Revolution #86, April 29, 2007
Make Plans Now! Support and Join the May 1 Demos
There is a fascist offensive targeting immigrants across the U.S. Workplace and neighborhood raids by federal agents are spreading fear and terror—as immigrants are suddenly snatched away, separated from families and friends, detained and deported. New and stepped-up military measures at the border are forcing more immigrants to cross through the dangerous desert areas, where hundreds lose their lives each year. In the halls of power in Washington, central to the talk of “immigration reform” are plans to force immigrants even further into caste-like status, subject to deeper exploitation. And fascist anti-immigrant vigilantes like the Minutemen are being emboldened even more in this climate.
But these attacks are also sparking much anger and new stirrings of resistance. On April 7, tens of thousands marched in downtown L.A., in the largest immigrant rights protest since the outpourings of millions a year ago. And on May 1, immigrants and others will be marching in the streets in cities across the U.S. to demand a stop to the raids and deportations.
This is a very important and positive development! We call on all our readers to support and join these May 1 demos. To stand with and give heart to the immigrants who are courageously declaring their refusal to be treated as slaves and criminals, and who are going straight up against the whole reactionary ideological and political offensive and repressive assaults against them. To help raise everybody's sights past the divisions and apathy fostered by this system and toward a different, better future for humanity.
Revolution newspaper will be coming out with a major statement for May 1 that should get out everywhere on that day. The statement will speak deeply to the whole fascist assault on the immigrants—what is the source of this, what kind of political struggle must be waged to resist this, and the connection of this to hastening things in a revolutionary direction.
The May 1 statement will be available on our website, revcom.us, toward the end of the week of April 23. The statement will also appear in the next issue of Revolution, #87, which will be available for the May 1 demos in Chicago and L.A. People in other areas should download the statement from the website and make copies for massive distribution. (The statement will fit on a two-sided 11 x 17 sheet, or a double-sided tabloid newspaper page.)
May 1 is the international holiday of the proletariat, the class with nothing to lose but their chains. It is a day when the revolutionary aims of the proletariat—for a world without classes and class divisions and all that goes with that, and for a revolution to get to that world—are renewed and declared.
On May 1 this year, we call on distributors and readers of Revolution to not only march, but to boldly get this newspaper and the May 1 statement into the hands of tens of thousands and more. This effort should include the special Revolution issue (#84) on Bob Avakian, along with other revolutionary materials.
Make plans now for May 1! Contact Revolution to order your papers and other materials. Download the May 1 statement from our website, and check the site regularly for updates and information. And after May 1, send us your reports on what you saw, heard, and did that day.
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