Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/512/see-and-share-this-talk-en.html
Revolution #535 March 19, 2018
In this Film, Bob Avakian Analyzes the Deep Roots and Driving Forces of Trump/Pence Fascism and What Must Be Done to Stop It.
Watch It Here, and Spread It.
| revcom.us
Be part of bringing the most serious answers to the most urgent questions to tens and hundreds of thousands, and ultimately millions.
This talk from Bob Avakian (BA) provides a scientific understanding of the roots of this fascist regime—in the history of the U.S. and the deeper roots in the system of capitalism-imperialism. He does so with passion, humor, humanity, and a deep sense of history. He cuts into the deepest, most agonizing questions, first in the speech and then in a wide-ranging Questions and Answers.
If more people watched this talk, it could change today’s political equation. But far too few have seen this talk, or even know about it. You are needed to be part of changing this.
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Scroll down for the film trailer, videos of the Q&A session following the speech, and clips from the film
Click to view the full speech.
The film and all video clips are also available for download HERE
For instructions to download this film click HERE
Questions and Answers with Bob Avakian
NEW: Download, share, and watch each Q&A in a separate clip. To download these clips, click the "v" icon on the bottom right of the clip to get to the Vimeo page, and scroll down to the button for "Download"
Q&A: What do you say to the comedians who ridicule Trump/Pence but also run the risk of contributing to normalizing fascism?
Q&A: How can we sustain the massive movement required to drive this regime from power?
Q&A: What strategies are there to break through the mainstream news whiteout of Refuse Fascism?
Q&A: What's the role of students in the movement to drive out the Trump/Pence regime?
Q&A: The Democrats are supposed to be the lesser of two evils, but I don't want to vote for them. I know the system sucks, but what do we do in the interim?
Q&A: As a revolutionary Christian, I believe that we do need this revolution but how can you have religious people not feel alienated?
Q&A: How can we overcome obstacles in reaching out broadly to drive out the Trump/Pence regime?
Q&A: Millions hate what's happening with the Trump/Pence regime, but does that matter if they don’t act?
Trailer and Clips From the Film:
Clip: "Why is it the Democrats can only try to resolve this on the terms of the system?"
Clip: "The 'Unholy Alliance' Between Trump and Fundamentalist Christian Fascists"
Clip: What Has Given Rise to the Situation in Which We Have a Fascist Regime Ruling the U.S.?
Clip: Why Can't We Rely On the Democratic Party to Root Out the Trump/Pence Fascist Regime?
Clip: If We Drive Out Trump, Won't We Just Get Pence? And How Can Mass Action Drive Out Trump, Anyway?
Clip: On What Basis Can Revolutionaries and People Who Are Not Revolutionaries Unite to Drive Out the Regime?
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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/515/what-people-are-saying-en.html
Revolution #535 March 19, 2018
What People Are Saying About This Film
Updated June 24, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
The following is taken from a document written by a leading comrade of the Revolutionary Communist Party. To read more click HERE.
On BA's Talk on the Trump/Pence Fascist Regime: "Wow!"
[This talk] is a truly masterful concentration of both current conjunctural (fascism on the rise) and deeper historical roots analyses (how did we get to this point and why?), along with leadership being given to what to do about all this, all while never failing to reveal and confidently proceed back from the largest and most strategic objectives of the New Communism, while also providing a school of method and principle, plus an outlining of the basic pathway forward in practice for those with whom unity can be forged in the current conjuncture even if they don’t yet share (and might never share) those ultimate communist objectives. A model of solid core, with lots of elasticity based on the solid core. A model of unite all who can be united, on the right basis and with the right methods. A model of calm confidence and certitude based on science. A model of decency, of morality, of approachability, of humor and compassion, and yes of hope, all the while not falling into the slightest bit of tailing or ass-kissing and instead waging ferocious polemical struggle with the masses of different strata to work on those living contradictions and challenge and bust through the obstacles and the confining and paralyzing frameworks of this period. And all in an hour. Wow! And then with it the Q&As, with all its intangibles, substance, remarkable scientific ease and liveliness on full display “off the cuff”—Wow yet again!
A New York City graphic designer
“Unbelievable is a word I often use for the programs, initiatives, and assaults that come out of this administration. Of course, nothing is unbelievable now. I have watched/listened to the Bob Avakian video. He is impressive in a number of ways. He's very knowledgeable and seems sincere. Although not surprising, the historical overview of the U.S. patriotic mindset and the description of the rise of fascism he sets forth is alarming. It's also accusatory, as it should be. I recognize myself to a shameful extent in the description of the non-ruling liberal class.”
Libya Pugh, Educator and Artist
“I've seen the Avakian film on fascism and the Trump/Pence regime, and it is a very valuable video for the world to see. As an educator I think It is especially important for teachers and students to see this film, because it focuses on history and the people’s struggle by showing us how fascism has affected our societies.”
Reverend Cecil L. “Chip” Murray, Los Angeles, California
“People must be exposed to this film. It is not an option. Here is one who is prophetic, speaking to those who are pathetic. Now is the 21st century. We can no longer afford to be pathetic....”
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“People must be exposed to this film. It is not an option. Here is one who is prophetic, speaking to those who are pathetic. Now is the 21st century. We can no longer afford to be pathetic. We may have to labor at being prophetic, that is the only way we can transcend self-destruction. No longer can we toy with weapons, now we have discovered the ultimate weapon that which ended World War 2, and which can start the end of the world, period. No longer is it just Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacked, now the whole world can be attacked so that when North Korea ‘threatens’ the most powerful nation, the leader of that nation who is called up to lead us, but we are being led by his pathetic response of ‘if you attack us, we will blow you off the planet.’ The essence of Bob Avakian’s film https://vimeo.com/238240664 THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO! In The Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America, A Better World IS Possible was a description and challenge on the need for a prescription of where we need to go from here. Any intelligence would have to agree with him because he described the world situation, what we will be involved in if we don’t fix it now.”
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Jean Krasno, Lecturer in the Department of Political Science; Director, Multilateralism and International Organization Initiative at the Colin Powell Center for Policy Studies at City College of New York; Distinguished Fellow at the Center for International Security Studies at Yale University
“Whether you agree with everything Bob Avakian professes or not, the power of his words will shake you into a profound reexamination of your core beliefs....”
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“Bob Avakian: a powerful message
‘Refuse to Accept a Fascist America’”
“Bob Avakian’s film profoundly challenges us to open our eyes and examine the underbelly of what we think of as ‘American Exceptionalism.’ As Americans, we want to see America as the bastion of democracy where equality, the rule of law, and justice for all permeates our lives. But Avakian forces us, with the power of his words, to rip away this false blanket that hides the truth and asks us to remember our exploitive and violent history, our long story of repression expressed through slavery and the genocidal treatment of America’s indigenous peoples. We may defend America by saying we have evolved; we have grown away from our past and have embraced justice and tolerance. Avakian’s words slap us out of this complacency. The ugly face of white supremacy is darkly slouching across our land, cultivated by the current administration’s obsession with hatred for all those who may look or speak differently. We are precipitously growing close to the brink of Fascism.
“Whether you agree with everything Bob Avakian professes or not, the power of his words will shake you into a profound reexamination of your core beliefs. America First and American Exceptionalism are devolving into America Isolated and America Alone, a frightening image in a world where no country acting alone can solve the global challenges we face. We are losing the trust and confidence of our allies and friends. And every act, negative or positive, reverberates in even the farthest corners of the world causing repercussions we cannot imagine. Fascism here begets Fascism elsewhere. Bob Avakian asks us all to take action and rescue America back from the brink and end this march toward Fascism.”
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Cornel West
“The spirit of resistance and commitment to revolution are always so inspiring in Brother Avakian!”
Claudia, a classical musician
“The film presented a strong affirmation of what I already was processing, that the regime is a malicious regime with an insidious agenda—and if it unfolds will just be catastrophic, in global proportions. Fascism never supports the masses... always a select few. This should be addressed immediately....”
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“The film presented a strong affirmation of what I already was processing, that the regime is a malicious regime with an insidious agenda—and if it unfolds will just be catastrophic, in global proportions. Fascism never supports the masses... always a select few. This should be addressed immediately.
“Thank you for presenting this to me. The speech is well-loaded with a plethora of information which needs to be distributed among as many people as possible... millions! But really, the driving point—and I have to go back to exactly what he was saying—was that this is a fascist regime. I felt, ‘Aha! Instruct me, I’m getting it.’
“He was so crystal-clear. He didn't sugar-coat. He didn’t say, ‘Oh well, if this doesn’t happen then maybe the next presidential election...’ Like trying to sweep it under the rug, like ‘this too shall pass.’ No, this needs to be addressed! And that’s what really lured me in, and now I’m hooked.”
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Donna Schaper, Senior Minister Judson Memorial Church, New York City
"Bob Avakian must be hoarse so long and well has he argued for basic human rights in the United States. His latest video summarizes the severity of the Trump/Pence crisis with vigor and a necessary outrage."
David Gunn Jr., son of Dr. David Gunn, the first abortion doctor to be assassinated by antiabortion extremists
“In posing the question, ‘Which is more important: order or justice?’ Bob Avakian addresses a key impediment to an overwhelming outpouring of nonviolent resistance to the Trump/Pence regime... There is no better time for non-violent resistance than now. Through the application of justice, it is time to forge a new order: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!...”
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"In posing the question, ‘Which is more important: order or justice?’ Bob Avakian addresses a key impediment to an overwhelming outpouring of nonviolent resistance to the Trump/Pence regime. Namely, do we quietly acquiesce to this administration’s offence upon offence against our republic specifically, and humanity generally, due to a need for the opioid-like calm of order; or, do we insist upon an application of justice that holds the administration accountable for its tyrannical, inhuman, and felonious conduct, but disrupts and upsets that same precious order people nurture and desire? Obviously, Avakian encourages us toward the latter, to be courageous, and take action now before everyone, even those who remain dedicated to the current order, is impacted by the true horrors of this administration. There is no better time for non-violent resistance than now. Through the application of justice, it is time to forge a new order: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!”
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Peter Switzer, Photographer
"To act in the interest of humanity, we truly need to break from this American chauvinism and instead listen to, and act according to science, not in spite of it.... This is a must watch, more than once, there is so much here to absorb, it deserves to be studied."
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"The first time I watched this talk it opened my eyes to the many serious contradictions in our society and how they routinely become normalized and are soon just after-thoughts, if thought of at all.
"To act in the interest of humanity, we truly need to break from this American chauvinism and instead listen to, and act according to science, not in spite of it.
"Avakian clearly shows why we can no longer count on a political candidate, the Democrats, or the hope that we will somehow resolve the urgent and immediate life changing issues facing us all, including the rise of American Fascism, within our present system.
"This is a must watch, more than once, there is so much here to absorb, it deserves to be studied.
"'In the name of humanity, the Trump/Pence regime must go!'"
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Gloria Pinex, member of Revolution Club, Chicago, whose son was murdered by Chicago police
"Hi. I’m Gloria Pinex and I’m a member of the Revolution Club. I’ve been a member of the Revolution Club for seven years. I immediately became a member after listening to Bob Avakian and how he gets down speaking the truth."
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"Hi. I’m Gloria Pinex and I’m a member of the Revolution Club. I’ve been a member of the Revolution Club for seven years. I immediately became a member after listening to Bob Avakian and how he gets down speaking the truth.
"Now, about this film. I listened to the film and he’s actually teaching you, step by step on what the regime, the fascist regime is about and what we are actually living. So I urge everyone to listen to the movie, come and watch the movie. Don’t take my word for it. The man is on point with everything he says. So, come watch the movie with us. I guarantee that you’ll like it and you will learn something from it. That’s it."
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Rafael Angulo, Clinical Professor, School of Social Work, University of Southern California
“Bob Avakian is speaking against apathy and for the need for courage... and for hundreds of thousands and millions to be out on the front lines. I’m glad to see an atheist quoting a religious pastor, Martin Niemöller—who spoke out against Nazi Germany and on behalf of the Jews and those in the resistance. Too often communists and those religious haven’t united in a potential partnership with the same end-point, and it gives me a sense of hope to hear and see Bob Avakian seek that partnership. The Trump presidency calls into question the deepest meaning of our religious claims and values and we have a greater impact when we work in partnership rather than live in silos. All people of good will, unite!”
David Zeiger, director of Sir, No Sir!
“If you hate and fear what is happening in this country today, you owe it to yourself to watch Bob Avakian’s speech. Set aside your assumptions and, dare I say, prejudices, and listen with an open mind. There is too much at stake.”
Pastor Doris Johnson
“I had a group in in my church tonight because I know this is very important... [W]e are really up against something bad with this Trump/Pence regime... [T]his film that we saw tonight... so many people that commented, we learned from each other. So whoever sees this, I appreciate if you would try to have this in your church and your organization, to show this film. Very educational, and very enlightened... things that I didn't even know...”...
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“I'm Pastor Doris Johnson, and this Trump/Pence regime must go. I had a group in in my church tonight because I know this is very important. So many people do not know about what is going on in the world. And I am a people person, and I like to get out and let people know what we are up against. And we are really up against something bad with this Trump/Pence regime. And I just want everyone to know that this film that we saw tonight, it's so many so people that commented, we learned from each other. So whoever see this, I appreciate if you would try to have this in your church and your organization, to show this film. Very educational, and very enlightened, things that I didn't even know. So I'm asking you to please show this film in your church.”
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From Rev. Frank Wulf, Pastor, Echo Park United Methodist Church, Los Angeles
“Too often, we decide to vote for Democrats because they are the lesser of two evils. But, of course, I am left to wonder when we will finally get to vote for people who are not evil—people whose policies and politics we can wholeheartedly endorse. In this sense, Avakian’s advice that we should not vote for the lesser of two evils because it is evil cuts very close to home.”...
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Thoughts Provoked After Watching Bob Avakian Answer the Question:
“Unfortunately, as a Democrat it has long been determined that you vote for the lesser of two evils, right? Either the Dems or the Republicans. But it has gotten to the point where both of them are just as worse—one is cancer and one is HIV. So you don’t want to vote for either one of them... I know the system sucks, but what are you supposed to do in the interim?” (Part 3 of Q&A session)
* * *
I never previously thought about Avakian’s corollary, but I think it’s correct. Trump’s volunteer may have gotten fired for saying that if you’re not succeeding then you’re not doing things right... that you’re not working hard enough. But that’s just the opposite side of the coin from President Obama saying that if you work hard in America and do all the right things then you will be successful. They both say essentially the same thing. It’s just that one says it positively while the other says it negatively... one is spoken with hope while the other is spoken without hope.
* * *
I’ve gone through a process of disillusionment with the Democratic Party. I’ve been a Democrat since I first registered to vote at the age of 18. Still, I’ve become more and more troubled by Democratic politicians pursuing policies that I personally find abhorrent. Obama did not end rendition as he promised when he was elected. His administration maintained the CIA black sites; they continued to torture. Police killings didn’t stop during the Obama years. In fact, they almost seemed to become more frequent and more blatant. The Trans-Pacific Partnership, which was pushed by the Democrats and the Obama administration, would undoubtedly have meant increased exploitation for workers like the tin miners in Indonesia. And then, there was Obama’s reputation as the deporter-in -chief. Things have gotten worse under Trump, but the truth is that the Obama administration deported more migrants and refugees than any previous administration.
Even before Obama, the Clinton administration pushed what was described as welfare “reform,” which has caused a great deal of harm to poor and mostly ethnic communities. Clinton’s Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act has proven to be one of the leading underlying causes for today’s crisis of mass incarceration. Even before this, we have what I would call the “Kennedy Synthesis”—in which America made the conscious political decision to embrace the role of policeman for the world—this in spite of Eisenhower’s dire warnings about the emergence of the military-industrial complex.
Too often, we decide to vote for Democrats because they are the lesser of two evils. But, of course, I am left to wonder when we will finally get to vote for people who are not evil—people whose policies and politics we can wholeheartedly endorse. In this sense, Avakian’s advice that we should not vote for the lesser of two evils because it is evil cuts very close to home.
* * *
On the issue of gun control, I think a little differently than some of my colleagues. I understand and agree with the movement to control access to guns... to require real background checks... to ban certain kinds of guns and ammunition. But, I am also deeply troubled by the fact that this society is producing people—especially young men—who are even capable of becoming mass murderers. How did we become a society that glorifies violence in such a way that shootings in schools, theaters, malls, places of worship, and... even become thinkable. Media like NPR tell us that the problem is mental illness, but mental illness is not the issue. The problem is that our society is sick. Our system is sick. The NRA loves to tell us that “guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” And, they are partly right. It takes a person to pull the trigger. But that doesn’t let gun manufacturers and gun lobbyists off the hook. They feed off of and they feed into the sickness of a society that places its trust in violence rather than community. They are a major part of our society’s deep moral sickness.
* * *
The Democratic Party is deeply rooted in what I would call the sin of white supremacy. It was founded by slave owners like Thomas Jefferson. It was shaped by racists like Andrew Jackson who advocated policies and implemented acts of genocide against Native Americans. During the years following the Civil War and up to the middle of the twentieth century, Democrats were the most outspoken and powerful advocates of segregation and Jim Crow. Things only really began to change during the Johnson administration when Johnson made a practical, political decision to yield to some of the demands of the civil rights movement, which had become increasingly vocal and activist during the years following World War II. But, the party has never totally been able to escape its white supremacist origins. The DNA is still there.
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Thoughts and Questions from a Reader in Kansas
“From the film, I see why instead of ‘Make America Great Again,’ it needs to be let’s ‘Make Humanity Great Again.’”...
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We received the following letter:
I watched the filmed talk by Bob Avakian, THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO! In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America, A Better World IS Possible, and had the following thoughts and questions.
He says the problems in this society go back to its founding; modern Western society was founded on genocide, oppression/exploitation, white supremacy, and sexism. He points out the appropriate slogan of “White silence is violence” by some protesters to say that doing nothing is a choice, and an action (the action of inaction) which perpetuates violence.
He powerfully illustrates that if Capitalism is not the highest form of societal organization, then the U.S. has to explain to the rest of the world why it was forced down their throat upon pain of death. My opinion is that the U.S. will never admit that Capitalism doesn’t work. It will go down with that particular ship.
Avakian’s mention of the “Southern Strategy”* —I wish he would have elaborated a little more on this. I’ve heard of it, but am not familiar with the particulars, or how this fits into the bigger picture. He does make clear how American Fascism = Christian Supremacy and how global Manifest Destiny is America’s ultimate goal, under the guise of “spreading democracy” (religious domination hiding as secular morality).
I thought his “Order or Justice” question is a great point! Is order worth the absence of justice, or vice versa? I believe justice, even at the (temporary) loss of order, is worth it! On his challenge to free oneself of the “Great Tautological Fallacy”—I thought it is another great point, with multiple examples he gives to clearly illustrate this. His example of how the U.S. having nukes is being seen as OK while North Korea trying to have them is seen as wrong was particularly on point.
From the film, I see why instead of “Make America Great Again,” it needs to be let’s “Make Humanity Great Again.”
I do have a question (and will watch the Q&As soon to see if this came up from others): How can a large, widespread protest be sustained indefinitely? Do we quit jobs, stop paying bills, camp out with families in the streets for months or possibly years? Do we alternate who, how many, and when people are protesting? Do we crowdsource funds to make this possible? How do millions of poor marginalized people (like myself) accomplish this and sustain their basic needs?
* * First developed by Richard Nixon, the "Southern Strategy" of the Republican Party nakedly appealed to the racism of unrepentant reactionary Southern whites who had historically voted Democratic because the Republican Party had been—in the mid-19th Century—anti-slavery. In this way the Southern Strategy won most of these forces to the GOP banner, gave them political legitimacy and initiative, and established the GOP as the party of more or less open white supremacy. —Editors
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Father Luis Barrios, Holyrood Church/Iglesia Santa Cruz, NYC
“I am very strong recommending, Bob Avakian, my brother, in a prophetic way he highlights real issues that are happening in the U.S. ... a prophet is the one with the capacity to first identify problems; second have the capacity and the courage to denounce the problem. But more important, to change that reality of oppression into a liberating experience.”...
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Hello my name is Father Luis Barrios, priest in charge of Holyrood Church, Iglesia Santa Cruz. In this film that I am very strong recommending, Bob Avakian, my brother, in a prophetic way he highlights real issues that are happening in the U.S. When I say in a prophetic way, it is because I am trying to use the religious language, that a prophet is the one with the capacity to first identify problems; second have the capacity and the courage to denounce the problem. But more important, to change that reality of oppression into a liberating experience.
So the film is like a wake-up call, but more important than a wake-up call, it’s a call to action, that we need to get together, people who believe in God, people who do not believe in God, using the common denominator—justice. So we come together, so we can fight, resist, organize, mobilize against this fascist regime that we have in the U.S. This combination of Trump/Pence can’t stay. We need to get rid of this.
I want to close with this: The movie when you look at this on my invitation not only to see the movie but also to follow the invitation Bob is giving us, the parallels of Bob and Saint Oscar Romero―I was thinking about this when I was watching the movie―and it is: Oscar Romero always said, and of course that was the reason why they killed him: “The main source of my sermon is that I care about people. I care about humanity.” And that is the big message that Bob is giving us in this film. God bless.
The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! In The Name Of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America. A Better World IS Possible!
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Ernesto de la Loza, Street Artist ‒ Muralist - “The Ghetto Rooster”
“Bob Avakian is a man living in truth... Avakian's talk... was so penetrating, convincing and compassionate... We need more people who are like-minded, a frontline, no backstep, side by side.”...
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“Bob Avakian is a man living in truth. This man doesn’t blink. Avakian’s talk THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO... was so penetrating, convincing and compassionate. He’s clear minded and I see―I feel―his worth. Avakian gives me a lot of hope. And, I can imagine how evil speaks—the powers want to silence him. He shows capitalism is a great deception, reveals the racism and jingoism... and the genocide. This is the 21st century—a crucial time for human existence—yet we live in an Orwellian world and it affects all of us, all of human kind. We have to step it up and it’s not an overnight deal. We need more people who are like-minded, a frontline, no backstep, side by side. It’s good Avakian is reaching out to the people with this talk—he has a gift: everyone can watch the THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO and can comprehend this. It is very clear to the everyday person. Let’s ourselves assume responsibility, and be in alignment, and use this talk to deal with the fear factor, the apathy, the propaganda machine, the distraction and dumbing down to the max. Instead, refuse to live on the dark side and be focused on stopping this fascism. There is a rainbow coming through the storm.”
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Dongping Han, historian and author
“This is a powerful speech. It destroys all the deception the elite has been using to deceive the people. I hope that more people in the U.S., in China, and in the whole world can watch it. People need to wake up to the dangerous possibility of a new type danger in our country and in our world.”
David Meyerhof, educator/poet
“My parents and grandparents escaped from Nazi Germany and survived the Holocaust. I know what happens when people do not resist fascism. Now is the time to watch, listen and learn from a leader who is showing us the true picture of the Fascism in America and what we must do to stop it. Watch The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! A Film of a Talk by Bob Avakian.”
Arturo O’Farrill, Grammy-winning musician
“Avakian's message is clear and very inspiring.”...
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“The talk given by Bob Avakian was spot on in recognizing the grave danger we have put ourselves in by normalizing the ‘presidency’ of one of the biggest con artists to come from the cesspool of New York real estate/show business. His incompetence is topped only by his evil and unmistakable grab for fascism to the benefit of he and his billionaire cronies. The solution is clear, mass disobedience and ultimately a dismantling of this administration brought about by the will of the people. Mr. Avakian’s message is clear and very inspiring.”
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Maggie Brown, Vocal Artist and Activist
“...Everyone who loves Mother Earth must watch this film and must seriously consider joining this movement to bring forth a better world”...
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“The description of multi levels of human suffering at the hands of those in political and economic power has never been articulated clearer than by BA in the film, THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO! In The Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America, A Better World IS Possible. Everyone who loves Mother Earth must watch this film and must seriously consider joining this movement to bring forth a better world.”
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Isabel Cardenas, Salvadoran-American Activist
“Bob Avakian is the only one who has got the guts to say things as they are—that The Regime Must Go... that this is a nightmare. EVERYONE should see Bob Avakian's film. ...it's a 'wake up' film .... Bob Avakian is calling on us to act, not to cross our arms.”...
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“I think the Revolutionary Communist Party is the only organization that dares to stand up for humanity. This is necessary, humanity needs help. I admire the work and commitment of the RCP—how they stand up for our brothers and sisters, no matter their religion, gender, sexual orientation or nationality. Bob Avakian is the only one who has got the guts to say things as they are ~ that The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go... that this is a nightmare. EVERYONE should see Bob Avakian’s film. Just stop and carefully listen to what he is saying. Listen to his call to action for everyone. And read the books he has written, he says things as they are. That film ~ THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO! In The Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America, A Better World IS Possible ~ is a must see. It’s a ‘wake up film’ to see what’s really going on and to do something about it. People are getting used to fascism, accepting it as an everyday way of living. You can see it now—people are blind to it. NO! We must not rely on politicians to do the work for us. No, we have to do it. Bob Avakian is calling on us to act, not to cross our arms. The elections coming up? No, we need to do this—and the longer it takes the worse it becomes. Bob Avakian has the New Communism—I’ve read a little but I haven’t gotten fully into it yet. I really do want to find out about it!”
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Matthew Shipp, Musician and composer
“Avakian skillfully weaves together the unique challenge we confront with the very specific brand of American fascism we face with Trump, the white nationalist Christian fascism of Pence, together with a historical context of how we got here—while issuing a very specific call to action now because this is a true worldwide emergency.”
Herb Boyd, Author, journalist and activist
“Whether on film or in person, Bob Avakian is a compelling advocate for real social change, and the more his voice and vision are exposed—and the film, The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! ..., is a powerful vehicle—the more I’m convinced that others will feel a need to join him on the ramparts.”
Jim Vrettos, Professor—John Jay College, NYC; host of The Radical Imagination TV show on Manhattan Neighborhood Network (cable)
“[T]he viewing of Avakian's film The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! [is] a must see for progressives and others of whatever political ideology and persuasion.”...
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“Whether you agree or disagree with his scientific analysis of the objectives realities of our world, you shouldn’t doubt Bob Avakian’s lifelong, uncompromising dedication and commitment to the fight to liberate the oppressed, exploited and wretched of the world.
“That alone in the Age of Trump makes the viewing of Avakian's film The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! a must see for progressives and others of whatever political ideology and persuasion.”
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A Black woman from Detroit
“He is very knowledgeable... spoke on crimes in Middle East and the consequences—where's humanity in all of this! More people have to WAKE UP and act in the interest of humanity!!!! And stay WOKE”...
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From a Reader:
03 January 2018
I suggested to an old friend, a Black woman from Detroit, that she watch BA’s speech. She did and sent me this comment immediately after watching it.
She wrote:
In response to Bob Avakian’s speech
He nailed it! Such a powerful speech!!! He called out the “christian fascists.”
So much truth about genocide, racism, slavery, bigotry—he called it like it is! True that since 1960s fascism has greatly accelerated! Reality is that the “church” had it done its job of preaching love for all mankind, slavery would never had taken place!!! So much in his speech that—I could go on and on.
We are in a disastrous and frightening situation!!!! The scary part is that so many people are unaware of what’s actually taking place
society is fragmented—purposely pitted against each other because if unified this could not be happening!!! I do believe that there are many others like Bob who are as outraged as those who are affected!!! Even spoke on myth that America is the leader of the “free” world—I mean he touched on every conceivable injustice !!!!
He is very knowledgeable... spoke on crimes in Middle East and the consequences—where’s humanity in all of this! More people have to WAKE UP and act in the interest of humanity!!!! And stay WOKE
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Paul DeRienzo, Host Trump Watch on WBAI-99.5 FM
“I heartily endorse this video and encourage radicals everywhere to check it out.”...
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“Bob Avakian is an important leader in the struggle to stop the Trump fascist juggernaut. Avakian's lifelong commitment to revolutionary change and his opposition to the imperialist state's torture establishment should interest all those burning with a desire to see justice in this world. As the U.S. careens towards war under the most avowedly fascist government in its long and bloody history of domination of weaker people including a legacy of 400 years of enslavement of African people—the voice of real revolutionaries cries out to be heard. I heartily endorse this video and encourage radicals everywhere to check it out.”
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From a Reader:
“Avakian is not looking at this with world-weary, determinist "realism" but with an approach of seeing these as contradictions rooted in an underlying reality”...
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“Avakian is not looking at this with world-weary, determinist ‘realism’ but with an approach of seeing these as contradictions rooted in an underlying reality—a reality that is in motion and going through convulsive change—and a recognition that the stability people are going to great lengths of self-deceit to maintain—is also coming to an end and where abrupt changes that people tend to see as ‘it couldn't happen here’ can happen very quickly. These are contradictions that can be worked on—and must be—but the freedom in this necessity is not clear without a method that digs down into the foundations of the underlying reality.
“If you look back at this speech you can see BA approaching this not with determinist realism, cynical realpolitik, or tailing the outlook of the middle classes but struggling with people (in this speech he speaks to different sections of the people) with strategic confidence, with a lot of heart and compassion, and very wide arms. And that is BA applying the new synthesis he has been the architect of—putting the living science of communism back on its scientific foundations.”
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Revolution #535 March 19, 2018
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THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO!
In The Name of Humanity,
We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America
A Better World IS Possible
A Talk by Bob Avakian
Updated April 19, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
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Revolution #535 March 19, 2018
Film Showing at Church Provokes Discussion and Debate:
“There was so much packed into the talk.”
March 19, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
From a reader:
This past weekend, a group of 17 of us gathered in the sanctuary of a local progressive church to watch BA’s film THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO! In The Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America. A Better World IS Possible.
About half the audience was from the church and the other half came off of Refuse Fascism building for the showing. There is social significance in the quality and breadth of people who came, as we learned from the comments and discussion after the showing.
In response to revcom’s call to show BA’s film to a wide circle of people in society, I made a cold call to this Christian church that has a history of anti-racism and pro-LGBT activism. It is also known for its philosophy of inclusion of different religions, sexual orientation, and progressive political perspectives. After hearing the contents on the film’s palm card, some church members volunteered to help organize the event.
At the showing, one of the volunteers gave a brief welcome, and an introduction to the film and BA was given by a supporter of BA’s new synthesis. We watched the hour-long speech, plus a section of Q&A #1 on “if successful in driving out...” and a section of Q&A #3 on “as a revolutionary Christian...” One of the most audible responses was to BA’s comment on why they (e.g., mainstream media) don’t ever ask Pence how old the Earth is; and when BA said if people voted for Trump, they are OK with his racism, which makes them racists.
The audience closely watched the film and Q&As. In the discussion, people expressed a lot of anxiety and urgency about the state of the world with the Trump/Pence regime, even as many were coming at it politically as Democratic Party followers and therefore still had much faith in electoral politics. Several people expressed being pro-Bernie, and one argued strongly for the 2018 elections.
One church member commented that “Rarely have I seen the term Christian fundamentalist used, and who Trump’s base is, these elements of Christian fundamentalists. I agree that white nationalism is the basis of this fascism and is rooted in Christian fundamentalism that further creates deep divisions in this nation, and that it was already there. Black preachers who are successful and in the spotlight have not disavowed any of it. I stand on shoulders of others such as Malcolm X who was religious and turned his life around, and Nat Turner. Communists are atheists; what role [is there] for people of faith to contribute to this movement?”
Another church member said she was familiar with everything BA talked about. She said that after the November elections, someone came in with the 12 points of fascism and they discussed them. Another church member chimed in that she was concerned because it was not helpful right now to just talk about these issues, including revolution, without “talking politics, negative politics,” as she put it, referring to the criticisms made of the Democrats. She went on to say we had to really mobilize people to pressure their congressmen to prevent the criminalizing of anyone calling for boycott campaigns against Israel—she had just returned from the California Democratic Party convention. When asked about specific points made by BA with regard to the difference between leadership of the Democratic Party and people like herself, she agreed. She wanted to get back into the film. She spoke passionately about how the ground is being cut from under us with this regime, and the urgency to act, and was frustrated that groups were not working together more.
Another person said, “I am glad to hear him say you have to work in coalitions. I am from the ’60s generation when people said the revolution was coming. Does Refuse Fascism work with others like Our Revolution, Bernie Sanders, MoveOn, various things trying to bring folks together?”
Someone from Refuse Fascism made a couple of comments during the discussion. He shared with them that he “was a Berner but I’ve lost all hope in the system. I work with people who vote, don’t brush them aside or not work with them. From my own perspective, [the] system [was] built the way it is, not built for us. At the Democratic National Convention, when Bernie did not walk out, that was the moment for the revolution and it didn’t happen. They robbed us, stomped us down—once again. I voted for Jimmy Carter, but I have evolved. I agree with what BA says about the system, we can’t fix it or work within it.” He went on to challenge people in the room: “Look, if we don’t drive out this regime and work for that, all the hard work you are doing to stop the different things like the attacks on health care, the criminalizing of calling for boycotts vs. Israel, we will be rolled over,” emphasizing humanity and the planet.
Several people expressed curiosity as to what BA meant by revolution. One person commented, “Bernie voted for every war. I oppose war and violence all over the world. Humanity’s got a huge problem and needs revolution but has to affect consciousness. I am concerned with all injustices. Electoral process is corrupted, doesn’t matter who runs, nothing will change. I am concerned with BA’s concept of revolution; as he said, in order to revolt, it is a serious matter requiring sacrifices, and you have to have a significant majority.”
One person was very excited about the film. He said BA made so many important points, like the GTF [Great Tautological Fallacy], and as he was trying to wrap his mind about one point, BA was onto the next, that there was so much packed into the talk. We wholeheartedly agreed and encouraged him to go back and watch the film again, including all the Q&As. He was very glad to hear that it was online and he could watch it at his own pace. Throughout our discussions, we would bring people back to the content of the talk, referencing points made by BA so people would go back to watch the talk or the Q&A sections.
There was lively discussion and debate that was provoked by the film and the situation we are confronted by and what to do about it; everyone welcomed and appreciated the controversy and discussion.
This experience shows the kind of wide audience that needs to encounter BA’s speech and engage. It was important that the church hosted this showing. Some of the church volunteers had seen the film before the group gathering, and knew that BA was a contended question (including among church members), but united over the need for this film being seen by others with a spirit and insistence to make it happen based on their own expressed sentiment that “what unites us is greater than what divides us.” We shared copies of BA’s official biography and “BA: A Contended Question” with everyone at the showing.
Refuse Fascism volunteers are going to follow up with the church members about having another showing of the talk and Q&A and to work together with Refuse Fascism to drive out this regime.
As the February article on revcom stated: “Some people will just want to digest it and think it over. They may or may not spread it through social media or talk to friends about it... but whatever they do or don’t do immediately, it’ll be circulating in their minds as things continue to develop. Don’t underestimate the importance of that. Others are going to want to get active in Refuse Fascism—make sure that they have a way to do that. Try to find a way to stay in touch, even with those who are ‘too busy’ right now to get active.”
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Revolution #535 March 19, 2018
THE NEW COMMUNISM COULD CHANGE EVERYTHING—IF...
March 15, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
The following are excerpts from a document written by a leading comrade of the Revolutionary Communist Party and circulated among Party members and supporters. Footnotes have been added here.
Let’s speak frankly now. Let’s be willing to honestly confront and be blunt and grapple with the problems of the revolution, including with people outside our own Party. Let’s start by stating some simple basics about the current reality:
We revolutionary communists are supposed to represent and speak in the name of the interests of all of humanity. And we are supposed to do so on the basis of science and nothing less. On that basis, we can in fact have a great deal of certitude in stating that what humanity needs, more than anything else, is a communist world, achieved through a process of revolutions (of the right kind) to establish socialist societies (of the right kind) as a transition and road, and a base for advance, to that communist world. So it’s not just communism we are fighting for, it’s the right kind of communism, the NEW COMMUNISM.
The new synthesis of communism brought forward by Bob Avakian (BA) really is a total game-changer, which objectively represents and constitutes the opening of a whole new chapter in the historical evolution of communist theory and practice. IT WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING. But this will happen only IF the New Communism of BA becomes widely known, takes root, and spreads ever more broadly, in a kind of geometric progression, throughout this society and also throughout the entire world.
But right now the objective situation is such that hardly anyone has even heard of the New Communism, hardly anyone is even searching for that kind of solution to the world’s problems, and the so-called educated or “progressive” and “enlightened” people here and around the world remain primarily mired in moribund and paralyzing retrograde frameworks of the past (standard bourgeois democracy, social democracy,1 variations on Ajithism,2 etc.) and by and large are stubbornly (and sometimes snarkily, with significant vitriol) refusing to explore and engage anything that might be radically new and inspiring but which might actually require them to question and break out of the relative stability and comfort they can still typically benefit from (especially in the U.S.) thanks to their objective acceptance, accommodation and ultimately complicity with the dominant and ruling exploitative and oppressive frameworks, in all their vile and brutally violent incarnations (including their increasingly fascist directions) here and throughout the world.
So the external objective/subjective conditions we are dealing with are difficult to say the least. And, relatedly, the revisionism that has plagued the ranks of communists everywhere in recent decades, including in our own Party,3 has posed especially significant obstacles to waging the necessary struggles to break through any of this. So overall this is a very challenging time.
But one thing is crystal clear: There is nothing that would be more important to accomplish in this period of history than to succeed in breaking through some of these obstacles and getting the New Communism, as well as its architect, BA (the person who has elaborated and developed this new synthesis of communism, and who himself stands as a concentrated expression of its core principles and scientific methods), widely known, engaged and appreciated throughout this society (and among all strata), and beyond that throughout the world. And it must also be said that, conversely, if we don’t succeed in doing THAT—if we don’t succeed in making qualitative and quantitative breakthroughs in fulfilling THAT mission—then not much at all will come out of anything any of us have done over the past decades, or continue to do today. All that hard work, and all that dedication, and all that sacrifice? It will all amount to a big fat zero if we do not succeed in broadly spreading the New Communism, getting it to take root and initiating a process of sustainable geometric progression.
If we don’t succeed in this, there really is no point to any of the other things we do. If we don’t succeed in this, then even important things like: the website (and associated social media) outreach and leadership; particular “Fight the Power...” conjunctural initiatives around any and all of the 5 Stops4 (including genocidal police brutality and murder); particular emergency-worthy and strategic “nodal point” initiatives (such as Refuse Fascism); particular attention paid to international developments (and to revolutionary-minded forces in other countries) and to struggling against the stranglehold of jingoism and national chauvinism among the people in this country; particular attention paid to realizing the two maximizings (developing work among both the most oppressed social base and educated youth in particular); particular attention to vigorous recruitment and the developing of a newly revitalized Leninist party on the basis of the New Communism (and not something else or lesser than that...), none of our dedicated work in any of these spheres will ultimately amount to anything more than perhaps a minor footnote in history, unless...
Unless we do manage to fulfill our core mission and accomplish what we should all recognize as being our single most crucial and critical strategic goal, and daily preoccupation: which, again, would mean breaking through the assorted obstacles to get BA and the New Communism he has brought forward WIDELY known, engaged and appreciated throughout society.
Managing to do that should be understood to be our foremost, most singular and critical, strategic mission and objective (for all of humanity and its future, if it is to have any kind of future worth having).
In line with all this, let’s once again take a hard look at BA’s previous interventions of recent years—what he himself accomplished, vs. what did or did not come out of it in terms of the #1 objective.
Much of this is familiar to all of us, of course. To be blunt once again: they have ALL been, to a very large extent, criminally squandered.
But first, to speak to the positives: Simply put, in addition to the many invaluable published works and audio and video compilations, we have in recent years been treated to an unbelievable series of public and semi-public direct interventions by BA in person. These have consistently been incredible, world-class-level presentations of new communist theory, propaganda and agitation, all put forward with great depth, and substance, and heart, and all done in such a way as to serve as a living laboratory of scientific methods applied to the problems of human society. All done in a manner that is widely accessible to a wide variety of audiences, and which concentrates many different levels of precious lessons for everyone, ranging from brand new people, of different backgrounds and strata, to the most experienced communist “veterans,” including top leadership of our own Party, including, of course, ourselves.
Isn’t everything I just said here true? Just think of direct interventions like the 7 Talks,5 or the talks that gave rise to the 2003 Revolution: Why It’s Necessary, Why It’s Possible, What It’s All About film; or the talks that gave rise to the REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! film; or the series of internal leadership seminars a few years ago which drilled home the importance of scientific methods and the need to break with the mass line,6 reification,7 populist epistemology,8 etc. carried over from earlier stages of communism; or the thrilling (and contended) public Dialogue at Riverside Church with Cornel West, and the film that came out of that; or the series of internal seminars which ultimately fed into the process of BA’s writing the seminal book THE NEW COMMUNISM; or the most recent semi-public (and only one-hour long!) 2017 talk which is a truly masterful concentration of both current conjunctural (fascism on the rise) and deeper historical roots analyses (how did we get to this point and why?), along with leadership being given to what to do about all this, all while never failing to reveal and confidently proceed back from the largest and most strategic objectives of the New Communism, while also providing a school of method and principle, plus an outlining of the basic pathway forward in practice for those with whom unity can be forged in the current conjuncture even if they don’t yet share (and might never share) those ultimate communist objectives. A model of solid core, with lots of elasticity based on the solid core. A model of unite all who can be united, on the right basis and with the right methods. A model of calm confidence and certitude based on science. A model of decency, of morality, of approachability, of humor and compassion, and yes of hope, all the while not falling into the slightest bit of tailing or ass-kissing and instead waging ferocious polemical struggle with the masses of different strata to work on those living contradictions and challenge and bust through the obstacles and the confining and paralyzing frameworks of this period. And all in an hour. Wow! And then with it the Q&A, with all its intangibles, substance, remarkable scientific ease and liveliness on full display “off the cuff”–Wow yet again!
So all that is great and inspiring, but here’s the rub: ALL these more or less “direct” interventions by BA have been remarkable and world-class in terms of both form and content. ALL of them have been schools of method, for everyone. ALL of them are objectively priceless in and of themselves, and I am quite sure that they will ultimately “bear fruit” in a way commensurate with their quality—at least I expect this to happen over the longer term, if somehow humanity manages not to drive itself to literal extinction in the near future. I certainly am confident, on a scientific basis, that any decent future for humanity would necessarily have to be carved out by “going through” the new synthesis of communism brought forward by BA.
Because of all that I have said here (about the longer-term future in relation to the entirety of BA’s body of work, including all these interventions), it would be totally and obscenely wrong to conclude these interventions have been wasted efforts because they were, ultimately, squandered in the aftermath. But at least in the shorter term, to put it quite crudely, “what has come out of these interventions?”
BA did his part(s), but what have the rest of us succeeded in doing in the aftermath of these BA interventions that we could point to and honestly say: “This has really helped to spread the New Communism much more broadly and widely; you can see that, thanks to this intervention, lots more people now know about BA, and what he has brought forward; that lots more people are now discussing, debating, contesting, engaging the New Communism; that this is all giving rise to a certain kind of geometric progression as all this is really beginning to take hold and is spreading farther and farther day by day, reaching a great many people we could not possibly encounter directly. Very significantly, there are now clear indications of the emergence of significant new cohorts of genuine and motivated actual followers of BA and of the New Communism–significant not simply in importance, but in actual numbers, and expanding societal influence, as well—all of which bodes well for the possibility of the New Communism spreading and taking root to an unprecedented degree in the next period.”
Unfortunately none of this has happened.
Again, BA has done his part, in every single instance. But the “toxic combination” of recent years, characterized by the predominance of anti-scientific revisionism in both our own Party and the international movements, combined with the frustrating degree to which masses of all the different strata have NOT been correctly identifying the source of “the problem” confronting society and all of humanity, or have not been in any serious way looking for this kind of “solution” (for all the reasons we have previously discussed and which I won’t belabor here)—this “toxic combination” has resulted in a situation where it is today incredibly difficult and dislocating for even the best of the current communist leadership to create the necessary conditions for these BA interventions to take place on an even remotely correct basis (appropriate audiences, appropriate security, etc.) and, even beyond that, in every instance, there also does not seem to have been a sufficient material basis and/or sufficiently grounded ideological orientation to enable even the best of current leadership to “come out the other end” of these BA interventions in such a way that seeds of New Communism could really be broadly planted and then harvested on any kind of significant scale.
So, we have to confront this reality, and yet figure out ways to not let it defeat us. Acknowledge the reality that all that incredible effort gets put into things but, in this period at least, not a whole lot actually “comes out of it all” in terms of really making significant progress in meeting that #1 strategic objective. Again, it will all likely bear fruit in a more commensurate way somewhere down the line, but at least in this period, in a period where the fragile flickering light of the New Communism could still so easily be extinguished, I don’t think we have succeeded in creating anything like the necessary material basis within which these remarkable direct interventions could actually be properly harvested, with the goal of unleashing that process of “geometric progression” of spread and societal influence we so desperately need to effect.
One of my recurring frustrations is also that every one of these interventions has produced incredibly valuable materials (books, films, etc.) which themselves provide so much of what we need to “spread” BA and the New Communism broadly throughout society, but we are always so busy doing other things that we barely make use of these most valuable tools for harvesting and spreading.
But of course this does not mean that the current situation (the repeated squandering) is acceptable, or could never ever be transformed (!), or that, no matter what we decide in the particular, we should not do all that is in our power to figure out how to spread the New Communism far and wide and work to have it take root. This does need to happen! It does need to be our #1 strategic objective.
For one thing, we need to revive the whole orientation around barefoot doctors9 and Huxleys.10 We need everyone, from leading people to Party members and supporters broadly, to serve minimally, or at least in some capacity, as barefoot doctors. Can you call yourself a communist if you’re not in some fashion doing at least that? To engage in at least the simplest tasks that can help spread the New Communism and BA (including by distributing BA literature and showing BA films as well as advertising the existence of the website, etc.). The original barefoot doctors in China during Mao’s time (largely peasant masses who were given basic medical knowledge and training) may not have had the basis to provide advanced medical theory or conduct complex medical interventions (they did not and would not have been allowed to try to do so, as this could have done more harm than good) but they provided an invaluable service by tirelessly going out far and wide, by trying to reach as many people as possible, by doing so repeatedly and consistently, and by bringing very basic medicines and treatment and basic medical education (the equivalent of spreading literature and films) to all sorts of places and people who had never had access to even such basics. An invaluable service. So is there anyone who really cannot or should not serve minimally as a barefoot doctor in relation to BA and the New Communism?
In conjunction with that we need Huxleys to actually be, and function as, HUXLEYS(!!). To do so correctly, consistently, and with the understanding that this is their PRIMARY mission, not just something they do alongside everything else they do. I don’t care how many direct interventions BA does, or of what quality, or with what conjunctural timeliness—if we don’t have a crew of ardent and motivated Huxleys, who see themselves first and foremost as followers of BA, and who consistently see their primary mission as what I referred to as our #1 strategic mission overall, and then act in accordance with that in everything they do, including by actually acting in society primarily as Huxleys, then we will never have the material basis to not squander BA’s works and interventions, and we will never develop fresh new cohorts of motivated followers of BA and the New Communism. We might recruit one or two fresh faces here or there, but we will never be able to regroup, re-ascend and revitalize an actual Leninist party that actually corresponds to and can implement the core objectives and methods of the New Communism.
At the same time, I know one thing: If this fascism of the Trump/Pence regime gets consolidated and this really becomes the widely accepted “normal” of this society, not only will this have disastrous consequences overall, but more specifically, we, as communists, are going to have an even much harder time getting anywhere, including with the spread and promotion of the New Communism and the works of BA and the development of open and motivated active followers of BA dedicated to getting all this to take root and spread even more. So the mission of Refuse Fascism, and whether it spreads and gains traction and committed adherents and stays on the right track, and so on, really is not “just another good initiative or good thing to be doing.” And in relation to our strategic communist objectives, the failure of what is represented by Refuse Fascism might well end up putting the final nail in our coffin.
Something like the recent 2017 talk by BA, THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO! In The Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America, A Better World IS Possible—which speaks powerfully to the immediate, urgent importance of bringing forward masses of people in nonviolent but sustained political mobilization to drive out this fascist regime, and the crucial relation between that and our fundamental revolutionary objectives—really needs not to be squandered! This film needs to be used (a lot!!) and there needs to be an active approach on our part to have all its positives made full use of and broadly projected and injected into everything, etc. I get frustrated that still not enough of this is going on (and that the film still seems to get sort of “tacked on” to other things). With that particular intervention and film, if we don’t keep putting enough leading attention into it even now, in the aftermath, then we will suffer the consequences (yet again) of unconscionable squandering (including in failing to fulfill both some important aspects of our #1 objective to promote and project BA and the New Communism, and also failing to take full advantage of this talk’s ability to positively influence the development of the necessary anti-fascist trajectory). All this would be bad enough, and we really should try very hard to make full use of everything that could be accomplished through broad promotion and dissemination of that talk—I think we have barely scratched the surface!
I will end here by simply restating the obvious:
BA himself really does actually concentrate the best of what is the New Communism, and his various works and interventions are themselves the best possible “advertisement” for this new synthesis of communism—there are no better tools for the spread and popularization of the New Communism than BA’s various works and interventions “in their own right,” free of any intermediary distortions or re-castings or reinterpretations.
But—and this is a critical but—regardless of what BA himself is or is not able to personally undertake, everything that is represented by the New Communism—which really does have the potential to “change everything!” in the interests of all of humanity—will never spread broadly enough and will never take root deeply enough unless there develop legions of motivated, inspired followers—genuine, motivated and inspired followers—of the New Communism, and of BA himself as a concentration of all that. So, one way or another, bringing that into being really has to be our primary preoccupation and objective, increasingly in its own right, as well as within everything we do.
FOOTNOTES
1. Social democracy refers to a political trend that envisions a form of “socialism”—actually, some variant of state ownership of some industries and extensive welfare measures—that would come to power through bourgeois elections. It denies the need to meet and defeat the violent repressive power of the bourgeois state through massive all-out struggle for power involving millions and millions, and opposes revolutionary trends that recognize this necessity. This began as a serious trend in Europe, where the usually unspoken basis for it was the spoils from the continued plunder of colonies and neo-colonies. Today it is a significant force in Latin America (Lula in Brazil, Bachelet in Chile, etc.), as well as elsewhere, and takes shape in the U.S. in groups like the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), and others. [back]
2. Ajithism refers to the trend concentrated in the pamphlet “Against Avakianism,” written in July 2013 by Ajith. This trend is analyzed and extensively criticized in the article “Ajith—A Portrait of the Residue of the Past,” published in the online journal Demarcations. This polemic with Ajith is a critical work that goes into and demarcates the new synthesis from what has gone before on a range of questions, focused on Bob Avakian’s breakthrough in epistemology. The authors make the point that “To the extent that there were errors in the communist movement, including in the thinking of its greatest leaders, this should neither make communists shrink in horror nor adopt an ostrich-like defense of secondary weaknesses. But what were mistakes in one historical context, when championed, canonized and developed as Ajith does, become transformed into a qualitatively different project for society.” “Ajith—A Portrait of the Residue of the Past,” page 80. [back]
3. Revisionism refers to schools of thought and political trends that claim to be communist, or Marxist, but revise the revolutionary heart out of communism. The character of revisionism today has been gone into in many works—most especially Communism: The Beginning of a New Stage, A Manifesto from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, RCP Publications, 2008 and THE NEW COMMUNISM: The science, the strategy, the leadership for an actual revolution, and a radically new society on the road to real emancipation, Bob Avakian, Insight Press, 2016. Essentially, revisionism draws on some variant of bourgeois democracy, or a fixation on certain incorrect and wrong lines in the first stage of the communist revolution (the period from the writing of the Communist Manifesto in 1848 to the overthrow of socialism in China in 1976), or both to oppose the further advance of communism, as crystallized in Bob Avakian’s new synthesis. Both these works go deeply into the Cultural Revolution within the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA—the content of the lines that have contended with the new communism, the course of the struggle, and its crucial character in determining whether or not there will be an actual vanguard, a revolutionary... communist... party in this country. [back]
4. STOP Genocidal Persecution, Mass Incarceration, Police Brutality and Murder of Black and Brown People!
STOP The Patriarchal Degradation, Dehumanization, and Subjugation of All Women Everywhere, and All Oppression Based on Gender or Sexual Orientation!
STOP Wars of Empire, Armies of Occupation, and Crimes Against Humanity!
STOP The Demonization, Criminalization and Deportations of Immigrants and the Militarization of the Border!
STOP Capitalism-Imperialism from Destroying Our Planet! [back]
5. 7 Talks. These talks were given by Bob Avakian in 2006 and covered a wide range of topics. Some of the material in these talks were drawn on for other works, including Communism and Jeffersonian Democracy, Bob Avakian, RCP Publications, 2008 and Away With All Gods! Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World, Bob Avakian, Insight Press, 2008. These talks include: “Why We’re in the Situation We’re in Today... And What to Do About It: A Thoroughly Rotten System and the Need for Revolution”; “Communism and Jeffersonian Democracy”; “Communism: A Whole New World and the Emancipation of All Humanity—Not ‘The Last Shall Be First, And the First Shall Be Last’”; “The NBA: Marketing the Minstrel Show and Serving the Big Gangsters”; “Communism and Religion: Getting Up and Getting Free—Making Revolution to Change the Real World, Not Relying on ‘Things Unseen’”; “Conservatism, Christian Fundamentalism, Liberalism and Paternalism ... Bill Cosby and Bill Clinton ... Not All ‘Right’ but All Wrong!”; “‘Balance’ Is the Wrong Criterion—and a Cover for a Witch-hunt—What We Need Is the Search for the Truth: Education, Real Academic Freedom, Critical Thinking and Dissent.” [back]
6. Mass line was a method developed by Mao that set the heart of the communist method as taking the scattered and unsystematic ideas of the masses, concentrating what is correct in them, and returning what is correct to them in the form of policies that they can take up and act on. Bob Avakian analyzed the problems with this principle in his 2014 talks [“The Material Basis and the Method for Making Revolution” and “The Strategic Approach to Revolution and Its Relation to Basic Questions of Epistemology and Method”]. Such a method relegates communists to essentially holding a mirror up to and confining themselves within the limits of whatever the sentiments of the masses are at any given time, as opposed to scientifically analyzing what must be done at any juncture and then struggling and working with masses to take this up. The “mass line,” however, became enshrined for decades as a more or less unchallenged principle prior to BA’s forging of the new communism; and, in fact, “mass line” was a method, as BA points out, that Mao himself did not follow at certain critical junctures in the revolution. [back]
7. Reification refers to the view, predominant in the communist movement before the new synthesis, that proletarians by virtue of their class position, have a special purchase on the truth; in particular, that they have within them the means to grasp the historic role of the proletariat as a class and will “instinctively” gravitate toward that view. This confounds the position of the proletariat in society as a class and the consciousness of individual proletarians. In fact, an understanding of the historic role of the proletariat in relation to ending all forms of exploitation and oppression came out of scientific study of the whole course of social development, and analysis of the underlying and generally hidden dynamics behind that development. Anyone who wishes to understand and play a role in leading the communist revolution has to study it as a science, whatever their class background (and people of all backgrounds can and do take this up). At the same time, everyone in society, no matter their class origin, is both influenced by the pulls of living life in a capitalist system and subject to being trained in, and spontaneously taking up, all sorts of unscientific and, indeed, antiscientific methods. For more on reification, see “Ajith—A Portrait of the Residue of the Past.” [back]
8. Populist epistemology refers to the notion that what people think ultimately determines reality, or at least that communists should “factor in” what the majority of people think in arriving at the truth. Truth, however—including the truth about objective reality and whether particular analyses or policies correctly reflect that reality and the path forward toward transforming it in a revolutionary direction—is independent of what anybody thinks. Darwin’s theory of evolution would be true whether anybody thought it was or not; as are certain fundamental truths about society and what kinds of transformations are necessary to change it, as well as more immediate things that can be determined to be true or not. This notion has done and continues to do tremendous damage, leading communists to opportunistically tail behind and fail to challenge backward sentiments and beliefs and outright wrong and even reactionary paths among masses of people. The correct understanding is captured in BAsics 4:11: “What people think is part of objective reality, but objective reality is not determined by what people think.” BAsics: from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian, Bob Avakian, RCP Publications, 2011. For more on this, see “The Material Basis and the Method for Making Revolution” and SCIENCE AND REVOLUTION: On the Importance of Science and the Application of Science to Society, the New Synthesis of Communism and the Leadership of Bob Avakian, An Interview with Ardea Skybreak, Insight Press, 2015. [back]
9. “Barefoot doctors” were peasants in China who, during the period when China was revolutionary and in particular during the Cultural Revolution, were given very basic training in medical science and sent among the masses to minister to basic health needs. While they were not fully trained in medicine, they could still do good by spreading certain basic scientific understanding about the human body and health. By analogy, barefoot doctors are those who may not have the most developed understanding of the science of communism but who want to help spread it as they are learning more, and while they may not be able to contend with other outlooks and modes of thought, can still do a great deal of good. [back]
10. Thomas Henry Huxley was a champion for Darwin’s theory of evolution. While Darwin for various reasons did not focus on debating the truth of the theory in public venues, Huxley played the role of going everywhere to fight for Darwin’s breakthrough. He was known as “Darwin’s bulldog.” By analogy, people who do gain a more developed understanding of the new communism should be out taking on all proponents of contending viewpoints and modes of thought. [back]
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Revolution #535 March 19, 2018
Students at Stoneman Douglas, Florida. (Photo: AP)
#EnoughIsEnough!
Students Walk Out Across the Country: “The Terror of Mass School Killings Must Stop!”
March 19, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Read also:
Updated March 13, 2018
Students chant and carry signs as they march to Juneau, the capital of Alaska. (Photo: AP)
Students at John Carroll High School, Bel Air, Maryland, walked out defying a Harford County Public School edict. (Twitter: @JCSchool)
Columbine High School students in Colorado. (Photo: AP)
High school students walked out in Newtown, Connecticut, where in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School 20 first-graders and 6 adults were killed. (Photo: AP)
Students from 21 schools in San Francisco, California, gathered in front of City Hall. (Photo: AP)
At a high school in Atlanta, 600 students took a knee in the hallways—as 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick had done on the field during the national anthem in protest of killings of people of color by police. (Courtesy Atlanta Public School)
Students from Mount Diablo High School, Concord, California, break through a gate to leave campus during the walkout. (Photo: AP)
Students in Brooklyn, New York, walk out of school. (Photo: AP)
Tens of thousands of students from over 3,000 secondary schools in 43 states, including Alaska and Hawai′i, walked out of their classrooms for 17 minutes on March 14 to say in a collective voice: “Enough is enough—these mass school shootings have got to stop!” The 17 minutes commemorated the 17 students and adults who were killed exactly one month earlier by a former student with an assault rifle in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Parkland, Florida. Another 17 students were injured.
Students marked their protests in many different ways—with moments of silence and speeches in school auditoriums; by creating massive formations of the word “#Enough” across football fields, sometimes by hundreds and hundreds of students “dying in” on the field; with rallies and marches through the streets, and more. Each action began at 10 am in their time zone.
At Stoneman Douglas, some students got up before dawn to place hundreds of pinwheels all over the campus. And someone put a banner up near the high school with a quote by the environmental activist, journalist, and suffragette Marjory Stoneman Douglas appropriate for the day: “Be a nuisance where it counts; do your part to inform and stimulate the public to join your action. Be depressed, discouraged and disappointed at failure and the disheartening effects of ignorance, greed, corruption and bad politics—but never give up.”
Students walked out at Columbine High School in Colorado, where in 1999, before the students today were born, a massacre took the lives of 15 students, including the two shooters. And in Connecticut, high school students walked out who had attended Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown in 2012 when 20 first graders and six adults were killed.
In Washington, D.C., thousands of students protested—including hundreds who sat down in silence on Pennsylvania Avenue. (Photo: AP)
In Washington, DC, thousands of students protested—including hundreds who sat down in silence on Pennsylvania Avenue for 17 minutes with their backs to the White House and fists and signs held high in the air. At the end they chanted, “We want change!”
In front of City Hall in San Francisco, students from 21 city schools gathered on the steps. A couple hundred students then marched for miles through major streets before ending at the tourist spot in Ghirardelli Square for speeches and a moment of silence. At a high school in Atlanta, 600 students took a knee in the hallways—as 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick had done on the field during the national anthem in protest of killings of people of color by police.
These walkouts were contentious in many areas, and students often had to defy school authorities who threatened disciplinary action if they walked out. In Chicago, the Republican Party is considering suing the public school system for “coercing” students to participate in what they described as “clearly a political action.” Everywhere, students took the microphone to express what it’s like living in a country where shootings of students have become so common that schools conduct drills for what to do if an armed killer comes into their school. They also expressed determination not to let this horror continue, while mainly linking their solution to gun control, background checks, and banning assault weapons.
A Detroit high schooler read a poem about her life as a teenager, interrupted repeatedly by the refrain, “There’s been another shooting.” Afterwards she told the Detroit Free Press, “This is our fight. Our weapons are our voices... We will not let this be another shooting. It will be a damn revolution.”
Vote with Your Feet in the Streets!
In Los Angeles, students grabbed up the Refuse Fascism posters with the call to drive out the Trump/Pence Regime and the “NO!” signs. (Photo: Refuse Fascism)
Reports on the day from different parts of the country indicate that where students encountered organizers from Refuse Fascism, their response to the Call to Drive Out the Trump/Pence Regime was cheers of excitement, and students grabbed up the Refuse Fascism posters with this slogan and the “NO!” signs.
NYC Student Speaks at National Walkout March 14th
Members of the Revolution Club joined the protests in a number of cities, bringing out how “This system has no future for the youth, but the revolution does.” The Revolution Club introduced students to the work and leadership of Bob Avakian, and to the New Communism he has brought forward, saying, “It is how we’re gonna get free.” And they challenged students: “If you say you want to vote, vote with your feet in the streets. And STAY in the streets!”
Even larger protests are planned for March 24 in Washington, DC, and across the country. Meanwhile, check out this article on why revolution is the only solution, and why all the other solutions being put forward won’t cut it: “Thousands of Students Demand School Shootings End—Awakening to Political Life, Confronting Big Questions.” And stay tuned to revcom.us.
Members of the Revolution Club joined the protests in a number of cities, bringing out how “This system has no future for the youth, but the revolution does.” (Photo: Special to www.revcom.us/Revolution newspaper)
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Revolution #535 March 19, 2018
While You Were Being Led to Fixate on Pennsylvania's Election, Trump's Fascist Juggernaut Barreled Ahead
March 19, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
While MSNBC, CNN, top Democrats and the non-fascist media more generally focused people’s attention on a congressional election in Pennsylvania and various White House scandals this past week, an “emboldened” Donald Trump and his regime barreled ahead, pushing the U.S. closer to full-on fascism and the world closer to war. Here are nine examples.
1. Trump names warmonger Mike Pompeo his secretary of state
On Tuesday, Trump fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and nominated a fanatical warmonger to take his place: Mike Pompeo, now CIA director. Pompeo is a Christian fundamentalist who has advocated waging a preemptive war on North Korea and mocked negotiations. He wants to aggressively confront Iran, including tearing up the nuclear accord the U.S. and other powers signed with it. This could happen as early as mid-May, at which point Trump must either renew or void the treaty. Pompeo has even argued that a military attack on Iran would be relatively easy to do. The president of the liberal National Iranian American Council called Pompeo’s appointment “a recipe for war.”1
2. Trump nominates hands-on torturer to head CIA
That same day, Trump nominated Gina Haspel to head the CIA. In 2002, Haspel personally ran the interrogation program at a secret prison—or “black site”—in Thailand, set up for the express purpose of torturing those the U.S. claimed were “terrorists.” Haspel oversaw “interrogations” during which people the U.S. had snatched were stripped naked, beaten, slammed against walls, starved, and kept awake for days on end. Sometimes they were locked in coffin-like boxes for hours. She supervised the waterboarding of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, bringing him to the brink of drowning three different times—a terrorizing form of abuse almost universally condemned as torture. In 2005, Haspel tried to cover up these crimes by ordering the destruction of 92 videotapes documenting these gruesome “interrogations.”
With these moves Trump has now put in place a “war cabinet” at a time when major events—the renewal of the Iran treaty and the proposed May summit meeting with North Korea—directly loom.
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3. Trump travels to California, escalates Nazi campaign against immigrants
Trump used his first trip as president to California to step up his genocidal assault on immigrants. Trump went straight to an area near the border with Mexico to highlight prototypes of his wall. Trump vowed to “re-establish law and order” and justified his venomous “America First” campaign against those crossing the border to escape the devastation U.S. imperialism has visited upon their homelands with racist, dehumanizing lies, painting them as animals who burden America with “crime, drug flow, welfare fraud, and burdens on schools and hospitals.”
4. Trump goes after California officials
Trump also used his trip to take aim at the state’s liberal policies and Democratic officials. Trump blasted Governor Jerry Brown for doing a “terrible” job, claiming the state was “out of control.” He demagogically smeared sanctuary cities, which give immigrants some degree of protection against the fascist regime’s anti-immigrant, “Make America White Again” agenda: “Sanctuary cities are protecting a horrible group of people, in many cases—criminals. And what happened ... in Oakland [whose mayor warned immigrants of coming ICE raids] was a disgrace to our nation. And we just can’t let that happen.” This comes on top of the previous week’s threats to prosecute and imprison the mayor of Oakland. This isn’t simply a political dispute between Democrats and Republicans, but part of the Trump/Pence regime’s broader agenda of crushing opposition from any quarter of society and imposing its total domination and control—full-on fascism.2
5. Trump’s KKK Kampaign rally
“She’s a low IQ individual...” That’s what Trump said about California congressperson Maxine Waters, one of the country’s most prominent Black officials, at one of his KKK-like rallies in western Pennsylvania on March 10. “Did you ever see her? Did you ever see her?” Trump went on as if he was talking about a circus animal rather than a Black woman. At the rally Trump also claimed 52 percent of women voted for him. Actually, 52 percent of white women voted for Trump—his comment showed who counts as a human being and “legitimate voter” in his mind. Trump’s racist, misogynist venom has become so dangerously normalized it barely made a ripple in the media landscape.3
6. DeVos says “individual kids”—i.e., Black and Brown youths—are the problem; Trump regime rolls back students’ civil rights protections
If you’re a Black or Brown student in America—even in elementary school—you’re hit with much harsher discipline than white students. This has been proven in numerous studies. You can find video after video online of students—especially Black students—being tackled, beaten, even shackled for minor offenses, sometimes in grade schools! But Trump’s secretary of education Betsy DeVos denies there’s any racism at all! On 60 Minutes, she claimed that harsh discipline disproportionately affecting youth of color isn’t racism—it “comes down to individual kids”—in other words, Black and Brown youths are the problem. And now the Trump/Pence regime is moving to rescind Department of Education guidance that had begun to address racist disciplinary practices. The regime’s excuse: the guidelines relaxed discipline and led to school shootings—a lie. The reality: they’re hell-bent on re-imposing open racism and white supremacy in schools and throughout society.4
7. Slashes women’s access to birth control
The Trump/Pence regime isn’t just attacking the right to abortion; it’s going after the right to access birth control. Its Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Population Affairs recently announced it was slashing funding for family planning services that millions of poor women rely on for access to contraceptives. Instead it would promote and fund unscientific, unreliable methods of birth control like the so-called rhythm method, and abstinence until marriage. This is nothing less than forcing women to become incubators, unable to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Re-imposing the brutal shackles of patriarchy and forcing especially white women to have more babies is crucial in the eyes of the white supremacists to keeping America a predominately white country. This goes hand in hand with the Trump/Pence regime’s “Make America White Again” program.5
8. Trump’s “America First” tariffs—upending the global order and preparing for war
Trump announced steep tariffs (taxes) on imported steel and aluminum—shredding long-standing agreements among international powers and upending existing economic and trade relations. He justified it as “a matter of necessity for our security.” This further escalates the U.S.’s increasing competition with China and other world powers to dominate international trade. And it is part of a larger geopolitical competition as to which power will dominate... one that greatly heightens the danger of inter-imperialist war. This went along with other trade and economic measures last week. Securing steel and aluminum production is also essential for the massive expansion of the U.S. military Trump has initiated, especially for its nuclear capacity.6
9. Names fascist, capitalist soul mate as chief economic advisor
Trump also hired as his chief economic advisor Larry Kudlow. Kudlow perfectly mirrored the fascist and capitalist mentality that is the soul of Trump in a remark after a huge earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in 2011, killing approximately 20,000 people. On the cable channel CNBC, Kudlow took note of the fact that financial markets in the U.S. didn’t seem affected: “The human toll here looks to be much worse than the economic toll and we can be grateful for that.”7
Trump: “I’m really at a point where we’re getting very close to having the Cabinet and other things that I want.”
The turmoil within the Trump/Pence regime and the firings and resignations of different high officials do not mainly point to “chaos” and “disorganization” in the White House or that the Trump/Pence regime is falling apart. They are part of a very sharp struggle at the top of the U.S. ruling class over whether to rule in traditional ways or to go to all-out fascism (including, it seems, whether to move toward wars with North Korea and Iran). And this past week, Trump and those fighting to consolidate fascism made huge advances. “Trump feels emboldened to throw off the shackles that have thus far constrained him,” Vanity Fair reported. He’s hell-bent on getting rid of anyone not fully onboard with his fascist program. After firing Tillerson, he said, “I’m really at a point where we’re getting very close to having the Cabinet and other things that I want.”8
All this is extremely ominous, yet the Democrats announced they wouldn’t oppose the lunatic warmonger Pompeo or the torturer Haspel—so long as they “start toughening up our policies towards Russia and Putin.”9
This underscores again, that in the fight against Trump/Pence fascism, the Democrats are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Stopping this grave, potentially existential threat to millions—perhaps billions—is on us, and this calls ever more urgently for redoubled efforts to organize thousands and ultimately millions to drive this fascist regime from power through mass, nonviolent political protest and resistance.
1. For more on Pompeo, see “Trump’s CIA Pick: Mike Pompeo—Advocate of Torture & Tearing Up Rule of Law,” revcom.us, November 21, 2016. Rex Tillerson, the former head of ExxonMobil, is a world-class predator, but he wanted to run the empire in more traditional ways, including staying in the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate agreement negotiated by the Obama administration. And Tillerson argued for negotiations with North Korea and was reportedly working with defense secretary Mattis to “slow-walk the delivery of military options to the president, apparently out of fear that the president might actually act on them.” (Emphasis added.) See “Tillerson’s insubordination meant he had to go,” Washington Post, March 13, 2018. For more on the Iran nuclear agreement, see “Trump Says Iran Violating Nuclear Deal: An Ominous Move, A Gangster Escalation,” revcom.us, October 16, 2017. For more on the Paris climate accord, see “Trump/Pence Regime Withdraws from Paris Climate Accord: Putting ‘America First’—Torching Humanity’s Future,” revcom.us, June 5, 2017.
It’s rumored that Trump will soon fire national security advisor McMaster and replace him with the bloodthirsty John Bolton, who recently wrote an op-ed titled “The Legal Case for Striking North Korea First,” and says Trump should issue a disarm-or-else ultimatum at his meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. [back]
2. “Trump, Sessions Escalate Attacks on Sanctuary for Immigrants—This Is Intolerable! This Must Be Stopped,” revcom.us, March 12, 2018; “The ‘Memo Affair’—An Act Towards a Fascist America,” revcom.us, February 5, 2018. [back]
3. “Trump again questions Maxine Waters’ intelligence, says she’s ‘very low IQ’,” CNN, March 11, 2018; see also, Eugene Scott, “Trump’s repeat attacks on Maxine Waters’s IQ are familiar,” Washington Post, March 11, 2018. [back]
4. “Black Students More Likely to Be Arrested at School,” Education Week, January 24, 2017; “Police Assault on Black Students in Kentucky Sparks Calls for Reform,” ACLU Racial Justice Program, November 21, 2017; Michelle Goldberg, “Will Betsy DeVos Expand the School-to-Prison Pipeline?” New York Times, March 12, 2018. [back]
5. “The Trump Administration’s Backward Attitude Toward Birth Control,” New York Times, March 8, 2018. [back]
6. In January, Trump’s Commerce Department issued two reports that concluded the U.S. needs to expand and protect domestic steel and aluminum production. The report said that steel is being imported to the U.S. “in such quantities ... and under such circumstances” that it “threatens to impair national security.” By “national security” it meant, first and foremost, the ability of the U.S. to retain the capacity to produce massive amounts of modern, nuclear-armed weapons in the event of international conflict and disruption of global trade. But it also meant that the domestic steel industry is essential to developing a “stronger domestic economy” that enables the U.S. to compete and win internationally in economic contention, and recommended tariffs on steel from Russia, China, and several other countries. [back]
7. “The most insensitive comment about Japan earthquake on TV?” Chicago Tribune, March 18, 2018, [back]
8. “‘Trump Is Going for a Clean Reset’: Fuming in the West Wing, Trump Prepares to Defenestrate Cuck Allies and Go Full MAGA,” Vanity Fair, March 9, 2018; “,Trump Wants Them Out of There,: After Swinging the Axe at Tillerson, Trump Mulls What to Do With McMaster, Sessions, Jared, And Ivanka,” Vanity Fair, March 14, 2018. [back]
9. “Despite Torture-Loving Pasts, Schumer Not Pushing Democrats to Oppose Pompeo or Haspel,” Common Dreams, March 14, 2018. [back]
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Revolution #535 March 19, 2018
Berkeley Emergency Program:
Why Fascists Want to Burn Down Revolution Books— and Why We Must Stand Together to Defend It!
March 19, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
On March 3, several Trumpite thugs tried to barge into Revolution Books in Berkeley, located near the University of California campus. They tried to barge into the store, verbally assaulted staff members who stopped them, and threatened, “We’re going to burn down your bookstore.” The store has been targeted by “alt-right” fascists before, but this is the first time a threat like this was issued. As we’ve reported, this is part of a coast-to-coast escalation of fascist repression against revolutionary communists and against Refuse Fascism.
As part of responding to this serious threat, on March 18, an emergency program took place at Revolution Books Berkeley: “Why do fascists want to burn down REVOLUTION BOOKS—a place about knowing and changing the whole world.” The program featured a talk by Andy Zee, spokesperson for Revolution Books and a co-initiator of RefuseFascism.org.
As Revolution Books says: “Three futures are sharply posed: fascism consolidating in the world's most powerful country with echoes internationally; the system that has given rise to fascism once again; and the potential for a radically different and better world. Revolution Books is the political, intellectual, and cultural center of a movement for an actual revolution to bring about that better world.
“At the heart of Revolution Books is the game changing breakthrough in scientifically understanding the world and the vision and strategy for that radically new society—to get beyond all forms of oppression and exploitation, a world where humanity could truly flourish: The New Communism developed by Bob Avakian.
“RB has the books that matter, the critical discourse, and a connection to the movement for revolution. RB is a bookstore with literature, history, science, art, philosophy, and revolutionary theory....a place of discovery and engagement. Scientific and poetic, wrangling and visionary.”
This is what the fascists hate and seek to destroy. They must be stopped.
Coming soon to revcom.us—video of Andy Zee’s talk at the emergency program.
All who care about the future must come together to defend Revolution Books!
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Revolution #535 March 19, 2018
Speech by Andy Zee at the Berkeley Emergency Program
Why Fascists Want to Burn Down Revolution Books—and Why We Must Stand Together to Defend It!
March 19, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Revolution Books-Berkeley
March 18, 2018
Andy Zee, Speaker
One of my favorite things to do is to be and speak at Revolution Books—here in Berkeley or in New York.
This is so even as the occasion of this talk is to oppose the ugly assault on Revolution Books-Berkeley—the vicious and vile misogynist personal assault against Reiko as well as the staff culminating in the vicious threat to burn down the store itself. These fascists will not stop Revolution Books, they will not deter from why this is a precious and essential place that embodies the future. And, NO! their assault will not diminish either our sense of purpose or joy in what is represented by Revolution Books.
We mean both words of our name: Revolution ... Books. Not a marketing slogan, it is what we are and embodies for whom and for what we exist. This is a bookstore about the world, for a radically new world. A place that is guided by a radically new and emancipatory understanding of the first word of our name—REVOLUTION, as it has been re-envisioned in the new communism developed by Bob Avakian, the revolutionary leader, who it should be said, is a “son” of Berkeley—the Berkeley High School Yellowjackets and UC Berkeley.
These fascists will not diminish the excitement of digging into the rich and varied explorations of the natural and social world contained in the books that surround us, or the engagement with each other and thrill of dialogue and debate over the world we live in, and how we could together change it. No, we will not, we must not let Trump, Pence, and their fascist thugs turn Revolution Books and the potential that it, and the intellectual, political, and cultural life that is contained within its walls into a 21st century burning of the Library of Alexandria. And, we will stand against such attacks wherever they occur.
The ugly spectacle of the two fascists who assaulted sister Reiko and the store with their threat of arson conjures and concentrates the present reality that not only Revolution Books faces, but that we all do. Any and every person whose work, whose morality, whose values aspire to a world of diversity, of overcoming the oppression of all peoples regardless of nationality, race, gender, or beliefs is under siege. The harsh fascist future that these thugs acted in service of impacts everyone who values critical thinking, scholarship, and engagement. If you appreciate what the arts contribute to our being human—to the tremendous import of imagination to the life of the mind and the vital richness of society, the attack on this bookstore is a frontline fight for you. The assault on Revolution Books is an attack on truth itself—on the importance of the scientific method, of why evidence matters, and even on the existence of objective reality. These are critical tools, essential modes of thinking, without which, at this moment in human history, our species and this planet might not survive. And let’s not step over that this is an attack on the radical discourse and struggle that is the legacy of Berkeley, while we understand that this fight is bigger than Berkeley.
This attack is against all I’ve just said, and as such, it is no accident that Revolution Books has been their target—10 times in the last 6 months. Why? Because RB embodies all those values. And, beyond that, it is and will continue to be the political and the intellectual and the cultural center of a movement for an actual revolution to bring about a radically new liberatory world. And, that world—or frankly any world that is not the fascism that is being cemented into place today—depends on all of us joining together to defend this store as one front in the great challenge of this year, which is to drive the fascist Trump/Pence Regime from power.
The vicious ghouls that attacked RB are not only emboldened and unleashed by this regime, but are a strike force—a reactionary revanchist movement whose purpose is to intimidate and bludgeon people to accept and capitulate to this fascism. As part of its mission, Revolution Books has been a key site, a gathering spot, where people come to learn about and dig into this fascism, its roots and how to stop it. Revolution Books in New York held the first forum on the fascism of this regime in the month after Trump’s election, and today both the New York and Berkeley stores are featuring the film, The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! In The Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America, A Better World IS Possible, A Talk by Bob Avakian—a must-see film to understand what we face and what we must do to stop it. So we are not surprised by their hatred for Revolution Books and we will not be deterred.
We will not back down because of all of you, because of all of the people who can and must be rallied to defend Revolution Books. We should see the fight to defend RB as one part of a great cause, an unprecedented struggle to recognize, organize, and act decisively to stop the fascism unfolding before us. Everyone can be a part of spreading the word and forging the principled unity so that the million or more people who learned of the attack on RB Berkeley through videos and the media coverage can become a part of the movement to stand not just with RB, but against the whole Trump/Pence Regime.
Fascism rules through reliance on open terror and violence, trampling on civil and legal rights, wielding the power of the state, and by 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.” And, books and bookstores are definitely all three of these things to fascists. We should recognize that the assault on RB is not an isolated occurrence. The night after the attack on RB, a store window was smashed and an outdoor bookshelf torched at Groundwork Books Collective in San Diego. There is virulent connection between these fascist groups and the project of the Trump/Pence Regime to consolidate fascism in this country. This is deadly serious and I will return to our responsibility to stop it later.
So, it is a very serious purpose and responsibility that brings me to Revolution Books-Berkeley, yet, as I said, that does not diminish my appreciation and joy of being at and representing for Revolution Books. The walls around us hold a curated collection of books that matter in a place that matters. Books that are the repository of the experience of people all over the world over the millennia—stories of lives and of dreams. But more, RB is a place that is a bridge between the world that is today, and what could be.
Let me read you something that animates Revolution Books:
Let’s imagine if we had a whole different art and culture. Come on, enough of this “bitches and ho’s” and SWAT teams kicking down doors. Enough of this “get low” bullshit. And how come it’s always the women that have to get low? We already have a situation where the masses of women and the masses of people are pushed down and held down low enough already. It’s time for us to get up and get on up.
Imagine if we had a society where there was culture—yes it was lively and full of creativity and energy and yes rhythm and excitement, but at the same time, instead of degrading people, lifted us up. Imagine if it gave us a vision and a reality of what it means to make a whole different society and a whole different kind of world. Imagine if it laid out the problems for people in making this kind of world and challenged them to take up these problems. Imagine if art and culture too—movies, songs, television, everything—challenged people to think critically, to look at things differently, to see things in a different light, but all pointing toward how can we make a better world.
Imagine if the people who created art and culture were not just a handful of people but all of the masses of people, with all their creative energy unleashed, and the time were made for them to do that, and for them to join with people who are more full-time workers and creators in the realm of art and culture to bring forward something new that would challenge people, that would make them think in different ways, that would make them be able to see things critically and from a different angle, and would help them to be uplifted and help them to see their unity with each other and with people throughout the world in putting an end to all the horrors that we’re taught are just the natural order of things. Imagine all that.
These words are from Bob Avakian, published in BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian drawn from his 2003 film, Revolution: Why It’s Necessary, Why It’s Possible, What It’s All About.
These are values and ways of being that the first communist revolutions in the 20th century began. But, those revolutions no longer exist, defeated by the strength of the prevailing imperialist system as well as their own limitations in understanding and practice. After these defeats, determined that the struggle for total emancipatory revolution would not die, Bob Avakian went to work. Through over 40 years study and struggle—practically leading the movement for revolution and developing the theory that could win and bring about a fully liberating society, he has developed a new communism. Sifting through the previous experience, taking on board the changes in the world since, engaging work from other fields of inquiry, he developed a new synthesis of communism that really could bring about a far better world—a radically new society in which people could collectively go to work on overcoming all of the oppressive and exploitive divisions that exist today, a new society that could, at long last, achieve human emancipation all over the world.
***
We live today in a moment when we are staring down the barrel of an American fascism—that imperils lives here and around the entire globe. Last week I hosted the great Kenyan writer, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o at RB in New York reading from his prison memoir, Wrestling with the Devil. A young woman from Kenya spoke with me afterwards and said: the American people have to realize that when they vote it doesn’t just affect them, it can harm everyone around the world.
Today, around the globe tens of millions of people flee their homes—to escape war, famine, and unnecessary disease all brought about and exacerbated by the prevailing capitalist-imperialist system. These are people—with dreams and contributions to make. Their lives are not less precious than American lives. Sixty-five people drowned last Saturday when their boat from Turkey capsized in the Mediterranean. Famine stalks Somalia and even northern Kenya. A genocide takes place in Ghouta, Syria, with yet a second genocide in the Congo in the offing as the vicious gangs and militias compete to provide the coltan for our cell phones and electronic devices.
When such horrors ricochet around the world, with the threat of nuclear war and environmental devastation hanging in the balance as the Trump/Pence Regime barrels forward, that there is Revolution Books imbued with a hallmark of the new communism—that either the whole world gets free and people everywhere are emancipated, or none of us do. This is one reason why RB features voices and literature from countries and diasporas the world over.
Think about what a difference the kind of vision and the approach to creating a radically new culture that was in the “Imagine” quotation I just read. How it opens up vistas for people that are otherwise hidden. Think about this vision, and then contrast it with the self-obsessed culture of today: imagine if this whole new culture “laid out the problems for people in making this kind of world and challenged them to take up these problems.” Right there is a glimpse of a point of departure in the method and approach of BA—putting the problems of the revolution, of creating a whole new society, before the people—not failing to lead by asking the right questions and providing orientation, but involving masses of people to collectively work on the solutions. This involves not just culture, but the economy, the form of a radically different state that would ultimately get beyond the need for states, education, media, tackling all forms of oppression and the backward ideas that reinforce that oppression. This vision and plan is available at RB in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, written by Bob Avakian.
This method and approach which runs through the strategy and vision for the new society is also what we strive to apply today at Revolution Books. What kind of engaged atmosphere do we need? How do you approach putting these questions before people? By what method and approach do people tackle the BIG questions: What kind of world do we want and what kind of people could we be? How do we overcome the huge divisions between peoples that so press on humanity? By what method and approach do we identify and dig into the fundamental problem we face in the capitalist system and how it shapes all the other forms of oppression that have plagued people for millennia. Why and how is revolution the solution? How do we forge the kind of principled discourse and demarcating struggle over ideas, philosophy, strategy and the plans to fight the power, and transform the people, for revolution? While this method and approach is what the staff at RB strives to model, the best way to get into this is to watch the BA films and to get into THE NEW COMMUNISM and BAsics.
The heart of the new communism is a scientific approach to all of reality and to revolution in particular. It is a qualitative breakthrough in putting communism on a consistently and thoroughly scientific foundation. Why does this matter?
Ardea Skybreak in the book 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, which we feature at RB, paraphrases Neil deGrasse Tyson saying: “Science allows you to confront and identify problems, to recognize problems and figure out how to solve them, rather than run away from them.” She continues, “It’s a tool—science—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...”
She goes on to make this point:
Without science, you can only say what you as an individual think reality is, or maybe you can say what a whole bunch of people think reality is, or maybe you can say what a government, or religious authority, or some other authority might tell you reality is like, but that doesn’t make any of it true. 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.
No one can accuse Donald Trump of being the least bit concerned with what is true. No one in their right mind can think that Mike Pence, who is a biblical literalist and as such doesn’t believe in evolution, is concerned with actual evidence and objective reality. Cabinet Secretaries Pruitt, DeVos, Carson, Zinke, Perry, and that insanely cruel Trump appointed Supreme Court Justice Gorsuch—constitute a cabal of lunatic Christian fascists who deny actual reality while slamming their fascist unreal reality down the throat of the world.
To this regime, to the idiot thug duo who threatened to “burn down” Revolution Books, wearing their Trump “Make America Great Again” caps while spewing white supremacist, vile anti-women slurs at the staff of RB—RB is an anathema to be destroyed. A bookstore whose mission is providing the books and the engagement where people can scientifically dig into the fundamental problems of this system and discover and learn how to fight it and ultimately replace it through revolution is everything these fascists fear.
Revolution Books is the place to dig into the why’s and the what’s of the fascism that grows around the world, and especially here with the Trump/Pence Regime. At RB, through the work of BA, people dig into the roots of this fascism in the whole history of the U.S. Drilling down further into the nature of this system reveals why the core intractable problems such as the oppression of Black people, of immigrants, of women, of the destruction of the environment, and people of the world by U.S. wars and occupations for their empire—what we call the “Five Stops,” cannot be solved under this system. This is why we need a revolution. Our ultimate objective is, as I’ve been saying, for a radically different future than the fascism of Trump/Pence, or, for that matter, a return to a future of the “normal” oppressive workings of the capitalist-imperialist system. Rather, we advocate for a leap into a third, different and better future through a revolution aiming for a world where humanity could truly flourish.
The threat to burn down RB must be taken seriously. First, because it is the site of engagement and popularization of the theory and the leadership for a revolution leading to a radical new society on the road to human emancipation in the work and leadership of Bob Avakian, which I have been speaking about. But, also because the threat to burn down bookstores (and actually attempting to do so at Groundwork Books Collective in San Diego), is a serious warning of the growing bold initiative of the fascist remaking of society.
It must be said to those academics and others who RB spoke with and who said to the staff that they are sorry that this threat was made against RB, and that they wished us well, but they see no imminent danger or reason to step out themselves to denounce this and to take up the fight to drive out the Trump/Pence Regime, to these people we must say: wake the fuck up. Get your head out of the sand or wherever it is lodged, and look at what is happening, not just to RB and to radical thought, but across the board—to 11 million immigrants, terrorized by the sword of deportation and detention; to women who Mike Pence says will lose the right to abortion very soon; to the youth who Trump told the police to “treat rough,” to incredibly draconian repressive laws being promulgated at all levels, and most especially to the people of the world who face environmental devastation and possible nuclear war at the hands of this fascist regime. And, this isn’t the half of it. Don’t say that fascism can’t happen here. Don’t reassure yourself that because you don’t want to get out of your comfort zone, because you can get by, because fascism hasn’t directly affected you, that it isn’t fascism. If you adjust and accommodate to great injustice done to others you are aiding and abetting fascism’s progress.
Yes, the threats to burn bookstores here is not yet May 10, 1933, when 20,000 books were burned in Nazi rallies across Germany. But the echo is pregnant today as the fascists aim to legitimize fascism on the campuses under a false flag rubric of “free speech.”
Critical thinking, intellectual rigor, and reason are under attack from a regime that is in control of all three branches of the government, that today commands two-thirds of the state houses, and is backed up by a fascist social base that hasn’t shrunk but only hardened in its resolve with a core of lunatic dangerous followers who will stop at nothing to get their white supremacist, xenophobic, women-hating fascist America cemented into law and power.
The political form of Christian fundamentalism that we accurately call Christian fascism and the white supremacist bullying “America First” fascism of Trump do necessarily have to go after reason, rational thought, and a scientific, evidence-based approach to reality. The breadth of literature, serious studies of roots of white supremacy, of the environment, of origins and continued prevalence of gender oppression, of the division of the world into imperialist and neo-colonial oppressed nations, are all daylight and a cross to these vampires, who ironically wrap themselves in the cloak of religion.
Over the last 25+ years Bob Avakian has been deeply analyzing the rise and development of fascism in the world, with a focus on its development in the U.S. He has made the point that we communists, who are working to bring about a total revolution, will fight to uphold and defend the aspect of the enlightenment that holds that the world is knowable in all its complexity and which promotes science and the scientific method. But, with two critical differences.
First, I quote BA, “The truth will not set us free, in and of itself, but we will not get free without the truth.” The truth will not just inevitably win out, it must be fought for. At Revolution Books we both appreciate and engage philosophy, art and ideas in their own right, but not for their own sake. For those of you who have seen Raoul Peck’s The Young Marx, the film shows Marx’s development when he said: “the philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.” The critical principle which BA has fought for up against all forms of social democracy, is that for ideas —including correct ideas—to become “operative” in society as a whole, there has to be a struggle, a class struggle, ultimately a revolution. And, second, we do not uphold the belief in the enlightenment that it is the role of the “enlightened” to “civilize” “backward” peoples and nations, the so called “white man’s burden” which regards the “enlightenment” as a positive instrument and justification for colonialism and imperialist domination.
At the same time, at RB we do appreciate the importance of scientific, intellectual, and artistic engagement in its own right and seek to learn from all of human experience. In this Avakian makes an important break with previous communist theory with the understanding that the truth does not have a class character. What is true is so because it corresponds to reality.
This is some of the theoretical underpinning and foundation for why you sit in this incredible place with the breadth of books and experience of humanity surrounding you. Why there are programs at the Revolution Books stores with authors and scholars from around the world. It’s why, for example, the wonderful young Ghanaian-American writer, Yaa Gyasi read from, and we had deep discussions at Revolution Books in both New York and Berkeley about her debut novel, Homegoing. It tells of an epic journey that goes from slavery in Ghana, through the middle passage, to slavery in the U.S. all the way up to today going back and forth between Ghana and the U.S. revealing how this history impacts the present day descendants of two sisters who begin the novel—one branch of the family in Ghana, the other in the U.S.
RB is, as we say, a bookstore about the world and for a radically new world. People from all over the world come into Revolution Books and these stores are sites that help spread the new communism around the world. This, too, matters as there are forces in the world that are right now struggling to take up and apply this new communism to their part of the world revolution.
I spoke before of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, a friend of Revolution Books, writer and literary theorist, he opens the first volume of his memoir, with the following epigraph from the poet, Martin Carter: “I do not sleep to dream but dream to change the world.” Bob Avakian has written, “If you don’t have a poetic spirit—or at least a poetic side—it is very dangerous for you to lead a Marxist movement or be the leader of a socialist state.” RB is a place that gives flight to the imagination, for a world that really could be.
Let’s go back again, and recall the bigoted distorted faces of the two fascists who threatened RB, who called themselves “Western Chauvinists”—a blood-drenched concept that is only a more pompous expression of Trump’s calling Africa and Haiti “shithole countries."
Contrast this poisonous chauvinism to this from BAsics, which guides Revolution Books: “Internationalism—The Whole World Comes First.”
The contrast between two futures couldn’t be sharper. Fascism vs. a store and a movement for revolution dedicated to a scientific approach to knowing and changing the world—a store dedicated to the emancipation of all humanity.
On the one side, a fascist regime headed by a narcissistic psychopathic racist sexual predator who epitomizes the ignorance of America as he pursues his “winners and losers” paradigm. Behind him, as RefuseFascism.org has put it, is a section of powerful ruling forces who see in Trump and Pence the vehicle for an American Fascism: Manifest Destiny and American exceptionalism, a fascism wrapped in the Bible taken literally and the American flag, saturated with racism, misogyny, and xenophobia. With a legion of puffed up turds—dried up revenge filled thugs—who cling to their delusions of superiority, now backed up by the most powerful state.
On the other side, is all that I have spoken about that is concentrated in this store. It is not just about the staff or the place, although it is that, it is about all the people who hate injustice and all forms of oppression and exploitation. It is about the aspirations of humanity to live in a far different and better world. It is about the science, the vision, the strategy, and the leadership for a truly emancipating revolution.
What’s it going to be? That is up to us. Are we going to stand against this regime and its goons? Are we going to struggle with our friends, families, co-workers, teachers, and fellow students, indeed with everyone and everybody we can to unite broadly to drive this regime from power? Are we going to struggle with our friends, families, co-workers, teachers, and fellow students—and even ourselves, to engage Bob Avakian’s new communism, the most radical liberating theory for transforming the whole world and ourselves in the process—a theory that is a revolution in thought, and a breakthrough in strategy and conception of a new society on the road to human emancipation. That there is a way out of the madness and horror is cause for celebration, and Revolution Books is the place for that party.
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Revolution #535 March 19, 2018
Emergency Program to Defend Revolution Books Berkeley Against Fascist Attacks
March 20, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
About 70-75 people packed into Revolution Books in Berkeley on March 18 for the emergency program featuring Andy Zee on “Why Fascists Want to Burn Down Revolution Books—and Why We Must Stand Together to Defend It!” There were many longtime and newer friends of Revolution Books and activists who have worked with Refuse Fascism. There were about 10 students, including some who are involved in THE NEW COMMUNISM study classes or who were part of screenings and discussions at the bookstore recently of BA’s film The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! In The Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America. A Better World IS Possible There were bookstore industry people, and people who just care about books and don’t want to see modern-day book burnings. And there were many new people who came because they saw the video of what happened online and wanted to be there to support the store and find out what it’s all about.
The program opened by showing the Now This video of the March 3 fascist attack on Revolution Books, which has now been seen by 2.7 million people just on Facebook. This was followed by a number of video statements of support and written statements—from David Gunn Jr. (son of the first abortion doctor killed by anti-abortion extremists), Peter Coyote, and others—which were read. UC Berkeley Boalt School of Law professor Jonathan Simon spoke powerfully to the historical and present-day danger of liberals remaining silent while fascists attack revolutionaries, ultimately making it easier for fascism to roll over liberal democracy. Andy Zee gave a substantial and exciting presentation, infused with the spirit of Bob Avakian’s new communism, bringing alive the revolution and the books that Revolution Books is all about, the relationship between knowing and radically changing the world. He ended with a challenge to everyone who cares about truth, justice, and critical thinking, to stand with Revolution Books, unite to drive out this fascist Trump/Pence regime, and engage this new communism. This was followed by an hour of Q&A. Over $1,000 was raised for Revolution Books, and many people filled out forms to volunteer and get involved.
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Revolution #535 March 19, 2018
From a Reader
BastaYa! Couple Killed by ICE Agents in California’s Central Valley
March 22, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Santos and Marcelina Garcia
Shortly before 7:00 am on Tuesday, March 13, Santos Hilario Garcia, 35, and Marcelina Garcia Profecto, 33, left their home in the city of Delano in California’s Central Valley. They were looking for work in the fields, picking crops that feed people throughout the U.S. and are the economic engine that drives the region. Within minutes they were dead—dead due to the actions of the modern day slave catchers of the Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE).
At this point all of the information we have about this incident comes from ICE and local police. No one should take at face value the word of these known liars. However, even their own words paint an ugly portrait of immigrants being hounded to their deaths.
When the couple got in their truck, they had no idea that their house was being watched. ICE admits that they were stalking someone else but that Santos “matched the description”—meaning that he was Latino. Soon Santos and Marcelina saw the lights and heard the siren. Perhaps thinking that the stop was a routine traffic stop by local police, the couple pulled over. Then, they saw the ICE agents step out of the car. What went through their heads? Being separated from their 6 children? Losing everything that they had worked for? Being held in detention for months for the crime of looking for work? According to the ICE agents they sped off in their truck trying to escape.The ICE agents took off in pursuit.
The truck veered off the road, overturned, and hit a power pole. Santos and Marcelina were pronounced dead at the scene.
The couple leaves behind six children between the ages of 8 and 18. "The kids are very scared right now,” United Farm Workers President Arturo Rodriguez said in a statement. “The oldest daughter is 18. She has a young child, just a few weeks old right now. She doesn't know what's going to happen to her siblings, to her brothers and sisters right now so they're all just trying to figure out, what are the next steps."
The ACLU of Southern California, said their organization has received reports from throughout the Central Valley of ICE staking out roads farm workers use to get to work and pulling them over in unmarked vehicles during early morning hours “without any lawful basis.”
Speaking directly to the deaths of Santos and Marcelina the ACLU said, “This horrible tragedy is a direct result of ICE’s inhumane tactics and the fear it provokes in hardworking people who stand to lose everything if they are deported.”
The deaths of Santos and Marcelina are not an isolated incident. Daily immigrants are being snatched from hospitals, schools, and courthouses. Mass raids are intensifying. All this is being organized by Trump and his regime and fueled by the vicious, racist lies being spewed out by the administration daily. As Revolution wrote (March 12, 2018): “Make no mistake about it: what we are witnessing is nothing less than a fascist, white-supremacist ethnic cleansing program.”
During the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the singer Bob Dylan wrote, “How many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn’t see?” It is essential that people across the country—everyone with an ounce of humanity—see, confront and STOP these attacks on our immigrant brothers and sisters. And this needs to become a force that can help drive the fascist regime from power.
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Revolution #535 March 19, 2018
Trump Names America First, Fascist Warmonger John Bolton to His War Cabinet
March 22, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
John Bolton has been a lying, America First, fascist warmonger for decades who’s made other mass murdering, right-wing imperialist hawks look like humanitarians. Now Trump has appointed him national security advisor, replacing General H.R. McMaster. His appointment, on the heels of nominating Christian fascist Mike Pompeo as secretary of state and torturer Gina Haspel as CIA director, underscores this very grave reality: Trump is assembling a war cabinet!
During his tenure as Assistant Attorney General at the Department of Justice in the Reagan Administration (1981-1989), Bolton aggressively tried to cover up the Iran-Contra scandal, when the U.S. secretly sold arms to Iran and flooded ghettoes with devastating drugs. The U.S. then used the money from these sales to buy weapons for counter-revolutionaries in Central America who mass murdered tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people!
During the 1990s, Bolton attacked allowing U.S. power to be restrained in any way by any international alliances or agreements, declaring, “There is no United Nations. There is an international community that occasionally can be led by the only real power left in the world, and that’s the United States, when it suits our interests and when we can get others to go along.” In 1998, he signed the Project for a New American Century’s open letter to then-president Bill Clinton arguing the U.S. should wage war on Iraq.
As Undersecretary of State for Arms Control in the George W. Bush administration, Bolton helped concoct the phony intelligence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, used to justify the war. In 2002, he stated, “We are confident that Saddam Hussein has hidden weapons of mass destruction and production facilities in Iraq.” That war, which Bolton still defends, was a disaster of immense proportions for the people of Iraq and the Middle East, a war that has led to an estimated 2.4 million deaths since 2003!
When Bolton was temporarily appointed U.S. ambassador to the UN in 2005, he began agitating for war on Iran and North Korea.
Bolton remained a loud-mouth, sometimes Fox News’ cheerleader for U.S. military aggression when he no longer had an official position. In 2009, he blithely called for a nuclear attack by Israel on Iran, which would have been a catastrophe for the region and the world: “Unless Israel is prepared to use nuclear weapons against Iran’s program, Iran will have nuclear weapons in the very near future,” he said.
In 2011, he advocated war on Libya to overthrow the Qaddafi regime. Obama and Hillary Clinton carried out this war and created an ongoing humanitarian nightmare for millions of Libyans.
Bolton opposed the Iran nuclear accord, and in a 2015 New York Times piece, “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran,” Bolton claimed military action and regime change were the only ways to accomplish U.S. objectives there.
Of late, Bolton has opposed the Paris Climate Accord, said the U.S. has “no obligation” to admit any refugees from Syria, and thinks the U.S. should tear up the Iran nuclear accord. He recently wrote an op-ed, “The Legal Case for Striking North Korea First.” Bolton says Trump should issue a disarm-or-else ultimatum at his meeting with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un.
The appointment of John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and Gina Haspel, along with the other monsters already in the Trump/Pence regime, represents a grave and immediate danger to millions and millions of people around the world—a danger that must be stopped!
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Revolution #535 March 19, 2018
Sacramento Police Murder Unarmed Black Youth
Hundreds of Protesters Rock the City:
"You guys are murderers. Murderers."
Updated March 26, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Update: On Friday, March 23, protests against the police murder of Stephon Clark continued for a second straight day and night, from before noon till close to midnight. Protesters blocked traffic at some of the busiest downtown intersections during the evening commute, chanting “Whose streets? Our streets.” When the marchers tried to get onto Interstate 5, they were blocked by a dozen Highway Patrol cops in riot gear and on horseback. The Sacramento Bee reports that protesters stood inches from the cops, chanting Clark’s name and shouting “Fuck the police.” At another point protesters reportedly surrounded a group of foot patrol and bicycle cops. Many in the crowd held up their cell phones and chanted, “Cellphones don’t kill.” One marcher said, “I’m mad. They look at us like we are bad people and we are the criminals, but they are killing us.”
In the evening there was a vigil for Stephon Clark in south Sacramento, which turned into a four-mile protest march, passing near the house where Stephon was murdered. After another standoff with the cops, the protesters dispersed. It was close to midnight.
Matt Barnes, former Sacramento Kings basketball player, announced he is joining former teammate DeMarcus Cousins to help with costs of the funeral for Stephon. Barnes earlier posted a picture of Clark with his daughter on Instagram, with the message: “Another pointless killing. This time in my hometown of Sacramento. Who’s gonna be next? Your brother, son, uncle, dad...?”
Stephon “Zoe” Clark, father of two children ages one and three, was murdered Sunday night, March 18, by two Sacramento cops—unarmed, in his grandparents’ backyard. The pigs fired 20 bullets at him after chasing him on foot through the neighborhood. The police claim they began chasing him after receiving a 911 call reporting that someone was seen breaking car windows. The pigs’ story is that they had Stephon “cornered,” and when he turned toward them, one cop shouted “gun” and they opened fire. In reality, they didn’t have Stephon “cornered”—he had arrived at his grandparents’ backyard, and he didn’t have a gun. All he had was a cell phone.
Stephon Clark’s grandmother told the Sacramento Bee, “The only thing that I heard was pow, pow, pow, pow, and I got to the ground. I opened that curtain and he was dead.” She told the cops: “You guys are murderers. Murderers. You took him away from his kids.”
Outraged at the police murder of yet another unarmed Black youth, hundreds of people marched into Sacramento City Hall in protest on Thursday, March 22. Then they went onto the Interstate 5 freeway, blocking traffic for a mile in both directions while standing in front of cars chanting, “Don’t shoot. It’s a cell phone.”
The protesters then moved to the Golden 1 Center, where the NBA Sacramento Kings were scheduled to play the Atlanta Hawks. They locked arms, forming a human chain in front of the arena doorways, shouting “Shut It Down!” Forty minutes after the game was scheduled to start, with thousands outside unable to get into the game, the police announced that they were closing admission. Only 2,000 fans had gotten into the 17,000 seat arena.
On Wednesday evening the police released video and audio recordings of the killing of Stephon Clark, including from body camera footage from the two pigs who fired the shots and from a helicopter that hovered over the entire chase and murder. There was widespread anger at what can be seen and heard on the recordings, which have gone viral on social media. Black Lives Matter in Sacramento called for protests the following day.
The police night-vision video from their helicopter shows clearly that Stephon Clark had nothing in his hands while climbing over fences—a gun would have been easily seen anywhere on him. Yet police “experts” have already all but exonerated the two pigs. And the Sacramento mayor joined them, saying he was horrified by the killing but won’t second-guess the “split-second decisions” of the cops.
One of Stephon’s friends said, “He was a great dad. He loved both of them [the children] to death.” DeMarcus Cousins, former Sacramento Kings center, has reached out to the family offering to cover funeral costs.
Stephon’s brother told CBS Sacramento, "You’re going to know his name forever ... You’re going to remember it like how you know Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice. You’re going to know him. You’re going to remember this.
“I know there could have been another way. He didn’t have to die."
There’s a lot of talk about gun violence in American society now. Stephon Clark was a victim of a kind of gun violence that’s long been carried out by murderers with badges—about 1,000 killed every year, many of them Black, Latino, and Native American. Often it’s caught on video—but time and time again, the police perpetrators walk scot-free. This unjust violence stems from, and serves to enforce, a system that keeps oppressed people under conditions of poverty and degradation. It’s righteous that people rose up against the murder of Stephon Clark. The killer cops need to be convicted and jailed. The whole damn system is guilty as hell!
After the disruption of the Thursday night game the owner of the Sacramento Kings said in a statement: “We at the Kings recognize people’s ability to protest peacefully and we respect that. We here at the Kings recognize that we have a big platform. It’s a privilege, but it’s also a responsibility. It’s a responsibility that we take very seriously.
“And we stand here before you—old, young, black, white, brown—and we are all united in our commitment. We recognize that it’s not just business as usual, and we are going to work really hard to bring everybody together to make the world a better place, starting with our own community, and we’re going to work really hard to prevent this kind of a tragedy from happening again.”
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Dr. David I. Orenstein, Professor of Anthropology, Medgar Evers College/CUNY
“Do not sleep through this revolution! Avakian’s speech, when focusing on the Trump administration’s anti-humanistic actions and policies, demands that we remain awake. It demands that we take action to stop Trump’s allies, enablers, racists and evangelical apologists from making good on their dystopian ‘Making America Great Again’ slogan. It demands that civil society act against the attacks on modernity; the poor; those in the LGBTQ community, on scientific truth, on the rule of law; on press freedom; on healthcare and on refugees and immigrants. Watch this film. Get angry! Use this anger and channel it into resistance. And most of all VOTE for change.”