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Revolution #457 September 19, 2016

September 19, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

 

 

 

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Revolution #457 September 19, 2016

September 6, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Announcing: The Launch of a Pathbreaking New Book from Bob Avakian

THE NEW COMMUNISM
The science, the strategy, the leadership
for an actual revolution,
and a radically new society
on the road to real emancipation

 

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Revolution #457 September 19, 2016

Letter to the Editors: A point to add on Bob Avakian's new book

The World Needs THE NEW COMMUNISM

September 12, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

To the editors:

I wanted to add one point to last week’s exciting coverage at www.revcom.us of the upcoming publication of Bob Avakian’s THE NEW COMMUNISM: The science, the strategy, the leadership for an actual revolution, and a radically new society on the road to real emancipation and the plans laid out to take the BA Everywhere campaign to a much higher level. And that point is internationalism.

First, the book itself is an event with international ramifications. BA has taken communism—which is a science encompassing the entire world, a political movement that must take root in every corner of the globe, and the goal of a world community of peoples, beyond borders and countries—to another level. To be a communist in the world today is to be a follower of Bob Avakian—anything short of that, let alone opposed to it, just isn’t communism. This is not just something for the movement in the U.S.—and the May 1 statements this year from revolutionary communist organizations in other countries, as well as polemics and articles from still other groups and individuals, make that very clear (see end of the letter for titles and links).

Second, one of the key elements of the new synthesis of communism is a breakthrough that BA has made in the theory of internationalism. BA has taken much further and qualitatively deepened our understanding of the extremely complex but nonetheless interconnected process through which the world develops in this era of imperialism, and the revolution against imperialism. On that basis, he has broken with significant errors made in previous communist revolutions and laid the basis for a real leap in HOW our movement, worldwide, fights both today as we hasten and prepare to make revolution and in the future, when we are leading new socialist societies after state power has been seized. This is precious—it opens the way for all of humanity to get beyond the horrors of today. And BA has personally and politically always put the whole world first—another thing that comes through in this new book. (See “The New Synthesis of Communism: Fundamental Orientation, Method, and Approach, and Core Elements—An Outline,” by Bob Avakian, Chairman, Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, Summer 2015)

All this leads me to my conclusion: that a huge effort should be made this fall to get word of THE NEW COMMUNISM out into immigrant communities, to expatriate or visiting intellectuals and artists, and to international students. In the communities, on the campuses and at cultural programs and seminars—word must spread, and the ways be found to engage people with this work... and with BA's new synthesis overall. There would always be the need for an advance like this to get out to all of humanity—but does this not cry out with even greater urgency today, in a world wracked with needless, excruciating suffering but where the only REAL way out is not even known about in the vast majority of the planet? The lack of engagement with this, or even knowledge of it, has had tremendously negative consequences for whole regions of the world—this is something we must urgently work to change.

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Check out these statements, polemics, and articles:

“The New Synthesis of Communism and the Residues of the Past,” by the Revolutionary Communist Organization (OCR), Mexico

“This Is an Emergency May Day Call! No Time to Waste! A Radically Different World Is Possible! Only If We Take Up the New Synthesis of Communism!” from the Communist Party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist)—May Day 2016

“Urgently needed: Take up the new synthesis of communism of Bob Avakian, the new framework required for a new stage of revolution!“ Declaration of Grupo Comunista Revolucionario de Colombia, May 1, 2016

SCIENCE AND REVOLUTION: On the Importance of Science and the Application of Science to Society, the New Synthesis of Communism and the Leadership of Bob Avakian—an Interview with Ardea Skybreak

 

 

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Revolution #457 September 19, 2016

 

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Revolution #457 September 19, 2016

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

THE NEW COMMUNISM

 

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Revolution #457 September 19, 2016

From Insight Press, publisher of THE NEW COMMUNISM:

5 Things You Can Do To Spread BA's THE NEW COMMUNISM Everywhere

September 19, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

THE NEW COMMUNISM has the potential to change the way millions of people think about the possibility of a revolution to actually emancipate humanity. But that will only happen if people know about the book, get it and read it. Here are five critical things that everyone can do to help make that happen.

1. Buy the book. Get everyone you know to buy it (from Revolution Books or place your order online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble). Get your book group to buy and read it. And encourage everyone to buy a second copy for a prisoner.

2. Spread awareness about the book. Get out palm cards at events, in neighborhoods, on campuses, on bus seats, and in laundromats. On social media, spread the hash tag—#TheNewCommunism—everywhere.

3. Write a review of the book on Amazon. More reviews will give the book more prominence on the Amazon site. If you have purchased anything from Amazon in the past, you can review this book.

4. Get the book into local bookstores and libraries. People can’t read it if they can’t buy it or borrow it. Requests from patrons for the book can make a big difference in convincing bookstores and libraries to order it.

5. Write us about what you are learning—info@insight-press.com. Where are you spreading word about the book? What responses are you getting? Who’s buying it and why? And what are people saying about it? (All this information will demonstrate the importance of THE NEW COMMUNISM to people in the book industry and can energize them to popularize and distribute the book more widely.) Also, what are important avenues (blogs, zines, news sites) where ads and articles about THE NEW COMMUNISM could be placed to reach important sections of society—students, artists, progressive intellectuals, immigrant communities, demoralized Bernie supporters, etc.?

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

 

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Revolution #457 September 19, 2016

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

 

 

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Revolution #457 September 19, 2016

Tyre King—Murdered by Pig Who Shot 4 and Killed 2

September 18, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

From a reader:

The day after 13-year-old Tyre King—who was just 5 feet and weighed less than 100 pounds—was murdered by cop Bryan Mason, we arrived in Columbus, Ohio as a vigil/speak-out was taking place in a park near where Tyre had his young life unjustly cut short. About 200 people were gathered in a circle. In the middle, people spoke of their sorrow and frustration at the murder of Tyre—another Black child shot down by the police. Tyre's sister poured out her anger and grief and spoke about the shock of learning her brother wouldn't be coming home.

Tyre was not the first victim of the murdering pig Mason—this “nine-year veteran” of the force shot dead a man in 2012, and was involved in two other shootings in recent years. He hasn’t even received a slap on the wrist for any of this—in fact, the department gave him an award for “bravery” in 2010. The department is now providing him with counseling for what they claim is “trauma” he supposedly is going through after killing a 13-year-old. The Columbus police killed four people in four weeks this June and July. None of the cops involved have been charged with anything. And if you look around the country, the police have killed over 770 people so far this year.

 

As Bob Avakian (BA) points out, the fact that cops murder youth after youth—and are almost never punished for these crimes—shows how that is their “job.” (Watch the video clip on this page: “Bob Avakian on: Police murder...and the murderous logic of this system’s election game”)

The crowd at the vigil/speak-out for Tyre, organized by People’s Justice Program, was a mix of people of all ages. While it was mainly Black people, there were also many white and some Asian and Latino people. In a historically Black neighborhood where there’s been recent gentrification and tensions among different sections of the people, it’s significant there were many middle class people, Black and white, taking a stand against yet another police murder of a Black youth. One of the speakers said, “After this we can’t just let things go back to business as usual.” (Another vigil was organized by students of the Black Liberation Network at Ohio State University five miles away.)

We stood with the people in outrage at the police murder of Tyre King, and got out the Message from the Central Committee of the RCP, "Time to Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution" among the crowd. We connected people with the liberating truth that there is a way to bring an end to murder by police and other horrors—and a revolutionary movement and leadership that is organizing to overthrow the system behind these pigs at the soonest possible time.

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

 

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Revolution #457 September 19, 2016

The Revolution Club, Bay Area, at the 49ers Game: Intervening In a Polarized Crowd

September 19, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

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

 

 

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Revolution #457 September 19, 2016

Native Americans Fight Modern-Day Genocide:

Standing Up at Standing Rock

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

 

 

Update, September 19: Following the government’s September 9 intervention (see below), construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) has been temporarily halted on federal land near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. However, pipeline construction continues in other areas—and the pipeline’s owners, Energy Partners, has vowed to complete it. Since then, the fight to stop the DAPL has continued and broadened. This weekend more than 3,500 people took part in the protest encampment at Standing Rock. On September 13, thousands took part in support actions for Standing Rock in over 200 cities across the U.S. as well as in Canada and England. The next day, more than 20 people were arrested near New Salem, North Dakota, some 70 miles northwest of Standing Rock, for blocking pipeline construction.

The Standing Rock Sioux tribe of North Dakota has been battling for two years to stop the construction of an oil pipeline near their reservation. The pipeline threatens their water, land, and irreplaceable historical and cultural sites—literally threatening to destroy the Standing Rock Sioux as a people.

The Standing Rock Sioux are a small tribe—8,250 live on the reservation near where the Cannonball and Missouri Rivers meet. And they’re up against long odds and powerful forces: America’s long history of genocide, and now a juggernaut of big financial institutions and energy companies, backed by the government, the legal system, and the armed enforcers of the state.

But the people of Standing Rock have truth and the interests of humanity on their side, and they’ve refused to give up. Instead, they have fought courageously, standing firm, and reaching out widely for support. In the last few months, their battle has become a national and international issue. It has thrown a spotlight on the history of America’s genocide against Native Americans and how that horror continues in new guises today. More Native American tribes, some 200, have come together than ever before around Standing Rock. Thousands of Native people as well as environmentalists and activists have come to the protest encampment there to stop the pipeline. The hashtag #NoDAPL has been spreading on social media.

The battle intensified as Friday, September 9, approached. That was the day a federal court was scheduled to announce whether or not the construction of the pipeline would continue. Protesters stood up to the pipeline company pigs and their dogs, stopping construction at one point. Support actions have taken place across the country. According to media spokespeople for the Standing Rock Sioux, press attention has been overwhelming. The battle has reverberated internationally: When President Obama recently traveled to Laos in Southeast Asia, he was grilled on America’s treatment of the Standing Rock Sioux and its indigenous peoples. (See "Obama's Bullshit vs. 10 Realities on Past and Present U.S. Crimes Against Native Americans.") Meanwhile, North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple had activated the National Guard to be used against protesters.

Then on September 9, the battle took a sudden turn. That afternoon, a federal judge rejected the Sioux’s demand that the pipeline construction be halted. Literally moments later, in the context of unprecedented protests and global outrage, the Department of Justice, Department of the Army, and Department of the Interior issued a joint statement. They announced that construction of the pipeline would be temporarily halted on Army Corps of Engineers land bordering and under Lake Oahe (the part of Missouri River next to the Standing Rock reservation, where the Dakota Access pipeline is supposed to cross). They also said that the federal government would meet with Native peoples to discuss giving them more of a voice in future infrastructure projects like the pipeline.

But everything that has led to this explosive confrontation—why the pipeline is being built, and what the Standing Rock Sioux have faced—points to why this step back by the federal government is not to be trusted. And it points to why the struggle must not simply continue but deepen—and be more connected to the revolution it will actually take to stop the genocide of Native peoples and the destruction of the Earth’s environment.

Genocide: STILL as American as Apple Pie

What’s being done to the Standing Rock Sioux tribe in North Dakota is as American as apple pie.

A capitalist juggernaut of banks, drillers, and corporations, backed by the regulations, laws, and armed force of the state were again marauding over Native peoples. They were again despoiling the lands that Native Americans live on, plundering resources, and carrying out the genocide of Native peoples that has been taking place in one form or another ever since European settlers landed on American shores. And because exploitation and the dispossession of Native peoples are built into the fabric of U.S. capitalism-imperialism, this is not ancient history. It’s still going on.

This time it is called the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL). This pipeline, owned by the Texas conglomerate Energy Transfer Partners, could eventually carry 500,000 barrels of crude oil a day some 1,200 miles from the Bakken oil fields in northwest North Dakota to Illinois (nearly as long as the infamous Keystone XL pipeline).

The Dakota Access pipeline “would snake across our treaty lands and through our ancestral burial grounds,” writes the Standing Rock tribal chairman, Dave Archambault II. “Just a half-mile from our reservation boundary, the proposed route crosses the Missouri River, which provides drinking water for millions of Americans and irrigation water for thousands of acres of farming and ranching lands.” Some of those crucial historic and ancestral sites—which include irreplaceable Native art and pictographs—were savaged on September 3 by the Dakota Access bulldozers—after the company and the government were told of the sites.

The whole process of planning, approving, and constructing this pipeline drips with Native blood and the historic stench of America’s genocide of Native peoples. Over 90 percent of the pipeline is being built on private land—much of which was stolen from the Sioux. The 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie granted the Greater Sioux all of present-day South Dakota west of the Missouri River, including the Black Hills. But most of that land was stolen back 11 years later after the Great Sioux War.

And the theft has continued since then, including of 56,000 acres taken from the Standing Rock Sioux by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1958. On September 9, sickeningly, one justification the federal court used to refuse to stop the pipeline was that some of the relevant government environmental and historical preservation regulations don’t apply to private land.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the original plans didn’t call for the pipeline to cross the Missouri near Sioux lands but near Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota. State officials worried that an oil spill could poison the capital city’s drinking water. So in a blatant act of environmental racism, they moved the pipeline crossing to within half a mile of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation—land taken from the tribe in 1958.

The Dakota Access project was approved without “meaningful consultation” with the Standing Rock Sioux. “The first draft of the company’s assessment of the planned route through our treaty and ancestral lands did not even mention our tribe,” states tribal chairman Archambault II. “The U.S. government is wiping out our most important cultural and spiritual areas,” LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, the Standing Rock Tribe’s Historic Preservation Officer, wrote in YES! Magazine. “And as it erases our footprint from the world, it erases us as a people. These sites must be protected, or our world will end, it is that simple.”

Environmental Racism & Genocide

The Dakota Access pipeline has been subject to minimal environmental regulation. A pipeline break and oil spill would threaten drinking and irrigation water supplies and endanger the health of not only the Standing Rock Sioux but millions in the region. This isn’t a remote, abstract danger. From 2012 to 2013, there were 300 oil pipeline breaks in North Dakota alone. And since 1995 there have been more than 2,000 significant accidents involving petroleum pipelines across the U.S. This total has increased under Obama, in step with the nearly 60 percent expansion of U.S. oil production and fracking since 2009.

Such an oil spill could have a devastating, even genocidal impact on the Standing Rock Sioux and other peoples. “We are borrowing this land from our grandchildren so we need to take care of our main life source: water,” one participant in an April Relay Run in Opposition of Dakota Access Pipeline wrote. “Without clean water, we will cease to survive, thus exterminating our own existence. We are running for our future generations.”

Then there’s the planetary impact of releasing yet more greenhouse gases from the burning of another 500,000 barrels of oil a day—at a time the environmental crisis is visibly accelerating. This planet needs another oil pipeline like it needs to collide with a massive meteor—whatever the pipeline’s pathway. But the compulsion to continue to extract, sell, and burn fossil fuel and control its supply globally is built into the economic workings and the strategic military imperatives of the U.S. imperialist empire—no matter who’s president.

This is why drilling and fracking has skyrocketed under the self-proclaimed “environmental president” Barack Obama, whose actual role is commander-in-chief of U.S. imperialism. And this is why he refused to meet with tribal representatives and remained silent for so long on the Dakota Access pipeline—despite the fact that he visited the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in 2014 and promised them, “My administration is determined to partner with tribes.”

Standing Up at Standing Rock

Robbing Native peoples, threatening their heritage and lands... plundering the environment... and doing so with government support—in America, all this is routine, business-as-usual. It’s how the United States was forged, and it’s how it operates today. Then all of a sudden it wasn’t... because people—originally a small group of people—refused to put up with it.

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

The Standing Rock Sioux began opposing Dakota Access when they first learned of it in 2014. They filed lawsuits to stop it. And in April of this year, they set up a camp protesting the pipeline’s construction. They were met with hostility, racial profiling, police roadblocks and surveillance. The sheriff and Energy Transfer have called the protest “unlawful.” North Dakota’s governor, a Trump supporter, has declared a state of emergency for the protest site.

But people stood strong and had right on their side. They reached out to other Native peoples and activists and progressive people more broadly. The word got out. More people came. By August the protest encampment had become the most significant coming together of different Native American tribes in memory. Nearly 2,000 people were camped out.

The action by a determined few had touched a nerve, galvanizing the feelings and fighting spirit of many more. “This is a historic moment for indigenous people,” Tara Houska of Honor the Earth said. (Democracy Now!, September 9) “They have come from all over the country to stand here with the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation and to say, ‘No more. Enough is enough.’ So, to see this moment, I think that people are aware that indigenous people are still here. They’re aware that we have treaty rights, that we are no longer accepting any type of environmental injustice of a pipeline being sent through drinking water. You know, this is a moment in which we are standing up together.”

The battle at Standing Rock has also cast a glaring spotlight on the genocidal history and genocidal realities of the United States today. And it has raised big questions about the legitimacy of the whole thing. The government and some backward fools have been mobilized against Standing Rock. Once again, they’re being whipped up behind “the right” of white people to roll over Native people in seeking “prosperity.” But the firm stand by a determined few—in the face of daunting odds, reactionary forces, and an initially unfavorable polarization—has in important ways repolarized the terrain. This time, lots of people—white, Native, and other nationalities—are not having this racist, genocidal garbage, and they’re putting shit on the line to oppose it.

Support actions have taken place across the country, including Washington, DC, Denver, New York City, San Francisco, Tulsa, and Omaha. Celebrities, including actor and comedian Chris Rock; actors Susan Sarandon, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Shailene Woodley; and cast members of the upcoming movie The Justice League, including Ben Affleck, have spoken out against the pipeline.

There have been more militant, determined protests to shut down the pipeline. On August 23, Native Americans on horseback startled and drove back a line of police. On September 3, people rushed over barricades and stood up to mace and guard dogs—which bit six people, including children—to stop construction and the desecration of Native sites. Right after the federal court ruling the pipeline would continue, a PBS reporter at the protest encampment noted, “There is a minority of people here, at least, who will do everything they possibly can to try to stop this from going forward.”

The Rulers Take a Step Back... What the DOJ Announcement Means, and Doesn’t Mean

Why did the federal government step in to halt at least part of the pipeline construction? Because they had a serious problem on their hands.

The Standing Rock battle has turned into a national and international cause célèbre. It has thrown a spotlight on the history of America’s genocide against Native Americans and how that horrific abuse continues today. Native peoples were coming together, many were being radicalized, and diverse forces were being brought together in opposition to fault line contradictions—the destruction of the environment and the historic oppression and genocide of Native peoples—which this system has no answers for.

This is unfolding at a moment when the very notion of “America’s greatness” is being invoked in different ways by both presidential candidates and is being very broadly contested in society. (For example, in the burnings of the U.S. flag at the Democratic and Republican conventions by the communist revolutionaries, and the refusal of San Francisco 49er quarterback Colin Kaepernick and other athletes to stand for the national anthem.) All this has called America’s legitimacy into question—at home and around the world, and that makes this a very explosive issue for the powers that be.

The rulers feared the whole situation could become even more explosive and exposing. So they stepped in to defuse the confrontation, buy time, divert the struggle into their killing embrace, and work to preserve the appearance of their system’s legitimacy.

What the Obama administration will do in relation to the pipeline is unclear. But the statement from the Departments of Justice, Army, and Interior only stated that construction would be temporarily halted on Army Corps of Engineers land—which makes up roughly three percent of the land the pipeline is being built on—until they can review the permit process. They’ve made clear that they’re simply asking Dakota Access to “voluntarily pause” construction in a 40-mile radius around Lake Oahe and construction on the rest of the pipeline can continue. And their promises to meet with Native peoples and discuss the permit process offer no guarantee whatsoever of any significant change.

Most fundamentally, these are agencies of a ruling class and capitalist state that has broken every treaty it’s ever had with Native Americans. It’s a setup whose very existence and power has been based on shredding those agreements and stealing the land and resources of indigenous peoples.

A World Without America and Everything It Stands For—Including Genocide!

The rulers hope that temporarily stopping part of the pipeline will mollify people—rather than it being seen as a sign of weakness that inspires people to fight harder. The temporary halt is a sign of the difficulties the rulers face, and now is the time to fight harder. We should appreciate the lessons in what’s happened so far at Standing Rock: This IS a country built on slavery, genocide, and unjust war. And calling that out in a bold and determined way can hammer at “cracks in the wall” people are locked down inside of, and change the political and ideological terrain.

The Standing Rock Sioux have stated that their struggle against DAPL will continue. That’s important, and this fight must increasingly become part of the movement for an actual revolution. The horrific genocide of Native people formed part of what Karl Marx, with biting and bitter sarcasm, called the “rosy dawn” of the capitalist system. This genocide, now focused in the battle at Standing Rock, continues under that same system in various forms today. Moreover, this crime of theft and slaughter and cultural extermination—foundational as it is to everything this society is about—formed the basis for a whole horrific roster of crimes, which are documented on this website every week in the revcom.us series American Crime.

It will take revolution, a communist revolution which draws forward and leads those whom this system has tried to crush, along with all those who refuse to go along with that and seek a better world, to be part of the overthrow of that system and the establishment of a radically different society to finally end the genocide, exploitation, and environmental devastation capitalism constantly gives rise to, here and all around the world. It will take communist revolution to bring into being a global society in which the seven billion on the planet can live lives worthy of human beings.

Bob Avakian (BA), the leader of the movement for revolution, has written the blueprint and plan for a radically emancipating society that opens the way to a whole new society and which, as part of moving to that, will mobilize people and resources to overcome the effects and legacy of America’s terrible history of genocide and oppression of Native peoples. That document is the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America (Draft Proposal). And we urge everyone aching for a different future, everyone seeking alternatives, to read it and deeply engage it (see sidebar). And BA has developed the strategy for an actual revolution—a way to mobilize millions to defeat and dismantle the institutions of force and violence and a strategy through which they could be victorious. A way, at last, to overthrow this system of exploitation and genocide, and bring in a whole new one based on overcoming all that and bringing in totally different values.

If you have been part of those at Standing Rock, or part of the many more who have been moved by it, or are just learning about it now... check out this site. Get into BA. Learn more... and get involved. (Read the Constitution.)

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/457/awtwns-justice-for-k-murleedharan-ajith-en.html

Revolution #457 September 19, 2016

From A World to Win News Service:

Justice for K Murleedharan (Ajith)!

September 19, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Revcom.us editors’ note: We received the following article, dated September 12, from A World to Win News Service, about a global campaign demanding proper medical care for K Murali/K Murleedharan (Ajith), who is being held in jail in India. Last May, the editors of Demarcations: A Journal of Communist Theory and Polemic (demarcations-journal.org) issued this statement shortly after the arrest of K Murali:

May 23, 2015

On May 8, the Indian state arrested K. Murali, also known as Ajith. He was undergoing treatment in a hospital near Pune in southern India. Murali, along with an assistant, was seized from the hospital by the Anti-Terrorism Squad, hauled before a court, and remanded to police custody. Murali has been publicly associated with the Communist Party of India (Maoist). As of this writing, no formal charges have been filed against Murali and he is facing draconian conditions of detention, with his health and safety matters of grave concern.

The arrest by the reactionary Indian state of K. Murali is utterly unjust. We support demands that he be immediately released and that he receive all necessary medical care and legal representation.

Read here (PDF)

We say this even recognizing that Ajith has recently played a very negative role in the international communist movement. Writing under the name Ajith, Murali has unfolded an attack on the new synthesis of communism brought forward by Bob Avakian. While containing issues of substantive disagreement his essay “Against Avakianism” is marked by rank distortions, baseless accusations of “revisionism” and ad hominem attacks against Avakian. Its purpose is to block the vital advance of the science of communism that is concentrated in Avakian’s work.

Demarcations, which bases itself on and fights for the new synthesis of communism, has featured three responses to Ajith’s essay. These carefully dissect and comprehensively refute his philosophical outlook and method, political line, and program (demarcations-journal.org).

This is a sharp ideological struggle that has great implications for the international communist movement. In carrying out this struggle with Ajith, we proceed from the interests of advancing the world revolution to emancipate humanity; and we demarcate right from wrong on the basis of principled and substantive analysis, argumentation, and polemic. These are standards of debate that we insist on for this journal and that we fight for in the international communist movement.

Our criticisms of Ajith are acute. At the same time, we give no quarter to reactionary state authority and attempts to suppress and silence voices, including those with whom we have severe disagreements. Here too we stand on principle. The arrest of Ajith must be strongly condemned.

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September 12, 2016. A World to Win News Service. The following is from the Web site of the Indian journal Sanhati (posted September 12). Globally renowned feminist thinker and philosopher Judith Butler, Professor, University of California, Berkeley, has supported the global campaign for providing proper medical care to ailing Maoist under trial prisoner K Murleedharan from Kerala, lodged in the Yerawada Central Prison near Pune for the past 15 months. Prof. Butler had endorsed the call in an e-mail message to Justice for Murali, a global collective, demanding medical care and bail for the 62-year-old Muraleedharan, suffering from cardiac related ailments.

Globally renowned public intellectuals and social scientists such as Prof. Noam Chomsky, Prof. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Prof. Partha Chatterjee have already endorsed the call.

Prof. G Haragopal of the Defense Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners and poet Varavara Rao called for granting bail for Mr. Muraleedharan on medical grounds immediately. “As a heart patient he requires timely treatment and medical assistance. The authorities are denying even these basic rights for him”, they said. Prof. GN Saibaba, Prof. C Sheshayya, President Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee, Prof. G Lakshman President, Telengana Civil Liberties Committee are amongst the persons came forward to demand proper medical care and bail for Mr. Muraleedharan.

Justice for Murali (Com. Ajith)

Justice for Murali is a global collective that has emerged for ensuring proper medical care and treatment and bail for Muraleedharan. K (Murali Kannampilly), a radical political activist for the last four decades and a distinguished scholar of political economy, Dalit studies and author of ‘Land, Caste and Servitude’, a path-breaking analysis of agrarian relations in Kerala, languishing in the Yerawada Central Prison near Pune for the past 15 months as an under trial prisoner.

The health condition of the 62-year-old Murali, who has already undergone an open heart surgery, has been a matter of great concern for his friends, comrades, family members and well wishers ever since his arrest. As feared, his health condition took a turn for worse forcing the jail authorities to admit him in the Sassoon Government Hospital in Pune on September 4, 2016. But the jail authorities got him discharged from the hospital on September 6, 2016 following his advocate filing a petition to ensure proper care to him at the hospital and permitting his son to attend to him there as there was no one to even take urine sample that the doctor had instructed to be tested, to the lab.

The jail authorities have taken such a step even as globally renowned intellectuals and social scientists such as Prof. Noam Chomsky, Prof. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Prof. Partha Chatterjee supported the call for proper medical care to Mr. Muraleedharan.

Justice for Murali has been formed to extend this campaign on a further wider scale to ensure proper medical care for the ailing prisoner as well as demanding his release from the prison. We seek the help and support of all persons believing in democracy, human rights and individual liberty to join the demand for proper medical care and release of Murali from prison. After his arrest on the charges of being a leader of the Communist Party of India (Maoist) he was produced to an open court only once in the past 15 months. Lodged in a high security prison, the jail authorities have also prohibited access to books and other publications to him.

The action of jail authorities is against the fundamental rights guaranteed under the Indian constitution, the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Convention against Torture. We once again seek the support of all people believing in freedom, human rights and individual dignity to join the campaign for ensuring proper medical care and release of Mr. Muraleedharan from prison.

List of prominent persons who have already joined the campaign

1: Prof. Noam Chomsky: MIT
2: Prof. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: Columbia University
3: Prof. Judith Butler: University of California, Los Angeles
4: Prof. Partha Chatterjee: Columbia University
5: Prof. Anand Teltumbde: IIT Khargapur
6: Prof. Prabhat Patnaik: Emeritus Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru University
7: Bernard D’Mello, Deputy Editor, Economic and Political Weekly
8: Dr. KT Rammohan: Former Dean School of Social Science, Mahatma Gandhi University
9: Dr. TT Sreekumar: Professor, MICA, School of Ideas, Ahmedabad
11: Dr. J. Devika : Assistant Professor, Centre For Development Studies, Thiruvananathapuram
12: Prof. AK Ramakrishnan: Professor, Centre for West Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi
13: K Satchidanandan: poet writer
14: Meena Kandasamy: poet writer
15: Kanam Rajendran: State Secretary, Communist Party of India, Kerala
16: BRP Bhaskar: Eminent Journalist and Writer
17: K Venu: Writer and social commentator
18: MM Somasekharan: Writer and social commentator
19: Njamal Babu (TN Joy): Public Intellectual
21: PK Venugopal: Janakeeya Kala Sahitya Vedi
22: Prof. G Haragopal: Defense Committee, Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners
23: Varavara Rao, President, Revolutionary Democratic Front, Founder, Revolutionary Writers Association
24: Rajkishore, General Secretary, RDF
25: Prof. G N Saibaba, Deputy Secretary, RDF
26: Varalakshmi, Secretary, Virasam (Revolutionary Writers Association)
27: Prof C Sheshayya, President, APCLC
28: Prof. G Lakshman, President, Telengana Civil Liberties Committee.

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/457/american-crime-case-79-ronald-reagans-honduras-en.html

Revolution #457 September 19, 2016

Case #79: Ronald Reagan's Honduras—
The Atrocities of "Battalion 316"

September 19, 2016 | 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.

 

THE CRIME: The U.S. military and CIA trained, financed, and covered up the crimes of “Battalion 316”—a Honduran military death squad which carried out a campaign of torture, murder, and state-sponsored terror against the Honduran people during the 1980s. At least 184 Hondurans—including labor leaders, students, religious activists, and others the Honduran military considered political opponents—were stalked, kidnapped, brutally tortured, disappeared, and murdered by Battalion 316. Countless others were captured and tortured before ultimately being let go.

Battalion 316 was created under CIA supervision by General Gustavo Álvarez Martínez, Commander-in-Chief of the Honduran Armed Forces, according to declassified CIA documents. Certain units of the battalion were in charge of abductions; other units were charged with torturing prisoners; and others with executions and disposal of bodies.

Battalion 316’s torture methods included suffocation, beatings, sleep deprivation, electrocution of the genitals, rape, and the threat of rape toward family members. One man’s testicles were torn off with a rope before he was murdered.

“The intelligence unit, known as Battalion 316, used shock and suffocation devices in interrogations,” the Baltimore Sun reported in a series based on formerly classified documents and interviews with torture survivors, a former member of Battalion 316, and U.S. and Honduran participants. “Prisoners often were kept naked and, when no longer useful, killed and buried in unmarked graves.”

In 1981 a group of Salvadorans in Honduras, including 30 nuns and women of faith, were abducted, savagely tortured by DNI, the Honduran secret police, and later thrown out of helicopters while still alive.

THE CRIMINALS:

Ronald Reagan: Under Reagan, Honduras was transformed into the major regional headquarters for U.S. counterinsurgency operations throughout Central America and Latin America. The crimes of the Honduran military under General Álvarez, including Battalion 316, were supported and monitored (while being “overlooked” and denied publicly) by the Reagan administration. U.S. aid to Honduras increased from $45 million to $291 million between 1981 and 1985, and the country’s top military leaders were on the U.S. payroll.

U.S. Army and CIA: The CIA played the central role in creating, training, and overseeing the death squad Battalion 316. General Álvarez and at least 19 other members of Battalion 316 were graduates of the U.S. Army School of the Americas. (See “Case #91: School of the Americas—Training Ground for Mass Murderers and Torturers, 1946-Present.”) In August 1980, the CIA brought 25 Honduran army officers to a location in the Southwestern U.S., where they spent six months being trained in surveillance and interrogation methods, including torture techniques, by the CIA and FBI. The U.S. Army and CIA trained members of Battalion 316 in Honduras and the U.S., and paid for Argentine torturers to provide training. CIA operatives visited one of the battalion’s torture chambers and saw them in action.

“Newly declassified documents and other sources show that the CIA and the U.S. Embassy knew of numerous crimes, including murder and torture, committed by Battalion 316, yet continued to collaborate closely with its leaders,” the Baltimore Sun reported.

U.S. State Department, and John Negroponte, U.S. Ambassador to Honduras, 1981-1985: In a country with just three million people, Honduras would have the second largest embassy in Latin America, housing the biggest CIA station in the entire world. Ambassador Negroponte met regularly with Honduras General Álvarez. Despite growing public exposure of death squad atrocities in Honduras, Negroponte never reported this to the State Department. Instead, he played a key role in covering them up.

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

In a letter to the Economist of London in 1982, in response to exposure of death squad activity, Negroponte adamantly denied that any such activity was taking place: “... it is simply untrue to state that death squads have made their appearance in Honduras.” When Honduran judicial authorities later insisted Negroponte return to Honduras to testify, the U.S. invoked diplomatic immunity to protect him. (New York Times, October 21, 1995)

This ensured that the Honduran military’s crimes continued unabated, and that the flow of funds and support to them wasn’t interrupted.

Negroponte also played a key role in turning Honduras into a base of operations for the CIA’s counter-revolutionary (“Contra”) operations in other Central American countries. The CIA-backed Contras carried out a campaign of terror that killed 30,000 Nicaraguans during the 1980s. The campaign was aimed at toppling the new Sandinista government, which had defeated and driven out the U.S. puppet Somoza in 1979. The New York Times reported that Negroponte worked closely with William Casey, Director of the CIA, “on the Reagan administration’s anti-Communist offensive in Central America. He helped word a secret 1983 ‘presidential finding’ authorizing support for the contras, as the Nicaraguan rebels were known, and met regularly with Honduran military officials to win and retain their backing for the covert action.”

General Gustavo Álvarez Martinez, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Honduras: General Álvarez formed Battalion 316 and personally directed its operations. He told a U.S. ambassador that he intended to use the “Argentine method” of eliminating subversives, referring to Argentina’s “dirty war” against guerrilla movements which used state terror to kill 30,000 people in the late 1970s, including students, labor leaders, and others, along with insurgents.

THE ALIBI: Negroponte, the State Department, and the Reagan administration argued that Honduras faced national security threats to its democracy and future, and had no choice but to wage a counterinsurgency campaign to defend the country against "pro-Soviet terrorists."

In 1983, the Reagan administration awarded General Álvarez the Legion of Merit for “encouraging the success of democratic processes in Honduras.”

ACTUAL MOTIVE: Throughout the 20th Century, the U.S. enslaved the peoples of Central America on plantations and in sweatshops. The U.S. domination and exploitation of what it considered its “backyard” of Mexico, Central and South America was essential to the functioning of U.S. capitalism and to its global power as it contended with rival oppressors. Yet, with the victory of the Sandinistas in 1979, and the growing insurgencies against U.S. puppet regimes in Guatemala and El Salvador, the U.S. saw their global rival, the by then social-imperialist Soviet Union, gaining increasing influence in their backyard.

The Reagan administration came into office determined to take the offensive and reverse these advances. Honduras was turned into the headquarters and staging area for U.S. imperialism’s blood-soaked, covert counterinsurgency operations throughout the region—against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the FMLN in El Salvador, and guerrillas in Guatemala through the genocidal war waged by Reagan’s butcher Ríos Montt. (See “Case #95: Reagan’s Butcher Carries Out Genocide in Guatemala.”) Battalion 316 played an indispensable role in ensuring the Honduran regime stayed in power and helped carry out these towering crimes.

REPEAT OFFENDERS: In 2009, former members of Battalion 316 would play a major role in a coup in Honduras, which the U.S. and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton supported.

Sources:

“Honduras: The Facts Speak for Themselves—Preliminary Report of the National Commissioner for the Protection of Human Rights in Honduras,” Human Rights Watch, July 1994.

“When a wave of torture and murder staggered a small U.S. ally, truth was a casualty,” Gary Cohn and Ginger Thompson, Baltimore Sun, June 11, 1995.

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/457/rnc-flag-burning-defendants-file-for-dismissal-of-charges-en.html

Revolution #457 September 19, 2016

 

September 15, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

We received the following press release:

RNC Flag Burning Defendants File for Dismissal of Charges Their Attorneys Call “Unconstitutional” and “Unacceptable”

15 September 2016
For Immediate Release
Contact: Revolution Club Media
646 450 4701 RevClubMedia@gmail.com
revcom.us

Protesters arrested July 20 outside the Republican convention as a flag was burned filed Wednesday to dismiss criminal misdemeanor charges on constitutional grounds. At the protest, organized by The Revolution Club, Gregory “Joey” Johnson, who fought and won the 1989 Supreme Court decision that it is legal to burn the U.S. flag, burned a flag and was arrested with 15 others.

Today their attorneys detailed the “content-based policing” they are discovering. They said, “Flag burning is protected free speech activity. The City of Cleveland had a duty to protect the rights of these protesters, including their right to burn the flag – but instead the Cleveland Police violated their constitutional rights and threw them in jail,” said Michael Nelson, president of the Cleveland Branch of the NAACP and one of the attorneys who filed motions to dismiss on behalf of the RNC protesters.

More than 40 attorneys with the NAACP and the Ohio Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, and other affiliated lawyers have “volunteered to defend these protesters against the criminal charges on a pro bono basis,” the group said.

Raphael Kadaris, a defendant arrested July 20 and profiled by MSNBC, is available for interviews.

 

The defendants, collectively known as the RNC16, released this statement:

On July 20, 2016, the theme inside the Republican National Convention was “Make America #1 Again.” Outside, with the whole world watching, Gregory “Joey” Johnson and members of the Revolution Club and other protestors gathered to burn the American flag. Johnson said “America First? It's always BEEN first: at genocide, at slavery, exploitation, destruction of the environment, torture, coup d’états, invasions ... we're standing here with the people of the world today.”

Joey had to cut short what he was saying over the bullhorn because the police were already assaulting us, trying to force their way into our circle of protest to stop an act of constitutionally protected speech—the Supreme Court decision upholding this even bears his name!

The police assaulted us! Everyone can see this on the videos that are widely available. Yet besides all the people scooped up and charged with misdemeanors, there are also two Revolution Club members who were charged with felonies for allegedly assaulting the police AFTER the police assaulted a peaceful protest. The prosecutor took it to a grand jury and increased the felony charges—while in Cleveland, the cop who murdered Tamir Rice was not even indicted.

Joey and another defendant are charged with assaulting a member of the media when they supposedly got burned by the flag. These fake ass reporters were Alex Jones' Infowars operatives who actually brag on video about assaulting Joey and doing everything they could to stop the flag burning as unAmerican! The fact that these charges have not been dismissed shows this is a vindictive and politically motivated prosecution.

We uphold the right to burn the flag. We also want to stress that it was absolutely RIGHT to burn the flag. The fascist Trump says “Make America Great Again.” Clinton says it’s already great. We were out there to cut through the BS and get out the truth by burning the American flag—America has NEVER been great!

For days during the RNC, the Revolution Club was in the streets of Cleveland hammering home this point: Was America great when it carried out genocide of Native Americans? Was America great when it kidnapped and enslaved Africans? Was America great during a century of Jim Crow segregation and lynch-mob terror? Is it great right NOW when its police are terrorizing, brutalizing and gunning down Black and Brown people and the murderers never go to jail?! Is America great right NOW as the flag flies over hundreds of ICE detention facilities housing thousands of immigrants? Our message was unmistakable—the flag is the brand for a global network of exploitation and wealth extraction and a military armada, CIA black sites and mass graves from My Lai to Fallujah.

Gregory “Joey” Johnson and the Revolution Club are fighting for a radically different future. We are a disciplined force with a clear message that we took to the streets of Cleveland “America Was Never Great. We Need to Overthrow this System.”

IT was RIGHT to burn that filthy rag.

We demand the charges be dropped immediately against all the protestors arrested that day at the RNC.

 

Members of the Revolution Club and RNC 16  September 15, 2016

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/457/marines-torture-muslim-recruits-en.html

Revolution #457 September 19, 2016

Marines Burn and Terrorize Muslim Recruit in Industrial Dryer, Drive Another to Death...
Another Reason NOT to Support the Troops

September 19, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

The U.S. military puts their lives on the line so others can be “free” and “safe.” Risks it all to fight “bad guys” and help people around the world?  Real heroes? 

What about the Marine drill instructor at Parris Island, South Carolina who repeatedly berated one Muslim recruit as a terrorist: “You’re going to kill us all the first chance you get aren’t you, terrorist? What are your plans? Aren’t you a terrorist?” He even accused him of being involved in 9/11. This sergeant, on multiple occasions, forced this recruit to get inside an industrial clothes dryer and then turned it on. The recruit was left in so long he could feel his arm and neck start to burn; he was traumatized and terrorized. 

In one instance, the drill instructor ran the dryer for 30 seconds, stopped it and asked him who he was “working for.” When he replied “nobody,” the drill instructor turned on the dryer again, stopped it and asked what his religion was. When he replied “Islam” he turned it on again. The instructor stopped the dryer and asked if he was still a Muslim. When the recruit answered “yes,” he turned it on again. This is sick and depraved—it makes you think of the Gestapo! 

This torture happened in 2015. The victim reported it to Marine officials on Parris Island, who had been aware since at least 2014 of this kind of vicious hazing of recruits. But the drill instructor was allowed to continue "training" recruits. Within months this same sadistic, xenophobic dryer-burning marine drove another Muslim recruit to his death.  Raheel Siddiqui, a 20-year-old recruit from Michigan was being harassed and abused by this same Drill Instructor. On March 18, he told his instructor he wasn’t feeling well. The instructor forced him to do punishing sprints. Siddiqui collapsed and the instructor slapped him so hard it could be heard throughout the facility. Siddiqui ran away rather than endure more abuse—and died when he leapt from a 40-foot stairwell. The Marines are now claiming Siddiqui committed suicide and there was “no foul play.” But Siddiqui’s family isn’t buying it. 

This kind of an abuse isn’t an aberration; it’s baked into “Jarhead culture.” That’s why the Marines ignored the 2015 reports of this drill instructor’s torture by dryer. This is why they’re now claiming suicide and “no foul play” in Siddiqui’s death. The M.O. of the entire 3rd Recruit Training Battalion this drill instructor was part of was physical and emotional abuse, even physical injury, coupled with racist and homophobic verbal assault. And drill instructors threatened recruits that they’d be beaten if they complained about these outrages: “snitches get stitches."  

All this has continued, even though the Marines have rules prohibiting abuse and occasionally punish some Marine officers, because it had a logic and a purpose: inculcating a broader culture of brutality and dehumanization of Muslims in general. Protecting this vicious abuser and enabling him to continue—even after throwing a human being in a dryer!—sent a message to the entire base that abusing and harboring xenophobic, racist hatred of Muslims was institutionally protected and encouraged. 

Overall, this is all about preparing savage killers and torturers to carry out the barbaric war crimes demanded by U.S. imperialism around the world, and especially in the Middle East right now. This is a military that encourages and then covers up widespread war crimes against people in countries it occupies. To take but one example, in 2005, U.S. Marines murdered 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians in the city of Haditha and then blamed it on “insurgents.” 

Any military is a concentration of the kind of system and society it is fighting to maintain and enforce. In this case, one waging an unending war of imperialist domination and terror against whole regions, including those with large Muslim populations. One that demands bigotry and xenophobia at home... A society that promotes and enforces a culture of degradation, rape, abuse, and dehumanization of women... A society founded on the enslavement of Black people which is maintained by murdering and terrorizing them. This is a country that bullies, beats, and kills people who don’t conform to its reactionary heterosexual sexual and gender norms and way too often drives them to suicide... All this in the service of enforcing the global system of capitalism-imperialism, a world of exploitation and plunder, that intensifies the misery of billions on our planet every single day. 

This is what the U.S. military and its troops are fighting for and defending.

No! Just as you should not stand for the anthem, just as you should not salute the bloody U.S. rag, you should NOT support the troops!

 

 

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Revolution #457 September 19, 2016

Statement from Carl Dix

Police Terror Must Be Stopped!
PIGS IN COLUMBUS, OHIO KILL 13-YEAR-OLD WITH TOY GUN!

September 15, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

On September 14, cops in Columbus, Ohio, chased 13-year-old Tyre King into an alley and gunned him down. These pigs and the media, were quick to justify their murderous deed by spreading the police story that the BB gun they claim King had looked like a real gun.

I don't give a damn if he had a BB gun that looked real. And let's be clear, so far the only story about how this killing happened is the police story, and they lie all the damn time, especially when they're trying to justify murdering a Black youth. I don't care if he ran from the cops. I'm sick and tired of seeing cops getting away with murdering Black people. Now this Black child is dead at the hands of those who are supposed to “protect and serve.” This was the illegitimate action by the front line enforcers of an illegitimate system.

We must not let this go down. People need to stand up and refuse to silently accept the system killing our children. We should live in a world where those entrusted with public security would sooner lose their own lives than kill or injure an innocent person. It's up to us to bring that kind of world into being.

Fierce determined resistance is critically needed in the face of the system unleashing its cops to brutalize and murder people. And it will take an actual revolution—one that overthrows this system and gets rid of its institutions of violent repression and its economic and social relations and brings into being a totally different system with new economic relations and new ways for people to relate to each other —to end this horror once and for all.

We in the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) are organizing right now for an actual revolution. We have the leadership needed for this revolution in Bob Avakian, the leader of the RCP. Avakian and the party he leads have developed a vision of the kind of world we could bring into being thru revolution and the strategy needed to realize that vision.

If you hate hearing that the life of another Black child has been gunned down by the police and all the other horrors this system enforces on humanity, get with this revolution and join the fight to stop these horrors once and for all.

 

 

 

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Revolution #457 September 19, 2016

Letter from a reader

Texas Youth Football Team Refuses to Stand for the Anthem Despite Death Threats

September 15, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Last Saturday, September, 10, the entire Beaumont (Texas) Bulls youth football team and their coach knelt during the national anthem. Now they are receiving death threats, but the team and the coach vow to continue to not stand for the anthem.

Eleven-year-old running back Jaelun Parkerson had been very upset about the police murders of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile and wanted to do something about it. After hearing about Colin Kaepernick’s protest against the treatment of “Black people and people of color” and when Brandon Marshall of the Denver Broncos knelt during the anthem last Thursday, Jaelun (who is bi-racial with a white mother and Black father) told his mom, “OK, We’re going to do this.”

Jaelun, his entire team, his coach, Rah Rah Barber, and the rest of the coaching staff “kneeled and placed their hands on each other’s shoulders in silence before the playing of the national anthem” at their game this past Saturday.

Barber said that Jaelun had shown him a photo of professional football players not standing for the anthem and said the team wanted to do the same. Barber asked the team, “Do you know what this means?” And “they said that they did.” The players and the team got approval from their parents to go ahead and protest.

Jaelun’s mom, April Parkerson, told ABC News that the team wanted to show solidarity with other protesters and to help bring attention to the issues of racial injustice” and in doing that “players on the team have received threatening messages.” Tweets and messages on social media have threatened the youth with death and one tweet called for the lynching of Coach Barber. Parkerson said that the team’s protest of the national anthem “will continue.” Barber also told the press that these threats are not going to stop the team from taking their stand.

Barber said these threats have showed “how far behind we are as a society.” He said that Kaepernick’s protest has “motivated (him) to read up on the history of the national anthem.”

Colin Kaepernick’s courageous protest against the oppression of Black people and people of color and against police brutality has resonated among the oppressed and others and they are taking this up. Jaelun’s mom said that “Colin didn’t have to take this subject on. But he decided to use the platform he had to speak up for people who have no voice.”

Well, the people are showing they DO have a voice and this voice—and the debate around not standing for this rag has got to grow. If these youth can do it, so can thousands and thousands of others who hate the way things are in this country. Not standing for the national anthem is a wonderful and beautiful thing. The www.revcom.us article “Sit Down for Their Nasty-full Anthem! A Teachable Moment in the USA” calls on people to go to these sporting and other events and “bring things like The Top 10 Reasons to Sit Down for the Nasty-full Anthem—#sitdownfortherag’ and critically relevant BA quotes. If people are acting, talk to them, listen and engage. Take action yourself. Join or provoke the debate—and take it further. Bring Bob Avakian’s Invitation to people—and ways for them to take it up. Take the Message from the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party—and put out the challenge, and the possibility, of REAL revolution.”

So let’s get to it and dive into the controversy... and take it further. And send reports and correspondence on the experience to revolution.reports@yahoo.com.

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/457/a-tale-of-two-pigs-en.html

Revolution #457 September 19, 2016

A Tale of Two Pigs

This is what cops do...

September 19, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

What IS the role of the police in this society? The following two stories shine some light on this question:

1. Cop Fired... for NOT Murdering a Black Man

On May 6, Stephen Mader, a white rookie cop in Weirton, West Virginia, was called to the scene where Ronald D. “RJ” Williams Jr., a young Black man, was threatening suicide. Williams had a gun in his hand, pointed at the ground.

Mader didn’t know if the gun was loaded (it wasn’t), but he tried to resolve the situation nonviolently, although from where he stood there was some risk to himself in doing that.

As Mader told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “I saw then he had a gun, but it was not pointed at me... [I] began to use my calm voice... I told him, ‘Put down the gun,’ and he’s like, ‘Just shoot me.’ And I told him, ‘I’m not going to shoot you brother.’ Then he starts flicking his wrist to get me to react to it.”

“I thought I was going to be able to talk to him and deescalate it. I knew it was a ‘suicide-by-cop’ situation.”

But while Mader was cooling things out, two other cops came on the scene and shot Williams dead!

So what happened then? Were the cops who shot Williams fired, tried, convicted, and jailed for callously and needlessly stealing the life of an innocent man who just needed help, even while another cop was effectively calming him down? And were Mader’s actions held up around the country as a model of how police can de-escalate potentially violent situations without brutalizing or killing anyone?

No, just the opposite!

Eleven days after the shooting, Mader was placed on administrative leave to see (in the words of his chief) “if you are going to be an officer here. You put two other officers in danger.” And then, no months of “investigation” like what happens when cops are caught on camera murdering an unarmed person, no paid vacation (“administrative leave”) or “desk duty” padded with massive overtime payments, no impassioned statements in his defense from police unions and others who believe the cops can do no wrong. No—three weeks later Mader was fired because he “failed to eliminate a threat.”

And the two cops who murdered Williams are still on the force, not punished or even reprimanded.

Bob Avakian has spoken to how even after a revolution in this country brings into being a socialist state and society, for some time there still will be a need for organized policing—but that it will be radically different from what the police do in this society. Addressing the 1998 police murder of Tyisha Miller, a 19-year-old African-American woman, in Riverside, California (Miller had been passed out in her car, from a seizure, and the police fired 23 times, hitting her at least 12 times, claiming she suddenly awoke and had a gun), BA said:

If you can’t handle this situation differently than this, then get the fuck out of the way. Not only out of the way of this situation, but get off the earth. Get out of the way of the masses of people. Because, you know, we could have handled this situation any number of ways that would have resulted in a much better outcome. And frankly, if we had state power and we were faced with a similar situation, we would sooner have one of our own people’s police killed than go wantonly murder one of the masses. That’s what you’re supposed to do if you’re actually trying to be a servant of the people. You go there and you put your own life on the line, rather than just wantonly murder one of the people. Fuck all this “serve and protect” bullshit! If they were there to serve and protect, they would have found any way but the way they did it to handle this scene. They could have and would have found a solution that was much better than this. This is the way the proletariat, when it’s been in power has handled—and would again handle—this kind of thing, valuing the lives of the masses of people. As opposed to the bourgeoisie in power, where the role of their police is to terrorize the masses, including wantonly murdering them, murdering them without provocation, without necessity, because exactly the more arbitrary the terror is, the more broadly it affects the masses. And that’s one of the reasons why they like to engage in, and have as one of their main functions to engage in, wanton and arbitrary terror against the masses of people.
―BAsics 2:16

In the future socialist society, what BA talks about in this quote will be part of how people responsible for public security are recruited, trained, and oriented. If they can’t live up to that standard, they will be removed from the force, and if they brutalize or murder anyone, they will be tried and punished.

But in this society, it is the failure to “wantonly murder one of the people” that gets cops fired!

2. Florida Cops Execute Gregory Frazier for saying, “leave me alone”

On Friday, September 9, Deborah Frazier called 911 to say she was having an altercation with her brother, Gregory Frazier. She said he had been “breaking up the house,” “gotten a little rowdy” after drinking, and had a Swiss army-style pocketknife.

When three cops arrived at the house, whatever argument had been going on was over and Frazier was quietly and calmly eating chicken wings in the backyard. But the cops shot Frazier multiple times, killing him.

The cops had gotten a call from someone saying they wanted help. So when they arrived, did they immediately make sure that everyone was OK, that whatever problem there might have been was resolved, that no one was hurt, much less killed? NO! This is not at all what happened.

Frazier’s nephew, Quartaze Woodard, said the cops told Frazier to lie down and Frazier said, “leave me alone.” The cops repeated the order and Frazier said, “leave me alone” again. Then the cops just opened fire.

Frazier’s niece, Keneisha Woodard, said, “He was sitting, he had calmed down. He was eating conch salad and he just told the police don’t come near him. They weren’t even here two minutes and they shot him.”

Debbie Frazier now says that she regrets calling 911: “I would never have called the cops if I’d known this would happen. They just came in and started shooting right away.” (the Guardian) And the Frazier family released a statement through their lawyers questioning why the police “felt the need to execute him as he ate his supper in the backyard of his house rather than use negotiation tactics.... We will never forget Greg and we will fight so that his death will not be covered up.”

Gregory Frazier was not doing anything illegal or threatening anyone. He just wanted the cops to leave him alone. The pigs claim he “produced a knife” and wouldn’t lie down. THIS IS THEIR JUSTIFICATION for murdering him.

Who gave these pigs the right to do this? When did it become a capital crime—punishable by death on the spot—to simply have a pocketknife and refuse to lie down?

This fact is, this system gives the pigs the right to execute people like this. If this weren’t the case, then why does this kind of thing happen over and over and over again? If this weren’t the case, then why does the workings of the system let murdering pigs walk free over and over again? As Bob Avakian 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

 

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

 

 

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Revolution #457 September 19, 2016

 

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Revolution #457 September 19, 2016

Revolution Club Dives In...

CHEERS to a Defiant Statement Dis‑Respecting the American Flag by Students at Occidental College

September 19, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

On September 10, reactionaries at Occidental College near Los Angeles planted 2,996 American flags on campus. When the sun came up on September 11, those flags were all in the trash. Posters appeared on campus based on a graphic Facebook posting circulated by actor Adrian Grenier that said: "R.I.P. The 2,996 Americans who died in 9/11. R.I.P. the 1,455,590 innocent Iraqis who died during the U.S. invasion for something they didn't do."

Speaking to the controversy, a statement posted on the Facebook page of Oxy United for Black Liberation said in part:

"As students of color, this symbol of the American flag is particularly triggering for many different reasons. For us, this flag is a symbol of institutionalized violence (genocide, rape, slavery, colonialism, etc.) against people of color, domestically as well as globally. Additionally, if the goal of the memorial is to commemorate the lives lost during 9/11, the singular nature of the American flag fails to account for the diversity of lives lost on that day."

The incident made national news. And the Revolution Club, Los Angeles, dived into the mix. They went out to the campus and called on students to gather and sit on and step on the U.S. rag in response to its atrocities while getting out the Message from the Central Committee of the RCP, Time To Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution.

Many students joined the Revolution Club by sitting on the imperialist rag and wrote messages about why, including:

"Because my life doesn't matter to America."

"We shouldn't have to 'just accept' the way things are today like we are told by the generation before us."

"All people of the world should be equal and the American flag doesn't represent that."

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

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/457/carl-dix-oklahoma-pigs-murder-black-motorist-en.html

Revolution #457 September 19, 2016

Terence Crutcher Executed For Having Stalled Car While Black

Oklahoma Pigs Murder Black Motorist!—This Must Stop!

Statement from Carl Dix

September 20, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Look at the video of the police executing Terence Crutcher. Look at how they walk him over to his car with his hands up and make him assume the position with his hands on his car. And look at how they tase him and gun him down for nothing.

And it’s even worse than it looks. Terence wasn’t involved in any criminal activity. His car stalled on the road. There was no reason to treat him as anything other than a motorist who needed help, but these pigs saw him as a dangerous suspect. A pig in a helicopter hovering above the scene said he looked like “a bad dude.” And as someone they had a license to murder. The pig who fired the kill shot was on her radio saying she wasn’t getting cooperation from Terence even tho’ the video shows him walking with his hands up back to his car. And a police spokesperson gave their official statement to the press which was full of lies to try to justify this murder. She claimed Terence refused to cooperate with officers and reached into his car as why they had to gun him down.

Look at this video and tell me why anyone should believe anything the pigs say about why they brutalize and murder people. Or why we should listen when the authorities tell us to wait for the investigation to be concluded; or rely on the Justice Department to get justice.

Tell me why we should listen when Obama tells us about all the progress Black people have made in this country. Back in the day, white people in the South used to hurry to not miss it when the KKK had announced they were going to lynch a Black person. Look at those pigs in the video racing onto the road and drawing their guns so they could get in on this modern day lynching. All that’s changed is the color of the uniforms worn by those carrying out the lynchings.

This must be STOPPED! What will it take to do that? This is a presidential election season, and I can guarantee you that whoever ends up in the White House, this system will keep unleashing its police to brutalize and murder Black people. Body cameras on police? We’ve seen videos of police killing people – Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Gilbert Flores and many others, and still police kill people again and again; and the system exonerates them when their murderous deeds get dragged into the light of day. These pigs in Tulsa knew their actions were being recorded, and they still murdered Terence.

It’s going to take revolution to end this horror once and for all. We have to get rid of the system that needs to have its front line enforcers out there enforcing terror on people that it has no future for. No future except engaging in some hustle to try to survive, incarceration, fighting and killing each other or being murdered by the cops. We should live in a world where those entrusted with public security would sooner lose their own lives than kill or injure an innocent person. It’ll take revolution, nothing less, to bring that kind of world into being.

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

And we in the RCP are organizing for an actual revolution right now. In Bob Avakian (BA) we have a leader who knows how to make revolution and has developed a vision of the kind of world we could create thru making revolution. If you want to see this and all the other horrors this system enforces on people around the world and in this country ended once and for all, you need to become part of this revolution.

You need to read BA’s book, THE NEW COMMUNISM, and other works by him, you need to run with the Revolution Club, spreading the word that we have the leadership, the science, the strategy and program, and the basis for organizing people for an actual revolution, and in Fighting the Power, and Transforming the People, for Revolution, mobilizing people to fight back whenever the system perpetrates atrocities on the people.

 

 

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Revolution #457 September 19, 2016

Terence Crutcher Murdered in Cold Blood in Tulsa, Oklahoma

Do NOT Let This Go Down...
Do NOT Let This SYSTEM Continue One Minute Longer Than Necessary

September 20, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

September 16—it’s twilight on a Friday evening and Terence Crutcher, 40 years old, a father of four, is driving home from his music appreciation class at Tulsa Community College. His SUV stalls out in the middle of the road. Should be just one of the petty hassles of life. But because Terence Crutcher was a Black man, and because Tulsa is located in Amerikkka, it meant the end of his life.

We don’t know everything that happened—police video did not capture all that was done or said and we’ve yet to hear much from any non-pig eyewitnesses. But we do know this:

As Terence Crutcher walked away from his vehicle he encountered two cops. Crutcher had not done anything wrong, he was not “wanted” for anything, he was not a suspect in any crime. Yet within minutes the cops had guns trained on him, more cops on the way, and a police helicopter flying overhead. Think about that—a helicopter, like Terence Crutcher was a wild animal that had escaped from the zoo, or a serial killer who busted out of jail.

Before the cops had seen their own video of the incident, Tulsa police spokeswoman Jeanne Mackenzie described what happened next like this:

“They asked him to show his hands. He refused to follow commands given by the officers. They continued to talk to him. He continued not to listen, not follow any commands. As they got closer to the vehicle he reached inside the vehicle and at that time there was a Taser deployment and then a short time later there was one shot fired.”

Now watch the video to see what a total lie this was! You see Crutcher walking at a steady pace with his hands continuously up in the air towards his SUV, the two cops, guns pointed at his back, a few feet behind and going at the same pace. You hear a cop in the helicopter say “This guy’s still walking, following commands.” And then his partner chimes in: “Time for a Taser. That looks like a bad dude.” And again, think about this—a perfectly normal man seen from hundreds of feet up, following police commands, is described as “a bad dude,” who should be jolted with thousands of potentially fatal volts of electricity, for the crime of having-car-trouble-while-Black.

Crutcher reaches the SUV. He puts both hands, still raised, against the side of the vehicle, and seconds later he is tased and then shot, in rapid succession. As Crutcher—apparently still alive—bleeds in the street, the cops go about their business for several minutes without even providing comfort, much less aid.

NO MORE Stolen Lives

Another pig murder, another stolen life.

We’re three years into an upsurge of exposure, outrage, protest and rebellion. We’ve seen at least dozens of these videos. And for every police killing caught on video, there are literally dozens that are not—over 1,000 a year. And for every police murder, there are countless incidents of Black and Brown people being harassed, degraded, insulted, beaten, arrested on trumped up charges. And for every incident like that there are ripples of fear that spread out to literally millions, enforcing a state of intimidation and terror among oppressed people, making people think twice about going to the store at night, about driving through a white neighborhood, about hanging out with their friends on the street, about letting their kids go to a playground. This violence against people of color is playing the same role it has always played in the United States, since the days when this country’s economy and power was literally built on the enslavement of Africans, the genocide of the Native Americans, the theft of half of Mexico, and the brutal exploitation of immigrants of many different nationalities.

This shit is not an accident people! What we see on the video is not just the brutal murder of one man; we are seeing a concentration of the white supremacy that is and has always been at the core of the U.S. version of capitalism-imperialism, violence that echoes back to the deepest bowels of the slave ships and will reverberate forward into the future... as long as this system is in effect, as long as we let it.

We Don’t Need a “Seat at the Table,” We Need an ACTUAL Revolution

The people who rule over this system of exploitation and oppression see that people are outraged that time after time police murder Black and Brown people, and get a pat on the back for it. Some who represent for the ruling class—like Trump—have a one-track mind: ratchet up police terror and call out and whip up armed white supremacist fascists. Others, like Hillary Clinton, see a need to mix in crocodile tears and to preach that: “we’ve got to have law enforcement respect communities and communities respect law enforcement because they have to work together.” This “advice” from someone who played a critical role in the 90s demonizing Black youth as “predators,” shredding welfare, and accelerating mass incarceration is a call to respect brutal enforcers of oppression who rampage through the inner cities like an occupying army.

In the same vein, a pastor in Tulsa said: “We have to let justice [sic!] take its course ... [W]e have some who are so angry that they want this to be just affirmation that every negative opinion that they have of our justice system is confirmed. You can’t corral everyone when you have so many varying agendas and mindsets. The only thing you can attempt to do is be the voice of reason and put something in place that will help your people vent, and that is safe and in a practical way ... I’m pushing for not only a march or a meeting, I’m pushing for a seat at the table, where we can affect change in the policies and the culture of the police versus the community.”

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

That’s slave talk. The pig murder of Terence Crutcher is an “affirmation that every negative opinion that [people] have” of the so-called “justice system is confirmed.” But more than that: this whole damn system is guilty as hell. If that wasn’t true, then why do police kill unarmed Black and Brown people and get away with it over and over and over again?

Asking for a “seat at the table” of a genocidal system is asking to help carry out genocide. People’s anger doesn’t need to be “corralled.” It needs to be strengthened, made more determined, and channeled and diverted into getting organized for an ACTUAL revolution to overthrow this system at the soonest possible time. Or else this madness continues.

There is leadership for a revolution in Bob Avakian, and the party he leads—the Revolutionary Communist Party. There is a serious strategy for revolution—see HOW WE CAN WIN—How We Can Really Make Revolution and the Message from the Central Committee of the RCP, USA “Time to Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution.” Get your hands on these messages now. Read them, and get them out everywhere.

And as one essential part of working now, towards a situation where a revolution would have a chance at success, there needs to be resistance to the crimes of this system that is both determined and broad. This is not about whether or not this affects “you,” this is about what kind of society, and what kind of world people are going to live in. It is just not acceptable for anyone to allow the powers-that-be to get away with murdering people to enforce a reign of terror on people for whom this system has no future.

 

 

 

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Revolution #457 September 19, 2016

Charlotte Pigs Murder Keith Lamont Scott—People Take to the Streets

September 20, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Keith Lamont Scott, a disabled Black man, was murdered by Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina police tonight. He was 43. Police say they shot him while serving a warrant on someone else. The victim’s brother says Keith Lamont Scott was holding a book, not a gun, and was just waiting on his son to be dropped off after school. Scott’s daughter, identified on Facebook as Lyric YourAdorable Scott, found out that her father was dead via the news. She went live on Facebook from the scene of the murder to demand justice. As we post this, defiant angry people are in the streets of Charlotte demanding justice.

 

 

 

 

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Revolution #457 September 19, 2016

An Unusual Day at Columbia University

From a member of the Revolution Club, New York City

September 21, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Two members of the Revolution Club were trying to reconnect with students and faculty met throughout the past year to organize them into the revolution. We were making our way through campus and heard yelling from a distance. As we neared we realized this was someone we knew. We listened in and realized this student was reading the names of people killed at the hands of the police from the Guardian website.  His voice was hoarse but he continued with a lot of conviction, certitude, and anger. We noticed a few Black students stood by watching and listening; at a certain point some of them approached him and thanked him for his action. We asked him what provoked him to do this: he said that morning he saw the video of Terence Crutcher killed at the hands of the police in Tulsa, showed us the video, and said he needed to act. It was not an organized action; he just needed to vent and he choose the steps of Low Library. We asked if we could join him; and he said by all means. We just happened to have an American flag and a banner that reads, "We need to overthrow, not vote for this system" because of the times we're living (the contention with Kaepernick's kneeling for the anthem and the milieu of the elections). So we laid the American rag on the floor and held up our banner as we stood on the American flag. Within minutes a crowd formed.

There were all types of positions; the terms of which are captured in BAsics 5:20 where after putting forward the need for a radically different culture and morality, BA concludes by saying: “... we see now a situation that is too much like that described in the poem by William Butler Yeats: “The worst are full of passionate intensity”—and absolutist certainty, we might add—while “the best lack all conviction.” This has to be radically taken on and radically changed.”

So we had to reshape this reality. We did some brief agitation of why we were standing there uniting with the student (referred to above); did some brief agitation on the crimes of this system; and we called on others (students) to take on the argument of those offended by us stepping on the American rag. One student who studies Middle East policies united with our agitation of the crimes of this system and added (in sum) that human nature is shaped by the nature of the ruling system. In other words, the question isn't good or bad soldier/officer—the problem is woven into the nature of this system. This began to set different terms. Others began to crowd around but still the more vocal supporters of the American rag (including anti-communists) continued to try and dominate the terms of debate. 

At a certain point the administration came by in force (half a dozen) and asked the two members of the Revolution Club if we were students.  We said (speaking to the crowd of students) no, but you need us here!!! Because we are bringing the real source of the problem confronting the seven billion people and the very existence of the planet itself—which is this capitalist-imperialist system. And the only way out of that is with an actual revolution; that's why we're promoting the leadership of Bob Avakian (BA)... the architect of a whole new synthesis of communism, which includes a strategy for an actual revolution. A handful of students were intently listening in. So then we posed to the students listening in: if you think there should be active ferment on this campus about the problems confronting humanity and the possibility of radically changing the world then you need to stand with us. Don't be fooled into thinking the possibilities of change are locked within just reforming this system or doing some good in a messed up world. And then we asked for people to raise their hands if they wanted us to stay on campus (since the administration was trying to remove us from campus). One young woman raised her hand and we asked her to step forward. She was really shy and couldn't speak loudly on why she stood with us but she held up the banner we were holding and said, "I think you need to be here."  There were a lot of intermediate students but one young woman asked about our strategy for making revolution (since she was a pacifist) and as soon as we opened up "Time To Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution, Message from the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA" hands went up with people grabbing for the message. We talked about Bob Avakian's THE NEW COMMUNISM and the October 8th book launch; and we referred people to www.revcom.us to read "HOW WE CAN WIN—How We Can Really Make Revolution."  This opened up all sorts of debate. In the main, people said, "I don't agree with you but I think you need to be on this campus" with a small handful of students saying, "I'm seriously considering joining." 

As the title of our summation says: this was a very unusual day on the campus but we also learned a tremendous amount of the potential of jumping into a very fraught atmosphere (given the sharpening up of contradictions of this illegitimate system) and the urgency of re-polarizing for an actual revolution. We were able to compel the administration to back off and we stayed on campus, and we're trying to concretely follow up with the students met; even as we're working with those we already know to try to develop a concrete form of revolutionary organization (like a reading group/book club on THE NEW COMMUNISM). And as the student who wants to take initiative for forming a group on campus said: this can't be a group on to itself this has to be an organization that's part of impacting and interacting with the larger society (like the October 8th book-launch being a concrete expression of that dynamic)... More to come!

 

 

 

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Revolution #457 September 19, 2016

Once More, Lying, Murdering Pigs Run Amok

What Time Is It?
Time and Past Time to Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution

September 21, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Tulsa... Charlotte... Columbus...  How long?

People have tried all the “solutions” this system says work: a Black president. Campaigning for candidates. More police training. The “Department of Justice.” White House conferences. Body cameras. Lawsuits. Community policing.

None have stopped police murder after murder after murder. They won’t work. They can't work. Because police murder is built into this system.

If you didn't believe that when you saw it in Ferguson and Staten Island, the system has showed you again and again and again. When they murdered Freddie Gray in Baltimore...Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge...Philando Castile in Minneapolis-St. Paul...and now Tyre King, Terence Crutcher, Keith Lamont Scott, and countless others all over this goddamn country. 

What do we do?

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..., 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...

—from “A Basic Point of Orientation”

Come to the website www.revcom.us and find out “HOW WE CAN WIN—How We Can Really Make Revolution” and what we need to do now. Find out more and get organized into this revolution.

 

 

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Revolution #457 September 19, 2016

News Flash—Charlotte, NC: 

Righteous Rebellion Against Police Murder of Keith Lamont Scott

September 21, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Wednesday night, September 21.  For the second straight night, people in Charlotte, North Carolina are righteously rising up in determined, defiant protest after Keith Lamont Scott, a 43-year-old Black man and father of seven, was murdered by police on Tuesday afternoon.

Tonight, after an evening vigil, people marched to downtown Charlotte, where they’ve been met by rows of heavily armed riot police trying to prevent them from marching through the heart of the City.  Standoffs and confrontations ensued, but many refused to back down or go home.  According to news reports, around 10 pm, the police ordered everyone, including the media, to leave parts of the “Uptown” section of Charlotte where the Omni Hotel is located, threatening to arrest anyone who didn’t comply.  When people refused to leave, the police opened up with tear gas.  There were many arrests. “A helicopter flew over Uptown,” the New York Times reported, “and on the streets below, protesters were heard chanting, ‘Hands up! Don’t shoot!’”

Late tonight, North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory declared a state of emergency, and said he would deploy the National Guard and the State Highway Patrol to Charlotte.  After midnight people could still be heard in the streets chanting, “No justice, no peace.”

This is an outrage.  First the system’s police violently murder another Black person, then deploy massive armed force to suppress the peoples’ righteous anger and protests—all as government officials lecture people about being “peaceful.” 

The peoples’ protests in Charlotte are totally righteous and justified.  They need to continue and draw even broader and deeper support—from all across the country and world. 

 

 

 

 

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Revolution #457 September 19, 2016

Reality Check

September 22, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

To all those fronting for the system who, when people rise up to defend themselves against the murderous violence of the police, always say “violence isn’t the answer”:

Fuck you! Why don’t you tell that to the murdering pigs!? Why don’t you tell that to the U.S. Marines?! Why don’t you tell that to your air force that just murdered 83 Syrians—and your military who’s inflicted so much violence on the whole Middle East that it’s been the main driver of 65 million refugees fleeing their homes in fear!? We’ll tell you why—because for this system, reactionary murderous violence IS the answer, the only answer they’ve got to the horrors inflicted on humanity!

Up against all your violence and repression, the masses most definitely have the right to defend themselves! And while it is not the whole “answer”—which is a revolution to get rid of this system of exploitation which that violence enforces, and a whole new world without exploitation and oppression—righteously standing up against the violent suppression carried out by the powers-that-be is very definitely a part of the answer.

 

 

 

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Revolution #457 September 19, 2016

Bob Avakian's THE NEW COMMUNISM is Available Now—
3 Reasons You Should Get the Book and Your Ticket to the October 8th Book Launch Today!

September 22, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

On Saturday, October 8th, a major book launch will take place at the Schomburg Center in Harlem for Bob Avakian's pathbreaking new work, THE NEW COMMUNISM: The science, the strategy, the leadership for an actual revolution and a radically new society on the road to real emancipation.  This event will feature readings from the book and thought-provoking commentary and discussion from Cornel West and Carl Dix.  Afterwards, everyone is invited to join these speakers for a fundraising after-party at Revolution Books to celebrate, raise funds, and forge revolutionary community.

This book and event is for everyone who cares about the state of the world and the conditions of humanity and agonizes over whether fundamental change is really possible.

Here's 3 reasons you should get your ticket and book today:

 

1. Come to this book launch because Bob Avakian's THE NEW COMMUNISM is about emancipating all of humanity.

Where there is oppression, there will be resistance—and we see this vividly in the world today.  But, without the necessary scientific theory and leadership, even the most heroic uprisings will remain confined and channeled back into the very system that is the source of this madness and the oppression will grind on.  In THE NEW COMMUNISM, Bob Avakian provides this necessary scientific theory for an actual revolution on the road to real emancipation.  Bob Avakian is the architect of a whole new framework of human emancipation and THE NEW COMMUNISM is sure to challenge stereotypes and conventional thinking.

 

2. Come to this book launch because Bob Avakian (BA) combines world-class revolutionary theory with a visceral connection to the most oppressed and an amazing ability to break this down so everyone can understand and take it up.

THE NEW COMMUNISM is a master work and a master-class, drawn from a major presentation BA gave to a conference of revolutionaries.  In it, BA brings to bear his many decades as a fearless revolutionary leader and speaks directly, with science and passion, to the most pressing questions of our time.  Among other things, he lays bare the scientific approach and the kind of morality necessary to bring about emancipation for all seven billion people on our planet.  Through the readings and commentary, this event will give you a vivid sense of this leader and the significance of his work.  How could you not want to hear this?

 

3. This book launch and after-party is a chance to come together with others, including Cornel West, Carl Dix and Andy Zee, to get into THE NEW COMMUNISM and forge community with others concerned with human emancipation.

Cornel West, a revolutionary Christian, stands out among intellectuals for his principle and his work, for standing with “the least among us” and for having engaged Bob Avakian, including in the historic Dialogue on Revolution and Religion.  Carl Dix is a longtime follower of Bob Avakian and a revolutionary leader in his own right.  Andy Zee is the spokesperson for Revolution Books.  Together these courageous and radical voices will share their experience with, knowledge of, and deep respect for Bob Avakian and the morality of what his life continues to be about with a diverse audience.

Again, how could you not want to be there?

 

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/458/charlotte-sept-22-en.html

Revolution #457 September 19, 2016

Report from the Streets of Charlotte, Thursday Night:

Third Night of Protest Shuts Down Downtown Charlotte: Justice for Keith Lamont Scott

September 22, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Hundreds of protesters demanding justice for Keith Lamont Scott–the Black man murdered by Charlotte, North Carolina police on September 20–shut down downtown Charlotte tonight for over five hours.

In advance of tonight’s protest, authorities made all kinds of threats. They called out the National Guard, threatening they would attack protesters as they had the night before. But defying these police-state threats, protesters–with right on their side–were determined and defiant.

Starting with about 150 people, the protest grew to well over 500 people. The crowd was a majority Black people, and about a third white–overwhelmingly college-age youth. There were students from University of North Carolina Charlotte (UNCC) and UNC Greensboro and other area schools. A couple UNCC students joined Carl Dix of the Revolutionary Communist Party in getting out hundreds of the “What Time Is It? Time and Past Time to Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution” leaflet in the midst of the struggle.

The march started at Romaire Beardon Park. This is where the NFL Carolina Panthers stadium is located, in the heart of the business district. Protesters took over the streets from the start. They marched to the Omni Hotel, in an upscale part of downtown. This is where, the night before, authorities tear-gassed and arrested people, and then had the gall to attack the protesters–some of whom courageously defended themselves, as “violent.” (See “Reality Check” at www.revcom.us)

People were chanting “No Justice, No Peace, No Racist Police!” When the march got to the City Government building, the National Guard was deployed with camouflage, assault rifles, and a Humvee to intimidate protesters. But marchers surged up the stairs, some going nose-to-nose with these armed enforcers of a system whose police murder Black people with impunity. There was controversy within the march over whether this was the right thing to do, but there were people in the march who did think it was the thing to do.

The marchers then went to the police station. Here, as at the government building, people chanted, “Release the tape! Release the tape!” Authorities are refusing to release a video they have of the murder of Keith Lamont Scott, which attorneys for his family say shows Scott peacefully walking away from police, with his hands at his side, when he was shot and killed.

Next stop was the downtown Charlotte prison. As the march approached the prison, prisoners on a high-level tier began opening and closing window shades in a sign of support and protest. People on the streets chanted, “We see you! We love you!” The window-shade protest spread to other parts of the prison, and in some cases prisoners were able to hold up their fists in the windows.

A young Black man in the march said, “We are out here because we are under attack from every direction.” When he was told the mayor had ordered a midnight curfew, he said, “No, we’re not gonna stop protesting for a curfew—no justice no peace.” When asked if there was going to be “violence” he said, go ask the National Guard—“We have signs, they have guns.”

As we post this, it is midnight Thursday. But hundreds of people remain the street, defying the curfew downtown. Stay tuned.