If you are reading REVOLUTION, you may be one of those “who can’t stand this world the way it is ... who is sick and tired of so many people being treated as less than human ... who knows that the claim of “liberty and justice for all” is a cruel lie ... who is righteously enraged that injustice and inequality go on, and on, and on, despite false promises and honeyed words from people in power (or those seeking power) ... everyone who agonizes about where things are headed and the fact that to be young now means being denied a decent future, or any future at all ... everyone who has ever dreamed about something much better, or even wondered whether that is possible ... everyone who hungers for a world without oppression, exploitation, poverty, and destruction of the environment ... everyone who has the heart to fight for something that is really worth fighting for.”
That is taken from “A Declaration, A Call To Get Organized For A Real Revolution.” And it appears in a crucial talk from Bob Avakian, BA, the revolutionary leader and architect of the new communism, “Something Terrible Or Something Truly Emancipating: Profound Crisis, Deepening Divisions, The Looming Possibility Of Civil War—And The Revolution That Is Urgently Needed, A Necessary Foundation, A Basic Roadmap For This Revolution.”
At the end of the passage quoted above, this challenge is boldly put:
You need to be part of this revolution.
If you feel that challenge in your bones, you have come to the right place. But if you are one of the many more who yearns for radical change, but wonders if it is possible, if you feel discouraged by how so many who should know better don’t seem to care or else to care about all the wrong things, then here is the challenge: these next few weeks could be a crucial time in determining the shape of the future and beginning to challenge the kind of thinking that holds so many back.
On the one side, a “leaked” draft of a Supreme Court decision has revealed that the Republi-fascist majority of that court is determined to overturn the right to abortion. IF THEY SUCCEED, THIS WILL THRUST WOMEN BACK INTO A QUALITATIVELY MORE SUBJUGATED STATE. On the other side, the Democratic Party and the “official” women’s movement and pro-choice organizations tied to the Democratic Party have surrendered in advance and decided not to mobilize and fight to stop the Supreme Court from overturning Roe v. Wade, but instead urge people to vote for the Democrats as part of their program of adjusting to a “post-Roe” America.
Yet there has emerged a force in this society that is determined to not just fight, but to defeat this outrageous attack. RiseUp4AbortionRights has organized women, men and differently-gendered people over the past several months to mount a series of walkouts, die-ins, and marches in the streets that have begun to bring forward the massive, determined and sustained movement needed to defeat this attack.
This issue of revcom.us focuses on the orientation we need to go forward now, with a crucial excerpt from The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show. This accompanies crucial guidance in clarifying the issues and sorting out right and wrong ways of understanding what this attack is all about, why it is happening, and how we must proceed in fighting it, in two very important articles by Bob Avakian “The Supreme Court Moves to End Abortion Rights: ‘Taking to the Streets,’ And Refusing to Let This Go Down. Bob Avakian Speaks to This Critical Juncture in the Fight for Abortion Rights, the Road Forward, and Avoiding Dead Ends” and “THE CRUCIAL FIGHT FOR ABORTION RIGHTS AND ENDING ALL OPPRESSION: Broad Unity and Necessary Struggle.” This issue also features some “sights and sounds” from a few of the latest actions from RiseUp4Abortion Rights and others. We are featuring a photo essay on the struggle for abortion rights in Latin America.
It matters for today and the future to get more deeply into the roots of the oppression of women, why nothing short of a revolution is needed to end that oppression, and what kind of revolution is necessary. To get into these questions, go to Break ALL the Chains! Bob Avakian on the Emancipation of Women and the Communist Revolution.
In addition to what we have listed above, The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show on YouTube has covered this battle week after week over the past few months as part of its overall mission. The RNL Show recently released its special 100th episode. As host Andy Zee said in that episode:
Our 100th show is an invitation and a challenge to watch this program and think about what difference this show makes and what greater difference and impact it could have on the whole society and for the future of people here and around the world if it had an audience geometrically larger than it does today. Today’s special expanded program is not only an invitation and challenge, it is a guide and a tool for you to be a part of changing the world by expanding our audience.
The RNL Show brings the hard, real truth—a scientific understanding of the outrages and crimes that the system that dominates the world today, the capitalist/imperialist system, rains down on people. We dig deep: to the roots of all that oppresses humanity today so that like poisonous weeds they can be pulled up and thrown on to the compost pile of history.
The RNL Show brings to you the way out of the killing madness of this system to birth a radically new and far different, far better society free from the life stealing, spirit crushing capitalist system. A new kind of economic and political system that would enable people to work and struggle together to overcome all forms of oppression and exploitation.
There is a roadmap, a strategy to do something as bold, as daring, as big as this real total revolution. There is the vision and a blueprint for a new society that revolution would make possible—an actual Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America. And there is the leader who has developed this road in Bob Avakian (who we call BA), a revolutionary leader whose work and leadership we bring to you on The RNL Show. And through the course of today’s 100th show you will experience what a difference he makes.
Yet all too few people know that such a show even exists. If you have not watched this show before, watch it now—and you can do it by clicking on the newest episode at this site. But whether you’ve previously watched it or not, help spread it by getting this 100th episode out way beyond those who are viewing it now. This episode will be shown on Saturday nights June 11 and 25 on cable access TV in Chicago (CAN TV channel 19).
There are other important articles in this issue. In particular, we cover "Joe Biden’s “Summit of the Americas”: U.S. Empire Moves to Lock Down the Masses and Push Back at Imperialist Rivals 'Encroaching in Its Backyard' IT’S NOT OUR EMPIRE! IT’S NOT OUR INTERESTS!" This summit is set to take place this week in Los Angeles, in the context of challenges facing U.S. imperialism in what it has arrogantly and historically considered its "backyard" of domination; there is a searing exposure of the crimes against Native American Indian children through what amounted to a program of kidnapping and brainwashing them in “boarding schools” that went on for decades.
Crucial to building the movement for the revolution we need, we call your attention to a letter on a fundraising effort for the National Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour that both raised important funds for the Tour and contributed to the crucial battle for abortion rights.
In this issue:
* The fight for abortion rights
- From Bob Avakian: The Supreme Court Moves to End Abortion Rights: "Taking to the Streets," And Refusing to Let This Go Down. Bob Avakian Speaks to This Critical Juncture in the Fight for Abortion Rights, the Road Forward, and Avoiding Dead Ends;
- THE CRUCIAL FIGHT FOR ABORTION RIGHTS AND ENDING ALL OPPRESSION: Broad Unity and Necessary Struggle
- Sights and Sounds from Thursday, May 26 actions around the country in response to Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights call for “no business as usual”
- Clip of Sunsara Taylor and Andy Zee from this week's RNL Show
- Overturn Roe? Hell No! Sights and Sounds from June 2–5, 2022
- "Don't Be A Bystander to Female Enslavement: STOP THE SUPREME COURT FROM ENDING ABORTION RIGHTS!"
Sunsara Taylor's presentation to the RiseUp4AbortionRights National Organizing Zoom Summit on May 29, 2022 - The Green Wave: Fury of Women in Latin America Women Batters Centuries-old Abortion Bans
- Reposted from RiseUp4AbortionRights.org
Monday, June 13, 2022
Come to the Supreme Court in DC and Stay.
Overturn Roe? HELL NO! - From RiseUp4AbortionRights.org:
Actions That Call On Others to Act
* RNL Show
- Andy Zee commentary from Episode 104
- Episode 104
- Spread the word! CAN TV in Chicago is airing the special 100th episode of The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show
* Also Featured
- Joe Biden’s “Summit of the Americas”:
US Empire Moves to Lock-Down the Masses and Push Back at Imperialist Rivals ‘Encroaching in Its Backyard’
IT’S NOT OUR EMPIRE! IT’S NOT OUR INTERESTS! - American Crimes in Latin America
- New Government Report Details Over a Century of “Forced Assimilation”/Atrocities Committed Against Indian Children at Federal “Boarding Schools”
* Revolution Club
- From Los Angeles: Fundraising for the National Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour
Over $1,000 Raised Selling “Forced Motherhood Is Female Enslavement” T-shirts
* Campaign Update, June 2, 2022: Join Us to Publish Emergency Appeal to Free Iran’s Political Prisoners in Ms. Magazine and Spread Campaign to Many Thousands More! Give Generously — $4,400 Raised, $4,600 To Go