Iran Downs U.S. Drone...U.S. Attack Reportedly Called Off:
Trump's "Restraint" Masks Heightened Danger of Devastating U.S. War against Iran...

June 24, 2019 | revcom.us

Early Thursday morning, June 20, Iran shot down a U.S. military surveillance drone with a surface-to-air missile. According to Iran, it had entered Iranian airspace and thus posed a potential threat. The U.S. immediately claimed the drone was in international waters and that Iran had committed an “unprovoked” act of aggression.

While Iran has published the GPS coordinates that it says show where the drone was shot down, the U.S. claims on the flight-path of the drone and whether it violated Iranian airspace are not yet backed up with similar evidence.

Early Friday, according to media reports, the U.S. was preparing to launch a military strike against several Iranian targets in retaliation. However, Trump claims that he then called off the attack at the last minute because he learned that 150 Iranians could be killed. Friday morning, he tweeted that number killed was “not proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone.”¹ This was widely hailed in the U.S. media (“very welcome” according to the New York Times) and by the political establishment including the Democrats. Nancy Pelosi said, “I’m glad the president did not take that” action.

It’s important, in sorting through all the claims and counter-claims, to keep some basic facts in mind:

First, notions of “unprovoked” aggression by Iran fly in the face of reality—and are a joke—when you consider U.S. actions, in the recent months and historically. The U.S. is—far and away—the real aggressor and danger here, even while the Islamic Republic is a reactionary theocracy engaged in its own maneuvers for power.

Second, there are divisions in the U.S. ruling class, including within the Trump/Pence regime and with the Democrats, on approach and policy to Iran, driven by how best to “advance” their imperialist interests, but there is fundamental unity among all of them on America’s need (and “right”) to dominate a strategically vital part of the world.

Third, far from receding, the threat of war remains real, and has escalated. And the current sanctions, economic warfare, are punishing the population of Iran.

Unprovoked Aggression, Yes... but by Whom?!

Let’s review a few things. It is the U.S., under Trump, NOT Iran, that in 2018 busted out of the nuclear deal² that Obama and the U.S., along with other world powers, had engineered in 2015,³ a move which immediately escalated tensions. It’s the U.S., under Trump, that viciously re-imposed sanctions. These sanctions have already savaged Iran’s oil-dependent economy, slashing its exports from 3.2 million barrels/day to 0.5 million, stoking inflation over 50 percent and unemployment over 25 percent, and causing massive suffering including death from lack of medicines. So who, really, is the ruthless, bloodthirsty aggressor?

In recent months, it’s the U.S. that has deployed nuclear-capable B-52 bombers, an aircraft carrier strike group, and thousands more troops to the region, and has threatened “the official end of Iran” if they don’t bow down. Just imagine if Iran had done anything approaching that in the Gulf of Mexico!

Amidst this tense situation, Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State, has claimed that Iran is supposedly linked with Al Qaeda, that it’s threatening U.S. forces in the region, and more recently that it’s been responsible for attacking oil tankers in the Gulf. Evidence for Pompeo’s allegations ranges from scanty to none. The U.S. media has mainly echoed and propagated a lot of this (even while occasional doubts and concerns are expressed)—taking it as fact that Iran is behind the attacks on tankers in vital shipping lanes, and that Iranian-backed forces in Yemen are responsible for missile attacks in Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally in the region.

Tom Cotton, a fascist Republican senator, has said obstruction of commerce such as shipping has historically been cause for war, with an underlying assumption that the U.S. is the righteous self-appointed police of such. What is incredibly dangerous and alarming, in accusations of provocative attacks, is that this steady drumbeat is part of building up a “casus belli”—Latin for “justification for war.”

Following all this and in this context, the U.S. sent a military drone on June 20 either into Iranian airspace (according to Iran and the GPS coordinates it published) or dangerously close. Then, when the Iranians shot down with a missile an unknown aircraft, which they claim refused to respond to their calls for identification, they’re accused of being aggressors! Meanwhile, U.S. officials cannot even guarantee the drone didn’t violate Iranian airspace,⁴ and have yet to provide any CONCLUSIVE proof or evidence to the contrary.

Two further points in this regard:

First: America’s mass murdering rulers are repeat offenders—at lying their way into war, with trumped-up accusations. In fact, America inaugurated its imperialist ambitions with a false allegation involving an attack on a U.S. warship, the USS Maine in Havana Harbor in Cuba,⁵ which was used as the provocation for the Spanish-American War and the U.S. domination in various ways of Puerto Rico, Cuba, Philippines and other Spanish territories. In 1964, the Gulf of Tonkin “attack”⁶ was used to justify the steep escalation in the war in Vietnam, and in Indochina more broadly, where the U.S. killed 3 million—yes, million!—Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians. Recently, there was the big lie that Saddam Hussein had “weapons of mass destruction,” used to rationalize the 2003 invasion and occupation of Iraq that has led to one million dead and five million plus driven from their homes. 

Second: As we wrote last week, the U.S. history of aggression against Iran goes back much further, and is driven by more vital imperialist interests, and is now acutely posed with challenges to the U.S. empire.

Deep Divisions... Within a Fundamental Unity on Need to Maintain Empire

There are serious differences in the U.S. ruling class—including apparently within the Trump/Pence regime itself. Some forces basically want to start launching military attacks to back Iran down, even if that leads to war. Others oppose going to “outright” war, especially with a country with a relatively strong and developed military. They fear what in the words of the New York Times could be a “cataclysm” that would ultimately hurt U.S. imperialist interests instead of furthering them.

Rather, they argue, it’s better to wage economic warfare, taking advantage of the U.S.’s dominant position in the imperialist world economy to strangulate Iran, with the threat of military decimation ever-present. They argue for continuing to tighten the noose of sanctions which have already slashed Iran’s oil exports and crippled its economy, vastly increasing the suffering of the Iranian people. At the same time, some of these forces remain “open” to war, and even see the sanctions as part of further weakening Iran in the event of outright U.S. military attack.

Embodying an unpredictable “good-cop/bad-cop” routine and their perverse synthesis of economic warfare and military threats, immediately after Trump told NBC’s Chuck Todd about his concern for “proportionality” of response, he threatened “it would be obliteration like you’ve never seen before” if it came to war with Iran.

And where are the Democrats in the face of this? Are they questioning the fundamental premise and basic right of the U.S. to dominate the Middle East, or decrying the sanctions as immoral and unjust?

Let’s look at Nancy Pelosi’s comments in this regard. Pelosi, the leading Democrat and speaker of the House, said, “We are in an extremely dangerous and sensitive situation with Iran”—NOT that the U.S. is the one creating an extremely dangerous situation. She continued, clarifying, “We must calibrate a response that de-escalates and advances American interests, and we must be clear as to what those interests are. We have no illusions about the dangerous conduct of the Iranian regime. This is a dangerous, high-tension situation that requires a strong, smart and strategic approach.”

The Democrats are part of the ruling class, a party that has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity when it deemed these necessary to “advance” those “American interests.” Right now, they largely see outright war as being harmful to those interests. Reflecting these sentiments and the thinking, two figures associated with the liberal section of the Democrats and their think tanks, wrote on NPR.org, “Iran is too big and strong to be toppled, and there is no strong united opposition capable of fomenting the kind of unrest that could overthrow the regime in the wake of U.S. military strikes. If the regime did collapse, it would likely be followed either by a period of instability or a government that is even more militantly anti-American.”  

At the same time, this is typical Democratic Party double-talk. Pelosi blurs who is fundamentally at fault, talks about de-escalation to satisfy the antiwar masses who the Democrats attempt to corral and domesticate, and then goes to the real deal: advancing American interests, which she never defines and which will apparently mean whatever she says that means. If the U.S. launches war, this would open the door for the Democrats to claim that they had wanted peace but now “American interests are under attack, so there is no choice but to fall in line.”

Danger and Threat of War Ever Present...

While “opting” for economic warfare is potentially part of what could have factored in Trump’s backing away from immediate military retaliation, the threat of war has NOT receded by any means.

First, it is far from clear how the difference in the Trump regime is going to resolve on the best way to deal with Iran and dominate the Middle East. It is very possible that those historically advocating for war, such as John Bolton, the National Security Advisor, will win out.⁷ Second, the whole situation is EXTREMELY tense with military build-up in the Persian Gulf. The situation is full of potential “trip-wires,” possibilities of accident and misunderstanding, that can ratchet up “ladders of escalation” to outright war. This would be so in any case but even more with Trump’s “America-First” logic and not wanting to be seen as weak, and what the Iranian theocracy faces, including with its own internal divisions and a population it brutally rules over.  

In the face of this escalating threat of war against Iran, it is even more critical that: All moves and actions the U.S. is undertaking in the Middle East be resolutely opposed by people in this country. The challenge posed in an accompanying article from RefuseFascism states it simply: THE QUESTION IS SHARPLY POSED TO EVERYONE WHO KNOWS RIGHT FROM WRONG: AT WHAT POINT DO YOU SAY “ENOUGH!”? This is a question—of morality, of humanity—to be asked of all. The author asks what it will take for people to do what is needed, to stop relying on the Democrats, to act, to step outside the “normal channels.”

Communists must go further and instill in people a sense that not only are the interests of the U.S. rulers NOT our interests, but the best possible outcome would be a defeat for the U.S. in whatever unjust military action it undertook.⁸ At the same time, people need to question... why does this system wage war over and over and over...what will it take to end America’s unending wars...and what is their responsibility in the face of this—including to repudiate American patriotism and to do all they can to end this scourge on humanity?⁹

1. There has been no widespread, scathing ridicule of the notion that Trump (or the U.S. ruling class) gives a damn about “proportionality.” Have these people looked on the border, where tens of thousands of migrants are being terrorized and locked up in filthy, inhuman concentration camps? Or in Yemen, where he’s armed and unleashed Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to continue their war in Yemen—a war that’s killed over 85,000 children and pushed 14 million—yes, million—people to the brink of famine? [back]

2. See “Trump Shreds Iran Nuclear Deal, Threatening Millions and Another War in the Middle East,” revcom.us, 5/14/18 [back]

3. See “U.S.-Iran Nuclear Deal: 6 Points of Orientation,” revcom.us, 7/20/15 [back]

4. At this writing, the U.S. has not released GPS coordinates of the location where they claim their drone was shot down. Meanwhile, the New York Times reports: “But a senior Trump administration official said there was concern inside the United States government about whether the drone, or another American surveillance aircraft, or even the P-8A manned aircraft flown by a military aircrew, actually did violate Iranian airspace at some point." “Trump Says He Was ‘Cocked and Loaded’ to Strike Iran, but Pulled Back,” New York Times, 6/22/19

On Saturday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo “pushed back vociferously, accusing Iranian leaders of ‘selling’ false information. Pompeo called the map tweeted by Iran’s foreign minister, which purported to show the drone’s path into Iranian airspace, ‘childlike’ and said U.S. intelligence services ‘should leave no doubt in anyone’s mind about where that unarmed vehicle was.’” “Pompeo accuses Iran of spreading ‘blatant disinformation’ on downing of drone,” Washington Post, June 23. And the New York Times is reporting that the U.S. is planning to present evidence on the drone shoot down at a UN meeting on Monday, June 25. [back]

5. The U.S. battleship Maine blew up on February 15, 1898 in Havana harbor—when Cuba was still one of Spain’s colonies. There was never any evidence that Spanish forces were involved in this explosion, but this did not stop the pro-war forces in the U.S. ruling class from publishing front-page drawings “showing” how the Spanish forces had attached mines to the bottom of the ship. Shouting “Remember the Maine!” the U.S. government rushed into a war to snatch an empire from Spain, seizing Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. [back]

6. On August 4, 1964, the U.S. claimed—falsely and without any real evidence—that North Vietnam had launched two unprovoked attacks on the U.S. fleet in the Gulf of Tonkin. In fact, the CIA was attacking North Vietnamese coastal installations, so any confrontation that happened would have been provoked by the U.S., and the second “incident” never took place. In fact, no attack of any kind took place. Nobody in the mainstream media seriously challenged the story at the time, much less asked what a fleet of U.S. warships was doing half-way around the world. But in “response” to these invented “incidents,” the U.S. Congress passed the “Gulf of Tonkin Resolution” which authorized the massive deployment of U.S. troops into southern Vietnam. It was the start of extreme escalation of warfare that led to the deaths of millions of people in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. [back]

7. In September 2018, Bolton threatened Iran that there would be “hell to pay” and “serious consequences” if it defies the U.S. In May 2019, Bolton announced the U.S. “is deploying the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force to the U.S. Central Command region to send a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force.” On June 23, 2019, in Israel, Bolton said, “Neither Iran nor any other hostile actor should mistake U.S. prudence and discretion for weakness. No one has granted them a hunting license in the Middle East.” [back]

8. This is the principle of revolutionary defeatism. “Revolutionary defeatism means that, for people in an imperialist country—or in any country where the government is carrying out an unjust war, a war of domination and plunder, a reactionary war that serves only to fortify oppression, or to replace one oppressive power with another—you must put special emphasis on opposing your own government in that war, even if the enemy of your government in that war is equally reactionary. It means that you must refuse to support your government in such a war and, beyond that, you must have a basic orientation of welcoming the setbacks and defeats of your government and making use of them to build opposition to your government and its reactionary war, in accordance with and guided by the objective of making revolution right within your own country and contributing all you can to the international revolutionary struggle. But revolutionary defeatism does not mean that you should actually support the enemy of your government if that enemy and the war it is waging is equally reactionary. Obviously, this can be complicated, and in order to correctly apply this orientation it is necessary to make a concrete analysis of the concrete situation while remaining firmly grounded in basic principle." Bob Avakian, from "The New Situation and Great Challenges." [back]

9. See the clip “Wars of Empire, Armies of Occupation & Crimes Against Humanity” from the film of BA’s speech WHY WE NEED AN ACTUAL REVOLUTION AND HOW WE CAN REALLY MAKE REVOLUTION. [back]

Originally posted at RefuseFascism.org:

The Trump/Pence Regime Puts Iran in its Crosshairs... We Should Be Screaming, but the Silence Is Deafening

May 17, 2019 | revcom.us

by Coco Das

Editor’s Note June 24, 2019: We are reposting this piece by Coco Das, originally posted at RefuseFascism.org, on the escalated threats and danger of war against Iran and what is to be done. She asks: THE QUESTION IS SHARPLY POSED TO EVERYONE WHO KNOWS RIGHT FROM WRONG: AT WHAT POINT DO YOU SAY “ENOUGH!”? This is a question—of morality, of humanity—to be asked of all. Das asks what it will take for people to do what is needed, to stop relying on the Democrats, to act, to step outside the “normal channels”...

The societal response is far from commensurate, as horrors pile up, as catastrophes threaten. All of this is utterly unnecessary; it is the workings and product of the system—the same system that has given rise to this fascist Trump/Pence regime, and of which it is a grotesque manifestation. A radically different and far better world is possible by getting rid of this system through an actual revolution. From this goal and perspective, the imperative—moral and political—is even greater to unite with millions to drive out this fascist regime.  

The Trump/Pence regime is readying warships with a ton of firepower directed at Iran, a dangerous escalation of aggression based on the same rhetoric used to justify the criminal invasion of Iraq, using flimsy evidence of a “new and credible threat” of a planned attack on “American interests.”

Along with allies in Israel and Saudi Arabia, this regime has been laying the groundwork for a war with Iran since Trump’s first overseas visit in 2017. There, they introduced a “strategic vision” for the Middle East that included isolating Iran as a common enemy. In the past month, this vision has come closer to reality.

Imagine being one of the 82 million people in Iran right now. You are staring into the barrel of the most powerful military in the world. You are facing the escalating possibility that your country will be bombed. You wonder if your country will become the next Iraq, plunged into chaos after an American invasion. You take seriously the threats of a powerful lunatic who pulls out of an international nuclear treaty and won’t take his own use of nuclear weapons “off the table.” You plan ahead for economic collapse if the Trump regime’s efforts to stop Iran’s oil exports succeed. You hope your loved ones will survive, will not starve like the people of Yemen. Then you brace yourself as nuclear-capable B-52 bombers are pointed in your direction.

We should be in the streets screaming at the top of our lungs to stop this, refusing to allow this gangster regime to unleash fire and fury on the world! But instead, the silence has been deafening. Whatever is stopping you from acting in a way that is commensurate with the danger and the horror that is about to be unleashed on millions of people, get over it.

THE QUESTION IS SHARPLY POSED TO EVERYONE WHO KNOWS RIGHT FROM WRONG: AT WHAT POINT DO YOU SAY “ENOUGH!”?

At what point do you face the reality that this regime is on the offensive and will not allow itself to be stopped or deterred by what you have been taught are the “normal channels”? At what point do you relocate your sense of justice and humanity and say that just because it isn’t happening to you—yet—doesn’t mean it should not be resisted with actual action?

At what point do you face the reality, for which the past three years and every passing week provide mountains of evidence, that the Democratic Party cares more about preserving this system than it does about preventing and getting rid of fascism and everything that goes with that fascism? At what point do you come to grips with the fact that the Democratic Party will line up in lockstep—and right now is doing everything it can to line you up—for whatever wars this regime is either planning or will “stumble into”?

The Democratic Party is not going to stop these threats against Iran. They are busy reaching across the aisle and campaigning for 2020. We should count on them to oppose a war with Iran as effectively as they opposed the invasion of Iraq and the years of horrors that followed. That is to say, not at all.

The Iranian graphic novelist Marjane Satrapi made a profound statement years ago. “The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same.”

This is even truer now. Our people are the people of the world. Our interests are the interests of humanity. What your government wants you to do for their interests, you must refuse to do.

Only WE can stop this, the millions of us who have a heart and conscience but who are being cajoled into normalizing a fascist nightmare. Now is the time to reset your commitment to maintaining your morality and your humanity. Sign the Refuse Fascism Call to Action, which clearly states the vision and strategy in which, “tens of thousands beginning in several cities and towns, with marches, candlelight vigils, rallies – students, religious communities, immigrants, everyone with a heart for humanity in the streets and not backing down – growing from thousands to hundreds of thousands and eventually millions. Our actions will reflect the values of respect for all of humanity and the world we want – in stark contrast to the hate and bigotry of the Trump/Pence fascist regime. The whole world will take heart.”

Donate to get this message out across the country, manifesting the power of “NO!” and showing people how to refuse to accept the unacceptable.

People all over the world are counting on us to stop this nightmare. Let’s get down to the work of building a movement that will drive out this regime and set whole new terms for society. This is possible, there is a role for everyone, but humanity needs you to step up now.

Coco Das (@coco_das) is a contributing editor to RefuseFascism.org 

Iranian children

A Highly Political “Non-Political” Prosecution

Government Puts Two On Trial For Protesting Trump-Pence Fascist Regime

June 24, 2019 | revcom.us

When your government is carrying out crimes against humanity, should you do nothing or should you SOUND THE ALARM?

For two members of Refuse Fascism and the Revolution Club in Los Angeles on trial this week, the answer was the latter. For this, they are being illegitimately prosecuted. Everyone concerned about the danger of a fascist America needs to stand with them.

A year and a half ago, on September 26 and November 21, 2017, a total of eight people stood on the 101 Freeway in Los Angeles at rush hour with the message “November 4: It Begins” and “Trump/Pence Must Go!” to call on others to act to stop the extreme danger to humanity and the planet posed by this regime. If found guilty, they could face up to three years in jail and fines up to $2,000.

These actions were taking up the Call from Refuse Fascism for “massive, sustained nonviolent protests in the streets of cities and towns across the country—protests that continue day after day and don’t stop, creating the kind of political situation in which the demand that the Trump/Pence regime be removed from power is met.”

Ask Yourself: Why Would These Defendants Nonviolently Risk Life and Limb to Make a Political Statement?

Chantelle, one of the two defendants now on trial, spoke to why she was compelled to act: “I decided to be part of the freeway action because I was confronted with doing nothing or doing something.... [Trump is] demonizing immigrants, calling them criminals, drug dealers, and rapists. Vilifying them in order to justify the ripping apart of families, and deportation back to the dangerous conditions in which they fled, jailing them and now detaining them in concentration camps in the most horrific conditions. People don’t understand that this is all extremely vital to consolidating a fascist regime. You need to cast off group after group and incite fear among the masses. He has given more power to the police ‘taking off the gloves’ and intensifying and legitimizing their torment of Black and Brown people. Even attacking our constitutional rights suppressing dissent and resistance....”

Alex, her co-defendant, said: “In 2017, a year and a half ago, think of what the Trump/Pence fascist regime was doing at that time... threatening North Korea with nuclear war, banning Muslims, restricting trans people from the military.... There was some outrage against this but people were just protesting as usual. Taking to the streets and then going home. What was needed, the only thing commensurate to what was going on, was people taking to the streets and not leaving. This was the call from Refuse Fascism for November 4: to bring millions into the streets in sustained, nonviolent political protest to stay in the streets until the regime is driven out.

“Also, we did this to sound the alarm against fascism. Those were not normal times. And now, fast forward to a year and a half later, look at all the children in concentration camps. And lawyers for the Justice Department are justifying all these things. Saying that migrant children don’t need toothbrushes, beds, anything sanitary.... All these things have consequence. This is the logic that leads to genocide... this is fascism!”

People like Chantelle and Alex understood the importance of stopping business as usual. Chantelle said, “Something bigger than a protest as usual needed to happen, and Refuse Fascism recognized all this immediately. People were getting in the streets... but then they were going home... then the next day less would be in the streets then again going home, then no one was in the streets. If we aren’t just as outraged now and driven into the streets to demand this regime be removed then what are we doing? We are accepting it, we are adjusting to nightmare after nightmare, horror after horror…. When we drive to work while this regime is stripping away rights of LGBTQ people we are normalizing fascism. While we drink our coffee and watch TV while ICE is ripping families apart we are collaborating with fascism. I couldn’t sit by and watch these things happening. I understood the danger and the importance of stopping Trump from gaining any more momentum. I proudly got in the freeway with the message of NOV 4: IT BEGINS. I stepped onto the freeway to show other people what is needed in order to drive out this regime. We, the people, need to stand up against the horrors of the Trump/Pence regime. In the name of HUMANITY, we need to break out of the safety of our routines and refuse to accept a fascist America. I got on the freeway for seven billion people of the world.”

It is very unfortunate that masses of people did not answer this call. This was the right thing to do—then and now, and had people taken the streets we might be living in a very different situation right now. The point is not to rue what might have been, but to act NOW to defend these fighters—as part of going forward now to what does need to be done.

A Very Political “Nonpolitical” Prosecution

The prosecutors for the city government have insisted there is nothing political about this trial, that it’s a simple case of allegedly violating traffic laws and disobeying police orders. But everything about this screams political prosecution.

First of all, the charges against these defendants were not brought by the California Highway Patrol, they were brought by the Major Crimes/Anti-Terrorist Division (ATD). This is part of the LAPD’s “Counter Terrorism and Special Operations Bureau”—the POLITICAL police. This division has a sordid history of spying, harassment, and deadly repression against a broad spectrum of political groups and individuals. If there is “nothing political” about this trial, then why is the Anti-Terrorist Division pressing charges for supposedly blocking traffic?!

Second, the ATD sent a spy into Refuse Fascism meetings to secretly record meetings and conversations with people, including one of the defendants now on trial. The prosecution has gone out of its way repeatedly to prevent this fact from coming up in the courtroom as it makes clear the political nature of these charges. As Alex himself said, “These trials and these charges are there to intimidate people. What does it mean that they sent a spy into meetings? This has a chilling effect where people don’t want to be part of what's needed....” If there is “nothing political” about this trial, then why did the ATD send a spy into meetings—and why does the prosecution want to keep this fact from the jury?

Third, part of this freeway case included a set of conspiracy charges filed against two of the people accused of leading this protest who were well-known spokespeople for Refuse Fascism. After a judge ordered the city to turn over more information about its spying operation, including the identity of the spy, the city decided instead to drop these charges. Historically, conspiracy charges have been used to go after political leaders and amount to making it illegal to be part of organizing—or sometimes even discussing—a political protest beforehand. If there is “nothing political” about this trial, why did the city set up such charges—only to drop them when the highly political and highly repressive character of their actions were about to be exposed?

This is not about a traffic violation, this is about the suppression of dissent—trying to force any and all protest against this regime back into the safe confines of protest and politics as usual—while this regime continues to tear up what have been the ruling norms of society.

***

The only just verdict for the people who put themselves on the line to stop the business as usual of this fascist regime is NOT GUILTY.

In this moment—with Trump threatening to unleash war on the people of Iran, continuing to separate families and cage children in hellish conditions at the border—it is politically and morally imperative that people defy this regime: acting commensurate with the danger to the planet and standing with those who have.

DOWNLOAD POSTER (PDF)

DOWNLOAD POSTER (PDF)

June 13, 2019 | revcom.us

JULY 4, 2019: IMAGINE A WORLD WITHOUT AMERICA

A Call to Act

From the National Revolution Tour and the Revolution Club

On July 4, 1852, the great anti-slavery fighter Frederick Douglass said:

“...[For] revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.”

As we approach July 4, 2019...

• When the American flag flies over concentration camps on the border, where children cry and even die...
• When that same bloody rag blesses the bombs and planes and troops that have murdered and mangled hundreds of thousands of children in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and dozens more countries in just the past decade...
• When it flies over the pens of mass incarceration filled with over 2 million people, mostly Black, Latino, or Native American, and is sewn as a shoulder patch on the arms of the murdering police who send them there, if the pigs don’t kill these youth first...
• When it is pasted on the derricks that drill into the earth and destroy the environment...
• When it sits on the lapels of the legislators who rip from women the right to control their own bodies...
• When it is waved by the shameless fascist jackal who struts as president and who plans to bray and grunt a “speech” that day in Washington, DC...

We echo Frederick Douglass and say: “‘Barbarity and hypocrisy’? Truer words were never spoken—whether back then, today, or all through U.S. history.”

And we echo and stand with the leader of the revolution today, Bob Avakian, when he says:

If you can conceive of a world without America—without everything America stands for and everything it does in the world—then you’ve already taken great strides and begun to get at least a glimpse of a whole new world. If you can envision a world without any imperialism, exploitation, oppression—and the whole philosophy that rationalizes it—a world without division into classes or even different nations, and all the narrow-minded, selfish, outmoded ideas that uphold this; if you can envision all this, then you have the basis for proletarian internationalism. And once you have raised your sights to all this, how could you not feel compelled to take an active part in the world historic struggle to realize it; why would you want to lower your sights to anything less?

The Crucial Importance of the New Communism and BA's Leadership

June 17, 2019 | revcom.us

The following is a summation of some group study and discussion of the new communism and the leadership of Bob Avakian (BA).

First of all, I want to say that it has been truly great, deeply meaningful, critically important—and a lot of fun!—digging into the work, leadership and method of BA together. I have been thinking recently about some key themes and lessons that occur to me regarding our study and discussions and their purpose and importance. There is obviously so much that I could highlight—in terms of the key points we have gotten into in these sessions and the significance of these sessions—and trying to cover it all would be well beyond the scope of what I have written here (which ended up being longer than I envisioned when I started). However, I wanted to frame our work together with two overall themes.

The first of these themes is drawn from the beginning of a quote from BA: “Let’s get down to basics: We need a revolution. Anything else, in the final analysis, is bullshit.” (from BAsics 3:1)

The second theme is the critical role of revolutionary theory.

Let me briefly get further into each of these themes—in general, as it relates to the role and importance of BA and his leadership in the world, and also as it relates to our study and discussions.

Given how much there is to say on each of these two themes, I can only really scratch the surface here. But let’s start with the first one:

“Let’s get down to basics: We need a revolution. Anything else, in the final analysis, is bullshit.”

The understanding captured in this quote not only speaks to the state of the world and of humanity—and to what is urgently needed in light of this—but also, relatedly, illuminates WHY we have been engaging in this study and discussion together and WHY this is so important.

We have often talked—and very correctly so, to be clear—about having “cool” discussions. But it’s important to understand that this is NOT fundamentally about having “cool,” “interesting,” “fun” or “mentally stimulating” discussions, even though these discussions definitely ARE all of these things!

Rather, our work together has a specific purpose: to deepen our understanding of the world not just for the sake of knowledge in some academic sense, but in order to radically CHANGE the world. And, more specifically, to deepen our understanding and application of the science of revolution and communism, as this science has been qualitatively advanced in groundbreaking ways through the new communism brought forward by BA—deepening our grasp and application of this science as a key part of contributing to the process of making revolution on the basis of this new communism.

Just look at the world! We have talked about the “5 STOPS,” which speak to five key, defining contradictions of this capitalist-imperialist system. These 5 STOPS are: “STOP Genocidal Persecution, Mass Incarceration, Police Brutality and Murder of Black and Brown People!”... “STOP the Patriarchal Degradation, Dehumanization, and Subjugation of All Women Everywhere, and All Oppression Based on Gender or Sexual Orientation!... Stop Wars of Empire, Armies of Occupation, and Crimes Against Humanity!... Stop the Demonization, Criminalization and Deportations of Immigrants and the Militarization of the Border!... Stop Capitalism-Imperialism from Destroying Our Planet!”

A quick glance at the news from the past few weeks alone will reveal that the contradictions spoken to in these 5 STOPS—and the staggering level of suffering and misery caused by these contradictions—are only intensifying.

This is on top of the countless other forms of tremendous poverty, deprivation, misery, exploitation, oppression and suffering spawned by this system and heaped upon literally billions of human beings and humanity as a whole every single day that this capitalist-imperialist system continues.

A key point to understand, which BA’s work illuminates so sharply and powerfully, is that NONE of these outrages are accidental, isolated or disconnected from each other. They have a common source—this SYSTEM of capitalism-imperialism. These outrages and horrors for humanity are woven into this system’s rules, its operation, its “DNA,” its roots, its historical and ongoing functioning. For this reason, the system CANNOT be reformed—it must be overthrown through revolution.

This point about the NEED for an actual revolution—as opposed to attempts to “fix” or “heal” or “reform” a system that in fact CANNOT be fixed, healed or reformed—in order to put an end to the countless ways that humanity suffers needlessly is, I believe, one vital takeaway from our study and discussions of BA’s work; it is one critical point on which our collective understanding should be significantly deepened.

Another one of these vital points that I think has been a theme of our study and discussions—especially recently, as we have watched the most recent film from BA (Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution) and listened to the Q & A from this film—is what an actual revolution IS, what it involves and what it requires.

An actual revolution does NOT just mean “a big change”—in one form or another—which is how many people think of it or try to define it. Rather, an actual revolution means overthrowing the capitalist-imperialist system, meeting and defeating its repressive force, dismantling its institutions and setting up a new, socialist system and state power and society—and, accordingly, new institutions—on the road to communism. Right now is NOT the time for an actual revolution, because the necessary conditions for this revolution do not yet exist. But right now IS the time to be working for, hastening (i.e., working to accelerate the emergence of) and preparing for an actual revolution.

This point leads us to the question of what we ALREADY do have, and what we DON’T yet have and therefore need to urgently work on bringing into being, in terms of the necessary factors and conditions for revolution.

In terms of what we DO have: By far the biggest positive factor we have is BA. Through decades of work, BA has forged the new communism, which is the framework—and, most fundamentally, the scientific understanding and method—that humanity needs to make revolution and continue that revolution all the way to communism. Think about this: Just as the first round of communist revolutions would never have happened without the initial scientific breakthroughs and framework forged by Marx, so the next round of communist revolutions will not happen without millions of people taking up the further scientific breakthroughs and framework forged by BA.

The framework of the new communism includes: a comprehensive and further developed scientific understanding of the nature of the problem, that is, the nature of capitalism-imperialism, how it specifically operates, historically and in the world today, why and how it is responsible for the many different forms of suffering that humanity faces and why this system cannot be reformed and must be swept away through revolution; a viable strategy for revolution—for working now to hasten while awaiting a revolutionary situation and then winning in that future situation; and a concrete, vivid and thoroughly developed vision and “blueprint” for a radically different socialist society on the road to communism, as put forward in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, authored by BA.

Most fundamentally and importantly—and this is a thread running through and underlying the understanding, strategy and vision—is the scientific METHOD of the new communism.

The new communism forged by BA builds upon—but also goes far beyond, and in some key ways breaks with—the past experience in theory and practice of the communist movement.

Speaking in depth to the totality and specific dimensions of the new communism is also beyond the scope of what I am writing here, but to quickly highlight some key points of this.

In terms of the totality of what is represented by the new communism, I want to quote the first of the Six Resolutions of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, which we have previously discussed. This first resolution makes the point that the new communism

represents and embodies a qualitative resolution of a critical contradiction that has existed within communism in its development up to this point, between its fundamentally scientific method and approach, and aspects of communism which have run counter to this.

This point is important enough that I think it bears repeating in order to help facilitate ongoing further reflection: The new communism “represents and embodies a qualitative resolution of a critical contradiction that has existed within communism in its development up to this point, between its fundamentally scientific method and approach, and aspects of communism which have run counter to this.”

While—as this quote from the first resolution points out—communism’s method and approach has been FUNDAMENTALLY scientific, there have been important ways in which past socialist societies along with the communist movement, past and present, have taken up unscientific and even ANTI-scientific ways of thinking, methods and approaches to understanding and transforming reality, with very harmful effects.

The new communism brought forward by BA qualitatively resolves this contradiction, putting communism on a more firmly scientific footing and therefore carving out the method and framework that makes it possible—not inevitable, but possible—to confront and transform the many contradictions involved in making revolution and continuing that revolution all the way to communism.

Needless to say, this is a big deal in terms of the possibilities this new communism opens up for humanity!

While, once again, it is not possible to review in depth the various specific dimensions of the new communism, I want to highlight here three examples of this.

*First, the new communism breaks new ground—and breaks with unscientific approaches within the communist movement—in terms of its approach to the TRUTH, the process by which the truth should be pursued, understood and arrived at, and the importance of going for the truth not just in a general sense but specifically in terms of the goal of getting to communism.

The new communism’s approach to this breaks with the unscientific and harmful ideas—which have far too often and to far too great a degree infected the past and present of the communist movement at different points—that a particular section of society, such as communists, or the most oppressed and exploited, have a monopoly on truth; the idea that whether or not a statement is true should be evaluated based on the class (or social) position of the person making the statement; the idea that different classes have their own versions of the truth, i.e., that the proletariat has its truth and the bourgeoisie has its truth; the notion of “populist epistemology”—that whether or not something is true should be evaluated based on the numbers of people who believe it at a given time; the notion of “political truth”—the idea that whether or not something is true should be evaluated based on whether or not it is viewed as convenient at a given time.

Once again, all of those wrong ways of thinking are not just prevalent in society more broadly but have been significant problems in the past and present of the communist movement.

In opposition to all of this is the understanding encompassed in BA’s new communism that truth is... TRUTH! That it does NOT have a class character, nor is it determined by whether it is viewed as politically convenient in the short term, nor is it determined by the number of the masses who recognize it as truth at a given time. That truth is determined by whether or not something corresponds to objective reality, and it must be fully confronted in all of its dimensions—including those that might be unfortunate or inconvenient in the short run—as an essential part of actually getting to communism.

These points are encompassed in this very important quote from BA that speaks to a key breakthrough in understanding concentrated in the new communism:

Everything that is actually true is good for the proletariat, all truths can help us get to communism. (BAsics 4:5)

Once again, as BA has pointed out, the new communism’s breakthroughs in regard to the truth are not just a matter of recognizing that going for the truth is essential in general—though this understanding is encompassed, too—but that going for the truth is essential IN ORDER TO GET TO COMMUNISM.

*A second example of a specific key dimension of the new communism is its breakthrough in regard to internationalism—the understanding that “the whole world comes first.” This is not just a moral stand—although it is ALSO that—but represents a more fully scientific understanding of internationalism and its importance in the process of making and continuing revolution, and a rupture with and departure from unscientific understandings of internationalism in the past and present of the communist movement. This breakthrough developed with BA’s new communism includes the understanding that the world situation is principal—in other words, that it is the most important factor setting the terms—in regard to the process of making revolution in any particular country; that there can sometimes be a sharp contradiction between the needs of a particular socialist state and the need to advance the world revolution, and that advancing the world revolution must come first; and that in past revolutions there were sometimes important errors made by failing to recognize this and putting the needs of particular socialist countries above the world revolution. Here again, this is not just a matter of an abstract idea of internationalism, but principles based on the work BA has done to deeply engage and synthesize the correct understanding of and approach to the actual contradictions involved in consistently applying internationalism, with all the complexity and difficulty involved in this. (In this regard, the discussion of internationalism in BA’s book THE NEW COMMUNISM is very important.)

*A third example of specific dimensions in which the new communism has broken new ground is in terms of the method of “solid core with a lot of elasticity on the basis of the solid core,” which is a scientific understanding which in fact ruptures with the past understanding and approach of the communist movement in important ways, including in the application of this method to the process of making revolution and leading the future socialist society.

In terms of epistemology (theory of knowledge) and method, “solid core with a lot of elasticity on the basis of the solid core” intertwines with some of the key points made earlier in regard to truth and comprehends that while the communist method and approach is the most systematic, comprehensive and effective means of getting to the truth, this does not mean that communists have a monopoly on the truth and are always correct or that those NOT applying the communist method and approach are always incorrect; rather, those coming from other outlooks, methods and approaches can discover important truths and shed important light on elements of reality. Therefore, the METHOD of solid core with a lot of elasticity on the basis of the solid core involves applying the communist outlook, method and approach to reality with a specific goal, making revolution and getting to communism, while also understanding the need—ON THE BASIS OF APPLYING THAT METHOD—to learn from, sift through and sort out what is brought forward through many diverse streams of human activity and by people coming from a broad range of perspectives, including those that are not communist and even opposed to communism in some cases.

Applying this understanding of solid core with a lot of elasticity on the basis of the solid core to the process of making revolution and then continuing that revolution in the future socialist society on the road to communism, BA’s new communism recognizes—on a level far beyond and in some cases in opposition to the way this was understood prior to the new communism—the complexity and diversity of human activity and thought that must be involved in the process of making revolution and leading a socialist society to communism. This includes recognizing in a whole new way and on a whole other level the importance of dissent, debate, experimentation, ferment and individuality—not individualism but individuality—in socialist society.

To contrast this with one example from the first wave of socialist societies: In socialist China—which, again, overall represented an enormous leap for humanity in so many different spheres and overall—Marxism was in essence viewed as an “official ideology” that people in socialist society should profess, while the new communism, and in particular the approach of “solid core with a lot of elasticity on the basis of the solid core,” embodies the understanding that the leading element in socialist society needs to be communism, but this should not be enshrined and institutionalized as, in effect, an “official ideology” but put forward and struggled for as something people need to be won to and to consciously and voluntarily take up, while at the same time recognizing the importance of giving space to and engaging, and learning what can and should be learned from, the insights of others who have not, yet, been won to communism.

As positive as the overall experience of socialism in China was, BA’s new communism represents a very different vision of socialist society that involves a radical leap forward from even the best of the past.

So, these three examples—related to the approach towards truth, internationalism and solid core with a lot of elasticity on the basis of the solid core—are just that: three of many examples and points that could be offered to illustrate just how profoundly new BA’s new communism is, and the ways in which this new communism (to go back to the quote from the first of the six resolutions):

represents and embodies a qualitative resolution of a critical contradiction that has existed within communism in its development up to this point, between its fundamentally scientific method and approach, and aspects of communism which have run counter to this.

The works that we have read, watched and listened to from BA have been an application and illustration of the new communism—and this has immersed us in this new communism, in an overall way, as captured by the quote from the first resolution as well as in various specific dimensions, including the three highlighted in this letter.

Accordingly, our study and discussion of this work should have deepened our understanding and application of the new communism and its scientific method. Many of our discussions, in fact, have involved studying BA’s scientific method and seeking to take up and apply this method ourselves, to the best of our ability, even while not being able to do this on anywhere near the same level that BA himself does. This focus on method has been extremely important and instructive, manifested, for instance, in the way that we have studied and sought to emulate the way that BA boldly confronts, plainly presents and systematically unpacks the key contradictions and questions of the revolution, involving and inviting others to join him on that journey.

So, once again to return to the question of what we HAVE in regard to the factors and conditions needed to make revolution, the biggest positive factor we have by far is BA, the scientific framework, breakthrough and understanding that he has forged with the new communism, and the ongoing leadership he is providing. This leadership, as highlighted in the second of those six resolutions, involves an extremely rare combination: the ability “to develop scientific theory on a world-class level, while at the same time having a deep understanding of and visceral connection with the most oppressed, and a highly developed ability to ‘break down’ complex theory and make it accessible to the masses of people.” Our viewing, listening, reading and related study/discussion has also driven home this rare combination point repeatedly and powerfully.

In terms of what we don’t yet have, and therefore urgently NEED to work on bringing into being in order to make an actual revolution: We don’t yet have masses of people, first in the thousands and then in the millions, who are won to this revolution and its leadership and developed as an organized force for this revolution; we don’t yet have a situation where the party that is needed to lead the revolution has grown and been expanded and strengthened to the point where it has the necessary ties and influence in society to actually lead a revolution; and we don’t yet have a revolutionary crisis in which the system is unable to rule in the traditional way.

So, the urgent task before us—not just us, but certainly ALSO us—is to take the critical things we DO have and go to work on bringing into being what we DON’T yet have.

This theme—of what we do have, what we don’t have, and what we therefore need to get busy doing—has been another theme both directly spoken to and objectively posed by the works of BA that we have dug into and by our discussions of these works.

Bringing into being the conditions that we don’t yet have is urgently necessary, absolutely possible and in line with reality and how it can be changed, and there is a strategy for going to work on this, as we have discussed recently. But this will not be easy—it will take lots of STRUGGLE, repeatedly and fundamentally on a societal level.

This understanding, too, is another theme that jumps out in reflecting on our study and discussion.

We should understand that we are not operating on an “empty playing field.” There can be a tendency, especially when people are young and still relatively inexperienced politically, to think that everyone with a decent heart will immediately rally to the correct understanding of reality as soon as they are exposed to this understanding. And without question, there is a tremendous basis to win MILLIONS of people to this revolution and its leadership because it DOES, in fact, correspond to reality and to what humanity needs, and no other program and line does.

However, the understanding of BA and the new communism is, to put it simply, contending with all kinds of wrong ways of thinking, on all kinds of questions, that are spontaneously called forth and actively and repeatedly promoted by this system, and it is contending with all kinds of wrong LINES—i.e., wrong outlooks and methods applied to reality—that keep people trapped within this system. This includes, but is not limited to, people in society who call themselves “socialists” or “communists” but are actually about nothing that has anything to do with actual socialism and communism and really just want to reform capitalism and perhaps slightly redistribute the wealth generated by the capitalist system of exploitation. These reformists have nothing to do with an actual revolution and bringing into being a radically different world—and in some cases they will even admit as much. In any case, these fake socialists and communists are often some of those who most viciously attack BA and the GENUINE communism represented by BA, the new communism, precisely because BA and the new communism ACTUALLY represent what they may PRETEND to be about but in reality fundamentally oppose: real revolution and communism.

Few things are as threatening to a poseur as someone who actually IS what they PRETEND to be.

Returning to society more broadly: sharp ideological struggle must be waged—not just on an individual level or in small numbers, but among MASSES OF PEOPLE, and on a SOCIETAL SCALE—to rupture people out of all the wrong ways of thinking and wrong lines that they are caught up in and into the framework of BA’s new communism.

Once again, there is every basis and every urgency to do this, exactly because BA and the new communism correspond to reality and how it can and must be changed, while these other lines and ways of thinking do NOT. But this will take determined, sharp struggle—of the sort emphasized and modeled by BA in the works that we have studied together.

This brings me to the point with which I want to briefly conclude, which is the second of the two themes I have emphasized.

The Importance of Revolutionary Theory

Another tendency that people can have when they are young and relatively inexperienced is the tendency to view “doing stuff” as the most important political task at hand. “Doing stuff” can be defined in a number of different ways, including things such as attending programs, events or protests or doing “on the ground” political outreach and work.

Well, first of all, the question of “doing WHAT stuff” is immediately posed. In other words, what KIND of political work and outreach are people doing, and what KIND of programs and protests—around what line—are people seeking to be involved in? This is obviously a key question.

It’s not the case, as people often think and sometimes say, that “it’s all good”—in other words, “liberal”/“progressive”/“socialist”/“communist”—“sure, sure we all basically want the same things and are on the same page.”

NO. While there are certainly some important areas in which genuine communists can find unity with broad ranks of progressives, there are different lines out there and these different lines are in contention and lead to fundamentally different understandings of the problem and solution in the world.

So, that’s the first question: doing “WHAT” stuff and with WHAT goal?

That said, “doing stuff” in the right sense—i.e., doing “practical work” on the ground and in the broader society to promote this revolution and its leadership, to organize people into the revolution, working to hasten and prepare for an actual revolution, to Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution, including through different forms of political outreach, programs and discussions, demonstrations and protests, etc.—is extremely critical and important, and in fact urgently necessary.

But it is important to understand that in a movement for revolution—like any good team—everyone has different roles, and it is important for people to understand and embrace their roles in order to make the greatest possible contribution to the team and, in this case, to humanity.

However, even beyond this question of each person’s individual roles, there is the question of the decisiveness of revolutionary theory.

Once again, “doing stuff” in the right sense—i.e., practical revolutionary work—is critically important. If millions of people had the right theoretical understanding but didn’t act on that understanding in practice, nothing would change.

However—and this goes up against the ways people are trained to think in this society, and against the spontaneity of how people often see things when they are young (or new to things), but is nonetheless true and important—what is even more fundamental than “doing stuff” is the question of what people, individually and in their masses, UNDERSTAND. Whether and how people act—and the effect this has in the world—ultimately comes down to what people UNDERSTAND.

From that standpoint, it is crucial that people find the ways to do what we have been doing: immersing ourselves in, taking up and applying the most advanced revolutionary theory in the world, BA’s new communism, as part of the overall process of making revolution.

One final point: It is important not to look narrowly at what it means to TAKE UP and APPLY the new communism. This doesn’t just mean direct political work and outreach, which, once again, is very important. Taking up and applying this work means—in a BROADER sense—applying the understanding represented by BA and the new communism to understanding and changing reality. Very importantly, this includes sharing observations/ideas/questions and thoughts—about what you are learning and the material you are studying; about developments, changes and trends in society (and the world overall); about ways and openings to promote this revolution and its leadership; about how people (those you know and people more broadly) are viewing and discussing different things going on in society/the world, what this reveals about openings for revolution and jolts in society but also the need to transform people’s thinking; about major events and developments in music and the arts... just to give a few examples.

These are all VERY IMPORTANT contributions to the revolutionary process, and it would be wrong to think otherwise.

So, let me end this where I began: This process we have embarked on has been—and will continue to be—deeply meaningful, really exciting, and a lot of fun. And this is a crucial part of actually participating in and contributing to the process of building for the revolution that is so urgently needed.

You Can’t Change the World If You Don’t Know the BAsics

June 24, 2019 | 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.

Opening Remarks to the June 9 Workshops by Andy Zee

You don't yet realize the significance of what we have begun...

On Sunday, June 9, the National Revolution Tour held a day of workshops, as a part of a weekend of Revolution... The day began with an informal introduction by Andy Zee.

Read more

“Feeling of a force set and determined to not just overthrow the system but a transformation of society as a whole”

June 24, 2019 | revcom.us

Editors' note: We received this correspondence from a reader who had come to Los Angeles from out of town on the weekend of June 8-9 to be part of the bringing forward onto the scene of a beginning force for an actual revolution:

I know this report back is late but I thought it was important to share nonetheless.

Coming to LA to be part of this weekend, starting off seeing old comrades, meeting new ones, some people just stepping into this from all the work that the clubs and the Tour has done, we’re coming together for marching drills, setting up the trucks and vans and cars and doing orientation. At Crenshaw and Slauson I see the Marathon clothing store for the first time and thinking that people came from all over to see the store. And here we are with Revolution and the possibility of a better world, beyond the way the system pits people against each other and has people thinking and the way Nipsey was taken out. We had the attention of the whole parking lot people asking how can they join, get shirts and what’s this about. Some people were inspired by what the newer members were saying to join and put on shirts on the spot, others were curious and listening intently nodding along. We march out and load up onto the trucks, vans and cars caravanning, chanting and getting out flyers, people are coming out of storefronts cheering and chanting along with this pumping their fists in the air.

When we marched in the Florence and Normandie, Joe Veale give a powerful speech about the rebellion then and being a Black Panther but not having science, strategy BA has developed now.

When we march to 77th [LAPD police precinct in South Central] I’ll admit I was a little nervous just thinking about what the police do and get away with, and here we come to crash their 150th year celebration of brutality and murder. We get there several people that followed us down and put on [Revolution—Nothing Less!] shirts to stand with us against the 77th. That speech Noche gives exposing what’s being celebrated for 150 years here and the Declarations everyone in the crowd was part of. When the five flags and the 5 Stops come out the message that’s sent by burning all 5 rags was incredible feeling of a force set and determined to not just overthrow the system but a transformation of society as a whole.

Ten Basic Principles of Organizing

June 24, 2019 | revcom.us

These 10 points were prepared for a workshop at the June 9 organizing conference held by the National Revolution Tour in Los Angeles. While still a work in progress, people found these to be a helpful outline.

Keep these as an informal guide for your Club. Are you doing these? Are you staying on track?

1. The two principles of the Revolution Club are: Humanity Needs Revolution and the New Communism and Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution.
2. 5-2-6—the 5 Stops, the 2 Choices, and the 6 Points of Attention (POA)—are essential. Spread these everywhere...
3. Boldly challenge people to live by the POAs and recruit into the Revolution Club those who agree with the 5 Stops and 2 Choices and who will strive to live by and fight for the Points of Attention.
4. Bob Avakian’s leadership and work is a tremendous guide and amazing eye-opener. Get into BA and put BA before people—use BAsics (the book, quote cards, and posters [e.g., 1:13]), watch and show the films and question/answer sessions, get into the books, and discuss these in the Revolution Club...
5. HOW WE CAN WIN—How We Can Really Make Revolution is the strategy for revolution. The filmed speech of Bob Avakian, WHY WE NEED AN ACTUAL REVOLUTION AND HOW WE CAN REALLY MAKE REVOLUTION, along with the questions and answers, expands on this. Read this pamphlet and watch the film, discuss them with others, read and watch them again and again, and as you come to understand them more deeply, increasingly use them to guide your work.  
6. Don’t “meet people where they’re at.” Instead: disturb the air, bring them the truth, and generate controversy with a good spirit.
7. Break down the barriers between the movement for revolution and the people; take the problems of the revolution to the masses.
8. Put the revolution before people straight up, then let them find their own level of commitment. Building this movement is a process of unity as well as struggle.
9. Accumulate new people into the revolution... then organize people to have impact on crucial struggles or big events... then accumulate more people... and on and on.
10. This is a nationwide movement with the whole world in mind... use the web presence (the revcom.us website, social media, etc.) to learn how to understand what’s going on in the world and to get guidance for building the movement for revolution... to amplify what you or your group does... to raise questions... and to send your thoughts and actions.

Thoughts, Insights on the National Tour...
And BA As the Most Dynamic Factor in Bringing Forward New Waves of Revolutionaries

June 24, 2019 | revcom.us

Editors' note: The following are thoughts and insights from volunteers who participated in the first leg of the National Revolution Tour in Los Angeles, submitted in response to invitations to apply for the following phases of the National Tour.

#1

RE: Application for National Tour

Since the Breakthroughs¹ study group, I have been thinking a lot about individualism and how much this has a grip on hundreds of millions of people in this country. The way I have understood individualism is as a moral question—don’t be about yourself. But on the surface it does appear that you are untethered from the rest of society—and that if you succeed or fail it is mainly because of your effort and determination. Humans are indeed individuals, but our individuality and conditions of life are shaped by forces that are much larger and determining than our will. Since the Breakthroughs study group I have been thinking about the importance of bringing alive that people are most fundamentally enmeshed in production relations that at this point has integrated billions of people.

Individualism has such a grip on masses of people. I have met hundreds of high school students now who are all convinced that they will be the one to make it out of the meat-grinder. Kids that have asked me to stop talking to them about revolution because “the thought that I might not make it out of this mess is really fucking me up in the head.” This is a painful truth for people—and too much the way I have struggled with people is on a moral level about how fucked up it is to just think about yourself.

It takes science to see what the reality is beneath the appearances of society as a collection of individuals pursuing their individual aspirations and dreams. When I have gone out to masses of people one of the quotes that strikes them is BAsics 1:9.² The way Bob Avakian (BA) connects up the different choices that different social groupings have with the workings of a system – NOT human nature, god’s will, or your own strengths and shortcomings.

Here I am driven towards the question of going to people straight up with the truth—no matter how unpopular—or appealing to them on some sort of basis short of that. Are we going to fight to win masses of people to revolution on the scientifically based understanding of where the basis for revolution lies. Fight to win them to take up the tasks and objectives necessary to bring that revolution closer? Or will we step to them with something else or something less? I’m thinking about how painful it was for that youth to think about “not making it out,” this was a weight on them. And in one regard to confront the reality of what it means when your future has been foreclosed on—even before you were born—is a very heavy thing. At the same time part of the struggle we need to be waging with people is to confront reality as it actually is—and how profoundly emancipating this can be. People are capable of this—and the more we expose for people the workings of this system, the more we bring out the need for this revolution, and the more we bring out the basis and possibility of making this revolution and getting to a whole different stage of human history—the more people can actually act to emancipate themselves as a part of emancipating ALL of humanity.

Spontaneously what people see is the strength of the enemy, they see everything we are up against in the backwards thinking of the people, they see how fucked up things are (even as most of this is hidden from people) and these are reasons that people say that revolution is not possible. Again here I see the question of actually confronting reality as it is—or turning away from it towards illusions and delusions. But part of the felt-gravity of these things is unscientific. People are only grasping one side of things. Again I’m driven towards the struggle we need to wage about self-conscious emancipation through confronting and transforming reality on a scientific basis and how truly liberating this can be.

But you are not going to win people to break with these modes of thinking, and to move towards “self-conscious emancipation” without people grasping where the positive freedom³ lies. How this can all be changed. This makes me think about the latter part of the quote from BAsics 3:1 “They need to be inspired, not just with a general idea of revolution, but with a deepening understanding, a scientific grounding, as to why and how revolution really is the answer to all of this.” And this is very connected to whether or not we are actually proceeding from the basis for revolution in the defining and decisive contradictions of this system, which are unresolvable under this system, and to set out to win masses of people—basic masses but people from other strata as well— to revolution on this basis.

There is a positive freedom that lies in scientifically grasping the basis for change. Scientifically grasping the REAL basis to get to the kind of world that BA describes in the “What if…?” clip⁴ and how our conscious initiative today can bring that world closer. I think that this is an important part of people dealing with the “gravity” of reality—and consciously breaking with modes of thinking that are in line with this system.

None of this is possible without a vanguard force bringing to people, and striving to systematically apply, the leadership of BA. While the conditions and thinking of people may at times drive them towards resistance and rebellion there are limits to how far this can go. Resolution 1 from the Six Resolutions of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, January 1, 2016, says in part:

Where there is oppression, there will be resistance–the masses of people will continually rise up against their conditions of oppression and those who enforce this oppression. But, without the necessary scientific theory and leadership, the struggle of the oppressed will be contained, and remain confined, within the system which is the source of oppression, and the horrors to which the masses are subjected will go on, and on.

In Ruminations and Wranglings, BA speaks to how to outward appearances in a capitalist society, of being untethered from the rest of society, seduces the bourgeois democrat. Well, for hundreds of millions of people the basic relations of society, as far as people confront them on a surface level and especially in a parasitic society such as this, do spontaneously give rise to these illusions of being “free” from the rest of society. This system brings forward all kinds of forces whose understanding of problem and solution flows from this understanding of the individual and views problems and solutions in terms of removing obstacles and constraints on the individual. Whether it be the way in which being Black or brown or a woman or queer imposes unfair and unjust constraints on individuals, or whether it be the way that “they” have too much power and influence relative to the rest of society. People will not spontaneously grasp the underlying relations of society and will not be driven to uproot these relations completely without science.

People need the New Communism and the leadership of Bob Avakian. People need to take up the scientific method and approach, they need to take up and apply the strategy for revolution, and they need to take up the liberating objectives of this revolution (a revolution to end all oppression). People linking up with BA is the most dynamic factor in bringing forward revolutionary forces and enabling masses of people to break with oppressive and unscientific modes of thought and actually work to consciously transform society in a revolutionary direction. BA is the greatest strength that the masses of people have. But in order for BA’s leadership to become a material force in society, in order for us to initiate a new stage of communist revolution, there must be a growing core of people who are determined to fight through the obstacles to putting this leadership and revolution on the map.

In light of this I submit my application to join the next leg of the national tour. I want to be a part of the forces fighting for this revolution and this leadership up against all of the bullshit, against all of the oppressive modes of thought, the mental shackles that keep people on their knees and keep them thinking like oppressors. It is possible to get beyond this nightmare of human history and it is up to us to fight through the obstacles to bringing forward a new wave of revolutionaries who are taking up the leadership of BA. I am consciously choosing to dedicate my life (however short or long) and contributions (however large or small) to the cause of emancipating humanity and I feel a great joy and a lightness of spirit in doing this.

****

#2

Wow. What a winding road this first leg of the tour has been. I can say these past three months have been the most difficult yet most inspiring, and exhilarating months I’ve ever experienced. There’s so much to learn, so much to continue to fight for and further, and looking at this application 3 months later after first reading it before the tour began, I feel like I have a fresh pair of eyes. I really feel like I’m in and many others can consider themselves in the thick of the “Ohio.”⁵

There’s a million thoughts in my head, but I will try to hone in on a few things that stood out to me throughout this first leg in relation to the nutshell, BAsics 3:1,⁶ the process and difference of understanding of the process and unleashing that, part 2 of HOW WE CAN WIN—How We Can Really Make Revolution (HWCW), the leadership we have, and the importance of taking up a thoroughly scientific approach to reality in order to change it and fundamentally making revolution.

The synthesis of the 5-2-6⁷ and rooting ourselves in that and bringing forward the thousands on that basis is something very new, and is something I don’t think we would’ve gotten to if it weren’t for the process of this first leg of the tour. Even when I think about the first part of the film and how BA scientifically walks through the 5 stops and how they are fundamentally rooted in this system of capitalism-imperialism through its mode of production, you get a deeper understanding of why this system cannot be reformed in a living and basic way and the 5-2-6 is also a concentration of that. In relation to that, even the process of having newer people lead Revolution Club meetings on the basis of that broadsheet is something I see the real material basis for, and to quote a new person who has come forward through this tour at UCLA who led a Revolution Club meeting, “I’m very new and I’m still learning, but the 5-2-6 is foundational to everything we’re doing and how we organize.” This is very important in terms of involving people from the beginning throughout this whole process by putting the problems to them and unleashing a lot of initiative in that instead of acting as if we have everything figured out and people just have to jump on board, or getting defensive about the 1000s we DON’T have, but being honest about that and being honest about how people need to get involved in order to change that and we’re on a mission to win the 1000s now. I imagine people in other parts of the country starting and leading Revolution Clubs on that foundation of the 5-2-6. The 2 Choices even on their own is something that also really goes up against the tide and is something so fundamental to this whole movement. Posing those 2 Choices challenges people to think about what kind of world they want to live in and provokes the people who do care about one or more of the 5 STOPS to really get their head out of their asses and dig deeper to where these horrors come from and how to end them, and it really challenges people to get up off of their ass and act, not just on a moral basis. It goes up against what most people in all different strata and backgrounds are thinking right now and how they view their “choices” in life, and it sets terms in seeing yourself in the context of the entire world and not just as an individual separated off from reality and the largest scope of things.

When taking out the 6 Points of Attention (POAs) in their own right, which is also something very new that we haven’t done before since I’ve been around, I got a deeper sense of what this movement for an actual revolution is all about and what we really represent. I think before I understood the 6 POAs in a very abstract way, or 6 “really good things that I ‘agreed’ with,” but I remember when going up to Stan state (California State University Stanislau), a comrade was leading new people on how to spread this revolution and the kind of questions you’ll get from people when you do, like, “What is communism?” and this comrade referred to the 6 POAs and told these new people to tell others, “this is communism, this is new communism.” I never really thought of them that way until after this leg of the tour, and the importance of why they are 6 points we live by and fight for (emphasis on fight), because it is a fight and struggle for whole sections of people to take these up because of how brainwashed this system has people and how you have to be consistently resisting the pulls this system has on you or you’ll get led somewhere else or get on a different path with different line and different method and approach and this has everything to do with making revolution as a conscious process and the concrete world we’re fighting for. Many people may “agree” with the 6 POAs but to strive to embody them is something else because they are in direct contrast to all the fucked-up modes of thinking this system indoctrinates people in, and they also provide that basis for people to radically revolt against this truly revolting culture when living by them and going out and fighting for them.

In relation to this, I also think about the importance of digging into revolutionary theory collectively, and getting into Breakthroughs together collectively, and how this whole process with all of its ebbs and flows really felt like we were going through it together instead of individually or off on our own, and we were all taking responsibility for and figuring out the problems of the revolution, new and old people in the movement for revolution. And also seeing the importance of theory and digging into the science of the New Communism that BA has brought forward, in order to APPLY IT to transform the world, not theory in the abstract, academic, or scholastic sense which I feel we’ve done in the past, but theory as being rooted in reality and how it’s constantly changing. I still need to learn A LOT, but have also recognized this is going to be a continuous process of learning, fighting and struggling for the truth even when we get to communism and how that’s a process that most definitely needs to be led. But more and more running with and taking out this one line of going against the tide I felt more and more rooted in what’s concentrated in BAsics 4:14,⁸ especially with all of the debates we called for on the campuses and elsewhere (democratic socialism vs. revolutionary communism, identity politics, stepping on the flag, #BEB and all the dead-end paths), or when we went to the climate march the first few weeks the tour was in town, I felt like we were really representing as a force and taking on, welcoming and challenging all comers to make the debate of how you can solve such a monumental crisis such as the destruction of the environment under this system, and if you think you can then let’s hear it! And through that really cracking open the debate and ferment over reform vs. revolution and welcoming people to step in and join us on that basis, I thought that was something very new, messy yet exciting and the kind of ferment you need overall in society for people to distinguish and dig deeper into what’s true and what is in the interests of humanity and to act commensurately with the problem we face.

I was also thinking about science as an evidence-based process in relation to people making revolution consciously, and shaking people up out of their sleepwalking. In order to prepare the ground and prepare the people as part of fighting the power and transforming the people for revolution, through the course of this tour I’m understanding more and more of why (and how) you have to compel whole blocs of people to confront the truth as it actually is and fight for it no matter how unpopular, as part of changing not just what people think but how people think and leading and enabling masses of people to take up a scientific method and approach to identify and go to work on figuring out the actual problems confronting humanity and lead others to do so.

In this light I want to reflect a bit on the recent piece written, “The Crucial Importance of the New Communism and BA’s Leadership,” and how there’s never been a leader like this before that is able to unleash this kind of fervor in people to go out and argue with substance of what’s laid out in BAsics 3:1—“We need a revolution. Anything else, in the final analysis, is bullshit…”—as well as that kind of understanding will not by any means come spontaneously from anyone else, but how that understanding has to come from the outside and has to be fought for by people who are like Huxleys.⁹ I don’t think I fully recognized or appreciated this leadership until now, and it’s still a fight to keep doing that and keep going back to BA and the work he’s brought forward and to follow my convictions. I’m still summing all of it up and further summation has to be had, but I think recognizing that has to do with digging deeper into the theory and actually going out there and applying it and constantly involving people in that process and seeing how it really broke down the barrier between “us” and “them” and the beauty of BA’s leadership and the movement he’s leading being able to break down the divides this system puts on us and how inspiring that is.

One of the last points I wanted to make and tie this to was June 8 & 9, in particular the 8th in terms of what we DO have—“By far the biggest positive factor we have is BA”—and what got culminated that day. I did want to pull this quote from “The Crucial Importance…” (and there’s so much good stuff to pull from the “Crucial Importance” article, but I won’t get into all of it): “This leadership, as highlighted in the second of those six resolutions, involves an extremely rare combination: the ability ‘to develop scientific theory on a world-class level, while at the same time having a deep understanding of and visceral connection with the most oppressed, and a highly developed ability to ‘break down’ complex theory and make it accessible to the masses of people.’” I really felt that I saw an organized expression of that on June 8 in terms of the amount of humanity there was in all the people who marched together as well as the certitude of standing on reality and truth and having the courage on that basis to be one of the first to step forward and say “Enough!” and truly stand with and fight for revolution for the 7 billion people on this planet. You could really tell how people in and outside of the march were affected/inspired by that declaration to the world, and you got a sense of the real potential there is out there if thousands get with this movement and with this leadership in BA NOW. It was a truly beautiful sight, and I have never been a part of something so radical with so much humanity, so much heart for the people, and the scientific understanding within that on so many different levels.

I know I’m making a lot of general points here, and this seems more like a summation than an application (even though there’s still SO MUCH more to sum up and go back to. And if this needs more fleshing out or clarification please LET ME KNOW), but that being said, I cannot express how important this tour is. How I really think we made an advance and a beginning here, and how important it is that this tour continues and continues to GROW. This tour really embodies what BA is fighting for in Part 2 of the talk Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution in the section of “what we need to do now” and we (and HUMANITY) cannot afford to lose sight of that, or what we’ve accomplished and the need to go further. This tour needs to be maintained and sustained if we are really trying to bring forward the thousands this year. We have to go further and deeper, and I see myself and my comrades having that itch to struggle this out with each other and principally with masses of people over what they UNDERSTAND and bringing to the fore that revolution and the New Communism really is the answer and the way out of all this madness. Therefore, I want to contribute all that I’ve learned this first leg and all that I will continue to learn to this tour because I’ve gotten a fuller sense of what means to dedicate my life to something truly worthwhile: a better world that IS possible and how at this time I do not see myself doing anything else and why the fuck would anyone want to do anything else with their life if they came to this understanding? There’s nothing more fulfilling and liberating than making revolution for all of humanity that one’s life could be about, and I seriously mean that.

1. This refers to a work by Bob Avakian, BREAKTHROUGHS: The Historic Breakthrough by Marx, and the Further Breakthrough with the New Communism: A Basic Summary.  [back]

2. This is from BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian:

They pontificate about “Responsibility”…how the lack of it is corrupting the youth and the people generally in the U.S. They insist that people must take responsibility for the choices they make in life. But why is it that, for the class of people Bennett* represents, the choices involve things like whether to close down factories in this or that area and whether to invest billions in Mexico or South Korea, or what kind of austerity measures to impose on Peru, or how to wage war against Iraq, or when to invade Panama or Haiti? While for people in a country like the U.S. who are part of what is broadly referred to as “the middle class,” the choices may be between accepting a cut in pay or losing their job, or deciding whether to go deeper into debt to help their kids get through college. And for millions in the ghettos and barrios of the U.S., the choices involve things like trying to get a minimum-wage job vs. going on welfare, or turning to crime—or having to fight in one of those wars the ruling class decides to wage. And meanwhile, a young girl in Thailand—maybe as young as 9 or 10—has the “choice” between slaving in suffocating squalor in factories making clothes or toys for export to countries like the U.S., or being forced into a brothel to be sold for sex to traveling businessmen from Japan, Europe, and the U.S.! It is the worldwide system of capitalist imperialism and its economic, social, and political relations of oppression that have shaped these different choices for different classes and groupings of people.

*William Bennett is a major right-wing ideologue who has held high-level positions in Republican administrations.  [back]

3. In Communism and Jeffersonian Democracy, Bob Avakian notes, “In basic terms, positive freedom is a concept that associates freedom with the attempt to achieve an objective—to bring about change—with regard to society and the people in society.”  [back]

4. From REVOLUTION AND RELIGION: The Fight for Emancipation and the Role of Religion. A Dialogue Between CORNEL WEST & BOB AVAKIAN.  [back]

5. The “Ohio” refers to the Ohio State marching band’s practice of marching in such a way as to spell out “OHIO” when viewed from above; in this process, band members who begin the first O, then move through the other letters of the word until they are at the last “O.” The point is that there is an analogous process involved in building any kind of progressive or revolutionary movement, in which people “move through” various levels of understanding and commitment, though this is not (“in the real world”) quite so linear and in lockstep as the Ohio State marching band!*  [back]

6.

Let’s get down to basics: We need a revolution. Anything else, in the final analysis, is bullshit.

Now, that doesn’t mean we don’t unite with people in all sorts of struggles short of revolution. We definitely need to do that. But the proffering of any other solution to these monumental and monstrous problems and outrages is ridiculous, frankly. And we need to be taking the offensive and mobilizing increasing numbers of masses to cut through this shit and bring to the fore what really is the solution to this, and to answer the questions and, yes, the accusations that come forth in response to this, while deepening our scientific basis for being able to do this. And the point is: not only do we need to be doing this, but we need to be bringing forward, unleashing and leading, and enabling increasing numbers of the masses to do this. They need to be inspired, not just with a general idea of revolution, but with a deepening understanding, a scientific grounding, as to why and how revolution really is the answer to all of this.

Bob Avakian, BAsics 3:1  [back]

7. The 5 STOPS, the 2 Choices, and the 6 Points of Attention – see here for more.  [back]

8.

Our party calls on people and says the first thing you should do is to raise your head up and ask, “why.” Ask “why” whenever they tell you to do anything, and for that matter, ask why whenever we say you should do anything. Because we’re not afraid of people questioning us. We’re not afraid of people digging into what we have to say. We’re not afraid of people criticizing us and struggling with us, because we stand on the basis of the revolutionary science that represents the interests of the masses of people. And if our grasp of that science is not complete, if our grasp of that science is wrong in this or that particular aspect, or if the way in which we’re applying it doesn’t correspond fully to the interests of the masses of people, then we’re not afraid—in fact, we insist—that people come forward and call us out and question us and struggle with us and criticize us. That’s the only way that we’re ever going to be able to bring that revolutionary science to the masses of people, and for them to take it up and wield it as a weapon to win their own emancipation.  [back]

9. Thomas Henry Huxley was a champion for Darwin’s theory of evolution. While Darwin for various reasons did not focus on debating the truth of the theory in public venues, Huxley played the role of going everywhere to fight for Darwin’s breakthrough. He was known as “Darwin’s bulldog.” By analogy, people who do gain a more developed understanding of the new communism should be out taking on all proponents of contending viewpoints and modes of thought.  [back]

Opening Remarks to the June 9 Workshops

You don't yet realize the significance of what we have begun…

June 11, 2019 | revcom.us

On Sunday, June 9, the National Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour held a day of workshops, as a part of a weekend of Revolution, to introduce those who are just turning their faces towards revolution and others to the science, the leadership, the strategy and the goal of this revolution, followed by organizing workshops on how to organize a Revolution Club and developing the necessary vibrant digital web presence for the revolution.

The day began with an informal introduction by Andy Zee, spokesperson for Revolution Books. This introduction began with a playing of the video of the song “Que Queremos” by the band Outernational. This was followed by a short video clip of the march to the 77th Division of the LAPD. Clips of both are posted below.

These remarks captured what was begun with Saturday’s march, and introduced people to the great strength of the revolution in the leadership of Bob Avakian. The audio, made by someone in the audience, begins about a minute into the talk. Andy began by asking the audience to reflect on what they had done the day before and recognize that we don’t yet realize the significance of what we had done.... 

Bringing the 5-2-6 to a Transit Hub in Philadelphia

June 24, 2019 | revcom.us

Editors note: We received the following correspondence from readers and supporters of revcom.us and want to share it with our readers. We appreciate such correspondence and encourage others to write in and share similar experiences.

Supporters of the Revolutionary Communist Party in Philly linked up to disturb the air and organize people into the ranks of the revolution during the evening commute. We chose a major transportation hub that connects people to and from the outlying neighborhoods and suburbs west of the city, and we decided to focus on wielding the new special edition Revolution newspaper broadsheet as our main tool. We had a crew of five people, including one member of the New York City Revolution Club. All of us have had experience at different levels with doing various forms of outreach and protest together—straight up with revolution. However, this was something of a new experiment for our growing collectivity and an application of some lessons that we have drawn from summing up our previous outings.

This was new terrain for us as well, as some had never even been to this transit hub before. By the nature of the location we were able to connect with very broad and diverse sections of people, from students and other middle strata to basic masses and youths. We gathered together to set up our materials and visuals (our REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! T-shirts, a 5 Stops poster, 100 copies of the new broadsheet, an arsenal of various books & pamphlets, sign-up sheets, and a donation can), while some split off to quickly observe the flow of foot traffic and to note the arrival/departure times so we could determine when the waves of people would be coming through.

And then the waves of people began. We positioned ourselves along the flow of traffic, with one revolutionary “leading the charge” by getting right in the midst of the crowds to agitate before they dispersed. Knowing that there wouldn’t really be a captive audience in that setting, agitation was kept short and simple with bold yet basic slogans about how the system cannot be reformed and must be overthrown, challenging people who’ve had enough of one or more of the 5 Stops to quit sleepwalking through this nightmare right now and make a choice; to take up this newspaper and get into the movement for an actual revolution, to find out what it’s all about, to get with the leadership of Bob Avakian and the science he’s developed, to get with the strategy and the plan for a better world that is actually possible.

Most would simply take one in passing, but as things progressed some started to engage the broadsheet with us on the spot, with some small knots of people digging into it together with the revolutionaries. During a brief lull between waves, one man stopped the lead agitator, pointed to the image of Bob Avakian and asked who he was. When he then understood that this was the leader of the revolution, he immediately wanted to know what Avakian thought about reparations for Black people, since in his view this was an immediate demand that needed to be addressed first before anything else. This was definitely an important question to get into and that was acknowledged, but knowing that another wave was coming soon, the revolutionary directed him to go to the revcom.us website where he can search for articles that speak on this topic. It’s important to not do this in a flippant or dismissive way, but to do so in a manner that encourages people to actually dig for the answers themselves with a spirit of unity and positive encouragement, especially when it comes to questions like this that are crucial to address in the overall process of moving towards the emancipation of humanity—to help with this we read Point of Attention #3 together so that he knew what we were fundamentally aiming for in the broader, more sweeping sense. And in fact he expressed that he was eager to do so and that he was going to check it out when he got home.

This approach was taken by other members of the team when confronted with questions coming from other angles such as, “So how are you going to make this revolution?” Or with another young man, who, simply by becoming aware of all these strengths that we have on our side concentrated in the broadsheet (and the fundamental challenge being put forward), said that he felt really empowered to seek out the answers to a lot of questions that he has.

In this outing we found that, while in the main, people were still sleepwalking, among the people who took that initial step forward to engage, there was a sense of open-mindedness and that some people were looking for alternatives outside of the dominant ideology. A self-described evangelical Christian woman urged her daughter to take one of the broadsheets so that she would look into things from a different perspective and find out about what is going on in the world. A number of people paused to read the entire 5 Stops poster, and the responses to it were uneven but welcomed. One man wanted to know what was meant by “patriarchy,” since in his mind this mainly evoked images of women in the Middle East being forced to wear veils. A revolutionary directed him to watch the latest filmed speech from Bob Avakian, where there is a section in which he outlines how “male supremacy is...completely interwoven and tightly ‘stitched together’ with the whole historical development of the division between exploiters and exploited, oppressors and oppressed, throughout the world, including the capitalist-imperialist system which is dominant in the world today” (and most importantly, how it can and must be abolished) on a firmly scientific foundation.

The sheer gravity of the first Stop (“STOP Genocidal Persecution, Mass Incarceration, Police Brutality and Murder of Black and Brown People!”) alone and how to overcome it brought out frustration in some people who wanted to act but don’t know how or what to do, and compelled them to commit to looking towards the revolution. One couple, after reading the 5 Stops, made the point that people generally do have, to some degree, a sense that all this is going on, but they just go about their business anyway, and they wondered... what is it going to take to change this? One of the revolutionaries put this very real problem back in their hands to get to work on, with the simple question, “Well, what do YOU think it’s gonna take?” They said it’s going to require a lot more people getting involved, and we couldn’t agree more.

The 5-2-6 formulation that concentrates the path to getting organized for revolution, now given striking visual and physical expression in the new broadsheet, is proving to be a powerful tool in busting the mental shackles holding people back from raising their sights to the problem (capitalism-imperialism) and the solution (revolution). For those taking this out, whether it’s the Revolution Clubs or networks of people who have yet to be forged into Clubs—but who have come to understand the core principles and goals of the revolution along with the need to spread the word/organize people into its ranks—it has the essentials of what we need to stay laser-focused on while giving us the elasticity to embrace people’s broader questions and channel them into the “connecting link” that is the website/newspaper, and getting them to engage with the leadership of Bob Avakian.

All this occurred within a very short amount of time, approximately an hour and a half. We were able to distribute 69 broadsheets, have seven people get signed up for an e-sub to the website, including one youth who connected with us on Instagram on the spot. We’ll be inviting everyone on our small but growing contact list to tune into the livestream of Andy Zee’s report back from the “National Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution” Tour as an easy way to connect them with the national movement right away.

Read, Download, Order — the Special REVOLUTION newspaper issue, May 2019.

“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

Watch BA's whole speech, Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution

I Was Attacked for Protesting Flag Day. I’ll Be Burning the Flag on July 4th

by Drea Shadburne

June 24, 2019 | revcom.us

Editors’ Note: We are reposting an article that originally appeared on medium.com, June 21, and forwarded to us by readers and supporters of Revcom.us in Philadelphia.

I was assaulted by fascists while protesting Flag Day. The police shook their hands and sent them on their way. I am not going to stop desecrating the flag.

My name is Drea Shadburne. I’m a member of the Revolution Club, and a supporter of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). Our aim is to organize people now for the time when we can overthrow this system through an actual revolution, and to build a new society based on the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America—authored by the leader of the revolution, Bob Avakian.

Here in the “birthplace of America,” myself and others decided to hold a demonstration on Flag Day in Center City across from City Hall during rush hour. I was a part of this because I wanted to help pierce through what I see as the suffocating, unjustifiable patriotism in a country that is rapidly descending into full-on fascism. I wanted to be a part of helping people confront what America was really founded upon (the slavery of African people stolen from their homelands, the genocide of Native Americans, and the massive land theft from Mexico and Indigenous territories through wars of conquest) and the endless horrors that it perpetuates upon the masses of people here and around the world to this day. I wanted to fight to help people grasp the reality of all this and to invite them to join us in desecrating this society’s most sacred symbol—the American Flag.

We began by unfurling the flag upon the ground and standing on top of it, holding a sign declaring “America Was NEVER Great! We Need to OVERTHROW This System!”, and agitating through a loudspeaker. Many people supported us, with some joining in by stomping on the flag and even spitting on it. Some were in the middle, perhaps puzzled by our actions but, on some level, respected our right to protest even if they disagreed with our message. And certainly, many others vehemently rebuked us and hated what we were doing. Most of the latter group felt it was sufficient to condemn us verbally. However, two men decided that we should be physically assaulted.

A burly, middle-aged white man came from behind and tackled one of the revolutionaries to my side, knocking him into me. The assailant grabbed the flag we were standing on and tried to make a run for it—all of which he had his accomplice film and has since been uploaded to his Facebook page (which has amassed hundreds of shares, likes and comments). They left out of the video what happened immediately after, for reasons that will become obvious.

We quickly chased him down and struggled to retrieve the flag. A crowd of onlookers quickly amassed around us and pulled out their phones to film what was going down. Many were shocked to see that him and his fellow patriot began punching us in our faces, given the fact that three out of four of us protesting are women. Many from the crowd furiously called out this blatant act of misogynistic violence. A minority in the crowd even cheered them on. The man who led the assault—fueled with red, white and blue, woman-hating rage—began howling about how we could not disrespect his flag. No matter that this was a peaceful protest, that he initiated the assault in a premeditated manner, and in fact he had stolen something that belonged to us. The police arrived shortly after, shook hands with the men who had assaulted us (see around 1:28), and sent them on their way as they proceeded to question us!

I want to pull the lens back a bit here. To be clear, I care more about doing what is right than the “rights” as such granted to me by a constitution authored by slave masters and exploiters. But what is the current state of the right to protest in this country, and where do things seem to be heading? Trump has repeatedly called for the overturning of Supreme Court precedent that protects flag desecration as protected free speech, which was established in the case of Texas v. Johnson in 1989, and affirmed again just as recently as two days ago in a case involving the very same Gregory Johnson. He has repeatedly called for violence against protesters at his many Nuremberg-style rallies. Long before what happened to me that Friday, fascist thugs loyal to Trump have been acting upon his directives all over the country. Why shouldn’t we be protesting against the piling injustices happening all around us?

A Call to Action has been published on revcom.us (the voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA) titled, “JULY 4, 2019: IMAGINE A WORLD WITHOUT AMERICA”, declaring to all: “we invite you not only to ‘conceive of a world without America’, but to fight and work for that world. On that day, this flag so soaked in the blood of ‘barbarity and hypocrisy’ will burn in symbolic places around this country. This will be a bold statement of truth and a declaration that we have had enough; and a clarion call to revolution and the emancipation of ALL humanity.”

That is the flag that these thugs were willing to beat women half their size for. That is the flag that revolutionaries like me, who seek nothing less than the emancipation of all humanity from all oppression and exploitation, are going to burn on July 4th. All those who can dare to conceive a world without America and everything it really stands for, and are working to bring a world without America into being, will be setting the American flag on fire.

I cannot do anything but fight to put a stop to this nightmare we live in, and I will continue to trample upon and set fire to the sacred relics of this vicious beast of a country. On July 4th this year, will you join me?

Special REVOLUTION newspaper issue, March 2020

"You Think You're Woke...
But You're Sleepwalking Through A Nightmare

This System Cannot Be Reformed,
It Must Be Overthrown!"

A Message from: The National Get Organized
for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour

March 2, 2020 | revcom.us

To you who are fed up with this society and “solutions” that are no solution:

There Is a Way Out of This Madness!

Get Into Bob Avakian (BA)

A Radically Different Leader
Who Has Developed
A Whole New Framework
For Human Emancipation

You Think You Are Woke...
But You Are Sleepwalking Through A Nightmare

Get Organized for An ACTUAL Revolution to Emancipate All Humanity

Updated November 10, 2019 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Noche Diaz Presenting the Lifetime Fire Extinguisher Award to Al Sharpton at the Sacramento, CA State Capitol.

Thousands Raised...Many Thousands to Go...
Donors speak out about why they gave to The Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour

Includes new statements posted as of May 27, 2019 | 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.

“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

Read about the Tour stepping up and stepping out »

Read the Call to the Tour »

Checks can be sent to:
RCP Publications, Box 3486, Merchandise Mart
Chicago, IL 60654-0486 (Mark for the Tour)

"I felt inspired to give today because humanity is suffering and needs this tour. I heard the statement from a donor and I matched it."https://t.co/XtAzVOkhZE pic.twitter.com/35WmvIm0JM

— NYC Revolution Club (@NYCRevClub) March 8, 2019

What People Are Saying about the Tour

Updated May 13, 2019 | revcom.us

Field Reports From The National Revolution Tour

Updated April 23, 2020 | revcom.us

“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

More about the Tour »

Read the Call to the Tour »

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

Andy Zee and Michelle Xai "Grand Experiment... As Serious As Your Life"

On The Michael Slate Show

LISTEN HERE

Noche Diaz Presenting the Lifetime Fire Extinguisher Award to Al Sharpton at the Sacramento, CA State Capitol.

Revolution Club at the State Capitol in Sacramento

Read flier here

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.

A picture essay:

“I have never heard of this level of inhumanity.”

When is enough, enough?

June 24, 2019 | revcom.us

A team of lawyers who work with migrant children recently examined the conditions of children at two Border Patrol facilities in Texas. They interviewed 60 migrant children being held. What they found is horrifying, and intolerable: hundreds of kids being held in overcrowded, filthy, and increasingly dangerous conditions at processing centers in Clint, southeast of El Paso, and Ursula, near McAllen, Texas.

The Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) was forced to grant this inspection because the team is monitoring government compliance with a 1997 agreement (the Flores settlement, which Trump lawyers are trying to overturn) that requires the government to release children from immigration detention within 72 hours. Yet many of these children had been forced into these prison conditions for weeks, one as long as 26 days.

The conclusion of the co-director of the Immigration Law Clinic at the University of California Davis, which represents detained youth: “In my 22 years of doing visits with children in detention, I have never heard of this level of inhumanity.”

Now ask yourself—when is enough, enough?

Warren Binford, law professor at Willamette University, interviewed some of the children at the Customs and Border Patrol detention facility at Clint, Texas, southeast of El Paso: 

“What we saw are dirty children who are malnourished, who are being severely neglected. They are being kept in inhumane conditions. They are essentially being warehoused, as many as 300 children in a cell with almost no adult supervision. We have children caring for other children... children cannot take care of other children, and yet that's how they are trying to run this facility.  The children are hardly being fed anything nutritious, they are being medically neglected. We are seeing a flu outbreak, and we're seeing a lice infestation. We have children sleeping on the floor. It's the worst conditions I've ever witnessed...”

Photos on this page were obtained by CNN from an unnamed person.

Survivors of U.S. WW2 Concentration Camps Protest Trump’s Camps for Migrant Children

June 24, 2019 | revcom.us

Editors’ note: This past weekend, a staffer at Revolution Books in Berkeley and a member of the National Revolution Tour drove across the country to Lawton, Oklahoma, where a protest was organized outside the notorious Fort Sill U.S. military base. Trump recently announced that this historic military base that has been used to confine Native Americans, Japanese Americans, and immigrant children will soon be used to lock 1,400 immigrant children behind barbed wire. This correspondence was received from the Revolution Tour member.

Japanese Americans came together from all across the country and organized a protest against Trump’s plan to use Fort Sill to lock up immigrant children. This was pulled together in the span of about two weeks. Among them were survivors of the mass round ups and confinement of Japanese Americans during World War 2. (Read the history of this American Crime, during which the U.S. forced 120,000 people of Japanese descent into concentration camps here.) One of the protesters was 89-year-old Chizu Omori, who was in the concentration camps from age 12 to 15. She said, “I spent three and a half years at Poston in Arizona, an American concentration camp during World War 2. And I’m here to bear witness to the travesty of the American justice system in that the family separation policy is ruining the lives of these children. I’m very incensed about the government policy of separating parents and we the people have to stand up and protest this.”

Other survivors also spoke out at a press conference in front of the military base telling their stories and condemning the United States for continuing the legacy that goes back to the genocide of Native Americans and the enslavement of Black people. As the military police barked orders in their face, the survivors made it clear that the only way that they were leaving was in handcuffs—and the military police were forced to back down.

Many of the organizers spoke about how much they had to go up against the grain in organizing this protest. For decades nobody told the story of what happened in the concentration camps and there is a culture within the Japanese community of not making waves. There is even an expression for it—”shikata ga nai.” But many within this community felt an urgency and an obligation to speak out and act against these crimes against humanity. Some recognized that this was a continuation of the whole history of America and connected up these crimes to the crimes of this country all the way back to its founding. They recognized the moral authority that they had and used this to speak on behalf of those who cannot be heard.

In a political climate where all too few are acting in ways commensurate with the emergency we face with a FASCIST regime in power, this was an incredibly important moment. And these Japanese Americans were not alone. About 300 people attended from many nationalities and backgrounds.

Native Americans told how in 1894, 342 Apache Indians, including the warrior Geronimo, were held for over a decade at Fort Sill. They spoke about their mothers and fathers being forced into boarding schools. Latino people and immigrant rights activists also joined in, as did white people, both older liberals and college-age radicals.

When we asked people what they thought was holding people back from filling the streets and opposing these horrific atrocities—nobody thought that fear was the essential reason. One person said that they thought it was because people have been trained to vote as the only solution to problems. Another said that they thought people didn’t really know the extent of what was going on. Another thought that the problem seems so large and so hopeless that they are turning away to Game of Thrones and other distractions. I asked a group of three young women what they thought about the strategy of RefuseFascism.org to mobilize such massive and sustained nonviolent protest that the Trump/Pence Regime is driven from office and they said that people don’t have the organizational skills to pull off something like that. On the other hand, one young woman said that she thought that there are people who would act around this demand and strategy if there were a specific date to begin.

Among the crowd, which was composed of people who mostly considered themselves progressives, Democrats, or in the camp of the Democratic Socialists of America—there was curiosity about and receptivity to real revolution. We mass distributed the 5-2-6 broadsheet, and people came up asking for a copy after seeing others reading it. Waves of youth and others came up to our table, about six of whom considered themselves Marxists or socialists of one stripe or another. Some had heard of Bob Avakian, including one person who was reading something by him. Another person talked about reading how Bob Avakian and the Revolutionary Communist Party would travel across the country spreading revolution, and here we are! Others were very interested that we drove across the country to bring the revolution to Oklahoma. Most people who had heard of BA had heard one slander or another against him, yet were not deterred by this and expressed an interest in finding out about him for themselves. We sold three copies of BAsics and a copy of the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, which was authored by Bob Avakian. We developed ties with people across Oklahoma who wanted the Tour to come to their city and make a presentation to their friends and organizations. As I write this, we are on our way to meet with a group of people who are interested in the revolution.

Protest held today of 200+ ppl to Trump's announcement to imprison 1,400 immigrant children at #FortSill -- as part of a larger genocidal assault #CloseTheCamps

Chizu Omori making a statement while military cops try to stop it #thread 1/7 pic.twitter.com/wBF6wHp2Qv

— ★ Revolution Books ★ (@RevolutionBksB) June 22, 2019

Apache Indians whose ancestors, including Geronimo, were also interned there. Indian children were separated from their families & forced into boarding schools where their identity and culture was ripped from them. 3/7 pic.twitter.com/fK27iLZzFz

— ★ Revolution Books ★ (@RevolutionBksB) June 22, 2019

Case #17: Mass Murder in the Skies Over Iran:
The Shoot-Down of Passenger Flight 655… by the U.S. Navy

June 17, 2019 | revcom.us

Bob Avakian has written that one of three things that has “to happen in order for there to be real and lasting change for the better: People have to fully confront the actual history of this country and its role in the world up to today, and the terrible consequences of this.” (See “3 Things that have to happen in order for there to be real and lasting change for the better.”)

In that light, and in that spirit, “American Crime” is a regular feature of revcom.us. Each installment focuses on one of the 100 worst crimes committed by the U.S. rulers—out of countless bloody crimes they have carried out against people around the world, from the founding of the U.S. to the present day.

THE CRIME

At 9:53 on the morning of July 3, 1988, Captain Mohsen Rezaian was piloting Iran Air Flight 655, a civilian airliner on a routine flight from Bandar Abbas, 140 miles across the Persian Gulf to Dubai, normally a 28-minute flight. 290 people were aboard the plane.

Suddenly, without warning, two surface-to-air missiles launched from the U.S. warship Vincennes, 18 miles away, ripped apart his plane which then crashed into the Gulf. All aboard were killed, though only about 200 bodies could be recovered.

At the time, Iran had been at war with Iraq for nearly eight years.

In 1984, Iraq launched its first attack on Iranian oil facilities and shipping, and in 1987, Iran responded by targeting the oil tankers of Kuwait—which was supporting Iraq’s war—with mines. The U.S. dispatched 42 U.S. warships to escort re-flagged Kuwaiti oil tankers and ostensibly to protect neutral shipping (which did face threats from both belligerents). In late May 1988, the naval cruiser U.S.S. Vincennes equipped with the state-of-the-art Aegis radar system had been sent into the Gulf, supposedly to protect against Iranian anti-ship missiles.

A little over a month later, it shot down Iran Air 655. Sixty-six children under 12, 156 men, and 66 women were killed. Most all were Iranians, but there were also Arabs, Koreans, and Japanese people among the dead.

One Iranian businessman was waiting to greet his family in Dubai. All were killed—his wife, her brother, and their eight children. When he heard the news, “The man just went out of his mind, going from pillar to post and banging his head,” a witness reported. To this day, there are ceremonies in Iran in memory of those killed on July 3, 1988.

THE ALIBI

The U.S. immediately blamed Iran for the disaster. On July 5, the New York Times ran an editorial that called on readers to see things from the perspective of the Vincennes’ captain, Will Rogers. The editorial was titled “In Captain Rogers’s Shoes,” and sketched the following scene:

The [Vincennes] was not only in a combat zone; but at that very moment was engaged in action against Iranian gunboats making high-speed runs against it. Then Captain Rogers’s radar operators reported an aircraft heading toward the ship and descending. The plane, which had taken off from Iranian territory, was reportedly flying five miles outside the civilian air corridor and failed to answer three warnings over the civilian distress channel that all aircraft are supposed to monitor. The radar operators apparently had indications, which the Navy refuses to discuss, that the plane was a powerful F-14 jet.... Captain Rogers already had a battle on his hands. Barring surprising findings, it is hard to fault his decision to attack the suspect plane.

But the Times had no trouble finding fault with the dead pilot and with Iran, arguing that in the “episode”:

... blame may lie with the Iran Air pilot for failing to acknowledge the ship’s warnings and flying outside the civilian corridor. Iran, too, may bear responsibility for failing to warn civilian planes away from the combat zone of an action it had initiated.

And the Times’ editorial concluded:

The present rules of engagement allow a captain to fire first in defense of his ship. ...the onus for avoiding such accidents in the future rests on civilian aircraft: avoid combat zones, fly high, acknowledge warnings. Better still, no one would have to be in Captain Rogers’s shoes in the first place. That prospect turns on Teheran’s willingness to bring an end to its futile eight-year war with Iraq.

The Times’ editorial was echoed by then-Vice President George H.W. Bush, who told the UN that:

[The shooting down of Flight 655] occurred in the midst of a naval attack initiated by Iranian vessels against a neutral vessel and, subsequently, against the Vincennes when it came to the aid of the innocent ship in distress.

Despite these hostilities, Iranian authorities failed to divert Iran Air 655 from the area. They allowed a civilian aircraft loaded with passengers to proceed on a path over a warship engaged in battle. That was irresponsible and a tragic error.

The information available to Captain Will Rogers, the captain of the Vincennes, indicated that an Iranian military aircraft was approaching his ship with hostile intentions. After seven unanswered warnings, he did what he had to do to protect his ship and the lives of his crew. As a military commander, his first duty and responsibility is to protect his men and his ship.¹

LIE UPON LIE

Virtually every word of the U.S. version of events was false, and by the time Bush gave his UN speech, the U.S. knew it. As is brought out and documented in meticulous detail in “Vincennes: A Case Study,” (from the pro-military U.S. Naval Institute) here is the truth:

• The Vincennes (a heavily armed U.S. cruiser, almost two football fields long) was not “under attack” by small Iranian patrol boats; in fact, the Vincennes had aggressively harassed and opened fire on these vastly outgunned Iranian vessels whose return fire couldn’t even reach the Vincennes.
• The Vincennes was not in international waters. When the Iranian boats came under attack they fled back into Iranian territorial waters, and the Vincennes followed them there.
• Iran Air Flight 655 was not flying outside civilian air corridors, it was well within them on its normal flight course. It was over Iranian territory. And it was not “diving” towards the Vincennes—in fact it was ascending, and was 18 miles from the ship when it was shot down.
• Flight 655 almost certainly did not “ignore” U.S. warnings; the Vincennes was attempting (or pretending to attempt) to communicate on military and civilian emergency frequencies, but did not attempt to reach it on the air traffic control frequencies that a civilian airliner en route to a nearby airport would logically be tuned in to.
• It was not true, as the Vincennes crew claimed, that Flight 655 was “squawking” (sending out signals) on military channels—in fact the Vincennes’ own data showed that it was squawking only on civilian channels.²
• The Vincennes captain claims he thought he was under attack by an F-14. So somehow, the ship’s advanced radar system was unable to distinguish between a small and fast fighter plane and the Iranian Airbus, which is almost three times as large as an F-14 and much slower. The captain of the S.S. Sides, a nearby warship that shared intelligence data with the Vincennes, told his officers that “[the plane is] climbing. He’s slow. I don’t see any radar emissions... So, ‘non-threat.’” Immediately after this, the Sides’ officers heard Rogers announcing to naval headquarters his intention to shoot the plane down. When he did, the Sides’ electronic specialists exclaimed, “He shot down COMAIR [a commercial aircraft].”

THE ACTUAL MOTIVE

The United States has a long and bloody history of seeking to dominate and oppress Iran (one of the world’s largest oil producers).³ In September 1980, the U.S. gave the green light to Iraq (under Saddam Hussein) to invade Iran in order to weaken and contain Iran’s new Islamic Republic.

During the initial stages of the Iran-Iraq war, the U.S. provided or facilitated military aid to Iraq—including poison gas that Iraq used to kill thousands of Iranian troops as well as Kurdish civilians. When Iraq seemed to be close to winning, the U.S. provided aid to Iran. (The U.S. goal was to protract the war and weaken both countries.) There were 262,000 to 367,000 Iranians and 105,000 Iraqis killed, plus an estimated 700,000 injured or wounded on both sides.⁴

But by 1987, the war was destabilizing the whole region, and Iran was getting the upper hand, threatening U.S. allies and interests in the region, so the U.S. sought to bring it to an end by moving decisively against Iran. The U.S. warships were sent to the Gulf not only to protect Kuwaiti tankers but also to pressure Iran. Tensions escalated on April 14, 1988, when the U.S. frigate Samuel B. Roberts hit an Iranian mine and nearly sank. Four days later, on April 18, with U.S. backing (and with the use of sarin gas), Iraq seized back the strategic Fao (al-Faw) Peninsula. That same day, U.S. forces launched Operation Praying Mantis, attacking the Iranian navy inside Iranian territorial waters, destroying or severely damaging half of Iran’s navy.⁵

It was clear that when the Vincennes arrived in the Gulf in May 1988, it was “on a mission” to draw blood, to carry out aggressive military action that had nothing to do with its alleged function of providing radar protection for the U.S. fleet.

It is possible that Rogers did not realize the plane he was shooting down was a passenger jet, but it is certain that like a swaggering pig rolling through a Black neighborhood spreading terror, it really wasn’t very important to him to make the assessment. His was a “shoot first, ask questions later” orientation. It is also possible that the U.S. deliberately shot down a civilian airliner to send a chilling, Mafia-like message to Iran.

In either case, and because at key points in the incident Rogers checked in with and got approval from naval headquarters in Bahrain, it’s clear his actions were in line with and served the strategic orientation of the U.S. military at that point: to bully and bloody Iran in order to force them to agree to a ceasefire in the war with Iraq. Taken together with the U.S. destruction of half the Iranian navy, and the U.S.-backed seizure by Iraq of the Fao Peninsula, the shootdown of Flight 655 was taken by Iran as a signal of U.S. ruthlessness and a message that things would only go from bad to worse if they didn’t abide by U.S. demands to agree to end the war.

Sixteen days after Flight 655 was downed, Iran accepted the UN ceasefire that the U.S. had been pressuring it to agree to.

THE CRIMINALS

President Ronald Reagan and Vice President George H.W. Bush, who were strategically in charge of the U.S. role in the Iran-Iraq War, and “set the tone” (whether or not they gave specific orders) in which war crimes like the shoot-down of Flight 655 could take place. Reagan called it a “terrible tragedy” (a statement “Aimed at Saving U.S. Policy in the Gulf,” according to the Washington Post), but overall he and Bush in particular brazenly defended and justified this crime.

The U.S. Naval Command (Joint Task Force in the Middle East) in Bahrain, which oversaw the Vincennes operations and green-lighted them at key points. And, two years after the incident, President George H.W. Bush commended Captain Rogers for his actions and awarded him the Legion of Merit—the U.S. military’s second-highest peacetime medal.

While the commendation did not mention shooting down Flight 655, it covered the period in which it happened, and Rogers was specifically praised for his “dynamic leadership, logical judgment and unexcelled devotion to duty” in the attack on Iranian boats that led up to and provided justification for shooting down the plane. Rogers’ weapons and combat systems officer, Lt. Commander Lustig, also received a medal for the attack on the Iranian boats, which was described as a “heroic achievement.” Both Rogers and Lustig remained in the military and were given important posts.

Not one member of the Vincennes crew was ever disciplined in any way for the mass murder. In fact, the whole crew was awarded Combat Action Ribbons.

Captain Rogers, who made the decision to shoot down the plane, lied about what happened afterwards, and never expressed the slightest remorse.

The officers and crew of the Vincennes, who, even if they were not making command decisions, carried out immoral orders and participated in the lies and coverup once the slaughter was over.

The U.S. media (with special “honors” to the New York Times), which shamelessly promoted the lies the U.S. military told to justify its crimes, and was a mouthpiece for both bullying Iran and rousing the U.S. population—especially progressives and liberals—to support the U.S. attacks on it.

1. Excerpts for Vice President George Bush’s Remarks to U.N. Security Council, July 14, 1988. [back]

2. “The data from USS Vincennes' tapes, information from USS Sides and reliable intelligence information corroborate the fact that TN 4131 was on a normal commercial air flight plan profile … squawking Mode III 6760, on a continuous ascent in altitude from take-off at Bandar Abbas to shoot down.”, See Vincennes: A Case Study, by Lieutenant Colonel David Evans, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.), in Proceedings, Vol 119/8/1,086, August, 1993, published by U.S. Naval Institute. [back]

3. See American Crime, Case #98: 1953 CIA Coup in Iran: Torture and Repression—Made in the USA, revcom.us, May 16, 2016. [back]

4. The Republican Party Is Fascist; The Democratic Party Is Also a Machine of Massive War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, “Fueling the Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988,” revcom.us, January 7, 2019. [back]

5. Vincennes: A Case Study, Ibid. [back]

Shout Out to Vic Mensa for His New Song and Video, “Camp America”

June 24, 2019 | revcom.us

Watch Vic Mensa’s new song and video, “Camp America,” here.

Lyrics:

There’s a place
It’s the time of your life
No parents allowed and no playing inside
You can laugh, until you cry at Camp America

So much fun, you lose count of the days
Playing hide and go seek inside of your cage
Daddy loves you, so he sent you away to Camp America

I wanna have the best summer ever
I wanna have the best summer ever
I wanna have the best summer ever
At Camp America

It feels good, it feels great
Hey where you going, you gotta stay
can’t leave you can’t wait
to go to Camp America

Get on the floor, get in your bag,
let’s have a drink on me, we’ll catch a wave
pop a pill, don’t be sad
you’re at Camp America

I wanna have the best summer ever
I wanna have the best summer ever
I wanna have the best summer ever
At Camp America

We’ll be living it up, not giving a fuck
Splitting you up, then we put you in cuffs
Then we shipping you off, yeah, you could get lost at Camp America

Take your clothes off baby, let me see what you got
We can have a good time if you’re legal or not
It’s an ignorant, arrogant, terrorist, heritage
You can finally be an American

I wanna have the best summer ever
I wanna have the best summer ever
I wanna have the best summer ever
At Camp America

Chicago’s “Civilian Office of Police Accountability” Says Two Pigs Were “Reasonable” in Murdering Joshua Beal

June 24, 2019 | revcom.us

On June 18, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) in Chicago declared that two cops had acted in a “reasonable” manner and “within department policy” when they killed Joshua Beal, a 25-year-old Black man, in November 2016 in the South Side Mt. Greenwood neighborhood. Yet more murdering pigs allowed to walk scot free—just days after Memphis authorities announced they would not charge the cop who killed Terrence Carlton, an unarmed Black man, last year…and, in the same city around the same time, federal marshals gunned down 20-year-old Brandon Webber. Just days after authorities in Vallejo, California, released a report saying that the firing of 55 shots in 3.5 seconds by their cops in murdering Willie McCoy, as he slept in his car, was “reasonable.” And on and on with outrage after outrage. This shit MUST STOP!

On November 5, 2016, Joshua Beal had come into Chicago from Indianapolis for his cousin’s funeral. He and others in the funeral procession were driving through the mostly white Mt. Greenwood, a notoriously racist enclave and home to many cops. An off-duty pig in plainclothes tried to run a 17-year-old driver in the procession off the road, and then he pulled a gun and threatened her. Beal and other family members got out of their cars in concern for her safety. Then another off-duty cop on his way to work jumped out of his car. This pig fired off 18 shots and killed Joshua Beal. When Joshua’s brother tackled one of the off-duty maniacs in an effort to save his brother’s life, he was arrested and held for days.

Joshua’s aunt, speaking to members of the Revolution Club in Chicago who had rushed to the neighborhood to stand with the family, said, “He just graduated from college, Ivy Tech College in Indianapolis. He was so happy in the graduation. And he was a father of two. Two young boys. He was a dedicated father.”

That night, and at least twice after that, hundreds of white racists from the neighborhood gathered to mock and threaten Beal’s grieving family and others who came to support them and protest the murder. Some in the racist mob wielded firearms and baseball bats. Many spit out racist slurs of the vilest kind. They carried signs like “Go back to Africa.” The only thing that distinguished them from a lynch mob of the Jim Crow era were chants like “Trump! Trump! Trump!” (this was right around the time of his election) and “CPD! CPD!” (Chicago Police Department).

The two pigs who killed Joshua Beal have never been charged. And now they have been officially cleared by COPA, the “civilian” body that has been touted as a key part of the “reforms” in the Chicago police following the crisis that rocked the city after exposure of the official cover-up—involving top levels of the CPD all the way up the mayor—of the pig murder of Laquan McDonald.

No, throwing around words like “civilian” or “accountability,” or putting body cams on pigs, or any of the other reforms don’t mean a damn thing when it comes to changing the real role of the police—which is to serve and protect the oppressive system that rules over the people. It’s going to take an actual revolution to overthrow the rulers and put an END to this and many other crimes of this system. And thousands of people need to be part of working, right now, to bring that revolution closer. The national Revolution Tour is getting people organized to do just that—and after starting in Los Angeles, the Tour will soon be in Chicago. Learn about, follow, and support the Tour here.

Gestapo ICE Raids Target Thousands of Immigrants and Spread Terror Through Entire Communities

June 24, 2019 | revcom.us

Sunday, June 23, was the day that immigration agents were set to launch pre-dawn raids in 10 cities across the U.S. to arrest thousands of people. Clearly, these ICE raids were not just aimed at 2,000 or so immigrant families—but were deliberately meant to spread and intensify the climate of terror among all immigrants.

Think about going to sleep every night, wondering whether heavily armed federal agents were going to bust through your door before the sun rises and put everyone in the house in handcuffs to be hauled away. Think about the nightmare that parents have to go through every day as they leave for work, facing the possibility of being seized by armed agents, dumped into detention and marked for quick deportation—forcibly separated from their children who have no one else to take care of them. Think about people constantly agonizing over whether they should go out of the house to shop for necessities, meet friends, or even get much-needed medical care because of the fear of being caught in an ICE dragnet. Think of this happening to tens and hundreds of thousands of people across the country.

On Saturday, June 22, just hours before these nationwide ICE sweeps were set to start, Donald Trump tweeted that he was postponing the raids for two weeks—so that Democrats in Congress could accede to his demands for imposing even more draconian restrictions on immigrants and asylum seekers. Earlier in the week, in officially kicking off his reelection campaign, Trump had threatened that his regime will soon begin deporting “millions” of undocumented immigrants.

The ICE sweeps were reportedly to take place in Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York and San Francisco. According to the Washington Post, the planned mass roundup of “families that have received deportation orders” was referred to in ICE and Homeland Security Department as “family op” and was “slated to target up to 2,000 families.” According to an NPR report, these were immigrants “whose cases the Justice Department fast-tracked as a way of sending a deterrent message to families considering crossing the U.S. border illegally.” The Washington Post reported that ICE “planned to use hotel rooms as temporary staging areas to detain parents and children until all the members of the family are together and ready for deportation,” and that some people arrested who were not facing immediate deportation—known as “collateral damage”—may be released with monitoring devices on their ankles. The New York Times noted, “If the plans had gone forward, some immigrant children — many of whom are American citizens because they were born in the United States—would have faced the possibility of being forcibly separated from their families when ICE agents arrived to arrest and deport their undocumented parents.”

Top Democrat Nancy Piglosi (aka Pelosi) greeted Trump’s postponement by saying it was “welcome”—this is craven and dangerous conciliation with the fascists. Trump’s threat to deport “millions” still stands—and the Trump/Pence regime is moving quickly to step up vicious assaults against immigrants, as a key part of their overall fascist agenda. This is a time for all who stand with the immigrants to remain vigilant—and prepared to act against the resumption of the nationwide sweeps and other anti-immigrant outrages.

From the speech:
The Demonization, Criminalization and Deportations of Immigrants

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“Desert and Detention: No More Deaths” Protest at ICE Detention Center in Aurora, Colorado

June 24, 2019 | revcom.us

Flag burner Gregory "Joey" Johnson delivers message to Trump, July 4 "Salute to America":

"I'll be in DC...that rag of empire and oppression is going to burn"

June 25, 2019 | revcom.us

Gregory “Joey” Johnson available for interviews
Contact: Larry Everest 202 556 3906

Gregory “Joey” Johnson delivered this message in The Washington Examiner to Donald Trump and his “Salute to America” July 4th Rally:

“I'm going to be there in D.C.,” and “that rag of empire and oppression is going to burn.”

Johnson told The Examiner (“‘Burn that rag!’ Activists to desecrate the flag at Trump July Fourth rally”), “America was never great. America was built on slavery, genocide, and war... it’s the flag of this shameless fascist jackal Trump.”

Johnson called Trump’s July 4 “Salute to America,” “a fascist extravaganza of ‘make America white again,’ xenophobia, jingoism, and American chauvinism. And this is all dangerous to humanity.”

Johnson’s 1989 Supreme Court case (Texas v. Johnson) established the Constitutional right to burn the American flag in protest. Earlier this month, Johnson won a $225,000 legal settlement from the city of Cleveland stemming from his 2016 arrest for burning an American flag (VIDEO) at the Republican Convention as Trump was being nominated. (Cleveland Is Paying $225,000 to a Man Who Burned the American Flag, The New York Times, June 15). Trump has repeatedly called for outlawing flag burning.

5 min VIDEO: Joey Johnson on why he still burns the flag, how selling “Stars and Stripes” newspaper as an “Army brat” youth opened his eyes, and whether he considers himself an American.

Johnson is available for interviews at 202 556 3906 @Joey4Revolution

Joey Johnson is an active member of the Revolution Club and a follower of the revolutionary communist leader Bob Avakian. For more go to revcom.us.

Two #Freeway9 Heroes Take the Stand—Unapologetically Indicting the Trump/Pence Regime and the Political Persecution They Face

June 26, 2019 | revcom.us

On June 25, the second to last day of the trial of two of the #Freeway9 defendants, the two defendants took the stand. They explained how they saw the danger of fascism posed by the Trump/Pence regime and why they had been motivated to protest on the 101 Freeway, actions for which they now face potentially three years in prison. The crimes of the Trump/Pence regime that motivated them—terror and cruelty against immigrants, the dismantling of governing norms, threats of war, destruction of the environment, attacks on the rights of women and LGBTQ people, and open white supremacy—have only grown more intense since their protests.

They were also able to expose what had thus far been suppressed throughout the trial: the politicized nature of how their case has been prosecuted. They testified about how a police informant had been sent in to spy on their meetings, how the Anti-Terrorism Division of the LAPD had decided to get involved in a mere traffic violation, how they had been grossly overcharged, and more. Much of their testimony was stricken from the record, but it was important that it was heard for the first time in court.

The prosecution argued to the jury that it was an open-and-shut case and should be easy to see the need to convict. In response, the first of the two lawyers for the defense made their closing argument. They said there was nothing easy about convicting these defendants, exposing again how they had been overcharged and taking apart the prosecution’s case that simple driving infractions should make someone a criminal. They also argued that even with what they see as the best legal system, this is a moment of peril in which the normal checks and balances are not working. Congress is doing nothing to stop Trump. The courts have spent more time defending the right of religious bigots to refuse to bake cakes for gay couples than stopping Trump from committing treason. Trump ought to be in jail, but nothing is being done. He addressed the jury directly saying that they are the last line of defense, perhaps even the only defense or check that still works.

There have been more people in the courtroom the last few days, including from the media. La Opinión and Channel 54 has run some important coverage. A radio host has noted how significant it is that the defendants were able to force the prosecution to reveal some of the extent of political spying by the police, something that is not normally done. An LA Times reporter has been sitting in and noted informally the contrast between how these defendants are being prosecuted compared to those who took over the freeways after Trump was elected.

A bunch of supporters of the #Freeway9 attempted to wear mylar blankets into court (the metal “blankets” which are all that is being provided to so many of the migrant children and others being held inhumanely in Trump’s concentration camps). The bailiffs prevented most people from doing this, but three were able to go into the courtroom and wear these mylar blankets during the closing arguments. Others have been wearing shirts into the courthouse every day with questions like, “Would you have convicted Rosa Parks?” and “Would you have convicted the people who hid Anne Frank?”

There was a poignant exchange when the prosecutor challenged one of the defendants why they hadn’t done like the Women’s March, including by focusing on voting. The defendant spoke simply and sharply that the Democrats have done nothing to remove Trump and that while the Women’s March was an inspiring day, Donald Trump is still in office and people went home. Several on the jury seemed to nod in response.

Some of the statements of support for the defendants are indicating a perhaps growing recognition that waiting until 2020 is too late and that Trump might not leave even if voted out. Meanwhile, the emergency caused by this regime intensifies by the day, with Trump threatening to obliterate Iran, masses of children being tortured in U.S. concentration camps with growing numbers dying, and more.

Today, the other defense attorney will make their closing argument, the prosecution will respond, and the jury will begin their deliberations.

Read statements of support for the LA9.

Supporters have been wearing shirts into the courthouse every day with questions like, “Would you have convicted Rosa Parks?” and “Would you have convicted the people who hid Anne Frank?”

DOWNLOAD POSTER (PDF)

Hung Jury Sent Back By Judge to Keep Deliberating in #Freeway9 Case

Court Update from June 26, Los Angeles

June 27, 2019 | revcom.us

UPDATE: At 3:30 on June 26, the jury in the #Freeway9 case let the court know they were hopelessly deadlocked on all three counts. The judge sent them back to deliberate and the jury resumes doing so at 9 am June 27.

~~~~~~~~~~

Final arguments were made on Wednesday, June 26, by defense attorney Damon Alimouri and then the final word from the prosecutor for the government which in Orwellian speak is dubbed “the People” in court.

The defense rested on the following salient arguments. Mr. Alimouri reminded the jury of their responsibility to decide the fate of a fellow member of the community and of democracy as a whole. He reminded people of the right to due process, to a fair trial, to free speech, to liberty of thought worship—rights people risk their lives for all over the world. He told the jury why he had taken the case of his defendant pro bono because he felt passionately that his client is innocent and committed no crime. He argued that the government had not proven the charges on any count and in particular had not proven that his client had acted with malice or with intent to annoy or injure anyone. Even after showing countless videos, police witnesses, spending unnecessary time, the prosecution had not produced a shred of evidence to the contrary, direct or circumstantial.

Alimouri cited the way his client’s testimony about why he acted as he had and heralded his courage, emphasizing: “I am ashamed of myself that I don’t have this courage.” He argued that so many in society are disgusted with Donald Trump’s turn towards darkness, disgusted with the attacks on immigrants, ashamed of what has been done to Muslims, to the press, by the energizing of racist forces, by babies ripped from the arms of helpless parents. His client has stood up to the inhumanity and barbarism of this administration. If more people had time from jobs, responsibilities to children and relationships and more, wouldn’t many more do the same?

Addressing the question of why his client had protested on the freeway, Alimouri asked: Why anywhere but? He explained that everything we do is packed with meaning and that in extreme emergency, when there is a need for immediate change, what better way than to disrupt the daily commute and the mentality of business as usual?

Alimouri dissected and refuted the prosecution’s claims that the protest had jeopardized safety, that his client had failed to obey a lawful order, and argued forcefully that a misdemeanor code violation is not a crime.

He cited the court instructions to the jury, that they must have an abiding conviction beyond a reasonable doubt of guilt to convict, emphasizing that “abiding” means permanent. He emphasized that, to convict, they have to be confident that 50 years from now they will still feel his client is guilty. They have to be confident that history won’t look back with shame and regret, that people won’t look back and ask what happened? He asked people to consider how they will look back, will they be remorseful or proud of having stood on the right side of history. Trials like this are going to be in the news. Individual trials will be memorialized in your history books.

He said more, including further refuting the prosecution’s charges and methods, ending with a direct statement to the jury: You have the power to say NO! The only just verdict is not guilty on all counts. That is what is in line with truth and with reality.

This was followed by closing remarks by the prosecution. Then court was adjourned and the jury was sent to deliberate.

Supporters have been wearing shirts into the courthouse every day with questions like, “Would you have convicted Rosa Parks?” and “Would you have convicted the people who hid Anne Frank?”

From Refuse Fascism, Los Angeles:
Victory in Illegitimate Trial of Two Arrested for Sounding the Alarm Against Fascism

Prosecutor is Doubling Down on Political Persecution, Hearing On Monday, July 1

June 28, 2019 | revcom.us

June 28, 4 p.m., Los Angeles Superior Court

A mistrial was declared in the trial against two members of Refuse Fascism and the Revolution Club for protesting on the 101 Freeway in September and November 2017 to sound the alarm against the Trump/Pence Fascist regime, calling on millions to join a movement initiated by RefuseFascism.org to drive this regime from power. They were facing a total of 12 misdemeanors with up to three years in jail and $2,000 in fines.

That the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict reveals the righteousness of the defense and of the actions of standing up against fascism, which is not a crime!

Despite this mistrial, the prosecutor said immediately that they would retry this unjust case. A hearing on this is set for Monday, July 1, 1:30pm, LA Metropolitan Court House, 1945 South Hill Street, 6th Floor, Department 62.  The defendants will hold a press conference and rally at 12:30pm on the courthouse steps. All who feel the need to act to STOP this fascist regime need to stand in support.

The whole way the LAPD and City Attorney has charged and prosecuted this case reveals this is a highly political persecution—aimed at criminalizing protest that steps outside the bounds of meaningless protest-as-usual, in the face of a rapidly consolidating fascist regime. When the Trump regime is caging thousands of migrant children in concentration camps with the Democrats funding this ethnic cleansing, when the last abortion clinics in several states are closing with the basic right to abortion under threat, the tripwires for war with Iran are being laid, and as the Supreme Court rules that states have the right to suppress their voters... a protest staged by members of RefuseFascism.org and the Revolution Club that shut down the 101 freeway in Los Angeles with a 50 ft banner with the slogan “The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!” in the Fall of 2017 is STILL being aggressively prosecuted by the City Attorney’s office headed by long time Democratic politician Mike Feuer.

The prosecution has claimed this a simple traffic case, but they have filed motion after motion preventing the truth from coming into the courtroom about how these charges were put together in the first place. That LAPD’s Anti-Terrorist Division took over this case and decided the charges on a very political basis and that they sent a Confidential Informant into meetings of Refuse Fascism, secretly recording discussion and political meetings.

Yesterday, the prosecutor filed an extraordinary and outrageous motion trying to pressure the judge to silence the defendants and their supporters from raising any political discussion in the courthouse and even outside the courthouse on public streets. They tried to ban “any message regarding issues raised in this trial, including, but not limited to, Donald Trump, immigration, fascism, social injustices, et cetera.” They even raised objections, after the fact, about the politics in the testimony of the defendants about why they were compelled to step onto the freeway to stop business as usual.

From the prosecutor’s brief: “Over the People’s objections, Judge Espinoza allowed the defense, in direct examination of the defendants and their closing, to identify a number of political woes that motivated the defendants’ actions on the day they were arrested.  These included such inflammatory, irrelevant, and prejudicial topics associated with the current Presidential administration, including, but not limited to, ‘ripping babies out of their parents’ arms at the border,’ the threat of nuclear war, the fascist takeover of the United States government, and the death of migrants coming over the border. A central theme to the defense’s closing urged the jury to ‘pick a side.’”

The prosecution demanded that the judge interrogate the jury in the middle of jury deliberations. This would be tantamount to jury tampering by the prosecution. The judge did not go along with this, but the fact that the City Attorney tried to go to such lengths to shut down the political questions at the heart of this case shows that this case is about restricting the rights of people to bring out the truth of the extreme danger we are facing with this fascist regime. This would set a dangerous precedent for these defendants and for any other political trials.

When asked about this, Miguel Alex Antonio, one of the two defendants on trial, said in a statement: “They have suppressed very important information from the jury. The fact that a spy from the LAPD’s Major Crimes Division was sent to public Refuse Fascism meetings to secretly record entire meetings and conversations with people (including a conversation with me) and ‘gather intelligence’. Why are they trying so hard to suppress this information?”

Damon Alimouri, Mr. Antonio’s lawyer, said in his closing argument to the Jury: “Indeed, the prosecution has laid a formidable attack on Mr. Antonio, charging him with six separate crimes. Much like a shotgun-shell scatters many tiny bullets with one shot designed for one of the tiny bullets to hit the target, the prosecution has fired six scattered shots at Mr. Antonio with the hope that at least one of the bullets hits Mr. Antonio. That is strategic.”

In calling for the jury to do the right thing Mr. Alimouri said “In effect, history is the true measurement here. Will history look upon your decision favorably? Or will your children, will your grandchildren, will your great-grandchildren, look back and ask what happened? Or will they be proud and honored to see that you were on the right side of history? That you stood for something? What will history books say about you?”

That is the question before everyone right now: will people act commensurate with the crimes against humanity being waged by this regime. Michelle Xai, one of the #Freeway9 who was originally charged with conspiracy (charges which the City was forced to drop) said: “When Fascism is becoming law, we have the responsibility to act, in our millions, to stop this. The defendants were calling on those millions to act and those millions are needed now. Don’t tell me that it can’t happen in this country, that we can’t drive out a regime. It is happening in Sudan, Algeria, South Korea and right now in Hong Kong. This is the only way to get off the defensive and bring a stop to this Fascist Regime.”

Supporters have been wearing shirts into the courthouse every day with questions like, “Would you have convicted Rosa Parks?” and “Would you have convicted the people who hid Anne Frank?”

Clips and Q&A available here

On Monday, July 1: Go Out to Courthouses and into the Streets to Support Two Activists Targeted for Protesting the Trump/Pence Fascist Regime

June 30, 2019 | revcom.us

The following is adapted from a call from RefuseFascism.org:

To all those who are sick of all the complicity and inactivity in the face of outrage after outrage by the government, and who want to support those who took and continue to take a courageous stand against this:

On Friday, June 28, a mistrial was declared in the trial of two members of Refuse Fascism and the Revolution Club for protesting on the 101 Freeway in September and November 2017 to sound the alarm against the Trump/Pence fascist regime. They called on millions to join a movement initiated by RefuseFascism.org to drive this regime from power and are charged with a total of 12 misdemeanors with up to three years in jail and $2,000 in fines.

That the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict reveals the righteousness of the defense and the actions of standing up against fascism, which is not a crime!

Despite this mistrial, the prosecutor said immediately that they would retry this unjust case.

A hearing on this is set for tomorrow, Monday, July 1, 1:30 pm, LA Metropolitan Courthouse, 1945 South Hill Street, 6th Floor, Department 62. The defendants will hold a press conference and rally at 12:30 pm on the courthouse steps. All who feel the need to act to STOP this fascist regime need to stand in support.

This prosecution needs to be made a much bigger deal around the country. Not only can we not allow them to lock up these courageous protesters who were setting an example of what it means to act in a way commensurate with the danger of fascism, we can't accept this move to criminalize protest and the right to dissent, part of the consolidation of fascism.

People everywhere need to know this is happening! What we do now can set a precedent and have an impact on what is to come as the rest of the defendants in the #Freeway9 and #UCLA5 cases go on trial. (Go here for more background.)

If you’ve had it with the complicity and inactivity as the fascist regime carries out outrage after outrage...if you have the backs of those who dared and continue to dare to step out to oppose this and are being persecuted... Go to a courthouse or a busy downtown transit hub where you are. Carry signs demanding “Drop the Charges! Support the #FreeWay9” Pass out flyers about the case. TAKE PHOTOS and video messages and send to revolution.reports@yahoo.com and info@refusefascism.org. Have people sign a banner or a big sign. Share messages of support with photos/vids on social media under #Freeway9 and #TrumpPenceMustGo to @RefuseFascism.

Let Refuse Fascism know your plans—but mainly, SHARE and POST your actions tomorrow.

Supporters have been wearing shirts into the courthouse every day with questions like, “Would you have convicted Rosa Parks?” and “Would you have convicted the people who hid Anne Frank?”

Clips and Q&A available here