---

 

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/484/trump-pence-juggernaut-remains-on-a-roll-must-be-driven-out-en.html

Revolution #484 March 27, 2017

No Time for Celebration

The Trump/Pence Juggernaut Remains on a Roll and Must Be Driven Out

March 27, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

The past two weeks have spun by at a dizzying pace. Trump’s new anti-Muslim ban was instituted and then quickly blocked by federal district court judges (though it may be appealed); the hearings on possible ties between the Trump camp and Russia leading into the elections opened; and then on Friday, the Republican health care bill (which Trump strongly backed) was defeated. All of these were actual setbacks for the regime. But how to understand them and what needs to be done in the face of them are not so clear to many people who urgently want to see this regime gone and are heartened by these setbacks. This article will analyze what has happened; draw some distinctions of how to analyze politics in this period and from what basis should we be fighting; and put forward some views toward what must be done now.

We cannot afford to be deceived, or deceive ourselves, as to the meaning of these events; the stakes are way too high.

Contradictions and Setbacks—But NOT Mortal Blows or Derailment

To put it bluntly, this raft of difficulties and setbacks does NOT necessarily signify that the regime has suffered or will soon (with the Russia investigations) suffer mortal blows. Nor does it necessarily mean that the system of checks and balances can be counted on to stop the continued march of the Trump/Pence fascist assaults on the people and the law, or that the Trump/Pence regime is somehow on track to self-destruct or, at minimum, find itself unable to exert its will. All these notions are out there spontaneously, and being promoted as well. And they are having a negative effect.

It was not good, for example, that only a few turned out to protest against the Muslim ban on March 16, with many groups canceling their participation after learning about the court order that temporarily stayed the ban pending appeal. Court order or not, there needed to be massive demonstrations making clear the breadth and determination of opposition. The turnout and temper of these demonstrations was far short of what was needed, and sent the wrong message to both foe and potential friend.

Now, unsurprisingly, the regime has found other means to implement a travel ban that is even more sweeping.¹ Meanwhile, Trump has been stoking the anger of his core social base against the courts at rallies in Tennessee and Kentucky. All Trump would need would be an incident similar to what happened in London last week to go on the offensive and to actually attempt what Breitbart and Rush Limbaugh have called for in regard to the travel ban—defying the courts and daring them to stop him. Not for nothing did Trump make a spectacle of laying a wreath at the grave of Andrew Jackson, that slave-trading president who also led genocidal military campaigns against Native Americans. Besides expressing his deep resonance with the combination of demagogy and racism that Jackson used to create American populism, Trump was harkening to Jackson’s history of defying the Supreme Court. When the Court ruled against him, Jackson embarked anyway, asking “what army are they going to use to defend their order?”

There’s a similar dynamic in play with health care. No doubt, Trump/Pence would have preferred victory; this was a setback. But the people at the core of this regime are hardly going to be deterred or thrown off course by this. To quote the fascist ideologue and key Trump adviser Steve Bannon: “If you think they’re going to give you your country back without a fight, you are sadly mistaken.” Trump all but telegraphed the strategy on Friday, in the wake of the health care bill defeat: further wrecking Obamacare and pinning this on the Democrats (while no doubt exacting payback from those Republicans whose recalcitrance actually doomed the bill) and then, perhaps, later on passing some version of a reform for which he will claim credit. Yes, Trump would have preferred to win—but typical of how fascism develops, he can still benefit from a scenario of “rising Phoenix-like from the ashes of defeat to exact retribution and win redemption.”

On the Russia controversy: a little later we’re going to get into why taking sides on this Russia controversy is actually poison to building the kind of movement that is needed. But even those who are caught up in it on its own terms should think about this: it may be the case that Trump himself indeed knowingly colluded with the Russians to win the presidency and it may be the case that there is good evidence to this effect that will surface. May. But what if it turns out either that there is no direct evidence of Trump being involved and/or that his underlings “fall on their swords” and do not implicate Trump or Pence? Should that happen, then not only will this end up fizzling, but Trump will seize on it to further discredit the media and those parts of the intelligence agencies with which he is in conflict. He will use this to not only further convince and inflame his base of support, but also actually to win over others that all this was just a lot of hype and lies to “steal my victory.” And those who have banked everything on this will find that misleading people to think that they should focus on this—even though, for reasons we explained last week, is NOT the issue—will now backfire, in a very serious and damaging way.

So yes, there have been setbacks. But one, it is easy to envision how each of these setbacks could either be turned into an opening to further consolidate the regime or be rendered irrelevant by some new development in the world or initiative from the regime. And two, generally speaking, fascist regimes proceed through struggle, setbacks, improvisation, and bludgeoning their way out of fixes.²

Even With Setbacks, the Trump/Pence Move to Consolidate Fascism Proceeds Apace

Meanwhile, beneath the radar, the offensive rolls on with ever-growing force and viciousness. Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) has been unleashed and will be beefed up. Undocumented immigrants now live in a state of terror and immigrants more generally are being continually made to justify their presence.³ The spike in hate crimes continues.⁴ The police murders of and brutality against Black and Latino people have gone on, even if the coverage has not, and this regime promises to “take the handcuffs” off these killers in blue and to put many more people in prison.⁵ New laws have been proposed (or old ones “reinterpreted”) in at least eight states to make penalties for protests significantly harsher.⁶ The new budget will seriously gut science.⁷ Trump’s recent interview with TIME magazine, in which he reasserted virtually every single baseless accusation and lie he’s spread in the past year, served the dual purpose of reasserting this epistemological line to one and all and puffing up his base. Incalculable harm is being done to the environment, with new outrages every day.⁸

Internationally, the U.S. has been ratcheting up its aggression against all kinds of countries with whom it is not officially even at war.⁹ The perils of the situation in Korea can barely be overstated. With both seemingly “unhinged” rulers (Trump and Kim Jong-un), there is actually a method to the madness and a logic to the logic that is extremely dangerous (and here, too, if they even go to the brink this could well be the pretext for very sweeping and draconian repression).¹⁰

Even the failure thus far of the regime to maintain the normal pace in making appointments to thousands of federal government slots can be misread as fecklessness, as a combination of incompetence and ineffectiveness. In actual fact, they have made numerous temporary appointments—NOT subject to congressional approval—and sent “teams” into all the federal agencies to begin the remaking process. At the same time, part of their restructuring program is in fact to hollow out certain departments.

No, they are not all-powerful, and no, this is not proceeding all according to some hard-and-fast, airtight master plan. Again, the setbacks were real; but this is a course that necessarily proceeds through chaos and struggle, with ups and downs and improvisation. This has been true of fascists before, and it is playing out in roughly similar ways now. But to paraphrase Bannon, you don’t think they’re going to let us defeat a serious attempt to institute fascism without a fight—a huge fight, beyond what’s been seen in decades—do you?

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

Questions of Method, Questions of Framework

There are two problems in some of how people are understanding this. The first is a question of method. The Trump/Pence regime must be evaluated through the lens of an attempt to install fascism, and not bourgeois-democratic “politics as usual.” This has been true with Trump from the beginning—remember all the times he was counted out on the basis that now he had gone too far in violating the rules of the game? And yet it was his very violation of those rules that served to win over, consolidate, and energize a fascist base (or actually a set of fascist factions, with the Christian fascists represented by Pence at the core of that) that had been cultivated by the Republican Party for years.

The conventional commentaries—that Trump cannot do the business of counting votes, that Trump cannot just cater to his base but must move to the center like a normal president, etc.—miss the point that Trump is NOT a normal president. Trump is a president determined to institute a fascist regime based on an unbridled and hyper-virulent white Christian/European political, economic, and cultural supremacy and corresponding persecution of those who don’t fit that “norm”; an extreme and aggressive chauvinism toward the rest of the world; a toxic and aggressive combination of theocratic old-school patriarchy/porn culture misogyny in which the rights of women are hammered back; a truculent, sneering cult of the ignoramus; a necessarily hyper-aggressive and militaristic foreign policy (along with an amping up of the cult-of-the-military “warrior culture” in this culture); and a shredding of those democratic rights supposedly guaranteed by the Constitution. The Trump/Pence strategy relies precisely on continually firming up and further inflaming his base—very literally “weaponizing” them against those being persecuted by the regime—and turning any setbacks they may suffer to that purpose. It relies on wielding whatever it takes to accomplish his purpose; and remaking/destroying those parts of the state machinery that stand in his way.

In a nutshell, it is “the exercise of blatant dictatorship by the bourgeois (capitalist-imperialist) class, ruling through reliance on open terror and violence, trampling on what are supposed to be civil and legal rights, wielding the power of the state, and mobilizing organized groups of fanatical thugs, to commit atrocities against masses of people, particularly groups of people identified as ‘enemies,’ ‘undesirables,’ or ‘dangers to society.’” (From “What IS Fascism?”)

Analysis, to get at the essence of things, cannot proceed from applying an empiricist methodology (being utterly focused on and swayed by the latest superficial phenomena) within an irrelevant analytical framework (the normal workings of the two-party bourgeois-democratic dictatorship), but from a dialectical analysis based on the underlying contradictions and dynamics. The regime is trying to impose a different form of bourgeois rule. This is a sharp transition and necessarily fraught with contradiction and jockeying from the different sides—not just the fascists vs. the conventional bourgeois democrats, but within the fascist camp itself. This makes it complicated and challenging for the regime, but no less dangerous to humanity around the world.

Humanity or USA?

Then there is the element of framework. Let’s go back to the Russia obsession (one that festers with almost maniacal intensity with someone like Rachel Maddow). Beyond the ways this could backfire, the deeper problem is this: the whole terms of that focus up around “the interests of the U.S.”—which reduces very quickly to the interests of U.S. imperialism and how best to plunder and, when needed, slaughter the people of the world.¹¹ The fascists and those who oppose them at the top of the Democratic Party, along with Republicans like Lindsay Graham, are fighting over how best to enforce those interests. But a) those interests are NOT the fundamental interests of billions of people worldwide and hundreds of millions even within the U.S.; b) if you fight fascism on those terms, then the logic of your position will lead you at a certain point to acquiesce, because certainly—from the standpoint of U.S. imperial interests—going along with fascism would be preferable to the dislocation and possible damage to those imperialist interests that would be involved in the kind of massive upheaval that actually would be necessary to oust the regime; and c) the very basis on which you’ve been arguing to remove Trump will lead you to line up behind the U.S. in any significant military action or war which the regime (along with its Democratic Party critics and people like Graham and John McCain) will pose as involving an “existential threat to American interests.”

People now awakening to political life against Trump and “demanding their country back” must be led to come to grips with the real crimes their country has committed and still commits, with the bedrock truth that “America Was NEVER Great.” This doesn’t mean that everyone will get this all at once, or that unless and until people do get that, that revolutionaries should not unite with them; but it DOES mean that people should use the resources on this website to make that case and to struggle with people in a good way to come to that understanding.

Finally, there remains both a reluctance to get out of the confines of the normal channels and means of politics, and a difficulty in imagining what that means. This was captured in an exchange on the Bill Maher show on March 24, following the defeat of the health care bill. Maher’s guests, in different and limited ways, agonized over the normalization that continues to go on and they seemed to be reaching for something different and more radical. And Chris Hayes, the MSNBC host, tried to refute this, saying:

[W]e do get used to things and I think normalizing it is a threat, but the other thing I would say is that in some ways one of the things we saw this week was normal politics working. In the sphere of healthcare, that was a very normal kind of thing. Like, they proposed a bill, the bill was bad, people rebelled. So we reach for these abnormal solutions, which is like hit a pause button, which I understand the impulse to but the only real victories that have come have been victories through normal politics, fighting on that terrain.

No, Chris Hayes, you are wrong—dead wrong. This is a prime example proceeding from the framework of politics as usual; it’s not only totally inadequate (and irresponsible) to espouse this in the face of fascism, but it isn’t even true in normal times. The only way that real victories have ever been won has been when people stepped outside the normal political framework and put everything on the line. This has meant—and this must mean now—going into the streets and voicing opposition to this regime in a way that cannot be hidden, cannot be silenced, is not depending on someone in power but is determined and unyielding to such a degree that everyone must respond to our demand. This must mean going beyond, way beyond, Chris Hayes’ beloved “normal politics” and instead actually putting your body, your reputation, and your public platform on the line to say NO, relying on ourselves, going OUTSIDE politics as usual.

Needed: A Struggle to Unleash the Vast Reservoir of Those Viscerally Opposed to Trump/Pence

Right now, the wrong methods of understanding and the narrow (and ultimately immoral) framework for acting being criticized in this article are being widely propagated.

Let us not forget, though, that millions of people remain viscerally opposed to this regime and have shown over and over again, a desire to act. If we want them to act now—and such action is crucially needed—it is up to us to go make the case. The case that what we face is, yes, fascism, and that is not a curse word but a way to scientifically understand the problem we confront. The case that what this will mean, and already is meaning, is truly terrible things for humanity beyond what people face right now, and terrible things as well for humanity’s hope and ability to fight for a better future. The case on which we must undertake this battle is from the interests of all humanity and not from within the terms of “what’s good for America,” which only has and only can mean devastation for the people all over the world, including here, and the planet itself.

Now we face a crossroads. On the one hand, it is very likely that Trump will attempt to bounce back from the setback in health care, perhaps perpetrating some new outrage to change the terms, while in any case proceeding apace with the other deadly elements of his agenda. At the same time, major demonstrations are already scheduled for April 22 (the science march), April 29 (defense of the environment), and May 1 (immigrant rights). In addition, April 24 is the date for this year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day. And April will be the last real window for the much-needed outpouring from students which as yet has not happened.

What happens in this next month could well be pivotal.

Whether those millions in anguish over Trump are led to confront the real depth of the horror here, or whether they are deceived with seeming victories and shortcuts... whether those now identifying with the resistance are summoned to actually rise to being the resistance we really need—in fact and not just in name—and, as part of that, to take the streets with growing determination to drive out the regime or whether there is, instead, a detouring and dead-ending of this sentiment into the confines of politics-as-usual... all this will have high stakes, one way or the other, not just for people in this country but all over the world. What happens in response to any new threat or offensive by Trump... and what goes on during that period toward the end of April... matters.

It is up to us to make it count toward getting rid of this regime at the soonest possible time. The image and reality that must come through in this month, reaching into the May 1 demonstrations, is that of a major step toward millions in the streets who are determined to drive this regime out.

---

1. See “Trump Regime’s ‘End Run’ Imposes a Muslim Ban.” [back]

2. Hitler, too often portrayed as an all-knowing mastermind, actually illustrates this. The Nazis were able to consolidate a much more repressive set of laws more quickly than Trump. But it still took time before they basically consolidated, and this actually necessitated a violent purge within the Nazi party and, simultaneously, against elements of the coalition that brought him to power. The high-stakes gambles undertaken by the Nazis, both with their domestic stimulus and their international moves, meant that they had to move fast before others could fully react—a point that Hitler made to his minions. Again, Trump does NOT equal Hitler in some mechanical sense, and there are different necessities and challenges that face each regime—but there ARE patterns to how fascism operates. [back]

3. See ”Trump/Pence Regime Lays Siege to Immigrant Communities: Fascist Escalation of Attacks on Immigrants.” [back]

4. See “Trump Has Let the Dogs Out! White Supremacist Murders a Black Man in New York.” [back]

5. See “To Departing Chicago U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon as He Leaves Office: Farewell... And FUCK YOU!,“ “Black community members begging for “resources”—be aware,” and “Gang Injunctions and Databases: In the Hands of Trump & Sessions, It Will Be Horror Upon Horror.” [back]

6. See “Wave of State Laws Threaten Harsh Penalties for Common Forms of Protest.” [back]

7. See “The March for Science on April 22—Why It Matters” and "Michael Slate Interviews Scientist Peter Gleick: “When you take bad science or you ignore science all together to push an ideological point of view, we’re in deep trouble.”. [back]

8. See “Trump Order Gives Green Light to Dakota Access Pipeline—Tramples on Native American Rights and People’s Struggle,” “Resist Trump’s Approval for Keystone XL Pipeline,” and “Resist Trump’s Moves to Disembowel the EPA and Wreck the Environment.” [back]

9. See “A ‘Surge’ in the U.S. Slaughter of Syrian and Iraqi Civilians” and “Navy SEAL Raid in Yemen: ‘Securing Our Nation’ by Slaughtering Children.” [back]

10. See “Escalating Tension Between U.S. and North Korea: Urgent Dangers for Humanity.” [back]

11. See “What’s Behind the Russia-Trump Furor...And Where Do the People’s Interests Lie?“ [back]

 

 

 

 

---

 

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/484/the-march-for-science-on-april-22-why-it-matters-en.html

Revolution #484 March 27, 2017

The March for Science on April 22—
Why It Matters

Revised as of March 29, 2017 | Originally posted March 27, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Scientists and others in defense of science are scheduled to march on April 22 against the attacks on science and truth, and in support of the role of science in government and public policy, and for the very integrity of the scientific process itself. Along with a major march in Washington, DC, there are more than 400 satellite marches in cities across the country and the world. Most major scientific organizations have endorsed this march, calling on their memberships to manifest. Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, are expected on the 22nd across the country—and the world.

This march originated and has gathered momentum in response to the Trump/Pence regime’s attacks on science in pursuit of their agenda. These attacks are widespread and targeted, driven by and in service of an ideological and political agenda.

In what follows, we walk through some of the key fronts of this regime’s attacks on science, why it matters to defend science, how this march originated, what lessons we can draw from this experience, and how this can contribute to the larger struggle needed. We will continue covering this, and invite readers to write in with your thoughts and insights—and let us know if you want to volunteer to help cover these marches or in other ways.

I. The Regime’s Attacks on Science, Why They Matter—and Taking Them On

Soon after the inauguration, the Trump transition staff asked for lists of employees and contractors of the Energy Department who had attended meetings on climate change. This had all the signs of gathering names for a witch hunt, occurring in the broader context of denial of global warming by Trump throughout his campaign, attacks on and threats to de-fund the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and an escalating campaign by fascistic right-wing forces against climate scientists. Scientists started doing data dumps and taking other measures to preserve precious research and findings gathered over decades—even as the regime initiated official muzzling of government scientists (see “Resist Trump’s Moves to Disembowel the EPA and Wreck the Environment”). Even while the disproportionate share of the impact of a warming planet will be felt by the masses of humanity in the oppressed nations, commonly known as the Third World, a significant part of the research on this is funded by and performed in the U.S., which also, until recently, has been the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, the cause for a warming planet. This is a catastrophic threat, with planetary implications for billions of people potentially affected by rising sea levels, increased incidence and intensity of famines, droughts and hurricanes, and overall depletion of freshwater resources such as glacier melts. Driven by a profoundly anti-science and anti-environment ideology, the regime has also reissued permits for the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Keystone Pipeline—both of which had shaped up to be major battle lines around the protection of the environment and the planet—while drastically cutting the budget for the EPA and appointing as its head someone who actually denies the very fact that the planet is warming due to greenhouse gases. However limited the 2015 Paris accord on global warming was in restricting and reducing the contributing factors to global warming, this regime is threatening to back out of it, leading to uncertainty and a possible collapse of the whole climate treaty and framework.

The Trump/Pence regime has also drastically cut budgets for major scientific and public health institutions, like the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other scientific research agencies not directly involved in weapons production. This regime’s profoundly anti-scientific bent will manifest in further censorship of findings, muzzling of scientists, suppression of funding and restricting the role of science in public policy where it conflicts with their agenda or corporate interests. This is just a slice of the widespread attacks on science already initiated by this regime. This regime’s Muslim ban and attacks on immigrants have also affected the scientific community, which in the U.S. is made up disproportionately of people who are foreign-born—and scientists have taken on these attacks as well, issuing statements against these attacks and calling for more inclusion and diversity overall. Revolution/revcom.us has been and will continue covering these attacks—and we encourage readers to correspond with us on this, reporting on instances of such attacks.

Along with attacks on science in realms such as public health and the environment, the dominance of the extremely anti-scientific Christian fascist ideological agenda is profoundly dangerous. One of the main lines of the fascist attack on science is on the fact of evolution—all life on planet Earth having evolved from common ancestors over at least 3.5 billion years—because it runs directly up against their literalist reading of the Bible. These Christian fascists and biblical literalists have waged well-funded and deceptive campaigns to undermine and even ban the teaching of evolution in schools—even though evolution is one of the most well-established and proven facts in the history of science—and to rally political forces to introduce biblical creationism as science. Betsy DeVos, Trump’s new secretary of education, is a Christian fascist, and has been deeply committed to imposing this worldview on society. Now, with their hands on the levers on education, these forces can do great harm, denying generations of children the science of evolution and the scientific method.

Why is this significant and important, not only for scientific education but for the emancipation of humanity? Everyone needs to understand the basic facts of evolution as well as the essentials of the scientific method. Ardea Skybreak captures this in her book The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism: Knowing What’s Real and Why It Matters:

When people are deprived of a scientific approach to reality as a whole, they are robbed of both a full appreciation of the beauty and richness of the natural world and the means to understand the dynamics of change not only in nature but in human society as well.

This regime’s attacks on science are occurring in the larger context of a wholesale assault on the very notion of truth as correspondence with reality (see “The ‘Alternative Facts’ of Donald Trump vs. the Truth”). Trump has become infamous for just making up shit, alleging things that serve his interests and agenda when it suits him. He has branded as “fake news” any reality or facts opposed to his agenda or critical of him, and his minions like Kellyanne Conway have branded their fiction and narratives as “alternative facts.” NO! This is, by definition, an oxymoron. While this wholesale assault on reality and truth has precedents in the fascist trajectory and social base represented by the Republicans, with media like Fox News or the previous Republican administration of George W. Bush, Trump represents a qualitative leap beyond anything before.

 

All of this forms the backdrop, context, target and compelling factor for the March for Science on April 22. Foregrounding the “celebration of science,” breaking down barriers for people to do science and access science, the mission of the march has a definite call to act:

In the face of an alarming trend toward discrediting scientific consensus and restricting scientific discovery, we might ask instead: can we afford not to speak out in its defense?

People who value science have remained silent for far too long in the face of policies that ignore scientific evidence and endanger both human life and the future of our world. New policies threaten to further restrict scientists’ ability to research and communicate their findings. We face a possible future where people not only ignore scientific evidence, but seek to eliminate it entirely. Staying silent is a luxury that we can no longer afford. We must stand together and support science.

This is positive—and despite no explicit mention of the Trump/Pence regime in the mission statement, everybody knows what this march is about. This is similar in that respect to the Women’s March the day after the Trump inauguration. Also, very positive in the mission of the march is the overall sharp focus on scientific epistemology (how people acquire knowledge and how they know whether something is true, and the scientific method needed to do so), proceeding in basic terms from the standpoint of the world and the public domain of human knowledge, rather than narrow national U.S. interest of “making America great.” The mission of this march, now global, ends with, “We must take science out of the labs and journals and share it with the world.” (emphasis added)

This is a positive sentiment. Science matters!

The interview with Ardea Skybreak, 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, demystifies and brings alive the import of science, showing why science applies to all of reality, natural and social. In the interview, Skybreak states that science is “...a very powerful tool. It’s a method and approach for being able to tell what’s true, what corresponds to reality as it really is.... Science is an evidence-based process.... Science allows you to confront and identify problems, to recognize problems and figure out how to solve them, rather than run away from them.... Without science you are at the mercy of being manipulated, of having your thinking manipulated and not being able to tell what’s right from what’s wrong, what’s true from what’s false.”

II. A Brief Note on the Origins of the March for Science—and Lessons to Learn

The origins of this march are both revealing of the large sections of people that detest what this regime represents—and of the rapid mobilization that can materialize, if one is acting decisively on social contradictions and felt need, scientifically and in line with the interests of the masses of people.

According to news reports, Jonathan Berman, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas, was increasingly horrified by this regime’s attacks on science, especially the initial reports of the muzzling of government climate scientists, and was coming to feel this unacceptable as he learned more. The mass outpourings the day after the inauguration, the Women’s March, inspired him. Confronting the need for something similar with the attacks on science, he took this to heart and acted on it. This is what becomes possible—the initiative, the creativity and the defiance of people—once they become convinced of the need to act. As the statement from the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, “Some Points on Strategic Orientation for the Next Period,” states, “This is what is needed, on a growing mass scale.”

Berman set up a Facebook page, and was soon joined by another co-initiator for the march, public health researcher Caroline Weinberg. According to news reports, the membership of the Facebook page grew from 200 the first night to 300,000 the next night. A positive factor was the certitude of the initial call they issued:

Although this will start with a march, we hope to use this as a starting point to take a stand for science in politics. Slashing funding and restricting scientists from communicating their findings (from tax-funded research!) with the public is absurd and cannot be allowed to stand as policy. This is a non-partisan issue that reaches far beyond people in the STEM fields and should concern anyone who values empirical research and science.

There are certain things that we accept as facts with no alternatives. The Earth is becoming warmer due to human action. The diversity of life arose by evolution. Politicians who devalue expertise risk making decisions that do not reflect reality and must be held accountable. An American government that ignores science to pursue ideological agendas endangers the world. (Emphasis added)

This is an example of how small forces acting on profound contradictions with scientific certitude can make a big difference and materialize the necessary forces to do what is needed.

III. The Significance of This March—for the Crucial Political Battle to Oust This Fascist Regime, and for Bringing About a Better World

Politically at this moment, this march of scientists and those in defense of science is significant. Even though it is not explicitly or officially billed as an anti-Trump protest, this is the mass sentiment driving the enthusiasm and organizing. Stressing the need to ACT and manifest on the street, and an overall orientation of proceeding from the interests of the world, this section of the people acting out of character with conventional norms—”scientists on the streets”—can potentially contribute to inspiring others, and to the mass resistance needed to oust this regime.

Debate broke out early over whether this march is a good thing—a debate that is still continuing.

Robert Young, in an op-ed in the New York Times, said the march is a bad idea, that “...trying to recreate the pointedly political Women’s March will serve only to reinforce the narrative from skeptical conservatives that scientists are an interest group and politicize their data, research and findings for their own ends.” A professor of coastal geology at Western Carolina University, Young recounted his experience of being attacked by global warming skeptics, real estate developers and others for research they found unfavorable, even though it was meticulous—and he dreads the increased polarization.

A number of scientists responded almost immediately, and this built greater interest and momentum for the march, even while strengthening the case that this march, in fact, IS a very good idea.

For example, without directly referencing Young, Rush Holt, the president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), responded to this controversy in a powerful editorial in Science. After criticizing the Muslim ban in opposition to what is needed for science to flourish, he says what is “most troubling” is “policy-making that is based on ideological assertion rather than on verifiable evidence. Public officials citing ‘alternative facts’ leave scientists dismayed.” (emphasis added) This is important because science is an evidence-based process. Further, addressing concerns of scientists stepping into the political terrain, Holt states:

Taking action is the best course when science is threatened or when science can illuminate public issues. Scientists should not fool themselves with the misconception that politics is dirty compared to the scientific enterprise, and they should therefore avoid the fight. Nor should scientists think that by standing back and letting the facts speak for themselves, they allow reason to prevail and proponents of flawed policies to wilt.

A scientist must take great pains to prevent ideology, bias, or wishful thinking from contaminating the collecting or analyzing of evidence—that is, one must avoid politicizing the science. But it is a fallacy to say the converse is true. One need not avoid—indeed, should not avoid—applying relevant science in political or societal situations where it can help address problems. The need to maintain the purity of the majestic scientific enterprise should not be used as an excuse for inaction. (Emphasis added)

Overall, this call to act among scientists and those in defense of science can contribute to the movement needed to oust this regime. It should be supported and strengthened in its own right, and those active in the political battle to drive out this fascist regime should boldly popularize and bring into this the stand, NO! In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America, making the case for the urgent NECESSITY to drive out this regime, helping people draw conclusions on the qualitative character of how it is all part of and held together by a specific form of rule (fascism)—stressing the comprehensive nature of all this, and the need to defeat it as a regime. Projecting the actions of the scientists to other sections of society can also help further marshal and mobilize towards the NECESSITY/POSSIBILITY to oust this regime, a mood creating factor.

Other scientists, in responding to Young’s op-ed, drew upon the history of scientists in public life—like Albert Einstein speaking out against nuclear weapons—and called for a time similar to the 1960s when scientists were much more in the public eye and the public square.

Pulling the lens back, this political and intellectual ferment among scientists and those in defense of science is a very good thing—and can potentially contribute to prying open and creating a good atmosphere for many more profound questions to get opened up that people need science to evaluate: like how did we get into this situation with a fascist regime waging an all-out assault on science and the people; what does this have do with the system of capitalism-imperialism we live under; can you apply science to society to determine that; what kind of change—even what kind of revolution—is needed to bring about a world that is fit for humanity and where humanity itself can be a true caretaker of Earth; and what will that take in science and leadership?

 

 

---

 

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/483/steve-harvey-breaks-previous-record-for-bootlicking-en.html

Revolution #484 March 27, 2017

Steve Harvey Breaks Previous Record for Bootlicking and Belly Crawling

by Carl Dix

March 25, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Steve Harvey is a clown, and not in a good way. It wasn’t enough for him to make his personal trek to Trump Tower to kiss the ring of Donald Trump. Now he’s advising others that they should take up his bootlicking approach toward Trump. In response to a video by Snoop Dogg that satirized, in Snoop’s words, “That fucking clown in the White House,” Harvey’s advice to Snoop and others was: “You gotta respect the president.”

Given the money-grubbing, woman-using outlook in the putrid “advice books” Steve Harvey has put out, Harvey probably actually DOES look up to and respect Trump. But no one who cares about humanity should respect that fascist.

What reason is there to respect a man who bragged about grabbing women by the pussy; who has called for a Muslim ban; who has vowed to build a wall on the border with Mexico and to deport even more than the 2.5 million immigrants deported under Obama; who has promised to take the gloves off the police—police who have been caught on video murdering Black people again and again—and called Black Lives Matter a terrorist organization?

Maybe Harvey meant people should respect the office of the president, not the man? To that I say U.S. presidents have from the very founding of this country presided over horror after horror perpetrated on humanity—theft of the land and genocide of the native inhabitants, the enslavement of Black people and continually subjecting them to savage exploitation and oppression, wars of conquest beginning in Central America and the Caribbean and expanding throughout the world, and now devastating the environment of the very planet we live on and sending drone strikes that slaughter men, women, and children in countries in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa.

Harvey went on to say that Snoop and others had to be careful how they spoke of Trump because Trump’s people can use the government to come after their money or they could get targeted for having caused someone to attack Trump. Harvey is blaming Snoop in advance. And he’s saying that Snoop and others should keep their mouths shut, their heads down, and their asses covered while Trump’s fascist regime targets Muslims and Latinos; while he threatens to send the feds to “fix” the carnage in Chicago; while he calls media that won’t report his lies as the truth “enemies of the people;” and more.

I got one question for Steve Harvey: How did that work out in Nazi Germany?

 

 

 

---

 

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/483/carl-dix-farrakhan-says-you-can-make-a-deal-with-trump-en.html

Revolution #484 March 27, 2017

Farrakhan Says You Can Make a Deal With Trump; We Say Drive That Fascist Out of Office and Overthrow This Goddamn System!

by Carl Dix

March 25, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam ended his keynote speech at the NOI’s annual Saviours’ Day event this year by saying: “Why you [Black people] are afraid is you don’t see God’s hand in Donald Trump becoming president. ... God put him there to dismantle this house.” The house Trump is supposed to dismantle is the domination of the world by white people!

Earlier in his speech, Farrakhan said: “Be careful how you [referring to Black people] talk about the president—I talk, but I’m respectful. ... because if anything happens to Mr. Trump, these people [his white supporters] are gonna cut loose, and who you think they gonna cut loose on first—us [Black people].” Farrakhan also said it was time for Black people to separate from white people. “They [white people] are not gonna give you enough jobs, and they’ll never grant you justice. But with President Trump, you might be able to make a deal when the chastisement of God gets so severe.” Farrakhan even said Jim Brown was right to go meet with Trump because Trump is a powerful man and Brown is smart enough to make a deal with him.

This is bullshit. Farrakhan saying god put Trump in the White House to dismantle white world supremacy is like a Zionist leader of the Jewish community back in the day saying god put Adolf Hitler in charge of Germany in order to drive the Jews to Palestine!¹ God didn’t put Hitler in office—the imperialists in Germany did—and the Jews ended up being murdered. Trump WAS put in the White House—by the U.S. ruling class. He is on a mission, and it’s not one from god—it couldn’t be, since god doesn’t exist in the first place. It’s a mission to impose a fascist form of rule on this country.

The Trump/Pence regime has already begun to demonize and target group after group. Trump has asserted that the truth is whatever he says it is. He has attacked the media and threatened those who criticize him. Where Trump is headed is clear. He is aiming to reinstate open white supremacy; have the U.S. run amok all over the world; slam women “back into their place”; persecute Muslims, immigrants, and gay and trans people; and take away legal and political rights altogether. The Trump/Pence regime is fascist, and it must be driven out before it’s too late.

Farrakhan’s “advice” calls for Black people to betray other oppressed people who are feeling the lash of Trump’s program by leaving them out there on their own. And it disarms Black people in the face of the hammer the Trump/Pence regime will bring down on them and sets them up for the slaughter.

What kind of a deal can you make with a man on this kind of mission? What Farrakhan is saying is that Black people should aim for their piece of the pie in America, by looking to make a deal with Trump to get control of their own communities. And that to get to make that deal means staying on Trump’s good side. Standing aside and keeping quiet while other oppressed people are targeted in Trump’s fascist onslaught because if you speak out, you’ll come under attack too. And besides, it might mess up whatever deal you could work out with this powerful man.

And Farrakhan is putting this shit forward at a time when many, many people are being impelled into political life, resisting in ways they haven’t before and asking big questions about why things are the way they are, and what can be done about them. There is potential to build the kind of movement that is needed to end all the horror America enforces on the world, and Farrakhan advises Black people to stand aside from it and look for an opportunity to cut a deal to get their piece of the rock.

I know some supporters of Farrakhan will say I’m not being fair to the minister because there’s more that he has in mind than what he put out in his speech; that he didn’t lay everything out “because you can’t let the enemy know your full plan.” To them I say, a leader who has a “hidden plan” is out to use that plan to ride the backs of the masses of people. The Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) has a plan—making revolution and getting rid of this system and the exploitation and oppression it enforces on humanity. It puts its plan out to the masses so they can take it up, wield it and change history.

As Bob Avakian, the leader of the RCP, says:

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

There are two diametrically opposed outlooks here. Looking for a chance to get yours by grabbing a share of the exploitation and plunder of this system versus becoming part of the emancipators of humanity and acting to end all exploitation and oppression.

The Trump/Pence regime has a program for Black people: unleashing the police to kill and brutalize even more people, filling the jails even fuller, doling out a few jobs to bribe people into becoming enforcers of his clampdown, using its lackeys to spy on, confuse, divide, and crush anybody who says NO to all this. They aim to crush the struggle of Black people against their oppression, once and for all. There will be no deal with this regime that achieves anything good for Black people. Talk about maybe dealing with Trump “when the chastisement of God gets severe” amounts to looking to sign onto the Trump program when you think you can get the most out of it. This would be a program of getting in on the oppression of the Black masses.

Black people need to join in with all different kinds of people to drive this regime from power. And in driving out the regime, the aim is not to get things back to the way they were before, because the way things were before was no damn good. Billions of people throughout the world and millions of people in the U.S. suffered unnecessarily. The fight to drive out the regime that has even greater horrors in store for humanity needs to be taken up as part of bringing about an actual revolution that ends the suffering this system brings down on humanity, once and for all.

---

1. By the way, this analogy is also apt because Farrakhan plays a role today similar to that of the Zionists back then: they told their people not to fight against all oppression, but to sell themselves to imperialism as oppressors of others. And now the state of Israel brutally serves the U.S. in the dirty work of its oppression of not only the Middle East, but whole world. [back]

 

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

 

 

---

 

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/483/teach-in-the-refuse-fascism-call-en.html

Revolution #484 March 27, 2017

A RefuseFascism.org Teach-In

What is fascism . . . What it means for humanity that the Trump/Pence Regime is fascist And, Why It Must Be Driven Out.

A talk by Andy Zee

Advisory Board of RefuseFascism.org

 

Updated March 30, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

This is a talk given by Andy Zee of the Advisory Board of RefuseFascism.org, at the teach-in in New York City, March 17. It has been slightly edited for publication.

Thank you and welcome Live Stream and video audience. Tonight I am going to take some time to get deeply into the Refuse Fascism Call to Action. Then, we will have a discussion and then the local chapter has a plan for some smaller discussions, which will not be livestreamed.

It is my intention that this talk provide a deeper understanding of what we face with the Trump/Pence regime and what we need to do to stop it. This talk should spark other teach-ins, dialogues, salons, forums, short YouTubes as well as provide impetus for planning and organizing to develop the ways and means to drive out the regime. So, let’s begin.

A Call to Action:

NO! In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America! Drive Out the Trump/Pence regime!

The Trump/Pence regime is a Fascist Regime. Not insult or exaggeration, this is what it is. For the future of humanity and the planet, we, the people, must drive this regime out.

Donald Trump and Mike Pence have assembled a vicious cabal that has put forth positions and begun initiatives which demonstrate that they fully intend to shred political and social norms with catastrophic consequence. Because Trump has his finger on the nuclear trigger, the Trump/Pence regime is more dangerous to the world than even Hitler.

So begins the Call to Action of Refuse Fascism. Today we are going to deeply dig into the import and significance of this Call to Action.

After the Call makes the case for how and why the Trump/Pence regime is fascist and what this fascism means including why it poses a grave threat to humanity; it shows the process through which fascism develops; it sharply puts forth why people must not normalize or collaborate with a fascist regime; and, then in conclusion, the Call puts forward four broad objectives and tasks to stop it by driving out the regime. So I am going to break down the Call to discuss the fascism of the Trump/Pence regime; the process through which it unfolds; the danger of normalization, conciliation and collaboration; and the program of Refuse Fascism in the bold strokes of the four objectives at the Call’s conclusion.

The First of these Objectives is that OUR SINGLE UNIFYING MISSION MUST BE TO DRIVE OUT THE Trump/Pence regime.

Today we will answer: Why is this, DRIVING OUT THE REGIME, the unifying mission and objective of Refuse Fascism?

And, why must this become the goal for the millions of people who are agonized over what the Trump/Pence administration is doing... for the millions who took to the streets in the largest protest in U.S. history on January 21, the day after Trump’s inauguration.

And, in that context,

Why is the NO! and why is the Refuse Fascism Call to Action, a key guide to understanding what it is that humanity faces with the Trump/Pence regime and a broad framework of orientation and principles for stopping this fascist regime by getting to and achieving the single objective of ousting Trump/Pence from power. The Call, without mincing words, starkly puts forward what is at stake should we fail to do so.

The short answer to WHY is because they are bringing fascism. This is not hype or exaggeration, but what it is. And fascism when it is fully consolidated leaves little to no recourse for change.

A vignette from the Atlantic Monthly:

Stephanie Delgado-Garcia had volunteered for Clinton in Pennsylvania and went to vote with her formerly undocumented immigrant parents. She took a picture of her mother wearing a Hillary button in the voting booth. “I felt like I lost my country that night,” she said. “Here was a man who essentially told the American public that the America I thought was great was in fact broken for making my story possible,” she said.

Stephanie is not alone in her sense of loss. It’s personal for her, yet its cause and solution is societal. A week after the election I was at a brunch meet-up in Harlem and a older man from the neighborhood said that he couldn’t leave his house for three days after the election and didn’t look or speak to another person for the whole week until that brunch at a local restaurant. Mental health professionals report an increase in people seeking help from the trauma of the elections.

But this is not the worst of it. In Phoenix, Arizona, Guadalupe García de Rayos, who came to the U.S. when she was 14 and has lived here for 22 years and is now a 36-yr old mother of two children was arrested inside the U.S. Immigration office after she had reported to them, just as she had been doing every month for six years.The ICE agents had to bust their way through 100 immigrant rights defenders who had mobilized to defend the immigrants. They used their bodies to block the van, but it got through and Guadalupe was driven to the border and sent back to Mexico.

Millions of families now live in terror. Native Americans defending their tribal lands at Standing Rock, North Dakota—struggling in the cold of winter to prevent the water of the Missouri River from being poisoned by an oil spill—Native peoples who through their heroic and just struggle inspired thousands to join them were shut down by the Trump/Pence regime as the DAPL pipeline was approved.

Then, and this is crucial to understand, feeling unleashed by the new Trump/Pence fascist regime, the North Dakota state government passed a draconian law that basically says it is OK for drivers to run over protesters who are blocking a road in non-violent civil disobedience. Thirteen other states passed similar laws including Arizona, where in February the state senate passed a bill that could have allowed the state to seize your house, car, any assets you have if you take part in a political protest that the police call a riot—before you are convicted of any crime. THIS IS A COMING ATTRACTION OF THE FUTURE THAT LIFE UNDER FASCISM WILL BE. 

Yes, Fascism can happen here. It has begun. A fascist regime is in power. With the Republican Party in control of both houses of Congress, in control of the majority of most state legislatures and governorships, and soon possibly in dominant control of the Supreme Court, the danger is real. And, let’s be clear the Republican Party has been a fascist party for a long time now. And, as we will discuss later as we dig into the Refuse Fascism Call, the Democrats will normalize and collaborate with the regime because keeping the system going is more important to them than what this regime will mean for the masses of people and the future of humanity.

The anguish people feel is just. The actions of millions righteous. But, if people don’t know what they are up against, the nature of the beast we confront, then their actions will fall short of what is necessary.

If you treat a cancer with only painkillers and don’t get rid of the cells that are mutating and destroying your body, it will destroy your body. We face a political cancer. It must be driven from power.

PEOPLE ACT ON WHAT THEY UNDERSTAND. The KEY to opening up the possibility of Driving Out the Trump/Pence regime is how people understand the reality we face. If we understand the necessity we face with this draconian fascist form of rule, then, with leadership, people in their masses can find the will and the way to act to drive this cancer from power.

The Refuse Fascism Call is the sharpest analysis of what has changed with the assumption to power of the Trump/Pence regime. There is nothing else that identifies the problem as fascism so sharply and succinctly, and nothing else that provides a way forward commensurate with what humanity faces.

The Call is controversial. It is not what most people are already thinking and doing—even as we have seen that the Call really resonates with what people do know about the Trump/Pence regime. And, the Call reflects a different approach from how most people conceive of building a movement.

Typical “movement thought and process” is you figure out what most people already want to protest around and call a protest. Then repeat. It doesn’t matter whether your protest is actually addressing the problem people face, or if it will lead people to better understand that problem, or if it will enable them to see more clearly what will redress or solve the problem.

The point I am making is that if you tell people only what they already know, you will leave them, and the terrible situation they are in, right where they already are.

What we are doing with this Call is tapping into the huge reservoir of people who feel, as Eddy Grant once sang, that “deep in my heart, I abhor” what this regime represents, and who have stood up, who continue to protest, and it leads them and millions more to see the nature of the beast we are up against and therefore, what must be done.

Let’s go back to the CALL and see what it says about the Fascist Regime:

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

Drive Out the Trump/Pence regime!

The Trump/Pence regime is a Fascist Regime. Not insult or exaggeration, this is what it is. For the future of humanity and the planet, we, the people, must drive this regime out.

Donald Trump and Mike Pence have assembled a vicious cabal that has put forth positions and begun initiatives which demonstrate that they fully intend to shred political and social norms with catastrophic consequence. Because Trump has his finger on the nuclear trigger, the Trump/Pence regime is more dangerous to the world than even Hitler.

Let’s stop here—TRUMP is even MORE dangerous than Hitler... Trump has said... if we have nuclear weapons, why don’t we use them? He has said, then “let’s have a nuclear arms race”... this at a moment when tensions around the world are extremely tense from the Mideast to North Korea.

His strategic adviser, Stephen Bannon, who Trump has put on the main committee that deals with matters of the national security, the National Security Council, who calls himself an economic nationalist—with his Alt-Right platform, Breitbart... and let’s dispense with euphemisms, he is a FASCIST with a program that echoes very closely the Nazi Party, that he sees a war that could last decades between Judeo Christian Civilization and Islam, which is thinly veiled as a war of the WHITE north.

Yes, Trump is more dangerous. Hitler could only dream of such a weapon.

Continuing from the Call:

Fascism has direction and momentum. Dissent is piece by piece criminalized. The truth is bludgeoned. Group after group is demonized and targeted along a trajectory that leads to real horrors. All of this has already begun under the Trump Regime. History has shown that fascism must be stopped before it becomes too late.

... (I’m going to skip a paragraph)

In the first weeks of the Trump/Pence regime they have begun subverting the separation of powers, the separation of Church and State, called for a new nuclear arms race, demonized the press, dismissed the very concept of truth substituting their own fabricated “alternative facts.” It can already be said of Trump/Pence that “first they came for” the Muslims, then the Mexicans, then all refugees, then women, then Black and Latino people, LGBTQ persons, the environment, and anyone who doesn’t conform or submit to their vision and plan for a nation cohered around white supremacy and a political form of Christian fundamentalism, that should rightly be called Christian Fascism.

Three points:

[1] Fascism has direction and momentum: Dissent is piece by piece criminalized. The truth is bludgeoned. I have spoken some about this but we should be clear that there is a method to this madness—destroy all credibility in what is objectively true, make everything a matter of opinion and narrative, create a narrative of an aggrieved section of the people—the true Americans (read white people who get behind Trump’s America First fascist movement, and those people from other groups who can be compelled to fight and die to defend Trump's vision of America while demonizing and preparing for war against every “OTHER” group of people), and ENFORCE this by [a] criminalizing dissent—including having the state (that is the police) lock people up and worse for what has been, at least formally, a protected right to free speech; and [b] mobilizing his mob to beat people up and “take them out on a stretcher.” Make no mistake: the murder of a man from India at a bar after work in Kansas, is already happening and is a forewarning of what is to come.

[2] The Call says: “First they came for the Muslims, the Mexicans, then all refugees and immigrants...”

THIS THEY HAVE BEGUN. Communities are terrorized... Families torn apart. But, this is madness with an objective—to demonize, drive people to live in the margins in constant fear, and more fundamentally to drive millions out, if not actually throw them out... And at the same time, to enlist the whole country in a morality and ethos of complicity to stay silent or to join in.

The groundwork was laid before... “If you see something say something.” Mass deportations—three million deported under Obama... but, the program of Trump/Pence is a leap beyond.

Let’s be clear of yet another method to the madness—so that we can understand the way that the whole society gets re-molded with fascism. Note the step-by-step progression... of “First they came for the Muslims... then they came for the Mexicans.” What happens: First, the “undesirables,” to the fascists that is, get demonized, driven under ground, locked up and thrown out, if not ultimately worse. Then, everyone else who goes along with this becomes part of the problem—complicit and paving the way for a whole society to be a part of fascist order. And, three, all this prepares the people for aggression and war against people all over the world to assert American Empire in a different way than has been the dominant way that the U.S. has gone about this.

[3] That paragraph ends with the vision of a “nation cohered around white supremacy and a political form of Christian fundamentalism, that should rightly be called Christian Fascism.”

Now you might think that Donald Trump, a lifelong vile sexual predator, and the Christian Fundamentalist movement are complete opposites. But, what they share is a thoroughly misogynist view of women—a view and horrific practices that objectify, degrade, control, brutalize, and cost women not only the ability to live full lives as people, but even their very lives.

So, we need to understand the roots of what has coalesced in the Trump/Pence regime.

What we are dealing with is not just another really repressive and reactionary Republican administration, not principally a vile narcissist with a twitter feed with a bunch of racist billionaires surrounding him, but a regime that has brought together what has been developing—fascist movements, white supremacist KKK/militia and Tea Party movements that overlap with a huge Christian Fascist movement—that have been taking root inside of and outside of the power structures for several decades now, which have been brought together under the Trump/Pence regime that will codify—that is cement—into law a fascist America and change life as we have known it in ways that you can’t imagine. Donald Trump has become the vehicle to political power for a whole ugly range of fascist movements that have been growing with their separate media, culture, arms and militia, as well as being infused up into the military and especially various formations of special forces.

Stephen Bannon has said that America is not just a nation with an economy, but at the center core of what “we believe” is that “We are a nation with a culture and reason for being.” And, this culture is white, Christian against all others. This is why immigration is central to the start of the Trump/Pence fascist regime. And, we should be clear that they will work to enlist Black people and immigrants into their fascist America as enforcers here and around the world of this horrific program by making these the only choices to avoid destitution, incarceration, or deportation, or even worse.

Christian Fascism and Donald Trump may not be a perfect fit, but they don’t have to be.

For an in depth understanding of this whole process I recommend that you get into the “The Truth About Right-Wing Conspiracy... And Why Clinton and the Democrats Are No Answer” by Bob Avakan, the leader of the RCP who has developed a new synthesis of communism.

All of this comes together in the next paragraph of the Call, which concentrates the most defining features of fascism... and as such ties together what I have been speaking about:

Fascism is not just a gross combination of horrific reactionary policies. It is a qualitative change in how society is governed. Fascism foments and relies on xenophobic nationalism, racism, misogyny, and the aggressive re-institution of oppressive “traditional values.” In Trump’s election campaign he encouraged and fed on the threat and use of violence to build a movement and come to power. In his inaugural address he pledged allegiance only to this movement. What is crucial to understand is that once in power fascism essentially eliminates traditional democratic rights.                                

The Trump/Pence regime has brought together under the banner of “Make America Great” all of these things: racism, xenophobia (fear and hatred of others), hatred of women and differently gendered people, a re-institution of traditional values... but what is essential to understand is that this will create tremendous misery for masses of people here, and around the world, and what is most important to understand is that with fascism’s basic elimination of what have been democratic rights—the right to dissent, not papering over the repression that normally goes on against opposition forces in this society—what fascism discards in traditional rights, will make it immeasurably harder to fight for any kind of better future. In most countries where fascism has been fully consolidated, it has only been removed by an outside force, such as defeat in war.

So I have taken some time to go into the sections of the Call that succinctly describe fascism. To put this another way, fascism is a qualitative change in how a capitalist/imperialist society is governed, including what the societal norms have been—which means what the values, morality, and customary way that people relate to each other and to different groups in society has been. The Trump ethic of bullying and to the victors belong the spoils—whether in how predatory men like him relate to women, or white people relate to everyone else, or his doctrine of war—which is really straight up undisguised colonialism—and I quote Mein Trumpf: “to the victors belong the spoils.”

Fascism means the virtual elimination of basic democratic rights, including the right to dissent. Yes, such rights have been severely limited and curtailed for whole sections of the people from the foundation of this country, and increasingly so (with 2.3 million still incarcerated as of last year, and over 3 million people deported during Obama's administration), but fascism, what Trump/Pence are preparing to bring down on society, is on a whole other level.

Fascism uses violence of the mob and of the state to demonize, attack, destroy and divide people to accomplish these objectives. Fascism makes the whole society complicit in horrific immoral crimes. A whole society of what people have rightly called “Good Germans” referring to the millions of German people who looked the other way as first communists and radicals were hauled away, then gypsies, then people with disabilities, then the Jews were rounded up and slaughtered.

Not only does the Refuse Fascism Call to Act starkly put forth what is the essence of fascism, which we have just gone into, but it goes into what kind of struggle is necessary.

So, I am going to go back to a crucial paragraph that I left out that comes early in the Call:

After it says:

Fascism has direction and momentum. Dissent is piece by piece criminalized. The truth is bludgeoned. Group after group is demonized and targeted along a trajectory that leads to real horrors. All of this has already begun under the Trump Regime. History has shown that fascism must be stopped before it becomes too late.

The next paragraph reads:

Millions of people, outraged by this regime, took to the streets delivering a stinging rebuke to Trump the day after the inauguration. Protest and resistance continues against the many attacks on the people by the Trump/Pence administration. This must grow broader, deeper, and more determined. This resistance is righteous and necessary, but it is not sufficient. We must recognize that the character of fascism is that it can absorb separate acts of resistance while continually throwing the opposition off balance by rapidly moving its agenda forward. The Trump/Pence regime will repeatedly launch new highly repressive measures, eventually clamping down on all resistance and remaking the law... IF THEY ARE NOT DRIVEN FROM POWER.

This is a critical paragraph in this call. I want to highlight Two Points:

[1] Millions took to the streets and millions are still agonizing over what this regime means for the future and want to act. And, there are thousands, who continue to act.

Everyone who has a heart for the people, who recognizes the danger of this regime should welcome and uphold righteous acts of resistance and protest. This resistance must grow broader, deeper, and more determined. Refuse Fascism should unite with such resistance, talk and work with people, as well as at times, call actions itself so that the resistance involves more and more people, so that it reaches into sections of the people who have not as yet been active—this is one of the reasons why the Refuse Fascism Tour that is now in Texas at SXSW is traveling the country and why we need more such tours, and the protest needs to become more determined. If the future depends on what people do now, and it does, our actions should reflect that. Determination is not just tactics employed in a protest, but the serious commitment to resist until victory is won.

The Call next says: “This resistance is righteous and necessary, but it is not sufficient.” And goes on to give the reason for this:

... the character of fascism is that it can absorb separate acts of resistance while continually throwing the opposition off balance by rapidly moving its agenda forward. The Trump/Pence regime will repeatedly launch new highly repressive measures, eventually clamping down on all resistance and remaking the law... IF THEY ARE NOT DRIVEN FROM POWER.

This identifies a crucial understanding that even if particular measures are partially rolled back or stymied, even if Trump sends out nice tweets and reads from a teleprompter for an evening... even if there are partial pushbacks on one or another front... as long as the regime has its hands on power, they can move very quickly to change the rules of the game. If we just look at the way they summarily dismissed all of the U.S. Attorneys from the Obama administration on a Friday morning calling for them to be out by the end of the day, whether or not there was a replacement or a crucial case pending; or the way they fired the Acting Attorney General when she defied Trump, gives you a glimpse of why and how they can in an instant change the rules of the game. For now, they are reluctantly and only more or less “obeying” the rulings that have stayed the Travel Ban—but they fully intend to make this the law.

Stephen Miller, Attorney General Sessions’ former staff member and now key adviser to Trump—a person, by the way, who is a protégé of and recommended by David Horowitz, a reactionary fascist who has made it his life’s work to purge the universities of critical thinking and progressive thought—said: “The end result of this, though, is that our opponents, the media and the whole world will soon see as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned.” (Emphasis added)

If you don’t get that what we are dealing with is not just another really repressive and reactionary Republican administration, but an emerging fascist regime, your fight will be rearguard—your fight will be only in reaction to whatever they do, and misleading people into what will be a disaster.

If you don’t get this nature of what we are up against you will be pulled to other easier solutions other than what it will take for the people to put a stop to this and why stopping this regime requires that the people be mobilized to Drive Out the Regime.

Instead, you will wait it out, or work for the next election, or look to just create a safe space—an enclave to escape and hope against reality to survive; or, you will fight the good fight and even see this as a great opportunity to “build your movement” against one or another or even many abuses... UNTIL ONE DAY THE Trump/Pence regime SLAMS THE DOOR SHUT.

The Trump/Pence regime IS IN POWER. That has real meaning and stakes. They have a riled up social base and they have the Republi-Fascist Party in power in Congress and a majority of State Houses. If that is the case, why do we say that it is still possible to STOP them? That it is Possible to Drive Them Out. Because there is a WINDOW for us to act NOW. That window is open, not wide, but open, and it could slam shut crushing and much more thoroughly closing off the possibility to put a stop to the fascist program.

Let’s go to the next section of the Call:

Don’t Normalize... Don’t Accommodate... Don’t Conciliate...

Don’t Collaborate...

There is method to Trump’s madness that echoes Hitler. Fascism advances in stages through outrage, shock and intimidation, followed by brief periods of normalization where people accommodate to the new situation the regime has imposed.

 After the election, Obama said of Trump: “We are now all rooting for his success.” NO! If Trump succeeds, humanity loses. Bernie Sanders has said that he will work with Trump on jobs or where they agree. NO! If you work with fascists you normalize the road to horror.

This is not just a pendulum swing Democrat to Republican, but a regime that is moving to establish a fascist order under the signboard of “America First.” Acting as if the election in 2018 or 2020 is the way to deal with this regime is folly, betraying a lack of understanding of just how fast, furious, and profoundly this regime will change the rules, cement its rule, destroy lives and crush spirits.

You cannot try to “wait things out.” Those who lived through Nazi Germany and sat on the sidelines, looking on as Hitler demonized, criminalized, and eventually rounded up one group after another, became shameful collaborators with monstrous crimes.

Let’s break this down:

» FASCISM HAS A TRAJECTORY—it is a serious restructuring and remaking of society while still within the framework of the system of capitalism and imperialism and for the objective of strengthening that system as seen by one faction, which itself is fractious—divided and fighting amongst themselves even as more fundamentally they move with haste to implement their program—a fractious, fascist faction of a powerful section of the ruling class who now have control of all three branches of the Federal government and the majority of state governments, and, as we saw in the election, they have a huge base in the police forces, the border patrol, and significant influence in the intelligence apparatus and the military.

Yet, it is extremely important to recognize that, even as they have captured the Presidency and established a regime of ghoulish thugs, nonetheless, to hammer their full agenda, to implement their full fascist vision and program, they are not on a clear playing field. It will be a fight that they have to wage... which they are doing—seizing initiative everyday even as they create new problems for themselves as they bulldoze ahead. It is important to learn from history and from what they have said and what they are doing that the regime will unfold their program in steps but with an overall pace and method of unrelenting shock and awe. There is method to the madness. But, most important, we need to understand that this is a fight that the Trump/Pence regimes has to wage in opposition to:            

» Struggle within the ranks of the rulers... They must target their opposites grouped mainly in the Democratic Party, but not only... and, as the section I just read sharply makes clear, for the Democrats, preserving the system is more important than stopping fascism. This struggle is sharp: Think about the chant “Lock her up” or maybe the Second Amendment people will take care of it...

» The fascist regime, even as it attempts to shatter previous world relations and norms, nonetheless does so in a situation of real world events that are beyond their control. There are many other players on the field.

» Even natural disasters can impact (Katrina) but even more, the actions of other forces who aren’t in power e.g., from reactionaries (such as ISIS), to the righteous struggle of people around the world (such as the Arab Spring).

» And, in what is decisive and central for us here in Refuse Fascism but really for all the people who want to see this regime gone, they must implement their full agenda in relation to the people of this country (and the world). And what the people do and don’t do in relationship to the measures they are taking and in response to their regime. What the people are led to do, what we lead them to do, to be able understand what the problem is that they face and how to respond, will have a lot to do about whether or not the regime is able to force people to comply with its edicts and how it distracts, bribes, and divides people.

Every section of society will be “in the field” putting forward different programs and viewpoints and advocating different courses of action.

This is the ground, the field, the terrain, that the Regime must contend with and it is the field that we are acting on—working to lead people to understand in very basic terms the problem and act in a way that can win—by driving out this fascist regime.

Back to the CALL:

Fascism advances in stages through outrage, shock and intimidation, followed by brief periods of normalization where people accommodate to the new situation the regime has imposed.

I am going to just read the Bold Face...

If you work with fascists you normalize the road to horror.

This is not just a pendulum swing Democrat to Republican, but a regime that is moving to establish a fascist order under the signboard of “America First.”

You cannot try to “wait things out.

Obama once again led the way in demobilizing and ideologically disarming people. The fact is, for the same underlying reasons that give rise to the move from one faction of the rulers—the Republicans—to embrace a full out fascist program, is also the underlying reason that Obama and the Democrats could not and would not meet the real needs of the people who see them as representing their interests. This is why there are still no jobs for the masses of people, why Obama deported three million people, why mass incarceration stayed at genocidal levels. There are larger forces and imperatives of their system and empire that compel this. Then you have people like Bernie Sanders, and there are others, who want to sit down at the table to work with the fascists once again for bribes and jobs. Was it OK to work on re-building the factories and infrastructure in Germany in the early 1930s? Hitler did put people to work. But at what cost to humanity?

I can’t take the time here to discuss the media in any depth—all the ways and reasons they are under attack from Trump—fundamentally, as indicated earlier, to create a population that can’t think critically, that believes the narrative of its choice, all the while the regime creates a new reality that one day you MUST accept. And, while there is some resistance from the media, including a few real stands of principle, the norm is to treat this just as more partisan politics—with a nut case on one side who can’t resist mouthing off in person or on Twitter, all the while disarming people to understand the real deal.

There must be total non-compliance with this regime. Period. Scientists are now furiously copying scientific data so that a science-denying regime doesn’t destroy years of human knowledge even as they are rapidly moving to reverse even the grossly insufficient measures that have been taken thus far in the last few decades to protect the environment.

Last, on this section warning against normalization that leads to collaboration... be clear that is a slippery slope that gets fast quick, and the longer this regime is in power, the slicker and steeper and the faster and the more difficult it will get to put on the brakes and to get off the track of cooperating with a regime that is illegitimate, immoral and a mortal threat to humanity and the planet.

Once again, from the Call:

Those who lived through Nazi Germany and sat on the sidelines, looking on as Hitler demonized, criminalized, and eventually rounded up one group after another, became shameful collaborators with monstrous crimes.

At this point the CALL to Action says:

All of this is what renders the Trump/Pence regime illegitimate and a grave threat to people all over the world. Therefore, we resolve:

[1] Our single unifying mission must be to Drive Out the Trump/Pence regime.

[2] We must manifest the power of NO! everywhere: on signs, billboards, walls, social media and the news. NO! In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America must resound.

[3] Every outrage committed by this regime must be met with greater and greater resistance.

[4] We must ORGANIZE: working with all our creativity and determination toward the time when millions of people can be moved to fill the streets of cities and towns day after day and night after night, declaring this whole regime illegitimate—Demanding, and Not Stopping, Until the Trump/Pence regime Is Driven from Power.

I have been speaking to the single unifying mission of Driving Out the Regime throughout this talk and will say a few more things when we get to point four on organizing for the kind of situation where the regime can be driven out. First I want to speak to Point 2: We must manifest the power of NO! everywhere: on signs, billboards, walls, social media and the news. NO! In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America must resound. And, also, in this context the importance of getting out this Call to Action.

Through the getting the NO! known everywhere in this country... and through getting this Call wherever people are questioning, agonizing standing up, fighting back, resisting Trump and Pence... having it discussed and debated in and on the media and social media... in forums in the universities, the Town Squares and Town Halls as well as the classrooms and religious institutions... All of this spreading the NO! And Spreading the Call! When COMBINED with organizing, organizing people into Refuse Fascism, including uniting with struggles, as I discussed earlier, including Refuse Fascism itself calling for specific mass resistance and outpourings... all of this contributes to broadly raising consciousness, changing how people think, even if initially by introducing a new, different, and more accurate understanding of the problem and the way out... all of this contributes to that one single unifying mission to DRIVE OUT THE Trump/Pence regime because we Refuse to Accept a Fascist America—not just for people here in the U.S., but in the name of humanity.

All of this... together with things that are beyond our control, things that develop in the world everyday, some that the Trump regime does and the resistance that their actions call forth—as well as things that they or we don’t initiate but which every force has to respond to... all of this is part of the process of change... how people see the problem we face—what they think—and therefore what they see as necessary and possible to do.

Once again, people act on what they understand. Especially so when they face extreme situations. And, they need leadership—they need people who see the problem and the way out and who ACT and Lead on that understanding.

I've given the example of a fire. You know, if you are in a burning building, or you are just outside a building that's on fire, and don't know anything about it, about fire that is, and its properties, you could commit a big mistake. You could just start running around through the building, not knowing that most people die in fires of smoke inhalation.

But if you were a professional firefighter or you had learned something about this, you would understand that the first thing you've got to do is see if you can find some water, wrap it around a cloth and wrap it around your face and nose, and wrap similar pieces around other people's faces who are trapped in the fire, and then crawl out, getting below the level of the smoke since it rises. Because most people die of smoke inhalation and suffocation in that way. And yes, you would have to keep your eye out to be sure that the burning ceiling didn't fall in, or the floor didn't collapse. So those are things that you would have to know. But if you had experience in this you would have a chance to get people out of a desperate situation. But if you don't know what you are facing, you could make a grave error or run in terror when there are people who could be saved.

So that's by analogy. Right now people are acting against what the Trump/Pence regime is doing. They hate his despicable character. But they don't yet, en masse, meaning in their millions, understand the qualitative changes that this regime is going to bring and why only driving it out can bring it to a halt. Which is why they do protest, but why we are in a struggle to get people to understand what they face and therefore why we have to building up to the time when millions do want to act in such a way that they can drive the regime out.

This underscores why we need to get more deeply into the substance of the Call and do so with the kinds of questions that come up. Here I will speak to one of these questions—that it’s beyond the pale to compare Trump to Hitler, that Sunsara Taylor wrote about on revcom.us, “Why It’s Not Just Right, but Highly Illuminating and Very Necessary to Compare Trump to Hitler.” (I recommend the article and going to revcom.us everyday.) She got this from a reactionary, Tucker Carlson, but we hear this all the time from people who do want to resist Trump. What do they say:

» Don’t say that because it turns some people off—never mind if it is an important analogy that clarifies what we face and the stakes. But, why does it turn people off?

» Because it makes them uncomfortable? Why? What is the thinking behind their discomfort and does their thinking correspond to reality—to what the Trump/Pence regime actually is and will do? Does it help a patient if the doctor doesn’t tell them the truth about the disease they have and enlist them in the process of fighting the disease? No, it doesn’t.                                   

» Making the comparison with Hitler forces people to confront the enormity of the horrific future that this could mean... it’s unthinkable, not in their experience, not what the good people on CNN/MSNBC and their Facebook feed are leading them to think about. Denial of reality leads to paralysis and/or complicity.

» And/or some people who begin to see the truth that we face—fascism—don’t want to confront the logic of where this will lead and what they should do in the face of that horror—the changes they should make to their lives and work to stop this. If you wait till it really gets bad to disrupt your life and act, it could well be too late.

» And/or those who know a little, or even a good deal of history, they sometimes get hung up on the surprising fact that this is not Germany, that it is not 1933, and that the development of fascism in the U.S. is taking place here and now and not then and there... In short, they are not able to drill down to the essence of what fascism is and pull back the lens to see the larger picture.

Once you do that, you can see how eerily fitting the parallels between Hitler and Trump/Pence are... and how much there is to learn from the analogy and the history.

Fascism has been developing in the U.S. over decades and is now coalesced in this regime. Yes, fascism comes to America wrapped in the American Flag, America First, and the Bible... (once again I recommend reading “The Truth About Right-Wing Conspiracy... And Why Clinton and the Democrats Are No Answer” and The Coming Civil War and Repolarization in the Present Era by BA).

I spoke earlier to the third point of the three-part program at the end of the Call: Every outrage committed by this regime must be met with greater and greater resistance.

Here, just a few comments on the fourth point: once again,

We must ORGANIZE: working with all our creativity and determination toward the time when millions of people can be moved to fill the streets of cities and towns day after day and night after night, declaring this whole regime illegitimate—Demanding, and Not Stopping, Until the Trump/Pence regime Is Driven from Power.

If this happens, then the whole political landscape would be dramatically transformed, every faction within the established power structure would be forced to respond—and all this could lead to a situation in which this fascist regime is driven from office.

This is what we are aiming for. The key to it is understanding the necessity we face and then, on that basis, organizing, organizing, organizing—bringing forward the people who see this, to work and struggle together, to develop the plans that can unite with the many, many people who yearn for this nightmare of the Trump/Pence fascist regime to be gone, to find the pathways and the leaps to building the struggle ultimately of millions who have the determination to not stop until the battle is won, to be in the streets in their millions creating such a political crisis that the ways and means are found to boot this regime out of power.

We must have our sights clearly on this objective—spreading the NO! Uniting with struggles that are going on—helping to make them broader, deeper, and more determined, organizing people and raising the funds so that organizers can be freed up, so that signs and stickers and billboards can be paid for, building the organizational capacity to really reach the millions who need to be reached and brought into a great struggle to oust the regime.

Join with Refuse Fascism, reject the politics of hatred and cruelty, racism and misogyny, xenophobia and war for empire against other peoples around the world, think and reject the no-nothing anti-scientific bullshit of this regime—from Trump’s lies to Mike Pence’s biblical literalist repressive future. Sign and circulate The Call... and as The Refuse Fascism’s Call to Action concludes:

Let it not be said that we did not move heaven and earth to drive out this regime. This must be a moment in history when millions stand together with conviction and courage, overcoming fear and uncertainty, to resist and say NO! Not just for ourselves, but in the name of humanity.

Drive Out the Trump/Pence regime!

 

 

---

 

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/484/high-stakes-debate-trump-vs-deep-state-or-battle-over-trump-fascist-takeover-en.html

Revolution #484 March 27, 2017

A High-Stakes Debate:
Trump vs. the "Deep State"? Or Ruling Class Battle Over Trump's Fascist Takeover?

March 27, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Since taking power, the Trump/Pence regime has unleashed a near daily “blitzkrieg” of extremely reactionary measures aimed at rapidly consolidating their fascist rule, and radically reshaping the U.S. government and society and threatening the world in horrendous ways.

In response, Trump’s critics and opponents within the government and the ruling class, mainly grouped around the Democrats, have responded with a stream of charges, investigations, and press exposés, often driven by anonymous leaks of classified information. These have thwarted some of Trump’s moves (for example, forcing the resignation of Mike Flynn, Trump’s pick as White House national security adviser). Ongoing FBI and congressional investigations of possible Russian interference in the U.S. election and possible collusion by the Trump team have, one Republican congressman said, put a cloud over the new administration. The New York Times reported on March 16 an “unprecedented” level of leaks and “open institutional conflict.”

The Trump cabal has struck back, in part by condemning these leaks, investigations, and critical news coverage as attempts by an unelected “deep state” to thwart the will of the people who legitimately elected Trump president. This concept, mainly associated with radical critics of U.S. actions around the world, generally holds that a “deep state” exists within government made up of career bureaucrats working in secret in powerful institutions like the CIA, the NSA, the State Department, and the military, wielding power unchecked by elected officials.

The High-Stakes Debate Over the “Deep State”

Many others who oppose Trump, from different vantage points and with different objectives, have weighed in on the “deep state” debate—does one exist? What does or doesn’t it have to do with stopping Trump? Right now there are contending camps among liberals and progressives which are profoundly wrong and deeply paralyzing at a moment when millions need to act decisively against the unprecedented danger the Trump/Pence regime represents for humanity and the planet.

Some liberals see the cascade of leaks and high-level opposition to Trump not as a “deep state,” but as the traditional and legitimate institutional checks of democracy that will render Trump an insignificant “blip” in U.S. history.

Others are rooting for the CIA, Pentagon, and other wings of the so-called “deep state” as the best hope to stop Trump. “Talking Points Memo” founder and blogger Josh Marshall writes: “Let’s hope there’s a deep state, and if there is that they have their shit together.” The staggering toll of the war crimes committed by these institutions all over the world in the interests of U.S. capitalism-imperialism is apparently beneath notice to people like Marshall.

Still others condemn the leaking of secret, unverified claims and charges by “deep state” intelligence agencies, which they see as an equal or even greater danger to humanity and threat to “democracy” than Trump/Pence. For instance, journalist Glenn Greenwald has tweeted: “Trump presidency is dangerous. CIA/Deep State abuse of spy powers to subvert elected Govt is dangerous.”

There Is No “Deep State,” But There Is a Dictatorship of the Capitalist Ruling Class

The very real phenomena of secret intelligence gathering, political assaults or propaganda campaigns driven by high-level leaks repeated by the media, and deeply entrenched reactionary interests do not prove the existence of a “deep state” that covertly dominates the elected parts of the state. These and the many other towering crimes committed by the U.S. government are the acts of a dictatorship of the capitalist-imperialist ruling class, which encompasses all branches of the state and the government—elected and unelected. The aim and purpose of this state is to advance the interests of the bourgeois class and maintain and ensure the functioning of the capitalist-imperialist system from which this state has sprung and on which it rests.

Elections and the mechanisms of democracy do not change the dictatorial essence of this state. As the revolutionary communist leader Bob Avakian has succinctly put it, “The essence of what exists in the U.S. is not democracy but capitalism-imperialism and political structures to enforce that capitalism-imperialism. What the U.S. spreads around the world is not democracy, but imperialism and political structures to enforce that imperialism.”

It is the state, pure and simple, which has carried out every crime from the genocidal wars to exterminate Native Americans, to the expansion and defense of slavery and the ongoing oppression of Black people, to the wars whose toll in just the past 30 years of “peace” reaches into the millions and millions. Mystifying this distorts what these conflicts actually represent.

Not Deep State vs. Trump, But Ruling Class Battle Over the Form of Bourgeois Dictatorship

This capitalist-imperialist dictatorship can take different forms:

Liberal bourgeois democracy, such as that represented by Clinton and Obama, and fascism, such as that represented by the Trump/Pence regime, are different forms of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, that is, of the capitalist-imperialist class, exercising its rule and enforcing its system....

At the same time, fascism is an even more grotesque and openly murderous form of this same system, representing horrors for humanity and the planet, beyond what this system already inflicts every moment. This relationship of being qualitatively different, even while sharing a common essence, is considered “a unity of opposites.”

(“Some Points on Strategic Orientation for the Next Period,” from the Central Committee, Revolutionary Communist Party, USA )

The intense battle taking place at the highest levels of the U.S. government and political establishment today is not between elected populist and entrenched interests in Washington, DC—or Trump and a “deep state.” What’s taking place today is an intense battle between different factions of the bourgeois ruling class over what FORM their dictatorship should take, and how to best cohere and rule U.S. society and advance the interests of U.S. imperialism in the face of enormous challenges. This battle has been sparked by the Trump/Pence takeover of the key levers of state power and its efforts to quickly and drastically reshape the cohering norms of U.S. society and remake the existing oppressive capitalist-imperialist state into an open, terrorist, fascist dictatorship.

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

Also entering into this battle are real differences between sections of the ruling class over how (not if) the U.S. should pursue its imperialist interests worldwide; what kinds of ideological “glue” can hold together a society in a deep and multifaceted economic, political, and social crisis; the degree to which even the pretense of democratic rights (which are always narrow and truncated in the first place under capitalism and often violated) should be discarded; and not least, how disputes among these factions should be settled.

The regime aims to greatly centralize power in the hands of the fascist core around Trump in the White House, attacking, cutting down, even gutting other institutional centers of power, as well as going after other opponents. They see this as an intense fight which they must more or less quickly win. “If you think they’re going to give you your country back without a fight, you are sadly mistaken,” Trump’s chief strategist Stephen Bannon told the Conservative Political Action Conference in February. “Every day—every day, it is going to be a fight.” These are extreme transformations and it’s not surprising that there is a great deal of turmoil and sharp struggle within the ruling establishment.

The New York Times reports, “Mr. Trump, apparently seeking to cut the intelligence community, State Department, and other agencies out of the policy-making process almost entirely, may have triggered a conflict whose escalation we are seeing in the rising number of leaks.... Mr. Trump’s moves to consolidate power away from those agencies under his own authority also has them struggling to keep what they see as their crucial role in governance.”

This is the context for the Trump fascists targeting the so-called “deep state.” When asked about the “deep state,” Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer talked of people “burrowed into government” from the Obama administration who want to continue “that agenda.” Trump supporter and former house speaker Newt Gingrich said, “There’s a permanent state of massive bureaucracies that do whatever they want and set up deliberate leaks to attack the president.” Sean Hannity of Fox News said there are “deep-state Obama holdovers embedded like barnacles in the federal bureaucracy ... hell-bent on destroying President Trump.”

These are not calls for ending the murderous crimes of the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, or other branches of government, much less disbanding those pillars of the capitalist-imperialist dictatorship. They are calls for waging war against the bourgeois liberal state and the current norms of governing, and radically restructuring them along fascist lines. Pointing not to this or that official or department but to a “deep state” shows how deep, far-reaching, and radical the transformations Trump’s fascist program entails.

As the statement, “Some Points on Strategic Orientation for the Next Period,” from the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (which is crucial to study in its entirety), sums up in regard to the Trump/Pence fascist regime:

Where the judiciary and intelligence agencies have posed obstacles to their program or not done their exact bidding, this regime has attacked them as well, asserting the unchallengeable supremacy of the executive branch in opposition to “the system of checks and balances” between the different branches of the government, which is a fundamental principal of the U.S. Constitution, and even within the executive branch, asserting the unquestionable domination of the hard core fascists at the very top, even in relation to other bourgeois forces within the state....

Imposing this fascist program on society requires going after and replacing the norms and institutions of bourgeois democracy, especially those that pose obstacles to them like the press, the judiciary, and other sections of the ruling class.

The Urgency of Grasping the Fascist Danger—and Acting Accordingly

The current turmoil and divisions within the U.S. ruling class reflect the fact that the Trump/Pence regime has not yet been able to fully consolidate fascism, and there remains a limited window for millions to act to drive this regime from power through massive political struggle and resistance.

But people will not act with the courage, clarity, and urgency needed to actually force the removal of this regime if they continue to assume the system’s checks and balances will soon neuter Trump, hope for salvation from an imaginary “deep state” (or ruling class institutions dripping in blood), or fail to grasp the escalation of horrors the  Trump/Pence regime will bring to people around the world, above and beyond even past U.S. crimes. 

For the sake of all humanity – and its future – people must shed these illusions and act with the determination needed to stop the Trump/Pence regime.   

 

 (For more on the dynamic between conflicts within the ruling class and mass political struggle, see “What’s Behind the Russia-Trump Furor...And Where Do the People’s Interests Lie?”)

 

 

---

 

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/484/white-supremacist-murders-a-black-man-in-new-york-en.html

Revolution #484 March 27, 2017

Trump Has Let the Dogs Out!

White Supremacist Murders a Black Man in New York

March 26, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Timothy Caughman, a 66-year-old Black man, was stabbed to death on Monday night, March 20, by a white supremacist who traveled to New York City from Baltimore, Maryland, in order to murder Black men. Prosecutors are saying the 28-year-old murderer, James Jackson, told the police he had planned to go on a killing spree, killing as many Black men as he could. And, as though right out of the era of Jim Crow lynchings, they say Jackson particularly hated Black men who dated white women.

Jackson walked into a police station early Wednesday morning and turned himself in after a video of him was made public. So far, nearly all of the information available has come from the police, who say that Jackson came to New York to commit his crimes because it would get the most media coverage. He was quoted as saying “I’ve had this hatred for Black men since I was a teenager.”

"What kind of world are we living in right now?”

Timothy Caughman had gone to college and worked with young people in Queens, New York, as part of a youth program. He was concerned with young people in the neighborhood. Caughman had struck up a longtime Twitter relationship with actress Shari Headley. When she heard the news, she tweeted: “My heart is heavy typing this. Timothy Caughman was a fan of mine since 1991. He only spread LOVE. His murder was senseless.” She asked, “What kind of world are we living in right now?” On Saturday night, close to 100 people came together in the Baltimore community where the murderer lived for a vigil to honor Caughman.

But major media, including the New York Daily News, right away painted him as though he were the perpetrator. “He [Caughman] has 11 prior arrests, including for marijuana, assault, resisting arrest and menacing.” The New York Post, not to be outdone, went even further. After telling its readers how Caughman managed to walk a block after being stabbed and made it into a police precinct for help—the Post continues: “Police sources said the career criminal was refusing to talk to police about the incident and acting combative before his death.” Think about the fact that some fucking cop would tell that to reporters. And what fucking reporter would think that belonged in the article? This “career criminal” who was “refusing to talk to the police” and “acting combative” was about to take his last breath after being stabbed with a sword by a disgusting white racist! And what impact was that supposed to have except to diminish the outrage at this terrorist, cold-blooded murder by diminishing the value of Timothy Caughman’s life, and therefore his death?

The Daily News writers weren’t finished: “It wasn’t the first time a bloodthirsty maniac traveled to New York to execute the innocent,” they wrote. And then they proceeded to equate the murder of a Black man by a white supremacist with the killing of two cops by a Black man in December 2014. A piece by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting that examined the coverage of Timothy Caughman’s murder drew this conclusion:

This is a bizarre journalistic choice that appears to be some kind of attempt at “balancing” the coverage, suggesting that there could be a bit of score-settling going on: Yes, this black man was senselessly murdered by a white supremacist, but some other black guy killed cops two-and-a-half years ago, so....

Trump’s regime has Timothy Caughman’s blood on their hands

Donald Trump and his whole regime have Timothy Caughman’s blood on their hands. For many racist monsters, Trump’s “Make America GREAT Again” slogan has been a “dog whistle” that really means “Make America WHITE Again.” It’s not surprising that, according to Al Jazeera, there has been a 50 percent rise in hate crimes in New York City in the last year. Creatures are crawling out from under rocks to target their venom at immigrants, Muslim and Jewish people, Black people, women, and the LGBTQ community—emboldened by a fascist regime that glorifies everything from America’s white past. One month earlier, a white gunman in a bar in Kansas shot and killed a man from India, Srinivas Kuchibhotla, and two others, after shouting “get out of my country.” And two weeks ago, a man in Seattle shot Deep Rai, a Sikh man, saying “go back to your own country.” Mosques and Jewish community centers have also been attacked and defaced.

Trump, the leader of this fascist regime, has not spoken—or tweeted—a single word about Timothy Caughman’s murder by a white supremacist. He sent prayers and condolences via Twitter to the family and friends of Kurt Cochran, an American killed in a terrorist rampage in London. Not saying a word about Timothy Caughman wasn’t just insulting, it was yet another message to his base, stoking violent terror against Black people.

One more reason, one more loud alarm signaling the urgency of driving out the Trump/Pence regime.

 

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

 

 

---

 

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/484/emergency-rally-condemns-timothy-caughmans-murder-by-white-supremacist-en.html

Revolution #484 March 27, 2017

"This kind of hatred, his blood is on the president's hands"

Emergency Rally Condemns Timothy Caughman's Murder by a White Supremacist

March 27, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

An emergency rally was held at New York City’s Union Square Friday night to condemn the murder of Timothy Caughman by a white supremacist. Hundreds came on short notice; the feelings of distress and anger were palpable. Dozens held signs with Timothy Caughman’s image which had been made for the demonstration. There was a short rally, with speakers condemning this white racist hate crime and pointing to the White House and the encouragement being given to these white supremacists. Most had to pause to hold back tears. One of the first speakers talked about the tremendous injustice that’s been done. And he contrasted it with the outrage in 2014 when a Black man drove to Brooklyn and killed two officers. “There was a lot of outrage; how it was a terrorist attack.... The same outcry for those officers needs to be given to Timothy Caughman. We’re out here to let the government, elected officials and anyone else know that we will not tolerate another second, another minute of white supremacists, of terrorists all over this country killing Black men.”

Another speaker said the reason the murderer did this was because of the tone that has been set in this country. “Donald Trump has set a tone of white supremacy and nationalism. He says he’s going to make America great again—but for who?” The speaker said the killer chose New York City because of the tone the NYPD sets up here; of unaccountability. And he continued:

White folks now have been emboldened to target folks that look like me. Our American system is to blame. It is the New York Post that went into his history to demonize him again. Publicly lynching this Black man. Not only was he murdered in the street, but he was murdered again in the media.

At the end of the rally people walked and chanted up Broadway to the spot in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen where the murder took place, and held a moment of silence.

Along the way people told why they had come. A young woman said, “I’m out here because it’s movingly disgusting what that man did. And nobody seems to think this is a big deal.” A younger man said he’d been out protesting since Trump’s election, “as often as possible.” Did he see a connection between what Trump represents, and this murder? “Absolutely. Absolutely. This kind of hatred, his blood is on the president’s hands, on Bannon’s hands, Stephen Miller’s hands, and on the hands of the Republican Party that put these people in power.”

And an American woman, who was in New York for 10 days before returning to Mexico where she lives, came to the rally and walked nearly the whole march. When she began to describe how she felt about Timothy Caughman’s murder, she began to cry. “It really hurt me, deep down, in my soul. There’s a totally racist, fascist narrative going on in America right now.”

She said “I had a choice; to go shopping tonight, or come to the march. And I stepped out the door and said—March! There was no other option.” She continued, “I was at the women’s March in DC. in January, and there’s no going back from there.”

 

 

---

 

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/484/a-surge-in-the-u-s-slaughter-of-syrian-and-iraqi-civilians-en.html

Revolution #484 March 27, 2017

A “Surge” in the U.S. Slaughter of Syrian and Iraqi Civilians

U.S. Massacre in Syria: Mosque Bombed, Hundreds Killed or Wounded

March 26, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Thursday evening, March 16, hundreds of residents in the town of Al-Jineh, Syria, gathered in a newly built mosque for evening prayers. After prayers were over, many men gathered for religious classes.

Suddenly the night was shattered by a U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) air strike. According to the Washington Post, at least two Reaper drones unleashed their full load of Hellfire missiles, followed by a 500-pound bomb. A village resident told Reuters that he heard “powerful explosions when the mosque was hit ... I saw 15 bodies and lots of body parts in the debris ... we couldn’t even recognize some of the bodies.”

The mosque was largely flattened. According to the pro-Western Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 46 people, mainly civilians, were killed. The Observatory called it “a massacre.” Reports from the scene Thursday night told of rescuers desperately trying to dig out dozens more who were trapped under a collapsed wall.

CENTCOM admitted to carrying out the bombing attack, but claimed it did not target the mosque, instead a building in which “high-level al-Qaeda” operatives were meeting. (In addition to destroying the mosque, the raid also hit another building next to it. Another older mosque was across the street from that building.)

It is not clear at this point whether CENTCOM meant to hit one building or the other or all three. But it is absolutely clear that this was a massive bombing attack on a busy civilian area with not one, not two, but three religious buildings in the immediate vicinity, and that the raid was carried out directly after evening prayers. In other words, the near certainty that civilians would be slaughtered did not stop the U.S. military from unleashing its massive, deadly bombardment.

200 Civilians Killed by U.S. Air Strikes in Mosul

On March 17, more than 200 civilians were killed in a series of U.S. bombing attacks in the Iraqi city of Mosul. According to the March 25 New York Times, Iraqi officers spotted snipers on the roofs of three homes in the city’s Jidideh neighborhood. A U.S. air strike was called in, which proceeded to level the three homes, killing hundreds of people who had been huddling for safety in the basements.

A battle has been raging in an around Mosul for months as U.S.-supported Iraqi forces (as well as other fighters) are attempting to drive out the ISIL/Islamic State which seized the city in 2014. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians are trapped, and thousands have been killed in the near-constant U.S. bombing and artillery attacks, which rain explosives down on the terrorized population in ISIL-occupied areas.

So in all likelihood these Iraqi civilians were seeking safety in the basements from the torrent of U.S. bombs and shells.

This may be “the highest civilian death tolls in an American air mission since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003,” the New York Times reports, and it’s coming amid what the newspaper calls a “surge of reported civilian deaths” in Iraq and Syria—two countries that the U.S. is not even officially at war with.

A “Surge” in the U.S. Slaughter of Syrian and Iraqi Civilians

There is a widespread sense that this “surge” in the slaughter of civilians in Syria and Iraq is the product of President Trump’s “relaxation” of the “rules of engagement”—in other words, giving military commanders more freedom to rain death and destruction with even less concern for civilian casualties than previously. The Pentagon denies there’s been such a change, but one Iraqi Special Forces officer told the New York Times that there has been a “noticeable relaxing of the coalition’s rules of engagement since President Trump took office.”

In other words, U.S. imperialism’s rules of operation, which have always been savage, have now gotten even more barbaric: “exterminate” the enemy, don’t worry about how many civilians get massacred in the process.

This is what the world’s people are facing with the fascist Trump/Pence regime.

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

 

 

---

 

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/483/donald-trump-trying-to-keep-kaepernick-from-being-signed-by-an-nfl-team-en.html

Revolution #484 March 27, 2017

From a reader

Donald Trump is trying to keep Colin Kaepernick from being signed by an NFL team

Updated March 25, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

This week Donald Trump, at a rally he held in Kentucky, spoke out on why NFL teams are not signing Colin Kaepernick, who last year refused to stand for the national anthem in protest against police murders and police brutality. (See “Statement from Carl Dix: Colin Kaepernick Put It on the Line Against the National Anthem! What Will You Do?”)

Trump said that the reason Kaepernick is being shunned by teams is because “NFL owners don’t want to pick him up because they don’t want to get a nasty tweet from Donald Trump, do you believe that?” Then he said, “I’m gonna report it to the people of Kentucky, because they like it when people actually stand for the American flag, right?”

Kaepernick, who has called Trump “openly racist,” did not vote in the 2016 presidential election. He has said that if he plays this year he will stand for the national anthem because he no longer wants his method of protest to detract from the positive change that has been created from last year’s protest and that, according to the Washington Post, “He also believes the amount of national discussion on social inequality—as well as support from other athletes nationwide, including NFL and NBA players—affirmed the message he was trying to deliver.”

Kaepernick is a free agent this season, which means his contract ended with the San Francisco 49ers, the team he led to the Super Bowl, allowing him to sign with any team in the NFL that wants him to play for them. Right now there are no callers and Trump entering into this is sending a message to team owners that they better not sign him... or else.

The owners, as group, are very wealthy and are politically right wing, and some are open supporters and close friends of Trump: Robert Kraft who owns the New England Patriots and was given a ride on Air Force One by Trump; Woody Johnson, owner of the New York Jets, has been appointed by Trump as the U.S. Ambassador to Britain. And, Denver Bronco’s senior executive, John Elway, wrote on official Broncos letterhead to the Senate Judiciary Committee endorsing Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch.

The teams’ failure to sign Kaepernick for this season is obviously politically motivated. However, most sportscasters are saying it’s because Kaepernick is not a good quarterback. That is utterly bullshit. Kaepernick’s passer rating ranked him 23rd among all the starting quarterbacks on the 32 NFL teams. Further, he gained more yards running than any other quarterback in the NFL last year, except for Tyrod Taylor of the New Jets, who played in three more games than Kaepernick—all of this, despite playing on one of the worst teams in the NFL.

His former 49er coach, Jim Harbaugh, said this week on NBC sports radio’s “Pro Football Talk” show, “I think he’s an outstanding player and I think he’s a great competitor who has proven it in games and has the ability to be not only an NFL starter but a great NFL player. He’ll have a great career and be a great quarterback, win championships.”

Richard Sherman, who plays for the Seattle Seahawks and who played defense against Kaepernick in two games this past season was asked if he thought Kaepernick was being blackballed. Sherman said, “I’m sure he is.... It has nothing to do with football.... He would be a starter on probably 20 of the teams in this league. But you’re telling me that ... you’re going to pick up some of these other guys and tell me that they’re starters? ... It’s difficult to see because he’s played at such a high level, and you see ... quarterbacks who have never played at a high level being signed by teams. So it’s difficult to understand. ... You don’t have 32 starting-level quarterbacks in this league. You have about eight elites, and then you have the rest of the league. ... So he could play and start on a ton of teams in this league.”

In an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, Kevin Blackstone, a professor at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, wrote, “[T]he NFL became the sport of middle- and working-class white America, whose distaste for Kaepernick’s pro-#BlackLivesMatter, apparent anti-police stance, was summed up Monday night in Louisville by the new president who carried most of that NFL demographic.... It doesn’t matter that there are laws, rooted in freedom of speech, in some places in this country that protect employees from punishment by their employers due to their political views or activities. Washington, D.C., is one such place. California, where Kaepernick played since entering the league as a rookie in 2011, is another. What Kaepernick dared to do was spit in the NFL’s eye. Unless and until Kaepernick is back in the league under a contract commensurate with his résumé, blackballing is football’s payback.”

Since the season ended, Kaepernick has continued to work for social causes. He joined a GoFundMe campaign that has raised more than $2 million for food and water for the people of Somalia and he worked out a deal with Turkish Airlines which has granted the use of a 60-ton cargo plane to fly the food and water to that famine ravaged country.

After Trump made his Kentucky statement, Kaepernick, in an in-your-face response to Trump, personally donated $50K to Meals on Wheels, one of the social programs to be defunded with the Trump budget. This prompted Sarah Palin to post on her blog, “SERIOUSLY? Colin Kaepernick Just Pulled ANOTHER Political Stunt...”

On Tuesday, ESPN’s show Outside the Lines did a major segment on Kaepernick vs. Trump and the role that the NFL is playing in national politics. On that show, Jane McManus, a reporter and commentator on espnW, laid out “how there has always been connections between the NFL and people in power.” Steve Almond, who has written on the social impact of the NFL, said that “football is kind of a metaphor on how people see the world.” The way I see it, Donald Trump sees football as his worldview which is a zero-sum game. There are winners and there a losers and he stands up in front of that crowd saying my tweets will keep him out of work. The larger point is that it is a football nation. It is, not just the most popular sporting event, but a cultural activity. It reflects how we think about the world, divided into winners and losers and we’ll do anything to be a winner. That’s the question to me on how this really relates to Donald Trump. Does he want to win so badly that he will do anything to win?

If you follow sports at all, you will know that this is a big topic of conversation. And if you don’t follow sports, we will let you know if something more happens.

 

 

---

 

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/484/irish-stand-nyc-st-patricks-day-en.html

Revolution #484 March 27, 2017

2,000 Pack Riverside Church in NYC on St. Patrick's Day

"Irish Stand" Raises Its Voice Against Trump's Fascist Threat To Humanity

March 25, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Shortly after the U.S. election, Irish senator Aodhán Ó Ríordáin gave a powerful speech in the Seanad (Irish legislature) denouncing Donald Trump as a fascist. He emphasized, “I don’t use the word fascist lightly. What else would you call somebody who threatens to imprison his opponents? What else would you call somebody who threatens to not allow people of a certain faith into their country? What would you say, or what would you call someone who was threatening to deport 10 million people, or say about somebody who says that the media is rigged, the judiciary is rigged, that the political system is rigged, and then he wins an election?” He went on to decry Irish political leaders who emphasized the importance of Irish-U.S. trade and economic interests over the fascist threat to humanity posed by the Trump presidency. His four-minute speech was viewed by millions. (See "Voices of Conscience and Resistance in the Time of Trump/Pence.")

The deep response he received, including from a broad section of Irish Americans, fed into a very powerful event, which took place in New York City at Riverside Church on St. Patrick’s Day. Nearly 2,000 people packed into the church for an event called Irish Stand. Bringing together leaders of different faith groups—an imam from Queens, a leader of Jewish Voices for Peace, the Christian minister of Riverside—as well as prominent Irish writers and musicians, elected officials (including a letter from New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio), and a diverse group of activists and speakers, they raised their voices against the bigotry, xenophobia, and anti-Muslim hatred being whipped up by the Trump regime and to raise funds for the ACLU.

Early on, Imam Shamsi Ali detailed the tidal wave of hate crimes and bigotry which has been directed at Muslims and immigrants since Donald Trump’s campaign and election—South Asian and Arab people who have been stabbed and shot to death, assaulted, bullied, and demonized. A representative of Make the Road, a social justice group based mainly among Latino and other immigrants, read a moving letter from undocumented immigrants in Ireland to undocumented immigrants in the U.S., which brought alive their shared pain of missing celebrations, funerals, and simply the company of their families, of living with the constant fear of deportation—of boots kicking down their doors or of an overzealous bus driver turning them in, and of being forced to endure abuse at work with no legal recourse.

One of the most important themes of the evening was the need for people who are not directly targeted right now to stand up for those who are. Over and over, Irish and Irish-American speakers detailed the desperation and starvation that drove their parents, grandparents or great-grandparents to emigrate from Ireland and how, once on U.S. shores, they endured vicious discrimination for the way they spoke, for their religion, for being different. They condemned the heartless hypocrisy and cruelty of those Irish people who have been willing to buy their acceptance into American society by joining in erecting a wall of bigotry and racism against Black people, Muslims, Latinos and others. One Irish-American comic confessed to usually feeling a bit of shame each year for the “white pride that taints” most St. Patrick’s Day celebrations, a stark contrast from the morality and stand being forged in the church that night.

A speaker from Jewish Voices for Peace polemicized against the notion that each different group in society should sit back and only be concerned with protecting their own. Invoking the horrendous crime of the Holocaust, she emphasized that “Never Again” must mean “Never Again for anyone!” A Filipino-American film producer, Marissa Aroy, recalled the horrendous inhumanity faced by the first Filipino immigrants to the U.S., including how they—like Black people—were denied the right to marry outside their race. Her voice cracked as she described how she, a daughter of a mixed race couple, was born just six years after the anti-miscegenation laws were struck down and how she fell in love with and married an Irish man just a few years ago. Acknowledging how profoundly this has mattered to her life, but also how this right is still being denied to so many immigrants, she insisted, “Isn’t it beautiful to be able to love and be loved... Is this a luxury? No! It’s a right!” Interspersed with the speeches and readings were songs and poems performed by musicians from different parts of the world, bringing another layer of internationalist spirit into the evening.

That such a diversity of speakers came together, and that there was such a hunger to hear this stand carved out among a broad swath of people—large numbers of whom were Irish, but not only—reveals something very important about how deeply people feel the immorality of Trump’s vicious attacks on immigrants and Muslims. There was also a very powerful morality that was being celebrated and further forged that values the diversity and humanity of people from different parts of the world and different religious beliefs in direct opposition to the fear and hatred and bigotry being whipped up by the Trump regime. And there was a great deal of searching and fear expressed at the same time, questions posed about why this is happening and what must be done to stop it.

At the same time, it was striking that despite being spurred by the powerful speech from Aodhán Ó Ríordáin gave in January, which not only called Trump a fascist but detailed in some key dimensions what that means, only two out of dozens of speakers used that word all night. And even they did not expand on that word, instead focusing on particular aspects of Trump’s attacks on the people. Several speakers emphasized the need to keep protesting and a representative of the NYCLU emphasized their commitment to fight in the courts against the attacks on immigrants, and protest attacks on Planned Parenthood. This is critical, but still not coming to grips with the profound point made in the RefuseFascism.org Call to Action, that: “We must recognize that the character of fascism is that it can absorb separate acts of resistance while continually throwing the opposition off balance by rapidly moving its agenda forward. The Trump/Pence regime will repeatedly launch new highly repressive measures, eventually clamping down on all resistance and remaking the law... IF THEY ARE NOT DRIVEN FROM POWER.”

Additionally, while there was some searing exposure at the horrors faced by Irish immigrants when they first came to the U.S. and how this is similar to what Arab, South Asian, Latino, and Muslim immigrants face today, there was also a great deal of mythology being promoted about the “true character of America” as a land of “freedom and equality for all.” While it’s important that people who genuinely believe that about America stand up to the way that Trump is openly whipping up unvarnished white supremacy and bigotry, it is also not true. The truth is that America was never great, it has always been a land of white supremacy and brutal exploitation not just of people in this country but all over the world. While this must not be a dividing line in the fight against the Trump/Pence regime, it is important for growing numbers of people to confront and understand this. Confronting this truth does not negate, but actually enables us to understand even more deeply, the qualitative leap and danger represented by Trump and Pence—precisely because they are building on a genocidal history and foundation.

These shortcomings of the evening do not change the fact that in its overwhelming character this was a very positive evening and stand taken by thousands—right up against the role that many Irish-Americans are playing as part of the fascist Trump/Pence regime (including Mike Pence, Sean Spicer, Paul Ryan, and others). But they do point to areas where people’s understanding needs to deepen and transform—and rapidly.

 

 

---

 

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/484/police-terror-in-u-s-en.html

Revolution #484 March 27, 2017

The Daily Horror of Police Killings Under the Trump/Pence Regime

March 27, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

From a reader:

On March 16, in just one day, seven people were killed by police nationwide. This included the roadside execution of Rodney James Hess, a 36-year-old Black man as he livestreamed his own murder by a pig near Alamo, Tennessee. You can hear Hess repeatedly asking for a higher command to come out to the site, and then you hear the gunshots and his blood-curdling screams. He was given a death sentence for supposedly driving erratically.

Two days before this, on March 14, six precious lives were stolen by police violence. One of them was a 16-year-old pregnant Latina, Elena Mondragon. She was just a passenger in an allegedly stolen car near Cal State University, Hayward, California.

Five days before that, a 35-year-old white sister, Toni Jo Collins, was shot down in Galveston, Texas, by an off-duty cop. TV news immediately said she was armed with a gun, but two eyewitnesses said she had a pink-and-white BB gun.

And five days before that, a 70-year-old Latino man, Alejandro Valencia Mendez, was gunned down in midday at a busy corner in downtown Los Angeles, with news reports saying he was “wielding a pipe.” Multiple police on the scene responded to this (if this report was even true) by gunning him down rather than restraining him in some other way.

And there’s Chad Robertson, an unarmed 25-year-old Black man who was 75-100 feet from the Amtrak pig who shot Robertson in the back as he ran for his life. The Chicago Tribune wrote that he “had been in Chicago for only about a half-hour Feb. 8 while on a stopover at Union Station waiting on a bus to Minneapolis.”

What about Francisco Serna whose 73-year-old body was riddled with five police bullets in Bakersfield, California, in December 2016 while in a neighbor’s driveway when the cops supposedly mistook the crucifix he had on him for a gun?!

Police terror is continuing and now threatens to escalate and intensify under the Trump/Pence fascist regime. Official government statistics are spotty and hard to find or verify, as there are no strict rules for accurate record-keeping of police crimes. These stories are more often buried on social media and dug up by journalists and academics, certainly not a lot from police body cams. Some websites like Killed by Police, Fatal Encounters, Mapping Police Violence, the Washington Post, and The Counted, linked to the British news outlet the Guardian, have lists of incidents, with the latter three websites only beginning to do so in 2015, yet two of these (The Counted and Mapping Police Violence) have stopped as of January 2017.

Though there are discrepancies in the numbers, there is still a pattern of the ongoing epidemic of police terror, especially in the inner cities. In 2015, the Washington Post reported 991 murders by cops, Fatal Encounter detailed a list of 1,520, and two of the other websites listed 1,210 based on local news reports they cited. So far in 2017, the Washington Post counts 237 (as of March 19), Killed by Police lists 280 (as of March 24), and Fatal Encounter lists 389 (as of March 20). It’s likely these numbers tend to be low as reports come in, get tallied, and verified. In 2017, unlike the past two years, we are not hearing much of these hundreds of cases nor seeing videos on CNN/national news, but more learning of them as passing references on the local news, if that.

At least one source cited above reported that in 2016, Black males age 15-34 were nine times more likely than other Americans to be killed by police, and five times more likely than white men of the same age to be murdered by police; also that unarmed Black people were five times more likely to be killed by police than unarmed white people. That is, almost 40 percent of unarmed people killed by police were Black, even as they are 13 percent of the U.S. population. And the data show no correlation between crime rate and police violence.

Yet according to comments by Trump’s attorney general, Jeff Sessions, the problem is NOT the epidemic of police violence, but the exposures of and resistance to that violence: “Somehow, someway, we’ve undermined respect for police and made—often times—their job more difficult,’’ and “I do think it’s a real problem when we have Black Lives Matter making statements that are really radical, that are absolutely false.” And the White House website now bellows that the “Trump administration will be a law and order administration.... The dangerous anti-police atmosphere in America is wrong. The Trump Administration will end it.”

“Law and order” and the myth of the “anti-police atmosphere” and “job made more difficult” are all code words aimed especially against Black and Brown people, and others in the inner cities. Trump’s and Sessions’ comments are threats to remove even minimal restraints off the cops. These threats are also aimed at resistance such as the many righteous protests in recent years against police terror—from Ferguson over the murder of Michael Brown, to Baltimore over the murder of Freddie Gray, to the Black Lives Matter movement, and Rise Up October in 2015.

What is needed now, and urgently, is not just counting the dead and waiting to see what happens. There isn’t a better time nor do we have a lot of time. What is required is determined and bold resistance to the crime of police terror. No More Stolen Lives was and is still a righteous demand. But at this moment in history, it must be part of going up against and driving out the whole regime—to go against all the crimes and outrages of this system and indeed against the whole system itself as the root of these horrors.

We need to draw a lesson from the defiant rebels of Ferguson and Baltimore, to step out and unite with people from all walks of life in defiance and rebellion against genocidal police terror, and also against all the crimes of this system as part of the overall resistance to the fascist direction of the whole society. The crucial scientific analysis and urgent challenge is laid out in the new orientation from the RCP on this website. Lives of people worldwide are really in the balance—every minute of every day—calling to us to act in the name of ALL humanity.

 

 

---

 

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/484/on-the-controversy-over-a-painting-of-emmett-till-open-casket-en.html

Revolution #484 March 27, 2017

On the Controversy Over a Painting of Emmett Till: "Open Casket"

Should Oppression Be Owned, Or Abolished? OR
Did a White Person Have the "Right" To Write Strange Fruit?

March 27, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

by Toby O’Ryan

This past week a protest against a painting evoking the lynching of Emmett Till has been going on, making the front page of the arts section in the New York Times and other liberal publications, and featured in a different way in the reactionary tabloid New York Post.

As background: Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black child, was beaten and lynched, and disfigured almost beyond recognition, in Mississippi in 1954. His killers were set free by an all-white jury after a trial lasting less than two hours. When Emmett Till’s body was brought back to Chicago, his mother—Mamie Till-Mobley—courageously insisted on an open-casket funeral so the world could see the level of brutality and horror that had been inflicted on her son. The lynching, the open-casket funeral, and the display of the photographs of Emmett Till’s body in the Chicago Defender and Jet magazine became a seminal moment in U.S.—and indeed, world—history, seared on the consciousness of Black people in particular and on anyone and everyone who had any feeling for justice and humanity in particular.

A white artist, Dana Schutz, recently made a painting of this, and entered it into the Whitney Biennial, a major art show in New York. Schutz and her painting have come under attack by two Black artists. Parker Bright, sometimes along with others, has stood in front of the painting, partially blocking its view. Hannah Black has written to the biennial’s curators urging that the painting be removed and has said it should be destroyed. While there is a question of how institutions continue to marginalize and suppress art from oppressed peoples (as well as art that in other ways goes against the status quo), this is not at the heart of what is being protested here.

Both artists object that Schutz herself has no right to paint this subject and, in Bright’s words, that she perpetuates “the same kind of violence that was enacted” on Emmett Till. “I feel like she does not have the privilege to speak for Black people as a whole or for Emmett Till’s family,” Parker Bright said. Hannah Black wrote that “The subject matter is not Schutz’s. White free speech and white creative freedom have been founded on the constraint of others and are not natural rights.” She accuses Schutz of “transmuting Black pain into fun and profit.” Schutz herself, in an interview in ARTnews, said that she did the painting in response to the police shootings, protests, and reaction in the summer of 2016, feeling that she had to speak, and that she was struck by how Mamie Till-Mobley had made what was hidden visible.

I haven’t seen the painting. I don’t know if it does justice to the deep subject matter that it’s tackling. But the objection of the protesters goes beyond the merits of the particular work of art and implies, if not insists, that the artist herself, by virtue of her social position, should not even attempt to take up the subject.

I will say this: whatever the intentions of Bright, Black, and others, the rationale for and the outlook behind this protest will keep us in the world as it is. And that we cannot afford.

First, on the criterion for who can do what art. The criterion of any work of art on a subject like the horrific murder of Emmett Till is not the lived experience of the artist, but whether the work does justice to the subject matter. Does it reach into the viewer, reader, or listener in a way that gets them closer to the truth of the matter being portrayed? Does it raise important questions in people’s minds? In the broadest sense, does the work provoke the audience to look at and think about the people and/or the issues it portrays in ways that correspond more to the essential truth of its subject matter? Does it lead people to see more deeply, to feel more deeply, the horror of injustice? Does it condemn what must be condemned and extol what should be extolled? Does it overall serve to propel the struggle against that oppression forward or not? What in the broadest terms is its social effect?

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

The question of the artist’s intent also enters into the equation. Were they trying to do something to contribute, broadly speaking, to a world without such horrors, to a world where humanity can flourish, and in making that attempt fell short, or even went badly off track? Then they should be criticized, but that should be tempered with some sense of what they were trying to do, even if they went off. But the main thing is the effect: how does the art “work on” the people who see it?

You want to criticize the work? Fine, go ahead. But do it on the basis of its content and social effect, not whether the artist has “the privilege” to speak for a community. While thinking about this letter today, I was listening to Rhiannon Giddens’ new album Freedom Highway. I thought about her powerful version of Richard Fariña’s song about the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963 in which four young girls were murdered. Listen to this on YouTube right now and tell me if Fariña should have held back from writing this song because he was not Black. He, along with millions around the world, was shaken to his core by the bombing and he created art that can still today move people and shake them, that can peel away the callouses and put them in touch with the humanity of the victims and the inhumanity of their murderers, and that can compel them to look around in new ways at what still goes on. Should Abel Meeropol, a white person from New York City, not have written “Strange Fruit”—the classic song about lynching that has been so compellingly interpreted by Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, and so many other artists? Should not others still sing this?

Or what about Picasso? He was living comfortably in Paris when he painted Guernica, which portrayed the unutterably vicious bombing carried out by the Nazis against a Basque peasant village on the antifascist side in the Spanish Civil War. He didn’t personally know what it was like to have your family slaughtered in front of your eyes by bombs falling from the sky. Does that matter in the least to the enduring power of that painting?

The critics of Dana Schutz’s painting seem to assume that only artists of a particular nationality or gender or sexual identity or condition have the right (or the “privilege,” to use their word) to take up subject matter pertaining to that nationality, gender, sexual identity, or condition. The logic of this outlook treats oppression as property and ultimately (and sometimes not so ultimately) reduces things to the cash nexus of who gets to “monetize” that oppression into art. Haven’t we had enough, more than enough, of this frankly rank thinking? Don’t the commodity relations of capitalism already do enough to mar and twist everything they touch? Do you really want to stay in this world where everything is commodified—the world that among other things led to and produced the excruciating nightmare that went down in August 1954 in Money, Mississippi—or do you want to get out of it, get free of it, forever? How about fighting to get beyond that world (and as we do, fighting to break down the barriers that keep some artists “on the margins,” and in some cases suppressed outright). One outlook, or the other. The world we have, or the world we could have, beyond the narrow horizon of capitalism and the reduction of everything to commodity exchange.

Second, if you think for just one second about what humanity faces right now... really? Mr. Bright and Ms. Black, have you noticed that there is a fascist in the White House who is determined to “make America white again” and who is putting the future of the entire planet in severe jeopardy? And if you have noticed that, and are revulsed by it—and from reading Hannah Black’s statement, I’ll assume that you are—then why in the world are you aiming your wrath at someone who seems to be trying to go against that direction, for daring to create a painting whose intent seems to be to get people to stop and think about and reflect on and feel the horror visited upon Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley? And you’re accusing her of the “same kind of violence enacted” by the lynch mob who murdered Emmett Till? Again, really? This is what you think needs to be protested right now? Even destroyed? Are you even thinking about the effect of your actions? Or wondering why the press is suddenly so eager to hear and publicize your thoughts? This would be pitiful if it weren’t so damaging to what is really needed right now.

Come on, now. It’s way too late for this stuff. It does damage, it needs to stop, and the people who know better need to stop putting up with it and start calling it out for what it is.

 

 

---

 

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/484/trump-regimes-end-run-imposes-a-muslim-ban-en.html

Revolution #484 March 27, 2017

Trump Regime’s “End Run” Imposes a Muslim Ban

March 26, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Even as the Trump/Pence regime contests the temporary injunctions against their Muslim travel ban in court, and even as Trump declares “We’re going to win,” the regime is implementing policies that have already placed severe restrictions on travel to the U.S. And not just by people in the six Muslim-majority countries targeted in Muslim Ban 2.0, but most of the world. In so-doing, they have quietly implemented much if not all of their Muslim travel ban.

On March 23, the New York Times reported, “Diplomatic cables sent last week from Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson to all American embassies instructed consular officials to broadly increase scrutiny. It was the first evidence of the ‘extreme vetting’ Mr. Trump promised during the presidential campaign.”

Exempt from this “extreme vetting” are 38 countries. Almost all of these are in Europe, plus a few others including South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan (for some time, short-term visitors to the U.S. from those 38 countries have been exempt from applying for visas at U.S. embassies, while everyone else is required to do that before visiting the U.S.). Included in the new policies: the rest of the world, including all of Africa and the Middle East, and almost all of Latin America and Asia.

Rather than document explicit instructions to embassies to target Muslims, Tillerson’s cables use wording like “Consular officers should not hesitate to refuse any case presenting security concerns.” And they instruct U.S. consulates to come up with “sets of post-applicant populations warranting increased scrutiny.”

People singled out for this scrutiny are to be questioned about not only their travel history, but all their addresses for 15 years; and all phone numbers, email addresses, and social media handles they have used in the past five years. Greg Siskind, an immigration lawyer, told the Washington Post that physicians, university professors, and researchers will face delays or denials if they are from “certain countries, or religions.” [note: religions] And Siskind told the Washington Post that he thinks part of the investigation people will be subjected to is aimed at building databases of connections between people based on their Facebook friends and Twitter followers.

Speaking of these directives, Stephen Legomsky, chief counsel of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services during the Obama administration, told the Washington Post, “This strikes me as an end run around the judicial injunctions... The [federal court] injunctions [against Trump’s Muslim ban] prevent the implementation of a travel ban by executive order. But nothing in them specifically prohibits new rules on visa denials overseas.”

 

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

 

 

---

 

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/484/fascists-in-white-house-hate-crime-in-streets-en.html

Revolution #484 March 27, 2017

"You Live in Trump Country Now!"
Fascists in the White House and Hate Crimes in the Streets

March 27, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

The murder of Timothy Caughman by a white supremacist in New York City is just the latest hate crime in recent months. The white supremacy, xenophobia, and America First militarism pouring out of the White House is emboldening low-life racists and bigots to deliver the message to Black people, immigrants, Muslims and Jews, women, the LGBTQ community and more: You are not welcome, and you are not safe, in Trump’s “Great America.”

There has been a leap in the number of hate crimes taking place across the country since Trump was elected. And in a third or more of the incidents, the perpetrators linked their crimes directly to Trump and his policies. On March 15, a man in Arizona yelled racial slurs at an interracial couple in a parking lot, and then fired a pistol at them. On March 16, racist and anti-immigrant signs were left at a Spokane, Washington, NAACP building, with one saying “refugees not welcome,” and another warning of “white genocide.” On March 17, in Lakeland, Florida, an interracial couple with a child were threatened with “Leave or Die” and the “n-word” written on their front porch.

The anti-Muslim rhetoric and policies coming from the Trump/Pence regime have put millions of people’s lives in danger. Here are just some of the headlines: “Tampa police declare hate crime in mosque fire.” “Muslim women report hijabs being ripped off by men shouting support for President-elect.” “Bangladeshi film director punched at California anti-hate rally.” “Man attempted to set Florida convenience store on fire because he believed owners were Muslim.”

Trump also continues to slander all undocumented immigrants as drug dealers and violent criminals. His regime recently announced the creation of a new government office to document and publicize crimes committed by undocumented immigrants. Miami Herald columnist Andrés Oppenheimer appropriately calls this the “Office of Anti-Immigrant Propaganda.” This will no doubt unleash more harassment, more hate crimes, more bullying, more discrimination toward anyone who appears to be an immigrant.

Attacks on the LGBTQ community have also increased dramatically. “You live in Trump country now!” hollered a gay-basher after shouting slurs at a gay couple, and crashing his scooter into the bicycle one of them was riding in Key West, Florida. On February 28, a gay couple walking in New York were confronted by a man who called one a “f——t” and said they were a “disgrace.” The suspect then grabbed a stick and hit one of the men on the thigh. On March 12, a stained-glass window was smashed at a transgender-supporting New Orleans church. And on March 13, a LGBT community center in Washington, DC was vandalized and a staff member assaulted. Attacks on this community are occurring on almost a daily basis.

Anti-Semitic attacks are escalating as well. On February 24, the Anti-Defamation League headquarters in New York received an anonymous bomb threat. On February 26, dozens of headstones were vandalized at a Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia. On February 28, a shot was fired into a synagogue window in Indiana. And on March 2, a dozen grave markers were vandalized in a Jewish cemetery in Rochester, New York. Meanwhile, Trump has only rejected his support among reactionary neo-Nazis in the most pro forma and superficial way, and has avoided condemning "anti-Semitism," even in his speech on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Hate crimes have been integral to the history of this country for centuries. But a crucial element of fascism, as we have written about here at revcom.us, is “ruling through reliance on open terror and violence, trampling on what are supposed to be civil and legal rights, wielding the power of the state, and mobilizing organized groups of fanatical thugs, to commit atrocities against masses of people, particularly groups of people identified as ‘enemies,’ ‘undesirables,’ or ‘dangers to society.’”

In the Name of Humanity, We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America! Drive Out the Trump/Pence Regime!

****

For more on the unfolding hate crimes in this country, see “Hate in America: A list of hatred, bigotry and abuse since the election,” by the staff of slate.com.

 

 

 

---

 

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/484/michael-slate-interviews-scientist-peter-gleick-en.html

Revolution #484 March 27, 2017

Michael Slate Interviews Scientist Peter Gleick

"When you take bad science or you ignore science all together to push an ideological point of view, we're in deep trouble."

March 27, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Michael Slate: We’re going to be talking with Peter Gleick, the leading scientist on global, water and climate issues and co-founder of the Pacific Institute in Oakland. He recently wrote about why scientists should be in the streets protesting the policies of the Trump regime both in the Climate March on April 29, 2017 and the March for Science on April 22, Earth Day. I’m really pleased to welcome Peter to the show. Peter, welcome back, man.

Peter Gleick: Hey, Michael. Thanks for having me on.

Michael Slate: Sure. Well, let’s jump into this, man. You wrote an article in Wired and you talked about the uninhibited use of lies, false statements, blatant and intentional misrepresentations of facts and bad science. You gave as one of the examples Scott Pruitt’s denial of the role of greenhouse gases in climate change and you had examples of all kinds of things that are wrong with that and why this question is so important. What are you seeing and why is it alarming?

Peter Gleick: Well, oh-boy, there’s so much there we could talk about. I’m a scientist by training. I work on global water issues. I work on climate change and have for 30+ years. Science is sort of at my heart. I think without good science, you don’t get good policy. And without a doubt, we’re witnessing a war on science at the federal level. It’s sort of unprecedented, the kinds of things that we’re seeing. The denial of science, the promotion of and I don’t even want to call them alternative facts because facts don’t have anything to do with it, with the promotion of lies on the state of the world, attacks on the budgets of fundamental science activities at the federal level—it just goes on and on. I think your listeners probably know about all of this. And so I wrote this column. I’m a scientist but I’m also a citizen. As your listeners may know, there are a couple of marches planned. There’s a science march coming up on Earth Day, April 22. There’s a climate march coming up a week later on the 29th and I just felt—look, as a citizen, as someone who cares about facts and science and the creation of public policy, I just felt that I ought to be on the streets protesting what we see around us.

Michael Slate: There’s this whole point of facts and alternative facts—and it is a big thing epistemologically, the promotion of the very wrong idea that nothing can ever be known with any certainty. To me, that’s an extremely dangerous position that’s being pushed out on people and that people actually take up spontaneously.

Peter Gleick: Yeah. So first of all, I don’t like the term, “alternative facts." Let’s just call them “lies.” You know, they’re not facts. Either it’s a fact or it isn’t. About this issue of certainty, you know, science is a funny thing. We all use science every day. We use the products of science. We use the facts to go by science. Scientists talk about uncertainty. That’s part of what we do, because part of science is understanding what we know, how well we know it and what the role of what we call “uncertainty” is, but that’s a funny term. When a scientist says something is “uncertain,” the scientist means there’s range of possibilities. But when the public hears the word, “uncertain,” they think, “Oh look; you guys don’t really know what you’re talking about.” So, we have to be careful as scientists in how we communicate what we know and what we don’t know. Let’s take climate change as an example. There’s uncertainty about how fast climate is changing and what the specifics of some of the impacts will be, but we, the scientific community, know the climate’s changing. We know humans are responsible. So the deniers of climate change say, “Well, look, you don’t know everything with perfect certainty, so we shouldn’t be doing anything.” That’s a different message and it’s one that—you know, scientists take a little bit of blame for not being great communicators. But let me communicate. We know the climate’s changing. We know that humans are responsible. And we know the consequences are going to be bad. What we choose to do about climate change is a policy question and our politicians ought to address it. But they’re not addressing it because they’re pretending. They’re hiding behind this “uncertainty” about the precision about what’s going to happen and when.

Michael Slate: There’s another question I know you’ve spoken to before— this whole idea, or this whole occurrence in these days of ideology trumping science, of people looking for some way to fit things into their ideological view and not looking at the world and reality and what needs to be done.

Peter Gleick: Yeah, that’s exactly right. So, when I said earlier that you can’t have good policy without good science, look, there’s plenty of times where good science is presented to policy makers and they consider it and they choose to make a policy that’s different than what a scientist might prefer. That you know, that’s ok. That’s the way politics works. But when you take bad science or you ignore science all together to push an ideological point of view, then we’re in deep trouble. And again, let’s go back to climate change for a minute. Look, if Congress and our politicians were to say, “Ok. I understand that the climate’s changing. I understand that there’s a critical human role here, but I don’t think we ought to have a tax on carbon. I don’t think we ought to have a cap and trade policy to deal with it”—that’s ok. That’s a political decision. As a scientist I would respect that debate. I might not agree with it, but I would respect it. But that’s not the debate we’re having. We’re avoiding at the political level the debate about climate change, because politicians are hiding behind the ideology of, “I don’t want government involved in this. I don’t want to pay for the scientific research that’s going to [get a] win for my decision-making”. That’s a very, very dangerous place to be.

Michael Slate: A big part of it is actually also the creation of, you know, supposed science that actually would support this ideological position and threatening scientists who challenge any of that. And I know you wrote about McCarthyism and science—this whole idea that’s there an element of McCarthyism and the witch hunts against scientists who don’t go along with the program. Let’s talk about that a little.

Peter Gleick: Well, that’s right. So, it’s bad enough if we don’t fund research that’s critical to our well-being. It’s bad enough if Congress doesn’t even look at the science behind some of the things they have to deal with. But it gets worse than that when you have, for example, the House Committee on Science and Technology, which is run by very anti-science ideologues at the moment, in my opinion, who are launching personal attacks on scientists and demanding emails and criticizing the individuals themselves rather than the science. That harkens back to McCarthyism. That harkens back to when Congress attacked people for ideological reasons rather than for factual reasons. Again, I think this is a throwback to days that we hoped were long gone, but that this administration has brought back to the fore.

One of the things that makes America great, frankly, is our unbelievably fantastic science— the university system, the federal labs, the research organizations that get some federal support. And frankly, I work for a non-profit research institute. We get almost zero federal monies, so that gives me a little bit of flexibility for me to speak my mind here, without worrying about retribution. But that’s not true for a lot of scientists that are very vulnerable to funding, that don’t get credit if they weigh in on policy issues. That’s a real problem. But let me give you some examples. You know, the federal research budget was just released a couple of days ago, and here are some numbers. So, NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) research office is facing more than a 50 percent cut in their budget. The EPA’s (Environmental Protection Agency) R & D [Research and Development] office is facing a 50 percent cut in their budget. The Department of Energy, energy programs are facing a 45 percent cut in their budget. The National Institutes of Health is facing a 20 percent―$6 billion cut in their budget. They’re talking about completely eliminating some of the satellite programs that provide weather forecasting. I mean it. I could go on and on. The research budgets are proposed to be eviscerated  at the federal level. Now, there are state budgets that support research. California is very fortunate in providing research money. There are non-profit organizations that get money from foundations, so there’s plenty of research that will continue to go on. But if we’re going to cut our federal research budgets this badly, we’re going to lose standing, we’re going to lose information. We’re going to close our eyes to threats that face us. You know, I don’t know what Congress will ultimately do with this budget. Hopefully, some of these budget cuts will be restored. But I think we’re going to have to fight for research at the federal level.

There’s plenty of science that’s not done in the public interest, but federal funding for science is often done in the public interest. And if we lose that there will still be corporate research, and not all corporate research is bad. Some of it has produced some incredibly great things. But that had better not be the only research that is funded in the United States or we’re heading down a rabbit hole that we don’t want to go down, in my opinion.

Let me tell you something else about the way science works. When someone publishes bad science, which happens. You know, science goes through peer review but there’s a sort of an explosion of crappy journals now that will publish anything. But when somebody publishes bad science, there’s another scientist out there that will figure that out and will publish something that will look at it. “That doesn’t make sense. That’s not true”. And bad science doesn’t survive for long. You know, this stuff about vaccinations, for example. There was one paper published in England in a journal about vaccinations were linked to autism and that paper turned out to be bad science. And it was retracted by the journal eventually, when other scientists stepped up and said, “No, no, this doesn’t make sense. All of the data show the opposite”. That’s what happens to science over time. You do get bad science, but other scientists ultimately will step up and say, “Wait. Our results don’t show that” and it doesn’t survive for long.

Michael Slate: Just one last thing. The bad news on the climate just keeps coming faster and faster. 2016 was the hottest year on record. The Arctic Ice Sheet is melting really fast. The coral reefs are all dying. Damn.... Give the listeners a brief update if you could.

Peter Gleick: Ok, it’s bad news. The climate is changing and your listeners probably get this, mostly. The climate is changing. It is undeniable—not that it’s not denied by someone out there. But it’s undeniable that the climate is changing. It is undeniable that humans are responsible. The science is very clear. And it’s undeniable that the impacts are going to be very severe. This is agreed on by every national academy of science on the planet. It’s disputed by climate deniers who have their own agendas. But look around us. Look at the temperature records. Look at what’s happening in the Arctic. Look at the rising oceans. Look at the horrible coral death that’s happening in the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and elsewhere. We see it in Florida. Look at the changes in extreme events, the floods and droughts around the world. The evidence is pretty clear. Now, we can ignore that evidence. We can do nothing about it. But what’s happening on the planet is going to happen whether we deny it or not. The longer we deny it and the longer we don’t take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the worse it’s going to be for us and for our children and our grandchildren.

Michael Slate: Now, we’re going to end with this, Peter. There’s a quote from you—It says: “But when the time comes to speak, to stand up those of us who can must do so. That time has come.” And I’d say, in triple.

Peter Gleick: Read the First Amendment of the Constitution and that’s why I’m gonna be on the streets on the 22nd of April and the 29th of April.

Michael Slate: Alright, Peter Gleick. Thank you very much today for joining us, man.

Peter Gleick: Alright. Thanks for having me.

 

 

 

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

 

 

---

 

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/484/escalating-tension-between-us-and-north-korea-en.html

Revolution #484 March 27, 2017

Escalating Tension between U.S. and North Korea: Urgent Dangers for Humanity

March 27, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Between the Trump/Pence fascist regime’s “America Über Alles” designs, and the position the rulers of North Korea find themselves in, there is a “logic” driving the madness that threatens to break out in a horrific war on the Korean Peninsula. And, should this tense situation explode, that could, in turn, set off new and sudden leaps in domestic repression by the Trump/Pence regime.

This highlights the extreme stakes of whether or not mass resistance, in the name of humanity, will drive out the fascist Trump/Pence regime before they have fully locked down the reins of power.

The “Logic” Behind the Madness

On March 16, on the first day of a four-day trip to Asia, Trump’s Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson stated, “The diplomatic and other efforts of the past 20 years, to bring North Korea to a point of denuclearization, have failed...We are exploring a new range of diplomatic, security and economic measures. All options are on the table.” Tillerson also said, “Certainly we do not want to, for things to get to military conflict... If they [North Korea] elevate the threat of their weapons program to a level that we believe requires action, then that option’s on the table.”

In response, North Korea released a propaganda video showing U.S. aircraft being blown up and its foreign ministry said, North Korea “has the will and capability to fully respond to any war the U.S. would like to ignite” and “The nuclear force of the DPRK [the official name for North Korea] is the treasured sword of justice and the most reliable war deterrence.” A week before Tillerson’s trip, on March 6, North Korea test-launched four ballistic missiles, three coming within 200 miles of Japan.

To many it seems like the threat is in the hands of two madmen—Donald Trump and North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un. And on one level, this is true. But it is not just two madmen with their fingers on nuclear buttons. In this truly explosive situation, with two seemingly “unhinged” rulers, there is a method to the madness and a logic to the logic of these “madmen” that is extremely dangerous.

When Donald Trump talks about “Making America Great Again,” he, and sections of the ruling class who have rallied around him, are talking about dramatically reinforcing and strengthening U.S. domination over other imperialists and the world as a whole. For them, this requires profound, violent recasting of the way things have been for decades, including rewriting the rules not of whether, but how overtly to threaten humanity with war, including nuclear war—which would bring unimaginable horror to millions of people and the Earth.

The “logic” of this requires a hyper-aggressive and militaristic foreign policy, which we now see in how the Trump/Pence regime is dealing with North Korea. This fascist regime wants no perception whatsoever of the U.S. being “weak” or having a “lack of resolve.” So, in the face of North Korean defiance and continuing refusal to heel to U.S. demands Trump is doubling-down with escalating warnings—with the ultimate threat of a nuclear attack. And as part of all this, the madman “lunacy” and “unpredictability” of Trump serves a strategic calculus.

And it is NOT irrational for Kim Jong-un to think the U.S. would launch a war against North Korea that would kill millions of people. There are people in North Korea who were alive in 1950 when the U.S. invaded Korea and waged a war of MASS MURDER, killing 3 million people—where there was massive carpet bombing; the use of chemical weapons against civilians; the wholesale rape of women; and almost every building over one-story high in North Korea was destroyed. (See “American Crime: Case #93: U.S. Invasion of Korea—1950” at revcom.us)

Ever since, the U.S. has worked to politically isolate, economically strangle, and militarily threaten North Korea. It has worked to enlist countries throughout the region in these efforts. And the U.S. has openly talked about its desire for a “regime change” in North Korea.

During his campaign, Trump said, “I would get China to make that guy [Kim Jong-Un] disappear in one form or another very quickly.” And when asked if this meant assassinating Kim Jong-un, Trump shrugged and said, "Well, you know, I've heard of worse things, frankly. I mean this guy's a bad dude—and don't underestimate him.” And according to The Wall Street Journal, an internal White House strategy review on North Korean includes the possibility of “both military force and regime change to counter the country’s nuclear-weapons threat.” (WSJ, March 1, 2017)

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

In fact, coinciding with Tillerson’s trip, joint military exercises between U.S. and South Korean began that included “regime change” scenarios. Reportedly, the U.S. Navy SEAL Team 6 (which killed Osama Bin Laden), Army Rangers, Delta Force and Green Berets, took part in these joint exercises—in order to simulate a precision North Korean incursion and “the removal of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.”

So, from the point of view of a reactionary, oppressive regime trying to survive, there is a “logic to the logic” of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

Strategic Implications

North Korea is a small country, but the conflict between the U.S. and North Korea has strategic implications. Tillerson’s trip and the Trump/Pence Regime’s response to North Korea need to be seen in the context of the larger interests of U.S. imperialism. There has been a general consensus within the U.S. ruling class that greater strategic focus has to be applied to East and Northeast Asia—specifically China, which the U.S. sees as its main challenge in Asia. And the Trump/Pence Regime has indicated it regards China as U.S. imperialism's main long-term strategic adversary. So while the sharpest tension in this region right now is between the U.S. and North Korea, this is taking place in the context of the sharpest rivalry in Asia being between the U.S. and China.

Against this larger background, the Trumpites see the current rulers of North Korea as an intolerable danger and threat to the projection of U.S. power in the region and the world. So, in the face of North Korean defiance and continuing refusal to heel to U.S. demands Trump is doubling-down with escalating warnings—with the ultimate threat of a nuclear attack. And as part of all this, the madman “lunacy” and “unpredictability” of Trump serves a strategic calculus.

This has backed the rulers of North Korea up against a wall. Despite rhetoric condemning “U.S. imperialist aggression,” and claiming to be a “socialist” country, the North Korean regime is essentially a dynastic feudal aristocracy in the name of socialism. None of which justifies in any way moves by the rulers of the U.S. to fuck with them.

In this situation, the North Korean rulers have seized on the development of a small but potentially destructive nuclear weapons arsenal as a bargaining chip and a last resort in maintaining their rule. Professor John Delury of Yonsei University in Seoul noted of North Korea’s ruler Kim Jong-un: “He has no reliable allies to guarantee his safety, and he faces a hostile superpower that has, in recent memory, invaded sovereign states around the world and overthrown their governments.”

For both Trump and Kim Jong-un, the projection of a certain “madman” persona is part of their strategic calculations. And that “madman” persona has a logic of its own that further ratchets up the danger of a horrific war breaking out, either planned or by some combination of events spinning out of control and accident.

Escalating Dangers

Today the U.S. has a nuclear arsenal thousands of times more destructive than North Korea. There is a fascist in the White House, who—before he was elected—repeatedly asked a national security expert, “If we have nuclear weapons, why can’t we use them.”

The U.S. has threatened North Korea militarily. But the policy of “strategic patience,” which Tillerson says is now over, led with international economic sanctions aimed at forcing North Korea to halt its nuclear weapons program. This approach considered a military strike on North Korean an option of last resort—recognizing that a retaliatory nuclear or conventional strike from North Korea would endanger, in South Korea, more than 20 million people and 13 million people in Tokyo alone. And from the point of view of the U.S. rulers, there is the concern that such an attack would wipe out 28,000 U.S. forces stationed in South Korea and 50,000 U.S. troops in Japan.

The Trump Regime is now setting out to increase economic sanctions against North Korea, while escalating military threats, with “no options off the table.” In addition to a pre-emptive military strike, the U.S. is also threatening to orchestrate a “regime change.”

The U.S. wants Japan, China and South Korea to work together with the U.S. against North Korea. But these alliances are fraught with intense and shifting contradictions, creating unstable conditions and an increasingly dangerous situation.

For example: On March 10, after months of mass protests, a South Korean court ruled to oust the conservative, slavishly pro-U.S. President Park Chung-hee. This same day, the U.S. deployed, ahead of schedule, its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system in South Korea—designed to intercept and destroy short- and medium-range ballistic missiles during their final phase of flight. China, sees this—as well as the continuing buildup of the U.S. military in the region—as directed at them, which it is. And China responded by saying it will work with Russia to retaliate against South Korea for allowing THAAD.

Meanwhile, leading contenders in the upcoming presidential elections in South Korea are from parties that opposed Park. And the U.S. is concerned that a new president will be less servile to the U.S. and despite U.S. advice, move to improve relations with North Korea and China. This has ratcheted up the perceived urgency for the Trump regime to knock down North Korea.

Also, the U.S. faces big contradictions in imposing sanctions against North Korea—where it has to rely on China and Russia—which provide the most economic aid to North Korea. The U.S., China, and Russia all have competing geopolitical interests that affect the level of commitment and enforcement of the sanctions.

Urgent Stakes

All of this emphasizes, again, that between the Trump/Pence fascist regime’s “America Über Alles” designs, and the position the rulers of North Korea find themselves in, plus a volatile mix of other factors, there is a “logic” driving the madness that threatens to break out in a devastating war. And, if that war breaks out, it could be seized on to implement drastic leaps in domestic repression by the Trump/Pence regime.

For all these reasons, the U.S.—North Korea conflict is another reason the stakes are extremely high of whether or not mass resistance, in the name of humanity, will drive out the fascist Trump/Pence regime before they have fully locked down the reins of power.

 

 

---

 

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/484/resist-trumps-approval-for-keystone-xl-pipeline-en.html

Revolution #484 March 27, 2017

Resist Trump’s Approval for Keystone XL Pipeline

March 27, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

On March 24, Trump’s State Department granted a permit to TransCanada to build the Keystone XL Pipeline. In January, Trump had breathed new life into the pipeline project that had been stopped under Obama, asking TransCanada to submit a new application. The pipeline still has to be approved by the Nebraska Public Service Commission and local landowners, but granting the permit clears the path for final approval.

Keystone XL would be another escalation in furthering an unfolding climate disaster, piping an additional 830,000 barrels of oil a day from the Alberta tar sands into the U.S. for processing. Oil from tar sands is some of the dirtiest, most carbon polluting oil on the planet. Tar sands production itself is extremely destructive to the environment—wiping out huge regions of forest, causing pollution of lands and groundwater, and poisoning Native peoples living in the region. Scientific studies have demonstrated that if humanity has any hope of avoiding climate catastrophe caused by burning oil and other fossil fuels and other practices, tar sands oil projects must be stopped cold and much “traditional” fossil fuels also must be left in the ground.

This pipeline would also trample on treaty rights of the Sioux, going through treaty lands and near several other tribal reservations. Trump/Pence have already rammed through the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL), arrogantly attacking the rights of the Standing Rock Sioux and threatening water supplies, and now this.

According to a Sierra Club email promising renewed opposition to the building of Keystone XL, “A report from the University of Nebraska determined that Keystone XL is likely to have 91 significant spills, putting water sources and wildlife habitat at risk along the entire 1,179-mile route. Keystone XL would cross the Ogallala Aquifer, which is one of the country's largest sources of freshwater. A spill in the aquifer would threaten the drinking water for millions of Americans as well as the livelihood of local ranchers and farmers. The pipeline also lies within one mile of thousands of water wells in Nebraska, Montana, and South Dakota—putting even more people at risk of losing access to clean water.”

Hundreds of thousands of people have participated in active resistance to Keystone XL and DAPL. More than a thousand sat in at the White House in mass arrests to stop Keystone XL in just one of many protest actions in recent years. Thousands heroically stood up to vicious police assaults on the Standing Rock Reservation to stop DAPL. Hundreds of Native tribes sent representatives to Standing Rock in an unprecedented action to protect Standing Rock Sioux treaty rights and the water and land. The resistance contributed to helping stop production of Keystone XL for years and for more than a year for DAPL, which shamefully now is being completed.

Environmental groups are speaking out with outrage about Trump’s Keystone XL approval. They have promised to resist this in the courts, as well as with campaigns and in the streets. The real hope to stop this is to greatly expand the resistance that has developed, to deepen its determination to put an end to this environmental disaster and all the environmental assaults from Trump/Pence, and to connect it with many other fronts of struggle resisting this fascist regime.

Approval of Keystone XL and DAPL is part of a savage war on the environment that this regime has radically escalated, with the goal of eliminating any restraints on capitalist profit-making and plunder of resources, and arrogantly expanding U.S. global domination, including over energy resources. This is also an attempt by Trump/Pence to crush opposition among Native peoples and large sections of the population that stand with them and care deeply about saving the planet. At a time when the future of the planet hangs in the balance, Trump and Pence’s rule, if not stopped, would mean unmitigated disaster for Earth and humanity’s place on it.

 

 

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

 

 

---

 

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/484/american-crime-case-64-the-us-conquest-of-hawaii-en.html

Revolution #484 March 27, 2017

Case #64: The U.S. Conquest of Hawai`i

March 27, 2017 | 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 Overthrow: On January 17, 1893, 162 armed U.S. sailors and Marines marched from the USS Boston, harbored in Honolulu Harbor, to Iolani Palace, the center of Hawai’i’s government, and set up camp. This act of war against a nation struggling for independence from foreign domination put the U.S. firmly in control.

Lorrin Thurston, the grandson of an American missionary who had the support of Hawai`i’s white business class, had organized a coup d’etat. And the U.S. had agreed to provide military back up. Thurston’s core conspiracy group, which included Hawai`i’s powerful sugar barons, joined the “Honolulu Rifles” a heavily armed militia of 1,500 largely white businessmen, who patrolled the streets to put down any Native Hawaiians who might rebel.

Queen Lili`uokalani, the reigning monarch in Hawai`i at the time, was in the midst of a struggle for a new constitution aimed at reducing the control of the powerful white elite and establishing independence from foreign powers. She now faced the challenge of the U.S. military and a gang of businessmen armed with modern rifles, machine guns and cannons. The Hawaiian Nation had only a small volunteer army and a few hundred outdated muskets. Facing a bloodbath, Queen Lili`uokalani surrendered under protest.

U.S. Government Minister John L. Stevens, who had been in charge of the U.S. military action, proclaimed Hawai`i a U.S. Protectorate (a dependent territory). A temporary government, the “Committee for Safety,” was formed to protect the white elite and terrorize the Native Hawaiian population. One week after the overthrow a new “Reciprocity Treaty” was signed with the U.S.—that guaranteed trade protections for Hawaiian sugar and most notably included the cessation of Pearl Harbor (which had already been identified as a potential U.S. military base).

The overthrow was met by immediate resistance—within days the Hawaiian people began to form organized protest groups. In the face of mass resistance a new constitution was written and the Republic of Hawai`i was proclaimed on July 4, 1894. The Republic was ruled by a single party controlled by white businessmen and Sanford B. Dole was its self-appointed president.

In 1895, a rebellion led by Royalists with the goal of reinstating Queen Lili`uokalani failed in its attempt to overthrow the Republic. The Queen was falsely accused of collaborating and was sentenced to prison. While in prison, she signed an agreement to abdicate her throne in return for the release of her jailed supporters. She was then held under house arrest in the I`olani Palace until she was pardoned in 1896. Thereafter she regularly traveled to Washington D.C. to fight against annexation and for Hawaiian Independence.

Forced Annexation: The 1893 overthrow of Hawai`i coincided with the beginning of an increasingly open battle within the U.S. ruling class over U.S. expansion and the U.S.’s relationship with Japan and Spain. By 1895 a draft plan to annex Hawai`i to the U.S. was introduced in Congress and Hawaiians began a new round of protest against annexation.

Then on February 14, 1898 the U.S. Battleship Maine blew up in Havana Harbor, Cuba; the U.S. blamed Spain for this and launched the Spanish-American War, which included fighting in the Philippines (then a Spanish colony). President McKinley, seeking a staging ground to deploy troops and supplies to the Philippines and expand U.S. power in the Pacific, moved quickly on plans to annex Hawai`i. In a campaign of jingoism—extreme patriotism in the service of aggressive foreign policy—the slogan was put out, “Remember the Maine” and the annexation of Hawai’i was forced through on July 7, 1898 and the U.S. appointed the first U.S. Territorial Governor of Hawai`i.

The century following annexation was characterized by the systematic oppression of the Hawaiian people. Their lands were confiscated by both “legal” and illegal means and their ties to the land were severed. Hawaiian language newspapers (of which there were many), were shut down and the Hawaiian language was made illegal. Flying the Hawaiian flag was outlawed, and genuine forms of Hawaiian culture were suppressed or made illegal. The real history of resistance to the overthrow and annexation was re-written and the myth that the U.S. had been welcomed was promoted. Certain aspects of Hawaiian culture were combined with fabricated fantasies, marketed to tourists—further alienating Hawaiian people from their culture.

Corporate plantation agriculture had a devastating impact on the health and lives of native Hawaiians, driving them off the land, and wiping out subsistence agriculture. Throughout the 1800s, waves of immigrant workers were viciously exploited as indentured servants.

Throughout the century the U.S. military built dozens of bases and installations, including Pearl Harbor, which today is the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Entire islands and valleys were “leased” for as little as $1 a year and used for bombing and live fire practice. Harbors became so toxic that they could no longer provide fish; wetlands so polluted they could no longer sustain wildlife, and huge swaths of agricultural land were poisoned. U.S. nationalism and militarism, especially punctuated by the events of World War I and World War II, further undermined the identity of the Hawaiian people. In 1959 Hawai`i became the 50th state.

THE CRIMINALS:

U.S. Minister John L. Stevens: U.S. diplomat who led the invasion of the U.S. military during the overthrow, after having conspired with white businessmen in planning a coup d’etat against Queen Lili`uokalani. Benjamin Harrison was the U.S. President at the time.

Lorrin A. Thurston: Grandson of American missionaries, who organized the “Honolulu Rifles,” a white businessmen’s militia; architect behind the coup d’etat of Queen Lili`uokalani.

Sanford B. Dole: Descendent of American missionaries and vociferous advocate of American control and/or destruction of anything Hawaiian. Self-appointed president of the Republic of Hawai`i formed after the overthrow. Appointed by U.S. President McKinley to be the First Territorial Governor of the Territory of Hawai`i after annexation.

U.S. President William McKinley: Aggressive advocate of U.S. imperialist expansion who signed a Treaty of Annexation in 1887, initially rejected by Congress, but then in 1898, in the midst of war hysteria accompanying the Spanish-American war, pushed through.

THE ALIBI:

The purported alibi for the overthrow was to protect American citizens residing in Hawai`i.

THE ACTUAL MOTIVE:

The 1893 overthrow was to protect the interests of Hawai`i sugar planters, who had invested huge amounts of money in fields and mills, and were now facing increasing competition from the sugar market in the U.S. and a rise of Hawaiian nationalism. The annexation of Hawai`i was to fulfill the need for a “rest and re-supply station” for U.S. troops deploying to the Philippines during the Spanish-American War.

By 1881 there were rumblings within the U.S. State Department that Hawai`i should become part of the “American system” and in 1891 the U.S. permanently stationed a warship in Hawai`i “to keep a United States vessel there from this time on to guard American interests in the Islands.” The overthrow and annexation of Hawai`i were part of U.S. imperialist expansion in the Pacific: the U.S. saw it crucial to the control of Hawai’i—which could be used as a military base in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. While the overthrow was set in motion by the contradiction between powerful white businessmen and the monarchy, the actual motive for the U.S. was imperialist expansion and the military control of the Pacific.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS:

Hiram Bingham, one of the first New England missionaries to Hawai`i, speaking about the Native Hawaiian people: “Can these be human beings! How dark and comfortless their state of mind and heart. How imminent the danger to the immortal soul, shrouded in this deep pagan gloom! Can such beings be civilized?”

Lorrin Thurston, Feb 3, 1893 [days after the overthrow]: “The trouble was, that the Queen did not wish to resign constitutionally, but instead sided with elements whose cry had for years been ‘Hawai`i for Hawaiians.’ The Americans and Europeans, who have by far the greatest interests there, are not willing to let the native spend the money which they have labored so hard to make.”

SOURCES:

Nation Within: The History of the American Occupation of Hawai`i , Revised Edition, Tom Coffman, 2009

Aloha Betrayed, Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism, Noenoe Silva, Duke University Press
Native Land and Foreign Desires: Pehea La E Pono Ai? How Shall We Live in Harmony?  Lilikala Kame’eleihiwa, 2013

 

 

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

 

 

---

 

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/484/yemen-trump-prepares-to-slash-aid-to-a-u-s-caused-famine-en.html

Revolution #484 March 27, 2017

Yemen: Trump Regime Prepares to Slash Aid to a U.S.-Caused Famine

March 27, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

 

President Trump’s proposed budget includes $25.6 billion for both the State Department and USAID, amounting to a 28.7% reduction from the current spending these organizations provide for “humanitarian efforts.”¹ Along with this, the new budget aims for major cuts—though the exact amounts are not yet specified—in U.S. contributions to the United Nations and its affiliated agencies.

The United Nations reports that it will require a $5.6 billion budget to effectively provide aid and relief for countries struggling with the after effects of war, which disproportionally affects civilians, especially children, by means such as famine and lack of access to medical attention. To provide effective relief, the United Nations must have the $5.6 billion by the end of March; so far it has only received 6% of the needed budget.²

The United States has been the largest financial contributor to the United Nations in the past, contributing upwards of 22% of the UN’s humanitarian budget. So the proposed budget cuts are a real concern for the United Nations, as it dwells on the uncertainty of the United States’ commitment to humanitarian relief. [See Sidebar on United Nations.]

One of the countries that will be extraordinarily impacted is Yemen, where a major humanitarian crisis has been escalated through the actions of a Saudi Arabia and United States organized coalition that is fighting against Yemeni Houthi rebels³.

The United States has aided the Saudi Arabian efforts by providing logistical and intelligence support for their systematic attacks against the Houthis, but more so, it has provided $1.3 billion worth of arms to Saudi Arabia to further their war campaign. Since 2009, the U.S. has provided Saudi Arabia with weapons that span across various military equipment, most notably armored vehicles (tanks), combat ships, and combat aircrafts. However, this military aid also consists of ammunition along with guns, howitzers, and more intense explosive ordinance such as cluster bombs and missiles.

Much of the criticism aimed at the Saudi-led coalition has been due to the systematic execution of air-strikes that have claimed the lives of thousands of civilians through the bombings of cities, schools, and hospitals; more than half the aircraft owned and used by Saudi Arabia to accomplish the bombing campaigns were provided by the U.S in November 2015, including F-15s, KC-130, and the E-3A.⁴ An August 2016 report from the U.S. Central Command concluded that since the war began, American military tankers had refueled more than 5,600 coalition aircraft used to conduct these airborne attacks.⁵

Further aggravating the suffering from the war, Yemen relies heavily on food imports for 90% of its people’s sustenance. But these imports have been largely halted due to a Saudi Arabian-led blockade which has endangered the lives of 14 million Yemenis as of 2016. This has not only caused widespread malnutrition, but has led to a lack of medical supplies needed to treat the tens of thousands of civilians injured in the war.⁶ The ships used to conduct this blockade were provided by the U.S in an October 2015 deal, where the U.S. sold Saudi Arabia four Multi-Mission Surface Combatant (MMSC) ships⁷.

The United Nations recently estimated that more than seven million Yemenis will need food aid to combat the widespread famine caused by blockade and by war-driven displacement. More disturbingly, UNICEF reported that 462,000 children will suffer severe acute malnutrition due to the war, which will likely contribute to developmental disabilities even if they eventually receive food assistance.⁸

As of February 2017, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization reported that 65% of Yemenis—17 million people—struggle with food insecurity. The UN Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) has requested $1.7 billion for Yemen, in addition to the $2.1 billion requested for Yemen HRP 2017, for a total $3.8 billion budget towards the Yemen humanitarian response. To date, it has approximately funded only 6% of the budget needed to combat the crisis in Yemen. Total U.S. Government assistance to Yemen and the neighboring countries has been less than $431 million as of March 10, 2017.⁹

 

 

1. Mohammed, Arshad. "Trump plans 28 percent cut in budget for diplomacy, foreign aid." Reuters. Thomson Reuters, 16 Mar. 2017. Web. [back]

2. Sengupta, Somini. "Why 20 Million People Are on Brink of Famine in a ‘World of Plenty’." The New York Times. , 22 Feb. 2017. Web. [back]

3. Editors’ Note: The Houthi are a Shi’a force that launched a rebellion against the Yemeni government in 2004. In 2015, Saudi Arabia—with U.S. backing—invaded Yemen because it believed the Houthi were politically tied to the U.S. and Saudi arch-enemy in the Middle East, Iran. [back]

4. Hartung, William D. "U.S. Arms Transfers to Saudi Arabia and the War in Yemen Share This /." U.S. Arms Transfers to Saudi Arabia and the War in Yemen | Security Assistance Monitor. 06 Sept. 2016. Web. [back]

5. Almosawa, Mark Mazzetti and Shuaib. "Support for Saudi Arabia Gives U.S. Direct Role in Yemen Conflict." The New York Times. 24 Aug. 2016. Web. [back]

6. Beauchamp, Zack. "Why the hell is the US helping Saudi Arabia bomb Yemen? A brief guide." Vox. 14 Oct. 2016. Web. [back]

7. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia - Multi-Mission Surface Combatant (MMSC) Ships | The Official Home of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency. Web. http://www.dsca.mil/major-arms-sales/kingdom-saudi-arabia-multi-mission-surface-combatant-mmsc-ships [back]

8. Sengupta, Somini. "Why 20 Million People Are on Brink of Famine in a ‘World of Plenty’." The New York Times. 22 Feb. 2017. Web. [back]

9. "Yemen | Disaster Assistance." U.S. Agency for International Development. https://www.usaid.gov/crisis/yemen [back]

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

 

 

---

 

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/484/May-1st-en.html

Revolution #484 March 27, 2017

From a Reader:

Monday, May 1: Resist!

March 29, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

A diverse array of immigrants’ rights groups, students, unions and more are calling for a general strike and mass protests on Monday, May 1. With a focus against the attacks and deportations of immigrants, the protests are linking together a range of dangerous outrages being carried out by the Trump/Pence fascist regime and the calls for the protests themselves are marked by breadth and unity.

The demonization and round-ups of immigrants are one of the key pillars of the fascist program being carried out by the Trump/Pence Regime. Under the mission of “Making America White Again,” this has to do with the aim to cohere and re-root America on a white, Christian foundation and identity while deeming whole peoples “criminal aliens” not worthy of due rights or even basic humanity. Families are being torn apart, immigrants are being snatched up anytime, anywhere just by virtue of being immigrants. Right out of the Nazi playbook, the Trump/Pence regime has instituted a program within the Justice Department to catalog the “crimes of undocumented people” which will serve to demonize and dehumanize a whole section of people, while whipping up mob hatred and violence against them. It’s also rooted in a dangerous lie that undocumented people are “rapists, gang members and criminals,” while statistically, undocumented people commit fewer crimes than citizens. The only reason this program is being established and this lie is being spread is to alienate and isolate sections of people coming to this country.

Mass resistance to this is absolutely essential. And made all the more powerful when it’s linked to other aspects of the fascist program this regime is aiming to consolidate.

These protests are also coming amidst a big struggle amongst different sections of the rulers over the status of “sanctuary cities,” with the Regime aiming to force cities to cooperate with ICE to detain people. Many are refusing to comply despite being threatened with federal funding cuts. (See “High Stakes in Trump’s War on Sanctuary Jurisdictions”)

May 1, an international day of revolution and in many countries, “International Workers Day,” over the last decade has become a major day of protest for immigrants’ rights in Los Angeles and across the country. In the context of the fascist Trump/Pence Regime, and the need to prevent them from consolidating their fascist program, this day takes on profound urgency.

Joining together in the Call for a General Strike on May 1 are the Food Chain Workers Alliance (FCWA) and the Service Employees International Union United Service Workers West (SEIU USWW). The FCWA is a national coalition of labor organizations. Together, these include over 340,000 members nationally and include some of the forces that were behind the Day Without Immigrants on February 16. The head of the teachers union in Los Angeles has called on the superintendent to officially shut down LA schools in honor of the strike. Movimiento Cosecha has called for a Day Without Immigrants. Campus groups nationally are organizing a student strike for May Day and some are working towards school walkouts on April 13 to build momentum towards May 1.

In Los Angeles, several coalitions of immigrants’ rights groups and others are uniting to call for a strike and march under the banner “RESIST!” SEIU in conjunction with Global Exchange and other organizations are planning a Caravan Against Fear traveling throughout California, including the Mexican border in defense of immigrant rights and to build momentum for May 1. The Women’s March in LA called for their followers to strike and march in unity with this day.

This day must involve people from every section of society with huge numbers of immigrants and undocumented stepping out of the shadows and defying the fear and criminalization to say No Human Being Is Illegal! Stop the raids and deportations. And they must be joined by many others, drawing the links from this question to the whole of the fascist program.

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

 

 

---

 

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/484/guns-blazing-ice-raids-chicago-home-en.html

Revolution #484 March 27, 2017

Guns Blazing, ICE Raids Chicago Home Filled with Sleeping Kids
Agents "Pointed Pistols in Our Faces... Shot My Dad"

March 27, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

From readers:

On March 27 at 6:30 a.m., the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) busted into a home in the northwest side of Chicago. With guns drawn they opened fire on Felix Torres, a 30-year resident of Chicago. His daughter, Carmen Torres, was sleeping in the basement of the house with her husband and one-year-old daughter when agents burst through the front door. Carmen said they “pointed pistols in our faces ... shot my dad.”

According to the family’s attorney, Thomas Hallock, Felix Torres “was shot immediately, or almost immediately, upon opening his door to see what the commotion was outside of his residence.” Torres was taken to the hospital in serious condition. ICE said Torres was not the person they came to arrest. The ICE agents claim Torres had a gun. Torres’ attorney said, “The man’s family insists he was unarmed and did nothing wrong.”

“It’s a lie when they say he was holding a gun,” Carmen Torres said. “They shot my dad. They shot him, and I don’t know why. We didn’t even have time to dress or grab milk for the baby.” At least eight family members were in the house during the raid, including her two nephews, ages nine years and five months. All of Felix Torres' children were born in the U.S., and Felix himself, originally from Mexico, has had a green card (legal permanent residency status) for many years. This raid is essentially extending the ICE terror to anybody who is Brown, whether they are an immigrant or not.

A press conference was called by Chicago activist and local alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, who said in a statement, “ICE’s guns blazing raid on a northwest side home filled with sleeping kids is exactly why the City of Chicago should refuse to collaborate with ICE. ICE routinely violates the American people’s constitutional rights. This guns blazing ICE raid deepens my resolve to organize my community so we can keep each other safe from the threat posed by ICE.”

Another Chicago alderman, Gilbert Villegas, said, “We’re going to have to talk to CPD [Chicago Police Department] to find out if this was a coordinated effort, because if it was in any way, that raises concerns about us as a sanctuary city. Is this our future in Chicago with Donald Trump as president?” The short answer is, YES!

Trump and Pence’s fascist offensive against immigrants and refugees, with stormtrooper attacks by ICE, steam-rolls on with ever-growing force, terror and viciousness, including in sanctuary cities. ICE and other security agencies have been unleashed and will be beefed up. Undocumented immigrants now live in a state of terror, and immigrants more generally are being continually made to justify their presence.

These ICE raids MUST BE STOPPED! Every person with a conscience must stand up and say NO! to these fascist Gestapo raids on homes of immigrants. Any attempt to harass, lock up and intimidate immigrants must be met with determined resistance NOW!

 

 

---

 

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/484/congress-strikes-down-internet-privacy-rule-en.html

Revolution #484 March 27, 2017

Congress Strikes Down Internet Privacy Rule—Opens Floodgates for More Massive Corporate and Fascist Regime Spying

March 30, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Late Tuesday afternoon, March 28, Republicans in the House of Representatives passed a resolution striking down the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rule Protecting the Privacy of Customers of Broadband and Other Telecommunication Services. This rule was supposed to prevent Internet service providers (ISPs) from collecting, storing and selling people’s private information, without the consent of the customer. Now a handful of giant telecom conglomerates—mainly AT&T, Comcast and Verizon which exercise a near monopoly over Internet access—will be able to do so without restriction. This resolution would also prevent the FCC from adopting such privacy restrictions on the telecom giants again. It has already passed the Senate, and the Trump White House says they’ll sign it. (The Trump/Pence regime has already knocked down provisions that ISPs have to take “reasonable measures” to protect customers’ confidential information such as credit card and Social Security numbers.)

ISPs can now collect your browsing and shopping history, exact location, health and financial background, family and personal connections, political preferences, and no doubt more without asking permission. This is far more information that can be collected than by a particular web browser (like Google Chrome) or social media platform (like Facebook), which you can choose to use, or not. You have no choice about having to sign up with an ISP to get online—which is increasingly a requirement in society today to look for and apply for jobs, buy airline tickets, stay in touch with family and friends, and do many other things. Today nearly 70 percent of people living in the U.S. have a home broadband connection.

This is an obscene invasion of privacy, driven in part by capitalism’s compulsion to maximize returns and competitive advantage, a compulsion which has been further unfettered under Trump. (The New York Times estimates the telecommunications monopolies will reap billions more in profits from this change.)

But it’s more than that, and more ominous than that. There’s a long, sordid history of U.S. telecom corporations secretly collaborating with U.S. spy agencies. Just to name one example, in 2015 the New York Times reported that “AT&T Helped U.S. Spy on Internet on a Vast Scale.” Now, according to the privacy advocacy group Fight for the Future, the new measure will "enable more unconstitutional mass government surveillance.”

And all this information and expanded surveillance will likely be put at the disposal of a fascist regime—the Trump/Pence regime—which is hellbent on crushing opposition to its illegitimate rule.

 

 

---

 

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/484/trump-says-f--k-you-to-the-planet-and-humanity-en.html

Revolution #484 March 27, 2017

Sick and Deadly Executive Order on Climate Change

Trump Says "Fuck You" to the Planet and Humanity

March 30, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

With the stroke of a pen, Donald Trump has moved to eliminate what small measures the U.S. had in place to limit the emission of greenhouse gases, the main cause of the climate change that is driving the planet toward environmental catastrophe. Trump’s executive order of March 28 directs the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to essentially rewrite or rescind Obama’s Clean Power Plan (which promised to cut greenhouse gas emissions by modest amounts), open up public lands to leasing for coal mining, eliminate regulations limiting greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants, do away with standards to limit methane gas emissions, and get rid of a number of other environmental protections.

The executive order puts into practice the rollback of environmental regulations passed in recent years under Obama that Trump has been threatening and promising. Obama himself had actually enormously increased the production of oil and gas in the U.S., expanded oil pipelines, lifted the restrictions on export of crude oil, and taken other measures that amounted to injecting more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. At the same time, the official position of the government under Obama was that human-caused global climate change was a major problem and had to be addressed. And Obama took certain environmental measures, like the signing of the 2015 Paris climate agreement and putting in place the Clean Power Plan that aimed to moderate and slightly cut U.S. contributions to the build-up of greenhouse gas emissions that are causing dramatic transformations in Earth’s climate system.

The approach of the U.S. rulers under Obama was to try to mitigate the crisis and adapt their system as best they could to the realities of climate change. They hoped to manage a roaring crisis that is threatening to leap out of control. And Obama aimed to position the U.S.  to put itself forward as “leading” the world on combating climate change, as part of a strategy to enhance U.S. global dominance. But none of the steps taken under Obama with the stated goal of combating climate change was anywhere near what is actually needed to seriously deal with the environmental disaster humanity is facing. And the climate crisis continues to intensify.

Now, Trump has said “fuck you” to even those half measures, to any pretense of doing anything or caring about the climate crisis. And this denier of human-caused climate change is saying “fuck you” to the scientific process and scientists who have come to an overwhelming consensus, through decades of research, about the dangers of global climate change caused by greenhouses gases and other human activity under the way human society is organized now. His actions signal that under his regime’s fascist madness, there will be no intention of meeting U.S. obligations to cut emissions under the Paris climate accords, as inadequate as those proposed cuts were. And this may cause other imperialist and capitalist powers, worried that the U.S. will gain a competitive advantage, to also abandon the Paris treaty—leading to even more greenhouse gases pouring into the atmosphere.

This is taking place when Earth’s whole climate system is increasingly in a state of emergency. Global temperatures are spiking year after year. Unprecedented changes in the oceans, weather patterns, and polar ice caps that regulate climate are raising increasing alarm from scientists and people worldwide about a threat to human survival and the ecosystems that support life. Recent scientific studies of past natural climate change in Earth’s history that annihilated major portions of life indicates the current human-caused climate change could spiral completely out of control. A planet-wide emergency is in full swing.

And as the planet burns, Trump and his fascist cabal are tossing more fuel on the fire. What will get burned up is major portions of planetary life, with the poorest and most oppressed sections of humanity already suffering the most from droughts, more powerful storms and other extreme weather, rising seas, and other consequences of global warming.

Trump played up his executive order as a big move for “America first” in energy security and independence, and to save “American jobs.” For the signing of the executive order, some coal miners were brought in to clap, while he told big lies about how this was going to bring their jobs back. The truth is, as Raymond Lotta has written at revcom.us, “Donald Trump Is Not Going to ‘Bring Back American Jobs’... But in the Name of American Jobs He Will Bring on New Horrors.” What kind of a sick system is it that would have people scramble for jobs in an industry that is contributing to a threat that endangers all of humanity and all life on the planet? And what does all this say about this capitalist-imperialist system that, driven by its inexorable thirst for profit and its expand-or-die dynamic, has brought forward a “Trump” who is now rushing ahead to make things even more horrific for billions of people around the world?

That the president of supposedly the “most advanced” country in the world is a man who claims climate change is a “hoax” and who is tearing up even the inadequate environmental measures that existed is another sharp example, among many, of why he and his whole fascist regime are totally illegitimate. For this, and for all of the Trump/Pence regime’s other myriad crimes, there is urgent necessity to drive them from power.

There is widespread outrage about Trump’s moves on the environment among environmental organizations, scientists and many others who care about the planet’s future. People are mobilizing and resisting in various ways. The month of April will see two very important ways that people are going up against the Trump/Pence regime’s attacks on the environment and science and other assaults on the people. The April 22 March for Science on Earth Day and the April 29 People’s March for Climate, Jobs and Justice are calling people into the streets to resist in the U.S. and worldwide. (For more on the significance of these marches and how to relate to them, see the revcom.us article “The March for Science on April 22—Why It Matters“ and “April 29 People’s Climate March: ‘We will resist attacks on our people, our communities and our planet’”)

It’s crucial these protests become powerful outpourings of hundreds of thousands that will be part of heightening the struggle to actually drive this regime completely out. Without driving them out, the deadly course they’re on cannot be stopped. But if they are driven out through massive societal upheaval, real possibilities for a radically different future can open up.

 

 

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

 

 

---

 

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/484/carl-dix-says-get-out-of-this-insanity-en.html

Revolution #484 March 27, 2017

Black People Killing Each Other in Chicago

Carl Dix says:
Get Out of This Insanity and Get Into the Revolution

March 31, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

In South Shore in 12 hours, seven people shot to death within four blocks of each other. Chicago goddamn! This is fucking crazy. Stop doing what the enemy wants you to do! This system that has created the conditions and the values that have our people destroying each other. Trump is planning to bring down the hammer on Black people in a way far worse than you can imagine. You are helping that happen.

You need to get out of this and start living and dying for something really worth fighting for. There’s something far better your life needs to be about—making revolution and getting rid of the REAL enemy.

We have a leadership like no other for this revolution in Bob Avakian. You need to get into the vision and plan he has charted for how the revolution could win and bring into being a world without all this nightmare of oppression here and around the world.

What’s your life going to be about? Getting respect in a fucked up situation, or ending that fucked up situation, not only for yourself but for all of humanity, in the only way possible—thru revolution? This is what is really worth living and fighting and yes even dying for.

Get with the Revolution Club office in South Shore:

1857 E. 71st St., Chicago. Hours:  3 pm-7 pm everyday (closed Monday)
312-804-9121 Revclub.chi@gmail.com

 

 

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

 

 

---

 

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/484/chicago-activists-condemn-meeting-between-fraternal-order-of-police-and-trump-administration-en.html

Revolution #484 March 27, 2017

Meeting with FOP Leaders:
Trump Pledges "100% Support" for Murdering Pigs

March 31, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

From readers:

On March 28, Trump and the head of the Department of Justice (DOJ), Jeff Sessions, hosted national representatives of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), including the head of the Chicago FOP. The FOP is the largest police group in the country.

At the meeting Trump made it crystal clear he will back murdering pigs 100 percent. “I made a crucial pledge: We will always support ... the incredible men and women of law enforcement. I will always have your back—100 percent. ... Sadly, our police are often prevented from doing their jobs. ... In too many of our communities, violent crime is on the rise. ... These are the painful realities many in Washington don’t want to talk about.”

In response, a press conference was called on March 29 outside the FOP’s Chicago offices by Eric Russell, President of the Tree of Life Justice League of Illinois. He was joined by Nataki Rhodes, an activist with Civilian Police Accountability Council; Tio Hardiman of Violence Interrupters, International; Carl Dix; and the Revolution Club, Chicago. Together they condemned Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ meeting with the Fraternal Order of Police, including the President of the Chicago FOP.

Eric Russell stated, “We are here to express our absolute outrage that the Chicago Police Department, a historically corrupt and systemically racist institution would have the backing of the Federal Government in a climate when they are murdering Black and Brown people with impunity.”

At the press conference Carl Dix said:

Trump said he’s gonna send the feds into Chicago to fix the carnage. He can’t fix the carnage like that because the system causes the carnage. What has our youth in the situation they are shooting and killing each other and also killing people caught up in the crossfire? Because they have been locked up in these inner city communities—no jobs, an educational system that’s geared to fail them.

They have plans to send in the feds. Chicago Tribune articles talk about mobilizing the National Guard, putting concrete barriers around a neighborhood on the South Side. Having the Guard staff those barriers. Anyone going in or out has to show their ID. South African apartheid on the South Side of Chicago. ... This could make it impossible for Black people to stand up and do anything.

This is part of an overall fascist onslaught. They also talked about [at the meeting] collaboration between the police and the deportation squads. This has already led to ICE breaking into a house on the West Side of Chicago recently, shooting a man and arresting his son, both of them legal. ...

This is what they want us to knuckle under to and take. We’re here to say NO. We’re sounding the alarm. Our youth play a critical role here. You have to get out of fighting and killing each other. You gotta get out of that and get into the revolution. Because we gotta get rid of this system. A system that has committed horrors it has already perpetrated against Black people, against Brown people, against Muslims, against women. That is a system that is no damn good and Donald Trump has greater horrors on the horizon they are bringing down. We gotta get rid of Trump, drive him out of there but do it in order to get rid of this system, to get ready for revolution.

 

 

---

 

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/484/dont-let-the-joneses-get-you-down-en.html

Revolution #484 March 27, 2017

Don't Let the Joneses Get You Down

April 1, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

The fascist radio host Alex Jones is both an “adviser” and a flunky of Trump and, not so incidentally, the ringleader of the attack on the “America Was NEVER Great” flag-burners at the Republican National Convention. Alex Jones, through his paranoid demagogy, whips up Trump’s reactionary social following and gets them on the offensive.

Van Jones is the CNN-designated ultra-safe “movement representative.” This Jones slobbered over Trump’s “salute” to that widow of a war criminal in his address to Congress and seeks common ground on TV with unrepentant Trumpists. Van Jones, through his normalizing of Trump and Trumpism, politically and ideologically puts to sleep those who oppose the regime.

These Joneses may seem as different as night and day; in actual fact, both contribute to the same end: the consolidation of a fascist America.

 

 

---

 

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/484/what-are-you-fighting-for-en.html

Revolution #484 March 27, 2017

What Are You Fighting For?

April 1, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

The conflict over Russia between different blocs within the U.S. power structure could be part of what leads to serious crisis. They are fighting, yes—but over how best to enforce domination and plunder the people and the planet. Do you really want to fight on those terms? Where your slogan might as well be “In the Name of American Domination, Impeach the Russian Puppet President”? If you do, you will end up delivering this beginning but growing movement back to the very social forces, system, and America-first outlook that this whole mess grew out of.

Only the slogan “NO! In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America—Drive Out the Trump/Pence Regime!” captures the most fundamental interests and aspirations of the people of the world and, yes, of hundreds of millions within the U.S.

Those two slogans would have very different results and lead to very different worlds. One or the other will set the terms in our movement. The question is, which one?