revcom.us, August 31, 2020 through September 6, 2020 (#663)

Voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

Please note: this page is intended for quick printing of one week's articles. Some of the links may not work when clicked, and some images may be missing. Please go to the article's permalink if you require working links and images.

 


 

Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/659/bob-avakian_statement-on-the-immediate-critical-situation-en.html

STATEMENT BY BOB AVAKIAN
August 1, 2020

ON THE IMMEDIATE CRITICAL SITUATION,
THE URGENT NEED TO DRIVE OUT THE FASCIST TRUMP/PENCE REGIME,
VOTING IN THIS ELECTION,
AND THE FUNDAMENTAL NEED FOR REVOLUTION

| revcom.us

 

1The situation today holds truly unprecedented and momentous challenges, with profound implications not only for the people in this country but for all of humanity. Three years ago, I spoke to this reality—which has become even more pronounced, and even more dangerous, in the time since then:

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.

This is a regime headed by “a demented bully” with his finger on the nuclear button. It is a regime that, without exaggeration, threatens not just greatly heightened suffering for the masses of humanity but the very existence of humanity itself, through its intensified moves to further the plunder of the environment and its boasts of unequaled weapons of mass destruction and its blatant declaration of willingness to use those weapons, including its massive nuclear arsenal.

I have also emphasized that it is this system of capitalism-imperialism which, through its “normal workings,” has brought forth this fascism, and that no fundamental change for the better can be brought about under this system, and instead this system must be overthrown and replaced by a radically different and far better system, in order to abolish and uproot all relations of exploitation and oppression, and the violent conflicts they give rise to—all of which is built into the foundations of this system and its ongoing functioning and requirements.

Right now, for everyone who is concerned with ending injustice and oppression, and with the question of whether humanity will have a future worth living—or will have a future at all—removing the Trump/Pence fascist regime from power is an immediate, urgent question and truly historic imperative.

And, for those who understand the need for revolution, for the overthrow of this system, as the fundamental solution to the continuing horrors this system causes for the masses of humanity (whether this system is ruled through an open fascist dictatorship, or the disguised “democratic” dictatorship, of the ruling capitalist class), the immediate struggle to oust the Trump/Pence regime from power must be approached not as a “diversion” from (or “substitute for”) building the movement for the revolution that is needed, but precisely as part—a crucial part and urgent requirement—of the overall work of building for this revolution.

Our fundamental goal, and guiding star, remains: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! 

In everything we do, including in all the struggles we take part in that are themselves short of revolution, our consistent approach is, and must be, to make all this serve that fundamental goal of revolution and the emancipation of all humanity.

***********

Normally, we revolutionary communists argue that people should not vote in bourgeois elections, which serve to reinforce the existing system of capitalism-imperialism and feed popular illusions that exploitation, oppression and injustices can somehow be “reformed away” short of getting rid of the system that gives rise to these horrors in the first place. But is this the right position to take in relation to this particular election?

To answer this, we need to look at the whole picture.  [Read again]

2Already, in the nearly four years it has been in power, we have been forced to witness and endure the horrors already committed, and the grave danger posed, by the Trump/Pence regime. Trump ran his campaign in 2016 on what amounted to a straight-up fascist program, including blatant white supremacy and male supremacy, and xenophobic racism toward immigrants, particularly those from Mexico and other countries which Trump regards as “shit-holes,” as well as open advocacy of torture and thuggery by police and Trump’s “civilian” supporters. And, once in power, Trump has blasted ahead with the implementation of this program, steamrolling over any “institutional norms” that stood in the way of this, even in the face of impeachment—and with heightened arrogance and momentum once his fellow fascists in the Republican Party voted to acquit him in the Senate.

Essentially, everything that is described about this regime at the beginning of this statement is what Trump and those around him have carried out with a vengeance. This has become all the more flagrant and aggressive with the approach of the election scheduled for this November. And imagine what Trump will do if he is given a second-term “mandate” through re-election this coming November.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the response of Trump and Pence to this has also provided another graphic illustration of the anti-scientific nature of this regime and its utter disregard for the suffering of masses of people, especially those most despised by this regime and most vulnerable to and hit hardest by this pandemic.

But, as horrific as all this has been, it is not just a matter of horrific policies but of qualitatively different form of rule, based on brutal repression and violation of what are supposed to be the most basic rights.

Already we have seen Trump, in flagrant violation of Constitutional principles, send occupying storm troopers, from various federal government agencies, to criminalize dissent and suppress people protesting in Portland and other cities, and to add to the reign of terror against masses of people in the inner cities of Chicago and elsewhere.

We have seen Trump’s crude displays of “America First” jingoism, including his repeated calls for severely punishing those who, in his view, have failed to show the appropriate patriotic fervor, or who have dared to raise criticism and protest against some of the more glaring oppression carried out by enforcers of this system, in particular the ongoing brutality and murder of Black, Brown, and Native American people by police. We have witnessed his continual encouragement of white supremacist thuggery, by police and by “Second Amendment people” and other “very fine people.”

All this calls to mind the rise to power and the rule of Hitler and the NAZIs in Germany during the 1930s and early 1940s. As Hitler built his fascist movement, thugs would be mobilized to brutalize and terrorize people who didn’t show support for Hitler and the NAZIs—assaulting them on the street and in other public places. Once the NAZI fascist state had consolidated its power, any opposition was severely punished and crushed. All those who did not openly endorse and proclaim the official NAZI ideology were targeted. Large numbers of people were purged from public institutions—all those, in particular Jews but others as well, who were deemed “alien” to the “pure Germanic race” and an obstacle to the monstrous aims of the NAZIs. Beginning with the communists, but before long encompassing the Jewish population, Roma people, homosexuals, and others, concentration camps were filled with those who were considered a threat to the NAZIs or a “stain” on the German nation. And this led, before long, to the mass genocide of millions of Jews in Germany and countries conquered and occupied by the NAZIs.

All this did not happen all at once—but it took place within a relatively short period of time (a decade or so), and with an increasingly accelerating pace. The rule of law was not openly and formally abandoned altogether, but the “law” and “the rule of law” became the same as what Hitler and the NAZIs said it was. Much of what Hitler and the NAZIs did, during their reign of terror and genocide, was “in accordance with the law”—law that they had reduced to nothing more than their barbaric aims and means, murderously enforced by institutions which had been stripped of any meaning or purpose other than what conformed to and served the NAZI agenda, reduced to nothing more than instruments of NAZI atrocity.

In the whole of what Trump is currently doing—including his open calls to overturn Supreme Court decisions and precedents (for example, to outlaw abortion and punish flag burning), along with his repeated violations of the law and due process of the law and his insistence that he is the law—we can see the looming shadow of even more overt fascist dictatorship. For that is what fascism is: open and aggressive dictatorship, trampling on and perverting the rule of law, relying on violence and terror, on behalf of the predatory capitalist system and as an extreme attempt to deal with profound social division and acute crises (both within the country and in the global arena). And with the moves by Trump’s “Secretary of Education,” Betsy DeVos—who is herself a Christian fascist whose ultimate goal is to replace public, secular education with schools based on Christian fundamentalist indoctrination—we can see the outline of the Trump/Pence regime version of “official (Christian fascist) ideology.” We can recognize the looming shadow of a situation where not just school children, but everyone in society, will be required to pledge allegiance to a white Christian fascist America.

A statement from the organization Refuse Fascism (RefuseFascism.org) argues eloquently and powerfully:

Actual lines are being drawn, with catastrophic consequences for all of humanity. If we lose the right to protest—through legal or extra‑legal means—all bets are off. Fascism is not just the worst of a pendulum swing. It is a qualitative change in how society is governed. Dissent is piece by piece criminalized. The truth is bludgeoned. Group after group is demonized and targeted along a trajectory that leads to real horrors. All this has been happening for more than three years, yet with concentration camps at the border, Trump acquitted in a sham impeachment trial, and an executive order to protect monuments while First Amendment rights are criminalized with actual jail time, too many still want to bask in the comfortable delusions that this is not really happening. This is fascism. It is happening, and time is running out to stop it.

For far too long, those of us, including the diverse voices represented by Refuse Fascism, who have been pointing to the very real immediate danger—and potentially even greater danger—represented by the Trump/Pence regime were far too often met with arrogant dismissal by those who could not, or would not, see the reality and the trajectory of this regime; who dismissed the danger by ignoring or downplaying many of the terrible things this regime had already done; and who then pointed to whatever had not yet been done by this regime as supposed “proof” that it would not do those things. Now, at this late and crucial hour, to treat as “alarmist exaggeration” the fascist nature of this regime and its very real parallels with the horrors perpetrated by previous fascist regimes—this is to ignore not only vital lessons from history, but also the extremely dangerous reality of the current situation, including the significance of the fact that Trump—fulfilling his promise to Christian fascists—has stacked the courts, all the way up to the Supreme Court, with legions of Christian fascists and other extreme right-wing judges, who will move to “legally legitimize” the whole horrific program of the Trump/Pence fascist regime.

If this regime is able to further consolidate its power and make further leaps in implementing its horrific objectives, this will result in a devastating setback for any attempt to resist injustice and oppression, and will very likely lead to the brutal repression, and even annihilation, of defenders of democratic rights and proponents of any meaningful progressive reforms, as well as any organized forces fighting for fundamental revolutionary change.

In the most essential sense, the urgent need to mobilize masses of people around the demand to force the removal of this fascist regime is not in conflict with the mass outpouring against institutionalized white supremacy and police terror, or other mass movements against the outrages of this system, but is in basic unity with and is crucial for all these struggles, and all this can and must be understood, and built, in a powerful mutually reinforcing way.  [Read again]

3Simply relying on voting to oust this regime will almost certainly lead to very bad, even disastrous results. This is especially true given what this regime is already doing, and what Trump is saying, in relation to the election.

Through completely unfounded attacks on voting by mail, and preparation to intimidate and obstruct Black people and Latinos attempting to exercise their right to vote, moves are already underway by the Trump/Pence regime and its supporters to suppress the votes of those who are likely to vote against Trump. As he did in the 2016 election, Trump has already indicated his likely refusal to accept the result of the election this time if he is not the winner. And now Trump has openly “floated” the idea of “delaying” the election.

Given what Trump has already done, and what he has blatantly declared, as much as it is horrifying it is also very realistic to envision this regime stationing storm troopers, loyal to this regime, in cities all across this country—viciously moving to suppress any expression of resistance or opposition—with the approach of the election, and continuing beyond that.

The ongoing pandemic, or executive orders to quell “civil disorder” (i.e., protests) in many parts of the country, could also serve as pretexts to “postpone” the election, perhaps indefinitely.

And it is certainly not unthinkable that Trump would move to create a “national emergency”—for example, by carrying out acts of war, against Iran or possibly even China—in order to further institute even more extreme repressive conditions, with even greater numbers of para-military storm troopers occupying cities, in order either to cancel (or indefinitely “delay”) the election, or to control the voting and the results of the election if it is held.

It is of critical importance to continue to build resistance, right now and in an increasingly powerful way, against any and all repressive moves by Trump, including by building mass opposition to this regime’s attempts at voter suppression and through mass mobilization in support and defense of those who are targets of such suppression.

With the full awareness of what is represented by this fascist regime, and what it means that Trump is not only seeking to suppress the votes of people who will vote against him but is also preparing to utilize forceful, violent repression to remain in office if he is not declared the winner in the election, it is of critical and urgent importance to build now truly massive and sustained mobilization around the unifying demand that this regime must be OUT NOW!—with an orientation of being prepared to continue this even past the election, if the situation requires it.

From the first days of the Trump/Pence regime, Refuse Fascism has been calling out the fascism of this regime and calling for the mass mobilization to drive out this regime that is now, all the more urgently, required. It would have been very good—it could have made a real difference—if all those who hate this regime but failed, or refused, to recognize its actual fascist nature and the great danger to humanity it poses as such, had much earlier responded to and actively taken up this call by Refuse Fascism. Now, finally, there is a growing recognition, and increasing discussion, about the “authoritarian” nature of this regime, and even the use of the term “fascism” to describe it. (As I have pointed out, on the part of many, this is a case of “Oh, now they’re saying” this is fascism, as if that has just become the case. But, with an understanding of the profound stakes involved, it is important to recognize that now is better than never.) The hour is getting late—but it is still not too late to make this mass mobilization a reality. Relying on, and confining actions within, the “norms” and “regular channels” of this system, including the upcoming election, cannot solve this profound and urgent problem, especially when dealing with a fascist regime and its fanatical followers that are determined to trample on and tear up those “norms.”  [Read again]

4At this critical hour, every appropriate means of non-violent action must be utilized to remove this regime from power. And if, in spite of mass protest demanding the removal of the Trump/Pence regime, this regime remains in power when it is time for voting, then—without placing fundamental reliance on this—using all appropriate means to work for the removal of this regime must include voting against Trump (assuming the election is actually held). To be clear, this means not a “protest vote” for some candidate who has no chance of winning, but actually voting for the Democratic Party candidate, Biden, in order to effectively vote against Trump.

This is not because Biden (and the Democratic Party in general) have suddenly become something other than what they are: representatives and instruments of this exploitative, oppressive, and literally murderous system of capitalism-imperialism. The electoral process continues to be what we revcoms have called it—BEB (Bourgeois Electoral Bullshit). It remains the case that no fundamental change for the better can come about through this electoral process, and that, in general and overall, voting under this system serves to reinforce this system, especially if voting is seen as a way—and more so if it is seen as the (only) way—to bring about meaningful change.

But this election is different.

It is true that, with every election, the Democrats run the same basic con game—blackmailing people who hate injustice and oppression to vote for them as the “lesser evil”— insisting in effect that, “You may not agree with everything we say, you may even have serious differences and criticisms regarding what we’re all about—but do you want them to be in power?!” (the openly white supremacist, male supremacist, climate change-denying plunderers of the environment, and all-around reactionary Republican Party). And the Democratic Party has done this, time after time after time, while itself representing and seeking to preside over this system of capitalism-imperialism which has white supremacy, male supremacy, environmental plunder and wars for empire built into it, at the same time as the Democrats make noises about, and take some steps to implement, minor (and ultimately meaningless) reforms to supposedly address these outrages. All this has actually contributed to the development of things toward the terrible situation we are faced with now. It has politically paralyzed many who seek an end to such outrages, reducing them to passive dependents on the Democratic Party and its role in the electoral process, while adding fuel to the fire of the die-hard fascist sections of society that insist on absolutely no mitigation of these outrages—no concession to the struggle against this—and in fact demand the brutal reinforcement of this oppression and outrage, in extreme terms.

But, again, this election is different—in a crucially important way. The question is not whether Biden and the Democrats represent something “good,” or whether, in fundamental terms, the Democrats are “better” than the Republicans. Both of these parties are ruling class political parties, and none of their candidates represent anything “good” in the most basic and essential sense. Biden is not “better” than Trump, in any meaningful way—except that he is not Trump and is not part of the move to consolidate and enforce fascist rule, with everything that means.

To approach this election from the standpoint of which candidate is “better” means failing to understand the truly profound stakes and potential consequences of what is involved. The fact is that there can be one—and only one—“good” that can come out of this election: delivering a decisive defeat to Trump and the whole fascist regime. Doing this would create far better conditions for continuing to wage the struggle against everything represented by the Trump/Pence regime and all the oppression and injustices of this system, and would be a great gift to the people of the world.

Again, in these very particular, extraordinary circumstances, if the Trump/Pence regime is still in power by the time of the election, in spite of mass mobilizations demanding the ouster of this regime, then the struggle against this fascist regime needs to include voting against Trump by voting for Biden, while continuing to build sustained mass mobilization against this regime and everything it represents and concentrates, and being prepared to carry forward this mass mobilization if Trump loses the election but refuses to leave.  [Read again]

5In recognizing this, however, it is extremely important to stress once again, in the strongest terms, that, for the reasons spoken to here, relying on voting—without this mass mobilizationwill very likely lead to disaster.

There is the possibility that Trump could actually win the election—although whether he wins or loses, this election will involve unprecedented moves to suppress the votes of those opposing him and to use other illegal means to enable him to remain in power. And, even more essentially, with the clear understanding of the fascist nature of this regime, and the full implications of that, this regime is illegitimate, regardless of the means by which it has come to power and moves to retain and further consolidate power. Hitler and the NAZIs came to power in Germany in the 1930s through the “normal channels” of the “democratic system” there—including elections—but there was absolutely nothing “legitimate” about their rule and all the truly unspeakable horrors it led to. And the same basic principle applies to the Trump/Pence regime. By its very nature and content, there is no such thing as “legitimate” fascism.

Whatever happens with the election—and even if Biden wins and succeeds in actually taking office—there will be no “return to normalcy.” First of all, the fascists—those still in powerful positions, and the fascist “base” in the wider society—will not allow it. And, in any case, no one should want it. The “normalcy” of this system has always included the barbaric oppression of Black people and other people of color, with systematic terror, brutality and murder to enforce this oppression. It has always included vicious discrimination, bigotry and violence against immigrants, women, LGBTQ people, and any others regarded as inferior and “alien.” It has always included unjust wars for empire, and continuing crimes against humanity. It now poses a threat to the very existence of humanity through its increasing devastation of the environment and the ever present threat of nuclear war.

The many-sided struggle to oust the fascist Trump/Pence regime must be taken up not as a substitute for but as a part—a crucial part—of moving to get beyond all that is represented by and embodied in the “normalcy” of this system.  [Read again]

6Finally, regardless of what happens with this election, it remains profoundly true—and it is vitally important to recognize, and to act on the understanding—that no fundamental change for the better can come under this system. Even as sustained mass mobilization urgently needs to be built around the unifying demand of Trump/Pence OUT NOW!, all those who have come to see that institutionalized white supremacy, male supremacy and the many other outrages and crimes against humanity perpetrated under this system are in fact built into this system of capitalism-imperialism must work together, in an ongoing way, to build a continually growing movement and to strengthen the organized forces for an actual revolution to overthrow this system.

In summation: Given the truly monumental stakes involved, not only in terms of any particular issue, no matter how important, and not merely in terms of this country, but for the masses of people throughout the world and the future of humanity, there is a great need to approach things and act with the sophistication necessary to handle the complex and difficult contradictions involved in all this—having a broad vision, rejecting petty sectarianism and brittle dogmatism, and not falling into a paralyzing “either/or”: either we fight against white supremacy and police terror, or we fight to bring about the removal of the Trump/Pence fascist regime; either we vote in this election, or we build mass struggle against outrageous oppression and against this fascist regime; either we oppose this regime, by all appropriate means, or we work for revolution. In this extraordinary and very complex situation—and from the point of view of advancing the struggle toward the goal of finally eliminating all exploitation and oppression, everywhere—there is an urgent need to do all of thatand to do so with an understanding of the correct and necessary relation between the different parts of this overall approach: putting the main emphasis and reliance on mass mobilization, with voting in this extraordinary situation necessary and important but not the main thing to be relied upon; and, in fundamental terms, making all this contribute to creating more favorable conditions for, and building up the organized forces for, not only resisting the crimes of this system but finally carrying out the revolution that is needed in order to put an end to this monstrously criminal system and its domination in the world, in any form.  [Read again]

Promote BA's Statement "On The Immediate Critical Situation..."
With These Graphics

See more

 

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/663/promote-ba-statement-on-the-immediate-critical-situation-with-these-resources-en.html

Promote BA's Statement "On The Immediate Critical Situation..." With These Graphics

| revcom.us

 

 

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/633/bob-avakian-a-radically-different-leader-en.html

BOB AVAKIAN: A RADICALLY DIFFERENT LEADER—A WHOLE NEW FRAMEWORK FOR HUMAN EMANCIPATION

Bob Avakian (BA) is the most important political thinker and leader in the world today.

| revcom.us

 

Bob Avakian is completely different than the endless stream of bourgeois politicians who are put forward as “leaders,” whose goal is to maintain one variation or another of this system of capitalism-imperialism that is founded on and perpetuates itself through cruel and literally life-stealing exploitation, murderous oppression, and massive destruction, in all parts of the world. BA is a revolutionary who bases himself on the scientific understanding that this system must finally be overthrown through an organized struggle involving millions of people, and replaced with a system that is oriented to and capable of meeting the most fundamental needs of humanity and enabling humanity to become fit caretakers of the earth.

Bob Avakian is the architect of a whole new framework of human emancipation, the new synthesis of communism, which is popularly referred to as the "new communism."

BA is the author of the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, an inspiring application of the new communism—a sweeping vision and concrete blueprint for a new socialist society, whose fundamental goal is to bring about a world without classes and class distinctions, a world without exploitation and oppression, and without the destructive divisions and antagonisms among people: a communist world.

Ardea Skybreak, a scientist with professional training in ecology and evolutionary biology, and a follower of Bob Avakian, speaks to the importance of what he has brought forward:

Bob Avakian ... on the basis of decades of hard work [has been] developing a whole body of work—theory to advance the science of communism, to advance the science of revolution, to more deeply explain where the problems come from, what the strategy is for getting out of this mess, what the methods and approaches should be to stay on track and actually build a better world, to build a society that most human beings would want to live in. (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)

BA is a leader who is firmly convinced, on the basis of a consistently scientific method and approach, that the goal must be nothing less than all-out revolution, and who at the same time has emphasized:

the new communism thoroughly repudiates and is determined to root out of the communist movement the poisonous notion, and practice, that “the ends justifies the means.” It is a bedrock principle of the new communism that the “means” of this movement must flow from and be consistent with the fundamental “ends” of abolishing all exploitation and oppression through revolution led on a scientific basis. (From Breakthroughs: The Historic Breakthrough by Marx, and the Further Breakthrough with the New Communism, A Basic Summary)

As a revolutionary leader, BA also embodies this rare combination: someone who has been able 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 broadly accessible.

A leader like this has never before existed in the history of this country, and this leadership is of tremendous importance for the emancipation of all humanity.

What is urgently needed now is for continually growing numbers of people—in the thousands, and ultimately millions—to become conscious and active followers of BA, building the revolutionary movement, based on the new communism, for which BA provides this unprecedented leadership.

Download poster and leaflet:

11x17 poster

8.5x11 two-sided leaflet

CONSTITUTION For The New Socialist Republic In North America

Click to read and download (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/662/rnl-show-episode-23-announcement-en.html

Episode 23 of
The RNL Show—Revolution, Nothing Less!

| revcom.us

 

Share this widely

"Bloodlust at Trump's RNC, Bloodshed in Kenosha, Abortion Under Attack: Trump/Pence Out Now!"

The Revolution, Nothing Less Show

Andy Zee and Sunsara Taylor speak on the ongoing police terror, rising vigilante violence, the outright fascist bloodlust at the RNC and the stakes for humanity. They drive home the importance of moving heaven and earth to mobilize mass, nonviolent sustained protest to drive out the Trump/Pence fascist regime, with a powerful launch called by RefuseFascism.org on September 5. 

As abortion rights hang by a thread, Sunsara interviews Pulitzer Prize-winning NY Times writer Linda Greenhouse on the growing legal restrictions on abortion, Trump's judicial appointees, and the moves towards theocracy.

 

Subscribe: YouTube.com/therevcoms
Follow: @therevcoms
Become a patron: patreon.com/therevcoms

Subscribe to the YouTube channel, leave a comment, and spread the word all over social media to help extend the reach of The RNL Show — Revolution, Nothing Less!

 

 

 

Get a free email subscription to revcom.us:



 


 

Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/650/bob-avakian_nothing-less-en.html

| revcom.us

 

A statement from Bob Avakian

revolutionary leader, author and architect of the revolutionary new communism.

 

To all those who have risen up so powerfully and are demonstrating to say “No More!” after the murder of George Floyd, and all the other cold-blooded murders by police.

To all those who have drawn inspiration from this righteous uprising.

To all those who have had the blinders forced from their eyes and have been provoked to think anew about what kind of country it is that we live in.

This has raised the biggest questions about what is needed for people everywhere to live fully as human beings:

AN END TO INSTITUTIONALIZED RACISM
AND MURDER BY POLICE—NOTHING LESS!

AN END TO ANY WAY PEOPLE ANYWHERE ARE
USED, ABUSED, AND BRUTALIZED—NOTHING LESS!

We need a world without white supremacy and male supremacy—a world where no one is regarded as “alien”—a world without war, where people from all over the globe, with a beautiful flowering of diversity, act together for the common good and are truly caretakers of the earth.

THIS IS NOT JUST A DREAM.

The possibility for this is being powerfully demonstrated in this uprising of the people, of all different races and genders, from all parts of the world—refusing to remain silent or stay passive while all this oppression and brutality goes on.

To Make All This Real
We Need: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS!

A strategic plan for how to make this revolution, and a sweeping vision and concrete blueprint for a radically different and much better world, where all this can become possible—can be found in the work I have done, including the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America.

You can learn more about this revolution and become part of making it a reality by going to revcom.us and joining with the revcoms.

We do not need to live in this world where so much of humanity suffers so unnecessarily under this system of capitalism-imperialism that cannot exist without exploiting and degrading people, suffocating their humanity and killing them without mercy.  We can do much better!  Don’t listen to talk about how “it can never happen.” 

Look around you—what seemed impossible yesterday is happening right now!  Revolution, why should we settle for anything less?

WWW.REVCOM.US          

Share everywhere.

Download PDF of this flier, print and spread:

 

 

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/652/bob-avakian-racial-oppression-can-be-ended-en.html

RACIAL OPPRESSION
CAN BE ENDED—
BUT NOT UNDER THIS SYSTEM

by Bob Avakian

| revcom.us

 

Everywhere we go, and in everything we do, we revcoms boldly put forward: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS!

This is not just a slogan—though it is a very good and very important slogan. It is the concentrated statement of a very profound truth, which is also captured in our slogan: This System Cannot Be Reformed—It Must Be Overthrown!

But what do we mean in saying that this system cannot be reformed, and why is that true? In Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution, I speak to the “5 STOPS”—deep and defining contradictions of this system—and all the terrible suffering to which this system of capitalism-imperialism subjects the masses of humanity, and why all this cannot be ended under this system.1 Here I am going to focus on the systematic and murderous oppression of Black people, and racial oppression overall—which has been sharply exposed with the outpouring of outrage sparked by the murder of George Floyd—and discuss the basic reasons why this oppression cannot be eliminated under this system, but can (only) be ended through revolution.

The continuing terror and murder carried out by the police particularly against Black people (as well as Latinos and Native Americans) is not fundamentally because the police are racist—although, speaking of the police overall, that is certainly true. The fact that the police are racist is itself an expression and a function of the fact that terror and murder against Black people (and other people of color) is required by this system—is necessary in order to maintain the “order” of this all-around oppressive system—and this would be much more difficult to carry out if the police were not racist.

The Fundamental Causes of This Oppression

But, going deeper, why is this terror and murder necessary for this system, in order to ensure its “order” and its ongoing functioning? The answer is that, from the beginning of this country, white supremacy has been poured into the foundation and built into the institutions and the ongoing functioning of this system. Specifically with regard to Black people, the centuries of oppression they have suffered—from slavery days to the days of Jim Crow segregation and Ku Klux Klan terror, to the present time, with the continuing systematic discrimination against Black people, in every part of society (employment, housing, education, health care, and on and on)—all this has resulted in a situation where masses of Black people today, and in particular youth, have been robbed of a means for a decent life, with many maintained in conditions of desperate poverty and deprivation. This, again, is not simply because those who are in the seats of power and deciding government policy are racist (though that is true of most of them). It is fundamentally because of the nature of the system itself and the historically-evolved requirements and dynamics of this system of capitalism-imperialism.

Now, that is a big mouthful (“the nature of the system itself and the historically-evolved requirements and dynamics of this system of capitalism-imperialism”), so let’s break it down. This country was founded on the enslavement of masses of African people, as well as the genocidal subjugation of Native Americans and theft of their land (and its further development involved the conquest of huge parts of Mexico, reducing people of Mexican origin to second-class status as well). This required the propagation of racism to “justify” all the horrific oppression. Then, when the Civil War broke out over the question of slavery, and even when slavery was abolished as a result of that Civil War, given that white supremacy had been, and remained, such a crucial part of the “glue” holding the country together, the only way to “put it back together,” on the foundation of the capitalist system, was to once again forcefully assert white supremacy. That is why, very soon after the end of the Civil War, Black people were subjected to the system of Jim Crow segregation (backed up by systematic terror, punctuated by repeated lynchings), while the genocidal aggression against and theft of the land of Native Americans was stepped up, and immigrants from Mexico were subjected to ongoing discrimination and violence by the enforcers of this system.

Generations later, during World War 2, because of the needs of the rulers of this country in waging that war, large numbers of Black people were able to migrate to the North and get jobs in industries that served the war effort. And then, largely as a result of the fact that the U.S. was on the winning side of that war—and the fact that the war was not fought on its territory and it experienced no damage to its industrial facilities and infrastructure—there was an expansion of the economy in this country after the war. In this situation, significant numbers of Black people were able to continue getting employment in large numbers, including some better-paying jobs in factories (making steel, cars, and so on).

But, at the same time, because of the white supremacy built into the system over centuries—and the fact that really moving to overcome this would tear apart the fabric of the system and crack its very foundation—Black people continued to be subjected to systematic discrimination, including in employment (with “last hired and first fired” an accurate description of the situation of Black people with regard to employment). To cite another ugly example, government policy with regard to housing involved conscious, deliberate discrimination: after World War 2, loans were given to white people to enable them to buy their own homes, and increasingly move to the suburbs, while this was denied to Black veterans (and others) and instead Black people were piled into segregated housing projects in the inner cities. And this was part of the continuing systematic segregation and discrimination to which Black people were subjected.

As a result of the Civil Rights movement and then the more radical Black liberation movement in the 1960s, some concessions were made, and there has been an increase in the number of “Black faces in high places” and a growth of the Black middle class, although their situation is far more precarious than that of white middle class people (something which was cruelly demonstrated in the 2008 crisis, which resulted in large numbers of Black people losing their homes and much, if not all, of any savings they had). And, in more recent times, huge numbers of factories and other sources of jobs for people in the inner city have closed down, often moving their operations elsewhere—particularly to countries in the Third World (Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia) where the desperate situation of masses of people, including children, has left them vulnerable to being super-exploited, at near-starvation wages.

All this, together with increased automation and “cybernation” of production, when combined with the ongoing segregation and discrimination built into this system, has led to a situation where huge numbers of Black people, and especially youth, have, for generations now, not only been unemployed but are left with no prospect of meaningful employment in the regular (“formal”) economy.

The “Toxic Combination” of Capitalism and Racism

Here we see the “toxic combination” of systematic, historically-evolved segregation and discrimination, enforced with brutal violence by the powers-that-be, together with the basic functioning and requirements of the capitalist economy—which involves the greater and greater concentration not just of wealth, but of the means of production (technology, factories and other physical structures, sources of raw materials, and so on) in the possession and under the control of large-scale capitalist enterprises and financial institutions, which are locked in cut-throat competition with each other, not just within a particular country but increasingly on a global scale, and are therefore driven to ruthlessly exploit people and constantly search for ways to even more viciously super-exploit large numbers of desperate people, including children, in a worldwide network of sweatshops. (For example, cell phones and computers depend on the mineral coltan which is mined under horrific conditions by people, including large numbers of children, in the Congo in Africa; and a large part of the clothes that are bought in the U.S. are produced by huge numbers of women working in horrific conditions in the Asian country of Bangladesh.)

In this situation, and especially with the growth of the international drug trade, and its deep penetration into the U.S., many of those, in particular youth, who found themselves locked out of the “formal economy,” have turned to drug-dealing, as well as other criminal activity—something which has been encouraged by government policy that has actually resulted in the movement of large amounts of drugs into the inner city, even as the authorities seize on this situation to carry out systematic repression against the youth in particular, with such things as “stop and frisk.” The result of all this has been a huge increase in mass incarceration, as well as the continual murder of large numbers of “minority” youth by police.

At the same time, the way that the U.S. has continued to dominate Mexico, as well as other parts of Latin America, and to distort the economies, corrupt the governments and bring ruin to the social relations among the people in those countries—all this has resulted in large numbers of people being forced to flee those countries and migrate to the U.S., where they are vulnerable to being viciously exploited in factories and farmlands, and other parts of the economy of this country. And large numbers of the younger generations of these immigrants have also formed (or joined existing) gangs and become involved in the drug trade and related crime.

More recently, however, in at least many of the inner-city neighborhoods, for a number of reasons—including the fact that the “crack epidemic” had taken a terrible toll on people—there has been a decrease in the trade in cocaine and the high profits this brought for the relatively small number of “higher-ups” in the drug trade hierarchy. For a period, particularly during the 1980s and 1990s, given their desolation and desperation, the drug trade was a “major employer” of youth in the inner cities, female as well as male, and a major source of at least a basic income for many (even if the promise of “getting rich” remained an illusion for most). Now, even this source of employment and income—as perverse and harmful as it is—has dried up or greatly diminished for many. This has further added to the miserable situation of massive numbers of inner-city youth in particular who have no future—under this system—no future but prison, an early death or a life of desperate hustling, in one form or another, in the attempt to survive and care for loved ones.

All this cannot be changed—cannot be transformed and overcome—within the confines of this system. Despite what any politician (“liberal” or outright fascist like Trump) may say, there is no way that this system could “reverse itself,” bring large parts of industry back to the inner city and provide meaningful employment, with “a living wage” for all those it is now depriving of this. Even if the government had the “political will” to try to do this, doing so (with the employment of millions of formerly unemployed or “underemployed” people at a “living wage”) would seriously undermine the competitive positions of American capitalists in the global economy. And, if they attempted to do this while at the same time trying to seriously overcome the whole historically-evolved relations of white supremacy, this would completely disrupt the social “cohesion” that “holds this country together,” with white supremacy a crucial part of this.

It is one thing for “good-hearted people”—and in particular many white people—to say (and sincerely mean) that it is wrong for the police to just wantonly, cruelly murder people, and to mobilize in protest against this. But imagine what would happen if, under this system and with the way its economy functions, the government tried to adopt policies that would deal with the long-term unemployment of Black people in the inner cities, who have not only been denied jobs but also the training for the jobs that do exist—imagine what the reaction would be of many white people who would in fact lose their better-off positions as a result of these policies. Imagine what would happen if these kinds of policies were applied not just to employment, but to education, and on down the line. (We have already seen the “backlash” that was fostered in response to even minimal efforts to implement “affirmative action” programs in employment and education.)

Again, this is not simply a matter that “white people are racist.” Many are racist, although many do not want to be. But the deeper problem is that given the basic way the capitalist economy works, and how everyone is encouraged to be “out for yourself”—and, more fundamentally, the fact that people are actually driven and compelled to compete with each other in every significant part of life, including employment and education—it would actually create destructive chaos and conflict among the people, and tear apart the “cohesion” of the society, to try to really and fully undo and overcome the reality and effects of centuries of racist oppression—under this system.

This most definitely and emphatically is NOT an argument for holding back from struggling against every form of discrimination, inequality and oppression in every part of society. Fighting back against oppression, and wrenching concessions from the powers-that-be, is very important—in enabling masses of people to feel their own strength in standing up and standing together in opposing oppression, and drawing people from all parts of society to join in this struggle—rather than feeling isolated, beaten down and hopeless. And it is important in contributing to the ability of masses of people to gain the understanding and build up the organization necessary for the final all-out struggle to bring down the whole oppressive system. But that is just the point—as important as these mass struggles are, if they are not built toward, and do not finally get to the point of, taking on the whole system, with the aim of bringing it down, and bringing something much better into being, then, as I have emphasized before, even where concessions are won, “so long as this system remains in power, there will be powerful forces who will move to attack and undermine, and seek to reverse, even these partial gains,” and people will remain oppressed and once more weighed down with a feeling of demoralization, as they are once again divided and pitted against each other.2

The basic and crucial point is that the fight against racial oppression (and all oppression) must not remain confined within the limits of this system, and instead must be carried out and carried forward as part of the overall struggle toward the goal of abolishing this system. The fact that this oppression cannot be abolished under this system is not a reason for giving up in despair—it is a compelling reason why this system must be and can be abolishedand it is the fundamental basis for why people can be won to wage the revolutionary struggle to finally bring it down!

All this is why there will not be any real and meaningful move by the powers-that-be (and any of its politicians and political parties) to overcome the centuries-long experience and legacy of brutal racist oppression and the situation it has led to today, where millions and millions of Black youth and other youth of color have no prospect of a decent future—under this system.

As I have pointed out before: “So what does this system do with youth that have no future and no prospects? It contains them.... contains them violently.”3

And all this is why there is systemic and systematic police terror directed at Black people and other people of color. It is why this is brought down not only on the youth (and others) in the inner cities, but why it can and does lead to harassment, brutality and murder of any Black person, anywhere, even those with more education and status in society. If the system needs the police to “violently contain” the masses of people in the inner cities—and it does—then this is bound to “spill over” and be applied to Black people, and other people of color, more generally. The police have neither the interests, nor the ability, nor the will to make distinctions between “good” ....... (fill in the blank as to what racist terms they use) and “bad” ones. And, beyond that, the “random” nature of the brutality and murder makes it all the more effective in terrorizing people—making everyone, even the “better off,” feel, correctly, that they could be a target of this.

There IS a Solution: Revolution and a Radically New and Different World

It is for all these reasons that racist oppression will continue so long as people are living under the domination of this system of capitalism-imperialism. It is not only right but crucially important to rise up and wage a determined fight against this, but it is also crucial to recognize that this racist oppression will never be, can never be, eliminated under this system—and, to finally put an end to it, we need a radically different system.

We need a radically different economic system—a socialist economic system (mode of production) that is geared to and proceeds by developing and utilizing the means of production collectively, to meet the needs of the masses of people, materially (for employment, food, housing, health care, and so on) as well as their needs intellectually and culturally, and to provide them with the means not only to live a life worthy of human beings, but also to scientifically understand the basis and need, and to more and more consciously take part in, carrying forward the transformation of society to finally and completely eliminate all relations of oppression and exploitation, and to support that struggle throughout the world. And, as one of its highest priorities and goals, this will involve the determined struggle to overcome and finally eliminate racial oppression in every aspect of society.

The radically different socialist economy (mode of production) will provide the foundation on which the ongoing process of uprooting racial oppression, and all oppression, can be waged on favorable ground, and can finally succeed in overcoming all this. The following from my work Breakthroughs speaks to this key relation and process:

Ultimately, the mode of production sets the foundation and the limits of change, in terms of how you address any social problem, such as the oppression of women, or the oppression of Black people or Latinos, or the contradiction between mental work and manual work, or the situation with the environment, or the situation of immigrants, and so on. While all those things have reality and dynamics in their own right, and aren’t reducible to the economic system, they all take place within the framework and within the fundamental dynamics of that economic system; and that economic system, that mode of production, sets the foundation and the ultimate limits of change in regard to all those social questions. So, if you want to get rid of all these different forms of oppression, you have to address them in their own right, but you also have to fundamentally change the economic system to give you the ability to be able to carry through those changes in fundamental terms. To put it another way: You have to have an economic system that doesn’t prevent you from making those changes, and instead not only allows but provides a favorable foundation for making those changes.4

The Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America provides a sweeping vision and concrete blueprint for such a radically different economic system, and for government institutions, laws and a legal system, as well as an approach to education, science, art and culture that go along with this mode of production and contribute to its continual development, opening the way to finally eliminating all oppression and exploitation.5 And in Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution (as well as other works of mine) the basic strategy is spelled out for carrying out the revolution that will make it possible to apply this Constitution in working to bring about a world free of all the unnecessary suffering and madness to which the masses of humanity are subjected under the domination of this system of capitalism-imperialism.

This is why, and this is how, racial oppression, and all the oppression, which is built into this system of capitalism-imperialism, can be ended—but only through a revolution to abolish this system.

This is why we continue to emphasize this basic truth: 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 why we continue to boldly raise the slogan: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS!

 

1. The text and video of this speech by Bob Avakian (Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution) is available at revcom.us. [back]

2. The statement quoted in this part of this article is from Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution. [back]

3. Bob Avakian On Police Brutality And Murder: Consent Decrees Won’t Stop This—We Need A Revolution! This excerpt from a Question and Answer Session with Bob Avakian, after his presentation in 2018 in Chicago of the speech Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution, is also available at revcom.us. [back]

4. This statement is contained in Breakthroughs: The Historic Breakthrough by Marx, and the Further Breakthrough with the New Communism, A Basic Summary, by Bob Avakian, which is available at revcom.us. It originally appeared in the book by Bob Avakian, The New Communism: The science, the strategy, the leadership for an actual revolution, and a radically new society on the road to real emancipation, Insight Press, 2016. Italics in the original. [back]

5. The Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, authored by Bob Avakian, is also available at revcom.us. [back]

Watch BA's whole speech:

Watch clips from speech

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

 

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/650/bob-avakian-revolution-roger-federers-tennis-en.html

REVOLUTION, ROGER FEDERER'S TENNIS:
WHAT DO THEY HAVE TO DO WITH EACH OTHER?
A LOT, ACTUALLY.

by Bob Avakian

| revcom.us

 

The title of this article will likely come as a surprise to many—not least Roger Federer himself, since he is clearly not an advocate of the kind of revolution I am talking about, a revolution to bring about socialism and ultimately communism throughout the world, in place of the current capitalist-imperialist system that now dominates the world. Federer himself is not merely a tennis player with world-class—and, as I will speak to, unrivaled—abilities; he is also a multi-millionaire, on the verge of becoming a billionaire, as a result of business deals and investments that his tennis achievements have made possible. (At the same time, Federer has devoted significant resources, and personal efforts, to charity benefitting children in southern Africa in particular, and he is widely respected and admired for being, at the risk of sounding corny, “a genuinely nice guy” on a personal level. Federer, from the small country of Switzerland, is one of the most recognized, and popular, athletes in the world, not only among tennis fans but more generally, and that is not just because of his accomplishments on the court, or simply because of successful “marketing of his brand,” but also because of what people perceive in his personality.)

What is put forward in the title of this article—that Federer’s tennis has a lot to do with revolution—can be understood to be profoundly true, once there is the necessary appreciation for both Federer’s unique, unmatched approach to and performance in tennis and what the revolution I am speaking of is, and needs to be, all about. Here, I am not going to enter directly into the debate about whether Federer, or on the other hand one of his current main rivals, Novak Djokovic or Rafael Nadal, is the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) in men’s tennis ( although I have made a case for why that title legitimately rests with Federer in an Appendix at the end of this article). What defines Federer’s tennis, and more than anything sets it apart from even his greatest rivals—more than all of his great accomplishments, playing at the highest level of men’s tennis for nearly two decades, from the time he was around 20 to the time, now, when he is approaching 40—is the artistry and beauty of his game. And the revolution I am talking about—a revolution guided by communism, in its further development with the new communism that has resulted from decades of work that I have carried out—this revolution, and the radically different society and world that it aims to bring into being, could not do without, and has as one of its main goals and requirements, precisely an appreciation of and the flowering of beauty and artistry, in many different dimensions of human endeavor.

As I have emphasized, one of the essential qualities that defines human beings is “the need to be amazed.”1 Certainly, in the tennis of Roger Federer there is a continual source of amazement. It is not simply that he can—and, in the course of his matches, repeatedly does—hit every conceivable shot (and many that seem inconceivable). It is not just the fact that, if you pay careful attention, you can see an incredible display of skill and artistry even when Federer hits a ball to a ball girl or boy (young people responsible for collecting and distributing balls to the players) between points in a match. It is, more than anything, the footwork, the movement—the flow—as Federer floats around the court to get himself in position to hit the ball. While with more or less everyone else among the world’s top men’s tennis players—including Djokovic and especially Nadal—their movement is broadcast with various noises, and their striking of the ball is often accompanied by audible, and often loud, grunts, Federer moves silently, seemingly effortlessly, and the only sound accompanying his strokes is that of the racket meeting and delivering the ball, with an incredible consistency, to just the spot where he intends it to go. Metaphors that could be invoked to describe this movement, such as those comparing it to ballet or other dance, are not, in this case, cliches but actually come close to capturing the fluidity and beauty of Federer’s movement.

Djokovic and Nadal are clearly great tennis players—legitimately considered among the greatest of all time—but one of the things that sets Federer apart from them (and this may seem ironic or even illogical at first) is the fact that their greatest strength is their consistency, while in the course of a match, or a tournament, Federer is likely to have more “ups and downs.” Nadal is relentless, intensely playing each point, and even each shot, as if the whole match depended on it; and, besides—or, in a real sense, even more than—his highly skilled shot-making, it is the wearing down of his opponents through this relentlessness that marks Nadal’s game and accounts for his great success. The key to Djokovic’s game is his defensive skill, which rests to a large degree on his considerable physical flexibility: he is able to return powerful (and/or well-placed) serves and great ground strokes by his opponent, time after time, in a way that puts Djokovic in at least a “neutral position,” and often at an advantage, in relation to the opponent, enabling Djokovic to eventually turn defense into offense and win the point. Here, again, although in a somewhat different way than with Nadal, it is Djokovic’s consistent relentlessness that is his greatest strength.

With Federer it is different. As more than one observer has commented, Federer is an artist, and with an artist you are going to have times of brilliance, beyond what others are capable of achieving, and you are also going to have times when that brilliance does not fully shine. Ironically again, to some degree errors on Federer’s part (and specifically what, in tennis terms, are considered “unforced errors”) stem from his tremendous abilities, particularly his movement and footwork, which allow him to be in position to hit a variety of shots at a given time, and his “racket skill” which enables him to execute so many different shots. There are many instances when Federer gets himself into a position where he has many options in terms of hitting a shot, and on some occasions having so many options—rather than being more limited and forced to just play quickly and “instinctively”—actually results in Federer “out-smarting” himself, including sometimes when he “changes his mind at the last second” about where and how to hit the ball, causing him to either hit an ineffective shot or to miss a relatively easy shot and lose the point. One of the things that makes Federer so uniquely great and breathtaking to observe is that we see the artist at work, trying things that others would not dare to try, willing to fall down at times, in the immediate, in order to find the way to reach the greatest heights.

This comes through in all aspects of Federer’s performance on the court. There is the unrivaled precision, combined with artful deception, in Federer’s game. This finds perhaps its most concentrated expression in Federer’s serve (starting the point), which is one of the very best and most impactful in the men’s game. In the case of Federer, this is not because of raw speed and power—there are many in the men’s game who significantly exceed Federer in those categories—but rather because of disguise (it is very difficult to tell where Federer is going to deliver his serve) and placement (he regularly succeeds in putting the ball right where, or very near to where, he intends to place it with his serve). With his ground strokes, once the point is underway (on his own serve or that of his opponent), it is the same—the same deception and precision, combined with effective power, or subtle “touch.” Watching Federer “paint the lines” (hit the ball right on, or very close to, a sideline or the baseline) is indeed like taking in a breathtaking painting. And there is no equal, anywhere in tennis, to his balance and racket skill at the net (volleying back a shot by the opponent from a position near the net) and here, too, he often makes even the most difficult of these shots seem effortless.

Once again, it is the movement that underlies all this and makes it all possible. As tennis author and journalist Mark Hodgkinson puts it, in a book analyzing not just Federer’s prowess and accomplishments but his unique presence on the court: Federer “Moves Like A Whisper.”2

To some, in particular those who have never concerned themselves with questions of this kind, this might seem “forced,” but in the way Federer is able to use his movement, and his other remarkable skills, to neutralize and overcome the raw power of the “heavy hitters” in men’s tennis, there is an analogy to how the stranglehold of the world’s most powerful oppressive forces could actually be broken and shattered, by the creative action of masses of people, freeing them to embark on the road of bringing into being a society and world free of oppression. But the comparison and relevance of Federer’s tennis to revolution cannot, and should not, be reduced to that. Beyond that, it is the fulfilling of profound human needs—“the need to be amazed,” the appreciation of artistry and beauty—that is the link between the tennis of Roger Federer and the revolution that humanity needs.

Federer’s tennis is not simply the product of a genetically-established high-level athleticism, but also of a great appreciation for the creative and innovative, beyond that of even his most highly skilled world-class contemporaries and competitors. Among the highest level tennis champions, it is only Roger Federer who will frequently experiment with shots, running the risk of losing a point, or even a game, during the course of a match in a high-stakes tournament. It is only Roger Federer who would feel, and at times say openly, that if he did not do this he could find such a match boring, even while he was winning. This is not a “lack of discipline” on Federer’s part, but once again a real appreciation for, and giving life to, an artistry and beauty that can and should characterize the sport of tennis—and does, in its highest form, in the game of Roger Federer. There are a few others near the top ranks of tennis who are willing, or who feel the need, to try “trick shots” and other displays of artistry, at the risk of losing a point, a game, or even a match. Nick Kyrgios, an athletic and highly-skilled young player from Australia, is the most striking example of this, but neither Kyrgios nor anyone else besides Federer has achieved the combination of brilliant artistry with the necessary focus and, yes, discipline—channeling and translating this into world-class level competitive tennis, with the consistency required to repeatedly win matches and tournaments, including the most prestigious and highly-prized Grand Slam tournaments (which involve all, or nearly all, of the world’s top tennis players and require winning seven consecutive matches, within the two week period of the tournament, in order to claim the title).

As much as there is a “magical quality” to Federer’s tennis, it is at the same time the product of consistent hard work—both off the court, in physical work-outs, to reach the peak of fitness, and on the court, in endless hours of practice. And there is the constant striving to increasingly master the game mentally. Federer is a great student of tennis. It has been noted, and demonstrated in practice, that he is very often able to tell (in observing the footwork and position, and knowing the “preferred tendencies,” of his opponent) where that opponent is going to hit a shot, even before that opponent has begun his stroke. And Federer possesses the greatest ability to adapt his game, including in the middle of a match—something that can be seen not only by serious students of the game but even by more casual observers in paying attention to the changes he makes in his approach, including the kind of shots he chooses to make, whether he “stays back” on the baseline or increasingly “comes to the net,” and so on.

All his mental as well as physical preparation and continual “refinement” of his game underlies and is the basis for Federer’s ability to both have tremendous success competitively and to do so with his unparalleled artistry. Hodgkinson writes that, early on, Federer was inclined toward the stand that doing things with artistry was even more important than winning, even as Federer has always had a very strong competitive drive. This was reflected, even fairly far into Federer’s success atop the men’s game, in the fact that Federer resisted using the “drop shot” (hitting the ball just a little ways over the net, especially when the opponent is far back in the court), believing that this shot was somehow a violation of the aesthetics (and perhaps the ethics) of tennis. But, not only did Federer change his mind on this and develop one of the game’s most effective, and yes artistic, drop shots, but more generally, and fortunately for Federer—and for everyone who appreciates the beauty with which the game of tennis can be played—Federer has achieved an unrivaled combination (or synthesis) of artistry and competitive achievement overall.

And he has continued to adapt to competitive challenges, and to technological changes that have affected the competitive challenges. For example, less than a decade ago, Federer was still playing with a racket that was smaller than those of nearly all of his major opponents, feeling that he possessed the necessary skill to hit the shots he needed/wanted to hit, and to avoid excessive errors, with this smaller racket. But the rising level of competition finally convinced Federer to increase the size of his racket, which has played a significant part in his finally gaining a decisive upper hand over his long-time rival and significant nemesis Rafael Nadal. In coming back from a knee injury and surgery in the latter part of 2016 and resuming competitive play in early 2017, aided by the increase in his racket size, Federer worked systematically to improve his backhand stroke, which was key in enabling him to overcome the tactics Nadal had used against Federer to force him on the defensive and out of position, making him more vulnerable to winning shots from Nadal. (For those interested in some of the more technical aspects involved in how Federer has been able to offset Nadal’s tactics and decisively gain the upper hand in matches with Nadal—or, as Federer himself has put it, “crack the Nadal code”—in a footnote below some of the details involved are discussed.*)

Federer has continued to play competitive tennis on a world-class level, vying still to be at the very top of men’s tennis, into his late 30s (which is extraordinary, since in terms of world-class tennis, this is definitely considered “old”). It is remarkable that Federer has been able to retain a powerful competitive spirit, and at the same time an unequaled “cool,” not only during the time when he was the undisputed “number one” in men’s tennis (and frequently referred to then as the Greatest Of All Time) but for many years after that as well. It is one thing to be “hungry” and “focused” when one is young and “rising,” striving to get to the very top of the rankings—or in the situation with Djokovic, who has yet to become, but has openly declared his intention to become, the holder of the most Grand Slam titles and presumably the honor of being declared the Greatest Of All Time—but it is a whole other matter to continue to strive for greatness at the highest level long after one has seemingly achieved all there is to achieve, as has been the case with Federer for some time now.

But, even as he was planning, after another knee injury and surgery, to return once again in the summer of this year (2020) to compete at Wimbledon, the most prestigious of the Grand Slams—and the tournament where Federer has had the most success, winning 8 times—with the restrictions imposed by the coronavirus, including the cancellation of this year’s Wimbledon tournament, it is unclear when Federer will return to tennis (interestingly, the French Open, normally held in the late spring, has been re-scheduled for the fall, and as of now has not been canceled—see below, in the Appendix, for the relevance of this to the “GOAT” question). In any case, before too long, Federer’s age will finally catch up with him, and he will retire from world-class level competition. When he does, it is likely that Djokovic and/or Nadal (who are both about 5 years younger than Federer) will continue playing for a few more years; and, if they have not done so already, it is possible that one or both of them will then surpass Federer’s Grand Slam titles record, which now stands at 20 (again, more on this, and how it relates to the question of Greatest Of All Time, in the Appendix below).

But, as truly great as Djokovic and Nadal are, and with whatever specific number of Grand Slam titles they ended up winning, when they leave tennis there will be others, young and hungry, who will rise to, or near, the level of play that has characterized the best of Djokovic and Nadal. With Federer, however, it is not a matter of quantity, not something that can be captured simply with statisticsthe number of Grand Slams and other tournaments won, the amount of time as the top-ranked player, and so on—but much more one of quality: the artistry and creative genius of Federer, which has no equal in tennis, in any era, including the present one. As much as the governing bodies of a sport—and the television networks and other financial institutions which profit from it—seem to feel the need to market things in terms of “rivalries,” and this is definitely the case with tennis, there really is no “rival” to Federer, no one whose approach to the game and performance on the court compares to his or gives expression to the same synthesis of artistry and accomplishment. When Federer leaves, it will be a long time, if ever, before someone comes along who will bring to tennis the beauty and, yes the awe and wonder, that Federer has embodied and inspired.

To return to the theme of this article, as expressed in the title, in the future being aimed for with revolution based on the new communism, tennis will not play the same role as it does in the world as it is now, dominated by the dynamics and dictates of the system of capitalism-imperialism and consequently restricted far too much to those with (or with backing from those with) a certain level of finances and resources. But, as spoken to in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America—a sweeping vision and concrete blueprint for a radically different and far better society and world—there will continue to be a need for and importance to sports, with an emphasis on basic sports activities involving the masses of people, to promote their health and recreation, but also providing for full-time (professional) sports, which will take place within the overall framework of the relations and values of this radically new society, and will serve to foster friendship and comradeship among those competing, and those following such competition, while promoting and giving expression to the joy, the beauty and the wonder that sports, at its best, can inspire.3

From this perspective, as we look forward to and work actively to make a reality of this revolution, and everything it will finally make possible, if we do not wish to diminish the vision and the goal to which this revolution must aspire, and the kind of society and world it must strive to bring into being, we cannot fail to appreciate beauty and wonder, in the natural world and in the creations of human beings, even now amidst the terrible conditions which this currently ruling system of capitalism-imperialism imposes on the masses of humanity. And from that standpoint, the tennis of Roger Federer has a great deal to do with the revolution we need, even as that revolution will give rise to beauty, and give expression to the need to be amazed, in ways beyond what can even be imagined today.

 


* Note on Federer’s Gaining Decisive Dominance Over Nadal:

Nadal is left-handed and, particularly with his forehand, he hits the ball with a lot of “top spin,” which causes the ball to bounce high after it lands (this is true on all tennis court surfaces but is especially so on clay, which is by far Nadal’s favorite surface, on which he is most effective—more on that below, in the Appendix). Both of these factors (Nadal’s “left-handedness” and his extreme top spin) for some time enabled Nadal to create a lot of problems for Federer in their matches, because (for various reasons, including the fact that the net is lower in the middle of the court than it is on the sides) hitting the ball cross-court is easier and less risky than hitting it “down the line” (over the higher part of the net, on the same side of the court the player is on when hitting the ball). So, in the course of points in matches against Federer, Nadal would repeatedly try, with a large amount of success, to hit the ball with his forehand cross-court, where Federer (being right-handed) would be forced to hit the ball, not with his own forehand—his stronger stroke—but with his backhand. And the extreme top spin with which Nadal hit his forehand cross-court—causing the ball to bounce up to shoulder height, or sometimes even higher, before Federer could “make contact” with the ball—often resulted in a situation where Federer either hit a weak shot, setting Nadal up to hit a “winner” ( a shot Federer could not return) or Federer actually “missed” with his backhand (hit the ball into the net or “out” of play), giving Nadal the point. And this was especially so in the frequent exchanges where Nadal would hit forehand after forehand with top spin to Federer’s backhand—something Nadal was often able to do, because it was difficult for Federer to “redirect” the ball “down the line,” to Nadal’s backhand, and in attempting to do so Federer would run a higher risk of mis-hitting the ball and either losing the point outright by hitting it out, or into the net, or hitting a weak shot in response to which it would be easy for Nadal to hit a winner.

In recovering from a knee injury and surgery, and in preparing to return to competitive tennis, in the latter part of 2016, Federer focused on improving his backhand—aided, again, by his now larger racket—which enabled him to “stand his ground” on the baseline (rather than being pushed back farther and farther behind it, in an increasingly defensive position) and, from that position on the baseline, “take the ball earlier” with his backhand (before it could bounce as high), giving him more control and the ability to hit winners with his backhand and generally to hit backhand strokes with more variety, including by “re-directing” balls “down the line” to Nadal’s backhand, his less imposing shot. This resulted in Federer beating Nadal in the final of the Australian Open (one of the four annual “Grand Slam” tournaments) in early 2017. Since then, in matches played between the two, Federer has beaten Nadal 4 out of 5 times—the only exception being a semi-final match in the 2019 French Open (another of the Grand Slams), a match on clay, played moreover in conditions so ridiculous, with such powerful gusts of wind, that it was impossible for Federer to come close to playing his normal game, which relies, much more than other top players, not so much on power but at least as much on finesse and “touch” and fundamentally on movement to get in position to hit an incredible variety of shots—all of which was effectively impossible under the conditions.  [back]

 


Appendix: The Greatest Of All Time

As spoken to in the main part of this article, in one sense the argument about who is the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time) in men’s tennis (a debate that now centers around Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic) is mis-placed, especially if (as is generally the case) this debate focuses on matters of quantity—numbers of Grand Slam titles, etc.—because with Roger Federer it is above all a matter of quality: the unique and essentially irreplaceable artistry he brings to the game, playing on a world-class level. But, without abandoning that decisive understanding, let’s examine the question of quantity—in a scientific way, drawing on relevant evidence in its significant dimensions.

First of all, in what is generally regarded as the most essential measure of greatness and achievement, there are the totals of Grand Slam titles won. While, as I will speak to shortly, this number, taken by itself, is not adequate to determine the issue of greatness (or, specifically, Greatest Of All Time), it does provide one important part of the picture. The current Grand Slam title numbers are: Federer 20; Nadal 19; Djokovic 17.

Looking into this further, however, we see that a clear majority of Nadal’s titles (12 of the 19) have been won on one particular surfaceclay—at the French Open Tournament. It is true that a large number of Federer’s Grand Slam titles have been won on his most favored surface—grass, at Wimbledon—but the majority of Federer’s titles have been won on other surfaces. And it is not simply the case, as more than a few commentators are known to say: “Well, Federer is the best on his favorite surface, and Nadal is the best on his.” If we subtract from Federer’s total of 20 the 8 he has won on grass at Wimbledon and subtract from Nadal’s total of 19 the number he has won on clay at the French Open (12), we end up with this count: Federer 12, Nadal 7—a difference far greater than the total numbers (20 and 19).

Beyond that, clay is not just “another surface.” It is a very different surface than either grass or “hard courts” (courts consisting mainly of asphalt or concrete), the other surfaces on which Grand Slam Tournaments are played. Clay causes the ball to bounce higher and effectively “slows down” the game, with the result that hitting “winners” (either with the serve or other shots) is more difficult, and those players whose game relies to a large extent on lengthy rallies, wearing down opponents, have an added advantage. All this plays heavily into the strengths of Nadal’s game. That there is not just a minor but a qualitative difference between clay and the other main tennis court surfaces is reflected in the fact that, on the one hand, in the men’s game specifically, there are at least 10 people who have won the French Open but have never won another Grand Slam title, while there are a number of tennis greats, with multiple Grand Slam wins (on grass and/or hard courts), who have never won on clay at the French Open—including not only Pete Sampras (with 14 total Grand Slam titles) but also Jimmy Connors (8), John McEnroe (7), Stephan Edberg, and Boris Becker (6 each). (Also, among women, those who have won multiple Grand Slam titles but never won at the French Open include Venus Williams, Virginia Wade, and Martina Hingis. And, although she has won at the French Open, Serena Williams—who can legitimately be considered the greatest women’s tennis player of all time, and indeed is one of the world’s greatest athletes in any sport—has had much less success on the clay at the French Open than she has on other surfaces.)

This difference in surfaces is strongly reflected in the head-to-head competition between Federer and Nadal: On every surface except clay Federer has the advantage, while on clay Federer’s wins against Nadal are less than 15%!

There is also the fact that changes, beginning more than 15 years ago, in the other surfaces besides clay—and in particular the grass at Wimbledon—has meant that, even while it is still the case that on Wimbledon’s grass the ball tends to “skid” through the court, overall the courts at Wimbledon do not “play faster” than many of the hard courts. In short, these surfaces, other than clay, have become much more similar, with grass no longer significantly different than hard courts—and the difference is certainly nothing like that between grass, and hard courts, on the one hand, and clay on the other. Thus, Federer’s wins at Wimbledon—which have come after these changes began there—are in no way in the same category as Nadal’s at the French Open.

All this puts into perspective the actual significance of Grand Slam titles won by each. Even if Nadal were to equal Federer’s total of 20 by winning the French Open this year (assuming it is actually held), that would not change the reality that Federer’s total of Grand Slam titles is much more meaningful in terms of being representative of overall accomplishment.

In regard to Djokovic, his Grand Slam total of 17 titles is also more evenly spread out among the different tournaments, with most coming at the Australian Open, but also significant numbers at Wimbledon and at the U.S. Open, the last of the 4 Grand Slam Tournaments. (Notably, Djokovic, like Federer, has only won once at the French Open.) A number of commentators have offered the opinion that Djokovic, who is presently healthy and in “top form,” is likely (some even say “almost certain”) to catch or surpass Federer in number of Grand Slam titles.

This, however, is not certain. Federer won a majority of his titles before 2010, when he was in his 20s—although it is a measure of his greatness that he has won 3 titles in the last 3 years, at the age of 35 or older. Djokovic is now 33, and just as Federer faced very strong competition, from Nadal and then from Djokovic as he hit his prime just after 2010 (when he was in his early to mid 20s), as alluded to in the main part of this article, there are now a number of very talented younger players in the men’s game, who are just as hungry to win Grand Slams as Djokovic is to become the all-time Grand Slam title winner. Besides the question of age in general (and again, in terms of world-class tennis competition, being well past 30, and especially beyond 35, is “old”) there is also the fact that, with increasing age the likelihood of injuries, including more serious injuries, increases, and Djokovic has already not been free of injury during the overall period when he was at, or near, the very top of the men’s game. (It is another manifestation of Federer’s greatness that he has not only won a number of Grand Slam titles at 35 and older, but that he has done so after being sidelined with a knee injury serious enough to require surgery and then a period of rehabilitation.) For these reasons, among others, one is inclined to reply “not so fast” when hearing predictions that Djokovic will (almost) certainly surpass Federer, and overtake Nadal as well, in Grand Slam titles (besides the very real possibility that Nadal will win more Grand Slams, particularly keeping in mind his peculiar success at the French Open, there is also the fact that it would be a mistake—one which has been made before with regard to Federer—to discount the possibility of his winning one, or more, additional Grand Slam titles).

In terms of the GOAT argument, there is the fact that Djokovic has an overall narrow lead over Federer (27 to 23) in head-to-head matches. Here it has to be noted that this is the result of the fact that Djokovic gained the upper hand over Federer in head-to-head matches only after Federer was well past 30, while Djokovic was only in his 20s. Djokovic has continued this overall dominance in recent years, although a number of the matches he won were very close, and in 2 of their last 3 matches Federer has either beaten Djokovic—as he did convincingly in the end-of-the-year championships in 2019—or he has very, very narrowly lost to him, as happened in the 2019 Wimbledon final. (In that final Federer had two “match points”—a situation where he needed only to win one of the two next points in order to finish the match victoriously—on his own serve, but he was unable to finish Djokovic off and eventually suffered a heartbreaking loss in a classic match that was extended to nearly 5 hours. See the footnote below for some analysis of why Federer did not succeed in winning one of those two match points.**)

It was after this devastating defeat that Federer rebounded and decisively defeated Djokovic in two straight sets (2 sets to 0) in the end-of-the season championship (although Federer did not go on to win that tournament). It is true that Federer lost to Djokovic a couple of months later in the semi-finals of the Australian Open (a tournament won by Djokovic), but in that semi-final match Federer was clearly injured and not capable of playing anywhere near his best. Assuming world-class tennis is able to resume, in more or less its full dimensions, before so much time has elapsed that finally Federer has actually passed his prime, it remains to be seen whether, as he has with Nadal, Federer can gain a decisive upper hand over Djokovic, one more time, before Federer does finally decide it is time to give up competitively playing the sport he loves.

In any case, while Grand Slam titles and head-to-head competition are a significant part of the picture, in terms of determining who deserves the title of Greatest Of All Time, they are not the only factors that matter and they do not, by themselves, settle the question. As indicated above, the fact is that Federer has only been overtaken by Djokovic in head-to-head competition in more recent years when Federer has been in his 30s, even past 35—an age when, before Federer (and Serena Williams, in the women’s game), tennis players would have been considered well past their prime, certainly in terms of winning Grand Slam tournaments, something Federer has done as recently as 2018 (and very nearly did the next year at Wimbledon). Federer’s “longevity” is another important dimension to his greatness and to the argument for his status as the Greatest Of All Time. This is not just a matter of “hanging in there,” even at the very highest level, but of continually adding to an incredible record of accomplishment.

Looking at overall achievement, Federer has won far more tournaments overall (103) than either Nadal (85) or Djokovic (79). He has won far more matches (1,227) than Nadal (977) or Djokovic (893). He has gotten to more Grand Slam finals (31) than Nadal (27) or Djokovic (26). Federer has won more Grand Slam semi-finals (47) than Djokovic (36) and Nadal (33). Even more remarkably, Federer has far out-done both Djokovic and Nadal in consecutive appearances inGrand Slam semi-finals (23) and quarter-finals (33), accomplishments that are incredibly difficult to achieve.

It would be possible to go on at greater length into various statistics (and, while I believe the most relevant statistics strengthen the argument for Federer as the Greatest Of All Time, there are some that could be cited that are favorable to Djokovic or Nadal); but again, statistics, while part of the picture, do not give the full story, nor get to the essence of the matter. So, with regard to all that has been spoken to here, let me end with what I wrote near the conclusion of the main part of this article:

But, as truly great as Djokovic and Nadal are, and with whatever specific number of Grand Slam titles they ended up winning, when they leave tennis there will be others, young and hungry, who will rise to, or near, the level of play that has characterized the best of Djokovic and Nadal. With Federer, however, it is not a matter of quantity,not something that can be captured simply with statistics—the number of Grand Slams and other tournaments won, the amount of time as the top-ranked player, and so on—but much more one of quality: the artistry and creative genius of Federer, which has no equal in tennis, in any era, including the present one. As much as the governing bodies of a sport—and the television networks and other financial institutions which profit from it—seem to feel the need to market things in terms of “rivalries,” and this is definitely the case with tennis, there really is no “rival” to Federer, no one whose approach to the game and performance on the court compares to his or gives expression to the same synthesis of artistry and accomplishment. When Federer leaves, it will be a long time, if ever, before someone comes along who will bring to tennis the beauty and, yes the awe and wonder, that Federer has embodied and inspired.

 


** Note on Federer’s Narrow Loss to Djokovic in the 2019 Wimbledon final:

Federer’s failure to win one of the two match points he had on his serve in the 2019 Wimbledon final against Djokovic has to do, on the one hand, with Djokovic’s “grittiness” but even more, and more concretely, with minor mis-steps on Federer’s part. On the first of those two match points, Federer narrowly missed his first serve—which, if he had gotten it in play, would very likely have resulted in his winning the point, and the match—and on the second serve of that point, after Djokovic returned the serve to a spot deep in the middle of the court, Federer attempted to hit the ball back on an angle into Djokovic’s backhand corner, which if it had succeeded would likely have put Djokovic on the run and given the advantage to Federer, with the probable result that Federer would have prevailed. But, in attempting this, Federer “went for a little too much” (hit the ball on too sharp an angle), with the result that the ball landed out and Djokovic won the point. On the next point, Federer’s first serve was in and, in response to a fairly routine return by Djokovic, Federer chose to come to the net, with the aim of finishing the point off quickly with a successful volley that Djokovic could not return (or could return only weakly, setting up Federer to finish off the point with his next shot). But, in this case, Federer’s “approach shot” (the shot he hit to set up his coming to the net) did not have quite enough on it (it was hit toward Djokovic’s forehand corner, but not deeply enough or at a sharp enough angle to force Djokovic into a position where he could only hit a weak shot in return, enabling Federer to finish off the point, and the match, from a solid position at the net). Instead, in response to Federer’s approach shot, Djokovic was able to set up well and hit a forehand winner, which got past Federer at the net and landed securely within the court, beyond the reach of Federer’s attempted forehand volley. From there, a no doubt momentarily deflated Federer lost the next two points and the game—and the chance to finish the match off then and there—although he was far from “folding,” and in fact he continued to fiercely battle Djokovic for another 8 games, before losing the final match-deciding “tie-breaker.”

Again, credit definitely has to go to Djokovic for “hanging tough” and “refusing to fold” when he was on the brink of defeat. But, at least as much, this was a matter of Federer quite understandably feeling the great pressure of being “oh so close” to what would have constituted one of his greatest victories—winning a Grand Slam title, at this late point in his career, in a match against another great player who has dominated Federer for most of the last few years. The result was that, in a situation where literally inches decide things, Federer failed, by the thinnest of margins, to prevail. If Federer had played either of these two match points a little less anxiously, it is very probable that he would have succeeded in winning the match. (With the first match point, Federer could have “gone for a little less” with his first shot after Djokovic’s return of serve—hitting the ball toward Djokovic’s backhand corner but “leaving a little more margin,” to make sure the ball was “in,” while still being an effective shot—and then working from there to gain the advantage in the point and finish it off. With the second match point, here again having an aggressive approach, as Federer did, rather than passive one, is right and necessary—and also difficult, because in a situation like this it is very tempting, and seemingly easier, to just keep the ball in play and hope that the opponent will make a mistake and “give you the point.” But, instead of “coming into the net” right away, Federer could have again “worked the point” a little longer, in order to get a clear advantage and then finish the point by coming to the net or with a winning ground stroke. Or, if Federer were going to come to the net early in the point, as he did following his first shot after Djokovic’s return of serve, then it would probably have been better to hit an “approach shot” into Djokovic’s backhand corner, forcing him to hit a difficult “passing shot,” which could then be volleyed away for the win. Of course—of course!—it is easier to offer these opinions here and now, far removed from the court and the crucial moment of play, and without any of the pressure that inevitably accompanies such a momentous situation, in which a decision has to be made on literally a “split-second” basis; but observations removed from the heat of the moment can be valid and valuable—and, in any case, I could not resist offering these observations here, for whatever they are worth!)

As I wrote in the main part of this article:

It is remarkable that Federer has been able to retain a powerful competitive spirit, and at the same time an unequaled “cool,” not only during the time when he was the undisputed “number one” in men’s tennis (and frequently referred to then as the Greatest Of All Time) but for many years after that as well. It is one thing to be “hungry” and “focused” when one is young and “rising,” striving to get to the very top of the rankings—or in the situation with Djokovic, who has yet to become, but has openly declared his intention to become, the holder of the most Grand Slam titles and presumably the honor of being declared the Greatest Of All Time—but it is a whole other matter to continue to strive for greatness at the highest level long after one has seemingly achieved all there is to achieve, as has been the case with Federer for some time now.

Ironically, however, that very determination almost certainly results in a feeling of tremendous pressure, especially up against one’s major competitors, in a situation where beating them still has great significance, especially after they have for some time had the upper hand over you, as was the case for Federer in his 2019 Wimbledon championship match against Djokovic.  [back]

 

1. See "Materialism and Romanticism: Can We Do Without Myth?" This is an excerpt from Getting Over the Two Great Humps: Further Thoughts on Conquering the World, which is available in BA’s Collected Works at revcom.us.  [back]

2. Mark Hodgkinson, Fedegraphica, A Graphic Biography of the Genius of Roger Federer, Updated edition, Aurum Press; Revised edition, 2018“Moves Like A Whisper” is the title of the fourth chapter of this book.  [back]

3. The Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, authored by Bob Avakian, is also available at revcom.us.  [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.

 

Get a free email subscription to revcom.us:



 


 

Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/659/refusefascism-as-trump-threatens-the-elections-stay-in-the-streets-in-august-en.html

| revcom.us

 

Reposted from RefuseFascism.org:

Everyone, everywhere, all out for:

SEPTEMBER 5, 2020

Protest and Demand

TRUMP PENCE OUT NOW!

On September 5th we must make a LIVING DECLARATION to the world that we are uniting, we are organizing, we are determined, we are preparing to struggle with all we've got, starting now and not stopping until the Trump/Pence regime is driven from power and its fascist program brought to a halt.

 


July 4, 2020, New York City

 

 

Signup to Protest

Why Protest September 5th?
Read the Refuse Fascism Call for Mass Protest

We are speeding toward an election that Trump is already contesting and now threatens to delay.

This election, if there is an election, will be a showdown over the form of rule in this country. Will the Trump/Pence regime hold on to power and be given a “mandate” to violently suppress dissent and criminalize protest? Will a regime that brands as their enemy all those who struggle for a better world – whether for Black lives or the environment or immigrants’ rights – be unleashed to exact revenge aimed at destroying our ability to stand up again?

This and worse is unfolding now, and it has a name: fascism.

Now is the time to marshal the people for a determined struggle to demand the Trump/Pence Regime get OUT NOW. All who have been demonized and criminalized by this regime and the millions who hate Trump and what he stands for must unite with an unwavering resolve to remove this regime from power at the soonest possible time.

A fierce battle for the future is underway.

The energy that millions of people, from many different nationalities, backgrounds, and political beliefs, brought to the streets across this country after the horrific murder of George Floyd, and the determination that thousands brought to the streets of Portland to stand strong against Trump’s stormtroopers, can and must become the force to remove this hateful regime from power.

For more than three years, people have relied on the normal channels to stop this regime, only to watch them turn into dead ends. But the months of Black Lives Matter protests show how dread can be transformed into a force for hope. Our power is sustained, mass, non-violent protest in the streets. Our strength is our diversity. Our demand is for justice. These are the ingredients that have driven out hated regimes and corrupt leaders around the world, from South Korea in 2017 to Armenia in 2018 to Puerto Rico in 2019.

Using voter suppression and gerrymandering, unfounded accusations of voter fraud (mainly by immigrants and Black people), attacks on mail-in ballots, and a plan to recruit ex-military and police as “poll watchers” to “challenge” voters they deem as suspicious, the Trump/Pence regime has shown its determination to maintain a stranglehold on power through legal and extra-legal means. Even talk of canceling or indefinitely “postponing” the elections is not outside the realm of possibility. Relying on the upcoming elections without a mass struggle now to demand the removal of the regime is a mistake with catastrophic consequences for people in this country and around the world.

We cannot wait for the Trump/Pence regime to further delegitimize and degrade the elections. Just as the German people could not have stopped their genocidal fascist program without driving out Hitler and the Nazi regime, we must act with all our resolve to drive this regime – a 21st century fascist regime led by a demented bully with his finger on the nuclear trigger – out of power. Allowing a regime like this to consolidate its rule in the most powerful country in the world is to foreclose on a future for humanity and the planet.

There is no painless resolution to this deepening crisis. In the words of the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass “If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. ...Power concedes nothing without a demand.”

To stop a vicious American fascism that threatens the very future of humanity, the necessary and unifying demand – for every struggle for justice to advance – is Trump Pence Out Now! The regime has already gone after the most vulnerable while continually expanding the groups of people in its crosshairs. Even if you survive that, what will you be forced to accept in the process? Who will you become as you accept the unacceptable?

We have everything to lose if we wait, but everything to gain if we act now to bring millions into the streets refusing to accept a fascist America.

There are two futures before us. Which one we get is up to us.

Everyone, everywhere, all out for:

SEPTEMBER 5, 2020

Protest and Demand

TRUMP PENCE OUT NOW!

Launch 60 Days of Struggle
Mass Nonviolent Protest Everyday

TELL THE WORLD: we are uniting, we are organizing, we are determined, we are preparing to struggle with all we’ve got, Starting Now and Not Stopping Until the Trump/Pence Regime is Driven from Power and its Fascist Program Brought to a Halt.

The Trump/Pence regime is moving fast to consolidate fascist rule and hammer in a nightmare for humanity.

Police gun down Black and Brown people. The Trump/Pence  regime backs the police; sends paramilitary forces against the people and calls for racist thugs to exact vengeance against the people. Peaceful protesters are run down and shot down.

We were millions demanding justice in June and July. We must rise again. The next 60 Days Must Be Our Time – Not Trump’s, Not His Fascist Goons.

If masses of people are in the streets every day by October, if every attempt by the regime to subvert the election, to repress protest, to implement new fascist measures are met with growing numbers demanding Trump/Pence OUT NOW! in nonviolent protest we could force a different political equation going into November, constraining Trump’s ability to easily postpone or subvert the election and we would already be mobilized and prepared if he did so on election day.

Every movement for justice must act on the understanding that we are at a “Both/And” moment – for every struggle for justice, for people’s lives, AND for demanding Trump/Pence OUT NOW! This is not a time for “Either/Or,” my struggle not yours.

Humanity all over the world and the survival of the planet depends on what we do. Will it be said, when facing an American fascism in the most powerful country in history, that people here could not put aside their differences to stop a great horror? Or will history tell that people rose, as many acting together, and stopped a great horror? 

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

Printable flyer of the call for September 5 

All Protest! times & places

Share this call

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.

Find out more about Refuse Fascism here.

 

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/662/vision-statement-from-refuse-fascism-en.html

Reposted from RefuseFascism.org:

The Trump/Pence OUTNOW! Movement: A Vision and Mission Statement

| revcom.us

 

RefuseFascism.org* has initiated the nationwide Trump/Pence OUTNOW! Movement. (#TrumpPenceOutNow)

This is a call for non-violent mass protest every single day gathering in the city centers and town squares across the country starting on October 3rd and continuing through the election and until the Trump/Pence regime is removed from power. This movement, these protests, are united by one single demand: Trump and Pence Must Go. The OUTNOW! movement is broad, diverse, and welcomes everyone who sees the great danger in allowing the Trump/Pence regime to remain in power. See the RefuseFascism.org Call and Pledge for this movement.

The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go

Trump has told you he will not abide by an election he loses and tells his white supremacist thugs to “stand by.” The Republican Party is Trump’s Party and they are attacking and sabotaging people’s right to vote now. They have readied armed MAGA thugs to intimidate at the polls, and to be in the streets to enforce the Trump/Pence regime’s plans to disregard the election results should they lose. THIS WE CANNOT ALLOW. WE CANNOT WAIT TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS ON NOVEMBER 3RD. THIS IS WHY WE MUST ACT NOW.

Mike Pence, a dangerous holy warrior fighting to take away the hard-won rights of women and LGBTQ people, must go. Bill Barr, hammering in a “law and order” that tears up the rule of law, must go. The whole Trump/Pence regime is fascist, crushing basic rights and liberties, unleashing open terror and violence, accelerating the destruction of the environment, and demonizing group after group on a road to unspeakable horrors.

If fascism fully takes hold in the most powerful country in the world, the consequences for humanity will be catastrophic.

We have already let this come too far. Now we must stop it by driving this regime out of power. Together there is a way out of this nightmare, but you have to act. While we must vote in massive numbers, if we rely only on voting, or wait to see how the vote turns out, it will be a disaster and the regime will likely stay in power, and it will be exponentially harder to stop them.

What We Need to Do Now

Come into the public squares of cities and towns across the country for non-violent protests that continue day after day, united by the demand Trump/Pence Out Now, growing in numbers and not stopping until our demand is won. Inspire others to join you, organize people to mobilize their communities, and keep coming back into the public square in bigger numbers.

Think of this as Grand Central Station – marches come in and go out, teams of organizers come in and go out, news comes in and goes out – reaching and inspiring more people to join the convergence. This is a protest and organizing hub where many things can happen: art and music, film showings, organizing trainings, but the overwhelming and unifying projection is Trump Pence Out Now. This is not an occupied safe space cut off from reality. In fact it is the opposite, bringing people together to squarely face the danger of the Trump/Pence regime and act together to stop it, with everything calling out to broader society to JOIN US! JOIN US! DRIVE OUT THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME!

Through this process, we build up our numbers, unity, and resolve so that if the regime is not driven out by Election Day, we have a mighty force of people committed to continuing non-violent protests – a mass movement that will not allow whatever the regime tries to do to nullify, sabotage, or steal the election. We have a mighty force of people who refuse to be taken down a road to conciliation, whether Trump wins or loses, and continues to grow and demand Trump/Pence Out Now until they’re driven out.

Imagine all who were in the streets in June and July in the beautiful rising for Black lives, veteran activists from the 60s, youth who are fighting for a future on this planet, or people who have never protested before, coming together in a coalition of the decent people; this is what the German people did not have in order to stop the Nazi regime.

Imagine students, teachers, scientists, medical professionals, lawyers, clergy and their congregations, unions, civil rights and justice organizations, artists, athletes and others in the cultural arena speaking powerfully from their perspectives on why this fascist regime must go and organizing their networks to join the OUTNOW movement. Imagine teams of people going out every day to neighborhoods with stacks of flyers and posters to spread, getting trained as grassroots organizers, coming back in with new people they’ve brought into the movement.

Imagine contingents from other social movements coming in with banners, literature, and just demands, but adding their voices to the demand Trump/Pence Out Now with the recognition of how this regime threatens us all.

How We Can Win

As the world begins to see that there is a growing force of people in the hundreds of thousands nationwide becoming millions, refusing to back down or be provoked by Trump’s howling mobs and “tough” people, holding fast to principles of unity and non-violence, celebrating our diversity in stark contrast to the hate and bigotry of the Trump/Pence regime, every corner of society will be pulled to respond to this movement from below – including the media and those in power.

Just as we saw from the mass protests in June and July, the regime and their base become overwhelmed by our numbers and determination. Our side seizes the initiative and their side is on the defensive, but even that is not enough. We keep growing, keep coming back. That kind of political crisis, caused by millions in the streets refusing to stop until the regime is gone, leads to a situation where Democratic politicians and even some other major political forces, who have thus far gone along with the Trump/Pence regime, come to see that something must be done to stem the tide of protest, and are compelled to meet our demand. It is this basic process that has driven out hated leaders all over the world in the recent past – in Egypt, South Korea, Armenia, Puerto Rico, Lebanon – and can and must be done here.

Imagine the celebration in the streets, all over the world, when this regime has been driven from power by the power of the people, and this genocidal fascist program is brought to a halt. We are on a mission to knock this regime off its collision course with humanity. Two futures are facing off. It is time to struggle with all we’ve got, using our power of daily non-violent protest demanding Trump/Pence Out Now, for the future we want.

 

* 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 Nightmare Must End: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! Refuse Fascism invites all who agree with our mission to join us, as well as other groups and organizations to partner with us in the broader OUTNOW! movement of mass nonviolent protests that don’t stop till the regime is removed. [back]

Now More Than Ever!

See excerpts and the 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.

Find out more about Refuse Fascism here.

 

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/663/fascist-shitshow-resistance-the-need-to-drive-out-this-regime-en.html

The Fascist Shitshow... The Resistance Continues... The Need to Drive Out This Regime

| revcom.us

 

History is potentially in the balance. As Bob Avakian says: 

It is not conceivable that all this will find any resolution other than in the most radical terms and through extremely violent means. The question yet to be determined is: will it be a radical reactionary or a radical revolutionary resolution, will it mean the reinforcing of the chains of enslavement or the shattering of the most decisive links in those chains and the opening up of the possibility of realizing the complete elimination of all forms of such enslavement.

Your Guide to This Issue...

This prospect played out with power and fury, dread and hope, in the past week. We tried to cover it, every day, as it happened; and we will be trying to do this every day, from now until the election ... and beyond. Please check back in every day. Let’s take a brief survey:

The fascist shit-show: In just one week, Trump opened up his party’s convention by declaiming supposed chaos and violence in “Democrat-run” cities, praising “Second Amendment people” (that is, racist militias), and saying that he could “solve the problem in an hour.”  

We saw him say that any result other than his victory could only mean the election was rigged—and that presumably he would not go along with such a result. And then it got really ugly.  

Bob Avakian (BA) says in his statement ON THE IMMEDIATE CRITICAL SITUATION, THE URGENT NEED TO DRIVE OUT THE FASCIST TRUMP/PENCE REGIME, VOTING IN THIS ELECTION, AND THE FUNDAMENTAL NEED FOR REVOLUTION: “We have witnessed his continual encouragement of white supremacist thuggery, by police and by ‘Second Amendment people’ and other ‘very fine people,’” in the latter instance referring to Trump’s comments on the white supremacists of Charlottesville.

For key commentary on the convention, go here and here and here; and to get a deep sense of the dynamics of the Christian fascist character of what was going on—and what will be going on —go here and here. And check out these short videos here and here that break down what was really going on.

A big theme of the RNC—the law and order of fascism juxtaposed against the lawlessness, the chaos, the anarchy and the violence of the protests in the Democratic-held cities. This was a two-pronged attack—against political opponents of the fascist regime, i.e. Democratic mayors, and against the masses of people including their very right to dissent, protest and exercise basic rights of free speech. These attacks are a characteristic of fascism, which as Bob Avakian has said in his Statement, is not “just a matter of horrific policies but of a qualitatively different form of rule, based on brutal repression and violation of what are supposed to be the most basic rights.”

Trump’s “heroes” nearly kill another Black person ... but people say NO!: Trump and others in the RNC referred to the righteous—beautiful—protests as “looting, vandalism, violence,” [See this video.] and he continued this theme in his first post-Convention rally in New Hampshire, saying, “They’re anarchists, they’re agitators, they’re rioters, they’re looters.” Vicious and vengeful, he incited violence—of the white-supremacist thugs who are an integral part of the fascist rule, and program. In this context:  

Two heroes—heroes in the struggle against fascism, peoples’ heroes—were killed in Kenosha. Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum were killed in the midst of the righteous protests against the wanton shooting of Jacob Blake Jr., by the fascist mobilization to “protect property.” They tried to intervene to prevent further deaths and murder by the fascist thug alleged to have committed these murders, Kyle Rittenhouse, according to his own social media postings, a fan of the cops and a fan of Trump, a synthesis of “cops love Trump, and Trump loves cops.” Rittenhouse was carrying an AR-15 style assault rifle. A third hero, Gaige Grosskreutz, was wounded in the attack.  

Scores of pickup trucks, populated by white-supremacist fascists, armed to the gills with pepper spray, paint-guns, and other “soft” weapons mobilized across the Northwest to go into Portland to break up, disrupt and inflict violence on the protests in Portland. There is a direct line from Trump’s informal edicts to acts by his thugs, evoking the Taliban as they marched into Portland in pickup trucks. 

This IS fascism, and as BA states, “at this late and crucial hour, to treat as ‘alarmist exaggeration’ the fascist nature of this regime and its very real parallels with the horrors perpetrated by previous fascist regimes—this is to ignore not only vital lessons from history, but also the extremely dangerous reality of the current situation” ... going on to state:

If this regime is able to further consolidate its power and make further leaps in implementing its horrific objectives, this will result in a devastating setback for any attempt to resist injustice and oppression, and will very likely lead to the brutal repression, and even annihilation, of defenders of democratic rights and proponents of any meaningful progressive reforms, as well as any organized forces fighting for fundamental revolutionary change.     

Resistance Does Not Stop...  

In Kenosha, even after the killings of Huber and Rosenbaum, and after an initial “chill,” people came back night after night, day after day. There was a huge protest called by the mainstream activists and the family of Blake which attracted thousands and the world media. From what we understand, there were shortcomings—in not fully recognizing the danger humanity confronts in the regime, in what is to be done, and in the heroic sacrifices of Huber and Rosenbaum—but the manifestation itself was a repudiation of those who would shut it down.

Washington, DC manifested in protest at the closing of the RNC, offering a split-screen of protest against Trump’s remarks in the White House, and the weekend leading into the anniversary of MLK’s speech. 

Millions—and millions—hate what is represented by Trump and want an end to the NIGHTMARE.

Other voices have joined in the fray: 

Professional athletes and their teams, across the board, as evident in the statements of people like Doc Rivers, Chris Webber and LeBron James, who stated “Fuck this man,” leaving sufficiently ambiguous the implications of both the intolerability of police brutality and murder in the wake of the Jacob Blake shooting and the open white supremacy of Trump. 

Jewish organizations in support of Black Lives Matter such as the joint letter signed by over 600 multi-racial Jewish denominations, organizations and synagogues that represent over half of Jewish people in the U.S., declaring in no uncertain terms, “Unequivocally: Black Lives Matter.”

And many, many, more ... 

But Will It Go Where It Needs To?

While the people have NOT backed down, cowed into submission—MUCH, much more needs to be done, to broaden, strengthen and focus the struggle to DRIVE out this regime from power, as in the call from Refuse Fascism, #OutNow!

In Portland, they stood firm in the wake of the fascist assault—and this is needed, even more than ever, coming back STRONGER, BIGGER, AND ANEW with each attack. 

This is how ALL struggles—for justice, for radical change, for revolution—advance and will be required. 

As we stated in the article on the Democratic National Convention, with the Beautiful Rising, “overnight, the impossible became possible, in so many ways,” and this continues including in the broad manifestation around the anniversary of MLK’s speech.     

Bob Avakian states in the Statement, given the challenges we confront: “At this critical hour, every appropriate means of non-violent action must be utilized to remove this regime from power.” This includes voting, but not solely relying on it, especially in the wake of Trump undermining the integrity, de-legitimizing the process and threatening to not abide by the results

This is fascism, and mass political resistance is needed to drive out this regime!

60 days of sustained and growing non-violent mobilization has been called by Refuse Fascism—starting September 5th and going into and through the election. 

Everyone, everywhere:

SEPTEMBER 5th

Protest and Demand:

TRUMP PENCE OUT NOW!

Launch 60 Days of Struggle

Mass Non-violent Protest everyday

Tell the world: we are uniting, we are organizing, we are determined, we are preparing to struggle with all we’ve got, starting now and not stopping until the Trump/Pence Regime is driven from power and its fascist program brought to a halt.

And read, return to and spread BA’s important statement.

See also:


Share widely

 

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/662/kenosha-murder-of-two-protesters-en.html

Wednesday

On the Murder of Two Protesters and the Wounding of a Third in Kenosha Last Night: What We Know Now and What It Means

| revcom.us

 

What we know now:

  1. That Jacob Blake, Jr. was shot in the back, in cold blood, by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, with his three children looking on – for the “crime” of attempting to unlock his car door to see about his kids.  That Jacob Blake is now in intensive care.  That this comes after a summer of millions of people rising in protest and those in power – including even the racist-in-chief Donald Trump – crying crocodile tears about the police murder of George Floyd and vowing to make reforms.
  2. That people in Kenosha rose up in righteous rebellion against this outrage.  That police used heavy tear gas and other repression against them.  That police also refused to comment on the shooting or even release the name of the pig who shot Jacob Blake, Jr.  That people around the country expressed shock and anger that this could happen yet again, so blatantly and so quickly... and some people in some cities also began protests against the brutal attempted murder of Jacob Blake, Jr.
  3. That armed white fascist thugs began to roam the streets of Kenosha, heavily armed in full combat gear, in the guise of “defending property.”  That these thugs have been attacking protesters for months now, encouraged by Trump and growing bolder and more violent by the week.  That as fascist thugs provoked and messed with protesters last night, two protesters were killed and one was wounded.  
  4. That Donald Trump, the fascist-in-chief, took the occasion of opening his “convention” on Monday to say that “Second Amendment people” – that is, the very kind of THUGS who have been attacking demonstrators in Kenosha – could “take care” of Portland in a day. That not even 36 hours later the blood of protesters ran in the gutters of Kenosha.

What this means:

  1. That the fascists and racists, led by Trump, are not just escalating their threats and but making good on them.  They are showing you what another term for Donald Trump will mean.  If this fascist dog gets another term, either through “winning” the election or preventing it or stealing it, this will mean the slamming back of Black people and other people of color to a situation even worse – qualitatively worse – than today, one in which people will have no rights whatsoever and the threat of genocide will be real and present.  And this will be just one of the horrible crimes that will go on far worse than it does today, far worse than most of us can imagine.

    WE NEED TO ACT ON THIS UNDERSTANDING!
  2. That the fight against the outrageous police murder of Black and other oppressed peoples and institutionalized racism on the one hand, and the fight to drive out this fascist regime on the other, are not separate fights but linked together like blood and bones.  That BOTH these fights must now step up stronger.  And that masses of people need to flood the streets beginning now, and on September 5 COME TOGETHER IN ACTIONS demanding the immediate ouster of this criminal regime and determined not to let this danger to humanity get another term.  Go to Refusefascism.org for more information on this.
  3. That people need to urgently ask themselves: what kind of a system brings forward a Donald Trump?  What kind of a system gives you a choice between facing police batons and tear gas when you do protest the howling injustices it brings down every day on the one hand, which is what we have now... or outright fascist terror and murder to prevent any protest whatsoever, which is what we face in Trump-Pence?  A system that must be overthrown, through revolution.  This revolution IS possible – there is a strategy to make it, there is a positive and viable vision and blueprint for what will replace it, there is leadership in Bob Avakian who has brought that forward, and there is a movement – the revcoms – who are fighting to bring this into being.  Read Bob Avakian’s statement on the situation we face right now at revcom.us; and go there, and The RNL Show on YouTube, to find out more about and get organized with the revcoms.

Stay tuned to www.Revcom.us and follow us on social media for further updates.

 

Download poster

Download a PDF of this statement

The Call from RefuseFascism.org:

As Trump threatens the elections and sends fascist stormtroopers into cities:

UNITED NATIONWIDE MASS PROTESTS
Saturday September 5
DEMAND TRUMP PENCE OUT NOW!

Read more

September 5 Events by City:

 

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/663/kenosha-righteous-struggle-continues-en.html

Kenosha: Righteous Struggle Continues Against Pig Violence and Nazi Brownshirts

Fascist-in-Chief Trump Announces Kenosha Trip

| revcom.us

 

Fresh on the heels of the “law and order” Republican Convention, at which white vigilantes like the McCloskeys1 were lionized as heroes, and following Trump’s tweets encouraging the murderous mobs of white supremacists who attacked protesters in Portland, Oregon, the fascist-in-chief announced he is going to Kenosha, Wisconsin this Tuesday.

So far the White House has not announced any visit with Jacob Blake Jr., the young man shot seven times in the back by cops while inches away from his three young children, and now paralyzed. Nor with Jacob’s family, who have been demanding justice for their son. Nor has Trump expressed sympathy for this devastated family, or for the trauma inflicted—once again—on Black people everywhere. Asked about it, Jacob’s father, Jacob Blake Sr., said, “It’s too late now.” 

Nor will he meet with the family of Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, father of a two-year-old girl, murdered—apparently by a young Trump supporter—on August 26. Nor of Anthony Huber, 26, killed while heroically trying to disarm the gunman, who leaves behind his girlfriend and stepdaughter. Nor Gaige Grosskreutz, a 26-year-old volunteer medic whose arm was nearly blown off by the shooter. 

No, in fact, if Trump somehow does decide to meet the families of the Kenosha victims, it won’t be for anything good but to push his fascist agenda. To hell with that!! 

Trump said that “Kenosha” has “been in very, very good shape from the moment [the National Guard] set foot in that area.” The National Guard arrived two days before these murders, revealing that Trump considers shooting peaceful protesters to be “very good.” And instead of meeting the victims of police and fascist violence, Trump will meet with Kenosha “law enforcement”—whose history shows them to be fascist white supremacists, from top to bottom.

On August 23, cops shot Jacob Blake seven times as he was walking away, in front of his kids. Then for almost a week afterwards, the police kept the paralyzed man shackled to his hospital bed.

As video of the shooting spread across social media, large protests broke out on Kenosha’s streets. In that initial eruption of anger, some buildings and vehicles were burned and stores looted—the only violence that matters to the authorities. Riot-geared cops responded to the grief and anger by attacking demonstrators with tear gas and pepper spray—the violence that the system always “forgets” to mention. 

On August 24, they brought in the National Guard, now up to 1,000 troops.

On August 25 a militia group called on “patriots... to take up arms” and defend Kenosha “from the evil thugs.” Cops on the scene welcomed them, gave them water, told them, “We appreciate you guys being out here.” One militiaman said cops promised to push protesters “down by them” so that they could “deal with them.”  

After the murders, alleged shooter (Kyle Rittenhouse)—holding an AR-15 as people on the sidelines shouted that he had shot two people—was allowed to walk through police lines and go home without even being questioned. 

Tio Hardiman, a well-known Chicago activist working to stop the violence among gang members and turn them toward political and social action, posted a statement about the two young protesters killed in Kenosha (along with their pictures), saying: “I would like to take out a moment to Salute our fallen comrades in the fight for justice and equality for African American People in the United States. These are the two brothers that were killed in Kenosha.”

By contrast, Kenosha police chief Daniel Miskinis claimed that Huber and Rosenbaum got themselves killed by being out after curfew! County sheriff David Beth defended his men welcoming the militias. Two years ago, Sheriff Beth gave voice to the genocidal outlook underlying Trump/Pence fascism. Speaking about a high-speed chase to arrest five Black people for shoplifting, Beth said: “I’m to the point where I think society has to come to a threshold where there are some people that aren’t worth saving. We need to build warehouses to put these people into it and lock them away for the rest of their lives.”

These are the kinds of people Trump will meet with to “survey the situation” and make new plans. These are the forces he celebrates and encourages. This is a window on the truly horrific future being prepared—the unleashing of this terrorism on a far grander scale—should we allow him to remain in office for four more years.

In the face of this, protests continue every day in Kenosha, including thousands yesterday (Saturday), with people traveling from afar to express their outrage. And Revolution Club members from Chicago have been in the midst of this all week—standing with the people against the fascists and the police, taking out the understanding of what we’re facing with the fascist regime and what we need to do concentrated in the statement from Bob Avakian on the immediate critical situation, and the need for revolution (see excerpts from a revcom.us conversation with Club members in Kenosha).

 


1. The white St. Louis couple who brandished semi-automatic weapons at peaceful Black Lives Matter marchers near their home.  [back]


Protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, August 28.

Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber. Credit: @TKarmen7

Clyde McLemore, co-founder Lake County BLM, wrote on Facebook about the two protesters killed in Kenosha:

“It really sad that 2 white guys who been at my side for the last 2 days protesting and protecting me has been shot and killed. I knew this guy and he had my back.

“When I heard about the shooting I figure I didn’t know them or maybe they was looters. No No No, this guy was a resident of Kenosha and just seeking justice for black people of Kenosha.

“I understand in a war there is never no winners no losers. When our allies come, and they are killed for their good deeds, it really saddens me. This shit hurts.

“Tonight I lay in bed with tears in eyes. Scare to sleep wonder why so many of our children have died before we can smell justice. This boy don’t have insurance, his family is trying bury him. This shit is so heavy right now.

“On Monday as I leading this March in Kenosha this man push me out of way of car who didn’t want to stop as we protest. I wake up and he dead, using his white privilege to help us gain some justice. HE WAS NOT OUT THERE BURNING NO BUILDING. HE WAS SEEKING JUSTICE. DAMN DAMN DAMN!?”

See also:

From a Conversation with Revolution Club Members Now in Kenosha:

"When we bring up that we want to fight for our people... we're talking about all the people in the world that are just like us"

Read more

 

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/663/conversation-with-revolution-club-members-in-kenosha-en.html

From a Conversation with Revolution Club Members Now in Kenosha:

"When we bring up that we want to fight for our people... we're talking about all the people in the world that are just like us"

| revcom.us

 

Editors' Note: The following are edited excerpts of a conversation between editors of revcom.us and several members of the Revolution Club, Chicago, who are in Kenosha now and have been since the day after the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

It seemed quieter in the streets on the days after these two young men—who actually stopped this guy from murdering more people, stepped in the way of that—and lost their lives. There was a kind of a chill. But then we also realized after talking to people and also staying on top of some things that they were actually being very proactive about it, the other side, arresting people while they were alone or were separated from others....

There have been a couple of groups we met. One of those was Riot Kitchen, and they had come all the way from Portland and Seattle, on their way to the protests against Trump in DC, picking up people in Arkansas and a few other places. A very mixed crew, they kind of looked like modern-day hippies in a lot of ways. Some people were master’s degree students, some were sous chefs, others were people who’ve always been rebellious. One guy always thought that it was his fight to be part of something where people can be treated as humans, you know, no matter what their socioeconomic position is....

In Kenosha, the chemicals the police are using are very, very harsh. And it really pushed back people. But they kept on coming back, which is very important. The protest yesterday, that was the biggest outpouring of people that we’ve seen. It was close to a thousand people. It was a more mixed crowd. It wasn’t just the youth—older people, middle class, all together. Versus the “night crowd,” which is mainly between 17 and 30, a very young crowd.

*****

Some of the local people—it was almost like they had no idea of the national implications and global implications of what they had done. In the neighborhoods, we found that some of the people were connected to Chicago street organizations, and it was like, “We stood up.” They were even more heartened when they heard that because of their actions, it had a huge impact on the rest of the people looking in on this.

When we talked to some other people, the “outside agitators,” coming in from places like Portland and Seattle they had more of a sense that we are facing fascism. Some of them were on their way to DC because they said, “You know what, we need to bring the fight to the doorsteps of Trump himself.” It was interesting to talk to them because the way they had been in the middle of such a hot, boiling situation, they’d gotten a little more sense of how this is drastically different than the “normal” workings.

*****

We missed the initial protest on Monday (the day after the shooting of Jacob Blake) because we got in later in the day. When we got there we went straight to the scene and met a lot of really cool people who were there on the first night of protest. A lot of guys we met were definitely associated with “the life,” to some extent. At first they would be like, who are you, why are you here? And we’d be like, we’re the Revolution Club from Chicago. Then they’d start opening up and getting a little warmer. There were some women who were on the scene right after, or even during the shooting of Jacob. They were a little scared to talk to us at first, but they more opened up towards the end of us talking to them.

*****

Once some of the younger people in the neighborhood figured out who we were, they were really friendly. They were really proud that they had done all this with the protest, so swiftly, to stand up for each other and for Jake. It was fun listening to hear how they felt really empowered and energized in standing up. But they had no idea of how much impact they had had even within 24 hours—they were frankly kind of astonished at the impact.

When we talked to them, and to another group later, they were like, when we bring up that we want to fight for our people, we’re not just talking about Black people or the people in our neighborhood, we’re talking about all the people in the world that are just like us. That’s what they were saying—this is coming from these people who are probably in “the life,” or were, not too long ago, you know.... But at the same time, we had to go a little deeper with them—getting into what fascism is. Not like in a scholastic way, but bringing out there’s a certain reason why this stuff is hurtling like a meteorite toward the world. By understanding that, that gives us the scientific grounding as to why we need to massively organize to oust them, while at the same time building as much as possible to go for revolution.

*****

I think there’s an important need to struggle with people around the country to not back down, despite what’s happening. And seriously get into the August 1 statement by Bob Avakian. Because without the understanding that this is a whole fascist program, and this is happening nationally with global implications, people going to be stuck in this land-lock of fighting against things that come up against them. And the fascists are just one day going to be able to completely crush those against them, if people don’t understand what’s going on and the need for them to stand up wherever they are.

The other thing is that, we had to be struggled with too. Initially, when we got here, we were like, we don’t want to be arrested, we still got stuff to do in Chicago, all that. But then we came to see this is actually an opening that could have huge implications for driving forward revolution. There’s going to be repression and everything, but that just means we need to come back stronger. It is scary to be running around town and have the police stop you and everything. But the defiance people have is going to make a world of difference going into September 5th—and a world of difference going into a whole other situation.


The Revolution Club in Kenosha.

Support the Revolution Club Members Now in Kenosha! Funds are much needed.
Donate HERE.

See also:

Wednesday
On the Murder of Two Protesters and the Wounding of a Third in Kenosha Last Night: What We Know Now and What It Means

Read more

 

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/663/trump-vs-reality-who-are-real-victims-of-violence-at-protests-en.html

Trump vs. Reality: Who Are the REAL Victims of Violence at Protests?

| revcom.us

 

Trump proclaimed at the Republican National Convention, “Your vote will decide whether we protect law abiding Americans, or whether we give free rein to violent anarchists, agitators, and criminals who threaten our citizens.” He trotted out two white racist “heroes,” Mark and Priscilla McCloskey who had threatened protesters outside their house—WITH GUNS DRAWN. Mark McCloskey said, “a mob of protesters descended on our neighborhood....”

Trump proclaimed that “the Second Amendment” people could “solve” protests in Portland in a day. Five days later hundreds of pro-Trump fascist thugs drove through Portland, running people over, beating, macing, and shooting protesters with paintball guns. Toward the end of the night, someone—who may have been part of a fascist organization—was shot and killed.

If you listen to Trump, the Republi-fascists, and the vengeful howls for a violent crackdown, you would think there is an epidemic of protesters murdering cops and Trump supporters. But what’s the reality?

The actual reality is: In most cases where people have been killed at protests, it has been cops, racist vigilantes, and reactionary storeowners murdering protesters.

The latest example happened in Kenosha. 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse, a pro-Trump, white vigilante, who was greeted and encouraged by the cops, is accused of shooting and killing two protesters, 26-year-old Anthony Huber and 36-year-old Joseph Rosenbaum.

In recent months as many as 20 protesters have been killed. People have been shot by cops and others in uniform. Reactionary storeowners have killed people to “protect private property.” And a number of protesters have died after being hit by vehicles.

These are only a few examples:

* May 31 in Omaha, Nebraska: James Scurlock, a 22-year-old Black activist, was shot and killed by Jacob Gardner, a bar owner. Gardner’s father told protesters to leave the bar and then started shoving them. A witness said Gardner and his father were confronting protesters and using racist taunts. At least four other people have been killed by people “protecting their private property.”

* June 2 in Vallejo, California: Cops, who said they were responding to reports of looting, killed 22-year-old Latino Sean Monterrosa—who was on his knees. When Monterrosa lifted up his hands, cops said they saw a gun—which turned out to be a hammer in Monterrosa’s pocket. A cop then fired at Sean five times through the windshield of his unmarked pig car. At least three other people have been killed by an armed state-sponsored pig at a demonstration.

* July 4 in Seattle: 24-year-old Summer Taylor was part of a protest on a closed highway. She was struck and killed by a car driven by Dawit Kelete, who drove the wrong way up an exit ramp, made a sharp U-turn and then directly hit Taylor and another protester. At least two other protesters have died after being hit by vehicles.

* July 25 in Austin, Texas: Daniel Perry, an Army sergeant who had posted tweets about retaliating against demonstrators, killed 28-year-old Garrett Foster. Foster had been out protesting every day since the murder of George Floyd, pushing the wheelchair of his fiancée, Whitney Mitchell, a quadruple amputee. At least five other protesters have been killed by reactionary shooters, including the murders in Kenosha.

This IS fascism. As revcom.us has said: “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.’”

 

Sources:

Few of the deaths linked to recent protests are known to have been caused by demonstrators,” by Philip Bump, Washington Post, August 26, 2020.

Fact check: More Black people died in 2019 police shootings than in George Floyd protests,” by Adrienne Dunn, USA Today, June 28, 2020.

Deadly unrest: Here are the people who have died amid George Floyd protests across US,” FOX News, June 8, 2020.

14 Days of Protests, 19 Dead,” by Jemima McEvoy, Forbes, June 8, 2020.

Hundreds of MAGA fascist thugs invade Portland; one person was killed.

Chicago RevClub with bullhorn
Members of the Revolution Club in Chicago protest the fascist murder of two protesters and the wounding of another person.

Reposted from RefuseFascism.org:

As Trump threatens the elections and sends fascist stormtroopers into cities:

UNITED NATIONWIDE MASS PROTESTS
Saturday September 5
DEMAND TRUMP PENCE OUT NOW!

Read more

Protest! times & places

 

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/662/fascist-shit-show-hits-the-white-house-en.html

"Our Savior Has Come, Prepare for the Crusade – Heil Mein Trumpf!"

Fascist Shit-Show Hits the White House

| revcom.us

 

Day 4 of the Republic National Shitshow brought the whole fascist package together: a foreign enemy to fear and blame for “Our Glorious Nation’s” misery... an “enemy within” to hate and crush... an alternate universe of lies about a once-upon-a-time-but-soon-to-be-recovered “greatness” to believe in—and die for... and a heaven-sent messiah to lead his demented minions to violently enforce that universe.

To break it down further:

Trump, and his whole convention, conjured up an America that never existed. In the last few months, tens of millions have been challenged to come to grips with the profound and basic truth that the foundations of this country were poured with slavery and genocide, and that these foundations persist and disfigure every aspect of American society today. But Trump insisted on the bullshit lie of “brave (white) pioneers who worked hard.”  

Trump, and his whole convention, pointed to—and knowingly demonized—a “foreign enemy” (China) to explain every failure of his administration and of the whole capitalist system for the last 30 years. This, too, is a lie. The truth is that the normal workings of this capitalist-imperialist system that Trump loves so much have wreaked havoc in this country in the past few decades—and, not so by the way, most of all on Black and Brown people and other people of color, including many immigrants, as well as large sections of white people in the middle and working classes. But Trump wants his minions to blame China, which is just another imperialist country itself. He even accuses China of foisting the coronavirus on the world—that same virus that the antiscientific and ignorant Trump has allowed to rampage through the country. And—unspoken but well understood in a convention in which the Vice President gave his speech at Fort McHenry, in which wounded war veterans were slobbered over, and in which the insane military buildup Trump has overseen was hailed—it is China that you must prepare to fight. 

Trump, and his whole convention, conjured up “an enemy within” to vanquish. An evil enemy that supposedly wants to invade your suburb, loot your store, burn your house, and tear down your crosses. This is another lie. 

The truth is that those whom Trump portrays as the “enemy” are the millions who rose up to protest the hard truth that police murder and institutionalized racism are REAL. Trump’s “enemy” are the millions who insisted that America confront the truth about its society and a very large part of its ugly past. This “enemy” that Trump accuses of violence are those who stood up bravely against the ultra-violent police, national guard, army and the Trumpite armed mobs who came at them with tear gas, rubber bullets, guns, cars and the rest and who beat them and kidnapped them and put them in jail and threw heavy charges at them ... and even killed them. This “enemy,” of course, also includes the millions more who sympathized with them. This enemy is YOU... is US... is the people of the whole planet who are thrilled to see this outpouring and in many countries took heart and did the same. These justice-loving people and the cause they fight for are who and what Trump is summoning his followers to crush. 

The fact that Trump not only paraded the racist couple who threatened peaceful and mainly Black protestors with semi-automatic weapons but then chose not to condemn the murders in Kenosha for which one of his “Second Amendment” followers stands accused ... the fact that not only Trump but speaker after speaker celebrated the police and spoke not a word of the heinous attempted murder by pigs of Jacob Blake, Jr in Kenosha leading into the convention ... this spoke volumes on HOW he intends to enforce his lie of an America where “the overwhelming majority” of police are heroes and (Black and other oppressed) people should be “grateful” and not raise their “grievances” (and yes, those quotes are from speakers at the convention).

But it is not just these people and principles he aims to destroy. The Trump/Pence regime aims to enchain women who demand to control their bodies and their lives ... those gay and lesbian and transgender and all kinds of other people who wish to love whom they please ... those people who choose not to bow down to Trump’s version of religion or who dare to profess no religion at all ... those who would burn American flags to defy Trump’s patriotism, which he intends now to enforce with jail sentences ... and all those who refuse to accept the whole upside-down universe of lies, lies and more lies that Trump insists is the truth every single day. 

Throughout the convention, one person after another was brought forward to attest to Trump’s “special greatness.” Trump sealed all this at the end of his speech with a Vegas-meets-Nuremberg (the site of Hitler's rallies) pageant of fireworks and a long view of the White House lawn—a pageant that would have been ridiculous were it not so deadly serious. For this is the kind of shit that inspires the fools, racists, misogynists and haters who make up his fascist base. And that is who he is mobilizing and unleashing to violently impose his will, now and to an even greater extent should he lose the election—and Trump, remember, opened the convention by saying the “only way he could lose is if it’s rigged.”

Now the challenge is on us. Will we confront the reality of what the last four years and now the last four days have meant ... and will mean? Will we get up and put on our marching shoes and join the hundreds, including Refuse Fascism and the revcoms, as well as many others, who broke the spell and demonstrated outside the White House on the final night of the convention against Trump, and made so much noise outside his pageant that reality intruded? Will you be there on, and will you build for, September 5, and the weeks that must follow it ... and all the way through, however long it takes and wherever it leads?

We close with this point from Bob Avakian:

With the full awareness of what is represented by this fascist regime, and what it means that Trump is not only seeking to suppress the votes of people who will vote against him but is also preparing to utilize forceful, violent repression to remain in office if he is not declared the winner in the election, it is of critical and urgent importance to build now truly massive and sustained mobilization around the unifying demand that this regime must be OUT NOW!—with an orientation of being prepared to continue this even past the election, if the situation requires it. (from ON THE IMMEDIATE CRITICAL SITUATION, THE URGENT NEED TO DRIVE OUT THE FASCIST TRUMP/PENCE REGIME, VOTING IN THIS ELECTION, AND THE FUNDAMENTAL NEED FOR REVOLUTION)

There is a semi-official narrative about the history and the "greatness" of America, which says that this greatness of America lies in the freedom and ingenuity of its people, and above all in a system that gives encouragement and reward to these qualities. Now, in opposition to this semi-official narrative about the greatness of America, the reality is that—to return to one fundamental aspect of all this—slavery has been an indispensable part of the foundation for the "freedom and prosperity" of the USA. The combination of freedom and prosperity is, as we know, still today, and in some ways today more than ever, proclaimed as the unique quality and the special destiny and mission of the United States and its role in the world. And this stands in stark contradiction to the fact that without slavery, none of this—not even the bourgeois-democratic freedoms, let alone the prosperity—would have been possible, not only in the southern United States but in the North as well, in the country as a whole and in its development and emergence as a world economic and military power.

—Bob Avakian, BAsics 1:8

The Call from RefuseFascism.org:

PROTEST EVERYWHERE
Saturday September 5
DEMAND TRUMP PENCE OUT NOW!

Read more

If this regime is able to further consolidate its power and make further leaps in implementing its horrific objectives, this will result in a devastating setback for any attempt to resist injustice and oppression, and will very likely lead to the brutal repression, and even annihilation, of defenders of democratic rights and proponents of any meaningful progressive reforms, as well as any organized forces fighting for fundamental revolutionary change.

(From ON THE IMMEDIATE CRITICAL SITUATION, THE URGENT NEED TO DRIVE OUT THE FASCIST TRUMP/PENCE REGIME, VOTING IN THIS ELECTION, AND THE FUNDAMENTAL NEED FOR REVOLUTION)

 

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/662/the-fascist-pageant-at-the-white-house-en.html

The Fascist Pageant at the White House:
Anti-China Hate, Lies, and War Fever

by Raymond Lotta

| revcom.us

 

And so it goes in Trump's fascist telling in his RNC acceptance speech. China is “stealing our jobs” ... “ripping us off” ... “robbing our country blind”... and bent on “owning the country.” 

Der Führer blamed China for the COVID-19 virus, using the racist label “the China virus.” The truth is that this virus is an animal-to-human pathogen (a disease-causing micro-organism). While the scientific consensus is that COVID-19 originated in China, Trump's insinuation that China deliberately spread the virus is utterly unfounded. Indeed, the evidence is that the likely source of the majority of infections in the U.S. is Europe. And let's be clear, this is one planet and a global pandemic. Trump's sensationalistic lies have been part of a sordid attempt to cover up the regime's criminal role in turning a public health crisis into an utterly unnecessary social-health catastrophe. 

More ominously, Trump is whipping up war fever against China. He insisted that “China will be held fully accountable for this national [COVID-19] tragedy.” A few days earlier, he declared, “if I don't win...you're going to have to learn to speak Chinese.” At the White House, he boasted of being the only politican who can and will “stand up to China.” 

Meanwhile, U.S. and China warships encounter each other in the South and East China Seas ... as the hired opera singer intonated “God Bless America” to the lunatic throngs on the White House lawn ... as the fireworks went off.   

1) Setting the record straight about the U.S. economic relationship with China.

* Beginning in the late 1980s and taking off in the 1990s, China has been a cheap-labor/sweatshop “paradise” for U.S. and Western capital. American companies in high-tech, like Dell, Microsoft, and IBM shifted manufacturing operations to China. Workers on these production lines in the first decade of the 2000s were working upwards of 68 hours a week, being paid 65 cents an hour, and subjected to a relentless pace of work and cruel systems of control. 

As the 2010s opened, most of Apple's iPhones were assembled in a single factory complex—in central, coastal China—that housed 450,000 workers! The 2017 factory cost of the iPhone, taking in all of its suppliers, was $237. But only $8.46 went to firms in China assembling the phone and producing its batteries. Of the final selling price of $649 at the time, $283 of the total gross profit went straight to the coffers of Apple. 

Similar horror stories and financial windfalls could be told about apparel companies subcontracted by Target, and other large transnational U.S. firms “sourcing” production of low-priced consumer goods in China, Bangladesh, Mexico, elsewhere. The “Wal-Mart” price, largely based on “made in China,” has enabled U.S. capital to keep wages down and raise profitability. U.S. auto investments in China have allowed these companies to more directly penetrate a rapidly growing market—and this has been vital to overall corporate earnings and global competitiveness. The U.S. government has also collected duties and tariffs (these are like taxes) on goods entering the U.S. from abroad.

* China provided another source of stimulus for the U.S. economy. The Chinese government and banks derived revenues from the export sales of Chinese capitalist manufacturers to the U.S. and other Western markets. The Chinese government and banks invested a lot of that “foreign exchange” (generally dollars earned through export sales) in bonds issued by the U.S. Treasury. That money coming into the U.S.—its origins largely in sweatshop manufacturing—lubricated the U.S. economy. It helped make it possible for the U.S. government to run up (and finance) monumental deficits. More money was now sloshing through the U.S. economy, and that in turn stimulated growth and financial profits in the 1990s and 2000s, including through the housing boom and bubble. 

* The U.S.-China relationship since the late 1980s, had been dominated by and overwhelmingly benefited U.S. capital—enhancing profitability. 

But by the time of the 2007-08 global financial crisis, the U.S.-China relationship was growing more complex and changing. China is a rising capitalist-imperialist power. It has gained its own vast and independent economic strength and clout. China is now the world's 2nd largest economic power. China has become a technological innovator. Its currency and banking system play a growing role in global financial markets. China is investing heavily in other parts of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. China is challenging the U.S. for markets and global influence. And China is building up its military.

2) Setting the record straight about the loss of manufacturing jobs in the U.S.

* Yes, millions of manufacturing jobs have been outsourced and subcontracted from the U.S. to Mexico, China, and other parts of the “Global South.” Not because these countries are “stealing jobs” but because U.S. capital, facing intense international competition, roams the world in search of greater profit.

* The main reason U.S. manufacturing jobs have disappeared over the last few decades is technological transformation. Auto companies, steel firms, aerospace, and others have introduced robotics, worker-displacing equipment, information technology and more that have led to much higher output per worker ... and fewer workers! And U.S. firms have not only downsized but restructured work processes. 

* Donald Trump has not reversed these trends. Yes, several hundred thousand manufacturing jobs were added in the three years up to the outbreak of the pandemic (although that happened under Obama, too). But the share of manufacturing jobs in relation to total U.S. employment has declined sharply in the past few decades: from 28 percent in 1960 to a post-World War 2 low of slightly over 8 percent today. These jobs are not coming back—no more so than agricultural jobs that used to be at the heart of the U.S. labor force ... but which were mechanized out of existence. 

U.S. capital depends on global, cheap-labor supply chains. These chains move and morph throughout the “global south.” The profitablity and very functioning of U.S. capital requires super-exploitation in the Third World. It's why the Trump administration pressured the Mexican government to keep factories controlled by U.S. capital open as the pandemic hit, churning out goods for the U.S. and global market. 

3) Anti-China xenophobia and escalating war moves.  The U.S. military under Trump has been guided by and is operating according to a new National Security Strategy enunciated in 2018. That strategy is nothing less than a dark vision for U.S.-China conflict. As Trump chest-thumped to the TV audience—and reminded China—he has presided over an enormous military build-up (and this build-up includes expanded nuclear-war waging capacity). [See “The Absurd and Dangerous Fantasy That Donald Trump Is Not a War Monger”] 

Trump's acceptance speech was the culmination of a RNC Hitlerian pageant. A virulent step in the racist-fascist juggernaut of clampdown at home and escalating moves towards war.

See also:

The Absurd and Dangerous Fantasy That Donald Trump Is Not a War Monger

by Raymond Lotta

Read more


"Our Savior Has Come, Prepare for the Crusade – Heil Mein Trumpf!"

Fascist Shit-Show Hits the White House

Read more

 

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/663/giuliani-lynch-dream-of-unleashing-hitler-style-clampdown-on-whole-country-en.html

Giuliani and Lynch Dream of Unleashing Hitler-Style Clampdown on the Whole Country

| revcom.us

 

On Wednesday, August 26, two fascist pigs, Patrick Lynch, and Rudy Giuliani, made speeches at the Republican National Convention (RNC) to highlight Trump as the “law and order” president.

These were perfect choices to hype Trump. Lynch heads the PBA (Patrolman’s Benevolent Association—which should be called “Police Brutality Association”). In 21 years, Lynch has never once failed to justify any of the hundreds of NYPD killings of civilians. In 2014 an NYPD gang attacked Eric Garner for allegedly selling loose cigarettes and choked him to death. Garner repeatedly pleaded, “I can’t breathe” before dying. Lynch’s response: “If you can speak you can breathe.” He called the cop who choked him a “model of what we want a police officer to be.”

Giuliani, a close Trump ally, was New York City’s mayor from 1994 to 2001. In his first five years, NYPD killed at least 187 people; thousands more were brutalized. Under Giuliani, NY cops in 1994 shot 13-year-old Nicholas Heyward Jr. while he played with an orange plastic gun. Nicholas’s last words were “We’re only playing…” The same year a young Puerto Rican man, Anthony Baez, was choked to death after a football he threw accidentally hit a cop car. In 1997, four NYPD cops beat and handcuffed Haitian immigrant Abner Louima, took him to their precinct and sodomized him with the wooden handle of a toilet plunger. Then they jammed it, covered with blood and feces, into Louima’s mouth, breaking his teeth.

After that, the masses in NYC started talking about “Giuliani Time”—meaning, a time when cops knew they could do anything and get away with it.

These two pigs both hit three common themes in their speeches.

First, they claimed major cities are plagued by “skyrocketing” rates of murder and other violent street crime,1 and they equated such crimes with the mass protests of millions against police brutality and systemic racism. According to Giuliani, the initial protests quickly “turned into riots… Businesses were burned and crushed, people beaten, shot and killed. Police officers routinely assaulted, badly beaten, and occasionally murdered.”2 Coupling this with the cynical use of tragic shootings of young people, they depicted the cities of today as terrifying hellscapes that are on the brink of getting vastly worse.

Second, they insisted that the “radical Democrats” are literally—in Giuliani’s words—“pro-criminal” and “anti-police” and are deliberately “handcuffing” the cops. Lynch said that “The violence and chaos we’re seeing now, isn’t a side effect.... It’s actually the goal [of the] radical left.” Giuliani claimed that Trump’s enemies were afraid that Trump would solve the problem of “police misconduct,” making him more popular. So “Black Lives Matter and Antifa sprang into action and, in a flash, they hijacked the peaceful protests into vicious, brutal riots.” Meanwhile, Giuliani claimed that Democratic mayors ordered police not to make arrests, and if they did, Democrats “released the rioters so as not to disrupt the rioting.”3

Their third point was that only if all constraints on police violence are lifted can this nightmare be stopped, and that can only happen if the Democrats are gotten out of the way (one way or another)—and that Donald Trump is the savior who will do this. Lynch said that Democrats make it “impossible for police officers to do our job.… Our hands are tied.”

To sum up: so-called street criminals need to be beaten down, locked up or killed; protesters are just street criminals in disguise; and the Democrats are as bad or worse than these “criminals.” That is the point of all of Giuliani and Lynch’s brazen lying and hysterical fear mongering. It’s not simply that they are justifying the many crimes that they have already committed, they are jonesing for a “final solution”—a fascist order, with the Democrats out of the way and the cops enabled to “clean up the problems in a day,” as Trump likes to say.

Lynch says Donald Trump “gives law enforcement the support and the tools we need, to go out there and put a stop to it, period, end of story.” Donald Trump promises “police officers everywhere, ‘I will never let you down.’” Giuliani says Donald Trump, “with his boundless love of our country and all our people, his disciplined work ethic, his exceptional ability to inspire and his deep understanding of our system of government and the strength of American values is the man we can trust to… make our nation safe again.”

If things go this way, this would be a true nightmare, akin to fascist regimes of Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy, Pinochet in Chile… or like life under the Islamic Fundamentalists in Iran or the Duterte regime in the Philippines. These are societies in which the people as a whole can’t speak up, can’t protest, can’t breathe, and in which people are constantly subject to extreme violence from the state and fascist organizations for any reason or none at all.

We CANNOT allow this to go down.

 


1. Violent crime in the U.S. has actually been dropping for decades, though there has been a small uptick this year. In NYC—where Giuliani says, “Murder, shootings, and violent crime are increasing at percentages unheard of in the past”—violent crime has hit record lows. In 2001—Giuliani’s last year as mayor—there were more than twice as many murders as occurred in 2019. [back]

2. Note, thousands of protesters were “beaten, shot and killed,” by the police and by fascist forces. There is not one instance of a law enforcement officer being killed by a protester, though one was apparently killed by a fascist, and another by an unknown person while guarding a store. [back]

3. In reality, Democratic mayors unleashed tremendous repression against protests—in the first two weeks of protests, at least 10,000 people were arrested nationally. [back]

BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian is a book of quotations and short essays that speaks powerfully to questions of revolution and human emancipation.

"You can't change the world if you don't know the BAsics."

Order the book HERE
Download the book in ePub format HERE

Reposted from RefuseFascism.org:

PROTEST EVERYWHERE
SEPTEMBER 5, 2020
DEMAND TRUMP PENCE OUT NOW!

Read more

Protest! times & places

 

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/662/the-democratic-convention-what-this-means-for-humanity-en.html

The Democratic Convention: What Did Happen, What Didn't Happen, and What This Means for Humanity

| revcom.us

 

What Did Happen, Why, and Why It Is Significant

The most significant thing that happened was this: the major spokespeople for the Democratic Party – Bernie Sanders, Barack and Michelle Obama, Joe Biden as the nominee – to a certain degree rang the alarm on the situation we face with Trump.

Obama, speaking with the Constitution as the background, warned, “Don't let them take away your democracy”; Sanders, who is Jewish, said his family and others know “the insidious way authoritarianism destroys democracy, decency and humanity,” obliquely referring to Hitler and the Nazis; and Biden himself ended his speech by recalling how Trump praised as “very fine people” the racists, fascists and anti-Semites who paraded around Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 and ended up killing a counter-demonstrator. Crystallizing this danger, Biden said, “Decency, science, democracy... They are all on the ballot.” All this, without using the word, invoked the specter of fascism, a form of bourgeois rule in which rights are dispensed with, vicious mobs are unleashed against the people, and there is blatant dictatorship exercised by the regime.

The Democrats in the main also put forward a very multicultural lineup, going against Trump’s blatant white supremacy, and continually spoke to the importance of equality and the struggle to end institutionalized racism. Such a lineup and the profession of such ideals served as a contrast to the unapologetic white supremacist future represented by Trump. They also went after the gross negligence and anti-science mentality of the way the regime has handled the COVID-19 pandemic.

But on a basic level, the convention was BEB – Bourgeois Electoral Bullshit. The Democrats once again made promises to be “better than” the Republicans, from social welfare to national security. In reality, this means to do better at presiding and ruling over this system of capitalism-imperialism: a system of bitter exploitation and global plunder; a system that has “baked into” all its social structures the ugly relations of white supremacy, male supremacy, the plunder of the environment and the oppression of the majority of the world and the endless wars to defend all that; a system that has now brought things to the point where humanity faces the real prospect of a consolidated fascist America.

But again, the Democrats also signaled to the world that what we face in the Trump regime is different. They put out, from their own standpoint and in a way that they have not done before, that there is a unique threat concentrated with this regime.

This threat is also posed against them directly, as Trump has explicitly threatened to prosecute, jail or even execute his opponents in the ruling class, without regard for what have been the norms (or normal standards) of how the ruling class settles differences among themselves. This includes not only political opponents like Hillary Clinton (“lock her up”) and Obama (“Obamagate”), but also those like ex-FBI Director Comey who oppose Trump.

But it is not just, or even mainly, that. Trump has also, as Bob Avakian has said, not only sought “to suppress the votes of people who will vote against him but is also preparing to utilize forceful, violent repression to remain in office if he is not declared the winner in this election” (from ON THE IMMEDIATE CRITICAL SITUATION, THE URGENT NEED TO DRIVE OUT THE FASCIST TRUMP/PENCE REGIME, VOTING IN THIS ELECTION, AND THE FUNDAMENTAL NEED FOR REVOLUTION). This too was pointed to, if not explicitly, and decried by Obama and others.

Coming from their own interests as defenders of this worldwide system of plunder, the Democrats see Trump as damaging those interests around the world.1 Moreover, in their eyes, his fascist regime runs the risk of dangerously “destabilizing” U.S. society itself, leading to possible social upheavals.

In short: the convention illustrated that the contradiction between those who want to lock in fascism and those who oppose it is a sharp contradiction at the top ruling levels of society.

What Didn’t Happen, Why... and Why That Is Even More Significant

What did NOT happen at the convention is that none of the major speakers used the word fascism from the official podium.2 Why?

If they were to use that word (especially in a formal speech and not in a wink-wink tweet or somewhere else),

a) What does that say about the history of this country and the nature of their system, a system that gave rise to this ugly fascism and of which the Democrats are a ruling class party? And

b) What does that say about how the fight should be waged to prevent that form of rule from being imposed?

Think about it: if Obama were to say that we had to face down and fight a fascist regime in the White House, what would it say about their system that let it get there? What would it say about the strength of white supremacy – that even after a Black president, white supremacy is still strong enough to turn back the so-called “moral arc of the universe”? What would that imply about how “dug in” and interwoven this problem (and others like misogyny) are with this system and society?

To say that we are facing fascism would admit that the rights and protections which are supposedly guaranteed to people by this government – even as hemmed in as they are by the domination and, yes, ultimate dictatorship of the capitalist-imperialist class – actually can vanish. To say that word would admit that the victories that people do win are not some story of gradual but steady progress, but concessions wrung out of the ruling class by blood that can be snatched back when the system finds itself up against sharp contradictions and dominant sections of the ruling class decide to resort to extreme measures.

The second reason they did not mention that word is that, if they were to admit this is fascism, you must come to grips with this truth, laid out in Bob Avakian’s statement quoted above:

Relying on, and confining actions within, the “norms” and “regular channels” of this system, including the upcoming election, cannot solve this profound and urgent problem, especially when dealing with a fascist regime and its fanatical followers that are determined to trample on and tear up those “norms.” (CRITICAL SITUATION..., emphasis added)

And nobody even came close to doing that – to calling on people to step outside the norms of their system and engage in mass political resistance. All the focus and reliance was put on voting, voting, voting – despite dire warnings at the same time that Trump is engaged in voter suppression.

Yes, it is important, as Bob Avakian has put it, that “a decisive defeat” be delivered to “Trump and the whole fascist regime” in the election. Why? Because as BA goes on to say, on the basis of masses taking the streets and demanding the ouster of the regime, such a defeat “would create far better conditions for continuing to wage the struggle against everything represented by the Trump/Pence regime and all the oppression and injustices of this system, and would be a great gift to the people of the world.” (ibid.)

Biden is not Trump – he is not attempting to implement fascism – and for that reason people should vote for him and resistance must be waged against any attempt whatsoever to prevent people from voting.

But that will not be enough – and cannot be relied on.

Look, Trump is already hinting at, showing us and at times even telling us what he will do: how he will use trickery and force to prevent people, especially Black people and other people of color, from voting; how he will sabotage the vote-by-mail efforts; how he will falsely claim fraud; how he will hack the results; how he will tie up the courts while he calls out his armed followers and perhaps even the army itself; and on and on and on. How does just voting prevent any of that?

All this again drives home BA’s point from CRITICAL SITUATION: Simply relying on voting to oust this regime will almost certainly lead to very bad, even disastrous results.”

What We URGENTLY Need to Do... and to Set in Motion NOW

If we can recognize that we face a fascist regime with its hands on the levers of power, one that is moving relentlessly to use the election to make a leap in the brutal exercise of that power... then we must come to grips with the need for massive protest, in the streets, beginning as soon as possible to drive this regime out of power. This has not only been done in other countries – many of you now reading this participated in or at least witnessed a powerful mass uprising right here, in the spring, with the defiant demonstrations that demanded justice for George Floyd and spread to take on police terror in general and institutionalized racism.

Do you remember how overnight the impossible suddenly became possible, in so many ways? How the perverted injustices of this system, so long accepted as the “way things are,” were suddenly “put on trial” by the people and hateful statues toppled? How people found solidarity with each other, told each other the truth, and learned how to stand together in a society that a day before had been one of total isolation and me-first? And how the police were forced to back off, how even the army was forced to apologize,3 and how the fascist mobs – at least at the beginning – did not dare come out, at least in the open?

At the same time, the top Democrats face a sharp contradiction. To actually rally the majority to defeat what actually IS a threat to them, they do need to say some of the truth. Thus they warn of the “danger to democracy”; this badly understates the depth of the problem, but even that carries the risk of alarming people and potentially making them more open to protesting.

The conflict at the top between the fascists concentrated in Trump and the Republican Party on the one hand, and the Democrats on the other, matters. It can make a difference in relation to what is most needed: the thousands and then millions of people mobilized and led in sustained resistance till this regime is driven from power. The two paragraphs we run on our website capture this dialectical relationship, dynamically interacting aspects:

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 gobecause of its fascist nature and actions and what the stakes are for humanity.

 


1. For instance, Colin Powell said, in a theme echoed by others in the national security establishment, that Biden “will restore America's leadership in the world and restore the alliances we need.”  [back]

2. AOC did call the regime fascist during the convention – and has done so before – but did not do this in her allotted official time of 90 seconds.  [back]

3. After initially going along with Trump’s violent dispersal of protestors in front of the White House on June 1 and posing for a “photo op” with the fascist-in-chief, Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the highest-ranking person in the military, felt compelled to apologize by the massive outcry outside, but also inside, the armed forces. This was truly unprecedented.  [back]

See also:

Bob Avakian on: The Need to Drive Out the Fascist Trump/Pence Regime and the Fundamental Need for Revolution

Videos and articles

The Call from RefuseFascism.org:

As Trump threatens the elections and sends fascist stormtroopers into cities:

UNITED NATIONWIDE MASS PROTESTS
Saturday September 5
DEMAND TRUMP PENCE OUT NOW!

Read more

September 5 Events by City:


Refuse Fascism, Philadelphia.

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.

Find out more about Refuse Fascism here.

 

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/662/hayes-tilden-compromise-of-1877-betrayal-of-reconstruction-en.html

Crucial Lessons from a Previous Hotly Contested Presidential Election

The Hayes-Tilden Compromise of 1877—and the Betrayal of Reconstruction

| revcom.us

 

Editors’ Note: As we come upon what is likely to be a highly contested election, if it happens, what follows are some lessons from history that are extremely important and worth noting. The stakes at that time included the violent assertion and imposition of a different form of rule. While the circumstances then were different and analogies are limited, we face similar stakes today.

The Presidential election of 1876 came 10 years after the American Civil War ended, putting an end to nearly 250 years of the enslavement of Black people. During that decade, known as Reconstruction, the federal, or Union, army remained in the South as the enforcers of real and significant reforms in the rights of former slaves. Three constitutional amendments passed during the years of Reconstruction, though never fully realized, granted the former slaves the rights of citizens, including the right not to be chained to the land; the right to vote; and the right to hold political office. It is estimated more than 1,500 Black men were elected to high office in many southern states during the Reconstruction era.

But all of these gains were met with the most vicious acts of depraved violence by southern whites, mobilized by the former slave owners in defense of their white supremacist “way of life.” The Ku Klux Klan was founded and grew dramatically in these years, carrying out lynchings, night raids, and terroristic assaults upon newly freed Black people across the entire area of the former Confederacy. Seven months before the 1876 election, the U.S. Supreme Court put their stamp of approval on racial terror in the Cruikshank1 decision, which reversed the convictions of 3 killers in the 1873 mass racial murder in Colfax, Louisiana.

The future of Reconstruction, and the future of the lives of the former slaves, came to a head in the intensely disputed election of 1876. Samuel Tilden of New York, the candidate of the Democratic Party, got more votes than the Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio. (At that time, the Democratic and Republican parties were different from what they are today. The Democratic Party was the party of the former slave owners and those who supported slavery. The Republican Party was the party of Lincoln, which had opposed the expansion of slavery.)

A Disputed Election Decided by U.S. Congressmen

But neither had enough electoral votes to claim victory. The results in three southern states had been disrupted by violence and voter fraud by Democrats. For four months, the person who would become president of the U.S. was in doubt—until an unwritten agreement was struck by a group of U.S. Congressmen to decide the outcome.

In what is known as the Compromise of 1877, a group of politicians decided that Hayes would become President. But in return, Hayes agreed to remove all the federal troops from the South. The terms of this compromise were that the South would have the right to deal with Blacks without northern “interference”—known as “home rule.” There were outcries that Tilden had been cheated, and threats of forming armed militias to march on Washington. But President Grant tightened military security, and the march on Washington never took place.

This election compromise, worked out in a back room by a group of Congressmen, meant nothing less than the reversal and betrayal of Reconstruction. While the full promise of rights to former slaves, including the promise of “40 acres and a mule,”2 was never realized under Reconstruction, there had been significant changes and improvements in the lives of Black people in the South. What would now replace it was a different form of rule.

A 90-Year Nightmare

The result of this electoral “compromise” was that Black people were step by step stripped of even the partial economic and political gains they had made under Reconstruction, and condemned to another century of subjugation and degradation. Southern Democrats regained control of state after state. They passed measures like “black codes,” which restricted the right of Black freedmen to own property or run businesses. The former slaves were again chained to the plantations in conditions of near-slavery as sharecroppers. And poll taxes and literacy tests were imposed—under the threat of violence—to keep Black men from voting. It’s estimated that by 1905 nearly all Black men were effectively disenfranchised by state legislatures in every Southern state.

In this way a whole legal system of white supremacy, called “Jim Crow,” was put into law in each Southern state. And this became enshrined by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision. Plessy legalized the formal second-class status of Black people by upholding “separate but equal.” Laws were passed that meant that Black people were legally required to attend separate schools and churches; use public bathrooms and water fountains marked “for colored only;” eat in separate sections of restaurants if not excluded altogether; and sit in the rear of a bus, or in a separate railroad car.

And the Ku Klux Klan became the extralegal terrorist enforcers of this unfolding crime against humanity. The Tuskegee Institute estimates that 4,743 people—mostly Black men and sometimes Black women—were lynched between 1882 and 1968 in the U.S. Their bloated, tortured, disfigured bodies were left hanging in public places—as a warning to Black people everywhere that they could be murdered at any time for challenging their second-class status, or for no reason at all.

Once the rule of white supremacy was put back in place, it became “normalized,” with its grotesque treatment of a whole people, along with never-ending violence. And this continued for nearly 90 years. It was not until the 1950s and 1960s, with the courageous efforts and sacrifice of the people in the civil rights movement, that legal segregation was ended, and the struggle for Black liberation emerged.


1. The essence of the Cruikshank decision was that if a mob of “ordinary citizens” did the killing, and the local and state officials allowed it to happen—that was no violation of the U.S. Constitution. In other words, the federal government would do nothing to prevent the lynchings and pogroms against Black people by organized racist mobs. For more, see the revcom.us American Crime series article The Colfax Massacre of 1873... and the Supreme Court Stamp of Approval for Racist Terror. [back]

2. “Forty acres and a mule" (referenced in Spike Lee films) was the promise of land (and the basic means to work it) that was made to Black people during the Civil War. [back]

Colfax MassacreCruikshank decision in 1876, reversed conviction of three killers in the 1873 Colfax Massacre depicted here.

Electoral Commission, 1877Electoral Commission of 1877 decided that Hayes would become president in return for removal of federal troops from the South, and thus allowing the South to deal with Blacks without interference. It was a whole different form of rule. (Image: LOC)

KKKKu Klux Klan carried out night raids and terroristic assaults upon freed Black people throughout the South. Image from Texas History textbook.

 

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/663/refuse-fascism-and-revolution-club-protest-at-trump-acceptance-speech-en.html

A Clash of Two Futures: Refuse Fascism and the Revolution Club in Protest at Trump's Acceptance Speech

| revcom.us

 


Outside the White House as Trump accepts nomination, August 27. AP photo

It was a clash of two futures outside the White House in Washington, DC, on Thursday, August 27. While Trump accepted the “nomination” of the assembled white supremacist, woman hating, hate-filled fascist ghouls at the Republican National “convention” at the White House, Refuse Fascism, along with the Revolution Club, mobilized people from around the country to protest.

Right in the face of the nightmare at the White House, they challenged people to begin organizing ASAP and in earnest for 60 days of struggle starting September 5 to drive out the Trump/Pence fascist regime. On the following day, Refuse Fascism brought the message Trump/Pence Out Now! into the mix at the Get Your Knee Off Our Necks rally.

Thursday—In the Streets and Outside the White House


Jamel Mims from Refuse Fascism and the Revolution Club at a speak-out in the street as people marched towards Trump's convention.

As Refuse Fascism rallied and began to march on Thursday afternoon, they were joined by hundreds of people from the streets, many of whom had arrived early for the Get Your Knee Off Our Necks rally. People were challenged: what kind of Black Lives Matter movement or any other movement for justice will exist under a second, consolidated fascist Trump regime?

And people were challenged to pledge to stand with the interests of humanity demanding Trump/Pence OUT NOW!

Late into the night, a go-go band from DC and a nearby noise-making event created enough of racket to be heard inside Trump’s fascist convention. Refuse Fascism’s message was in the mix along with horns, sirens, hundreds of middle fingers pointed at the White House and chants of “Fuck Trump!”

Friday—Reaching out to Get Your Knee Off Our Necks March and Rally

The day after Trump's speech, the Get Your Knee Off Our Necks march and rally drew tens of thousands to D.C. It took place on the 57th anniversary of the historic March on Washington where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. This year, in a time of a great nationwide uprising against racist police murder, tens of thousands of people came to D.C. from around the country to be part of the rally. Among the speakers, Martin Luther King III condemned "what my father called the triple evils of poverty, racism and violence," and said, "We must vigorously defend our right to vote because those rights were paid for with the blood of those lynched for seeking to exercise their constitutional rights."

Refuse Fascism joined with people at the march and rally opposing police brutality and murder, white supremacy, and voter suppression, and at the same time brought home to people how essential it is to build a mass, nonviolent but determined and sustained movement to drive out this fascist regime now.


A dramatic statement from the middle of the famous Reflecting Pool during the Get Your Knee Off Our Necks rally.


CNN coverage of the Get Your Knee Off Our Necks march: CNN’s split screen showed Jacob Blake’s father speaking, and “Trump / Pence #OUTNOW!” banner.

Over two days, Refuse Fascism's message broke through into mainstream coverage. Carl Dix and Jamel Mims, revcoms and organizers for Refuse Fascism, were interviewed on TV news, magazines and quoted in newspapers, and Refuse Fascism's signs and banners reached hundreds of thousands or more through coverage.

 

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/663/protests-on-last-night-of-rnc-draw-significant-media-coverage-en.html

Refuse Fascism, #BlackLivesMatter Protests in DC on Last Night of RNC Draw Significant Media Coverage

| revcom.us

 

The protests by Refuse Fascism and #BlackLivesMatters activists in Washington, DC on Thursday, the last night of the RNC, received significant coverage in major media, and Refuse Fascism protests in other cities were covered as well. This included the Washington Post, CNN, NBC News, MSN.com, USA Today, PBS Newshour, Telemundo, Prensa Latina, Britain’s The Daily Mail, BuzzFeed, Newsweek, Politico, WUSA9–CBS TV and ABC7 TV in Washington, DC., and media in Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles.

The media reported that chants and the sounds of the protests could be heard at the White House gathering as Trump delivered his acceptance speech, and protest coverage became a “Twitter Moment.”

Refuse Fascism spokespeople Carl Dix and Coco Das were quoted in several of the stories and Refuse Fascism’s banner was prominent during the night’s coverage.

Washington Post:  Protests in District as Trump to deliver acceptance speech at White House

“Carl Dix, one of the group’s leaders, said the march was meant to emphasize the urgency behind the election, which he said will determine whether the country takes an irretrievable tilt toward fascism.

‘The Republican National Convention is a celebration of how far they’ve come in hammering a fascist agenda into place,” Dix said. “I’ve been fighting for revolution for 50 years, so it ain’t like I love what’s been happening in this country. But I also see that these are fascists.’”

USA Today: Fireworks and protests planned in DC for Trump's acceptance speech at close of RNC

"Fireworks and protests planned in DC for Trump's acceptance speech at close of RNC"

“But at least two groups are planning protests on D.C. city property near the White House Thursday night. Refuse Fascism is holding a #TrumpPenceOutNOW rally down the street in Black Lives Matter Plaza and The Party Majority PAC, which was founded by former Clinton aides, is organizing a #ThePeoplesHouse demonstration nearby.”

[Carl] Dix described the two killings in Kenosha as the logical outcome of the Republican convention, which included numerous denunciations of the demonstrations and featured a Missouri couple, who became famous for pointing guns at Black Lives Matter protesters, among its speakers.

"I mean the convention was celebrating this kind of vigilantism," Dix told USA TODAY. "I think a lot of people are making that connection. That's why I expect that there will be an even larger crowd of people in D.C."

"We don't condone violence, but if it comes from the other side we're not going to back down," organizer Coco Das told USA TODAY. "And we'll be calling even more people out the next day."

When asked about the planned fireworks display, Das said it would be a fitting end to the RNC, which she called a "celebration of this white supremacy and misogyny and xenophobia."

"To match the fireworks display there needs to be a force of people in the streets who are acting non-violently, determined to stop this regime from seizing and consolidating power through a second term," she said.

 

 

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/662/reflections-on-ba-statement-en.html

Reflections on BA's Statement

Monumental ... Inspiring ... Scientifically grappling with real contradictions

| revcom.us

 

Editors' Note: Following are edited excerpts of reflections from readers on the historic statement by Bob Avakian, "ON THE IMMEDIATE CRITICAL SITUATION, THE URGENT NEED TO DRIVE OUT THE FASCIST TRUMP/PENCE REGIME, VOTING IN THIS ELECTION, AND THE FUNDAMENTAL NEED FOR REVOLUTION"

It is extremely important, it IS monumental, especially its correct assessment of the extreme situation, and what is objectively at stake in the election should it happen, but also including the conclusion with its points about the complexity of the situation, and uniqueness, and the need not to pose against each other many things that we have in fact posed to some degree against each other, including voting out Trump and mass upsurge against the regime. Yes, to cast away dogmatism and sectarianism, to have a broad vision....

Within the framework of how extreme the situation is, the danger of fascism, and what this would mean for humanity, this assessment is crucial:

But, again, this election is different—in a crucially important way. The question is not whether Biden and the Democrats represent something “good,” or whether, in fundamental terms, the Democrats are “better” than the Republicans. Both of these parties are ruling class political parties, and none of their candidates represent anything “good” in the most basic and essential sense. Biden is not “better” than Trump, in any meaningful way—except that he is not Trump and is not part of the move to consolidate and enforce fascist rule, with everything that means.

If it comes down to it, and there is an election, and Trump is not ousted by the people, would we be better off with a Trump defeat in the election, or a Trump victory? I think we would be better off with a Trump defeat. But if Trump is defeated by voting, but there is not movement in the streets, then the people would be in a very weak position, and the forces of fascism would have a great deal of initiative to carry out coups, to refuse to accept the results, to claim it was simply manipulation by elites, and to find ways to hold on to power, or, if Trump actually accepted defeat, to take to the streets and find ways to reassert fascist authority—while Biden is stretching his hand across the aisle and seeking to find unity. That would be a very bad picture.

But if there were an electoral defeat combined with mass uprisings against the regime, it would greatly impact on the ability of the fascists to carry out things like coups, and even to claim that the defeat was the work of manipulators behind the scenes (Soros...).

[I]f you look at it, in three weeks the mass BLM movement did more to combat police murder and racism than three years of people sitting on their butts is true. But I think a stronger way of making a similar point is that the BLM movement did more in three weeks than a year of Democratic Party candidates including Bernie, flying all over the country.

This points to the fact that the Democratic Party candidates actually support white supremacy, if in a “nicer” form, but it also points to the fact that the mass movement can change things in a big way, fast, that can impact and weaken Trump far more than sticking to normal channels can do. We need to make more of this which has been graphically demonstrated by recent events ... the people in Congress taking the knee which you did not see them do before—this is the kind of thing that the mass movement can do—it does not make the Democrats into something other than what they are, but it can force them to respond to necessity posed from below—from their own class interests.

Part of what we are dealing with in this is the relation between the aspect of civil war, and the aspect of the contradiction between the masses and the state, as it takes expression in elections and the results of elections. The question has been posed—including by people who have a basic agreement that this is fascism, whether big defeat in the elections would help to get rid of Trump. Of course the liberals have argued all along that that is the only way to get rid of the regime, and part of their argument is that this is the only legitimate way to get rid of the regime, that the regime must be and can only be really de-legitimized by elections. For the liberals, the point of “de-legitimize” means to de-legitimize on the terms of bourgeois democracy and the system. BA makes the point that there is no legitimacy to the fascist regime, regardless of how they came to power. It is important to sort these “legitimacies” out.

I think that what is true and real is that a defeat in the elections, combined with masses in the street, especially a resounding one, would politically weaken the regime. Not just in bourgeois democratic terms—they would lose the election, but they would also lose politically. For one thing, a major electoral defeat combined with a powerful mass movement against the regime—on the terms of “in the name of humanity we refuse to accept a fascist America”—would strip away or demoralize some of their supporters, even while it would harden others. It would also greatly embolden and uplift the people who hate Trump and want him out.

So not only would the combination of uprising and electoral defeat lead to the fascists most likely losing state power or at least the Presidency (more on that later) it would also weaken their ability to wage a civil war.

But in a situation in which there were a defeated regime, with a powerful mass movement playing a decisive role, there would be a lot of “entanglement” of the “legitimacy” of elections, and the legitimacy on terms of basic interests of humanity. After such an upheaval, there would be a huge political struggle—if a section of the fascist base were somewhat neutralized and weakened, the people who are more attached to the need for things like laws from Congress and elections, the hard core fascists would be out in force, furious and outraged, almost certainly carrying out actions which were armed and violent as well and merely threatening violence (as they do now). The mainstream imperialists would immediately seek to assert military and police control of the situation, and at the same time mobilize everything they had to pull people into the process of re-consolidating “normalcy,” which would of course mean involving the Republican Party in running the government. Remember how Obama refused to go after the CIA torturers1 in the name of the larger interests and unity of the U.S., Biden would do that only immensely more so. The broader anti-fascist masses would be pulled in different directions about what to do next. There would be complex political struggle. ...

One other angle in looking at this. Another possibility is that there were a powerful mass movement, and Trump either canceled the election, or won. (I do think that one likely effect of the mass movement in the streets, especially to the degree it is clear that it is not opposing elections, is that it would weaken Trump electorally, and strengthen Biden, but it would still be possible under some circumstances that Trump would win. And certainly possible that he would use the excuse of the mass movement, the virus, and other possible things, to cancel the election.) If Trump canceled the election in the face of millions of masses demanding his ouster, it would enormously sharpen everything. He would have to have backing from the military or sections of it, and he would bring every fascist group he could into the street. If Trump somehow won a rigged election with a mass anti-fascist movement in the street, it would also sharpen things up very hard and fast.

An important point is this point about why we need to have the slogan and politics of Refuse Fascism at the forefront, and why revolution must be in the mix in a growing way. The basic reason is that for the movement to have the strength and determination to come back repeatedly to drive out the regime, and for it to have the political and ideological coherence and the moral authority, it has to be led with the politics of Refuse Fascism.... The question of political power must change is really important, and will make things or break things—and not just change in any way, but the fascist regime must go. I do not anticipate that such a movement would be organizationally cohesive. But how strong the understanding in the leadership and in the broader movement that this is about removing fascism from power in the interests of humanity will make a huge difference in whether it can succeed, and whether it can deal with the situation that exists if it does succeed.

Looking through these scenarios has made it clearer to me that what BA is arguing for is correct. Refusing to recognize and correctly handle this election would lead to pitting the mass movement against voting even if we tried not to do that (e.g., RF doesn’t make a dividing line out of voting. But that is not enough.) ... The point though is that what we do IS very important for the mass movement—which is the principal and decisive factor....

BA says in the statement:

The fact is that there can be one—and only one—“good” that can come out of this election: delivering a decisive defeat to Trump and the whole fascist regime. Doing this would create far better conditions for continuing to wage the struggle against everything represented by the Trump/Pence regime and all the oppression and injustices of this system, and would be a great gift to the people of the world.

Because this is true, acting in concert with this should not pull us away from, but should enable us to also act in relation to our fundamental objectives and goals, to strengthen the forces and movement for revolution. This will be complex and very hard, and the pulls will be strong, but it IS possible to do this.

***

At the outset, I was thoroughly inspired by revolutionary essence of it, learning from every well-reasoned and inspiring argument as to why going all out to remove this regime, even at this late hour, is an “immediate, urgent question and truly historic imperative.”

I was inspired by his orientation in reaching out to the people as a whole, whose future literally rests in the balance. Inspired by his approach in reaching out to those like myself active in Refuse Fascism who have labored to navigate a forest of illusions and self-delusion, of stubborn paralysis—not to mention official and unofficial adversity—in our efforts to drive out this regime.

I was inspired by BA’s message to comrades who, at great risk and with great heroism, have been working on the frontlines through the Rev Clubs to make revolution a mass question and to put BA on the map throughout the fascist “Trump era”, while strengthening the #OutNow movement (as noted in “Some Points on Strategic Orientation for the Next Period,” March 2017).

I was inspired by BA’s strategic confidence in the people and contempt for the enemy which infused all of his statement from start to finish.

And yet, I was driven all week to read especially what BA has written on the question of elections. In his memoir, his method and approach stood out in two remarks:

1) In “Agonizing Over McGovern”: “I wrestled deeply with the question: could it actually be true that this was an exceptional case, where which bourgeois candidate got elected might make a profound difference? ... trying to understand more deeply the principles of Marxism and how they applied concretely to this situation.”

2) in “Nixon and Watergate: ‘Throw the Bum Out’”: “But life is always changing, and you have to examine things in real life and not have a dogmatic approach.”

When I 1st read BA’s unequivocal remarks that “all appropriate means to work for the removal of the [Trump/Pence] regime must include voting against Trump ... actually voting for ... Biden in order to effectively vote against Trump”, my first instinct was that it made perfect sense. But then very quickly, “why did he have to say it, spell it out, why does the Party have to take such an ‘odious’ public stand?”

I kept thinking how disturbed I was when first reading (in the days of the RU) about the hardships and Mao’s personal sacrifice in the victorious Chinese revolution, and then the fact of Mao literally shaking the hand of Chiang Kai Shek2 (“Why did Mao do that/how could he personally stomach it?; what message did it send symbolically, regardless of intentions?”) That was my initial, instinctive reaction, my form of “agonizing.” But more importantly I remember how much that was a transformative experience for me, how inspiring it was for me in coming to terms with what an all-the-way revolution is really all about, why communism was the vision and path I should fully embrace, and I think that will apply to some who must be led to wrestle with BA’s position in regard to Biden.

Beyond the power of the Statement itself, looking back at the “mouthful sentence” (once again in “Some Points...”) anew, and renewing my determination to reject any semblance of populist epistemology that I might have read into it, led me to consider BA’s statement at this defining moment as one of great revolutionary courage, courage on a scientific basis, what we are all called upon to emulate.

That is a great, attractive magnetic force for the revolution. And it must and will be fought for.

***

I recently re-read BA’s memoir. Among many other things, the section on the election of ’72 really jumped out at me. In particular, the approach he took to the question of voting in general, and voting in that particular election, and the criteria he used—an approach radically different from facile dogma. When I read that passage, it did give me pause to think about whether ’72 was a “one and done” that settled the issue of voting once and for all. But BA clearly once again “agonized” (as he says in the memoir) over this and came up with a deep and provocative synthesis that has the potential to impact and transform the entire political and social landscape (as well as jolt the communists).

The whole piece, but especially the conclusion, made me think of the “six paragraphs”3 and carrying out the 3 prepares, and continually striving, collectively and individually, to the stature of “strategic commanders” in a complex social swirl that engulfs all of this society on a scale beyond anything in a long time—probably in the lifetimes even of people my age.

 


1. After Obama was elected president in 2008, he declared that his “Justice” Department would not prosecute anyone under the previous George W. Bush administration who carried out torture and other war crimes.  [back]

2. In the 1930s, imperialist Japan invaded and occupied China, carrying out horrible war crimes. The Chinese communists, led by Mao, spearheaded the fight against the Japanese imperialists and for national and social liberation. At a certain stage of this, the communists entered into a united front with the U.S.-backed forces led by Chiang Kai-shek. After the defeat of Japan in China and in World War 2 overall, civil war broke out between the communist-led forces and Chiang’s forces. After four years of intense war, the Chinese revolution triumphed in 1949.  [back]

3. This refers to the first six paragraphs of part 2 of Bob Avakian’s 2007 talk, Making Revolution and Emancipating Humanity. You can read those paragraphs here.  [back]

See also:

Bob Avakian on: The Need to Drive Out the Fascist Trump/Pence Regime and the Fundamental Need for Revolution

Videos and articles

The Call from RefuseFascism.org:

As Trump threatens the elections and sends fascist stormtroopers into cities:

UNITED NATIONWIDE MASS PROTEST
Saturday September 5
DEMAND TRUMP PENCE OUT NOW!

Read more

September 5 Events by City:


Refuse Fascism, Philadelphia.

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.

Find out more about Refuse Fascism here.

 

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/658/bob-avakian-patriarchy-and-patriotism-the-danger-and-the-immediate-challenge-en.html

PATRIARCHY AND PATRIOTISM—
AGGRESSIVE MALE SUPREMACY AND AMERICAN SUPREMACY—
THE DANGER AND THE IMMEDIATE CHALLENGE

by Bob Avakian

| revcom.us

 

As I have emphasized before:

Where you have religious fundamentalism, you are going to have not only the forceful assertion of patriarchy and misogyny (hatred of women) but also aggressive patriotism—and notice that these two words have the same root, referring to allegiance to (and subordination to the authority of) the father(land). And, as we have seen, you are going to have white supremacy and racism.1

Let’s look more deeply at this connection between patriarchal male supremacy and patriotism— as well as white supremacy—and in particular how this is expressed in extreme and virulent ways with the Christian fundamentalist fascists in this country.

Christian Fascist Fanaticism for Trump

Kristin Kobes Du Mez grew up in a town in Iowa which was filled with religious fundamentalists (which she refers to as “evangelicals,” and more specifically “white evangelicals”) who voted overwhelming for Donald Trump in 2016. In her book Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, she makes these important observations:

evangelical support for Trump was no aberration, nor was it merely a pragmatic choice. It was, rather, the culmination of evangelicals’ embrace of militant masculinity, an ideology that enshrines patriarchal authority and condones the callous display of power, at home and abroad....

More than any other religious demographic in America, white evangelical Protestants support preemptive war, condone the use of torture, and favor the death penalty.... White evangelicals are significantly more authoritarian than other religious groups...2

In Du Mez’s analysis, what comes through is not just the link (what I have emphasized is the “direct connection”) between aggressive white supremacy, male supremacy and gender oppression, rabid patriotism, xenophobic hatred of immigrants, and an overall support for violent repression at home as well as aggressive war abroad, but also specifically the role of “muscular” patriarchy—a “militant masculinity”—as the center and “pivot” in all this.

Du Mez also emphasizes that all this is rooted in beliefs that are not so much theologically but socially and culturally driven: a fundamentalist rendering of the Christian religion which is really based in and serves definite, oppressive and repressive, relations, and the corresponding ideological and political views and aims. I have pointed out before that a defining feature of Christianity itself, as well as the other two main “monotheistic” (one-god) religions, Judaism and Islam, is the fact that they are patriarchal religions and promote patriarchal, male supremacist social relations.3 But the Christian fundamentalists give particular, focused attention to, and insistence upon, the parts of Christian tradition and scripture (in the Old Testament of the Bible especially, but also in the New Testament) that most blatantly and aggressively promote the submission and subordination of wives to their husbands, and in general the domination of women by men. And, again, as expressed in the good old USA in particular, this involves an insistence on the domination of (in Du Mez’s words) militant white masculinity.”

A Special “Covenant” Relation with God 

In the book Away With All Gods! I pointed to this important analysis by Kevin Phillips:

Phillips reviews how, in the aftermath of the Civil War, although the South was defeated and the slave system was abolished, after the reversal of Reconstruction [in the 1870s] the South “rose again” in terms of political power and influence within the country as a whole. In connection with all this, Phillips points out, a religious mythology arose, and took root widely among white people in the South, that the (white) South had a special covenant with God and was the object of a special design by God to restore it to its proper place, righting the terrible wrong that had been done through the Civil War.4

But, for these “unrepentant” and “unreconstructed” southern white supremacists, and those who adhere to the same poisonous outlook, this notion of a “special covenant with god” is not limited to the South but is applied by them to the U.S. as a whole—and this is seen as both an extension of, and the highest expression of, “the superiority of western civilization” and a special mandate to extend its domination not only over the continent of North America but over the world as a whole and all the peoples of the world, particularly those from what Donald Trump has called “shit-hole” countries, in Africa and other parts of the Third World.

Listen to the words of Trump (in his speech at Mount Rushmore on July 3) on the superiority of white European “western civilization,” and the role of the American Revolution (“Seventeen seventy-six”) as the extension and highest expression of this:

Seventeen seventy-six represented the culmination of thousands of years of western civilization and the triumph not only of spirit, but of wisdom, philosophy, and reason.

And in a tweet sent out by the White House on July 7, this message is proclaimed:  

Americans are the people who pursued our Manifest Destiny across the ocean, into the uncharted wilderness, over the tallest mountains, and then into the skies and even into the stars.

In order to endorse this racist, European-supremacist version of reality, all that is necessary is to ignore the history of ancient, and more recent, civilizations in (among other places) China, India, the (“pre-Columbus”) Americas, Egypt and parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as the Islamic empires, and all their great achievements in agriculture, architecture, language and literature, astronomy, mathematics, and many other fields. While in fact benefitting from the historical experience and achievements of people from all parts of the world, over thousands of years, and the vicious exploitation of people in all parts of the world today, this grotesque American (and white-European) supremacy seizes on the top-dog position it has achieved through genocide and slavery, robbery, plunder and war, to proclaim its “superiority,” and its supposedly “god-given” right to rule, over all other peoples, within this country and in every part of the earth.

Christian Fascism and Rabid Anti-Communism

As Du Mez explains, confronted with the powerful movements of the 1960s against the Vietnam war and racial, sexual and gender oppression, “evangelicals”—and in particular “white evangelicals”:

clung fiercely to the belief that America was a Christian nation, that the military was a force for good, and that the strength of the nation depended on a properly ordered, patriarchal home. The evangelical political resurgence of the 1970s coalesced around a potent mix of “family values” politics, but family values were always intertwined with ideas about sex, power, race, and nation. Feminism posed a threat to traditional womanhood, and also to national security by removing from men their duty to provide and protect and opening the door to women in military combat. In similar fashion, Vietnam was not just a national security issue, but also a crisis of masculinity.5

The fact that, with all its military might and despite the horrendous death and destruction it rained down on Vietnam and its people, the U.S. failed in its attempt to subjugate Vietnam—and was forced to withdraw from Vietnam in defeat—this sent the Christian fundamentalist fascists into a frenzy. And, as the people leading the Vietnamese liberation struggle were identified as communists, this merged with and reinforced the Christian fascists’ fanatical hatred of “godless communism.” Here we see another “toxic combination” of mindless anti-communism and a sense of frustrated “muscular masculine militarism.”

Of course, the use of religion to promote enforced patriotism has not been limited to right-wing and outright fascist representatives of American capitalist imperialism. It was during the 1950s, under the “mainstream” president (the “moderate” Republican) Eisenhower that the words “under God” were added to the Pledge of Allegiance, as a direct part of the crusade against the threat posed by “godless communism” to American domination in the world, with all the horrors that had already been involved in achieving and maintaining that dominance. This included the actual use of two atomic bombs by the U.S. at the end of World War 2—ordered by the Democratic President Truman—which immediately incinerated hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (and subjected many more to excruciating suffering), ushering in the “nuclear age” which for generations now has continued as an ever-present existential threat hanging over human beings everywhere.

But today, the fascists now ruling in the U.S.—with the Christian fascists the driving force in this—are prepared to carry all these horrors to even greater and more monstrous extremes. Listen to Trump’s belligerent, bellicose hymns of praise to America’s power to destroy, in the following words from his statement on July 4th (the day after his celebration, at Mount Rushmore, of American “manifest destiny” and the genocide this has already involved):

No enemy on Earth stands a chance—$2.5 trillion, we’ve invested—all made in the USA. We’ve never had anything near the power and the equipment that we have right now. We did that over the last three years.... Everywhere these aircraft have flown, they’ve rained down American thunder, delivered American justice, and they have fiercely defended every square inch of American sovereignty.... In their steel frames, broad wings, and roaring engines, we see the story of America’s daring defiance, its soaring spirit, and undying resolve.”

In this, we need to recognize not just the more obvious, and odious, macho posturing of Trump but, on a deeper level, the close link and interconnection between unfettered male domination of the most brutal kind and the urge to war to defend “god’s chosen nation” (which in reality is the empire of U.S. capitalist imperialism). In this connection, the following from the book Jesus and John Wayne is very relevant (keeping in mind again that the author uses the term “evangelicals” or “white evangelicals” to refer to what must be scientifically identified as Christian fundamentalist fascists):

For evangelicals, domestic and foreign policy are two sides of the same coin. Christian nationalism—the belief that America is God’s chosen nation and must be defended as such—serves as a powerful predictor of intolerance toward immigrants, racial minorities, and non-Christians. It is linked to opposition to gay rights and gun control, to support for harsher punishments for criminals, to justifications for the use of excessive force against black Americans in law enforcement situations, and to traditionalist gender ideology. White evangelicals have pieced together this patchwork of issues, and a nostalgic commitment to rugged, aggressive, militant white masculinity serves as the thread binding them together into a coherent whole. A father’s rule in the home is inextricably linked to heroic leadership on the national stage, and the fate of the nation hinges on both.6

The fact is that the fate of humanity could very well hinge on a thorough repudiation of and a decisive defeat of this toxic combination of aggressive patriarchy and the patriotism of a white Christian America. This is concentrated in very immediate terms in the need for masses of people to act now on the urgent need to remove the fascist Trump-Pence from power, with the most powerful expression of this a massive, non-violent but sustained mobilization of people in the streets united around the unifying demand that this regime must be OUT NOW! 

And, in the most fundamental terms, all this ultimately depends on the overthrow and uprooting of the system, of capitalism-imperialism, that is the soil out of which this grotesque fascism has grown.

 


1. Fascists Today And The Confederacy: A Direct Line, A Direct Connection Between All The Oppression. This article by Bob Avakian is available at revcom.us.  [back]

2. Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, Liveright Publishing. The passages quoted here are from the “Introduction.”  [back]

3. See Morality Without Religion, Emancipation That Is Real. This article by Bob Avakian is available at revcom.us.  [back]

4. Bob Avakian, Away With All Gods! Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World, Insight Press, 2008, pp, 141-42. The statements by Kevin Phillips cited here are from Kevin Phillips, American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century, Viking Press, 2006.

There is a definite irony in the fact that Phillips was one of the main people responsible for formulating the Republican Party’s “southern strategy,” which was based on the appeal to the racism of white southerners who are characterized by the very kind of views and sentiments that Phillips describes, critically, here. It seems that Phillips later came to regret at least much of where this “southern strategy” has led, and this book of his contains important exposure and analysis of this.  [back]

5. Jesus and John Wayne, the “Introduction.”  [back]

6. Jesus and John Wayne, the “Introduction.”  [back]

Bob Avakian (BA) is the most important political thinker and leader in the world today.

Get Into BA »

See:

PATRIARCHY AND MALE SUPREMACY,
OR REVOLUTION AND ENDING ALL OPPRESSION?

by Bob Avakian

Read more

See also:

 

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/658/bob-avakian-patriarchy-and-male-supremacy-or-revolution-and-ending-all-oppression-en.html

PATRIARCHY AND MALE SUPREMACY,
OR REVOLUTION AND ENDING ALL OPPRESSION?

by Bob Avakian

| revcom.us

 

As I have emphasized (and it is important to keep emphasizing):

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.1

Kristin Kobes Du Mez has extensively studied the phenomenon of Christian fundamentalism, which is the driving force of this fascism. Referring to this as “evangelicalism” (or, more specifically, “white evangelicalism”) she speaks to the same kind of “direct connection” between many of these forms of oppression, and she makes this important point:

a nostalgic commitment to rugged, aggressive, militant white masculinity serves as the thread binding them together into a coherent whole. A father’s rule in the home is inextricably linked to heroic leadership on the national stage, and the fate of the nation hinges on both.2

There are some—like Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, and others—who insist that they are foremost opponents of white supremacy, while at the same time they have a great deal in common with the Christian fascists, including the promotion of all kinds of ridiculous and outrageous mythology and conspiracy theories, in opposition to science and the scientific method, and the insistence on many of the same oppressive relations that the fascists are determined to enforce.

To speak to one crucial dimension of this: There is no way to end white supremacy while clinging to, and insisting upon, male supremacy. Seeking to counter “militant white masculinity” with a Black version of the same “militant masculinity”—another variation of patriarchal male supremacy—this cannot lead to ending any form of oppression.

Just as there is a “direct connection” between all the oppressive and repressive relations and ways of thinking that bind together the program of the Christian fascists, there is no way to break any link in this chain without breaking them all.

And, going deeper, the whole chain of oppression and monstrous crimes against humanity—white supremacy, male supremacy, discrimination and brutality against LGBT people, American supremacist domination and wars for empire, xenophobic hatred of immigrants, plunder of the environment—all this is fundamentally rooted in this system of capitalism-imperialism.

Seeking to “get in on” (to “get your fair share of”) the spoils that come from American capitalist-imperialist plunder of the earth and exploitation of masses of people on every part of the earth—or seeking some “bargain” with the rulers of this system, in order to set yourself up as new overlords and exploiters of masses of people—this is not a road to emancipation, but something that contributes to perpetuating oppression.

Only through the revolution aiming to overthrow this system—to defeat and dismantle this system of capitalism-imperialism and all its institutions of oppression and violent repression, replacing them with institutions that can serve the cause of emancipating all of humanity and enabling human beings to become fit caretakers of the earth—only in this way can each and every form of oppression, plunder and exploitation be finally ended.

 


1. The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! In The Name of Humanity We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America, A Better World IS Possible. Video of this speech by Bob Avakian is available at revcom.us.  [back]

2. Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, Liveright Publishing. This statement is from the “Introduction.” Emphasis has been added here.  [back]

Bob Avakian (BA) is the most important political thinker and leader in the world today.

Get Into BA »

See also:

PATRIARCHY AND PATRIOTISM—
AGGRESSIVE MALE SUPREMACY AND AMERICAN SUPREMACY—
THE DANGER AND THE IMMEDIATE CHALLENGE

by Bob Avakian

Read more

 

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/651/bob-avakian-radical-change-is-coming-en.html

RADICAL CHANGE IS COMING:
WILL IT BE EMANCIPATING, OR ENSLAVING—
REVOLUTIONARY, OR REACTIONARY?

by Bob Avakian

| revcom.us

 

Editors note: This article written by Bob Avakian in June 2020 during the Beautiful Rising is highly relevant right now, especially in the context of recent events, and we highly recommend this to our readers.

For those who cannot help but hunger for a “return” to some kind of “normalcy” as an answer to the madness of Trump, Pence and the rest—forget it, it is not going to happen!

And nobody should want a return to the “normalcy” of this system. The “normalcy” of this system has always included the barbaric oppression of Black people and other people of color, with systematic terror, brutality and murder to enforce this oppression. It has always included vicious discrimination, bigotry and violence against immigrants, women, LGBTQ people, and any others regarded as inferior and “alien.” It has always included unjust wars for empire, and continuing crimes against humanity. It now poses a threat to the very existence of humanity through its increasing devastation of the environment and the ever present threat of nuclear war.

The outpouring of protest in response to the cruel, sickening murder of George Floyd—yet another link in the seemingly endless chain of murders of Black people and other oppressed people by police, acting with a smug sense of impunity, without fear of punishment—this powerful outpouring of outrage, bringing together not only Black people but others, of all races and genders and from all parts of the world, has begun to change the whole political landscape and culture, seizing the initiative in a very positive way from the ruling Trump/Pence regime and its fascist “base,” and challenging the whole paralyzing notion that the brutal reality of this system and its “norms” is the only possible reality and everyone just has to find their place within this and “do for self” as best as possible.

Faced with this rapidly changing situation, Trump has reacted with predictable threats, bullying and intensified repression, while others—who represent the same system but feel it is important at times like this to harness, “pacify” and “domesticate” the outrage—speak once again in terms of meaningless “reforms” and advocate a supposedly “softer” but still vicious version of the “law and order” which oppresses masses of people and represses any who dare to stand up against this oppression. Recognizing that it is likely to further inflame things to simply call for a return to the way things were before this outpouring of righteous rebellion broke through the suffocating routine of life under this system, there are voices representing a section of the ruling class, such as CNN’s Chris Cuomo, who are now speaking of the need for “a new normal” that will supposedly be more “just.”

But there is no “normal” of this system that does not involve systematic injustice, continuing outrage and horror, for people here and all over the world.

And the fascist Trump/Pence regime, which now controls key levers of power, and has called forth and cohered a mass base of fanatical followers, will accept no “new normal,” except one that carries the monstrous oppression of this system to even more barbaric extremes. If anyone is looking to the scheduled election in November as the way to solve things—painlessly and without turmoil and upheaval—first of all, it is not even certain that this election will actually be held. There is a definite possibility that Trump will find a way to “postpone” it, seizing on the continuing coronavirus crisis and/or some other pretext. (Yes, using COVID-19 as an excuse for canceling the election would be hypocritical, given the reckless way the Trump/Pence regime has approached this from the beginning—but who should be surprised by hypocrisy on their part?!)

Even if the election is held, there is a real chance that Trump could “legitimately” win, given the character of the “opposition,” from Joe Biden and the Democratic Party.

And anyway, Trump is already preparing the ground to say the election was “rigged” if he is not declared the winner. Remember how, before the last election, he refused to say he would abide by the results if he lost? Now, he is proclaiming that in Michigan, and some other states, preparations for people to vote by mail is massive “fraud”—when, in fact, this is not only legal but highly sensible in the conditions of the coronavirus. At the same time, Trump and the Republican Party are making other moves to suppress votes, especially of people very likely to vote against them. And all this will almost certainly go on, in an even bigger way, as the time for the election approaches.

Further, if the election is held and Trump is not declared the winner but refuses to accept the results and insists he is still president, what about all those fascist followers of Trump, some of whom are already parading around with weapons and threatening people, including elected officials—what do you think they will do if Trump calls “fraud!” and calls on them to rally to his support? Remember how, during the 2016 campaign, Trump threatened his opponent, Hillary Clinton, talking about what “those Second Amendment people” might do to her? Remember how Trump has openly talked about how he has lots of supporters, among the police and the military, and among bikers and other “tough” people? And then, just recently, Trump has threatened to use the military to violently suppress protests against police brutality and murder.

Even if the election takes place and Trump loses, and he is prevailed upon to accept the results, and his MAGA-hatted madmen and women do not “rise up in arms” in the short run, do you really think they are just going to “go away,” or slink off passively, waiting for the next election?

Whatever takes place in relation to the election scheduled for November, nothing good will happen, and really terrible things are bound to happen, if those who cannot stand what is going on now with this regime—and the very real threat of far worse—do not find the ways, even in the conditions of COVID-19, to powerfully manifest that they are determined to drive this regime from power, without waiting for, and regardless of what goes on around, the scheduled November election.1

Digging down even deeper, the basic fact has to be faced that—even while Trump might very well use extra-legal (that is, illegal) means to remain in power—this fascist regime actually came to power in the first place not through a military take-over or some other violation of the principles and functioning of this “great democracy,” but through the “normal workings” of this system. And those “normal workings” will continue to wreak havoc in the world and on the masses of people in the world, through destruction of the environment, wars, massive displacement and desperate migration of people, on top of the ongoing savage inequalities, crushing exploitation and murderous oppression “written into the DNA” of this system and carried out by its brutal enforcers.

Because of all this:

in fundamental terms, this notion of a “return to normalcy” is an illusion that will be exploded by the nature and workings of the system of capitalism-imperialism to which the masses of humanity are subjected.2

For some time now, in speaking to the conditions of women, I have been calling attention to the fact that, with the changes in the U.S. and the world economy:

The whole question of the position and role of women in society is more and more acutely posing itself in today’s extreme circumstances—this is a powderkeg in the U.S. today.

And:

It is not conceivable that all this will find any resolution other than in the most radical terms and through extremely violent means. The question yet to be determined is: will it be a radical reactionary or a radical revolutionary resolution, will it mean the reinforcing of the chains of enslavement or the shattering of the most decisive links in those chains and the opening up of the possibility of realizing the complete elimination of all forms of such enslavement.3

This is true not only with regard to women, as important as that is, but for all those who are oppressed, degraded and brutalized under this system. It is true not just for the U.S., but throughout this highly interconnected but terribly unequal world, dominated as it is by this system of capitalism-imperialism.

In the beautiful outpouring of determined resistance to institutionalized racism and police terror, marked by a growing sense that this is somehow bound up with the very nature of this system and the many other injustices it continually perpetrates, we can see the potential for the revolution that can shatter those chains of oppression and open the way to a radically different and far better world, on an entirely new foundation. What remains to be done is to develop that potential into reality, bringing forward greater and greater numbers of people—through this present upsurge sparked by the murder of George Floyd, and through many diverse spheres of life and many different streams of struggle—who are fired with a determination to put an end to all oppression and are gaining the scientific understanding that this system of capitalism-imperialism is the source of all these inter-connected horrors, and are driven by the need and inspired by the possibility of bringing this system down and bringing that far better world into being.

 


1. Many of the points spoken to in this article regarding the dangers posed by the Trump/Pence fascist regime, and the possibility of this regime remaining in power regardless of what happens with the election scheduled for November, are spoken to and elaborated on very compellingly in The Worst-Case Scenario is Continuing to Accept a Fascist America by Coco Das, which is available at revcom.us, reposted from RefuseFascism.org. [back]

2. The Deadly Illusion Of “Normalcy” And The Revolutionary Way Forward. This article by Bob Avakian is available at revcom.us. [back]

3. This quote and the one above it are from a statement by Bob Avakian that was first published in 1985 and has been cited in a number of works since then, including Unresolved Contradictions, Driving Forces for Revolution, Part III: “The New Synthesis and the Woman Question: The Emancipation of Women and the Communist Revolution—Further Leaps and Radical Ruptures,” which is also available at revcom.us. Emphasis has been added here to the second quote. [back]

See also:

THE DEADLY ILLUSION OF "NORMALCY" AND THE REVOLUTIONARY WAY FORWARD
by Bob Avakian

Read more

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

 

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/652/bob-avakian-on-civil-war-and-revolution-en.html

Bob Avakian on
CIVIL WAR AND REVOLUTION

| revcom.us

 

Editors' Note (March 9, 2021): The following piece by Bob Avakian was written in the first week of the beautiful rising against the murder of George Floyd and white supremacy.

I began the article “Radical Change Is Coming with this blunt statement:

For those who cannot help but hunger for a “return” to some kind of “normalcy” as an answer to the madness of Trump, Pence and the rest—forget it, it is not going to happen!1

I went on to speak to ways in which the fascist forces aligned with Trump (and Pence) are preparing to react, quite possibly with violence, if the election does not go Trump’s way (or if Trump cancels the election and there is an outpouring of resistance to this). In fact, for more than 20 years now, I have been analyzing the fascist nature of the kind of forces that have rallied around Trump and how they have been increasingly talking about, and preparing for, a civil war.

This is obviously a very serious question. But something even more serious is reflected in a statement I read somewhere recently—that if only one side (the fascist side) is waging a civil war, then it is not really a civil war but murder, and genocide. This is another way of saying what was crudely expressed by the fascist Congressman from Iowa, Steve King, who declared:

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.2

Recently, powerful figures within the Republican Party have turned against King, feeling that his expression of this and other fascist positions is a little too crude, and King has been defeated in his bid for re-election in a Republican primary election. But, expressed more or less crudely, King’s fascist views and stands are shared by the core of the Republican Party and its “base.” And, as I have pointed out previously, there is a “demented insight” in the comment by King quoted here. While the people King is ridiculing are righteously supporting the rights of trans people, gays, women, and others, at the same time far too many are

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.... 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.3

And here is another big part of the picture:

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.4

This whole situation needs to be radically transformed—and with a very definite urgency! We have once again seen the potential for this in the recent determined actions of masses of people whose outrage at the ongoing police murders of Black men and women erupted in response to the cold-blooded execution of George Floyd in Minneapolis. (And a strategically favorable element in this outpouring of outrage is that, at the same time as it has involved significant numbers of Black people, it has also involved large numbers of people of other “races,” including a great many white people, especially youth.) As I said in Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution, upsurges like this exert a very powerful positive force and influence, and show the potential for revolution, and it is crucial that the righteous resistance and rebellion of masses of people “be transformed...into revolutionary understanding, determination, and organization.”5

Looking at this from the strategic standpoint of working for the revolution that is needed to deal with the root causes of all this, it is also important to act on this understanding:

To a significant degree now, the conflict between the sections of society upholding this fascism and those opposing it, from various different perspectives, is shaping the terrain on which the struggle for revolution must be carried out; this conflict is likely to intensify, and could erupt further in violent confrontation, and in any case it would be a significant factor in the context of an all‑out struggle between revolution and counter‑revolution.6

It is not time, right now, for the all-out fight between revolution and counter-revolution: the conditions for this—most of all, a revolutionary people in the millions in a situation of deep crisis for the whole system—have not yet been brought into being. But there is a pressing need to work to accelerate and “hasten” the development of things toward a revolutionary situation. A big part of working to bring that revolutionary situation into being, at the earliest possible time, is waging a determined battle against the injustices and outrages continually perpetrated by this system.7 And

this political battle also needs to be waged in bold and determined opposition to the “base” that is being mobilized by the fascist section of the ruling class—this is important in its own right now, and is important preparation for and will have an important bearing on the “civil war between two sections of the people,” once conditions have fully ripened and the all-out struggle is underway.8

For, when it comes down to it:

The all-out struggle will not just mean going up against the institutional forces of the old ruling class but will also involve “a civil war between two sections of the people,” requiring the revolution to both defeat and disintegrate but also, as far as possible, win over parts of the armed forces among the population that started out on the other side.9

With regard to winning over parts of the armed forces among the population that started out on the other side: First, and fundamentally, the advance of the revolution in the actual fight would have a very powerful positive impact and effect on the thinking of people broadly. Along with that, there would be the powerful moral clarity and authority of the revolutionary forces fighting with right on their side and in ways consistent with the emancipatory goals of the revolution. And then there are specific measures—such as the cancellation of all debt that people have owed to banks and other financial institutions in the old society—that the revolutionary forces would make known as their official policy. Such policies would be in line with and flow from the basic goals of the revolution and the radically new society the revolution is aiming to bring into being; and making such policies known, and actually implementing them wherever and as soon as the basis exists to do that, could play an important part in winning sections of society which started out on the counter-revolutionary side to actual involvement in, or support for—or at least a “friendly neutrality” toward—the revolution. Still, it will be the case that certain die-hard reactionary elements of the population, including many among hardcore fascist forces, will remain stubbornly committed to the counter-revolution; and the revolutionary forces would need to take this into account as part of their overall strategic approach and operational principles, in waging the all-out fight, once the conditions for that had been brought into being.

A one-sided civil war—waged only by the forces of fascism against everyone and everything they hate and are determined to wipe out or beat into submission—would be a disaster. Ignoring the reality that these fascists are definitely prepared to carry out such a civil war, if they see it as necessary to achieve their objectives, will only make such a disaster more likely. And nothing good will come from relying on those, like the leaders of the Democratic Party, who refuse to call out this fascism for what it is and oppose it on that basis, because doing so would call into question the “legitimacy” of their whole system, which has given rise to this fascism.

What is urgently needed is a massive struggle against the fascism of the Trump/Pence regime and determined opposition to the “base” it is mobilizing in its support. This struggle needs to be waged in a serious way, in accordance with the actual stakes involved—not seeking or initiating violence but also not cowed into submission by the actions of the fascists.

And what is needed, in working toward the fundamental solution to all this, is to wage this anti-fascist struggle as part of accelerating—“hastening”—the development of things toward the point where it will be possible to carry out the revolution, the all-out fight, to finally put an end to this whole system of capitalism-imperialism, with all of the horrors it has already brought about for the masses of humanity—and the even worse horrors it will unleash if it is allowed to continue—when all this is completely unnecessary and there is the basis and possibility for a radically different and far better world.

 


1. Radical Change Is Coming: Will It Be Emancipating, Or Enslaving—Revolutionary, Or Reactionary? This article by Bob Avakian is available at revcom.us. [back]

2. This statement by Steve King is cited in Hope For Humanity On A Scientific Basis, Breaking with Individualism, Parasitism and American Chauvinism, by Bob Avakian, author of The New Communism, which is also available at revcom.us. [back]

3. Hope For Humanity On A Scientific Basis. [back]

4. Hope For Humanity On A Scientific Basis. [back]

5. The text and video of this speech by Bob Avakian (Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution) is available at revcom.us. [back]

6. From Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution (Part II, “How We Can Really Make Revolution”).The text and video of this speech by Bob Avakian are available at revcom.us. [back]

7. As pointed out in a footnote to the article by Bob Avakian “Boomers”—“X,Y,Z”: The Problem Is Not “Generations,” It’s The System (also available at revcom.us):

In a number of works—including Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution; Breakthroughs: The Historic Breakthrough by Marx and the Further Breakthrough with the New Communism, A Basic Summary; HOPE FOR HUMANITY ON A SCIENTIFIC BASIS, Breaking with Individualism, Parasitism and American Chauvinism; and Bob Avakian Responds To Mark Rudd On The Lessons Of The 1960s And The Need For An Actual Revolution (all of which are available at revcom.us)—Bob Avakian speaks further to “why there was no revolution” at the height of the 1960s upsurges and “major changes, largely of a negative kind, that have taken place over the decades since.” Among these observations are the following (from Bob Avakian Responds To Mark Rudd):

An actual revolution requires two essential factors: a revolutionary situation, and a revolutionary people in their millions. And these two factors are closely interconnected.

A revolutionary situation involves not just a crisis in society in some general sense but a situation where the system and its ruling powers are in a profound and acute crisis and millions and millions of people refuse to be ruled in the old way—and are willing and determined to put everything on the line to bring down this system and bring into being a new society and government. Key components and signs of a revolutionary crisis are that the violence used to enforce this system is seen by large parts of society for what it is—murderous and illegitimate—and that the conflicts among the ruling forces become really deep and sharp, and masses of people respond to this not by falling in behind one side or the other of the oppressive rulers, but by taking advantage of this situation to build up the forces for revolution.*

[* Bob Avakian has also characterized a revolutionary situation this way:

What is a Revolutionary Situation? A deep crisis and sharpening conflicts in society and in the government and ruling circles, where they cannot find a way to resolve these conflicts—in society and among their own ranks—which do not make things worse for them and call forth more resistance and further undermine people's belief in their "right to rule" and in the "legitimacy" of their use of force to maintain their rule; programs of "reforming" the system are shown to be bankrupt, totally unable to deal with what more and more people recognize as profound dysfunction and intolerable injustice of the whole setup; those, in society as well as among the ruling class, who are trying to enforce the existing system are on the political defensive, even if lashing out; millions of people are actively seeking radical change, determined to fight for it, willing to put everything on the line to win it, and searching for a force to lead them in doing so; and a solid core of thousands is united around a leadership, an organized vanguard force with the vision and method, strategy and plan—and deepening ties among masses of people—to actually lead the fight to defeat and dismantle the violent repressive force of the existing system and its power structure, and to bring into being a new revolutionary system that can provide the means for people to radically transform society toward the goal of abolishing oppression and exploitation.] [back]

8. Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution. [back]

9. Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution. [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.

 

Get a free email subscription to revcom.us:



 


 

Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/662/on-the-need-for-the-new-communism-not-dogmatic-posing-en.html

On the Need for the Science of the New Communism, Not Dogmatic Narrow Nationalist Posing

An Answer to a “Phony Left” Attack on the August 1 Statement by Bob Avakian, ON THE IMMEDIATE CRITICAL SITUATION, THE URGENT NEED TO DRIVE OUT THE FASCIST TRUMP/PENCE REGIME, VOTING IN THIS ELECTION, AND THE FUNDAMENTAL NEED FOR REVOLUTION

| revcom.us

 

The response by Noche Diaz to a Facebook post by a dogmatic narrow Black nationalist, claiming to be a “Revolutionary Marxist‑Leninist‑Maoist,” is very important. In responding to this dogmatic attack on Bob Avakian’s Statement of August 1, Noche hits the main points very well. And it is worth looking further into the claim by this dogmatist that both the bourgeois political parties are fascist—that there are the outright fascists of the Republican Party and the “liberal” fascists of the Democratic Party (whatever that means). If this were true, it would mean that we have been living under fascism for decades now, and the Trump/Pence regime represents nothing essentially different.

People who make ridiculous claims like this are playing around in their own heads and not dealing with the actual reality. This kind of thinking is typical of dogmatists: in place of a scientific analysis and synthesis of reality, and its motion and development—and where the interests of the masses of humanity lie on that basis—we get the attempt to impose on reality “religious articles of faith” (such as: never, under any circumstances, vote for a bourgeois politician). Especially in today’s extreme circumstances, with the momentous stakes involved, this kind of thinking is not simply foolish but very harmful.

If there were really fascism ruling over us during the administration of Obama and Biden, for example—as the extension of a fascism that had been in power for decades, under both Republican and Democratic administrations—then there could have been nothing like the mass outpouring of protest against the police murder of Mike Brown in Ferguson. Such protests would simply have been outlawed. Any attempt to hold such protests would have been immediately and thoroughly crushed, and anyone taking part would have been sent to prison, or to concentration camps, and perhaps quickly executed. This is precisely the kind of thing Trump would want to do, what he is making real moves toward doing now, and what he would very likely do, on a truly monstrous scale, if his regime—which is nothing less than fascist—is able to make further leaps in fully consolidating its fascist rule.

It is true that, in the “Ferguson uprising,” and today in the beautiful rising against white supremacy, police brutality and murder, there has been vicious repression carried out by police (and National Guard troops), ordered by Democratic Party politicians. That is a reflection of the fact that we live under a dictatorship all the time—the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (capitalist class). But, before the Trump/Pence regime, this has been a dictatorship that has been exercised in the form of bourgeois democracy (democracy that is based in, conforms to and remains within the confines of the capitalist system and rule by the capitalist class over the masses of people). That contradiction—between the outer democratic appearance and the inner essence of dictatorship—has real meaning. It means that, so long as the form of bourgeois dictatorship is “democratic,” in order to maintain that democratic shell, the political and legal representatives of the ruling class have to allow certain “civil rights and liberties” to be exercised, up to a point, and at least make a pretense of respecting a “rule of law” that is not simply and nakedly the exercise of brute force over society as a whole, and against any attempt to oppose what the government is doing.

The reason that some people think that any kind of severe repression equals fascism is basically because they are fooled by the outer appearance of democracy—and in their minds “democracy” means that there is not supposed to be any repression, or at least not any severe repression—so when there is such repression, even in “normal times,” they believe that this is something other than democracy, when in fact the exercise of bourgeois dictatorship includes plenty of brutal repression when that dictatorship is exercised in the “democratic” form. But that is still qualitatively different than an actual fascist bourgeois dictatorship, which essentially drops all pretense of “democracy” and rules openly through violence and terror.

At times, times like now, the contradiction between the appearance of democracy and the essence of dictatorship can become very acute for the bourgeois ruling class. The fascists—the actual fascists concentrated in the Trump/Pence regime who are now in power, not the imaginary “liberal fascists” in this dogmatic narrow nationalist’s head—have been acting with a vengeance, and in an accelerating way, to resolve this contradiction by moving towards undisguised dictatorship, relying openly on terror and violence against those who oppose this regime and everyone this regime regards as a threat, without the pretense of allowing dissent and protest.

To act as if it makes no difference to the masses of people—and to any movement against oppression and injustice, let alone any movement for an actual revolution—whether these very real fascists succeed in fully consolidating their fascist rule, is not simply to be out of touch with reality. It is to be out of touch with—and acting against—vital, indeed life-and-death, interests of the masses of people, not just in this country but throughout the world.

The reason for referring to this person as a “dogmatic narrow Black nationalist” is not simply because of their positive reference to the New Afrikan Black Panther Party. This line of argument—that there is really nothing new, or qualitatively different, in the fascism of the Trump/Pence regime—is something that is representative of a certain outlook, particularly among some bourgeois and petty bourgeois Black people who refer to the horrific oppression that is already being inflicted on Black people in this country to deny (or minimize) the very real danger—the far worse horror for Black people, for all oppressed people and ultimately for all of humanity—that is posed by the Trump/Pence regime and what it is moving to do, and will be in a greatly strengthened position to do, if it remains in power, and especially if it is given a re-election “mandate.” 

This calls to mind a routine by Richard Pryor. He talks about how some Black people say, “I ain’t scared of no NAZIs, I’ll tell those NAZIs...” You won’t tell those NAZIs shit, Pryor retorts—except maybe, “Oh, nice boots you got there.” In other words, all this downplaying of the danger posed by real (not imaginary) fascists, who are already in power, will lead to craven capitulation to them when confronted with the reality and the full force of even more firmly consolidated fascist rule.

As Bob Avakian emphasizes in his August 1 Statement, using all appropriate means to remove this fascist Trump/Pence regime from power—including but emphatically NOT RELYING ON voting for Biden, if it comes to that, but with primary reliance on the continuing mobilization of masses of people around the demand that Trump/Pence must be OUT NOW!—is of crucial and urgent importance to prevent the full consolidation of fascist rule, with the even greater horrors this will involve, and to build toward the revolution that is needed as the fundamental solution to all the ongoing outrages caused by this system of capitalism-imperialism which, as Bob Avakian has also repeatedly emphasized, has given rise to this fascism.

See also:

A Facebook Exchange between a Dogmatist and Noche Diaz

Stop Your Windy Nonsense, the World Is Being Turned Upside Down

Read more

 

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/662/fascism-open-bloody-dictatorship-without-pretending-people-have-rights-en.html

Fascism Is Open Bloody Dictatorship, Without Even Pretending That People Have Rights*

| revcom.us

 

It is true that, in the “Ferguson uprising,” and today in the beautiful rising against white supremacy, police brutality and murder, there has been vicious repression carried out by police (and National Guard troops), ordered by Democratic Party politicians. That is a reflection of the fact that we live under a dictatorship all the time—the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie (capitalist class). But, before the Trump/Pence regime, this has been a dictatorship that has been exercised in the form of bourgeois democracy (democracy that is based in, conforms to and remains within the confines of the capitalist system and rule by the capitalist class over the masses of people). That contradiction—between the outer democratic appearance and the inner essence of dictatorship—has real meaning. It means that, so long as the form of bourgeois dictatorship is “democratic,” in order to maintain that democratic shell, the political and legal representatives of the ruling class have to allow certain “civil rights and liberties” to be exercised, up to a point, and at least make a pretense of respecting a “rule of law” that is not simply and nakedly the exercise of brute force over society as a whole, and against any attempt to oppose what the government is doing.

The reason that some people think that any kind of severe repression equals fascism is basically because they are fooled by the outer appearance of democracy—and in their minds “democracy” means that there is not supposed to be any repression, or at least not any severe repression—so when there is such repression, even in “normal times,” they believe that this is something other than democracy, when in fact the exercise of bourgeois dictatorship includes plenty of brutal repression when that dictatorship is exercised in the “democratic” formBut that is still qualitatively different than an actual fascist bourgeois dictatorship, which essentially drops all pretense of “democracy” and rules openly through violence and terror.

At times, times like now, the contradiction between the appearance of democracy and the essence of dictatorship can become very acute for the bourgeois ruling class. The fascists—the actual fascists concentrated in the Trump/Pence regime who are now in power—have been acting with a vengeance, and in an accelerating way, to resolve this contradiction by moving towards undisguised dictatorship, relying openly on terror and violence against those who oppose this regime and everyone this regime regards as a threat, without the pretense of allowing dissent and protest.

To act as if it makes no difference to the masses of people—and to any movement against oppression and injustice, let alone any movement for an actual revolution—whether these very real fascists succeed in fully consolidating their fascist rule, is not simply to be out of touch with reality. It is to be out of touch with—and acting against—vital, indeed life-and-death, interests of the masses of people, not just in this country but throughout the world.

 


* This is an excerpt from the article “On the Need for the Science of the New Communism, Not Dogmatic Narrow Nationalist Posing,” which is available at revcom.us.  [back

 

See also:

 

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/662/trump-fascism-a-far-greater-horror-for-black-people-humanity-as-a-whole-en.html

Trump Fascism:
A Far Greater Horror for Black People, All Oppressed People, and Humanity as a Whole*

| revcom.us

 

This line of argument—that there is really nothing new, or qualitatively different, in the fascism of the Trump/Pence regime—is something that is representative of a certain outlook, particularly among some bourgeois and petty bourgeois Black people who refer to the horrific oppression that is already being inflicted on Black people in this country to deny (or minimize) the very real danger—the far worse horror for Black people, for all oppressed people and ultimately for all of humanity—that is posed by the Trump/Pence regime and what it is moving to do, and will be in a greatly strengthened position to do, if it remains in power, and especially if it is given a re-election “mandate.” 

This calls to mind a routine by Richard Pryor. He talks about how some Black people say, “I ain’t scared of no NAZIs, I’ll tell those NAZIs...” You won’t tell those NAZIs shit, Pryor retorts—except maybe, “Oh, nice boots you got there.” In other words, all this downplaying of the danger posed by real (not imaginary) fascists, who are already in power, will lead to craven capitulation to them when confronted with the reality and the full force of even more firmly consolidated fascist rule.

As Bob Avakian emphasizes in his August 1 statement, using all appropriate means to remove this fascist Trump/Pence regime from power—including but emphatically NOT RELYING ON voting for Biden, if it comes to that, but with primary reliance on the continuing mobilization of masses of people around the demand that Trump/Pence must be OUT NOW!—is of crucial and urgent importance to prevent the full consolidation of fascist rule, with the even greater horrors this will involve, and to build toward the revolution that is needed as the fundamental solution to all the ongoing outrages caused by this system of capitalism-imperialism which, as Bob Avakian has also repeatedly emphasized, has given rise to this fascism.

 


* This is an excerpt from the article “On the Need for the Science of the New Communism, Not Dogmatic Narrow Nationalist Posing,” which is available at revcom.us.  [back

See also:

 

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/657/bob-avakian-capitalism-imperialism-the-suffocation-of-seven-billion-en.html

CAPITALISM-IMPERIALISM—THE SUFFOCATION OF SEVEN BILLION— AND THE PROFOUND NEED FOR A WORLD ON NEW FOUNDATIONS

by Bob Avakian

| revcom.us

 

The rulers of this country, and those who represent their interests, are forever boasting about the supposed “freedom, initiative and creativity” that, according to them, the capitalist system (and only the capitalist system) makes possible, and the great wealth this has created for people in this country especially. And they continually slander communism as a repressive system where people have no freedom and their initiative and creativity is not encouraged and rewarded but stifled and suppressed. All this is fundamentally wrong and completely upside-down.

First of all, the wealth that these people boast about is extremely unevenly distributed, even within this country, where a very small percentage of the people control the great bulk of the wealth. But, beyond that and more essentially, this wealth rests on a foundation of unspeakable crimes against humanity, historically and right up to the present time. To begin with:

The USA is a country which established its territory and built the foundation of its wealth through the armed conquest of land, genocide, slavery, and ruthless exploitation of successive waves of immigrants to America.1

And today, “the wealth and power of the U.S. rests today on a worldwide system of imperialist exploitation”—an international network of sweatshops, mines and corporate-controlled farms—“that ensnares hundreds of millions, and ultimately billions, of people in conditions hardly better than those of slaves.”2

This system of capitalism-imperialism—a system resting on ruthless exploitation, and super-exploitation, of masses of people, and marked by the cut-throat competition between major capitalist enterprises and financial institutions, and rivalry between capitalist states—suffocates the freedom, initiative and creativity of billions of human beings (the great majority of the more than seven billion people on the earth) including the huge numbers of children who are slaving away at near-starvation wages, and the vast masses of people who have been uprooted from the countryside, throughout the Third World (of Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia) and are crowded into swelling shantytown slums in rapidly expanding urban areas, where most can only survive by hustling in the “informal” economy, legal and illegal.

The freedom, creativity and initiative of literally billions of women is suffocated and suppressed, often with extreme brutality, under this system, with the patriarchal male supremacy that is built into it.

Tens of millions of people have died, and countries have been devastated, in wars directly waged by rival imperialists (such as World Wars 1 and 2), or wars in which they have backed contending local forces—all to gain (or maintain) control of strategic parts of the world, in the bloody pursuit of key natural resources, markets, and domination of populations whose desperation leaves them vulnerable to life-stealing exploitation.

Here is a “snapshot” of the ugly reality beneath all the grand talk about the “greatness” of this system of capitalism-imperialism:

we live in a world where large parts of humanity live in stark poverty, with 2.3 billion people lacking even rudimentary toilets or latrines and huge numbers suffering from preventable diseases, with millions of children dying every year from these diseases and from starvation, while 150 million children in the world are forced to engage in ruthlessly exploited child labor, and the whole world economy rests on a vast network of sweatshops, employing large numbers of women who are regularly subjected to sexual harassment and assault, a world where 65 million refugees have been displaced by war, poverty, persecution, and the effects of global warming.3

And the very future of humanity is seriously, and increasingly, endangered by this system with its accelerating destruction of the environment as well as its ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation.

Within the U.S. itself (this “richest of all countries”) tens of millions, especially in the inner cities, are living in conditions of severe deprivation, with many denied the opportunity to find work at a “living wage,” or denied the opportunity to be employed at all (in the regular “formal economy”) while they are also subjected to discrimination in education, housing, health care, and every other dimension of society—with all this enforced through continual police terror, punctuated repeatedly by outright murder.

The current COVID-19 pandemic has both highlighted and heightened the profound inequalities, in the world as a whole, and within this country, as people who were already bitterly oppressed and impoverished, and denied access to decent health care, have been hit hardest by this pandemic.

And, even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, with its crushing effects on the livelihood of masses of people, tens of millions in this country who had been regularly employed were living paycheck-to-paycheck, striving to provide for loved ones and hoping to provide a better future for their children, with many saddled with huge debt and only a serious health crisis away from financial ruin, while their work created wealth for a capitalist (or capitalist corporation) dictating the conditions of work, treating people as cogs in a machine or in many cases the extension of a machine—whether on an assembly line or a computer—work that, in these conditions, can only be alienating and mind-numbing.

In these (and countless other) ways, this system crushes and deadens the human spirit as well as grinding away the life—or outright stealing the life—of billions of people in every part of the world.

Think of the tremendous waste—and outright destruction—of human potential that results from all this. All this is the consequence of the fact that the world, and the masses of humanity, are forced to live under the domination of this system of capitalism-imperialism

All this is the basis on which a relatively small part of the people within this country, and a very small part of humanity as whole, has the conditions and the “freedom” to develop and apply their initiative and creativity—only to have this serve, under this system, to reinforce the “lopsided,” highly unequal and profoundly oppressive conditions in the world as a whole and for the masses of people in the world.

And all this is completely unnecessary.

Revolution, the New Communism and the Unleashing of Human Potential

Even under these conditions imposed by this outmoded, monstrous system of capitalism-imperialism, creativity bursts through repeatedly in many different ways—and notably in music, literature and other expressions of art and culture—from every part of society and every part of the world, including among those most downpressed and despised by this system and its rulers. Think of how much greater this creativity could be—and all the ways it could be unleashed to meet the needs of the masses of people, materially as well as culturally—if the ways in which billions are chained down and suffocated by this system were shattered and cast off through revolution.

Through the decades of work I have carried out, drawing crucial lessons from the previous experience (positive but also negative) of the communist movement and a wide range of human experience, I have developed a more consistently scientific communist theory, the new communism, which provides the basis for leading this revolution: the methods and principles, and the strategy for carrying out this revolution and, in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, a sweeping vision and concrete blueprint for a radically different and much better society, on an entirely new foundation—a radically different economic system (mode of production) based not on exploiting the masses of people but on unleashing their creativity and initiative to do away with exploitation and oppression of every kind.4 With this socialist mode of production the means of production (land, raw materials, machinery and other technology, factories and other physical structures, and so on) will be publicly owned (not privately owned by capitalist exploiters locked in chaotic and destructive competition and rivalry). This public ownership will make it possible to marshal and utilize the resources of society in a planned and flexible way, to meet people’s needs, both materially (for food, shelter, health care, and so on) and culturally and intellectually, in a continually expanding wayand to respond in a timely way to unforeseen developments and emergencies, while supporting the revolutionary struggle worldwide toward the goal of eliminating all exploitation and oppression everywhere with the achievement of communism throughout the world.

With this mode of production, people’s initiative and creativity will be encouraged and fostered, and there will be the basis for people to apply this initiative and creativity, in unprecedented ways, in the interests of the masses of people, and ultimately all of humanity: Everyone will be able to work and to acquire the basis for a decent life, while contributing to the development of society on the road to overcoming exploitation, inequality and oppression—contributing through their ideas as well as their work—without being forced into relentless competition with each other in order to survive, or striving to advance at the expense of others (a poisonous way of thinking that will be continually struggled against).

It is a fundamental understanding and principle of communism, which is given great emphasis in the new communism, that people are the most important productive force—not just as “producers” of the social wealth but also as conscious participants in the planning and overall development of the economy, not only for the benefit of the people in the particular country but most fundamentally to serve the revolutionary transformation of the entire world toward the goal of communism. And:

The development of the socialist economy has as its source and relies upon the initiative and work, intellectual as well as physical, of the masses of people, of the members of society broadly, in conditions which are increasingly freed from relations of exploitation, and with the aim of overcoming all vestiges and aspects of such relations, and the effects of such relations, not only in... [a particular socialist country] but everywhere on the earth.5

Along with, and fundamentally on the basis of, this radically different mode of production, there will be radically different political institutions and processes, and an ongoing struggle to transform the social relations which have embodied oppression, with the goal of abolishing and uprooting all relations of oppression as well as exploitation. There will be a radically different approach to education and culture—one which fosters and unleashes the scientific curiosity and artistic creativity of masses of people and “embraces” all this and enables it to contribute, “through many divergent paths, to the advance along a broad road toward the goal of communism.”6 There will be a radically different relation with the rest of the world—not exploiting and super-exploiting people around the world but supporting the struggle everywhere to throw off the rule of exploiters and oppressors and advance toward the goal of eliminating and uprooting all exploitation and oppression. And there will be a radically different relation with the environment—where human beings, instead of being chained to a system that plunders and destroys the rest of nature, are working together to be fit caretakers of the earth.

This will be a new society aiming for a whole new world, without the suffocation, suppression, and disfiguring of the potential for the masses of humanity to understand and change the world in accordance with what are in fact the fundamental interests of humanity—to live in a world where no part of humanity is subordinated to and dictated to by another part, and where all of humanity is no longer dictated to by the fundamental workings and dynamics of a system that requires antagonistic relations among people, enforced with the continual threat and use of massive violence, where the masses of humanity are no longer reduced to merely a means to make wealth for a small number who rule over them, or are cast off as “surplus” populations that can no longer be exploited in this way.

This new society and world will not be some kind of “utopia” where all problems and difficulties have “magically disappeared”—and it will not come as a “gift” from some non-existent god—but will be the result of the struggle of masses of people to cast off unbearable exploitation and oppression, and to transform themselves and their thinking in close inter-connection with this struggle to transform their conditions—struggle led by those who have taken up the scientific method and approach of the new communism and are winning growing numbers of people to themselves take up and apply this scientific method and approach to transforming the world in an increasingly conscious way on the basis of their voluntary initiative and cooperation.

All this will involve whole new dimensions of freedom, and unleashed initiative and creativity of the masses of humanity, on this whole new foundation, with radically different institutions and relations among people, and radically different ways of thinking that correspond to these emancipating relations among people.

 


1. From The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! In The Name of Humanity We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America, A Better World IS Possible. Video of this speech by Bob Avakian is available at revcom.us.  [back]

2. BAsics 1:4 (Basics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian). This statement by Bob Avakian is originally from Communism and Jeffersonian Democracy, which is available in BA’s Collected Works at revcom.us.  [back]

3. This is from Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make RevolutionVideo and the text of this speech by Bob Avakian are available at revcom.us.  [back]

4. The strategy for revolution is spoken to in depth in the speech by Bob Avakian Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution (video and the text of which are available at revcom.us), and further thinking on this is contained in A Real Revolution—A Real Chance To Win, Further Developing the Strategy for Revolution (which is also available at revcom.us). The Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, authored by Bob Avakian, is also available at revcom.us.  [back]

5. From Article I, Section 2, sub-section A2, page 19 of the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America. The principles and guidelines for the development of the socialist economy are more fully laid out in Article IV of this Constitution.  [back]

6. From the “Preamble” to the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America.  [back]

Bob Avakian (BA) is the most important political thinker and leader in the world today.

Get Into BA »

See also:

Four Months Into the Global COVID-19 Health and Economic Crisis...
Notes on the Utter Cruelty and Obscene Irrationality of Capitalism-Imperialism

by Raymond Lotta

Read more

The New Communism

Click to read and download (PDF)

CONSTITUTION For The New Socialist Republic In North America

Click to read and download (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/662/parasitism-and-class-social-recomposition-in-the-us-en.html

Parasitism and Class-Social Recomposition in the U.S. From the 1970s to Today: Introduction-Summary

by Raymond Lotta

| revcom.us

 

In Breakthroughs—The Historic Breakthrough by Marx and the Further Breakthrough with the New Communism, Bob Avakian writes that an increasingly globalized capitalism:

relies to a very great degree for production and for maintaining the rate of profit on a vast network of sweatshops, particularly in the Third World of Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, while capitalist activity in the capitalist-imperialist “home countries” is increasingly in the realm of finance and financial speculation, and the “high end” of  (not the physical production of the basic physical materials for) high tech, as well as the service sector and the commercial sphere (including the growing role of online marketing). As Lenin phrased it, this puts the “seal of parasitism” on the whole of societies such as the U.S.

 In relation to that “seal of parasitism,” Bob Avakian posed two intertwined questions for research and grappling: Is there a definite and operative connection between heightened globalization and intensification of exploitation by imperialism, in particular U.S. imperialism, in the Third World (or “global South,” as it is often called) and the changing social and class composition of the U.S, as a defining expression of imperialist parasitism? The answer is yes.

This research paper is now posted at revcom.us. In what follows, I highlight some of the key findings and conclusions.

A profound transformation of the occupational structure and of the distribution of income in the U.S. has occurred over the last 45 years. This is bound up with important demographic shifts and changes, like a growing proportion of women, and proportionately more immigrants from the Third World, in the labor force. American society is very different than it was in 1970. How people enter into the economy, job prospects, living standards, the goods that people consume, declining social mobility, patterns of inequality—all this and more are part of the picture.

Different factors have been at work—but deeper imperialist penetration into the Third World, and fuller integration of the oppressed economies into the world-capitalist economy, has been decisive.

Parasitism is an important concept that V.I. Lenin, the great communist theorist and leader of the Russian Revolution of 1917, worked with extensively in his analyses of imperialism, the system that dominates the world. Parasitism refers to the ways in which the imperialist countries benefit from the superexploitation of labor—horrific conditions of employment with pay that is at bare subsistence or below-subsistence levels—in the poor countries of Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The subjugation of the oppressed countries by imperialism not only distorts the economies and societies of the global South but also “reacts back” on the entire social structure of the imperialist countries. The profits, or “spoils,” of empire enable the imperialists to maintain a certain, relative social stability in the heartlands of empire in normal times. Parasitism results in the greater concentration of wealth among bourgeois-financial strata evermore divorced from organizing production.

Bob Avakian has further extended and applied this concept of “parasitism” to develop a deeper, a more scientific, understanding not only of defining economic features of the world imperialist economy today, but also ideological and cultural phenomena: like the “selfie” and “brand me” individualism rampant in America, and the aggressive chauvinism that sees America as the source of wealth and “good” in the world. People need to understand the material roots of the changes that have taken place in U.S. society. These changes have implications for revolution—for its bedrock and broader forces, and the potential for and obstacles to making revolution. And for understanding the highly parasitic society that the socialist-communist revolution must transform

In this light, Bob Avakian's New Year's Statement A New Year, The Urgent Need for a Radically New World—For the Emancipation of Humanity  is essential reading—to understand the dynamics that have led to the dire situation that humanity is now confronting and why revolution, guided by the new communism that Avakian has developed, is the only real alternative to this system of capitalism-imperialism with all its horrors.

Globalization, de-industrialization, and downsizing of the last few decades have not led to a “great leveling” in the U.S. Rather, this has contributed to an increasingly fractured, polarized, and “enclaved” society—not only racially but also in terms of different social groups. America is a society marked by extreme deprivation on the bottom...income and employment gains for “credentialed” professional-technical strata...the transfer of value produced by superexploited labor in the oppressed countries to the imperialist countries...and the extreme, grotesque upward redistribution to and concentration of wealth among a smaller fraction of society.

Here are more specific findings of the study:

*By the 2010s, 80 percent of global trade was flowing through global supply chains dominated and controlled by Western transnational corporations. These supply chains connect different units of production worldwide in the manufacture and transport of goods. They combine high-tech, 21st century coordination with 19th century sweatshop conditions. Women workers are a major share of the supply chain labor force, as in the garment factories of Sri Lanka. Think about it. Apple, the iconic emblem of so-called “American ingenuity,” would not exist without global commodity chains that require and thrive on brutally “efficient” assembly lines in China, where suicide was a form of work protest in the early 2010s. Think about it, Apple would not be the U.S.'s first 2 trillion dollar company without the 40,000 children who dig tunnels and haul rocks in the cobalt mines of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

*From 1970 to 2012, the share of developing nations in world exports of manufactured goods— like auto and plane parts, apparel and electronic devices—rose from 20 percent to 60 percent. Many of these exports become part of domestic production in the imperialist countries.

*In 1950, 34 percent of the world's industrial workers lived in “less developed regions”; in 1980 that share rose to 54 percent; and in 2010 it soared to 79 percent. This industrial-labor force shift has enhanced the profitability of imperialist capital and put downward pressure on wages worldwide.

*In the U.S. over the last 40 years, manufacturing employment (traditionally better paid and more stable) declined as a share of total U.S. employment: from 28 percent in 1960 to 8 percent in 2017. The loss of millions of manufacturing jobs over this period is very much connected to global outsourcing and sub-contracting, as in border factories in Mexico, and direct investment (U.S. companies opening auto factories in China). This decline in manufacturing employment, along with more output being produced by fewer workers, is also the result of technological transformation—like robotics, information technology, transport innovations, etc.—and corporate strategies of downsizing and “more efficient” modes of workplace organization. In 2010 China replaced the U.S. as the world's largest manufacturer (measured by output).

*Two or even three service jobs are often required to replace the income of one decent-paying manufacturing job.

*The disruptive and job-squeezing effects of “deindustrialization” have hit Black and Latino workers especially hard. Many African-American workers have become part of a “surplus” labor force—unemployed or underemployed. Many of the formerly incarcerated are locked out of the labor market or channeled into poverty-wage, irregular jobs.

*A major demographic change in the U.S. economy over the last 50 years is the further leap in women's participation in the labor force, including the professions. At the start of 2020, women were the majority (slightly over 50 percent) of employees in the U.S. This change has been driven both by economic necessity and political-social struggle. The “traditional” patriarchal household (married-couple family with children and a sole male breadwinner) no longer prevails. Yet shifting gender norms are colliding with the brutal reassertion of patriarchy, including pervasive sexual harassment and entrenched inequality.

*The vast increase of low-cost imported consumer goods based on superexploitation—high-productivity/low (often below subsistence) wage labor—in the oppressed countries has allowed prices to fall (the “Walmart price”) and cheapened the cost of labor-power in the U.S. These imports have also helped sustain mass-consumer purchasing power in the imperialist countries—even with advancing de-industrialization and downward pressure on wages and employment.

*The single largest employment category in the U.S. is retail.

*Heightened globalization has gone hand in hand with heightened financialization of the U.S. economy. By the early 1990s, the finance, insurance and real estate sector surpassed manufacturing as a share of the U.S. economy (GDP).

*Imperialist parasitism—superexploitation of the labor forces of the oppressed countries and plunder of raw materials—and fierce imperialist competition for markets has contributed to growing occupational polarization in the U.S. The U.S. economy requires engineers, money managers, and information technology workers...but it also needs cashiers, hospital orderlies, and low-paid logistics and delivery workers.

*Globally, an important trend is the expansion of non-standard or what is called “informal” work—non-regulated, low pay, and irregular (legal and illegal) employment. This is what rules in the burgeoning urban slums of the Third World, where well over 1 billion desperately struggle to survive. 

*In the U.S., 1 in 10 workers relies on “gig work” (freelance, contract, like Uber) as their primary income source.

*Heightened imperialist globalization has led to a significant increase in immigration (both official and undocumented) to the U.S. and other imperialist countries from the oppressed countries. Key sectors of the U.S. economy rely on immigrant labor for profitability—like construction, meatpacking, and crop farms—with workers subjected to cruel conditions of employment, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the system's edict to work and possibly die...or go hungry and homeless.

*A “brain drain” from the oppressed to the imperialist countries has severely impacted the impoverished countries—at the same that it has been a source of competitive advantage for U.S. imperialism. Seventy-one percent of tech employees in Silicon Valley in the mid-2010s were foreign born. Why did Silicon Valley end up in America? The answer is multidimensional, but the “brain drain,” especially from South Asia, is an essential factor.

*Slightly more than 1 in 4 doctors in the U.S. is foreign-born. Africa, which has the “greatest “disease burden” in the world, was losing on average 1 African-educated physician to the U.S. a day in 2015. Keep in mind that during the height of the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, there was an average of 45 doctors per 100,000 in Nigeria—compared to 250 in the U.S. One in 10 nursing, psychiatric, and home-health aides comes from the Caribbean and Central America alone—while basic health needs go unmet in these countries.

*A trend towards pervasive and widening income inequality is a basic feature of the U.S. labor force: income inequality between college- and non-college educated, between highly skilled and lesser skilled, etc., and within professions. Upward mobility in the U.S. is almost entirely for the college-educated but almost entirely downward for non-college educated (still the majority of the labor force). 

*The traditional “blue-collar” middle class has shrunk, but the middle-class has not disappeared; rather, it has become more centered around higher-paid business and professional services.

*The labor force of the so-called “knowledge economy” (professional-financial-university/educational-information technology) is clustered in certain geographic areas, especially cities. So there are great regional divergences in income as well. This is linked with the role of cities like New York City and Los Angeles as parasitic financial-administrative-command centers of imperialist capital and empire. And with this has come the emergence of a new underclass of “urban servants” servicing “wealth workers.”

As stated at the start, the U.S. is a far more polarized, fractured, and segmented society than it was in 1970. Globalization and deindustrialization have not led to a “great leveling.”

Bob Avakian reveals the underlying reality of this capitalist-imperialist system:

This system crushes and deadens the human spirit as well as grinding away the life—or outright stealing the life—of billions of people in every part of the world.

Think of the tremendous waste—and outright destruction—of human potential that results from this. All this is the consequence of the fact that the world, and the masses of humanity, are forced to live under the dominance of this system of capitalism-imperialism. 

All this is the basis on which a relatively small part of the people within this country, and a very small part of humanity as a whole, has the conditions and “freedom” to develop and apply their initiative and creativity—only to have this serve, under this system, to reinforce the “lopsided,” highly unequal and profoundly oppressive conditions in the world as a whole and for the masses of people in the world.

And all of this is completely unnecessary

(Bob Avakian, CAPITALISM-IMPERIALISM—THE SUFFOCATION OF SEVEN BILLION—AND THE PROFOUND NEED FOR A WORLD ON NEW FOUNDATIONS)

 

See also:

CAPITALISM-IMPERIALISM—
THE SUFFOCATION OF SEVEN BILLION—
AND THE PROFOUND NEED FOR A WORLD ON NEW FOUNDATIONS

by Bob Avakian

Read more

 

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/657/bob-avakian-police-prisons-reformist-illusions-revolutionary-solution-en.html

POLICE AND PRISONS:
REFORMIST ILLUSIONS
AND THE REVOLUTIONARY SOLUTION

by Bob Avakian

| revcom.us

 

In the course of the beautiful uprising against institutionalized white supremacy and police terror, the notion of “defunding,” or even “dismantling,” the police—replacing the existing police with a different kind of force, and accompanying this with a focus on meeting the social needs of the people who are now the main target of police violence—has been put forward as a “solution.” But does this idea of changing institutions and shifting priorities and funding, within this same system, really represent a way to put an end to police brutality and murder, and at the same time overcome the conditions of discrimination and poverty that cause people to be caught up in continual violence—both the violence carried out by the police and the violence among the people themselves, and in particular the youth in the inner cities?

No. In reality, this idea (of “defunding” or “dismantling” the police and shifting priorities and funding) is something that will not, and cannot, solve the problems it claims to be addressing. It is something that will not, and cannot, happen under this system of capitalism-imperialism. It is actually a dangerous illusion—or delusion—which will lead people to being disarmed ideologically in a demoralizing dead-end. This is because of the fundamental nature, functioning and requirements of this system itself. To end police terror you have to put an end to the system that needs police terror.

Let’s get into why this is true.

The “Priorities” of This System Are Determined by the Basic Nature of the System

Thinking about this, I was reminded of the days of the mass movement against the U.S. imperialist war in Vietnam, when groups like the tired-out “Communist Party” (which in fact was not about real communism or actual revolution) would raise demands like “Money for Jobs, Not War!” It had to be pointed out then that the reason that the U.S. imperialists were waging war in Vietnam was the same reason that there were unemployed people in this country: both of these things flowed out of the basic nature, functioning and requirements of this system of capitalism-imperialism.

People were unemployed within this country because they could not be profitably employed—that is, exploited—by the capitalists who rule this country (or they could not be exploited profitably enough, given the compulsions these capitalists faced in cut-throat competition with other capitalists, not just within this country but on an international scale). It was more profitable, and conformed to the competitive compulsions of the capitalists, to introduce technology to replace many workers in this country, and at the same time to super-exploit people, at much lower wages, in other parts of the world (in particular the Third World of Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia). And waging war in Vietnam was part of the same fundamental necessity of those who rule this system—in this case their need to control strategic parts of the world in order to maintain their dominant position in the world. For the capitalist-imperialist rulers of this country to have “shifted their priorities”—ending their war in Vietnam and using the money instead to create jobs for unemployed people in this country—would actually have gone against their fundamental needs and interests.1

And it is for the same basic reasons that, under this system, there will be no “dismantling” or real “defunding” (or changing of the essential role) of the police and no meaningful shifting of priorities and funds into the social needs of the people now violently targeted by the police.

The fact is that even the allocation of huge amounts of money for social programs in the inner cities could not overcome the desperate conditions of millions of people that has resulted from years, decades, generations and centuries of oppression, through slavery, segregation and ongoing discrimination. As I pointed out in Racial Oppression Can Be Ended—But Not Under This System:

Despite what any politician (“liberal” or outright fascist like Trump) may say, there is no way that this system could “reverse itself,” bring large parts of industry back to the inner city and provide meaningful employment, with “a living wage” for all those it is now depriving of this. Even if the government had the “political will” to try to do this, doing so (with the employment of millions of formerly unemployed or “underemployed” people at a “living wage”) would seriously undermine the competitive positions of American capitalists in the global economy. And, if they attempted to do this while at the same time trying to seriously overcome the whole historically-evolved relations of white supremacy, this would completely disrupt the social “cohesion” that “holds this country together,” with white supremacy a crucial part of this.2

On the terms of this system, and from the point of view of its ruling class, to bring about the severe damage to the competitiveness of “American capital” and the massive “social upheaval” that would be caused by actually attempting to overcome the conditions of oppression and deprivation of masses of people in the inner cities of this country—and the inequality built into this—would be highly destructive and irrational. And that is why this will not happen under this system.

There Is Police Terror Because This System Needs Police Terror

Growing numbers of people have begun to get a basic sense that white supremacy has been built into this system in this country from its very founding. In a number of writings (and most recently in Racial Oppression Can Be Ended—But Not Under This System), I have analyzed scientifically and in some depth why the oppression of Black people (as well as Latinos and Native Americans) cannot be abolished under this system, but is bound to continue, as a result of the “toxic mix” of racism and capitalism. And this is a major reason why the police cannot be either literally “dismantled” or fundamentally “reformed” to function without terrorizing, and outright murdering, masses of oppressed people.

But the ruling powers of this system need this kind of brutal police force not only to violently enforce racial oppression, as significant as that is. This system rests upon, and continually gives rise to, social divisions and conflicts—between masses of people and the ruling class, and among the masses of people themselves—conflicts which hold the potential for, and frequently erupt into violence and “chaos,” which in some circumstances can reach dimensions that threaten the “stability” of the system. So the capitalist ruling class requires a force of organized institutionalized violence—the police (as well as the military)—to contain and control these conflicts, and to forcibly suppress them when they erupt into violence and “chaos” that does immediately, or potentially, threaten the “established order.” Even with real, and in some ways sharp, differences among them, about some of the particulars of how this should be carried out, the entire ruling class is in fundamental agreement on the need for this, because once again it flows from and corresponds to the fundamental nature and requirements of this system.

A serious contradiction in this society—something which is the result of the “workings” of this system itself but at the same time does cause real problems for the system’s ruling class—is the fact that there are large numbers of people among the oppressed who have been effectively “locked out” of the regular “formal economy,” and for whom, in the conditions and on the terms of this system, crime seems like the only means to make a way in the world, or for some the only means of survival, even with all the risks it involves. A heartbreaking part of this is the fact that, in this situation, large numbers of oppressed youth in the inner cities are killing each other. These days especially, there are all these fascist asses braying about “Black-on-Black” crime. These racists are complete hypocrites: They care nothing about the horrors that the masses of Black people suffer, and they raise “Black-on-Black crime” only to distract attention from, or to justify, the police terror and murder against Black people—to convey the “message” that Black people are “a bunch of animals” who need to be kept in check, as violently as necessary, by police. But the reality is that Black people, and in particular the youth, killing each other is a very real and serious problem, and a cause of deep anguish for all those who genuinely want to see an end to this and to the conditions (and ways of thinking) that have given rise to this and keep it going.

The way forward out of this terrible situation is not unleashing even more terror against these youth by police (or the National Guard or the army!), or simply preaching at them to stop the violence, but winning growing numbers of them to become part of the revolution aiming to put an end to their oppressed conditions, and all oppression, by putting an end to this system.

But, of course, crime is not committed only by some people in the inner cities. Crimes, including violent crimes, are and will be a significant phenomenon and problem, in the society as a whole, so long as society is marked by relations of exploitation and oppression and the divisions and conflicts they give rise to—all reinforced by the ideology (the way of thinking) of “getting yours” and advancing your own interests at the expense of others, which is widely promoted throughout this society, from top to bottom.

And here is a heavy contradiction: In this kind of society, on the one hand, without the police crime would be an even greater problem, not just for the ruling class but for the society and the people overall; while, on the other hand, the police will be directed to “selectively” enforce the law, and to use the fact of crime as a “justification” for terrorizing whole sections of people, especially masses of Black people (and others) whose mere existence, in conditions of systematic discrimination, oppression and deprivation, is seen as posing a threat to the system. There is no way out of this under this system.

To sum up the essential point: So long as society is founded on relations that embody exploitation and oppression, and give rise to antagonistic conflicts and violence, including violent crime—so long, in other words, as this system of capitalism-imperialism continues to rule and set the terms for how society functions—there will be a police force that will use violence and terror to maintain the “order,” and enforce the conditions and relations, that conform to the basic nature and requirements of this system. No illusions or wishful thinking can change this reality.

And the same applies to the existence and role of prisons.

Under this system, prisons can never and will never be abolished, or play any fundamentally different role than what they do now: to exercise control and, yes, terror, over those (both those actually in prison and those for whom prison is a real and ever present possibility) who might pose a threat to the “orderly functioning of this system,” in one way or another—through “subversive political activity,” or “common crime,” or merely because their oppressed condition itself, and the likelihood that it will lead to rebellion, is seen as posing a potential threat to the system.

For these basic reasons, under this system, the politicians who get into, and remain in, the seats of power will never actually adopt policies that will have the police (or the prisons) do anything fundamentally different. Even if (or where) someone might be elected to office on a platform of “re-envisioning the role of the police” (or “prison abolition”) they will be frustrated, defeated and turned away from any attempts to implement changes that seriously threaten or undermine the basic functions of these institutions and forces of violent repression and control—whose role and “mission” is to maintain the rule and “order” of this system—whether in more blatantly extreme forms (as with the fascist program, represented by the Trump/Pence regime and the Republican Party) or with minor and ultimately meaningless reforms (as with the “mainstream” section of the ruling class, represented by the Democratic Party).

The reason politicians pushing such platforms are bound to fail is not simply that they would be outnumbered by “outdated” and “behind-the-times” representatives of the “old status quo.” More fundamentally, it is because this system could not function—it would “come unraveled,” or be torn apart, actually descending into destructive chaos—without these institutions (the police and prisons) performing these repressive functions, as viciously and violently as necessary.

This is a system which cannot be “pressured” to become other than what it is, just because some people, or even many people, would like it to. It can function only in accordance with its fundamental nature, requirements and dynamics. And, sooner or later (most often sooner), anyone who tries to have things work in a fundamentally different way under this system—in a way that runs counter to its basic nature and requirements—will be reminded, often forcefully, of the impossibility of this.

All this can be ended—not, however, under this system, but only through the revolution to abolish this whole system and bring a radically different and much better system into being.

Revolution: A Radically Different Society, Radically Different Public Security

As set forth in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America—a sweeping vision and concrete blueprint for a radically different and emancipating society—in that new, socialist society there will still be a need for laws and institutions of public security (and armed forces), as well as prisons, because (in addition to the threats from remaining imperialist and other reactionary governments and forces in the world) there will still be contradictions within the socialist society itself that give rise to conflicts, including violent conflicts. Although “common crime” will no longer be a major social problem, it will not yet be possible to eliminate all such crime. There will be forces who will seek a return to the old society through violent means, and they will need to be defeated in this. But there will be no need for, and no tolerance for, police that trample on the rights of people and terrorize whole sections of the population—and, in fact, any such actions will themselves constitute a violation of the law, and will be punishable under the law. It will be a basic principle guiding the institutions of public defense and security that one of their main purposes is to safeguard the rights of the people in this new socialist society, including the right of people to dissent and protest. Even the right to oppose the new system and seek a return to the old, exploitative society will be protected, so long as this does not involve violence.

With regard to prisons, for the reasons referred to here (and spoken to more fully in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America), they will still be necessary for some time, in dealing with serious violations of the law. But prisons, too, will be radically different in this new society. Torture in any form, and cruel and unusual punishment of any kind, will be outlawed in dealing with people imprisoned (and in society as a whole). As this Constitution explains, the basic orientation with regard to people convicted of crimes and imprisoned will be to rehabilitate them, and to “release them and reintegrate them as productive members of the larger society, as soon as it may be possible to do so, in accordance with the judgment that this can be done without unacceptable risk and danger to society and the people, and where doing so would not be contrary to what is set forth in this Constitution.” And no one will be “kept in prison for a period longer than that provided for by law and through legal proceedings embodying due process of law.” Further:

To this end, education, in accordance with the principles set forth in this Constitution... including education in the communist worldview and values but also access to a wide variety of political and philosophical, scientific, literary and other works, expressing a diversity of views—shall be afforded prisoners, and they shall be provided with the means to engage in productive work which can make a contribution to society, under conditions which are not only humane but which conform to the general standards of work in society at large.3

Only with the advance to communism throughout the world—with the abolition and uprooting of all economic relations and social relations that contain elements of exploitation and oppression and give rise to antagonistic conflict, and with the revolutionary transformation of the culture, morality, and ways of thinking of the people—only then will it be possible to do away entirely with armed forces and institutions of public security as well as prisons. But, with the overthrow of the system of capitalist-imperialism, which is based on exploitation and oppression, it will be possible for these institutions to be radically different and to serve the process not of exploiting, oppressing and degrading people but of moving toward the goal of ending all exploitation, oppression and degradation.

If there is going to be a real dismantling of police that terrorize masses of people, this can only happen, and can only really lead to something positive, if it happens as part of the revolution that is needed. And, with this revolution, the institutions of organized repression and violence of this system (the police and the armed forces, as well as the prisons) will be replaced by new institutions which are led with a radically different outlook and are serving a radically different purpose and goal.

Does this mean that the only thing that can be done now is to wait for this revolution to somehow “magically” come about? NO. This revolution must be actively, consciously, scientifically worked for. And a big part of this is fighting back now against institutionalized white supremacy and police terror, as well as the other ways that this system oppresses, degrades, and slaughters masses of people, in every part of the world, while plundering the environment—building these struggles as powerfully as possible, linking them together on the basis of the recognition that they all have a common source in this system of capitalism-imperialism, and building up the basis to bring down this system through an actual revolution.

Working for this revolution—working now to Fight the Power, and Transform the People, For Revolutionthis is what is urgently needed. This means:

strengthening the resistance and rebellion of masses of people against the outrages and injustices of this system, while waging struggle to win people to the emancipating outlook, methods, goals, and morality of this revolution, based on the scientific understanding that only the overthrow, the defeat and dismantling, of this whole system, and all its oppressive and repressive institutions, can finally put an end to all these injustices and outrages;

organizing growing numbers of people into the ranks of the revolution on this basis;

moving to make the “political terrain” and the thinking of masses of people more favorable for revolution, in order to “hasten” the development of things toward the situation where this revolution becomes possible, and building up the organized revolutionary forces that will be capable of seizing on that situation.

This is what we revcoms are dedicated and determined to do, now and going forward.

In this we base ourselves on the new communism, which has further developed communism as a consistently scientific outlook, method and approach, program, strategy and guide to action, bringing alive the need, the possibility, and the means and goals of this revolution, whose ultimate aim is the emancipation of all humanity from every form of exploitation and oppression with the achievement of communism throughout the world.4

This is what everyone who really wants to see an end to institutionalized white supremacy and police terror, and all oppressive relations, needs to become actively involved in, now—casting off illusions and working for revolution.

 


1. The U.S. imperialists were eventually forced to withdraw from Vietnam, because they were unable to achieve their objective of defeating the Vietnamese liberation fighters and subjecting Vietnam to U.S. domination, and a “consensus” finally developed, among the political representatives of this system, that it was best to “cut their losses” in Vietnam before this fundamentally undermined and threatened their position in the world overall—and within the U.S. itself, where there was massive opposition to the war and militant protest and rebellion against the oppression of Black people and other outrages perpetrated by this system, a radicalization that reached right into the U.S. imperialist armed forces themselves. But neither this withdrawal from Vietnam, nor later the “victory” of U.S. (and allied) imperialists in the “cold war,” with the unraveling of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s—none of this produced the “peace dividend” (government spending for social programs, etc.) that various reformists had declared could be the result of ending these (“cold” and “hot”) wars. Why this did not happen is once again because of the basic nature, functioning and requirements of this system of capitalism-imperialism.  [back]

2. This article by Bob Avakian (Racial Oppression Can Be Ended—But Not Under This System) is available at revcom.us.  [back]

3. The Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, authored by Bob Avakian, is available at revcom.us. The passages from this Constitution quoted (or referred to) are from Article III, “Rights of the People and the Struggle to Uproot All Exploitation and Oppression,” Section 2, “Legal and Civil Rights and Liberties.”  [back]

4. The substance of the new communism, brought forward by Bob Avakian (BA), is contained in BA’s Collected Works at revcom.us. This includes BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian, the handbook for revolution. Along with the sweeping vision and concrete blueprint for a radically different society in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, the strategy for the revolution leading to this radically new society is spelled out in BA’s speech, Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution (the text and video of which are available at revcom.us), and is spoken to in more recent writings by Bob Avakian, in particular A Real Revolution—A Real Chance to Win, Further Developing the Strategy for Revolution, which is also available at revcom.us. As the title suggests, a basic summary of the new communism, and its relation to the communism founded by Karl Marx, is found in BA’s work Breakthroughs: The Historic Breakthrough by Marx, and the Further Breakthrough with the New Communism, A Basic Summary (which is also available at revcom.us); and there is a fuller presentation of the new communism in the book by BA, The New Communism, The science, the strategy, the leadership for an actual revolution, and a radically new society on the road to real emancipation (Insight Press, 2016).  [back]

Bob Avakian (BA) is the most important political thinker and leader in the world today.

Get Into BA »

See also:

RACIAL OPPRESSION CAN BE ENDED—BUT NOT UNDER THIS SYSTEM

Read more

 

 

CONSTITUTION For The New Socialist Republic In North America

Click to read and download (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/651/it-takes-science-and-leadership-to-truly-get-free-en.html

To Those Rising Up and Awakening:
It Takes Science and Leadership to Truly Get Free

| revcom.us

 

This is written especially to those who have been righteously standing up and fighting back against murder by police and the oppression of Black people more generally, and to all those who have taken heart and inspiration from this, who are newly encountering the Revolution. Welcome! We stand side by side with you in this struggle and unite with your outrage and fury against centuries of oppression that truly must be NO MORE. This outpouring of resistance must continue and it must grow. People must stay in the streets, and this upsurge must get bigger, broader, deeper, and even more determined. At the same time, the big question that now presents itself—one that literally millions of people are asking—is: What will it take to truly put an end to police brutality, murder by police, and the oppression of Black people, once and for all?

The answer is that it will take far more than just people staying in the streets and fighting back, as critically important as that is. And this oppression can never be ended by trying to make a few reforms to a system that is completely rotten to its core. As with any big problem—whether a natural disease like COVID-19 or a social disease like racial oppression—solving that problem will take a deep understanding of the cause of that problem and the solution to it. In other words: It will take science. And it will take leadership. So let’s talk about what science and leadership have to do with changing the world.

Many people hear “science” and think biology and ecology; climate change and the environment; chemistry and physics; labs and microscopes; medicine, technology and new inventions. All of these are very important examples of—or closely related to—science. But for some reason, many people don’t think you need science to understand and change human society as a whole, or even that you can apply science for this purpose. This makes absolutely no sense. Science means investigating reality, gathering evidence, analyzing that evidence, identifying patterns, and drawing conclusions about reality on that basis. Why would it possibly be that this scientific method can’t or shouldn’t be applied to understanding and changing society? Because human society is complicated? All the more reason you need science to understand it!

Many people hear “leadership” and think of an activist with a bullhorn or a person leading a protest. These can be important and necessary examples of leadership, but leadership in the most important sense is something much bigger than that: Leadership in that sense is a matter of identifying and leading others to see the most fundamental problems confronting humanity and the solutions to those problems. Leadership is a matter of saying “Here’s why we’re in this situation and here’s how we can get out of it.

In Bob Avakian (BA), we have the science, the leadership, and the understanding of problem and solution we need to not only emancipate Black people but all of humanity from centuries of oppression. Sound like a bold statement? GOOD. It’s meant to be. And it’s backed up with more than 50 years of substance.

BA came forward as a revolutionary in the 1960s, working and struggling alongside the Black Panthers. In the decades since he has been working tirelessly on bringing forward and continuing to develop the deep, scientific understanding of the need to NOT reform but rather overthrow and completely sweep away this system through an actual revolution; the strategy for bringing into being the conditions necessary to make that revolution and win in those conditions; and the vision for a completely new and radically different system, society, and world. Underlying all of this is BA’s scientific method, which he continues to apply to the biggest questions facing humanity while leading a movement for revolution. A deep understanding of and visceral hatred for the oppression of Black people and the ways that Black people suffer, and a burning desire to see Black people free of this oppression, is at the core of BA and everything he is about, and is a constant thread that runs through his life and work over decades.

People throughout society and throughout the world need to know about BA. Thousands now and ultimately millions need to follow him in order to make an actual revolution to get free of this monstrous system and bring a far better society, world, and future into being.

See for yourself. Start with BA’s powerful new statement, “NOTHING LESS!Read it and spread it to everyone you know. Go to revcom.us to see the latest articles from BA on an incredibly broad range of topics related to revolution and radically changing the world, and learn more about and find out how to get involved in the revolution BA is leading. Check out BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian, the handbook for revolution, and the film Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Could Really Make Revolution. Go to the BA portal to get deeper into his extensive works. Learn more as you get involved in spreading this throughout society. Write to us to find out how you can specifically learn more and get involved. Write to us with your questions and let us know what’s on your mind.

One last thing: Make no mistake—hell yes, this is controversial. Once again, we say: GOOD. Think about this: Could there ever be a genuine movement for an actual revolution that didn’t offend anyone or make them uncomfortable!? There are all kinds of people out there who might talk a big game but are scared of an actual revolution, who want to get in on this system and try to get a better deal for themselves, or who just plain don’t know what they’re talking about. There are people who would have you believe that if the skin color of a person who has a way out for humanity is white, you shouldn’t listen to that person. Needless to say, these people are not going to like BA and what he stands for. And they’re going to come up with all kinds of lies, cheap shots, and slander to attack BA and cover their own asses. This kind of behavior is despicable, it is very harmful and it must be taken seriously and fought against. But it is not at all surprising.

So let’s end with a question back to you: Are you going to listen to lies and bullshit from the mouths of people who—in one form or another—want to keep the world basically the way it is? Or will you have the courage, integrity, and intellectual honesty to go directly to the source, get into BA, and see for yourself? Just how badly do you want to end oppression, change the world, and get free once and for all?

BOB AVAKIAN: A RADICALLY DIFFERENT LEADER—A WHOLE NEW FRAMEWORK FOR HUMAN EMANCIPATION

Bob Avakian (BA) is the most important political thinker and leader in the world today.

Read more         

Watch BA's whole speech:

Watch clips from speech

 

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/646/bob-avakian-on-emancipation-from-mental-slavery-all-oppression-en.html

Bob Avakian On
EMANCIPATION
FROM MENTAL SLAVERY AND ALL OPPRESSION

| revcom.us

 

In 1863, mid-way in the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln finally issued the Emancipation Proclamation and, as a result of the Civil War, Black people were formally freed from literal, physical slavery. But today the question is: When, and how, will Black people finally be free from all forms of slavery and oppression? And this poses straight-up this big question:

When will Black people finally emancipate themselves from the mental slavery of religion?!

We have seen the possibility of a world without oppression powerfully expressed in the not-too-distant past, during the radical upsurge that took place within this country and throughout the world during the 1960s and early 1970s.1 Within this country, the struggle of Black people was at the forefront of all this, and as that struggle became more radical in opposition to the system itself, and groups like the Black Panther Party, driven by the impatience and daring of Black youth, grew and gained influence, the advanced role of the struggle for Black liberation exerted an even more powerful positive role. And, as a very significant part of the widely and strongly held conviction that it was not only necessary but possible to put an end to the nightmare that had been endured for so long:

among Black people—who we’re always told are just sort of inherently religious—there was a massive turning away from religion, especially among the youth. Why? Because people were filled with hope, they didn’t believe that there was no hope for a better world. They were full of hope for a better world right in this world. And so, among Black people, there was, on the part of the youth in particular, a major turning away from religion and from all the old conventions that went along with religion that were conservatizing influences holding down the people.2

Hard Truths, Emancipating Truths

But the great promise of the 1960s radical upsurge, and the hopes that it raised, were not realized—fundamentally because things did not go all the way to an actual revolution. And, over the decades since then, through conscious policy by the ruling powers to foster the growth of more bourgeois and petit bourgeois strata among Black people, while at the same time maintaining and containing the masses of Black people in conditions of deprivation, oppression and vicious repression, this bitter reality has resulted:

Among the basic masses of people, including Black people (not the more middle class strata being developed through conscious ruling class policy, but the masses of oppressed people), there was a tremendous amount of demoralization and sense of defeat, and the introduction (including through deliberate ruling class policy and action) of massive amounts of drugs further intensified the desperate conditions of the basic masses and further reinforced the sense of demoralization. A lot of people were dying or being reduced to broken wretches on the basis of turning to drugs out of despair—the lack of hope, or the death, in immediate terms, of the hope that inspired so many people, on a real basis, through the course of the 1960s upsurge, which had now ebbed and been transformed. And this situation was made even more desperate and demoralizing with the growth of gangs in the ghettos and barrios of this country (as well as internationally), with youth drawn to the gangs in conditions of increasing deprivation and desperation and what was for most the illusion of getting rich, with the orientation of “get rich or die trying,” fueled by the growth of the drug trade and the influence of the putrid culture promoted throughout society that fostered and extolled the exploitation and degradation of others as the means for making it big, whether on Wall Street and on the world stage, or on the streets in the neighborhoods of the inner city.3

In the face of all this, amidst a feeling of fatalistic hopelessness, there has been, on the part of large numbers of Black people, a retreat into religion. It is often claimed that religion is what has allowed Black people to endure and persevere through all the trials and tribulations—the very real horrors—they have been subjected to throughout their experience in America, and that this remains the case now. But this is a logic of defeat—it rests on the underlying assumption (spoken or unspoken) that the system will basically remain as it has been, and that Black people will continue to be despised and discriminated against, persecuted, brutalized and terrorized, and the best they can hope for is to somehow survive, and strive to thrive, through all this—or, if you suffer in this life but you “get right with the Lord,” or submit to Allah, you will be rewarded in some “next life.”

Once more, the question is sharply posed: How can Black people be finally and fully emancipated from centuries of oppression, and how does this relate to ending all oppression, of all people, everywhere?

The answer is that the possibility of this is real, but it can happen only on the basis of a scientific approach to changing the world and the scientifically-grounded understanding that this oppression is rooted in and caused by the system of capitalism-imperialism—the same system that is viciously exploiting and murderously oppressing people not just in this country but all over the world and is plundering the natural environmentand that this system must and can be overthrown through an actual revolution and replaced by a radically different and far better system: socialism, whose final goal is a communist world, without any oppression or exploitation of anyone, anywhere.

As I have put it, expressing a simple and basic truth: “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—ormake revolution!”4

And, in relation to this, I have also spoken to this profound truth:

There is the potential for something of unprecedented beauty to arise out of unspeakable ugliness: Black people playing a crucial role in putting an end, at long last, to this system which has, for so long, not just exploited but dehumanized, terrorized and tormented them in a thousand ways—putting an end to this in the only way it can be done—by fighting to emancipate humanity, to put an end to the long night in which human society has been divided into masters and slaves, and the masses of humanity have been lashed, beaten, raped, slaughtered, shackled and shrouded in ignorance and misery.5

But here is another way that, in fundamental terms, there are two choices: either cling to the mental slavery of religion and remain oppressed, or cast off the mental chains of religion while rising up to fight with a real chance to get finally and fully free, in putting an end to all oppression and exploitation.

Religion may seem to give people comfort in the face of the oppression and anguish they are forced to endure, or to make people feel that with religion they can keep from “doing wrong”—or, even though they may “do wrong,” they still have some worth. And it is true that, for some people, their religious views are a motivation to fight against various forms of oppression, and many people who approach things from a religious standpoint have insights and knowledge that it is important to know about and learn from. But it is also true that, as a way of thinking and a guide to acting, religion relies on the invention of supernatural beings that do not exist but which are said to ultimately shape and control reality, including the fate of human beings. Religion calls on people to submit to those imaginary supernatural beings (or, to very human authorities speaking in the name of those imaginary supernatural beings) and to follow scriptures that in reality do not lead to ending oppression but actually promote and reinforce all kinds of degradation and horror. (This is something I have illustrated very concretely in the book Away With All Gods! Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World, particularly with regard to the three main monotheistic [one-god] religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.6) In this way religion stands in direct opposition to taking up a consistently scientific approach to understanding reality and waging a scientifically-grounded fight to end all oppression.

This is why the powers-that-be, whose very existence, wealth and power rest on oppression and exploitation, continually promote religion. It is why the very same slavemasters who prohibited Black people from learning to read (and severely punished those who did) actively encouraged their slaves to take up religion and get down on their knees in prayer. And it is why today, the ruling powers in this country are only too willing to provide a platform for, and parade around, any Black people who are inclined to engage in passionate “god-talk.” This may be painful to hear, but the question is: is it true, or not? Think about it.

It is neither possible nor principled—and no one should ever try—to force people to give up beliefs they hold at any given time. In the most fundamental terms, emancipation—from every form of slavery and oppression—must be the voluntary and conscious act of people. But there is a great need and importance to waging ideological struggle, in a principled way but as sharply as necessary, to win people to take up a scientific approach to understanding, and changing, the world and break with ways of thinking that actually contribute to keeping them, and others, oppressed.

Again, it is true that many religious people take part now in important struggles against oppression; and it is also true that many religious people will be among the millions taking part in the revolution to do away with this whole oppressive system. But this revolution, and the continuing struggle to end all oppression and bring about real and complete emancipation, must be led by those, among the most oppressed, and others as well, who have taken up a scientific approach to changing the world and have cast off the mental slavery of religion, along with every other way of thinking that promotes, or at least rationalizes and objectively justifies, oppression.

A bitter truth is this:

Oppressed people who are unable or unwilling to confront reality as it actually is, are condemned to remain enslaved and oppressed.7

But, an even greater, emancipating truth is this:

The notion of a god, or gods, was created by humanity, in its infancy, out of ignorance. This has been perpetuated by ruling classes, for thousands of years since then, to serve their interests in exploiting and dominating the majority of people and keeping them enslaved to ignorance and irrationality.

Bringing about a new, and far better, world and future for humanity means overthrowing such exploiting classes and breaking free of and leaving behind forever such enslaving ignorance and irrationality.8

 


1. In HOPE FOR HUMANITY ON A SCIENTIFIC BASISBreaking with Individualism, Parasitism and American Chauvinism (available at revcom.us), Bob Avakian speaks to this major change taking place during the 1960s:

In the 1960s, masses of people all over the world, including in this country, were filled with hope and determination about the prospect of bringing into being a radically different and better world. Throughout the Third World, there were liberation struggles aimed at throwing off the yoke of colonial oppression that had been imposed on them for decades, generations and even centuries. And in the imperialist countries themselves—including, in particular, the U.S.—the generation that came of age in the 1960s had both the understanding of the need and a real belief in the possibility of bringing a radically different and better world into being, and was not interested in hearing all the arguments about why things had to be the way they are.  [back]

2. HOPE FOR HUMANITY ON A SCIENTIFIC BASIS.

In Bob Avakian Responds to Mark Rudd on the Lessons of the 1960s and the Need for an Actual Revolution (available at revcom.us), this point is emphasized:

in moving from the limitations of the civil rights movement to the more advanced position of demanding Black liberation and linking this with liberation struggles in the Third World, those Black revolutionaries exerted a powerful positive force in influencing the movements of those times, including among educated youth, toward a more revolutionary orientation, even as that orientation was (in the parlance of those times) a “mixed bag,” involving a complex of conflicting tendencies, including the revolutionary communism that was coming from China as well as various revolutionary nationalist and other contradictory trends.  [back]

3. HOPE FOR HUMANITY ON A SCIENTIFIC BASIS.  [back]

4. In the speech Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution, from which this quote is drawn, Bob Avakian speaks to those crucial questions. The text and video of this speech are available at revcom.us. And in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, authored by Bob Avakian, (available at revcom.us) there is a sweeping vision and a concrete blueprint for a socialist society aiming for the final goal of communism throughout the world.  [back]

5. This statement, along with other works by Bob Avakian speaking to the oppression of Black people and the road to their full emancipation, is available at revcom.us.  [back]

6. Bob Avakian, Away With All Gods! Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World, Insight Press, 2008.  [back]

7. BAsics 4:1 (BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian).  [back]

8. BAsics 4:17, emphasis added.  [back]

Download leaflet (PDF)

 

 

 

Get a free email subscription to revcom.us:



 


 

Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/663/announcing-a-facebook-live-event-for-the-revolution-tour-en.html

Announcing a Livestream for the National Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour—Sunday, September 20

| revcom.us

 

On September 20 come to revcom.us for the Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour National Livestream which is aiming to raise urgently needed funds to sustain and support the Tour and all its critical work. $15,000 is urgently needed by September 30—as part of kicking off a major fall fund drive to enable the Tour to take on the momentous challenges we are faced with. Get started spreading the word and raising funds for this now.

Bob Avakian has issued an historic statement On the Immediate Critical Situation, the Urgent Need to Drive Out the Fascist Trump/Pence Regime, Voting in this Election, and the Fundamental Need for Revolution. This Statement needs to be spread very broadly—to millions—to impact the whole political terrain in this country at this crucial moment. Funds are needed to enable scaling up the promotion and debate. As Trump marshals his forces to hold onto power and further consolidate fascist rule, as fascist gangs around the country unleash brutality and intimidation against the beautiful rising of struggle against injustice which has filled the streets of this country, the Tour is playing a key role in the urgent fight to mobilize millions into the streets to drive this regime from power—as a crucial part and urgent requirement of the overall work of building for Revolution—Nothing Less!

All summer long Tour members in LA, together with revcoms across the country, have been out in the midst of the beautiful rising against police murder of Black and other oppressed people. They have been reaching out among all strata to carry forward the aims of the Tour—putting BA and the new communism out boldly and broadly, fighting for the understanding that this system cannot be reformed that it must be overthrown, and working to build up a national movement for an actual revolution. Teams have been dispatched to the frontlines in Minneapolis and Portland, bringing revolution right into the midst of the thousands who are waking to political life and burning with a desire to see the end to the oppression concentrated in the murder of George Floyd. And now with the showdown over the elections approaching, volunteers on the Tour are working with Refuse Fascism to build for the protests beginning on September 5 with the demand of TRUMP/PENCE OUT NOW!

The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less! Show on YouTube, currently produced by the Tour in LA, is an exciting new way that the revolution and the new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian are being projected and brought alive in living color every week. The RNL Show urgently needs funds for equipment, for sending crews out to cover key events in society, and to expand its reach and its audience through advertising and other means of projecting out into society to reach a much broader audience.

Spread the word of this Livestream! Tune in on September 20 and hear living accounts from Tour members about all they are doing and all they are learning as they take their message out into the world. At this critical time, when the fate and the future of humanity hangs in the balance, what could be more important than donating generously to support the work of the National Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour?

 

We are at a turning point in history, the future lives of millions hang in the balance, and what people do or don’t do, and what they do and don't support, will really matter.   

The National Tour to Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution has been part of key fronts of struggle—politically and ideologically—bringing the revolutionary leadership of Bob Avakian and organizing forces.  This is essential—and needs to spread—if masses of people are going to be able to rise to the challenges before us.   

On Sunday September 20, 5pm EDT/2 pm PDT, TUNE IN: facebook.com/therevcoms or youtube.com

We will be giving you a taste of what the National Revolution Tour and the revcoms have been doing, the challenges we have been confronting, what we are projecting for the next immediate period, and how you can be part of all this – including through contributing the essential funds that make all this possible.

Participants on this Tour are people who have dedicated our lives to bringing into being a better world, fighting day and night to accomplish the mission of this Tour.  We are working to bring  forward many more who want to be part of meeting these historic challenges.  All those who want to see this Tour succeed are also part of the work of the Tour.   

At this moment there is a tremendous need to not only continue but to scale up our reach and capacity with many thousands of dollars that need to be raised right now.

Here are just a couple of examples of what the Tour has been doing, and what will be brought to life – and can be financially supported – on the livestream:

Video of Maya agitation in Portland

Noche Diaz in South Central, September 12

 

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/661/september-5-beginning-60-days-of-struggle-trump-pence-outnow-en.html

September 5, 2020...
beginning 60 days of struggle to demand:
Trump/Pence OUTNOW!

| revcom.us

 

To state the situation we face truthfully and simply:  

The future depends on you being on a mission now to move heaven and earth to arouse and organize people to take to the streets and prepare to stay in the streets to demand the Trump/Pence Fascist Regime Must Go Now!

Take the time now to sit, read, and think about two different visions of the next 75-plus days. Consider where one or the other vision leads. Then decide where you stand and what you will do.

One: The Trump/Pence regime wins the election, steals the election, and/or refuses to leave office, and the people like you who oppose this have not been mobilizing, organizing, and already coalescing into the streets and as a force demanding that this fascist regime is illegitimate and must go now.   

Two: From now through September and October, more and more people from all walks of life and different political persuasions are on a mission to spread the word and organize so that masses of people are repeatedly taking to and staying in the streets—in the way millions did in response to the wanton racist police murder of George Floyd—raising the unifying demand and objective: TRUMP/PENCE OUT NOW!.  

Bob Avakian, in his statement On The Immediate Critical Situation, The Urgent Need To Drive Out The Fascist Trump/Pence Regime, Voting In This Election, And The Fundamental Need For Revolution, plainly and sharply lays out the stakes of the coming period:

If this regime is able to further consolidate its power and make further leaps in implementing its horrific objectives, this will result in a devastating setback for any attempt to resist injustice and oppression, and will very likely lead to the brutal repression, and even annihilation, of defenders of democratic rights and proponents of any meaningful progressive reforms, as well as any organized forces fighting for fundamental revolutionary change.

He goes on to say:

Simply relying on voting to oust this regime will almost certainly lead to very bad, even disastrous results.

The stakes are devastating setback, brutal repression, even annihilation. Is this true? Is it hyperbole?   Ask the immigrants in concentration camps. Ask the paramilitary fascist forces mobilized by the regime and the police unions around the country, or Trump’s fascist MAGA mobs who refuse to wear masks, what they are preparing for. The truth of these stakes is concisely made in Bob Avakian’s statement (cited above) and amply documented on this website1 and on the website RefuseFascism.org. If you think this is exaggeration, make your case—you can write us at revolution.reports@yahoo.com. But, do not turn away without a full confrontation and reckoning.

What is mainly happening now is vision #1—waiting. What needs to happen now,is #2.

Trump has said that if he loses, he will declare it to be a fraud and theft. Fox News will echo this, enraging and mobilizing millions of MAGA forces. Trump has told and shown that he is already subverting the U.S. Postal Service so millions of people can’t vote by mail, and he has called for recruiting cops and former Navy Seals and Special Forces to “watch [i.e.: intimidate at] the voting polls.”

Organizations, writers, and even former military are sounding the warning of this subversion,2 but thus far these people are saying we will do something if and when he does this at election time. This is as dangerous as it is foolish. 

Four points:

[1] The Trump/Pence regime is already fascist3 and has implemented fascist measure after fascist measure and is already stealing the election at the national and state levels. Every move towards doing so should be opposed in the course of building an overall struggle that raises the overarching demand: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go Now!

[2] The logic of protesting only once they have fully stolen the election and/or refused to leave office is the logic of playing by the rules, and defending the very norms and institutions they are now in the process of, and by then may have succeeded in, obliterating.

[3] They have their forces out in the streets and being hardened within the government and sections of their armed forces already. They are gaining strength and initiative on their side and intimidating the people’s side. Trump sent paramilitary forces to cities like Portland and Seattle to brutally crush legitimate dissent and has launched plans to go into the big inner cities like Chicago.4 The MAGA fascists have been holding armed rallies around the country. This could contribute to the regime actually “winning” the election “legitimately.” If this happens, and we do not have an aroused and mobilized people in the streets, where will we be and what will you do then?5

[4] The last point is that there is another way: for you and hundreds and thousands more to be on a mission now to spread the word far and wide and organize like the future depends on it for September 5th—a day that launches an autumn of growing mass nonviolent struggle of many different kinds to demand the Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!

We should spread a vision of what could be possible if we mobilize and unite now for September 5th and then be on mission to make it so.

In the struggle around the murder of George Floyd we saw what is possible when a determined people come into the streets over and over around a just cause. The struggle of the masses of people ripped open the reality of this country’s white supremacy as statues were torn down and institutions everywhere were forced to begin to confront their roots in slavery and its continuing legacy in discrimination, bigotry, police murder, mass incarceration, and shortened lives of Black people. The head of the U.S. military was forced to apologize to the people in opposition to his commander in chief, Pig Trump.

We are at a “stop everything” moment in history. September 5th needs to be a significant outpouring inspiring 60 days of struggle. If every attempt by the regime to subvert the election, to further repress protest, to implement new fascist measures is met with growing numbers demanding Trump/Pence OUT NOW! we could force a different political equation going into the election, constraining Trump’s ability to easily postpone or subvert the election.

If masses of people are already in the streets over the 60 days running up to the election and then the regime attempts to discount, challenge, or dismiss the results, we would be a people organized and mobilized to act in defiance that this not go down. And, if we launch this struggle and increasingly tap into and mobilize the deeply held desire of millions to see the ouster of the fascist Trump/Pence regime, no one can say how far this can go or how fast.

This has to be our vision-mission: a vision of broad, deep, and determined resistance, and the mission that we must all be on—from many different viewpoints—united and acting in sustained nonviolent protest demanding that this regime must go.

We don’t have a crystal ball to predict just how these events will unfold, but we can, with a great deal of certitude, say that this is already a highly contested period with confrontations already afoot. That is not going away without an organized, mobilized opposing force. Trump and Pence, the fascist forces that back them, and the virulent fascist base they have mobilized are not going away without a mass, determined struggle. It is on each and all of us to make September 5th a broad-based united day launching 60 days of struggle before the election.

 


1. See "Trump/Pence Regime Accelerates Fascist Juggernaut" at revcom.us.  [back]

2. See "This Presidential Election A ‘Dozen Floridas,’ a ‘Vast Array’ of Lawsuits, a ‘Lot of Mischief’...." at revcom.us.  [back]

3. The following definition of fascism appears frequently at revcom.us:

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]

4. See "Operation Legend: A Fascist Wolf in Pig’s Clothing, Part 1" at revcom.us.  [back]

5. Trump/Pence will invoke a second term as a mandate to go on a rampage. Look at the fascistic ruler of India in his second term, who on the heels of his reelection put an entire region of the country (Kashmir) under brutal martial law, and initiated a process that threatens the citizenship of tens of millions of non-Hindu people in India.  [back]

See also:

Bob Avakian on: The Need to Drive Out the Fascist Trump/Pence Regime and the Fundamental Need for Revolution

Videos and articles

The Call from RefuseFascism.org:

As Trump threatens the elections and sends fascist stormtroopers into cities:

Stay in the streets in August Build for UNITED NATIONWIDE MASS PROTEST Saturday September 5 DEMAND TRUMP PENCE OUT NOW!

Read more

September 5 Events by City:


Refuse Fascism, Philadelphia.

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.

Find out more about Refuse Fascism here.

 

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/658/support-members-of-the-national-revolution-tour-in-portland-en.html

Donate to Support the Members of the National Revolution Tour Now in Portland

| revcom.us

 

Editors’ Note: Some members of the Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour are now in Portland. We received this first report from them—and we call on readers to respond to their call for donations and support.

We are here because we were inspired by the courageous people who have stood up against the fascist Trump/Pence regime’s deployment of federal pigs into Portland. We share the outrage and horror of the implications of what is promised by Trump—this being just the beginning of a heavier deployment of federal agents suppressing opposition and violating constitutional rights here and around the country. The Trump/Pence regime is attempting to make a disastrous leap forward in the consolidation of fascism, abducting protestors off the street, violently assaulting people with physical force, tear gas and “less than lethal” munitions. They are out to crush all dissent and opposition to the fascist program of white supremacy, male supremacy & Christian fundamentalism embodied in Trump's platform of making Amerikkka great. A serious struggle for the future is underway. The opposition to this fascist clampdown must immediately grow in size and strength, and thousands now must be brought into the ranks of the revolution as a part of this struggle to prepare to put an end to the system that commits atrocities against humanity and that gives rise to fascism through it’s normal working.

The Tour needs your support to join the struggle against fascism in Portland, Oregon and to organize and actively recruit the forces needed, taking up the revolutionary strategy and theory of the new communism to prepare for and hasten a revolutionary situation, preparing the ground, the people and the vanguard to lead an all-out struggle when those conditions have been brought into being. You can make this possible by donating to support the work of the Tour members here. We need funding for travel, housing, food, organizational material including literature, pamphlets, t-shirts, banners, etc. Donate to support the effort to build and grow this revolution. We need to raise $2,000 to sustain the Tour for one week. This includes the expenses listed above. You can donate on Venmo @RevolutionTour and on Paypal at Revcom.us.

We got here yesterday and joined the protest in front of the federal building. We, like many others, were inspired by the courageous actions of the protesters in coming back in the face of ugly repression. “We are at a crossroads” is a serious sentiment throughout the resistance of those on the ground in Portland. One woman we spoke with commented, “I feel there is a real need to continue the resistance to these federal agents here. I feel like people are looking to Portland as an example and we can’t let them get away with this.” She was underlining the seriousness of the fascist moves by the Trump/Pence regime. She and many others were sparked to come out in protest after being horrified at the sight of people being kidnapped by men in army fatigues, Trump’s gestapo. Fascism has become more widely recognized and called that by name. People come out in helmets with gas masks, some have body armor-like vests. People were passing out homemade shields, and the press looked fully suited for a war zone. “This is how we dress to protest police brutality, this is what is necessary and it’s sick,” said one protester we spoke with.

People have stood up time and time again against the crimes of their government only to have their anger & justified outrage funneled back into the very same system that produced it in the first place. To see an end to this system and get beyond the revolting barbarity it produces, we need a revolution—nothing less. As a part of this growing struggle in Portland and nationwide, there is a real urgency to organize thousands of people now, to lead a revolution to overthrow this system at the soonest possible time. The system that gave rise to fascism to begin with is the system of capitalism-imperialism that has no future for humanity. We have the tools for such a revolution in the work that Bob Avakian has done, developed in the new communism. People have the hope and fire to struggle for a better world, but not enough people know what it will take to put an end to the unnecessary suffering brought about by this system. Not enough people have the scientific understanding and strategy of the new communism. That has to change. You can be a part of this revolution by supporting the revolutionary work of the Tour members. Donate and share this call widely to grow this much needed revolution.


On day of arrival to #Portland, The National Revolution Tour makes this statement signed by many people in #LosAngeles. Photo: AP

Donate now to support the members of the National Revolution Tour in Portland:

Venmo: @RevolutionTour

PayPal: CLICK HERE

 

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/663/call-for-removal-of-trump-pence-regime-in-the-path-to-revolution-en.html

Protest 9/5:
Call for the Removal of Trump / Pence Regime in the Path to Revolution!

From a member of the Revolution Club

| revcom.us

 

Editors’ Note: Following are edited excerpts from social media exchanges on various progressive sites.

***

Trump is a fascist. Once fascism fully consolidates its hold over America, it will be much harder to make revolution. That's why one of our most urgent goals as communists in America should be to call for the removal of the Trump/Pence regime! NATIONWIDE PROTEST SEPT. 5

FAQ:

Actual lines are being drawn, with catastrophic consequences for all of humanity. If we lose the right to protest—through legal or extra-legal means—all bets are off. Fascism is not just the worst of a pendulum swing. It is a qualitative change in how society is governed. Dissent is piece by piece criminalized. The truth is bludgeoned. Group after group is demonized and targeted along a trajectory that leads to real horrors. All this has been happening for more than three years, yet with concentration camps at the border, Trump acquitted in a sham impeachment trial, and an executive order to protect monuments while First Amendment rights are criminalized with actual jail time, too many still want to bask in the comfortable delusions that this is not really happening. This is fascism. It is happening, and time is running out to stop it.

CITIES:

See map for full list of cities and protest locations

 

We need to be out in the streets and fighting this. Making revolution under a non-fascist regime is already enormously difficult, and will become much harder if Trump is allowed to consolidate his hold. Get out in the streets and make your voice heard!

Now at this late and crucial hour....(BA)

Reposted from RefuseFascism.org:

PROTEST EVERYWHERE
SEPTEMBER 5, 2020
DEMAND TRUMP PENCE OUT NOW!

Read more

Protest! times & places

 

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/663/bob-avakian-donald-trump-genocidal-racist-part-1-en.html

Donald Trump—GENOCIDAL RACIST
Part 1

by Bob Avakian

| revcom.us

 

Download PDF of Part 1

Genocide means killing off a whole people, or a large part of that people. Genocide is what the Europeans did to the native peoples in America, while stealing their land. Genocide is Hitler and the NAZIs murdering six million Jews.  Donald Trump is a genocidal racist.

Donald Trump hates Black people and everybody who is not a “white, English-speaking, Christian American.” If he could, he would kill off a whole lot of them, and put many of the rest in jail for life, or drive them out of the country.

Trump has spouted and shouted vicious racism for years, and decades.

Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, who knows him well, said this about him:

“I can only imagine the envy with which Donald watched” the cop killing George Floyd. “I can only imagine that Donald wishes it had been his knee on Floyd’s neck.” (emphasis added)

Think about that.  

What do you think Trump will do if he can get his “knee” even more firmly on the necks of Black, Brown, and Native peoples?

Yes, even after slavery was ended, Black people have been continually subjected to horrific oppression and terror, right down to today—but the fully unleashed rule of genocidal racism, which is what Trump is aiming for, would be a horror on a whole other level. The slow genocide of Black people which has already been going on—through things like mass incarceration and continuing murder by police—can quickly become a much faster and more complete genocide if Trump and his regime succeed in remaining in power and carry forward more fully their fascist program.

And, as I have said in my August 1 Statement,* the hour is getting late, but it is not yet too late, to defeat the fascism concentrated in the fascist regime of Trump (and Pence) and to wrench something positive out of this increasingly terrible situation. But that requires fully facing up to what this regime of genocidal racist fascism represents and what it is aiming to do, and using all appropriate means to remove this regime from power—above all the mobilization of masses of people, to get in the streets, starting now, in the thousands, and stay in the streets, becoming millions, powerfully putting forward the unifying demand that this fascist regime must be OUT NOW!

And, as I emphasized in that August 1 Statement, in the most fundamental terms, it requires working to create more favorable conditions for, and to build up the organized forces for, the revolution that is needed to finally put an end to this system, which has from the beginning rested on genocidal racism and other horrific forms of oppression—and which now, with this fascist regime, is moving to take this to even more monstrous levels, posing a very real and grave threat to the very existence not only of Black people but the masses of oppressed humanity and ultimately humanity as a whole.  

This is not hype or exaggeration in any way—it is the cold hard fact we are faced with—and it demands that, in the name of and for the future of humanity, we act on the basis of fully confronting this reality and moving, in our millions and millions, to change this reality, before it really is too late.

(If you think this is an exaggeration, and the danger is not as great as what is said here, then you don’t know who Donald Trump really is. In part 2 and the rest of this series of articles, further evidence will be brought out to show that Donald Trump is indeed a genocidal racist whose fascist regime is a threat to the very existence not only of Black people, but to the masses of oppressed humanity, and to humanity itself—and, once again, what we are urgently called on to do in the face of this.)

 


*STATEMENT BY BOB AVAKIAN, August 1, 2020, ON THE IMMEDIATE CRITICAL SITUATION, THE URGENT NEED TO DRIVE OUT THE FASCIST TRUMP/PENCE REGIME, VOTING IN THIS ELECTION, AND THE FUNDAMENTAL NEED FOR REVOLUTION.  [back]

Download pamphlet of complete series (PDF printer spread)

Share widely

Read the Series "Trump—GENOCIDAL RACIST"

Part 1
Part 2 | PDF
Part 3 | PDF
Part 4 | PDF
Part 5 | PDF
Part 6 | PDF
Part 7 | PDF
Part 8 | PDF
Part 9 | PDF
Part 10 | 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/663/stephen-miller-ethnic-cleansing-amerikkkan-style-en.html

Stephen Miller and Ethnic Cleansing, Amerikkkan-Style

| revcom.us

 

Stephen Miller is the Trump/Pence regime’s “mastermind” of ethnic cleansing now underway in the U.S., and a senior advisor to Trump. Miller’s entire adult life has been about stopping virtually all immigration, legal and illegal, and driving millions of people out of the country, especially people from what Trump has called “shit-hole countries.”

A Perfect Fit

Last year hundreds of hateful, racist emails became public that Miller wrote shortly before the election in which he promoted openly white supremacist websites and articles, whined about Confederate flags being taken down after a white supremacist murdered nine people in Charleston, and viciously railed against immigrants. There was no attempt by the Trump/Pence regime to remove, or even chastise, this Nazi. That’s because Miller is a perfect fit in the fascist regime. 

Miller’s world view that anything goes in the defense of “western civilization” has been shaped by the white supremacist book The Camp of the Saints, a novel that depicts the “end of the white world” after it is overrun by “kinky-haired, swarthy skinned, long-despised phantoms” led by a “turd eater.”  He enthusiastically encouraged his associates at Breitbart News to read it during a debate on immigration, writing "Someone should point out the parallels (in the U.S. today) to Camp of the Saints." 

He has drawn extensively on the “Center for Immigration Studies” (CIS) for his policy proposals. CIS is an anti-immigrant group founded by a eugenicist who thinks people considered inferior should not be allowed to reproduce, and Miller has been the keynote speaker at their awards ceremony. The founder of CIS wrote that he had “come to the view that for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that... Demography is destiny. We decline to bequeath to our children minority status in their own land.” Miller has worked feverishly to make this hateful view a political reality in a fascist U.S.

The Ghost of Calvin Coolidge

In the years before Trump came to office there were attempts in Congress to address “immigration reform.” Miller, then on the staff of the rabidly anti-immigrant Alabama senator Jeff Sessions, played a major role in defeating these efforts. During those battles Miller wrote, This would seem a good opportunity to remind people about the heritage established by Calvin Coolidge, which covers four decades of the 20th century.” Coolidge is revered by white supremacists because the Immigration Act of 1924, which restricted legal immigration almost exclusively to people from Northern Europe, became law during his presidency. 

For Miller, transforming immigration means not only ferocious efforts to “seal the border” and deport millions of people with legal status in the U.S., it means a relentless and still ongoing effort to transform all policy relating to immigration, asylum, and refugees. 

In a radio conversation between Miller and Steve Bannon, formerly the “chief strategist” in Trump’s entourage, both expressed how they saw the perils of the growing immigrant population in the U.S.: Bannon—“Isn’t the beating heart of the problem right now, the real, beating heart of it... not illegal immigration, as horrific as that is, and it’s horrific... [but] legal immigration [emphasis added]. Miller—“yes, it’s mind-boggling.... [T]here’s no precedent for that kind of growth whatsoever.” 

Miller has been the “mastermind” behind the regime’s relentless assault on immigrants (with and without “papers”) that includes over 400 executive actions restricting immigration Trump has issued. These form a vicious, interlocking web of deportation, incarceration, and impoverishment, and are both a fascist re-working of immigration policy, and a serious effort to change the demographics of the U.S.

Miller boasted in a recorded phone call that “The first and most important thing is to turn off the faucet of new immigrant labormission accomplished.” And, as the Washington Post reported, he said he is developing a “... strategy (that) is part of a long-term vision and not seen only as a stopgap.”

Showing Them Who’s in Charge

Miller has written many of Trump’s hate-filled speeches, and in 2016 he also “warmed up” the fascist mobs at Trump’s campaign rallies. Miller’s speeches were a toxic stew of belligerent white supremacy, American chauvinism, support for brutalizing policeand a promise of much more to come as the fascist regime moves to “make America great.” 

Miller primed an overwhelmingly white Trump rally in San Diego, while largely Latino protesters were assaulted by police on the streets outside: “Are you ready to secure that border? Are you ready to stop Islamic terrorism? And are you ready to make sure that American children are given their birthright in their own country?...Are you ready to show them who’s in charge? Are you ready to do something they will write about for a thousand years?” At a Dallas rally in 2016, he bellowed, “Hillary Clinton loves open borders! Donald Trump loves American workers! Donald Trump loves secure borders! Donald Trump loves safe communities!... Are you ready to send to Washington a man who will put Americans first, last, and always! Are you ready to elect Donald J. Trump!”

The Worst is Yet to Come ... If They Aren’t Stopped 

The fascist regime is laying the groundwork for an openly white, English-speaking America. It has already inflicted great pain on millions of people, and the regime’s rapid-fire approach to transforming immigration policy “makes it likely that the Trump presidency will have long-lasting effects on the U.S. immigration system.” But Trump and Miller aren’t stopping here. The regime has seized on the crisis brought on by the coronavirus pandemic to further push goals, like bans on travel, closing off the U.S.-Mexico border, and pausing visa issuances. 

And they are raising the prospect of bringing about even more fundamental changes as part of fully consolidating their fascist, white supremacist agenda. Miller has railed against “birthright citizenship”—the constitutional right that all people born in this country are U.S. citizens—for years. In January this year he opposed the demand that “DREAMers [immigrant youth brought to this country as children] be given citizenship because they 'know no other home.' That principle is an endorsement of perpetual birthright citizenship for the foreign-born. Not only will the U.S.-born children of future illegal immigrants and guest workers be made automatic U.S. citizens, but their foreign-born children will too...” Trump has been more explicit in his contempt for birthright citizenship, saying in an interview this year, “It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. And it has to end.” 

As Revolution pointed out recently, Trump’s “birther” assault on Kamala Harris is a threat to a political opponent, and also implies that ending birthright citizenship could be a foundation to launch ethnic cleansing campaigns against millions of people born in this country. And if you still don’t think they could try this, keep in mind another of Miller’s driving convictions: “... the media and the whole world will soon see as we begin to take further actions that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned”.  

This fascist nightmare must not be allowed to continue. Fighting to “STOP The Demonization, Criminalization and Deportations of Immigrants and the Militarization of the Border” is vital in its own right, and as a component of the mass protests beginning on September 5 to drive out the Trump/Pence regime.  

Sources

Stephen Miller’s Affinity for White Nationalism Revealed in Leaked Emails, Southern Poverty Law Center, 11/12/19

Stephen Miller And White Nationalism, NPR, 11/114/19

Must It Be the Rest Against the West?, The Atlantic, December 1994

Stephen Miller And 'The Camp Of The Saints,' A White Nationalist Reference, NPR, 11/19/19

Center for Immigration Studies, Southern Poverty Law Center

John Tanton, the fountainhead of modern anti-immigrant bile, Tribune Content Agency, 7/26/19

John Tanton, Southern Poverty Law Center

Trump official Stephen Miller's racist emails leaked, AA.com, 12/11/19

Stephen Miller Said He'd Be 'Happy If Not a Single Refugee Foot Ever Again Touched American Soil,' Ex-Trump Aide Claims, Newsweek, 1/28/19

How the Pandemic Has Strengthened Stephen Miller’s Hand, Daily Beast, 6/25/20

New MPI Report Catalogs the 400-Plus Immigration Executive Actions That Have Occurred During the Trump Presidency, Migration Policy Institute, 7/31/20

Trump’s Temporary Halt to Immigration Is Part of Broader Plan, Stephen Miller Says, New York Times, 8/26/20

Stephen Miller Has Long-Term vision for Trump's 'temporary' immigration order, acording to private call with supporters, Washington Post, 4/24/20

Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda, Jean Guerrero, William Morrow, 8/11/20

Dismantling and Reconstructing the U.S. Immigration System: A Catalog of Changes under the Trump Presidency, Migration Policy Institute, July 2020

How Trump's 'birthright' idea went from the fringe to the Oval Office, Politico, 10/30/18

Miller Dismisses DACA in Emails, Mirroring Anti-Immigrant Extremists' Views, Southern Poverty Law Center, 1/14/20

 

Bob Avakian's Answer to People Who Complain about Immigrants Crossing Borders

From a Q&A following the speech Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution.

See also:

On the Road to Genocide:
The Trump/Pence Regime's Anti‑Immigrant Barrage

Read more

 

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/663/people-righteously-say-no-to-trumps-fascist-roadshow-in-kenosha-en.html

People Righteously Say NO! to
Trump's Fascist Roadshow in Kenosha

| revcom.us

 

On September 1, Donald Trump descended on Kenosha, Wisconsin, the scene of more than a week of angry protest after police shot unarmed Jacob Blake Jr. as he was walking away and going into a car where his three young children sat. The fascist-in-chief wasn’t there to express even a modicum of sympathy for Jacob Blake, now paralyzed, and his family—in fact, he didn’t even meet with the Blake family (claiming that they wanted a lawyer present in the meeting and that was “inappropriate”). Instead, he met with the local pigs to shower them with slobbering praise, pledged $1 million to them “so that you can have some extra money to go out and do what you do,” and toured several businesses burned down in the past week as a photo op to attack protesters as “domestic terrorists.”

When Trump was asked about the shooting of Jacob Blake, this genocidal racist now sitting in the White House said, “I feel terribly for anyone that goes through that” and, “It’s a complicated subject.” No, it’s not “complicated”! This is a case of pigs who once again had been caught red-handed unleashing unjust, wanton, deadly violence on a Black person. When asked about the cop that shot Jacob, Trump said that police “do 10,000 great acts, which is what they do,” but sometimes “they choke”—further justifying the wanton shooting by claiming, contrary to any evidence, that Jacob “might have been going for a weapon.”

Asked by a reporter if systematic racism was a problem in the U.S., Trump attacked the questioner, saying, “You just keep getting back to the opposite subject.” Instead, he declared, “We should talk about the kind of violence that we’ve seen in Portland and other places.” To make clear, he was not talking about the violence of the fascist thugs across the country that he has whipped up and lauded as his “Second Amendment people.” He was, once again, painting the protesters as “violent,” as part of his and his regime’s campaign to call for and justify a fascist clampdown on protest and all opposition.

And shortly before flying to Kenosha, Trump openly defended the white gunman who is accused of shooting down and murdering two protesters in Kenosha last week. This fascist ghoul claimed that it was the gunman who was under violent attack from protesters, and that he “was in very big trouble... he probably would have been killed.” This is nothing but further incitement and encouragement of the fascist brownshirts that he is counting on.

This fascist roadshow did not go unopposed—people stood up and said NO! Jacob Blake's family led an all-day community gathering of hundreds of people at the site where he was shot by the pigs. Refuse Fascism had called on people to come to Kenosha to confront Trump, and about 200 protested in the streets. A large banner said: “September 5th begins 60 Days of struggle to demand Trump/Pence #OUT NOW.” Members of the Revolution Club, some who have been in Kenosha since the day after Jacob Blake was shot, were part of this action. In New York City, Refuse Fascism marched in the streets with the message “We stand with Kenosha—Trump Pence OUT NOW!”


Kenosha, September 1. Photo: twitter/therevcoms

 

 

Kenosha, September 1. Photo: twitter/therevcoms

 

Kenosha, September 1. Photo: twitter/therevcoms

 

 

 

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/663/bob-avakian-donald-trump-genocidal-racist-part-2-en.html

Donald Trump—GENOCIDAL RACIST*
Part 2

by Bob Avakian

| revcom.us

 

Download PDF of Part 2

Donald Trump hates Black people, and everybody who is not a “white, English-speaking, Christian American.” If he could, he would kill off a whole lot of them, and put many of the rest in jail for life, or drive them out of the country.

Don’t believe it? Think that’s an exaggeration, that it’s going too far to say that about Trump? It’s not. Trump has spouted and shouted vicious racism for years, and decades.

Thirty years ago, the Central Park 5, a group of Black and Latino teenagers, were charged with raping and beating a white woman, almost to death, in Central Park in New York City. Donald Trump took out newspaper ads calling for these youth to be put to death. The Central Park 5 were railroaded to jail for years, until finally it was proven, beyond a doubt, that they were innocent. Did Trump admit he was wrong and apologize for calling for innocent Black and Brown teenagers to be executed? NO—during his campaign for president in 2016 he still insisted that these youth were still guilty, despite the definite proof that they were not.

In the same campaign, Trump insisted that “Stop and Frisk”—which, in New York City and some other places, had terrorized huge numbers of Black and Brown youth who were innocent of committing any actual crime—should be put into effect, not just in one or a few cities, but all over the country.

If all this is what Trump wants to do with Black and Brown youth, without even caring whether they are innocent, what do you think he wants to do with all those he finds “guilty” of the “crime” of not being white Americans?

(If you think this is an exaggeration—going too far to say this about Trump—then you still don’t know who Donald Trump really is. Look for Part 3: further evidence of Donald Trump as a genocidal racist.)

 


Genocide means killing off a whole people, or a large part of that people. Genocide is what the Europeans did to the native peoples in America, while stealing their land. Genocide is Hitler and the NAZIs murdering six million Jews. Donald Trump is a genocidal racist.  [back]

Download pamphlet of complete series (PDF printer spread)

Read the Series "Trump—GENOCIDAL RACIST"

Part 1 | PDF
Part 2
Part 3 | PDF
Part 4 | PDF
Part 5 | PDF
Part 6 | PDF
Part 7 | PDF
Part 8 | PDF
Part 9 | PDF
Part 10 | 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/663/going-up-against-trumpite-fascists-and-pigs-in-kenosha-en.html

From the Revolution Club, Chicago

Going Up Against Trumpite Fascists and Pigs in Kenosha

| revcom.us

 

Editor’s note: Almost two weeks ago Jacob Blake, Jr. was shot in the back by police seven times while his three children watched. People went into the streets that night to protest and were met with tremendous brutality, including a very toxic type of tear gas. Two nights later, as the protests grew to over a thousand, armed fascists came to the city and two people, Joseph “Jojo” Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, were murdered. In the days since, Trump has released statements justifying the murder of Rosenbaum and Huber as self-defense and then, on Sunday announced that he was going to Kenosha.

Beginning on the Monday after the shooting of Jacob Blake, Jr., members of the Revolution Club went to Kenosha. On Tuesday, Club members answered a call from Refuse Fascism to turn out en masse against Trump’s visit. The following correspondence details some of their experience.

September 1—Refuse Fascism organized a car caravan to Kenosha. New young members of Refuse Fascism traveled together with veterans of the struggle to drive out Trump and Pence. Many of us stopped off first to show our solidarity at a community gathering organized by the family of Jacob Blake, where we were welcomed, before heading to the gathering site for the protest. We spoke with a mix of people and many took photos of a poster we had made with a photo of Jacob Blake with his kids.

Going Up Against Trumpite Fascists and Pigs

We did not know what to expect at the protest site. A series of heavy repressive tactics has been employed during the past week, including arresting protesters in the wake of the Tuesday night killings just one week ago. The city had set up barricades around the area. A giant fence that has been up since Tuesday had uniformed people with rifles posted behind it.

As we and others began to gather, we were met by a crowd of flag-waving fascist Trump supporters. Initially, the two groups faced off with each other exchanging chants, but as our side began to grow and outnumber the fascists, a joyous crowd, by that point approaching 200, took off marching. We quickly hit a roadblock—concrete barricades and a line of police and crime scene tape (!!?) blocking our path. A rowdy group, including people carrying Refuse Fascism’s “Trump/Pence Out Now Banner,” jumped on the cement barricade and began chanting loudly just as Trump’s motorcade drove by in front of us.

For the next several hours the crowd roamed around the area outside the Kenosha Court House, marching, chanting and at times more quietly engaging with each other. Spokespeople from the Club and Refuse Fascism rallied the crowd with powerful agitation and others, too, stepped out to speak. There continued to be verbal confrontation with the Trump supporters and a Christian fascist speaker who had a sound system. At one point three younger youth blocked these fascists, positioning themselves in front of them holding up signs including from Refuse Fascism. One of them, who was there with her mom, and running around barefoot, was super charged about the need to take on Trump, constantly coming to get resupplied with leaflets for September 5th.

A Cross-Section of People...

The crowd was a fascinating mix of people. There were a lot of people from Kenosha. Groups of young white people who has been protesting for Black Lives Matter for some time. A group of white guys, some with signs saying they were vets, dressed in black had homemade signs denouncing Trump. Parents with their kids. Well-dressed middle-aged white people with home-made signs. Black youth were in the mix too, as well as Asian and Latino people. Truly a mixed crowd with local and “outside agitators” alike. One young Black man, wearing a yacht club shirt, offered to carry the Refuse Fascism banner announcing the September 5 protests. One older white man (who a number of us initially took for a Trump supporter) who told us he has lived in Kenosha all his life and expressed so much outrage about the police shooting of Jacob Blake helped carry the club's “This System Can't Be Reformed, It Must Be Overthrown” banner for a quite a while along with a young white woman who was also from Kenosha.

We ran into a number of people who were friends of Anthony Huber, the 26-year-old skateboard champion, who was shot and killed when he tried to stop the white supremacist shooter after the shooter killed Joseph Rosenbaum. One young man said he has known Huber all his life. A young woman told us she was a close friend. Toward the end of the protest we met Hannah, Huber's partner, who last week organized a rally of skateboarders to honor Anthony. She told us she wants to plan some sort of “rave-like” outside memorial service for him soon and talked with us about joining in this. A Refuse Fascism member who is a musician said he would love to play as part of this. We had a sign with Anthony Huber's photo on it along with the poster from revcom.us, “2 Killed in Kenosha, Trump/Pence Out Now,” which they were excited to carry in the protest.

We had learned from our comrades who has been in Kenosha all week that many of the local people didn't grasp the full significance of what they had been part of, including the impact around the country and even around the world. A multinational group of three 20-somethings, who wanted to know more what we were about, watched the shout out from Los Angeles to the fighter in Kenosha and really loved it. The young Black man in the yacht club shirt had a similar response as did 2 young white millennials, one in a Kurt Cobain shirt, who took posters of Joseph Rosenbaum and Jacob Blake that we had brought to carry.

Kenosha: Occupied Territory

A member of Refuse Fascism reported that he talked with people from Kenosha who gave a sense of what it is like living there right now. They said it is like “living in occupied territory.” There are all kinds of roadblocks. There are a lot of different pigs—the locals, the National Guard and the Feds. They described the locals as the ones who fucked with people the most as opposed to the National Guard which is mostly guarding buildings. One person who took up Sept 5 on the spot said “We can't come to Chicago on Saturday because we don't know if we can get back into Kenosha later that night.”

“Outside Agitators”

There were also lots of people from out of town in the crowd. A Native American youth from Grand Rapids, Michigan told us he was celebrating his 20th birthday by being there. He and a friend had traveled to the Kenosha specially to join this protest. They were carrying two big flags, one saying Black Lives Matter and the other with an anarchist symbol. They were excited to meet Refuse Fascism and the Revolution Club and gave a way to stay in touch. There were people Minneapolis, from Milwaukee and other parts of Wisconsin and quite a few people from Chicago. A Latino youth, who talked at length with the Club member, said he was from New Mexico and would have driven 20 hours to be there if he had to. He was able to come via plane. He helped carry the 20-foot Refuse Fascism banner the whole time.

There were also people from “Riot Kitchen” a group of people who give out free food at protests—BBQ ribs and brats, who have been caravanning around the country from the Pacific Northwest. They were initially heading to the DC demo on Friday, but when they learned of the events in Kenosha came there. Some actually went to DC and others stayed in Kenosha, some involuntarily because they were locked up. They were arrested last week by the feds in unmarked vehicles, like in Portland, an event that drew media coverage from around the country. There was a group of about eight street medics some of whom traveled there from Chicago, only a small portion of those there earlier in the week.

People coming from the outside, attracted by the resistance, is a great strength. But this drives the fascists crazy. At one point during the agitation, a person screamed, "Hey, if you are not from Kenosha, you have nothing to say. What are you doing here?" The Club member responded in the agitation, "Look, if people like Harriet Tubman had backed down when people called her an outsider, thousands of slaves never would have been freed."

We got out copies of the pamphlet with BA’s statement on the current situation and his new piece, “Trump—Genocidal Racist Part 1.” We had a few deep engagements with people over the BA pamphlet, including a young Latinx person who was taken aback by our proud proclamation of being communists and wanted to know how we get people to engage with us.

Club members and people from the Refuse Fascism are trying to follow up with people we met and win them to take up the call for protests on September 5th either by coming to Chicago or organizing a protest in Kenosha. Some people say, “We are staying in the streets,” with the focus on Black Lives Matter. Sending people the Both/And video could be very important in helping people make the connection between what they have been doing and “Trump/Pence Out Now.” We also plan to get out the video from the National Revolution Tour, which was so well received by the small number of people we showed it to.

 

 

Kenosha, September 1. Photo: twitter/therevcoms

 

Kenosha, September 1. Photo: twitter/therevcoms

 

 

 

 

Kenosha, September 1. Photo: twitter/therevcoms

 

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/663/voices-of-conscience-and-resistance-en.html

Voices of Conscience and Resistance

| revcom.us

 

Voices of Conscience and Resistance is a special feature at Revcom.us at a time when people all over are being challenged to understand and act on the crossroads we face: the accelerating moves to lock down fascism in America, concentrated around the elections with the Trump/Pence regime. We aim to aggregate a broad range of voices that are making important public statements shedding light on this juncture. Our aim in this is to better identify and understand the character of the threat, and even more importantly to marshal this understanding to further the struggle to defeat it. 

Noam Chomsky: Trump Is Willing to Dismantle Democracy to Hold On to Power, interview with Truthout.org, October 12, 2020

...Trump and his Republican cohorts are working overtime to implement their strategy of undermining the election or discrediting it if it comes out the wrong way, setting the stage for a possible coup.

In preparation, an “Army for Trump” is being mobilized to descend on polls to intimidate the wrong voters. What was once the Justice Department is easing election fraud inquiry constraints in case that path becomes necessary.

In general, no stone is left unturned in Trump’s campaign to dismantle democratic forms and hold on to power.

...Other major democracies are also decaying, also falling into the hands of leaders with traits of fascism, if not the ideologies...

The whole interview is available here.

Historian Timothy Snyder: America is “in a slow-motion Reichstag Fire right now”

In an interview in Salon.com, Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale University, responds to a question about how he would answer people who criticize him for his warnings about Trump’s fascism. What would he tell people who say, “You were talking about a Reichstag Fire! It didn’t happen. You are an alarmist...”? (The Reichstag Fire refers to a key nodal point in Hitler’s consolidation of fascist rule, when he seized on the burning down of the German legislature in 1933 to carry out a major leap in repression.) Snyder’s response: “Obviously, we are in a slow-motion Reichstag Fire right now. That is what is happening. Donald Trump is not as skilled as Hitler. He doesn't work as hard as Hitler. He doesn't have the same level of confidence as Hitler, but he's clearly looking for that Reichstag Fire emergency. Trump tried to make Black Lives Matter into that emergency. ‘Antifascists’ and ‘thugs’ and ‘law and order’ and so on is part of that effort. Donald Trump keeps trying to make the Reichstag Fire work.”

Read the interview with Timothy Snyder here.

Sacha Baron Cohen on Trump: “an overt racist, an overt fascist”

Actor Sacha Baron Cohen, known for the satirical movie character “Borat,” is currently appearing as Abbie Hoffman in the new Netflix movie The Trial of the Chicago 7. Featured in a recent wide-ranging New York Times profile, Cohen talks about how, after the 2017 rally by Nazis and white supremacists (who Trump later referred to as “very fine people”) in Charlottesville, Virginia, he was so appalled that he agreed to give a keynote speech at an Anti-Defamation League event. He started the speech by saying, “when I say ‘racism, hate and bigotry,’ I’m not referring to the names of Stephen Miller’s Labradoodles” [Miller, a white supremacist, is a close adviser to Trump and architect of the regime’s fascist anti-immigration policies]. He said doing the speech was “completely out of my comfort zone”—“it was the first time I’d ever given a major speech in my own voice but I felt like I had to ring the alarm bell and say that democracy is in peril this year. I felt, even if it was going to destroy my career and people are going to come at me and say, ‘Just shut up, the last thing we need is another celebrity telling us what to do’... I felt I needed to do that to live with myself.”

Cohen said he asked his late father what he thought of Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign. Cohen recalls, “He said, ‘Two things. He’s extremely entertaining. Far more entertaining than Hillary. Two, he’s a fascist.’ My dad was born in 1932. He’d seen fascists on the streets, Mosley’s Blackshirts beating up Jews. And he knew what fascism was.”

Read the Times feature on Cohen here.

Berkeley Repertory Theater’s Radio Play It Can’t Happen Here

The Berkeley Repertory Theater is currently putting on a radio play production of It Can’t Happen Here. The play is based on the 1935 novel by Sinclair Lewis, written at a time when Hitler had come to power in Germany but it was not fully clear what a full consolidation of Nazi power would mean. As a “Check It Out” by a revcom.us reader notes, “The novel and the play reveal that fascism does not arrive all at once, fully formed, but has a trajectory and momentum, and that people interact with this in ways that can assist fascism or derail and defeat it.” Tony Taccone, a co-writer of the adaptation, said, “When we first did the stage version of the play [in 2016] there was an absolute sense that it could not happen here. In the deepest parts of ourselves we didn’t believe it either. What’s changed is now we believe it.”

Read the full Check It Out here.

Bill McKibben, “The Next Election Is About the Next 10,000 Years”

From the article:

...this time around our last chance at limiting the temperature rise to anything like 1.5 degrees would slip through our fingers...

...as a team of scientists reported in November, we're about to cross a whole series of tipping points, ranging from destabilizing Antarctic ice sheets to slowing down vast ocean currents. These are not reversible; no one has a plan for refreezing the poles.

Read the whole article here.

HBO series The Plot Against America, based on the 2004 novel by Philip Roth, reviewed in the New York Times: "When Democracy Dies in Daylight"

Ad by Jewish Democratic Council of America (JDCA), “Trump Is the Biggest Threat to American Jews Today

Phil Kadner, "How fascism takes root"

From the article:

People imagine that fascism takes hold of a nation the day a jackbooted soldier kicks in a civilian's door.

In actuality, it begins when a national leader says that your nation and its people are inherently superior to all others. It begins when a country rejects the idea that all people are created equal.

Read the whole article here.

Jesse Jackson speaking at a NAACP press conference in Kenosha, Wisconsin, August 27, 2020. Jackson’s part starts at 11:38 in the video and ends at 23:30.

Robert Reich, author, professor, and former U.S. Secretary of Labor—Twitter posts on Trump, fascism, and the need to fight: here, here, here, here, and here.

 

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/663/rnl-show-episode-24-announcement-en.html

Episode 24 of
The RNL Show—Revolution, Nothing Less!

| revcom.us

 

Share this widely

"Genocidal Racist Donald Trump Must NOT Be Allowed a Second Term!"

The Revolution, Nothing Less Show

Lines are being drawn. On one side, Trump and his MAGA fascists inside law enforcement and out waging vigilante violence in the streets, promising a world of hurt to Black people, immigrants, women, LGBTQ people, people around the world, and the planet itself. On the other side, people of many walks of life who have flooded the streets for Black lives in recent months and reeled in shock and horror for three years of Trump/Pence crimes. Who will shape the future depends on what we do.

 

Andy Zee and Sunsara Taylor will discuss and share powerful short videos created by the RNL team that draw out the importance of nationwide protests being planned by RefuseFascism.org on September 5th to demand Trump/Pence Out Now! and launch 60 days of mass nonviolent struggle to realize this demand. Noche Diaz will read Part 1 of a searing new series by Bob Avakian titled, “Donald Trump—Genocidal Racist Part 1.” And we'll share the RefuseFascism.org call for September 5th protests, read by actor Jodie Sweetin.

 

Subscribe: YouTube.com/therevcoms
Follow: @therevcoms
Become a patron: patreon.com/therevcoms

Subscribe to the YouTube channel, leave a comment, and spread the word all over social media to help extend the reach of The RNL Show — Revolution, Nothing Less!

 

 

 

Get a free email subscription to revcom.us:



 


 

Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/663/bob-avakian-donald-trump-genocidal-racist-part-3-en.html

Donald Trump—GENOCIDAL RACIST*
Part 3

by Bob Avakian

| revcom.us

 

Download PDF of Part 3

Early in his last campaign for president, Trump declared that he was going to “build a wall” to keep out Mexicans, calling the people who come to the U.S. from Mexico “drug dealers... rapists... criminals.” He said that a judge in a legal case Trump was involved in could not be “fair” to Trump because the judge was of Mexican heritage—a textbook case of racism (as even a powerful Trump supporter had to admit).

Since becoming president, along with unleashing vicious raids to deport immigrants, tearing apart families, Trump has put tens of thousands of immigrants—mostly from Mexico and nearby countries in Central America—in concentration camps on the border, while separating even very young migrant children from their parents.

Many people have pointed out that all this is the kind of thing Hitler did to “demonize” and “criminalize” Jews as he put them in concentration camps, and then murdered 6 million of them.

(If you don’t think Trump would do something as extreme as killing off large parts of those he has demonized and criminalized, you still don’t know who Donald Trump really is. Look for Part 4: further evidence of Donald Trump as a genocidal racist.)

 


* Genocide means killing off a whole people, or a large part of that people. Genocide is what the Europeans did to the native peoples in America, while stealing their land. Genocide is Hitler and the NAZIs murdering six million Jews. Donald Trump is a genocidal racist.

Donald Trump hates Black people, and everybody who is not a “white, English-speaking, Christian American.” If he could, he would kill off a whole lot of them, and put many of the rest in jail for life, or drive them out of the country.  [back]

Download pamphlet of complete series (PDF printer spread)

Read the Series "Trump—GENOCIDAL RACIST"

Part 1 | PDF
Part 2 | PDF
Part 3
Part 4 | PDF
Part 5 | PDF
Part 6 | PDF
Part 7 | PDF
Part 8 | PDF
Part 9 | PDF
Part 10 | 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/663/statements-supporting-and-endorsements-for-september-5-en.html

Reposted from RefuseFascism.org:

Statements Supporting and Endorsements for September 5 and 60 Days Demanding Trump/Pence OUT NOW

| revcom.us

 

On September 5th, we must make a LIVING DECLARATION to the world that we are uniting, we are organizing, we are determined, we are preparing to struggle with all we’ve got, starting now and not stopping until the Trump/Pence regime is driven from power and its fascist program brought to a halt.

Cornel West

Musician and teacher Arturo O'Farrill

Jim Lafferty, Executive Director Emeritus, National Lawyers Guild, L.A. Chapter

Sisters and brothers, and organizers of the kick-off to this critically needed 60-days of actions; actions to rid our nation of the neo-Fascist Trump/Pence regime! It is no exaggeration to say that we are witnessing the opening stages of a new civil war in America. It is a civil war that will determine whether we regain our right to call ourselves a free people living in a democratic nation, or whether an even deeper Fascism will bring about even more poverty, racism, Xenophobia and misogyny in this tyrannical capitalist nation. And make no mistake about it: We cannot place all of our hopes in the November election; if we do we are lost. We must, instead, let today be the start of a massive anti-Fascist movement in the streets; a movement that stays in the streets, fighting every day for what is right; and that keeps on fighting no matter what happens on November 3rd, if we are to ever win this life and death struggle for a racially, economically and socially just America!

Bishop Gregg L Greer: Trump Pence Must Go!

Grammy-Award winning singer Lalah Hathaway

Michael Coard, lawyer and activist

Samuel Cruz, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Religion and Society, Union Theological Seminary City of New York

Veterans for Peace (VFP)

Rev Michael Woolf: Get in the streets Sept 5

"If we want to imagine a world where Donald Trump is not president then we need to show this political power now."

Drummer and ACLU Attorney Dr. Knucklehead with Project KnuckleHead

Actor Jodie Sweetin for September 5th Protests

Historian and writer Paul Street calls on all groups fighting on injustice and democracy issues to join in September 5

Why historian and writer Paul Street is building for Saturday September 5 protests and why you should too! What's your…

Posted by Refuse Fascism on Wednesday, August 12, 2020

Alyson Jacks, Associate Minister, First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco

Greetings.

My name is Rev. Alyson Jacks, Associate Minister of the First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco. I am sorry not to be with you today but stand with you in the fight against the rise of facism that threatens our democracy.

As Unitarian Universalists we commit ourselves to promote and act upon the universal values of love, justice, equity and compassion. These values are not the values held by the current corrupt occupant of the White House or those who allied with him. Today, we commit ourselves to put those core values into action and call for an end to the tyranny of Trump. May our actions be rooted in radical power of love as we dedicate ourselves to dismantling white supremacy, dismantling facism, dismantling injustice. May our work take us closer to the Beloved Community of which we dream.

Victoria Cook, Torah Trumps Hate

 

View this post on Instagram

 

Please join @torahtrumpshate tomorrow, September 5th, after Shabbat, when we join other organizations across the country to REFUSE FASCISM! Many people will be gathering throughout the day to fight in one voice to demand that we save our democracy! We look forward to adding our voices to the community as we make Havdalah together. This Shabbat comes during the spiritually intense weeks leading to the Days of Awe, when we take a calculation of our souls and recommit ourselves to leading ethical and moral lives. It is no coincidence that the portion of the Torah we read tomorrow, Ki Tavo, warns us of the dire consequences that befall a nation that ignores the rule of law. Let us heed the Torah's warnings and save our democracy! #Sept5Protests #TrumpPenceOutNow

A post shared by Victoria Cook (@cookieshane) on

Rev. Dr. Robert L. Brashear, Pastor Emeritus West Park Church and professor Newark School of Theology

To brothers and sisters in the struggle and companions in the fight to stop fascism now:

September 5th marks an important step in the struggle as we come out with all who desire a more just, inclusive and sustainable world as we together proclaim our commitment to refuse fascism and demand Trump and Pence out now. The next 60 days are critical not only for the United States but all humanity. Never before in our country have we witnessed such naked and unashamed disregard for justice, the rule of law, science, humanity and simple decency as we have with the Trump-Pence regime. Its implications are global. If this regime remains in power, the potential damage to humanity and our shared earth may well be irreversible.

This is not business as usual, it is a defining moment, a moment of truth. We can no longer puzzle over how late Weimar allowed a murderous regime to take unchecked control of a country. Through refusal to promise to honor election results, doing everything possible to further voter suppression, ending term limits (“12 more years”) and unleashing not only military forces but also armed militias to impose its will, we are witnessing the consolidation of fascism every day. They must be stopped now. Refuse fascism now. Trump-Pence out now.

Other Endorsers

(selected, and in progress)

Age of Change, Houston
Alyson Jacks, Associate Minister, First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco
Andree Penix-Smith, mother of Justin Horton Smith, Tulsa OK Sheriffs Murder Victim
Arturo O'Farrill, Grammy-Award winning musician
Brandywine Peace Community
B.R.E.A.T.H.E.
Boston May Day Coalition
Civic Action Support Coalition
Degenerate Artists Against Fascism
Delco Resists
Elly Levy, immigration attorney
Ernestine Henning, Supervisor (ret.) AME Church
Extinction Rebellion NYC
Bishop Gregg L. Greer, Founder, Freedom First International
Humanity United Against Tyranny, Lansing MI
Iranians for Social Justice in America
Isabel Cardenas, American-Salvadoran citizen, activist since 1960
James Lafferty, Executive Director Emeritus, National Lawyers Guild, LA Chapter
Juanita Young, mother of Malcolm Ferguson, killed by NYPD
Justice for Eurie Stamps Committee
Lalah Hathaway, Grammy Award winning singer
Lala Michelle, sister of Jesus Gillard, murdered by police

Lansdale Equality Coalition
Lindo Jones, Poet
Medicare for All Hawai`i
Michael Coard, attorney, activist and radio host
Rev. Michael Woolf, Senior Minister, Lake Street Church of Evanston
Michelle Myers, Poet
Moms United for Black Lives Michigan
Montco Activists United
Montgomery County Workers Coalition
No More Foundation
Occupy Evanston (IL) Documentary Film Group
Our Revolution Hawai`i"
Paul Street, author, journalist
Peace, Justice, Sustainability NOW
Rich Porcida, contributing writer, LA Progressive
Rise Up Lansing
Save TPS Houston
Sharonne Salaam, Justice 4 the Wrongly Incarcerated, Mother of One of the Exonerated Five.
Torah Trumps Hate
United Native Americans
Veterans for Peace
Veterans for Peace, NYC Chapter
Vigil for Democracy
War Resisters League, NYC Chapter

 

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/663/sept-5-protest-organizers-condemn-trump-attacks-on-the-election-en.html

| revcom.us

 

Refuse Fascism Press Release:

4 September For Immediate Release
@RefuseFascism on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram
Interviews Available

September 5 2020
Mass Nationwide Protests to Launch 60 Days of Struggle to Demand: Trump/Pence Must Go!

Organizers Condemn Trump's Attack on the Elections; his Fomenting Voter Fraud And Suppressing Black, Latino and Native Voting Rights

 

“Donald Trump’s advocating that people violate law and vote twice – for the purpose of undermining and invalidating the 2020 elections — is yet another reason why this fascist must be driven from office now,” said Refuse Fascism national spokesperson Andy Zee.

*“Trump has been organizing ‘poll watchers,’ recruited from among ex-military, to go into minority areas to harass people and prevent Black and brown people from voting.”

*“He has declared that the only way he could possibly lose would be through a ‘rigged election’. He has said he will not respect the results if he loses.”

*“His attorney general, William Barr, has backed these lies, saying, ‘mail-in voting is fraught with the risk of fraud and coercion.’”

Zee said: “This is a direct assault on the integrity of the elections. Trump is fomenting violence by his followers to intimidate people from exercising their rights.” Not only must all this be opposed and not be normalized, shrugged off with a posture of wait and see. Now is the time to take to the streets while there is still a chance to stop a regime that imperils the people of the world and the earth itself.”

“On September 5, we will make a living declaration to the world that we are uniting, we are organizing, we are determined, we are preparing to struggle with all we’ve got, starting now and not stopping until the Trump/Pence regime is driven from power and its fascist program brought to a halt,” says RefuseFascism.org national spokesperson Coco Das.

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

Refuse Fascism Editorial Board National Spokespeople available for interviews

Protests Saturday Sept 5 Demanding Trump Pence Out Now


Refuse Fascism, Philadelphia.

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.

Find out more about Refuse Fascism here.

 

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/663/welcome-to-revcom-en.html

If You Are Coming to This Site for the First Time...
Welcome to Revcom.us

| revcom.us

 

Revcom.us is about making revolution. The site lays bare the criminal history and present-day reality of the U.S. and its role in the world today. We show how this is bound up with the capitalist-imperialist system, and how there can be no fundamental change for the better until this system is overthrown. We bring forward the solution to all this—the viable vision of a new society on the road to human emancipation, crystallized in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, written by Bob Avakian. And we cover the movement for revolution aiming to bring that into being.

We base ourselves on and spread the new communism that has been brought forward by Bob Avakian, or BA. This new communism is founded on the scientific understanding of society first brought forward by Karl Marx, and the revolutions that were led on the basis of that science, while further developing and in some ways rupturing with elements of that understanding which were not fully scientific.

At this crossroads for humanity, BA has come out with an important statement that we urge everyone coming to the site to read and dig into now: ON THE IMMEDIATE CRITICAL SITUATION, THE URGENT NEED TO DRIVE OUT THE FASCIST TRUMP/PENCE REGIME, VOTING IN THIS ELECTION, AND THE FUNDAMENTAL NEED FOR REVOLUTION.

As a key part of our mission, we show how the most critical events, struggles, and trends in society relate to the revolution we need, and the new world we can and must bring into being. We aim to serve as the scaffolding of the new revolutionary movement that urgently must be built. Revcom is where you can join and learn how to be a part of the organized forces for revolution. These are our Six Points of Attention which the Revolution Club upholds, lives by, and fights for. Spread them. Take them up.

We welcome your thoughts, suggestions, and criticisms; and we urge you to support our mission by donating:

 

Read now

 

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: