thursday at 312-603-1880 and demand that the charges be dropped. We also call on people to direct message her on Twitter @kimfoxxforSA and Facebook @SAKimFoxx. Spread the word to everyone you know.

 

 

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Read: www.revcom.us
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Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/625/bob-avakian-statements-on-what-is-fascism-en.html

WHAT IS FASCISM

Statements from Bob Avakian

| revcom.us

 

Editors’ note: Besides the two-paragraph statement “What IS Fascism* that regularly appears on revcom.us, and along with the article by Bob Avakian (BA) that contrasts fascists and communists, and in particular the advocates of the new communism (“Fascists and Communists: Completely Opposed and Worlds Apart”), the following excerpts from recent works by BA are relevant and helpful in getting a basic sense of what fascism is and what are some of its main features, in general and specifically as embodied in the Trump/Pence regime. Also, although its outlook differs in some significant aspects from that of the new communism, the 2005 speech by African-American theologian Hubert Locke (“Reflections on Pacific School of Religion’s Response to the Religious Right”), which was originally posted on revcom.us on January 29, 2006, and reposted on October 7, 2019, contains some very valuable and insightful analysis of fascism, and in particular Christian Fascism.

We are confronted by—we are now being ruled by—a fascist regime: relentlessly assaulting civil rights and liberties and openly promoting bigotry and inequality; acting with callous disregard or cold-blooded malice toward those they consider inferior and a drain or stain on the country; on a mission to deny health care to millions who will suffer and many who will die without it; crudely degrading women, as objects of plunder, breeders of children without the right to abortion or birth control, subordinate to husbands and men in general; defying the science of climate change, attacking the science of evolution, and repudiating the scientific method overall; a regime brandishing an arsenal of mass destruction and threatening nuclear war; intensifying state terror against Muslims, immigrants, and people in the inner cities; unleashing and giving encouragement and support to brutal thugs spewing vile “America First,” white supremacist, male-supremacist, and anti-LGBT venom—a regime that boasts of all this and declares its intention to do even worse.

THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO!
In The Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America,
A Better World 
IS Possible
.
The film of this talk by BA, given in October 2017,
is available at revcom.us.

And then there are the ruling class “news media.” There are media, like Fox (I can hardly say it) “News,” that represent the fascist section of the ruling class—which aims to impose undisguised capitalist dictatorship without the rule of law, with open hostility toward other sections of the ruling class itself, that these fascists regard as enemies, and vicious repression against immigrants, Black people, Muslims, women, and LGBT people—all those whose degradation and criminalization is essential for the fascist program of “making America great again.” Lying, systematically distorting reality, is a function and mission of these media.

Why We Need An Actual Revolution
And How We Can Really Make Revolution
.
The film and the text of this speech by BA,
given in the summer of 2018,
are available at revcom.us.

Yes, bourgeois dictatorship in any form is very bad for the masses of people, very oppressive and repressive of the masses of people, and needs to be overthrown. But an overt fascist dictatorship that tramples on any pretense of upholding rights for people is not something that should be put in the category of “maybe it’ll be a positive change, or maybe it’ll be a negative change.”

Hope For Humanity On A Scientific Basis—
Breaking with Individualism, Parasitism and American Chauvinism
.
A prepublication copy of this talk by BA is available at revcom.us.

In an article in the New York Times, “Racism Comes Out of the Closet,” Paul Krugman makes the point that not just Donald Trump but the Republican Party as a whole has gone from “dog whistling” racism to overtly and crudely expressing it. Krugman concludes this article this way, referring to the Republican Party’s dropping of even any pretense of opposing racism:

It’s tempting to say that Republican claims to support racial equality were always hypocritical; it’s even tempting to welcome the move from dog whistles to open racism. But if hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue, what we’re seeing now is a party that no longer feels the need to pay that tribute. And that’s deeply frightening.

Krugman does have a point—an important and relevant point—here, as far as it goes. The problem is that it doesn’t go far enough, and in particular does not break out of the constricting terms of contradictions and conflicts among ruling class parties (the Republicans and the Democrats). The stance of hypocritically pretending opposition to such outrages as racist oppression, while in fact acting as the representatives, functionaries and enforcers of a system that has this oppression built into it and could not exist without this oppression—this does not just apply to the Republican Party in the past (if it ever applied to that party at all over the past 50 years and more) but also applies to the Democratic Party. What is concentrated in this situation is the need to recognize, and correctly handle, a very real and acute contradiction: the fact that, on the one hand, the Democratic Party, as much as the Republican Party, is a party of a system that continually commits, and cannot help committing, massive crimes against the masses of humanity and embodies an existential threat to the very future of humanity; and, on the other hand, the fact that (to paraphrase what is cited above from Krugman’s article) there is a very real difference and very direct danger embodied in the fact that one of these ruling class parties (the Republicans) openly abandons much of the pretense of being anything other than a rapacious, and yes racist, plunderer of human beings and of the environment. This requires the correct synthesis of, in fundamental terms, opposing the whole system, of which both of these parties are instruments, and actively working, in an ongoing way, toward the strategic goal of abolishing this whole system, while also, with the same fundamental strategic perspective, recognizing the acute immediate danger posed by the fascist Trump/Pence regime and working urgently to bring forward masses of people in non-violent but sustained mobilization around the demand that this regime must go!

Hope For Humanity On A Scientific Basis—
Breaking with Individualism, Parasitism and American Chauvinism
.
A prepublication copy of this talk by BA is available at revcom.us.

Stewart further summarizes Lang’s views this way: “Modern fundamentalism, like fascism in earlier times, he says, involves a strong feeling of persecution, typically at the hands of godless liberals or a religious ‘other’; the belief that one belongs to a pure race or national group that is responsible for past greatness, suffers unjust oppression in the present, and is the rightful ruler of the world; the impulse to submit unquestioningly to absolute authority; and the relentless drive for power and control. It is, he says, a kind of supremacist movement, with religion rather than race at its core.”

And there is this chilling statement by Lang:

People have no idea it’s going on....

What does it mean that the conservative church that’s growing in America is an end-times church? What does it mean that we are raising a generation of children to believe that they are the last generation? What is going to happen if we keep on telling them, “Don’t care about the environment, and bring on the war, because we’re going to be lifted out of here, and you can forget about loving your neighbors, because they’re just going to get blown away?”

So, that is the insight of someone very familiar with these Christian fascists. And the fact is that in this country, with its whole history of genocide, slavery and racism, any form of fascism, including one basing itself on “Christian supremacy”—any urge to “restore past greatness”—cannot help but be bound together with white supremacy.

THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO!
In The Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America,
A Better World 
IS Possible
.

† Stewart refers to Katherine Stewart, author of The Good News Club, The Christian Right's Stealth Assault on America's Children  [back]

There is a direct line from the Confederacy to the fascists of today, and a direct connection between their white supremacy, their open disgust and hatred for LGBT people as well as women, their willful rejection of science and the scientific method, their raw “America First” jingoism and trumpeting of “the superiority of western civilization” and their bellicose wielding of military power, including their expressed willingness and blatant threats to use nuclear weapons, to destroy countries.

THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO!
In The Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America,
A Better World 
IS Possible
.


* What Is Fascism?

Fascism is the exercise of blatant dictatorship by the bourgeois (capitalist-imperialist) class, ruling through reliance on open terror and violence, trampling on what are supposed to be civil and legal rights, wielding the power of the state, and mobilizing organized groups of fanatical thugs, to commit atrocities against masses of people, particularly groups of people identified as “enemies,” “undesirables,” or “dangers to society.”

At the same time—and this can be seen through studying the examples of Nazi Germany and Italy under Mussolini—while it will likely move quickly to enforce certain repressive measures in consolidating its rule, a fascist regime is also likely to implement its program overall through a series of stages and even attempt at different points to reassure the people, or certain groups among the people, that they will escape the horrors—if they quietly go along and do not protest or resist while others are being terrorized and targeted for repression, deportation, “conversion,” prison, or execution.  [back]

Download these quotes as a pamphlet to print and distribute:

 

Watch BA's whole speech:

Watch clips from speech

See also:

Fascists and Communists: Completely Opposed and Worlds Apart

by Bob Avakian

Read more

NOW AVAILABLE: PDF for printing

See also:

Reflections on Pacific School of Religion's Response to the Religious Right

by Dr. Hubert Locke

Reposted July 3, 2017. Originally posted January 29, 2006

Read more

 

 

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Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/622/demarcations-special-issue-en.html

Announcing New Special Issue of Demarcations

| revcom.us

 

This special issue features the prepublication version of Bob Avakian’s historic work, BREAKTHROUGHS: The Historic Breakthrough by Marx, and the Further Breakthrough with the New Communism. A Basic Summary in multiple languages—English, Spanish, Farsi, Portuguese, German, and Turkish. The latter two are partial, and works in progress.

Demarcations, in announcing this special issue, states, “At a moment when it is no exaggeration to say that vast swaths of humanity and the planet are confronting a catastrophic future and even potentially existential risks due to the workings of this system of capitalism-imperialism, there is no greater need and contribution to a radically different world than to take up and spread Bob Avakian’s whole new framework for human emancipation, concentrated in this work, EVERYWHERE.”

 

 

Follow: @TheRevcoms
Read: www.revcom.us
Watch: youtube.com/TheRevComs

 

Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/632/trump-and-devos-escalate-assault-on-education-en.html

Onward, Christian Fascists: Trump and DeVos Escalate Assault on Education

| revcom.us

 

Editors' Note: What is described below is part of major moves by Trump and his associated Christian fascist forces in different arenas of society, aimed at cohering this society under new "norms," and forging this "fascist base" while he faces impeachment. These include for example, the January 24 "March for Life" in Washington, DC, at which Trump spoke—the first time a sitting president has appeared in person at this annual gathering of anti-abortion fanatics; and the January 20 "gun rights" rally in Richmond, Virginia, that brought together 22,000 armed thugs, mainly white supremacists, making clear their intention to impose their vision on the rest of society, by violence if necessary.

On January 16, Trump proclaimed “Religious Freedom Day.” He told Christian Broadcast News (CBN) that the U.S. is in a “... cultural war. You have two sides. You have a side that believes so strongly in prayer and they’re being restricted and it’s getting worse and worse....” That afternoon, he told a group of students and teachers from religious schools, “Tragically, there is a growing totalitarian impulse on the far-left that seeks to punish, restrict, and even prohibit religious expression.... That is why today my administration is issuing strong new guidance to protect religious liberty in our public schools.”

Later that same day, Betsy DeVos, Trump’s secretary of education, announced a directive requiring every state to report yearly on policies of all local educational agencies regarding school prayer, or possibly lose federal funding. She also announced measures concerning federal funding for colleges and universities, both public and private, aimed at removing restrictions on federal funding to “faith-based” organizations on college campuses; ending prohibitions on funding used for “religious purposes” on historically Black universities; and enforcing compliance of all universities with federal regulations that ensure religious speech and activity of students and faculty aren’t “discriminated against” in order to receive federal grants or research funding.

Taken together, these threats and regulations issued by the Trump/Pence regime are a significant escalation in forcefully injecting religion—specifically, Christian fundamentalism—into education at all levels.

A Fascist Big Lie

This offensive is justified by the lie that Christians in America, especially school children, are persecuted just for “living their faith.” After DeVos released her new regulations, she wrote in a USA Today op-ed that “too many students and too many teachers are separated from their faith while they are in school.” Robert Jeffress, a leading Christian fascist minister and Trump supporter, exulted that the announcements by Trump and DeVos represent “the beginning of the end of the war on faith” and claimed that prayer in public schools “has been under assault from groups like the Freedom from Religion Foundation, and liberal courts as well.”

In fact, individual prayer in schools has never been prohibited under U.S. law. What is true is that under a 1962 U.S. Supreme Court decision, based on the constitutional ban on government “establishment” of religion, states and local government bodies and agencies, such as school boards, cannot impose religion in public schools or allow school activities organized and directed by religious institutions and organizations.

But since the 1970s, Christian fundamentalists have argued that attempts to restrict religion in education or other spheres violate the “free speech” clause of the First Amendment. In 2001 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld this argument, ruling that the school board of a small town in upstate New York could not prevent a Christian group aimed at elementary school children—the “Good News Club”—from holding its religious activities at schools.

Christian fundamentalists have used that ruling as a battering ram to break down what is supposed to be a “wall of separation” between the church and state, and opened the floodgates to large-scale intrusion of fundamentalist Christianity into public schools. Numerous Christian fundamentalist organizations—Good News Club, Gideons, Vineyard, Victory Outreach, Evangelical Covenant Church, and dozens of others—have seized on this and are engaged in what they call “church planting” in schools. This means using public schools for church-sponsored after-school activities, especially in elementary schools, and using the schools themselves as churches on Sundays. The Child Evangelism Fellowship reported on its Facebook page that it alone has “nearly 5,000” Good News Clubs in public schools—not only in the Bible Belt but also in places like New York City, Seattle, Boston, and Santa Monica.

The measures DeVos announced on January 16 stop just short of officially allowing teachers and school administrators to lead prayers and religious gatherings in public schools—for now. But Christian fundamentalist forces are pushing cases through the courts that could result in a ruling allowing organized religion in public schools. On January 21, the Supreme Court refused to hear the case of a Seattle-area high school coach who claimed he was fired from his job because he led his team in mid-field prayers. The Court did this because the school district claimed the reason he was fired did not have to do with the prayers he led. But at the same time, the Court—where the fascists have a solid majority with Trump’s appointments of Gorsuch and Kavanaugh—issued what one legal expert described as an “open invitation” for a better case with which to issue a ruling to impose religion into schools.

How Will the Future Be Shaped?

Trump and DeVos claim they are protecting all religions. This is another big lie. Well-funded and organized fundamentalist Christian fanatics have been working diligently to establish, embed, and legitimize the dominance of fundamentalist Christianity in schools and all of society—and this is what the Trump/Pence regime aims to further promote. As Katherine Stewart, author of The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children, has written of these Christian fundamentalists: “When they invoke ‘religious freedom,’ it is typically code for religious privilege. The freedom they have in mind is the freedom of people of certain conservative and authoritarian varieties of religion to discriminate against those whom they disapprove of, or over whom they wish to exert power.”

The Trump/Pence regime is out to establish new norms and ways of functioning that suffocate the youth, impose government-endorsed religious ignorance in place of scientific methodology and inquiry, crush critical thinking among young people, and facilitate government promotion of Christian fundamentalism. Trump kicked off 2020 by speaking to an Evangelicals for Trump rally at the King Jesus International Ministry in Florida. Tens of millions of reactionary Christian fundamentalists, overwhelmingly white, are a crucial component of the fascist base of Trump/Pence supporters. Now, as the impeachment trial develops in Washington, his regime is moving aggressively to solidify support for the fascism Trump embodies among these millions. Promotion and enforcement of ignorant, anti-scientific religious fundamentalism, especially in schools, is central to the consolidation of fascism, and neither the regime nor its legions of Christian fascist adherents are going to waver from this.

Removing this regime from power is the most urgent question confronting all people who refuse to accept all this—and many other horrors—as the world we and the rest of humanity will live in.

To go further into the roots of Christian fascism and the driving forces behind its rise, we encourage readers to get into works by Bob Avakian, including the following:

* Film of the talk THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO! In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America—A Better World IS Possible! The whole talk, videos of the Q&A session, and film clips available here.

* The book Away with All Gods! Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World (Insight Press, 2008). Excerpts available online, including—

Why Is Religious Fundamentalism Growing in Today’s World—And What Is the Real Alternative?

Christian Fundamentalists, Christian Fascists

The Bible Belt Is the Lynching Belt: Slavery, White Supremacy and Religion in America”; and others.

* Film of the talk WHY WE NEED AN ACTUAL REVOLUTION AND HOW WE CAN REALLY MAKE REVOLUTION. The whole talk, and video clips from the speech and Q&A sessions, available here.

"The Christian Fascists Now In Power"

Watch the complete film here.

See also:

Trump/Pence Regime—
Racing Towards Theocracy at an Accelerating Pace

Read more
Printer spread version PDF
Single pages version PDF

Watch BA's whole speech:

Watch clips from speech

 

 

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Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/632/the-art-and-the-story-of-slave-rebellion-reenactment-en.html

The Art, and the Story, of Slave Rebellion Reenactment

Artist Dread Scott, hosted by Andy Zee, at Revolution Books

| revcom.us

 

The crowd lined up outside Revolution Books in Harlem last Friday with artist Dread Scott talking about his new artwork, Slave Rebellion Reenactment, a reenactment of the largest slave rebellion in U.S. history. Over 100 people from Harlem and from around the city: high school and college students, artists and writers, those horrifically oppressed by this system and society, long-time and new friends of Revolution Books. It was a special fundraising benefit for Revolution Books.

Dread Scott describes himself as a revolutionary artist creating “art to propel history forward.” This came alive in Dread’s talk, with slides and video. Dread began by recounting his first major artwork, What Is the Proper Way to Display a U.S. Flag?, and the controversy and polarization it stirred, with other works like Imagine a World Without America, inspired by a quote from Bob Avakian (BAsics 1:31)—then mainly focusing on and going onto Slave Rebellion Reenactment, reaching back to the history of this country and what we have to do, inspired by the past. This is work that “makes people uncomfortable, and that's a really good thing.” This was the highlight of the evening, and it was incredible and inspiring.

The benefit evening with Dread and Andy was an expression of why Revolution Books is so special and so needed. And this is an important juncture in the campaign to Save Revolution Books: A Beacon in Dangerous Times. Revolution Books is setting out to raise $50,000, and this event raised significant funds towards this end. Dread Scott has contributed significant artwork as part of this initiative. Andy Zee, through his engagement with Dread Scott, and his fundraising pitch, brought alive the content, ethos, and spirit of Bob Avakian’s new communism, a whole new framework for human emancipation which is at the center of Revolution Books—and why this matters, why this bookstore is so urgently needed at this moment in history.

Dread Scott (right), in his new artwork Slave Rebellion Reenactment, which involved the participation of hundreds of people.

Watch the entire program

 

 

Follow: @TheRevcoms
Read: www.revcom.us
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Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/624/andy-zee-an-appeal-to-save-revolution-books-en.html

A Letter From Andy Zee:

An Appeal to Save Revolution Books

A Beacon in Dangerous Times

| revcom.us

 

To the Revolution Books Community,

I write to ask for your support for Revolution Books when it is needed more than ever—a moment of stark contrast between our hopes and dreams for the future and the stark reality that great catastrophe looms as fascist regimes take root here and around the world.

Revolution Books embodies the potential for humanity in these dark times. You felt this when you first walked through our door and found the literature, poetry, history, science, art, and the revolutionary theory for a radically different world. You experienced programs and engagement with us and with each other that percolated with emancipatory possibility. What you felt at RB is precious and especially so when this beacon that lights the way forward is so needed.

Revolution Books is alive with the scientific understanding that a different and better world is possible. RB is the political, intellectual, and cultural center of a movement for an actual revolution and that is why it is a unique incredible bookstore—a resource for the world.  The animating heart of the store is the framework for unleashing the revolutionary potential of humanity: the breakthrough in scientifically knowing and radically changing the world through revolution, the new communism developed by Bob Avakian, a leader who never gave up asking the hard questions of the road forward to human emancipation and developing the path to that future.

This past month marks the fourth anniversary of Revolution Books in Harlem. RB has been enriched by the diversity and great cultural legacy of Harlem and has enriched the community. Yet, too few even in Harlem know we are here. RB urgently needs your financial support as well as your problem solving creativity so that this year not be our last. Our volunteer staff are determined that this end not come to pass, but that will only be possible with you. We are confident that working together we can solve the problem of making RB financially viable. Our immediate goal is to raise $50,000 by January 31, 2020.  And do so in a way so that going forward Revolution Books is sustainable and known far and wide—filling a great need for revolutionary possibility in dangerous times.

The heart of the problem Revolution Books confronts is a society wide problem. In the face of the danger of the white supremacist fascist Trump/Pence regime and with the future of humanity threatened by global warming, way too many people have turned inward. We have a culture of the “selfie”—a society obsessed with “look at me” as I look out for just me—while the world literally burns and drowns.

Revolution Books brings a whole different ethos and culture—you’ve experienced it. Books that matter. History that tells the truth. Novels that imagine the past, tell of other peoples, or imagine a different future. Children’s books that reach across cultures and foster a positive morality. Author readings and discussions with progressive writers from Pulitzer Prize winners to new authors who enlighten and challenge, and mix it up with RB’s spokespeople who probe and elicit the best from our guests. At RB we seek to foster a culture of revolt against a revolting culture while nurturing art that imagines in the present what a future world and people could be. And, at RB people experience and can take up the science of revolution in the extensive body of work of Bob Avakian that shatters demoralized defeatist preconceptions that the misery and spirit crushing world of today is all that could be.

If RB were known everywhere throughout Harlem, NYC, and damn it— the world, it could be self-sufficient. With you, this is possible. With the funds to get the word out—mass publicity, a robust internet presence, and an even wider stock of books—that could change the equation. But, to get there, we need you and others like you problem solving and working with us on raising funds, awareness and programming. With that, RB would not only thrive, but more, we would all be a leg up on changing the culture and the world.

Donate generously today to raise the $50,000 needed to sustain the store. And become a monthly sustaining Friend of Revolution Books.

The great playwright Bertolt Brecht posed:

In the dark times
Will there be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing.
About the dark times.

At Revolution Books there are the songs and poems of the bitter fruit of the past and present, but at our core is a conquering spirit, a radical imagination, and a scientific method to illuminate the fight out of the darkness and to a world fit for humanity.

¡Adelanté!

Andy Zee
Spokesperson
Revolution Books

437 Malcolm X Blvd.
Harlem, NY 10037

PS: Join us for wine and cheese Fridays at RB and give a book to and open the world for someone you care about.

Donate generously to Revolution Books HERE


Andy Zee and author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o at Revolution Books

437 Malcolm X Blvd./Lenox Ave.
212-691-3345
revbooksnyc@yahoo.com
revolutionbooksnyc.org

 

 

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/618/bob-avakian-excerpts-en.html

Excerpts from:

Hope For Humanity On A Scientific Basis

Breaking with Individualism, Parasitism and American Chauvinism

by Bob Avakian

Updated | revcom.us

 

Revcom is sharing with our readers excerpts from this new work by Bob Avakian:

 

Lack of real hope for a better life in this world is a heavy chain weighing down, suffocating, and deeply scarring the masses of humanity, including the youth who are concentrated in the ghettos and barrios of this country as well as its overflowing torture chamber prisons. And the extreme individualism promoted throughout this society, the obsessive focus on “the self,” has reinforced the heavy lid on the sights of people, obscuring their ability to recognize the possibility of a radically different and better world, beyond the narrow and confining limits of this system, with all its very real horrors.

Posted December 9, 2019:

The following from Part 2 of Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution* remains extremely relevant and important:

The relation between the struggle against this fascist regime and building the revolution is not a “straight road” or a “one-way street”:  It must not be approached, by those who understand the need for revolution, as if “first we must build a mass movement to drive out this regime, and then we can turn our attention to working directly for revolution.” No. It is crucial to unite and mobilize people, from different perspectives, very broadly, around the demand that this regime must go, but it will be much more difficult to do this on the scale and with the determination that is required to meet this objective if there are not, at the same time, greater and greater numbers of people who have been brought forward around the understanding that it is necessary to put an end not only to this regime but to the system out of whose deep and defining contradictions this regime has arisen, a system which by its very nature has imposed, and will continue to impose, horrific and completely unnecessary suffering on the masses of humanity, until this system itself is abolished. And the more that people are brought forward to be consciously, actively working for revolution, the growing strength and “moral authority” of this revolutionary force will in turn strengthen the resolve of growing numbers of people to drive out this fascist regime now in power, even as many will not be (and some will perhaps never be) won to revolution.

* Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution is an important speech by Bob Avakian, given in the summer of 2018. The film and the written text of this speech are available at revcom.us.

 

Posted December 1, 2019:

I want to speak to the accusation that “You are going to get people killed!”  This is an accusation that has not infrequently been raised especially when we put forward, as we should, not only the need for revolution, but what this means—that it means the overthrow of the existing system through the defeat of its armed enforcers when the conditions for that have been brought into being:  the existence of a revolutionary people in the millions and millions and an acute revolutionary crisis throughout society.  What is our response to this accusation?

People, masses of people all over the world, are already being killed, and are suffering in horrendous ways while they are alive, because of this system—and one of the most painful expressions of this is the way in which huge numbers of people who are already terribly oppressed under this system, and the youth in particular, are being misled into killing each other, either in gang conflicts or in wars in the service of imperialists and other reactionary oppressors! Our goal is clear:

No more generations of our youth, here and all around the world, whose life is over, whose fate has been sealed, who have been condemned to an early death or a life of misery and brutality, whom the system has destined for oppression and oblivion even before they are born.  I say no more of that. [BAsics 1:13]

Our goal is to finally put an end to all this!

As called for in “HOW WE CAN WIN, How We Can Really Make Revolution,” we need to be serious and scientific in how we build this revolution—and our strategy and plan for revolution is exactly based on a serious and scientific method and approach.  That is why, among other things, in the Points of Attention for the Revolution, the 6th point makes clear:

We are going for an actual overthrow of this system and a whole better way beyond the destructive, vicious conflicts of today between the people. Because we are serious, at this stage we do not initiate violence and we oppose all violence against the people and among the people.

It is this same method and approach that leads to this clear-cut, scientifically-based conclusion:

In fundamental terms, we have two choices: either, live with all this—and condemn future generations to the same, or worse, if they have a future at all—or, make revolution!

This is the understanding and the orientation that has to be brought forward, and vigorously fought for, among masses of people, and especially the youth, for whom this system really has no decent future—if, again, they have a future at all.

 

 

Posted November 11, 2019:

Individualism is a significant factor and "unifying element" in much of the negative trends that play a major role in keeping people from recognizing the reality and depth of the horrors continually brought about by this system—and recognizing the urgent need to act, together with others, to abolish and uproot all this, at its very source. This highlights and heightens the fact that individualism, which is encouraged and expressed in extreme forms in this particular society at this time, is a profound problem that must be confronted and transformed.

 

 

Virulent Individualism and Oblivious Individualism

These are two broad categories of individualism, which have some different particular characteristics but also have in common the basic focus on and preoccupation with the self. Virulent individualism is an extremely poisonous variation of this. It’s basically the view that “I’m out to get everything I can for myself and fuck everybody else. And if I have to trample on everybody else to get what I want, that’s just the way it is and I’m gonna do it the best I can, so I can get everything I want—I want it all and I want it now.”

Oblivious individualism is individualism that may not have those particular aggressive characteristics and may not even have a consciously hostile attitude toward other people in general, but involves going along pursuing one’s particular interests, aspirations, or “dreams,” without paying attention to the larger things that are going on in the world and the effect of this on masses of people throughout the world and indeed on the future of humanity.

 

 

As I pointed out in the Dialogue with Cornel West in 2014, the “selfie” is a perfect iconic representation of this whole outlook and this whole culture. It’s not that every “selfie” is in and of itself bad, of course. But there is a whole culture around it, even to the point where people go to a beautiful place in nature and what are they preoccupied with?  Taking a “selfie” of themself instead of taking in (and yes, taking photographs of) the vast beauty that’s stretched out before them. The important thing, with this outlook, is: “Here I am, look at me.” It’s the “look at me, look at me, look at me” ethos that is so predominant in both these forms of individualism, even in the one that’s not consciously virulent but is nevertheless strikingly oblivious.

 

 

I’m not necessarily opposed to people watching some videos or YouTubes of cats playing the violin (and similar things on the internet), but if that kind of thing is your preoccupation—let alone if snark and tearing down other people on the internet is your preoccupation—then, obviously, this is something any decent person should be very concerned about and strongly oppose and struggle sharply against.

 

 

Everywhere you turn you hear: “Oh, this is really gonna be good for developing her ‘brand’”; “Oh, they really have been very creative in how they’ve pumped up their ‘brand.’” You can’t turn around anywhere without hearing the word “brand” used in this kind of way. And this goes along, of course, with the glorification of entre-manure-ialism—which objectively amounts to the attempt to get in on the exploitation of people, becoming part of the overall process resting to a large degree on super-exploitation of masses of people, including children, in the Third World.

 

 

Oblivious individualism may seem more benign (or, in simple terms, less “nasty”) but it is nonetheless marked by being inexcusably ignorant of, or consciously choosing to ignore, what is happening in the larger world, beyond the self (and the narrow circle around oneself), and the consequences of this for the masses of people in the world, and ultimately for all of humanity—or paying attention to this only as it affects oneself in immediate and narrow terms.

 

 

If something makes people uncomfortable—and still more, if it holds out the prospect of sacrifice, necessary sacrifice, on their part—far too many people turn away from it.  As I’ve pointed out before, there’s this whole attitude of approaching reality as if it’s a “buffet,” or approaching it like a consumer: “Well, that makes me uncomfortable. I’ll just leave that to the side. I don’t want to look at that because that makes me uncomfortable.”

 

 

As I pointed out in The New Communism, some people went on one of the college campuses a couple of years ago with a poster of Stolen Lives, people who’d been killed by police (not all of them, by any means, but dozens), and someone came up and starting whining: “I don’t like that poster, it makes me feel unsafe.” As I commented at the time: Oh, boo-hoo! Let’s get out of this boo-hoo shit and start talking about and engaging seriously what’s happening to masses of people, one significant part of which is represented by what’s on that poster.

 

 

One of the most common and problematical forms of this repeated and stubborn insistence on chasing after the illusion of “painless progress,” particularly among people who consider themselves somewhat enlightened (or progressive, or “woke,” or however they want to put it), is what we very rightly term BEB—Bourgeois Electoral Bullshit—and the phenomenon that people continually confine themselves to the narrow limits of what is presented to them by one section of the ruling class, as embodied in the Democratic Party:  “These are the limits of what I’ll consider in terms of possibly bringing about change”—because this is the well-worn rut of what is, at least up to this point, relatively safe in terms of political engagement.

 

 

The people who voted for Trump are the kind of people who would have been pro-slavery, had they been around at the time of slavery in the United States. And those who find it acceptable to have the overt white supremacist Trump in the White House are the kind of people who would have ignored or would have openly accepted and justified or rationalized slavery when it existed.

 

 

It has to be bluntly said: For the millions, and tens of millions, who say they hate everything Trump stands for and what he is doing but who, after all this time, have still not taken to the streets in sustained mobilization demanding that the Trump/Pence regime must go, this makes them collaborators with this fascist regime and themselves guilty of the egregious crime of tolerating this regime when they still could have the possibility of achieving the demand that it must go, through such mass mobilization! 

To paraphrase Paul Simon: They are squandering their resistance for a pocketful of mumbles—and worse—from the Democratic Party.

It is long past time—and there is still time, but not much time—for this to change, for masses of people to finally take to the streets, and stay in the streets, with the firm resolve that this fascist regime must go!

 

 

Posted November 4, 2019:

In the opening section of the book The New Communism (“Introduction and Orientation”) I spoke to the bitter reality that the masses of oppressed people are afraid to hope:

Afraid to hope that maybe the world doesn’t have to be this way, that maybe there is a way out of this. Afraid to hope, because their hopes have been dashed so many times.

This is a significant factor in why so many turn to religion—because there does not seem to be any hope for an end, in this world, to the terrible suffering and degradation to which they are continually subjected, which is imposed on them by the functioning of this system but which is also obscured and covered over by the very way this system operates and the role of its institutions, functionaries and enforcers, which systematically act to mislead people as to why the world is the way it is and whether and how it could really be changed, whether and in what way it is possible to put an end to all this unnecessary suffering.

Here stands out again the great importance of the scientific method and approach of communism, as this has been further developed through the new communism, and the reality and possibility of radical, emancipating change, in this world.

 

 

Confronting reality as it actually is—and as it is changing and developing—and understanding the underlying and driving forces in this, is crucial in order to play a decisive and leading role in bringing about this revolution and ushering in a whole new era in human history, which will shatter and remove forever not only the material chains—the economic, social and political shackles of exploitation and oppression—that enslave people in today’s world but also the mental chains, the ways of thinking and the culture, that correspond to and reinforce those material chains.

 

 

Religion is always presented as a source of “hope” or of consolation. But is it really a source of hope—or is it, in essence and in its defining aspect, a paralyzing illusion? Religion holds out the concept of consolation for suffering, and looking to another world and otherworldly forces to get some sort of consolation for all the suffering that people are subjected to, and in order to make it through the day. But the question is: Is what people need consolation for the suffering that they’re put through under this system, or do they need to rise up and abolish the system which embodies and enforces this suffering, and in so doing eliminate the need for consolation for suffering that they’re no longer being put through, the unnecessary suffering they’re being put through?

 

 

The Christian fundamentalists (including the current Vice President Mike Pence and others in powerful positions in government, the media, and other major institutions) are a driving force for theocratic fascism (tyrannical rule by Dark Ages religious authority). They adhere to and aggressively propagate unthinking allegiance to and application of religious dogma which, when taken literally (as these Christian fascists insist upon), promotes and will lead to all kinds of atrocities and horrors (as can be seen in both the Old and the New Testaments of the Bible—something I analyzed in Away With All Gods!).

 

 

There are many religious people whose religious views and sentiments do inspire and drive them to take stands against and to even sacrifice in the struggle against oppression. And this, of course, should be respected and united with. But, at the same time, that does not eliminate the need for sharp struggle in the ideological realm against the outlook that religion purveys and the role that religion plays as a mental shackle on masses of people, in fact working against their acquiring and systematically and consistently applying a scientific approach to understanding reality, and in particular what it is that’s causing the suffering that the masses of humanity are being subjected to and what is the solution to that.

 

 

Yes, ultimately the struggle has to be carried out in the realm of practice; it has to be carried out in the actual struggle to go up against and ultimately overthrow the system which embodies and enforces all this horrific oppression. But there’s a tremendous importance to people, even before they become highly developed theoretically, to get a basic understanding that there is no necessity, there is no permanent necessity, to the existing conditions, and why that is so. This is the source of hope, not on the basis of illusions such as those propagated and perpetuated by religion, but on a scientific basis.

 

Posted October 21, 2019:

While people do exist as individuals, the terrible suffering of the masses of humanity and the urgent challenges facing humanity as a whole as a result of the escalating destruction of the environment by this system of capitalism-imperialism as well as the possibility of nuclear conflagration that continues to loom as an existential threat over humanity—all this cannot be seriously addressed, let alone actually solved, by each person pursuing their particular individual interests, and in fact people acting in this way constitutes a major obstacle to bringing about the necessary solution.

 

 

Another aspect of what is involved here is “world-weary cynicism”.... This world-weary pseudo cynicism (or real cynicism, but pseudo world-awareness) is another manifestation of parasitic individualism—excusing your refusal or your failure to do anything about the crimes being committed in your name, and all the horrific things going on in the world, on the basis of: “Yes, I know, but this is just the way it is. And after all, there’s nothing really that can be done about it. Anybody who comes forward and claims they’re gonna do something about it is just as corrupt as the people who are perpetrating this stuff already, so there’s not really anything that can be done.” As it has been put, very insightfully, this is a sentiment that could be translated as: “Oh, I’m so glad that it’s turned out that the right thing to do is to do nothing at all about these outrages and horrors in the world.”

 

 

One of the biggest obstacles standing in the way, and weighing people down, is American chauvinism—the disgusting notion that America and Americans are better and more important than everybody else.

 

 

With regard to the middle class in this country, although today significant sections of this class are not doing as well as in the past—and some are actually struggling—economically, as the social divide and the income disparities continue to widen to obscene proportions, there is still among them, or among many in the middle class, a persistent and widespread sense of “entitlement” as Americans and an identification of their own interests with what is in fact a system of massive war crimes and crimes against humanity: American capitalist imperialism. And, as noted in THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO!, this poison of American chauvinism also exerts some influence among the most bitterly oppressed, even as this is in sharp conflict with the systematic oppression to which they are subjected in this country under this system.

 

 

With the invasions and ongoing wars, the coups, the slaughter of civilians in the hundreds of thousands, the wrecking of countries and the reducing of millions to desperation and starvation at the hands of the imperialists of the USA and their “allies” and craven puppets: Where is the mass outrage and active and determined opposition from people in the USA, in whose name these monstrous crimes are continually committed—including where is it from those who call themselves “progressive” or proclaim themselves “woke”?!

 

 

There is a great need for people broadly to break with this American chauvinism. As I have emphasized previously, there are 3 Things that have to happen in order for there to be real and lasting change for the better:

1) People have to fully confront the actual history of this country and its role in the world up to today, and the terrible consequences of this.

2) People have to dig seriously and scientifically into how this system of capitalism-imperialism actually works, and what this actually causes in the world.

3) People have to look deeply into the solution to all this.

 

 

While it is right and necessary to unite with people broadly in opposing the injustices and outrages committed by those who rule this country, and while this has taken on heightened importance with the coming to power of the Trump/Pence fascist regime, it is a basic truth that without breaking with American chauvinism—without confronting the very real horror of what this country has been, and what it has done, here and all over the world, from its founding to the present—and without coming to deeply hate this, it is not possible, in the final analysis, to retain one’s own humanity and act in the highest interests of all humanity.

 

 

In direct opposition to the poisonous outlook of American chauvinism, the orientation that must be firmly upheld and fiercely fought for is the basic principle and simple, but profound, truth that “American Lives Are Not More Important Than Other People’s Lives” and “Internationalism—The Whole World Comes First,” which is contained in BAsics 5:7 and 5:8.

 

And, as gone into more fully in BAsics:

The interests, objectives, and grand designs of the imperialists are not our interests—they are not the interests of the great majority of people in the U.S. nor of the overwhelming majority of people in the world as a whole. And the difficulties the imperialists have gotten themselves into in pursuit of these interests must be seen, and responded to, not from the point of view of the imperialists and their interests, but from the point of view of the great majority of humanity and the basic and urgent need of humanity for a different and better world, for another way. (BAsics 3:8)

Winning continually greater numbers of people to this fundamental orientation is critical in terms of achieving any positive change, and will be decisive in bringing about the revolution to finally put an end to this monstrous system of capitalism-imperialism.

 

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/606/bob-avakian-individualism-beb-and-the-illusion-of-painless-progress-en.html

The following is taken from a recent talk given by Bob Avakian

Individualism, BEB and the Illusion of "Painless Progress"

| revcom.us

 

Note Added by the Author, Fall 2019

This work is the edited text of a talk given in the spring of 2019, and the following section (“Individualism, BEB and the Illusion of ‘Painless Progress’”) has been published (posted at revcom.us) beginning in the summer of this year.  In late September 2019, Nancy Pelosi (and the Democratic Party leadership of which she is a prominent representative), after a prolonged stubborn insistence on refusing to impeach Donald Trump, reversed course and announced that an “impeachment inquiry” of Trump would be undertaken. This reversal was hinged upon—and Pelosi and Company have made an attempt to focus this “impeachment inquiry” overwhelmingly, if not solely, on—the revelation (stemming from a report by a government “whistleblower”) that Trump has been involved in an effort to pressure the government of Ukraine to do Trump the “favor” of digging up (or “cooking up”) dirt on Joe Biden, former Vice President (under Obama) and a leading contender for the Democratic Party nomination for the presidential election in 2020.  Pelosi and the Democrats have identified this as an abuse of presidential power, in pursuit of Trump’s personal interests (particularly looking ahead to the 2020 election) and have given emphasis to their insistence that, in making this “favor” the basis (and the price) for the continuation of the U.S. military aid to Ukraine, in its confrontation with pro-Russian forces, Trump “undermined U.S. national security,” particularly in relation to its major adversary Russia.  In other words, while, from their bourgeois perspective, their concern is very real in regard to the imperialist “national interests” of the U.S., the “norms” of how this system’s rule has been imposed and maintained, the importance to them of a “peaceful transition” from one administration to another through elections—and the danger posed to this by Trump’s trampling on these “norms”—Pelosi and Company, in focusing this “impeachment inquiry” on this narrow basis, have underlined the fact that they are acting in accordance with their sense of the interests of U.S. capitalist imperialism and its drive to remain the dominant imperialist power in the world, and that they continue to refuse to demand Trump’s ouster on the basis of his many outrageous statements and acts directed against masses of people, not only in the U.S. but internationally:  his overt racism and promotion of white supremacy and white supremacist violence; his gross misogyny and attacks on the rights of women, including very prominently the right to abortion, and on LGBT rights; his repeated calls for and backing of intensified brutal repression and suppression of dissent; his discrimination against Muslims and his cruel targeting of immigrants, involving confinement in concentration camp-like conditions, including for those fleeing from persecution and the very real threat of death in their “home countries” and seeking asylum on that basis, and the separation of even very young children from their parents; his assault on science and the scientific pursuit of the truth, including denial of the science of climate change and continuing moves to undermine and reverse even minor and completely ineffective protections of the environment; his threats to destroy countries, including through the use of nuclear weapons—in short, his all-around drive to fully consolidate fascist rule and implement a horrific, fascist agenda, with terrible consequences for the masses of humanity

While, as of this writing, it is not clear what this “impeachment inquiry” will lead to—whether Trump will actually be impeached in the House of Representatives, and what will happen then in the Senate to determine whether he should be convicted and removed from office—it is already clear that the way in which the Democrats are seeking to narrowly focus the move to oust Trump emphasizes yet again the importance of these basic points of orientation:

The Democrats, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, etc., are seeking to resolve the crisis with the Trump presidency on the terms of this system, and in the interests of the ruling class of this system, which they represent.  We, the masses of people, must go all out, and mobilize ourselves in the millions, to resolve this in our interests, in the interests of humanity, which are fundamentally different from and opposed to those of the ruling class.

This, of course, does not mean that the struggle among the powers that be is irrelevant or unimportant; rather, the way to understand and approach this (and this is a point that must also be repeatedly driven home to people, including through necessary struggle, waged well) is in terms of how it relates to, and what openings it can provide for, “the struggle from below”—for the mobilization of masses of people around the demand that the whole regime must go, because of its fascist nature and actions and what the stakes are for humanity.

Clearly, the removal of not just Trump, but also the Christian Fascist Vice President Mike Pence, and indeed this whole fascist regime, is of urgent importance.  But this will only serve the fundamental interests of the masses of people—not just in this country but in the world as a whole—if this is achieved, not on the basis of confining things within the terms of and through the furthering of the “national interests” of the monstrously oppressive U.S. empire, but on the basis of the mobilization of mass opposition to the fascism of this Trump/Pence regime, which has been produced by and risen to power through the “normal functioning” of this system, of which it is an extreme but not somehow an “alien” expression.

~~~~~~~~~~

Individualism, BEB and the Illusion of "Painless Progress"

All this—even the seemingly more “benign,” or oblivious, individualism—links up with the repeated and stubborn insistence on chasing after the illusion of painless progress. If something makes people uncomfortable—and still more, if it holds out the prospect of sacrifice, necessary sacrifice, on their part—far too many people turn away from it. As I’ve pointed out before, there’s this whole attitude of approaching reality as if it’s a “buffet,” or approaching it like a consumer: “Well, that makes me uncomfortable. I’ll just leave that to the side. I don’t want to look at that because that makes me uncomfortable.”

I am going to talk later about some of the more ridiculous and outrageous forms of this. But just to give a little preview, as I pointed out in The New Communism, some people went on one of the college campuses a couple of years ago with a poster of Stolen Lives, people who’d been killed by police (not all of them, by any means, but dozens), and someone came up and started whining: “I don’t like that poster, it makes me feel unsafe.” As I commented at the time: Oh, boo-hoo! Let’s get out of this boo-hoo shit and start talking about and engaging seriously what’s happening to masses of people, one significant part of which is represented by what’s on that poster.

One of the most common and problematical forms of this repeated and stubborn insistence on chasing after the illusion of “painless progress,” particularly among people who consider themselves somewhat enlightened (or progressive, or “woke,” or however they want to put it), is what we very rightly term BEB—Bourgeois Electoral Bullshit—and the phenomenon that people continually confine themselves to the narrow limits of what is presented to them by one section of the ruling class, as embodied in the Democratic Party: “These are the limits of what I’ll consider in terms of possibly bringing about change”—because this is the well-worn rut of what is, at least up to this point, relatively safe in terms of political engagement. It may even become not-so-safe in the future, depending on how things go with these fascists who are working to consolidate their power right now through the ruling regime of Trump and Pence. But for now it seems relatively painless. It is also completely ineffectual and doesn’t bring about any kind of change that’s needed, but it’s a way to feel that you’re doing something while avoiding any sacrifice, and even any real discomfort.

One of the ways this gets expressed, along with the BEB, is people, in their masses, not confronting the reality of Trump/Pence fascism, and therefore not acting in a way commensurate with the danger and the potentially even greater horrors this represents.

Just to step back, and to speak to a very important element of this that I’ve touched on before, Trump’s election—through the electoral college, not the popular vote—is, in a real sense, an extension of slavery: the people who voted for Trump are the kind of people who would have been pro-slavery, had they been around at the time of slavery in the United States. And those who find it acceptable to have the overt white supremacist Trump in the White House are the kind of people who would have ignored or would have openly accepted and justified or rationalized slavery when it existed. And here I have to invoke what I thought was a very insightful comment by Ron Reagan (yes, Ronald Reagan’s maverick son, who is also, to his great credit, an unabashed atheist): Trump’s much-analyzed, over-analyzed, “base” will continue supporting him, no matter what he does, Ron Reagan has pointed out (and this is very insightful), because Trump hates all the same people they hate.

As opposed to all the obfuscation about the economic difficulties people are going through, blah, blah, blah, that is often used to rationalize why people voted for and continue to support Trump, what Ron Reagan has sharply pointed to is the essence of Trump’s “base.” And, by the way, notice how all the mainstream media, CNN and so on, continually use this term: Trump’s “base.” This is a neutral term, “base.” These are a bunch of fascists, okay? And by using these euphemisms, or these neutral terms, like “base,” you’re obscuring and keeping people from seeing what is actually represented by Trump and those who support him, and the depth of the real danger this poses. Ron Reagan’s comment is very much to the point. He went on to elaborate: They hate LGBT people, they hate women (independent women, and really all women), they hate Black people, they hate immigrants, they hate Muslims, and so on. And Trump hates all the same people they hate.

That is why they’ll never desert him, whatever he does. That is why he could very rightly make the comment: “I could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue in New York City and these people wouldn’t turn against me.”

At the same time, it has to be bluntly said: For the millions, and tens of millions, who say they hate everything Trump stands for and what he is doing but who, after all this time, have still not taken to the streets in sustained mobilization demanding that the Trump/Pence regime must go, this makes them collaborators with this fascist regime and themselves guilty of the egregious crime of tolerating this regime when they still could have the possibility of achieving the demand that it must go, through such mass mobilization!

To paraphrase Paul Simon: They are squandering their resistance for a pocketful of mumbles—and worse—from the Democratic Party.

It is long past time—and there is still time, but not much time—for this to change, for masses of people to finally take to the streets, and stay in the streets, with the firm resolve that this fascist regime must go!

And here are some very relevant questions for the millions and tens of millions who hate everything Trump stands for but have failed or refused to mobilize, in their masses, in non-violent but sustained action around the demand that the Trump/Pence regime be removed from power, as has been called for by Refuse Fascism: If you will not take to the streets now to demand that the Trump/Pence regime must go, what will you do if Trump is re-elected (perhaps through the electoral college, even if he again loses the popular vote)? And what will you do if Trump loses the election (even by the electoral college count) but then refuses to recognize the results and insists he is still President?!

At the same time, it is necessary to point to the very serious problems with the dangerous naiveté and “left” posturing of certain “progressive” intellectuals. For example, someone like Glenn Greenwald, who has done some good things in exposing the violations of people’s rights under this system—human rights, civil rights and civil liberties—but who, whenever anything’s brought out about the terrible crimes and horrors that are represented by the Trump/Pence regime, insists upon immediately saying things like, “Yes, but what about Hillary Clinton, and what about the Democrats, and the terrible things they have done?” All of which is true. As we have pointed out: The Democratic Party is a machine of massive war crimes and crimes against humanity. And this does need to be brought out. At the same time, it is necessary to recognize that the Republican Party is fascist, and if you don’t understand that this has real meaning and real importance—and every time someone speaks to the outrages and horrors perpetrated by these fascists, you insist on immediately raising, “Yes, but what about the Democrats?”—you’re leading people, or pointing people, away from an understanding of the real dynamics going on here and the real dangers.

And then there is Slavoj Žižek. As is very bluntly, and very accurately, put in the article by Raymond Lotta, “Slavoj Žižek Is a Puffed-Up Idiot Who Does Great Damage”:

Slavoj Žižek, an influential fool-of-a-philosopher who often poses as a “communist,” declared his support for Donald Trump on British TV. A victory for Trump, according to Žižek, will help the Republicans and Democrats “rethink themselves”—and could bring about “a kind of big awakening.” And speaking from his “what-me-worry” perch [Lotta goes on], Žižek pronounced that Trump “will not introduce fascism.”

As Lotta then succinctly states: “This is wrong, this is poison.” And it is similar to the kind of wrong and dangerous thinking that people like Glenn Greenwald fall into and propagate. Similarly to Glenn Greenwald, it involves playing down the actual reality and danger of what’s represented by fascism, even as, once again, the Democratic Party is an instrument of bourgeois dictatorship, and a machine of massive war crimes and crimes against humanity.

This kind of wrong thinking is also exemplified by someone like Julian Assange, who actually, from all appearances, and it does seem to be the case, contributed to the machinations that went on around the Trump campaign, involving, it does seem, the Russians in this, and who did so with the same kind of rationalization that Žižek put forward, as cited by Raymond Lotta—that Clinton and the Democratic Party represent the old establishment, the old ways of doing things, and if they’re defeated and somebody who’s outside the establishment gets in, it will shake things up. I have heard Assange saying (his own words, not just others characterizing what his position is): “Maybe this will lead to a negative change, or maybe it will lead to a positive change, but at least it will lead to change, or it will hold open the possibility of change.”

Well, what kind of change is it actually leading to? There’s no room for agnosticism or ignorance about what kind of change it is leading to. Yes, bourgeois dictatorship in any form is very bad for the masses of people, very oppressive and repressive of the masses of people, and needs to be overthrown. But an overt fascist dictatorship that tramples on any pretense of upholding rights for people is not something that should be put in the category of “maybe it’ll be a positive change, or maybe it’ll be a negative change.”

Now, at the same time as making this sharp critique, particularly with regard to Julian Assange, it is very important to emphasize the need to oppose the persecution of Assange by the U.S. imperialists, whose persecution of him is in response to and revenge for his part—not in something to do with the Russians, but overwhelmingly in exposing just some of the monstrous crimes of this system. In this regard, there was an interesting article called “Julian Assange and the Woeful State of Whistle-Blowers” by Edward Wasserman, who’s a professor of journalism and the Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. (This article appeared in the New York Times on Saturday, April 27 of this year, 2019.) Wasserman points out that, with whatever his failings are, political and personal, Julian Assange, through WikiLeaks, “enabled spectacular disclosure of official secrets,” including, as Wasserman himself puts it, “war crimes, torture and atrocities on civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan” by the U.S. And this is why he’s being attacked in the legal arena and politically by the U.S. ruling class. This dimension is where people need to rally to Assange’s defense, even with his limitations and failings. And the need and importance of defending Assange, particularly from political/legal persecution by the U.S. government, has been greatly heightened by the fact that this government (headed by the Trump/Pence fascist regime) has now piled on very serious charges of espionage in this process of persecution, with dire implications not just for Assange but for any and all who would dare to uncover and expose the war crimes and crimes against humanity continually carried out by U.S. imperialism and its institutions of violence and repression.

Yet, without in any way failing to give due importance and emphasis to opposing these repressive moves by the U.S. government, it remains necessary and there is also great importance to criticizing this outlook and approach embodied in the thinking of people like Assange and Glenn Greenwald, as well as Žižek. The idea that these bourgeois (or “establishment”) politicians are just “all the same,” without any analysis of the nuances, or even the blatant differences, between them and the consequences of this for the masses of people, the masses of humanity—this is very harmful.

Here it is worth looking at the criticism that was raised of the German communists in the period of the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazis in Germany in the 1930s. The slogan was attributed to the German communists: “Nach Hitler, Uns,” (meaning: “After Hitler, Us”). In other words, the same kind of thinking—that Hitler actually heading up the government would shake up things and would cause such a crisis in society that, then, the communists would have a chance to come to power. This represented a very serious underestimation of what was represented by Hitler and the Nazis, and the terrible consequences of this for humanity. Yes, the communists there should have been consistently and firmly opposing the whole system on a revolutionary basis, but it was also very important and necessary to recognize that Hitler and the Nazis were a particularly perverse and extreme representation of all the horrors of this system, and would carry them out in very extreme forms.

So, in relation to all this, there is a need for a scientific approach to building opposition to the fascism embodied in the Trump/Pence regime in the U.S. today, in a way that is based on and proceeds from the understanding that’s captured in works of mine like “The Fascists and the Destruction of the ‘Weimar Republic’... And What Will Replace It” and “Not Being Jerry Rubin, or Even Dimitrov, but Actually Being Revolutionary Communists: THE CHALLENGE OF DEFENDING FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS—FROM A COMMUNIST PERSPECTIVE, AND NO OTHER.” (These articles are available at revcom.us. They are part of the Collected Works of Bob Avakian.)

As I have stressed several times, and as concentrated in the slogan we have brought forward: “The Republican Party is Fascist, The Democratic Party is Also a Machine of Massive War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity.” This emphasizes the importance of both aspects of things: recognizing the particularity of what’s represented by the fascism of the Trump/Pence regime and the Republican Party as a whole, and confronting the nature and massive crimes of the whole system, and all those who are functionaries and enforcers of this system, definitely including the Democratic Party.

In an article in the New York Times (Tuesday, July 16, 2019), “Racism Comes Out of the Closet,” Paul Krugman makes the point that not just Donald Trump but the Republican Party as a whole has gone from “dog whistling” racism to overtly and crudely expressing it. Krugman concludes this article this way, referring to the Republican Party’s dropping of even any pretense of opposing racism:

It’s tempting to say that Republican claims to support racial equality were always hypocritical; it’s even tempting to welcome the move from dog whistles to open racism. But if hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue, what we’re seeing now is a party that no longer feels the need to pay that tribute. And that’s deeply frightening.

Krugman does have a point—an important and relevant point—here, as far as it goes. The problem is that it doesn’t go far enough, and in particular does not break out of the constricting terms of contradictions and conflicts among ruling class parties (the Republicans and the Democrats). The stance of hypocritically pretending opposition to such outrages as racist oppression, while in fact acting as the representatives, functionaries and enforcers of a system that has this oppression built into it and could not exist without this oppression—this does not just apply to the Republican Party in the past (if it ever applied to that party at all over the past 50 years and more) but also applies to the Democratic Party. What is concentrated in this situation is the need to recognize, and correctly handle, a very real and acute contradiction: the fact that, on the one hand, the Democratic Party, as much as the Republican Party, is a party of a system that continually commits, and cannot help committing, massive crimes against the masses of humanity and embodies an existential threat to the very future of humanity; and, on the other hand, the fact that (to paraphrase what is cited above from Krugman’s article) there is a very real difference and very direct danger embodied in the fact that one of these ruling class parties (the Republicans) openly abandons much of the pretense of being anything other than a rapacious, and yes racist, plunderer of human beings and of the environment. This requires the correct synthesis of, in fundamental terms, opposing the whole system, of which both of these parties are instruments, and actively working, in an ongoing way, toward the strategic goal of abolishing this whole system, while also, with the same fundamental strategic perspective, recognizing the acute immediate danger posed by the fascist Trump/Pence regime and working urgently to bring forward masses of people in non-violent but sustained mobilization around the demand that this regime must go!

Failing to really recognize and act on this understanding, in its different aspects and its full dimension, is very much related to individualism—particularly in the form of seeking the illusion of painless progress, rather than being willing to confront inconvenient and uncomfortable truths and to act accordingly, even with the sacrifices that might be required.

With all the nuances and particularities of contradictions that do have to be recognized, this crucial truth can be put in this basic and concentrated way:

The Democratic Party Is Part of the Problem, Not the Solution.

Here a challenge needs to be issued to all those who insist on the position that “the Democrats are the only realistic alternative”: On the website revcom.us, there is the “American Crime” series, which chronicles and outlines many of the most horrific crimes of the U.S. ruling class, going back to the beginning of this country and right up to the present, carried out under Republican and Democratic administrations. Here is the challenge: Go read that “American Crime” series and then come back and try to explain why it’s a decent thing to do to be caught up in supporting the Democrats.

Along with its other crimes, and its particular role in maintaining and enforcing this system, in the current circumstances the Democratic Party is also an active facilitator of fascism because of its refusal, even on the terms of the system it represents, to do anything meaningful to oppose the fascism of the Trump/Pence regime. This is concentrated in the insistence by Democratic Party leader Nancy Pelosi (or Piglosi, as she should be called) that impeachment is, once again, off the table. Some people may not remember (or may have chosen to forget), and others may not even know, but there was a massive sentiment to impeach George W. Bush back around 2005-2006, in particular because of the way he took the country to war, attacking and invading Iraq, causing massive destruction and death in that country, on the basis of systematic lies that were very consciously perpetrated by his whole regime, including Colin Powell, Cheney and Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice and the rest, who deliberately and systematically lied about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction and supposedly threatening the U.S. (and “allies” of the U.S.) with those weapons. These lies were the rationalization for perpetrating the U.S. war of aggression against Iraq—which, in fact, was an international war crime. There was a mass sentiment toward impeachment of George W. Bush largely on that basis. Well, when the Democrats, in the 2006 election, won control of both houses of Congress, immediately Nancy Piglosi said impeachment is off the table. And now she’s doing the same thing again—and she’s doing this not just as an individual, but as representative of the leadership of the Democratic Party. To borrow a term from the gang scene, the “shot-callers” of the Democratic Party are saying: “We shouldn’t impeach Trump because that will just serve him; he’s trying to goad us into impeaching him.” As though it would not be a good thing for Trump to be impeached. Piglosi insists: “We’re not gonna fall for that, we’re gonna hold Trump accountable.”  Oh yeah? How? How are you going to hold him accountable when you refuse to use one of the most powerful instruments you have, impeachment, to actually do something meaningful to oppose what he’s doing?

I saw a commentator on one of the networks the other day who made an observation which (along with and despite a bunch of nonsense that she was also spouting) was actually somewhat insightful and important. She said: “Laws don’t enforce themselves. If you can do something and get away with it, the law is meaningless.” Well, Piglosi, your “accountability” (holding Trump “accountable”) is meaningless because you are refusing to exercise the most effective means you might have to “hold him accountable.”

Now, some people say that this is just being done by Piglosi and the rest because they have the 2020 election in mind, and they don’t want to feed the Republican Party ammunition for their insistence that “this is a witch hunt” against Trump and the Republican Party. That may be a secondary consideration on the part of the Democrats, but if you listen to Piglosi she’s telling us what the deal actually is. She’s saying it would further divide the country to impeach Trump—as if the “country” is not already very deeply and very intensely divided, at this point, which is precisely why someone like Trump could get elected in the first place.

But there are really three reasons, or we could call them “three fears,” that Piglosi and the rest have. They’re afraid of Trump and the Republicans, so they’re allowing Trump and the Republicans to set the terms of what they can do. Their “logic” goes like this: “Since Trump would lash back if we tried to impeach him, therefore we shouldn’t try to impeach him.” This is the logic of what they’re saying, even if they don’t directly and explicitly articulate it like that. So they’re letting the Republicans set the terms—which, of course, only causes the Republicans to be even more aggressive in pursuit of their agenda and in defying and trampling on the “norms” of this system. Even according to their own bourgeois “principles,” the Democrats should be acting on the basis of what’s in their Constitution, not according to what the Republicans will allow them to do.

Secondly, along with being afraid of Trump and the Republican Party, they are afraid of the reality that laws don’t enforce themselves. They’re afraid that if they impeach Trump—and if, somehow, they even succeeded not only in impeaching him, but actually getting him convicted in the Senate—that Trump might well declare: “Fuck you, I’m the President, I don’t recognize this impeachment.” Then, what and whom can they turn to? This brings up the other dimension of this second point: They’re afraid of Trump’s “base.” They’re afraid of these fascist forces out there who are being encouraged and goaded by Trump to increasingly act in a violent manner and who (as I’ll speak to shortly) do have a lot of weapons and are demonstrating not only their willingness, but their eagerness, to use them. So Piglosi and the rest are afraid of that.

But at least as much—and here is the “third fear”—they are afraid of the people on the other side of the divide in the country, the people who tend to vote for the Democrats, especially the basic masses of oppressed people. They are afraid of the very people, basic masses and others, whom the Democratic Party is responsible for “corralling” into the BEB and “domesticating” their dissent. They’re afraid of the people who are angry about what’s represented by Trump and Pence. They don’t want those people out in the street, unless it is contained within the narrow confines of what the Democratic Party, and the system it serves, can allow. And they don’t want the confrontation between those people and the fascists who have rallied behind Trump. You think they want to see masses of Black people, immigrants, and others, including masses of people from different strata who are furious over Trump—you think they want to see them in the streets in direct and determined opposition to what is represented by Trump and Pence? That’s one of the worst nightmares of Piglosi and Company, not only because of the potential for militant confrontation with the fascists, but because people could then get completely out of the control of the Democratic Party, and the whole system of which the Democrats are representatives, functionaries, and enforcers. A big part of what they are representing and enforcing would be seriously jeopardized.

So this is what’s really going on with Piglosi and the rest in stubbornly resisting a move toward impeachment.

And then we come to one of the main aggressively fascist functionaries in the Republican Party, the Congressman from Iowa, Steve King. Recently, along with all of his other outrageous postings and overtly racist, misogynist, and crudely derogatory statements about Muslims and immigrants, and so on, King recently posted a meme, with this comment, on his official campaign page:

Folks keep talking about another civil war. One side has about 8 trillion bullets, while the other side doesn’t know which bathroom to use.

Now, it has to be said that there is a “demented insight” in this comment. Obviously, this is a vicious attack on trans people, as well as those supportive of their rights. So, on the one hand, this is an outrageous statement, a thoroughly reactionary and vicious statement. But it does express a certain demented insight, or a demented representation of some truth, because while people are rightly supporting the rights of trans people, gay people, women and others, there are real limitations and problems with the spontaneous outlook prevailing among those on the correct side of the divide. There is a narrowness along lines of “identity,” and an ignoring of, or a not paying sufficient attention to, the larger dynamics that are shaping up in the society (and the world) as a whole, and the implications of this, as represented, once again, by the fact that, while people are fighting around or raising some resistance around this or that particular instance of oppression, discrimination and prejudice, they are not rallying to take on the whole massive assault that’s embodied in the Trump/Pence regime, let alone the whole system that has produced this regime. There is the serious problem that, as a whole, people who consider themselves “progressive” or “woke” have, to put it mildly, not made any real rupture with American chauvinism (about which I will have more to say shortly). And, related to this, there is the fundamental problem of attempting to resolve the conflict with what is represented by the Trump/Pence regime and its fascist “base,” with its “8 trillion bullets,” through relying on (or seeking a return to) what have been the “norms” of the bourgeois order in this country (and, on the part of some, this involves a call for “restoring civility”) while the fascists are determined to trample on and tear up these “norms” and are perfectly happy to have those who oppose them adopt the stance of “civility” (accommodation) toward their unrelenting fascist offensive. Although this does not apply absolutely, it is far too much the case that the words of the poet William Butler Yeats describe this very serious situation: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity.” And so, while things could be heading toward a civil war, and it could come down to that even in the not-too-distant future, the present lineup is very unfavorable for anybody who represents anything decent in the world.

All this is, in a demented kind of way, represented in King’s statement that one side has about 8 trillion bullets while the other side doesn’t know which bathroom to use. Again, it’s not that the question of bathroom use and the larger questions it encapsulates is unimportant. It is important. But there’s a larger picture here of this developing trend or motion toward a civil war which right now is very one-sided in a very bad way, and if things continue on this trajectory the outcome could truly be disastrous.

So that should be serious food for thought—and not only that, but also a serious spur to action for people who do care about all the various ways in which people are being brought under attack and oppression is being intensified all across the board against large sections of the people who need to be brought together to fight against the offensive from these fascist forces—and, in more fundamental terms, need to be brought forward on the basis of recognizing that it’s the whole system, out of which this fascist phenomenon has arisen, and which embodies such terrible oppression of people not just here but all around the world, that needs to be swept away.

Now, another element of this that we can’t overlook is that, while a lot of what King describes applies in a certain demented way, particularly to progressive or so-called “woke” middle class people, there is another kind of problem with regard to more basic oppressed people, and in particular the youth—a big problem that their guns are now aimed at each other. And without going more fully into this right now, this is something that needs to be radically transformed in building a movement for an actual revolution.

So here we come to the question of the relation between building for an actual revolution and the still very urgent question of driving out this fascist regime. The following from Part 2 of Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution remains extremely relevant and important:

The relation between the struggle against this fascist regime and building the revolution is not a “straight road” or a “one-way street”: It must not be approached, by those who understand the need for revolution, as if “first we must build a mass movement to drive out this regime, and then we can turn our attention to working directly for revolution.” No. It is crucial to unite and mobilize people, from different perspectives, very broadly, around the demand that this regime must go, but it will be much more difficult to do this on the scale and with the determination that is required to meet this objective if there are not, at the same time, greater and greater numbers of people who have been brought forward around the understanding that it is necessary to put an end not only to this regime but to the system out of whose deep and defining contradictions this regime has arisen, a system which by its very nature has imposed, and will continue to impose, horrific and completely unnecessary suffering on the masses of humanity, until this system itself is abolished. And the more that people are brought forward to be consciously, actively working for revolution, the growing strength and “moral authority” of this revolutionary force will in turn strengthen the resolve of growing numbers of people to drive out this fascist regime now in power, even as many will not be (and some will perhaps never be) won to revolution.

 

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The science, the strategy, the leadership for an actual revolution, and a radically new society on the road to real emancipation, by Bob Avakian

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/605/fascists-and-communists-completely-opposed-worlds-apart-en.html

Fascists and Communists:
Completely Opposed and Worlds Apart

By Bob Avakian

| revcom.us

 

Fascists stand for and are determined to intensify, to grotesque and hideous dimensions, every dimension of oppression and exploitation and all the horrors perpetrated by the system of capitalism-imperialism. Communists, and in particular the advocates of the new communism, are determined to put an end to all these horrors, and potentially even worse horrors, through the overthrow of the system of capitalism-imperialism and the abolition of all relations of exploitation and oppression, throughout the world.

Look at the 5 STOPS—fascists and communists, and in particular the advocates of the new communism, are on diametrically opposed sides of these crucial dividing lines: The fascists are determined to fortify and extend to even more monstrous proportions, and with potentially catastrophic consequences for humanity, all the horrors embodied in those 5 STOPS, while the communists, and in particular the advocates of the new communism, stand for and fight for precisely a STOP to all this.

Fascists base themselves on and actively promote blind adherence to hateful prejudice, willful ignorance and aggressive paranoia, in opposition to rational thinking and discourse, science and the scientific method. Communists, and in particular the advocates of the new communism, base themselves on and seek to apply the most consistent scientific method, including the importance of learning from and critically assimilating the insights, criticisms, etc. of others who disagree with or even ardently oppose them.

As pointed out in Communism and Jeffersonian Democracy, it is not that people calling themselves communists have never acted in opposition to the basic principles of communism, and it is not that there have been no shortcomings and errors, even some grievous errors, in the history of the communist movement and socialist society; but a scientific approach and analysis shows that this has not been the main trend and character of the communist movement and socialist society led by communists; and the notion of communism as representing a “totalitarian nightmare” is fundamentally in conflict with reality and is on the contrary the invention and distortion of functionaries, enforcers and intellectual camp followers of the exploitative and oppressive system of capitalism and imperialism, which the communist revolution aims to overthrow and advance human society beyond, through the abolition of all exploitation and oppression. (If anyone is sincerely interested in actually understanding what is represented by the “theory” of “totalitarianism,” and in particular the use of this “theory” to distort and slander what is represented by communism, in Democracy: Can’t We Do Better Than That? they can find a systematic discussion, dissection and refutation of the basic thesis and methods in The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, whose work is the most celebrated embodiment of this “theory” of “totalitarianism” and its use to distort and slander what is represented by communism.)

And, once again, there is the further, qualitative development of communism with the new communism which I have brought forward—which involves a scientific analysis and synthesis of the historical experience, positive and negative, of the communist movement and the first great wave of communist-led revolution and socialist society, and the significance of which is highlighted and concentrated in particular in the first of the Six Resolutions of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA.

Download PDF of "Fascists and Communists: Completely Opposed and Worlds Apart" for printing and distribution

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Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

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During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

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Excerpt from SCIENCE AND REVOLUTION, On the Importance of Science and the Application of Science to Society, the New Synthesis of Communism and the Leadership of Bob Avakian, An Interview with Ardea Skybreak

Bob Avakian–A True Scientific Visionary

| revcom.us

 

In the early part of 2015, over a number of days, Revolution conducted a wide-ranging interview with Ardea Skybreak. A scientist with professional training in ecology and evolutionary biology, and an advocate of the new synthesis of communism brought forward by Bob Avakian, Skybreak is the author of, among other works, The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism: Knowing What's Real and Why It Matters, and Of Primeval Steps and Future Leaps: An Essay on the Emergence of Human Beings, the Source of Women's Oppression, and the Road to Emancipation. This interview was first published online at www.revcom.us.

Ardea Skybreak Science and Revolution excerpts A New Theoretical Framework for a New Stage of Communist Revolution What Is New in the New Synthesis? The Constitution for the New Socialist Republic--A Visionary and Concrete Application of the New Synthesis Serious Engagement with the New Synthesis--The Difference It Could Make An Explorer, a Critical Thinker, a Follower of BA Some Thank Yous That Need To Be Said Aloud Order the book here Download the full interview in PDF format here

The New Synthesis of Communism and the Residues of the Past

by the Revolutionary Communist Organization, Mexico

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Question:     One thing I wanted to zero in on a little bit on this point about what struck you in particular about BA—and I think you’ve definitely talked about some of that, but just to go a bit more at this point about BA’s scientific method and leadership, which was in evidence during the Dialogue—I guess a way to put it is: For anyone who wants a fundamentally different world, or even people who are beginning to question why the world is the way it is and if it could be different, what lessons should people be drawing from the scientific method that BA was applying during the Dialogue and, obviously related to that, his leadership as it got expressed in that Dialogue?

AS:     Well, if we’re going to talk some more about scientific methods and leadership—using scientific methods and how BA actually concentrates that kind of scientific approach—we should be talking about truth and what truth is. Because I felt that this was modeled during the Dialogue. I believe BA quoted Malcolm X—and it’s a quote I’ve always loved—I’m paraphrasing a little bit but at one point Malcolm X said something like, I didn’t come here to tell you what you want to hear, I came here to tell you the truth, whether you want to hear it or not. I think that’s pretty close to the exact quote. I love that quote, and I love the fact that BA embodies that same kind of approach and attitude. It’s a very core part of his method. It makes his life more difficult, I’m quite sure, because it’s always easier to pander to popular, fashionable views: what do people say, what do most people think, what do most people like or not like. A true visionary...I believe that Bob Avakian really is a true scientific visionary when it comes to the question of the transformation of human society, I think he’s bringing in a lot that’s new, he is building on the communist science and the development of communism through previous periods, but he’s taking it a lot further and he’s got some really important conceptions and methods that are putting the whole science of communism on a more sound foundation and a much more inspiring and hopeful foundation than at any time in the past. So I think there’s a lot in his work to dig into.

And at the Dialogue, I felt that one of the things that came through is his commitment to truth. That might seem obvious in a leader—that, of course, you should be telling the truth—but it’s not just that there are corrupt leaders who lie to people and manipulate the truth. Sure, we all know about that. But there are a lot of people, even well-intentioned people, who don’t actually understand what the truth is in a scientific way. [laughs] There are actually people who function as if the truth is what most people think, or most people say. Well, if you stop to think about it for a minute, of course that’s ridiculous, and Bob Avakian gave examples of that in the Dialogue, including in relation to religion. For instance, I remember the example he gave of epilepsy—that in times past and under the influence of old religions from thousands of years ago, when people didn’t understand a lot of stuff, most people would have thought that epilepsy was caused by being possessed by the devil, and it’s only in fairly recent modern history that people have understood that it’s a disease and that it can be treated, and that it has nothing to do with devil possession or things like that.

But the point is that one of the things that BA consistently models, which is a hallmark of a good scientist, is being willing to go where the evidence takes you, and not looking at things superficially, but systematically and methodically digging into historical experience, and from many different directions—the historical experience of political forces, of revolutionary movements, of communist parties and movements, of the international situation—examining all that accumulated experience, and also drawing on other spheres, not just politics but also art and science and culture, all the many facets of human experience throughout history, in order to draw out the key patterns and the key directions of things and the key contradictions which come to characterize a phenomenon, or a particular phase of history, or a particular form of social organization. And then critically evaluating it, and figuring out on what basis it could be changed if it doesn’t meet the needs of the people.

One of the things I’m struck by, as someone who was trained in the natural sciences, is how unscientific most people are! Even very, very educated people, people with Ph.D.s in different spheres or whatever, are generally incredibly unscientific. They just have knee-jerk reactions to things. Very often, very educated people come across, frankly, like blithering idiots when they try to analyze phenomena in society, and that’s usually because they are basing themselves not on science but on populism, on what is the general consensus. I don’t really care what most people think, if it’s not right. You have to show me the evidence of why something is true. And if one person is putting forward something that is true (that corresponds to actual reality) and yet nobody else agrees with them, that doesn’t make it not true! Show me the evidence. And, conversely, if great numbers of people believe something to be true—“everybody knows this” or “everybody knows that,” there’s a general consensus—I have to say that, as a scientist, I don’t find that particularly convincing! You are really going to have to show me the evidence.

You can’t just tell me the numbers, you can’t play the numbers game, you can’t tell me that something is true just because a lot of people believe it.

One of the things that really captures this from BA, and that can be found in the book BAsics, is the statement that I believe is a real concentrated expression of a scientific method on the question of exactly what we’re talking about here: What people think is part of objective reality, but objective reality is not determined by what people think. That’s worth pondering and reflecting on. That’s the difference between subjective reactions to things and a real scientific method. Because what people think is important. It’s either right or wrong, it should either be encouraged or discouraged, it should either be reinforced or transformed. But in any case it’s part of objective reality and, so, of course, it’s important. But objective reality is not determined by what people think, no matter how many people think it or how few people think it. You have to dig deeper, you have to dig and uncover those underlying features and patterns. And that’s one of the things that is a hallmark of BA’s work and of the new synthesis that he’s brought forward. And it is in sharp contrast to what has too often prevailed in a lot of the political movements—even revolutionary movements, even communist movements—in past periods and even through today. It is shameful the degree to which there is not rigorous scientific pursuit of the truth among many people and many organizations. And it’s a problem in the international movement, among international forces today. There is often an unwillingness to critically evaluate the past.

One of the things that BA has argued for a lot is that we have to be willing to confront the truths that make us cringe. If you’re serious about trying to transform the world in a good direction, you have to be willing to examine past experience in a rigorous scientific manner. There are two parts to that: You have to dig deeply to understand what is correct in what was done before, in what was previously understood and what was previously accomplished; but then you also have to be willing to recognize where things went off track, or where there were shortcomings or mistakes made. That’s how we learn, historically, that’s how human beings accumulate knowledge, but it’s also absolutely necessary for transforming things in the right direction.

And, you know, there are a lot of wrong tendencies epistemologically. Epistemology is the science of how you think about thinking, how you accumulate knowledge. That’s what that is. And the question is, how do you know something is true? You should not be trying to determine what’s true just on the basis of how many people believe it or don’t believe it. You should also not be trying to say that the truth resides in superficial phenomena, like in an immediate narrow slice of experience or practice. You should not fall into pragmatism. Pragmatism is the view that if something works now, then it must be true. I was reading a good example about that in a very interesting piece that I would recommend people study. It can be found through the revcom.us website—it’s in the online theoretical journal Demarcations, which can be accessed through the revcom.us website. In this piece, there is an important appreciation of Bob Avakian’s new synthesis put out by the OCR, the revolutionary communists in Mexico, entitled “The New Synthesis of Communism and the Residues of the Past” by the Revolutionary Communist Organization (OCR), Mexico. It’s about some of the line differences in the international communist movement, and it’s an appreciation of Bob Avakian’s new synthesis in relation to that. And there’s a whole discussion of pragmatism in there, and how many people think that truth is whatever is kind of “convenient” for accomplishing certain objectives in a very narrow and immediate sense. The article gives the example of the thalidomide drug which was developed some time back to treat morning sickness and was touted as an advance in science. Well, it “worked” for that purpose and it got heralded, but it turned out that it hadn’t been sufficiently, deeply analyzed in an all-sided way, and it also led to children being born with tremendous birth defects. The deeper truth turned out to be how harmful it was, not that it “worked.” Well, that’s an analogy for the same kind of mistakes that can be made in the political sphere.

And Bob Avakian insists that everybody should act like critical thinkers, and really that everybody should contribute to the process of actually analyzing what is true and what is false in various kinds of phenomena. It doesn’t matter who you are, how much experience you have—you can be in the Party as a Party leader, or you can be in the Party as a new person and relatively inexperienced, or you can be outside the Party, you could be a critic of communism or you could be an adherent of communism—it doesn’t matter who you are. If you have principled methods, and you are willing to actually try to get to the truth of things, your contributions would be welcomed in terms of trying to advance knowledge and understanding. Now, you also should be willing to be subject to criticism yourself, from others who might punch holes in your theories or analyses. That’s what good scientists do. As a natural scientist, I had many good experiences that way, where I or other scientists would put forward some analyses of some things in nature and propose some experiments that could be conducted to uncover some of the deeper reality, and then you got your colleagues and friends together and they would spend the next hour or so trying to punch holes in your theories and questioning your underlying assumptions! That can be a very healthy and productive process (and fun too!), as long as it’s done in the right spirit (free of snark and ego) and with the right method.

 

 


 

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The Crucial Importance of the New Communism and BA's Leadership

| revcom.us

 

The following is a summation of some group study and discussion of the new communism and the leadership of Bob Avakian (BA).

First of all, I want to say that it has been truly great, deeply meaningful, critically important—and a lot of fun!—digging into the work, leadership and method of BA together. I have been thinking recently about some key themes and lessons that occur to me regarding our study and discussions and their purpose and importance. There is obviously so much that I could highlight—in terms of the key points we have gotten into in these sessions and the significance of these sessions—and trying to cover it all would be well beyond the scope of what I have written here (which ended up being longer than I envisioned when I started). However, I wanted to frame our work together with two overall themes.

The first of these themes is drawn from the beginning of a quote from BA: “Let’s get down to basics: We need a revolution. Anything else, in the final analysis, is bullshit.” (from BAsics 3:1)

The second theme is the critical role of revolutionary theory.

Let me briefly get further into each of these themes—in general, as it relates to the role and importance of BA and his leadership in the world, and also as it relates to our study and discussions.

Given how much there is to say on each of these two themes, I can only really scratch the surface here. But let’s start with the first one:

“Let’s get down to basics: We need a revolution. Anything else, in the final analysis, is bullshit.”

The understanding captured in this quote not only speaks to the state of the world and of humanity—and to what is urgently needed in light of this—but also, relatedly, illuminates WHY we have been engaging in this study and discussion together and WHY this is so important.

We have often talked—and very correctly so, to be clear—about having “cool” discussions. But it’s important to understand that this is NOT fundamentally about having “cool,” “interesting,” “fun” or “mentally stimulating” discussions, even though these discussions definitely ARE all of these things!

Rather, our work together has a specific purpose: to deepen our understanding of the world not just for the sake of knowledge in some academic sense, but in order to radically CHANGE the world. And, more specifically, to deepen our understanding and application of the science of revolution and communism, as this science has been qualitatively advanced in groundbreaking ways through the new communism brought forward by BA—deepening our grasp and application of this science as a key part of contributing to the process of making revolution on the basis of this new communism.

Just look at the world! We have talked about the “5 STOPS,” which speak to five key, defining contradictions of this capitalist-imperialist system. These 5 STOPS are: “STOP Genocidal Persecution, Mass Incarceration, Police Brutality and Murder of Black and Brown People!”... “STOP the Patriarchal Degradation, Dehumanization, and Subjugation of All Women Everywhere, and All Oppression Based on Gender or Sexual Orientation!... Stop Wars of Empire, Armies of Occupation, and Crimes Against Humanity!... Stop the Demonization, Criminalization and Deportations of Immigrants and the Militarization of the Border!... Stop Capitalism-Imperialism from Destroying Our Planet!”

A quick glance at the news from the past few weeks alone will reveal that the contradictions spoken to in these 5 STOPS—and the staggering level of suffering and misery caused by these contradictions—are only intensifying.

This is on top of the countless other forms of tremendous poverty, deprivation, misery, exploitation, oppression and suffering spawned by this system and heaped upon literally billions of human beings and humanity as a whole every single day that this capitalist-imperialist system continues.

A key point to understand, which BA’s work illuminates so sharply and powerfully, is that NONE of these outrages are accidental, isolated or disconnected from each other. They have a common source—this SYSTEM of capitalism-imperialism. These outrages and horrors for humanity are woven into this system’s rules, its operation, its “DNA,” its roots, its historical and ongoing functioning. For this reason, the system CANNOT be reformed—it must be overthrown through revolution.

This point about the NEED for an actual revolution—as opposed to attempts to “fix” or “heal” or “reform” a system that in fact CANNOT be fixed, healed or reformed—in order to put an end to the countless ways that humanity suffers needlessly is, I believe, one vital takeaway from our study and discussions of BA’s work; it is one critical point on which our collective understanding should be significantly deepened.

Another one of these vital points that I think has been a theme of our study and discussions—especially recently, as we have watched the most recent film from BA (Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution) and listened to the Q & A from this film—is what an actual revolution IS, what it involves and what it requires.

An actual revolution does NOT just mean “a big change”—in one form or another—which is how many people think of it or try to define it. Rather, an actual revolution means overthrowing the capitalist-imperialist system, meeting and defeating its repressive force, dismantling its institutions and setting up a new, socialist system and state power and society—and, accordingly, new institutions—on the road to communism. Right now is NOT the time for an actual revolution, because the necessary conditions for this revolution do not yet exist. But right now IS the time to be working for, hastening (i.e., working to accelerate the emergence of) and preparing for an actual revolution.

This point leads us to the question of what we ALREADY do have, and what we DON’T yet have and therefore need to urgently work on bringing into being, in terms of the necessary factors and conditions for revolution.

In terms of what we DO have: By far the biggest positive factor we have is BA. Through decades of work, BA has forged the new communism, which is the framework—and, most fundamentally, the scientific understanding and method—that humanity needs to make revolution and continue that revolution all the way to communism. Think about this: Just as the first round of communist revolutions would never have happened without the initial scientific breakthroughs and framework forged by Marx, so the next round of communist revolutions will not happen without millions of people taking up the further scientific breakthroughs and framework forged by BA.

The framework of the new communism includes: a comprehensive and further developed scientific understanding of the nature of the problem, that is, the nature of capitalism-imperialism, how it specifically operates, historically and in the world today, why and how it is responsible for the many different forms of suffering that humanity faces and why this system cannot be reformed and must be swept away through revolution; a viable strategy for revolution—for working now to hasten while awaiting a revolutionary situation and then winning in that future situation; and a concrete, vivid and thoroughly developed vision and “blueprint” for a radically different socialist society on the road to communism, as put forward in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, authored by BA.

Most fundamentally and importantly—and this is a thread running through and underlying the understanding, strategy and vision—is the scientific METHOD of the new communism.

The new communism forged by BA builds upon—but also goes far beyond, and in some key ways breaks with—the past experience in theory and practice of the communist movement.

Speaking in depth to the totality and specific dimensions of the new communism is also beyond the scope of what I am writing here, but to quickly highlight some key points of this.

In terms of the totality of what is represented by the new communism, I want to quote the first of the Six Resolutions of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, which we have previously discussed. This first resolution makes the point that the new communism

represents and embodies a qualitative resolution of a critical contradiction that has existed within communism in its development up to this point, between its fundamentally scientific method and approach, and aspects of communism which have run counter to this.

This point is important enough that I think it bears repeating in order to help facilitate ongoing further reflection: The new communism “represents and embodies a qualitative resolution of a critical contradiction that has existed within communism in its development up to this point, between its fundamentally scientific method and approach, and aspects of communism which have run counter to this.

While—as this quote from the first resolution points out—communism’s method and approach has been FUNDAMENTALLY scientific, there have been important ways in which past socialist societies along with the communist movement, past and present, have taken up unscientific and even ANTI-scientific ways of thinking, methods and approaches to understanding and transforming reality, with very harmful effects.

The new communism brought forward by BA qualitatively resolves this contradiction, putting communism on a more firmly scientific footing and therefore carving out the method and framework that makes it possible—not inevitable, but possible—to confront and transform the many contradictions involved in making revolution and continuing that revolution all the way to communism.

Needless to say, this is a big deal in terms of the possibilities this new communism opens up for humanity!

While, once again, it is not possible to review in depth the various specific dimensions of the new communism, I want to highlight here three examples of this.

*First, the new communism breaks new ground—and breaks with unscientific approaches within the communist movement—in terms of its approach to the TRUTH, the process by which the truth should be pursued, understood and arrived at, and the importance of going for the truth not just in a general sense but specifically in terms of the goal of getting to communism.

The new communism’s approach to this breaks with the unscientific and harmful ideas—which have far too often and to far too great a degree infected the past and present of the communist movement at different points—that a particular section of society, such as communists, or the most oppressed and exploited, have a monopoly on truth; the idea that whether or not a statement is true should be evaluated based on the class (or social) position of the person making the statement; the idea that different classes have their own versions of the truth, i.e., that the proletariat has its truth and the bourgeoisie has its truth; the notion of “populist epistemology”—that whether or not something is true should be evaluated based on the numbers of people who believe it at a given time; the notion of “political truth”—the idea that whether or not something is true should be evaluated based on whether or not it is viewed as convenient at a given time.

Once again, all of those wrong ways of thinking are not just prevalent in society more broadly but have been significant problems in the past and present of the communist movement.

In opposition to all of this is the understanding encompassed in BA’s new communism that truth is... TRUTH! That it does NOT have a class character, nor is it determined by whether it is viewed as politically convenient in the short term, nor is it determined by the number of the masses who recognize it as truth at a given time. That truth is determined by whether or not something corresponds to objective reality, and it must be fully confronted in all of its dimensions—including those that might be unfortunate or inconvenient in the short run—as an essential part of actually getting to communism.

These points are encompassed in this very important quote from BA that speaks to a key breakthrough in understanding concentrated in the new communism:

Everything that is actually true is good for the proletariat, all truths can help us get to communism. (BAsics 4:5)

Once again, as BA has pointed out, the new communism’s breakthroughs in regard to the truth are not just a matter of recognizing that going for the truth is essential in general—though this understanding is encompassed, too—but that going for the truth is essential IN ORDER TO GET TO COMMUNISM.

*A second example of a specific key dimension of the new communism is its breakthrough in regard to internationalism—the understanding that “the whole world comes first.” This is not just a moral stand—although it is ALSO that—but represents a more fully scientific understanding of internationalism and its importance in the process of making and continuing revolution, and a rupture with and departure from unscientific understandings of internationalism in the past and present of the communist movement. This breakthrough developed with BA’s new communism includes the understanding that the world situation is principal—in other words, that it is the most important factor setting the terms—in regard to the process of making revolution in any particular country; that there can sometimes be a sharp contradiction between the needs of a particular socialist state and the need to advance the world revolution, and that advancing the world revolution must come first; and that in past revolutions there were sometimes important errors made by failing to recognize this and putting the needs of particular socialist countries above the world revolution. Here again, this is not just a matter of an abstract idea of internationalism, but principles based on the work BA has done to deeply engage and synthesize the correct understanding of and approach to the actual contradictions involved in consistently applying internationalism, with all the complexity and difficulty involved in this. (In this regard, the discussion of internationalism in BA’s book THE NEW COMMUNISM is very important.)

*A third example of specific dimensions in which the new communism has broken new ground is in terms of the method of “solid core with a lot of elasticity on the basis of the solid core,” which is a scientific understanding which in fact ruptures with the past understanding and approach of the communist movement in important ways, including in the application of this method to the process of making revolution and leading the future socialist society.

In terms of epistemology (theory of knowledge) and method, “solid core with a lot of elasticity on the basis of the solid core” intertwines with some of the key points made earlier in regard to truth and comprehends that while the communist method and approach is the most systematic, comprehensive and effective means of getting to the truth, this does not mean that communists have a monopoly on the truth and are always correct or that those NOT applying the communist method and approach are always incorrect; rather, those coming from other outlooks, methods and approaches can discover important truths and shed important light on elements of reality. Therefore, the METHOD of solid core with a lot of elasticity on the basis of the solid core involves applying the communist outlook, method and approach to reality with a specific goal, making revolution and getting to communism, while also understanding the need—ON THE BASIS OF APPLYING THAT METHOD—to learn from, sift through and sort out what is brought forward through many diverse streams of human activity and by people coming from a broad range of perspectives, including those that are not communist and even opposed to communism in some cases.

Applying this understanding of solid core with a lot of elasticity on the basis of the solid core to the process of making revolution and then continuing that revolution in the future socialist society on the road to communism, BA’s new communism recognizes—on a level far beyond and in some cases in opposition to the way this was understood prior to the new communism—the complexity and diversity of human activity and thought that must be involved in the process of making revolution and leading a socialist society to communism. This includes recognizing in a whole new way and on a whole other level the importance of dissent, debate, experimentation, ferment and individuality—not individualism but individuality—in socialist society.

To contrast this with one example from the first wave of socialist societies: In socialist China—which, again, overall represented an enormous leap for humanity in so many different spheres and overall—Marxism was in essence viewed as an “official ideology” that people in socialist society should profess, while the new communism, and in particular the approach of “solid core with a lot of elasticity on the basis of the solid core,” embodies the understanding that the leading element in socialist society needs to be communism, but this should not be enshrined and institutionalized as, in effect, an “official ideology” but put forward and struggled for as something people need to be won to and to consciously and voluntarily take up, while at the same time recognizing the importance of giving space to and engaging, and learning what can and should be learned from, the insights of others who have not, yet, been won to communism.

As positive as the overall experience of socialism in China was, BA’s new communism represents a very different vision of socialist society that involves a radical leap forward from even the best of the past.

So, these three examples—related to the approach towards truth, internationalism and solid core with a lot of elasticity on the basis of the solid core—are just that: three of many examples and points that could be offered to illustrate just how profoundly new BA’s new communism is, and the ways in which this new communism (to go back to the quote from the first of the six resolutions):

represents and embodies a qualitative resolution of a critical contradiction that has existed within communism in its development up to this point, between its fundamentally scientific method and approach, and aspects of communism which have run counter to this.

The works that we have read, watched and listened to from BA have been an application and illustration of the new communism—and this has immersed us in this new communism, in an overall way, as captured by the quote from the first resolution as well as in various specific dimensions, including the three highlighted in this letter.

Accordingly, our study and discussion of this work should have deepened our understanding and application of the new communism and its scientific method. Many of our discussions, in fact, have involved studying BA’s scientific method and seeking to take up and apply this method ourselves, to the best of our ability, even while not being able to do this on anywhere near the same level that BA himself does. This focus on method has been extremely important and instructive, manifested, for instance, in the way that we have studied and sought to emulate the way that BA boldly confronts, plainly presents and systematically unpacks the key contradictions and questions of the revolution, involving and inviting others to join him on that journey.

So, once again to return to the question of what we HAVE in regard to the factors and conditions needed to make revolution, the biggest positive factor we have by far is BA, the scientific framework, breakthrough and understanding that he has forged with the new communism, and the ongoing leadership he is providing. This leadership, as highlighted in the second of those six resolutions, involves an extremely rare combination: the ability “to develop scientific theory on a world-class level, while at the same time having a deep understanding of and visceral connection with the most oppressed, and a highly developed ability to ‘break down’ complex theory and make it accessible to the masses of people.” Our viewing, listening, reading and related study/discussion has also driven home this rare combination point repeatedly and powerfully.

In terms of what we don’t yet have, and therefore urgently NEED to work on bringing into being in order to make an actual revolution: We don’t yet have masses of people, first in the thousands and then in the millions, who are won to this revolution and its leadership and developed as an organized force for this revolution; we don’t yet have a situation where the party that is needed to lead the revolution has grown and been expanded and strengthened to the point where it has the necessary ties and influence in society to actually lead a revolution; and we don’t yet have a revolutionary crisis in which the system is unable to rule in the traditional way.

So, the urgent task before us—not just us, but certainly ALSO us—is to take the critical things we DO have and go to work on bringing into being what we DON’T yet have.

This theme—of what we do have, what we don’t have, and what we therefore need to get busy doing—has been another theme both directly spoken to and objectively posed by the works of BA that we have dug into and by our discussions of these works.

Bringing into being the conditions that we don’t yet have is urgently necessary, absolutely possible and in line with reality and how it can be changed, and there is a strategy for going to work on this, as we have discussed recently. But this will not be easy—it will take lots of STRUGGLE, repeatedly and fundamentally on a societal level.

This understanding, too, is another theme that jumps out in reflecting on our study and discussion.

We should understand that we are not operating on an “empty playing field.” There can be a tendency, especially when people are young and still relatively inexperienced politically, to think that everyone with a decent heart will immediately rally to the correct understanding of reality as soon as they are exposed to this understanding. And without question, there is a tremendous basis to win MILLIONS of people to this revolution and its leadership because it DOES, in fact, correspond to reality and to what humanity needs, and no other program and line does.

However, the understanding of BA and the new communism is, to put it simply, contending with all kinds of wrong ways of thinking, on all kinds of questions, that are spontaneously called forth and actively and repeatedly promoted by this system, and it is contending with all kinds of wrong LINES—i.e., wrong outlooks and methods applied to reality—that keep people trapped within this system. This includes, but is not limited to, people in society who call themselves “socialists” or “communists” but are actually about nothing that has anything to do with actual socialism and communism and really just want to reform capitalism and perhaps slightly redistribute the wealth generated by the capitalist system of exploitation. These reformists have nothing to do with an actual revolution and bringing into being a radically different world—and in some cases they will even admit as much. In any case, these fake socialists and communists are often some of those who most viciously attack BA and the GENUINE communism represented by BA, the new communism, precisely because BA and the new communism ACTUALLY represent what they may PRETEND to be about but in reality fundamentally oppose: real revolution and communism.

Few things are as threatening to a poseur as someone who actually IS what they PRETEND to be.

Returning to society more broadly: sharp ideological struggle must be waged—not just on an individual level or in small numbers, but among MASSES OF PEOPLE, and on a SOCIETAL SCALE—to rupture people out of all the wrong ways of thinking and wrong lines that they are caught up in and into the framework of BA’s new communism.

Once again, there is every basis and every urgency to do this, exactly because BA and the new communism correspond to reality and how it can and must be changed, while these other lines and ways of thinking do NOT. But this will take determined, sharp struggle—of the sort emphasized and modeled by BA in the works that we have studied together.

This brings me to the point with which I want to briefly conclude, which is the second of the two themes I have emphasized.

The Importance of Revolutionary Theory

Another tendency that people can have when they are young and relatively inexperienced is the tendency to view “doing stuff” as the most important political task at hand. “Doing stuff” can be defined in a number of different ways, including things such as attending programs, events or protests or doing “on the ground” political outreach and work.

Well, first of all, the question of “doing WHAT stuff” is immediately posed. In other words, what KIND of political work and outreach are people doing, and what KIND of programs and protests—around what line—are people seeking to be involved in? This is obviously a key question.

It’s not the case, as people often think and sometimes say, that “it’s all good”—in other words, “liberal”/“progressive”/“socialist”/“communist”—“sure, sure we all basically want the same things and are on the same page.”

NO. While there are certainly some important areas in which genuine communists can find unity with broad ranks of progressives, there are different lines out there and these different lines are in contention and lead to fundamentally different understandings of the problem and solution in the world.

So, that’s the first question: doing “WHAT” stuff and with WHAT goal?

That said, “doing stuff” in the right sense—i.e., doing “practical work” on the ground and in the broader society to promote this revolution and its leadership, to organize people into the revolution, working to hasten and prepare for an actual revolution, to Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution, including through different forms of political outreach, programs and discussions, demonstrations and protests, etc.—is extremely critical and important, and in fact urgently necessary.

But it is important to understand that in a movement for revolution—like any good team—everyone has different roles, and it is important for people to understand and embrace their roles in order to make the greatest possible contribution to the team and, in this case, to humanity.

However, even beyond this question of each person’s individual roles, there is the question of the decisiveness of revolutionary theory.

Once again, “doing stuff” in the right sense—i.e., practical revolutionary work—is critically important. If millions of people had the right theoretical understanding but didn’t act on that understanding in practice, nothing would change.

However—and this goes up against the ways people are trained to think in this society, and against the spontaneity of how people often see things when they are young (or new to things), but is nonetheless true and important—what is even more fundamental than “doing stuff” is the question of what people, individually and in their masses, UNDERSTAND. Whether and how people act—and the effect this has in the world—ultimately comes down to what people UNDERSTAND.

From that standpoint, it is crucial that people find the ways to do what we have been doing: immersing ourselves in, taking up and applying the most advanced revolutionary theory in the world, BA’s new communism, as part of the overall process of making revolution.

One final point: It is important not to look narrowly at what it means to TAKE UP and APPLY the new communism. This doesn’t just mean direct political work and outreach, which, once again, is very important. Taking up and applying this work means—in a BROADER sense—applying the understanding represented by BA and the new communism to understanding and changing reality. Very importantly, this includes sharing observations/ideas/questions and thoughts—about what you are learning and the material you are studying; about developments, changes and trends in society (and the world overall); about ways and openings to promote this revolution and its leadership; about how people (those you know and people more broadly) are viewing and discussing different things going on in society/the world, what this reveals about openings for revolution and jolts in society but also the need to transform people’s thinking; about major events and developments in music and the arts... just to give a few examples.

These are all VERY IMPORTANT contributions to the revolutionary process, and it would be wrong to think otherwise.

So, let me end this where I began: This process we have embarked on has been—and will continue to be—deeply meaningful, really exciting, and a lot of fun. And this is a crucial part of actually participating in and contributing to the process of building for the revolution that is so urgently needed.

THE NEW COMMUNISM

The science, the strategy, the leadership for an actual revolution, and a radically new society on the road to real emancipation, by Bob Avakian

Download PDF of book here

Read more

Breakthroughs —

The Historic Breakthrough by Marx, and the Further Breakthrough with the New Communism
A Basic Summary

Updated prepublication copy, April 10, 2019
Read or download (searchable PDF)

 

Follow: @TheRevcoms
Read: www.revcom.us
Watch: youtube.com/TheRevComs

 

Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.

 

Get a free email subscription to revcom.us:



 


 

Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/349/watching-Fruitvale-Station-with-Bob-Avakian-en.html

Watching Fruitvale Station With Bob Avakian

August 22, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

This article was originally published in 2014.

For those who don’t know, Fruitvale Station is a very powerful, moving, and excruciating film that depicts the last day in the life of Oscar Grant.  Oscar was a 22-year-old, unarmed Black man murdered by Bay Area Rapid Transit police on New Year’s Day, 2009.  He was returning home from celebrating on New Year’s Eve, when police stopped Oscar and the friends he was with, harassed and brutalized them, straddled Oscar as he lay face down on a subway platform, and fatally shot him in the back. 

Not too long ago, I watched Fruitvale Station with Bob Avakian (BA), chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party.  Towards the very end of the film, agonizing, heartbreaking and infuriating scenes are shown: The cop shooting Oscar in the back; Oscar’s girlfriend frantically rushing to the scene, trying to find out what happened; Oscar’s loved ones gathering together and waiting desperately to find out if he would make it, only to find out he was gone forever.

As these scenes unfolded, I looked over at BA.  He was sobbing.  Not just misty-eyed. Sobbing.  And he continued to cry tears of heartbreak and rage for several minutes, as the closing credits rolled.

This made a very big impression on me.  BA did not know Oscar Grant personally. But he felt the sting of his murder in an extremely raw and visceral way. And I think his reaction speaks volumes about who Bob Avakian is, what he represents, and what he is all about. 

BA has literally been fighting against this system for 50 years.  He has been a revolutionary communist for about 45 years.  He has been shouldering the responsibility of leading the Revolutionary Communist Party for almost 40 years. And over the course of the last several decades, he has forged the theory and deepened the science for the revolution humanity needs to get free, while also providing practical leadership to the party and movement working for that revolution.  And all of this has involved not only tremendous work, but also tremendous risk and sacrifice on BA’s part as anyone with a sense of U.S. history, and/or BA’s personal history—specifically, what this reveals about the way the U.S. government viciously goes after revolutionary leaders—should well understand. And over all these decades, and through everything described above, BA has never lost an ounce of his love and feeling for the masses of people, his sense of outrage and hatred for all the ways in which the masses suffer needlessly, and his fire for revolution to emancipate the masses all over the world.  Not one bone in his body has become numb.  

There is a great deal more that could be said about the experience of watching Fruitvale Station with BA. But I want to highlight two points.

First, I think that in BA’s reaction to this movie, there is a lot for revolutionary communists, and anyone with concern for humanity and hatred for oppression and injustice, to reflect on and learn from.  Even with all the work BA has done and continues to do in the realm of theory, in order to forge a deeper understanding of why police murders like the execution of Oscar Grant and countless other outrages keep happening, the larger picture they are connected to, and how these outrages can be ended through revolution; even though BA has been at this for decades; and even with all of the horrors that pile up every single second that this system remains in place, there is absolutely no sense on BA’s part of world-weary detachment or defeatism when something like the murder of Oscar Grant goes down.  His reaction is decidedly not:  “Oh, well of course, this happens all the time, what do you expect?”   Rather, he cries tears of rage and anguish, both because he feels acutely the pain of Oscar’s life being stolen and because he knows that outrages like this are completely unnecessary and that humanity does not have to live this way.

This brings me to the second point I want to make here—and it is one I want to give even greater emphasis to, even while the first point above is very important and very related. The point I want to close this letter with is: We had better fully recognize and appreciate what we have in BA, and act accordingly.

I’ll say it again: We had better fully recognize and appreciate what we have in BA, and act accordingly.

And when I say “we had better,” that “we” is addressed to many different people and audiences.  Yes, I am most definitely speaking to revolutionaries and communists and to all those who are already deeply familiar with and supportive of BA.  But in saying “we,” I am also speaking to those who are just now—or just recently—learning about and getting introduced to this revolutionary leader—including, to quote BA, “Those this system has cast off, those it has treated as less than human” who “can be the backbone and driving force of a fight not only to end their own oppression, but to finally end all oppression, and emancipate all of humanity.”   

To all the masses of people, here and around the world, who suffer brutal oppression minute after minute, day after day... and to all those who may not directly suffer this oppression but ache for a world where this oppression is no more, I want to say this:  If you do not know about Bob Avakian, or just recently learned about him, that is not your fault.  But you, and millions of other people, need to understand how incredibly rare and precious it is for the people of the planet that we have this revolutionary leader and act in accordance with that reality.

BA is not only the leader of the revolution, he is also a best friend to the masses of people.  He is a leader who has done decades of work in the realm of theory to bring forward the scientific method, strategy and vision needed to make revolution and bring into being a radically new world where all the horrors that humanity suffers unnecessarily would be no more. He is continuing to develop the advanced scientific method that he has forged, and apply that method to all of the big questions and obstacles confronting the revolution. He is able to break all of this down for people, without even slightly watering it down, in a way that everyone can understand, take up, and be inspired by. He has taken on the daily responsibility of leading a party and a movement to make revolution right here in the most powerful imperialist country in the world. He has dedicated his life to the emancipation of humanity. And, through all of this, he maintains a deep, visceral connection to and feeling for the masses of people who most desperately need this revolution.

A leader like this comes along very, very rarely.  And when this does happen, the absolute worst thing we could do is fail to recognize this, fail to act in accordance with this, fail to take this seriously, or take this for granted.  Instead, all of us—whether we have known about BA for decades, are just learning about him and what he represents, or anywhere in between, and whether you agree with BA about everything or not—must fully recognize and embrace what BA means for the people of the world.  We must study, and learn all we can from his incredible body of work on the biggest questions of revolution and human emancipation, as well as the lessons of who he is and what he stands for as a revolutionary leader.  We must realize that it is not just us who need to know about BA, his work and vision, and the leadership he is providing to this party and movement for revolution:  millions of people must know about all of this, and this must impact all of society.    

Furthermore, and very crucially, we must fully confront the reality of what it would mean for the people of the world to lose this leader, and take extremely seriously that there are people and forces—those officially part of the powers-that-be, as well as those willing to do the work of the powers-that-be—who hate what BA represents and would like nothing more than to tear him down, silence him, and take him from the masses of people.  And we must be absolutely determined not to let that happen.

This means taking very seriously the need to do everything we can to protect and defend BA. This means denouncing and not giving a millimeter of space to those who slander and personally attack BA, because these attacks and slanders are part of creating the poisonous atmosphere and conditions that would make it easier for the powers-that-be, or those doing their bidding, to take BA from the people of the world.  Protecting and defending BA, and building a wall around him, also means boldly and sharply challenging those who may not be part of the camp of the enemy, but who are wallowing in, or at least being influenced by, arrogance, cynicism and snark, and who seek to dismiss without seriously engaging what BA has brought forward; this arrogance, snark, cynicism, and dismissal, regardless of the intent of those who fall into it, stands in the way of BA and all that he has brought forward having the reach and societal influence that this urgently needs to have.  And this, too, creates easier conditions for those who would try to silence and isolate BA and take him from the masses.

Few things in life are more tragic than a critical lesson learned too late. And it would truly be a tragedy if BA were taken from the people, and then people said: “Wow, I wish I had realized sooner what we had here.”

But the good news is: It is not too late.  We, and the masses of the planet, have BA right now.  We had better realize, and let everyone know, what that means.

 

 


 

Permalink: https://revcom.us/avakian/film-trump-pence-regime-must-go/bob_avakian-the-great-tautological-fallacy-en.html

The Great Tautological Fallacy

Bob Avakian

| revcom.us

 

In confronting and moving to prevent [the full imposition of fascism], one of the biggest obstacles standing in the way, and weighing people down, is American chauvinism—the disgusting notion that America and Americans are better and more important than everybody else.

The following is from the 2017 speech THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO! In The Name of Humanity We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America: A Better World IS Possible. The full speech, and other of Bob Avakian's works, can be accessed at www.revcom.us. Bob Avakian has brought forward the new communism and leads the movement for revolution in the U.S.

 

In confronting and moving to prevent [the full imposition of fascism], one of the biggest obstacles standing in the way, and weighing people down, is American chauvinism—the disgusting notion that America and Americans are better and more important than everybody else. This is a poison infecting people broadly in this country, even among the bitterly oppressed, and there is a great need for people to break with this American chauvinism. Free yourself from the GTF!— the Great Tautological Fallacy. A fallacy: an idea, or a way of thinking, that is false, wrong. A tautology: a round-in-a-circle way of reasoning that asserts something and then claims to prove it by merely asserting the same thing again. So, the Great Tautological Fallacy to which I am referring is the notion that America is a force for good in the world, and therefore whatever it does is good (or at least done with “good intentions”), even if the same thing when done by other forces, especially forces opposed to “us,” is bad, is evil—because... because America is a force for good in the world. Thus, in the grip of the Great Tautological Fallacy, when one is told by the authorities in government and the media, etc., that North Korea developing a small number of nuclear weapons and a few long-range ballistic missiles poses a “grave threat,” one does not question, one does not ask why that is a “grave threat,” while the only country ever to use nuclear weapons, the United States, having thousands of nuclear weapons and  the capability to use them, anywhere in the world, is somehow not a grave threat. Under the influence of the Great Tautological Fallacy, one does not stop to think about the fact that, in this situation, North Korea could only be developing this weaponry as an attempt to deter an attack from the United States—for North Korea’s leaders know that if they initiated an attack, they would face massive, overwhelming retaliation—and from the point of view of the imperial rulers of the United States, such a possibility of deterrence is precisely the problem, because it could in some measure limit the ability of the U.S. to dominate and dictate.

Here is another example: Recently, Chelsea Manning, a former soldier, who took great risk and spent years in prison for exposing, among other things, war crimes by the U.S. military in Iraq, was extended an invitation to be a lecturer in an academic program at Harvard University. But then, when some government officials and others, including Mike Pompeo, objected and threatened to pull out of the program, Harvard disinvited Manning. Well, who is Mike Pompeo? He is the head of the CIA—an “intelligence” arm of the U.S. government which, without exaggeration, is an instrument of murder on a mass scale. Going back to the 1950s, and through succeeding decades,  the CIA has worked through right-wing butchers, in countries such as Iran, Guatemala, Chile, Indonesia, and many others, to pull off coups that have removed popular governments from power and replaced them with murderous reactionary dictatorships. More than a million people have been slaughtered as a result of these actions by the CIA. But, through the lens of the Great Tautological Fallacy, the head of the CIA is a respected figure, and his denunciations of Chelsea Manning can cause Manning to be ousted from the program to which she was invited at Harvard.

Of great help in casting off the Great Tautological Fallacy is the “American Crime” series that appears regularly on revcom.us—where you can get a beginning sense of the scope and the depth of the atrocities that have been carried out, here and all over the world, by the rulers of this country, from the beginning and down to today.

But from childhood we are indoctrinated with the notion that America is a shining light of freedom, and the President of the United States is “the leader of the free world.” Well, when has this been true? Was it true during all the years of slavery? Or during the long years of Jim Crow segregation after the Civil War, when thousands of Black people were lynched while leering mobs of white racists celebrated, and Black people as a whole were subjected to constant terror? Is this a shining light of freedom now, when Black people have to take to the streets demanding “Stop Killing Us!” because the police kill a thousand people every year, many of them unarmed, especially Black people, Latinos, and Native Americans? When millions of women are battered and huge numbers are raped every year in this country, is this a shining light to the world? And what is this “free world"? Does it include the countries where the U.S. has backed and armed military juntas and other oppressive dictatorships, with their bloodthirsty death squads terrorizing the people, over the last 100 years and more, throughout Latin America and many other parts of the world? Does it include today countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey—all “allies” of the U.S. and all ruled by brutally repressive governments? Or what about the Philippines, where the government has carried out the cold-blooded murder of more than 10,000 people within the last year, and the head of state, Duterte, openly boasts of this? Does the “free world” include Israel, a nuclear-armed state that has occupied Palestinian land, in flagrant violation of UN resolutions, for 50 years, and forcibly maintains over a million Palestinian people in Gaza in what amounts to an open-air prison, living barely above survival level, and subject to repeated bombardment by Israeli armed forces, which in 2014, with full support from the U.S. government (headed then by Obama), killed over 2000 people in Gaza, the overwhelming majority civilians, hundreds of them children? Is all this the “free world” of which the U.S. is the leader? Once you remove the blinders of the Great Tautological Fallacy, it can be seen that the “free world” simply means those parts of the world that are under the domination of, or are “friendly” to, the United States, no matter how monstrous their ruling classes may be, while the “non-free world” is made up of those who remain outside of, and especially those who pose opposition or obstacles to, the domination of the U.S. empire.

The U.S. government wages war in Africa and Asia, as well as the Middle East, claiming it is fighting to defend civilization against the brutal and murderous Islamic fundamentalist jihadists. But the imperialists of the U.S. are certainly no less brutal and murderous, and the “civilization” they boast of is literally built on the blood and bones of people all over the world. And why is this Islamic fundamentalism such a force now? Fundamentally because of the workings of capitalist imperialism itself. Besides the overall role of imperialism in creating more favorable soil for these Islamic fundamentalists, actions of the U.S. imperialists have further fed their growth.

In the 1980s the U.S. actually armed and built up Osama bin Laden and other Islamic fundamentalists to strike at the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

In 2003, in violation of international law, the U.S. invaded Iraq to overthrow the head of government there, Saddam Hussein. This invasion was carried out under the cover of lies that Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. This invasion, and the occupation of Iraq by American forces that followed, caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, set off bloody conflicts among the Iraqi people and created more fertile ground for Islamic fundamentalist forces.

And the same thing happened in Libya. Under the presidency of Barack Obama, and with the insistent urging of then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the U.S. intervened in a conflict within Libya on the side of forces opposed to the long-time ruler Muammar Qaddafi. With the fall of Qaddafi—which was brought about mainly as a result of massive bombing of his forces by the U.S. and its allies—the rivalries and conflicts within Libya were intensified, and Islamic fundamentalist forces gained strength.

Or take the case of Iran. In 1953 the CIA engineered a coup that overthrew a popular government that was moving to nationalize the oil of the country, so that it could be used for the development of its economy, instead of being controlled and plundered by the U.S. and Britain. This coup brought the Shah of Iran to power, and the people of Iran suffered decades of torment and torture at the hands of the Shah and his secret police. And, here again, these actions of the U.S. created more favorable ground for the forces of Islamic fundamentalism, which ultimately seized power through the revolution that overthrew the Shah in 1979.

These are only a few examples of the American crimes that have been committed, and the kinds of consequences that have followed from these crimes, in countries all over the world. And all this underlines the crucial importance of casting off the blinders of the Great Tautological Fallacy and breaking with American chauvinism. We need to think about humanity, first and above all.

During the 1960s, a whole generation (or a large and defining part of that generation) broke with American chauvinism, cast off the Great Tautological Fallacy and, at the cost of real sacrifice, dared to stand up against the atrocities committed, here and throughout the world, by the rulers of this country, and fight for a better world. Unfortunately, all too many (though not all!) of that generation have become disoriented and have allowed themselves to become, as the French say, “récupéré”—that is, they have come  back under the wing of the ruling class, in particular its “liberal” representatives in the Democratic Party, and have far too much accepted things on the terms of a system they once, very rightly, recognized as viciously criminal. But now, when the workings of this system have brought this fascist regime to power, there is, more than ever, a profound and urgent need for people, of all generations, to finally and thoroughly break with American chauvinism, and act in the interests of humanity.

 

Bob Avakian has brought forward the new communism and leads the movement for revolution in the U.S. The above is from his 2017 speech, THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO! In The Name of Humanity We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America: A Better World IS Possible. The video of the whole speech and this excerpt in particular is available online at www.revcom.us.

Clip: "Free Yourself from the GTF!"

 

 

Follow: @TheRevcoms
Read: www.revcom.us
Watch: youtube.com/TheRevComs

 

Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.

 

Get a free email subscription to revcom.us:



 


 

Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/630/fundraising-cards-for-the-revolution-tour-en.html

Revolutionary Greeting Cards Throughout the Year
Fundraising for the Revolution Tour

| revcom.us

 

These are the revolutionary greeting cards you have been waiting for! Six different pictures of the Tour and the Revolution Clubs out in the world, Fighting the Power, and Transforming the People, for Revolution! This is a creative way to spread word of and support for the Tour—and to raise urgently needed funds. Each 5x7 card features a picture of the Tour out in the world and a quote from Bob Avakian. Click here for the cards and instructions for downloading and producing them.

There are many creative ways to use these cards. Sell them individually or in packages as a fundraiser for the Tour—and encourage others to do so. Use them yourself. Use them to thank people you know for donating to the Tour. Sell them at a stoop sale or flea market. Buy a set for yourself and frame the pictures to hang on your wall.

Write into revolution.reports@yahoo.com with reports of how you used them and what response you got from others.

Donate to and Sustain the National Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour

Each revolutionary greeting card features a picture of the Tour out in the world and a quote from Bob Avakian. These are the pictures:


1. Revolution Tour Debut in Los Angeles, June 8, 2019


2. Standing up for abortion rights at a performance of Les Misérables in Los Angeles


3. Shutting Down Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, August 8, 2019


4. At the Climate March in NYC, September 23, 2019


5. Revolution Club Chicago in Louisiana at the #SlaveRebellionReenactment


6. July 4, 2019, burning the U.S. flag in front of the White House

Instructions for producing the revolutionary greeting cards

 

 

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/630/instructions-for-tour-greeting-cards-en.html

Revolutionary greeting cards throughout the year!

INSTRUCTIONS FOR PRODUCING THE CARDS

| revcom.us

 

There are six cards: six different images and six BA quotes—one chosen for each image, with a brief explanation of what the tour is.

There are two methods for producing the cards:

Materials:

For both methods you will need card stock and envelopes. We suggest doing this in quantity and then distributing them to many different friends to distribute and sell. You will probably get the best price by ordering online.

Options:

You will need an inkjet printer.

Method 1—printing the photo separately, printing the text on the card, gluing the photo onto the card:

Method 2—printing photo and text directly onto the card:

NOTE: These instructions may not cover every contingency. You may have to experiment to get it right. If you have suggestions to improve the instructions please send them to revolution.reports@yahoo.com.

Cost and Pricing:

If you order materials in bulk the cost per card should be $1 or less. We suggest charging $5 per card and you could sell the set of six for $25.

CARDS:

1. Revolution Tour Debut in Los Angeles, June 8, 2019

For Method 1:
Card, front and back, without image (pdf)
4X6 image (jpeg)

For Method 2:
Card, front and back, with image (pdf)

2. Standing up for abortion rights at a performance of Les Misérables in Los Angeles

For Method 1:
Card, front and back, without image (pdf)
4X6 image (jpeg)

For Method 2:
Card, front and back, with image (pdf)

3. Shutting Down Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, August 8, 2019

For Method 1:
Card, front and back, without image (pdf)
4X6 image (jpeg)

For Method 2:
Card, front and back, with image (pdf)

4. At the Climate March in NYC, September 23, 2019

For Method 1:
Card, front and back, without image (pdf)
4X6 image (jpeg)

For Method 2:
Card, front and back, with image (pdf)

5. Revolution Club Chicago in Louisiana at the #SlaveRebellionReenactment

For Method 1:
Card, front and back, without image (pdf)
4X6 image (jpeg)

For Method 2:
Card, front and back, with image (pdf)

6. July 4, 2019, burning the U.S. flag in front of the White House

For Method 1:
Card, front and back, without image (pdf)
4X6 image (jpeg)

For Method 2:
Card, front and back, with image (pdf)

 

 

Follow: @TheRevcoms
Read: www.revcom.us
Watch: youtube.com/TheRevComs

 

Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.

 

Get a free email subscription to revcom.us:



 


 

Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/632/there-was-a-counter-protest-to-the-phony-gun-rights-rally-en.html

Yes, Virginia There WAS A Counter-Protest to the Phony “Gun Rights” Rally... And Here’s Why It’s Important

By Lucha Bright, member of the National Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour

| revcom.us

 

If you scanned the headlines, you were told the massive “gun rights” rally in Richmond, Virginia on Martin Luther King Day was a peaceful gathering of law-abiding people who disagree with the gun restrictions passed by the Democrats. You were told that marginal factions of white supremacists tried to infiltrate it and cause trouble, but that didn't happen. You were told to be relieved.

YOU WERE LIED TO.

What was on display in Richmond was not a “gun rights” rally. It was a show of force by a growing white supremacist fascist base being primed for civil war by the Trump/Pence regime.

I know. I was there. And yes, there was a counter-protest right in the face of these fascists toting automatic weapons... quiet as it's been kept. I was part of it, along with some comrades.

Coming into downtown Richmond, a city that is 50% Black, there were no Black people in sight on Martin Luther King Day. Instead, the otherwise deserted streets were filled with armed white men in paramilitary gear. You felt that the lynch mob had arrived and terrorized people into their homes. I was with a group of Black, white, Asian and Latino men and women. As we walked through, the comment “smells like fried chicken” was repeatedly directed toward the Black people in our group.

“Waving their Trump flags... chanting ‘USA, USA,’ it was very similar to watching those black-and-white films of Nuremberg rallies of Nazis chanting ‘sieg heil’...,” said Luna Hernandez, a member of the National Revolution Tour who was part of the counter-protest. “Some of the fascists [were] talking about antifa, saying ‘I’d like to see them come right up in here and get their asses beat... imagine if they did with all these guns here, I have 27 acres and a bucket of acid,’ basically hearkening to, ‘I’m going to wipe these people out and laugh about it and bury them in my own backyard’ and also talking about immigrants and comparing their bullets to bug spray, ‘I’m going to kill all these roaches.’”

At the capitol building, the majority of these thugs stayed outside the temporary gun-free zone established in the state of emergency declaration by the governor, chanting “We will not comply!” and “Trump 2020.”

Up close, this was fairly terrifying. But once we began our protest, our fear was overtaken by defiance and joy: we were standing up together against this terror, we were acting in the interests of humanity and making a different future more possible... and it felt good!

We unfurled four banners: “Trump/Pence #OUTNOW!,” “NO White Supremacy,” “A Better World IS Possible,” “Revolution — Nothing Less!” and shouted each slogan together. Heads turned toward us and Carl Dix’s voice rang out with a message to the world, beginning by reaching through the whole history of this country: “There is a direct line from the Confederacy to the fascists of today,” quoting the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian. The fascists began chanting “USA” and “Trump 2020!” We did this protest first in the center of where the official rally was to be held in the gun-free zone, and then again outside of that area right in the midst of gun-toting fascists.

That we weren’t violently attacked is not a testament to a “peaceful rally.” I was in Charlottesville in 2017 and was bashed in the head and sent to the hospital by white supremacists shortly before Heather Heyer was murdered. This Richmond rally was filled with the same kind of forces. The difference is: now they have a broader base of support, and some of the more strategic groups called for their forces to be tactical and not have a riot. No, not every person there was in a white-supremacist militia, but all of them were comfortable swimming in a sewer of white supremacy and giving it active backing.

There should have been a huge outpouring against this. Instead, everyone besides us was mainly intimidated into acquiescence. Many organizations told people to stay home because it wasn’t safe. A legislator with the Democratic Socialists of America announced he was going into hiding that day. Other so-called progressive organizations who oppose the gun restrictions were willing to pretend this wasn’t a fascist rally and even try to unite with it.

The Trump/Pence regime and their followers talk regularly in terms of civil war. Trump speaks of having the support of the military, police and Bikers for Trump: “tough people” who “don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad.” He has suggested he will not leave office, even if voted out. He is currently on trial for trying to sabotage an election.

In that light: What does it mean that on the eve of the impeachment trial, an armed mob can threaten Democratic legislators and surround the Virginia capitol building chanting “We Will Not Comply” and “Trump 2020”? What does it mean that in the face of that, the “left” collapses and the media normalizes all this?

In going to Richmond we took to heart a challenge from the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian last summer, “If you will not take to the streets now to demand that the Trump/Pence regime must go, what will you do if Trump is re-elected (perhaps through the electoral college, even if he again loses the popular vote)? And what will you do if Trump loses the election (even by the electoral college count) but then refuses to recognize the results and insists he is still President?!” (See: Individualism, BEB, and the Illusion of “Painless Progress”.)

Over three years we’ve seen murderous white supremacists declared “fine people,” immigrants locked in concentration camps, presidential rallies encouraging violence, threats of nuclear war and shredding of environmental protections, a full-out assault on truth and science, the right to abortion nearly gone.

Now, Trump is finally on trial for a small portion of his crimes, and if the tens of millions of us who reject this future — even in hundreds at first, and growing to thousands and then more — started pouring into the streets now, the outcome of the senate trial could be very different than where the current sham trial is now headed. If we are mobilized in this way, even an acquittal could fuel further protests that grow — akin to what we’ve seen all over the world in the last year. But this won’t happen if we sit back and wait. RefuseFascism.org is calling for these protests, demanding Trump/Pence #OUTNOW!, and the National Revolution Tour is in Washington, DC this week contributing to this.

At the same time, the larger reality is this: if there is going to be a radically alternative future, we have to go all the way to the roots. There is an analysis of the rise of this fascist regime and how to dislodge it in the work Bob Avakian has done. More fundamentally, he has brought forward a scientific approach, the new communism, that digs all the way into the soil that gave rise to this fascism — the very functioning of the capitalist-imperialist system — and shows why and how the horrors humanity now faces are completely unnecessary and a better world really IS possible through an actual revolution.

It is because of this scientific understanding and leadership that we in the National Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour were able to see the need and possibility of going into the heart of the fascist rally to counter-protest it. So instead of being weighed down or refusing to look at how bad this all is, instead of turning inward to focus on self or being consumed by fear, we were able to confront reality and act in a way that can forge something new.

In these dangerous and truly high stakes days, we all need to come out of our comfort zones. I urge you to lift your sights to a whole better way the world could be by digging into the work of Bob Avakian and following where it takes you. At the same time, I urge you to step into the streets in DC — or around the country — on January 29th to demand the removal of the Trump/Pence regime as this historic impeachment battle is still unfolding.

The future is unwritten. Trump's side is fighting with all they've got. Will all of us do the same?

Also:

Facing Down 22,000 Heavily Armed, Mostly MAGA Fanatics
The Revolution Tour Represents for a Radically Different Future

Read more

Watch the January 21 Report Back from Richmond, Virginia by Carl Dix and others from National Revolution Tour!

Watch and spread this video everywhere now!

The following is taken from the talk
Hope For Humanity On A Scientific Basis
Breaking with Individualism, Parasitism and American Chauvinism
by Bob Avakian

Individualism, BEB and the Illusion of “Painless Progress”

With a Note Added by the Author, Fall 2019

Read more

To know and change the world...
get into Bob Avakian (BA),
the leader of the revolution.

To know and change the world... get into Bob Avakian (BA), the leader of the revolution.

Reposted from RefuseFascism.org:

If Trump is acquitted in a sham trial, a fascist regime will barrel ahead with disastrous consequences for humanity.

Trump and Pence #OUTNOW!

Flood DC. Protest Wednesday, January 29.

» 11:00 am east side of U.S. Capitol: Rally demanding Trump/Pence #OUTNOW!

Meet on the SW corner of 1st Street North East and Constitution Ave

» 5:00 pm march/outreach to communities in DC.

Meet up at the Capitol, Delaware Ave NE and Northeast Dr

Read more

 

 

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Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/632/the-senate-vote-a-vctory-for-fascism-en.html

Urgently Needed: Struggle in the Streets

The Senate Vote to Suppress Witness Testimony Is a Victory for Fascism

| revcom.us

 

Editors’ note: a version of this article appeared on revcom.us on February 1. As developments have continued and as our understanding has deepened, substantive changes have been made to some parts of it.

Friday, January 31, the Senate voted 51 to 49 to refuse to hear further witnesses in the impeachment trial of Trump. Every Republican senator, with two exceptions, voted against hearing witnesses. They did this despite the fact that John Bolton, one of the former top officials of the Trump/Pence regime, had offered to testify. By all accounts, Bolton was ready to verify that Trump had personally admitted to him withholding military aid to force Ukrainian president Zelensky to publicly announce an investigation of Trump’s political opponent Joe Biden for corruption. In other words, Bolton would have likely given first person direct evidence that Trump was corruptly and illegally using the power of the presidency for personal gain to discredit his main political rival in the upcoming presidential election.

Prior to this, a large part of Trump’s defense had rested on the fact that no witness had yet been able to testify that Trump had directly stated to them his motive for withholding aid. Why? Because Trump refused to cooperate at all with the impeachment inquiry. He forbade anyone in his administration from testifying. In other words, Trump’s lawyers and Senate Republicans had said that Trump should not be impeached because there were no direct eyewitnesses. Now, when a credible eyewitness presented himself, they refused to let that witness testify and scurried to end the trial!

This cleared the Republican path to acquit Trump this coming Wednesday, February 5. And in fact, this had been part of their plan all along—with Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, openly saying before the trial that he was coordinating with Trump and that Trump would be acquitted.

A Big Step Towards Fascism

An acquittal of Trump on these terms is a big step towards a fascist America. Conducted by craven fascist Republicans, this trial seriously undermined the rule of law. The trial legitimated the dangerous idea that truth has no role in governing with the result being that whatever Trump, or any president says and does, goes.

This is a further leap towards fascism which is, in short, a different form of rule by the ruling capitalist class—a blatant dictatorship of open terror and violence by the state, and the discarding of what are supposed to be civil and legal rights as well as what have been traditional bourgeois democratic principles and norms of governance.1 As Bob Avakian points out in “What IS Fascism” and many other works, this fascism did not just emerge with Trump—it is deeply rooted in both long-term and more recent American history and a response to very sharp contradictions in the world today. But it has taken a leap with Trump. The terms of this trial and its actual course underline that point.

Ominous Implications

This vote was a defeat for the rule of law.

Trump’s lawyer Alan Dershowitz literally mounted the defense that if Trump, or any other president, “does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo [a deal] that results in impeachment.” Dershowitz argued that this is because, “Every public official that I know believes that his election is in the public interest.”

What does it mean that the president now gets to define what is legal or not, depending on whether he or she believes that their being elected is in the public interest? How is this different from the president being “a law unto himself”? This argument from Dershowitz gives legal expression to Trump’s bogus theory that—to quote him directly—Article 2 of the Constitution means that “the president can do whatever he wants.” This is the unvarnished version and real meaning of the theory of the “unitary executive” put forward by the fascist attorney general William Barr. And now the Senate has effectively enshrined this. At this point one must ask, is there anything under these rules that Trump—or any other president—could NOT do?

This vote is a defeat for truth.

Bolton’s testimony could have helped get to the truth of what actually happened and opened up the way for others to testify. His testimony might well have led to further evidence of even more criminal activity by Trump and his fellow fascists-in-power to emerge. Faced with this prospect, the Republican senators moved to block this as soon as possible. Bolton is coming out with a book soon that reportedly includes some of the things he would have testified to in the impeachment if witnesses had been allowed. But it is now far from certain that Bolton’s book will even see the light of day, as the White House could move to invoke its “national security” power to censor the key portions of it or even the whole book. What does it mean to the ability of people to know the truth when the executive power can openly and without penalty suppress evidence of its own corrupt and illegal activity? This is an epistemology, as Bob Avakian has said in another context, in which the criterion of truth has been replaced by “might makes right.”2

A Victory for Fascism... That Could Get Still Worse

This is a victory for fascism. As gone into, the denial of truth and the gutting of the rule of law were given official sanction by the trial proceedings. Moreover, if Trump is acquitted, and even more so if there is not significant opposition in the streets, it will be manipulated into a further seal of approval for what has gone on.

Trump himself is almost certain to take revenge against those who opposed him. This could include figures like Adam Schiff, who in many ways spearheaded the impeachment effort and did, from his point of view, make a compelling case that Trump had gutted the rule of law. And in fact, even in the course of this impeachment, Trump made a number of threats that could at least be interpreted as involving violence—threats which no prominent Republican disavowed.

But this will get still worse if what happens now is a single-minded pivot to the elections, with no examination of what really happened here—of the deepening of the fascist threat and what must be done to stop it. There is a larger critique to be made of the role of elections under capitalism (see Communism and Jeffersonian Democracy, by Bob Avakian, in particular these excerpts from pages 29–49), which we will not go into now. But for the purposes of this article it can be said that a) as people like Adam Schiff have predicted, Trump will use what is in fact newly won freedom to do everything he can to mold the elections his way; and b) even if Trump himself were to somehow lose and be removed from office, not only would the deep social contradictions that have given rise to this fascism continue and intensify, but these fascists would also actively seek new ways to redouble their offensive.

Democrats vs. Republicans: A Sharp Divide at the Top that Leaves Humanity in the Lurch; Unless the People Act in Our Own Interests

As the impeachment process showed, there is a sharp split “at the top” between the Republicans and Democrats. But it is important to see what this split is over... and what it is not.

First, the Democratic leadership refused to impeach for almost three years and then when they finally did, they only did so when their then leading candidate for president, former Vice President Joe Biden, was being attacked. President Trump pressured—essentially tried to extort—the government of Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe Biden in exchange for foreign aid to defend their country against Russia. The Democrats saw this as Trump abusing his official power to “cheat” in the 2020 election. And the whole Ukraine affair reflected sharp differences between the Democrats and the Trump/Pence regime over national security. especially concerning Russia. Distilling this, Bob Avakian wrote: “[F]rom their bourgeois perspective, their concern is very real in regard to the imperialist ‘national interests’ of the U.S., the ‘norms’ of how this system’s rule has been imposed and maintained, the importance to them of a ‘peaceful transition’ from one administration to another through elections—and the danger posed to this by Trump’s trampling on these ‘norms'...”

But they didn’t indict Trump for the regime’s many crimes that violate U.S. and international law and which are also outrageous abuses of power. For instance, to take just one of the many outrageous crimes of this regime: the separation of immigrant children from their parents along with putting them in cages and the turning away of refugees desperately seeking asylum contain violations of U.S. and international law and, along with his racist vicious demagoguery that has fomented violence against immigrants, should certainly have been part of his impeachment. And, the same could be said for his outrageously harmful words and deeds against women, LGBTQ people, Muslims, Black people, the environment, and his breaking international norms and law raising the danger of war, even nuclear war. By not indicting Trump on these broader grounds, the terms of the impeachment left the interests of humanity out of the picture, with the result being that the whole Trump/Pence fascist program is further legitimated. This contributed to many people not recognizing the stakes for humanity in the impeachment process—that our interests are not the same as those of the Democratic Party, and why masses of people need to act outside the confines of the normal channels to fight for the future of humanity.

The Democrats do see Trump as a threat... to American capitalist-imperialist interests and legitimacy. On that basis they have real conflicts with him. Indeed, the consolidation of fascism requires the destruction or neutering of their opposition in the government. This is what Trump’s calls to “lock her up,” and labeling opposing politicians “traitors” reflect. The move to impeach marked a heightening of those conflicts. But the Democrats also worked to keep that within the narrow political constraints outlined above AND they refused to seriously call into the streets the millions in society who hate much or all of what Trump stands for. Along with that, they almost to a person have refused to call this regime out for what it is: fascist. Because if they did do that, then the implication WOULD be for people to do everything they can to stop such a thing; it could deeply shake people’s faith in that system and its “proper procedures,” spur people to take the streets in genuine resistance that could get out of their control, and spark a search for larger and more fundamental solutions to what we face.

At the same time, the fact that the Democrats did feel driven to impeach, even on narrow terms and even without themselves calling people into the streets, did make a difference. The impeachment itself was a blow to Trump, at least temporarily. The impeachment dragged to light even more ugly crap from the regime and the act itself did raise people’s hopes. In fact, on the night of the House impeachment vote tens of thousands around the country DID come into the streets.

But that, unfortunately, is where it stopped. There were protests involving hundreds and at times several thousands nationwide, and small groups did sit in Congressional offices at different times. Yet imagine the difference it might have made had tens and hundreds of thousands been sitting in at Senate offices, taking over the streets all across the country, demanding the removal of this regime, and making clear their determination to refuse to accept a fascist America. While nothing is certain, even in the short term it might have resulted in two senators voting differently and a whole process where even more of the truth began to spill out, leading to more mass outpouring, and a whole back-and-forth process.

What Must Be Done Right Now

These next few days will very likely witness the culmination of a certain stage of this struggle concentrated around the impeachment. Yet for all the reasons stated above, this conflict is not going away. Those who went on Twitter on Friday night to denounce the verdict have a responsibility to show up now in the streets, wherever you are. Those of you caught up in the elections who in part are driven there by your hatred of Trump and the fascist threat represented by him and Pence also have a responsibility to put your body in the streets.

On Monday, senators will make final arguments in the case. Tuesday night, Trump gives his State of the Union speech, in which he will almost certainly take the offensive against those who impeached him. Then on Wednesday, the Senate will vote. At this time, fascist victory in the Senate seems all but certain.

But what people do—what YOU do—in the next few days will matter greatly to the future. It will make a huge difference whether people in their masses continue to sit passively, either absorbing themselves in the elections as a substitute for action or sitting on their couches despairing for the future, or whether there is serious protest in the streets saying NO! and declaring determination to fight on, truly resist, and ultimately drive this regime out. It will raise a standard and challenge the tens of millions who do hate this regime but as yet do nothing to directly confront it, and it will give hope to those here and around the world who suffer its grave attacks and terrible injustices.

The months to come are not necessarily going to be smooth sailing to the elections. Severe jolts—including perhaps occasioned by attacks on prominent Democrats or forces aligned with them—could occur. The question is what kind of opposition those will meet, and where will it go. And that is up to us.

 

1. What IS Fascism? – a full definition

Fascism is the exercise of blatant dictatorship by the bourgeois (capitalist-imperialist) class, ruling through reliance on open terror and violence, trampling on what are supposed to be civil and legal rights, wielding the power of the state, and mobilizing organized groups of fanatical thugs, to commit atrocities against masses of people, particularly groups of people identified as “enemies,” “undesirables,” or “dangers to society.”

At the same time—and this can be seen through studying the examples of Nazi Germany and Italy under Mussolini—while it will likely move quickly to enforce certain repressive measures in consolidating its rule, a fascist regime is also likely to implement its program overall through a series of stages and even attempt at different points to reassure the people, or certain groups among the people, that they will escape the horrors—if they quietly go along and do not protest or resist while others are being terrorized and targeted for repression, deportation, “conversion,” prison, or execution. [back]

2. Bob Avakian wrote:

For humanity to advance beyond a state in which “might makes right”—and where things ultimately come down to raw power relations—will require, as a fundamental element in this advance, an approach to understanding things (an epistemology) which recognizes that reality and truth are objective and do not vary in accordance with, nor depend on, different “narratives” and how much “authority” an idea (or “narrative”) may have behind it, or how much power and force can be wielded on behalf of any particular idea or “narrative,” at any given point.

BAsics 4:10 [back]

Read more

Bob Avakian—the direct line from the Confederacy to the fascists of today—illustrated film clip

Reposted from RefuseFascism.org:

A Big Step Toward Fascism and the Challenge Before Us

Senate Republicans have blocked witnesses and gutted the rule of law, clearing the way to acquit Trump on February 5.

This Cannot Go Down Unopposed!

Urgently Needed: People in the streets Monday through Wednesday refusing to accept this.

Read more

Go to RefuseFascism.org to read more.

 

 

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Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/632/revolution-reprint-bastion-of-enlightenment-or-enforcer-of-imperialism-en.html

In the Wake of Trump’s Middle East “Peace Plan”

Revolution Reprint:
Bastion of Enlightenment... or Enforcer of Imperialism: The Case of ISRAEL

| revcom.us

 

Editors’ note:

On January 18, Trump announced what he called a Middle East peace plan. This plan gives the right-wing government in Israel everything it has asked for. It legalizes Israel’s seizure of the most fertile Palestinian land. It legalizes Israel’s seizure of what had been the most important Palestinian city, Jerusalem. It says that if there is to be a Palestinian state in the future, it will be on different bits of terrible land separated from each other, and that this so-called state will not be allowed to have an army.

This plan does represent a major escalation in the oppression of the Palestinian people. Both parts of that phrase are important. It is an escalation of what has been the state of things for 75 years, since Israel was founded on the dispossession of Palestinians’ land. But it is also major, a new phase of this.

The following piece originally ran as a special issue of Revolution newspaper: “Bastion of Enlightenment... or Enforcer for Imperialism: The Case of ISRAEL” goes deeply into the roots of what has now come to fruition in Trump’s plan. In the face of this, we encourage our readers to find ways to connect the movement for an actual revolution with actions to protest Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians, and to study, share, and inject this special issue into the discussion that should rage around this.

 

 

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Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

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The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

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So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/632/two-opposed-responses-to-the-holocaust-and-never-again-en.html

Two Diametrically Opposed Responses to the Holocaust and "Never Again"

| revcom.us

 

The persecution of the Jews by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Germany in the years 1933-1945 resulted in the murder of six million Jewish people, along with other ethnic and sexual minorities. This is the Holocaust.

There have been two basic approaches to the lessons of the Holocaust, as Bob Avakian pointed out in his dialogue with Cornel West (“Bob Avakian on Revenge vs. the Emancipation of ALL Humanity”). Both use the phrase “never again.” One way is to say “never again will my people be victimized, and anything we do to anyone else to prevent that is justified.” This has been used by the state of Israel and its backers to justify the decades of genocidal terror and murder and cruel dispossession against millions of oppressed Palestinians.

Then there are those who said, “never again should such horrors happen to anyone—never again should crimes against humanity be allowed to go on while people plead ignorance or impotence as an excuse to do nothing to stop those crimes.” Among those expressing this most compellingly have been Jewish survivors and descendants of survivors of the Holocaust, speaking out in opposition to the crimes of the state of Israel. The following are some of those voices:

A Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, living in Israel, who went on a hunger strike to protest Israel’s 1982 bombing of Beirut, Lebanon1:

In my childhood I have suffered fear, hunger and humiliation when I passed from the Warsaw Ghetto, through labor camps, to Buchenwald [a Nazi concentration camp]. Today, as a citizen of Israel, I cannot accept the systematic destruction of cities, towns, and refugee camps. I cannot accept the technocratic cruelty of the bombing, destroying and killing of human beings.... Too many things in Israel remind me of too many things from my childhood.

From an article by a Canadian author who lived through the Nazi genocide as a child in Hungary2:

[W]hat shall we do, we ordinary people? I pray we can listen to our hearts. My heart tells me that “never again” is not a tribal slogan, that the murder of my grandparents in Auschwitz does not justify the ongoing dispossession of Palestinians, that justice, truth, peace are not tribal prerogatives.

From a 2014 statement by 327 survivors and descendants of survivors and victims of Nazi genocide, against massacre of Palestinians in Gaza3:

As Jewish survivors and descendants of survivors and victims of the Nazi genocide we unequivocally condemn the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza and the ongoing occupation and colonization of historic Palestine. We further condemn the United States for providing Israel with the funding to carry out the attack, and Western states more generally for using their diplomatic muscle to protect Israel from condemnation. Genocide begins with the silence of the world....

We must raise our collective voices and use our collective power to bring about an end to all forms of racism, including the ongoing genocide of Palestinian people. We call for an immediate end to the siege against and blockade of Gaza. We call for the full economic, cultural and academic boycott of Israel. “Never again” must mean NEVER AGAIN FOR ANYONE!

 


1. Dr. Shlomo Shmelzman, cited in Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians by Noam Chomsky, 1999, South End Press.  [back]

2. “Beautiful dream of Israel has become a nightmare,” Gabor Maté, Toronto Star, July 22, 2014.  [back]

3. See “Jewish survivors and descendants of survivors of Nazi genocide unequivocally condemn the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza.”  [back]

 

 

Follow: @TheRevcoms
Read: www.revcom.us
Watch: youtube.com/TheRevComs

 

Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.

 

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