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Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/avakian/science/07ba-science...revolution-the-new-synthesis-of-communism-pt-2-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

 

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Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

Protesting Murder and Terror by the Police Is Absolutely Righteous and Necessary!
STOP MURDER AND TERROR BY POLICE NOW!!
We Need Revolution! 

July 8, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

July 17, 2016: At this point, it is not clear exactly what happened in Baton Rouge today—where several police were shot and killed. But the points in the following statement remain relevant and correct.

A Point of Orientation for Right Now:

In the past few days, in the face of yet more new and awful videos documenting the real role and behavior of the police, people have once again begun to rise up righteously.  Despite an incident in Dallas in which five police were killed, THIS PROTEST MUST CONTINUE AND INTENSIFY AND PEOPLE MUST CONTINUE TO SEEK THE CAUSE OF THE PROBLEM AND ITS SOLUTION.

The protest movement that arose once again in the last few days is positive and important.  Slanders must be met with the truth and attempts to suppress this movement must be defeated.   Attacks on the families of the victims must CEASE.

These protests came after the cold-blooded blue-coated murderers of Tamir Rice and Eric Garner and Sandra Bland and Freddie Gray and Rekia Boyd and Andy Lopez and countless less well-known victims have walked free.  These protests come after months of promises, months of advice to “make reasonable demands,” months of advice to “do something sensible and vote” and generally to work within the system: a system that is criminal at its core and never will and never can give a rat’s ass about the people they grind under and exploit and oppress.

Let’s say it straight out: the amount of police who have been killed by people is tiny—tiny—compared to the amount of people they have killed month in and month out, year in and year out.  So don’t let them change the subject.  The subject that must be addressed is this: how do we END murder and terror by the police, what must be done to STOP it?

Reality Check #1:

Over 500 people have been killed by police in the US since January 1 this year.  In just the past few days, police murdered Alton Sterling in Louisiana for the “crime” of being Black and selling CD’s on the street.  They murdered Philando Castile in Minnesota for the “crime” of being Black, having a broken taillight, and following the order of a cop to show his drivers license.  The week before that they murdered Ronnie Shumpert for the “crime” of being Black and running away from one of these trigger-happy racists. 

There will be hundreds of others this year, just like there were over 1000 last year—disproportionately Black, Latino and Native American.  People killed like dogs or worse than dogs for the “crimes” of selling loose cigarettes on the street, having a mental breakdown, asking “why” to a pig when you are stopped for changing lanes, or—and here’s the one these cops really lash out for—running for your life and safety when you see one of these murderers stalking you or coming after you.  And even when the struggle of the people has forced an indictment, none of these murderers have been punished—or if they have, it has been a slap on the wrist.

And this goes on over and over and over again.  The mother of Philando Castile is right to call this a “silent war against Black people.” 

Why does this happen?  As Bob Avakian, BA, the leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA has said,

The role of the police is not to serve and protect the people. It is to serve and protect the system that rules over the people. To enforce the relations of exploitation and oppression, the conditions of poverty, misery and degradation into which the system has cast people and is determined to keep people in. The law and order the police are about, with all of their brutality and murder, is the law and the order that enforces all this oppression and madness.

BAsics 1:24

Reality Check #2:

This chronic police murder comes on top of centuries of the wanton murder of Black people by the official armed forces of the state, by mobs of backward racist white people, and by white individuals—all of which has gone almost totally unpunished.  Go back to the slave catchers.  Go back to the Ku Klux Klan.  Go back to the racist white mobs that drove Black people out of “white neighborhoods,” beating them and sometimes killing them, and not just one or two but dozens and scores and even hundreds at a time.  Go back to the lynch mobs and the “strange fruit.”  Go back to the killings of those who had committed the “crimes” of trying to register Black people to vote, or the “crime” of going to Sunday school while you were a Black 14-year-old girl in Birmingham.  Black lives have NEVER mattered to this white supremacist system, except as a means to amass the much vaunted wealth of this capitalist-imperialist, gold-plated hellhole.  As BA has said:

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

BAsics 1:1

TIME IS UP ON THIS SYSTEM.  We need revolution.

Reality Check #3:

This violence in turn is part of something larger—an empire, a whole system, which imprisons, drives from their homes, maims, and kills incredible numbers of people.  The U.S. armed forces have directly killed at least eight million people since World War II, and they have indirectly killed—through its lackeys and proxies—even more.  From Korea to Vietnam, from Indonesia to Iraq, from Central America to Palestine, there’s almost nowhere in Africa, Asia or Latin America that these imperialists have not slaughtered people.  As Martin Luther King said, the U.S. “is the greatest purveyor of violence in the contemporary world.”  Who can deny it?  And again, for what?  To protect the ability of these imperialists to exploit people in every single corner of the globe, to ruin their environments, to rip up and ridicule their cultures, to prevent their right to self-determination, and so on. 

Again, to quote BA:

The U.S. military, which they claim is "heroically protecting you," is in fact the machinery of slaughter and destruction enforcing a system of oppression and exploitation that causes horrendous suffering and death on a massive scale throughout the world.

And:

The essence of what exists in the U.S. is not democracy but capitalism-imperialism and political structures to enforce that capitalism-imperialism.  What the U.S. spreads around the world is not democracy, but imperialism and political structures to enforce that imperialism.

BAsics 1:3

That system and all its violence is illegitimate.  That system and all its violence is criminal.  That system and all its violence must be stopped.  That system has no right whatsoever to carry out this violence and these organs of reactionary violence need to be dismantled, the whole system that they buttress and enforce must be overthrown, and something much better brought into its place.  In other words, what the people on this planet and all over the world, including here, desperately need is a real revolution.

Reality Check #4:

The only solution, again, is a real revolution, in which this system is overthrown.  And we are building a movement FOR revolution.  This revolution, in order to really have a chance at winning, would need to involve millions of people who have become convinced of the need for this revolution and who, with the emergence of a deep-going revolutionary crisis in society, would be determined to fight to carry out such a revolutionary struggle and to fight to win.  That time is not yet here.  To find out more on how to bring that time closer go to revcom.us or check out the Revolution Club.

As the Revolution Club Points of Attention make clear:

“We are going for an actual overthrow of this system and a whole better way beyond the destructive, vicious conflicts of today between the people.  Because we are serious, at this stage we do not initiate violence and we oppose all violence against the people and among the people.”

Get Organized For An Actual Revolution!

 

 

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Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

Updated September 19, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

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Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

Interview with Carl Dix

Building the Movement for an Actual Revolution in Baton Rouge

July 11, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Editor’s note: People in Baton Rouge and around the country are continuing to stand up and fight for justice. They are not letting the focus be changed, not backing down, not buckling under to calls to go home. Carl Dix is in Baton Rouge as part of a crew, including members of the Revolution Club, from around the country to bring the message that we are organizing for an actual revolution. As a crucial part of preparing for that, we are joining with and encouraging people to continue to fight. Revolution talked to Carl Dix on Sunday night, July 10.

Revolution: How is building the movement for an actual revolution going?

Carl Dix: The revolutionaries are out in the streets, out among the masses, bringing them the message that this horror is built into the fabric of the system. We’ve been coming off of Bob Avakian’s quote about the role of the police: “The role of the police is not to serve and protect the people. It is to serve and protect the system that rules over the people. To enforce the relations of exploitation and oppression, the conditions of poverty, misery and degradation into which the system has cast people and is determined to keep people in. The law and order the police are about, with all of their brutality and murder, is the law and the order that enforces all this oppression and madness.”

And we are challenging anybody to look at those videos of the murder of Alton Sterling and the aftermath of the murder of Philando Castile and challenge the truth of that statement on the role of the police.

We were at, and part of, a march today that was organized by high school students in Baton Rouge to the State Capitol (which is in Baton Rouge). The march drew out hundreds of people. As people were gathering we took out the loudspeaker and I began to speak on that point and saying that this tells us the role of police and it tells us that this horror, that’s concentrated by these two incidents, these two murders—but is actually in the context of police getting away with murder again and again and again. And this takes us back to the history of centuries of savage oppression—from the slave chasers to the lynch mobs to the police today. That this horror is built into the fabric of the system. And the way to end it and all the other horrors is to make revolution, overthrow this system and bring in to being a totally different and far better system, and that we in the Revolutionary Communist Party are organizing right now for an actual revolution. I was also able to speak to the leadership that we have for this revolution, in Bob Avakian. And that people need to go to the website revcom.us. After that, several people from the Revolution Club spoke. And we kind of opened the thing up.

And it was actually very interesting—a couple hundred people gathered around and listened eagerly. And I wound my part up with saying you gotta get a copy of this Message from the leadership of the Revolutionary Communist Party, “Time to Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution.” And then I said to people, “hold up that message.” We had a few people out there distributing it and they held it up. People started going to them to get it.

And then some of the mentors of the high school students who had organized this were saying, you don’t want to steal their thunder. They were telling us, this is a high school students’ event and you shouldn’t be trying to take it over, etc. etc... But then even this divided up because one of the mentors came up to me and began telling me that—and I said well, we’re not trying to take it over, but first off, I’m Carl Dix. And she goes, “Ooooh, I’m a fan!” As it turned out, two of the high school students that she had been mentoring had interviewed me at Louisiana State University. That was on the day we got into town and we went to a meeting of a couple of hundreds students. We went to the meeting and then afterwards these high school students interviewed me and they were really excited by what they heard and by getting the Message from the Central Committee and they had this woman excited. So she was like, “oh, that’s who you are, I’m a fan, I’m excited to meet you.”

There’s also this thing of different kinds of people in motion around this murder. All of the speakers at the formal rally were high schoolers. They had told us that at the beginning as part of telling us that I wasn’t going to be allowed to speak. And we thought maybe that’s true, but maybe that’s the way to say, we’re not going to let you speak. It turned out that all of the speakers were high school students. And there was talk about the main thing is you gotta vote, that kind of stuff. But at the same time people were talking about dreaming about a world where this doesn’t happen. And there was a poem about how terrified people are, but also how that terror has motivated them to act because this has gotta stop. So there were a lot of very good expressions from the stage.

Revolution: Can you tell us a bit more about their dreaming of a world where this didn’t happen?

CD: Dreaming of a world where this kind of stuff doesn’t happen—referring to the murder of Alton Sterling. So there were different ideas in people’s minds and people are waking up to stuff and grappling with what it’s gonna take. And expressing some things that aren’t gonna to do anything about it, but aspiring to do something about it. It’s a very fertile scene.

Find out more about the revolution         Find out about BA, the leader of the revolution

This march also brought out a lot of college students, a lot of professional people, and it was very multinational. There were whole lot of Black people, but also a good number of white people, people of other nationalities; there were professional people here. It very much was a diversity of people, coming out to stand against this murder.

It isn’t yet the case that these kinds of people have connected with the people from the base who are out at the site of the murder and down at the police station in the face of the cops around the murder. But they were marching. They are still in motion. People have not been swept aside by the way that the events in Dallas are being used. That’s something that’s pretty evident in everything that’s happened since Dallas.

Revolution: So let’s go to the resistance. How is that going? The world has seen on TV how police there are aiming rifles, shotguns, pistols at people for demanding justice.

CD: Yeah, exactly. I remember being out in the midst of the youth, standing up Friday night at the Police Station. There was the battle between some of the “responsible leaders,” including people who are actually quite close to the youth. At one point a guy who said he was a principal pointed into the crowd and said, “I see a lot of my students here.” And a lot of people were nodding their heads, like, “yeah I am one of your students.” They had a coach get up there and talk about he cared about all of these young people and that’s why he wanted them to go home because the police were gonna F- em up if they didn’t go home and all of this. But then a lot of the youth started saying, “the police are already fucking us up. Us going home ain’t gonna stop that. That’s why we’re here. We’re tired of that and we’re not gonna take it any more.” And these more defiant youth weathered that storm of all the entreaties and pleas, plus the intimidation to get them out of the scene. They stayed in the street, blocked traffic, and 30 of them ended up being arrested.

Then about 50 people came back the next day. And it was put on TV. At first, it was just these couple dozen people. And within an hour or two it was like 700 people. And we were out at it and we asked people, what brought you out here? And all kinds of people said, I saw on TV that there was people out here. And that’s an expression of the mood: that when people see that there’s somebody out there doing something, they want to connect up with it, they want to run and rush and be a part of it.

And there is a great degree of openness to the message of the revolution. I mean we came down with 2,000 Messages and we had to re-order because we were out of them. We had to get thousands more down here. People want to get it. A number of them have wanted to connect with the revolution but they also need to know what the revolution is. We’ve been working at bringing that out to people and engaging people. Much more needs to be done on that front and, can be done.

Revolution: What about the dimension of peoples’ response to there being a leader, BA, who has dared to identify and beyond that actually answer what it says in the Message: “BA has developed answers to why this system can’t be reformed...how revolutionary forces could grow from weak to strong, and actually defeat the enemy...how people could then build a new society on the road to emancipating humanity throughout the world ...and how to wage the struggles of today to reach that goal.

“BA’s leadership is a huge strength for the revolution: to follow, to learn from, to defend.”

CD: It starts with nobody knowing who he is. But also, mainly, OK, so, who is he? What does he have to say? What has he done? And people are interested in hearing about BAsics. We’ve been doing some BAsics quotes, we need to do much more of that.

And we’ve been emphasizing the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, which was written by BA. And we’ve been using this thing about how after the revolution people will not be shooting down people—people will no longer be shooting down Black people because we will have defeated these police departments, broken them up and the new public security force would operate on totally different principles—would sooner lose or risk their own lives than kill or injure an innocent people. And we trace that to the BA quote that’s in BAsics around Tyisha Miller, we point people to the Constitution.

Revolution: Is there anything to add in terms of who’s coming forward? You were describing different ways and different levels in which people are coming forward. What’s the mix out there? Seems like a lot of those who catch the most hell every day under this system are in the streets at night. But from what you’re saying, others are taking a stand there as well.

CD: It shifts a little bit with different activity. Here, this march today, that went to the State Capitol, there was a good representation of white people. I was struck by the diversity of it. This is the march that was called for by the high school students and some college students took it up as well. There were professional people. Three bus loads of people came from new Orleans. There were hundreds of people.

Now the thing at night, it is largely Black, maybe overwhelmingly Black. It’s not like there aren’t any white people. There have been some Black college students who have come out. A Black fraternity came out last night to the protest in front of the police station. And it was significant when they came—they came out at 11 PM because they saw it on TV. And what they saw was a confrontation that was a scene of largely basic masses facing off with the police. And this college fraternity, about half a dozen of their members, they came out sporting their fraternity T-shirts. We saw some students from Southern University (Baton Rouge) and from LSU (whose main campus is in Baton Rouge). They were out the night before—again with the confrontation with the police. So there is some mixing.

Revolution: Let’s go back to what questions people you see people being up against?

CD: In a very real sense people are up against a lot of different ways that they should not confront the system over this. There’s the view that don’t do it because it’s not safe. I mean the high school students got told straight up, you don’t want to do anything, because they were going to march to the police station and they got told, don’t do that because you could end up in the same kind of situation as Alton Sterling ended up, so back away from that. That’s also something that people were told at the police station.

And like I said, there’s a very vocal section, of mostly young Black people, but some older Black people as well, who are like, “they are already coming after us.” A lot of the people who are most vocal have been young Black women. When we started with the speak-out down at the police headquarters, I spoke, a couple of people from the Rev Club spoke and then we began to offer the mic to other people. And the most eager takers were some of the young Black women who were there.

It was really striking, the way in which people spoke of their fear of what the police murder of Alton Sterling meant for them, for their children, for their brothers, for their fathers. But it was interesting to see the way in which their fear motivated them to act as opposed to fear paralyzing them. It was pretty striking. And one of the things that I think we should do, because a lot of those vocal young Black women signed up that they wanted to find out about the revolution and get connected up with the revolution—we should interview them. That’s one of the things that we have to do more, actually connect with, and talk to some of these people more about what they’re thinking.

Revolution: Thank you Carl Dix. We look forward to hearing more reports from you and the people from the Revolution Clubs that are down in Baton Rouge. From what you’ve said, the struggle there has great potential. We will be updating from Baton Rouge and from cities all around the country.

Editor’s note: After this interview was concluded, hundreds of youth and others of all nationalities, who were part of the march to the State Capitol on Sunday continued to protest in Baton Rouge. They were viciously attacked by police with assault rifles, high-pitched sirens with ear-splitting sound, armored vehicles, riot gear and gas masks. Dozens were arrested. Stay tuned to Revolution for ongoing coverage.

 

 

 

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Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

Revolution—Nothing Less!

A Powerful Week of Resistance and Struggle—A Need to Take It Higher and Further

July 11, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

This has been an intense and painful and—because of the struggle of the masses—a very positive week. It began last Tuesday with the police cold-bloodedly murdering Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for nothing. It went on with the murder by Falcon Heights, Minnesota, police of Philando Castile, and then the abusive arrest of his fiancée as she watched and courageously live-streamed it on Facebook. People rose up in protest for the first time in a long time, and righteously so. Then the authorities tried to seize on an incident in Dallas where five police were killed (at a time when more than 500 civilians have already been killed by police this year) to suppress protest.

It didn’t work. This weekend saw the inspiring sights of people not only refusing to go along with the efforts of the rulers to tamp down and squash righteous resistance to police murder, but a stepping up of protest in key cities and a heightened militancy. People are beginning to make very clear that those who want to protest and rebel against this are NOT going away, and they are NOT going to be quelled by calls for dialogue, for letting the system work, etc. The people are not going to be shoved off the streets or out of public awareness by a massive effort on the part of the rulers to “change the subject.” And they are not going to allow the violent attacks by the police, the threats with automatic weapons, the tear gas and pepper spray, to stop this.

These protests have already accomplished a great deal. They have forcefully demanded that this outrageous running sore of this system be stopped, and have made clear there is a growing section of people, from many sections of society and different nationalities, who are not going to be turned around. They have raised major questions about why this keeps happening, over and over, and what must be done. They have compelled people to confront that what has been promised and done up to now can in no way cut it. The protests have forced Obama to address this at a goddamn NATO conference in Europe and done damage to America’s totally hypocritical efforts to pose as the “champion of human rights.”

And these protests have raised in the minds of the rulers and their spokespeople in the media the real fear that millions of people will come to believe that the armed power and force of this system is ILLEGITIMATE and should not be allowed to continue. More than a few—including Obama—have referred to the last great period of revolutionary upsurge in this country, the 1960s.

Obama, of course, said that this was NOT [yet] on the scope and scale of the 1960s, as have others. But two things on that. One, the fact that they are having to even raise this and address it indicates both the possibility for things to develop to that scale (and beyond) and their real fears of that happening. And two—and this is something pointed to by some of their commentators—the underlying contradictions in this society today are even more potentially explosive than they were “back in the day.” This is a “jolt” in the normal workings of the system which forces millions to suddenly think about things that they have not been thinking about; and it could, with the work of revolutionaries as well as other developments, lead to an even deeper crisis. (See the RCP’s statement “On the Strategy for Revolution” for more on this.)

The protests in Baton Rouge and Minnesota and elsewhere must continue, grow, and intensify. The protesters and defiant ones must be defended against the vicious attacks and intimidation carried out by the police, who have now arrested several hundred people across the country, beating on people and spraying them, and brandishing guns at protesters. And as people rise up, the question is posed: WHY do these murders by police keep happening? WHY do these police come down with vicious repression whenever people stand up? The fact is that there IS a way out of this madness and horror, through actual revolution, overthrowing this system at the earliest possible time, based on a scientific analysis of the history and structure of this society. We have the strategy and leadership for this, in Bob Avakian, and we are working right now to hasten the time when millions can be led to go for revolution, all-out, with a real chance to win.

Find out more about the revolution         Find out about BA, the leader of the revolution

The revolution must be much more powerfully present. People need to be getting and distributing the RCP Central Committee’s Message, “Time To Get Organized for An ACTUAL Revolution.” People need to hear about and get into the leadership of Bob Avakian, get his quotes and works and see his image. People need to be hooked up with revcom.us. The revolution needs to tap into and give expression to people’s desire to participate in all this, to dig more deeply into the problem we face and the solution of revolution, and to get organized into the movement for revolution, to contribute in whatever way they can.

So far, the Revcoms in the Revolution Club have played a very positive role in all this. Many have sacrificed to travel long distances to be on the front lines and spread revolution. Some have stepped to the forefront of mass rallies, agitating and giving shape and revolutionary direction to things. Now is the time to step all this up, to forcefully project the Club and to bring new people into it. As one part of this, the chants and slogans and posters and banners and T-shirts of the Club must be spread and others enabled to take this up. As another, there need to be meetings on the spot with people who want to dig deeper into where this comes from, how it’s linked to other outrages, and what it’s really gonna take to bring down this monster and end this 400-year reign of terror against Black people, as well as all the other horrors of this society.

All this, including the healthy and sometimes vigorous struggle it will give rise to among the protesters themselves, will actually strengthen the resistance, as people debate and test and apply different ideas, searching for what is true and correct.

This resistance against police terror and murder must also find powerful expression in Cleveland, a week from now, when the Republicans nominate an outright fascist—which itself says volumes about the utter illegitimacy of the system. Cleveland, remember, was the home of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, murdered in cold blood by Cleveland pigs—pigs who walked totally free. And it was the home of Timothy Russell and Melissa Williams, unarmed Black people murdered, shot at 137 times by Cleveland pigs—who, again, walked totally free. Everybody who is outraged around these murders needs to build for, support, and come out to the week of defiance now being planned, right up in the face of the anointment of this utterly illegitimate racist, misogynist, and poisonous national chauvinist.

And this must also be a major focus of struggle in Philadelphia a week later when the Democrats—including Hillary Clinton (with her long history of repressing Black youth which she must not be allowed to run away from)—gather. This, too, is a city with a long history and present-day reality of police terror and murder against Black people—including the bombing of a house of Black radicals from the MOVE organization in 1985 by a Black Democratic mayor—a bombing that killed 11 people, including three children—and where the only person who did a lick of time was MOVE member and bombing victim Ramona Africa!

Finally, we are re-running the basic reality checks that we published on Friday, July 8, when the offensive against this movement began.

 

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/447/revolution-club-in-july-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

 

 

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Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

Taking Out the Message: "Time To Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution"

Organizing a Focused, Coherent Force for Even Greater Societal Impact

July 11, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

The following is from a reader who has been taking out the Message “Time To Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution.” It was written prior to the recent upsurge of struggle against police terror and murder, but its essential points should be applied to new conditions and, in those conditions, are even more relevant.

The Message from the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) is pivotal to carrying out what it calls for: “ORGANIZING NOW TO OVERTHROW THE SYSTEM AT THE SOONEST POSSIBLE TIME. Preparing to lead an actual revolution to bring about a radically new and better society: the New Socialist Republic in North America.”

The Message is straightforward and boiled down to the essence... what is the problem, what is the urgently needed solution, who is the leadership, what do we do now to get organized and what are the principles to live by starting right now to convey this future society. It takes the reader of the Message to the truth of the reality humanity confronts and the 100 percent real answers. When the Revolution Club brings it in a powerful way with certitude on the street and at things like the July 4th picnics... when you sit quietly and read it together with people... when you return to it in the midst of the discussions and debates that break out in its wake—then you are focusing and re-focusing people’s attention on the big picture of reality and how a radically better world can be brought into being. We need to be more conscious of what a powerful tool this is, and we can do an even better job in wielding the content of this Message.

This is one thing everyone can do—SPREAD IT EVERYWHERE. When the Message first came out, we enlisted people in neighborhoods where the Revolution Club was getting it into apartment complexes around the area. People took it on the trains and put it under people’s doors. This made an impact. A couple of Revcoms did a little survey to see if people saw and read it in this neighborhood. It turned out one out of three people had seen it and most of them had read part or all of it. A young woman came up to people at a citywide literature festival and said she got the statement in her neighborhood and, since, she had been looking for the Revolution Club and gave people her number to pass on to the Club. We need to do more of this as we go. If someone is drawn to it or says they want to stay in contact... find out where they can take responsibility for getting it out and enlist them on the spot. Then make sure to follow up.

In this same area, the bus stops have been maintained as “mini Revolution walls”—posting new things like the call for the July 4th picnic... Revolution Club flyers... the poster of the Land of the Thief and Home of the Slave... This too is something that the people who want to be part of this, who want to be supportive, can do: keep posting things up at the bus stops in their ’hood on their way to and from work.

This spreads into other movements and all kinds of realms. A person in the above area who takes a STOP sign out to get the youth to stop the violence, also spreads the Message. A woman from a nearby hollowed-out industrial city goes to clinic for sickle-cell and finds ways to leave the statement on the literature tables, the bulletin boards, the bathroom walls. A Revcom goes to a gang truce meeting, introduces the statement, and one o.g. says, “Oh, you’re the people behind that...” then turns to the others and says, “Read it, it’s serious.”

We’ve held meetings to get into different parts of REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS!, introducing people who have been activated or been drawn to the statement, along with friends they bring, to Bob Avakian, the leader of the revolution. We’ve gone out and shown clips of the DVD, or of “BA Through the Years.” Involving people in BA, getting them to get into BA, even in beginning ways is another way—and we need to do more to encourage people to post and spread these on social media.

We also need to appreciate how this can be the pivot for many others in big and small towns to gain consciousness of the movement for revolution and be organized into being part of it in many different ways. Summer is a time when people travel to see family and friends or to vacation. Everywhere we should be spreading this Message—these are highly charged times politically, and people need to see and hear that the choice is not pick your poison or, as one Club member put it, “Killary or Mein Trumpf.” Everywhere we should be putting forward the real alternative—revolution—and the real leadership for this—BA.

Already, members of the Revolution Club and others have taken it on the road with them, but this is something many more people can do. In one small city that is about 1½ hours away from a major metro area, there is an older revolutionary who is spreading this everywhere in his town, taking it to both the projects and the artist district. We are planning to send someone out there periodically to go around with him, talking to all the people he knows in town as well as send a representative to meet with the people he gathers up.

Find out more about the revolution         Find out about BA, the leader of the revolution

In really appreciating the impact the Message has already had so far on people who have gotten their hands on a copy, on people who have seen the Revolution Club wielding it and representing for it—in this you see some really important little shoots of new things. The people who say they want to join the Revolution Club are very, very important and really essential to this revolution we are out to make at the soonest possible time, and plans to bring them in on the spot, to systematically recruit and develop the steps for when they first join the Club, is vital. Transforming the “broader sea” of people... preparing the ground and preparing the people, is also going on but may be harder to fully recognize. Do we get the impact that this is already having? Do we see that people are checking it out... is this the force that can actually lead a revolution? What kind of world would they bring into being? One critical task of leadership is pulling the lens back to enable people to see what they are actually accomplishing, how they are changing things, what all this is building toward and how is it getting us to what is actually called for in the Message. Critical to this, we have found that serious and repeated wrangling over the first 40 minutes or so of the third disk of REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! is critical in imbuing this sense in people.

This means breaking with the notion that we are a small bunch “doing things for people” or in their stead, and grasping the power of the truth of the statement and the role of all kinds of people in taking this up in all kinds of ways. Do we first RECOGNIZE, and then NURTURE and KNIT together, all the positive ways people can be part of this revolution and the implications of this for when a revolutionary situation opens up? Are we thinking of ways to give this organizational expression, not just on-ramps to the revolution, but ways to move people forward once they do come on?

This Message speaks to people, especially but not only those on the bottom... for many, it captures their yet unspoken and unformed hope for a different and far better future. The vendor at the anti-July 4th picnic who puts the Message and Revolution newspaper on his car while he sells out of the trunk. The young man driving around playing Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Going to Come” when Revcoms were at the courthouse, three times as a show of solidarity. The activist who brings a dish to the anti-4th of July picnic. The pan-Africanist bookstore that offers space for the Revolution Club to meet. The professionals who donate money to support the work of the Club. The 11-year-old who passes out palm cards... all the people decked out in red, white, and blue garb who studied displays about the crimes of America on July 4th... these are just a FEW of the seeds of the future that we need to appreciate and not walk past but build on, on the spot, and which we really work to figure out how to draw this into a more organized way, preparing the broad ranks of the people who will be part of any revolutionary struggle in many different capacities.

If you think about it, this has strategic implications not only all the way through to a revolutionary situation and a struggle for state power when that time comes, but it also has immediate implications for the Revolution Clubs going to the Republican and Democratic conventions. Everyone needs to know that they are going to take the revolution right into the midst of the protests while the whole world literally will be watching what unfolds at both conventions. In the neighborhoods of the oppressed, people can be part of this by signing and sending banners (“South Side of Chicago,” or messages from “family members of people killed by the police”...); raising money to support the revolutionaries going to the conventions; putting on send-off dinners and report-back meetings; everyone following what is unfolding by going to revcom.us and being there to protest any repression aimed at those resisting outside the ugly spectacle of these conventions.

How do these get multiplied... but how do those taking these kinds of initiatives get marshaled into an increasingly focused and coherent and organized force... how can they be brought to bear in a way that gives an even greater societal impact...?

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/447/revolution-books-nyc-summer-2016-indiegogo-fundraising-campaign-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

Revcom.us received this announcement from Revolution Books, NYC about the launch of a major fundraising campaign on July 11.

Now Is the Time:
Come to Revolution Books and
Support Revolution Books

July 11, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

ASK YOURSELF:

If there was ever a moment when this place was essential, isn't it NOW?

How many more Black and brown people will be murdered by the enforcers of a vicious and brutal system, in front of the world? How many more tears will be shed? Revolution Books: where people come from across the street and across the globe to find the books and engagement about WHY the world is such a horror and HOW to change it. Where people find the theory and leadership for an actual revolution—the new synthesis of communism developed by the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian.

Revolution Books $25,000 Summer 2016 Indiegogo fundraising campaign

Monday, July 11, it's on. YOU are needed.

1 LIVE LAUNCH party at Revolution Books, 7:30-9 PM on Monday, July 11.
RB will open specially for the in-person, real-time opening and celebration of the $25,000 campaign. Be there: donating and pledging, a special update for you -- the Revolution Books community and supporters. Plus refreshments, and we'll push out on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram ... COME ON IN!

2 ONLINE—PLEDGE NOW & DONATE on Monday night.
Write us NOW making your pledge. On Monday night, search for "Revolution Books New York" at Indiegogo.com to make the donation.

3 TELL THE WORLD about why they should give all they can to this unique revolutionary bookstore.

4 SEND RB YOUR STORY about how Revolution Books matters to the world—especially now. Send a vine, text, Youtube, or photo of you holding 6 revealing words on a card.

Support Revolution Books—The Time Is NOW.

Humanity Needs Revolution
The Revolution Needs Revolution Books
Revolution Books Needs You!

Revolution Books
437 Malcolm X Blvd. (Lenox Ave) @ 132nd Street (2/ 3 train to 135th St) 212.691.3345 www.revolutionbooksnyc.org

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/447/gop-convention-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

GOP Convention: Freedom, Democracy and Media Megaphone for Fascists....Repression, Terror & Dictatorship for People

July 11, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

The Republican Party Convention to nominate its presidential ticket takes place in Cleveland Ohio, from Monday, July 18 to Thursday, July 21. The rulers of this country tout presidential elections—from the primaries, to these conventions, to the vote in November—as the pinnacle of “democracy”—when the people supposedly choose their leaders and decide the direction of society.

But what’s happening right now in Cleveland, leading up to the convention reveals the actual truth: there is democracy for the ruling class. They’re allowed to argue amongst themselves, express their views, and choose their representatives. All of this is praised, promoted, and blasted endlessly via their media as proving the legitimacy of their system. And it’s one way their elections are used to dictate the political framework and choices people feel they have, and what is and isn’t legitimate.

Meanwhile, a massive repressive apparatus is being mobilized by the rulers to dictate how, whether and even if the thousands from all over the country coming to Cleveland are able to express opposition to the presumptive Republican nominee: the ignorant and braying, but very dangerous, fascistic bigot Donald Trump.

Democracy for the ruling class inside the convention; dictatorship over the masses, right outside.

The System’s Paramilitary Preparations

An entire repressive apparatus is being gathered under the command of the Secret Service—everything from the Cleveland Police Department to the military. The city has received $50 million to create a police state (with another $50 million for Philadelphia, where the Democratic Convention will take place July 25-28).

The Cleveland police are recruiting 5,000 more police from the surrounding suburbs to add to their own 1,600 member department. They’re stockpiling all manner of riot gear, body armor, and weaponry, including deafening acoustic crowd control equipment.

They’ve ordered video surveillance equipment, night vision devices, lasers, and cell phone tracking devices. Meanwhile protesters are prohibited from having tennis balls, tape, rope, bike locks, sleeping bags, and much more. (At the same time, Ohio is a “right to carry” state, so anyone with a gun permit will be permitted to carry anything from a pistol to assault weapons anywhere but outside the convention itself.)

The ACLU of Ohio had to go to court to force Cleveland to make changes in the rules, routes and other restrictions on demonstrations during the RNC. The city had made the “protected,” no-demonstration area around the convention so vast, and the parade route so far off the beaten track, that the so-called “right to political protest” was an obvious sham.

Trying to Intimidate Protesters

In the wake of the events in Dallas, the rulers’ new talking point is the lie that the job of the police is to protect the rights of the people, including to protest. In Cleveland, agents of the state are attempting to “investigate” and intimidate protesters even before the convention begins.

In mid June, agents from the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the Secret Service, and the local police paid “home visits” to more than a dozen community organizers, activists, and others. This included people associated with supporters of the Revolutionary Communist Party. They questioned people about their plans for the convention, and the plans of other groups and individuals. Some were asked about previous addresses, and their political and social affiliations.

Local police questioned the parents of a young woman who’d been arrested a year earlier while protesting the acquittal of a cop in the shooting of two unarmed people. The agents said they wanted to ask the daughter “about any information she might have about anybody engaging in violence, planning violence for the RNC.”

An activist and writer told the L.A. Times this is “about putting the activist community on guard. The FBI knows who you are and where you are, and that has a chilling effect... Do you feel safe protesting in the streets when you know you’re being targeted by law enforcement?”

Illegitimate Repression from an Illegitimate System

All this is totally outrageous and totally illegitimate. Face reality. Here’s a system founded on slavery, genocide and global plunder; a system whose police still murder and terrorize Black and other oppressed peoples—123 Black people this year alone; a system that has directly killed 8 million people around the world over the past seven decades; a system primarily responsible for the fact that today globally 65 million people have been forced to flee from their homes.

They do all this under the banner of “freedom and democracy.” But Cleveland is just one example showing that this is a sham. There’s freedom and democracy for the capitalist-imperialist ruling class. There’s ruthless tyranny for the masses, who are given no real right to speak or be broadly heard, while the sick, pompous fascist Donald Trump is given hours and hours of free airtime for his barbaric message.

We cannot stand for all this.

Don’t Talk, Don’t Back Down

The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) held a meeting to train people on what to do when police knock on your door. They explained that lying to federal agents is a crime, and that the best course of action is to “Just shut the F... up.” This is good advice! We have nothing to say to these pigs. And not talking to them accomplishes a lot. It helps prevent them from crushing and repressing movements of resistance. It strengthens solidarity between people fighting oppression. It contributes to exposing the illegitimacy of this illegitimate system’s repression. (For more analysis and guidance, see “Don't Be Bamboozled by Agents of Repression—‘Don't Talk’” at revcom.us.)

Rebuffing these agents of repression helps prevent people from being hemmed in, repressed, and silenced. Instead people need to gather in Cleveland—in the thousands and thousands—to denounced and resist the coronation of the fascist Chump.

Powerful Basis for Protest...and Breaking Out of Killing Confines of Rulers’ Elections

There’s a powerful basis for people to gather in Cleveland, mount serious resistance to this fascist festival, and break out of the system’s killing “free elections” sham. For one, people have the truth on their side in exposing, condemning, and demonstrating against Trump. Second, they’re acting in the interests of the masses of people here and around the world in opposing this wanna-be ruler of a murderous imperialist system.

Third, the rulers and their armed enforcers are powerful, but as events are showing, they’re not all powerful. They have a big problem in Cleveland (and in Philadelphia). If they repress demonstrations, they risk revealing that behind their vaunted freedoms and democracy, there’s actually a vicious dictatorship over the people. Of course, this is no guarantee they won’t unleash their forces. Yet if they don’t hem in, repress, and marginalize resistance, they risk thousands upstaging their reactionary conventions, which are crucial to maintaining their aura of legitimacy.

Everything the authorities are preparing to prevent these protests should only redouble people’s commitment to be there. If the authorities do try and shutdown protest, the only answer is defiance and mobilizing more and more people—if and as they attack. Such attacks have the potential to starkly reveal the rulers’ dictatorship, and to shock, outrage, and draw many more people into the battle—provided people stand up and refuse to let themselves be shut down.

As this paper/website’s call to go to the conventions said:

“Revolutionaries must be there—and take it somewhere else: to a movement preparing for a REAL revolution. No answers—nothing but a dead end and worse—will ever be found in the framework of elections in this society.”

OVERTHROW, DON’T VOTE FOR, THIS SYSTEM!

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/447/no-justice-from-the-department-of-justice-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

No Justice from the Department of Justice

July 11, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Time and again when there is a particularly outrageous murder of Black people, or some other racist injustice, when the ugly white supremacy that is a pillar of this whole system stands exposed to the world, and when people’s anger is boiling over, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announces that it is stepping in. They promise an “impartial investigation” and “justice.” But there is no justice from the Department of Justice. Let’s look at the actual record of the DOJ’s investigations of major incidents in which Black people were killed in just the last few years:

• Ramarley Graham: On February 2, 2012, New York cops followed 18-year-old Ramarley Graham as he walked calmly to his home in the Bronx. Cops kicked in his door and chased him into the bathroom where they shot him dead, while his grandmother and six-year-old brother were in the next room. On March 8, 2016—four years later—the DOJ closed its investigation with no charges, deciding that the cop who killed Ramarley had no ill intent...
• Trayvon Martin: George Zimmerman, a mad-dog racist and wannabe cop, racially profiled, stalked, attacked and shot to death unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin on February 26, 2012, in Sanford, Florida. As anger and protests spread across the country at the refusal of state authorities to charge Zimmerman, the DOJ announced that it would “conduct a thorough and independent review and ... take appropriate action.” Almost three years after Trayvon’s death, the DOJ found no violation of Trayvon’s civil rights and closed its investigation without filing charges.
  
• Melissa Williams and Timothy Russell: On November 29, 2012, a small army of Cleveland cops, startled by a car backfiring, chased unarmed Melissa Williams and Timothy Russell for 22 minutes, and when they caught up to them fired 137 shots into their car at close range, killing both of them. On May 24, 2015, the DOJ announced an “investigation” into this slaughter. As of this date it has brought no charges.
  
• Eric Garner: On July 17, 2014, a gang of New York cops choked unarmed, 43-year-old Eric Garner to death on Staten Island for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes. Video of the murder went viral; thousands took to the streets. On December 3, it was announced that there would be no state indictments, setting off fierce protests across the country, with thousands blocking highways and hundreds arrested. That same day the DOJ announced that they would “investigate”—18 months later, in spite of what the whole world saw on video, the DOJ has yet to bring charges.
  
• Michael Brown: 18-year-old unarmed Michael Brown was gunned down by cop Darren Wilson on August 9, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri. As the city erupted in angry protest, the DOJ initiated a “civil rights” investigation on August 11. Their report on March 4, 2015 not only cleared Wilson of any blame, but cast Mike Brown as the aggressor and went out of its way to discredit the testimony of a wide range of credible eyewitnesses that Brown had his hands up and was shot down in cold blood, because that testimony conflicted with that of the cop and other “witnesses,” including one who almost certainly wasn’t even on the scene.
  
• Tamir Rice: On November 22, 2014, Tamir Rice, 12 years old and unarmed, was murdered by Cleveland cops while playing in a park. They shot him down within seconds of driving up on him. Yet almost two years later, the DOJ has been unable to identify any civil rights violation in Tamir Rice’s murder.
  
• Jamar Clark: On November 15, 2015, 24-year-old Jamar Clark, unarmed, was handcuffed and shot by Minneapolis cops, leading to intense protests, including an 18-day occupation outside the police precinct, which was itself attacked by gunfire from white supremacists right under the noses of the police. Again the DOJ stepped in. But by June 1, 2016, the DOJ announced there would be no charges against Jamar’s murderers.
  
• Freddie Gray: On April 12, 2015, Freddie Gray, 25 years old and unarmed, was chased down, brutalized, and taken on a “rough ride” by Baltimore cops, resulting in a fatal spine injury. Protest and rebellion erupted in Baltimore and quickly spread around the country. The DOJ promised to investigate. Over a year later... still no charges.

If the job of the DOJ is to ensure justice, then why is it that over and over again they are unable to find a basis to even charge killer cops and other racists, even when it is blatantly obvious that people have been murdered for the “crime” of being Black?

The cold truth is that these investigations have NOTHING to do with “justice” and EVERYTHING to do with protecting the image and legitimacy of the system, and with pacifying the righteous anger of the people and funneling people back into the deadly trap of working through and relying on the very system that is unleashing these horrors against them.

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/447/american-crime-89-people-of-japanese-descent-put-in-us-concentration-camps-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

Case #89: 120,000 People of Japanese Descent Put in U.S. Concentration Camps During World War 2

Updated February 19, 2021 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Bob Avakian recently wrote that one of three things that has "to happen in order for there to be real and lasting change for the better: People have to fully confront the actual history of this country and its role in the world up to today, and the terrible consequences of this." (See "3 Things that have to happen in order for there to be real and lasting change for the better.")

In that light, and in that spirit, "American Crime" is a regular feature of revcom.us. Each installment will focus on one of the 100 worst crimes committed by the U.S. rulers—out of countless bloody crimes they have carried out against people around the world, from the founding of the U.S. to the present day.

 

Editors’ note: February 19, 2021 marks the 79th anniversary of Executive Order 9066 signed by U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, which led to the rounding up and imprisonment in concentration camps of 120,000 people of Japanese descent during World War 2. In this light, we are reposting this piece from the American Crime series.

THE CRIME: During World War 2, 120,000 people of Japanese descent, nearly the entire Japanese population living in the continental U.S., were rounded up and imprisoned in concentration camps throughout the western states within months of Japan’s December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. naval base in Hawai‘i. Sixty-two percent of those imprisoned were U.S. citizens; and more than half were children. They were never charged with a crime; never given a hearing; but summarily rounded up and held for more than two years in remote locations, solely on the basis of their nationality.

When people were rounded up, they could only take what they could carry and people were forced to quickly sell almost all of their possessions. Before the war, Japanese Americans farmed 40 percent of the total acreage in California. Their land—as well as $40 million of crops in the ground and over $100 million in investments—was virtually stolen from them when they were forced to sell very cheaply. And because of the evacuation, people lost more than $4 million in businesses—mostly small businesses.

Any resistance was quickly dealt with. When three men, Minoru Yasui in Oregon, Fred Korematsu in California, and Gordon Hirabayashi in Washington state—refused to report for evacuation and insisted the orders were unconstitutional, they were arrested, convicted, and sent to prison. This was later upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court on the basis that the evacuation was based on military necessity.

Families found themselves surrounded by soldiers with rifles with bayonets; packed into filthy “assembly centers” where animals had been kept, with no beds. They were put on trains, not knowing where they were going—taken to 10 internment camps in desolate, desert areas. The camps were surrounded by barbed wire with guard towers, and patrolled by soldiers armed with rifles and bayonets. Guards had orders to shoot anyone trying to leave without a pass or refusing orders to halt. After rebellions in some of the camps, “troublemakers” were rounded up and put in one maximum security camp at Tule Lake, where tear gas was used against continuing resistance.

At the same time, over 2,000 people of Japanese descent living in 13 Latin American countries, 80 percent of them from Peru, were taken to Panama, and eventually to the U.S. camps. Five hundred or more of these Latin American prisoners were traded by the U.S. in exchange for prisoners of war (POWs) being held by Japan.

There were an additional 150,000 people of Japanese ancestry living in Hawai‘i —nearly a third of the entire population of the islands. Fearful of the economic and political impact of imprisoning so many professionals, small businesspeople, religious leaders, and agricultural workers, the government imprisoned only 2,000 of them. But all of Hawai'i was placed under martial law for the duration of World War 2.

THE CRIMINALS: President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942, allowing regional military commanders to designate “military areas” from which any or all persons were excluded. One month before Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt received a report saying Japanese in the U.S. did not pose any security danger. But this did not stop the U.S. from using Executive Order 9066 to “exclude all people of Japanese ancestry” from living anywhere on the West Coast—all of California, and large parts of Washington, Oregon, and Arizona.

The FBI was able to act quickly because the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) had already compiled lists identifying key community leaders. By 1939, lists of “dangerous” citizens and non-citizens were being compiled by the FBI, special intelligence agencies of the Justice Department, the Office of Naval Intelligence, and the army’s Military Intelligence Division. The U.S. Census Bureau was forced to admit decades later that it had provided information on people living in the U.S. of Japanese ancestry

This enabled the FBI to arrest more than 1,200 Japanese immigrant men within hours of the Pearl Harbor attack—targeted as “potential threats to national security.” These were in fact community leaders, Buddhist priests, Japanese language teachers, and others who might be able to mobilize an outcry and political resistance to these roundups.

Major U.S. newspapers played a crucial role in creating the conditions and setting the stage for targeting U.S. citizens and children as well as immigrants by whipping up ugly, racist attacks on anyone of Japanese descent. The Los Angeles Times ran the following:

A viper is nonetheless a viper wherever the egg is hatched. So, a Japanese American born of Japanese parents, nurtured upon Japanese traditions, living in a transplanted Japanese atmosphere... grows up to be a Japanese, and not an American... Thus, while it might cause injustice to a few to treat them all as potential enemies, I cannot escape the conclusions... that such treatment... should be accorded to each and all of them while we are at war with their race.

THE ALIBI: The excuse for these crimes against humanity was the alleged “danger” to the country posed by these “enemy aliens.” The military’s reach included everyone who was at least one-sixteenth “Japanese”—the equivalent of having one Japanese great grandparent. And this was done despite the conclusion based on numerous military, FBI, and CIA investigations of the Japanese population in the U.S. conducted before and after Pearl Harbor—that the “Japanese problem” was non-existent.

THE ACTUAL MOTIVE: This massive crime against a whole people inside the U.S., with ominous implications, played an important role in cohering the country around the “necessity” to support a war of worldwide slaughter—including the massive U.S. war crimes committed against hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians when the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For those who rule this country, World War 2 was waged in the interests of U.S. capitalism-imperialism—to defend and expand its control and domination of whole areas of the world, including Asia, Southeast Asia, North Africa, and more against their imperialist rivals—Germany, Italy, and Japan.

REPEAT OFFENDERS: Long before the Japanese internment, the U.S. forced all the surviving Native American tribes into concentration camps—called “reservations.” This was the final stage in the genocidal destruction of the great majority of Native Americans, who had once numbered in the millions on the continent, and the theft of their lands across the country in the name of “Manifest Destiny.” The survivors were forced to find a way to survive and make a living in some of the most desolate parts of the country.

When it came time to find places to imprison over 100,000 Japanese descendants, the great majority were relocated to Native American reservations in the most remote, desolate areas of seven Western states.

Today the same racist justifications used against people of Japanese descent in the U.S. are being put out against immigrants from Mexico, Central and Latin America, and against any Muslims. Donald Trump and other major fascists are whipping up people with the same kind of arguments used to justify the American Crime of U.S. concentration camps during World War 2. This includes the rise of racist hatred and violent attacks, even murder, against people of Asian descent across the U.S.

 

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/447/delrawn-small-shot-dead-by-off-duty-pig-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

Brooklyn, NY

Delrawn Small—Shot Dead by Off-Duty Pig in 1 SECOND...Over Traffic Argument!!

July 11, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Early on Monday, July 4, Delrawn Small, 37-year-old unarmed Black man, was murdered by an off-duty NYPD pig during a traffic incident on a Brooklyn, New York City street. Delrawn Small was driving with his girlfriend and two children when his car reportedly almost crashed with a car driven by an off-duty cop, Wayne Isaacs. At an intersection, Small got out of his car and approached Isaacs’s car. The police originally claimed that Small attacked Isaacs, punching him repeatedly, and the cop fired his gun in “self-defense.”

A video that surfaced a few days later exposes the truth that Small was the victim of a cold-blooded police murder. The video shows Small walk to the cop’s car—and then almost immediately stagger back when he is shot in the head and chest. Clearly, the claim by the pigs that Small had attacked the cop is an outright lie. The cop fired his gun barely a second after Small—who, to repeat, was unarmed—reached his car.

The video shows Delrawn Small stumbling for a few steps after he is hit and then falling down to the ground. The pig gets out of his car, tucking his gun under his shirt as he looks down on the man he just shot down—making no effort to give any aid.

Victor Dempsey, Delrawn Small’s brother, said, “The video is clear as day that shows that everything they told us from the very beginning is a lie. It was a lie, every single thing. And, I don’t know how to feel right now, all I know is that my brother was murdered.”

The New York State Attorney General’s Office announced an “investigation” into the killing. The message is that people should wait for the results and stay “calm” in the meantime. Time’s up on that waiting for the system’s justice shit! Delrawn Small is yet another Black man whose life was stolen by the police.

This horror must stop, and it will take a revolution, nothing less, to do that by finally putting an end to the system that’s the cause of this horror and all the others humanity has to endure. And right now, everyone who is outraged and sickened by murder after murder by the system’s police—and those pigs getting away with it time after time—need to rise up to demand:

Justice for Delrawn Small!

Police Getting Away with Murder Must STOP!

 

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/447/cops-who-murdered-eric-garner-walking-free-man-who-videoed-facing-4-years-prison-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

Cops Who Murdered Eric Garner Are Walking Free—Man Who Videoed the Murder Facing 4 Years in Prison

July 11, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Two years ago—July 17, 2014—a pack of vicious pigs attacked Eric Garner, a 43-year-old unarmed Black man with six kids, on a sidewalk in Staten Island, New York City. Garner told the pigs to leave him alone—“It stops today.” He was tired of the constant harassment for nothing but selling loose cigarettes—really, for being a Black man in AmeriKKKa. As captured on video, and seen by millions of people around the world, Daniel Pantaleo, a plainclothes cop, put Garner in a chokehold, pushing his face into the ground. Four more pigs piled on Garner, who repeated “I can’t breathe” 11 times while lying face down on the sidewalk. Eric Garner lost consciousness and was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Who is the ONLY person at this scene of this outrageous murder who is going to serve prison time? The bystander who took the video that caught the pigs red-handed carrying out this heinous crime!

In December 2014, the Staten Island district attorney led a grand jury to exonerate Pantaleo and other pigs for the murder of Eric Garner. These pig murderers walked free—like the pigs who killed Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Rekia Boyd, and so many, many others.

Ramsey Orta, the man who took and released the video of the police murder of Eric Garner, was repeatedly targeted by the police for harassment and arrests. On July 6, 2016, Orta took a plea deal on weapons and drug charges and is due to be sent to prison for four years.

Indict, Convict, Send the Killer Cops to Jail!

The Whole Damn System Is Guilty as Hell!

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/447/cheers-to-bryton-mellot-4th-of-july-flag-burner-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

Cheers! To Bryton Mellott, 4th of July Flag Burner

July 7, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Cheers! To 22-year-old Bryton Mellott, an Urbana, Illinois resident who posted a photo on Facebook of himself burning an American flag on the 4th of July.

His post said he was “not proud to be an American” because of the “atrocities committed against people of color, people living in poverty, people who identify as women, and against my own queer community on a daily basis.”

And he posted: “I would like to one day feel a sense of pride toward my nationality again. But too little progress has been made. Too many people still suffer at the hands of politicians influenced by special interests. Too many people are still being killed and brutalized by a police force plagued with authority complexes and racism. Too many people are allowed to be slaughtered for the sake of gun manufacturer profits. Too many Americans hold hate in their hearts in the name of their religion, and for fear of others. And that’s only to speak of domestic issues.”

“I do not have pride in my country. I am overwhelmingly ashamed, and I will demonstrate my feelings accordingly. #ArrestMe.”

Bryton Mellott got a lot of shit for this on Facebook, including threats. Later in the day, the Urbana police department arrested him after—they say—receiving complaints about his Facebook posting—even though the Supreme Court ruled in Texas v. Johnson that it is constitutionally protected free speech to burn the American flag.

The next day, the State’s Attorney General dropped charges. Threats, attacks (and some thoughtful discussion and support) have raged on Facebook. As of this posting, that (burning) flag was still there at Bryton Mellott’s Facebook page.

Cheers to Bryton Mellott for doing the right thing, and making a powerful statement about why he did.

 

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/447/awtwns-machete-murders-in-bangladesh-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

From A World to Win News Service

Machete Murders in Bangladesh:
Islamic Fundamentalists' Campaign to Enslave Women and Impose Religious Tyranny

July 11, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

July 3, 2016. A World to Win News Service. The month of Ramadan now drawing to a close has seen one after another monstrous mass murder committed by jihadi Islamist fundamentalists linked to Daesh (Islamic State, or IS). The targets have included an Orlando (U.S.) nightclub considered a refuge by LGBT people; the main Istanbul airport; an upscale bakery in Dhaka, Bangladesh; the Christian village of Al Qaa in Lebanon; and Al Mukalla in Yemen. The bloodiest was in the Karada neighbourhood of Baghdad on July3—175 bodies have been found so far, with more feared lost. Unusually large crowds were brought into the streets by a fortuitous convergence of eagerly anticipated events: the breaking of the day's fast, a televised Euro 2016 football match, the end of the school year and the traditional family outing to buy new clothes for the Eid al-Fitr celebration marking the end of Ramadan. A truck bomb tore apart a shopping street, mall and apartments in this predominantly Shia neighbourhood.

The July 1 Dhaka attack targeted an eatery popular with foreigners. Twenty people, mostly young, were taken hostage and murdered. The attack was claimed on a Daesh website, which posted the killers' portraits, although the Bangladeshi Minister of the Interior disavowed the Daesh connection and attributed it to the country's Islamist opposition party.

Each of these attacks was specific in its context, targets and other features, and yet all were part of a global phenomenon, the rise of jihadi fundamentalism, which in turn is a totally reactionary response to social and economic changes brought about by globalized capitalism as well as the massive violence and injustices perpetrated by imperialist governments and their allies.

The following article examines this phenomenon in the context of Bangladesh. It first appeared in the June 27 issue of Revolution, newspaper of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (www.revcom.us).

 

As we go to press, fundamentalist Islamic jihadists have carried out yet another barbaric crime in Bangladesh. On July 1, Islamist gunmen seized a bakery café in an upscale district of Dhaka, the country’s capital. They held the diners and staff hostage, and then later massacred 20 people, apparently simply because they were from other countries—people from Italy, Japan, India and the U.S. (Two Bangladeshis were also reportedly murdered.) ISIS (the Islamic State) has taken responsibility for this utterly reactionary slaughter.

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Islamic fundamentalists are carrying out a campaign of machete murders in the South Asian country of Bangladesh. Since February 2013, they’ve murdered some 39 people—secular thinkers and writers, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) activists, religious minorities, foreign aid workers, and others. And the attacks are continuing: Five were murdered in April, four in May, and three (or more) in June. The killers strike with guns and bombs—but mostly with machetes, slashing the back of their victims’ necks, then riding away on motorbikes. On April 23, a university professor was hacked to death and nearly beheaded, and on the 25th a gay rights activist and his friend were butchered. On April 30, a Hindu tailor was cut down—supposedly for criticizing Islam; on June 5, a Christian grocer; two days later, a Hindu priest. A Bangladeshi blogger who’d exposed the abuse of workers and police brutality was driven into hiding for condemning the Islamists’ murder rampage.

These murders began in early 2013 after tens of thousands gathered at Shahbag Square in the nation’s capital Dhaka to demand prosecution of Islamic leaders for war crimes during the 1971 war that led to the founding of Bangladesh, and against the imposition of religion in political and social life. The Islamic fundamentalists’ first victim was Ahmed Rajib Haider, a secular blogger who helped organize the protests.

No one has claimed responsibility for most of these barbaric killings. Global fundamentalist Islamic jihadist groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda as well as Bangladeshi Islamists have been blamed, and infighting among Bangladesh’s reactionary ruling parties may well play a part. But this wave of murders is not simply revenge for a protest. It’s part of the Islamic fundamentalists’ response to the deep changes taking place in Bangladesh.

An Enslaving Traditional Order—Rocked by Global Forces

For centuries, most people in what is now Bangladesh eked out a subsistence existence, mostly farming small plots of land by hand or with a few animals. Women suffered—and still suffer—under the crushing weight of religiously sanctioned patriarchy (male domination). They’re confined to household drudgery and caring for children, unable to leave their immediate neighborhood unless accompanied by a male relative, denied schooling or social life. Even today, nearly two-thirds of Bangladeshi girls are forced into arranged marriages before they’re 18, usually closing off any chance for an education or job. A staggering 87 percent of the country’s married women have been victims of domestic violence, abuse or torment. Nine in 10 rural men still think they have the “right” to beat their wives.

But in recent decades, the workings of global imperialism have created cracks in the traditional order. Two of every three Bangladeshis still live in the countryside, but tens of millions have been driven by landlessness, destitution, and the promise of jobs to seek survival in Bangladesh’s congested megacities (17 million in Dhaka alone). There, cheap labor has turned Bangladesh into a prime destination for global capitalist investment in its rapidly expanding clothing industry.

Three and a half million workers—80 percent of them young women—slave in sweatshops, often for as little as 21 cents an hour, many for 14 hours a day, sometimes seven days a week. Most get to work on foot through squalid shanties stinking of excrement. These factories can be death traps: in April 2013, the Rana Plaza factory collapsed, killing or maiming more than 1,100 people. When workers organize against these horrors, they’re met with threats and beatings.

Yet for women to have jobs outside the home and be paid wages, small as they are (though sometimes more than their husbands earn), can have the effect of undermining traditional patriarchy. The same goes for other changes taking place, including the growth of a middle class, more women going to school, and some professions becoming more “feminized.”

Islamic Fundamentalists: Barbaric Means for Barbaric Ends

Islamic fundamentalism is an all-encompassing ideology and program that aims to reshape every sphere of social, cultural, and political life in order to strictly and brutally reinforce traditional forms of oppression—especially the patriarchal enslavement of women. In the face of big changes shaking the world, they aim to tighten tradition’s chains.

After the 2013 Shahbag Square protests, Hifazat-e-Islam, an association of fundamentalist Islamic groups, issued a 13-point program calling for the imposition of fundamentalist Islam throughout society: adding “Absolute trust and faith in the Almighty Allah” to the constitution as a fundamental principal of the state; establishing the death penalty for criticizing Islam; ending the “free mixing of men and women”; ending secular education; and making “Islamic education mandatory from primary to higher secondary levels.”

These are the goals driving their machete murders. Those who criticize fundamentalist religion and/or promote science, secularism, and critical thinking (which humanity needs to understand and change the world) are targets for savage executions.

The fundamentalists aim to re-imprison women in the home, enslaved to husbands and male relatives. One way is by supporting the violent male backlash taking place against women. In Bangladesh today, there’s an epidemic of rape, including gang rape.

And, according to one news report, “Every week, somewhere in Bangladesh, a woman’s life is changed forever when she is doused with acid and disfigured.... Victims suffer horrific physical injuries. Not only does their skin burn, but often they are severely disfigured. Acid causes the skin tissue to melt, it attacks the eyes, it dissolves the bones. In certain cases, ears and noses are lost completely.” (“Stolen faces: female victims of Bangladesh acid attacks refuse to be beaten,” News.com, Australia, June 25, 2015) The cause? A spurned advance, a missed dowry payment, or any slight to male privilege. Over the past 17 years, there have been 3,240 reported acid attacks. Yes, at least 3,240!

The Islamic fundamentalists blame the victims for refusing to obey suffocating Islamic strictures. Many women are now being forced—by family or society—to wear the burqa. One study reported, “In the villages, various fatwas sanction the stoning of women to death for the ‘crime’ of asking for justice, for having been raped.” (“Rise of Islamic Fundamentalism in Bangladesh,” Ananya Das)

This is why the Islamists machete-murdered Xulhaz Mannan, who edited Bangladesh’s first LGBT publication and tried to organize the country’s first “Rainbow Rally” for LGBT rights. The oppression of LGBT people has evolved as part of the enforcement of rigid gender roles that enforce patriarchy. The “holy” scriptures of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all demand these strict gender roles and forbid homosexuality on pain of death.

And the fundamentalist Islamists are targeting Hindus, Christians, and Buddhists—terrorizing, marginalizing, and even forcing out non-Muslims from Bangladesh as part of establishing a fundamentalist Islamic state.

Between June 10 and 16, Bangladesh’s pro-imperialist government rounded up some 11,000 people they declared were “suspects” in these attacks. This supposedly secular government had done nothing for years to stop the machete attacks but instead has conciliated with the fundamentalists and condemned critics of Islam, while its police are widely known for arbitrary detentions, disappearances, and torture. Human rights groups and others warn that the mass roundup is an indiscriminate sweep also aimed at other dissidents; only a small percentage of those arrested reportedly belong to any jihadist group. (Analyzing the struggle among Bangladesh’s rulers is beyond the scope of this article.)

Bangladesh: Crying Out for Communist Revolution—Not Barbaric Islamic Fundamentalism

Bangladesh is a concentrated expression of how the world is flying apart and people are looking for answers. But fundamentalist Islamic Jihad is about turning backward to a draconian hell!

Just several decades ago, Maoism was a powerful current in India and Bangladesh, and it represented a real, radical, and liberating alternative to both feudalism and imperialism, with a vision of re-cohering society on an emancipatory basis. And there’s a strong basis for a revolutionary trend to emerge there today—for instance, the Shahbag protests of tens of thousands against the Islamization of society.

Bob Avakian (BA) has put that alternative on a firmer, more scientific foundation, including in its understanding of gender, the centrality of women’s emancipation to the emancipation of humanity, and most of all the need for a scientific approach to be taken up by masses of people. This new synthesis of communism brought forward by BA is the pathway for advancing—in today’s world with all its changes and turmoil—to overcome oppressive social, class, and gender divisions, and get to a much different and far better world on the road to total human emancipation. There is not a moment to lose to spread this pathbreaking advance in human understanding to every corner of the globe.

 

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/447/awtwns-joseph-nevins-deportations-central-america-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

From A World to Win News Serivce:

Instead of Deportations, the U.S. Government Should Be Paying Off Its Imperial Debt to Central America

July 11, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

July 4, 2016. A World to Win News Service. The following article by Joseph Nevins first appeared on the website NACLA.org.on May 24. Reprinted by permission of the author.

On 12 May, Reuters revealed that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is poised to undertake a 30-day “surge” in deportations. The label for the operation suggests a military-like endeavor—the stated goal of which is to arrest and deport hundreds of single adults, mothers, and children from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras who arrived after 1 January 2014, have been ordered to leave the country, yet remain in the United States without authorization. According to Reuters, it will constitute “the largest deportation sweep targeting immigrant families by the administration of President Barack Obama this year.”

Reports of the looming surge have led to protests, with many asserting that the would-be targets of the operation are in fact refugees, as defined by international law. They are individuals who have a “well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion” and can’t rely on their national governments for protection. As such, the critics (who range from immigrant rights advocates to Bernie Sanders to mainstream Democrats) argue that the women and children from Central America’s “Northern Triangle” who are said to be in the United States “illegally” have a right to stay—even if only temporarily.

While this argument certainly has merit, their critique of Obama administration policy accepts the narrow international definition of who is and isn’t “deserving” of asylum. The result is that the criticism can only bear fruit to the extent that US authorities accept and acknowledge that the humans they prey upon are under extraordinary threat in their countries of birth. Under this framing, would-be deportees do not have a right to stay in the United States because of who they are—as human beings—but because of a determination as to what nefarious forces have done to them, or may do to them, should they be deported.

By merely asking that Washington be more inclusive in its classification of those under threat, the critique, one supported by many progressives, allows the US government to remain the arbiter of who belongs and who does not, thus ensuring future waves of deportation. Moreover, it disregards an expansive notion of human rights, particularly a human right to mobility. Even if one refuses to accept such a right, a basic concept of justice demands recognition that migration involving the movement of people from exploited and relatively impoverished parts of the world to countries of relative wealth and privilege, is, or at least should be, a right born of debt—an imperial debt. The right to migration, in other words, is a form of reparations.

Take the case of just one of the Central American countries from where the targeted individuals have fled: El Salvador. As Elise Foley and Roque Planas have pointed out, although the Obama administration contends that the country is sufficiently safe for deportees, it considers El Salvador too dangerous for the US Peace Corps. Due to “the ongoing security environment” in El Salvador, the Peace Corps suspended its operations there in January.

There’s no doubt that El Salvador is very dangerous—not least for deportees from the United States, many of whom have been killed upon their forced return. The country’s murder rate is 22 times that of the United States. The first three months of 2016 saw nearly one murder per hour, making the country one of the most violent in the world. As in Guatemala and Honduras, criminal gangs plague the country, and the boundary between gang members and the police and the military is often quite fuzzy. But horrific violence in El Salvador is not new, nor is its making limited to the country’s territory. As is the case for all too many countries in Latin America, the roots of El Salvador’s violence are tied to Washington’s longstanding project of domination of the hemisphere.

During the 1980s, hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans fled the terror associated with their country’s brutal civil war and headed to the United States—typically entering clandestinely as the Reagan administration, with rare exceptions, refused to grant them refugee status. It wasn’t until 1990, with both the war in El Salvador and the Cold War winding down, that the US government granted Temporary Protected Status to Salvadorans living in the United States—placing them in what sociologist Cecilia Menjívar has characterized as “legal limbo.”

Life in the neighborhoods where Salvadoran refugees settled helped to give rise to El Salvador’s contemporary gang problem. As anthropologist Elana Zilberg writes in her book, Spaces of Detention: The Making of a Transnational Gang Crisis Between Los Angeles and El Salvador, many of the young people were products of the very violence they were fleeing.

Many Salvadoran youth had lost family members to the Salvadoran civil war, or were left by parents on the run from political persecution or for reasons of mere economic survival. They had seen tortured corpses and severed body parts on their way to school. While in school or out on the streets, boys no more than twelve years old were forcefully conscripted into the army. Children joined the guerrillas—in the early years, sometimes by force. Some learned to make Molotov cocktails, to kill and to torture. This was the history that followed them, a history funded by the United States.

Once in El Norte, a lot of them, particularly those residing in and around Los Angeles, found themselves living in poor, often destitute communities in which gangs already had a strong presence. The marginalized conditions in which many Salvadoran refugee youth subsisted, along with the violent histories they embodied, led many to join and form gangs, not least for reasons of self-protection.

As Zilberg suggests, the United States funded much of the terror associated with the civil war—in the form of hundreds of millions of dollars in aid—to prop up El Salvador’s right-wing government and the grossly unjust political-economic order it defended. The Pentagon, via the infamous School of the Americas, also trained some of El Salvador’s most notorious military officers—ones found to have committed some of the worst atrocities associated with the civil war. This included the assassination of Catholic Archbishop Oscar Romero and the massacre of several hundred civilians, many of them young children, in the village of El Mozote.

In addition, Washington sent what were euphemistically referred to in official circles as “advisers” to help El Salvador’s brutal military establishment in its fight against the guerrillas of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN). It was later revealed that these “advisers”—members of the U.S. Special Forces, who, over the course of the war, numbered in the thousands—actively engaged in combat operations, and presumably some of the associated war crimes as well.

According to El Salvador’s official truth commission, more than 75,000 Salvadoran civilians lost their lives during the civil war (1980-1992)—this in a country of about five million people at the time. The commission’s report attributed 85 percent of the deaths to the US-backed state (in the form of the country’s military, paramilitary forces, and “death squads”), and five percent to the FMLN.

Since the 1992 Peace Accords, which marked the end of the civil war and a transition to democratic elections, the US government has deported gang members—real and imagined—to El Salvador in large numbers. This, combined with the country’s legacy of violence, its impoverished state, and the dislocating effects of a neoliberal “free trade” agreement, the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) imposed by the country’s conservative elites and heavily pushed by the United States more than a decade ago, is what has given rise to El Salvador’s present-day gang crisis and the marked increase in out-migration.

All this manifests US culpability for much of El Salvador’s past and inextricably-tied present-day plight. It illustrates how deeply interconnected, and unjustly so, US and Salvadoran societies are, a reality that strict boundary and immigration policing, which the deportation “surge” embodies, disguises and works to erase. It also should negate any justification by the United States government to deport and deny rights of residence to people of Salvadoran origin.

Donald Trump’s promise to engage in mass deportations if and when he becomes president has given rise to much concern and derision. The reaction to Trump, however, has often served to mask the fertile soil from which the reality TV star’s ugly dreams bloom. As the threatened surge demonstrates, it’s soil that the Obama administration has played a large a role in producing, having deported more individuals than any previous administration and almost as many as all those of the 20th century combined.

The roots of this deportation regime must be eradicated and replaced. But this will not occur by asking the federal government to be more “humanitarian” in carrying out its regime of immigrant and territorial exclusion. It will only come about by demanding—and fighting for—a very different world, in which the US government does not undermine the very conditions that make life viable for the majority in migrant-sending countries. This would be a world in which the US state does not block those fleeing the ravages Washington has helped to produce from seeking a better life in US territorial confines—if not for reasons of common humanity, then, at the very least, as compensation for the conditions it created.

Until we make this happen, we can be sure that another “surge” will always be on the horizon.

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/447/awtwns-mexico-from-ayotzinapa-to-porkys-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

From A World to Win News Service

Mexico: "From Ayotzinapa to the 'Porkys': The crimes of a depraved state in the service of an oppressive system—Fight the power and prepare for revolution!"

July 11, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Revcom.us editors note: We are posting this article from Aurora Roja, voice of the Revolutionary Communist Organization (OCR), Mexico, about developments in that country. For readers who are not familiar with the situation, here are brief explanations of terms mentioned in the headline and in the first sentence, and we have added footnotes.

Ayotzinapa—On September 26, 2014, the Mexican police killed six people, wounded 25, and detained 43 students in Iguala in the southwestern state of Guerrero. The students were from Ayotzinapa teacher training college in rural Guerrero. The 43 students were “disappeared” while in police custody and have not been heard from since—and what has come out since then points to the involvement of the Mexican police, military, and government in this crime.

Tlatlaya—On June 30, 2014, Mexican soldiers killed 22 people in a remote area in the state of Mexico in what the authorities described as a “shootout.” But later revelations indicated that the soldiers executed civilians and then placed weapons alongside the corpses.

“Porkys”—A group of young men from wealthy and powerful families in the state of Veracruz who have been accused of raping women but who were protected by the government until widespread outrage forced authorities to charge several of the men.

 

June 27, 2016. A World to Win News Service. The following is by AuroraRoja, voice of the Revolutionary Communist Organization (OCR), Mexico. (aurora-roja.blogspot.com)

Ayotzinapa, Tlatlaya, the cover-up of the “Porkys” case and so many other crimes have been carried out by a State that is the executioner of the people it claims to represent. They kill, rape, disappear and unjustly imprison people, all the while bragging about their “democracy” and “state of law.” They do it to spread fear, especially among the rebellious and those at the bottom of society, to protect a system based on the making of scandalous profits for a handful by exploiting and oppressing the vast majority of people.

The good news is that we can get rid of that system. We can and must carry out a real revolution that overthrows this system, defeats and dismantles this State, and creates a new and much better society, a society that will put an end to all the horrors we are living through, and that will unite with the oppressed in the rest of the world for the final emancipation of humanity.

This system’s crimes are monstrous.

The federal government, along with the state and municipal governments, were direct participants in a joint operation to murder and disappear the Ayotzinapa teachers’ college students and later to cover up these terrible crimes.

This is the only conclusion that can be drawn from the evidence presented in the reports of the Intergovernmental Group of Independent Experts.¹ Soldiers and police of all three of these levels of government were tracking the students since the day before they were killed by means of a joint command and control system known as C-4. All of these repressive bodies were in the streets of Iguala the night these crimes were committed. All took part in an operation to keep the students from leaving the area. The army took control of the C-4, including the surveillance cameras, during the critical hours, and later deleted the videos of these crimes. The Navy and the Attorney General’s Office later tortured people to back up the lie that organized crime had killed the 43 students and burned their bodies at the Cocula rubbish dump. Everything indicates that the federal government also planted “evidence” to support this lie, the 42 bullet casings found in the heap, and a bone identified as belonging to the disappeared student Alex Mora Venancio found in the San Juan River a day after a visit there by Tomas Zerón, head of the Federal Investigation Agency. This visit was recorded by independent reporters but unmentioned in the official report. If the federal government planted the bone from Alex’s body, then obviously it was directly involved and its hands are totally covered in blood. The federal government was directly implicated in these crimes which it now claims to be “investigating” while in reality covering up for and protecting the material and intellectual authorities in the army and the state and federal government. That’s why we say, From Iguala [where the students were murdered] to Los Pinos [the Mexican president’s residence], jail the murderers! The whole damn system is guilty!

So far there has been impunity for the cold-blooded massacre of people detained by the army in Tlatlaya, following orders from the upper ranks to “wipe out criminals in the night.” The officers were never touched, and the seven soldiers following orders were freed despite the courageous testimony of witnesses who had been tortured by the police to keep the truth from coming out, and even the evidence presented by the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) regarding what it called the “execution” of “at least 12 to 15 people” in June 2014. This was no isolated incident. Many more people were killed in Tanhuato and Apatzingan in 2015.² No one knows how many people have been murdered or disappeared by the Army, Navy and Federal Police.

Torture is a routine procedure for the Army and police at all levels. A video posted to social media on April 13, 2016 showed two soldiers and a federal cop in Guerrero smothering a woman for four minutes, holding her head in a plastic bag while she was handcuffed and lying on the ground. The video caused so much uproar that they had to issue a cynical apology, but the woman is still in prison based on her “confession” under torture. Last year, when UN Special Reporter on torture Juan Méndez declared that torture has become “generalized” in Mexico, the federal government denied it, and tried to discredit him and keep him from coming back to Mexico.

The state has committed and covered up thousands of disappearances throughout the country. In many cases it is the “forces of order” themselves that commit these crimes, like the Army in the Juarez Valley and the Navy in Nuevo Leon. In other cases people are disappeared by organized crime, but the authorities work hand in hand with them to cover up these crimes and even threaten and repress the victims’ families when they demand justice. In Tetelcingo, Morelos, mass protests brought to light two secret mass graves where 150 people who had been murdered were clandestinely buried by the state prosecutor’s office.

The government protects woman-killers and rapists like “the Porkys” in Veracruz. In the face of tens of thousands of cases of “femicide” and rape all over the country, the government combines cynical declarations with actions meant to guarantee the impunity of the woman-haters and criminalize the victims, like the case of Yakiri, a woman indicted for having defended herself from an attempted rape and murder, and Daphne, a 17-year-old in Veracruz raped by “the Porkys,” four sons of rich and influential fathers protected by the state for more than a year until popular outrage finally forced the government to issue arrest orders for them, but only one has been indicted. In response to these and many other crimes, people marched in 25 cities in Mexico to protest “macho” [male supremacist] violence on April 24, giving voice to a new spirit of resistance among women, especially young women.

The State is unleashing a wave of repression to silence people’s protests. It represses teachers struggling against the reactionary counter-“reform” of the educational system. [Six teachers were shot dead during protests against the new educational measures in Oaxaca on June 19. See June 20 posting on aurora-roja.blogspot.com, in Spanish only.] It has jailed hundreds of political prisoners, while activists, journalists and human rights defenders are murdered for having opposed the crimes of this system.

All these crimes follow a logic, the logic of a State that exists to defend the interests of the predominantly capitalist system against the vast majority of people who are exploited and oppressed by this system. This State is utterly corrupt, it’s true, but the problem is one far more deeply rooted than corruption, or even a “narco state” or “failed state,” as some people think. The underlying cause of the brutal violence against the people by the police, military and other repressive institutions is the system whose functioning they defend and maintain.

This is a system marked by enormous inequalities and injustices, based on the exploitation and oppression of the vast majority of people by a small capitalist class under the domination of the imperialist-capitalists in the global system. The system works to meet the needs of these classes and capital itself in competition with other capitals to extract greater profits and continue expanding as they dispossess people and drive them off their land and devastate the environment, condemning the majority to grinding poverty and an exhausting struggle to survive, forcing the other classes in society to go along or simply submit. This system can’t satisfy the needs of the great majority of people; it can’t eliminate patriarchy and the oppression of women; the oppression, discrimination and robbery suffered by indigenous peoples; the lack of any future for the youth; or the poverty of a large part of the people. It can’t even get rid of the scourge of organized crime, a high-yield death machine that flourishes under imperialist capitalism, boosting the incomes of banks, shopping centres and all kinds of legal “investments” profits paid for by the stolen lives of our youth and the overall degradation of society.

The State apparatus exists to maintain this system and prevent or suppress any obstacles or threats to its functioning. That is why it carries out unjust and often arbitrary violence, to intimidate, demoralize and terrorize the vast majority, to prevent or put down resistance and rebellion, and try to rob people of their hope for a better world.

We will no longer tolerate these great injustices. We will struggle to put an end to them, not just lessen them slightly. And we will forge the leadership, consciousness and organization needed to make revolution.

The attacks on the people are growing because the system’s contradictions are getting sharper. The same contradictions that lead to greater attacks on people also provide the basis for a revolution to put an end to this system and launch a new stage of communist revolution in the world. This revolution is not an “illusory dream.” It is a liberating change that we can bring about through the difficult and persistent struggle of millions of people guided by the scientific method of the new synthesis developed by Bob Avakian. We call on all those who want to work for this revolution right now to get organized in the Revolutionary People’s Movement to study and apply this new synthesis of communism and advance toward revolution.

We also call upon all those who oppose, from many different points of view, the crimes committed or covered up by this state to unite against this war on the people by joining the “Stop the War on the People” National Resistance Network and the End Patriarchy and the War against Women initiative, struggling together to expose this criminal State and strengthen the resistance and struggle to put an end to these horrors.

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1. This panel of experts, appointed by the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, interviewed witnesses and reviewed the government’s claims. Their findings, released in September 2015, pointed to a government cover-up based on torture of witnesses and tampering with key evidence. See “On the Anniversary of the Disappearance of 43 Students: Reports Shreds Mexican Government Lies” at www.revcom.us. [back]

2. In May, police killed 42 people at a ranch in Tanhuato in the state of Michoacán; in January, police killed 16 people from a group of protesters in two separate but related incidents in Apatzingan, Michoacán. [back]

 

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/447/philando-castile-alton-sterling-shot-by-depraved-pigs-for-being-black-rise-up-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/447/carl-dix-calling-from-baton-rouge-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

Carl Dix Calling—From Baton Rouge

July 10, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Sent Saturday, July 9, 2016

People here in Baton Rouge and around the country are continuing to stand up, not letting the focus be changed, not backing down, not buckling under to calls to go home. Let’s be clear, the egregious murders of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, on top of all the other cases of cops exonerated and of the savage oppression of Black people by the system, point to the reality of this system: They can’t stop this horror.

One reason, but only one reason, why we need revolution.

I’m here as part of a crew, including members of the Revolution Club, from around the country to bring the message that we are organizing for an actual revolution. As a crucial part of preparing for that, we are joining with and encouraging people to continue to fight.

Last night we joined 300 people protesting on three sides of an intersection near the Baton Rouge police HQ. This was a very angry crowd of mostly young people, both from the neighborhood where Alton Sterling was murdered and from Louisiana State University and Southern U. People were yelling and screaming their outrage at the murders by police and chanting “No Justice, No Peace.” There were many homemade signs. One poignant one was “I fear for Black sons... and I have not birthed yet.”

There was a battle for hours over whether the people’s anger would have initiative and continue being expressed. There were people urging the angry youth to go home. Some left, and many said no one could tell them to stop protesting. Police picked off some people one by one for a total of 30 arrests, as the local paper reported.

Many of the more defiant ones joined me in speaking out, telling their stories. The remaining crowd of 150 turned away from the police and marched along the road, leaving the cops behind and then sitting down on both sides of one of the main avenues in the city, blocking traffic. There was a back and forth with the police, and the march restarted.

Through all this, the revolution crew was meeting many of the most angry to get together in the next couple days to discuss more the cause of and solution, the need for revolution.

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/447/saturday-night-baton-rouge-louisiana-july-9-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

Saturday Night, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, July 9

July 10, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

From our correspondent:

Fierce, powerful protests continued to rock the streets around the headquarters of the Baton Rouge Police Department. Hundreds of people—overwhelmingly Black youth—grouped and regrouped in their repeated efforts to take over Airline Avenue in the face of a heavy, aggressive, and heavily armed police presence. Over 100 people were arrested before the night was over; police brought out armored personnel carriers and carried automatic weapons; they pointed guns in the faces of angry crowds who tried to prevent fellow protesters from being dragged away. But the people were not cowed or intimidated.

Think of it—police pull up on a man and within a few minutes blast him with their guns at point-blank range, killing him. The whole world can see the video, see how coldly these pigs took the man’s life. The man—Alton Sterling—at no point threatened the cops, or even resisted their brutality. Now the cops are on paid leave—not charged with anything. Alton Sterling’s children are left without a father.

But people who protest this howling injustice have been met, repeatedly, with overwhelming police force. Last night, three cops violently threw an elderly woman to the ground, while she was standing on a sidewalk. Last night, pigs with automatic rifles slung around their shoulders surrounded people on the ground being brutalized and handcuffed by their fellow cops. Last night, repeatedly, waves of people came out to protest the murder of Alton Sterling, to scream their rage at police murder and the oppression of Black people.

Find out more about the revolution Find out about BA, the leader of the revolution

The protest on and around Airline Avenue went on for over six hours. People regrouped and stood their ground repeatedly, in the face of police charges and multiple arrests. The participants came and went in waves, and one protester remarked it was almost like seeing reinforcements come in. When word of it got out on local TV news and social media, more people came to join the determined and jubilant protest.

Something profound is happening on these steamy Baton Rouge nights. A protester pointed out how these cops are breaking their own laws in the way they go after people engaged in peaceful protest and exercising their supposed “right to free speech.” Many people are challenging the police use of force, and the court system that lets killer cops off over and over. That system, and the use of violence to defend and uphold it, is completely illegitimate.

Now, I’m off to a meeting called by the Revolution Club, and what looks likely to shape up as another long night of protest on the streets of Baton Rouge.

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/447/baton-rouge-storm-troopers-attack-protesters-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

Baton Rouge Storm Troopers Attack Protesters after March to the State Capitol

July 11, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Sunday July 10: Storm troopers from the Baton Rouge Police Department rampaged against hundreds of youthful protesters at the conclusion of a peaceful march to the State Capitol. Armored personnel carriers girded by dozens of riot equipped cops pointing assault rifles blared ear piercing noises and lurched down narrow residential streets lined with cottages. Brutal cops swarmed onto the lawns of people who welcomed protesters, forcing the residents into their homes, and arresting people seeking protection on private property. An unknown number of people were beaten and arrested by the marauders.

The savage murder of Alton Sterling by two Baton Rouge pigs outraged people in this city, and soon across the country, and even internationally. On Sunday evening, people demanding justice for Alton Sterling, declaring that “Black Lives Matter,” were being beaten, arrested, thrown to the ground, dragged by their extremities across pavement, attacked with mace, assaulted by cops carrying automatic weapons, tasered, pursued by armored personnel carriers, and had guns pointed in their face. They were attacked for making the completely legitimate demand for justice.

Shortly before the protest in this area just south of the Louisiana State Capitol building began, Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards gave a press conference. The bulk of Edwards’ comments were thinly veiled threats against the brave people protesting murder and brutality by cop, and gushing praise for the forces of repression Edwards and other political leaders have unleashed. Edwards made the absurd, outrageous, lying claim that the tactics used by Baton Rouge police had been “moderate.”

While he was speaking, guns were being loaded, APC’s gassed up, hierarchies and chains of command and attack among the various gestapo forces hammered out. The attack dogs of the state were preparing yet another assault on people demanding justice for a Black man murdered in cold blood by these same assassins.

The brave youth in Baton Rouge are setting an example of relentless and determined struggle against injustice. The political battle continues, and deepens, in Baton Rouge.

The following Twitter videos show an APC grinding down the street and a courageous woman being attacked for her courageous stand in front of it; and dozens of pigs storming onto the yard of a woman who welcomed the protesters.

Look whats happening in Baton Rouge RNNoJusticeNoPeace #AltonSterling #BlackLivesMatter #BatonRouge pic.twitter.com/0wz54B0JqI

— liz (@lizzkatherine_) July 10, 2016

Police now advancing on crowd pic.twitter.com/tUO7pPRhbS

— Terry L Jones (@tjonesreporter) July 10, 2016

BATON ROUGE HAS TURNED INTO SYRIA #AltonSterling #BlackLivesMatter #BatonRouge pic.twitter.com/LCwAyP1AJA

— liz (@lizzkatherine_) July 11, 2016

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/447/twin-cities-notes-from-streets-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

Updated 7-10-16 Notes from the Streets of the Twin Cities

Anger, Outrage, Openness to Revolution in Aftermath of Police Murder of Philando Castile

Updated July 10, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Dear Revcom,

See below for update: Hundreds shut down freeway Saturday night

When I got to the Minnesota governor's mansion Friday morning, protests had been going on non-stop from Wednesday night after Philando Castile was shot point blank for Driving While Black in a suburb of St. Paul. Protesters set up an encampment outside the Minnesota governor's mansion the night of the murder, with hundreds protesting and demanding justice for Philando Castile, shutting down the block in front of the mansion and draping crime scene tape all over the mansion's front gate.

Friday morning found only 20-30 people holding down the encampment, and another 10 or so at the site of the police murder in Falcon Heights a few miles away. I was able to talk with a teacher from the school where Philando Castile worked as a supervisor in the cafeteria, who said that several hundred people in and around the school and others marched on Thursday evening near the school to remember Philando Castile and demand justice. Philando Castile was very much known and beloved by the entire school community. It was said that he knew the names and diets of each of the 500 students in the school.

By the evening on Friday, the crowd in front of the mansion swelled again to 300 or more, with Prince's music and dancing, and speeches mainly by leaders in the broader Black Lives Matter movement. At one point, the police tried to disallow and dismantle the one tent on the scene, but people streamed toward the tent and formed a human chain around it.

It seems events in Dallas were disorienting to some of the movement activists, given how Black Lives Matter was being attacked. There were views out there that in response people should just retreat into basically making peace with and helping each other make it in the world as it is. In addition, on Friday morning there was a shooting on the north side of Minneapolis, the Black community there, which took the life of a child and wounded another. (I had a very interesting experience later in that community, which I'll get to shortly.)

Despite this, hundreds of people didn't retreat and were at the protest at the governor's mansion Friday night. I found the mood among this mainly young crowd, of very mixed nationality but more than half white, to be far more impatient and fed up than was reflected from the front by the speakers. I circulated among the crowd introducing "Time To Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution," the Message from the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA: "It's time to organize for an ACTUAL revolution," and "We need to overthrow this system and completely replace it from bottom to top, let's put an end to police murder and genocide of Black and Brown people—and all the other crimes of this system—once and for all." I had these bundled in a packet along with articles from revcom.us on these police murders.

When asked how they saw putting an end to this police murder, many people expressed an urge for unity among all people, along with a complete exasperation at the cops walking free in case after case. Not long ago, the cop who murdered Jamar Clark in Minneapolis walked, even after people waged determined struggle. There was a further understanding, however incomplete, that reforms and struggles—not only over the period since Ferguson but for generations and even hundreds of years in this country—have not led to equal rights, let alone liberation, for Black people.

Compared to what was being presented to them by speakers at the governor's mansion, and what they were previously aware of, the possibility of a total and liberating alternative was music to many ears. I say "many" because some of the organizers of the rally took great exception to what I was getting out. They threatened to not only kick me out, but to have my presence denounced from the front of the rally, until several protesters who overheard all this started asking them simple questions like, "Did you read what it says in what he's passing out?" When they said "no," these other protesters, mainly young women of color, told these self-appointed police that people had a right to check out other views and especially serious analysis of how to fucking end this shit!

Find out more about the revolution         Find out about BA, the leader of the revolution

During the afternoon on Friday, I went to the neighborhood on the north side of Minneapolis where Jamar Clark was murdered, and where the two-week occupation of the Fourth Precinct police station took place. I walked up and down a busy street with various strip malls and stores. Here the response to the Party's Message was immediate and visceral in many cases. I talked to a mother sitting in her car with her young daughter, about the same age as Philando Castile's girlfriend's daughter, who had to witness the murder and who tried to comfort her mother in its wake. I said that no little girl should ever have to go through that again. She brought up the killing of a child that morning on the north side in the all too familiar drive-by shooting. I read the sentence from the Message: "This system locks down generations of Black and Brown youth, brutalizing and incarcerating them and even blowing them away—or else setting them up to fight and kill each other, when they should be fighting the REAL enemy." She took the materials with serious interest.

I came upon a young Black man, shirtless in the warming sun in the middle of a strip mall parking lot, holding up a home-made poster on cardboard saying "Fuck Da Police." He was waving it around to everyone and no one. His reception to the content of the Message was excited, to say the least. We talked about it briefly and he took a stack of the Message and flyers with him, saying he was going back over to St. Paul that night. He gave his contact info and expressed strong interest in the Revolution Club. About a half-hour later, I found him in another parking lot, waving his poster and passing out the flyers to everyone, insisting that they take it. We spoke again, and he took copies of Revolution newspaper, a poster of "Land of the Thief and Home of the Slave," and a copy of BAsics, which he said he would seriously read. I said that he should really dig into this material, and go to the website so that he would know exactly what he was taking out, and why it was righteous to do so.

I was actually tipped to go to this particular strip mall where I met this young man by a bit older Black man who is a manager of a small restaurant on the main street. He read the article from Revolution on the two police murders all the way through, and looked at the Message. He was very much into distributing the packet, and took a large amount to give out to his customers. He was totally fed up with the cops walking and no justice in these police murders. He had a sense of the historic oppression of Black people and the failures of previous attempts at reform and liberation. At one point I remember emphasizing that the approach in the materials is scientific, that it reflects reality, and that it doesn't rely on faith in any way. To this last point he exclaimed loudly, "Yes! Relying on faith, that's why we're in the situation we're in!"

7/10/16 Update from St. Paul

There was word circulating late Saturday afternoon that there was going to be some kind of action associated with the evening rally at the Governor's mansion to protest the police murder of Philando Castille. As of about 7 pm, the crowd was no larger than last night, about 300, but then the ranks started to swell, and organizers started to prepare people for some kind of civil disobedience. As the march set up and set out, I would say there were close to 500 people, of many nationalities, mainly white, and mainly on the young end.

About a half mile away from the governor's mansion, the march suddenly veered down the on-ramp to I-94, a major interstate highway, and marshals told people who didn't want to get arrested to go down to the overpasses. About half of the march went onto the highway, and immediately blocked both directions. This was around 8 pm Central time. The blockaders moved down the highway several hundred yards, and then stopped. The police presence at the outset of the evening was heavier than last night, but they were unable to stop people. On the highway, the buildup of police vehicles, cops, vans and buses went on for hours, until they started to arrest people, but very slowly.

It was a very tense situation, with cops holding their shields up and aiming weapons at the nearby tree-covered embankment. It was almost midnight before the arrests of the dozens of hold-outs started, with tear gas grenades being used, and many demonstrators running up the embankment of the highway to escape the onslaught.

As of this writing, I don't know the number of arrests, or even when the blockade ended. There were parts of I-94 a few miles west of the blockade point, even in the direction away from the demo, so it was unclear if there were other blockages going on. There were some late protests at the governor's mansion, also, and that area was totally locked down well past midnight.

The crowd was positive toward the proclamation of the RCP from the start, but this increased dramatically during the blockade. Many of those who were on the overpasses—which included increasing numbers of people from all over St. Paul, Minneapolis, and surrounding areas who were streaming in to support, and even to join the blockaders on the freeway—were reaching out for the proclamation, and exclaiming their support for the idea of a total revolution, overthrowing the system and replacing it with a better one, for the world.

As it got later, more basic youth came on, also mainly eager to check out the idea of getting organized for a revolution. There were students from various nearby universities who expressed interest and gave contact info for the Revolution Club. I ran into a young Black man who I met yesterday who said he had passed out all of his proclamations, and I gave him a couple of hundred more. I connected with people of many nationalities out in the streets who have substantial populations in the Twin Cities, including Hmong people and other Southeast Asians, Mexican-Americans, and North Africans reaching to find out about the revolution.

After a while, various countercurrents became apparent. A small group came on with their charge of the RCP being a cult, and being homophobic. One of them barged into me and knocked the fliers onto the ground. I withstood this physically and politically, challenging them to read the proclamation, which of course they wouldn't do. But they had aroused others who wanted anyone who was homophobic to get out of there. I loudly read the second point of attention, about treating men, women, and differently gendered people as equal and comrades, and this not only neutralized these assholes but won others to take up the proclamation.

One Black man started to escort me out of there until I read him the same point of attention, at which point he said he was on security, and shook my hand, and said I was welcome to stay. Later a group of Black women came over and said they wanted to pass out the flier, and I asked why, had they read it? No, they just heard that it was in support of revolution and of people of different genders and sexual orientations. So, we read that point of attention and they took a large stack of fliers. Perhaps 6-700 proclamations got out, counting the large stacks others took.

So, Minneapolis/St Paul came from behind and replicated their past feats of militant and dramatic action against police murder of Black people. Right On!! Now, let's get organized for an ACTUAL revolution!

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/447/the-revolution-club-is-in-cleveland-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

The Revolution Club Is in Cleveland—Fighting the Power, and Transforming the People, for Revolution

July 9, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

From Revolution Club members:

As Cleveland gears up for the Republican National Convention (RNC), the Revolution Club is hitting the ground, fighting the power, and transforming the people, for revolution. We are taking out the Message from the Central Committee of the RCP and popularizing the slogan “America Was Never Great! We Need to Overthrow this System!” We are aiming to bring forward, mobilize in the streets, and organize into the revolution the defiant ones, and everyone who wants to stand up against what Donald Trump represents. And we are bringing out the basic truth, which BA speaks to in his new audio clip where he is remarking on the current elections and the illegitimacy of this system: the fact that this fascist pig Donald Trump is a “legitimate” political candidate just shows the whole damn system is illegitimate. And that revolution—NOT getting behind the “lesser evil,” which is a logic that only leads to more evil—is the answer.

The RCP Central Committee Message is beginning to appear in different neighborhoods of Cleveland. But today, for the first time, the Revolution Club stepped out as a disciplined, organized force, in uniform, chanting and agitating, marching in formation through a housing project. Some of us were more experienced representing for the revolution in this way, and others were newer to it, so we spent the morning practicing in a park until it looked sharp! While there weren’t that many people outside, many people did respond when we called on them to come out of their homes to get connected with the Revolution Club, and we had serious and substantive discussion and struggle about the content of the Message with a number of them. Many responded to the raw outrage of the recent brutal police murders. A number of people talked about how there are no jobs and the daily hustle just to keep from going under. One woman spoke about her experience of abuse and rape. In all this, we struggled with people to really look at the SYSTEM that is at the root, to lift their sights to a world beyond just trying to survive or be a “big dog” in a dog-eat-dog world, and to follow the revolutionary leader BA and get with the Revolution Club now. We made some connections in these projects, but this is just the beginning! We are definitely planning on going back to that neighborhood and others throughout the city, building strength and organization which we’ll take into the protests at the RNC before the eyes of the world.

In line with, and as part of all this, we could not just let these pigs get away with the cold-blooded murders of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile for no other reason than being Black in Amerikkka. We took leadership from revcom.us and called for a protest at the Public Square in downtown Cleveland. About 35 people came out—Revolution Club members and supporters, several activists from different organizations, and a number of Black people of all ages. We had a short rally (which was covered by local TV news) and then marched through the busy outdoor cafes with hundreds of people watching, and then to the baseball stadium (right next to the Quicken Loans Arena where the RNC will be happening), where thousands of people were filing in to the game.

All this was part of announcing the presence of the Revolution Club on the scene here in Cleveland—fighting the power, and transforming the people, for revolution.

 

 

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/447/revolution-club-los-angeles-south-central-alton-sterling-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

Revolution Club, Los Angeles: Out in South Central After Police Murder of Alton Sterling

July 11, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

From the Revolution Club, LA:

As video of the police murder of Alton Sterling went viral, the LA Revolution Club gathered to make immediate plans to be at a major historic intersection in South Central where the LA Rebellion of 1992 kicked off. The Revolution Club lined up in formation and agitated about people getting into the streets and getting with the revolution that is needed. A Black woman joined us and grabbed a poster of Alton Sterling and began showing it to the cars passing by. Cars honked and people raised their fists from outside of their windows. The woman exuberantly went out into the street and waved the poster at cars for all to bear witness the name of another Black man executed in the streets by the police. Another Black man and another video and a world of evidence that showed the ugliness and the utter illegitimacy of this system.

Flyers of the revcom.us article on the police murder of Alton Sterling were distributed to people walking by and through windows of cars. A Latino man in his 40s walked by slowly and stopped to watch for a few minutes. The woman with the Alton Sterling poster went up to talk to him and came back to report his question: “He wants to know if it’s time to set the police station on fire.” The comrade responded over the bullhorn: No, now is the time to fight, to get into the streets right now, and get organized now to tear this whole system down as soon as possible—join us right now. His face lit up in a big grin and he joined as the Revolution Club marched in formation.

The agitation continued and our heads turned to see a younger Latino man approach us directly. “Hey! Give me one of those flyers! FUCK THE POLICE! FUCK THE POLICE!” The man had pulled over to the curb with his girlfriend, got out with the door still open behind him and demanded a flyer.

We had a sound-truck with a big-screen TV and played the video of Alton Sterling being shot and then showed the video clip “There’s a conspiracy to get the cops off” from BA’s Revolution Talk. An older Black man, after watching the Alton Sterling video, shouted out that this city needed to be burned down. A few other people came over as the BA video played and nodded as they watched the leader of the revolution talk about how the prosecutors who ferociously prosecute our youth all of a sudden forget to prosecute when the pigs are on trial.

Moments later, the pigs came oinking down the street with their lights flashing as they stopped some youth and lined them against the wall, handcuffed. The Revolution Club announced we were marching over to not allow the police to kill anybody and called on people on the street to join us. We marched to the spot of the harassment and called out that we were there to prevent illegal activity by the pigs under the color of authority. The pigs got on their radios and quickly more pig cars began to roll up. The comrade on the bullhorn called on people not to allow the police to kill people, and not just sit in their car and film but get out and stop it from happening. Cars began pulling over to the side of the busy street and people got out of their cars, filming from across the street. The comrade agitated about the illegitimacy of the cops and the whole system they enforce and that they had no right to do this. She hit at the whole history of what America has done to Black people for 400 years, what it’s doing to people all over the world right now, and that now is the time to get organized for an actual revolution and get with the leadership that is leading people to do that, BA and the RCP. She called on people to fight and stand up and said when they do this it has an effect on the whole society and is part of how we build up our strength and accelerate the time when millions can be led to go all-out to overthrow this system and replace the USA with the New Socialist Republic in North America. Four or more pig cars had rolled up and the pigs got out smirking and nervous, lining up facing the street standing next to where they had the two handcuffed men.

Many people were thankful of the force that was there to watch the pigs who terrorize the community everyday unchecked. One person came up to the comrade on the bullhorn afterward and commented they had never heard a white person talk like that about what happens to Black and Brown people every day. A woman from across the street who was filming and saying “Hell yeah I’m going to put this on Facebook!” came by our sound-truck to watch BA in the film Revolution and Religion: The Fight for Emancipation and the Role of Religion, A Dialogue Between Cornel West and Bob Avakian. She nodded and responded as BA spoke about what if the world doesn’t have to be this way—and when the clip was over, she commented: what that man’s saying is beautiful.

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/447/revolution-club-los-angeles-july-7-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

Revolution Club, Los Angeles, at Florence & Normandie: Up in the Face of the Pigs and Organizing for Revolution

July 11, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Revolution Club, Los Angeles, July 7:

Right now, the American status quo—the unrelenting and unapologetic murder after murder of Black people by this system’s armed enforcers—is being roiled by people righteously and defiantly resisting this outrage in the streets. The raw relations that this system continues, and MUST continue, to perpetuate against Black people, are being unearthed by the actions and questions of those refusing to go along with this madness. In the midst of this, the question is violently posed in people’s psyches—why do they do this? Why do they KEEP doing this to Black people? To Brown people?

That same question also poses great necessity to those who understand that the only way out of this nightmare is revolution, communist revolution. That we have the leadership in Bob Avakian (BA) and the science to propel forward masses to resist this outrage, but not just resistance in and of itself but to do it all FOR REVOLUTION and NOTHING LESS. Times like these are filled with great potential to accelerate a revolutionary situation through ripening the political terrain and accumulating forces that are willing to live and fight and even die to change the world.

For the past two days, the LA Revolution Club has been out at the historic corner of Florence and Normandie, calling on and struggling with people to stand up and not let the system and its pig enforcers get away with these crimes, bringing the RCP Central Committee’s Message: “Time To Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution.” The first day we were out, the pigs had two Black youths up against the wall. We went up in the face of the pigs, defended these youths, and compellingly projected that this outrage in front of us happens every goddamn day and connected it to murder by police, and that all the illegitimate force they use and all the oppression and exploitation these rulers and their pigs enforce is all they’ve got, and how we fight now and build our strength and capacity to fight is the basis through which we can become a revolutionary people numbering in our millions to overthrow this system once and for all. We called on people to go to revcom.us and get into Bob Avakian, who has developed the scientific theory of why reality is the way it is and how people can change it in a liberatory direction. As we challenged people to get out of their cars, several pulled over across the street and got out and stood filming from the sidewalk, together with those hanging over their fences or who had come out of shops to listen and film. People were inspired and some came up afterwards to thank us. We got the Central Committee Message out to them, and one woman stayed to watch a clip of BA. We called on people to get organized for revolution, but also summed up there was more of an opening to draw forward people to act right then and to get organized for revolution than what we led. This is connected to something we have identified and are changing, which is the need to let people in on the strategy for revolution and their own role in contributing in concrete ways to organizing to overthrow this system at the soonest possible time.

The second day we agitated sharply about America and everything it stands for, from slavery until now, and about the U.S. rag filled with the blood of Black people, Native Americans, immigrants and people all over the world. Then we burned that bloody rag right on the street corner (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3SYJL0sO2s). When we called out America, people screamed in agreement and shook their fists in the air. This seemed to us a different mood and response compared with the similar agitation we did leading into the anti-4th of July picnic, when there was not nearly the kind of visceral agreement from so many people.

Trisha Michael joined the protest with a picture of her twin sister, Kisha, who was killed by Inglewood police this year with her friend Marquintin as they were sleeping in a car. Trisha spoke powerfully about what happened to her sister and her sister’s friend, and how this has to stop happening to anybody and we need revolution. Then a Latina woman who joined on the spot was moved to get on the bullhorn. She said she had always been afraid to speak out against the system, but now, no more. She spoke out about how her parents were deported when she was 14 and she didn’t see them again until she was 19, and spoke about children being abused in foster care.

A Black woman pulled over her car to get out and join us. She had seen us there the day before and told herself if we were back the next day she would get out of her car. Enraged, she kept asking, “Why is this happening? Why does this keep happening?” and went on to question elections: “Obama, I’m done with him. I was for him, but no, it’s like what is wrong with YOU? I can’t think of one thing you’ve done that has done anything for anyone.” She watched the “what if” clip from BA and said it moved her to tears because he was talking about humanity. She said she and people close to her talk about race and why it matters and why can’t we just be humanity. And this is the first time she has ever heard anyone outside her close circle say the things that she is feeling. She later said, “I want to be a part of this. I do graphic design and normally charge a lot, but for this I’ll work for free. I can make stuff for the newspaper and make flyers for this. Even if what we change is small, we have to do something. Well, at least we are part of making things better for the future. How can people sit back and not do anything when this [police murder] is happening? I don’t care if you have a comfortable position, there’s no excuse. You cannot ignore this anymore.” She said she wants to buy a Revolution—Nothing Less T-shirt and will be coming to our next meeting to learn more about the Revolution Club.

Last night we went to Summer Night Lights, a city anti-gang program that keeps the parks open late during the summer. We brought the statement, “Protesting Murder and Terror by the Police Is Absolutely Righteous and Necessary! STOP MURDER AND TERROR BY POLICE NOW!! We Need Revolution!” and the Central Committee Message. We strived to convey that what we are doing now is part of how we, and how they, can affect the whole world.

Find out more about the revolution         Find out about BA, the leader of the revolution

Most people thanked us and expressed a deep desire to do something and come out to a demo the following day put on by the Revolution Club. We struggled with a group of young Black youths. When we brought the message and the understanding that this is part of building our strength to make a revolution, and what this country has meant for Black people, a Black youth said, “It isn’t right, but look, the police are gonna come in here and line us up like they always do. This is what they have been doing to us.” We said, “That’s a slave mentality, but you’re right, they will keep doing that to you, and people like you so long as this system is intact and it will never change if people like you keep their heads down and accept their oppressed status.” We conveyed that fighting against this now has to be part of fighting to get rid of this shit once and for all. If all slaves ever did was keep their heads down and try to be “good slaves” we would still have slavery.

Even in the face of the media portraying a so-called “war on cops” and the demonizing of those murdered by the pigs, people are expressing a deep desire to act and ask why this continues to happen. With our leadership, people were partial to the statement “Fuck America” and more open to confronting “the actual history of this country and its role in the world up to today, and the terrible consequences of this.”

 

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/447/no-crime-no-time-for-clark-kissinger-and-miles-solay-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

Breaking News:

Prosecution Backs Down:
No Crime, No Time for Clark Kissinger and Miles Solay for #ShutDownRikers Civil Disobedience

July 12, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Clark Kissinger and Miles Solay will face no time and were not charged with a crime for courageously taking part in nonviolent civil disobedience last October 23 to shut down Rikers Island Jail, the hellish torture chamber in the heart of New York City.

This important development took place today at the opening of their scheduled trial at Queens Criminal Court in New York. Clark Kissinger, part of the management of Revolution Books New York and a longtime revolutionary, and Miles Solay, the founder of the revolutionary rock band Outernational, had been charged with the criminal misdemeanor of Obstructing Governmental Administration (OGA), along with lesser charges, that carried the possibility of one year in jail. It was obscene, outrageous, and ILLEGITIMATE that Clark Kissinger and Miles Solay even faced these charges—for demanding an end to the barbaric crime that is Rikers.

Today, the prosecution totally backed off the criminal charge, which carried potentially serious repercussions for Clark Kissinger and Miles Solay, and offered a plea agreement with community service for a violation, which is not a criminal charge.

When their case was called, Clark Kissinger and Miles Solay stood before a packed courtroom. Moments earlier, 40-50 supporters had solemnly—and impactfully—walked in together and took seats.

After the agreement was announced, Miles Solay stood before the judge and stated: "What we did outside of Rikers, demanding that it be shut down, was righteous. We committed no crime. Rikers stands for the degradation, dehumanization, and torture of tens of thousands of people and is the embodiment of what happens in jails across this country. We hope what we did contributed to the struggle to shut down Rikers, that there will be many more actions like ours, and that Rikers will be shut down!" 

The room burst into cheers. Afterward, Clark Kissinger’s and Miles Solay’s supporters stood up and walked out of the room together, then held a spirited rally and speak-out outside the courthouse.

This development comes at a time of intense exposure and struggle against mass incarceration and police murder.

For important background and analysis of the stakes and significance of the battle to force the government to drop charges against Clark Kissinger and Miles Solay, see “Prosecuting Rikers Protesters Is a Crime on Top of a Crime: Rally to the Defense of Clark Kissinger and Miles Solay!”

 

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/447/alton-sterling-baton-rouge-louisiana-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

July 6, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Alton Sterling, Baton Rouge, Louisiana:

Once more this system's pigs carry out cold-blooded murder of a Black man!

This goddamn white supremacist system must be brought down at the earliest possible time...

Why are these murdering pigs still free?

 

On July 5th, police tackled Alton Sterling to the ground, held him down, tazed him, and then shot him dead in cold blood.

Eric Garner... Rekia Boyd... Freddie Gray... Michael Brown... murder after murder after murder and still no justice. 400 goddamn years and still no justice, no humanity. How long will this go on? Enough is goddamn enough.

WE MUST ACT. People need to do two things:

One, in Baton Rouge people are righteously standing up and fighting back, making it unmistakably clear: THERE MUST BE JUSTICE! All eyes are on Baton Rouge. This must continue with more and more people joining and supporting them. We cannot let this shit go down like nothing happened. And, people everywhere throughout the country need to get out and say this police murder stops now.  The "authorities" and their totally illegitimate system are already working to get these cops off, and that cannot be allowed to happen.

Two, people need to get ready to make a real revolution to bring this system down... and to do that, you need to get into the work of and follow the leadership of Bob Avakian who is seriously working and fighting to build the movement for an actual revolution at the earliest possible time.  Get connected and up to the minute with the revolution: go to www.revcom.us everyday.

 

Stop police terror!
Indict, convict, send the killer cops to jail!

Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/447/philando-castile-alton-sterling-shot-by-depraved-pigs-for-being-black-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

MINNESOTA: PHILANDO CASTILE:

SHOT IN COLD BLOOD BY A DEPRAVED PIG FOR NO REASON BUT BEING BLACK

BATON ROUGE: ALTON STERLING:

SHOT IN COLD BLOOD BY A DEPRAVED PIG FOR NO REASON BUT BEING BLACK

July 7, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

How long must this go on?!

Before the eyes of the world, and over and over and over again, this system's armed enforcers are murdering Black and Brown people. And over and over and over again, they get off. But not this time, not if we act. A system that does this over and over again is immoral, illegitimate, and should not exist one day longer. We need an actual revolution.

Indict, Convict, Send These Killer Cops to Jail – this we have to fight for and not back down on. People from every corner of society need to be filling the streets – no business as usual while the cries and wails of our children and loved ones fill our ears... No business as usual while the blood flows... No business as usual while these cops pay no price and face no punishment for cold-blooded murder. The protests of the last two years from Ferguson to Baltimore, New York to Chicago have not gone too far – they have not gone far enough. Our fury, our heartbreak and outrage, must become unrelenting struggle to stop the madness of police terror as part of preparing the people for revolution.

A big part of the strategy to do just that is: Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution.

Why does this police terror keep happening? Because this system is built on slavery and genocide... because the oppression of Black people is built into every fiber and every institution of this capitalist-imperialist system. Such a vicious dog-eat-dog system will not stop until it's overthrown.

The gunshots and tasers of today are no different than slave chains and whips... no different than the lynching rope and KKK terror. This system is illegitimate and soaked in the blood of our people, here and around the world. This system's power and their armed forces of violent suppression must be defeated and dismantled by millions through an actual revolution. The Revolutionary Communist Party IS ORGANIZING NOW TO OVERTHROW THIS SYSTEM AT THE SOONEST POSSIBLE TIME. Preparing to lead an actual revolution to bring about a radically new and better society: the New Socialist Republic in North America.

We have the leadership for this in Bob Avakian who has developed a strategy for an actual revolution and a concrete framework for a radically different state power. BA has developed a new synthesis of communism. As a crucial part of this, he has dug deeply into the roots of the oppression of Black people and white supremacy... studied how this is a faultline – a weakness, an Achilles’ heel – of this system... and has the potential to be a driving force for a revolution to end white supremacy as a part of ending all oppression and exploitation to emancipate all humanity, all over the world.

Stop Police Terror
Indict, Convict, Send These Killer Cops to Jail!

Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution!

Time to Get Organized for an Actual Revolution.

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/447/cheers-to-carmelo-anthony-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

Cheers to Carmelo Anthony for Call to Fellow Athletes: “I Need Your Voices to Be Heard”

July 12, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

On July 8 New York Knicks star forward Carmelo Anthony issued a statement in the wake of the police murders of Anton Sterling in Baton Rouge and Philando Castile in St. Paul. He called on people—fellow athletes in particular—to “step up” and act against these outrages. He said “The system is Broken. Point blank period. It has been this way forever.” He urged others to stand strong: “We can't worry about what endorsements we gonna lose or whose going to look at us crazy. I need your voices to be heard. We can demand change. We just have to be willing to. THE TIME IS NOW. IM all in.”

Anthony’s Instagram and Twitter posts of his message were accompanied by a 1967 photo of Muhammad Ali with Bill Russell, Jim Brown, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and other athletes who were supporting Ali’s refusal to fight in the Vietnam War—a decision which cost Ali his heavyweight champion title. Anthony’s statement appeared on the full outside cover of the New York Daily News and in other media.

The full text of Carmelo Anthony’s statement:

First off let me start off by saying "All Praise Due To The Most High." Secondly, I'm all about rallying, protesting, fighting for OUR people. Look I'll even lead the charge, By Any Means Necessary. We have to be smart about what we are doing though. We need to steer our anger in the right direction. The system is Broken. Point blank period. It has been this way forever. Martin Luther King marched. Malcolm X rebelled. Muhammad Ali literally fought for US. Our anger should be towards the system. If the system doesn't change we will continue to turn on the TVs and see the same thing. We have to put the pressure on the people in charge in order to get this thing we call JUSTICE right. A march doesn't work. We tried that. I've tried that. A couple social media post/tweet doesn't work. We've all tried that. That didn't work. Shooting 11 cops and killing 5 WILL NOT work. While I don't have a solution, and I'm pretty sure a lot of people don't have a solution, we need to come together more than anything at this time. We need each other. These politicians have to step up and fight for change. I'm calling for all my fellow ATHLETES to step up and take charge. Go to your local officials, leaders, congressman, assemblymen/assemblywoman and demand change. There's NO more sitting back and being afraid of tackling and addressing political issues anymore. Those days are long gone. We have to step up and take charge. We can't worry about what endorsements we gonna lose or whose going to look at us crazy. I need your voices to be heard. We can demand change. We just have to be willing to. THE TIME IS NOW. IM all in. Take Charge. Take Action. DEMAND CHANGE. Peace7 #StayMe7o

Among the athletes and others expressing support for Carmelo Anthony’s statement were NBA stars Dwayne Wade and Joakim Noah, actor Gabrielle Union (who is married to Wade), former world #1 tennis player Boris Becker, WNBA star Chiney Ogwumike, and NFL player Andrew Hawkins.

Find out more about the revolution Find out about BA, the leader of the revolution

It’s very good that an athlete of Carmelo Anthony’s stature as well as other in the public eye are speaking out and calling on others to stand against the outrage of murders by police and to fight for justice and change. We call on them to follow through on their convictions—and, in the course of fighting for justice, to really dig into the source of terror by police and other outrages of this system, and what it is going to take to win real and lasting change for the better.

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/447/protests-continue-across-the-US-and-beyond-update-July-12-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

Update: July 12, 2016:

Protests Continue Across the U.S. & Beyond

July 12, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

People across the United States—and beyond—are continuing to make very clear—as we wrote this week: “that those who want to protest and rebel against this are NOT going away, and they are NOT going to be quelled by calls for dialogue, for letting the system work, etc. The people are not going to be shoved off the streets or out of public awareness by a massive effort on the part of the rulers to ‘change the subject.’ And they are not going to allow the violent attacks by the police, the threats with automatic weapons, the tear gas and pepper spray, to stop this.” (See “Revolution—Nothing Less! A Powerful Week of Resistance and Struggle—A Need to Take It Higher and Further”). Here are some of the sights and sounds from the protests on Sunday and Monday, July 10 and 11.

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Atlanta—On the fifth straight day of protests here, in the face of threats of a police crackdown, people went out into the streets to march and block traffic.

 

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Chicago—On Monday afternoon, thousands sat in at the downtown Millennium Park—and then poured into the streets, blocking traffic on the busy Michigan Avenue during rush hour.

Photo Credit: @shishimii

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Cincinnati, Ohio—Protesters took to the streets late Sunday afternoon in a “Enough Is Enough” rally in front of the police headquarters. Audrey DuBose, the mother of Sam DuBose, an unarmed Black driver shot and killed by a University of Cincinnati cop a year ago, said, “Let’s keep fighting. Don’t wait until it happens to your son.”

Credit: @CityBeatCincy 

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Inglewood, California—Hundreds poured into the streets Sunday night in this city southwest of downtown L.A. Protesters went on to 405 freeway and blocked traffic in both directions for 10 minutes.

Photo Credit: @ArsalaiH

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London, England—Protesters blocked streets in the Brixton area of south London, “bringing a number of major streets to a standstill” according to a news report.

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Memphis, Tennessee—People rallied downtown, and marched—shutting traffic on the Interstate 40 bridge over the Mississippi River. Traffic was at a standstill on both sides of the bridge by about 7 p.m. as the crowd on the bridge swelled to more than 1,000.

Photo credit:  ‏@imnot_DOM 

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Seattle—Sunday, protesters staged a die-in in front of the police headquarters.

Photo credit: Special to revcom.us

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Vancouver, Canada—A multi-national crowd of 500 gathered Sunday at the Vancouver Art Gallery to stand in solidarity with Black Lives Matter protests across the U.S.

Photo credit: bccla

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Washington, D.C.—Hundreds marched Sunday in the fourth night of protests in this city.

Photo credit: @AEMDigital

 

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Protests also took place on Sunday and Monday in Sacramento, San Francisco Bay Area. Stay tuned...

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/447/obama-in-dallas-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

Obama in Dallas: Honeyed Words, a Pot of Lies, and One Important Truth

July 12, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

 

Head butchers trying put a human face on the enforcers of their butchery.

This was Obama and Bush in Texas today.

Bush who ordered the wars that led to the deaths of a million people in Iraq. Obama who's carried that forward and modified it through proxy wars which have done the same and driven even more people onto the hunted, perilous path of the refugee. The both of them who have taken turns presiding over the murders by police of at least 1000 people a year, and over a prison system that keeps over 2 million people locked up—the highest number in the world and the highest percentage of the population, by far, of any country, and a hugely disproportionate share of which are Black people, Latinos and Native American Indians.

Within this, it fell of course to Obama, the current “assassin-in-chief” to fit all this into an absolutely upside down framework, and to try to totally distort the nature of the problem we face.

So...no, Obama, the main problem is not “hearts of stone.” It is a vampire system that sucks blood all over the planet and that you have dedicated yourself to maintaining and strengthening. No, Obama, the problem is not the “bias” or “bigotry” of individuals (much as this system reinforces this), or people not understanding “their different experiences”—it is America itself, a society divided at its core into exploiters and exploited, oppressors and oppressed, and it is the conscious policies undertaken by the masters of America to maintain that exploitation and oppression. No, Obama the problem is not lack of communication between police departments and “minority communities”—it is the fact that the police most directly enforce those oppressive relations and they enforce it most sharply of all against Black and Latino people in the inner cities. And because of that there is absolutely no righteous basis whatsoever on which to bring slave-chaser and slave together to sing “Kumbaya.”

And no, Obama, “the overwhelming majority” of cops are not good. If they were, why did and do so many cops turn out to cheer whenever one of their brothers gets charges dropped when they murder a Black (or Latino or Native American Indian) youth (as hundreds of NY pigs did when the charges against the blue-suited killer of 18-year-old Ramarley Graham were dropped)? If they were, how do you account for the pervasive cop culture of racism and hatred of gay people and women laid bare whenever their e-mails or radio transmissions happen to get revealed? If they were, why does this “overwhelming majority” never turn in or testify against the so-called “few bad apples”? And if they were, why do so many now fear the presence of video cameras in people's hands, like Dracula shrinking from the sunlight?

But listen—Obama did reveal one important truth today. He raised the point that over the past week “the deepest faultlines [of this society] were exposed and perhaps even widened.” He openly worried that “the center won't hold.” He is talking about the oppressed rising up and sharp divisions at the top over how to deal with that, to the point where the New York Post page one headline last week was “Civil War.” He is talking about wide sections of people in society coming to see that the force used to maintain this system is ILLEGITIMATE and coming to lose their fear of those who wield it.

That's why he had that catatonic zombie Bush there—to try to chill out the hard-core racists and fascists that are straining to get off their leash (and have a champion now in the outright fascist and racist Chump). And that's why he spent so much time lecturing the movement on how “progress has been made” during his lifetime and telling them to tone it down. He desperately wants to stuff this movement back into the closet and he, along with large sections of the rulers, are very worried that this time, so far, the people have stayed in the streets and refused to be intimidated.

Find out more about the revolution         Find out about BA, the leader of the revolution

So, one last time: No, Obama... HELL NO, OBAMA. At a time like this, when the rulers are trying to patch things together, there are three choices. You can try to help them patch it up. You can put your head in the sand and hope it goes away while the fabric of the world tears. Or you can work to bring into being something far better, a society without exploitation or oppression, a society beyond America and the horrific system it enforces here and around the world.  

To speak to both Obama and the fascist Chump, and Hillary Clinton as well, America Was Never Great. It was founded on genocide and slavery, and it has continued this oppression in different forms today. We need to step up this struggle, and we need to dig into the real history of this country, the real nature of this capitalist-imperialist system, and the real way out. We need, in other words, to increasingly make this struggle today part of a movement that could lead to a REAL revolution, aimed at wiping out exploitation and oppression and bringing a whole new world into being, the New Socialist Republic in North America. We need to build a movement for an actual revolution now to overthrow the system.  

There is a party prepared to take responsibility to lead this. There is a party with the science, the strategy and the leadership, in Bob Avakian, to take that forward—to work today to bring about the time when millions can be led to go all-out for revolution, with a real chance of winning.

Join us. A better world IS possible.

Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/447/interview-with-store-proprietor-abdullah-muflahi-on-alton-sterling-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

Interview with Store Proprietor Abdullah Muflahi on Alton Sterling:

"You can't bring this young man back... He has five kids now who will grow up without a father"

July 12, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

On July 5, two Baton Rouge police shot and killed Alton Sterling while they had him pinned to the ground in front of the Triple S Mart. They murdered him—setting off a wave of protests that continue to sweep the country. One video of the killing was taken by Abdullah Muflahi, proprietor of the Triple S Mart. In what can only be construed to be an outrageous, lawless attempt to cover up evidence and terrorize a witness, Baton Rouge police stole surveillance video from Abdullah Muflahi’s store without a warrant, stole his cell phone, locked him inside a car for hours, and detained him at a police station. Despite that, Abdullah Muflahi, has continued to expose what happened to Alton Sterling, and to speak out in national news against attempts to dehumanize or excuse the murder of Alton Sterling. This week, Abdullah Muflahi and his attorney Joel Porter filed a lawsuit against Baton Rouge police and officials over what happened to him after the murder of Alton Sterling.

Our correspondent in Baton Rouge spoke with Abdullah Muflahi twice, while Muflahi was accompanied by his attorney Joel Porter. The following is from those interviews.

Revolution: What happened on the night of July 4/early July 5?

Abdullah Muflahi: It was after midnight. I saw two cops pulling into the parking lot ... two cop cars. Well I decided to see what was going on. When I got out there they were already slamming Mr. Sterling on the car. They tasered him, tackled him onto another vehicle, and then that’s when it escalated to the officer shooting him.

If they would have talked to him—just what the hell was going on—there would have never been any resistance from him. But he was so confused. He kept asking them what did I do wrong? His question was never answered at all. He never threatened them. He never pulled out a gun on them. A gun never came out visible until they pulled it out of his pocket after they shot him six times.

Revolution: What happened to you after the police shot and killed Alton Sterling?

Abdullah Muflahi: One of the officers that was involved in the shooting grabbed me by my arms and pushed me toward another cop and told him to contain me and put me in a cop car. I was outside the whole time. I was maybe not even three feet away...and ... They put me in the back of a cop car for almost four to five hours. It was very hot. They wouldn’t even let me get a bottle of water. The only bottle of water that my brother had was one that was hot. And it was hot all over. And I was laying inside the car.

I wanted to go to the bathroom. They told me to wait a second and they had a cop escort me behind one of these neighboring buildings to use it out there. I had to go outside. I never felt at any time like I was free to leave the car or free to go anywhere. [Later at the Baton Rouge police station] They put me in a room by myself. When they would open it, I would hear them locking a lock. I didn’t think it was an unlocked door ... I didn’t feel like I could step out and get a cup of water or anything...

Revolution: Let’s go back to the shooting—what happened after police shot Alton Sterling?

Abdullah Muflahi: They called shots fired. Police cars rushed in within a few moments. He was laying there after they shot him. One cop had said something that I didn’t hear, but the cop closer to me was like, “No fuck it ... fuck him, just leave him. Let him lay there.” That’s why he was just laying there dying. They just left him there dying. They didn’t do anything to try to help him. No CPR. No trying to hold the blood... stop the bleeding... to hold pressure on the wound. Nothing. Not anything like that. He was like, “No. Just let him lay there.”

Revolution: And then later...

Abdullah Muflahi: They went into my office. They went inside my store. And the whole time they were in there, I don’t know what they were doing in there. They were in there for a little over two hours. I told them I needed to be inside the store, I needed to be present inside of the store if they are going to walk inside the store. They said they were going to work on getting a search warrant and they were going to bring it to me and take my DVR but they never did. They told me they had it ready but they never brought it to me at all. I mean they didn’t talk to me about it or nothing.

Revolution: Tell us a little bit about Alton Sterling.

Abdullah Muflahi: Everybody knew him... everybody loved him. If he didn’t show up one day, people would come up and ask where he’s at. People’d come up asking me to call him. They always loved him. They loved doing business with him. He always looked out for anybody. I mean if somebody showed up and they wanted a CD and they didn’t have enough money, he’d let it slide. If somebody came in the store and didn’t have enough money for something, he’d buy it for them.

Revolution: Talk a little about your own background and why you have spoken out the way you have.

Abdullah Muflahi: I’ve been here for six years in this location. I like to give back. I don’t just take from the community... I try to give back in any way possible. Sometimes maybe free things, three times a year or so. I try to do a little personal appreciation. Always... I always show that I’m really appreciative like I really appreciate them allowing me to come into the community and allowing me to become a part of it. I’m from Yemen.

People are coming up to me and offering any kind of help they could. A lot of churches coming around offering anything that they’re able to do, or do I need anything from them and it’s been real nice and heartwarming to see all that come together. All the people coming together and offering to help and offering anything they could do to support.

Revolution: Finally, can you share some background into the conditions and community that Alton Sterling came out of?

Abdullah Muflahi: Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate in the nation. That means that this state has the highest incarceration rate in the world. I mean enough is enough, is enough. How long will we be suppressed and we deal with this? I mean it becomes like a powder keg. It can only percolate so long before it explodes and we’re at that level where it’s about to explode.

Just hope that justice is done.... I mean maybe there will be some semblance of justice that will come out of this. But I don’t know what that is. You can’t bring this young man back. He has five kids now who will grow up without a father. Here’s a man that’s selling DVDs trying to support his family. I mean he’s relegated to selling DVDs because he has a felony conviction that this government put upon him. Now his life is taken and he can’t take care of them.

Revolution: Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us, and for what you are doing.

 

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/448/message-to-the-bernie-supporters-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

Yes, We DO Need A Revolution—Overthrowing This System! Don't Let Bernie Take You Back Into It.

July 13, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

You were RIGHT to reject Hillary Clinton, and find her despicable.

You aspired to something different. But now Bernie wants to lead you back into the fold, back into what you once swore you’d never go along with.

A word. Now is NOT the time to give up on this—your aspirations—with “broken hearts,” to “hold your nose” while voting for Hillary. Precisely the opposite. Now is the time to really follow through on your convictions. Now is the time get really radical and scientific: to dig into the cause of the problems and horrors that drove you to Bernie... and into the solution as well. Ask yourself:

What is the nature of this system that gives rise to the howling inequalities, not only within this country but to an almost unimaginably greater degree worldwide? Is it just control by the “greedy corporations”—or is there something deeper in the very framework and “rules” of how things work?

Revolution Club at the RNC & DNC

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What is the history of this country, interwoven since its founding with the slavery and continuing oppression of Black people? And how does that play out today?

Is America a source for good in the world, or is it in fact the principal source of the world’s horror—of imperialist wars, unprecedented violence and torture, and oppressive domination of entire nations?

Why do immigrants come here? Who and what drives them on their deadly journeys?

Why are women so pervasively degraded and abused in this society—and in this world?

Could you really solve the rapidly developing ecological catastrophe within the framework of this economic and political system?

Let’s also ask this: What will it take to get beyond all this? Does the road out lie in rallying big crowds of disaffected people within this system’s workings and choices, and ultimately funneling people back into what they started out rejecting? Does it lie with a “third party”—again, within this system? Is it a social movement that may rattle some chains of this system, only to be suppressed or swallowed up in its entrails?

Or is what humanity requires a REAL revolution that shatters those chains?

What, for that matter, is GENUINE socialism? Is it a basket of Scandinavian-style social reforms (based on a position high in the imperialist food chain)? Or is it a path toward truly uprooting all forms of oppression and exploitation, and getting to a world fit for all seven billion on our planet? A hard path, yes, one with challenges and sacrifices—but one that is actually capable of birthing a whole new world.

Find out more about the revolution         Find out about BA, the leader of the revolution

There are answers to all of these questions. But this requires science—a method for understanding the world as it actually is and how it can change—and it requires leadership based on this science. Without this, even the most heroic struggles remain confined and contained within the system that is the source of these horrors, and the nightmare continues.

That is what makes Bob Avakian (BA) so important. BA has developed the scientific understanding and approach to make the kind of revolution that can emancipate humanity. He has learned deeply from previous revolutions, as well as from many different spheres. He has forged a strategy for how a revolution could be prepared for and won, as well as a concrete vision for the new society that is on the road to real liberation. At the same time, he has kept his connection to and acted as a true champion of the oppressed, from those who catch the hardest hell in this country’s ghettoes and barrios, to the majority of the seven billion around the world. He has never given up, and today he leads a party which is actively preparing for a real revolution, one aimed not at reforming but overthrowing this system.

That is real leadership—leadership that demands to be engaged and examined. At the same time, there are real outrages that must be fought right now and that people ARE fighting right now. Let’s join together in both dimensions: fighting to STOP the madness and, as we do, digging into what it will take to fundamentally and finally get beyond this insanity. And let’s do this now—at both conventions.

Leave Bernie behind. Get ready for, and get into, the REAL revolution.

Get Radical, Get Scientific, Get Into BA!

Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution!

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/448/interview-with-artist-dread-scott-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

Interview with Revolutionary Artist

Dread Scott and Progressive Art Exhibit Under Attack

July 13, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Revolutionary artist Dread Scott has created an art work that speaks powerfully to the moment now, and has touched off controversy. The work is at the Jack Shainman Gallery, one of the most significant galleries in New York City and in the country. It has a history of showing work by challenging artists, including many Black artists, representing some of the most interesting and well-known artists in the world. Revcom.us/Revolution had a chance to talk to Dread about the work and the events surrounding it.

 

Revolution: Can you first speak about the work itself?

Dread Scott: The artwork, quite simply, is a flag that is about 84 inches by 52 1/2 inches with white text on black background that says “A MAN WAS LYNCHED BY POLICE YESTERDAY.” And it is hanging outside of an art gallery. It is an updated version of a flag that the NAACP used to hang from their national headquarters in New York whenever someone was lynched. And their flag said “A MAN WAS LYNCHED YESTERDAY.” In the late 1920s and early ’30s they would hang this from their headquarters as part of their anti-lynching campaign. And I updated it to just add the words “BY POLICE.” And I did it in response, actually, to the police murder of Walter Scott who was killed last year, 2015, in South Carolina. Because someone was courageous enough to videotape this murder, people were able to see it. Scott was literally fleeing for his life after a traffic stop, and the cop coldly—while Scott is running—just stands there, aims his gun, shoots him,  then tries to frame Scott. But because it was videotaped the world got to see the murder. And so I made my work in response to that—as well as talking about the broader implications for society that has agents of the government that are enforcing relations of exploitation and oppression, that just murder people in cold blood.

Revolution: And this work is part of a show at the Jack Shainman Gallery.

Dread Scott: Yes, it is part of a show called “For Freedoms,” which is an exhibition that has several different artists in it, many of whom are some of the most beloved artists who do work that talks about the world we live in in a sharp way. “For Freedoms” was organized by two artists, Hank Willis Thomas and Eric Gottesman. In addition to being an art exhibition, it is also a Super PAC. It is legally a Super PAC intending to give money to artists to talk about this political climate. It is also a conceptual artwork—the Super PAC is an artwork. The idea is not to raise money for Clinton or Trump, but to challenge the whole notion of money in politics, specifically in allowing people that would raise questions that the mainstream candidates are not going to raise—to allow them to raise those questions, on billboards, subway ads, TV commercials.

Revolution: Let’s get back to the work for a moment. What was your thinking around adding “by police” to the original NAACP flag saying “a man was lynched yesterday”?

Dread Scott: Well, a lot of my work looks at how the past sets the stage for the present, but also how it exists in the present in new forms. And so, by and large, Black people are not being lynched today. That is a horror from the Jim Crow era. And yet, the police are actually playing the same role as lynch mob terror did in the late 1800s to early and mid-1900s. They kill more people in any particular decade or year than were killed at the height of lynching. While all Black people clearly weren’t lynched, the threat of lynching hung over every single Black person—that Black people could be lynched for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

And that’s the same way cops are doing people. People are getting murdered for traffic stops... for doing exactly what the cops tell them to do. You know, they’re murdered in two seconds, sitting out there with a toy gun. It’s a threat that every single Black person and Brown person—and a lot of white people—have hanging over them. Cops can just blow people away. And like lynching, the perpetrators of these crimes are never brought to justice. We’re seeing that with the Freddie Gray case. Everybody saw on the video, Freddie Gray was fine beforehand. The cops encounter him, they throw him in the back of the van, twisted up like a pretzel—and he’s dead. And the only people that had an encounter with him were the cops. Everybody knows that—nobody disputes those facts. And yet when the cops go to court, three different times so far, none of the cops are found guilty of killing him. And that’s much like the way Emmett Till was killed. Everybody knew who killed Emmett Till. Yet they went to trial by a jury of their “peers,” and these murderers got off—and then they went and laughed about it. Which is exactly what the cops are doing today.

The other thing about referencing this past is that the NAACP flag was not just a marker of the horror of lynching, but was part of building a national movement to stop that horror.  It was an act of defiance and resistance to fly that flag in the ’30s—one which the NACCP were threatened with eviction for doing.  And that legacy of defiance is being brought into the present by this artwork and joining with a broader movement fighting to end police terror.

Revolution: When did this work of yours go up?

Dread Scott: It went up at this gallery on Friday, July 8.

Revolution: And, according to a Fox News report, this work and the gallery is coming under attack...

Dread Scott: That’s the thing... where they say there’s a “controversy” around it—Fox News is trying to create a controversy. Until Fox News reported on this, the piece was overwhelmingly supported. There was no hostility. There was no protest against it. There were no calls to the gallery. There were no complaints whatsoever. But Fox News heard about this, and they did a story which both alleged that the gallery should not show the work because of the death of the cops in Dallas—as if that completely unrelated incident would be some reason why people should not have a right to make art about, show art about, or protest murder by police. And then they said the gallery was facing pressure to take the work down and that they defied that pressure. But there just was not—there was overwhelming support—until Fox News did their story, which was trying to create a hostile environment, and have the gallery face threats and intimidation.

And since then, they have. There have been hostile calls coming in to the gallery, threatening emails coming in to the gallery and to me. So Fox News is doing its “job.” But it’s a manufactured controversy. And yes, they have been stung by this—this system doesn’t want to have its police portrayed as the inheritors of lynching. They don’t want people to see that. So from their perspective, this is something that has to be denounced and repressed. But there are lots and lots and lots and lots of people who have tweeted, Facebook posts, there’s been news stories about this. So this piece has a lot of support.

Revolution: Can you say a little more about that support?

Dread Scott: I’m not a big social media person. When I usually post stuff, it will get liked by, you know, a dozen or so people. Posts about this work have been liked by hundreds of people, in some cases thousands of people if you add it all up. And shared by all sorts of people, including people like Shaun King (New York Daily News columnist and prominent voice against police terror) tweeted about it. And he’s got a huge number of followers. There are all sorts of writers and others who have a following on Twitter. Klaus Biesenbach, Chief Curator at the Museum of Modern Art. Arts organizations Creative Capital, Creative Time, the MAP Fund (all significant arts funders), the Public Art Fund (an important New York arts presenter) and the Walker Art Center (a prominent museum in Minneapolis) all tweeted. Several news sites quickly did stories: i-D/Vice, PBS News Hour, Huffington Post, Artnet.com, Art F City, The Smithsonian, Quartz, ArtNews, Observer, among others. Hyperallergic, which is a really great online arts magazine with a huge following did a story, and their founder/editor, in addition to writing the article has been saying this is an important work, is sending it out to people. I’ve got letters from a number of very prominent artists, saying they’re very glad to see this work out and to see my comments about it.

Revolution: This is very significant, the response and support...

Dread Scott: It’s extremely significant. The level of support, both for the actual art work itself, and the concern over the threats from Fox News, is unprecedented in my online presence and in other ways. The things is, people are outraged, particularly about the murders of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. For anybody who had doubts or hesitation about how the police treat people, those videos shattered any illusions that anybody with a heart had. This artwork has stepped into this upsurge that’s going on right now, and it really resonates with people. I and the gallery happened to take the work to the demonstration at Union Square that happened on the Thursday just before it went up. There was a young woman, about 18 to 20 years old, a white woman who had been out of the country, and had just sort of stumbled upon the demonstration. She hadn’t seen the videos. She asked, “What’s this artwork about?” I proceeded to tell her about these two videos. And she was literally crying. She felt just the tremendous weight of—the implications of it—not just those two murders, but the fact that it’s part of this genocidal program. And then how this artwork sort of concentrated how this current program of genocide is based on the historic program of genocide.

Revolution: And the Shainman Gallery is standing firm.

Dread Scott: Yes. It would be very good if people showed their support and visited this gallery. This is an environment where mainstream politicians of one of the two major parties are calling on their supporters to beat up people at their rallies. It’s a fascist environment. Those kind of people are riled up—that’s who Fox News speaks to. Those are the kinds of people that are calling in and threatening and intimidating the gallery. And it would be good if both prominent people as well as people that are not so prominent who just want to see a really interesting show—come down to the gallery.

There’s this work by this artist named Alfredo Jaar that just says the words “Mississippi Goddamn” on one corner and then it has “[blank] Goddamn” about 150 other times. It’s very heavy. Maria Gaspar’s project has a video that has a camera slowly moving along the outside of prison walls—I think Cook County Jail. It’s this huge massive wall that separates “inside” and “outside.” There are other works that are really talking about the moment. Including an artist that has this really great work, Andrea Bowers, that has all these images of what she calls “feminist posters.” Some of them are posters from the Cultural Revolution in China, and posters from Russia during the Russian Revolution. Also various international posters of women participating in revolution in various ways, including armed defenders of the revolutionary state. There are posters of American suffragists and Black Panther women as well. And this is just a highlight of some of the work in one of the two galleries that make up the show. The work in the rest of the exhibit is equally powerful. It’s a beautiful show with frankly some very challenging, lofty work. I mean, I like my work in the show a lot, I think it’s important and touched a nerve. But people should come see the show overall and should learn from it, enjoy it—and support the gallery that’s courageous enough to show all of the work and my work. And let them know that people are counting on them, and are there to help them in the face of these threats and intimidation.

The “For Freedoms” exhibit is at the Jack Shainman Gallery until July 29, 2016. 524 W. 24th Street and 513 W. 20th Street, New York, New York. Mon.-Fri. 10 am to 6 pm. The flag appears at the 20th Street space.

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/448/from-south-central-to-downtown-fighting-the-power-putting-revolution-front-and-center-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

From South Central to Downtown—Fighting the Power, Putting Revolution Front and Center

July 13, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

From the Revolution Club, Los Angeles:

On Saturday, July 9, the Revolution Club, LA led a march through South Central, calling people into the streets to not let this system get away with its official terror against Black people, and in the wake of the cops being killed in Dallas, not allowing the powers that be to change the subject. We put the call out the day before, aiming to reach and draw forward all kinds of people who have been looking for a way to stand up. While we didn’t accomplish this on a mass scale, we did lead an important march that drew forward basic people who were very angry. Together with them we challenged and inspired many more people and we put REVOLUTION front and center, the need for it, and projecting the force organizing now to overthrow this system at the soonest possible time.

Starting from Florence & Normandie—where the 1992 rebellion began and where we’ve been out the past few days—we marched to the hated 77th Division police station that terrorizes people day in and day out and is responsible for the murder of Keith Bursey just a few weeks ago. Keith Bursey was 31 years old. He and his girlfriend had parked their car in a parking lot of a store where people were hanging out. The pigs made his girlfriend sit inside with her hands on the steering wheel and made Keith get out of the car. Then they shot him in front of her. They made up the same lying excuse they always use, saying he had a gun—while witnesses saw his empty hands up.

The march started with the Revolution Club and a few other people who had heard about it and came full of rage and pain and ready to take to the streets. As we stood on the corner, people passing by began to join. A woman pulled her car over and walked over, angry and determined to act. She was in a dress and high heels and called on others passing by: What are you waiting for? Till it’s somebody you know? Till it happens to you? She and others felt and said: They are killing our people and it’s too much. There were others who couldn’t march but joined in on the corner for as long as they could—standing and chanting with signs for a few minutes, getting the RCP Central Committee Message, “Time To Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution,” and getting it out to others. Almost all of the people who joined in on the spot had seen us on that corner already one of the other days we were there and decided to step up and be part of it.

We began marching with a little over a dozen people and took over one lane of traffic. Cars slowed down to go alongside the march and get the RCP Central Committee Message through the window. People honked in support with fists up. People along the sidewalks or on porches and balconies filmed on their phones. Those who had joined in got on the bullhorn and challenged people who were watching and filming to stop filming and come join in. Some people took up the challenge and did. Early on the police tried to get us to get back on the sidewalk, but decided not to try to enforce it.

When we got to 77th Division, more people joined to speak out right in front of the police station. The pigs blocked off the street on both sides so cars couldn’t come through. People pulled over to find out what was happening. One young guy from Compton spoke bitterly about the police murdering people in cold blood: “We’re listening, our hands is up, our hands is behind our backs, we’re on the floor, we’re pinned down straight, and ya’ll still shoot us down. So I’m gonna say straight out to y’all, simple as that, we gotta fight back...”

On the way back to Florence and Normandie, the march had grown to over two dozen people. Everyone in it was serious and people saw themselves as the ones stepping forward first to bring forward others like themselves. One young Latino guy who joined in made sure everyone passing by got the RCP Central Committee Message. Everybody in the march was chanting, “How do we get out of this mess? Revolution—Nothing Less!” And when we did the “Mighty Mighty Revcoms” chant, people driving by in their cars were chanting along with us. When a number of police cars zoomed past us with their sirens blaring and so close they could’ve hit people, everyone chanted, “Fuck the Police!”

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Afterwards, people who stayed around got introduced more deeply to what the revolution is about and got to hear a Revolution Club member read the RCP Central Committee Message out loud, which everyone paid closed attention to. Everyone also got invited to a Revolution Club meeting the following day and several people we met from this march came to it.

After this march, the Revolution Club headed downtown to connect up with a protest we’d heard was planned for the evening in front of LAPD headquarters. There were about 100 people rallying when we got there, with different organizations speaking on a loudspeaker, and soon after they called for people to march in a circle in front of the building. We decided we would get in our marching formation and join the picket as a force. We got on the bullhorn to indict the whole system and bring forward the need for revolution, to call on people to take to the streets for no business as usual—and we called on people to get organized for an actual revolution. We did the “Mighty, Mighty Revcoms” chant, among others.

When the picket stopped, we split up in teams and went through the crowd getting out the RCP Central Committee Message. People had different responses to the message, but one conversation that stood out was with a Black man in his 40s or 50s who’d been part of different movements of mass resistance against police brutality and against mass incarceration but had been feeling lately that more was required to really put a stop to it. He also expressed admiration for the man who is said to have killed the cops in Dallas. We had a serious discussion about getting organized for an actual revolution, including why revolutionaries don’t initiate violence at this stage. He was very open minded and said he would read the Message and we arranged to meet to get more deeply into all these questions.

 

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/448/baton-rouge-youth-after-vicious-police-attack-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

Baton Rouge Youth After Vicious Police Attack: "No Matter What You Do To Us, We Still Standing"

July 14, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Editor’s Note: On Sunday, July 10, storm troopers from the Baton Rouge Police Department rampaged against hundreds of youthful protesters at the conclusion of a peaceful march to the State Capitol. Armored personnel carriers girded by dozens of riot equipped cops pointing assault rifles, blared ear piercing noises, and lurched down narrow residential streets lined with cottages. Brutal cops swarmed onto the lawns of people who welcomed protesters, forcing the residents into their homes, and arresting people seeking protection on private property. An unknown number of people were beaten and arrested by the marauders. Revolution spoke with one of the protesters – a young African-American woman – about what happened on Sunday.

Tell us what happened when the police attacked the protest.

Well basically, people was just protesting on the side streets. After a while the police started snatching them up off of the sidewalk. Then after a while people kind of backed away from them in the yard, and they was coming all over these people’s porch. Snatching people up. You could tell people were scared, like, why are they snatching us up like this.

[The authorities are] trying to send a message around the world like we were being violent, we’re not peaceful protesters, that is all bullcrap. I’ve been protesting since this incident happened. I haven’t seen any violence except the violence with the police against the protesters. They hate to see us united. And I ain’t say us, Black people, but us, like, everybody. They had white people out there, Black people, Chinese, maybe Puerto Rican if I’m not mistaken. And they couldn’t stand it. They even handled the white people worse cuz they were standing with us.

One officer decided she wanted to point a gun at me. So you tell me, who the violent one is. Is it the protesters, or your law enforcement? Cuz obviously they’re the violent ones. Not to mention, the government. I was on Airline (at the police station protests) as well. And the way they treated them people at Airline was like animals. They had snipers on the roof. You woulda swore to god they was at war. Snipers on the building, people standing outside, trying to get they voice heard. I thought I was in a movie, like is this really happening? Is these police really acting like they at war? SWAT team flying up and down the street, they hanging out the back of the truck, AK-47s.

And they say we ignorant? Look like all law enforcement is ignorant. And they trained. Are we violent? No, they the violent ones. I witnessed, I done seen people be standing on the side of the road, all we did was lock arms on the side of the road, and we stood there, we said “no justice, no peace, hands up! Don’t shoot!” We said that, maybe, three, four times, before the officers took one step, all together, with their riot gear, whatever they want to call it, to me it was war gear. And when we locked arms after that, they bum rushed us. Like they was playing football. They bum rushed us like we was in the middle of the road, and we was on the sidewalk. Not to mention, we pay taxes. So I’m trying to figure out what would make them tackle people like that. They was , “oh, gimme him, gimme her.” Like we’re just merchandise. We’re not merchandise, we’re human beings. We’re not animals.

I could never understand why they’re treating us like we’re the violent ones. I would never understand, like in Mike Brown’s case, all I can say, whatever that officer aimed at, he didn’t need to shoot him the way he did. They supposed to be so smart, they went to school for all this. But how didn’t they see that this young man ... now, they say he was a thug, but he did graduate. Thugs don’t graduate. They don’t know what a thug is. If you’re from the streets you know that. A thug is not somebody you might see, pants sagging, or they off into something like that. It’s just something certain young men do, I don’t know why, I have no idea. But at the end of the day they somebody’s kid. They have a momma. They have a daddy. They have a brother, they have a sister. They have somebody waiting for them back home, and when they don’t make it home for nonsense, it's ridiculous, and we as Americans need to stand up and stop it.

Have you considered that police treat people this way because they ARE doing their job?.

They are, they are. I have to ask myself, why are these people acting this way. It’s how they treated. It's also like, they (the police) got no guts. I said to them, you’re acting like you’re at war? You’re at war in Iraq. You’re at war in Afghanistan. It’s Afghanistan out here. I got my sign, and I got my fist up. Why y’all got all this gear on? Ain’t nobody doing it out here but you. And it was mostly females out there. There was a couple of men, and they stood in front of us. And they (the police) really didn’t like that. They bum rushed them. They treated them like animals. They was dragging them all around the ground, slapping them on the head. I met one white guy, they slapped him on his head because they was over there protesting, and he wasn’t even in the road. He was over in the grass. They slammed him onto the grass.

I seen another white guy, and that’s where I got my sign from. He made that sign. And he got slammed into the ground. I don’t know if he got out, and I hope he did, because he was out there. I don’t understand how people all over the world can see how such a tragedy this was, and our own law enforcement can’t.

They do things like this all over the world. Iraq and Afghanistan, like you said, Guatemala, Somalia, all over. And they’ve done things like this in cities across this country.

I see it now. My eyes are opened. And basically I’m gonna try to educate all my brothers and sisters. I’m gonna get into my history. I just need to learn a lot of stuff. Because this system is not right. This man (Alton Sterling) was shot down in front of this store. They talk about Bloods, Crips, gangs, we don’t even have that in Baton Rouge. If anything you might have little neighborhood things. The sad part is, every time a cop kills somebody Black, the first thing they try to do is paint an image of him as no good. And it’s horrible. These people’s family is already through so much, and all you can think about is a Black person being a thug. Newsflash. Every Black person you meet is not a thug. Just because somebody don’t act like you don’t mean they’re the worst person on earth.

What was it like when those armored vehicles and all the cops started marching down the street towards you and the others.

I felt like it was 1918 or something. It felt like I was in a movie. I didn’t think it was real. These people that’s paid to protect and serve us? Hell, I felt like we was at war with the police. And they don’t even need the name police. They need to change their name. They’re not here to protect nobody. Because if they was, they’d understand people are out here hurting. Instead of saying people are out here being violent. I been out here, and I ain’t heard a gunshot since this man was killed, I been out here every night til 3 in the morning sometimes, and I never seen nobody out here shooting, fighting, I never seen none of that. So why they keep saying that?

Bob Avakian – BA – has said that that the police aren’t here to serve and protect the people, they’re here to serve and protect the system that rules over the people.

Oh yeah. I know they’re not here to serve and protect me. One time I got jumped at my house. They never came. They never came. I didn’t see them til I made it to the hospital.  What they did on Sunday was slamming people, dragging them out of the yard, just treating people like animals. One person came out and said hey, this is private property. That stopped them for maybe a second. Then they was all on her porch, grabbing people, dragging them out of the yard.

I thought you had to commit a crime to get involved with the police. But obviously not, these days. You could be standing up for your rights, and still get tortured by the police. And if you’re on the streets and you let them know you know your rights, they get mad. Oh yeah, they get very mad. They’ll take you to jail and throw a charge on you. And they wonder why people don’t like them. But that’s why. They’re not professional. I don’t know who is training you, but you’re trained to kill people. They kill more people than anybody. They want to talk about Black on Black crime, I can only be responsible for myself. But what about these police who are trained to protect and serve, are they taking responsibility for the ones who kill us? When are they gonna take action and do they job and stop killing us?

People in the rest of this country, and many people in the rest of the world, know that the young people of Baton Rouge have very courageously stood up to all this. And it’s made a big difference.

Of all the murders these cops have did, this one is on tape. You can see everything. From where he had his hands up, he was immediately tackled. Now mind you, they said they got a call, right? From a homeless man. Ok, so why haven’t we heard his voice? They must think we’re ignorant. Another example – if he had been in front of that store waving a gun, don’t you think they’d have shown that? I don’t want to hear about his background, about his gun, about Bloods and Crips,  that’s bs, it’s garbage. Hold these people accountable for what they did. It's wrong, it's sad that a 15-year-old child and four other siblings got to grow up without their daddy. Because of what?

These young people are out here standing up, they’re hurting. They feel like it could be them. They’re scared, this could happen to anyone. It was wrong. And that’s why we’ve been out, same place, every night. It don’t matter. A lot of people are touched and moved by this situation.

People have been shot by the police in Baton Rouge. But we got the tape on this one. We’ve never seen where they’ve shot someone lying down, on their back, and be shot. You can’t be human to do that to someone else, ain’t no way. Justice needs to be served.  I don’t know what’s going to happen from here. It’s going to be chaos. Because our youth, they already don’t care. As you can see, law enforcement is already targeting these kids. You can see them walking down the street. I’m a female, I’ve been targeted by the police beaucoup times. I can’t even count on my hands how many times. Just from the vehicle. If you ain’t got a brand new vehicle, oh shit, they’re on you.

One time I’m coming home from work, I’m on one side of the street, he’s on the other. He did a u turn. I say watch him pull me over. He had no probable cause. But he thought there was a nigger in this car. But there ain’t no niggers in this car, I’m in this car. The minute I turned, he’s right behind me turning. I pulled over. You know what he said? “I seen you turning side to side. Where’s the weed?” And immediately that put me into a whole other state of mind. I just had a long damn day at work. And you’re coming in my car looking for weed that isn’t there? Then he asked, “can I search your car?” I got out and I locked it. Oh, he was so mad.

That’s why I say, they hate for you to know your rights. They think we’re so dumb and illiterate, we don’t pay attention to a lot of things. But what they don’t know, we pay attention to everything. Everything. As you can see. That’s why people are out here marching right now. That’s why we’re out here no matter how many times you drag us out of the yard, drag us down the street. No matter what you do to us, we still standing.

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/448/prisoners-write-on-bob-avakian-and-science-and-revolution-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

Prisoner & Ex-Prisoner Write on Bob Avakian and on Science & Revolution... An Interview With Ardea Skybreak

July 15, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

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“It’s imperative that this book get out far and wide, just like BAsics”

From an ex-prisoner in the Midwest

I was fortunate to be one of the few brothers that the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund (PRLF) was able to lay this work on before I was released from prison. The fact that I had already became firmly grounded in approaching everything scientifically due to my reading of The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism, I already foresee the impact that her book Science and Revolution will have simply because I know how accessible her books are to the general reader. Not everybody has developed the capacity to break down complex subjects for the average Joe or Jane to understand and be persuaded by. But that’s one of the hallmarks of Ardea Skybreak that stands her apart from many. I remember actually advocating the Theory of Evolution after reading her book as if I too had went to college to be an authority on the subject. From those debates and dialogues, I actually convinced a number of my friends and associates in accepting the scientific validity of Evolution and our origins—not out of blind faith, but by assessing the evidence-based conclusions that were readily apparent after careful review.

Before I got out of prison, I remember giving a friend of mine a copy of Science and Revolution and he and I spending hours debating the scientific method. Although he didn’t become a dialectical materialist per se, I observed his consciousness undergo radical leaps where he began to even understand the scientific method even down to its philosophical level. It wasn’t unusual to walk by and hear us debating what was objective reality and what wasn’t. This is within the midst of a culture primarily concerned about getting high every day in prison or kicking it about who got whopped in another cell house the day before. And that’s big! Because for some people philosophy is just some obscure discipline that has no application to everyday life. It was something that people like Socrates and Plato did or intellectuals did today to intellectually masturbate and sound smart. But I’m sure my friend no longer compartmentalizes philosophy in that detached, unscientific manner any longer now.

I’m going to bring this letter to a close, but I think it’s imperative that this book gets spread far and wide just like BAsics ... just like The New Jim Crow. All of these sorta trajectory changing books have their place in shaping the consciousness of the masses; there’s interdependence between them that enables people to break with their former ways of thinking, behaving, and what they come to see as necessary for radical change to come about. Together they have the capacity to bring clarity to the movement and transform it into the material force it needs to become one day. This is all a part of “hastening while awaiting” the objective conditions.

Inside, I’ve enclosed the amount of $5 to help raise funds, so that the brothers and sisters still behind the walls can get their own copy of Science and Revolution by Ardea Skybreak. I don’t have a lot since I just recently got out of prison myself, but I think it’s necessary to contribute in any way I can. I hope others will also match my donation with whatever they can as well. If I can, I’m sure many others are in a far better position financially to do even more.

Well... I’m going to close, but I’m glad to see the PRLF still doing the same it did for me, for others.

In Solidarity,

Find out more about the revolution         Find out about BA, the leader of the revolution

“What makes BA so important is that he’s out the gates now...”

From a prisoner in California:

Just a few quick words to acknowledge receipt of Science & Revolution. Just got it today... you already know I’m in love with anything by BA and Skybreak. I’m sure your party has many BA’s—in training—and Skybreaks being molded as we speak.

But what makes BA so important is that he’s out the gates now and not only do we not need to reinvent the wheel in that regard, any person who calls themselves “conscious,” “progressive” or “revolutionary” is in violation of their own codes if they aren’t students of BA simply and precisely because he’s put forward concrete, realistic, morally sound & scientific ideas & programs...

So too w/Skybreak and just like BA she’s too heavy & has done too much work for anyone who claims to be thinkers, laymen scientists or revolutionaries are full of shit if they are not grappling w/this stuff. I do understand tho’ what she means when she says BA is miles ahead of EVERYONE ELSE.

ANYWAYS—they’re doin’ Ali’s funeral today. Loved how the crowd honored him during the procession but was heartbroken to see how the dogs pushed people out the street and stopped them from getting close to the hearse when it got to his ol’ house. They really showed they serve no purpose other than to oppress, hold down or back, and they are not the people’s police & definitely not the police for blacks.

But like I said it just shows that they serve & can serve no purpose. No one should get paid to oppress or hold the people back. No one should get paid to make sure people can’t mourn or celebrate the life of someone they love.

That should never happen. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER...

Thanks for the book. I’m in it ASAP.

10 toes down & and fuck this system

 

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/448/reality-check-really-think-the-federal-government-is-your-friend-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

Reality Check:
Really Think the Federal Government Is Your Friend?

July 15, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

 

They tell Black people to rely on the federal government to protect their rights.

Now, let's see.

Do they mean the same federal government that would not give loans to Black homebuyers before and after World War 2 while they financed millions of white homebuyers, and thereby intensified segregation and discrimination?

Do they mean the same federal government whose FBI spied on, conspired against, spread lies and rumors about, blackballed, blackmailed, persecuted and unjustly prosecuted, plotted to murder (and carried through with murder) Black radicals and revolutionaries from Paul Robeson to Malcolm X to Harry Belafonte to Fred Hampton and beyond, and even Black reformers like Dr. Martin Luther King?

Do they mean the same federal government whose Department of Justice not only has refused to prosecute in cases from Sean Bell to Trayvon Martin to Tamir Rice, but went so far as to issue a long report whitewashing and justifying the murder of Michael Brown?

Do they mean the same federal government that withheld loans from Black farmers in the South while lavishly subsidizing white planters with massive holdings, thereby driving independent Black farmers off the land?

Well, last time we looked there was only ONE federal government, so that must be the one.

Any other ideas?

OK, how about this one: overthrowing this system and bringing in a totally new state power, dedicated to wiping out ALL forms of oppression and exploitation—and organizing today for that revolution to happen at the soonest possible time!

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/448/a-basic-point-of-orientation-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

A Basic Point of Orientation:

July 15, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

 

It is very important that people rise up and refuse to accept the continual murder of people, particularly Black people as well as Latinos, by police—this, and the other outrages and atrocities continually perpetrated by this system (as concentrated in the 5 Stops), cannot go down without people fighting back and rocking back the powers-that-be. But this must be built toward revolution—an actual revolution that overthrows this system at the soonest possible time—because there is no solution to these outrages under this system, and as long as we live under this system, this will go on...and on. There is a way that we can make a real revolution—and bring into being a radically different and better society: we have the strategy, program, and leadership for this revolution, in the work of BA and the Party he leads, the Revolutionary Communist Party.  Everywhere we go, and in everything we do, even as we are continuing to learn more about it, we need to be spreading the word about this revolution far and wide, and organizing for this revolution, drawing people around and into the Revolution Clubs, on the basis of the statement from the RCP Central Committee.

 

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/448/harlem-book-fair-at-revolution-books-en.html

Revolution #447 July 11, 2016

July 18, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Community Talk at Revolution Books!
A Harlem Book Fair After-Event

A Few Bad Cops...Or Something Deeper

Time and Place: 
6:30pm -8:00pm Saturday, July 16, 
Revolution Books, 437 Malcolm X Blvd./Lenox Ave. at 132nd St.

 

◙   Andy Zee, spokesperson for Revolution Books; 

◙   Herb Boyd, journalist and co-editor of The Diary of Malcolm X: El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz 1964; 

◙   Carl Dix, Co-founder with Cornel West of Stop Mass Incarceration Network and a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party. 

◙   Other speakers TBA.