revcom.us, May 27, 2019 through June 2, 2019 (#597)
Voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA
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How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them (video)
A talk by author Jason Stanley and a conversation with Andy Zee, spokesperson for Revolution Books and co-initator of RefuseFascism.org
June 8 & 9, Los Angeles,
Enough! Basta Ya! Revolution—Nothing Less!
| revcom.us
This week the National Tour and the Revolution Club in LA met to grapple with, refine and sharpen the proposals and plans for the weekend of June 8 and 9.
This was a vibrant meeting that included some just turning their faces towards revolution, and down with the basic theme and sentiment of: Enough! Basta Ya! We Need an Actual Revolution—A Better World IS Possible!
Manifest were raw and visceral sentiments of those who feel Basta Ya!, who have just “had it” with what the system does... to Black and Brown people... to women and differently gendered people... to immigrants... to people around the world in its vicious wars... to the environment.
All of this is completely unnecessary, a radically different and far better world is possible... through Revolution—Nothing Less!
This, Revolution—Nothing Less!, is the message to the world, and we are organizing the thousands now, through revolutionary struggle and accumulating forces, hastening the time when it will be possible for millions to go all out for revolution and win. This message must reverberate across Los Angeles and inspire people nationwide.
This weekend is for ALL those who hate what this system does to people here and around the world, joining with others who feel like this—defiant, and looking for a whole different way the world could be.
The plans developed with the thinking of masses of people are:
Saturday afternoon, we will gather at Slauson and Crenshaw, where the rapper Nipsey Hussle was tragically cut down—one more victim of the way this system has oppressed people killing each other instead of aiming their anger at the source of this madness...
We will go to Florence & Normandie, where people rose up in the righteous LA Rebellion in 1992, giving a glimpse of their potential to create history...
We will finish up with a powerful political manifestation at the notorious 77th division of the LAPD (76th and Broadway), the pigpen headquarters of police brutality and murder—a hated symbol of what this system does to people and part of its worldwide machinery of repression...
Saturday night, we will celebrate with others in a way that lives and manifests the future we are fighting to bring into being, in line with the Points of Attention of the Revolution.
Sunday, we will get down on how to bring forward and organizethousands in this next year to prepare the millions we need for the time when we can actually make revolution with a real possibility of winning.
This week, planning and preparations for the weekend go to a whole different level.
It is up to us: to wake up... to shake off the ways they put on us, the ways they have us thinking so they can keep us down and trapped in the same old rat-race... to rise up, as conscious Emancipators of Humanity. The days when this system can just keep on doing what it does to people, here and all over the world... when people are not inspired and organized to stand up against these outrages and to build up the strength to put an end to this madness... those days must be GONE. And they CAN be.
Be part of this. There is a role for you—across the country—to support and manifest. Get with the revolution today.
323.424.6687 • revclub_la@yahoo.com • Social Media: @revclub_la www.revcom.us • @tuneintorevcom
Revolution Tour Speaks at UCLA: Provoking... Challenging... Inspiring
| revcom.us
The challenge went out, in different ways, at UCLA. The revolutionaries stomped on flags and fought against patriotism with students, and at times sparked huge debates; they sharply took on identity politics (see the leaflet on this page); and they tore apart the notion that Bernie Sanders represents some kind of fundamental change (see leaflet on this page). The overall message was that of the National Revolution Tour: You Think You’re Woke... But You’re Sleepwalking Through A Nightmare, This System CANNOT Be Reformed, It Must Be Overthrown! A Better World IS Possible!
On May 20, 80 people—including more than 40 students—turned out to hear a speech on that topic. As a result of the ruckus and work going into it, the people who came were pretty clear on what to expect: revolution uncut. And what they got did not disappoint! Tala Deloria, a UCLA student, movingly walked people through her own transformation from an aspiring stockbroker to a revolutionary communist. (Go here for audio.) Then Lenny Wolff made a compelling case for revolution vs. all the bullshit roads that are proffered to stay within the system. And he went into the positive alternative—the new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian. (Go here for audio.)
The discussion period was marked by controversy, and serious grappling, with questions of leadership, humanity’s prospects in the face of global climate change (this weighs very heavily on people), breaking down divisions among the people and overcoming white supremacy, and the responsibility of those in the audience, among other things. More generally, people were both challenged and drawn to the internationalist outlook put forward by Tala and Lenny. Some were rocked by the blistering critique of Bernie Sanders. Tala’s story inspired several to tell her that this made them see and feel how they, too, could become fighters and leaders. And cheers erupted when students were challenged by Lenny to “cross the tracks” to come to the inner-city area of South Central LA the next Saturday to see the filmed speech by Bob Avakian, Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution.
Despite the fact that UCLA was soon to enter into an exam period, clusters of students stayed around in serious discussion until the building shut down at 10:30. People had definitely been provoked, more than a few felt challenged, and about a dozen were inspired to say they were interested in joining the Revolution Club, with a few stepping up on the spot to take various levels of responsibility. There is a section of students for whom the prospect of reform is not working; as one who filled out his form put it, in replying to a question on what he had learned: “We need revolution, not reform. Now.”
This marked a step forward in learning how to shake things up on campus in a way that inspires people to turn their faces toward revolution. To quote one of the students who met the Tour and Revolution Club through this, “Now I need to help you figure out how to scale this up.”
“You Think You’re Woke... But You’re Sleepwalking Through A Nightmare —
This System Cannot Be Reformed, It Must Be Overthrown!”
"...we have two choices: either, live with all this—and condemn future generations to the same, or worse, if they have a future at all—or, make revolution!"
6 POINTS OF ATTENTION which The Revolution Club upholds, lives by, and fights for.... Spread them. Take them up.
1 We base ourselves on and strive to represent the highest interests of humanity: revolution and communism. We do not tolerate using the revolution for personal gain.
2 We fight for a world where ALL the chains are broken. Women, men, and differently gendered people are equals and comrades. We do not tolerate physically or verbally abusing women or treating them as sexual objects, nor do we tolerate insults or “jokes” about people’s gender or sexual orientation.
3 We fight for a world without borders, and for equality among different peoples, cultures and languages. We do not tolerate insults, “jokes” or derogatory names about a person’s race, nationality, or language.
4 We stand with the most oppressed and never lose sight of their potential to emancipate humanity—nor of our responsibility to lead them to do that. We work to win people of all backgrounds to take part in the revolution, and do not tolerate revenge among the people.
5 We search for and fight for the truth no matter how unpopular, even as we listen to and learn from the observations, insights and criticisms of others.
6 We are going for an actual overthrow of this system and a whole better way beyond the destructive, vicious conflicts of today between the people. Because we are serious, at this stage we do not initiate violence and we oppose all violence against the people and among the people.
Bob Avakian (BA) is the most important political thinker and leader in the world today.
Bob Avakian is completely different than the endless stream of bourgeois politicians who are put forward as “leaders,” whose goal is to maintain one variation or another of this system of capitalism-imperialism that is founded on and perpetuates itself through cruel and literally life-stealing exploitation, murderous oppression, and massive destruction, in all parts of the world. BA is a revolutionary who bases himself on the scientific understanding that this system must finally be overthrown through an organized struggle involving millions of people, and replaced with a system that is oriented to and capable of meeting the most fundamental needs of humanity and enabling humanity to become fit caretakers of the earth.
Bob Avakian is the architect of a whole new framework of human emancipation, the new synthesis of communism, which is popularly referred to as the "new communism."
“You Think You’re Woke... But You’re Sleepwalking Through A Nightmare —
This System Cannot Be Reformed, It Must Be Overthrown!”
The Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour
Get Into:
Bob Avakian (BA)
the leader of the revolution
We have a great strength in the leadership of Bob Avakian (BA), who over decades has developed the new communism, qualitatively advancing the science. BA breaks down why reality is the way it is, and how people can change it for the better.
He has developed the science, the strategy, and the concrete vision and blueprint for a radically different and much better society and world in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America. At the same time, BA deeply understands and connects with the most oppressed, and he provides strategic leadership for the movement today.
The National
Get Organized for
an ACTUAL Revolution Tour
This broadsheet was put out by the
National Tour To Get Organized for An Actual Revolution. If you agree with what you have read and want to help spread
the word about this revolution, click here. To find out more about
Bob Avakian and the new communism, click here.
To find out more and support the tour, click here.
You Think You're Woke...
But You're Sleepwalking Through A Nightmare
This System Cannot Be Reformed, It Must Be Overthrown!
Andy Zee at Revolution Books
Report-Back & Fundraiser for the Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour
SATURDAY, JUNE 1st 3pm – 5pm
437 Malcolm X Blvd @ 132nd Street, New York City
| revcom.us
There is a way out of this madness ... An Actual Revolution
You have a choice to make: either live with this, and the oppression will go on and on... or, MAKE REVOLUTION
The National Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour is travelling the country over the next year to involve you and thousands of people like you in this movement for an actual revolution. We are working to develop an organized and growing force, of thousands now, so that we can have an increasing impact on the whole country—with the whole world in mind, preparing for the time when we really could make a real revolution.
Join us Saturday, June 1st from 3pm-5pm to hear directly from Andy Zee about the tour: why we need it, a vision of a radically different world, what we have going for us in the leadership of Bob Avakian and the science of revolution, lessons we are learning, and how you and thousands of people like yourself can become part of solving the biggest problem facing humanity--- making revolution at the soonest possible time. Bring your ideas & aspirations, questions, skills, & donations.
Andy Zee is the spokesperson for Revolution Books, a co-initiator of Refuse Fascism, and an advocate for the new communism and the leadership of Bob Avakian.
It was an afternoon befitting the invitation for “an internationalist feast to support the National Tour to Get Organized for an Actual Revolution.” Guests were greeted by large posters from revcom.us of the “5 STOPS” and BAsics 3:2 as they walked into the garden patio filled with the sweet scent of jasmine flowers and delicious home cooked world cuisine. There were trays of tahdig (aka Persian soul food), pita pocket chicken sandwiches, Iranian rice, tamales, a big pot of Champurrado, freshly grilled BBQ chicken, and even a potato salad with the word “Internationalism” spelled out on top, and much more.
A real added internationalist treat was a rich mixture of melodic accents from various parts of the world in animated conversations, infusing a couple hours of intense and lively debate and discussion. People wrote out “internationalist messages to the National Tour” on a message board in Farsi, Amharic, Spanish and English, some of which read: “Saludos y abrazos a los valientes camaradas de la gira!”; “Nos urge una REVOLUCION pero YA!”; “Revolution needs communication & love needs sacrifice”; and “Wishing you much success.”
We made our goal of raising $1K from this event (a total of $1,102 with pledges and cash). A new element was the sense of comradery and responsibility among/between the collective of masses that came together to host/organize the event. People not only took responsibility for the logistics of food, setup, and cleanup—but struggled to contribute politically during the event to the best of their ability. Everyone strived to proceed from HOW WE CAN WIN and BA’s speech last summer on the strategic need of building networks of support for the revolution. There was also the palpable warmth of community among the dozen and a half who attended.
In just a week, this small mass committee, who were spread over 120 miles, worked together to organize the whole event from beginning to end—inviting friends by making use of the Call for the Tour as well as the letter posted on revcom.us from a reader from Iran. Those who came from this word-of-mouth invite included immigrants from the Middle East and Africa, movement activists (e.g. someone from PFLAG/Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, and from the group Indivisible). Also in the house was longtime feminist leader and author Carol Downer, whose Women’s Choice abortion clinic was burned down in 1985, but as she said at the time “...we didn’t give up.”
A visceral moment of speak bitterness erupted about the ignorant comment (from coworkers and strangers) “go back where you came from,” especially aimed at those who speak with an accent. An immigrant from Africa said she was recently thus insulted from some African-Americans on the streets of South Central. We read the Points of Attention out loud again and someone added to the end of POA #3 “and accents.”
The two revolutionaries from the National Tour cohered the small group into a large collective grappling with the implications of the “5 STOPS,” the 2 Choices of reform or revolution, and repeatedly returning to the 6 Points of Attention of the Revolution Clubs. They also gave accounts of their experiences over the past weeks struggling to put revolution on the map on the streets and campuses of LA. Their method was very inclusive and welcoming of all comments and questions of everyone there.
It is not possible here to fully capture the breadth and depth of the many side discussions among the clusters of twos and threes struggling over the big questions facing humanity—whether god exists, the role of religion, views on homosexuality, and whether a vanguard/leadership exists in the U.S. that can lead a revolution. Some of the guests follow Bernie Sanders and Angela Davis (i.e., the road of radical-sounding reform) and were challenged by the need for an ACTUAL revolution as they heard about the new communism developed by Bob Avakian for the first time.
Carol Downer emphasized the urgent need for resistance, that people “got to get out there and make noise whether other people want to hear it or not.” The woman from PFLAG talked about how the attacks on (Mexican) immigrants “break my heart,” while someone else expanded this to the fact of ALL immigrants are under attack. The Indivisible activist said the POAs “doesn’t include democracy or voting, and any kind of revolution in the U.S. needs to include democracy,” even as she felt the POAs are “wonderful and offers the best of humanity.” This led one person from our organizing collective to reach for a copy of BAsics and read out loud 1:22 in answering this. A couple of the attendees picked up copies of the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America to learn more about what this revolution is about.
There was a spirit of collective achievement and real enthusiasm to continue doing more internationalist fundraisers to build support for the Revolution Tour, and to spread this across the country!
Internationalist Messages to the National Revolution Tour
Internationalist Potato Salad
“You Think You’re Woke... But You’re Sleepwalking Through A Nightmare —
This System Cannot Be Reformed, It Must Be Overthrown!”
Welcome to the land of intersectionality—where a seemingly radical and all-encompassing framework can comprehend and traverse multiple oppressions faced by billions on this planet without the “messiness” of overthrowing the system that generates and enforces these oppressions; where truth is determined and wrong is righted by anointing the most oppressed as authority and leadership in struggles for reform; where the most fundamental and deep-seated social divisions and lopsided gulfs of the world such as between rich and poor nations are effectively ignored and where identified “intersections” and “direct experience” shared across “lanes” are sufficient to change the world.
This is feel-good make-believe “woke” world. In the real world of horrendous—and needless—suffering, it is a cruel joke inflicted upon the billions of humanity. The world is a horror for the vast majority—oppression and exploitation of whole peoples, genocidal wars and violence in the intimate sphere, millions driven off homes by conflict and global warming. This world is shaped and stamped by a system: the system of capitalism-imperialism.
Have you ever noticed that the one privilege these “identity politics” hustlers don’t talk about is American privilege?—the privilege that comes from living in the USA, a country that plunders the world and whose wealth and power rests on brutal exploitation and oppression throughout the world, backed up by the massive violence of the American military. These hustlers want all they can get of that privilege. In opposition to that, what the masses of humanity need is to do away with and move beyond this whole vampire system, putting an end to all exploitation and oppression.
After The Word on Wednesdays (an open mic poetry venue at UCLA) censored a revolutionary’s poem, we challenged the people attending to a debate about where the framework of intersectionality leads. They did not come to debate, but a contributor to FEM magazine wrote an article about the incident. This is a response to help bring clarity to the contention.
What we have here is two opposing models in contention. One aiming to sweep away oppression and exploitation throughout the planet, and the other aiming to curate the positions of oppressed people within this system—dictating who owns what oppression, and what stories can be told by whom—all of which leaves the world as it is.
A REVOLUTIONARY Intervention from Tala Deloria
Revolution Club member and UCLA student
If you’re serious about ending mass incarceration and police terror, you need to be talking about the OVERTHROW of this system. Anything short of this, in the final analysis, is bullshit.
This system of capitalism-imperialism is what’s driving the genocidal police terror and mass incarceration of over 2 million people, over half Black, Latino and Native American men and women. This same system terrorizes the globe with wars for empire, economic sanctions, coups, bombing and torture. It drives people from their homelands in desperation for a life and livelihood and then warehouses them in detention centers and concentration camps at the border. This same system enforces vicious misogyny, oppressive gender relations and has now brought to power a fascist regime reigning through undisguised dictatorship and intensified repression, concentrating the naked vileness that makes up the heart of America. This system CANNOT be reformed!
Welcome to Farrakhan’s “Saviours’ Day” message, where he will tell you how after 400 years of being bitterly oppressed, you should now learn to be a more obedient slave, prove you can be useful to your oppressors in hopes of negotiating a better deal and becoming their junior partners, and look to an imaginary ruler in the sky to one day give you a chance to be big-time oppressors.
You Think You’re Woke... But You’re Sleepwalking Through A Nightmare! Intersectionality, “democratic socialism,” and all the rest of that stuff will keep you locked within the system we have now. These approaches can only lead you to bickering, begging and bargaining for seats at the imperialist table. We need a revolution—NOT reform—a revolution to OVERTHROW everything rotten and emancipate all humanity.
We brought this message to an Ivy League campus and challenged people to debate. Before we got very far, campus security freaked out and kicked us off campus. So we came back, but this time with a satirical flyer from campus security that said, “A Message From Campus Security: Do Not Talk To The Communists On Campus.” We dressed up in a police jumpsuit and the ugliest pig mask you have ever seen and handed out the flyer. A picture of our flyer was tweeted out by a writer to 47+ thousand followers, we ended up in group texts and somebody told us that we’d been made into a meme.
But the question matters. The problem of people taking up leadership based on “identity” rather than on the content of what is being brought forward and where those ideas will lead is extremely widespread and very damaging, far beyond Brittney Cooper as an individual. This kind of identity politics prevents people from thinking critically and sets them up to get played.
To the Commander-in-Chief who waged war on 7 countries, drone bombed wedding parties, presided over torture at Guantánamo, and backed Israel’s genocidal massacres in Gaza.
To chief demagogue & peddler of false "HOPE," whose MBK (My Brother’s Keeper) program is predicated on the notion that the problem is our youth, that it's their outlook and their "bad choices" that need to be reformed....
Whose Justice Department supported every single act of police violence that came before the Supreme Court, but called the youth in Baltimore “thugs” after they dared to rise up in rebellion after the murder of Freddie Gray....
To Barack Obama, we say NO MORE EXCUSES. This system has enslaved, brutalized, tortured and betrayed Black people for 400 years! Your system can’t be REFORMED, it must be OVERTHROWN!
Booker T. Washington is known for proposing—and fighting for, including through the establishment of HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities)—a certain way that a recently enslaved and systematically oppressed people could become active members of society and to rise above the muck of the being deemed by birth less than human. He stressed that Black social mobility had to be approached by not messing with the white man's power but by striving to be just like them.
Recently, Jay Z pimped off of Colin Kaepernick's selfless resistance and then threw Kap under the bus when he declared, "We are past kneeling" and was featured in pictures with Roger Goodell, lead commissioner of the NFL. It's a giant power move that required distancing himself from anything too radical for the league – i.e.: athletes using their platform to call out the way this system's police kill Black and Brown people daily, all while portraying them as animal-like “thugs.”
Over the last two years, pro-Trump fascists have attacked Revolution Books in Berkeley and even threatened to burn it down. This past Sunday, Sept. 1, pro-Trump protesters once again attempted to march on our bookstore but were prevented from doing so by a defiant and joyous counter-protest.
The call for their “No to Marxism” protest said, “Revolution Books is a communist anti-American store.” Innocent as charged. Revolution Books is the intellectual, cultural and political center of a movement for an actual revolution. At the heart of our store is the new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian—a further development of Marxism and an even more scientific and liberating understanding of the world and how it can be radically changed.
We will not be intimidated by these anti-communist protesters. At the same time, these threats must be taken seriously. This fascism is not a sideshow or something that can be voted away, but it is deeply rooted in this system—it can and is “happening here.”...
This system has enslaved, brutalized, tortured, and betrayed Black people for 400 years! They have NEVER valued Black lives, except as labor to mercilessly exploit in building up the wealth of this country. And now, because this capitalist system has moved so much industrial work to places where they can pay people even less and make even more profit—and because Black people in racist America have always been last-hired and first-fired—this system has no jobs and no future for millions of people besides a jail cell or a police bullet. And they patrol whole neighborhoods like an occupying army, treating people like Willie McCoy as nothing but a “problem,” to be caged or killed off.
Basic point number 1: Donald Trump said there were “good people” among the murderous fascist mob chanting “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville, Virginia. His regime has legitimized Nazis and created a climate that produced the most lethal anti-Semitic massacre in U.S. history, the mass killing at a Pittsburgh synagogue last October. Any leading figure who can uphold, or tolerate, or “reach across the aisle” to a fascist regime like that has very obviously forfeited any right to speak on who and what is anti-Semitic. So those people should shut up.
But point number 2: No amount of Benjamins ($100 bills) buys or sells strategic allies for this bloody-jawed empire. All the conspiracy theories about how the Israel lobby represents—as Omar insisted in a follow-up tweet—“allegiance to a foreign country” channel the outrage people in this country and around the world feel at Israel’s genocidal crimes against the Palestinian people into looking at the world through the lens of what is in the national interest of the United States! And when you look at the world through that lens, you are on your way to complicity with the ongoing crimes of an empire built on genocide, slavery, and wars of empire.
The Green New Deal is not only an utterly ridiculous delusion, it’s a program for an American chauvinist “better business plan.” It promises a complete reconfiguration of the American economy without confronting the reality that things are produced through vast and interconnected global networks of exploitation, and it promises Americans better distribution of the spoils gained from that exploitation.
The problem isn’t that we need a better business plan for a Green American Empire. The problem is this system of capitalism-imperialism that’s driving the destruction of the planet.
Members of the Revolution Club, LA went to a conference at UC Irvine called Fire and Ice: The Shifting Narrative of Climate Change. The conference, attended by about 500 people, featured well known activists and authors against climate change like Bill McKibben, initiator of 350.org; Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction; and Nathaniel Rich of the New York Times.
Through our interventions and impact, we repolarized to where a central question at the conference was reform or revolution. Various speakers felt compelled to speak to that question from the stage, and our interventions drew clear lines that repelled some and drew in others who were either curious or appreciative of the sharpening of the terms.
If ever a history brings out in vivid color that where there is oppression, there will be resistance, it is the history of Black people in America: a history of over 400 years of the most vicious, brutal and cruel oppression, from slavery, through Jim Crow lynchings and segregation, to today’s mass incarceration, police murder and brutality, with an open white supremacist back in the White House... and a history of heroic resistance and rebellion that has rocked this system on its heels and inspired people the world over, from slave rebellions to the Civil Rights Movement and Black Liberation struggles to today’s fights against police terror and mass incarceration.
If it was just a question of courage, of determination, and of sacrifice, Black people, and many oppressed people all over the world, would be liberated by now.
We went right up against the imperialist chauvinism of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). We called out how, by placing their focus on health care, education, and housing for people in the U.S., they are just fighting for a bigger share for Americans of the wealth America extracts through vicious exploitation and plunder from the sweatshops of Bangladesh to the starvation in Yemen to the mass rapes and civil war in Congo and beyond. In contrast, we are fighting for—and what humanity needs—is an actual revolution to overthrow this system of global imperialism and bring about a radically new world for all of humanity.
Thousands Raised...Many Thousands to Go...
Donors speak out about why they gave to The Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour
| Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
The Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour has started in Los Angeles, as the start of a national Tour going across this country. There have been events in different cities to kick off the Tour that raised funds, and send-off parties for volunteers heading to Los Angeles, where funds were raised. The call to donate financial support for the Tour has already brought some significant donations that indicate the real, if beginning, potential for very broad support for this Tour. This includes people who have given matching donations—one for $2,000 if others would match it—and a number who agreed to sustain the Tour on a monthly basis. There are others who have agreed to donate food for the volunteers going on the Tour, and some who have made things to be sold to generate funds for the Tour.
The many thousands of dollars raised so far is just a very small portion of what is going to be needed to support this Tour, and sustain and grow the movement for revolution, organizing thousands now and impacting the whole society that this Tour is setting out to do.
Here is the basic truth. Bob Avakian (BA) emphasizes in Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution, “Networks of people, working together to spread the word about and organize people into the revolution, need to be built, and expanded, in all parts of the country—and linked together.” Very importantly, this includes building up financial support now for the Tour as part of that process. There can be no revolution without financial support. There will be no revolution without organization of people of all strata, networks of people who are an essential part of the strategy for an actual revolution.
Many thousands donating now—including many people who are just hearing about the need and possibility for an actual revolution for the first time—will make it possible for this Tour to shake things up at this crucial moment in history, when so much hangs in the balance for humanity.
The statements on this page from donors give a living sense of the different ways people are seeing the importance of contributing by donating to the Tour, and calling on others to join them in this historic effort.
Internationalist fundraiser for Revolution Tour:
Great Food—Great Company—Great Cause
Posted May 27, 2019
From readers:
It was an afternoon befitting the invitation for “an internationalist feast to support the National Tour to Get Organized for an Actual Revolution.” Guests were greeted by large posters from revcom.us of the “5 STOPS” and BAsics 3:2 as they walked into the garden patio filled with the sweet scent of jasmine flowers and delicious home cooked world cuisine. There were trays of tahdig (aka Persian soul food), pita pocket chicken sandwiches, Iranian rice, tamales, a big pot of Champurrado, freshly grilled BBQ chicken, and even a potato salad with the word “Internationalism” spelled out on top, and much more.
A real added internationalist treat was a rich mixture of melodic accents from various parts of the world in animated conversations, infusing a couple hours of intense and lively debate and discussion. People wrote out “internationalist messages to the National Tour” on a message board in Farsi, Amharic, Spanish and English, some of which read: “Saludos y abrazos a los valientes camaradas de la gira!”; “Nos urge una REVOLUCION pero YA!”; “Revolution needs communication & love needs sacrifice”; and “Wishing you much success.”
We made our goal of raising $1K from this event (a total of $1,102 with pledges and cash)... Read more
An Internationalist Benefit Dinner for the Revolution Tour
Posted May 20, 2019
From a reader:
Over $1,400 was raised at the “Celebrate Internationalism” benefit dinner for the Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour. $1,200 came from the event on May 11 and the rest from donations and new sustainers. About 30 people came, including some new people recently met during the 12-day effort in spreading the Points of Attention (POAs). The food was delicious and international—Afghan, Iranian, Palestinian, and Mexican restaurant owners contributed food in addition to food brought by supporters of the movement for revolution. Three languages were spoken—Farsi, Spanish, and English... Read more
Stoop Sale Fundraising for the National Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour
From a reader:
Last weekend, some of us organized a stoop sale in response to the National Get Organized for An ACTUAL Revolution Tour call for fundraising. (Stoops are the stairs outside a house.) We’re counting on this stoop sale to spur you and others like you to raise funds for the national tour.
We would like to make two challenges:
Match our $1,000 by Sunday, May 26. Of the $1,349 we raised at the sale, we decided to put $1,000 toward a matching donation to challenge others to contribute and double the funds for the Tour. (The rest of the money will go towards promotion and other expenses.)
Organize a garage sale or flea market. Set a goal and raise money to meet the Tour’s May goal of $20,000!
From a Mental Health Professional and Supporter of the Revolution...
Step Up to My $1000 Challenge to Support the National Revolution Tour
[Editor’s note: This matching donation challenge was met by May 1]
I will double your donation to the National Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour, up to $1,000, received by May 4. The National Get Organized for an Actual Revolution Tour goal: to spread the word and bring people into the process of building for an actual revolution.
I have searched my heart and soul, and either I choose to accept to live in a world based on heinous brutality and crimes against humanity in the US and around the world, or I stand up and fight for revolution. It is through studying the scientific work of Bob Avakian, that I am convinced that the only way out of this hell, is through a revolution that digs up this system's rotten roots and brings into being a whole new system that is not built on exploitation, but on the needs of the people and the highest aspirations of humanity...
We have been fooled and given false promises. For 2 years we were told to wait for the Mueller report. We need the power of the people and we need to be in the streets. Barr is Trump’s DOJ, Barr works for Trump and not for the people. It’s wrong that we waited and trusted the government. Both the Democrats and the Republicans have been joining to create illusions for the people, like the Mueller investigation.
They make people passive, to string people along to believe there is always a next step in the process of the system in order to get rid of Trump. There’s not going to be change through laws, and there’s not going to be change from the Democrats, and there is not going to be a change through normal channels. I feel this is the time people must wake up. These times are more dangerous. Trump is a fascist, backed by Miller, and white supremacists. Trump is out for revenge. This is just like Hitler. I feel we need a real revolution. I feel it is important to support this tour because it is spreading revolution and is organizing for revolution. I am making a monthly donation and encourage others to do so.
From the Revolution Club, NYC:
A Beautiful Celebration and Send-Off Fundraising Party for the Tour Volunteers
“I’m going because... we need a different world... and people don’t actually know... there is a Party, there is Leadership, and there is a plan and strategy to make this real and that’s what we’re bringing to people, the fact that there can be a different world. That it’s completely unnecessary how people are living right now and that it can be radically changed... a lot of good people are being fooled into thinking that these different ways of acting are what we need, whether it’s the electoral process or thinking about yourself and approaching the world from yourself out... so I’m really glad to be a part of this and be a part of those who are trailblazing and actually bringing this strategy to people who need it.”
—volunteer for the Tour at the March 7 Send-Off Fundraiser in New York City
On Thursday, March 7, a beautiful celebration and send-off fundraising party took place at Revolution Books in Harlem for some of the volunteers traveling to Los Angeles to take part in the first leg of the yearlong Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour. The nationwide Tour kicks off in mid-March and will be traveling across the country to put revolution before millions and organize thousands into it. It was a fun evening hosted by the Revolution Club, who overall led in working and struggling with many others to make it happen. From choosing the songs on the playlist that bumped all night (which, among those picking the songs, involved important grappling with what it means to have a lively culture that is also uplifting and not degrading), to the different people who cooked and bought food or went to restaurants to get items donated, to the live performance and the jam session at the end, the evening truly came together in a powerful way. A dramatic reading of the Call for the Tour was done to the beat of a drum and the audience clapping their hands (this was a creative idea from a newer Revolution Club member).
The centerpiece of the evening was getting to hear from the volunteers who spoke with tremendous heart for humanity and with science and passion for changing the world. Each spoke to why they were volunteering, what this means and why it matters. One of the volunteers said, “I’m going because we need an actual revolution” and later referenced Bob Avakian’s point that the question “for whom and for what” are we doing what we’re doing is important, that all this has to be about the emancipation of humanity. The volunteer said she was throwing in on this “for the seven billion people on this planet who need this revolution. That’s why I’m doing this and that’s why we should all be doing this... for the millions who are slaving away in Bangladesh and the children in Yemen that are dying from malnourishment; this is ‘for whom’ we are doing this for...”
An urgent challenge for the evening was to raise $1,000 towards the $15,000 that is needed nationally by March 15. A Revolution Club member worked and persevered with some donors to the Tour who weren’t able to attend to write statements to express why they had donated and to challenge others to support. In doing this, it was important to continually go back to the Call for the Tour and how all this has everything to do with making revolution and emancipating humanity. These statements were read by Revolution Club members from the stage and this inspired others in the room to donate on the spot or to make a pledge. The audience was made up of people in the arts, students, people who’d recently met the movement for revolution, along with longtime supporters. There were a number of people from all around world as well.
Throughout the night there were updates on how much had been raised and how close it was to achieving the goal. During the mingling, some of the people who had already donated, or pledged to sustain, and understood the importance of the Tour, stepped up to make the case to others to donate. Through the evening a sense of responsibility among many came alive—to raise much-needed funds for the Tour and to get NYC ready for when the Tour comes to town. At the end of the night the goal of $1,000 was reached.
As the Call for the Tour puts it: “Without hype, absent fundamental change, without revolution, the future of humanity and the planet hangs in the balance.... Make a Profound Difference and DONATE to the possibility of something that could get beyond this horror and radically change the world.” The send-off fundraising party was a beginning step in making that real.
“You Think You’re Woke... But You’re Sleepwalking Through A Nightmare —
This System Cannot Be Reformed, It Must Be Overthrown!”
Checks can be sent to:
RCP Publications, Box 3486, Merchandise Mart
Chicago, IL 60654-0486 (Mark for the Tour)
This is a statement from someone who donated $2,000 and called on people to match it—other donors matched his challenge.
Hey what’s up. This is Mark from The Resistance Company in front of Trump Towers on the beach. I just want to say I’m donating to the Revolution Club. They are going to be touring the U.S. in an effort to transform society. And we need now more than ever to have society transformed. We NEED a REVOLUTION! Fuck you, Donald Trump. New York hates you!
This Revolution Tour is significant—it has real significance. We’ve got talk of the release of the Mueller report, about freshman Congress members’ proposals, and all of the 2020 Democratic candidates. NO CHANGES. Now here comes the Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour: THAT is a universal call, for HUMANITY, not for identity politics or a political machine. It’s a challenge to the comfort zone of normalization. The Call for the National Revolution Tour has real depth to it, and front and center is Bob Avakian and what he is saying. How to produce change? How else would you do it? The Tour is creating an environment for this change, not martyrdom, but real change.
How urgent is this tour? Trump wants to drop a bomb on Iran and threatens all the people on the Korean Peninsula with nuclear weapons. The Tour is going to the rural areas too! Look at the damage to people’s psyches in the rural areas, the opioid epidemic, even with protests against the companies fueling this epidemic... still, all this keeps going on and an astounding number of people have died. And nothing is being done. But the Call and Revolution Tour is pushing on, pushing forward. I am someone who can’t wait, and I support this Revolution Tour because I am a grandparent and I am concerned about the future, for my grandchildren and everybody’s grandchildren. I can give $50 this month, and we’ll keep talking about donations each month....
A supporter of the Tour from California
Hello Chicago Revolution Club,
I really like to put the small amount of money I have to good use, and, in my opinion, there is no better use for it in today’s troubled world than to support all of you at the Chicago Revolution Club.
The vanguard movement of the Revolutionary Communist Party’s new synthesis... is what gives me solid hope for the future. It is the ONLY answer to ending the centuries-old nightmares of the inhumanity of the existing system that I see as a scientific thinking person.
Knowing that I am doing my small part in supporting the fearless integrity and scientific foundation of the Revolution Club gives me a warm feeling inside because I KNOW you are at the very leading edge of what needs to be done to slice through the lies and misconceptions perpetuating the horrific crimes happening every minute of every day all around us and all around the world.
NO, it doesn’t have to be that way. And so, I am very happy to do my part for the cross-country Tour starting in LA to show thousands that a determined, scientifically based revolution IS the only way forward here in the spring of 2019. We are AWAKE to MAKE history, instead of allowing others to force nightmares upon us.
I am compelled to support the Tour because this is a crucial time in human history, a moment in which human rights are eroded at an alarming rate—and eroded, period! We are facing a crossroads at which fascism could seriously consolidate or people can be swayed by imperialists with an American chauvinist agenda who are appealing and appeasing with false promise of something different. The Revolution Club has enormous potential to break through both these forces and win people over to critical thinking and the viable, necessary strategy of Bob Avakian and the Party. And we must support and enable this with everything we’ve got. I’m calling on people to match my $200 donation. [This donation was matched.]
From a high school student who is an intern at Revolution Books:
I think it’s very moving because the people who are going on the Tour are doing this for humanity, not just for themselves. Especially at a time when people think nothing can be done to make a change. And even though it’s national, it should have reach beyond the U.S. so people around the world know about it. So people should be open-minded and listen and learn from the Tour. “That’s interesting, I never thought about it that way.” That’s how you make change, open yourself to understand more. And without the support of people, it wouldn’t even make sense to have the Tour. It’s necessary for people to support and help out in any way they can. A donation or give time, let’s work as a unit to make this work.
An Internationalist Salute and Call to Donate to the National Revolution Tour
I want to send an internationalist salute to the National Tour to Get Organized for an Actual Revolution and call for everyone to support it, to get involved with this all out struggle for a better world.
The present social and economic system we live under has become totally unbearable for billions of people throughout the world. We are also at a stage of human development when every conscious human being needs to seriously ask if our survival could be sustained in this capitalist-imperialist world order.
The urgent question begging for an urgent answer is whether we can tolerate the cries of tens of millions of dying, exploited and disease-ridden children? Tolerate the rapid destruction of the environment? Tolerate past and continual genocidal wars (direct or proxy) of the imperialists—invasions, occupations, bombings and even the possibility of nuclear war? Tolerate the everlasting white supremacy, mass incarceration, police brutality and murder of Black and Latino youth? Tolerate militarization of the border, cries of tens of millions of refugees, children ripped from parents and put in cages? Tolerate the misogyny that crushes women’s bodies and dreams generation after generation? Tolerate the normalization of outright fascism with the Trump/Pence regime? Tolerate all this that non-stop victimizes millions of people every minute of every day? Or...
In his truly breathtaking talk Why We Need an Actual Revolution and How We Can Really Make Revolution, Bob Avakian (BA) keenly and seriously challenge those who are fed up with such monstrous capitalist-imperialist horrors to get organized and get rid of such a rotten and outdated system, to make revolution to replace it with a new and much better world—one dreamed and longed for by billions worldwide. There is no other way. I’ve watched this film many times and feel everyone should see it...
The young people in the Revolution Club are focused on a better world for humanity. They aren’t just thinking about people in this country, but also those in the entire world. They are working for revolution because they are very courageous, and it takes committed people to carry out this National Revolution Tour. I believe in what they are doing—organizing people—it takes time and it takes support. These young people are tireless and need our support! I say this from the bottom of my heart: When I was a young activist, I used to “hear things” about the Revolutionary Communist Party such as: “if those people give you literature, don’t take it...”—but I have come to know them, and I admire and respect them. I also have heard some activists say that the RCP is “too radical....” And what comes to mind is that “If the Germans and Jews would have been just as radical during the Nazi period, millions of lives could have been saved.” Nobody is as courageous as the RCP. Everyone should start working with them and, most importantly, also donate to the National Revolution Tour. It’s a worthy cause—just think of the cost for flyers, posters, travel, food and more. Those with thousands of dollars should donate thousands. I am able to donate hundreds. Please go to the revcom.us website and commit to donate $50 or $100 a month. This tour stands for the people who have no voice. They are out to help humanity. I believe in what they are doing, working for revolution. Bob Avakian has the plan... what is needed is for people to organize themselves and study this plan.
I am in! You should also join and support this worthy cause!
Isabel Cardenas
American-Salvadoran / USA Citizen
And Community Activist since 1960
From Carol Downer
Funding ourselves
May 3: Last week, I had the pleasure of hosting the Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour at my home for dinner. We had roasted chicken with coleslaw, mashed potatoes and gravy and hot rolls that I purchased from Von’s. Additionally, I purchased the ingredients for and prepared corn muffins and potato salad. Tour members helped me set out the dishes and finish up preparations. Other volunteers brought salad makings and an after-dinner pastry.
The tour members had organized several actions to spread the word about how grassroots activism to push for a revolution would be more effective than putting our efforts into bringing about social change through voting for social reforms. They were righteously tired and hungry, so the first order of business was to eat heartily. They were interested in my experiences in visiting Iran after the Iranian people had thrown out the Shah, a U.S.-supported ruthless dictator who commanded the fifth-largest army in the world in an almost bloodless revolution. So, I shared the exhilaration and joy that I had in being in a free country; I witnessed in Iran how a brave and resolute people had overthrown tyranny.* Then all of us shared the events of the day and enjoyed our political solidarity which cemented our friendship.
I encourage others to provide this kind of concrete support to the “Get Organized” tour as it goes around the country to stir people and challenge them to throw off their cynicism and join in the effort to mount demands for revolutionary change. Although I spent a few dollars and I devoted some time to shop for and prepare the food, the meal cost far less than if we had sat down at a restaurant or ordered take-out, and we were able to take as long as we wanted to eat our meal and socialize. Pooling our limited resources makes them go a long way. No time wasted applying for grants. No strings!
No one is going to fund us except ourselves, and why would we even want them to? Even the most benevolent funder wants you to submit proposals, file reports and evaluations. Also, that evening we created through our collective efforts a democratic, egalitarian event that celebrated our diversity in class, age and ethnicity and reinforced our revolutionary fervor. After the dishes were cleared, washed and put away, we ended the evening stronger. That strength came from ourselves, not from outside funding.
1. In 1978, millions and millions of Iranian people, from virtually all walks of life with a wide range of political viewpoints, rose up against the hated Shah and his regime, which was overthrown in February 1979. Millions had been awakened to political life, and their awakening and struggle continued in different ways after the revolution. However, by the early 1980s reactionary Islamic fundamentalists led by the Ayatollah Khomeini had brutally suppressed their opponents, which included Iranian communists, and were able to consolidate political power and establish the repressive theocracy that still rules Iran today. [back]
“You Think You’re Woke... But You’re Sleepwalking Through A Nightmare —
This System Cannot Be Reformed, It Must Be Overthrown!”
Checks can be sent to:
RCP Publications, Box 3486, Merchandise Mart
Chicago, IL 60654-0486 (Mark for the Tour)
From Reverend Cecil L. “Chip” Murray:
April 17, 2019
Dear Friends,
I am referring you to open your minds and hearts to a message that has been begging for attention for 400 hundred years. I have personally listened to their presentation of the great concept they are embarking on, and suggest you do the same for their National Tour to Organize for an ACTUAL Revolution.
I am aware that there are many people in America who oppose communism on certain matters of great importance. I ask you to examine one matter which is birthed in communism, and that is what links us in the revolutionary need to emancipate humanity.
I am a Christian and not a communist nor am I an advocate of communism. However I commend all those who undertake the cause of justice and righteousness, such as opposing abuse of power by police and law enforcement, and opposing mass incarceration and massive homelessness. In Christian tradition, it is believed that “you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” Therefore you should engage their message and decide for yourself as to its merit for support.
As part of this, you may want to review and engage the film by Bob Avakian, the founder and designer of the new communism titled Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Reverend Cecil L. “Chip” Murray
From Fr. Luis Barrios, NYC:
“The revolution is not coming from the sky, sent in by God. We have to put together this revolution...”
The crowd at Les Mis at Pantages in Los Angeles applauded wildly as @revclub_la @SunsaraTaylor and the National Revolution Tour stood up for abortion rights and called people to the streets June 4.
Tala Deloria and Lenny Wolff talk about The National Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour, and about the May 20 speaking event at UCLA on The Michael Slate Show
Two members of the National Tour took this basic flyer to a MEChA conference at UCLA attended by hundreds of students from around the country. The flyer sparked controversy, including from some of the conference leadership, and this in turn sparked interest and real engagement.
The next day, a larger contingent of Revolution Club members marched with their banner in a MEChA march that, among other things, denounced U.S. imperialism in reference both to Latin America and oppressed communities within the U.S. And here too, a couple of dozen people wanted to get more deeply into the challenges posed by the revcoms.
Learning from this, we can see that a basic flyer like this can be a way to clearly set terms and on that basis generate engagement.
When “A Fetus Is a Person”... WOMEN Are Enslaved and Their Lives, Dreams, and Bodies Become Collateral Damage
| revcom.us
In the last few months, many states have passed extreme laws banning abortion. These laws are aimed at overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision which legalized abortion. Now that the Supreme Court is stacked with a majority of anti-abortion fascists, it is entirely possible that Roe will be overturned. And, even if women’s right to abortion is not outright overturned, this Court is almost certain to qualitatively further restrict women’s ability to exercise this right and further criminalize women and those who assist them in exercising control over their own bodies.
But these laws do not come out of nowhere—for decades, fueled by the powerful Christian fascist movement, states around the U.S. have been enacting laws that treat fertilized eggs, embryos, and fetuses as if they were human beings. These laws treat women as mere incubators whose basic rights and even lives are subordinated to those developing clusters of cells inside their bodies.
The examples below—from among hundreds of cases—give a sense of the Dark Ages cruelty and misogyny (woman-hating) already being wreaked by these laws, and of the far greater horrors to come at the hands of this cruel and misogynist system and its current fascist commanders... if they are allowed to continue to reign and rule over society.
Laura Pemberton.1 In 1999 in Florida, Pemberton was in active labor at her home. Doctors believed that her decision to have a vaginal birth after having had a previous cesarean surgery posed a risk to her fetus, so they got a court order to force her to undergo another cesarean. A sheriff went to her home, took her into custody, strapped her legs together, and forced her to a hospital, where an emergency hearing was underway to determine “the state’s interest” in protecting the fetus still inside her. Lawyers argued on behalf of her fetus, but Pemberton was denied counsel, and forced to undergo the operation.
This is not unique—a 2003 University of Chicago study surveyed 42 maternal-fetal medicine programs in the U.S. and found that 14 percent reported having used court orders to compel unwilling women to have O.R. deliveries. The president of Improving Birth reports that her organization receives calls about this “every day....” An attorney who works on forced C-section cases said, “We’ve heard many times where women have said ‘I was forced to have a C-section.’”2
Regina McKnight.3 In 1999 in South Carolina, McKnight unexpectedly suffered a stillbirth which it later turned out was caused by an infection. She was arrested and charged with homicide by child abuse because she had used cocaine during her pregnancy. (Neonatal doctors say cocaine is less dangerous to a fetus than cigarettes or poor nutrition.4 ) The jury took 15 minutes to convict and she was sentenced to 12 years in prison. On appeal her original conviction was overturned, but then she was recharged with manslaughter to which she pled guilty and was then released from prison, having served eight years.
Rachael Lowe.5 In Wisconsin in 2005, Lowe’s husband took her to the hospital to seek treatment for addiction to Oxycontin. Because she was pregnant, some hospital staff reported her to the state under a law that allows a pregnant woman to be taken into custody if she is addicted to alcohol or controlled substances. Lowe was forcibly taken to a psychiatric hospital, given Xanax and other drugs but no prenatal care. A guardian ad litem [legal representative] was appointed for the fetus, but Lowe was denied counsel for 12 days after being taken into custody. After more than two weeks she was released, but remained under state surveillance and supervision until the end of her pregnancy.
Bei Bei Shuai.6 In Indiana in 2010, Shuai attempted suicide with rat poison after her boyfriend abandoned her. Doctors were able to save Shuai’s life, but her 33-week-old fetus died. A few months later, Shuai was arrested, charged with feticide (“murder” of a fetus), carrying a possible sentence of 45 years to life, and held at the high-security Marion County prison for 435 days. Eventually she pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of criminal recklessness and was sentenced to time served.
Purvi Patel.7 In Indiana in 2013, Patel went to a hospital because she was bleeding profusely and explained that she had given birth to a stillborn boy. She was arrested and charged with feticide. The “evidence” against her included that she had texted a friend that she didn’t want to have a baby and that she had taken abortion-inducing drugs. (These drugs are legal but require a prescription, which Patel did not have.) The state argued that trying to self-induce abortion constituted attempted murder of the fetus. The state also claimed that the fetus had survived this “attempted murder” and had been born alive but allowed to die, so Patel was also charged with felony child neglect. Patel insisted the baby was stillborn, but the state wielded the “lung-float test” to insist the baby had taken at least one breath before dying, making it Patel’s fault. This test was developed in the 17th century, and according to a respected pathologist, is “absolutely discredited ... it boggles my mind that in the 21st century... this test is still being relied upon.”8
Both science and Patel’s word were disregarded—she was convicted and sentenced to 20 years. Eventually the feticide charge was overturned, but she was resentenced to a three-year term for “child neglect.” She served almost two years in prison.
The above cases are not “outliers.” The Paltrow and Flavin study cited here reports on 413 cases from 1973 to 2005 “in which a woman’s pregnancy was a necessary factor leading to attempted and actual deprivations of a woman’s physical liberty.” And their study also notes that Black and other women of color are especially targeted—at least three-fifths of the cases we describe above were women of color, and overall, 52 percent of the cases Paltrow and Flavin examined were Black women! Even more alarmingly, since 2005 (and up until 2014), there have been at least 380 more arrests or similar acts against women. Women arrested for falling down a flight of stairs, for attempting suicide, for delaying on having a cesarean, for drinking.9
This is a severe acceleration. And in the current climate this medieval persecution can be expected to get even worse—including through the wielding of the high-tech surveillance state in which everyone’s medical records are increasingly accessible to the state—even without further anti-woman rulings from the Supreme Court.
Over and over again, women are treated as mere incubators for the development of fetuses into children, viciously punished if anything goes wrong, and in many cases given less legal representation than the unborn fetus. These cases concentrate the actual position of women in U.S. society (and in the world) as less-than-human beings, increasingly criminalized and demonized, and with lives increasingly circumscribed. This escalating cruelty cries out for fierce resistance now, on both a state and national level, a determined refusal from men and women to allow the imposition of this Handmaid’s Tale nightmare on society. And even more it cries out for a revolution to overthrow these horrors and bring about a society in which women are respected and treated as full human beings, able to flourish in every dimension.
Phoenix, Arizona, May 21, 2019. Women's signs say "War on Women." Photo: Twitter/@ShawnInArizona
Laura Pemberton speaking at National Summit to Ensure the Health and Humanity of Pregnant and Birthing Women, Atlanta, Georgia, 2007.
Credit: http://advocatesforpregnantwomen.org.
Regina McKnight at post conviction hearing, May, 2008
Credit: http://advocatesforpregnantwomen.org
Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!
The Ongoing Need for Sustainers
During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.
So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.
Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.
You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.
The Mass-Murdering U.S. Government Steps Up Persecution of Julian Assange for Helping Expose Its War Crimes—and Takes Aim at ALL Investigative Journalists
| revcom.us
Imagine a society in which journalists or publishers are threatened by the government with life in prison for reporting on massive war crimes. Actually, you don’t have to imagine this nightmarish scenario. This is now the reality in America 2019, with the May 23 indictment of Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, for working with Chelsea Manning to bring to light U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as troves of other information relating to treatment of detainees at Guantánamo, diplomatic cables with details about U.S. relations with its allies, and more.
The government is persecuting Assange for publishing the information that WikiLeaks received from Manning, who was a soldier and intelligence analyst stationed in Iraq with access to files revealing war crimes committed by the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan and other secrets the U.S. wanted to keep under wraps.1 In 2010, Manning put her life on the line by providing these files to WikiLeaks, with the aim, in her words, of provoking “worldwide discussion, debates and reforms” (see box for more on Chelsea Manning). The files WikiLeaks published were the basis for coverage of these crimes in the mainstream media in the U.S. and worldwide.
Assange is now in prison in Britain, after being expelled from the Ecuadorian embassy in London after years of seeking sanctuary there from persecution. He is fighting extradition to the U.S.
A Dangerous Precedent Is Being Set
The Espionage Act that the U.S. Department of “Justice” (DOJ) is using to go after Assange was first passed in 1917, in part aimed at antiwar and other radical activists. Among its elements is targeting the leaking of government/military secrets. This has been used in the past against people working within the government or in projects for the government—like Daniel Ellsberg, who was an analyst with a think tank closely linked to the U.S. military when he made the Pentagon Papers2 public during the Vietnam War. More recently, it has been used against Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden (a National Security Administration contractor who exposed vast electronic spying by the U.S. on billions of people).
What makes the case against Julian Assange so unprecedented and dangerous is that this is the first time the Espionage Act has been used against a journalist or someone publishing leaked documents—for making them known to the public—rather than just the original source of the information within the government/military or associated institutions and agencies.
The DOJ denies it is going after journalists and claims that the Assange indictment is about punishing the illegal obtaining and disclosure of classified information, which the DOJ says endangered the lives of American troops, diplomats, and sources. But that’s like a vampire telling you to rest assured while he bites you in the neck. As a range of voices is correctly pointing out, what Assange is accused of doing under the DOJ indictment is no different from what all investigative journalists and their publishers regularly do—and that is very ominous, not only for the rights of journalists but also for the rights of people overall.
Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, called the indictment “a direct assault on the First Amendment” that “establishes a dangerous precedent that can be used to target all news organizations that hold the government accountable by publishing its secrets.”3 Even Alan Dershowitz, right-wing Harvard professor and Trump supporter, said the Assange indictment was “analogous to if The New York Times and The Washington Post had been indicted after publishing the Pentagon Papers,” and called this a “very, very frightening development.”4
James Risen (former national security reporter for the New York Times and now at The Intercept) takes some of the language from the DOJ indictment and points out the implications:
The indictment says that Assange and WikiLeaks “repeatedly sought, obtained, and disseminated information that the United States classified due to the serious risk that unauthorized disclosure could harm the national security of the United States.”
That is almost a textbook definition of the job of a reporter covering national security at a major news organization. Take a look at the tips pages of most news outlets, and you’ll see a remarkable similarity between what journalists ask for and what WikiLeaks sought.
The indictment goes on to say that “WikiLeaks’s website explicitly solicited censored, otherwise restricted, and until September 2010, ‘classified’ materials.” Today, virtually every major news organization has a similar secure drop box where sources can provide information anonymously. WikiLeaks popularized that technique for soliciting anonymous leaks, but it is now common journalistic practice.
“Assange personally and publicly promoted WikiLeaks to encourage those with access to protected information, including classified information, to provide it to WikiLeaks for public disclosure,” the indictment says. Nearly every national security reporter goes on television, gives speeches, or launches book tours to promote their work and hopefully obtain new sources.
All of this raises an obvious question: If the government can charge Assange for conspiring to obtain leaked documents, what would stop it from charging the CIA beat reporter at the New York Times for committing the same crime?5
And think about the implications of the Espionage Act indictment of Assange for journalists internationally. Assange is not an American citizen, and he worked outside the U.S. Will his indictment now set a precedent for the U.S. going after foreign journalists who dig up and publish information that the rulers declare to be “harmful to U.S. national security”—charging them with serious crimes and demanding they be extradited to the U.S. to face trial? Furthermore, if the U.S. can bring criminal charges against foreign journalists, can other repressive governments around the world bring charges against U.S. reporters and publishers for exposing their secrets?
This extreme and dangerous move by the Trump/Pence regime is part of the ramping up of their overall fascist juggernaut. In the interest of humanity, this and other mounting outrages need to be met with society-wide upsurge of protest, not just against this or other particular outrages but demanding that the whole fascist regime be driven out. And, more fundamentally, the question is posed: Will we continue to live under this system that has produced so many horrors for humanity, including this fascist regime, and condemn future generations to this... or make revolution to overthrow the rule of capitalism-imperialism and bring about a radically different system and world?
2. Ellsberg, then a military analyst, risked life in prison to leak the Pentagon Papers, secret U.S. government documents revealing important truths about the U.S. war in Vietnam. [back]
...In a situation where the U.S. rulers and their empire are facing serious increasing challenges from various quarters around the world, the exposure of their war crimes (as well as dirty dealings against their allies) by Chelsea Manning, WikiLeaks, and others have caused big problems for them. And these exposures reveal a strategic weakness—there are those within their machinery of war and repression who refuse to stay silent and who act on their conscience. So the rulers have been striking back in a draconian way in order to threaten others from acting in that way.
Even as Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning are targets of totally unjust persecution, those who ordered, oversaw, and carried out war crimes, and continue to do so—including generals, cabinet officials, and all the way up to presidents—have not only gone unpunished, they are hailed by this system as “heroes” and “statesmen.” ... The real heroes are those who refuse to stay silent in the face of America’s crimes against humanity and act to resist and stop them.
Under the Obama presidency, Chelsea Manning was convicted in a military trial and sentenced to 35 years in military prison. Manning was denied critically needed medical care in prison related to being a transgender woman. After seven years—almost a year of it in isolation that a UN Special Rapporteur on torture deemed “cruel and inhumane”—the rest of her sentence was commuted in 2017.
Earlier this year, a judge ordered Manning jailed for refusing to testify before a grand jury “investigating” Julian Assange. She spent 62 days behind bars, a part of it in isolation, before being released. Then, a week before the new indictment against Assange, Chelsea Manning was jailed—again!—for refusing to testify before a grand jury. The judge also added a $500 fine for every day after 30 days that she continues to defy the attempts to force her to testify, which would be raised to $1,000 a day after 60 days. Manning told the judge: “I would rather starve to death than to change my opinion in this regard. And when I say that, I mean that quite literally.”
Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!
The Ongoing Need for Sustainers
During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.
So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.
Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.
You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.
From Obama’s War on Whistleblowers to Trump’s Fascist Assaults
| revcom.us
Let’s be clear that the intensification of attacks on government/military whistleblowers did not start with the Trump/Pence regime. It began under the Democrats and Barack Obama, who prosecuted more leakers under the Espionage Act (eight) than all previous presidents combined. The prosecution, conviction, and imprisoning of Chelsea Manning took place under Obama, who declared Manning “guilty” even before her trial. And the Obama DOJ seriously considered indicting Assange (but in the end did not).
In a situation where the U.S. rulers and their empire are facing serious increasing challenges from various quarters around the world, the exposure of their war crimes (as well as dirty dealings against their allies) by Chelsea Manning, WikiLeaks, and others have caused big problems for them. And these exposures reveal a strategic weakness—there are those within their machinery of war and repression who refuse to stay silent and who act on their conscience. So the rulers have been striking back in a draconian way in order to threaten others and prevent them from becoming whitsleblowers.
The Trump/Pence regime has continued this, with three government whistleblowers already charged. But what is also involved here is an overall juggernaut rolling toward consolidation of fascist rule, with assaults on the media and journalists—calling those who criticize Trump “enemies of the people”—a key part of this. As Bob Avakian has noted, the capitalist-controlled, imperialist-controlled media are the “propaganda instruments of the ruling class of this system.”
The mainstream media is part of the “superstructure” of society within which the interests of different sections of the ruling class get aired and battled out, even while the fundamental terms of discussion are increasingly set and remain within constraints that serve the system, its functioning and rules. The basic nature of this society and the history of this country, and exposure that reveals or is consistent with that, is not open for discussion in the mainstream media. Therein, the dominant media play a key role in keeping people systematically misinformed and miseducated.1
At the same time, there are also sharp divisions within those at the top of this system. The differences are not over the need for them to deal with the serious challenges their empire is facing in order to protect and push forward their interests, but over how. For example, Obama did not go forward with the indictment of Assange. This was not primarily because of concerns among some in his administration about the First Amendment and the protection of journalists (as is often portrayed by those like the New York Times), but because of strategic concerns around cohering norms of liberal bourgeois democracy, and moves that could lead to dangerous cracks in the illusions of a “free press” under this system.
But the fascists in power need a cowed media, and a compliant population overall—as part of crushing any opposition (including from their ruling class opponents) and assaulting the very notion of objective truth. The attacks on the media have been one of the hallmarks of this regime from the beginning—and the indictment of Julian Assange ratchets this up to even more extreme and dangerous levels.
Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!
The Ongoing Need for Sustainers
During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.
So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.
Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.
You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.
Even as Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning are targets of totally unjust persecution, those who ordered, oversaw, and carried out war crimes, and continue to do so—including generals, cabinet officials, and all the way up to presidents—have not only gone unpunished, they are hailed by this system as “heroes” and “statesmen.” (A small handful of soldiers have been charged and convicted of crimes, and Trump is reportedly getting ready to issue presidential pardons for some of them.1) The real heroes are those who refuse to stay silent in the face of America’s crimes against humanity and act to resist and stop them.
While some civil rights and press freedom advocates have spoken out against the Assange indictment, there is an urgent need for mass, society-wide upsurge of protest against this outrage. As we recently wrote,2 in the face of the quickly advancing fascist juggernaut—from Trump goading followers to shoot immigrants to intensifying attacks aiming to eliminate women’s right to abortion, to heightening danger of war and more—the actual resistance of the people to this has been virtually nil. And so: THE QUESTION IS SHARPLY POSED TO EVERYONE WHO KNOWS RIGHT FROM WRONG: AT WHAT POINT DO YOU SAY “ENOUGH!”?
And what about the Democrats, who pose as defenders of people’s rights but are, in fact, also an imperialist ruling class party intent on defending and promoting the “national security” of the U.S.? The top Democratic Party leaders have not made any statements on the new Assange indictment, but some, like Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer, cheered when the Trump/Pence regime revealed the charges against Assange earlier this year. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren criticized the new indictment as an attack on the First Amendment—without calling this out as fascist and calling on masses of people to be out in the streets. (And Warren prefaced her statement by calling Assange a “bad actor who has harmed U.S. national security” and saying he “should be held accountable.”)
As we said in the earlier piece:
To make this plain and simple. What we face is consolidating fascism. And, electing the Democrats, or waiting for some normal process of this system to remove Trump and Pence—when the rule book to that system is steadily being shredded—is not only folly, but is bringing real horrors.
There is a way to drive out this fascist regime in the program of RefuseFascism.org, which is organizing now to be able to launch a movement as soon as possible of thousands of people taking to the streets across the country in nonviolent, yet sustained and continuing protests that don’t stop until the demand “The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go” is met. The sharpening struggle within the ruling institutions (Congress, Courts, the media) can provide openings for the struggle from below, and also, if they are faced with a national political crisis caused by the determination of millions of people to stay in the streets in nonviolent political protest as has been done recently in countries like South Korea, Algeria, and others, then, there are forces within in the ruling institutions who could be compelled to act for their own interests to remove the regime.
The stakes of whether or not this program is taken up are this: should the Trump/Pence regime succeed in consolidating its grip, in cementing a full-out fascist form of rule and program—and make no mistake, they are now on the offensive to do just that—it will make any form of progressive change, including an actual revolution to overthrow the system that gave rise to this fascism, immeasurably more difficult. In fact, every day that it remains in power puts the future of humanity in direct peril.
Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!
The Ongoing Need for Sustainers
During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.
So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.
Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.
You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.
The U.S. Escalates Against Iran: More Troops, More Lies, More Murder
| revcom.us
On Friday, May 24, Trump announced the U.S. was sending 1,500 more U.S. troops to the Middle East to protect American troops there from ongoing threats from Iran. This was fewer than the 10,000 to 20,000 the Pentagon had reportedly asked for and presented as simply a “prudent defensive measure and intended to reduce the possibility of future hostilities.”
Since when is it a “defensive measure” to send 1,500 U.S. troops halfway around the world to menace another country? No, this is yet another U.S. escalation against Iran that ratchets up tensions and heightens the possibility of a U.S. attack or confrontation with Iran, which in turn could spiral into a war of massive murder and destruction.
Troops weren’t the only U.S. escalation. Just this week:
The U.S. sent more intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft; a fighter jet squadron with offensive capabilities; and it extended the deployment of a Patriot missile-defense battalion.
Trump declared that threats from Iran constituted an “emergency,” enabling him to bypass congressional objections and send another $8.1 billion in weapons—including aircraft and guided bombs and missiles—to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). These weapons threaten Iran and represent a blood-soaked declaration that the Saudi-UAE slaughter in Yemen should continue. (See accompanying box.)
For the first time, the U.S. publicly accused Iran’s Revolutionary Guards of being behind the recent sabotage of four oil tankers in UAE waters, and claimed “Iranian proxies” had fired rockets near the U.S. embassy in Iraq. Meanwhile, Trump labeled Iran “a very dangerous player” and “a nation of terror.”
Who is threatening who?
All this is taking place against a backdrop of a “maximum pressure” campaign of U.S. military and economic threats against Iran.1 The U.S. already has more than 27 military bases—in Kuwait, Turkey, Oman, Bahrain, UAE, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Djibouti, Egypt, Israel, and Afghanistan—with warships, war planes, and tens of thousands of troops surrounding Iran on three sides. (How would the U.S. react if Iran had military bases in Cuba, Mexico, and Canada?) And now the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group and a nuclear-capable U.S. Air Force B-52 bomber task force are on the way to the Persian Gulf region.
The U.S. has also imposed draconian global sanctions aimed at cutting off Iran’s oil lifeline, crashing its economy, and provoking “regime change” through the collapse, capitulation, or overthrow of the Islamic Republic. U.S. sanctions have already brought enormous suffering, with costs of basic necessities soaring and critical medicines in short supply.
Just think about this one example. A February 22, 2019 article at CNN.com, “Iranians are paying for US sanctions with their health,” opens with this incident from 2015, when sanctions were not nearly as severe as they are now:
Ali only had two hours to save his baby’s life. He careened through traffic and sped along highways to an east Tehran government pharmacy. When he saw some 800 people queued outside the facility, he dropped to his knees. Like him, they were waiting to obtain state-funded medications....
“I cried and screamed, begging people to let me get through.”
Eventually Ali, a wedding singer and waiter, was able to skip the line and get medication for his daughter Dory’s rare genetic disease. Now he has to obtain it from friends living abroad. But:
Her medical bill has more than doubled, forcing him to sell his car, work two jobs, and accumulate loans. He says that his entire salary from his day job as a waiter goes toward Dory’s treatment.
Oppose ALL U.S. Imperialism’s Moves, Welcome Their Failure and Defeat
U.S. sanctions and military threats are blatant gangsterism against Iran, an oppressed Third World country. Iran is ruled by a reactionary Islamic theocracy which bitterly oppresses the Iranian people, supports reactionary forces across the region, and does not represent a liberating alternative to global capitalism-imperialism. But this doesn’t change the facts that U.S. actions are totally unjust and in service of predatory imperialist interests, and that it represents a far greater danger to the peoples of the region and the world.
There are differences within the U.S. ruling class on Iran, including reportedly within the Trump/Pence regime, on whether and how aggressively to confront Iran. But in any case, U.S. actions have created a dangerous situation in which even accidents and miscalculations could further escalate the clash, including to war. For example, either the U.S. or the Islamic Republic could feel compelled to make further moves, setting off a tit-for-tat cycle leading to war, whether either side initially intended it or not. This danger grows with each U.S. escalation.
No one with a conscience or a shred of concern for humanity should hope any of these U.S. moves succeed in strengthening these predators’ grip on the Middle East and the planet! Instead people should be loudly condemning and actively opposing them.
STOP Wars of Empire, Armies of Occupation, and Crimes Against Humanity!
USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier moving in the Arabian Sea.
Trump/Pence Arms Shipments to Saudi Arabia and UAE:
A Big “Thumbs Up” to Slaughtering Children and Starving Millions in Yemen
Since March 2015, the U.S. has been supplying most all of the planes, the bombs, the logistical support, and the intelligence that has enabled Saudi Arabia and the UAE to wage a brutal war of murder and starvation on the people of Yemen in an attempt to crush Yemen’s Houthi movement. Already 85,000 children have been killed and over 12 million Yemenis pushed to the brink of starvation. Just this last Friday, Saudi warplanes blew up a gas station in southwest Yemen, killing as many as 12 civilians and at least four children, while wounding dozens more. This U.S.-enabled war is on track to have killed 233,000 people by year’s end.
Now Trump has OKed billions more in arms shipments—a big “thumbs up” to slaughtering more children and starving millions more Yemenis.
A child is pulled from the rubble caused by a U.S.-backed Saudi Arabia airstrike in Yemen, May 16, 2019. Photo: AP
“40 Years of Terror” by Iran? Try nearly 70…by the U.S. of A!
Last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed the current crisis and danger of war in the Persian Gulf on “40 years of terror coming out of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Forty years of Iranian terror? What about the nearly 70 years of U.S. intervention, aggression, and terror against Iran?
Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!
The Ongoing Need for Sustainers
During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.
So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.
Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.
You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.
“40 Years of Terror” by Iran? Try nearly 70…by the U.S. of A!
| revcom.us
Last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed the current crisis and danger of war in the Persian Gulf on “40 years of terror coming out of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Forty years of Iranian terror? What about the nearly 70 years of U.S. intervention, aggression, and terror against Iran?1
1950-53: After World War 2, the U.S. rulers moved to take control of oil-rich Iran from the British. In 1953 the CIA organized a coup deposing a democratically elected nationalist, Mohammed Mossadegh, and returning the Shah (absolute monarch) to power.
1953-1978: The Shah was a hated tyrant who imposed a reign of terror on the Iranian people for 25 years, and turned Iran into a feeding ground for global imperialism and a military garrison for the U.S. His regime was notorious for torturing parents in front of their children.
1978-1979: In 1978 the Iranian people began an uprising against the Shah that grew to millions. The U.S. backed him—including his massacre of thousands in September 1978—until the Shah was forced to flee in January 1979. The 1953 coup and the Shah’s reign helped pave the way for a new Iranian nightmare: the 1979 founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
1980-1988. The U.S. initially tried to turn Iran’s new government into another pro-U.S. client regime. When that failed, the U.S. imposed sanctions, then encouraged Iraq to invade Iran in September 1980, and then helped fuel an eight-year slaughter. Conservative estimates place the war’s death toll at 262,000 to 367,000 Iranians and 105,000 Iraqis, plus an estimated 700,000 injured or wounded on both sides.2
July 2, 1988. The naval warship USS Vincennes shot down an unarmed Iranian civilian passenger jet—Iran Air Flight 655—as it flew over the Persian Gulf. All 290 passengers on board were killed. The U.S. claimed it was an “accident,” but at the time it was trying to compel Iran to agree to an end to the Iran-Iraq war.3
1990s. The U.S. sought to “contain” Iran through increasingly harsh sanctions and a regional military buildup.
2001-2003. The U.S. launches its so-called “war on terror,” invading and occupying Afghanistan and then Iraq, placing its troops in countries bordering Iran on the east and the west. The U.S. secretly planned to quickly take down other regimes that posed obstacles to its imperial agenda and reshape the entire Middle East—even joking “next stop Tehran” (Iran’s capital) after they occupied Iraq.
2007-2014. America’s grand imperialist plans quickly bogged down. Among other things, U.S. atrocities further fueled reactionary, anti-U.S. Islamic fundamentalism and jihadism in Afghanistan, Iraq, and across the region, and Iran’s Islamic Republic ended up gaining greater regional influence. Iran had also begun a nuclear enrichment program. In 2007-2008, the George W. Bush regime was seriously considering a military assault on Iran. The U.S. didn’t attack, but it did launch a series of increasingly punitive economic sanctions against Iran, and the threat of a U.S.-led war continued to loom.
2015. The U.S., and its allies Britain, Germany, and France, along with Russia and China, signed a nuclear agreement with Iran that pledged a lifting of sanctions and economic aid if Iran sharply curtailed its nuclear enrichment program. Over the next two years, Iran abided by the deal, but the U.S. kept many of its sanctions in place and discouraged investment in Iran.
May 2017. The Trump/Pence regime denounced Iran, unilaterally pulled out of the nuclear agreement, and re-imposed even harsher sanctions. This and subsequent moves are responsible for the current trajectory toward confrontation and possibly war.
In Tehran, Iran on August 19, 1953, as part of a CIA-backed coup, mobs joined by the military took over streets chanting "Long live the Shah! Death to Mossadegh!" They ransacked pro-Mossadegh newspapers and attacked his supporters.
Children killed by U.S. airstrike in Kabul, Afghanistan, 2008. (Photo: AP)
The Trump/Pence regime denounced Iran, unilaterally pulled out of the nuclear agreement, and re-imposed even harsher sanctions that have devastated the lives of people and their ability to get medical care. Woman begs in Tehran, 2018.
Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!
The Ongoing Need for Sustainers
During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.
So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.
Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.
You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.
As Trump Talks of Pardoning More U.S. War Criminals
Revolutionary Vets Condemn U.S. War Crimes—
“It's about all the people of the planet”
| revcom.us
As we post this, Donald Trump is reportedly considering issuing presidential pardons for several U.S. soldiers and military contractors convicted or accused of committing war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Earlier this month, he already pardoned one war criminal, an Army lieutenant who tortured and executed an Iraqi detainee. There have been only a few American troops convicted of war crimes, even as the U.S. military has carried out murder, torture, and other crimes on a massive scale in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. But the moves to exonerate even those few convicted war criminals are a part of how the Trump/Pence regime is shattering the previous “norms” of U.S. imperialism—and setting new fascist norms with blanket condoning of war crimes that would give an official green light for U.S. forces to carry out horrors against the people of the world on a whole other level.
In light of this, we are running the following letter from a member of the Revolution Club, Los Angeles, and reposting a piece from a Vietnam War vet.
From a member of the Revolution Club, LA: Breaking with Patriotism and Revenge
I recently learned that Trump had pardoned a prior U.S. military member. This pardonee was convicted for the murder of an Iraqi, who was suspected of killing U.S. military members. This got me thinking, because I was in the same military unit at the same time as all of this took place.
I remember thinking (around the time the killing of the Iraqi came to light): that myself and others should be upholding this execution. My reasoning was: that the death was justified (by getting revenge). I now think about this and realize: how that kind of thinking can only serve to keep things the way they are.
I ask myself why I took up those ideas and understand: that this was part of the us versus them mentality that is necessary in order to justify all of these wars for empire. I write this to let others who are trying to process all that comes along with having been part of the U.S. war machine, that there is a way to get back on the right path. The first step is to get into this website, then start asking questions from those who are associated with the work being done through it, and then put yourself to the task of getting involved as well. Because: it is not just about you, but about all the people of the planet. There is much more to lay out in order to better understand, but you have to begin and go from there.
From a Vietnam War Vet: We Were Baby Killers for U.S. Imperialism
I am writing to revcom.us/Revolution because this is the one place that consistently stands with the people of the world against all forms of oppression and for a radically different and far better world. The reason for this letter is the current wave of patriotism, using America’s soldiers and veterans to justify every conceivable crime and atrocity being carried out by the “troops,” i.e., the U.S. military.
I speak from a whole lot of experience—from both sides of the political battles—supporting and defending U.S. wars and then serving in Vietnam, where I began to learn the truth about America’s bloody, genocidal history.
Right now there is a major campaign to raise millions of dollars in the Wounded Warrior Campaign, for medical care for the wounded veterans of America’s current wars around the globe. Now, let’s set something straight first—they are not heroes but murderers and baby killers. Nowhere in American mainstream media and culture do you find the people we are killing, torturing, droning, raping—the people of the world do not matter in the path of America’s march across the earth. There is no honor in being a soldier in the U.S. military that has invaded every corner of the world and nearly every country on the planet. There is no pride in torturing people across the globe, invading people’s homes and beating up the occupants in the name of the “War on Terror.” The U.S. is actually carrying out a “War OF Terror” against the people of the world. In fact, it can be said with historical certainty that the wholesale slaughter of tens of millions of people is “The American Way” and that, except for the Civil War, there has never been anything honorable about serving in the U.S. military. As I tell youth when I go into high schools as part of the We Are Not Your Soldiers Campaign, you are going to be part of a military that is about killing the people of the world for profit and empire!
You can be sure that whenever there is a stepped-up campaign of patriotism and flag waving, there are also stepped-up military actions that need to be supported by the unthinking and the privileged, while the rest of us are supposed to shrink back, and not speak the truth, as atrocities are carried out in our names. Right now all over Africa and the Middle East there are and have been hundreds of secret military operations, assassinations, kidnappings, and murders galore by special operations teams, while the myth is promoted that “there are no ground forces” in those places. These are American “death squads,” all with the story that this is what is needed to protect “us from the terrorists” when the truth is that the United States is the biggest terrorist on the planet.
What I am saying here is not my opinion, but history and, yes, science....
Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!
The Ongoing Need for Sustainers
During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.
So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.
Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.
You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.
Horrific Abuse of Refugees at the Border Continues to Mount
| revcom.us
Two news stories this past week showed just how horrific the abuse by the U.S. of refugees at the border really is. One story pointed to the conditions faced by refugee children inside the border detention centers that are causing the unconscionable deaths of children in Border Patrol custody. The other exposed the widespread use of solitary confinement—especially on those diagnosed with a mental illness—resulting in suicides and attempted suicides.
The death of a 10-year-old child from El Salvador September 29, 2018, marked the first time in a decade that a child had died in the custody of the Border Patrol. This child’s death only became known publicly a few days ago; Homeland Security had kept it hidden for eight months. Since December, five more immigrant children have died, all from Guatemala, including a two-year-old boy who died from the flu.
Fernando Garcia, executive director of the Border Network for Human Rights, told Democracy Now! that the conditions they have documented of detention are horrific: “[C]hildren are dying because of the way the U.S. administration, the Trump administration, is treating these refugees and asylum seekers.” They found “children sleeping on the ground in the dirt, with no access to water and medical attention, very limited medication and healthcare.”1
Jennifer Harbury, a lawyer and human rights activist based in the Rio Grande Valley, went on in the same Democracy Now! broadcast to describe witnessing the impact on refugee children who had been held in detention. Harbury compared the conditions of the refugees she met in Reynosa, in northern Mexico, forced to wait to be able to request asylum in the U.S., with those she has seen after being released from detention in the U.S. to go to a migrant youth center: “[T]he difference in their health conditions is extraordinary,” she said. In Reynosa, they’re exhausted from their journey, terrorized by fear of being kidnapped at any moment in northern Mexico, but overall, they and their children are OK. This contrasts with how these children are after being released from detention in the U.S.:
By the time they come out of the hielera [“icebox”] ... almost all of them are really sick, with extreme respiratory problems, because they’re kept in holding cells with the AC cranked up so high, and then given no blankets, just those mylar ones, so that they just literally are freezing for days on end. All of them are seriously sick, the children with diarrhea and also, like I say, severe respiratory problems from the cold....
By law, children can’t be held in detention for longer than 72 hours before being transferred to a migrant youth shelter; yet at least one of those who died had been held for seven days. The border detention centers are overflowing; the McAllen, Texas, station normally holds 1,500 detainees, but it is now packed with twice as many. There are no hand-washing facilities, no showers. The smell is horrendous.
One woman, whose child was just recovering from the chickenpox, told Harbury, “ [W]e got it in there. And they kept us all together in the sleeping area. We’re piled all in on top of each other. And they didn’t take us to a clinic.” A Guatemalan man said, “We’re poor, but I’ve never experienced conditions like that in my whole life.”
****
The use of solitary confinement inside ICE detention centers is not a “last resort” but often the first and only option. This is the conclusion of The Intercept and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, who recently completed a one-month investigation of the use of solitary confinement inside ICE detention centers in this country. Even more outrageously, the report further found “in nearly a third of the cases, detainees were diagnosed as having a mental illness.”This widespread use of solitary confinement has resulted in suicides, and suicide attempts.
The investigators looked at more than 8,400 ICE incident reports over five years. They found that in at least 373 cases the prisoners were placed in isolation because they were suicidal and another 200-plus reports described people already in solitary confinement being moved to “suicide watch”—often in another solitary cell. Records described detainees in isolation mutilating their genitals, gouging their eyes, cutting their wrists, and smearing their cells with feces. They found that immigrants held in isolation cells had suffered hallucinations, fits of anger, and suicidal impulses.
In July 2018, a Guatemalan previously diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder committed suicide after 21 days in solitary confinement. His was the third case of suicide since May 2017, when a 27-year-old, also diagnosed as mentally ill, killed himself after 19 days in solitary confinement.
A 36-year-old transgender woman from Honduras, a longtime U.S. resident, was detained by ICE in 2017 and then moved to isolation in May 2018. The detainee, who spent 23 hours a day with no one to speak to, in a cell with just bare walls, a table, a sink, and a toilet, said, “You never know what day it is, what time it is. Sometimes you never see the sun.” After four weeks in isolation, she was told she wouldn’t be allowed to go to the yard. Two days later, she made a noose from a torn blanket and hanged herself from a ceiling vent. A guard cut her down before she suffocated. But after going to the hospital she was put in a different solitary confinement cell—with huge block letters across the door reading “SUICIDE SAFE.” She would spend 11 more months in isolation.
The United Nations special rapporteur on torture has said that solitary confinement should be banned except in “very exceptional circumstances” and that isolation for more than 15 days constitutes “inhuman and degrading treatment.” People with mental illnesses should never be put in isolation, the rapporteur said. Under U.S. federal law, civil detention is not supposed to be used as any form of punishment. Yet solitary confinement is being used routinely.
~~~~~~~~~
Wholesale torture and horror is going on at the border. This is what consolidating fascism looks like. From the very start, the Trump/Pence regime has made the war on immigrants a linchpin and battering ram for imposing their whole fascist agenda. Immigrants are more and more demonized and criminalized. The fascists mean to carry out ethnic cleansing.
And a deafening silence has been coming from the Democrats. One lone congresswoman from Illinois, Lauren Underwood, confronted the acting head of Homeland Security—who was lying before her House committee about the deaths of immigrant children in detention—with the charge that these deaths are ‘intentional.” In a hearing where the majority of Democrats didn’t even show up, she was immediately given a “smack-down.” Her comments were “stricken from the record”; she was formally “admonished” by every Republican committee-member; and she was barred from talking during the rest of the session.
There have been no protests coming from the Democrats as a whole, and they are not going to confront and stop this horror.
The question for the people is: Where is our outrage? Nothing short of massive, sustained protest by people everywhere, aimed at stopping these crimes against immigrants—as part of the movement to drive this regime from power—can do it.
Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!
The Ongoing Need for Sustainers
During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.
So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.
Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.
You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.
Excerpt from SCIENCE AND REVOLUTION, On the Importance of Science and the Application of Science to Society, the New Synthesis of Communism and the Leadership of Bob Avakian, An Interview with Ardea Skybreak
Why Is It So Important, and What Does It Mean, to Get Into BA?
July 17, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
In the early part of 2015, over a number of days, Revolution conducted a wide-ranging interview with Ardea Skybreak. A scientist with professional training in ecology and evolutionary biology, and an advocate of the new synthesis of communism brought forward by Bob Avakian, Skybreak is the author of, among other works, The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism: Knowing What's Real and Why It Matters, and Of Primeval Steps and Future Leaps: An Essay on the Emergence of Human Beings, the Source of Women's Oppression, and the Road to Emancipation. This interview was first published online at www.revcom.us.
Q: OK, picking up on your point that there’s a role and a need for everybody whofinds the state of the world intolerable, to get with this movement for revolution—with that point in mind, and picking up on the point that you just made, I wanted to ask you to speak directly to people with different levels of familiarity with BA, whether they’re just finding out about him or whether they’ve been familiar with his work for a while. And the question I wanted you to speak to is, basically what it means on different levels for people to get into BA and get with his leadership? Why is this so important?
AS: Look, in a lot of ways, it’s pretty straightforward. Whatever kind of backgroundyou come from, whatever your position in society today, if you’re the kind of person who feels that there are a lot of things that are really messed up about the way the world is, the way society is; if you’re completely outraged and unwilling to tolerate for a minute longer a lot of the more outrageous abuses and injustices of the society—and there’s no shortage of these that different people become aware of—then follow your conscience, first of all. Follow your conscience and follow your convictions, and follow the trail to see what does BA say, given that we’re saying, look, this guy’s been doing decades of work, analyzing why these problems keep happening, what they are rooted in, what’s the fundamental reason these terrible things keep happening in this society, what could be done about it.
So, “get into BA” means, first of all, don’t stand aloof when you see these great injustices and this great suffering of the people from various directions. Get involved. Get involved in fighting and exposing these abuses, in joining with others, get organized to fight these abuses, to expose these outrages, to make it clear you’re not tolerating them. And, as you become part of this movement, this movement for revolution, this movement to fight the power, to transform your own thinking and the thinking of your friends and family, and others, on some of the key questions of the day, as you get more involved in that, at the same time as you’re doing that, go deeper. Go deeper. Be like a good scientist. Get into BA, because by getting into BA you are going to learn a lot about the deeper source of the problems and what the actual solutions are, or are not, and what can be done about these problems.
A good place to start, if you’re new to things, besides something like the Dialogue, I would highly recommend that people watch, and watch with their friends and families, and so on, the film Revolution—Nothing Less! It’s six hours of BA talking, analyzing the deeper sources of the problem in society and the solution. There’s also an earlier film, Revolution: Why It’s Necessary, Why It’s Possible, What It’s All About, that is also full of very helpful material which gets very clearly into why a revolution is necessary and why it is possible, even in a country like the U.S., and what kind of revolution should we have, what kind of society should we bring into being. And you can get a copy of BAsics and just start reading it anywhere you want, read some of the quotes and the short essays that are in there that give a feel for some of the range and the depth of analysis on some of these questions, and why this system cannot just be fixed with a few tweaks, why itcan’t just be reformed.
One of the most important things that it means to get into BA is to get into the deeper analysis and exposition of precisely why you cannot reform this system, and why capitalist imperialism as a system needs to be completely dismantled through a revolution, an actual revolution, and replaced with a new society built on a completely different economic and political foundation and, correspondingly, very different social values and ways people can relate to each other and function in society.
So, getting into BA—well, there’s not just one way to get into BA. There are many different ways. If you’re new to things, I would recommend the Dialogue, BAsics, Revolution—Nothing Less! I would recommend going regularly, at least once a week, to the revcom.us website and exploring not only Revolution newspaper on a regular basis, but also going to the other portals on the website: the portal that has BA’s works, and talks about the new synthesis; the portal that talks about the Party he leads, why there’s a need for a revolutionary party and what that involves and why people should be talking about joining this revolutionary party; and the portal that talks about what’s going on in the movement for revolution and these different initiatives to fight mass incarceration and police murders and brutality, and to combat the restrictions on abortion and combat the degradation of women through pornography and rape culture and in other ways, and the fights around the environmental degradation and against these imperialist wars, and so on. There are a lot of practical things, practical initiatives, that people can get into, and people can get involved in one, or more than one, of these initiatives. But getting into BA means, at whatever level and wherever you start, trying to really get into what is he saying about why you can’t fix things just one thing at a time, and why you can’t fix things by trying to reform this system. And it means getting into what is the relationship between fighting particular abuses and outrages today, and being able to get to the point where you’re in a position to have an actual full-out revolution to dismantle the existing system and reconfigure the society on a completely different foundation.
There is something that has been on the revcom.us website recently which gives a short definition. It’s called “What IS An Actual Revolution?” I’m just going to read it here:
An actual revolution is a lot more than a protest. An actual revolution requires that millions of people get involved, in an organized way, in a determined fight to dismantle this state apparatus and system and replace it with a completely different state apparatus and system, a whole different way of organizing society, with completely different objectives and ways of life for the people.
“With completely different objectives and ways of life for the people.” I justwant to stay on that for a second. That’s a very important thing, how a society is organized. What does the system that governs the society—what is it aiming to do? Under capitalism-imperialism, it seeks to meet the needs of the capitalist-imperialists, in terms of being able to develop and sustain their empire, increase their profits, compete successfully with other capitalist-imperialists. It has very little to do with meeting the needs of the people, either the basic requirements of life or these more intangible things like art and culture and science. It is geared to meeting the needs of the capitalists, the imperialists. The whole state apparatus, the police and the armed forces, and so on, these are state institutions that are geared to buttressing, supporting and strengthening this system and its objectives, its goals.
And a real revolution is a process which actually involves getting to the point where you can fight—where millions of people can be involved in fighting—to dismantle, to break down and completely break apart the existing institutions of the system, and replace them with completely new institutions and new organs of power, and new ways of setting up the economy, and all the things that flow from that, including all sorts of ways that the people relate to each other, and all the ideas that flow from that. It’s a radical transformation in everything, from the way people live, to the way people relate to each other, to the way people dream and aspire to things—all of this undergoes a real sea change when you have an actual revolution.
And if you get into BA, this is what you should be looking for—you should be looking for his method and approach, his analysis of why things are the way they are. Why do police keep murdering unarmed Black and Brown people in this society? Why is this continuing what has been in existence since the days of slavery and Jim Crow? The “lynching culture” is now the “police murder of people culture”—it is an extension of the same thing. BA does a very deep and insightful analysis of the whole history of this and of how this is so woven into the fabric of this system that you can’t just wish it away, and you can’t even protest it away. You should protest, you should have strong fights against this, organize with other people, like the movement that’s been developing since Ferguson, a movement which started around Trayvon Martin and then built up around Mike Brown and Eric Garner, with people coming forward all over the country in different cities, and in cities around the world, to denounce this kind of thing. It is extremely important not only to continue this, but to actually expand it and have it grow and be stronger. It is part of organizing the people and strengthening the people.
And the same can be said around a number of other key concentrations of social contradictions, these key outrages in society, these contradictions that this systemcannot fix. They cannot fix the oppression of Black people, of Brown people. They cannotfix the way immigrants get blocked from borders or turned away or tormented or denounced as “illegals,” as if any human being were ever an “illegal” human being. It cannot fix the way women are degraded and treated as less than full human beings in this country and all around the world. It cannot fix the environment in any sustained fundamental way—not as long as we live under a system that is driven by a constant search, and a fierce competition, for profits, not as long as those are the rules of the system running things. The rules of the game for capitalism-imperialism are that capitalists are constantly competing with other capitalist-imperialists around the world to divide the world, and for plunder and pillage, and to increase their profits; and if you don’t play that game, and beat out others, you go under. So even if an individual capitalist wanted to have a more enlightened position, they can’t really do anything about it. The system is set up to meet the needs of that system, not the needs of the people.
So when you get into BA, you should be reading and listening and checking out all the different things that intrigue you and interest you, and talking to other people about it. You don’t have to agree with everything, just check it out, do some work. Get together with people, read things, listen to things, watch films, discuss things, and develop your own understanding, at the same time that you’re out there fighting and denouncing and exposing the injustices of everyday life as they’re going on right now, which BA is definitely encouraging people to do. At the same time that you’re doing that, keep going deeper, so that you really start to understand why these terrible outrageous abuses are built into the fabric of this system, and you can push back for a while, butultimately you cannot totally get rid of these abuses until you get rid of the system itself and replace it with a completely new system. BA makes very, very deep and insightful analyses of all of that: why you need a revolution; what is the possibility for a revolution; what is the basis—on what basis, even in a powerful imperialist country like the United States, with all its military and stuff, is it actually possible; and, if you succeed in seizing power, then how do you build a society that was worthfighting for, that you’d want to live in, as opposed to yet another bad system. All of that is in BA’s works.
In that statement I was reading about “What IS an Actual Revolution?” it gets into thelink between fighting the power today and building for an actual revolution. It says, “Fighting the power today has to help build and develop and organize the fight for the whole thing.” “The fight for the whole thing”—if you don’t get into BA, you’re going to be missing a lot about how to link all these different things together and understand their root causes, which are deeply built into the fabric of the system, and you won’t know how to fight for the whole thing. And you have to fight for the whole thing in order to have an actual revolution. And this statement ends, “Otherwise we’llbe protesting the same abuses generations from now!” I don’t know about you,but I don’t want that, three generations hence...people have made that point about Emmett Till, that people protested what happened to Emmett Till, the lynching of Emmett Till way back in the 1950s, and here we are protesting what happened to Eric Garner, to Mike Brown, to Oscar Grant, to Ramarley Graham, to Amadou Diallo, to Trayvon Martin, to Tamir Rice...the list goes on and on and on... Right? How long are we going to be doing the same thing?
So, yes, first of all, we should definitely be protesting, but we also need to go deeper and be more scientific and more organized and more unified, and we need to get smarter, frankly, about how we take on these things. Bob Avakian has developed a wholestrategy for the whole revolutionary process—not just for one corner of it, but forall the different components of it—in this country, in a country like the U.S., as well as having some very important insights for the development of revolution in other countries, including other types of countries, like Third World countries that are under the domination of imperialism, where it is necessary to work in somewhat different ways for an actual revolution.
So all that is some of what it means to get into BA. You know, just do the work. Go to the revcom.us website. Get BAsics. Get Revolution—Nothing Less! Watch the Dialogue. Read BA’s memoir, From Ike to Mao and Beyond. Listen to some of the cultural things. Listen to “All Played Out.” Play the “Borderline” song on the Outernational album. Watch and listen to these things with other people. There are many, many different angles and many different ways to get into this. Look, BA has spent a lifetime, he’s spent decades developing all of this work. You’re not going to be able to catch up, you’re not going to be able to “get it all,” in a few weeks or a few months or even a few years. But make a start, and then follow it up. Ask questions if things aren’t clear enough. Struggle with other people about their misconceptions. Go to your friends and family and talk to them about what you’re learning. And, by the way, expect to be mocked, ridiculed, criticized, to be told you don’t know what you’re talking about! Expect push back, OK? But don’t give up when that happens. Do the best you can in answering things, on the basis of what you’ve been learning, but when you run into things that you don’t understand well enough, go back to BA, go back to his materials, dig in a little deeper, talk to other people who know more about this, ask them for help, so that you can keep spreading this among the people.
The idea is that, if you had hundreds more, thousands more, tens of thousands more, discussing, debating what BA has been bringing forward, what he’s arguing for, his analysis, what he says the nature of the problem is, and what the nature of the solution is, then it’s not that everybody would immediately agree, but we’d all be so much better off—if everybody were having that kind of discussion, instead of just sort of turning their backs on the problems of society and the problems of the people and just cultivating their own little “self,” or maybe actually trying to fight some of these abuses but in a way that is sort of like being stuck in a narrow little cubicle, where you’re just taking on one issue, or one corner of one issue, but you’re not seeing the bigger patterns, and you’re not linking them up to the other egregious outrages in society, and you’re not understanding that there is actually a strategy to get out of this mess once and for all. There is a strategy. This is why you should get into BA, and this is how to make a start.
August 22, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
This article was originally published in 2014.
For those who don’t know, Fruitvale Station is a very powerful, moving, and excruciating film that depicts the last day in the life of Oscar Grant. Oscar was a 22-year-old, unarmed Black man murdered by Bay Area Rapid Transit police on New Year’s Day, 2009. He was returning home from celebrating on New Year’s Eve, when police stopped Oscar and the friends he was with, harassed and brutalized them, straddled Oscar as he lay face down on a subway platform, and fatally shot him in the back.
Not too long ago, I watched Fruitvale Station with Bob Avakian (BA), chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party. Towards the very end of the film, agonizing, heartbreaking and infuriating scenes are shown: The cop shooting Oscar in the back; Oscar’s girlfriend frantically rushing to the scene, trying to find out what happened; Oscar’s loved ones gathering together and waiting desperately to find out if he would make it, only to find out he was gone forever.
As these scenes unfolded, I looked over at BA. He was sobbing. Not just misty-eyed. Sobbing. And he continued to cry tears of heartbreak and rage for several minutes, as the closing credits rolled.
This made a very big impression on me. BA did not know Oscar Grant personally. But he felt the sting of his murder in an extremely raw and visceral way. And I think his reaction speaks volumes about who Bob Avakian is, what he represents, and what he is all about.
BA has literally been fighting against this system for 50 years. He has been a revolutionary communist for about 45 years. He has been shouldering the responsibility of leading the Revolutionary Communist Party for almost 40 years. And over the course of the last several decades, he has forged the theory and deepened the science for the revolution humanity needs to get free, while also providing practical leadership to the party and movement working for that revolution. And all of this has involved not only tremendous work, but also tremendous risk and sacrifice on BA’s part as anyone with a sense of U.S. history, and/or BA’s personal history—specifically, what this reveals about the way the U.S. government viciously goes after revolutionary leaders—should well understand. And over all these decades, and through everything described above, BA has never lost an ounce of his love and feeling for the masses of people, his sense of outrage and hatred for all the ways in which the masses suffer needlessly, and his fire for revolution to emancipate the masses all over the world. Not one bone in his body has become numb.
There is a great deal more that could be said about the experience of watching Fruitvale Station with BA. But I want to highlight two points.
First, I think that in BA’s reaction to this movie, there is a lot for revolutionary communists, and anyone with concern for humanity and hatred for oppression and injustice, to reflect on and learn from. Even with all the work BA has done and continues to do in the realm of theory, in order to forge a deeper understanding of why police murders like the execution of Oscar Grant and countless other outrages keep happening, the larger picture they are connected to, and how these outrages can be ended through revolution; even though BA has been at this for decades; and even with all of the horrors that pile up every single second that this system remains in place, there is absolutely no sense on BA’s part of world-weary detachment or defeatism when something like the murder of Oscar Grant goes down. His reaction is decidedly not: “Oh, well of course, this happens all the time, what do you expect?” Rather, he cries tears of rage and anguish, both because he feels acutely the pain of Oscar’s life being stolen and because he knows that outrages like this are completely unnecessary and that humanity does not have to live this way.
This brings me to the second point I want to make here—and it is one I want to give even greater emphasis to, even while the first point above is very important and very related. The point I want to close this letter with is: We had better fully recognize and appreciate what we have in BA, and act accordingly.
I’ll say it again: We had better fully recognize and appreciate what we have in BA, and act accordingly.
And when I say “we had better,” that “we” is addressed to many different people and audiences. Yes, I am most definitely speaking to revolutionaries and communists and to all those who are already deeply familiar with and supportive of BA. But in saying “we,” I am also speaking to those who are just now—or just recently—learning about and getting introduced to this revolutionary leader—including, to quote BA,“Those this system has cast off, those it has treated as less than human” who “can be the backbone and driving force of a fight not only to end their own oppression, but to finally end all oppression, and emancipate all of humanity.”
To all the masses of people, here and around the world, who suffer brutal oppression minute after minute, day after day... and to all those who may not directly suffer this oppression but ache for a world where this oppression is no more, I want to say this: If you do not know about Bob Avakian, or just recently learned about him, that is not your fault. But you, and millions of other people, need to understand how incredibly rare and precious it is for the people of the planet that we have this revolutionary leader and act in accordance with that reality.
BA is not only the leader of the revolution, he is also a best friend to the masses of people. He is a leader who has done decades of work in the realm of theory to bring forward the scientific method, strategy and vision needed to make revolution and bring into being a radically new world where all the horrors that humanity suffers unnecessarily would be no more. He is continuing to develop the advanced scientific method that he has forged, and apply that method to all of the big questions and obstacles confronting the revolution. He is able to break all of this down for people, without even slightly watering it down, in a way that everyone can understand, take up, and be inspired by. He has taken on the daily responsibility of leading a party and a movement to make revolution right here in the most powerful imperialist country in the world. He has dedicated his life to the emancipation of humanity. And, through all of this, he maintains a deep, visceral connection to and feeling for the masses of people who most desperately need this revolution.
A leader like this comes along very, very rarely. And when this does happen, the absolute worst thing we could do is fail to recognize this, fail to act in accordance with this, fail to take this seriously, or take this for granted. Instead, all of us—whether we have known about BA for decades, are just learning about him and what he represents, or anywhere in between, and whether you agree with BA about everything or not—must fully recognize and embrace what BA means for the people of the world. We must study, and learn all we can from his incredible body of work on the biggest questions of revolution and human emancipation, as well as the lessons of who he is and what he stands for as a revolutionary leader. We must realize that it is not just us who need to know about BA, his work and vision, and the leadership he is providing to this party and movement for revolution: millions of people must know about all of this, and this must impact all of society.
Furthermore, and very crucially, we must fully confront the reality of what it would mean for the people of the world to lose this leader, and take extremely seriously that there are people and forces—those officially part of the powers-that-be, as well as those willing to do the work of the powers-that-be—who hate what BA represents and would like nothing more than to tear him down, silence him, and take him from the masses of people. And we must be absolutely determined not to let that happen.
This means taking very seriously the need to do everything we can to protect and defend BA. This means denouncing and not giving a millimeter of space to those who slander and personally attack BA, because these attacks and slanders are part of creating the poisonous atmosphere and conditions that would make it easier for the powers-that-be, or those doing their bidding, to take BA from the people of the world. Protecting and defending BA, and building a wall around him, also means boldly and sharply challenging those who may not be part of the camp of the enemy, but who are wallowing in, or at least being influenced by, arrogance, cynicism and snark, and who seek to dismiss without seriously engaging what BA has brought forward; this arrogance, snark, cynicism, and dismissal, regardless of the intent of those who fall into it, stands in the way of BA and all that he has brought forward having the reach and societal influence that this urgently needs to have. And this, too, creates easier conditions for those who would try to silence and isolate BA and take him from the masses.
Few things in life are more tragic than a critical lesson learned too late. And it would truly be a tragedy if BA were taken from the people, and then people said: “Wow, I wish I had realized sooner what we had here.”
But the good news is: It is not too late. We, and the masses of the planet, have BA right now. We had better realize, and let everyone know, what that means.
In this Film, Bob Avakian Analyzes the Deep Roots and Driving Forces of Trump/Pence Fascism and What Must Be Done to Stop It.
Watch It Here, and Spread It.
| revcom.us
Be part of bringing the most serious answers to the most urgent questions to tens and hundreds of thousands, and ultimately millions.
This talk from Bob Avakian (BA) provides a scientific understanding of the roots of this fascist regime—in the history of the U.S. and the deeper roots in the system of capitalism-imperialism. He does so with passion, humor, humanity, and a deep sense of history. He cuts into the deepest, most agonizing questions, first in the speech and then in a wide-ranging Questions and Answers.
If more people watched this talk, it could change today’s political equation. But far too few have seen this talk, or even know about it. You are needed to be part of changing this.
Donate towards promotion of this film:
Scroll down for the film trailer, videos of the Q&A session following the speech, and clips from the film
Click to view the full speech.
The film and all video clips are also available for download HERE
NEW: Download, share, and watch each Q&A in a separate clip.
To download these clips, click the "v" icon on the bottom right of the clip to get to the Vimeo page, and scroll down to the button for "Download"
Q&A: What do you say to the comedians who ridicule Trump/Pence but also run the risk of contributing to normalizing fascism?
Q&A: The Democrats are supposed to be the lesser of two evils, but I don't want to vote for them. I know the system sucks, but what do we do in the interim?
Free yourself from the GTF! Clip from the film by Bob Avakian The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America - A Better World IS Possible
Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!
The Ongoing Need for Sustainers
During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.
So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.
Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.
You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.
You Can’t Change the World If You Don’t Know the BAsics
| revcom.us
Every week, revcom.us features one quote from BAsics, by Bob Avakian, the handbook for revolution. We encourage Revolution Clubs and other readers, everywhere, to take the time to discuss the quote—the whole quote—and to write us at revolution.reports@yahoo.com with accounts of these discussions, or thoughts provoked in yourself by reading the quote.
BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian
"You can't change the world if you don't know the BAsics."
BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian is a book of quotations and short essays that speaks powerfully to questions of revolution and human emancipation.
Order the book or download the book in ePub format HERE
Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!
The Ongoing Need for Sustainers
During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.
So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.
Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.
You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.
Stop the War on Women!
Abortion on Demand Without Apology!
We Need—And Demand—A Better World and the Full Emancipation of Women!
| revcom.us
A vicious wave of extreme abortion bans is sweeping the country. Missouri, Georgia, Kentucky and Alabama have established draconian laws meant to challenge Roe v. Wade in the country as a whole.
As of Tuesday, June 4, the state of Missouri may well shut down the only abortion clinic left in a state of six million people. Meanwhile, the courts have been packed with Christian fascist judges aiming to wipe out Roe v. Wade, with birth control next in their sights.
Think about it: Women are being demonized and called murderers for deciding when and whether to have children. The laws being enacted are not just “going back” but are much more severe—including exacting criminal sentences for women who have abortions and people who provide them. Hundreds have already been prosecuted and jailed for “endangering a fetus”—a broad category that has included “suspicious” miscarriages, not having a caesarean, taking Darvon during pregnancy, etc.
This is a war on women but it’s not being treated as such. People have been relying on politicians and judges for 50 years, while the right to abortion has been attacked and eviscerated. Look where it’s got us. All over the world religious fundamentalists and fascists are pushing women back into roles of traditional subservience... the fate of billions of women is being written by what we do—or do not do.
The National Revolution Tour calls on everyone who refuses to accept this violent, Dark Ages assault on women to stand up now and fight to stop these bans. Take to the streets on Tuesday, June 4 across this country. Wear bloody pants and heavy chains to dramatize the future being imposed on women.
This system of capitalism-imperialism has patriarchy woven into its fabric. So long as it stands, women will be constantly attacked. Now this worldwide wave of fascism and fundamentalism is hellbent on making things far, far worse. We need an actual revolution to fully and finally emancipate women, one half of humanity. We, the National Revolution Tour, are organizing now to get in position to make this revolution and are taking up this fight as an essential part of that. Join us on Tuesday in the streets and the public square to defend this right. Go to www.revcom.us/revolutiontour to find us. And join with us, the weekend of June 8 and 9 in LA, for a time of struggle, celebration and planning/organizing for a far better, emancipatory future.
Fetuses Are NOT Babies.
Abortion Is NOT Murder.
Women Are NOT Incubators!
Forcing women to have children against their will is a form of enslavement. Which future do you choose?
The whole question of the position and role of women in society is more and more acutely posing itself in today’s extreme circumstances... It is not conceivable that all this will find any resolution other than in the most radical terms... The question yet to be determined is: will it be a radical reactionary or a radical revolutionary resolution, will it mean the reinforcing of the chains of enslavement or the shattering of the most decisive links in those chains and the opening up of the possibility of realizing the complete elimination of all forms of such enslavement?
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Andy Zee and Michelle Xai
"Grand Experiment... As Serious As Your Life"
