From the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

To Do This, We Need To Know:

Why we need an actual revolution.
What we need to do now.
How we could defeat them.

This Film Can Make a Major Difference in How People See the Political Situation... and the World—Now, More Than Ever, It Must Be Spread

June 29, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

As hundreds of thousands across the country are taking to the streets against the cruelty being perpetrated on the border—cruelty with prefigurations of genocide ... there is nothing more important for them to hear than the deep historical analysis of Bob Avakian’s speech, THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO! In the Name of Humanity We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America. A Better World IS Possible. And as people reel from—and respond to—the prospect of a rock-solid Christian-fascist court system for a generation—there is nothing more illuminating for them to see than the way Bob Avakian lays out his analysis of the character of that Christian fascism. Right now, when people on a greater scale are in anguish but simultaneously refusing to be passive and raising their heads, there is nothing more crucial for them to experience than the challenge put to them by BA and the direction—the leadership—he gives at this crucial moment.    

If you follow this website, think about how you and your comrades can maximize this during the outpourings happening now. What are the ways that this film, now more timely and urgent than ever, can reach the audience that needs to hear it? Imagine if hundreds of thousands of people—imagine if more—were exposed to this film. Imagine the difference it could make in how people understood the situation, what they thought was possible, and what they wanted to do. Imagine the doors that would be opened.

As we have said:

If more people see this talk by BA, it could actually change the political equation—giving people a scientific understanding of the situation we face, its causes, and what to do about it. BA points people toward deeper questions about the society we live in. And, very crucially in today’s situation, the film introduces people to BA, the most important revolutionary thinker and leader of our time, who has brought forward a new communism, which provides a path to a radically new, and much better, world. Let’s open this door for many, many more people!

Send your ideas. Send your experience. 

“If you are facing something this destructive, then it is time to really deeply question everything.”

Reaching Out BROADLY with This Film

July 2, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Millions are agonizing about the Trump/Pence fascist regime... but they do not understand where this came from, why it's happening and most importantly: what can be done to stop it and whether a better world really is possible. This is why people, in their thousands and millions, need to watch the deep analysis and call to action in Bob Avakian’s (BA’s) speech, THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO! In the Name of Humanity We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America. A Better World IS Possible.

Now is a time to reach out broadly with this film. For people who are filling the streets in anger at the nightmare of children separated from their families, locked in cages... for people who are losing sleep over what a full on Christian-fascist Supreme Court will mean... this film provides urgently needed answers. Answers that, in response to the lock-step horrors of this regime, many are consciously hungry for.

One person wrote to revcom this week with some experience making phone calls to people she’s known for years and others she just met. Two attorneys she spoke with were eager to watch the film this week. They’ve known about BA’s work for some time, but both lost touch because they thought revolution was too unrealistic. Due to the sharpness of the times, their thinking is changing. One expressed a lot of frustration with the over-simplistic, ahistorical answers people are grabbing for, including the idea that what we're facing with the Trump/Pence fascist regime is because not enough people voted for Hillary (!). Aside from the fact that she actually won the popular vote, that's ridiculous when you look at the rise of fascism over the last decades and the roots of white supremacy in this country going back to its founding. They were both very glad to hear from the revolutionary who called them. 

Another person she spoke to was an artist who has known about BA for many years but has never watched or read anything by him. He just finally watched this film and was so glad to hear it. He said it explains so much, and validated and deepened his concerns about the grave dangers being posed by the regime at this moment. He wants to contribute to getting this out so others can see it and wants to learn more about the new communism. A recently graduated college student also just watched the film. He’s known about, and been supportive of, the revolution from afar but he said recent events have really impacted him. He said that BA “covered it” in terms of where all this came from, and he's appreciative of how BA goes at "the whole thing." He too wants to help get this out to others. 

The person who wrote to revcom also spoke with one woman who she hadn’t talked to in years. The woman called back right away, eager to talk. She said she has just been stunned at the level of cruelty coming from this regime. She said, “If you are facing something this destructive, then it is time to really deeply question everything.” She too made plans to watch the film. 

We also heard about a film screening with a half dozen people attending and a wide-ranging discussion about what we’re facing and what we must do. One woman blurted out during the film “too late,” when BA was describing the need for the Trump/Pence regime to be driven from power before they consolidate their rule and implement their fascist agenda. In the discussion, she explained that what she meant is that Trump has already taken this way too far, but yes, she very much agrees this needs to happen NOW. There was debate and discussion on a range of other questions BA gets into in the film, including the role of white supremacy and the Christian fascism as core and driving elements of this fascist regime. 

This is really just very barely scratching the surface of what’s needed and possible. Both in terms of people getting into this film, the Q&As and spreading this very widely themselves as a concrete way to impact the political terrain in the interests of humanity. Take this out everywhere, and write to: revolution.reports@yahoo.com

WATCH THE FILM, CLIPS AND Q&As HERE.

Trump Escalates Fascist Barbarism on the Border, Sparking Massive, Growing Resistance

July 2, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Less than two weeks after Trump signed his executive order supposedly halting the separation of families arrested at the border, three things are apparent. First, the Trump/Pence regime’s depraved and deliberate cruelty is not only continuing, but in some ways escalating. Second, this is not only generating massive revulsion and outrage, it has begun to reveal this regime’s fascist intent and program to millions who could not, or would not, see it before, and to objectively raise huge questions about the system that gave rise to this border and to a situation in which people risk everything to cross it. Third, on that basis real questions of how to act—and indeed, of what it means to be human—are being posed to millions.

In the midst of this, Refuse Fascism has put out a call for mass demonstrations on July 7 in cities across the country:

Immigrants and refugees terrorized, mass detention camps, thousands of children still separated from parents...
The Supreme Court on the verge of a fascist majority for generations...
We—the masses of people—must act to stop this whole fascist program and demand that this illegitimate, immoral regime be removed from power.
Demonstrate Saturday July 7 TO DEMAND:
This Nightmare Must End: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!

Everyone reading this should build for July 7, and revolutionary communists should be leading people to participate, and to see this in the context of this system’s crimes, the need to overthrow that system, and the urgency right now to build the movement to do that.

The Trump/Pence Regime’s Depraved Cruelty Continues, Even Escalates

There’s no end to the Trump/Pence regime’s depraved cruelty on the border and to immigrants overall—and to the ongoing exposures of them by victims, lawyers, activists, and journalists that has been an important component of this ongoing and very volatile crisis.

What has come to light about this cruelty at the border is but one part of a whole sinister campaign directed and promoted by Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and the whole fascist regime to paint these immigrants—and all the people like them who are already in the U.S. or may come—as subhuman animals, criminals who have no rights and should be ethnically cleansed from this country. This is part of a whole fascist consolidation being cemented in place in the U.S. right now.

First, Trump’s order did not call for reuniting parents and children who had already been ripped apart at the border. Second, his “zero-tolerance” policy of arresting and criminally charging everyone who crosses the U.S.-Mexico border without permission is still in force. Border authorities have temporarily halted these mass arrests because they have no place to put the people they have detained, but the underlying policy remains in place.

Some 2,047 children who were separated from their parents since May still remain in federal custody. On June 26, a judge ruled that children separated from their parents must be reunited with them—within 14 days for children under five and 30 days for older children. Yet 10 days after Trump’s order, the New York Times reported that only six—repeat six—of those 2,047 children—have been reunited with their parents.

The reality is that court order or no court order, parents and children caught in the maw of U.S. immigration face a nightmare of vicious, Nazi-like treatment.

• Some parents have already been deported, while their children remain in the U.S., making it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for them to ever be reunited.
• The Trump/Pence regime claims it’s easy for parents to find their children, but like most of the pronouncements coming from this regime, that’s a bald-faced lie. Children have been scattered through 100 different facilities in 17 different states. Sometimes the only “documentation” is a photo taken by the Border Patrol of “who belongs with who”! (Think about trying to match parents and young children based on one photo.)
• Detained immigrants are given an 800 number to call, only to be told, “Yes, we know that the child is in detention. We can confirm that. But we cannot give you the information as to the exact location of that child,” according to an attorney interviewed on Democracy Now!
• The regime claims it will try to reunite families, but then demands they fill out lengthy forms, submit to background checks, and have everyone in their household fingerprinted. So in the name of family reunification, this fascist regime is creating an anti-immigrant database that could be used for mass roundups, mass arrests, and mass deportations.
• Instances have been reported of toddlers as young as three being taken to deportation hearings by themselves—without legal representation—and just given a list of service agencies to choose from.
• In South Texas, there have been mass prosecutions in federal court of up to 70 detained migrants in the morning alone, with similar numbers in the afternoon, many with no legal representation.
• Asylum seekers are being illegally turned away at the border before they can reach port of entry or make their claim, or forced to wait for days in murderous heat. “Border Patrol made all of those families—30 to 50 people, I counted—sit on the bridge, some of them 10 days, in Roma, Texas 16 days,” lawyer and human rights activist Jennifer Harbury said. “It was 100 degrees out back then, and the heat factor—heat index was 108. Border Patrol agents would not let them sit in the Progreso, Texas, waiting room, which holds a hundred people, is air-conditioned and has bathrooms.”
• In addition to more than 2,000 children stolen from their parents, the U.S. is holding another 9,000 undocumented children who arrived unaccompanied.

As if all this wasn’t horrendous enough, Trump is now threatening more overtly fascist measures—depravity prefiguring genocide. This includes erecting one obstacle after another to migrants’ exercise of their legal rights, or even dispensing with due process altogether: “When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no judges or court cases, bring them back from where they came,” he tweeted. Now, his regime has gone to court to demand the right to hold migrants and their children indefinitely, abolishing the Flores settlement agreement, which mandates that the Department of Homeland Security release immigrant children from custody after 20 days. And when people move to shut down this machinery of torture and deportation, the regime sends in Homeland Security pigs to assault the resistance, as it did against “Occupy ICE” protests in Portland, Oregon; Detroit; and New York City.

A Rolling, Gathering Wave of Protest and Resistance

Not a day has gone by since this crisis broke, two weeks ago, when some form of protest or resistance hasn’t taken place somewhere across the country. There have been protests large and small in cities and towns all across the country, including 750 different protests on June 30 alone, all told involving hundreds of thousands of people.

There have been mass civil disobedience actions, such as Thursday’s protest in Washington, DC, where 600 women were arrested. A movement to shut down and “Occupy ICE” spread from Portland, Oregon, to nearly a dozen other cities, including San Diego, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Detroit, Washington, DC; Louisville, Tacoma, Washington; and New York City. Activists, lawyers, and journalists have rushed to the border, where the detentions are taking place, to protest, to investigate, to expose. People have gone to airports to witness children being dispersed across the country

Significantly, this wave of protests has gained steam after Trump announced his executive order, and the Supreme Court’s upholding of his Muslim travel ban also sparked protests across the country.

People have been so outraged, they have hounded representatives of the regime when they appear in public—Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen when they were trying to enjoy a nice, quiet meal after locking children in cages; Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and Senator Mitch McConnell outside their home; and Mike Pence and Jeff Sessions whenever they venture out to speak. Hounding these fascists is righteous and very important in delegitimizing them and giving heart to the masses of people, while demands for civility are nothing but calls for normalization and accommodation.

People from many walks of life have spoken out, including many prominent celebrities. Over 100 Microsoft employees posted an open letter demanding the company “put children and families above profits,” and end its work with ICE. “As the people who build the technologies that Microsoft profits from, we refuse to be complicit.” At other Silicon Valley tech firms, employees have been circulating emails and supporting protests against Trump’s assaults on immigrant families. There was an important protest of clergy in Los Angeles. Film director and activist Michael Moore recently warned “Fascism is at the doorstep,” and called for one million people to surround the U.S. Capitol and prevent Trump and the Republicans from choosing a new Supreme Court Justice.

The uproar has also sparked divisions within the system’s institutions. Some 19 ICE agents have demanded their agency be disbanded. Seventeen states have filed lawsuits against Trump’s immigration policies. A growing number of cities and counties are ending their contracts with ICE to detain the undocumented. Some airlines have declared they will not transport children who are being separated from their parents.

Demonstrate Saturday, July 7—This Nightmare Must End: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!

This outpouring and the desire to stop the direction things have been heading needs to be forged into a broad, determined movement raising the single demand—This Nightmare Must End! The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! The July 7 protests aim to make a leap in doing just that, and it’s crucial now to energetically build them. Sunsara Taylor, co-initiator of Refuse Fascism, told revcom.us:

The tremendous outpourings that have swept across this country in the face of the images of children in cages and the audio of children crying for missing parents shows the great potential that exists in this country to move millions to rise up and STOP a fascist America in the only way it can be done: by driving out the Trump/Pence regime. But it is urgent that people who want this fight for the only demand that measures up to the threat posed by this historical moment: This Nightmare Must End: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! That is what Saturday, July 7, is about, taking the next essential step, bringing forward people across the country to demand the ouster of the whole regime, and moving us closer to the moment when we can make that demand real in the way laid out in the Refuse Fascism Call to Action.

As part of building for July 7 and beyond, Bob Avakian’s filmed talk “THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO! In The Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America: A Better World IS Possible,” will make a major difference in how people see the political situation and the world. Beyond that, there are profound questions being raised as to what kind of system carries out this cruel persecution and demonization of immigrants and refugees, and what must be done to end it. This system has sucked the blood of the global south, plundering the environment, ripping apart societies, and driving hundreds of millions off the land and into desperate circumstances. Then, when people desperately come into the imperialist countries to survive, they are both super-exploited in the very worst jobs and often robbed of their wages, and simultaneously demonized, denied rights, and today turned into scapegoats. Revolutionaries and communists should boldly bring out the fact that only a revolution to overthrow and get rid of that system—an actual revolution—can end this, and enlist people in that revolution right now.

Trump Aims to Replace Supreme Court Justice Kennedy with a Rock-Solid Fascist

Yes, the Future IS on the Line, and Everyone Who Sees That Needs to ACT On It

July 2, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

The announcement that Justice Anthony Kennedy is going to retire from the U.S. Supreme Court has opened the door wide to a decisive leap in the consolidation of the Trump/Pence fascist regime, and to a nightmarish vista in which The Handmaid’s Tale is less and less an intriguing dystopian fantasy, and more and more the road map to a future that is barreling down the highway towards us at nerve-shattering speed.

As we wrote last week: “This should not be seen as a mere wake-up call, but an air-raid siren screaming as night falls and the planes draw near.”

What Is on the Line with This Appointment?

Kennedy voted with the fascist court majority in a recent string of reactionary rulings. He upheld Trump’s Muslim Ban; approved the “right” of a Christian baker in Colorado to refuse to bake a cake for a gay wedding; upheld gerrymandering in North Carolina and purges of the voter rolls in Ohio, both aimed at suppressing Black and Latino votes; protected the deceitful practices of California “crisis pregnancy centers” that masquerade as “clinics” in order to convince women not to get abortions; undercut unions in Illinois; and much more. As we wrote last week, he “could only be called ‘moderate’ in the context of the Dark Ages fascists that now make up the solid core of the Court.” In fact, Kennedy had been moving more closely into alignment with the fascist forces that now rule the U.S.

Nevertheless, whoever Trump nominates to replace Kennedy will come from a list produced by the right-wing Federalist Society and vetted for people who support Trump’s “promise” to overturn Roe v. Wade and criminalize abortion. And this will be a tipping point, consolidating the Supreme Court as a reliably compliant, and indeed aggressive, defender of the fascist regime.

There are two major components. First, Kennedy was not fully in line with the Christian fascist agenda for tearing up women’s abortion and reproductive rights and persecuting LGBTQ people. He was the deciding vote in three decisions that infuriated the Christian fascists: striking down the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act, upholding the legality of gay marriage, and blocking some laws aimed at shutting down women’s clinics that provide abortion.

Right now, dozens of state legislatures have passed bills essentially banning abortion (for instance, making it illegal after six weeks of gestation—before most women even know they are pregnant) and legalizing anti-LGBTQ discrimination if it is based on “sincerely held” religious belief. Many of these laws will end up before the Supreme Court, and with Kennedy gone many or most of these extreme laws will be affirmed by the Court. Mainstream legal expert Jeffrey Toobin predicts that “abortion will be illegal in 20 states in 18 months,” and this is likely an underestimation of how rapid and sweeping the assault on women’s rights will be. The stripping away of the right of women to decide when and whether to bear children is at the core of whether women are considered fully human, and cripples their ability to enter freely and fully into all realms of society. This will signal a leap backwards in the patriarchal subjugation of women. This re-subjugation (after a period of reforms) has been, and is, a cornerstone of every fascist regime, and this one is not only no different but aims to outdo them all.

But the firming up of a consistently fascist majority on the Court has profound implications even beyond the fact that it clears the way for Christian theocratic remaking of society.

A key part of the consolidation of fascist rule is the elevation of the power of the executive branch decisively above that of the other branches (legislative and judicial). And within the executive, elevating “the leader” as really the sole center of authority is key.

Vast executive power is now concentrated in Trump’s hands, surrounded by a tiny core of fascist enablers who worship, follow, and obey him. The Republican Party, now entirely “Trumpified,” controls Congress and wields it as an instrument to protect Trump and attack his enemies, ripping up the existing rules and norms to do so.

But the courts have been more of a problem—major moves by the regime have repeatedly been struck down by district federal courts. Yes, the regime has found “end runs” around these decisions and has been rapidly implementing its fascist agenda, but these decisions have been a problem. They undercut Trump’s legitimacy, form a rallying point especially for his opponents within the ruling class, and have at least the potential to cause a constitutional crisis, in which different branches of government clash over major issues, and lines of authority, including military authority, become unclear.

Trump has been working on the courts, appointing fascists to district and appeals court benches at an unprecedentedly rapid clip. But solidifying control of the Supreme Court creates a whole new situation. Not only can the Supreme Court strike down any particular lower court decision that gets in the way of the regime, but it also sets the terms for the whole judicial system. One aspect of this is that lower courts are much less likely to issue rulings against the regime if they know that their decisions will ultimately be overruled by the Supreme Court.

So the addition of a single solid fascist to the Supreme Court will play a huge role in suppressing all opposition to Trump coming from within the ruling class and its governing institutions.

Recent developments—particularly the government’s “disappearing” of thousands of refugee children—have unleashed a powerful wave of opposition, including major street protests, mass civil disobedience, and public shaming of regime officials. And many people, including prominent people, have passionately expressed that the U.S. is right now at a point of extreme crisis in which fascism is about to entrench itself, and called on people to be ready to make great sacrifices to stop this.

In the face of this, ruling class liberals are arguing more strenuously than ever to vote as an answer to this. Even taken on its own terms, this logic does not work—voting in November will do nothing to stop the consolidation of the Court into a direct instrument of fascism, given that Trump will this week begin pushing through his nominee. Yet there are more fundamental reasons why this is a trap laid out in the clip and quotes from Bob Avakian at right and below.

What is very directly needed right now to deal with the import of the Kennedy resignation is massive action around the demand that the regime go—the first, critically important step is set for Saturday, July 7, when Refuse Fascism has called for people to take to the streets in cities and towns nationwide. As the call for the July 7 demonstrations states:

We—the masses of people—must act to stop this whole fascist program and demand that this illegitimate, immoral, regime be removed from power.

This cannot wait until November. The Trump/Pence regime will not be bound by the normal political process—they are shattering norms, remaking the courts, radically altering the whole political and global landscape. The Democratic Party will not stop this. For them, empire and order is more important than justice, even if that means the order of fascism.

On July 7: Join Refuse Fascism, mobilize your organization or your friends and neighbors and take to the streets across the country to raise the demand: This Nightmare Must End: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!

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

Bob Avakian on the Elections Trap

July 2, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Updated July 5, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

update from RefuseFascism.org:

 

Children torn from parents... concentration camps for tens or hundreds of thousands... threats to bypass judicial process... The assault on immigrants is the linchpin and battering ram of a whole fascist program:

* The Muslim Ban. * White supremacy and terror. * Environmental deregulation as the planet burns. * Open misogyny and theocratic restrictions on abortion and even birth control. * Stripping away rights recently won by LGTBQ people. * 8 million on the verge of starvation in Yemen due to U.S. backed war. * Threats of nuclear annihilation. * A thoroughly fascist Trump/Pence Supreme Court for generations.

This is an American Fascism: “Trump/Pence regime’s ‘Make America Great Again’ is a 21^st century fascist program of Manifest Destiny—‘America First’—wrapped in the flag and Mike Pence’s Bible taken literally, with a program of white supremacy, misogyny, and xenophobia.”

ENOUGH. ¡Basta Ya!

We know enough to see what has been put into motion. If we allow them to get away with caging and torturing children, they know there is nothing they can’t get away with. We must not allow them to pack the Supreme Court and wipe out women’s right to abortion, LGBTQ rights, and more and worse. Every crisis this regime gets through strengthens the regime. This is a shock we cannot normalize.

We—the masses of people—must act to stop this whole fascist program and demand that this illegitimate, immoral, regime be removed from power.

This cannot wait until November. The Trump/Pence Regime will not be bound by the normal political process—they are shattering norms, remaking the courts, radically altering the whole political and global landscape. The Democratic Party will not stop this. For them, empire and order is more important than justice, even if that means the order of fascism.

On July 7^th: Join Refuse Fascism, mobilize your organization or your friends and neighbors and take to the streets across the country to raise the demand: This Nightmare Must End: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!

Printable PDF

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Saturday July 7: When and where...

• Atlanta: 11 am at the MLK Historical Site in Atlanta (Meet on corner of Jackson St. and Auburn Ave.) Facebook Event
• Boston / New England: 12:00 – 2:00 pm Park Street Station T-Stop, Boston Commons Facebook Event
• Chicago: 2:00 pm Michigan & Congress Facebook Event
• Cleveland: 2:00 pm at The Free Stamp, Willard Park, Lakeside @ East 9th Street Facebook Event
• Detroit: 1:00 pm 333 Mt. Elliott at the ICE Field Office, site of ongoing Occupy ICE protests Facebook Event
• Honolulu: 6:30 pm Meet at Honolulu Zoo (corner of Kalakaua & Kapahulu). March through Waikiki.
• Houston: 5:00 pm at proposed Immigrant Detention Center 419 Emancipation Blvd.
• Los Angeles: 4:00 pm Meet at Mac Arthur Park Red Line Station on Alvarado between Wilshire & 7th Facebook Event
• New York City: 2:00 pm Union Square, 14th between University Place & Broadway. Form a human chain around the military recruiting center because military being used to house 100,000 people Facebook Event
• Philadelphia: 3:00 pm Love Park North 15th & Arch Streets Facebook Event|
• San Francisco: 12:00 pm San Francisco Federal Building, 7^th and Mission. Facebook Event
• Seattle: 2:00 pm Westlake Park, 4th Avenue & Pine Street Facebook Event

 

June 30: Hundreds of Thousands March Across the Country Against the Government's Detention and Separation of Immigrant Families

Updated July 1, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

June 30, 2018. Across the country, from large cities to smaller ones, hundreds of thousands took to the streets to demand that the government stop the cruel, brutal detention and separation of immigrant families. News reports say that at least 750 protests took place, in almost every state in the country—in major U.S. cities but also in many smaller cities and towns. The crowds were very diverse, people of all ages and nationalities—many coming out to protest for the first time. People drove, took trains and got on planes to rally, march and voice their opposition to the heartless immigration policies of the fascist Trump/Pence Regime that is ripping children away from parents and detaining many thousands of immigrants behind bars. In the crowds were immigrants, some who talked about their own stories of family members being deported. Lots of people came with their children and talked about how they had conversations with their kids, even very young children, about what is happening on the border and why it’s important to go out and protest against this. One woman got up in front of the crowd at the rally in LA and said, “I am undocumented, unapologetic and unafraid.” Refuse Fascism activists and contingents were part of marches in cities across the country. The Revolution Club joined protests in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles with "This System Can't Be Reformed. It Must Be OVERTHROWN!" banners.

[Read reports from readers on June 30 protests HERE.]

In Washington, DC, tens of thousands of people gathered in Lafayette Square, across from the White House, chanting, “We care” and “No Trump, No KKK, No Fascist USA.” People carried signs in English and Spanish. People carried signs like: “We are all immigrants,” “Seeking safety is not a crime,” “Melania & Ivanka, stop the child abuse” and “What’s next? Concentration Camps?” People came from towns and cities all along the East Coast and farther including North Carolina and Tennessee. A number of celebrities addressed the rally. Alicia Keys and America Ferrera read letters from families separated from children. Lin-Manuel Miranda sang a lullaby to the children who have been ripped away from their parents. Actress Diane Guerrero from Orange is the New Black, whose parents were deported when she was 14 years old, addressed the crowd, saying, “How many more children are we willing to subject to a lifetime of pain... What kind of country do we want to be when it violates the fundamental right of those seeking asylum? ...I have to believe that this is a chance for us to rise above the tyranny.” One man compared this moment to other periods in U.S. history, such as when Japanese-Americans were placed in internment camps during World War II, or when Jews fleeing persecution in Europe sought refuge on America’s shores and were turned away.

In New York City, news reports said 30,000 protesters gathered at a park in Manhattan and then marched across the Brooklyn Bridge, chanting “shame!” and “shut detention down.” The march was at least a mile long. Signs included: “Kids should not be in cages” (worn by a kid), “This episode of Handmaid’s Tale sucks.” Actress Kerry Washington, who’s from the Bronx, was at the NYC protest and said, “We actually have to participate to make it work. When you have those moments—and a lot of us are having them now, of feeling overwhelmed and afraid and heartbroken about the state of affairs in our country—you have to speak out and come together with other people who care about this country doing the right thing.” A pediatrician, Dr. Steve Auerbach, was in the crowd and told a reporter, “Doing this causes permanent physical and mental health harm to children. This is child abuse. This is torture and as a mandatory reporter, I am hereby reporting it.”

Tens of thousands demonstrated in Los Angeles. People held up a big banner at the front of the crowd near the stage that read: “What Side are You On—Sanctuary Cities.” People gathered in front of City Hall and marched through downtown. “Human rights should have no border!” a protester yelled at the start of the L.A. rally. Kids waved signs that said, “Familia, si! Trump, no, no, no!” People chanted, “Where are the children?” and carried signs like, “Separating children from their families is illegal.” Jimmy “Taboo” Gomez of the musical group Black Eyed Peas helped get things started by performing the hit song “Where is the Love?” John Legend also performed at the rally with a new song written for the occasion called “Preach,” urging people to action, that it’s not enough to preach. Legend told the crowd: “We see them as human beings who deserve the chance to flourish and be the best versions of themselves they can be. If you are committed to this kind of love, it means you believe in justice. But it’s not easy. It requires you see through the eyes of another. You can’t just talk about it, or read about it. You’ve got to do something!” [Read a report from a Revolution Club member in Los Angeles HERE.]

In San Francisco, CA thousands of people rallied and marched to City Hall. See video here.

Protesters beat drums, blew horns and carried signs like, “Deport Trump” and “I Really Care, Do You?” One news report described how the crowd at Dolores Park grew exponentially, mushrooming from a handful of protesters at 9 a.m. to perhaps thousands within an hour. Participants strummed banjos, pushed strollers and dangled handmade signs with the slogan “Families Belong Together.” There was also a rally across the bay, in Berkeley.

People took to the streets in Portland, Oregon after earlier demonstrations in the week where police in riot gear attacked protesters—Sign: “Zero Human Policy.” People have set up a tent city surrounding the ICE office with about 100 people who have been sleeping overnight, saying they will not leave until this inhumanity against immigrants stops. Several stay-at-home moms organized their first rally while caring for young kids. “I’m not a radical, and I’m not an activist,” said Kate Sharaf, a Portland co-organizer. “I just reached a point where I felt I had to do more.” Jess Morales Rocketto, political director at the National Domestic Workers Alliance, which represents nannies, housekeepers and caregivers, many of whom are immigrants, said “We just kept hearing over and over again, if it was my child, I would want someone to do something.”

In Chicago, a large crowd of tens of thousands gathered in Daley Plaza downtown. Some protesters shouted, “If we don’t get it, shut it down,” and held signs saying “Abolish ICE.” Protesters marched through the downtown Loop area to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Chicago office and set up tents. A protester said, “We’re in a battle for the soul of the country.” One man, when asked by a reporter what message he had for Trump, said, “Leave Office.” [Read a report from a Revolution Club member from Chicago HERE.]

Thousands gathered in El Paso near the US-Mexico border, and converged on the International Bridge that carries traffic between El Paso and Juarez, Mexico. People carried signs like, “We are all immigrants." There were other protests in Texas. Protesters in Dallas gathered outside City Hall, many carrying signs that read: “Compassion not cruelty.” According to news reports, people began blocking the road and at least five people were arrested when they refused police orders to move. In Houston people chanted, “No baby jails” and there was also a protest in McAllen, near a detention center where immigrant children are being held.

Trump was at the Trump National Golf Course in New Jersey where more than 100 protesters lined the side of a major New Jersey highway waving anti-Trump signs and chanting, “Where are the children!”

At least 7,000 people demonstrated in Minneapolis, chanting, “Build bridges, not walls,” “Education, not deportation” and “Love, not fear—immigrants are welcome here.” The crowd, which packed at least six downtown blocks, marched to the Hennepin County jail after an opening rally near the Minneapolis Convention Center.

In Boston, a “Rally against Family Separation” began with a march in the morning from City Hall to Boston Common to rally. There was also another demonstration in the afternoon with a march from Wellington Common Park to the South Bay House of Correction, a county jail in Boston where undocumented immigrants are put behind bars.

Thousands of people took to the streets of downtown Atlanta. People carried dog crates with baby dolls inside.

Japanese American survivors and descendants of those who were incarcerated during World War II in concentration camps in America, rallied at the site of the Tule Lake prison camp in Northern California. Protesters held signs that read: “Kodomo no tame ni. They’re our children. Set them free”—sending a message that whether 1942 or now concentration camps are unacceptable.

Hundreds of people gathered to protest in Detroit and 22 other Michigan cities. In Denver, 4,000 rallied. Thousands gathered in downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico calling for an end to the detention of immigrant families. A banner at the protest in Louisville, Kentucky read: “Immigrants and Refugees Welcome.” 500 rallied in Ithaca, New York, where one sign read: “Nazi’s separated families. We shall not.” Protesters gathered in Indianapolis, the state capital of Indiana. One protester, a grandmother of nine, said, “I’m hoping that decent human beings come together, and enough is enough." In Onancock, Virginia, an Eastern Shore town with a population of under 1,300, some 60 people turned out for a march and a “Rally for the Children.” Some 200 protesters gathered Saturday outside the federal building in Binghamton, NY. 1,000 people protested in St. Louis, Missouri. In Columbus, Ohio, at least one person was arrested at a protest of about 2,000 people near the statehouse. A nurse told the crowd that she had never been to a rally before and said, “You don’t have to be a parent to be outraged. You just have to be a decent human being.”

4,000 people protested in Denver, Colorado, some wearing foil blankets, similar to the ones given to children separated from their parents. One sign read, “Keep the kids, deport the racists.” Around 400 people rallied in downtown Dayton, Ohio. About 300 people protested in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. About 125 people rallied in Marshalltown, Iowa. A father was inspired to organize a rally in support of immigrant families after seeing news on Father’s Day of immigrant children separated from their parents and held in cage-like structures. It brought him to tears. More than 1,500 people gathered in downtown San Luis Obispo, California. There were also protests in Raleigh and Charlotte, North Carolina; Louisville, Kentucky; Alaska and Puerto Rico, as well as Antler, North Dakota, which has a population of 27. More than 2,500 marched and rallied in Honolulu, Hawaii.

In Delaware, hundreds of protesters gathered in front of the State Office building in Wilmington. One woman, addressing the crowd with her two daughters standing by her side, said, “I do it with the hope of a better world for them, which means when there’s oppression, hatred and intolerance, you stand up and fight!” There were two other protests in Delaware, in Dover and Milltown. Several hundred people marched outside the Diplomat Beach Resort in Hollywood—one of several protests across South Florida. An Orlando area schoolteacher who joined the Hollywood demonstrators said, “I came out here because I teach a lot of immigrant children. I’m the daughter of a refugee, my mom, who came here in the early 90s seeking asylum from Romania.”

There were protests in HUNDREDS of other cities and towns across the country and also outside the United States, including in Mexico City, Copenhagen, Paris, London, Tokyo, Halifax, Toronto, and Taiwan. In London, dozens of Americans gathered to protest outside the U.S. embassy.

 

Bay Area Revolution Club. Photo: Special to revcom.us

New York City, NY. Photo: Twitter/@bradenking

Chicago, Illinois. Photo: Special to revcom.us

Portland, Maine. Photo: AP

Japanese American survivors & descendants rallied today at the Tule Lake WWII prison camp. We have a message for those who jail children, whether now or in 1942:

Kodomo no tame ni. They're our children. Set them free! #FamiliesBelongTogether #NoCampsNoCages #EndFamilyDetention pic.twitter.com/9pNpmNgjXe

— Tule Lake Pilgrimage (@SaveTuleLake) June 30, 2018

San Francisco, California. Photo: Special to revcom.us

Carl Dix and the Revolution Club, Brooklyn Bridge, NYC. Photo: Special to revcom.us

Denver, Colorado. Photo: Twitter/@krassenstein

Los Angeles, California. Photo: Special to revcom.us

Seattle, Washington. Photo: Twitter/@stearnsseattle

#FamiliesBelongTogether: I'm in the middle of Lafayette Square, this is what I'm seeing. PACKED. The whole park is shoulder-to-shoulder. pic.twitter.com/PfvnO1xw6c

— Alejandro Alvarez (@aletweetsnews) June 30, 2018

Washington, DC

 

Massive protest for Families Belong Together Day of Action (as seen from @cbschicago newsroom windows) #FamiliesBelongTogether #daleyplaza pic.twitter.com/Up6Y0dk64k

— Damara Anderson (@DAndersonCBS2) June 30, 2018

 

Boston, Massachusetts. Photo: Twitter/@VestalMcIntyre

Salt Lake City, Utah. Photo: AP

Raleigh, North Carolina. Photo: Twitter/@BravoAriana

At the June 30 Marches Against the Fascist Regime’s Attacks on Refugee/Immigrant Families...

Agitating and Organizing FOR REVOLUTION in the Midst of an Outpouring

July 2, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

From a member of the Revolution Club, Chicago:

At 10:30 am on June 30, we marched under our “This System Cannot Be Reformed, It Must Be Overthrown” banner, chanting “We need a world that’s better! ¡Chinga tus fronteras!” to the delight of people waiting for the rally to begin. Many people brought out their cell phones and filmed our “entrance.”

We planted our banner and stepladder on a corner next to a table, that others had set up, which was loaded with literature, T-shirts, picket signs (100 with posters of the two memes “We Don’t Have an Immigration Problem—We Have an Imperialism Problem” and “This System Cannot Be Reformed, It Must Be Overthrown”), donation buckets, and adorned with the 5 Stops posters.

Our “stage” looked great! Noche Diaz from the Revolution Club began agitating to the crowd as others got out picket signs and literature. Maya held an enormous sign with a photo of her being dragged by police that said “Felony Charges, 7 years in prison for a SILENT protest? I, Maya, stood in silence for 11 minutes for 11 million undocumented immigrants at the University of Chicago dining hall! Revolutionaries are under attack by this system. Join, support. Donate for Legal Expenses.” She also agitated to the crowd. (For more on Maya's case, go here.)

We stayed at this spot for two hours, until the march stepped off. The entire time, Club members were agitating, getting out materials (flyer for July 4th picnic, Club flyer for the marches across the country and HOW WE CAN WIN—How We Can Really Make Revolution—other people were getting out 1000s of palm cards for BA’s talk in the crowds) and recruiting people into the revolution. We had a constant crowd listening, and joining in response to calls from the agitator, as the crowd at the protest swelled and swelled to many thousands.

Many people put money in our big donation bucket in front of the agitator (a lesson learned from the revcom article on organizing). This included at least four $20s and a $100 bill as well as lots of smaller bills. We got another $100 bill from a man who got four BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! T-shirts.

Shortly after our arrival, Noche brought a young woman over to me to get a Club T-shirt, which she put on immediately. She was with us the entire day. It turns out she had run with us at the March for Our Lives and was so glad to find us here. Another young woman got a shirt and gave me her contact information. She lost track of us but rejoined us at the end of the march wearing her shirt. She told us it was her first demonstration ever. She had just moved into the city from the suburbs.

Just before the march stepped off, our second banner—“We Don’t Have an Immigration Problem, We Have an Imperialism Problem”—was brought over from the table. As we stepped into the street new people, who had been listening to the agitation, were helping carry our banners.

The whole march was very spirited but our contingent was even more so. We led chants (“We Are Here to Show Rage, No More Children in a Cage,” “This System Can Not Be Reformed, It Must Be Overthrown” and others) which many in the crowd took up. I was able to run up to a few people who were really getting into the chants, get them materials, get their contact information. When we marched by ICE, the crowd around us let up a roar “Fuck ICE, Fuck ICE.”

We swung back around and the march returned to its starting point. The Club set up in the street, agitating, getting out materials. Several of the people who had joined us from the crowd during the march put on Club T-shirts and got materials to distribute.

Some Christian fascists with ugly anti-abortion pictures were set up across the street and were protected by a line of police. People surrounded them chanting “shame, shame, shame.” Club members jumped into the fray, doing agitation and leading chants (which many, many women of all ages joined in with) for abortion rights.

A young woman and her mother called me over. They had heard Maya talking about her case and wanted to know which court it was at and with which judge. The young woman said she wanted to be a public defender and gave her phone number and email to stay in touch about Maya’s case.

The heat all day had been what the weather reports called “dangerously high,” and it was getting to me and I had to leave before others in the Club. As I was walking away a young woman who had given me her number while we were marching called out to me. I took her over to where the Club was still posted up to get her a T-shirt and become part of the summation meeting Club members were organizing.

She and perhaps half a dozen people we met at the protest, in their Club shirts, went off with Club members to do summation and learn more about the Club at a nearby restaurant. Another crew from the Club stayed out in the crowd, which was dwindling but not yet gone, to get out T-shirts and recruit more people into the Club.

I went downstairs under the plaza to catch my train and was met by a crowd of people from the protest dancing and singing along with a blind street musician singing songs in Spanish at the underground train stop.

* * * * *

"This system is outrageous. It puts our kids in cages. We need a revolution! It must be overthrown!"
Uniting, contending and relying on the people at #KeepFamiliesTogetherMarch

From members of the Revolution Club, Los Angeles:

As this system has brought humanity to the threshold of a new nuclearized fascist era and the Trump/Pence regime moves closer to consolidating fascist rule in the most powerful imperialist country in the world, hundreds of thousands took to the streets in protest against one of the latest sickening criminal outrages of this regime: the separation of children from their parents crossing the southern border in order to terrorize people desperately fleeing the poverty, misery, and violence that their imperialist system has caused. Millions are outraged and horrified but too much stuck in the ways that things are done under this rotten and illegitimate system; “Vote them out!” is a chant regularly heard at many of the latest protests against these ethnic cleansing policies reminiscent of the Nazi era.

We know that left to its own, the trajectory of things now can only lead to tragic horrors for these masses of children and for all of humanity around the world so the Revolution Club went in and contended within a large march (#FamiliesBelongTogetherMarch) in downtown LA, which was held as part of the nationwide protest called for June 30 around the separation of undocumented immigrant families—which has caused widespread outrage and anger throughout the country and world directed at the Trump/Pence regime and its officials, as well as at the system that they serve, and specifically the agency ICE.

Thousands of people took the streets here in Los Angeles and we knew we had to unite with people but also knew that more than anything, we had to fight for the way out if this was going to go anywhere that came close to dealing with this problem, and that was going to take struggle. We had to fight for the way out: revolution to do away with this whole rotten system of capitalism-imperialism, and the creation of a whole new society free from exploitation and oppression.

We brought two banners, “This system cannot be REFORMED—It must be OVERTHROWN!” and a banner promoting the film of BA’s talk, THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO! In The Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America. A Better World IS Possible. Some of us had read the “Organizing People Into the Revolution... on the Spot” article up on revcom.us and decided that carrying these banners can be something we can call on the masses to do as part of getting organized right then and there. We put together our banners and set them aside. We then weaved through the crowd in formation and right away called on people who we had been talking to, to join us. Two women got in formation with the Club, each with a stack of HOW WE CAN WIN—How We Can Really Make Revolution (HWCW) and flyers for the upcoming ANTI-4th of July BBQ as we snaked through the crowd agitating and chanting, “How do we get out of this mess? Revolution—Nothing Less!” People in the crowd really took this chant up as we were making our way through. We don’t know what they all thought about what was meant by revolution, but there were energetic responses when we agitated about the Democrats not being the answer and how relying on them will only lead to conciliating with these horrific crimes.

We aimed to “beat the bushes” with our agitation while also challenging the crowd as a whole to confront that we cannot allow a single child being put in a cage no matter who is doing it, we have to not stop fighting back until the horrors that brought us out here were no more and that’s going to take breaking out of the normal channels, and the killing confines of this system.

At one point we stopped to agitate in an open space in the middle of a small crowd. One of us noticed that we weren’t doing much organizing so we briefly reoriented and emphasized that we can’t be content with being the “radical presence” at this event, we have to accumulate forces now. We marched back to our banner and pulled out our soapbox to start agitating to the crowd nearest us. One of us taking the lead from that same article laid out stacks of HWCW, BAsics, a big donation bucket, and BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! T-shirts in front of the agitator’s box. We called on masses to get with the movement for revolution right now.

One of the biggest changes from our recent work—and the cause of some of our real breakthroughs at this event—was the much more thorough, consistent, and sharp involvement of and calling upon the masses. We put the immediate, not just broader, needs of the revolution before the masses—and they responded repeatedly and with enthusiasm. Before marching, we put forward to people that we needed people to run with us—that if they felt the agitation... if they had a fire in their belly for a whole better world—that they needed to get with this right now. We called on people to help carry the banners and pass out the strategy for revolution, HWCW, and the flyer to the ANTI-4th of July BBQ. Masses came forward to carry both banners and take stacks of HWCW and flyers. Throughout the course of those few hours, around 15 new people ran with us, carrying out basic tasks and getting into and contributing to this movement in beginning but important ways, even as they were just hearing about the Club or Bob Avakian for the first time. New people we had just met were raising a 12-foot banner with the message “This system cannot be REFORMED—It must be OVERTHROWN!” and carrying it through throngs of people with considerable burden (and thus there was this continuing need to switch people out, which involved getting new people into this on the spot).

While marching, we incorporated some new chants along with older ones, including the refrain: This system is outrageous / It puts our kids in cages / we need a revolution / it must be overthrown!

Towards the end, a small crowd gathered, largely opposing the small fascist presence at the end of the march route, and took up our chant, “1,2,3,4, Slavery Genocide and War, 5,6,7,8, AMERICA WAS NEVER GREAT.”

We repeated this chant again and again—and masses took this up to the degree of taking it further beyond our immediate area, shouting down the fascists as they left the area with the help of their pig escort.

Also taking note from “Organizing People Into the Revolution... on the Spot,” we called on people to donate to the movement for revolution throughout our agitation. All throughout we were promoting and selling tickets to the upcoming AMERICA WAS NEVER GREAT Anti-4th of July Picnic fundraiser, and fundraising was interwoven throughout the whole thing. When people pulled out a dollar bill, we’d challenge them to donate more.

Some things that we are summing up further are: How did we do in bringing in the core message* through our agitation and in organizing people, including how did we do at connecting what people did to where it connected with what is in part 2 of HWCW? Multiple club members agitated and there needs to be more collective wrangling in what our agitation should be going in to something like this. An approach that we’ve emphasized but have not taken up sufficiently is that agitation is a collective responsibility. We do a lot of on the spot raising of what should be part of the agitation, what are the strengths and weaknesses, but we think we should have more discussion of what it should be beforehand.

Revolution Club Chicago
Photo: Special to revcom.us

Revolution Club Chicago
Photo: Special to revcom.us

Revolution Club LA
Photo: Special to revcom.us

Revolution Club LA
Photo: Special to revcom.us

Revolution Club Contingent in Pride Parade in NYC

TAKING THE REAL REVOLUTION TO PRIDE 2018

June 29, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Revolution Club NYC took its message—This System Cannot Be Reformed; It Must Be Overthrown—to the Pride March here. We went out with a big banner that said just that, with several thousand copies of HOW WE CAN WIN—How We Can Really Make Revolution (HWCW), with Revolution—Nothing Less! t-shirts and with so many other materials that it was hard for the about half a dozen of us to transport it all to our gathering spot.

We were registered to be part of the Pride parade, and we got out there an hour before the contingent was supposed to step off in order to rally people to join us in taking the message of the revolution out to the many tens of thousands of people who came out to Pride 2018. And people did join us. Our banner and our chanting drew people to our presence. At times we did agitation that laid out what the revolution was all about and about the leadership we had for the revolution in Bob Avakian, and how HWCW laid out the strategy for revolution. A couple of groups of young people got t-shirts, and they and others held up and carried the banner (that took three people) and started getting out the flyers.

The revolution had an impact on the crowd before the parade stepped off. People signed up to be part of our contingent and march with us, and some people who were already signed up to march with other contingents decided to join ours instead. And when we stepped off, after several hours delay, we had a real impact on many of the people lining the parade route.

To be accurate here, most of the people paid little attention as we went past them, and a few reacted like we were intruding on their party. But a lot of people were drawn to our presence. People took pictures of our banner and videoed our agitation and chants. We did “This System Can’t Be Reformed, It Must Be Overthrown!” and “1, 2, 3, 4, Slavery, Genocide and War; 5, 6, 7, 8, America Was Never Great!”

We weren’t just marching down the street, we were rocking thru the parade. We gave our chants a rhythm. We had a beat and a presence, and many people rocked with us, taking up our chants and snatching up copies of HWCW and the flyer. Some of them joined our contingent, climbing over police barricades or jumping in as the parade stopped to let people cross the street. Some of the newer people gave our contingent a real vibrancy, dancing down the street carrying big posters of the “5 Stops.” At one point, the Refuse Fascism contingent in front of us took a knee, and we joined them in doing that. People in a religious contingent behind us joined in taking a knee.

All together two or three dozen people ended up joining our contingent at some point during the day, and at the end of the parade about 20 of us sat down for about 30 minutes to sum up what we had just done. About a dozen of the people involved in this summation had met the revolution for the first time that day. Those of us who had led the contingent posed whether people thought we had succeeded in taking out the message of the revolution to Pride, and we summed up what that message was.

Thru this brief summation, it became clear that people had been drawn to our contingent because they felt that the system couldn’t be reformed and needed to be overthrown, whatever their different understandings of what overthrowing it meant. (One person asked whether we thought buying some land and setting up communes where people could withdraw from capitalism was a viable strategy.) People mostly told us who they were, what their political experience had been; and they raised their questions about the revolution. And they also asked what was next, along with raising their ideas about what should be done and how they could be a part of doing it. (About a half-dozen of the new people were college students, and some of them wanted to bring the Revolution Club to their schools.) Basically people had taken part in the revolution, were discussing continuing to work with the revolution, and they were digging into what the revolution was all about.

Following this brief summation, a few of the new people and some of the revolutionaries had dinner together and continued the discussion.

 

This system can't be reformed, it must be overthrown!
Taking a knee at #Pride #NYCPride with @Carl_Dix @NYCRevClub https://t.co/yhgXETH0HY pic.twitter.com/nS7wc6UETq

— Sunsara Taylor (@SunsaraTaylor) June 25, 2018

Editors' note: The following is an excerpt from the new work by Bob Avakian, THE NEW COMMUNISM. In addition to excerpts already posted on revcom.us, we will be running further excerpts from time to time on both revcom.us and in Revolution newspaper. These excerpts should serve as encouragement and inspiration for people to get into the work as a whole, which is available as a book from Insight Press. A prepublication copy is available on line at revcom.us.

This excerpt comes from the section titled "III. The Strategic Approach to An Actual Revolution."

Excerpt from the section:
III. The Strategic Approach to An Actual Revolution.

 

Contents

Publisher's Note

Introduction and Orientation

Foolish Victims of Deceit, and Self-Deceit

Part I. Method and Approach, Communism as a Science

Materialism vs. Idealism
Dialectical Materialism
Through Which Mode of Production
The Basic Contradictions and Dynamics of Capitalism
The New Synthesis of Communism
The Basis for Revolution
Epistemology and Morality, Objective Truth and Relativist Nonsense
Self and a “Consumerist” Approach to Ideas
What Is Your Life Going to Be About?—Raising People’s Sights

Part II. Socialism and the Advance to Communism:
            A Radically Different Way the World Could Be, A Road to Real Emancipation

The “4 Alls”
Beyond the Narrow Horizon of Bourgeois Right
Socialism as an Economic System and a Political System—And a Transition to Communism
Internationalism
Abundance, Revolution, and the Advance to Communism—A Dialectical Materialist Understanding
The Importance of the “Parachute Point”—Even Now, and Even More With An Actual Revolution
The Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America—
   Solid Core with a Lot of Elasticity on the Basis of the Solid Core
Emancipators of Humanity

Part III. The Strategic Approach to An Actual Revolution

One Overall Strategic Approach
Hastening While Awaiting
Forces For Revolution
Separation of the Communist Movement from the Labor Movement, Driving Forces for Revolution
National Liberation and Proletarian Revolution
The Strategic Importance of the Struggle for the Emancipation of Women
The United Front under the Leadership of the Proletariat
Youth, Students and the Intelligentsia
Struggling Against Petit Bourgeois Modes of Thinking, While Maintaining the Correct Strategic Orientation
The “Two Maximizings”
The “5 Stops”
The Two Mainstays
Returning to "On the Possibility of Revolution"
Internationalism—Revolutionary Defeatism
Internationalism and an International Dimension
Internationalism—Bringing Forward Another Way
Popularizing the Strategy
Fundamental Orientation

Part IV. The Leadership We Need

The Decisive Role of Leadership
A Leading Core of Intellectuals—and the Contradictions Bound Up with This
Another Kind of “Pyramid”
The Cultural Revolution Within the RCP
The Need for Communists to Be Communists
A Fundamentally Antagonistic Relation—and the Crucial Implications of That
Strengthening the Party—Qualitatively as well as Quantitatively
Forms of Revolutionary Organization, and the “Ohio”
Statesmen, and Strategic Commanders
Methods of Leadership, the Science and the “Art” of Leadership
Working Back from “On the Possibility”—
   Another Application of “Solid Core with a Lot of Elasticity on the Basis of the Solid Core”

Appendix 1:
The New Synthesis of Communism:
Fundamental Orientation, Method and Approach,
and Core Elements—An Outline
by Bob Avakian

Appendix 2:
Framework and Guidelines for Study and Discussion

Notes

Selected List of Works Cited

About the Author

 

Reports revcom.us received on June 30 Protests Around the Country

July 2, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

The following are excerpts from reports revcom.us received from readers about the June 30 protests against the government’s detention and separation of immigrant families. We encourage others to send reports, observations, photos, and short interviews.

Charlotte, North Carolina

From a reader who interviewed people at the rally:

A mother with her toddler told me that she is here because this violence against children is a tipping point for her. She choked up as she told me that she knows that if our government is willing to do this to other people’s children, they are willing to do this to her own. She went on to say that there is “no such thing” as other people’s children: we are all one human community. She and others I spoke to believe that Trump represents a rejection of basic human solidarity. This mother also told me that the government and society at large has been moving in the “exact opposite direction” than it should be for the last thirty years, with the great mass of people serving a small minority.

I spoke to another woman who told me that she was here solely because of Trump. She said Trump is a fascist and that he was making America lose its place in the world and not representing it well enough. Evidently she does not understand the true nature of America’s “place” as an imperial dominator.

The last people I interviewed were an elderly lesbian couple. They said they had been active their whole lives fighting indifference and contentment, which they said were “tools” of the “imperialists.” When I asked them what they thought about the bigger picture, they told me that Trump and Pence represent only “one head of the Hydra” and that we have to “burn the whole beast.”

There was no heavy police presence, just a few smirking officers hanging out on the opposite side of the street, looking smug as could be.

The only counterprotest to speak of was a few isolated individuals who would scream “TRUMP ROCKS!” or something similar and then sprint off to avoid confrontation.

There was a small group from the DSA present, waving “Abolish ICE” signs. There was a contingent of people from a local group of anarchists and communists called the “People’s United Revolutionary Collective” walking around with hammers and sickles and other radical symbolism handing out flyers telling people to overthrow capitalism and about “Occupy ICE CLT” which they co-organized with the Carolina Workers Collective and starts tomorrow. I’ll be there tomorrow to Occupy with them, that’s for sure.

The only other notable leftist presence was a far-left book/discussion/activism club I organized last year called the Charlotte Leftists. We all took a picture together and I will attach that as well. I’m the one holding the “We have an imperialism problem” sign and my girlfriend is the girl next to me with the “we need a REVOLUTION” sign. I hand-painted both because I do not have access to a printer.

New York City

This spirited march of tens of thousands was broad, spirited, and animated by a deep hatred for Trump and his assaults on immigrants and refugees and a deep certitude that tearing children from their parents’ arms was an outrage that can’t be tolerated. “I have an 8-year-old and just can’t imagine myself being separated from her,” one woman said. “I can’t imagine how I’d feel if this happened.” A Black woman said she was marching in loving memory of her ancestors whose families had been ripped from the land and torn apart by slavery, and out of compassion for those it was happening to now.

A lot of different organizations—immigrant, labor, religious, and political—had turned out. The Revolution Club NYC and Refuse Fascism both had contingents with very visible banners. Many families came with children. There were groups of friends. The signs were overwhelmingly handmade. Many were marching for the first time. The great majority were middle class and white, mainly not political activists, with some Black people and immigrants there as well. They were brought out by this latest outrage, the accumulation of outrages, and a sense of real alarm that the Trump government’s outrages are accelerating and ominous.

There were a few who had a clearer sense that this is a fascist regime, and some of its features. But many would say things like there are signs of fascism, or elements of fascism, or things could go in that direction. Many hadn’t engaged the question at all, seeing things instead as a series of separate bad things, although there were more than a few who linked this with the promotion of white supremacy. People didn’t get why all this is happening, and overwhelmingly still thought working through the system’s channels and elections was part of the solution, even as many were frustrated with the Democrats and saw the need for protest and resistance.

It was interesting to ask people why they thought people came here, what was America’s responsibility, if any, in driving people to immigrate here. Some hadn’t really even thought of the question. Others saw it in terms of America’s marketing of itself as a beacon of freedom. But several from south of the border spoke of the U.S. making it impossible for people to live in their home countries, of the U.S. installing dictators in country after country, of rich countries like America living off the “periphery.” “What would drive a mother to put her child on her back and jump in the water to get here?” one asked.

San Francisco Bay Area

In the San Francisco Bay Area, there was a major protest of tens of thousands. There were also over 20 smaller protests in cities around the area. Some of these had 1,000 people, others hundreds. I heard from people who had been in Oakland, Richmond, Concord and Fremont.

Politically, in SF there was a diversity of speakers—an immigrant just out of detention with husband and children still in detention, and a range of other people speaking for and representing the immigrants, including people from Mexico, Central America, and elsewhere; Yemenis; 6 SF members of the Board of Supervisors; Joan Baez; a rabbi for Bend the Arc; a descendent of victims of the Holocaust; Native Americans; Muslims; LGBTQ people; people campaigning against police brutality; unions; the ACLU; etc. Refuse Fascism also spoke (at the very end of the rally).

In broad strokes, some advocated strongly for elections as crucial and decisive. Some did not mention elections explicitly, but this was the framework they were proceeding from. A few speakers criticized individual Democrats (one exposed Senator Feinstein for her role in the 1990s in building up the repressive machinery against the immigrants.) But no one except Refuse Fascism argued that the people, stepping outside the “normal channels,” have to drive out the regime—let alone that the Democratic Party upholds order and empire, not justice, even the order of fascism.

In terms of who is gathering, in broad strokes, this was a voting crowd—open to new ideas, but not radical. But angry and looking for answers to what the fuck is going on—within the framework of American democracy, which they see is under attack. In most of the outlying cities, the people who came were largely white, even in Oakland.

The Refuse Fascism contingent carried a large banner in the march, and distributed several thousand copies of the Refuse Fascism flyer for July 7, and copies of the Call to Action.

Houston

Thousands of people took to the streets to demand “Keep Families Together.” For several hours, with two rallies, and two marches, the downtown streets echoed with chants including “Free the Children Now,” “No Hate No Fear, Immigrants Are Welcome Here,” “No baby jails,” “Trump Escucha Estamos En La Lucha,” “This is what democracy looks like,” and “Abolish ICE.” Along with that, the Refuse Fascism contingent led a section of the march in chants, “Immigrants Stay, Trump/Pence Go,” “No Muslim Ban, No Border Wall, No Fascist USA,” “No Trump, No KKK, No Fascist USA.”  For a while, there were chants between the Refuse Fascism contingent and others—”Drive them out” vs. “Vote them out.”

People came out from all kinds of places and backgrounds, from Houston, surrounding areas, and Beaumont. For many this was their first protest. One woman said, “I’m one of the people who send money. This is the first protest I’ve been to. When I saw the children in cages, I had to come out into the streets.” A white guy said that he has a 5-year-old daughter and he said that he could not look her in the face one day and say, “I did nothing.”

A Refuse Fascism volunteer said, “Today I felt like I had something very special to offer and the people were searching for their way to connect.” She said that most people agreed that “this has to stop” and each time she began shouting that “we have a plan of how to rid ourselves of the Trump/Pence regime,” 5-7 hands asked for material.

One thing that was striking was how many people came up to RF and said that we have to keep protesting and not stop. There were numerous analogies made by people to Nazi Germany. One Chicano woman talked about how they are taking away our democratic rights. A young white couple came up and asked for the sticker “In the Name of Humanity We Refuse To Accept a Fascist America.” When asked why they wanted that sticker, the guy rapidly started turning red and he was about to cry. He said that his family was Jewish and they had died in the concentration camps in Germany. He took materials to get out at his synagogue.

People were very interested in 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” and several people said that they plan on coming to the film showing tomorrow.

There was a lot of struggle over elections—that was one of the main themes from the stage. In the crowd, people kept expressing that they thought “we need to vote” but also “we can’t wait that long.” There was a lot of talk about the role of the Democratic Party leaders. One woman said that she thinks “the Democrats are afraid that we will go after them.”

The Refuse Fascism table was swarmed by people to get RF flyers, stickers, signs and palm cards of BA’s talk.

Los Angeles

Tens of thousands of people rallied and marched in Los Angeles to protest immigrant children being taken away from their parents by the fascist Trump/Pence regime. The rally was held in Grand Park at the LA civic center, where John Legend and Jimmy “Taboo” Gomez of the Black Eyed Peas performed. People began gathering at the park before 10 am with the rally scheduled to begin at 11 am, but people were still streaming into the park at 12 pm. The park couldn’t hold the size of the crowd as people filled out into the streets around the park and towards downtown LA. Before the rally ended, an anxious group of protesters took to the streets to march to the LA Federal Detention Center where immigrants are being held. People broke out of the rally and joined the march. This march was angrier than some of the most recent LA marches and protests. The bulk of the crowd was made up of individuals and families with many, many homemade signs that expressed their anger.

The Revolution Club was a part of this group. They led chants and distributed a leaflet, “As Children Are Being Ripped Away From Their Parents and Tortured On the Border...WE NEED AN ACTUAL REVOLUTION AND WE NEED YOU TO BE A PART OF IT!” The backside of the leaflet invited people to attend the ANTI-July 4 picnic, “America Was NEVER Great!” They were also getting out the pamphlet, “HOW WE CAN WIN—How We Can Really Make Revolution.” They called on people to join the Revolution Club.

Once the march reached the Detention Center several hundred people stopped and surrounded it as the rest of the march went by. Groups of people were chanting and calling out to those who were being held inside. You could see the detainees waving their hands and acknowledging the people in the streets. People were chalking messages to the detainees on the sidewalk below. As of 3 pm, there were still 150-200 people at the Detention Center with the Revolution Club leading them in chants.

Chicago

An estimated 60,000 people gathered in and around Daley Plaza, center of downtown Chicago. In the crowd were all different nationalities, genders, and age groups. At the rally, one young woman spoke movingly about how her father may have been deported. A physician talked about emigrating to the U.S. from India when she was two years old in order to seek medical care. She described the “toxic trauma” she sees now in Chicago among children who live in constant fear of their families being split up. Two other young undocumented immigrants talked about how they are now part of the community here and that ICE should be abolished. The last speaker said the government needs to repeal the 2003 immigration bill that led to the establishment of ICE in the first place.

The Revolution Club set out to have a big impact with agitation and their banner: “This System Cannot Be Reformed, It Must be Overthrown” and “We Need an ACTUAL Revolution And We Need YOU to be a Part of It!” 100 picket signs went out saying, “We Don’t Have an Immigration Problem.... We Have an Imperialism Problem.” The Rev Club set up right at the entrance to the plaza with Noche Diaz agitating to the crowds as they poured in. Thousands of cards got out about the BA film.

At noon, the march headed to the Chicago ICE office. It stopped briefly so the band could play a rendition of “The Imperial March” from Star Wars before looping back north on Dearborn. The march fed back into the plaza but not before a struggle broke out between some Christian fascists calling out abortion and a section of the crowd calling them out.

There was a sentiment that something cruel and inhuman is going on and some sentiment that this is fascism. A Japanese contingent came marching in with signs with photos of the Japanese concentration camps in the USA during World War 2, saying “Never Again is Now.”

A popular sign read, “No One is Illegal on Stolen Ground.” One woman had a sign, “Apartheid was legal, the holocaust was legal, legality is a matter of power, not justice.” A woman in her 40s from El Salvador carried a sign, “Why are they here?” pointing out that the U.S. backed war had killed thousands and driven others from her country. There were signs about genocide—one saying it’s unacceptable and another characterizing this as the first stage of genocide. At one point the monitors, many from different churches and religious groups, organized a line in front of the stage to protect undocumented people on the stage from any attempts by the police to go after them. Even though lots of people were into voting, there was also a feeling that there needs to be more actions and protest.

Fort Bragg, California

500-plus marched and rallied in this Northern California community of 7,000 people in Mendocino County, including workers from the wine & tourist industry, retirees & environmentalists—the majority of participants were women, and several local organizations built for the event throughout the area. There was a contingent of high school students from the local high school, which is 40% Latino. There was some debate about whether elections are the way forward, but there was much sentiment for NOT waiting, that “the time is now to act,” as one older woman said, “Trump’s gone too far—he’s got to go!” 300 leaflets about the upcoming Refuse Fascism demonstrations on July 7 were gotten out, and contacts were made with people to make something happen that day in Fort Bragg.

Honolulu, Hawai`i

Today more than 2,500 people held signs, marched, chanted, listened, and socialized. Refuse Fascism had a table and people eagerly snatched up the neon-orange Refuse Fascism stickers. When others saw it they crowded the table and signed up for actions, picked up the Call, and asked for more stickers for their families (we ran out too quickly). The march was loud. A guy showed up with a big “Jesus” sign and begin yelling that we were all going to hell. Marchers started yelling, “Shame! Shame!”—then everyone began chanting at the top of their lungs and kept it up all the way back to the Capitol. A posse of young women (14-16 years) took the bullhorn and led the chants. When we got back to the Capitol Rotunda the chants got louder, becoming a rally of hundreds shouting, clapping, and stomping their feet. At the rally, someone from Refuse Fascism led the crowd in repeating: This Nightmare Must End! The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! She got a huge applause when she agitated against being civil to fascists and then challenged everyone to step up and “do what the German people failed to do: Stop Fascism!”

Cleveland

Several thousand people came out for the Cleveland “Keep Families Together” June 30th rally. Speakers included immigrants under attack, lawyers, and mental health counselors—all expressing deep outrage against Trump separating migrant children from their parents. A Black woman who was active in the civil rights struggle of the ‘60s spoke for Refuse Fascism. She said to stop Trump’s nightmares we need today to have the same courage and determination that the civil rights activists had in the ‘60s. She led the crowd to respond after her, “Trump and Pence Must Go!” They responded enthusiastically. They also applauded her call to demonstrate on July 7 to drive out the Trump/Pence regime.

 

Charlotte, NC

Civic Plaza, Albuquerque, NM

Houston, TX

Honolulu, HI

Cleveland, OH

Cleveland, OH

June 28, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Reposted from RefuseFascism.org:

You Don't Need Permission to Do What's Right…

by Coco Das

 

This was posted at RefuseFascism.org on June 25.

You don’t need permission from elected officials …
You don’t need permission from the media …
You don’t need permission from pundits …

You don’t need permission from lawyers … your favorite non-profit … from Canada or Switzerland or the United Nations …

Children are being terrorized. Locked in cages. Put in concentration camps. Used as hostages in a campaign of ethnic cleansing.

You know what this regime is doing is criminal, so act without permission. Follow your conscience.

We cannot accept this, not in any form, under any circumstances. ANY non-violent disruption of business as usual is better than doing nothing. ANY non-violent action right now is better than waiting until November.

Shaming fascists in restaurants? Do it!

Stopping an ICE van, putting our bodies on the line and saying no more! Yes!

Taking your baby to a sit-in? Why the hell not, when mothers in detention can’t hold their babies?

Get some friends together and yell Trump and Pence Must Go at the top of your lungs. Find actions near you, or make your own action.

Disturb the air. Do not cooperate. Do not conciliate. Do not accommodate. Do not make peace with fascism.

Refuse Fascism is mobilizing for a time when millions will be ready to fill the public squares of cities and towns across this country, demanding and not backing down until the Trump/Pence regime is gone. That time must be soon.

Until then, don’t wait. Act without permission.

NYC 6/26/18 at protest against SCOTUS upholding Muslim Travel Ban

Two Questions Raised—but Rarely, if Ever, Articulated and Answered—During the Crisis at the Border:

1) Where Did This Border Come From?
2) Why Are People Risking Everything to Cross It?

July 2, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

1) The current 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border was created by the violent theft of half of Mexico by the U.S. through the 1846-1848 war. The U.S. instigated this war, invaded Mexico, and carried out civilian massacres, rape, and plunder. The revcom American Crimes Case #83 on this war gets into this more deeply.

As Bob Avakian has said:

Now, of course, slavery was not the only factor that played a significant part in the emergence of the U.S. as a world power, whose economic strength underlies its massive military force. A major historical factor in all this was the theft of land, on a massive scale, from Mexico as well as from native peoples. But, in turn, much of that conquest of land was, for a long period of time up until the Civil War, largely to expand the slave system. “Remember the Alamo,” we are always reminded. Well, many of the “heroes” of the Alamo were slave traders and slave chasers....And expanding the slave system was a major aim of the overall war with Mexico, although that war also led to the westward expansion of the developing capitalist system centered in the northern United States. (BAsics 1:2)

2) People are putting their lives and those of their children on the line to cross the border because they are fleeing the hellish situation created BY the U.S. in their countries. The great majority of those now being treated as “criminals,” put in concentration camps, and having their children stolen by the U.S. government are poor people from Central America. They are trying to escape a crisis of deepening poverty and violence, with criminal gangs controlling the urban slums, often working in league with police and politicians. This terrible gang situation in these countries is more than anything a product of what U.S. imperialism has done. In the 1970s and 1980s, hundreds of thousands of people in Central America were driven from their homes and homelands by U.S.-backed reactionary wars. Many came to the U.S.—and the youth found themselves confronted with inner cities emptied of worthwhile jobs while at the same time flooded with cocaine, some of which was being sold to fund U.S.-backed reactionary military forces in Nicaragua. And harsh police terror and mass incarceration, in the name of the “war on drugs,” had become a daily reality for millions of Black and Latino youths. This situation, along with the “every man for himself” morality of capitalism, greatly contributed to the huge growth of gangs in the inner cities, particularly in Los Angeles and Southern California—and many of the people who had been driven from Central America, and their children, became caught up in this. Then in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the U.S. began deporting thousands of Central American youths in the name of a “war on gangs.” Youths who had spent their lives being hounded by police and some of whom had been organized into gangs, were now sent to impoverished, devastated countries they knew barely or not at all. Almost 130,000 people, labeled as “criminal aliens,” were deported to Central America between 2001 and 2010.

These deportations have had a huge impact on the small and impoverished countries of Central America. El Salvador is the most densely populated country in the Americas, with a population of about six million people. The “gang culture” that began in the U.S. has been taken into this situation and taken root in very ugly ways in the impoverished and economically barren landscape of the crowded Central American barrios. Much of the countryside in these countries had been laid to waste, and the economies of these countries and the ability of the people to make a living have been ruined. Horrific gang-related violence, including battles among and involving different sections of the police and armed forces allied with different gangs, is a scourge on the people.

In the face of this, many people in these countries are coming to feel the only way out is to scrape up the money, brave the arduous and often dangerous thousand-mile journey and cross the U.S.-Mexico border where hundreds perish each year in the deadly desert crossings—all in the hope of safety for themselves and their families in the U.S.

U.S. Supreme Court Ends 2018 Session with Extreme, Reactionary Decisions

July 2, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

A series of reactionary decisions closed out the 2018 session of the U.S. Supreme Court. These rulings forged new ground in the transformation of the U.S. into a fully fascist society in which bigotry, wealth and power have free rein to trample the rights and the very lives of the people (often under the banner of “free speech”), and their opponents are required to sit down and shut up.

Here’s a look at some of the key decisions:

Trump v. Hawai`i (Muslim Ban): Shortly after taking office Trump banned people from a number of predominantly Muslim countries from coming to the U.S., while promising exceptions for non-Muslims in those countries experiencing persecution. This fulfilled Trump’s frequent campaign promises to ban Muslims from moving or traveling to the U.S., which was based on blatantly anti-Muslim ideology, and clearly discriminatory and unconstitutional. In court the Trump/Pence regime claimed that there was no discriminatory intent and that it was all about “national security”—even though there had been almost no terrorist incidents in the U.S. traced to any of the millions of people from the banned countries. Undeterred by mere facts, the Court ruled that all Trump’s anti-Muslim statements should be disregarded; it accepted at face value the claim that there was no discriminatory intent and upheld the ban.

Consequence: Millions of Muslim families ripped apart, permanently separated from their loved ones; millions of war refugees from Syria and elsewhere denied any hope of coming to the U.S.; and obvious religious discrimination enshrined in law and legal doctrine, covered over with the thinnest fig leaf.

National Institute of Family and Pro-Life Advocates v. Becerra (abortion rights): In California (as throughout the U.S.) over 200 “pregnancy crisis centers” masquerade as clinics and prey on women who want to end their pregnancies, implying that they can help. Once they have the women in their clutches, the clinics bombard them with anti-abortion propaganda grounded in religious fanaticism. Even if the women aren’t convinced, this often delays them taking action until abortion becomes riskier, or unavailable. California state law required these “clinics” to a) inform women of the availability of the legal, safe and low-cost option of abortion, and b) in the case of unlicensed clinics, inform patients they were not a licensed medical facility.

The Court ruled that to require these “clinics” to provide factual information (amidst their barrage of lies) about abortion availability violated their “free speech” rights under the First Amendment. As to licensing notification, the Court found a different pretext to support the anti-abortion centers, striking down the California law because it required notification be posted in 13 languages. The Court preposterously claimed this unduly burdensome—even though such a notice could be produced by one center, posted online and then just printed out by every other center.

Consequence: Blocking tens of thousands of women from pursuing their choice of abortion, further enslaving women, legitimizing fanatical religious opposition to women being respected as full human beings, and eroding the distinction between unscientific bullshit and actual facts.

Janus v. American Federation (union rights): The issue was whether public sector workers can be required to pay dues to the unions that bargain for them, if they don’t belong to the union. The plaintiff, Janus, objected that this violated his free speech rights because he would be financing his union’s political activities that he did not support. The union’s response was that 1) all employees benefit from the union’s collective bargaining with the government and therefore those like Janus had a responsibility to help finance it, and 2) the union’s political activities were financially and organizationally separate from collective bargaining, so Janus was not, in fact, paying for political activity he didn’t support.

Everyone knew that the real issue here was breaking the back of public service workers unions (with seven million members, one third of whom are people of color). These employees are under sharp economic attack as state governments slash funding for social services and education, which unions to some extent are resisting. And these unions are a major source of political and economic support to the Democratic Party, and to liberal and progressive causes generally. Everyone understood that if obscenely underpaid employees like teachers are given an option not to pay dues, many will take it, and that this will greatly weaken, if not destroy, the public workers unions. And since in the U.S. today, membership rates in public sector unions are much higher than for private sector unions, this case was an attack on unions overall.

The Court ruled in favor of Janus, again arguing that “free speech” rights were being violated, even though, as noted above, Janus’s dues were not directly financing union political action.

Consequences: Major damage to unions in both the public and private sector; major undercutting of the financial and political base of the fascists’ ruling class opponents in the Democratic Party; further consolidation of fascist control of society as a whole.

Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission (LGBTQ rights): A Colorado baker claimed he had the right to refuse to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple because he was opposed to gay weddings on religious grounds. This was in violation of Colorado state laws protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination. The Supreme Court did not directly rule on this claim but ruled that the state’s Civil Rights Commission showed “clear and impermissible hostility towards sincere religious beliefs motivating [the baker’s] objections.”  This was a reference to a member of the Commission who said that “Freedom of religion and religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it be the holocaust.” On that outrageous basis, the Court ruled in the baker’s favor.

So, you get it? Under the Court’s interpretation of “freedom of speech,” you can opt out of paying dues to a union that conducts collective bargaining, refuse to inform patients that you aren’t a licensed medical facility or inform them of the availability of vital medical procedures that you don’t provide. But if you simply note that religious belief has been used to justify discriminate and worse—you’re outta there, case dismissed!

Consequence: Validating discrimination against LGBTQ people as long as it is “motivated” by “a sincere religious belief” (i.e., ignorance and bigotry). Ruling that a statement of scientific fact disqualifies you from challenging that discrimination.

Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute (voting rights): The A. Philip Randolph Institute challenged an Ohio state program aimed at purging voters from the rolls. In Ohio, if you don’t vote for two years, the state sends a postcard (in English only) asking you to confirm that you still live there. If you don’t respond, and don’t vote for another four years, you are purged from the rolls. Because of the language issue, and because of the higher level of chaos in the lives of poor people, this policy effectively targets Blacks and Latinos who primarily vote Democratic. One study showed that in Cincinnati, 10% of voters in an inner-city neighborhood were purged, vs. 4% in a white suburb.

The pretext for this law (and many others across the U.S.) is that it prevents “voter fraud,” which is virtually nonexistent in the U.S. But it is no secret—in fact, the Republicans openly brag about it—that this is one of dozens of laws aimed at suppressing the vote of people of color and weakening the fascists’ ruling class opponents in the Democratic Party.

The Court completely disregarded the blatant partisan and discriminatory objectives and upheld the Ohio program.

Consequence: Further erosion of the right to vote for Black and Brown people, a major part of reducing them to second-class citizenship status; further consolidation of the fascists’ grip on power by creating a situation where they can continue to hold—and “win”—”free elections” that legitimize their rule even though they have the support of only 30-40% of the population.

Clip: "Order or Justice?"

What we need is an actual revolution—and if you are serious about an actual revolution, you have to get seriously into BA.

From RefuseFascism.org:

How to Respond to Trump's Fascist Rally in Montana

by Coco Das

July 6, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Trump’s speech at Thursday night’s fascist rally in Montana was not the speech of a man who fears his days are numbered. To all those who are sitting back, still waiting for Trump’s imminent defeat at the hands of a blue wave, the Mueller investigation, nonexistent checks and balances, or a Democratic Socialist congressional candidate, watch this speech and tell me Trump is not utterly, arrogantly, and confidently triumphant.

This speech was especially vile, especially violent, and especially sickening in light of what has come out in the last two weeks for the whole world to see. Children in cages, 3000 children separated from their parents and transported all over the U.S., concentration camps being prepared on military bases, heartless cruelty and abuse by agents of this fascist regime, and on top of those horrors, the Supreme Court rulings upholding the Muslim Ban and Christian fascist fake pregnancy clinics. Trump gloated about his Supreme Court victory, both the ruling upholding “The Trump Travel Ban” and Kennedy’s resignation, and why shouldn’t he gloat? He’s winning, delivering what he promised—a ban on Muslims, a country without brown immigrants, a white, Christian Fascist America.

There are plenty of articles quoting this speech. You can find them. In short, Trump escalated his attacks on political opponents from the Democratic Party, inciting the audience to chant “Lock her up” yet again, calling African-American congresswoman Maxine Waters a “low-IQ individual,” saying that a vote for Democrats is a vote to “let MS-13 run wild in our communities.” He went after “fake news,” just days after a shooting at a newspaper in Maryland, made what really has to be taken as a rape “joke” in reference to Elizabeth Warren, and called the brave protester who scaled the Statue of Liberty a “clown” who was endangering law enforcement and said the police should have just put out a net and seen if she landed on it.

We must oppose these attacks fiercely, which all too few people have. There were a few hundred people protesting outside of the rally, and that is very important. But where was everyone else? A few critics have seized on some of the more disgusting excerpts from Trump’s speech, but we need to grasp the big picture that Trump’s blustering speech in Montana clearly illustrates. Trump is the fully fascist leader of a fully fascist movement, and right now, his approach to critics is to double-down. He is getting things done even while there is opposition – in reality an opposition that is so easily thrown off course it’s laughable. Scott Pruitt’s resignation gives us the latest wobbler. Yeah, Scott Pruitt resigned. So the fuck what? Wheeler, his replacement is every bit the climate change denier and environmental plunderer that Pruitt was, just without so many scandalous pigtails to pull on... this removal is not even a speedbump for the regime. Trump, Pence, the biggest stalwarts of the regime, all the agencies set up to violently enforce the regime’s policies, all of the institutions of government increasingly purged of non-fascists, and a rabid fascist base, are still intact.

There is only one demand that is an answer to this danger. Trump must go and take his entire illegitimate regime with him. We are in the middle of the biggest upsurge in resistance since the protests of early 2017. This is extremely important, we must not let up. We must not give any of them a moment’s rest, but any demand short of removing the man at the helm of all this is at best unrealistic and at worst, a mistake that will lead to unthinkable horrors. The horrors right now are intolerable enough. No more chances, no more triumphant speeches from this monster.

This upsurge in resistance is important. It can grow and disrupt the fascist program, but we can’t just slow it down. This regime has shown it can absorb protest and bounce back harder. We have to stop it. Millions of lives are at stake. Children’s lives. Not just in this country, around the world. We have to stop celebrating flimsy victories and start working for a real victory, the end of this fascist regime.

Refuse Fascism has the strategy and plan to do this: a different kind of protest—massive, sustained nonviolent protests in the streets of cities and towns across the country that continue day after day and don’t stop, creating the kind of political situation in which the demand that the Trump/Pence regime be removed from power is met. This is the crisis that the regime hasn’t faced yet. It is possible and realistic. We have the power and the responsibility to do this, together. Everyone with a heart for a humanity, everyone who just can’t tolerate this another minute ... let’s go.

 

 

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Today's Message from the Revolution

October 26, 2019 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

 

October 26, 2019