Welcome to The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show; August 11, 2022. I’m Andy Zee, the host of The RNL Show, coming to you from Los Angeles, California.

This is a show about nothing less than a real revolution to overthrow the system we live under.

This is a big deal. It is serious. It is something that is possible only in rare historic times, and when such times are present, everyone who deep in their hearts abhors all the brutal oppression and exploitation that torments people all over the world needs to learn everything they can about why this is so, what can be done about it, and then bend every effort to free, to emancipate, all humanity.

This IS such a rare time. That this is so, is coiled together with grave danger should this opportunity NOT be seized.

We live in a moment of profound crisis, deepening divisions, with the looming possibility of civil war... and all this is tightly bound up with the need and the possibility for a liberating revolution that is urgently needed. With coils tightly wound with the potential to spring loose, will we—people who see the danger and feel that humanity could be capable of far better—be ready.... know what is happening and why and what to do to wrench the future onto another road.

This relationship between great danger and great possibility is captured in the title of the seminal work for this historic time by the revolutionary leader, Bob Avakian (BA): Something Terrible, OR Something Truly Emancipating… a work that is the map to the road of revolution leading to emancipation.

Towards the beginning of this work BA writes

We live under a system—the system of capitalism-imperialism (capitalism is an economic and political system of exploitation and oppression, and imperialism refers to the worldwide nature of this system).

It is this system which is the basic cause of the tremendous suffering that people, all over the world, are subjected to; and this system poses a growing threat to the very existence of humanity, in the way that this system is rapidly destroying the global environment, and in the danger of war between nuclear-armed capitalist-imperialist powers, such as the U.S. and China [and/or Russia].

All this is reality, and no one can escape this reality. Either we radically change it, in a positive way, or everything will be changed in a very negative way.

… [Changing things] in a positive way means making revolution—a real revolution, to overthrow this system of capitalism-imperialism and replace it with a radically different and emancipating system. For it is also a basic truth that: In today’s world, to fundamentally change society, you must seize power—overthrow the existing state power and establish a new state power.

This, an objective, scientific understanding of the root of the problem we face, and why BA starts there, why an objective scientific understanding of reality matters, is a key theme and subject of today’s The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show.

Before I get into why that is so, know that the work, Something Terrible, OR Something Emancipating… goes on to make a penetrating analysis of the current political reality of the deep divisions including at the very top of the government where the fascist Republican Party of Trump no longer believes in or upholds the norms that have held this country, yes with all its crimes against humanity, together since the Civil War. The divide in the U.S. intensifies at a rapid clip. Just this past week, the Biden Justice Department had the FBI launch an unprecedented raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate—18 months after Trump unleashed a mob on the U.S. Capitol. In response to the raid, the fascist hard core has amped up their rhetoric of a new civil war.

Something Terrible, OR Something Emancipating… goes on to develop a profound roadmap for how to seize this moment. An actual strategic approach to organize and train the forces who today seem far from thinking about an actual revolution in this country, but who could be in the swirl of the coming storms if there is a force to struggle with, prepare and organize them for revolution now.

But all of that will be subject for future shows.

A moment ago, I paused to stop on the foundational first points from this work that described the system and moment we are living in stating: “All this is reality, and no one can escape this reality. Either we radically change it, in a positive way, or everything will be changed in a very negative way.”

All this is reality that no one can escape. You can either know it to go to work on it, or be a played on or a victim of it.

In the handbook for revolution, BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian, Chapter 4 is titled “Understanding the World.” The first quotation in this chapter is this:

Oppressed people who are unable or unwilling to confront reality as it actually is, are condemned to remain enslaved and oppressed.

Later in this chapter is this:

The truth will not set us free, in and of itself, but we will not get free without the truth.

We could spend the next three shows discussing the profundity and implications of this. Here I will just say, that a key reason that we here on The RNL Show and the revcoms overall make a big deal out of the work that Bob Avakian has done is because the breakthrough he has made in charting the course for revolution leading to the emancipation of humanity is this: BA has put the already scientific foundation of the science of communism that was developed by Karl Marx on a qualitatively more consistent and thoroughly scientific foundation. Which means there is a way to know the world as it is and, on that basis, how to change it.

We will get into in different parts of The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show today, a focus of which will be the struggle for the right to abortion, which has just been taken from women by the theocratic fascist supreme court is a nodal point, a concentration point, of the struggle between the two futures: one life-stealing, fascist and brutally oppressive, and the other the liberating future possible through a real revolution.

Bob Avakian over decades identified that this would be a pivotal question—the position of women in society—which could not be resolved within the normal framework of the system. Over the last nine months, BA led the revcoms and particularly Sunsara Taylor to unite very broadly and with firm principle to organize Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights (RU4AR) and mobilize masses of people to do all they can to try to stop this by taking to the streets in nonviolent sustained mass protest.

This they did uniting with people of very diverse political views and involving tens of thousands of people in standing up. For this, and really for much more, for not accommodating to this attack, and in the case of Sunsara Taylor, the revcoms and BA, for standing for, advocating for, and bringing to people the revolutionary solution to this and all the dangers that confront the people of the world today, not only has RU4AR been viciously attacked and libeled by some opportunist leftist pro-choice—really, no-choice groups, for their association with Bob Avakian and the revcoms but BA and the revcoms are being viciously and dangerously subjected to a barrage of baseless lies and distortions that have been picked up and spread to fascist and law enforcement websites.

The last several episodes of The RNL Show have taken on these attacks. And later in today’s show, Sunsara Taylor will be interviewing the longtime feminist and pioneer of women’s health care Carol Downer about these attacks.

But the heart of today’s program is the centrality of the struggle for the scientific method and approach to understand the world as it actually is and then to tirelessly struggle with masses of people to take up that method to enable them to play the role that is urgently needed today. This scientific approach informs the morality, strategy, and goal, that is at the heart of Bob Avakian’s leadership. This is, to repeat, a scientific, objective method and approach to know and change the world. This can both open the world and how to change it for you and provide the key for you to be a part of organizing the thousands and ultimately the millions needed for a real revolution.

We will begin with a short clip of BA from the film Why We Need an Actual Revolution and How We Can Really Make Revolution on a scientific understanding of how the oppression of women is bound up with the system of capitalism/imperialism.

This will be followed by our main commentary this week by our comrade and frequent contributor to The RNL Show, Lenny Wolfe, on methods, principles and standards, drawing from an interview that Bob Avakian did in 2012.

We are also going to present a very moving and deep question that comes up when you are struggling to make such a profound change in the world with a goal of nothing less than a revolution to emancipate humanity: Bob Avakian answering a question from a young person who asked him: “You’ve dedicated your life to revolution. Have you ever been discouraged? How do you stay motivated?"

With this as introduction to the 114th Episode of The RNL Show, I want to welcome my cohost Sunsara Taylor back to The RNL Studio in Los Angeles, California.