revcom.us, September 28, 2020 through October 4, 2020 (#667)

Voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

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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]

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

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/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.

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/666/bob-avakian-voting-will-not-be-enough-pt3-long-en.html

 

TRUMP’S FASCISM—
MORE BLATANT AND DANGEROUS EVERY DAY:
HOW A DETERMINED FIGHT AND MASSIVE MOBILIZATION
COULD DEFEAT THIS

PART 3 of

VOTING WILL NOT BE ENOUGH—
WE NEED TO TAKE TO THE STREETS,
AND STAY IN THE STREETS
DEMANDING TRUMP/PENCE OUT NOW!

(Long Version—The Larger Canvas and Fuller Picture)

(See also "Short Version—The Basic Picture and Essential Vision")

by Bob Avakian

| revcom.us

 

In the 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, I spoke to this important point:

At 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.

At the same time, however, I strongly emphasized that

Simply 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.

But, if that is true, then how could this regime be removed from power—and, specifically, how could a mass mobilization actually lead to this regime being forced to go? 

Imagine this. 

Among the thousands who have already been reached, and moved, by the work of RefuseFascism.org, raising the demand that this fascist regime must be OUT NOW!, growing numbers become grass roots organizers, reaching out to their families, friends and communities, and involving all kinds of people and groups—through direct contact, social media, and in other ways—drawing into this growing, and increasingly diverse, mass movement thousands more who share their hatred for everything this regime stands for and is moving mercilessly to hammer into place. Many more, in turn, also become organizers. 

Imagine that, as has happened with the mass protests against racist oppression and police terror, people mobilize in the streets, day after day, beginning on October 3rd, responding to the call from Refuse Fascism for sustained non-violent but determined demonstrations around the unifying demand that this regime must go, now. These mobilizations grow, expanding and multiplying—joined by increasing numbers of people outraged by continuing police brutality and murder; by the ravaging of the environment; children in cages and tens of thousands of immigrants in concentration camps on the border; Trump’s heartless and reckless neglect and lying about the COVID pandemic, causing tens of thousands of needless deaths, disproportionately among Black and Brown and Native people; the regime’s relentless move to further consolidate a Supreme Court that is another instrument of fascist bigotry and repression—masses of people, from all parts of society, who are sickened by all this, and are coming to see even more clearly that all this is bound up with and driven by this fascist regime, joining with the ongoing daily mobilizations, linking their outrage and resistance with the unifying demand: OUT NOW! 

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—all these, and others, take up the call and mobilize to strengthen the movement. Celebrities, and prominent people in many fields, utilize their platforms to magnify the message and help to mobilize still greater numbers. 

As the crimes of this regime escalate day after day—spewing white supremacy, male supremacy, and other bigotry; moving to suppress votes and steal the election; threatening and unleashing violence to remain in power regardless of the outcome of the election; increasingly turning the “Justice Department” into a naked instrument of lawless repression, robbing people of basic rights, while moving to hammer into place a Supreme Court that will declare all this “Constitutional” and “legal”—as all this, and more, becomes increasingly blatant, and accelerates at a dizzying pace with the approach of the scheduled election, growing sectors of society come to the realization that they cannot simply look to the election to deal with this. Casting aside passive reliance on the “normal political process,” and overcoming fear in the face of threats and assaults by fascist thugs, all over the country masses of ordinary people, in growing waves, take to the streets, join the ongoing OUT NOW! mobilizations, or themselves initiate such mobilizations where they are not yet happening. This becomes a massive groundswell, engulfing the country as a whole, dramatically changing the terms of political engagement, forcing every political contender and all the dominant institutions in society to respond to this rising wave of determined mass resistance. This growing mobilization moves from the margins to the center of media attention and coverage, in this country and internationally. People around the world take notice, are inspired and organize demonstrations in solidarity and support. 

Imagine that, all of a sudden, Democratic Party politicians and operatives are forced to realize that they cannot simply funnel all the outrage and discontent into an election that is being daily stolen and violently corrupted by the fascist regime. These politicians now declare that they identify with the sentiments of the masses of demonstrators demanding OUT NOW!—and they seek to have speakers at rallies and work to control and direct the mobilizations into “acceptable channels” that will not lead to further “disorder.” But, given the growing understanding and determination of the demonstrators, these politicians’ efforts only draw even more attention, and still greater numbers, to these mobilizations—and, even in the face of growing threats and acts of repression and violence by the regime and its fascist supporters, in and out of uniform, these mobilizations continue to grow and even more powerfully thunder the demand: OUT NOW! 

Faced with this intensifying situation, the leaders of the Democratic Party calculate that the only way they can hope to gain control over the situation and re-establish some semblance of “orderly process” is to themselves take up the demand that the Trump/Pence regime must go—now—even before a scheduled election that this regime has thoroughly perverted and prevented from proceeding as a “free and fair” process. This move by the Democrats is joined (or supported, behind the scenes) by others in powerful positions in the government, including even some Republican politicians who have finally decided that their political goals and personal ambitions are better served by breaking with this regime and regrouping around other “leaders.” Trump (and Pence) are presented with the ultimatum from these ruling class forces that either they resign or they will be impeached—and, this time, convicted—and those making this demand also make clear that they have the institutional power behind them to enforce this, if Trump (and Pence) refuse to leave. 

Imagine! 

Of course, it is impossible to say exactly where things will end up, and there is no “guarantee” of success. But it is possible. And two things should be emphasized in relation to this. 

First, if masses of people do not take to the streets, now, around the demand that this regime must go; if this regime is allowed to suppress votes and use the threat and force of violence to remain in power; if it is able to further consolidate its fascist rule and to be further unleashed to bludgeon into place its fascist program and aims—then the consequences will truly be catastrophic. 

Second, we—all of us, from many different walks of life and many different political perspectives, who can recognize this fascist regime for what it is and refuse to live in a fascist America—we, by acting together, in the thousands and millions, can give expression to the strongly held sentiments of tens and tens of millions, who righteously hate everything this regime represents and aspire to a much better world than this. We can give life to massive, non-violent but sustained, and rapidly growing, mass mobilizations demanding that this regime must go—now—with the possibility that this can become a reality. We can powerfully give expression to the crucial understanding that—because of its very fascist nature, and with its escalating attempts to corrupt an election and remain in power regardless of the actual outcome of that election—this regime is illegitimate and must be removed. And if, even with this mass mobilization, this regime is still in power on November 3rd, the fact that we have carried out this mass mobilization and powerfully raised this OUT NOW! demand, will mean that there will be much more favorable conditions for continuing, and further amplifying and strengthening, this mass mobilization if Trump and his regime attempt to stay in power, regardless of the actual outcome of the election. 

Whether there will be a real possibility of a society, a world and a future for humanity—one worth living in—will depend, to no small degree, on what we who aspire to such a world decide to do, and strive with the determination necessary to make this a reality.  

********* 

With this basic outline in mind of what is necessary, and what is possible—the determined fight and massive mobilization that could actually defeat the moves of the Trump/Pence regime to further hammer into place its fascist rule, with the truly catastrophic consequences that would lead to—let’s look at this further, and more fully, in the context of the larger situation and crucial recent developments. 

The Death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the Fanatical Woman-Hating Fascists 

The announcement of the death of longtime liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been the occasion for Trump and his fellow fascists, not to pause to honor Ginsburg, but to immediately declare their intention to ram through the appointment of yet another extreme right-wing judge onto the court—to give further “legal backing,” by “the highest court in the land,” to the fanatically oppressive and repressive agenda and aims of the fascist Trump/Pence regime, which include: using “executive power” to trample on the rule of law and turn the “law” into merely an instrument of the fascist regime; giving the police even more unlimited powers to brutalize and murder in the name of “law and order”; ruthlessly persecuting immigrants, LGBT people, Muslims and other “undesirables”; further removing restrictions on the plundering of the environment; forcing patriotism and religious fundamentalism (that is, Christian fascism) down the throats of everyone in society—and, not least, outlawing abortion and in general slamming women more forcefully into a subordinate position in relation to men and in society overall. 

In The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!, I examined the “unholy alliance” between Trump and the Christian fundamentalists, who are the hard core and driving force of this fascism.1 

Speaking to the same phenomenon (and referring to the Christian fundamentalists as “evangelicals,” and having in mind particularly white evangelicals), Kristin Kobes Du Mez has made clear:

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.2

The Christian fascist zealotry in opposition to abortion is not really about the fraudulent notion that abortion amounts to “killing babies”—something which is demonstrated by (among other things) the fact that these opponents of the right to abortion also strongly oppose birth control which prevents pregnancy in the first place. The truth is this:

What is really involved is that abortion, and birth control, help to provide women with a certain independence, a freedom to decide whether and when to have children—and, yes, a certain freedom to engage in sexual relations of their own choosing, on the basis of their own desire and volition, without having to be worried about whether they are going to become pregnant when they have neither wanted nor decided to do so. It is this relative independence and freedom that causes a frenzy among Christian fascists, because it runs counter to reducing the role of women to “helpmates” to husbands and breeders of children for those husbands in patriarchal, male-dominated families, and to the subordinate and oppressed position of women in society as a whole.3

In previous writings and speeches—including the previous article (Part 2) in this series—I emphasized that there is a direct connection and powerful link between the patriarchal misogyny (hatred and degradation of women) of this fascism and its aggressive white supremacy, and that:

there can be no “reconciliation” with these fascists—whose “grievances” are based on fanatical resentment against any limitation on white supremacymale supremacy, xenophobia (hatred of foreigners), rabid American chauvinism, and the unrestrained plundering of the environment, and are increasingly expressed in literally lunatic terms. There can be no “reconciliation” with this, other than on the terms of these fascists, with all the terrible implications and consequences of that!4

It is urgently necessary for everyone who refuses to accept (to be “reconciled” with) all this, to understand what the terrible consequences will be if the Trump/Pence regime is able to make a further leap in consolidating its fascist rule and implementing its fascist program. This fascism “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.”5

The African-American theologian, Hubert Locke—whom I quoted in the previous article (Part 1) in this series—underlines this crucial point:

Were all this only a battle for the hearts and minds of the American people, we could wade into the conflict with a great deal less concern, confident that good sense and human decency would ultimately triumph over ignorance and bigotry. But this is a battle for power—it’s about seizing the reins of government, manipulating the courts and judicial decisions, controlling the media, and making incursions into every possible corner of our private lives and relationships, so that what the religious right perceives as the will of God will reign in America.6

A Rallying Cry and a Call to Action 

All those who can recognize that this nightmare is rapidly becoming a brute reality—who refuse to live in a fascist America where every aspiration for a just world is viciously slandered and mercilessly deprived of air to breathe—we, in our millions and tens of millions, must act together to create a situation where there can be, and there will be, no “normal,” no grinding along of the machinery that is leading to disaster, so long as this fascist regime is in power

We need to fight with the full recognition of the profound stakes that are involved and the ultimate threat to humanity itself that is posed by this regime. What is called for now is struggle that is non-violent, but is daring and bold, fired with the determination not to back down, until this regime has been removed. We must, in a very urgent way, bring into being a situation in which every force—among all the different sectors of the ruling powers and institutions, and in the society at large—has to respond to and weigh heavily the political situation that we are creating through increasingly massive and powerful mobilizations, insisting that this regime must go, now!  

Anything less will mean tying ourselves to forces and procedures, and passively awaiting an outcome, that will very likely lead to capitulating to this fascism, with what will be (without the slightest exaggeration) truly catastrophic consequences. 

As my August 1 Statement emphasizes: “At this critical hour, every appropriate means of non-violent action must be utilized to remove this regime from power.”7 And, if it comes to it, that means voting for Biden in order to effectively vote against Trump

I have also pointed to this important reality:

It is true that, at this point, the vote in a few states essentially determines the outcome of presidential elections—so that, as was the case with Trump in the previous presidential election, someone can lose the popular vote and still become president. But, even given this reality, an electoral strategy that could work much better for the Democrats would be to take on Trump’s whole racist approach, directly and forcefully, and appeal to Black people and other people of color, and the large number of white people (especially, though not only, younger generations) who have shown that they are motivated by a definite desire for an end to social injustice, blatant inequality, and rampant police violence. That is a great “reservoir” that, theoretically, the Democrats could focus on appealing to.8

It is also true that “the Democrats themselves will not—cannot—really do this.”8 But, creating the kind of political situation where Biden and the Democrats are forced to recognize, and reckon with, the powerfully expressed determination of massive numbers demanding an end to the Trump/Pence regime and the fascism it embodies—that could exert a compulsion on the Democrats to voice opposition to Trump on a basis that at least comes close to the heart of the essential fascist nature and program of the Trump/Pence regime...Which, in turn, could impel more people to take to the streets demanding this...Which, in turn, could create still more favorable circumstances and conditions for waging the fight to remove this regime. 

Think about what has happened as a result of the beautiful rising that has taken place against institutional racism and police terror. In very significant ways, “the conversation about race” has been dramatically changed. All of a sudden, the Democrats, and other “mainstream” institutions, feel compelled to talk not only about the need for “police reform,” but about “systemic racism”—and there is widespread discussion and debate about the whole history of this country, with its roots in slavery, and genocide against the indigenous peoples! There is no way that all this would have taken place—and the political landscape would have been so dramatically changed, in such a short period of time—in the absence of this beautiful mass rising! And the same can happen, in the same immediate (“telescoped”) way, if there is not only a continuation of the righteous outpouring against racist oppression and police terror, and other outrageous injustice, but if all this is linked together with, and given powerful expression as, masses of people, in continually growing numbers, in the streets powerfully demanding that the fascist Trump/Pence regime must go! 

If this fascist regime is still in power when it is time for voting—then that will require not just people carrying out the single act of voting themselves, but working to mobilize people in massive numbers to deliver a decisive electoral defeat to this fascist regime. But, at the same time, as I have emphasized repeatedly—and this cannot be emphasized too many times—for all the reasons discussed here (as well as elsewhere in this series and in my August 1 Statement) relying on voting, without the mass mobilization demanding the removal of this regime, is likely to lead to disaster

Masses of people must act, now, to create the most favorable conditions for forcing the removal of this regime, whose continuation, and further consolidation, in power will, without any exaggeration, have truly monstrous consequences. 

Rising to the Historic Challenge and Overcoming All Obstacles (Including in Ourselves) 

As I have also emphasized, it “would be a very grave mistake to fail to take seriously what is being openly proclaimed by Trump and his fascist supporters,” including their threats of even greater violence to ensure that the Trump/Pence regime remains in power. But, an even more important truth is this: “as truly dangerous as these fascist threats and acts of violence, and preparations to carry out even more violence, are—being cowed by and capitulating to this would lead to a far greater horror.”9 In confronting this, every decent person can take inspiration and find courage in the actions of the masses of people who have defiantly braved repeated attacks, by police and government storm troopers under the command of the Trump/Pence regime, as well as assaults by armed pro-Trump fascist thugs, and have poured into the streets, to express their outrage over racist brutality and murder and their determination that this must end

But it is not just fear, however well-founded, that must be overcome. It is also the individualism that has become so widespread, and often expressed in such extreme terms, in this society, especially in recent times. In the situation today, faced with the escalating and accelerating fascist juggernaut, this individualism is often expressed in these terms now: “While I hate everything Trump is about and everything he is doing, I have to look out for myself and those who are close to me; and putting myself on the line to step out and actively oppose this by getting into the streets and demonstrating around the demand that this regime must be removed now—when there are not that many people already doing this—well, that is a risk I am not willing to take, especially when there is an election coming up and there is a chance that this might deal with the problem.” 

Here—along with calling attention once again to the ways in which Trump is already perverting and stealing the election, and is using violence and threatening even more violence to remain in power, regardless of what actually happens with this election—it needs to be pointed out strongly: If everyone who has expressed (or felt) these sentiments were actually to take to the streets, there would be a force of literally millions, and even tens of millions, powerfully demonstrating their insistence that the Trump/Pence regime must be OUT NOW!—as is being called for, and organized by, RefuseFascism.org. 

It also needs to be bluntly said: This rampant individualism—everyone just thinking about themselves and failing or refusing to act on the larger interests of humanity—this is a big part of why we are faced with the terrible situation we are faced with now. And continuing in this way will only contribute to things becoming far, far worse, with truly catastrophic consequences for all of humanity—which few, if any, will ultimately be able to escape. (Besides the ever-present danger of nuclear annihilation, especially with the demented bully Trump having his finger on the nuclear button, think about the environmental crisis and the intensified and accelerated damage the Trump/Pence regime has already done to the environment—and will do on a far more terrible scale, if it remains in power.)

It may not be “easy,” but it is in the fundamental interests of everyone (everyone who cares at all about social injustice and inequality, and having an environment, both natural and social, in which human beings can breathe and hope to flourish) that we all be willing to be “among the first” to boldly step forward and become part of a truly massive mobilization demanding that this regime must be removed, now—and, in doing so, discovering that we are not after all “alone” or “only a few brave souls,” but are together, not just in sentiment but as an active force, with thousands and ultimately millions. 

Yes, it is true that there is no “guarantee” that even such a massive mobilization will succeed in forcing the removal of this regime—and this regime, along with the crazed fascist fanatics who make up its “base,” will rabidly resist this—but it can be guaranteed that, if this regime succeeds in remaining in power, by corrupting and stealing the election and then refusing to leave, once more the consequences will truly be catastrophic. 

And, while there is no “guarantee,” there is a definite possibility of a positive outcome. Once again, think of the tremendous impact that the beautiful rising against racist oppression and police terror has had, almost literally “overnight.” 

At the same time, it is important to understand that, even if and as a mass mobilization demanding the removal of this regime could have a powerful impact on the political terrain, and on all the institutions of power and sectors of society, things would not likely go forward as a simple direct line extension of this mass mobilization. Rather, it would more likely take place as the interplay between that mass mobilization and the contradictions and conflicts among the powers-that-be, which will be heightened by this mass mobilization—possibly leading to a political crisis of such powerful dimensions and depth that forces who normally strongly resist doing things outside of the “traditional institutional means and procedures” of this system, ruling class powers who do not normally involve themselves directly in the politics of the system, and even some of those who have up to now stubbornly stuck with this fascist regime, will conclude that it is necessary to remove the regime—to at least force Trump (and Pence) to resign—in order to avoid an even more profound crisis for their whole system

Again, no one can say, with absolute certainty, what the outcome of all this will be. But a truly massive popular upsurge, aimed at driving out the Trump/Pence regime, even ahead of the election, could play a very powerful role in creating favorable conditions for dealing with the demented determination of this regime to remain in power and wreak even further havoc and horror. 

It is crucial to recognize that

The mass mobilization that is needed cannot be built “overnight,” in the aftermath of the election—and it cannot be built by confining things within the framework and limits insisted upon by the Democrats.10

And, through the work of Refuse Fascism, and some others joining this effort, this mass mobilization has already begun. 

It is a fact that, since the early days of the Trump/Pence regime, Refuse Fascism has been calling for mass mobilization around the demand that this regime must go; and, while it has rallied thousands so far to take to the streets to voice this demand, as yet this mobilization has not resulted in the exponential (by leaps and bounds) growth that it needs to, now very quickly, achieve. But, because those thousands really do give expression to strongly held sentiments of tens of millions, they actually represent a potentially powerful force, and it is crucial to build on every advance that is made in reaching and mobilizing people, including by enabling those who have stepped forward to themselves become organizers of many more...to, in turn, become the organizers of still greater numbers. Further, it is very important to recognize, and act on the understanding, that the times, right now, are very different than they have been over the past few years, even with all the outrages that this regime has committed over those years. 

Things now are much more intense, and are developing in a much more accelerating pace, particularly as Trump is ramping up his fascist offensive, with the approach of the scheduled election. This is having contradictory effects. On the one hand, the violent repression and attacks on people protesting injustice—and the threats of even much worse repression and violence—on the part of this regime, and its fascist supporters, together with the fact that the scheduled election is rapidly approaching: this has led more than a few, among those who hate this regime, to fall into a passive position of just waiting for the election and hoping that it will somehow resolve the crisis that is intensifying now on mainly very bad terms. But, the other side of the story is that the relentless drive by this regime and its supporters, even as the election approaches, to go full steam ahead with their fascist juggernaut, to corrupt and steal the election, to refuse to accept a defeat in the election, and to remain in power regardless of the outcome of the election—this is forcing, more and more to the forefront, the reality of what is represented by this regime, the great objective danger of simply waiting for the election, and the great need to take to the streets, now, to demand that this regime must be removed.

This speaks, once again, to the importance of the mobilization that is already taking place around the demand Trump/Pence OUT NOW! And it speaks to the great importance of this mobilization, with whatever numbers it organizes at any given time, becoming sustained, taking place day after day, and to build on every significant advance it does achieve. As this is done in ways, both determined and creative, that “capture the imagination” of people—together with the continuing intensification of the crisis that is largely being driven, now, by Trump’s fascist actions and declarations—“things can come together,” and “the dam can break,” with growing numbers of people pouring into the streets, raising ever more loudly the demand that this regime must go, now, and calling forth still greater numbers to join in this courageous and urgently needed mobilization. 

In conclusion:

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.11

***

The crazed fanaticism of the fascists insisting that Trump must remain in power, no matter what, must be met, and overwhelmed, by the conscious passionate intensity of masses of people who hate everything that this fascist regime represents, who recognize the very real existential threat that this regime represents for humanity and are fired with righteous determination that this regime must go!12

 


1. The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! In The Name of Humanity We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America, A Better World IS PossibleVideo of this speech 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 part quoted here is from the “Introduction.”  [back]

3. Fascists Today And The Confederacy: A Direct Line, A Direct Connection Between All The OppressionThis article of mine is also available at revcom.us.  [back]

4. Trump Is Already Stealing The Election And Threatening Even More Violence To Stay in Power, Part 2 of Voting Will Not Be Enough—We Need To Take To The Streets, And Stay In The Streets Demanding Trump/Pence Out Now! This article is available at revcom.us.  [back]

5. 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 (also available at revcom.us).  [back]

6. “Reflections on Pacific School of Religion’s Response to the Religious Right,” by Dr. Hubert Locke, also available at revcom.us—emphasis added.  [back]

7. 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]

8. The Democrats Can’t Fight Trump The Way He Needs To Be Fought, Part 1 of Voting Will Not Be Enough—We Need To Take To The Streets, And Stay In The Streets Demanding Trump/Pence Out Now!  [back]

9. Trump Is Already Stealing The Election And Threatening Even More Violence To Stay in Power, emphasis in the original.  [back]

10. The Democrats Can’t Fight Trump The Way He Needs To Be Fought.  [back]

11. 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 (also available at revcom.us), emphasis in the original.  [back]

12. Trump Is Already Stealing The Election And Threatening Even More Violence To Stay In Power, emphasis in the original.  [back]

Read the 10-part series HERE

 

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TRUMP’S FASCISM—
MORE BLATANT AND DANGEROUS EVERY DAY:
HOW A DETERMINED FIGHT AND MASSIVE MOBILIZATION
COULD DEFEAT THIS

PART 3 of

VOTING WILL NOT BE ENOUGH—
WE NEED TO TAKE TO THE STREETS,
AND STAY IN THE STREETS
DEMANDING TRUMP/PENCE OUT NOW!

(Short Version—The Basic Picture and Essential Vision)

(See also "Long Version—The Larger Canvas and Fuller Picture")

by Bob Avakian

| revcom.us

 

In the 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, I spoke to this important point:

At 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.

At the same time, however, I strongly emphasized that

Simply 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.

But, if that is true, then how could this regime be removed from power—and, specifically, how could a mass mobilization actually lead to this regime being forced to go?

Imagine this.

Among the thousands who have already been reached, and moved, by the work of RefuseFascism.org, raising the demand that this fascist regime must be OUT NOW!, growing numbers become grass roots organizers, reaching out to their families, friends and communities, and involving all kinds of people and groups—through direct contact, social media, and in other ways—drawing into this growing, and increasingly diverse, mass movement thousands more who share their hatred for everything this regime stands for and is moving mercilessly to hammer into place. Many more, in turn, also become organizers.

Imagine that, as has happened with the mass protests against racist oppression and police terror, people mobilize in the streets, day after day, beginning on October 3rd, responding to the call from Refuse Fascism for sustained non-violent but determined demonstrations around the unifying demand that this regime must go, now. These mobilizations grow, expanding and multiplying—joined by increasing numbers of people outraged by continuing police brutality and murder; by the ravaging of the environment; children in cages and tens of thousands of immigrants in concentration camps on the border; Trump’s heartless and reckless neglect and lying about the COVID pandemic, causing tens of thousands of needless deaths, disproportionately among Black and Brown and Native people; the regime’s relentless move to further consolidate a Supreme Court that is another instrument of fascist bigotry and repression—masses of people, from all parts of society, who are sickened by all this, and are coming to see even more clearly that all this is bound up with and driven by this fascist regime, joining with the ongoing daily mobilizations, linking their outrage and resistance with the unifying demand: OUT NOW!

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—all these, and others, take up the call and mobilize to strengthen the movement. Celebrities, and prominent people in many fields, utilize their platforms to magnify the message and help to mobilize still greater numbers.

As the crimes of this regime escalate day after day—spewing white supremacy, male supremacy, and other bigotry; moving to suppress votes and steal the election; threatening and unleashing violence to remain in power regardless of the outcome of the election; increasingly turning the “Justice Department” into a naked instrument of lawless repression, robbing people of basic rights, while moving to hammer into place a Supreme Court that will declare all this “Constitutional” and “legal”—as all this, and more, becomes increasingly blatant, and accelerates at a dizzying pace with the approach of the scheduled election, growing sectors of society come to the realization that they cannot simply look to the election to deal with this. Casting aside passive reliance on the “normal political process,” and overcoming fear in the face of threats and assaults by fascist thugs, all over the country masses of ordinary people, in growing waves, take to the streets, join the ongoing OUT NOW! mobilizations, or themselves initiate such mobilizations where they are not yet happening. This becomes a massive groundswell, engulfing the country as a whole, dramatically changing the terms of political engagement, forcing every political contender and all the dominant institutions in society to respond to this rising wave of determined mass resistance. This growing mobilization moves from the margins to the center of media attention and coverage, in this country and internationally. People around the world take notice, are inspired and organize demonstrations in solidarity and support.

Imagine that, all of a sudden, Democratic Party politicians and operatives are forced to realize that they cannot simply funnel all the outrage and discontent into an election that is being daily stolen and violently corrupted by the fascist regime. These politicians now declare that they identify with the sentiments of the masses of demonstrators demanding OUT NOW!—and they seek to have speakers at rallies and work to control and direct the mobilizations into “acceptable channels” that will not lead to further “disorder.” But, given the growing understanding and determination of the demonstrators, these politicians’ efforts only draw even more attention, and still greater numbers, to these mobilizations—and, even in the face of growing threats and acts of repression and violence by the regime and its fascist supporters, in and out of uniform, these mobilizations continue to grow and even more powerfully thunder the demand: OUT NOW!

Faced with this intensifying situation, the leaders of the Democratic Party calculate that the only way they can hope to gain control over the situation and re-establish some semblance of “orderly process” is to themselves take up the demand that the Trump/Pence regime must go—now—even before a scheduled election that this regime has thoroughly perverted and prevented from proceeding as a “free and fair” process. This move by the Democrats is joined (or supported, behind the scenes) by others in powerful positions in the government, including even some Republican politicians who have finally decided that their political goals and personal ambitions are better served by breaking with this regime and regrouping around other “leaders.” Trump (and Pence) are presented with the ultimatum from these ruling class forces that either they resign or they will be impeached—and, this time, convicted—and those making this demand also make clear that they have the institutional power behind them to enforce this, if Trump (and Pence) refuse to leave.

Imagine!

Of course, it is impossible to say exactly where things will end up, and there is no “guarantee” of success. But it is possible. And two things should be emphasized in relation to this.

First, if masses of people do not take to the streets, now, around the demand that this regime must go; if this regime is allowed to suppress votes and use the threat and force of violence to remain in power; if it is able to further consolidate its fascist rule and to be further unleashed to bludgeon into place its fascist program and aims—then the consequences will truly be catastrophic.

Second, we—all of us, from many different walks of life and many different political perspectives, who can recognize this fascist regime for what it is and refuse to live in a fascist America—we, by acting together, in the thousands and millions, can give expression to the strongly held sentiments of tens and tens of millions, who righteously hate everything this regime represents and aspire to a much better world than this. We can give life to massive, non-violent but sustained, and rapidly growing, mass mobilizations demanding that this regime must go—now—with the possibility that this can become a reality. We can powerfully give expression to the crucial understanding that—because of its very fascist nature, and with its escalating attempts to corrupt an election and remain in power regardless of the actual outcome of that election—this regime is illegitimate and must be removed. And if, even with this mass mobilization, this regime is still in power on November 3rd, the fact that we have carried out this mass mobilization and powerfully raised this OUT NOW! demand, will mean that there will be much more favorable conditions for continuing, and further amplifying and strengthening, this mass mobilization if Trump and his regime attempt to stay in power, regardless of the actual outcome of the election.

Whether there will be a real possibility of a society, a world and a future for humanity—one worth living in—will depend, to no small degree, on what we who aspire to such a world decide to do, and strive with the determination necessary to make this a reality.

 

Read the 10-part series 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.

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/665/bob-avakian-voting-will-not-be-enough-pt2-en.html

 

TRUMP IS ALREADY STEALING THE ELECTION 
AND THREATENING EVEN MORE VIOLENCE
TO STAY IN POWER

PART 2 of

VOTING WILL NOT BE ENOUGH—
WE NEED TO TAKE TO THE STREETS,
AND STAY IN THE STREETS
DEMANDING TRUMP/PENCE OUT NOW!

by Bob Avakian

| revcom.us

 

In the 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, I spoke to this important point:

At 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.

At the same time, however, I strongly emphasized that

Simply 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.

The Trump/Pence Regime Is Already Moving to Suppress Votes

The fact that Trump, and his supporters, continue to commit outrage after outrage, on a regular basis, can cause people—even those who hate everything Trump represents—to forget about outrages that were committed even just a little while ago. But, it is crucially important not to forget that Trump has already “floated” the idea of “delaying” the election on the basis of his completely false claims that things like mail-in voting will lead to massive fraud and that it could take weeks, months, or even years to know the actual result of the election (note: weeks, months, or even years—during which time Trump would insist on staying in power!). 

Trump and his supporters are making moves to suppress the votes of many Black people, and others, who are likely to vote heavily against Trump. Here is one glaring example: In the state of Florida (which Trump desperately needs to win), the Republican-controlled government is working to undermine changes in the Florida Constitution that have restored the right of convicted felons to vote. This could take away the right to vote from nearly 800,000 people, many of whom are Black and Latino.1 

Trump’s operatives are already in the process of organizing fascist thugs to go to polling places, especially in key “battleground” states, to “watch out for fraud.” In fascist Trumpworld, lying is a way of life and the standard operating procedure. When they say “law and order,” they mean police killing Black and Brown people. To them, the truth is “fake news,” and they claim “science doesn’t know” things that only Trump knows. So, when they talk about “election fraud,” what they mean is people voting against Trump. And what these fascist goons being organized by the Trump camp intend to do is precisely to prevent people from voting against Trump—with the threat, and the use, of force and violence.

Michael Cohen—who, for more than 10 years, was Trump’s personal attorney and “fixer”—has sounded the alarm, more than once, that Trump will do anything to stay in powereven start a war to create a national emergency.2 Trump, who is both a pathological liar and a liar with a purpose, has deliberately and repeatedly downplayed the danger of the COVID-19 pandemic, even while knowing what a serious danger it actually poses. He has already forced government bodies, like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to bend its findings and recommendations about the COVID-19 pandemic to serve Trump’s political ambitions and goals. And it seems increasingly likely that, shortly before the election, in the attempt to offset the exposure of his terrible recklessness with regard to COVD-19, and to perversely declare himself the “savior” of the people from this pandemic, Trump will use his presidential power to pressure approval for the use of a vaccine, even before it has really been scientifically determined whether such a vaccine is not only effective but safe

Trump Has Violently Suppressed Opposition, and Has Threatened Even Greater Violence 

Another thing that must not be forgotten is that Trump has not only justified and supported but openly encouraged violence by armed white supremacist storm troopers (what he calls “Second Amendment people”). He has supported police violently attacking protesters and utilized armed forces of the government to attack and suppress protests, in Washington, D.C., in Portland and other cities. There is already plenty of evidence—and more evidence comes out all the time—that (assuming the election is actually held) regardless of the actual outcome of the election, Trump will declare himself the winner and use whatever means he can, including violence, to stay in power. As pointed out in a recent article posted on revcom.us:

On September 10, Trump was asked by Jeanine Pirro of fascist Fox “News” what his response would be on election night if he won and those against him “threaten riots.” Trump’s response: “We’ll put them down very quickly if they do that.... We have the right to do that, we have the power to do that if we want. Look, it’s called insurrection.”3

Here, it is necessary to “translate” what is being said in this episode of the ongoing fascist lie-athon of Trump and his media accomplices (such as Fox “news”). Trump “winning” the election means Trump declaring himself the winner. (Remember that Trump has already strongly implied that he will not accept the results of the election if Biden wins; and Trump has insisted that the only way he could lose the election is if it is “rigged.”) “Riots,” in fascist-speak, means protests against police brutality and other injustices, even when (as has been the case) these protests are overwhelmingly peaceful; and “insurrection” here means mobilization against the Trump/Pence regime, even if that mobilization is non-violent. 

The same revcom.us article calls attention to this:

Another glimpse at what the fascists may be thinking of and even planning for came from the mouth of longtime Republican operative and Trump stooge, Roger Stone. (In July, Trump commuted the 40-month prison sentence of Stone, who had been convicted of lying to Congress.) In a call with Alex Jones—pro-Trump conspiracy theorist—on his online Infowars show, Stone said Trump should consider declaring “martial law” or invoke the Insurrection Act if he should lose the November election.3

And Stone called on “Attorney General” William Barr (head of Trump’s Injustice Department, chief enforcer of unlawful repression, and a “commander” of the regime’s storm troopers) to prepare now a force ready to act on this “martial law” declaration if Trump loses. 

Note that Stone openly calls for Trump to use violence to remain in office if Trump loses the election. 

And other fanatical backers of this regime, in and out of government, have called on its supporters to arm themselves in preparation for the election. 

It would be a very grave mistake to fail to take seriously what is being openly proclaimed by Trump and his fascist supporters.

But as truly dangerous as these fascist threats and acts of violence, and preparations to carry out even more violence, are—being cowed by and capitulating to this would lead to a far greater horror

The Trumpite attempts to suppress votes must be actively, vigorously opposed; and people must mobilize, now and in an ongoing way, demanding that the whole Trump/Pence regime must go. 

We Can’t Rely on the Democrats, We Can’t Wait Until November

In Part 1 in this series, I examined the reasons why the Democrats will not call out the Trump/Pence regime, and its supporters, for what they are: fascist. I pointed out:

Time and again, the Democrats have sought to deal with this by trying to utilize the very “norms” and institutions that this fascist regime is defying and tearing up, or bending to its fascist aims—the courts, congressional hearings and proceedings, and so on. Time and again, the Democrats have failed. Yet they stubbornly refuse to seek any means of opposing this regime other than by resorting to these “norms” and procedures. This is what they are doing, and will be strongly inclined to continue doing, even in the face of Trump’s increasing and intensifying moves to suppress votes in the upcoming election and his clearly indicated determination to have himself declared the winner in the election, or to remain in power regardless of the outcome of the election.4

Biden and the Democrats act as if—and repeatedly insist that—the reason there is so much bitter conflict, violence, and “chaos” in society is because “Trump is dividing us, not uniting us.” But the truth is that, while Trump has become a “rallying point” and “spearpoint” of the fascist forces in this country, within the structures of power and more broadly among sectors of the population, there are deep-seated reasons and causes for why this fascism has become such a powerful force. Biden and the Democrats cannot “bring the country together,” as they falsely claim, because there can be no “reconciliation” with these fascists—whose “grievances” are based on fanatical resentment against any limitation on white supremacy, male supremacy, xenophobia (hatred of foreigners), rabid American chauvinism, and the unrestrained plundering of the environment, and are increasingly expressed in literally lunatic terms. There can be no “reconciliation” with this, other than on the terms of these fascists, with all the terrible implications and consequences of that! 

As I have also emphasized: “all this points to the very great likelihood that regardless of the actual outcome of this election (assuming it is actually held), if Trump declares himself the ‘winner’and refuses to leave, in the absence of truly massive mobilization demanding that the Trump/Pence regime must be removed, the Democrats will end up capitulating to Trump.4

This does not mean that voting for Biden would be irrelevant—would make no difference. Many people who hate Trump have at the same time expressed a definite lack of enthusiasm for Biden. But “enthusiasm for Biden”—or the lack of such enthusiasm—is really beside the point, and basing things on something like that involves gross ignorance, or a deliberate ignoring, of the crucial stakes involved. The reason to vote for Biden is to vote against Trump and his whole regime. And that should be reason enough, for any person who actually cares about social justice, who refuses to live in a fascist America and has any sense of the very real catastrophe it would mean, not just for people in this country but for all of humanity, if Trump gets a “re-election mandate.” For these reasons, as I pointed out in my August 1 Statement, if it comes down to it—if the Trump/Pence regime is still in power when it is time for voting—then voting for Biden, in order to vote against Trump, will be very important and necessary

As that Statement emphasizes, “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.”This would not “put an end” to the fascism that has arisen out of deep-seated contradictions and has gained strength, over decades. But, as the August 1 Statement further emphasizes: delivering a decisive defeat to this regime “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.” 

At the same time, for all the reasons spoken to in that Statement, and highlighted here—the moves by Trump that are already far along to steal the election, and his determination to use whatever means he can to remain in power, regardless of the actual outcome of that election, and at the same time the likelihood that the Democrats, left to their own devices, will end up capitulating to Trump—waiting for November and relying on voting will very likely lead to disaster.

People need to really and fully awaken to the reality of what is at stake, before it is too late. More than a few people have observed, sometimes with sad resignation, that the continuing avalanche of lies and truly monstrous criminal acts by Trump and his regime have worn them down, to the point where they are no longer shocked or feel compelled to act. But losing one’s ability to be outraged, and to act on that outrage, means losing one’s humanity—and, given the situation we are facing, it amounts to collaborating with the fascism of this regime and the catastrophe toward which it is relentlessly propelling humanity.

The crazed fanaticism of the fascists insisting that Trump must remain in power, no matter what, must be met, and overwhelmed, by the conscious passionate intensity of masses of people who hate everything that this fascist regime represents, who recognize the very real existential threat that this regime represents for humanity and are fired with righteous determination that this regime must go! 

And, to make this a reality, this righteous determination cannot just be channeled into voting against Trump. What is urgently required now is “stepping outside of the ‘norms’ of this system and mobilizing masses of people in determined, non-violent but sustained struggle in the streets to demand the ouster of this regime, as is being called for by RefuseFascism.org.”4 And:

The mass mobilization that is needed cannot be built “overnight,” in the aftermath of the election—and it cannot be built by confining things within the framework and limits insisted upon by the Democrats....

We Need To Take To The Streets, And Stay In The Streets, Demanding Trump/Pence Out Now!4

(The next, concluding article in this series will speak to the big question: How the nonviolent but sustained, and continually growing, mass mobilization, demanding Trump/Pence OUT NOW! that has been called for, and is being organized by, RefuseFascism.org, could lead to, or contribute in a major way to, a situation in which the Trump/Pence regime would be removed from power.) 

 


1. See the article “Florida Moves to Deny Voting Rights to Hundreds of Thousands of People Convicted of Felonies,” at revcom.us.  [back]

2. In his testimony before a congressional committee in 2019, Michael Cohen spoke to the danger that Trump would refuse to recognize the results of the election scheduled for November 2020, if Trump did not win this election. And, in his recently-published book Disloyal, The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump, Cohen once again sounds the alarm, even more urgently, with the warning that Trump will do anything, including starting a war, to stay in power. Cohen has acknowledged that, prior to this 2019 appearance before Congress, he had lied to Congress—something he sought to set right by giving truthful testimony in that 2019 hearing. Trump’s fascist falsehood machine has tried to seize on the fact that Cohen is an admitted liar, who has been convicted of the crime of lying to Congress, in the attempt to draw attention away from what Cohen has revealed about Trump and the great dangers he poses. The problem, for the Trumpites, is that the lies they are referring to, and other despicable acts Cohen carried out—this was done precisely on the instruction and for the benefit of the Liar-in-Chief, Trump himself

Cohen, who worked very closely with (or for) Trump, for more than ten years, including the first years of Trump’s presidency, and probably knows Trump as well as anyone can, confirms what is said by Trump’s niece, Mary Trump: Racism, misogyny (hatred and degradation of women), and all-around bigotry are at the very core of Trump’s being.  [back]

3. “Trump on Election Night Protests: ‘We’ll put them down very quickly.’” This is part of the continuing series The Fascist Assault on revcom.us.  [back]

4. The quotes and references here are from Voting Will Not Be Enough—We Need To Take To The Streets, And Stay In The Streets Demanding Trump/Pence Out Now, Part 1, “The Democrats Can’t Fight Trump The Way He Needs To Be Fought.” This article of mine is available at revcom.us.  [back]

VOTING WILL NOT BE ENOUGH—
WE NEED TO TAKE TO THE STREETS,
AND STAY IN THE STREETS
DEMANDING TRUMP/PENCE OUT NOW!

by Bob Avakian

Part 1:
THE DEMOCRATS CAN'T FIGHT TRUMP
THE WAY HE NEEDS TO BE FOUGHT

Part 2:
TRUMP IS ALREADY STEALING THE ELECTION  AND THREATENING EVEN MORE VIOLENCE TO STAY IN POWER

Part 3:
TRUMP’S FASCISM—MORE BLATANT AND DANGEROUS EVERY DAY: HOW A DETERMINED FIGHT AND MASSIVE MOBILIZATION COULD DEFEAT THIS

(Long Version—The Larger Canvas and Fuller Picture)

(Short Version—The Basic Picture and Essential Vision)

 

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/664/bob-avakian-voting-will-not-be-enough-pt1-en.html

VOTING WILL NOT BE ENOUGH—
WE NEED TO TAKE TO THE STREETS,
AND STAY IN THE STREETS
DEMANDING TRUMP/PENCE OUT NOW!

by Bob Avakian

| revcom.us

 

Part 1

THE DEMOCRATS CAN'T FIGHT TRUMP
THE WAY HE NEEDS TO BE FOUGHT

 

In the 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, I spoke to this important point:

At 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.

At the same time, however, I strongly emphasized that:

Simply 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.

Trump’s Blatant Racism and Support for White Supremacist Violence

It has become increasingly clear that a pivotal part of Trump’s strategy, in relation to the election scheduled for November, and his overall approach to holding power, is to make more and more blatant appeals to racism by trumpeting a call for “law and order.” Trump portrays the ongoing protests against white supremacy and police terror as violent—and, as is typical with him, he flagrantly and grossly lies about the extent and causes of this violence. He paints a crude horror scene of you-know-who coming to pillage and rape—to violate the homes and the people, especially the women—in the suburbs, which in Trump’s vision are all white. This is a direct “echo” of the vile tactics used by white supremacists organizing mobs to lynch Black people during Jim Crow segregation, and of how Hitler stirred up hatred of and violence against Jews in NAZI Germany. Here again, facts do not matter to Trump and his fascist regime and its supporters—or, rather, facts are to be deliberately distorted, defied, and perverted in pursuit of literally murderous aims.

It has been shown (for example, in a study by Princeton University) that, overwhelmingly (more than 90 percent of the time), these protests against white supremacy and police terror have not been violent; and violence that has been committed by the protesters themselves has been relatively minor (some fires, looting, and trashing of a few buildings, in small, confined areas, often at or near police stations—nothing like the picture Trump paints of whole cities being burned down and destroyed). But, beyond that, most of the violence in connection with these protests has been perpetrated by Trump supporters—by police, who have repeatedly attacked the protests, and by armed fascist thugs (those Trump calls “Second Amendment people”). At least 20 protesters have been killed in this way. And Trump and his supporters have justified—and even glorified—this violence by white supremacists.

The Democrats, and the “mainstream media” generally in the same camp (CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, and so on), have largely tried to shift the focus away from the protests and onto questions where they feel Trump is more vulnerable—in particular Trump’s truly reckless handling of the COVID pandemic, and things such as statements by Trump (or attributed to him) insulting U.S. soldiers. But Trump will continue his racist attacks on the protests against white supremacy and police violence, and his attempts to paint the Democrats as backers of violence and “carnage” by Black “thugs,” anarchists” and other “far leftists”; and this will have the effect of forcing the Democrats to devote significant attention to responding to this. And what has been the response of the Democrats? They have made the point that most of the protests have been peaceful, and they even say that Trump wants violence; yet, at the same time, the Democrats accept, to a large extent, the terms (and the trap) Trump has set. They have put a great deal of emphasis on denouncing violence by protesters, without giving the same emphasis to pointing out who is responsible for most of the violence connected to the protests—once again, overwhelmingly Trump supporters. The Democrats do not highlight the bitter irony that here are people protesting violence by the police and, even when (overwhelmingly) their protests are peaceful, they are subjected to yet more violence by the policeThe Democrats don’t emphasize yet another glaring irony: Here are Trump and his supporters denouncing and attacking people overwhelmingly carrying out peaceful protests against racist violence, while Trump defends monuments to “heroes” of the Confederacy, who waged a war, in which they killed hundreds of thousands of Union soldiers, in the attempt to preserve and extend slavery.

Strategies by Democrats That Flow From and Reinforce the Problem Itself

There are two basic causes for how the Democrats and their allies do—and do not—respond to what Trump is doing with his attacks on the protests and his contrived racist horror story of mobs of “those people” bent on violently attacking innocent (white) people and their property. First, the Democrats’ electoral strategy is focused on winning a relatively small number of “swing voters,” largely white people in the suburbs, in a small number of “swing states.” Flowing from this, and once again largely accepting the terms Trump has set, the Democrats see it as very important to reassure these voters that the Democrats, too, denounce—and, by implication, will use the power of the government to suppress—violence that supposedly is carried out by protesters and supposedly threatens these (white suburban) “swing voters.” Here it has to be said that, even on its own—very wrong and perverted—terms, this is likely a losing strategy. Not only is it the case that, by far, most of the violence connected with the protests has been carried out by Trump supporters (including the police), while overwhelmingly the protests themselves have been peaceful; but, even if the intent of everyone protesting were to remain completely peaceful, including when provoked and attacked by the police and armed “civilian” racists, there will still be violence—exactly because Trump and his supporters will continue to carry out, and to escalate, the violence, no matter what the protesters do.

It is true that, at this point, the vote in a few states essentially determines the outcome of presidential elections—so that, as was the case with Trump in the previous presidential election, someone can lose the popular vote and still become president. But, even given this reality, an electoral strategy that could work much better for the Democrats would be to take on Trump’s whole racist approach, directly and forcefully, and appeal to Black people and other people of color, and the large number of white people (especially, though not only, younger generations) who have shown that they are motivated by a definite desire for an end to social injustice, blatant inequality, and rampant police violence. That is a great “reservoir” that, theoretically, the Democrats could focus on appealing to.

But the Democrats themselves will not—cannot—really do this. And this gets to the deeper reasons why the Democrats approach things in the way they do. Although, in the present situation, where there has been a massive outpouring against police terror, the Democrats have felt the need to talk in general terms about “police reform,” as representatives of this system of capitalism-imperialism the Democrats are very firm about the fundamental need for the police to enforce the oppressive “law and order” of this system, with the racist violence that involves. So, the Democrats cannot carry out a campaign that actually unites with the strongly and widely held sentiment that this police violence must end. At the same time, as representatives of this system, and as upholders of its traditional institutions and “stability,” they do not want to win an election and head the government on the basis of appealing to and further arousing a force of tens of millions filled with passionate intensity to end police terror and white supremacy, which in fact are built into and required by this system. Better, from the Democrats’ point of view, to appeal to longings for “a return to calm and normalcy”—which are likely to resonate with many middle class suburbanites—even though there will not be any “calm and normalcy,” in large part because the fascist forces will not allow it.

Appealing to the “Grievances” of the Fascists Will Only Strengthen Fascism

Once again now, as was the case during and in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 election, there are “mainstream” voices (such as CNN’s Chris Cuomo, brother of the Democratic Governor of New York state, and Thomas Friedman, a prominent proponent of the “great benefits” of highly globalized capitalism) who argue that, in order to win this time, Biden and the Democrats should appeal to Trump’s “base” by recognizing their “grievances,” rather than humiliating them. But there are deep-seated bases for this fascism, and the minds of these fascists will not be changed by “being nice” to them or acting as if their “grievances” are “legitimate. As I (and others who have seriously studied this fascist phenomenon) have pointed out, the reality is that these “grievances” flow from resentment against any changes that even slightly undermine white supremacymale supremacy, xenophobia (hatred of foreigners), rabid American chauvinism, and the unrestrained plundering of the environment. And, even though, in the most fundamental terms, the Democrats represent this system of capitalism-imperialism, which embodies and enforces all of this, the Republican party, as it has become more and more blatantly fascist, has cultivated and organized its “base” through aggressively promoting, in extreme terms, this inequality, oppression, and plunder of the earth, along with a rejection of, and passionate “resentment” against, the scientific method and rational thinking. For example, there is this important analysis, by African-American theologian Hubert Locke, speaking particularly to the Christian fundamentalists that are the driving force of this fascism:

It is not happenstance that it is a movement that draws its strength and finds its support principally in the so-called heartland of the nation and especially in its southern precincts. This is the portion of the United States that has never been comfortable with post-WWII America. The brief period of normalcy after the war was followed within a decade by a pent-up and long overdue racial revolution that overturned centuries of culture and tradition, especially in the South. The disillusionment, two decades later, with an unpopular war in southeast Asia shook the foundations of traditional/conventional patriotism in American life; it was followed in the next decade by a sexual revolution that upset deeply entrenched views among this portion of the American populace about the subordinate place of women in society and the non-place of gay and lesbian persons in American life. These political and social and cultural defeats have now erupted into a pitched battle to turn back the clock on the last half-century and return America to its pre-war purity. It is not without significance that teaching creationism in the schools, for example, is such a prominent part of the religious right agenda. That was a battle the right lost in the mid-1920s but it is not one that the right ever acknowledged losing‑‑just as some die-hards have never acknowledged losing the Civil War. Consequently, the restoration the religious right seeks is one that would recapture a way of life that disappeared in this nation a half-century ago.1

This is what “Make America Great Again” actually means. The Democrats could not “compete” with this, without abandoning their own “identity” as the party that supposedly cares about social justice and addressing the environmental crisis.

All this, in turn, is tied in with the fundamental reasons why the Democrats will not call out the Trump/Pence regime for what it actually is—fascist—which, as I have emphasized, “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.”2 First of all, if you acknowledge that this regime is in fact fascist, then that raises very big questions about the whole system, and how it is that such a fascist regime could come to power—not through something like a military coup, but through the “normal channels” and institutional procedures of this system. And, along with that, if you recognize that this regime is fascist, then that has very big implications in terms of what must be done to deal with the dangers posed by this fascism—which, in reality, requires stepping outside of the “norms” of this system and mobilizing masses of people in determined, non-violent but sustained struggle in the streets to demand the ouster of this regime, as is being called for by RefuseFascism.org.

The Immediate Urgent Need for Mass Mobilization Against This Fascism

In sum, the Democrats, being who and what they are, will not and cannot deal with all this—neither the election, nor the larger situation in which this election is taking place and the profound stakes that are actually involved—in any way other than on the terms, and within the limits, established by this system, which has produced this fascism, and to a large degree on the terms set by the fascists themselves.

This can be seen in what the Democrats have done in their attempts to deal with the way in which the Trump/Pence fascist regime has—repeatedly, and in an escalating way—trampled on the “norms” of this system. Time and again, the Democrats have sought to deal with this by trying to utilize the very “norms” and institutions that this fascist regime is defying and tearing up, or bending to its fascist aims—the courts, congressional hearings and proceedings, and so on.Time and again, the Democrats have failed. Yet they stubbornly refuse to seek any means of opposing this regime other than by resorting to these “norms” and procedures. This is what they are doing, and will be strongly inclined to continue doing, even in the face of Trump’s increasing and intensifying moves to suppress votes in the upcoming election and his clearly indicated determination to have himself declared the winner in the election, or to remain in power regardless of the outcome of the election.

All this is why—even though, if it comes down to it, voting against Trump by voting for Biden will be necessary and important—it will very likely lead to disaster to rely on voting and just hope that the election will solve the problem.

And all this points to the very great likelihood that regardless of the actual outcome of this election (assuming it is actually held), if Trump declares himself the “winner” and refuses to leave, in the absence of truly massive mobilization demanding that the Trump/Pence regime must be removed, the Democrats will end up capitulating to Trump. The mass mobilization that is needed cannot be built “overnight,” in the aftermath of the election—and it cannot be built by confining things within the framework and limits insisted upon by the Democrats.

The truth—the truth about this country, and the truth about what is represented and is being implemented and enforced by the Trump/Pence regime—must be brought alive as a crucial, and immediately urgent, focus of the fight against injustice and oppression and against the fascism of this regime. This must be done without waiting for the election, but by taking action right now, and in an ongoing way, with masses of people—first in the thousands, growing into millions—in sustained mobilization around the unifying demand that this regime must go.

Waiting for November, and Relying on the Election, Will Likely Lead to Disaster:

We Need to Take to the Streets, and Stay in the Streets, Demanding Trump/Pence Out Now!

 


1. Reflections on Pacific School of Religion's Response to the Religious Right, by Dr. Hubert Locke. This is available at revcom.us.

In addition to my own writings and speeches on this question of fascism, which are available in BA’s Collected Works at revcom.us,* there have been a number of important studies of particularly the Christian fascist phenomenon—including in recent books by Katherine Stewart* and Kristin Kobes Du Mez*—which make clear that these fascists are firmly committed to their extremely oppressive, reactionary, and literally lunatic views and aims, and they will not be moved by attempts to appeal to their supposed “legitimate grievances.”

* For example, my recent article Patriarchy and Patriotism—Aggressive Male Supremacy and American Supremacy—The Danger and the Immediate Challenge draws from important insights in Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s book Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation; and my 2017 speech The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! In The Name of Humanity We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America, A Better World IS Possible cites important analysis in Katherine Stewart’s book The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children.  [back]

2. From 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]

VOTING WILL NOT BE ENOUGH—
WE NEED TO TAKE TO THE STREETS,
AND STAY IN THE STREETS
DEMANDING TRUMP/PENCE OUT NOW!

by Bob Avakian

Part 1:
THE DEMOCRATS CAN'T FIGHT TRUMP
THE WAY HE NEEDS TO BE FOUGHT

Part 2:
TRUMP IS ALREADY STEALING THE ELECTION  AND THREATENING EVEN MORE VIOLENCE TO STAY IN POWER

Part 3:
TRUMP’S FASCISM—MORE BLATANT AND DANGEROUS EVERY DAY: HOW A DETERMINED FIGHT AND MASSIVE MOBILIZATION COULD DEFEAT THIS

(Long Version—The Larger Canvas and Fuller Picture)

(Short Version—The Basic Picture and Essential Vision)

 

 

 

 

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

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

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

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

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

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

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/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)

 

 

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

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

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

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

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

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

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

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/665/bob-avakian-for-the-liberation-of-black-people-en.html

BOB AVAKIAN FOR THE LIBERATION OF BLACK PEOPLE
AND THE EMANCIPATION OF ALL HUMANITY

| revcom.us

 

One of the things that comes through most powerfully in Bob Avakian’s memoir1 is that a profound hatred for the oppression of Black people has been a defining part of Bob Avakian’s life from the time, as a teenager, he learned about the lives of the Black people with whom he developed deep ties of friendship. Never feeling that, because he is white, “it is not his place” to be involved in the struggle against this oppression—but, on the contrary, determined to contribute whatever he could to this struggle—Bob Avakian (BA), from the time he worked closely with the Black Panther Party in its revolutionary days in the 1960s, has made the liberation of Black people a defining part of his life’s commitment and work. As he developed as a revolutionary communist, and emerged as the foremost revolutionary leader and thinker in the world, this commitment has become even deeper and has been strongly interwoven with a dedication to the emancipation of all humanity from every form of oppression and exploitation.

As BA has written about his life’s work:

Why was I doing the work I was doing? Once again, we’re back to for whom and for what. I wasn’t doing this work for myself. When I was young, in middle school and then even more so in high school, my life got changed in a very major way by coming into contact with people that I hadn’t really known that much before, in particular Black people. I started learning about their situation and how that relates to what goes on in this society as a whole. I was drawn to the culture—not just the music and the art overall, but the whole way of going through the world—of the Black people who became my friends, and the world they introduced me to. And I came to the point of recognizing: these are my people. Now, I knew they had a different life experience than I did. But these are my people—I don’t see a separation—it’s not like there are some other people “over there” who are going through all this and somehow that’s removed from me. These are my people. And then I began to recognize more deeply what people were being put through, the oppression they were constantly subjected to, the horrors of daily life as well as the bigger ways in which the system came down on them. And as I went further through life and began to approach the question of what needs to be done about this, and was introduced to taking up a scientific approach to this, I realized that my people were more than this. I realized that my people were Chicanos and other Latinos and other oppressed people in the U.S.; they were people in Vietnam and China; they were women...they were the oppressed and exploited of the world...and through some struggle, and having to cast off some wrong thinking, I have learned that they are LGBT people as well.

These are my people, the oppressed and exploited people of the world. They are suffering terribly, and something has to be done about this. So it is necessary to dig in and systematically take up the science that can show the way to put an end to all this, and bring something much better into being. You have to persevere and keep struggling to go forward in this way. And when you run into new problems or setbacks, you have to go more deeply into this, rather than putting it aside and giving up.

So this is why I’ve been doing the work that I’ve been doing.2

Bob Avakian grew up in Berkeley, California. Unable, because of a life-threatening illness, to be directly involved in struggles taking place against racial oppression for several years after graduating from high school in 1961, BA nevertheless closely followed and strongly supported the civil rights movement in the early 1960s, and at the same time was influenced by and supportive of the militant stand and role of Malcolm X. This was reflected in an article that BA wrote at the age of 19 in 1962 supporting the struggle of Black people. (This article was submitted to the liberal magazine Saturday Review. Although the article was not published, the editor-in-chief of the magazine, Norman Cousins, personally replied—indicating that, although the magazine had chosen not to publish this article, he recognized that the article spoke, in a strikingly compelling way, to very important questions.)

Having recovered from his illness, in 1964, BA became actively involved in the Free Speech Movement at the University of California in Berkeley, where he was a student. The central issue of this movement was the right of students to carry out activity on the campus in support of the civil rights movement. BA was among the 800 who were arrested during the occupation of the university administration building, which was the high point of the movement and led to winning its demands.

As the civil rights movement increasingly gave way to a more militant Black liberation movement in the second half of the 1960s, BA was strongly influenced by this. He left the university and dedicated his life to working for radical change. As a result of direct contact and discussions with Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, the founders of the Black Panther Party, and getting to know Eldridge Cleaver (who also became a leader of the BPP), BA worked closely with the Black Panther Party from its earliest days and at the height of its revolutionary role and influence.

In 1967, BA attended rallies, and spoke at one of the rallies, held by the BPP in North Richmond to protest the killing there of Denzil Dowell, part of the long and continuing chain of murders of Black people by police.

In 1968, when Huey Newton was facing murder charges as a result of a shoot-out with Oakland cops, BA spoke—along with a number of key figures in the Black liberation movement, including Stokely Carmichael, Rap Brown, James Forman, and leaders of the Black Panther Party— at a Free Huey rally held in the Oakland auditorium on the occasion of Huey Newton’s birthday.

BA worked tirelessly to build support, including among white people, for the demand to “Free Huey!” At a “Free Huey” rally at the courthouse in Oakland where Huey Newton’s trial was being held, BA was arrested for “desecrating” (burning) the American flag.

During this time, at the invitation of BPP leaders, BA wrote a number of articles for the Black Panther newspaper.

At a rally of thousands, led by the Black Panther Party, on May First, 1969, BA spoke of the need for revolution and called on white people in particular to more actively take part in movements for revolutionary change in the U.S., and to support such movements throughout the world.

By the beginning of the 1970s, millions of people in this country were in favor of some kind of revolutionary change, but they faced profound challenges. How could this revolution be made—or was it even possible to make a revolution here, up against such powerful forces of oppression and repression? Which were the key forces that had to be mobilized to have a real chance to carry out such a revolution? What kind of leadership was needed, and what methods and approaches should that leadership be based on? The difficulties in confronting and seeking the answers to these hard questions, combined with brutal and often murderous repression by the powers-that-be, led many revolutionary organizations, including the Black Panther Party, to split and end up departing from the road that could lead to real revolution.

By this time, partly because of the influence of the Black Panther Party, which had popularized the “Red Book” of quotations from the Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong, BA had become convinced not only that revolution was necessary, and was possible, but that it had to be led by a vanguard force that based itself on the scientific method and approach of communism, as it had been developed initially by Karl Marx, then further developed by V.I. Lenin, the leader of the Russian Revolution in the early part of the 20th century, and then in turn further developed by Mao, who led the Chinese revolution and the new, socialist society in China, until his death in 1976. BA led in the formation of the Revolutionary Union at the end of the 1960s, with the aim of working toward the establishment of the vanguard party of revolution, based on the science of communism. During the first part of the 1970s, BA was both the practical leader and the leading theoretician of the Revolutionary Union, writing much of the essays and polemics for its theoretical journal Red Papers. This included major articles, particularly in Red Papers 5 and 6, that involved groundbreaking scientific materialist analysis of the situation of Black people, historically and down to the present—how and why their particular conditions of oppression had changed, from the time of slavery to the present era, and how this objectively put Black people in a potentially powerful position to be a driving force not only for their own liberation but for the communist revolution whose fundamental aim is the abolition of all oppression and exploitation. These articles included powerful polemics, arguing against positions and programs that would not lead to, but would actually work against, this liberation and the revolutionary transformation of the world as a whole.

In 1975, with BA’s leadership, the Revolutionary Communist Party was founded, with the aim of being the vanguard force for the revolution that was, and continues to be, profoundly necessary. Over the decades since then, BA has fought to keep that Party on the revolutionary road and to bring forward new revolutionary forces to revitalize and strengthen the vanguard forces for the revolution that is now, all the more urgently, required. While continuing to provide practical guidance to the revolutionary forces, BA, through summing up the experience (positive and negative) of the communist movement, and drawing from a broad range of human experience, has brought forward a new synthesis of communism (also referred to as the new communism) which, most decisively, has established communism on an even more consistently scientific basis. As BA’s Official Biography explains, the new communism “is a continuation of, but also represents a qualitative leap beyond, and in some important ways a break with, communist theory as it had been previously developed. It provides the basis—the science, the strategy, and the leadership—for an actual revolution and a radically new society on the road to real emancipation.”3

A defining part of this new communism is the emphasis it gives to the struggle for the liberation of Black people, and the relation of this to the ending of all oppression. And this has continued to stand out in BA’s leadership role and work over the decades, up to the present.  At revcom.us there is a special section, Bob Avakian on The Oppression of Black People & the Revolutionary Struggle to End All Oppressionwhich contains clips from films and selections from the writings of BA on this question. The following are just a few examples of important works and leadership by Bob Avakian, over the past few decades, that speak to this decisive question.

The book Reflections, Sketches & Provocations, written by Bob Avakian during the 1980s, contains a number of commentaries, speaking in a number of dimensions to the oppression of Black people and the struggle against this oppression, including support for rebellions following the murder of Black people by police. This book begins with the essay “Hill Street Bullshit, Richard Pryor Routines, and the Real Deal,” which powerfully exposes how terror against Black people, and other oppressed people, is “part of the job” of the police—and is “a reward” for carrying out the role of maintaining the “law and order” that keeps the oppressed in their desperate and miserable conditions. Going deeper, it speaks to how this is rooted in this system of capitalism-imperialism, which has had this oppression built into it from the very beginning.

In the 1990s, BA raised the idea that there should be a day, every year, when people mobilized to protest police brutality, mass incarceration and repression by the government. This proposal was taken up and a broad coalition, including family members of people killed by police, was formed to initiate, in 1996, the National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation. At its height, over the next decade, this National Day of Protest, held every October 22nd, rallied thousands of people in dozens of cities across the country. And activities by people who have been part of this coalition have continued since then.

During the past two decades, BA has given a number of filmed speeches, and written articles, essays and books, in which the liberation of Black people and its crucial relation to the communist revolution, aiming for the emancipation of all humanity, has been a major question.

BA’s 2003 speech Revolution: Why It’s Necessary, Why It’s Possible, What It’s All About, begins with a searing exposure and condemnation of lynching, and speaks to the horrific reality of slavery and the oppression of Black people down to today, including the continual murder of Black people by police.3

In 2006, BA gave a series of 7 Talks, in which once again the oppression of Black people, and the struggle for their liberation, is a major theme. One of these 7 Talks, Communism and Jeffersonian Democracy, begins by speaking to the experience of Black people in this country; and the question of slavery and the overall oppression of Black people is, of course, a major part of this talk. It is in Communism and Jeffersonian Democracy that the following is clearly stated:

There would be no United States as we now know it today without slavery. That is a simple and basic truth.

(This is also the very first statement in BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian, the handbook for revolution.)3

At the beginning of BA Speaks: Revolution—Nothing Less!, in 2012, this point is stated emphatically:

Let’s start with just one great crime of this system: police murder—after murder—after murder—of Black people and Latinos, especially youth.3

This is part of the powerful exposure in this speech of the role that continuing murders by police play in enforcing this monstrous system of exploitation and oppression, the system of capitalism-imperialism.

At the beginning of his October 2017 speech The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America, A Better World IS Possible,  BA speaks powerfully to the horrors of slavery in this country—including the rape by slavemasters of huge numbers of enslaved women. This speech shows how the murderous oppression of Black people, continuing down to today, is one of the main roots of the fascism that has come to power in this country with the Trump/Pence regime; and, in this speech, BA repeatedly returns to the critical importance of the fight against this oppression.3

BA’s 2018 speech Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution begins this way:

In 2012 in Revolution—Nothing Less! I talked about the outrageous murder of Ramarley Graham earlier that same year—shot down in his own house in the Bronx by the New York City police. He was only 18 years old. Do I have to tell you what “race” he was?! His mother kept saying: “This has to STOP!” And his father repeated over and over: "WHY did they kill my son?! WHY did they kill my son?!" New York cops then loudly rallied around their fellow pig who murdered Ramarley in cold blood, viciously taunting Ramarley's family and loved ones, demonstrating yet one more time the ugly truth that, in the way this country has been built, and for the powers-that-be in this country, the humanity of Black people has never counted for anything—they have never been valued as human beings, but only as things to be exploited, oppressed, and repressed. Six years later, and with cold-blooded murders by police continuing in an unbroken chain, I will say again what I said then: How many more times does this have to happen? How many more times do the tears and the cries of anguish and anger have to pour forth from the wounded hearts of people?! How many more times, when another of these outrageous murders is perpetrated by the police, do we have to hear those words that pour gasoline on the already burning wounds: “justifiable homicide, justified use of force” by police?! How many more?!3

In that 2018 speech, BA not only powerfully exposes once again the horrific oppression that this system of capitalism-imperialism inflicts on Black people, and on other oppressed people in this country and throughout the world, and the grave danger this system poses to the very future of humanity; he also lays out in this speech (and in a more recent article A Real Revolution—A Real Chance To Win, Further Developing the Strategy for Revolution3) the strategic approach that could make it possible for this system to be finally overthrown through a revolution in which millions and millions of people are led to fight to put an end to this system and bring a radically different and much better system into being.

In the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, authored by BA, a sweeping vision and concrete blueprint for that radically different and much better system is set forth. And the principles and means for finally putting an end, at long last, to the oppression of Black people is a major part of that Constitution.3

This year (2020), BA has written as many as 30 articles in which this decisive question—the oppression, and the struggle for the liberation, of Black people—is a recurring subject.3

In the speeches and writings of BA overall, there is not only powerful, penetrating exposure and uncompromising condemnation of brutal and murderous oppression but, even more importantly, there is scientific analysis of how all this is rooted in this system of capitalism-imperialism and of the need, the possibility, and the means for making revolution to overthrow this system and finally put an end to all the outrageous and unnecessary suffering that the masses of humanity are continually subjected to under this system.

***

It is a very precious thing for the oppressed of the earth when they have a leader whose life is dedicated to their emancipation, and who has the determination, and the scientific method, developed over decades, to point the way, and continue to carve out the path, to achieving that emancipation. BA is such a leader. As emphasized in the article Bob Avakian: A Radically Different Leader—A Whole New Framework For Human Emancipation:

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.3

One of the things that most distinguishes BA’s role as a revolutionary leader is his willingness—indeed, his insistence—on telling people the truth, even when they may not want to hear it. This comes through in the way BA exposes and refutes unscientific ways of thinking—all kinds of “conspiracy” theories and superstitious ideas—that lead people, including the most bitterly oppressed people, away from understanding the world as it actually is, and keep them from seeing not just the need, but the possibility, of radically changing the world, in a way that will lead to ending oppression. A big problem that BA has taken on, straight-up, is the role of religion as a mental chain on the masses of Black people, and other oppressed people, and the need to break this chain in order to most powerfully wage the struggle to finally be free of all oppression. BA has repeatedly emphasized that, in order to end oppression, “you have to want revolution badly enough to be scientific about it.”

Science means judging whether something is true, or not, by whether there is evidence that it actually corresponds to reality—and not believing something because it makes you feel good to believe it, or not refusing to believe something because it makes you uncomfortable. In the article Conspiracy Theories, Fascist “Certitude,” Liberal Paralysis, Or A Scientific Approach To Changing The World, BA has spoken directly to this problem:

many of the basic masses, who are bitterly oppressed under this system, also are suspicious of and even are inclined to reject science and scientifically-grounded analysis. But this also leaves you vulnerable to all kinds of unfounded “conspiracy theories” and other wrong and harmful ideas, including the notion that nothing people do will make a difference because “it’s all in god’s hands.”3

In the 2014 Dialogue with Cornel West (REVOLUTION AND RELIGION: The Fight for Emancipation and the Role of Religion), which took place during the upsurge of protest and rebellion in response to the murder of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, while speaking to the importance of uniting people broadly in the struggle against oppression, including people who hold religious views, BA also emphasized that the revolution that is needed to finally put an end to oppression must be led with a scientific, not a religious, outlook and method.3

From the start of the article Bob Avakian On Emancipation From Mental Slavery And All Oppression, written this year (2020), BA does not hold back in speaking to these critical questions:

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?!....

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.3

****

From his early years, forging close personal ties with Black people and increasingly learning about their lived experience, to his development as this rare leader who has brought forth the most advanced scientific revolutionary theory with the new communism—a defining part of the life and work of Bob Avakian has been the liberation of Black people from centuries of oppression, and the understanding of how this relates to, and is a crucial driving force in, the communist revolution to finally abolish every form of oppression and exploitation, everywhere.

BA himself has expressed this in the following poetically powerful statement:

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.

 


1. From Ike to Mao and Beyond, My Journey from Mainstream America to Revolutionary CommunistA Memoir by Bob AvakianInsight Press, 2005. [back]

2. 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, first printing, 2016, pp. 321-22. In addition to THE NEW COMMUNISM, in other recent works by BA—in particular Breakthroughs: The Historic Breakthrough by Marx, and the Further Breakthrough with the New Communism, A Basic Summaryand Hope For Humanity On A Scientific Basis, Breaking with Individualism, Parasitism and American Chauvinism—the oppression and the struggle for the liberation of Black people, and its relation to the emancipation of humanity as a whole, is a prominent subject. These works are available at revcom.us.  [back]

3. All of these works are available at revcom.us. (Information about how to acquire the print and e-book editions of BAsics can be found at revcom.us. Audio of the 7 Talks is available in BA’s Collected Works at revcom.us; and Communism and Jeffersonian Democracy has been published in a print edition, the text of which can also be found in BA’s Collected Works at revcom.us.)

The film of the Dialogue between Cornel West and Bob Avakian, REVOLUTION AND RELIGION: The Fight for Emancipation and the Role of Religion, is also available in BA’s Collected Works at revcom.us.

The article Conspiracy Theories, Fascist “Certitude,” Liberal Paralysis, Or A Scientific Approach To Changing The World (longer and shorter versions) is available at revcom.us as well.

The importance of Bob Avakian as a revolutionary leader, who has further developed communism as a consistently scientific method and approach, is a central theme in 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. Ardea Skybreak is a scientist with professional training in ecology and evolutionary biology, who is also the author of the important book THE SCIENCE OF EVOLUTION AND THE MYTH OF CREATIONISM, Knowing What’s Real And Why It Matters. Each of these books by Ardea Skybreak is published by Insight Press, and the Interview with Ardea Skybreak (SCIENCE AND REVOLUTION) is also available at revcom.us

The following articles, written by Bob Avakian this year (2020), which speak to the oppression of Black people and the struggle to end this oppression, are available as well at revcom.us:

Donald Trump—Genocidal Racist (Parts 1-10) 

Racial Oppression Can Be Ended—But Not Under This System

Police And Prisons: Reformist Illusions And The Revolutionary Solution

Anything But The Truth—Bob Avakian Exposes Lies, Distortions, Distractions and Evasions About the Murderous Oppression of Black People

Lynching, Murder By Police—Damn This Whole System! We Don’t Have To Live This Way!

Bob Avakian On Emancipation From Mental Slavery And All Oppression

Colin Kaepernick, LeBron James And The Whole Truth

Donald Trump Isn’t “Tough,” He’s A Bloated Bag Of Fascist Feces

Bloated Bag Of Fascist Feces Trump Isn’t “Tough”—Part 2: Who Really Has Heart?

Trump And Pigs: A Racist Love Affair

Fucker Carlson, Fascist “Fox News” And The Broadcast Of White Supremacy

Bob Avakian on Black Trump Supporters: What If Jews Had Supported Hitler?!

Bob Avakian On: A Beautiful Uprising: Right And Wrong, Methods And Principles

On Statues, Monuments, And Celebrating—Or Ending—Oppression

Fascists Today And The Confederacy: A Direct Line, A Direct Connection Between All The Oppression

Patriarchy And Male Supremacy, Or Revolution And Ending All Oppression

Sounding Like Southern Segregationists: It’s Not Just Trump—It’s Democrats Too

Bob Avakian Brings Out the Truth: Barack Obama Says Police Murdering Black People Should Not Be Normal—Unless He’s President

Bob Avakian On Ugly Words & Phrases

Bob Avakian On Tulsa Racist Mobs

A Real Revolution--A Real Chance To Win: Further Developing the Strategy for Revolution

[back]

Get to know BA

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

Get Into BA »

 

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

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

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

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

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

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

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

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/666/rnl-show-episode-27-announcement-en.html

Episode 27 of
The RNL Show—Revolution, Nothing Less!

| revcom.us

 

Share this widely

"Voting Is Not Enough!, The Death of RBG, and the Fierce Struggle Ahead"

The Revolution, Nothing Less Show

Masses of people are righteously taking to the streets, furious that Louisville police got away with the cold-blooded murder of Breonna Taylor. Armed white supremacists march brazenly through Louisville. And Trump is already stealing the election. He has even said he will fill the now vacant Supreme Court seat BEFORE the election.

This is fascism, but there is a way to stop it, and that must be the mission of everyone who cares about the future. Andy Zee speaks to the critical new series by Bob Avakian:

VOTING WILL NOT BE ENOUGH—

WE NEED TO TAKE TO THE STREETS,

AND STAY IN THE STREETS

DEMANDING TRUMP/PENCE OUT NOW!

Sunsara Taylor speaks about the life and death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, how the fascists are seizing on this, and what we need to do.

Luan Xocoyote reads the new call from RefuseFascism.org for historic day-after-day protests aimed at driving out the Trump/Pence regime, starting October 3rd.

Watch this episode, spread it, and stay in the streets!

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/667/donald-trump-genocidal-racist-by-bob-avakian-en.html

10 Part Series:

Donald Trump — GENOCIDAL RACIST

| revcom.us

 

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]

See each part for a downloadable poster

Download pamphlet of complete series (PDF printer spread)

 

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

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

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

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

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

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

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/665/posters-pamphlet-donald-trump-genocidal-racist-en.html

Spread them Everywhere

Pamphlet and Posters of
“Donald Trump—GENOCIDAL RACIST”

| revcom.us

 

 

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

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

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

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

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

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

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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:

 

 

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

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

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

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

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

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

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/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

 

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

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

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

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

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

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

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/667/this-week-the-fascist-madness-the-struggle-for-the-future-en.html

This Week: The Fascist Madness, Police Murder, and the Struggle for the Future

| revcom.us

 

I. The Struggle for the Future

Several hundred people attended extremely important Refuse Fascism organizing meetings this past weekend. The theme? It’s On: The Struggle for the Future, Trump/Pence OUTNOW: the non-violent protests that start October 3 and continue, grow and spread day after day with and making good on the single unifying demand that the fascist Trump/Pence regime be driven out of power!

Go to RefuseFascism.org for more on this and how you can be part of this.

Even while we continue to receive and will post initial reports on these meetings and plans, we are posting a video of remarks by Andy Zee, one of the initiators of Refuse Fascism, delivered in Los Angeles at the outdoor organizing meeting. 

This weekend organized for day-after-day manifestations, beginning on October 3, designed to change the whole dynamic in society leading to the driving out of the regime. For more on HOW this can happen, and what is needed to make that real, go to Part 3 of Bob Avakian’s series, Voting Will Not Be Enough—We Need to Take to the Streets, and Stay in the Streets Demanding Trump/Pence Out Now!, Trump’s Fascism—More Blatant and Dangerous Every Day: How a Determined Fight AND Massive Mobilization Could Defeat This.

II. The Fascist Advance: And Trump Escalates His Perversion, Corruption and Theft of Elections

The need for this—for mass sustained nonviolent protests to oust this regime from power—was further driven home this week, every single day, as Trump and his fascists moved rapidly to further consolidate their hold on power.

In both rhetoric and acts they took leaps upon leaps, shredding norms of liberal democracy concentrated in the peaceful transfer of power through elections. Go here to read about what Trump did and its implications—and go here to read about the implications of his attempt to appoint a new Christian fascist Supreme Court Justice, Amy Coney Barrett. For the fuller analytical framework through which to understand all these developments, go to Trump Is Already Stealing the Election and Threatening Even More Violence to Stay in Power, as Bob Avakian has incisively analyzed in Part 2 of his series Voting Will Not Be Enough—We Need to Take to the Streets, and Stay in the Streets Demanding Trump/Pence Out Now!

The Democrats’ capitulation is craven and belly-crawling in the wake of this, further evidence and manifestation of why The Democrats Can’t Fight Trump The Way He Needs To Be Fought, Part 1 of the series on Voting Will Not be Enough.

All in a week! These are times in which years of history are compressed in days, and will determine the course of the future, irreversibly! We have to ACT now! We have to make good on The Struggle for the FutureTrump/Pence OUTNOW

III. The Terrible Injustice, the Righteous Rage and Need for Struggle

This week marked A Terrible Injustice, where the pigs that brazenly killed Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Kentucky—in her own home with NO justification whatsoever—were not indicted. Kentucky’s fascist attorney general declared the murder justified.

The rage poured into the streets—in Louisville and elsewhere, and continues to smolder. This needs to manifest out into the streets, evoking the Beautiful Rising against police murder and institutionalized racism that marked the summer months. And this struggle needs to be brought together with the urgently needed struggle to drive out the fascist regime led by Trump—the Genocidal Racist. As we wrote the day of the non-indictment:

Since the rising earlier this year sparked by the pig murder of George Floyd, Donald Trump has not only continued to support all manner of crimes by police, he has doubled down on this in the name of “law and order”—a racist codeword for exactly the kind of horror that happened to Breonna Taylor. He has professed his “love” for the pigs, he threatened the protestors, he has called for repression and major charges against those who lift their heads and organize others to do so, and he has actually applauded those who have murdered the protestors for Black lives. This too has a name: FASCISM. And the genocidal assault against Black people, and everyone who is not a white Christian American, is at the heart of this regime. This regime must urgently and immediately be defeated. And bringing together these two streams of struggle—against police murder and institutional racism, and to drive out the Trump-Pence fascist regime—is urgently needed if masses of people are to have any kind of future at all.

Go here for news and analysis on the grand jury decision, here for the background of the case, here for the actions of the people in the streets, and here for the larger political implications.

See also:

 

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

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

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

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

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

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

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/666/refuse-fascism-october-3rd-we-begin-en.html

Reposted from RefuseFascism.org:

It's on: The Struggle for the Future
Will it be fascist
Or, will we act on our conscience?

October 3rd We Begin

Non-Violent Protests that Continue Day After Day
From Now Through the Elections
United by the Demand:

Trump/Pence OUTNOW!

Times & Places for October 3

| revcom.us

 

We face a rolling coup barreling to a showdown on November 3rd. The Trump/Pence regime has said and shown that they will not abide by an election they lose.

It is the regime—Trump, Pence, Barr—who have raised the specter of insurrection and sedition. It is the regime that is tearing up the rule of law. It is the regime that demonizes and brutalizes immigrants, Black people, Latinos, Native Americans, women, LGBTQ people, the media and peaceful protesters. It is the regime that opposes science, leading to a country and a planet burning and drowning, and to unconscionable, unnecessary death and illness from Covid.

We face a critical crossroads. The hour is late, but not too late. Relying only on our voting will lead to disaster. The Trump/Pence regime is subverting the election now and preparing to nullify it. Waiting to act till they do so will be too late.

Trump's MAGA mobs maraud around the country in water and land caravans; they murder protesters and innocent people by guns and by their cars. They spread Covid. They are inflamed with passionate reactionary intensity. All for the purpose of rousing their followers and intimidating and demoralizing all who should be standing up for justice.

Now we must act. Beginning Saturday, October 3rd, gather and bring your family, friends, and community into the public squares of cities and towns across the country in non-violent protest unified by the demand: Trump/Pence OUTNOW! And, come back in waves, day after day. This is possible. We saw this in June and early July where people came out every day for justice for Black Lives. Now, that struggle, and every struggle, and the lives of millions of people hang in the balance. In our diversity, with our multiplicity of causes and demands we must come together and reach out to others to join us, recognizing that should the Trump/Pence regime remain in power it will be a disaster for every just cause, and most of all, for the lives of people here and around the world.

We will act on our principles, modeling the world we aspire to in contrast to the bigotry and hatred of this fascist regime. We will act together with creative joy and with the conviction and courage of standing together not only for ourselves but for all humanity.

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

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.

 

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

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

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

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

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

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

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/667/refuse-fascism-holds-nationwide-mass-organizing-meetings-en.html

Reposted from RefuseFascism.org:

Answering the Call and Getting Organized to Drive Out the Fascist Trump/Pence Regime

RefuseFascism.org Holds Nationwide Mass Organizing Meetings

| revcom.us

 

More than 300 people gathered in socially distanced outdoor meetings in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago and 9 other cities to organize and plan historic outpourings of nonviolent protests to begin October 3rd and continue every day after that demanding Trump/Pence Out Now! These meetings were held under the shadow of a rolling fascist coup now underway by the Trump/Pence regime, including Trump's repeated refusal to peacefully leave power if he loses and his determination to discount millions of ballots. All this filled people with a sense of urgency and responsibility to answer to the call from RefuseFascism.org to become grassroots organizers of thousands and soon millions to take to the streets and stay in the streets demanding the removal of the regime.

Central locations were chosen for daily protests in most cities and people began working together to make plans to spread the word, turn people out, and grow the protests day after day and draw forward the millions who are sickened and disgusted by everything Trump and Pence concentrate and are doing.

The meetings were made up of long-time and new activists and leaders of RefuseFascism.org, young people who have been involved in the struggle for Black lives, environmental activists, members of the Revolution Clubs, people of faith, and others from different generations and many walks of life. This kind of unity is critical at this time when attacks on all sections of people are heightened by this fascism and when the road to justice for every struggle – and the hope for a future worthy of humanity – runs through the unifying demand that the fascist Trump/Pence regime must be removed.

In Philadelphia, a large group of violence-prone, Trump-supporting, fascist Proud Boys threatened to crash the outdoor meeting of RefuseFascism.org and marched menacingly by, but those gathered refused to be intimidated or diverted and held a successful organizing meeting. The presence of fascists in the streets of Philly, and even greater numbers mobilized and assaulting people across the country in Portland, Oregon and Yorba Linda, California, only underscored the urgency and importance of the day-after-day, mass, nonviolent protests being launched by RefuseFascism.org. A battle for the future is now underway. An important step was taken in these mass meetings towards a positive resolution to this fight, towards the removal of the Trump/Pence regime and an end to its fascism. Now this needs to be built upon and taken forward by everyone who attended and by all those who are reached in the coming days and weeks so that millions are drawn forward to make the removal of the Trump/Pence regime a reality.

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

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.

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/667/trump-threatens-violence-if-the-election-goes-against-him-en.html

Donald Trump Effectively Threatens Violence if the Election Goes Against Him

Joe Biden Shrugs It Off

What Will YOU Do?

| revcom.us

 

Ten days ago, in an article on this website, Bob Avakian wrote that “...the relentless drive by this regime and its supporters, even as the election approaches, to go full steam ahead with their fascist juggernaut, to corrupt and steal the election, to refuse to accept a defeat in the election, and to remain in power regardless of the outcome of the election—this is forcing, more and more to the forefront, the reality of what is represented by this regime, the great objective danger of simply waiting for the election, and the great need to take to the streets, now, to demand that this regime must be removed." (From TRUMP’S FASCISM—MORE BLATANT AND DANGEROUS EVERY DAY: HOW A DETERMINED FIGHT AND MASSIVE MOBILIZATION COULD DEFEAT THIS. PART 3 of VOTING WILL NOT BE ENOUGH—WE NEED TO TAKE TO THE STREETS, AND STAY IN THE STREETS DEMANDING TRUMP/PENCE OUT NOW!) Voting will be necessary—but it will NOT be enough.

What’s happened since then?

Take just the past several days. On Wednesday, September 23, Trump was asked if he would promise a peaceful transfer of power if he were to lose. Here’s what he said:

“We want to get rid of the [mail-in] ballots and you’ll have a very peaceful ... There won’t be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation.” [Emphasis added.] Let’s break this down. Trump has been creating a major wave of lies and confusion around mail-in ballots—ballots that registered voters fill out ahead of time and then send in by Election Day. Trump claims that they are liable to fraud and should therefore not be counted. In fact, these ballots are not particularly liable to fraud—there are stringent requirements that people must obey to use them, study after study has shown that even attempts at fraud are very rare, and for all the money they have spent trying to find and cook up such cases, the Republicans have virtually nothing to show for it. Yet here is Trump saying that there won’t be a peaceful transfer of power.1

This comes on top of Trump repeating over and over that the only way he could ever possibly imaginably lose the election is if it were rigged. But here’s what’s new with his September 24 statement: if there’s not a peaceful transfer, then what is there? Trump is clearly implying that he will use the threat and force of violence to stay in power. He was given a chance to “walk this back” the next day ... and he refused.

And on September 26, Trump raised the possibility of the election being decided by Congress, where “we have the advantage.”2

Adding to the controversy, as this was happening, a number of writers and researchers published major articles showing not only that Trump was doing everything he could to corrupt and pervert the election, not only were Republicans preparing to sabotage state election results and use loopholes in the laws to go against the actual popular vote in some of the “battleground states,” not only were they preparing thousands of followers to act as thugs and intimidators on Election Day specifically against Black and Latino and Native voters, not only was he encouraging violence and mayhem by his followers now to back up these threats, but—as these articles showed—there is a tremendous weakness in the laws and institutions of the country that made this very possible. There are loopholes wide enough to drive an SUV full of armed militia morons through.

The most important article is in the November preview issue of the Atlantic, entitled “The Election That Could Break America.” The author, Barton Gellman, writes: “Let us not hedge about one thing. Donald Trump may win or lose, but he will never concede. Not under any circumstance.” And, “There is no truth to be found in dancing around this point, either: Trump does not want Black people to vote.” To think otherwise “will lull us into spurious hope that Trump is tractable to forces that constrain normal incumbents.”

Gellman argues, “The worst case, however, is not that Trump rejects the election outcome. The worst case is that he uses his power to prevent a decisive outcome against him. If Trump sheds all restraint, and if his Republican allies play the parts he assigns them, he could obstruct the emergence of a legally unambiguous victory for Biden in the Electoral College and then in Congress. He could prevent the formation of consensus about whether there is any outcome at all. He could seize on that uncertainty to hold on to power.” 

Along with this, Gellman argues that “The president is not actually trying to prevent mail-in balloting altogether.... He is discrediting the practice and starving it of resources, signaling his supporters to vote in person, and preparing the ground for post–Election Night plans to contest the results.” Because Biden voters are expected to use mail-in voting much more heavily than Trump supporters, the fascists are playing on an expected “red mirage”—that on Election Night—at which point most mail-in votes will not have been counted—it could look like Trump is winning. 

This would open up multiple options for the fascists to bring to bear all the instruments of power they command. Most simply, Trump could claim the “fraudulent” mail-in votes shouldn’t be counted, declare “victory,” and use government and militia power to enforce that. He could use militia violence against protesters as a basis to declare a “national emergency.”

But Gellman points to more legalistic maneuvers that could either provide cover or substitute for open violence (including having the decision made in Congress, discussed earlier). Gellman points out that the Constitution mandates that if state results are not reported to Congress by December 8, they will not be counted at all. So if local counts are tied up in court disputes, state legislatures—most of which have Republican majorities—can decide to ignore the popular vote and choose pro-Trump Electors.3 Gellman writes that some Republican campaign officials have confirmed—some “on the record”—that the Trump campaign is already discussing this as a serious option, using “a justification based on claims of rampant fraud.”4

Joe Biden Says, “What, Me Worry?”

But the Democrats are doing worse than nothing. In an interview with Stephanie Ruhle, Biden was dismissive, calling it “typical Trump distraction,” adding that “I don’t think it’s going to go anywhere. I think the American people are on to this guy.” And, “We’ll have an election in this country as we always have had, and he’ll leave.” Ruhle pressed him: “But come November 4th, we know all of the votes won’t be counted and if they are not and people are fired up and they take to the streets, what will you do?” Biden’s response was “I’m not going to even entertain that because I’m not anticipating that happens. What will I do? We are assuming that even a Republican court would respond in an appropriate way based on what the law is. And that our Democratic and Republican friends in Congress would respond.” 

REALLY?! Our “Republican friends in Congress”? The same ones who are now ramrodding through an extremist fascist court pick in record time, going against the phony “precedent” they invented to prevent Obama’s candidate from even getting a hearing, and doing so in large part as they so readily admit to get a guaranteed pro-Trump vote onto the court in case there’s a deadlock and the Supreme Court is called in to rule? Your “Republican friends” who refused to say a word against Trump’s threat about peaceful transfer of power?5 Your Republican friends who, when Donald Trump says “Jump” can only say “How high?”  

This is spreading extremely dangerous illusions.

What is needed is neither the empty assurances of Biden, nor the despair and defeatism that some people who do recognize the vicious intent of the fascists are allowing themselves to fall into, but to make good on the call issued by Refuse Fascism (RF) for massive, nonviolent action in the streets day after day, from October 3 through the election. RF is organizing for this now, and everyone who cares about the future should be part of this.

This strategy of RF’s could WIN—and this is convincingly laid out in Bob Avakian’s recent article, TRUMP’S FASCISM—MORE BLATANT AND DANGEROUS EVERY DAY: HOW A DETERMINED FIGHT AND MASSIVE MOBILIZATION COULD DEFEAT THIS, along with what we need to do to make it real.  

It is worth closing this by echoing the two final paragraphs of Bob Avakian’s article:

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

 

***

The crazed fanaticism of the fascists insisting that Trump must remain in power, no matter what, must be met, and overwhelmed, by the conscious passionate intensity of masses of people who hate everything that this fascist regime represents, who recognize the very real existential threat that this regime represents for humanity and are fired with righteous determination that this regime must go!

 


1. The very next day, Thursday, September 24, Trump said, in response to a reporter’s question about whether he would accept the November results only if he wins, “We want to make sure that the election is honest and I’m not sure that it can be... we have to be very careful with the ballots. The ballots—you know, that’s a whole big scam.”  [back]

2.  Under the U.S. system, if no candidate can certify an absolute majority of electoral votes by December 8—which could happen due to expected court challenges to many states’ results—the decision could end up being made in the House of Representatives, where each state delegation would have one vote. Republicans control 26 state delegations, so Trump would likely win.  [back]

3.  Gellman points out that nothing in the U.S. Constitution specifies that the electors in the Electoral College be chosen by popular vote. Article II says that each state shall appoint electors “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.” Since the late 19th century, the tradition has been for these appointments to be based on the popular vote. But the Supreme Court ruled in the 2000 election case that state legislatures “can take back the power to appoint electors.”  [back]

4. Aside from the Barton Gellman piece in the Atlantic, see the other articles raising the alarm: “The Legal Fight Awaiting Us After the Election,” Jeffrey Toobin, New Yorker, 9/21/20; “I’ve Never Been More Worried About American Democracy Than I Am Right Now,” Richard L. Hasen, slate.com, 9/23/20.  [back]

5. The Senate did pass a resolution by “unanimous consent” (meaning there was no objection) on Thursday, September 24, saying they are committed to an "orderly and peaceful transition of power"—a non-binding resolution that is basically meaningless.  [back]

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/665/ruth-bader-ginsburg-supreme-court-justice-has-died-en.html

On the Death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

| revcom.us

 

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Supreme Court justice, has died.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg fought for the rights of women throughout her career, including on the Supreme Court. Millions saw her as holding the line against the Christian fascist assaults on the right to abortion on the Court.

Within a few hours of her death being announced, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced they—the Nazi-Republicans—intend to immediately appoint, through confirming Trump’s chosen nominee, another Supreme Court Justice. Trump brayed to his fascist crowds about nominating a “very talented, very brilliant woman.” The front-runners for nomination, according to the press, are hard-core Christian fascists.1 As we go to press, except for Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, no other Republican senator has announced they would oppose confirming a new justice before Election Day. At least three are minimally needed, for any real chance of obstructing a quick confirmation.

The fact that McConnell in 2016 refused to allow the Senate to even consider Barack Obama’s nominee for a court vacancy2 on the grounds that such nominees should not even be considered during an election year points to the hypocrisy of the fascists, and their relentless drive to cement into place a fascist America. In fact, Ted Cruz went on to say the vote and appointment need to be held before Election Day to, according to the New Yorker, “insure a solid conservative majority on the Court and avoid the possibility of a tie in the event of a challenge to the election’s result,” invoking the possibility of a constitutional crisis without having a nine-justice Supreme Court.

This is part of the fascists’ rationale—stacking the highest court of the land for any election-related court battles ahead,3 and ensuring the continuity of the Trump/Pence regime. They also don’t want to risk losing the possibility of a solid Christian fascist majority for the decades ahead. This new justice will no doubt vote to overturn abortion rights altogether. Without this right, women can be forced to bear children against their will—a form of female enslavement—and one of the prime anchors and spearpoints of the Christian fascist program.

First, any attempt by this fascist regime to jam a nominee through the Senate is totally illegitimate and must NOT be allowed.

It strengthens the completely illegitimate fascist grip on power, and should be fought tooth-and-nail through all appropriate nonviolent means—and mass outpourings of resistance and opposition can be positive as part of what IS most urgently needed: building and strengthening the nationwide struggle called by Refuse Fascism to drive out this fascist regime, with mass nonviolent sustained struggle, day after day starting in October, #OUTNOW.

Second, this will necessarily sharpen the splits between the Nazi-Republicans and the Democrats, and their social bases, as part of the divide between the fascists and those who oppose them.

It is hard to say at this stage, as we go to press, how all this is going to proceed and play out, and there is a tremendous amount of uncertainty and unknowns. But it is important to keep in mind some basic principles of the fundamental interests of the masses of people, and the potential dynamics between splits atop society and their interaction with mass actions from below:

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

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

Stay tuned to this site—and the Revolution—Nothing Less! Show on YouTube—for updates as the situation develops, and more commentary.

 


1. According to news reports, a top candidate Trump is considering is Amy Coney Barrett—a judge on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. She belongs to a Christian fascist group called People of Praise. According to the Daily Mail, “The group’s ultra-conservative religious tenets helped spur author Margaret Atwood to publish The Handmaid’s Tale, a story about a religious takeover of the U.S. government which is now a hit TV show, according to a 1986 interview with the writer. Members of the group swear a lifelong oath of loyalty, called a covenant, to one another. They are also assigned and held accountable to a personal adviser, known until recently as a ‘head’ for men and a ‘handmaid’ for women.” [back]

2. When Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia died on February 13, 2016, McConnell declared almost immediately that no nominee by then-President Barack Obama to replace Scalia will be considered by the Republican-controlled Senate. This was more than 11 months before Obama’s replacement would be sworn in. When Obama went ahead and nominated Merrick Garland, the chief judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, to fill the vacant Supreme Court seat, McConnell and the Republicans blocked even any hearings on the nomination in the Senate and the seat went unfilled until Trump won the election and put in Neil Gorsuch. Clearly, it’s extreme hypocrisy for McConnell to now declare he will forge ahead with any Trump nominee to replace Ginsburg, less than two months before the election. [back]

3. There is a good possibility that if the presidential election does go on, and the vote count is close, it will go to the Supreme Court. In the 2000 presidential election, with a very close election between George W. Bush and Al Gore that hung on a ballot recount in Florida, the Republicans argued successfully at the Supreme Court to stop the Florida recount. This essentially threw the election to Bush based on the electoral college, although Gore had won the popular vote by a significant margin. Brett Kavanaugh, a Christian fascist put on the Supreme Court by Trump, was a member of the Bush legal team in 2000 that won the Supreme Court case on the Florida recount. [back]

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/667/amy-coney-barrett-on-the-supreme-court-en.html

Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court? A “Home Run” for Fascism and Oppression; an Imminent Threat to Abortion and All Reproductive Rights

| revcom.us

 

Editors’ note as we go to press: In line with the Trump/Pence regime’s full-bore drive towards fascism, the Republi-fascist party is racing to install one of “their people” on the Supreme Court to fill the vacancy created by the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Trump has nominated Amy Coney Barrett (a judge Trump previously appointed to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals).

As we wrote before, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced they—the Nazi-Republicans—intend to immediately appoint another Supreme Court Justice within hours of Ginsburg’s death becoming public. The fact that McConnell in 2016 refused to allow the Senate to even consider Barack Obama’s nominee for a court vacancy on the grounds that such nominees should not even be considered during an election year points to the hypocrisy of the fascists, and their relentless drive to cement into place a fascist—Christian fascist—America. Barrett’s appointment will seal into place a Christian fascist majority on the Supreme Court for decades to come, with an increasingly disproportionate role in setting terms and policies for the country as a whole.

From the fascists’ perspective and goals, there is another immediate-term reason for trying to rush through such an appointment. Hours after Ginsburg’s death, Ted Cruz indicated to the New Yorker that the vote and appointment need to happen before Election Day to “insure a solid conservative majority on the Court and avoid the possibility of a tie in the event of a challenge to the election’s result.” Since then Trump and his fascist lackeys have openly and explicitly doubled down on this rationale, with Trump saying the election “will end up in the Supreme Court, and I think it’s very important that we have nine Justices,” i.e. stacking the odds for a fascist majority that rules in his favor. This is part of their overall strategy of perverting and stealing the election, ensuring the continuity of the Trump/Pence regime.

The belly-crawling capitulation of top Democrats so far has been remarkable.

Soon after the announcement, Democratic Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said, “Let me be clear: If Leader McConnell and Senate Republicans move forward with this, then nothing is off the table for next year” (with an implied expectation of a Democratic majority after these elections). For next year!?! The Nazi-Republicans are talking about jamming this appointment through right now, by November 3, and Schumer is talking about next year, i.e. allowing this to go through with no real fight being waged—from procedural blocks at the hands of the Democrats to sitting in and getting arrested on the Senate floor to stop this travesty. Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi could have shut down the government by blocking funding and leveraging that to slow down the confirmation process. But she took that option off the table, declaring it “harmful and shameful.” What can we do, say the feckless Democrats!

As we go to press, led by Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer, the Democrats are seeking to frame whatever lame-ass opposition they do mount on the likelihood that Barrett would overturn Obamacare; they are NOT doing so on the terms of the right of women to abortion, which Barrett is firmly opposed to, or the fact that, as we show below, she believes that her faith should inform judgments, and the “legal career is but a means to an end ... that end is building the kingdom of God.” The latter alone should automatically disqualify her, but the Democrats have announced that they “don’t want to get personal,” i.e., question her beliefs. This is further evidence and manifestation of what Bob Avakian has said about the Democrats:

In sum, the Democrats, being who and what they are, will not and cannot deal with all this—neither the election, nor the larger situation in which this election is taking place and the profound stakes that are actually involved—in any way other than on the terms, and within the limits, established by this system, which has produced this fascism, and to large degree on the terms set by the fascists themselves.

Fascists—the Christian fascists in particular—are practically jumping for joy about the prospect of Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court and are mobilizing support for the fight for her nomination to be approved by the Senate. In conjunction with the official announcement of her nomination, and rallying for the election ahead, Franklin Graham, the Christian fascist leader, led a march of tens of thousands in Washington saying “the country is in trouble” and the people “need to pray for Donald Trump.” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony List, said, “She is the perfect combination of brilliant jurist and a woman who brings the argument to the court that is potentially the contrary to the views of the sitting women justices.” The Associated Press said Barrett “is hailed by religious conservatives and others on the right as an ideological heir to conservative icon Antonin Scalia.” The New York Times said her appointment would be “viewed as a home run by conservative Christians and anti-abortion activists.”

Why are they so excited?

First, Barrett is a polished, appealing, and intelligent female representative of a religious outlook and political program that aims to subjugate women, as well as LGBTQ people.

In 2015, she signed a letter to a Synod [gathering] of Bishops, pledging “fidelity” to “the Doctrines of the Catholic Church,” including specifically “the value of human life from conception to natural death.” (Emphasis added.) This doctrine means that every fertilized egg is a full human being, and therefore every abortion is “murder.”1 In this view the fertilized egg is a “valued human,” but the woman whose body that egg is part of is not; she no longer even has the right to decide whether or not to bear children.

While Barrett has never explicitly called for overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion, she has also refused to say that it shouldn’t be overturned, or to say if she thought that abortion is “always immoral.” And in various judicial decisions or dissents that she has written or signed, she has consistently weighed in on the side of outrageous restrictions on abortion rights. This includes several Indiana laws: one requiring girls under 18 to get parental consenteven if a judge had already granted permission; another that would prevent women from aborting severely or even fatally deformed fetuses; and still another requiring the “burial” of fetal remains after an abortion—yet another way of insisting that fetuses are “babies,” and of guilt-tripping women.

Barrett and her husband also reportedly2 belong to a cult-like religious group, “People of Praise,” that practices speaking in tongues, belief in prophecy and divine healing, and whose members try to live near each other. Committed members take a vow of lifelong dedication to the group. People of Praise “teaches that men have authority over their wives,” opposes abortion and same-sex marriage and, until 2018, assigned a “handmaid” as an “advisor” to each female member.

Second, Barrett leans strongly towards treating the law as subordinate to Christian beliefs.

In a 1998 law journal article, she and her co-author argued that Church prohibitions on abortion and euthanasia are “absolute” because they “take away innocent life.” And they indicated they did not agree with a statement by former Supreme Court Justice William Brennan that in a conflict between his Catholic faith and his duties as a justice, he would be governed by “the oath I took to support the Constitution and laws of the United States.”

In a 2006 commencement address at Notre Dame law school (where she taught), she urged students to “always keep in mind that your legal career is but a means to an end ... that end is building the kingdom of God.... [I]f you can keep in mind that your fundamental purpose in life is not to be a lawyer, but to know, love, and serve God, you truly will be a different kind of lawyer.”

The above quotes point to an outlook that subordinates law and the Constitution to religious belief, which should disqualify her from any position on the judiciary, far less on the highest court of the land.

Third, Barrett holds to the legal theory of “originalism.”

Originalism argues that judges should interpret the Constitution according to its “original meaning” to its authors. Given that when the “Founding Fathers” said “All men are created equal,” they did not mean or intend that this should apply to Black or Native people, to women or to gay people, “originalism” obstructs progressive social change. It can also roll back changes that have already taken place: Barrett has said that adherence to precedent (upholding past court decisions) could be “unlawful” if it conflicts with the Constitution’s “original meaning.” This puts Roe v. Wade in direct jeopardy, since the Constitution’s authors certainly were not thinking about abortion rights! And conceivably rulings like Brown v. Board of Education that barred segregation in schools could also be found to be “unlawful.”

Fourth, Barrett seems to almost always find a way—and a well-crafted legal argument—to come down on the cruel and fascistic side of things.

As Slate.com put it, “Barrett has either written or joined a remarkable number of opinions that harm unpopular and powerless individuals who rely on the judiciary to safeguard their rights. Faced with two plausible readings of a law, fact, or precedent, Barrett always seems to choose the harsher, stingier interpretation.”

For instance, she supported a Trump regime rule that disadvantaged green card applicants if they had ever used any public benefit. Barrett argued that this was not an “unreasonable” interpretation of existing law and an effort to spare the public of any “burden.” But she ignored the fact that this rule would be a tremendous burden on immigrants, forcing them to choose between giving up on everything from medical care to school lunches for their kids, or run a strong risk of being disqualified for citizenship. And in 2017 she criticized Chief Justice John Roberts’ vote that prevented the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or “Obamacare”) from being eliminated, which would have deprived about 20 million people of health insurance. (The upcoming session of the Supreme Court will hear another challenge to ACA and most observers think that given the opportunity, Barrett would vote to end it.)

Conclusion

And all this is only scratching the surface. The fascists have good reason to want to see Barrett on the Court—and everybody else has extremely good reason to work to prevent that, most centrally by driving out the Trump/Pence regime as a whole.

 


1. This letter also upheld the doctrines of “the significance of sexual difference and the complementarity of men and women ... and on marriage and family founded on the indissoluble commitment of a man and a woman”—i.e., implicit support for the subordinate position of women in society, and explicit opposition to same-sex marriage.  [back]

2. This was reported by the New York Times in 2017. Neither Barrett nor the People of Praise have ever confirmed—or denied—the report. It is generally accepted as true even by her allies.  [back]

See also:

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

by Bob Avakian

Read more

and

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

by Bob Avakian

Read more

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/667/to-those-who-feel-time-is-out-of-joint-en.html

Contribution from a reader:

To Those Who Feel "The Time Is Out of Joint"...

| revcom.us

 

Who are in anguish over a situation they see is already horrific and who dread where it seems so relentlessly headed and yet remain Hamlet-like, hobbled by denial and fear, unable to act decisively against the sea of troubles that now threatens humanity: let us remember the outcome of Hamlet’s refusal to act, and make sure we do not end up in Elsinore Castle, Act V, Scene ii.

There is a way to act, now, to stop the fascism already with its hands gripping the levers of power from making a further, decisive leap in consolidating itself through an election which is already being stolen; an election in which violence in the service of the fascist Trump/Pence regime is not only contemplated and encouraged, but perpetrated. By all means vote; but voting is not enough, necessary but not sufficient.

In this crucial moment, there is the vision and possibility of a determined fight and massive nonviolent mobilization that could end this. Go here and here to find out more. The stakes are enormous.

 

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

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/666/louisville-pigs-get-away-with-murder-of-breonna-taylor-en.html

Louisville Pigs Get Away with MURDER of Breonna Taylor

| revcom.us

 

This System MUST Be Overthrown! Revolution, Nothing Less!

Trump/Pence Fascist Regime OUT NOW!

INTO THE STREETS!!!

The terrible injustice of what happened to Breonna Taylor, murdered by police who busted into her apartment while she slept in her bed, moved millions; they "said her name." Now her name must again ring through the streets.

In March of this year, Louisville pigs suddenly forced their way into the apartment of Breonna Taylor, in a raid that should never have happened, and killed her in a burst of gunfire. Today, the Kentucky attorney general announced a grand jury decision that held none of the cops accountable for the murder of Breonna.

The whitewash of the murder of Breonna Taylor by refusing to hold any of the police who were in on it at all legally accountable—not even indicting any of them for what was done to her*—is an outrage on top of the original outrage. The terrible injustice of what happened to her moved millions; they “said her name.” Now her name must again ring through the streets. In no way can we allow the verdict of society to be that this is somehow okay, and somehow not demanding of massive waves of protest. Without protest, without struggle, without rising up as was done in the spring and early summer, Black people will be thrust into even worse horrors and outrages, worse oppression.

It is hurtful beyond hurting, enraging beyond rage, to see this injustice happen yet again. Yet this has gone on in this country since 1619 in one form or another. Through the horrific centuries of slavery, which is the foundation of the “great wealth” this capitalist country likes to brag about... to the decades of lynching and segregation and denial of all rights... to the current system of mass incarceration and police terror to enforce continued discrimination and oppressed: this is dug deep into the flesh and blood of this system. That system has a name: capitalism-imperialism. And that system cannot be reformed in any way that will give justice to Black people. IT MUST BE OVERTHROWN!

Since the rising earlier this year sparked by the pig murder of George Floyd, Donald Trump has not only continued to support all manner of crimes by police, he has doubled down on this in the name of “law and order”—a racist codeword for exactly the kind of horror that happened to Breonna Taylor. He has professed his “love” for the pigs, he threatened the protestors, he has called for repression and major charges against those who lift their heads and organize others to do so, and he has actually applauded those who have murdered the protestors for Black lives. This too has a name: FASCISM. And the genocidal assault against Black people, and everyone who is not a white Christian American, is at the heart of this regime. This regime must urgently and immediately be defeated. And bringing together these two streams of struggle — against police murder and institutional racism, and to drive out the Trump-Pence fascist regime — is urgently needed if masses of people are to have any kind of future at all.

Into the Streets!

 


* One cop was indicted for "reckless endangerment," not for the killing of Breonna Taylor, but for blindly shooting into the homes of other residents of the apartment complex where Breonna lived.  [back]

Breonna Taylor

See also:

A Terrible Injustice: Kentucky Attorney General Declares Police Murder of Breonna Taylor "Justified"

Read more

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The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

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

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

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

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/666/people-rage-nationwide-against-murder-of-breonna-taylor-en.html

Protesters in Louisville Continue to Stand Up Against Violent Pigs and Fascists...

People Rage Nationwide Against Heartless Murder of Breonna Taylor

Updated | revcom.us

 

On Friday night, September 25, Breonna Taylor’s name rang out in the streets as people poured out in Louisville and in many cities across the country—for a third day after the announcement on Wednesday that a grand jury decided no charges will be filed against any cop for murdering Breonna in cold blood.1 In Louisville, the protests have been overwhelmingly peaceful, but the police and city authorities have come down with outrageous repression. Curfews have been declared, and the police have labeled groups of protesters they target as an “unlawful assembly” to justify cracking down violently. Groups of heavily armed white fascists have been going around openly in the city streets. On Thursday, one of the more than 125 arrested was Attica Scott, the only Black woman in the Kentucky state legislature. Police swept Scott and others off the streets as they approached the First Unitarian Church, which was offering sanctuary to protesters. Scott, charged with felony first-degree “riot,” was out in the streets the next day with hundreds of others.

In New York City, hundreds marched in Brooklyn and Manhattan, at one point stopping traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge. Thousands took to the streets in Boston; one marcher said, “It makes me sick to see my sisters gunned down, in the streets, in their homes, while their murderers walk away free—free to continue to terrorize our neighborhoods.”

People continued to take to the streets on Saturday, September 26. In Louisville, a diverse crowd of about 500 marched, and as the 9 pm curfew approached, the police announced that anyone who remained at Jefferson Square Park would be arrested. Some went to the First Unitarian church that has been acting as sanctuary for protesters. The police arrested about 25 people. One protester said, “Since when does protest have a curfew? Since when does freedom and civil rights have a curfew?”

In New York City, hundreds gathered at the Barclay Center again and then marched across the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan. At Washington Square Park, riot pigs attacked a few dozen people who were playing music and dancing as their way of peacefully protesting. After the police seized their sound equipment, people marched to the 6th Precinct station where they were met by a large group of pigs who attacked protesters. According to witnesses and video footage, dozens of pigs charged into protesters near an intersection without any apparent provocation, taking a dozen or so into custody and arresting four.

Other larger marches and rallies took place Portland, Oregon; Nashville, Tennessee; Chicago; Washington, DC; Raleigh, North Carolina; Kansas City; Boston; and Baltimore. There were smaller demonstrations in Sacramento, California; Worcester, Massachusetts; Greenville, South Carolina; Poughkeepsie, New York; Akron, Ohio; Daytona Beach, Florida; and more.

As revcom.us said about the non-indictment of the murdering pigs, “It is hurtful beyond hurting, enraging beyond rage, to see this injustice happen yet again.” Tamika Palmer, Breonna’s mother, said in a statement about the police, “What [Cameron] helped me realize was that it will always be ‘us against them’—that we are never safe when it comes to them. Mattingly [one of the cops involved in the murder of Breonna Taylor], in an e-mail, called us ‘animals’ and ‘thugs.’ It’s clear that that is the way they will always see us.”

In a press conference on Friday, Benjamin Crump, one of the attorneys on the Breonna Taylor family’s legal team, described the pledges of support that have flowed in from many other families of victims of police and racist murder: among them, George Floyd, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and Dijon Kizzee. Jacob Blake Sr., whose son is recovering from seven bullets fired into his back by Kenosha, Wisconsin,  police, attended the press conference in person.

Demand for the Truth About the Outrageous Grand Jury Decision

One of the key demands raised by the Breonna Taylor family’s lawyers and by protesters broadly is that Kentucky attorney general Daniel Cameron release the actual proceedings of the grand jury in coming up with their outrageous decision. Cameron was the special prosecutor that “presented” the case before the grand jury.

Benjamin Crump said at the Friday press conference, “Did [Cameron] present any evidence on Breonna’s behalf? Or did he make a unilateral decision to put his thumb on the scales of justice to help exonerate and justify the killing of Breonna Taylor by these police officers, and in doing so, make sure that Breonna Taylor’s family never got their day in court, never got their chance for due process, and in essence, denied them justice?”

Crump went on to say, “We question what evidence did the Kentucky attorney general send to the grand jury. Did he tell them about the probable cause affidavit that had a lie2 on the affidavit which was the basis for which the judge signed this no-knock warrant in the first place to allow them to be at Breonna’s apartment and bust open her door? Because if he didn’t send that... well, what did he argue on behalf of Breonna’s behalf?

“Did he tell them about the 12 neighbors that Sam Aguilar’s office [legal team involved in the Breonna Taylor family’s civil suit against the city] interviewed and recorded that lived in close proximity of Breonna’s apartment that all said they did not hear the police knock and announce their presence? Did he let them testify before the grand jury? Did he allow the one neighbor who they keep proclaiming that heard the police knock and announce, testify before the grand jury, even though... on two previous occasions, he declared that he did not hear the police knock and announce?...

“Did he let cops who shot over 30 rounds of bullets in Breonna’s apartment, one from outside the apartment shooting recklessly and blindly, and the others who shot bullets into her body, did he allow them to testify before the grand jury? Did he allow Breonna’s boyfriend, Kenny Walker,3 to testify before the grand jury?

“Did he talk about them sending the ambulance away before they executed this no-knock warrant, violating their own policies and procedures, knowing that these no-knock warrants are dangerous? And it was foreseeable that somebody could be injured, a citizen or police or third party innocent bystander, like Breonna Taylor, who lived in that apartment, who had every right to be legally in that apartment, who did not have a gun, who was only clothed in her nightclothes and had every right to live and breathe in her apartment? Did he present that to the grand jury? If he didn’t present these things to the grand jury, what kind of sham grand jury proceeding was this?”

***

Murder after murder of Black, Brown, and Native American people by police and racists... and the killer pigs walking away free time after time—all this is INTOLERABLE. And it is deeply righteous—and absolutely necessary—for people to be in the streets day after day, in determined struggle, against this injustice.

 


1. The one pig, among the three directly involved in the killing of Breonna Taylor, indicted for anything was charged with “wanton endangerment,” for firing blindly from outside Breonna’s apartment through a covered window.  [back]

2. A detective who obtained the warrant used by cops against Breonna Taylor claimed that he had verified with a U.S. Postal Service inspector that Taylor had been receiving packages on behalf of a former boyfriend, who was a police target in a drug case. But this claim was shown to be false.  [back]

3. Walker was in the apartment with Breonna when they were woken up by what they thought were home invaders forcing their way in through their door. Walker insists that he and Breonna did not hear the police announce themselves before suddenly bursting into the apartment.  [back]


Louisville, Friday, September 25. Photo: AP


Press Conference, September 25 with the family of Breonna Taylor and Benjamin Crump, their attorney. AP photo


Brooklyn Bridge, NYC, September 25.


Louisville, September 26. (Photo: Max Gersh/Courier Journal)

See also:

 

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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.

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/666/tamika-palmer-i-am-an-angry-black-woman-en.html

Tamika Palmer, Breonna Taylor’s Mother:
Am an Angry Black Woman

| revcom.us

 

At a press conference in Louisville on Friday, September 25, a letter from Tamika Palmer, Breonna Taylor’s mother, was read by Bianca Austin, Tamika’s sister and Breonna’s aunt. Austin wore the emergency medical technician jacket that Breonna had worn. The following is a transcript of the letter that was read.

I never had faith in [Kentucky attorney general] Daniel Cameron to begin with. I knew he was too inexperienced to deal with the job of this caliber. I knew he had already chosen to be on the wrong side of the law. The moment he went into the grand jury to make the decision, what I had hoped was that he knew he had the power to do the right thing, that he had the power to start the healing of the city, that he had the power to help mend over 400 years of oppression. What he helped me realize was that it will always be “us against them”—that we are never safe when it comes to them. Mattingly [one of the cops involved in the murder of Breonna Taylor], in an e-mail, called us “animals” and “thugs.” It’s clear that that is the way they will always see us.

I was reassured Wednesday [when Cameron made the announcement that no cops are charged with the killing of Breonna] of why I have no faith in the legal system and the police and the law that are not made to protect us Black and brown people. But when I speak on it, I’m considered an “angry Black woman.” But know this. I am an angry Black woman. I am not angry for the reasons that you would like me to be, but angry because our Black women keep dying at the hands of police officers and Black men. Angry because our children are dying at the hands of police officers. And I’m angry, because this nation is learning that our Black women are dying at the hands of police officers, and this is not okay.

You can take the dog out of the fight, but you can’t take the fight out of the dog. For a lack of better terms, bark, bark for being the dog still standing to fight. I knew Cameron would never do his job, but what I do know is that him and countless others will go to bed sleeping with Breonna’s face, still hearing her say her name. Cameron alone didn’t fail her, but it ended with a lack of investigation failed her. The officer who told a lie to obtain the search warrant failed her. The judge who signed the search warrant failed her. The terrorists who broke down her door failed her. The system as a whole has failed her. You didn’t just rob me of my family, you robbed the world of a queen. A queen willing to do a job that most of us could never stomach to do, a queen willing to build up anyone around her, a queen who was starting to pave her path.

I hope you never have to know the pain of knowing your child is in need of help and you’re not able to give it. I hope you never hear the sounds of seeing someone cry and beg for your child to get help, and she never receives help. Those cries were ignored. I hope you never know the pain of your child being murdered 191 days in a row.


Breonna Taylor and Tamika Palmer

See also:

 

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

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

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

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

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

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

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

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/666/the-truth-about-how-louisville-pigs-murdered-breonna-taylor-en.html

The Outrageous Facts Brought Together Reveal...

The TRUTH About How Louisville Pigs Murdered Breonna Taylor

| revcom.us

 

Editors’ Note: We recently posted a “Check it out” about a documentary by Yoruba Richen now streaming on Hulu and FX as a New York Times presentation—The Killing of Breonna Taylor. Here, a reader draws on the investigation brought alive in that documentary and news reports to pull together the story of Breonna’s murder, and the cover-up by the police.

Breonna Taylor was a 26-year-old Black woman with big dreams for her future. She worked as an EMT, and was studying to be a registered nurse. Breonna inspired everyone who knew her, and her death has been crushing. She was sure 2020 would be “her year.” But on March 13, three Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) cops crushed those dreams in a barrage of over 30 bullets.

Breonna and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were in bed when, after midnight, they were awakened by a loud bang on the door. Kenneth says they were both “scared to death.” Breonna yelled “Who is it?” but there was no answer. They both got up and heard a second knock on the door. This time Breonna yelled “Who is it?” at the top of her lungs. No response. Terrified, thinking they were about to be attacked, Kenneth grabbed his gun, which he was licensed to carry but had never used outside of a range.

Suddenly the door came crashing off its hinges, and Kenneth fired a warning shot, which may have hit the leg of one of the pigs that had just burst through the door. Then three plainclothes’ pigs opened fire wildly, showering the apartment, and apartments nearby, with bullets. One neighbor heard a cop shout “reload.” Breonna was struck six times, fatally, and fell to the floor. In the documentary The Killing of Breonna Taylor, you hear Kenneth, crying as he makes a 911 call to say Breonna has been shot and pleading for the police to help—not realizing that the police were the very ones who had just murdered the love of his life.

Breonna’s body lay for hours in a pool of blood. Breonna’s mother, Tamika Palmer, who came to the apartment desperately trying to find her daughter, was only told after 11 hours that her daughter had been shot to death. She had to watch the news to learn she’d been shot by the police. Kenneth Walker was arrested and accused of attempted murder of a cop—for firing his gun in self-defense. The charges were dropped at the end of May, without prejudice, meaning they can be reinstated at any time.

The three pigs who did the shooting weren’t interviewed until 12 days after their invasion. They had gotten a “no knock” search warrant to break into Breonna’s apartment, signed by a judge. Jonathan Mattingly, the pig who was shot, said without explaining that the “no knock” search warrant approved by a judge was changed verbally to a “knock and announce” warrant just before the raid. Mattingly admitted that the police knocked on the door twice without announcing who they were, just as Kenneth described. And while Mattingly goes on to claim they eventually identified themselves before smashing through the door with a battering ram, of all the people interviewed at the apartment building where the murder took place, only one could say he heard them say “police.”

The LMPD’s official “incident report,” not released until three months later, was a lie and cover-up. The report was almost entirely blank. Breonna’s injuries were listed as “None.” And it said there was no forced entry.

Finally, after six months, on September 23, Kentucky attorney general Daniel Cameron announced the “result” of the grand jury investigation. No charges were brought against the three cops for killing Breonna. The only one charged at all was Brett Hankison, for “reckless endangerment”—not for the bullets he fired from the outside through the window into Breonna’s bedroom, but the ones that struck the surrounding neighbors’ apartments. Hankison has already been fired by the police department—and it came out after his firing that there were more than 20 complaints against him for excessive use of force and sexual assault complaints by a dozen women. None of these complaints had ever made it into his personnel file.

Why Was Breonna Taylor Targeted and Murdered?

Breonna’s apartment was one of five targeted for “no knock” warrants issued for the night of March 13, allegedly for the search for one suspect, Jamarcus Glover, and drugs and cash. These warrants, issued by a judge, let cops smash down people’s doors and enter private homes without warning. They’re supposedly issued to prevent evidence of a crime from being destroyed, if there are security cameras that could alert the residents, or if they have reason to believe the cops’ lives would be endangered because of nature of the crime or previous experience with the suspect. These were the justifications the judge signed off on to allow the pigs to smash into Breonna’s apartment.

But none of these conditions existed.The apartment complex was not in a high-crime area, there were no cameras, and there was no reason for the cops to anticipate trouble. Further, Glover only had two previous arrests involving drugs—one 12 years earlier for dealing in another state, the other six years ago for possession—and no arrests involving violence. It also turned out Glover had already been picked up before they went to Breonna’s apartment to find him. And no stashed drugs, or money, were ever found in Breonna’s apartment.

In fact, the main targets that night were three apartments on Elliot Avenue in West Louisville, a whole other part of town. This is an area with a high concentration of poverty, terrible housing, and the crime and drugs that result. It’s also an area city officials have planned for gentrification. Lawyers for Breonna’s family link her killing to an LMPD operation aimed at clearing out a block of Elliot Avenue to make way for a “high dollar, legacy-creating” real estate project called Vision Russell. They allege in court documents that a controversial new police unit—Place-Based Investigations (PBI)—had “deliberately misled” narcotics detectives to target the home that Glover was renting on Elliott Avenue by convincing them that some of the city’s largest violent crime and drug rings were located there. They believe Glover was unjustly targeted by PBI in order to evict him from the home so the city could buy it, which they have now done.

Breonna and her apartment became a target because Glover was a former boyfriend of Breonna’s. The cops justified adding Breonna’s address to the list of warrants by claiming they had evidence she was letting him use her place to receive and store drugs and money. The PBI cop who wrote the search warrant affidavit was caught lying about the crucial “evidence” he used, and is now on “administrative leave” until questions about “how and why the search warrant was approved” have been answered, according to a police statement.

The life of this young Black woman was perhaps most beautifully described by her mother, Tamika Palmer, who told the Cut: “I just think she was destined to be great. Breonna just loved life, and people gravitated towards her. She lit up a room and had this aura about herself.”

Breonna Taylor, “Say Her Name!” Stop this system’s genocidal persecution, mass incarceration, police brutality, and murder of Black and Brown people!

Georgetown law professor Paul Butler enacts a mock opening argument he would give if he were a prosecutor in the trial of the three cops who killed Breonna Taylor.

Download poster:

See also:

  • LOUISVILLE PIGS GET AWAY WITH MURDER OF BREONNA TAYLOR
    Read more

  • Protestors in Louisville Continue to Stand Up Against Violent Pigs and Fascists...
    People Rage Nationwide Against Heartless Murder of Breonna Taylor
    Read more

  • Tamika Palmer, Breonna Taylor's Mother:
    I Am an Angry Black Woman
    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.

 

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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.

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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)

 

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

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/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.

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/666/how-fascism-works-and-how-to-stop-it-an-online-dialogue-between-jason-stanley-and-andy-zee-en.html

How Fascism Works, and How to Stop It: An Online Dialogue between Jason Stanley and Andy Zee

| revcom.us

 

Virtual program on Facebook and YouTube,

co-hosted by Revolution Books NYC/Berkeley and the
Brooklyn Book Festival

The “F” word-fascism. Can it happen here? Is it happening here? What to do?

Yale philosopher Jason Stanley, author of How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them, and Andy Zee, Revolution Books spokesperson and co-initiator of RefuseFascism.org, will probe this most urgent question of our times. And you will have a chance to engage with them.

Only by understanding and fully confronting the danger we face can we act to stop it, before it’s too late.

These are the facts.

Jason Stanley and Andy Zee will explore the lessons of history and the appropriate forms of action... to stop fascism.

Jason Stanley is a Yale philosopher and author of How Fascism Works.

Andy Zee is co-initiator of RefuseFascism.org and spokesperson for Revolution Books.

Buy Jason Stanley’s book, How Fascism Works, on Revolution Books’ shopping page here.

This event is part of RB’s emergency programming:

60 Defiant Days From Revolution Books:
Talks, Dialogue, Performance
In the Name of Humanity,
The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!

Call and Invitation...

60 Defiant Days from Revolution Books:
Talks, Dialogue, Performance.

In the Name of Humanity,
The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!

 

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

 

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

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

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

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

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

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

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

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/665/a-reflection-occasioned-by-the-death-of-anarchist-anthropologist-david-graeber-en.html

A Reflection Occasioned by the Death of Anarchist Anthropologist David Graeber

Struggles, Principles, Unity, and the Challenges Ahead

| revcom.us

 

David Graeber was an outspoken critic of the howling inequalities of U.S. society and the world. He was instrumental in coining the watchword of the Occupy movement, “We are the 99%.” From an anarchist perspective, he sought to put scholarship in the service of justice and change, especially with a study of “Debt,” historically as both an instrument and manifestation of exploitation and oppression.

David Graeber died in early September. We mourn his passing.

David Graeber did his early research on magic, slavery, and politics. He explored and condemned how the toxic union of capitalism and advanced technology robbed human beings of meaningful work and moral and spiritual purpose. Inspired and moved into political life by the anti-globalization struggles of the late 1990s, Graeber threw himself into the maelstrom of important political struggles, most significantly Occupy Wall Street, for which he was a major—and leading*—theorist. Refused tenure by Yale University, a decision that sparked outrage and protest among progressive people, he eventually found an academic home in Europe.

Occupy Wall Street took place in 2011. It involved thousands of people in scores of cities in sustained, militant protest against inequality. Occupy broke open a stultifying political atmosphere and inspired people all over before being crushed by coordinated repression by the ruling class after several months of protest encampments.

As Bob Avakian commented in the early days of Occupy, in his statement, A REFLECTION ON THE "OCCUPY" MOVEMENT: AN INSPIRING BEGINNING...AND THE NEED TO GO FURTHER:

The main—and, up to this point at least, the overwhelming—aspect of these "Occupy" protests has been their very positive thrust: in mobilizing people to stand up against injustice and inequality and the domination of economic, social and political life, and international relations, by a super-rich elite class whose interests are in opposition to those of the great majority of people; and in contributing in significant ways to an atmosphere in which people are raising and wrangling with big questions about the state of society and the world and whether and how something much better can be brought into being.

At the same time, as Bob Avakian analyzed in his statement, while Occupy inspired millions to stand up against the ruling class and raise their heads and question, it was ultimately constrained by and further cemented frameworks, theoretical structures of analysis, and approach that:

[do] not and cannot measure up to the reality of what is actually required to fundamentally uproot and transform a society, and indeed a world, marked by and grounded in profound inequalities and relations of oppression and exploitation, within every country and in the domination by a handful of powerful, imperial powers over the great majority of countries in the world and the great mass of humanity.

As one example, Graeber himself, in Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, took issue with the idea of a “revolution,” as the actual overthrow of the system of capitalism-imperialism, instead calling forth the continual accumulation of resistance and counter-community within the current system, such as the development of autonomous zones. In 2012, even while learning from some of his insights and research, we wrote a short and sharp polemic on the problems with Graeber’s perspective and reading of history (“Four Questions for David Graeber”). To get to a radically different and far better world requires the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist-imperialist state power. It requires the creation of a new state power and liberatory, planned socialist economy that enable oppressed humanity to go to work on uprooting exploitation, oppression, and inequality and protecting the planet—as part of a world process of the emancipation of all of humanity. This is necessary, this is desirable, and this is viable.1

But these were differences between people on the same side of the barricades, so to speak. One thing that marked David Graeber was his openness to other points of view, to disagreement and debate, and our engagements and struggle were principled, grounded in standing with the exploited, and in unity against the oppressive powers that be.

Humanity confronts an existential moment, with howling inequalities intensifying with the global pandemic, a rapidly warming planet, and fascism in ascendance globally, including here in the U.S. If ever there was a time for radical intellectuals and youth, for those like or inspired by David Graeber, to sound the alarm, to bring light and conviction and help galvanize and unite millions, including right NOW in the struggle to oust this fascist regime... it is NOW. And as we join and fight together, let’s have robust and principled debate. This is about the future of humanity and the planet.

In memoriam, David Graeber!

 

 

* Leadership is a highly contested notion in anarchist circles. But as has been recognized by a number of anarchists themselves in writing about David Graeber, including, for example in the New York Review of Books compilation, he was one of the main intellectual architects of the vision, program, and framework of Occupy, and of other anarchist struggles. This is objectively leadership—through line—through putting forth and winning others to an analysis of reality, of what is the problem and what is the solution, of what is to be done.  [back]

Despite this, and in fact, Graeber was an advocate of and provided a lot of backing for the idea of “horizontal” movements (as opposed to “hierarchical”), as a means of social change and model of a different society. This is addressed in Bob Avakian’s statement A REFLECTION ON THE "OCCUPY" MOVEMENT: AN INSPIRING BEGINNING...AND THE NEED TO GO FURTHER 


1. For more, see Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, and the talk WHY WE NEED AN ACTUAL REVOLUTION AND HOW WE CAN REALLY MAKE REVOLUTION (Part 1 videoPart 2 videoText) by Bob Avakian. [back]

David Graeber

David Graeber (Photo: AP)

 

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

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

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

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

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

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

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

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/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.

 

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

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

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

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

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

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

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

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/667/the-fascist-assault-667-en.html

The Fascist Assault

Trump and Barr Threaten "Anarchist Jurisdiction" Cities with Funding Cut-offs... Florida Governor Pushes New Anti-Protest Laws and Punishments... Regime Opens Alaska Wilderness to Unfettered Plunder

| revcom.us

 

The Trump/Pence regime is moving rapidly, aggressively, and in many dimensions to develop and implement fascism. Below are some recent measures taken by the regime and other fascist forces, or that came to light in recent weeks.

Trump and Barr Threaten to Put a Chokehold on Cities Declared to Be “Anarchist Jurisdictions”

On September 2, Donald Trump issued a memorandum declaring that “anarchy has recently beset some of our States and cities.” He mentioned Portland, Seattle, and New York in particular, as besieged by “violence and destruction.” Trump threatened that his regime “will not allow Federal tax dollars to fund cities that allow themselves to deteriorate into lawless zones.”

On September 21, Trump’s attorney general William Barr announced that, after an “investigation” mandated by Trump’s memorandum, the Department of “Justice” (DOJ) he heads is designating those three cities as “jurisdictions permitting violence and destruction of property.” He threatened to remove federal funding from them. The amount Barr is threatening to withhold is not clear, but New York City alone receives about $7 billion in federal aid each year. Barr said, “It is my hope that the cities identified by the Department of Justice today will reverse course and become serious about performing the basic function of government and start protecting their own citizens.”

In fact, police forces in these cities, as in cities and towns across the country, have been brutalizing and arresting hundreds of people. The threats to these cities by Trump and Barr are integral to inflicting even more ferocious repression of mass protests and uprisings against police murder and brutality, and other atrocities of the fascist regime.

Punishing, silencing, and disempowering Democratic Party opponents who stand in the way of consolidating fascism is also one of the primary focuses of the Trump/Pence regime. All three of the cities targeted by Barr are led by Democratic mayors. Sending federal storm troopers to these cities, as Trump did in Portland, and threatening to cut off federal funding—these are not “cheap political games” as the mayors of the three cities declared in a joint letter to Trump. They are part of a deadly serious and rapidly escalating effort by the fascist regime to crush and suppress all opposition, including that within the ranks of the ruling class and its political representatives.

Time is short and the need is urgent. The Trump/Pence regime must be driven from power before it fully consolidates fascism.


Sending federal storm troopers to Democratic run cities, as Trump did in Portland (above), and threatening to cut off federal funding are part of a deadly serious and rapidly escalating effort by the fascist regime to crush and suppress all opposition, including that within the ranks of the ruling class and its political representatives. Photo: AP

 


Sources

"Department of Justice Identifies New York City, Portland And Seattle As Jurisdictions Permitting Violence And Destruction Of Property," September 21, 2020, U.S. Department of Justice

"Memorandum on Reviewing Funding to State and Local Government Recipients That Are Permitting Anarchy, Violence, and Destruction in American Cities," September 2, 2020, White House.gov

"DoJ labels New York, Portland and Seattle ‘anarchist jurisdictions’," the Guardian, September 21, 2020

"DOJ names New York, Portland, and Seattle ‘anarchist jurisdictions’ that could lose federal funding," USA Today, September 21, 2020

"Has the Amount of Federal Aid to New York Changed Over the Past Five Years?" New York City Independent Budget Office

Back to top

 

Fascist Florida Governor Proposes Harsh New Laws and Punishments Against Protesters

On September 21, Florida’s fascist governor Ron DeSantis, a close ally of the Trump/Pence regime, announced a proposal for a highly repressive and punitive series of anti-protest laws. DeSantis, surrounded by a posse of about a dozen high-ranking cops from across Florida, said, “I look at what goes on in Portland and they’ll have people, they’ll arrest them. These are scraggly looking Antifa types. They get their mugshot taken and then they get released. And it’s like a carousel and on and on it goes. This is a very robust package. I think what it’s saying is we are not going to let Florida go down the road that some of these other places have gone.”

DeSantis’s proposal would, among other things, make felonies out of “participation” in an assembly that allegedly causes damage to property or injury to people, or “destroy(s) or toppl(es) monuments.” It makes “obstructing roadways” a third-degree felony—but says motorists who drive into a protest are “NOT liable for injury or death caused if fleeing for safety from a mob.” It says that anyone convicted of “organize(ing) or fund(ing) a violent or disorderly assembly” would risk liability under Florida’s RICO (racketeering) law—which could make it a first-degree felony punishable by up to 30 years in state prison. Other measures would mandate minimum sentences and “offense enhancements” for people arrested at protests and prevent people convicted of participating in what is determined under this fascist law to be a “violent or disorderly assembly” from receiving state benefits like unemployment and food stamps.

DeSantis’ proposals are intended to intimidate people from mounting meaningful protest against rampaging, murderous police, and other outrages of developing fascism. They will give a green light to, and exonerate in advance, vigilantes who assault protesters with their vehicles. They will provide prosecutors and police with the ability to inflict much more severe punishment than now on anyone arrested at a protest they claim is “violent.” They are not yet law, but DeSantis wants to send them to the Florida legislature in November. And if they become law, they will be part of accelerating efforts by the Trump/Pence regime and their adherents in state and local governments across the country to consolidate fascism.

If Governor DeSantis gets his way, vigilantes who assault protesters with their vehicles, like the one shown here in Los Angeles September 25, would be exonerated in advance.

Many people in Florida have expressed outrage and opposition to DeSantis’ Nazi proposal. This outrage must become manifest as protest in the streets that are part of a massive, sustained, nonviolent nationwide outpouring beginning on October 3, united by the demand “Trump/Pence, OUT NOW!”

 


Sources

Combatting Violence, Disorder and Looting and Law Enforcement Protection Act,” State of Florida

"Florida’s RICO Act," Sammis Law Firm

"Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis calls for legislation aimed at cracking down on disorderly protests," CNN, September 21, 2020

"Florida protest laws could be harshest in nation under DeSantis proposal," Orlando Sentinel, September 23, 2020

Back to top

 

Trump Opens Alaska Wilderness to Capitalist Plunder


The opening up of Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling and mining poses a threat to many species including polar bears, porcupine caribou (seen here) and hundreds of migratory birds.

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) is the largest and most pristine wilderness area remaining in the United States. Its 19 million acres are a place of indescribable beauty and biodiversity. For 10,000 years it has been a home to Native peoples. Wild areas like the ANWR are fast disappearing, in the U.S. and around the world.

On August 17, Trump took the final step in authorizing oil and gas leasing on 1.56 million acres of ANWR’s coastal plain, a change that would transform the region and pose a threat to many of its unique species and put huge amounts of planet-warming carbon into the atmosphere. Within months, trucks weighing up to 90,000 pounds could be conducting tests across the tundra trying to identify oil reserves. Once the land is leased to oil companies, it will be very difficult legally to return them to their previous protected status.

ANWR is not the only wilderness area in Alaska being targeted. One of the first actions when Trump took office was to overturn a ban on drilling off the north Alaska coast. Trump is currently pushing to allow work to begin at the Pebble Mine—a huge open-pit, gold, molybdenum, and copper mine—in Bristol Bay, one of the most important wild salmon fisheries on the planet.

The opening up of ANWR poses a threat to many species including polar bears, Porcupine caribou, and migratory birds. Because the natural world is made up of ecosystems, webs of life interacting with each other and their physical environment, the loss of any of these species threatens to disrupt the whole system in unpredictable ways.

Polar bears, for example, are an endangered species that migrate to ANWR every year. Climate change has already drastically affected their lives. Melting sea ice has made it much more difficult for the polar bears, which do most of their hunting from ice blocks to find food. Drilling in ANWR will make this much worse. Pregnant polar bears dig winter dens in the snow on the coastal plain. The mothers and their newborn cubs could be disturbed or endangered by the heavy trucks or the sonar that the government and oil companies will use in the areas where the bears hibernate. An oil spill would have a devastating effect on the bears. If oil gets in their fur it decreases its ability to keep the bear warm. The bear would need to eat more to make up for the lost energy, and the bears are already finding it difficult to get the food they need.

Porcupine caribou travel over 1,500 miles, the longest migration by any land mammal, to the ANWR coastal plain, where they give birth. Their calving grounds are in the area targeted for drilling. If the caribou are forced to move, the mothers and their young will be much more vulnerable to predators.

The Porcupine caribou are central to the cultural and spiritual identity of the Gwich’in nation. Their 300 villages trace the route of the caribou. They rely on the caribou for food, their clothing is made from caribou skins, soap is made from caribou fat, and drums are made from their hides. For the Gwich’in nation, the fight to stop drilling in ANWR is a struggle for their way of life, their culture, and their existence, and they have been in the forefront of resisting drilling in ANWR.

Close to a million birds representing over 200 species make their home for at least part of the year in ANWR. According to the Audubon Society, “Migratory birds are very sensitive to any changes in their environment. If seasonal habitat is compromised in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, those impacts will cascade throughout migratory corridors, from South America to the Gulf Coast to the Great Plains of North America.”

Nineteen million acres of spectacular, unspoiled nature, unique species with amazing stories, one of the last truly wild areas left on the planet, ecosystems that have evolved over millions of years. All of this Trump is aiming to destroy. These are things which cannot be replaced. Once a species is extinct, it is gone forever.

To capitalism, wild areas like ANWR are of no value unless they are being exploited for their resources or turned into sites for tourism. Driven by cutthroat competition and a drive for profit, this system cannot deal with the environment in a sustainable and rational way. The Christian fascists, who are at the core of the Trump/Pence regime, make subjugating the Earth and ravaging the environment not only an economic imperative (which they fervently endorse) but beyond that a mandate from God. Ralph Drollinger, head of Capitol Ministries, has written, “In God’s hierarchy of creation man is atop and is to rule over all of creation and subdue it (Genesis 1:25 & 28).” Drollinger leads Bible study sessions sponsored and attended by 12 current and former members of Trump’s cabinet.

Trump is breaking with the “normal” environmental destruction of capitalist society by brutally unleashing and unfettering the forces of capitalism to plunder the environment in a qualitatively more destructive way—leading this planet toward environmental catastrophe that threatens all living things.

Back to top

An Impending Disaster and an Urgent Challenge

The above are just some of the damage done by the fascist Trump/Pence regime in the recent period! The consequences to humanity and the planet if this regime remains in power through whatever means worsen daily, and will be disastrous if this fascist juggernaut isn’t stopped.

As Bob Avakian wrote in his August 1 Statement:

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.

 

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

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

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

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

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

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

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

Fascists and Communists:
Completely Opposed and Worlds Apart

By Bob Avakian

| revcom.us

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/666/systemic-racism-and-us-labor-market-en.html

What Donald Trump’s Claims About Black Unemployment Reveal and Conceal...

The Reality of Systemic Racism and the U.S. Labor Market

by Raymond Lotta

| revcom.us

 

Editors’ Note: In light of the Genocidal Racist Donald Trump’s promises and lies to Black people, the following remains a relevant and a standing refutation of his lies.

The racist-genocidal Trump has touted an economy that, under his watch, has been “working great” for Black people. In particular, he points to record low unemployment for Black people before the pandemic and economic crisis of March-April this year.

1) What is the actual reality?

Unemployment did come down during the Trump years. The unemployment rate for Black workers fell to a 50-year low of 6.1 percent in 2019. But that is only one side of the picture. The other side, and the side that Trump completely and consciously ignores, is that inequality has not changed. This 6 percent unemployment rate was double that of white workers. In fact, Black unemployment has been persistently twice the level of white workers—a defining economic reality for Black people under this system over the last 50 years—through expansions and economic downturns.

You will also notice that in Trump’s boasts, he takes you up to the COVID-19 crisis, and stops there. Conveniently so, because when the pandemic hit, with the economy going into deep crisis, overall unemployment skyrocketed.

Trump skates over—he could do no less!—that Black workers have been suffering severely in two ways by the pandemic-economic crisis. On the one hand, African-American workers are concentrated in sectors like retail and services that shut down, leading to rapid loss of jobs. On the other, Black workers are also heavily employed in jobs that have been designated as “essential” or “frontline”—like grocery, public transit, trucking, and warehouse. As a result, Black workers were forced to expose themselves disproportionately to the risk of contracting COVID-19 and spreading it to others. As with many “frontline” workers, this was the price of being able to keep their families fed.

2) The economic recovery of the past decade and the workings of capitalism

Why did unemployment come down in the last few years before the pandemic? For sure, it was not the result of special measures taken, or concern shown by the Trump regime, for people of color.

The bigger picture is that starting in 2010 and continuing through 2019, the U.S. economy entered into a recovery from the deep global recession of 2008-09. This recovery continued through Trump’s first term... until the onset of the pandemic in March-April and an unprecedented economic crisis. (See “Four Months Into the COVID-19 Pandemic...”.)

When the capitalist economy expands, the owners of the factories, telecommunications, warehouses, retail stores, and other sectors of the economy hire workers: hired to be exploited for profit to serve the competitive battle among capitalists to gain markets and to increase profits. When conditions for profitable production deteriorate, workers are tossed out.

Here is a basic truth about capitalism: the capitalists have the right to exploit workers, to hire and fire—even if that means millions go hungry. You see, under this system, there is no right to eat.

3) The stark, howling inequality beneath the unemployment numbers

The economic recovery of 2010-19 has had profoundly unequal effects. Not only have Black workers suffered unemployment at twice the rate of white workers... they are also are more likely to be unemployed than white workers at every age and educational level, even with college or advanced degrees. For instance, in 2019, the unemployment rate for Black college graduates was 50 percent higher than it was for white college graduates. And when Black workers experience unemployment, they are unemployed for longer spans of time.

We can dig deeper into Black-white racial inequality in the U.S. labor market and its consequences:

*There is a persistent “pay gap” between Black and white workers. On average, Black workers are paid 73 cents on the white dollar. This pay gap has actually widened since 2000.

*The jobs Black workers hold generally offer fewer benefits, like health insurance and sick days. This is a major contributing factor to the higher incidence of chronic illness among Black people relative to white people.

This brings us to another defining feature of the U.S. economy. This is what is called occupational segregation. This is a term to describe the ongoing situation that Black workers are concentrated in lower-paying, less secure jobs and occupations and underrepresented in highest-wage professions, where incomes have grown most rapidly.

*So there are sharp and significant inequalities in employment opportunities for Black workers and in the wages they receive. This contributes to a persistent racial gap in what is called median household incomes—a median is a kind of average. In 2018, the median household income for white households was $71,000 vs. $42,000 for Black households—which means median white household income is 70 percent higher! One big effect of this is that Black households are not able to build up savings. So when Black workers lose jobs—again, at far higher rates than whites—their families or households, with less emergency savings to fall back on, have greater difficulty in coping with dire economic and health circumstances, like the pandemic.

*Because of higher unemployment rates among Black people, and because of job discrimination, Black workers are far less likely to have more than one earner in a household. So when unemployment hits, the effects are much more devastating for Black households, because there is less chance of there being a second earner to provide lost income. And single-parent households headed by Black women are much more common than is the case among white women.

These are all different ways in which inequality is manifested.

4) The official unemployment rate does not capture the full reality and pain of Black unemployment and “underemployment”

The standard unemployment rate—what you see in the media and hear from politicians—reflects the number of people who do not have a job and are actively looking for work. This is a narrow and incomplete measure of real levels of unemployment and the real quality of jobs that people hold. This standard unemployment statistic masks the true levels of unemployment and economic distress that Black people actually face.

The official unemployment rate ignores two very important phenomena that especially affect Black people.

*First, as mentioned, the official unemployment rate does not include individuals who are not actively seeking work. But a higher proportion of would-be workers among Black people are “discouraged” workers. They have given up the search for work for extended periods. They become “disconnected” from the formal economy and are not counted as unemployed in the official statistic. Why have these workers dropped out of the labor force? Different factors are involved.

*There are changes in the economy that adversely affect Black workers. There is the shift away from manufacturing jobs in the U.S. Many such jobs were a source of relatively stable employment and decent income for sections of Black workers in cities like Chicago and Detroit. Millions of these jobs have disappeared—due to automation and outsourcing of work to Mexico, China, and other low-wage countries. This has created a much more unstable work situation for Black workers, with many moving in and out of low-paid and irregular work... with the result that significant numbers drop out of the labor force for stretches.

*There is the horror and crime of mass incarceration for Black people, and its consequences for employment. As is now well documented, African-Americans are more likely to be incarcerated following an arrest than are whites—and formerly incarcerated have a far more difficult time securing employment than the general population. Studies show that having a “criminal record” reduces employer call-back rates by 50 percent. And call-back rates are far lower for the Black formerly incarcerated. After repeated efforts at finding jobs, many of the formerly incarcerated stop looking—and therefore are no longer part of the official unemployment count. When formerly incarcerated people do land jobs, these tend to be the most insecure and lowest-paying. And exactly because of the instability of these jobs, people in and out of these jobs often the leave labor force altogether, or enter into the underground economy of semi-legal work.

*The second big problem with the official unemployment rate is that it does not capture the problem of what is called underemployment in the U.S. economy. Underemployment refers to the fact that a significant section of the working population is forced to work part-time or temporary jobs—but really want to be working full time. In addition, many people are working in jobs that do not reflect the skills and educational level they have achieved... they cannot gain employment in their chosen field.

And, once again, the systemic racism of this capitalist-imperialist economy is revealed. In 2019, at a time of economic expansion, the Black underemployment rate was 12 percent—that’s 1 out of 8 workers, which is twice the level of underemployment for whites. Consider this fact: almost 40 percent of Black workers with a college or advanced degree who are employed... are in a job that does not require a college degree. To put it differently, they are working in jobs that do not give expression to their skills, creativity, and aspirations.

If we translate the technical jargon into human terms and grasp the reality of unemployment in all its real-world manifestations, we see a system, capitalism-imperialism, that can only function through exploitation, that hires and fires to serve profit, and that squanders and destroys human potential.

5) A concluding point

As Donald Trump accelerates his white supremacist-fascist agenda—extolling Confederate monuments and history, unleashing armed white vigilantes, and dispatching paramilitary troops to crush the righteous uprising sparked by George Floyd’s death—he shamelessly boasts of an economy that is delivering great benefits to Black people. It is a lie in the service of genocide.

 

Selected References

Elise Gould and Valerie Wilson, Black workers face two of the most lethal preexisting conditions for coronavirus—racism and economic inequality (Economic Policy Institute, July 2020)

Christian E. Weller, African Americans Face Systematic Obstacles to Getting Good Jobs (Center for American Progress, December 5, 2019)

Ryan Nunn, Jana Parsons, Jay Shambaugh, Race and Underemployment in the U.S. Labor Market (Brookings Institute, August 1, 2019)

Tomaz Cajner, Tyler Radler, David Ratner, and Ivan Vidangos, Racial Gaps in Labor Market Outcomes in the Last Four Decades and Over the Business Cycle (Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 2017)

Lucius Couloute and Daniel Kopf, Out of Prison and Out of Work: Unemployment among formerly incarcerated people (Prison Policy Initiative, July 2018)

Center for Economic and Policy Research, A Basic Demographic Profile of Workers in Frontline Industries (April 2020)

Jhacova Williams and Valerie Wilson, Black workers endure persistent racial disparities in employment incomes (Brookings Institute, August 27, 2019)

 


A line of unemployed workers. Black unemployment has been persistently twice the level of white workers—a defining economic reality for Black people under this system over the last 50 years—through expansions and economic downturns.

Read the series, download posters and pamphlet here.

See also:

BOB AVAKIAN FOR THE LIBERATION OF BLACK PEOPLE AND THE EMANCIPATION OF ALL HUMANITY

Read more

 

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The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

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

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

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

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/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

 

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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.

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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.

 

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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.

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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
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Watch: youtube.com/TheRevComs

 

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

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

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

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

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

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

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

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/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/664/september-5-solid-beginning-the-major-challenges-ahead-en.html

September 5—A Solid Beginning and the Major Challenges Ahead

| revcom.us

 


Chicago

Demanding the fascist Trump/Pence regime be ousted from power, around 1,700 people manifested nationwide on Saturday, September 5, in mass non-violent protest in 20 cities, from New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles to Philadelphia, Houston, Boston, and even Orlando where people courageously defied the fascist thugs. Go here to see clips and photos from the various protests, and the media coverage, both national and local.

This represented a solid and real beginning for the 60 days of struggle called by Refuse Fascism:

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.

The voices joining in unison were diverse and they were urgent. For example, one was Pastor Cruz, from Trinity Lutheran Church, Sunset Park, in New York City, an immigrant area deeply affected by the ICE raids escalated by the fascist regime.

My dear sisters and brothers, we are in as you all know a deep, deep, criminal and evil enterprise in the White House, which requires more than simple reform.... It’s an urgent, urgent matter. Let’s work without ceasing until this demonic administration is out. “Power to the People.”

Across the country, there was a real sense of bringing strands of struggles together—against police murder and the oppression of Black people, against the oppression of immigrants, and the oppression of women and LGBTQ people—and a sense that Trump is a nightmare for humanity.


NYC: Calling out Trump's backing for the fascist Bolsonaro regime in Brazil, joining to demand Bolsonaro and Trump/Pence Out Now!

The group Defend Democracy in Brazil, who brought their signs to join the NYC rally, spoke to the planet burning from climate change, and how four more years of Trump can't be tolerated because of what that would mean for the planet. An anti-war and gay rights activist brought out some important lessons from both struggles and the power of the masses of people in the streets, saying, “We stopped the war, the Vietnam War. We, the anti-war movement stopped that war with the solidarity with the Vietnamese people. We did that by being in the street. The president resigned, that was Johnson.” A speaker from Black Trans Liberation made a rousing speech about how Black Trans lives are being ignored and how Black people will not be able to “run away to Canada” come November if this regime holds onto power.

The Revolution Club was part of the protests in NYC, Chicago, and Los Angeles, bringing forth the reality of Trump and this fascist regime as a product of this system of capitalism-imperialism, and of the need for revolution, and from this standpoint, what Bob Avakian 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: “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.

A middle-aged white woman came “to be with like-minded people, and stand with anti-fascist forces.” She said Trump’s unleashing of fascist thugs “scares her shitless,” but she won’t let it stop her from protesting. A white guy in his 20s had a “Trump-ism is Fascism” sign. He feels huge protests like Europe are needed here, and said especially as a white person he feels a responsibility to be part of efforts to drive out Trump and Pence because of the white supremacy they are whipping up. A Black man from a Chicago suburb said he was furious about Trump calling dead soldiers “losers,” and added, “I hope what Trump said about the troops shows you he doesn’t care about any of us.” He was wearing a T-shirt that upheld the importance of science.

People came from many different perspectives, stemming from their hatred of Trump, the white supremacy and the fascist thugs, or other driving policies of the fascist regime and the overall “danger to democracy.” People got a deeper sense of the existential danger represented by the regime. A deeper sense of what is needed—right now—in mass political resistance especially in the wake of Trump’s threats to delay and de-legitimize the elections or stay in power despite a loss.

Speaking for Refuse Fascism nationally, Sunsara Taylor, a member of the National Revolution Tour currently in Los Angeles, talked about the qualitative change in the form of rule represented by fascism, and what it means for the masses of people. She talked about Trump posing with “a sheriff who openly advocated throwing a whole generation of Black people into warehouses, preventing them from having children, and holding them until they all died off and then turning the warehouses into shopping malls. Trump posed with this Nazi AFTER these comments were made public.” She went on to say, “That is genocide, pure and simple, and as Bob Avakian has said in a new series which everyone here should read at revcom.us, Donald Trump Is a Genocidal Racist.

Going into September 5, revcom.us has featured many of the endorsements and messages of support such as from actor Jodie Sweetin, from musicians Arturo O’Farrill and Lalah Hathaway, from Cornel West, from the faith community like Bishop Greer, Rev. Brashear, Rev. Woolf, and Torah Trumps Hate... All of these are extremely positive “shoots” and need to be marshaled for what is needed: reaching millions and millions more, mobilizing them for the 60 days of struggle, and the mass sustained non-violent protests leading into the elections.

The message is clear, righteous and resounding with prominent voices of support that can help amplify and spread it; and there are beginning cores from sections of society that have come forth and been organized through September 5th. A very powerful moment in many places was “taking the pledge.”

Carl Dix, speaking for Refuse Fascism, said, “This is not a one-day show. We didn’t call you out to register that you don’t like Donald Trump and then to go back home and wait to see what happened. We called you out here to be the beginning core of the force that is going to reach out and enlist others, that’s going to mobilize others, that’s going to organize others, to take up this 60 days of defiant resistance.”

The challenge begins! To realize the full vision of what Refuse Fascism has called for... go to RefuseFascism.org.


Chicago


Chicago


Orlando, Florida: Rallying at City Hall despite the presence of a Trumpite "counter-protest"


Los Angeles


New York


New York


San Francisco


San Francisco

 

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/september-5-2020-sunsara-taylor-remarks-en.html

A Second Term Would Be Fascist "Shock and Awe"
Join 60 Days of Struggle Demanding: TRUMP/PENCE OUT NOW! — Sunsara Taylor

| revcom.us

 

For three and a half years, a demented bully has lied, jeered, broken the law, torn families apart, built concentration camps and packed them full, threatened to lock up his opponents, pardoned and lionized outright war criminals, brandished nuclear weapons, declared himself above the law, demeaned women, denied science, fueled the mass deaths of COVID, threatened the media, and cheered for white supremacists and vigilante murderers.

More times than we can count, he has shocked the conscience of the world.

More times than we can count, experts have cried, “He can’t do that!” But he does it anyhow.

If he is allowed a second term, all this will be unspeakably worse.

Listen to Miles Taylor, former chief of staff of the Department of Homeland Security who served under Trump. I quote:

There are people serving very close to the President that have told me verbatim we should expect, quote, “shock and awe” if the President wins a second term. You will see a flurry of executive orders.

Taylor was speaking of Trump’s foreign policy, but we can expect the same across the board.

Listen to what Trump wanted to do to immigrants on the border, what Taylor heard him say, but what Trump was prevented from doing by people who he has now kicked out and publicly attacked. Taylor says:

Trump would be dreaming up “sickening” medieval plots “to pierce the flesh” of migrants, rip all the families apart, “maim,” and gas them. “This was a man with no humanity whatsoever,”... “He says, we got to do this, this, this, and this, all of which are probably impossible, illegal unethical,”... “And he looks over me and he goes, ‘you fucking taking notes?’”

These are the rantings of a genocidal racist who will be unleashed if by hook or by crook he gets another term.

Legal experts have looked at the nearly 300 federal judges Trump has packed onto the courts and warned that we are hurtling towards theocracy. Mike Pence’s Bible enforced by the state. Forcing women to bear children against their will.

Do you know that in Mike Pence’s Indiana, a woman was sentenced to 30 years in prison for allegedly inducing her own abortion or maybe just miscarrying? Do you know that the fascist lunatic Trump put in charge of teenage girls in his immigrant detention centers kept a calendar of their menstruation cycles and personally flew to their cells to “counsel” them if they ask for an abortion—even if they were raped? You think this won’t be done to all women? You think it’s acceptable now? It’s not funny when Trump “joked” that Pence wants to hang gay people. That is where things are headed. Don’t say that could never happen here. Did you listen to the lunatics they put up at their Nazi RNC? They want to punish women for abortion, deny them of birth control, and one of their speakers says women should give up their vote to their husbands. They put this center stage—they are TELLING you where they are going.

All this as Trump shreds environmental protections, accelerating climate change that is already fueling floods in Bangladesh, droughts in Africa, and driving millions from their homes. We are gathered here in 106 degree heat, wildfires raging across the state, and Trump has repeatedly threatened to withhold aid because Californians overwhelmingly oppose him.

This regime is threatening the future of human civilization itself!

Fascism is not just the worst of Republican policies. It is a qualitative change in the form of rule, the obliteration of all the norms, the evisceration of the democratic rights we have been told that we have, like the ability for people to oppose them—in the streets in our protests, or even within the halls of power. Fascism is a form of rule that relies on open terror and violence—from the state and from the mob—against all they deem “enemies,” “undesirables,” or “dangers to society.”

And this is not standing still. We are gathered at a moment when Trump has unleashed and defended the killer of two heroic protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Anthony Huber and Jojo Rosenbaum were heroes who stood up for Black lives. We are gathered as MAGA fascists ride through Portland spraying paint guns and other weapons at protesters like the American Taliban they are. We are gathered as Bill Barr, the most powerful law enforcement agent in the country, is restructuring the state to brand protesters as terrorist and imprison them for life. When Trump just posed with a sheriff who openly advocated throwing a whole generation of Black people into warehouses, preventing them from having children, and holding them till they all died off and then turning the warehouses into shopping malls. Trump posed with this Nazi AFTER these comments were made public.

That is genocide, pure and simple, and as Bob Avakian has said in a new series which everyone here should read at revcom.us, Donald Trump Is a Genocidal Racist.

The fascists are fighting to lock all this in thru a second term whether it takes stealing, sabotaging, or canceling the election. Every day new projections come out from well-informed, ruling class figures about the danger of Trump declaring himself the winner even it means spewing an avalanche of lies, breaking the law, and unleashing violence and bloodshed.

Many are now saying, “Well, if he does that, then we’ll take to the streets, like they’ve done in Hong Kong and Belarus.” That’s a step—but we cannot passively wait for things to get worse.

That would be like the LA Lakers sitting down their best players for the first three quarters and saying, “If the other team runs up the score, then we’ll put in LeBron James and the rest.” If they did that, the other team WOULD run up the score and the Lakers would be so far behind they wouldn’t have a chance.

Well, these fascists are running up the score on us right now and we have to get out there on the court and take the initiative away from them.

This is why RefuseFascism.org is launching, starting today, 60 days of struggle.

All September, we must spread this message—Trump/Pence Out Now!—and the plan to drive out this regime through mass, sustained, nonviolent protest. We—all of us here, those of you who’ve been active and those of you who just now are stepping into things—need to be working together, beginning right after this demonstration, on how to build up our numbers, how to spread to every corner of society, how to strengthen our cohesion and ability to resist.

By October, people need to be in the streets every day demanding TRUMP/PENCE OUT NOW!, growing in our numbers and refusing to be intimidated or provoked by the fascists and all they throw at us. Uniting all who can be united—from Never-Trumpers to mainstream Democrats to revolutionary communists and followers of Bob Avakian like myself, and many more, from health workers to celebrities to youth and those among the hardest hit. All raising the single, unifying demand: Trump/Pence Out Now!

In fighting for this, it is not us—just those of us out here now and the others around the country today—up against them, the fascists with all their strength and terror. It is us carrying the hopes and aspirations and interests of literally billions of people around the world. It is us fighting to arouse and call forward the millions in this country who don’t want to become accomplices to genocide and fascism. It is us pushing on the cracks and deep divisions that exist all throughout all the institutions of this society—the military, the courts, the halls of power, the structures of finance and international relations—to compel those who are not part of this fascism to act to remove this regime from power.

This is possible. If we declare right here, right now, together with each other that we will not find our place in a fascist America. That we will move heaven and earth to prevent it. That we will lead others to overcome fear and get out of their comfort zones as we do the very same ourselves together. That we will do this not for ourselves, but for all of humanity.

There is beauty, there is power, there is meaning in standing up together. Not only stopping this great catastrophe for humanity but in forging ourselves into a different kind of people, one that looks out for each other, one that puts humanity first, one that wins a better future for everyone on this planet. This is what history demands of us. This is the gift we can give to the people of the world if we dare. It is up to each of us, and all of us together.

Put your fists up and say it with me:

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

Trump/Pence Out 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:



 


 

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/666/great-thanks-to-all-who-donated-to-the-revolution-tour-livestream-en.html

Great Thanks to All Who Donated to the Revolution Tour Livestream

| revcom.us

 

These are statements that were sent in to the September 20 Livestream, which raised $15,000 for the National Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour.

Retired Teacher Makes $2K Matching Challenge

“There comes a time...” was an expression of determination during the Civil Rights era, meaning, the moment had arrived for decisive action against an intolerable system – in that case Jim Crow. Jim Crow was ended but history has shown that the system of U.S. white supremacist capitalism is incapable of eliminating racial oppression or solving any of the major problems confronting humanity.

Today the rise of Trump Pence fascism is a signal that this capitalism system not only cannot solve the problems of injustice, poverty, staggering polarization of wealth, climate destruction, etc. but in an effort to save itself is rapidly plunging the world into a death spiral.

The Revolution Tour has gone into the areas in this country where people brutalized by this racist system are rising against injustices. The Revolution Tour has bravely joined with people in struggle to bring them that which this system works ceaselessly to deny them – an understanding, based on the vital and insightful works of Bob Avakian, of what lies at the root of the oppression, and based on that understanding and historical experience, how to work for a different social order, a revolutionary socialist/communist society which can ultimately liberate humanity from this system’s death grip.

The time has come for a movement to uproot the whole oppressive system. It’s actually long overdue. Everyone who values justice and humanity should rally to support the work of these courageous and conscious revolutionaries by contributing funds to assist them in this crucial work. This is why I’m contributing $2,000 as a matching fund, and why I’m challenging you to match and surpass it. Every contribution lends material support to this vitally important effort. It also, beyond that, strengthens the morale of people, sometimes driven to despair by heartless brutality of the system, to see the potential for another world to exist.

***

A Physicist Supports the Revolution Tour to Dis-Elect Trump

I am making a $1,000 matching fund challenge for the Revolution Tour, a critical phase in the organizing for an actual revolution. I am making my annual $1,000 contribution 6 months early because dis-election of Donald Trump is so critical. Another 4 years would consolidate his objective of a fascist America, the most powerful and influential country on Earth. Science, evidence, logic and justice have already been under attack. The first group Hitler exterminated were the Communists. Scientists fled Germany. Trump’s oppression of all opposition would delay the revolution until it might be too late. The coming climate catastrophe and glorification of ignorance and stupidity unchallenged will have ushered in a new Dark Age of world barbarity and unmitigated pestilence, if not the extinction of the human species. 

As far as we presently know, homo sapiens are the only species in the universe that have realized science. (At least some of them have.) The loss of homo sapiens might have astronomical consequences, possibly setting back the progress of the emergence of intelligence in the universe by a billion years.

It might be possible to say that with the success of this tour, we may be able to save humanity in time, and at the same time possibly save the present emergence of intelligence life in the universe.

***

Statement and Pledge from a Group of Immigrant Women in Support of Tour

In addition to this statement, they have pledged to raise $200, $50 of which had been raised at the time of the livestream.

Saludos a todos de la Gira Revolution Nacional.

Nos inspira cómo el Club Revolución ha estado en la primera fila de la lucha de clases: El Club Revolucion con valentia y audaz fue a Portland y Kenosha, difundiendo la revolución y el liderazgo de B.A.

Como inmigrantes nos enfrentamos la opresión, la discriminación y la demonización durante generaciones y generaciones y en las discusiones de los artículos de B.A. hacemos conciencia, que la opresión racial es como cemento que se vierte en los cimientos de un edificio, y este edificio es el capitalismo-imperialismo estadounidense, ala vez que nos hacemos conciencia de que el fascismo no proviene desde afuera, si no que es un producto de este sistema y es un monstruo diferente. Si el fascismo consolida su dominio, seria un desastre para todos en este planeta y un desastre para el planeta mismo. Puede sofocar la lucha por la justicia social. Así que tenemos que eliminar este monstruo y expulsar al régimen de Trump Pence. Este es un paso urgente que debemos dar para hacer la revolución. Y nos alegra que la Gira de la Revolución Nacional esté sacando este impulso en todas partes, especialmente donde la gente se está alzando en lucha. 

Las mujeres inmigrantes que estamos aprendiendo y discutiendo acerca de cómo sería una revolución real, hemos sido por años las más impactadas, en el abuso laboral y estas situaciones se han agravado por la pandemia, con pérdida de trabajo, o pérdida de horas de trabajo de nosotras, o nuestras familias y aún así estamos haciendo un esfuerzo, porque entendemos que es importante apoyar donando para les compañeres en el frente de la lucha en la gira revolución, e invitamos a otres a hacer un esfuerzo para apoyar, con un pequeño donativo multiplicado en cientos o miles de personas puede aportar mucho para advancer el trabajo de la Gira Revolution Nacional.

Buena suerte y cuídense.

En lucha,

Un grupo de mujeres inmigrantes que han estado participando en clases que discuten los artículos y obras de BA.

——

Greetings to all in the National Revolution Tour

We are inspired by how the Revolution Club has been in the frontlines of the class struggle—boldly and courageously going to Portland and Kenosha, spreading revolution and the leadership of BA.

As immigrants we face oppression and discrimination and demonization for generations and generations. But from BA we learn that racial oppression is like cement being poured into the foundation of a building, and this building is American capitalism-imperialism. We also learned that Fascism does not come from outside. It is a product of this system, and it is a different extremely dangerous monster. If Fascism solidifies its rule, it means disaster for everybody on this planet, and disaster for the planet itself. Fascism can lead to the end of the struggle for justice. So we have to remove this monster, and Drive out the Trump Pence Regime. This is an urgent step we have to take for making revolution. And we are glad that this thrust is being taken out by the National Revolution Tour everywhere, especially where people are rising up in struggle.

The immigrant women who are learning and discussing about what a real revolution would look like, have been for years the most impacted, in labor abuse and these situations have been aggravated by the pandemic, with job loss, or loss of working hours of we, or our families and even so we are making an effort, because we understand that it is important to support by donating for our comrades in the front line of the struggle in the revolution tour, and we invite others to make an effort to support, with a small donation multiplied in hundreds or thousands of people it can contribute a lot to support of the Revolution Tour.

Good luck and take care.

In Struggle,

A group of immigrant women who have been participating in classes that discuss the articles and works of BA 

***

Healthcare Workers’ Statement on These Critical Times: 

We are healthcare workers who are outraged over how the COVID 19 pandemic, as well as many other outrages, have been handled by the fascist, genocidal, racist and anti-science Trump/Pence regime.

We strongly support the Revolution Tour, which 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! They’ve been in the midst of the beautiful rising against police murder. Here’s a video of the Revolution Tour in Portland.  

On Sunday, Sept. 20th, we invite you, your family and friends to support a fundraising livestream in support of the tour. We are donating and we encourage you to donate as well. 

You can watch it and donate hereThe Revolution Tour is bringing the deepest understanding to people nationwide of the nightmare that we are in and what the solution is. The criteria is not whether you support revolution, but whether you see the danger to humanity and see the need to act to stop this threat to humanity. 

Medical workers have stepped up many times over the past 3 years:

  • Demanding PPE, exposing the criminal lack of federal action
  • Facing down and blocking rabid anti-maskers 
  • Doctors and others who lay down in the street at an immigrant detention center in San Diego and were arrested after being turned away from giving free flu shots, 2019.
  • Nurses who put hundreds of medical shoes in front of the White House earlier this year to protest the hundreds of healthcare workers killed unnecessarily by COVID-19.
  • A Black woman nurse was the whistleblower on the sterilization abuses at the ICE detention centers.
  • Science is liberating, let's stand firm!

The newest outrage of this fascist regime is that ICE has been carrying out forced sterilizations of immigrants in the detention centers. Forced sterilization is a crime which has always been a part of this country’s history. [This was done to Black women, Latinx, Indigenous women and poor white women in the 20th century]

Hitler learned from the U.S. when in the Nazi death camps women were subjected to forced sterilizations.   

So, we are challenging people to step up now, and as healthcare workers and support this tour. It is up to us—there will be no magical hero stepping forward to do this going forward. Only the people can put a stop to this regime. 

***

A Matching Challenge from an Immigrant

An immigrant supporter of the National Tour for an ACTUAL Revolution in Southern California has donated $250 and would like to issue a challenge to others nationally to "match it or raise it" towards the $15,000 goal of the livestream.

***

From A Revolution Club Member

Enough is Enough

We need a Revolution PERIOD—Humanity Needs the Revolution Tour & the Rev Clubs, and all who want any future worth living-in need to get with this revolution.

I am giving $400 but wish I could give $4,000.

The 5 Stops can't be ended without actual Revolution—so every reform or Band-Aid just doesn't make the cut—the emancipation of humanity & the planet is what everyone should be working on—this is a challenge to match my $400 donation right now—send in $20, $50, $100 because this work must be supported and millions need to find out about this revolution with your help.

***

An Artist Who Donated Paper Maché Artwork for the Tour Fundraising

To the National Get Organized for an Actual Revolution Tour:

Thank you for the opportunity of saying a few words about my non-monetary contribution to the fund drive for this very important Tour which I have been following and think is super important. So I wish you the best and will continue contributing as much as possible in this and other ways.

While I have for years now been learning and working with different mediums such as paints, drawing, paper mache, engraving etc., I made these figures out of paper mache because I was already working with this medium along with other people on making a large Trump head that we needed by September 5, for the United Nationwide Mass Protest. To work on this, for us a large project, we asked the artist Alfonso Piloto Nieves Ruiz to teach us how to do this.

Piloto put out a call for a workshop. Besides our group working on the Trump head, there were people working on a tribute to Breonna Taylor, and a bust and head of the local ICE representative and children in cages, and another group working on a Oaxacan jaguars head.

During this workshop, which lasted weeks, and were held outdoors and abided by COVID-19 rules, a couple of Pilsen’s most well-known muralists and other artists stopped by to check out what we were doing. (Piloto had announced the workshop suddenly and a lot of people could not make the commitment, but there was a lot of interests.) In conversations with some of them and in explaining why we were making our project, and making sure they all got leaflets and stickers, we spoke about the importance of art, and not as some afterthought or something that is just going to add some color to the protest, but about how important it is that art be integral, organic, to the struggles.

We also spoke about how the pandemic has devastated many artists from the community as it came at the same time the neighborhood was being rapidly gentrified. (In the last few days it was announced that one of Little Village’s most iconic malls, with 150 vendors, is going to be demolished and a Target is to be built in its place. The same area where a few months ago a tower from an old factory was demolished creating a dust cloud that made many people sick and resulted in at least one death. With an asbestos cloud hanging over the neighborhood for days. All to open way for new condos.) But we also spoke about the need for more artist to be part of the struggles, some people said we need a movement of artist.

So it was during these weeks that I heard of the Tours fund drive and I decided to make something that may be auctioned or sold. (A few months ago I donated to the Rev Club 2 other figures made for 10-24-2015 holding a banner of Stolen Lives that could also be for the fund drive.) So, as I was thinking on what to make, I decided on something that reflected what the Tour is about. Kind of like when you make a poster announcing an event. So one of the figures is expressing the fact that the world needs BA’s new communism, and is holding up the book and has a bullhorn to let everybody know, as well as back-pocketing a copy of Revolution newspaper. And the other figure expresses that the only way humanity can get free of this system is by overthrowing it, not reforming it, and is wearing a Revolution Nothing Less shirt.

Once again, I wish you the best, and hope these figures can make a small contribution.

***

Retired Library Tech (SF Bay Area) 

Initially I had planned to donate $300 to RNL [Revolution, Nothing Less] and the Tour. Fascism, the thing I have most feared Is here and is rushing to consolidate. The essence of america is retribution! This has to end. There is something we can do. Support the Tour, Refuse Fascism, and RNL. Donate! We need to reach out and connect others to what BA has brought forward. What we do makes a difference. I have decided to donate $500 and to contribute in whatever way I can to the beautiful and scientific RNL. To the future of humanity!

See also:

At a time when the future of humanity hangs in the balance:
Become a Sustainer of the National Revolution Tour!

Read more

Donate to the Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour

 

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/667/horrifying-whistleblower-account-from-an-ice-detention-center-en.html

Horrifying Whistleblower Account from an ICE Detention Center

And

The Linked Legacy of Genocidal Racism and Female Enslavement

by Noche Diaz, National Spokesperson for the Revolution Clubs

| revcom.us

 

Editors’ Note: In addition to the allegations by whistleblower nurse Dawn Wooten that women held at an immigration concentration camp in Georgia had been given hysterectomies without their knowledge, as detailed below, a new New York Times investigation reports that other women prisoners there may have been forced to undergo “other invasive gynecological procedures that they did not fully understand and, in some cases, may not have been medically necessary.” The Times interviewed 16 women who were concerned about the care they received while at the ICE prison and had medical experts review records of the women who were able to obtain them. In one example, an immigrant from Jamaica who was having menstrual cramping was told by the doctor that she had large cysts and masses on her uterus that needed to be removed via a major surgical procedure. As a detainee, she felt pressured to give consent to the surgery. But when she was able to get her medical records after being released and deported to Jamaica, several doctors she consulted said that her uterus was healthy, the cysts were small, and there was no need for the major surgery she was forced to undergo. Other women had similar accounts, including Spanish-speaking ex-detainees who were compelled to sign consent forms in English that they could not read. All this underscores the horror described below by Noche Diaz.

Recent claims have surfaced from a whistleblower nurse, Dawn Wooten, inside a Georgia ICE detention center (concentration camp where migrant people are held) about the conditions of migrants held there. This includes allegations of women being given hysterectomies (which is the surgical removal of a woman’s uterus) without their knowledge and without an explanation as to why.1 These allegations are made in an enraging 27-page detail given by Wooten of daily life for migrant people kept in just one of these ICE concentration camps. Even the basic conditions described there stabs the heart and disturbs the conscience.

Wooten says in her complaint, "I've had several inmates tell me that they've been to see the doctor and they've had hysterectomies and they don't know why they went or why they're going." One detainee said, “When I met all these women who had had surgeries, I thought this was like an experimental concentration camp. It was like they’re experimenting with our bodies.” Speaking of the doctor performing these surgeries, Wooten says:

We’ve questioned among ourselves like goodness he’s taking everybody’s stuff out... That’s his specialty, he’s the uterus collector. I know that’s ugly... is he collecting these things or something... Everybody he sees, he’s taking all their uteruses out or he’s taken their tubes out. What in the world.

Some of what is outlined in Wooten’s complaint regarding the hysterectomies is raised as questions, and sounding an alarm... If it comes out that what is outlined is all true, we are living through a leap in the carrying out the aims of the genocidal racists who are in power.

Genocidal racism is a core belief of the Trump/Pence fascists who now rule. Bob Avakian, in the 10-part series Donald Trump—GENOCIDAL RACIST, provides overwhelming evidence for why this is true. He says in that series:

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.

Whatever is learned about the situation described in nurse Wooten’s complaint, it is important to confront that throughout the history of this country there has been a close marriage of genocidal racism and female enslavement, specifically in the form of forced sterilization. A clear and appropriate parallel also exists in Hitler and the Nazis’ approach to dealing with the “Jewish question,” where forced sterilization was a key step in their overall genocide that resulted in six million Jews put to death. That cruelty was inspired, in great part, by examples that exist throughout the history of this country. Yes, the USA, which was founded with genocidal racism as a key and defining feature. Eugenics laws beginning in early 1900s U.S. led to the sterilization of hundreds of thousands of immigrant, Black, Native American Indian, and other women in the U.S.; and similar practices in the U.S.’s efforts to subjugate Puerto Rico in the 1930s involved sterilizing over one in three women.2

And I want to take this opportunity to point out that the genocidal racists of the Trump/Pence regime, who are overseeing ICE concentration camps (where, long before this recent complaint, horrors against migrants are well documented), are simultaneously on a vengeful mission throughout society to deny all women the right to abortion, and even to birth control. You might think there’s no way that they would seek to end abortion AND allow, or carry out, forced sterilizations—would they? Hypocrisy, you might think? NO! Forced motherhood and forced sterilization BOTH share the very consistent fundamental belief that women are not full human beings, and should not control their own bodies. In this view, it is appropriate for women of the “undesirable races” to be sterilized and prevented from reproducing, while women as a whole are stopped from terminating, or even preventing, unwanted pregnancies at the command of a male supremacist society.

Under Trump/Pence fascism, this is the grim direction of the future that, on a level we do not fully know yet, we may already be seeing the beginnings of. Unstopped, it would usher in an absolute nightmare if this Trump/Pence fascist regime is allowed to stay in power by “winning”/stealing or disregarding the election and further implementing its fascist program of genocidal racism and female enslavement.

To draw from RefuseFascism.org: It’s on: The Struggle for the Future. Will it be fascist? Or, will we act on our conscience? October 3rd We Begin Non-Violent Protests that Continue Day After Day From Now Through the Elections United by the Demand: Trump/Pence OUT NOW!

 


1. Project South letter, September 14, 2020.  [back]

2. See revcom.us American Crime series article “Legalized Forced Sterilization in the U.S.”; “Unwanted Sterilization and Eugenics Programs in the United States,” PBS, January 29, 2016; ICE Forced Sterilizations Claim Revives America’s Sick Eugenics Tradition, The Daily Beast, September 16, 2020.   [back]


Dawn Wooten, left, a nurse at an ICE detention center in Ocilla, GA, filed a whistle-blower complaint. Photo: Jeff Amy/AP


Read the complete series here.

 

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

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

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

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

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

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

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

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/667/driving-out-fascist-regime-coming-from-behind-and-winning-en.html

Driving Out This Fascist Regime—Coming from Behind and Winning

| revcom.us

 

Editors’ Note: The following was submitted by a reader, inspired by the series by Bob Avakian Voting Will Not Be Enough—We Need to Take to the Streets, and Stay in the Streets Demanding Trump/Pence Out Now!, in particular Part 3 of that series, Trump’s Fascism—More Blatant And Dangerous Every Day: How a Determined Fight and Massive Mobilization Could Defeat This.

When it comes to what we’re up against with this fascist Trump/Pence regime, the urgent need to drive it out, this moment, and our collective mentality and orientation in the face of that:

It’s the start of the fourth quarter of an elimination game. We are down double digits. The situation is urgent. It is dire. It is stark. All of this must be squarely and soberly confronted. Coming from behind and winning is an arduous task...

BUT IT IS DO-ABLE.

IT IS POSSIBLE.

We have to FIGHT LIKE HELL to come back and win... and we need some bounces to go our way.

BUT IT IS DO-ABLE.

IT IS POSSIBLE....

The game, and its momentum, can shift... suddenlydramatically... seemingly out of nowhere... but unmistakably.  

Our team can start to gain confidence, strength, and momentum, in dialectical relation with that sudden shift in momentum... suddenly making plays we weren’t able to make before...

The other side can start to lose confidence and momentum... in dialectical relation with all of that... suddenly UNABLE to make plays in the same way... tightening up and making costly errors.

All of this can come together, and the dam can break.

None of this is guaranteed... And unlike in the NBA and other professional sports, there are not larger, powerful forces that will consciously and deliberately step in and aid us in our comeback...

But it IS DO-ABLE... It IS POSSIBLE...  

We must always remember that and never lose sight of it... not because it “feels good” or boosts our morale but because it’s true (although boosting our morale on a scientific basis is also important).

We must stick together... We must believe in our potential... We must strategize... We must watch “game film” of our own performance and the other team’s, identifying every possible positive to build on and learning all we can from every negative...

We must understand why we are behind and identify what we must do to catch up...

We must do everything we can to come back... and WIN.

Just imagine!...

 

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The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

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

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

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

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/667/this-is-the-situation-these-are-the-stakes-en.html

Updated | revcom.us

 

Editors' Note: What follows is an important message that concisely outlines the dynamics of the struggle around the presidential election. This originally appeared at revcom.us in late September, before the election and Biden's victory over Trump in the popular and Electoral College votes. The points here are even more relevant than ever.

THIS IS THE SITUATION, THESE ARE THE STAKES.

TRUMP IS DETERMINED, AND HAS A STRATEGY, TO STAY IN POWER, AND HAMMER INTO PLACE HIS FASCIST PROGRAM—MURDEROUSLY ENFORCING INJUSTICE, CRUSHING BASIC RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES, ACCELERATING THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ENVIRONMENT AND HEIGHTENING THE DANGER OF NUCLEAR ANNIHILATION—NO MATTER HOW PEOPLE VOTE. Trump is already stealing the election, he has a plan in place to use key institutions, including the Supreme Court, and violent thugs, in and out of uniform, to keep his regime in power.

THE DEMOCRATS’ STRATEGY IS LIKELY A LOSING STRATEGY THAT WILL LEAD THEM TO CAPITULATE TO TRUMP (even if the actual voting favors the Democrats). Left to their own devices, the Democrats do not have the ability or the will to fight Trump the way he needs to be fought. Despite the fact that the Trump/Pence regime represents an existential threat to humanity, the Democrats have refused to call out this fascist regime for what it is and oppose it on that basis. They are calling on people to just vote as if this is a “regular” election and the “normal rules” apply. The Democrats are trying to rely on procedures and institutions that this fascist regime has corrupted, destroyed, or taken over.

IF FASCISM FULLY TAKES HOLD IN THE MOST POWERFUL COUNTRY IN THE WORLD, THIS COULD LEAD TO A CATASTROPHE FROM WHICH HUMANITY MAY NOT BE ABLE TO RECOVER.

FOR EVERYONE WHO CARES ABOUT JUSTICE, ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT, AND A FUTURE WORTH LIVING FOR HUMANITY: WE NEED TO TAKE UP THE CALL FROM REFUSEFASCISM.ORG TO ORGANIZE AND MOBILIZE DETERMINED AND CREATIVE NONVIOLENT ACTIONS AND SUSTAINED DEMONSTRATIONS, DAY AFTER DAY, BECOMING INCREASINGLY MASSIVE AND POWERFUL, DEMANDING TRUMP/PENCE OUT NOW!—CHANGING THE WHOLE POLITICAL EQUATION AND SITUATION IN THIS COUNTRY, MAKING EVERY FORCE IN SOCIETY RESPOND TO THE POWERFULLY DEMONSTRATED DEMAND OF MASSES OF PEOPLE THAT THIS FASCIST REGIME MUST BE REMOVED.

Despite what the Democrats stand for, and how their approach would severely limit and cripple the fight against this fascist regime, in terms of voting people need to massively vote against Trump, by voting for Biden. BUT IT IS ABSOLUTELY CLEAR:

VOTING WILL NOT BE ENOUGH—AND SIMPLY RELYING ON VOTING WILL VERY LIKELY LEAD TO DISASTER. WE NEED TO TAKE TO THE STREETS NOW, AND STAY IN THE STREETS, DEMANDING TRUMP/PENCE OUT NOW!

For further understanding of all this, see these important works by Bob Avakian, available at revcom.us: the three-part series Voting Will Not Be Enough—We Need To Take To The Streets, And Stay In The Streets Demanding Trump/Pence Out Now! (in particular Part 3, Trump’s Fascism—More Blatant and Dangerous Every Day: How a Determined Fight and Massive Mobilization Could Defeat This) and 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.

 


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The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

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

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

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

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

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/667/trump-refuses-to-denounce-white-supremacy-then-directly-calls-out-to-his-fascist-thug-followers-en.html

Trump Refuses to Denounce White Supremacy, Then Directly Calls Out to His Fascist Thug Followers, in Blatant Moves to Further Pervert and Steal the Election at First Debate

| revcom.us

 

Donald Trump said and did many things in Tuesday night's presidential debate that made clear the extreme danger that humanity faces if he is to remain in office, but three stand out:

One, when straight-up asked to condemn white supremacy, he refused. Refused. Every white racist felt vindicated and energized.

Two, as part of that section of the debate, when asked if he would condemn the fascist group the “Proud Boys” in particular—a group which has been behind violent attacks on demonstrations all over the country—he directly addressed them from the debate stage, telling them to “stand back... and stand by.” Stand by. Stand by!!! He used the debate stage to give validation, leadership and instructions to his hard-core fascist thugs, in front of the whole world. It is no wonder that they are exulting today.

Three, he told them what to stand by for. Once again telling the totally baseless lie that the use of mail-in ballots meant that the regular election count could not be trusted, he refused when directly asked to tell his supporters to peacefully accept the results. What does it mean when a leader who glories in telling his fascist rallies tales of how protesters and reporters are brutalized and who brags about what his “Second Amendment people” will do when provoked says something like this? What are the implications? Think about it—think hard about it.

The whole night was a flood of fascist lies and a display of fascist bullying that was disgusting to anyone decent, yet was exciting to the hard-core racists, male chauvinists, and America-über-alles fanatics who make up his core support.

If you were to score the debate in terms of who won the most votes, it may have been Biden. But Trump is not intending to “win an election,” in the ordinary meaning of that term. No. What you watched was another installment in Trump’s rolling fascist coup, which we have documented here. As Bob Avakian has said, Trump is already stealing the election and threatening even more violence to stay in power. This debate was a further leap in that. Again, more could be said about all the outrages in this debate—including the way he openly admitted his intent to use the courts, which he is now intending to pack with yet another Christian-fascist Supreme Court judge, as a way to validate that coup.

In the face of all this, if you are taking comfort in Biden’s poll numbers, if you are swayed by Biden’s assurances that “your votes will decide the election”—assurances which are frankly doing a very grave disservice to the necessary rousing of people to see the level of threat we actually confront—you are not getting it. Trump is running for the office of Fuhrer, and he made that clear last night.

Now we must make clear we will not tolerate that. Answer the call of Refuse Fascism to start to take the streets—nonviolently and imaginatively, but determinedly, relentlessly, as if our lives and those of people around the world depended on it—because they do—in demonstrations building from thousands to millions now, beginning October 3 until the regime is driven out.

IN THE NAME OF HUMANITY, WE REFUSE TO ACCEPT A FASCIST AMERICA!

TRUMP/PENCE OUT NOW!

 

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

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

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

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

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

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/667/rnl-show-episode-28-announcement-en.html

Episode 28 of
The RNL Show—Revolution, Nothing Less!

| revcom.us

 

Share this widely

"There IS a way to STOP Fascism NOW: Oct. 3 We Begin!"

The Revolution, Nothing Less Show

On the national debate stage, Trump refused to condemn white supremacists, told fascist “Proud Boys” to “stand back and stand by!” and then made clear what they should “stand by” for when he refused to tell his supporters to peacefully accept the election results.

In this episode:

** Andy Zee's speech from the LA mass organizing meeting of RefuseFascism.org on the vision of, the need for, and how to make real growing mass nationwide nonviolent protests starting October 3 and continuing every day after that demanding: TRUMP/PENCE OUT NOW!

** Sunsara Taylor on Trump's Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett, a “home run” for fascism and imminent threat to abortion and all reproductive rights.

** “Donald Trump – GENOCIDAL RACIST” parts 6, 7 & 8 by Bob Avakian, read by Noche Diaz, national spokesperson for the Revolution Clubs.

** A look at the history of this country and the myth of America that Trump wants to enshrine through his “Patriotic Education” in a new installment of the American Crime series created by filmmaker David Zeiger.

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/667/posters-and-graphics-for-oct-3-en.html

Posters and Graphics for October 3 and beyond:
TRUMP/PENCE OUTNOW!

| revcom.us

 

Reposted from RefuseFascism.org

Download PDFs:

 

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

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

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

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

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

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

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/667/refuse-fascism-principles-of-our-movement-en.html

Reposted from RefuseFascism.org:

Principles of our movement demanding Trump/Pence Out Now

| revcom.us

 

In the name of humanity we refuse to accept a fascist America.

We are calling for and organizing nonviolent protests involving a broad coalition of all the decent people who see the urgent danger of the Trump Pence Regime at this moment and refuse to live in a fascist America.

** Keep our eyes on the prize—We demand Trump/Pence Out Now

We have to stay on message. We cannot lose our focus of bringing masses of  people into the public square, creating a situation where the mass nonviolent outpouring for this demand is shaking up society. This will change the equation of who is seen as having right on their side, thwarting the Trump/Pence rolling coup. This means not getting diverted by attacks from fascists on the one hand, or on the other hand, those who oppose these protests, denying the danger we are confronting.

** Unite all who can be united on this single demand

This means bringing together all those who recognize the danger of this regime, from different perspectives, and understandings of what this Trump/Pence regime staying in office will mean for millions of people here and around the world. We will listen and learn from each other, drawing on the strength of our diversity, while putting aside differences that serve only to unravel the force of a people determined to not allow these fascist forces to remain in power.

** Draw a clear line of demarcation between our cause and the Trump fascists and their thugs and vicious lying mouthpieces.

Our way is to rely on the strength of the righteousness of our demand, the reality that it is in the interests of humanity, and the strength of our numbers coming into the streets in nonviolent protests. But the fascist forces who are determined to subject people here and around the world to a fascist America will nevertheless attack in different ways, and will try to intimidate us into backing down. We cannot allow that to happen, instead we need to stay strong, united in this cause and determined to turn every attack into an opportunity to draw forward many thousands more.

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

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

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

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

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

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

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

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/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.

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/667/on-donald-trump-infection-with-covid-19-en.html

On Donald Trump's Infection With COVID-19 and the Continued Need to Drive OUT the Trump/Pence Regime NOW

| revcom.us

 

Editors’ Note: As we go to press, there are continuing and conflicting reports of Trump’s health situation, changing by the minute. What we wrote below in the immediate aftermath of these revelations continues to stand and be true.

To all those who recognize the threat of fascism with Donald Trump but think, just maybe a little bit, that Trump getting COVID-19 might change that... that, just perhaps, we don’t have to mobilize in the streets to drive out this regime through mass, sustained, nonviolent protest like that called by Refuse Fascism, that maybe we can just “wait and see what happens.”

NO!

Donald Trump will not order the wall torn down and the concentration camps shut. He will not pull back the white supremacist and fascist thugs he commands, in and out of uniform, now on the offensive. He will not drop plans to suppress the votes and violate the rights of people who are not white, native-born Americans. He will not decide that “Black lives matter,” nor will he “see reason” and “finally listen to the science” on either COVID or the environment he is so rapidly destroying, nor will he stop demeaning and attacking the fundamental rights of women and LGBTQ people... nor will he tear down monuments to slavery, or take a course in Black history.

Hospitalization has not created a “new man,” nor changed the extremely dangerous nature of his regime.

In fact, he, and those around him and behind him, ARE perverting, corrupting, and destroying the elections, and continue and persist in their plans to defy and negate any result that does not leave Trump & Pence in the White House IF elections are held. They intend to stay in power by any and all means at their disposal. To wait until he attacks the results and presents the world with a fait accompli before you go into the streets is to wait too long, it is to surrender the struggle before it’s begun. The time to build and show our strength—which potentially is far greater than theirs—is NOW, even as we prepare to vote in massive numbers. Nonviolently, massively, and creatively—with a determination borne of confronting the stakes—we must go into the streets, day after day, building, building, building.

As Bob Avakian has written:

The crazed fanaticism of the fascists insisting that Trump must remain in power, no matter what, must be met, and overwhelmed, by the conscious passionate intensity of masses of people who hate everything that this fascist regime represents, who recognize the very real existential threat that this regime represents for humanity and are fired with righteous determination that this regime must go!

 

Donald Trump, his wife Melania Trump, at least several other people who work in the White House, some senators, and other major figures in and around the Trump/Pence regime have recently been infected with COVID-19. Trump has been hospitalized.

There are a lot of issues raised by this, which will be addressed later in this article. But the most important thing must not be allowed to fade from center stage:

Trump and Pence, the people around them, and a fascist movement that has been organizing for decades are in the midst of carrying out a rolling fascist coup. Let’s go back to the “ancient history” of the Tuesday night debate, where Trump refused, under repeated questioning, to renounce white supremacy.*

He refused, when asked, to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if Biden is officially declared to be the winner.

He encouraged some of his most violent and racist followers by name to “stand by” to go into the streets should the election results go against him. He encouraged more of his followers to go to the polls on Election Day and intimidate people, and he clearly indicated his intended target—especially Black and Latino people in what he calls “the Democrat cities”—declaring that “bad things are happening in Philadelphia.” (These followers have already been doing this in early voting sites in Virginia and Philadelphia.)

He declared, at the debate, his intention to use Republican majorities in Congress and the courts, including the Supreme Court, to ram through a second term, even if he loses the vote count.

In short: as Bob Avakian has written, Trump is already stealing the election and threatening violence. He is declaring that he intends to stay in office by any and all means, and he and his minions are actively preparing to do so.

None of this has stopped. None of what has happened with his COVID diagnosis has changed this basic dynamic. And the truth of what Refuse Fascism has been saying and standing for and organizing for—that in order for this fascism to be defeated people must begin to go into the streets NOW, day after day—is just as true at the moment you read this as it was Wednesday morning, or the week before that, or the month before that. Trump/Pence must be driven OUT NOW.

What to Make of the COVID Diagnosis?

In a situation like this, in which information has been withheld and may be badly distorted, it is important first of all to focus on what we know for certain to be true.

We know that throughout, there has been very little information released by the White House.

We know that Trump has made the denial of the seriousness of COVID, and defiance and sabotage of very basic health measures agreed upon by the scientific community, a cornerstone of his regime and his re-election campaign. He has done this to the extent that at the presidential debate, his family and some members of his entourage refused to wear masks once they were seated, despite having agreed to do so ahead of time.

We know that they then rejected requests by debate staff to do so and, by refusing, they may have endangered many people there. We know that more than 200,000 people have died in the U.S. as a result of COVID-19, the highest death toll in the world, at a higher rate than any other country with a comparable level of development.

While the disease would take a toll in even the best situation, and while “what-might-have-beens” are always uncertain, we know that different scientific experts have estimated that the excess deaths caused by the regime’s distortions, defiance, and ignore-ance of the science surrounding COVID may be in the range of 100,000 people.

We know that all this has made many things around the election uncertain. For instance, will the next debates go on as scheduled?

But again, one thing remains certain: they are actively moving in a rolling fascist coup to render any election results against Trump irrelevant; in this situation, voting is necessary but not enough: WE MUST BE IN THE STREETS.

 


* A full two days after the debate, in response to the tremendous criticism of his blatant refusal to condemn white supremacy, Trump said on FOX News—to a far, far smaller audience than watched the debate—that he condemned white supremacy, as well as the Proud Boys. But this “backoff” means nothing; the bell cannot be unrung.  [back]

 

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

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

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

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

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

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

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

 

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