You Can't Recycle Capitalism, Throw It in the Trash!

Taking the Revolution to Climate Striking High School Students

October 7, 2019 | revcom.us

From a member of the Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour

Note from the author: These are some thoughts and ruminations, mainly from experiences right before the news hit around the impeachment inquiry, so much of this does not reflect how the developments may have impacted these same youth and others.

The National Revolution Tour has had some back-and-forth with a number of high school students leading into the September 20 Climate Strike (sometimes in groups of half a dozen to a dozen, sometimes even more) but in particular we’ve been working with two or three students who were engaged and challenged and provoked and a beginning form of organization has begun to develop, although very fragile. It’s interesting that these two or three students originally stopped after seeing the “Question and Challenge“ from Bob Avakian (BA), the leader of the revolution. We had an enlarged version of it on a placard the first time we went out. “Could that happen, could Trump really decide not to leave office if he loses the next election?” one of them asked. Many students seemed aware of what was meant by “Puerto Rico style” protests and reacted favorably to the idea (in the days before and immediately after the Climate Strike).

These students (seniors) only know of “socialism” from Bernie Sanders and see this in a favorable way. But right away, I kept probing and went deeper into the real problem humanity faces (the whole system of capitalism-imperialism) and the real solution (a real revolution that overthrows this system and replaces it with a radically different system (see the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America). They were attracted to the simplicity of the 5-2-6 and the Points of Attention for the Revolution. One said, “My teacher really cares, but mainly advocates recycling.” They were getting a sense that the problem was much bigger and could not be solved simply by recycling (especially as we did exposure of where exactly do the plastic bottles that people recycle actually end up). As they learned more from the exposure, it got them to see in a basic way how capitalism-imperialism was actually the source of all this and why only a real revolution gives us a chance of actually saving the planet and humanity.

The day before the Climate Strike we had a whole cool scene outside Revolution Books in Harlem of people making banners and attracting attention to the bookstore. It just so happened to be the Harriet Washington event at the bookstore later that evening too, and we let more people know about that. Anyway, during a back-and-forth around slogans and statements for the banners, these students eventually came up with the statement (which they put on a placard): “Metal straws will not lead to fundamental change. But Revolution will,” and another along the lines of “You can’t recycle capitalism. Throw it in the trash!” They were beginning to measure other “solutions” that are non-solutions to what’s actually needed in order to deal with the environmental emergency. They were also attracted to the exposure around Bernie and agitation against American chauvinism, and when we posed: How come Bernie never talks about where does the wealth he wants to “redistribute” actually come from?... they said, “I’d never thought of that before,” but it was starting to click, in particular the stark difference between democratic socialism and revolutionary communism. I showed them the trailer to BA’s speech Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution, which they connected up to the “5 Stops” from the special 5-2-6 issue of Revolution (the trailer highlights how these things cannot be reformed under capitalism).

This sparked thoughts from the students about all the negative stuff they hear about communism in school (from teachers and other pro-capitalist students) and cited one teacher who has some kind of display in the classroom that “justified” U.S. involvement back in the day in order to defeat and “contain” the spread of communism, the politics of “containment” and the prevention of the “domino effect.” These students were impacted by the exposure of what the U.S. did in Vietnam (murdering two million Vietnamese people). I sensed a beginning skepticism and a “questioning” of what the teachers have been telling them about history and about what’s the problem and the solution to these things, especially as they engaged more with the revcoms about the American Crimes and the source of all this (the BEB issue of Revolution and the 5-2-6 issue are very good tools).

To be clear, it is not yet the ’90s RATM-type (Rage Against the Machine) “Fuck You I Won’t Do What You Tell Me” and even less the 1960s counter-culture and rebellion, but there are elements within all this (the sentiments and mood of the youth and students) that are in that spirit and ethos but not yet that... and it could be on an even more than “that” (qualitatively and quantitatively beyond the best of the 1960s) if/as we revolutionaries have even greater impact and growing influence. There was a 16-year-old from Queens I met at the Climate Strike who was really feeling like Greta, what difference does it make to keep going to school when we might all die (I’m paraphrasing). I got the sense at the Climate Strike and since that many students are thinking this way and that they’re being held back by the “grown-ups” and their “greediness” and “laziness” preventing them from doing something about this emergency situation... but that there are larger forces (which the youth obviously sense but don’t fully understand) looking to keep this contained and re-routed and hemmed in.

This young person from Queens tuned in to the Tour Livestream with Raymond Lotta and said “humanity is really going to suffer and most likely end because most people want money when it won’t really matter.” Later, she asked (paraphrasing), “How will you defeat them when they’re really powerful and have a lot going for them?” This got me to think about this: in the absence of scientific hope (versus illusory hope), will these youth turn to nihilism? It reminded me also of a homemade poster at the Climate Strike that said something along the lines of “we’re all doomed, so welcome to the zombie march.” A lot of this can go in the way of despair and varied nihilistic expressions or it can go another way, towards hope and daring on a solid scientific foundation as BA has put it.

These youth and students and others acting now are very quickly (to echo BA on this) running up against a mighty power they don’t fully understand and all other class forces with the strong winds of spontaneity on their side are fighting to channel all this, feeding people BEB (Bourgeois Electoral Bullshit) and all kinds of other reformist bullshit. Let's not underestimate the power concentrated in the title of the National Revolution Tour, and the two slogans! These are:

“You Think You’re Woke... But You’re Sleepwalking Through A Nightmare—

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

The National Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour

There Is a Way Out of This Madness!

and

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

The reality (as I understand it) is that people much more quickly “these days” (versus in the 1960s) run up against the full power of what we’re up against and in an overall sense there is less distance to travel before you hit right up against the real obstacles and the barriers standing in the way of humanity and the planet being fully emancipated and truly free. This poses real immediate challenges but is full of tremendous potential (I might be “tripping out” too much here). So, after some back-and-forth I posed to the young woman from Queens why was she not scared or feared revolution? I’m paraphrasing but essentially she said, “I fear more the end of the world and humanity going extinct than a revolution which might give us a chance to save humanity and the planet.” Again, leaving aside her doubts about the possibility for others to do this (it’ll be hard for people to overcome fear therefore let’s start people off doing little things like “planting trees” and “recycling,”) or her concerns about the mental shackles on some of the young people in her community (who only seem to care about doing stupid shit and “making money”), her comment about what she feared most was insightful. It’s kind of the reverse of young people in “recent times” more inclined and equipped to imagine the end of the world (as in Young Adult books like The Hunger Games) than having their sights lifted to imagining a better world; it’s worth thinking about how quickly this could change (or begin to transform in that direction) at this moment. It does seem that the authorities and school officials giving the “OK” to the students to participate (with a permission slip from parents) in the Climate Strike was perhaps, in part, aimed at undermining such rebelliousness from coming into fruition and blossoming... more to think about on this. How to uncork all this? How to get going a radical revolt against a revolting culture? How to get a vibrant, radical, rebellious new movement for revolution that’s an attractive force to all the youth and students who want to break RIGHT NOW out of the confines and are pushing and aspiring in that direction?

Anyway, at one point (outside the high school) a hardcore Bernie supporter came up and was making all the arguments we’d been polemicizing against and even the students got in on it. One of them said, “But isn’t Bernie also BEB?” (BEB = Bourgeois Electoral Bullshit) The Bernie supporter had been arguing that Bernie was different than the Democratic Party, that she was not a Democratic Party supporter, she was a Bernie supporter which she felt was a different thing. Anyway, we’d given the students the BEB issue prior to this and had walked through some of the crimes of U.S. imperialism under both Democrats and Republicans; in fact one of the students said she had read a book talking about how there was no need for the U.S. to have dropped the bomb on Japan during WW2 and yet the U.S. did it anyway and that she had to argue this in class with students who didn’t believe her.

The following Friday, I went with another person from the Tour to City Hall where some of the youth had called for continuing the weekly Climate Strike as put forward by Greta. There were dozens of youths and some adults (about 60 people). Some of the student leaders and others are very much feeling the need to act but seemed more inclined to think that we could do it through policy change and legislation. One young student said, “Revolution is just going to take too long,” that the U.S. has always been capitalist so it’s going to be difficult and take a long time to change this country into something else and really “couldn’t we just pressure the people in power to change things now?” Others were arguing similar things, although very open to engagement and struggle, especially when you walked them through the substance of why this system cannot be reformed, what are the “rules of the game” so to speak, and how does capitalism-imperialism actually work.

It is interesting that some of these students have since started following us on Instagram and have been looking at many of our posts, which leads me to believe they’re curious about the revolution and perhaps on some level are being impacted by the substance we’re putting out. As an aside, I do think the Tour Livestream on “capitalism is destroying the planet...” featuring Raymond Lotta was a “new thing” that we should not fail to fully appreciate. It was definitely not all that’s possible, however, there were important elements that came together that point in the direction of solving some big problems of the revolution. I thought the team that co-hosted did a good job, including highlighting lessons for the viewers (and inviting them to pose questions related to the topic) and Raymond Lotta brought crucial and hard-hitting facts, exposure and agitation. And there were, although very small, some brand-new people (including high school students) that tuned in and watched some or large portions of it. One particular student, as mentioned above, made an insightful comment and posed a challenging question.

Now imagine 100s and soon 1,000s tuning in, many of them just like that young student from Queens, getting provoked, challenged and inspired... and invited in to be part of solving the big problems of the revolution and getting organized into this. Thousands tuning into the regular National Tour livestream, with an edge of “completely outrageous and eminently reasonable” as one important way we’re building and leading a national movement for an actual revolution. How do we get to this point?

We did find, not surprisingly, anti-communism among some of the high school students, including among those concerned about the environment and among those who hate Trump and are opposed to the fascists. Others said they’ve heard bad things about it but don’t really know what to think about it, how to judge whether it is good or not. One student said it was a good idea but there is the danger under communism for “the government to have too much power,” and she went on to argue for reforms, for incremental change because most people would not support “revolution” (something drastic), and since we need to unite everyone in order for change to happen, we need to appeal to most people and “incremental” is something many people could support.

Spread this trailer everywhere.

See all the articles in this series.

 

The Revolution Tour Is in NYC—$25,000 Needed in the Month of October

Updated September 30, 2019 | revcom.us

The Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour is now in New York City, boldly breaking onto the scene with the spirit of “You Think You’re Woke... But You’re Sleepwalking Through a Nightmare—This System Cannot Be Reformed, It Must Be Overthrown!” The world is being shaken up on many fronts, and the Tour is taking this message into the midst of these momentous events. A great deal is demanded of these revolutionaries in times like these and funds are urgently needed to support this important work!

Members of the Tour have been out to the high schools and out in the midst of the major outpourings of mainly young people at the Climate Strike saying: “Capitalism Is A Straitjacket On Humanity’s Chance To Save Our Planet... Only A REAL Revolution Can Remove That Straitjacket.” They quickly traveled to Washington, DC, to join with a protest against Trump, and carried a big banner saying “American Lives Are Not More Important Than Other People’s Lives!—Bob Avakian” and “NO U.S. War On Iran!”—just as the danger of the Trump regime launching a war against Iran is sharpening. There in DC, members of the Tour attended the important national meeting called by Refuse Fascism to discuss calling people out into the streets in sustained nonviolent protests week after week to drive the Trump/Pence regime from power. In all of this, the Tour has been both uniting with people who are standing up in struggle while putting squarely before people that what is needed is to build a movement for an ACTUAL revolution and calling on people to be a part of this. And in the midst of all this, now some of the Tour volunteers are being called back to Los Angeles where they face grossly unjust charges stemming from standing up against the Trump/Pence regime in 2017 and 2018.

Film showings of the talks by Bob Avakian, The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! and Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution are planned in New York, and the Tour will be getting out in a major way on the campuses very soon.

But all of this can’t be done without raising greater funds right now. For the month of October, there is a need for a minimum of $25,000 to be raised to meet the most basic needs to sustain the volunteers, to print and distribute massive materials, to travel for trials, to travel to different cities on the East Coast—everywhere bringing out the message of the Tour in what promise to be turbulent times where this is needed more than ever.

Some Thoughts from Houston on Meeting the $50,000 Summer Fundraising Goal and Going Beyond

October 7, 2019 | revcom.us

I’m writing to share some thoughts on some of the things we learned in Houston during the push to raise funds to help meet the $50,000 summer goal – and some thoughts on going forward from here to meet the new challenge to raise $25,000 by the end of October.

We are confronting a rapidly shifting situation in the country with the need and potential for real advances in driving out the Trump/Pence regime and in making leaps in building the movement for revolution. The role that the Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour can and needs to play in the midst of all this is absolutely critical – if there is going to be a possibility of a real kind of real future worth living for humanity. We urgently need to meet this new challenge for $25,000 so that the Tour can go forward and maximize everything it needs to do in this next period.

Viewing the July 27 and August 25 livestreams together in Houston spurred our collective efforts to go out into the world and inspire many more people to contribute to this movement being born. While at first most people expressed that they didn’t know anyone else who would agree with this, who they could take it to, how they could build it, etc., through collective discussion, ideas came out and were tossed around a bit, and people found a way in and a way they could contribute to the effort of doing broad outreach, organizing a fundraising dinner and approaching all kinds of different people to contribute to these efforts in different ways.

One of the things we learned is that there’s a difference between asking people to donate and challenging them to contribute. Not that we should be mechanical about “forbidding” the word “donate,” but one consists of asking people to give to a project others are undertaking, and objectively seeing the donation as a “one-off” (to use that phrase); the other calls on people to be part of that project themselves, even if in a beginning way

And I think there are some important lessons concentrated in these two contrasting approaches that are integral to what we’re out to accomplish overall. One, the process of turning heads towards revolution – people who see themselves as contributing to the great project this Tour has set out to accomplish are more likely to continue following it, and the basis is stronger for them to contribute further in various ways as the Tour continues. (And this “turning” has definitely been underway for several of the people who have been part of this effort.)

Another important lesson centers on the importance of putting the need for funds front and center when we approach people. This makes the whole thing – the fact that the Tour is building towards an actual revolution and that support is needed right now for these efforts – more real and challenging, and serves to draw people in. Of course, not everyone responds favorably, or even responds at all, but there is a matter of how we set terms as we take this out in society. In other words, it’s wrong to think you need to begin any interaction with people, whether it’s approaching an individual or group, or out raising funds among masses, with long explanations of the Tour. Let them check out the material – the Call for the Tour, the 5-2-6, etc. as you tell them that they need to be part of it, and that the most meaningful way to do that now is for them to contribute funds, as much as they can possibly contribute. Let them find their way into that.

Through our broad efforts to build support for the Tour, many people were introduced to the work of Bob Avakian and to the revolution that this Tour is all about organizing. Everything going on in the world right now, as concentrated and expressed in the 5 Stops, has a lot of people angered, dismayed, concerned, etc., but most of them think that’s “the way it is,” and you have to find a way to, at best, work with that and deal with it.

But what turned the heads of many towards revolution (and here I’m mainly speaking about people encountered in the broad outreach who made small contributions) was that there is a force out there determined to organize thousands and millions for an actual revolution, and they are being invited into this process, and to help work on the challenges it faces. Hearing BA speak on the videos we ran played a big part in this. Many people from different strata and classes, and various backgrounds, commented that learning of this Tour “gave them hope.” As some high school youths commented upon learning of the Tour and listening to a bit of BA on a video, they had never even thought that the world could be different in any fundamental way.

Moving ahead and making further advances doesn’t just happen. We urgently need to push beyond the limitations of what we have done so far. We need to go to people who contributed already and challenge them to become monthly sustainers. We need to do much more to get with potentially large donors among professionals of various types, including developing salons among groupings of professors and among some immigrant professionals, as well as with some people in outlying areas. There need to be yard sales and art sales and other ways that lots of people can get involved and raise significant amounts of money in the process. And we need to continue to connect with students and basic masses and invite them in to find out about the Tour and contribute. I’m sure there’s many more ideas if people really proceed from how precious this Tour is – how much it means that there is this force out there that’s fighting for a way out of this horror and for a whole different and much better world.

The stakes are enormous, the time is short. $25,000 more is needed now. The challenge is before us all.

How serious a threat does the Trump/Pence regime pose to humanity?

Could fascism really happen here?

What is the character of the regime—is it fascist, and if it is, what are the implications?

What are the roots of this regime? Is it a terrible aberration, “more of the same”... or something different still?

What must be done to stop it? How? Is a better world possible?

Watch the hour-long film and Q&As at
www.revcom.us • @tuneintorevcom

Revolution Books: 437 Malcolm X Blvd. • 212-691-3345 • @revbooksnyc • revolutionbooksnyc.org

The above screening is a theater rental sponsored by Revolution Books and the Revolution Books Educational Fund, a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization. Contributions tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.

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Sights and Sounds From Revolution Reports on the Climate Strikes Across the Country

September 24, 2019 | revcom.us

In the past weekend, the world saw millions of people pour out into the streets, coming from many diverse viewpoints, demanding a shift from the way the environment has been handled under this system. Many are frustrated with how things have been led from the top. In this country, the youth took to the streets on Friday on a scale that has not been seen in this country around the environment. The following is a series of excerpts from reports about going out to the Climate Strike on Friday, September 20 written from Chicago, LA, New York, and a team from the National Tour who went to Washington, DC. Readers should learn from the experiences of these different cities from a national scope and contribute their questions, comments and reflections to this process (revolution.reports@yahoo.com).

Chicago

We had a chant we did during the march that the masses around us liked and some danced to and took up chanting: “The planet’s on fire, the politicians are liars, this system created this mess, revolution nothing less!”

One thing we noticed was how warm the response was to agitation about capitalism-imperialism destroying the planet and the need to overthrow it. What people meant by that was not all the same, but mainly people were cheering when they heard it. We asked to say over the bullhorn why they were cheering. One youth said something about ending greed and corporations. Another said he wants his grandchildren to have a planet. Our agitation didn’t stop at the need to overthrow this system. We talked about how capitalism is driven to destroy the planet and humanity, but in overthrowing it and replacing it with the New Socialist Republic we can restructure the economy to put the needs of humanity and the planet first, and unleash people to work together to solve the problems, scientists, and regular people, on the local scale and global scale. And we talked about how no Democratic politician or Green New Deal can stop what is happening to the planet, because they can’t and don’t and won’t uproot this capitalist system.

We set up in places where lots of people were passing through. People stopped to talk to us off of the agitation or seeing the banner. We worked as much as possible to bring groups of people to talk with us and each other to start bringing people into working on the problems of the revolution. This ranged from two-three people to at most four-five. We were not able to get a whole scene going of people in a mass speakout or anything like that. The people coming up were really open to talking about socialism and communism and BA and the new communism. Many, as we got deeper into things, wanted to know more about how a real revolution could be made and what to do now to work towards getting there, and many were interested in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America

In the discussions people did begin to speak to each other, agreeing and disagreeing, and learning from each other, including connecting with people from different backgrounds and experiences. One thing interesting and important was seeing how people sorted out in relation to each other. In the different groupings, there were people who stepped forward who were clearly more drawn to actual revolution and a new state power than others and were more deeply drawn into things through the course of some disagreements with others who were more going in different directions. Which also had a positive impact on those other people, much different than had these been one-on-one discussions with us.

In one discussion a woman suddenly got clear that we were talking about an actual overthrow and establishing a new society and was very excited about this and explained that to everyone else who walked up to join the conversation. Her friend was asking about how this would affect indigenous people, and when this was put back to them about how they saw the contradiction, some other people who joined in for a little bit were arguing that any attempt at a new society would need to ask the indigenous people for permission first. We came back to humanity and the whole system and not proceeding from the interests of any one people and the woman who was really excited about actual revolution was seeing the difference of these things and disagreeing with the people who were more narrowly talking about indigenous people as the measure of everything.

In another discussion, after watching the trailer of BA, one person said he’s backing Bernie, but sees that doesn’t get us all the way where we need to go. After that another person responded more directly to the trailer, saying what stood out to him was “this is a difficult road.” He agreed, but also that it is necessary. He stayed to talk much longer and a woman who is more drawn to Zapatista-style “anarcho-communism” joined in. We talked about several different problems of the revolution and the guy was getting a deepened understanding of and interest in the new communism, while the woman was not sure she really wanted to go there, but remained open.

In several discussions, either one-on-one or in groups, we were putting the problem to people of this revolution and BA needing to be more widely known’ having greater impact in society and building the organized forces for this—and all pretty concretely in answer to questions from people about how do we get to being able to make this revolution that they were starting to see is needed. One person on our team read the POAs with a number of people and worked with people on how do those POAs get taken up and fought for, including that they can begin to do that now. We also talked with some people about the urgent question of people getting into the streets to drive out Trump/Pence, getting their thinking on that and working to enlist them in contributing to the active social investigation/challenge of that question, in relation to assessing Refuse Fascism calling for week after week... and whether people will respond at this point. On all these problems, people were contributing their thinking and some agreed to help work on them in various ways going forward.

New York

Some notes on responses, section of people were drawn and the fact that capitalism is the problem was resonating with people even as they didn’t fully understand what that meant. When we broke it down more sections of people would be trying to follow and listening. There were some people who resonated with the anti-capitalism and some who didn’t know what they thought, understood something is wrong and wanted to hear the argument. When we agitated about B.E.B. and green new deal there was actual listening and some were attracted. People were trying to evaluate this. Communism was a question people brought up a number of times. Many and most people, a lot of whom were young, were there to save the planet—didn’t see themselves as doing protest as usual. They were very concerned about why and how to do something and searching for answers.

In addition to points above, overall agitators had different strengths and weaknesses, but overall one thing to examine is how we were fighting to make more palpable that we are calling on people to get organized for this revolution NOW, the “Six Points of Attention For the Revolution,” and joining and starting clubs. There was some good putting forward what we have, BA, including on the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America and how it would deal. There was also broadening out the “5 STOPS.” Points from statement on American parasitic consumer society, and that the Military biggest contributor and enforcer of system responsible—global problem. At different points in the agitation we made the point about this, and this was an important challenge that for many couldn’t be dismissed, and was an attractive edge to some.

Trump and Pence are fascists there's no doubt RISE RISE UP DRIVE THEM OUT! #WeThePeopleMarch Join us Sun 11am @ Steinbruck Center, 1226 Vermont Ave NW #DC to do this NOW pic.twitter.com/M24vRJrIv2

— NYC Revolution Club (@NYCRevClub) September 21, 2019

DC

With a very small team, we did live agitation in the paths where people came streaming in, chanting, “There is no Planet B—REVOLUTION IS WHAT WE NEED!” We drew forward anti-fascists and anarchists and democratic socialists to come and talk to us. We did agitation as the march began, snaking through and agitating about why we need an actual revolution and the need to drive out this fascist regime by pouring our efforts into getting the millions we need into the streets, which is the only way you can drive out a fascist regime. People chanted with us and took flyers including the 5-2-6 broadsheet, and we drew a crowd when we did agitation on the side of the Capitol building that pointed to the fact that there is a fascist in the White House, and we can do what they did in Puerto Rico and Hong Kong, but none of the “5 Stops” could be resolved under this system, and that’s why we are on a National Revolution Tour getting organized for an actual revolution to put an end to the same system that produced a Donald Trump. More people drew closer and pulled out their camera phones to record when a policeman came up to the agitator to stop the agitation, but he had to back away when the agitator called out what they were doing and more people began crowding the agitation.

Two female high school students, one white and one Black, came up as we were walking past with the poster board of the cover of REVOLUTION Newspaper featuring the National Tour as its cover. The young Black student said they ran up to us because there was nothing else there like the poster board we had that was as honest and was so straight-up as this that was calling out the reforms and was about getting rid of this whole system. We organized people on their social media on the spot.

LA

[Chants from the Revolution Club LA:]

There is no planet B
Revolution is what we need
They’re killing all the bees
Revolution is what we need
They’re cutting all the trees
Revolution is what we need
They’re poisoning the seas
Revolution is what we need
They’re polluting the air we breathe
Revolution is what we need
Endangered species
Revolution is what we need

Capitalism is destroying our planet
Only a real revolution can save it

#GlobalClimateStrike: the system of capitalism-imperialism that we are forced to live under is a straitjacket on humanity's ability to combat the climate crisis. REAL Revolution can get rid of that straitjacket!@tuneintorevcom #YouthClimateStrike #YouthClimateSummit pic.twitter.com/7AsEQCBsau

— Revolution Club Los Angeles (@revclub_la) September 22, 2019

I did a lot on internationalism, agitating about it (including war threats to Iran) and doing call and response around America first vs. humanity and the planet come first. And American lives are not more important than other people’s lives. All this really resonated with people, and people took it up with enthusiasm. Although one chant that did not really get taken up was the “America was never great" one. Also, as part of fleshing out the reform vs. revolution thing, did a lot of call and response on Republicans are fascists (which everyone chanted) and Democrats are party of war crimes and crimes against humanity (some people uncomfortable and looking around to see who else is doing it, while others more unleashed).

Also did some things like this: If you’re tired of all these lying politicians and the solutions they give you that are really no solution, lemme get a fuck capitalism [fuck capitalism!]. If you know recycling and changing your lightbulbs and driving an electric car ain’t gonna do shit, lemme get a fuck capitalism [fuck capitalism!]. If you don’t want to live in a system based on the competitive chase for profit, where money is more important than people, lemme get a fuck capitalism [fuck capitalism!]. If you don’t want to live in a country that has 5% of the world’s population but consumes 25% of the world’s resources, lemme get a fuck imperialism [fuck imperialism!]. A country that exploits and pollutes the rest of the world, backed up by the U.S. military... etc [fuck imperialism]. At one point we had a crowd of youth chanting “Fight for humanity, fight for the planet, fuck the military, join the Revolution Club!” Off of all this we would try to organize people to make all this real and sign up with the club (the text service) over the bullhorn, which didn’t work so well.

All of this did have a big impact on the crowd. In addition to the many people who chanted along, someone observed that for about 5-10% of the people it was like they had found their group when they saw/heard us. Some of these people were already radicalized youth, like a couple who wanted to sign up as soon as they heard us indict U.S. imperialism. But it was mainly people who fall in the category of “those who are fed up with this society and its solutions that are no solutions” even while still being in the framework of those non-solutions (having never heard anyone challenge those non-solutions before). One young woman (wearing a Green New Deal t-shirt and carrying a Bernie sign) came up to us after the march to thank us, saying that she’s worried about what’s gonna happen in the next election, and that us being out there gave her hope that no matter what happens with these politicians we can still make a change.

600 of these provocation flyers got out at the Climate Strike in LA from Revolution Club’ LA

July 22, 2019 | revcom.us

"Identity Politics Blues"

I don’t even know who the hell I am

I got twenty-five identities and twenty-five brands

I drove to the intersection and my car just stalled

I sure am feeling really confused

with these damn postmodern identity politics blues

I heard someone saying they had truth to tell

but they got white skin and a penis as well

so I knew that they couldn’t possibly be right

never knew that truth had a gender or hue

‘Till I got these postmodern identity politics blues

So I shouted out loud to every woman and man

“I’m eight-fifteenths indigenous and ten percent trans!

that means you have to buy my merchandise”

even as I said it, though, I started to snooze

these damn postmodern identity politics blues

I just read this book, you should really try it

“10 Quick Steps to Decolonize your Diet”

Now I can survive on agency alone

there’s nothing meaningless I will refuse

with these damn postmodern identity politics blues

I purchased an onion and started to cry

as I peeled back its layers of privilege, then I

threw it in the trash and typed a Facebook post

all I need now is someone to accuse

with these damn postmodern identity politics blues

I feel deep in my heart that I have love to give

I just hope that’s not “heteronormative’

but then who am I to even use that word?

Why must I be stricken with a cisgender muse?

these damn postmodern identity politics blues

Someone said “I’d like to report a crime,”

I said “Call the Arts section of The New York Times,”

there’s nothing decent that they won’t condemn

just be patient when they’re asking “who are you?!”

These damn postmodern identity politics blues

Yesterday, a cop punched a guy in the face

without a trigger warning and inside a safe space

he told the cop, the cop wasn’t impressed

the cop wasn’t woke and he was stuck in his views

these damn postmodern identity politics blues

I went to the lecture on empowering dogs

someone started whispering “What about frogs?”

Pretty soon, things ground right to a halt

after all, who are we as humans to choose?

These damn postmodern identity politics blues

I woke up in the morning for a leaderless swim

I had never swum before, but still I jumped right in

two minutes later, I promptly started to drown

the other swimmers smirked and just looked amused

these damn postmodern identity politics blues

I somehow washed ashore and collapsed on the sand

I coughed and gasped for air and I could not understand

how the currents took me so far out to sea

it dawned on me that I might need to lose

these damn postmodern identity politics blues

So now I want to change the world, or at least I might

if I could just stop asking if I have the right

I’ve had it with these hustlers, fakes and fools

how much longer must we be abused

by these damn postmodern identity politics blues?

Why Celebrating Columbus (Day) is Celebrating THEFT and GENOCIDE:

Read these 9 cases of American Crime for the truth about Columbus and America

October 7, 2019 | revcom.us

Case #77: Christopher Columbus Brought Genocide and Slavery to the "New World," and America Celebrates Him for It

THE CRIME: On October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus, an Italian sailing for Spain, landed on what is now the Bermuda Islands. Columbus is celebrated in the U.S. as the person who first “discovered” the “New World,” making it possible for those who came after him, through hard work, to create the greatest global power in the world today, as the official declaration of “Columbus Day” as a national holiday states.

Columbus did not “discover” the Americas—they had been inhabited by many different indigenous peoples for some 13,000 years. But he did bring conquest and enslavement, and launched one of the most massive, horrific genocides in human history.

Read more

Case #90: The Sullivan Expedition, 1779—Genocide of Native Peoples and Scorched Earth in Upstate New York

THE CRIME: In June 1779, heavily armed caravans of more than 6,200 American soldiers headed north from Pennsylvania and west from a town near Albany, New York. These forces, under the command of General John Sullivan, comprised about 25 percent of the Continental Army, which had been formed by the Continental Congress of former colonies that were in a war for independence from England.

Their target: Native American tribes who lived in western New York—the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Tuscarora, Cayuga, and Seneca peoples. These peoples called themselves the Haudenosaunee, and are known to historians as the Iroquois League or Iroquois Confederacy. The mission of Sullivan's troops: the "total destruction and devastation of their settlements, and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible," in the words of the commander in chief of the Continental Army.

Read more

Case #44: The Trail of Tears, 1838-39

THE CRIME: From 1838-1839, approximately 15,000 Cherokee and 2,000 Black slaves that they owned were forcibly removed from Cherokee lands in Georgia and force-marched by the military 800 miles to the new “Indian Territory” in an area that later became Oklahoma. On that march, it has been estimated that 2,500-4,000 people died. That seven-month march has become known as The Trail of Tears.

This brutal and forced removal of the Cherokees is just one part of what should be known about the Trail of Tears. The Trail of Tears is actually the removal of five “civilized” tribes from their native lands in Southeastern U.S. to the West: the Choctaws from Mississippi, the Seminoles from Florida, the Chickasaw from Tennessee, the Creek from Alabama, and the Cherokees from Georgia.

Read more.

Case #53: The Genocide of California's Native Americans, 1846–1873

THE CRIME: From 1846 to 1873, a mass genocide was carried out against California’s Native American population by the U.S. government and white settlers. In 1846, before the 1848 Gold Rush, 157,000 people were living in California, 150,000 of them Native Americans. It was the densest and most diverse Native American population in the U.S. By 1873, there were only 30,000 Native Americans left alive, and by 1880, only 16,277.

This massive ethnic cleansing was the result of the genocidal murders of the native population at the hands of U.S. soldiers, volunteer state militiamen, and vigilantes. This included large massacres that wiped out entire villages, group killings, individual killings, the starvation of thousands, and the death of thousands due to diseases while imprisoned in U.S. Army forts or on federal Indian reservations.

Read more.

Case #37: December 26, 1862: The Lynching of 38 Dakota Men―The Largest Mass Execution in U.S. History

THE CRIME: On December 26, 1862, in the midst of the U.S. Civil War (April 1861-May 1865), and in the same week that the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, President Abraham Lincoln ordered 38 Dakota Santee Sioux men sent to the gallows in Mankato, Minnesota. They were hooded and hanged simultaneously from a single scaffold, surrounded by 1,500 Union troops and a howling lynch mob of 4,000 white settlers. It was the largest mass execution in U.S. history.

Read more.

Case #56: The 1864 Sand Creek Massacre

THE CRIME: They came at dawn, November 29, 1864, 700 heavily armed soldiers of the 3rd Colorado Cavalry, led by Colonel John Chivington. They rode rapidly toward their target, a Cheyenne village near Sand Creek, where the people were caught by surprise because months earlier, representatives of the U.S. government had met with their chief, encouraged him to settle near the creek, and had promised him and his people peace and safety. As the soldiers approached, the chief, Black Kettle, raced to raise the American flag over his lodge in a show of solidarity; others raised white flags of surrender. It didn’t matter.

The soldiers opened fire with carbines and cannons, killing at least 130, almost two-thirds women, children, and the elderly. Most of the young men were out hunting when the attack occurred; otherwise, the death toll would have been considerably higher. Before leaving, the soldiers burned the village and mutilated the dead.

Read more.

Case #72: Wounded Knee Massacre, 1890

THE CRIME: On December 29, 1890, U.S. government soldiers massacred nearly 300 of the 350 Lakota men, women, and children on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. The massacre took place near Wounded Knee Creek. Some of the women murdered were already widows whose husbands had previously been killed by U.S. troops. The Lakota Chief Spotted Elk (Big Foot), who was dying of pneumonia, was among those massacred.

Read more

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

THE CRIME:

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

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

Read more

Case #40: North American Indian Residential Schools, 1870-1970s: “Kill the Indian, Save the Man”

THE CRIME: The cultural genocide of the North American Indians.

The near extermination of the Native Americans in the centuries following 1492 is one of the great historical crimes committed by the rulers of this country—or any country. Credible estimates of the indigenous population in North America in 1492 are between 12.5 and 18.5 million. Through the combination of massive epidemics and the “Indian Wars” waged by the U.S. Army through the decades after the Civil War, by 1890 the estimated Native American population had been reduced to fewer than 240,000 in the U.S., and in Canada a third of that—a population reduction of 95 to 99 percent.

Beginning in the 1870s and lasting a century or more, the weight of U.S. policy toward the Native American population shifted from military annihilation to the forced “assimilation” of the survivors—making them “suitable” to be members of the society that had devastated and despised them.

Read more.

Case #37: December 26, 1862: The Lynching of 38 Dakota Men―The Largest Mass Execution in U.S. History

July 23, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | 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 will focus on one of the 100 worst crimes committed by the U.S. rulers—out of countless bloody crimes they have carried out against people around the world, from the founding of the U.S. to the present day.

See all the articles in this series.

 

THE CRIME

On December 26, 1862, in the midst of the U.S. Civil War (April 1861-May 1865), and in the same week that the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, President Abraham Lincoln ordered 38 Dakota Santee Sioux men sent to the gallows in Mankato, Minnesota. They were hooded and hanged simultaneously from a single scaffold, surrounded by 1,500 Union troops and a howling lynch mob of 4,000 white settlers. It was the largest mass execution in U.S. history.

The 38 had been taken prisoner after the Dakota people rose up against the U.S. government on August 17 in the Dakota Uprising of 1862. The Dakota people had been under relentless assault for 10 years—with deceitful and broken treaties, their reservations encroached on, their annuities unpaid, promised goods late or never delivered, price gouging and other abuses by the U.S. government and their agents. In 1858, the government took half the Dakota people’s reservation and opened it to white settlement. During the 1850s, over 160,000 settlers flooded the area, seizing and clearing the Native Dakota people’s lands to the point where their hunting and fishing virtually ended and starvation loomed.

On August 15, when half-starved Dakota people asked for food from a well-stocked warehouse, the government food trader Andrew Jackson Myrick replied: “[I]f they are hungry, let them eat grass or their own dung,” which was cited by Dakota Chief Little Crow as the last straw in provoking the Dakota to revolt. Myrick was one of the first killed and his body found with his mouth stuffed with grass. The uprising was sparked off when four starving Dakota youths, on an egg-stealing foray, impulsively killed five white settlers.

The 38 condemned men were told of their impending deaths on December 22 while shackled in pairs and bolted to the prison floor. They were among the 303 condemned to die in a mass trial of 392 Dakota men. Each defendant had five to 10 minutes in which to defend himself before a military court. On one day alone, 40 were tried, charged, and convicted for “murder and outrages.” A law professor later noted: “Most of them did not speak English. They did not even know they were being tried for crimes. Most also did not have counsel defending them.” Little evidence of their “crimes” existed. So the U.S. government used some defendants, who faced charges and execution themselves, to testify against other Dakotas in multiple trials. One such defendant-turned-witness provided evidence in 55 cases.

After the mass lynching, the bodies of the Dakotas were thrown into a mass grave. It was dug up that night, and the bodies were distributed to doctors for use as medical cadavers. Later, small boxes supposedly containing skin removed from the bodies were sold in Mankato.

There was never an official count of the settlers killed in this war. Accounts of the death toll in the 37 days of fighting vary widely, from 77 U.S. government troops, 29 citizen-soldiers or militia, and 300-800 settlers as well as some 29-150 Dakota warriors. After the uprising, more than 1,600 Dakota men, women, and children were exiled to a concentration camp on Pike Island, Minnesota, where living conditions were so bad that infections killed more than 300. In April 1863, the U.S. Congress abolished the Dakota reservation, declared all prior treaties with the Dakota null and void, and expelled the Dakota people completely from Minnesota. To this end, a $25 bounty was put on any Dakota found free within the boundaries of the state. U.S. General Oscar Malmros offered a bounty of $200 to independent scouts for each Dakota Sioux scalp.

Little Crow escaped capture until July 3, 1863, when he and his son left their hidden camping spot to pick raspberries. Two settlers shot and killed Little Crow. His body was dragged down the main street of Hutchinson and firecrackers were put in his nose and ears. His scalp, skull, and remains were put on display in St. Paul, Minnesota, until 1971. Two other Dakota leaders, Little Six and Medicine Bottle, had escaped to Canada but were captured, drugged, returned to the U.S., and hung in 1865.

THE CRIMINALS

President Abraham Lincoln (March 1861-April 1865). Lincoln oversaw the breaking of treaties and the robbing of the Dakotas and other Native peoples of their land, livelihood, and often their lives. And he sent troops to crush their resistance. Lincoln made clear his white supremacist views. Speaking in February 1860, he asked “[W]hy did Yankees almost instantly discover gold in California, which had been trodden upon and overlooked by Indians and Mexican greasers for centuries?” He also argued that phonetic writing was what separated whites from “savages,” and that this ability had given rise to the fruits of civilization—government, culture, etc. In 1863, Lincoln said: “Although we are now engaged in a great war between one another, we are not, as a race, so much disposed to fight and kill one another as our red brethren.”

U.S. troops and their commanders who were sent to put down the Dakota uprising. Companies led by Capt. Joseph F. Bean, Capt. David D. Lloyd, Capt. Calvin Potter, Capt. Mark Hendrick, and elements of the 5th and 6th Iowa Militia. Col. Henry Sibley played a pivotal role in the 1851 treaty negotiations that cheated the Dakota of their land, and then led U.S. troops to suppress their 1862 uprising. Sibley also oversaw the military tribunal that convicted the 38 as well as the punitive expeditions against the Dakota of 1863. Gen. John Pope was sent by Lincoln to command the 3rd, 4th, 9th, and 10th Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiments and openly stated: “It is my purpose to utterly exterminate the Sioux. They are to be treated as maniacs and wild beasts.”

Minnesota Governor Alexander Ramsey exiled the entire Dakota Santee people, offered bounty for their scalps, and said: “The Sioux Indian must be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of the State. The public safety imperatively requires it. Justice calls for it. The blood of the murdered cries to heaven for vengeance.”

Thomas Galbraith, Andrew Myrick, and other traders who withheld cash payments, food, and other trade goods owed to the Dakota people causing their increasing hunger, hardship, and anger.

The New York Times sensationalized stories of how settlers died and wrote racist depictions of the Dakota prisoners, fueling mass hysteria and bloodlust: “It was a sad, a sickening sight, to see that group of miserable dirty savages, chained to the floor, and awaiting with apparent unconcern for the terrible fate....”

THE ALIBI

The Dakota men were executed for the killing of innocent white settlers, and Lincoln was being lenient by hanging only 38 of the 303 who were tried and condemned to death by the military court.

THE ACTUAL MOTIVE

The Dakota Uprising was a just uprising and one of many by various Native tribes throughout the U.S. against the genocide being committed against them by the U.S. government and white settlers. During the 1860s, many Native peoples like the Dakotas were compelled to rise up by years of exploitation and oppression, including imminent starvation.

Lincoln explained to the U.S. Senate: “Anxious to not act with so much clemency as to encourage another outbreak on one hand, nor with so much severity as to be real cruelty on the other, I ordered a careful examination of the records of the trials to be made, in view of first ordering the execution of such as had been proved guilty of violating females.” Given only two men were found guilty of rape, he expanded the criteria to include those who had taken part in “massacres” of civilians rather than just “battles.” In contrast, Lincoln did not indict or execute any Confederate soldiers for such crimes.

It also may have been important to make an example of the Dakota people and their uprising because, despite having few fighting forces, little equipment like canons, and being outmatched in guns and ammunition, they fought very effectively against the U.S. military. For example, U.S. forces suffered a major defeat at the Battle of Birch Coulee on September 2, 1862, where a three-hour firefight ended with 13 U.S. soldiers dead and 47 wounded, while only two Dakota warriors were killed.

During this period, the Union, representing the interests of the capitalist class centered in the North, was waging the Civil War. At the same time, railroads were being built across the country and settlements vastly expanded. The robbery of the huge land mass from coast to coast occupied by the many Native tribes, the defeat of any resistance to this historic colonial expansion, and the outright genocide carried out against Native peoples were foundational to the growth and development of U.S. capitalism and the later rise of the U.S. empire.

Sources

BAsics from the Talks and Writings of Bob Avakian, 1:2, RCP Publications, 2011

Bury My Heat at Wounded Knee, An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown, Chapter 3, “Little Crow’s War,” Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970

Dakota War of 1862, Wikipedia

“Sham Trials: The Traumatic Truth of What Happened to the Dakota 38,” by Konnie LeMay, Indian Country Today, December 26, 2015

The Dakota Conflict, documentary aired January 27, 1993, produced by KTCA, St. Paul, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Film Showings of Bob Avakian's Speech: THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO!

Locations for film showings

Updated October 14, 2019 | revcom.us

How serious a threat does the Trump/Pence regime pose to humanity?

Could fascism really happen here?

What is the character of the regime—is it fascist, and if it is, what are the implications?

What are the roots of this regime? Is it a terrible aberration, “more of the same”... or something different still?

What must be done to stop it? How? Is a better world possible?

The hour-long film will be followed by a Q&A session at these showings.

Houston

St Stephens Community House
Monday, October 21, 6 pm
1755 Sul Ross St  Houston, TX 77098

Some Basic Q&A, Drawn From the Speech
THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO! by Bob Avakian

Updated October 18, 2019 | revcom.us

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

October 7, 2019 | revcom.us

Every week, revcom.us features quotes from BAsics, by Bob Avakian, the handbook for revolution. We encourage Revolution Clubs and other readers, everywhere, to take the time to discuss the quotes—the whole quotes—and to write us at revolution.reports@yahoo.com with accounts of these discussions, or thoughts provoked in yourself by reading the quotes.

Press Release from RefuseFascism.org

Suppressed Evidence Revealing UCLA Police Lies Brings #UCLA 5 Trial to a Halt

October 8, 2019 | revcom.us

For immediate release October 8, 2019
RefuseFascism.org
Media Contact: Mari Matsuoka 323 574-3997
msmatsuoka@gmail.com

As the trial of the #UCLA 5 was drawing to a close Monday, after the Revolution Club defendants testified about why they spoke out against Trump's treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin when he came to UCLA and how they were brutally arrested by UCPD on the direct orders of the UCLA Assistant Vice Chancellor, the trial was brought to a halt when new evidence was brought to light. This evidence shows that the defendants who are being charged with resisting arrest were in fact brutalized by the police, and it exposes that UCLA police blatantly lied during the trial.

Attorneys for the UCLA 5 argued for the court to declare a mistrial. They demanded to know what agencies have been involved in hiding evidence which the prosecution was legally obligated to turn over to the defendants. Was it the UC PD? Was it the UCLA Administration? Was it City Attorney Mike Feuer? Or was it all of them? What other evidence has been suppressed? The lying cops were ordered by the court to appear today, October 8.

As Tala Deloria, one of the UCLA 5 defendants said, "Why has this 'new evidence' suddenly appeared at the end of the trial? Who is responsible for suppressing it this whole time? This is more proof that this whole prosecution is completely illegitimate, and is really about stifling dissent. At a time when the Trump/Pence regime is terrorizing and torturing immigrants, escalating the destruction of the environment, and even threatening civil war if they are impeached, we need much MORE protest and rebellion on college campuses. The UCLA administration should be applauding us, not trying to throw us in jail! We demand ALL the charges be dropped immediately."

Watch these videos of defendants Michelle Xai and Tala Deloria speaking from the courthouse yesterday on the suppressed evidence of police brutality and the active role played by the UCLA administration in the arrests and prosecution.

Defendants in this trial are facing up to two years in jail for speaking loudly when Steve Mnuchin spoke at UCLA.

The trial resumes at 9:30 a.m. today in the courtroom of Judge Christopher Dywad at the Airport Courthouse, Dept. 90, Superior Court, case #8AR01453.

To learn more about the case:

Activists Who Called Out Mnuchin At UCLA Now Face Months In Jail: Which Side Are You On?, Refusefascism.org, October 3, 2019

Activists Who Confronted Mnuchin During UCLA Protest Now Facing Years in Jail, Julia Conley, Common Dream, October 1, 2019

Video Statement by Stephen Rohde, retired Constitutional attorney and founder of the Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace on the case of the #UCLA5

Video of Defendant Atlas Winfrey on the facts of the case.

Free the #UCLA5!

These heroes on trial NOW, facing up to 2 years in jail for speaking up while @stevenmnuchin1 was justifying his fascist agenda at @BurkleCenter

Don't let @UCLA criminalize protest!

Spread this everywhere to DEMAND: Drop the charges! https://t.co/4iyQmiyARk pic.twitter.com/8L4oOI2Hz3

— revcom.us/Revolution (@tuneintorevcom) October 1, 2019

Legal Updates:

Judge Throws Out Three Charges in the #UCLA5 Case, We Demand All Charges Dropped

October 9, 2019 | revcom.us

Closing arguments were made in the #UCLA5 case on Tuesday and jury deliberation begins Thursday. The #UCLA5 are members of Refuse Fascism and the Revolution Club who are facing up to TWO YEARS in jail for speaking out in two separate events at UCLA, including during a speech given by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.

1) Right before closing arguments, the Prosecution revealed new evidence including photos of bruises and scrapes on the two defendants that had been charged with resisting arrest and audio recordings that show the defendants were never read Miranda rights even after they requested the right to speak to an attorney! These prove that four UCPD cops lied on the stand, claiming there was no evidence of police brutality against the defendants. The judge was forced to dismiss three charges of resisting arrest against two of the defendants but refused to declare a mistrial, moving ahead with an illegitimate prosecution.

Why was this evidence suppressed until this late hour and by whom? What agencies were involved in hiding this? Was it the UCPD? Was it the UCLA Administration? Was it City Attorney and Democratic Party politician Mike Feuer? Or was it all of them? What other evidence has been suppressed? And what does this say about all the cases brought by the City Attorney against Refuse Fascism and the Revolution Club, in coordination with the LAPD? Who knew what and when about the larger investigation, how high up has this gone and is it ongoing?

2) Despite the repeated claims from the Prosecution that these are not political cases but about simple violations of the law, the Prosecutor repeatedly brought in the political mission of the Revolution Club in her cross examination of the Defendants and in her closing arguments. She asked completely irrelevant questions about people’s nicknames, their membership in the Revolution Club, the fact that the defendants are communists, the content of people’s social media—going so far as to show the jury tweets from the defendants where they talked about why they disrupted Mnuchin—trying to paint this as if it was anything besides free speech.

3) In the trial, three UCLA Administrators testified for the prosecution, justifying a new UCLA policy and “arrest protocols” for controversial events. Mick Deluca, the UCLA Assistant Vice Chancellor of Campus Life, testified that he initiated the arrests of the defendants within seconds of speaking to Mnuchin. The UCPD cops who made the arrest testified that they did not know what law had been broken, making the arrests on the say so of Deluca! But Deluca is not a cop and cops who make arrests are supposed to do it on the basis of “probable cause.” This would be like your neighbor telling a cop go arrest so and so and the cop does so on the basis of their say so, NOT THE LAW itself. The #UCLA5 case is a test case for this new UCLA policy, which they’re establishing to be the new norm on campus. This is unconstitutional and illegitimate.
_____

This trial is a major attack on campus free speech and the space for ANTI-fascist protest at a time of consolidating fascism. All the charges should be dropped immediately.

At this point, the trial is going ahead and the verdict is expected Thursday or Friday.

Sign this petition demanding these charges be dropped. Don’t let this repression remain a secret, spread the word about these cases. Donate for the political and legal defense.

Free the #UCLA5!

These heroes on trial NOW, facing up to 2 years in jail for speaking up while @stevenmnuchin1 was justifying his fascist agenda at @BurkleCenter

Don't let @UCLA criminalize protest!

Spread this everywhere to DEMAND: Drop the charges! https://t.co/4iyQmiyARk pic.twitter.com/8L4oOI2Hz3

— revcom.us/Revolution (@tuneintorevcom) October 1, 2019

The following is taken from a recent talk given by Bob Avakian

Individualism, BEB and the Illusion of "Painless Progress"

Updated October 11, 2019, originally published July 29, 2019 | revcom.us

Note Added by the Author, Fall 2019

This work is the edited text of a talk given in the spring of 2019, and the following section (“Individualism, BEB and the Illusion of ‘Painless Progress’”) has been published (posted at revcom.us) beginning in the summer of this year.  In late September 2019, Nancy Pelosi (and the Democratic Party leadership of which she is a prominent representative), after a prolonged stubborn insistence on refusing to impeach Donald Trump, reversed course and announced that an “impeachment inquiry” of Trump would be undertaken. This reversal was hinged upon—and Pelosi and Company have made an attempt to focus this “impeachment inquiry” overwhelmingly, if not solely, on—the revelation (stemming from a report by a government “whistleblower”) that Trump has been involved in an effort to pressure the government of Ukraine to do Trump the “favor” of digging up (or “cooking up”) dirt on Joe Biden, former Vice President (under Obama) and a leading contender for the Democratic Party nomination for the presidential election in 2020.  Pelosi and the Democrats have identified this as an abuse of presidential power, in pursuit of Trump’s personal interests (particularly looking ahead to the 2020 election) and have given emphasis to their insistence that, in making this “favor” the basis (and the price) for the continuation of the U.S. military aid to Ukraine, in its confrontation with pro-Russian forces, Trump “undermined U.S. national security,” particularly in relation to its major adversary Russia.  In other words, while, from their bourgeois perspective, their concern is very real in regard to the imperialist “national interests” of the U.S., the “norms” of how this system’s rule has been imposed and maintained, the importance to them of a “peaceful transition” from one administration to another through elections—and the danger posed to this by Trump’s trampling on these “norms”—Pelosi and Company, in focusing this “impeachment inquiry” on this narrow basis, have underlined the fact that they are acting in accordance with their sense of the interests of U.S. capitalist imperialism and its drive to remain the dominant imperialist power in the world, and that they continue to refuse to demand Trump’s ouster on the basis of his many outrageous statements and acts directed against masses of people, not only in the U.S. but internationally:  his overt racism and promotion of white supremacy and white supremacist violence; his gross misogyny and attacks on the rights of women, including very prominently the right to abortion, and on LGBT rights; his repeated calls for and backing of intensified brutal repression and suppression of dissent; his discrimination against Muslims and his cruel targeting of immigrants, involving confinement in concentration camp-like conditions, including for those fleeing from persecution and the very real threat of death in their “home countries” and seeking asylum on that basis, and the separation of even very young children from their parents; his assault on science and the scientific pursuit of the truth, including denial of the science of climate change and continuing moves to undermine and reverse even minor and completely ineffective protections of the environment; his threats to destroy countries, including through the use of nuclear weapons—in short, his all-around drive to fully consolidate fascist rule and implement a horrific, fascist agenda, with terrible consequences for the masses of humanity. 

While, as of this writing, it is not clear what this “impeachment inquiry” will lead to—whether Trump will actually be impeached in the House of Representatives, and what will happen then in the Senate to determine whether he should be convicted and removed from office—it is already clear that the way in which the Democrats are seeking to narrowly focus the move to oust Trump emphasizes yet again the importance of these basic points of orientation:

The Democrats, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, etc., are seeking to resolve the crisis with the Trump presidency on the terms of this system, and in the interests of the ruling class of this system, which they represent.  We, the masses of people, must go all out, and mobilize ourselves in the millions, to resolve this in our interests, in the interests of humanity, which are fundamentally different from and opposed to those of the ruling class.

This, of course, does not mean that the struggle among the powers that be is irrelevant or unimportant; rather, the way to understand and approach this (and this is a point that must also be repeatedly driven home to people, including through necessary struggle, waged well) is in terms of how it relates to, and what openings it can provide for, “the struggle from below”—for the mobilization of masses of people around the demand that the whole regime must go, because of its fascist nature and actions and what the stakes are for humanity.

Clearly, the removal of not just Trump, but also the Christian Fascist Vice President Mike Pence, and indeed this whole fascist regime, is of urgent importance.  But this will only serve the fundamental interests of the masses of people—not just in this country but in the world as a whole—if this is achieved, not on the basis of confining things within the terms of and through the furthering of the “national interests” of the monstrously oppressive U.S. empire, but on the basis of the mobilization of mass opposition to the fascism of this Trump/Pence regime, which has been produced by and risen to power through the “normal functioning” of this system, of which it is an extreme but not somehow an “alien” expression.

~~~~~~~~~~

Individualism, BEB and the Illusion of "Painless Progress"

All this—even the seemingly more “benign,” or oblivious, individualism—links up with the repeated and stubborn insistence on chasing after the illusion of painless progress. If something makes people uncomfortable—and still more, if it holds out the prospect of sacrifice, necessary sacrifice, on their part—far too many people turn away from it. As I’ve pointed out before, there’s this whole attitude of approaching reality as if it’s a “buffet,” or approaching it like a consumer: “Well, that makes me uncomfortable. I’ll just leave that to the side. I don’t want to look at that because that makes me uncomfortable.”

I am going to talk later about some of the more ridiculous and outrageous forms of this. But just to give a little preview, as I pointed out in The New Communism, some people went on one of the college campuses a couple of years ago with a poster of Stolen Lives, people who’d been killed by police (not all of them, by any means, but dozens), and someone came up and started whining: “I don’t like that poster, it makes me feel unsafe.” As I commented at the time: Oh, boo-hoo! Let’s get out of this boo-hoo shit and start talking about and engaging seriously what’s happening to masses of people, one significant part of which is represented by what’s on that poster.

One of the most common and problematical forms of this repeated and stubborn insistence on chasing after the illusion of “painless progress,” particularly among people who consider themselves somewhat enlightened (or progressive, or “woke,” or however they want to put it), is what we very rightly term BEB—Bourgeois Electoral Bullshit—and the phenomenon that people continually confine themselves to the narrow limits of what is presented to them by one section of the ruling class, as embodied in the Democratic Party: “These are the limits of what I’ll consider in terms of possibly bringing about change”—because this is the well-worn rut of what is, at least up to this point, relatively safe in terms of political engagement. It may even become not-so-safe in the future, depending on how things go with these fascists who are working to consolidate their power right now through the ruling regime of Trump and Pence. But for now it seems relatively painless. It is also completely ineffectual and doesn’t bring about any kind of change that’s needed, but it’s a way to feel that you’re doing something while avoiding any sacrifice, and even any real discomfort.

One of the ways this gets expressed, along with the BEB, is people, in their masses, not confronting the reality of Trump/Pence fascism, and therefore not acting in a way commensurate with the danger and the potentially even greater horrors this represents.

Just to step back, and to speak to a very important element of this that I’ve touched on before, Trump’s election—through the electoral college, not the popular vote—is, in a real sense, an extension of slavery: the people who voted for Trump are the kind of people who would have been pro-slavery, had they been around at the time of slavery in the United States. And those who find it acceptable to have the overt white supremacist Trump in the White House are the kind of people who would have ignored or would have openly accepted and justified or rationalized slavery when it existed. And here I have to invoke what I thought was a very insightful comment by Ron Reagan (yes, Ronald Reagan’s maverick son, who is also, to his great credit, an unabashed atheist): Trump’s much-analyzed, over-analyzed, “base” will continue supporting him, no matter what he does, Ron Reagan has pointed out (and this is very insightful), because Trump hates all the same people they hate.

As opposed to all the obfuscation about the economic difficulties people are going through, blah, blah, blah, that is often used to rationalize why people voted for and continue to support Trump, what Ron Reagan has sharply pointed to is the essence of Trump’s “base.” And, by the way, notice how all the mainstream media, CNN and so on, continually use this term: Trump’s “base.” This is a neutral term, “base.” These are a bunch of fascists, okay? And by using these euphemisms, or these neutral terms, like “base,” you’re obscuring and keeping people from seeing what is actually represented by Trump and those who support him, and the depth of the real danger this poses. Ron Reagan’s comment is very much to the point. He went on to elaborate: They hate LGBT people, they hate women (independent women, and really all women), they hate Black people, they hate immigrants, they hate Muslims, and so on. And Trump hates all the same people they hate.

That is why they’ll never desert him, whatever he does. That is why he could very rightly make the comment: “I could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue in New York City and these people wouldn’t turn against me.”

At the same time, it has to be bluntly said: For the millions, and tens of millions, who say they hate everything Trump stands for and what he is doing but who, after all this time, have still not taken to the streets in sustained mobilization demanding that the Trump/Pence regime must go, this makes them collaborators with this fascist regime and themselves guilty of the egregious crime of tolerating this regime when they still could have the possibility of achieving the demand that it must go, through such mass mobilization!

To paraphrase Paul Simon: They are squandering their resistance for a pocketful of mumbles—and worse—from the Democratic Party.

It is long past time—and there is still time, but not much time—for this to change, for masses of people to finally take to the streets, and stay in the streets, with the firm resolve that this fascist regime must go!

And here are some very relevant questions for the millions and tens of millions who hate everything Trump stands for but have failed or refused to mobilize, in their masses, in non-violent but sustained action around the demand that the Trump/Pence regime be removed from power, as has been called for by Refuse Fascism: If you will not take to the streets now to demand that the Trump/Pence regime must go, what will you do if Trump is re-elected (perhaps through the electoral college, even if he again loses the popular vote)? And what will you do if Trump loses the election (even by the electoral college count) but then refuses to recognize the results and insists he is still President?!

At the same time, it is necessary to point to the very serious problems with the dangerous naiveté and “left” posturing of certain “progressive” intellectuals. For example, someone like Glenn Greenwald, who has done some good things in exposing the violations of people’s rights under this system—human rights, civil rights and civil liberties—but who, whenever anything’s brought out about the terrible crimes and horrors that are represented by the Trump/Pence regime, insists upon immediately saying things like, “Yes, but what about Hillary Clinton, and what about the Democrats, and the terrible things they have done?” All of which is true. As we have pointed out: The Democratic Party is a machine of massive war crimes and crimes against humanity. And this does need to be brought out. At the same time, it is necessary to recognize that the Republican Party is fascist, and if you don’t understand that this has real meaning and real importance—and every time someone speaks to the outrages and horrors perpetrated by these fascists, you insist on immediately raising, “Yes, but what about the Democrats?”—you’re leading people, or pointing people, away from an understanding of the real dynamics going on here and the real dangers.

And then there is Slavoj Žižek. As is very bluntly, and very accurately, put in the article by Raymond Lotta, “Slavoj Žižek Is a Puffed-Up Idiot Who Does Great Damage”:

Slavoj Žižek, an influential fool-of-a-philosopher who often poses as a “communist,” declared his support for Donald Trump on British TV. A victory for Trump, according to Žižek, will help the Republicans and Democrats “rethink themselves”—and could bring about “a kind of big awakening.” And speaking from his “what-me-worry” perch [Lotta goes on], Žižek pronounced that Trump “will not introduce fascism.”

As Lotta then succinctly states: “This is wrong, this is poison.” And it is similar to the kind of wrong and dangerous thinking that people like Glenn Greenwald fall into and propagate. Similarly to Glenn Greenwald, it involves playing down the actual reality and danger of what’s represented by fascism, even as, once again, the Democratic Party is an instrument of bourgeois dictatorship, and a machine of massive war crimes and crimes against humanity.

This kind of wrong thinking is also exemplified by someone like Julian Assange, who actually, from all appearances, and it does seem to be the case, contributed to the machinations that went on around the Trump campaign, involving, it does seem, the Russians in this, and who did so with the same kind of rationalization that Žižek put forward, as cited by Raymond Lotta—that Clinton and the Democratic Party represent the old establishment, the old ways of doing things, and if they’re defeated and somebody who’s outside the establishment gets in, it will shake things up. I have heard Assange saying (his own words, not just others characterizing what his position is): “Maybe this will lead to a negative change, or maybe it will lead to a positive change, but at least it will lead to change, or it will hold open the possibility of change.”

Well, what kind of change is it actually leading to? There’s no room for agnosticism or ignorance about what kind of change it is leading to. Yes, bourgeois dictatorship in any form is very bad for the masses of people, very oppressive and repressive of the masses of people, and needs to be overthrown. But an overt fascist dictatorship that tramples on any pretense of upholding rights for people is not something that should be put in the category of “maybe it’ll be a positive change, or maybe it’ll be a negative change.”

Now, at the same time as making this sharp critique, particularly with regard to Julian Assange, it is very important to emphasize the need to oppose the persecution of Assange by the U.S. imperialists, whose persecution of him is in response to and revenge for his part—not in something to do with the Russians, but overwhelmingly in exposing just some of the monstrous crimes of this system. In this regard, there was an interesting article called “Julian Assange and the Woeful State of Whistle-Blowers” by Edward Wasserman, who’s a professor of journalism and the Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. (This article appeared in the New York Times on Saturday, April 27 of this year, 2019.) Wasserman points out that, with whatever his failings are, political and personal, Julian Assange, through WikiLeaks, “enabled spectacular disclosure of official secrets,” including, as Wasserman himself puts it, “war crimes, torture and atrocities on civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan” by the U.S. And this is why he’s being attacked in the legal arena and politically by the U.S. ruling class. This dimension is where people need to rally to Assange’s defense, even with his limitations and failings. And the need and importance of defending Assange, particularly from political/legal persecution by the U.S. government, has been greatly heightened by the fact that this government (headed by the Trump/Pence fascist regime) has now piled on very serious charges of espionage in this process of persecution, with dire implications not just for Assange but for any and all who would dare to uncover and expose the war crimes and crimes against humanity continually carried out by U.S. imperialism and its institutions of violence and repression.

Yet, without in any way failing to give due importance and emphasis to opposing these repressive moves by the U.S. government, it remains necessary and there is also great importance to criticizing this outlook and approach embodied in the thinking of people like Assange and Glenn Greenwald, as well as Žižek. The idea that these bourgeois (or “establishment”) politicians are just “all the same,” without any analysis of the nuances, or even the blatant differences, between them and the consequences of this for the masses of people, the masses of humanity—this is very harmful.

Here it is worth looking at the criticism that was raised of the German communists in the period of the rise to power of Hitler and the Nazis in Germany in the 1930s. The slogan was attributed to the German communists: “Nach Hitler, Uns,” (meaning: “After Hitler, Us”). In other words, the same kind of thinking—that Hitler actually heading up the government would shake up things and would cause such a crisis in society that, then, the communists would have a chance to come to power. This represented a very serious underestimation of what was represented by Hitler and the Nazis, and the terrible consequences of this for humanity. Yes, the communists there should have been consistently and firmly opposing the whole system on a revolutionary basis, but it was also very important and necessary to recognize that Hitler and the Nazis were a particularly perverse and extreme representation of all the horrors of this system, and would carry them out in very extreme forms.

So, in relation to all this, there is a need for a scientific approach to building opposition to the fascism embodied in the Trump/Pence regime in the U.S. today, in a way that is based on and proceeds from the understanding that’s captured in works of mine like “The Fascists and the Destruction of the ‘Weimar Republic’... And What Will Replace It” and “Not Being Jerry Rubin, or Even Dimitrov, but Actually Being Revolutionary Communists: THE CHALLENGE OF DEFENDING FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS—FROM A COMMUNIST PERSPECTIVE, AND NO OTHER.” (These articles are available at revcom.us. They are part of the Collected Works of Bob Avakian.)

As I have stressed several times, and as concentrated in the slogan we have brought forward: “The Republican Party is Fascist, The Democratic Party is Also a Machine of Massive War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity.” This emphasizes the importance of both aspects of things: recognizing the particularity of what’s represented by the fascism of the Trump/Pence regime and the Republican Party as a whole, and confronting the nature and massive crimes of the whole system, and all those who are functionaries and enforcers of this system, definitely including the Democratic Party.

In an article in the New York Times (Tuesday, July 16, 2019), “Racism Comes Out of the Closet,” Paul Krugman makes the point that not just Donald Trump but the Republican Party as a whole has gone from “dog whistling” racism to overtly and crudely expressing it. Krugman concludes this article this way, referring to the Republican Party’s dropping of even any pretense of opposing racism:

It’s tempting to say that Republican claims to support racial equality were always hypocritical; it’s even tempting to welcome the move from dog whistles to open racism. But if hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue, what we’re seeing now is a party that no longer feels the need to pay that tribute. And that’s deeply frightening.

Krugman does have a point—an important and relevant point—here, as far as it goes. The problem is that it doesn’t go far enough, and in particular does not break out of the constricting terms of contradictions and conflicts among ruling class parties (the Republicans and the Democrats). The stance of hypocritically pretending opposition to such outrages as racist oppression, while in fact acting as the representatives, functionaries and enforcers of a system that has this oppression built into it and could not exist without this oppression—this does not just apply to the Republican Party in the past (if it ever applied to that party at all over the past 50 years and more) but also applies to the Democratic Party. What is concentrated in this situation is the need to recognize, and correctly handle, a very real and acute contradiction: the fact that, on the one hand, the Democratic Party, as much as the Republican Party, is a party of a system that continually commits, and cannot help committing, massive crimes against the masses of humanity and embodies an existential threat to the very future of humanity; and, on the other hand, the fact that (to paraphrase what is cited above from Krugman’s article) there is a very real difference and very direct danger embodied in the fact that one of these ruling class parties (the Republicans) openly abandons much of the pretense of being anything other than a rapacious, and yes racist, plunderer of human beings and of the environment. This requires the correct synthesis of, in fundamental terms, opposing the whole system, of which both of these parties are instruments, and actively working, in an ongoing way, toward the strategic goal of abolishing this whole system, while also, with the same fundamental strategic perspective, recognizing the acute immediate danger posed by the fascist Trump/Pence regime and working urgently to bring forward masses of people in non-violent but sustained mobilization around the demand that this regime must go!

Failing to really recognize and act on this understanding, in its different aspects and its full dimension, is very much related to individualism—particularly in the form of seeking the illusion of painless progress, rather than being willing to confront inconvenient and uncomfortable truths and to act accordingly, even with the sacrifices that might be required.

With all the nuances and particularities of contradictions that do have to be recognized, this crucial truth can be put in this basic and concentrated way:

The Democratic Party Is Part of the Problem, Not the Solution.

Here a challenge needs to be issued to all those who insist on the position that “the Democrats are the only realistic alternative”: On the website revcom.us, there is the “American Crime” series, which chronicles and outlines many of the most horrific crimes of the U.S. ruling class, going back to the beginning of this country and right up to the present, carried out under Republican and Democratic administrations. Here is the challenge: Go read that “American Crime” series and then come back and try to explain why it’s a decent thing to do to be caught up in supporting the Democrats.

Along with its other crimes, and its particular role in maintaining and enforcing this system, in the current circumstances the Democratic Party is also an active facilitator of fascism because of its refusal, even on the terms of the system it represents, to do anything meaningful to oppose the fascism of the Trump/Pence regime. This is concentrated in the insistence by Democratic Party leader Nancy Pelosi (or Piglosi, as she should be called) that impeachment is, once again, off the table. Some people may not remember (or may have chosen to forget), and others may not even know, but there was a massive sentiment to impeach George W. Bush back around 2005-2006, in particular because of the way he took the country to war, attacking and invading Iraq, causing massive destruction and death in that country, on the basis of systematic lies that were very consciously perpetrated by his whole regime, including Colin Powell, Cheney and Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice and the rest, who deliberately and systematically lied about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction and supposedly threatening the U.S. (and “allies” of the U.S.) with those weapons. These lies were the rationalization for perpetrating the U.S. war of aggression against Iraq—which, in fact, was an international war crime. There was a mass sentiment toward impeachment of George W. Bush largely on that basis. Well, when the Democrats, in the 2006 election, won control of both houses of Congress, immediately Nancy Piglosi said impeachment is off the table. And now she’s doing the same thing again—and she’s doing this not just as an individual, but as representative of the leadership of the Democratic Party. To borrow a term from the gang scene, the “shot-callers” of the Democratic Party are saying: “We shouldn’t impeach Trump because that will just serve him; he’s trying to goad us into impeaching him.” As though it would not be a good thing for Trump to be impeached. Piglosi insists: “We’re not gonna fall for that, we’re gonna hold Trump accountable.”  Oh yeah? How? How are you going to hold him accountable when you refuse to use one of the most powerful instruments you have, impeachment, to actually do something meaningful to oppose what he’s doing?

I saw a commentator on one of the networks the other day who made an observation which (along with and despite a bunch of nonsense that she was also spouting) was actually somewhat insightful and important. She said: “Laws don’t enforce themselves. If you can do something and get away with it, the law is meaningless.” Well, Piglosi, your “accountability” (holding Trump “accountable”) is meaningless because you are refusing to exercise the most effective means you might have to “hold him accountable.”

Now, some people say that this is just being done by Piglosi and the rest because they have the 2020 election in mind, and they don’t want to feed the Republican Party ammunition for their insistence that “this is a witch hunt” against Trump and the Republican Party. That may be a secondary consideration on the part of the Democrats, but if you listen to Piglosi she’s telling us what the deal actually is. She’s saying it would further divide the country to impeach Trump—as if the “country” is not already very deeply and very intensely divided, at this point, which is precisely why someone like Trump could get elected in the first place.

But there are really three reasons, or we could call them “three fears,” that Piglosi and the rest have. They’re afraid of Trump and the Republicans, so they’re allowing Trump and the Republicans to set the terms of what they can do. Their “logic” goes like this: “Since Trump would lash back if we tried to impeach him, therefore we shouldn’t try to impeach him.” This is the logic of what they’re saying, even if they don’t directly and explicitly articulate it like that. So they’re letting the Republicans set the terms—which, of course, only causes the Republicans to be even more aggressive in pursuit of their agenda and in defying and trampling on the “norms” of this system. Even according to their own bourgeois “principles,” the Democrats should be acting on the basis of what’s in their Constitution, not according to what the Republicans will allow them to do.

Secondly, along with being afraid of Trump and the Republican Party, they are afraid of the reality that laws don’t enforce themselves. They’re afraid that if they impeach Trump—and if, somehow, they even succeeded not only in impeaching him, but actually getting him convicted in the Senate—that Trump might well declare: “Fuck you, I’m the President, I don’t recognize this impeachment.” Then, what and whom can they turn to? This brings up the other dimension of this second point: They’re afraid of Trump’s “base.” They’re afraid of these fascist forces out there who are being encouraged and goaded by Trump to increasingly act in a violent manner and who (as I’ll speak to shortly) do have a lot of weapons and are demonstrating not only their willingness, but their eagerness, to use them. So Piglosi and the rest are afraid of that.

But at least as much—and here is the “third fear”—they are afraid of the people on the other side of the divide in the country, the people who tend to vote for the Democrats, especially the basic masses of oppressed people. They are afraid of the very people, basic masses and others, whom the Democratic Party is responsible for “corralling” into the BEB and “domesticating” their dissent. They’re afraid of the people who are angry about what’s represented by Trump and Pence. They don’t want those people out in the street, unless it is contained within the narrow confines of what the Democratic Party, and the system it serves, can allow. And they don’t want the confrontation between those people and the fascists who have rallied behind Trump. You think they want to see masses of Black people, immigrants, and others, including masses of people from different strata who are furious over Trump—you think they want to see them in the streets in direct and determined opposition to what is represented by Trump and Pence? That’s one of the worst nightmares of Piglosi and Company, not only because of the potential for militant confrontation with the fascists, but because people could then get completely out of the control of the Democratic Party, and the whole system of which the Democrats are representatives, functionaries, and enforcers. A big part of what they are representing and enforcing would be seriously jeopardized.

So this is what’s really going on with Piglosi and the rest in stubbornly resisting a move toward impeachment.

And then we come to one of the main aggressively fascist functionaries in the Republican Party, the Congressman from Iowa, Steve King. Recently, along with all of his other outrageous postings and overtly racist, misogynist, and crudely derogatory statements about Muslims and immigrants, and so on, King recently posted a meme, with this comment, on his official campaign page:

Folks keep talking about another civil war. One side has about 8 trillion bullets, while the other side doesn’t know which bathroom to use.

Now, it has to be said that there is a “demented insight” in this comment. Obviously, this is a vicious attack on trans people, as well as those supportive of their rights. So, on the one hand, this is an outrageous statement, a thoroughly reactionary and vicious statement. But it does express a certain demented insight, or a demented representation of some truth, because while people are rightly supporting the rights of trans people, gay people, women and others, there are real limitations and problems with the spontaneous outlook prevailing among those on the correct side of the divide. There is a narrowness along lines of “identity,” and an ignoring of, or a not paying sufficient attention to, the larger dynamics that are shaping up in the society (and the world) as a whole, and the implications of this, as represented, once again, by the fact that, while people are fighting around or raising some resistance around this or that particular instance of oppression, discrimination and prejudice, they are not rallying to take on the whole massive assault that’s embodied in the Trump/Pence regime, let alone the whole system that has produced this regime. There is the serious problem that, as a whole, people who consider themselves “progressive” or “woke” have, to put it mildly, not made any real rupture with American chauvinism (about which I will have more to say shortly). And, related to this, there is the fundamental problem of attempting to resolve the conflict with what is represented by the Trump/Pence regime and its fascist “base,” with its “8 trillion bullets,” through relying on (or seeking a return to) what have been the “norms” of the bourgeois order in this country (and, on the part of some, this involves a call for “restoring civility”) while the fascists are determined to trample on and tear up these “norms” and are perfectly happy to have those who oppose them adopt the stance of “civility” (accommodation) toward their unrelenting fascist offensive. Although this does not apply absolutely, it is far too much the case that the words of the poet William Butler Yeats describe this very serious situation: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst/Are full of passionate intensity.” And so, while things could be heading toward a civil war, and it could come down to that even in the not-too-distant future, the present lineup is very unfavorable for anybody who represents anything decent in the world.

All this is, in a demented kind of way, represented in King’s statement that one side has about 8 trillion bullets while the other side doesn’t know which bathroom to use. Again, it’s not that the question of bathroom use and the larger questions it encapsulates is unimportant. It is important. But there’s a larger picture here of this developing trend or motion toward a civil war which right now is very one-sided in a very bad way, and if things continue on this trajectory the outcome could truly be disastrous.

So that should be serious food for thought—and not only that, but also a serious spur to action for people who do care about all the various ways in which people are being brought under attack and oppression is being intensified all across the board against large sections of the people who need to be brought together to fight against the offensive from these fascist forces—and, in more fundamental terms, need to be brought forward on the basis of recognizing that it’s the whole system, out of which this fascist phenomenon has arisen, and which embodies such terrible oppression of people not just here but all around the world, that needs to be swept away.

Now, another element of this that we can’t overlook is that, while a lot of what King describes applies in a certain demented way, particularly to progressive or so-called “woke” middle class people, there is another kind of problem with regard to more basic oppressed people, and in particular the youth—a big problem that their guns are now aimed at each other. And without going more fully into this right now, this is something that needs to be radically transformed in building a movement for an actual revolution.

So here we come to the question of the relation between building for an actual revolution and the still very urgent question of driving out this fascist regime. The following from Part 2 of Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution remains extremely relevant and important:

The relation between the struggle against this fascist regime and building the revolution is not a “straight road” or a “one-way street”: It must not be approached, by those who understand the need for revolution, as if “first we must build a mass movement to drive out this regime, and then we can turn our attention to working directly for revolution.” No. It is crucial to unite and mobilize people, from different perspectives, very broadly, around the demand that this regime must go, but it will be much more difficult to do this on the scale and with the determination that is required to meet this objective if there are not, at the same time, greater and greater numbers of people who have been brought forward around the understanding that it is necessary to put an end not only to this regime but to the system out of whose deep and defining contradictions this regime has arisen, a system which by its very nature has imposed, and will continue to impose, horrific and completely unnecessary suffering on the masses of humanity, until this system itself is abolished. And the more that people are brought forward to be consciously, actively working for revolution, the growing strength and “moral authority” of this revolutionary force will in turn strengthen the resolve of growing numbers of people to drive out this fascist regime now in power, even as many will not be (and some will perhaps never be) won to revolution.

Updated October 14, 2019 | revcom.us

NOT GUILTY VERDICT IN UCLA TRIAL!

For immediate release October 11 2019
Contact: Refuse Fascism (917) 407-1286
RefuseFascism.org

Interviews Available

This statement was made by Defendant Tala Deloria* on behalf of all the defendants in the case of the UCLA 5:

Today a jury in West LA returned a not guilty verdict in the trial of the UCLA5.  This is an important victory for the people—for the millions who hate the Trump/Pence Regime and who want to see them OUT NOW!

This is a prosecution of students who stood up to the loyal fascist in Trump’s inner circle—an arrest instigated by the University of California—and prosecuted by the “liberal” city attorney.  A jury not only saw through a case that included a judge erasing an important reference to the first amendment in the law in his jury instructions, and evidence about police use of force suppressed by the prosecution until the last minute—but saw as their responsibility the importance of people standing up and speaking out, and demonstrating their opposition with the only vehicle they have to meaningfully oppose a regime that MUST BE STOPPED. It shows how important it is that people do this and support those who do, and it shows that millions more must do the same.

When even speaking truth to power is criminalized—that is normalizing and facilitating fascism. That is something the University and the City Attorney are GUILTY of.

When the #UCLA5 defendants, including a student and alum, spoke out against Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin at UCLA, we were physically removed from our seats and arrested within a minute of speaking. We were targeted by University Administrators who have crafted a protocol that is criminalizing dissent and violating constitutional first amendment rights of people using their voices to expose and protest a regime that is trampling over political and social norms, imposing a fascist America —where the press is "the enemy of the people," political opponents are "locked up" or sent "back to where they came from," where the rights of immigrants to asylum are abrogated as the humanity of LGBTQ people and women is under assault.

Many outrageous things came up through the course of this trial. Police reports recorded evidence of UCPD spying on the Revolution Club. Evidence was suppressed until the end of trial that proved the police brutalized us and lied about it on the stand, which compelled the judge to drop our resisting arrest charges. The jury was not allowed to see this evidence. The judge omitted a part of the law that could allow the jury to acquit us based on an exception for first amendment speech and assembly.

And we learned that our prosecutor held a meeting with UCLA administrators about how to handle free speech on the campuses AFTER we were arrested at the Mnuchin event.

The University is couching an attack on meaningful dissent in the name of free speech, but this is NOT about that. It is about facilitating fascism and collaborating with the very people who are gutting the rule of law and the separation of powers, crushing dissent and opposition, and imposing open dictatorship as they carry out and intensify crimes against humanity.

“We must confront the reality that the world as we have known it is being torn asunder. This requires getting out of our comfort zones and not allowing our differences to stand in the way of rising together in an unprecedented, unrelenting mass struggle to confront the danger of a Trump/Pence fascist America.” (RefuseFascism Call to Action)

As this trial is taking place, this regime is refusing to cooperate with the one legal recourse Congress has, throwing this country into a full-fledged constitutional crisis. Trump doubled down on his genocidal, xenophobic rhetoric in Minneapolis. They are not backing down.

This acquittal is a victory. It is important that people on the jury saw the stakes and took the right stand, but this should never have gone to trial in the first place. And it has to be asked WHY UCLA and City Attorney Mike Feuer are going to such great lengths to prosecute people who were calling out and trying to prevent all of this. At a very time that the university should be protecting students, critical thinking, and the right to dissent this prosecution is an outrage and a facilitation of fascism.

This UCLA policy for “events that elicit protest” sets a dangerous precedent that needs to be challenged and overturned. But even more than that people must see that if this is allowed, if people do not stand up to it, and if people do not act themselves, we will again be forced to accept even greater atrocities.

The fact that we are being criminalized for opposing this juggernaut shows you cannot rely on the institutions of this putrid system. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have answers to the horrors their system perpetuates. They are confined to debates about the aesthetics of condemning people to death as the fascist program maintains the initiative. We in the Revolution Club understand it will ultimately take a revolution to bring into being a society that does not stand in the way of people working together to solve these problems. And right now, given that people’s positive aspirations from reform to revolution will be greatly foreclosed by the consolidation of fascism, given that humanity and the planet are at stake, every person of conscience, whether revolutionary or not, must be out in the streets demanding that this regime step down from power.

To the administrators who had people arrested, who testified against us, SHAME! SHAME! SHAME! As Bob Avakian put it, “It used to be a common saying to the person of the right ‘order is more important than justice,’ while for the person of the left it is the opposite. Now the question is put squarely to liberals, and really to everyone. Which, after all, is more important? Order? Even if that is the order of fascism, with everything that means. Or justice? Even if that means stepping outside of our comfort zone and putting ourselves on the line to prevent this fascism from consolidating its rule and fully implementing its program.”

University Administrators have shown themselves to be the most craven supporters of the fascists in power. Assistant Vice Chancellor Mick Deluca upholds MLK in the same breath that he makes sure we are arrested for opposing someone who has defended overt white supremacist statements by Trump—on behalf of Nazis in Charlottesville, rabidly denouncing those who took a knee in the NFL, and attacking Congresswomen with xenophobic, genocidal rhetoric. This virulent white supremacy is NOW IN POWER. They have shown what side they are on. Will the University Community go along as well or condemn this?

People will look back to this case to see the role the universities played in the face of this situation. Are students going to be good little Germans that kept their heads down and followed the rules, who did not speak up or defend their fellow students or will they act to stop this while there is still time?  It's up to US... Join us here in Los Angeles on the October 19th at noon to spell out the message on Santa Monica Beach #TrumpPenceOutNow.  Nationwide protests can be found here.  Let’s project this to the world together, building for every weekend after that to attract more people, staying in the streets until this fascist regime steps down. From Hong Kong to Puerto Rico, people are showing us, it’s not that goddamn complicated.

*Tala Deloria is a former student at UCLA and a member of the Get Organized for an Actual Revolution Tour and the Revolution Club, UCLA.  [back]

Activists Who Called Out Mnuchin At UCLA Now Face Months In Jail: Which Side Are You On?, Refusefascism.org, October 3, 2019

Activists Who Confronted Mnuchin During UCLA Protest Now Facing Years in Jail, Julia Conley, Common Dreams, October 1, 2019

´Policías de Los Ángeles mintieron en el juicio contra los #UCLA5 Jorge Luis Macías / Especial para La Opinión | 09 de Octubre 2019

PACK THE COURT ROOM!
Thursday 10am Airport Courthouse 11701 Airport Courthouse.

VERDICT WILL BE ANNOUNCED VERY SOON.

Join us at the Bruin Bear 5pm when announced and keep watch for the IG live the day of. #DropTheCharges #UCLA5 #UCLA #TrumpPenceOutNOW pic.twitter.com/UZgRSufFYO

— Revolution Club Los Angeles (@revclub_la) October 9, 2019

BA on the Big Screen in NYC—
“The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!”

October 12, 2019 | revcom.us

From a member of the National Revolution Tour

On Monday evening, October 7, Revolution Books in NYC and the Revolution Books Education Fund hosted a screening at Anthology Film Archives in the Lower East Side of New York of The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go—In The Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America, A Better World IS Possible, a film of a talk by Bob Avakian (BA) that was given in 2017.

As people settled into their seats, they were welcomed and given an introduction to the film and Bob Avakian. Then, the theater darkened and BA appeared crisply on the screen, capturing and holding the attention of a rapt audience for the full length of his speech. Audible reactions to BA's depth of analysis, passion, ideological challenges, and humor punctuated the hour.

About 60 people came to this showing, which was fewer than we aimed for. We are still working to understand why more people didn't come – especially why there weren't many students or people involved in the different movements of opposition to the Trump/Pence regime and its crimes. A large percentage of those who did come out were Black people, which was interesting. Quite a few of them came through the work of Revolution Books.

When the lights came up, almost everyone stayed for a group discussion which wove back and forth between different dimensions of what BA had laid out and the plans set forth by RefuseFascism.org to launch the kind of sustained, mass, nonviolent protest BA was advocating for aimed at driving the Trump/Pence regime from power. These #OutNow protests will begin in Los Angeles and New York on October 19th, then spread nationwide on October 26, and continue to grow nationwide each Saturday through November 16, and then forward from there – uniting people from a great array of political perspectives throughout society to stand up and demand: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go – NOW! Or, simply: #OutNow!

Early in the discussion, a Black woman asked if we could get more into the solution. Several other people drew from the vision BA laid out of a movement from below that drives out the fascist regime – uniting people very broadly to take part. Members of the Revolution Tour united with and built on this, while also pointing to the need to go further – to the actual overthrow of the whole capitalist-imperialist system that has given rise to this fascist regime. When one of them directed people to the special compilation of American Crimes against Native Americans that was recently published at revcom.us, much of the room broke into applause. People were also invited to learn more about the revolution at the Revolution Books table where they could find copies of BAsics, of the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America and The New Communism, all written by BA.

At one point a young man suggested, “If revolution is too edgy for you, you can support Bernie,” celebrating his refusal to take corporate money. A revolutionary musician was respectful, but also straight up, in saying that BA was arguing for exactly the opposite of voting for any Democrats. We are facing fascism, it comes from the same system that those Democrats are part of, and if we want to end this we have to step outside the confines of that system. An older woman who works with RefuseFascism.org returned to BA's fierce and truthful argument that liberals need to stop looking out only for themselves and those they most care about. She emphasized that every time she hears BA, she is reminded that we are responsible for the children in the cages and others being affected by this fascism right now. A member of the Revolution Tour took on the idea that people should pick their “solutions” based on what suits their “tastes” (if they “like being edgy” or not, for example) as if they are shopping for shoes (“Are these comfortable?” “Are they my style?”). They contrasted this with the approach BA takes of starting with the reality we are facing and acting in relation to that, whether or not it makes us uncomfortable. We can and should debate our different understandings of this reality as we unite broadly to drive out this fascist regime before it is too late, but we should be debating reality not what fits our “tastes.” In reflecting on this whole exchange, it struck me how important it is that we have people who support Bernie and many different visions of the solution all coming together in the #OutNow movement to drive out the Trump/Pence regime and how important it is that we continue and deepen these debates over the question of reform vs. revolution and more along the way.

After more back and forth, another member of the National Revolution Tour spoke deeply to the power of this film and the need for many more to see it, and how everyone in the theater was in a unique position to seize on this and take it forward – or to squander it.

The formal program ended with three short presentations of how people can learn more and get involved going forward. First, a member of the National Get Organized for an Actual Revolution Tour powerfully laid out the mission of the Tour and called on people to get with the revolution. Next, a leader in Refuse Fascism delivered a compelling vision for people to join with RefuseFascism.org's October plans – including calling people to stand up if they are in. Almost everyone stood with real enthusiasm and feeling. Finally, someone gave an update on the case of the #UCLA5 and asked people to support them.

A real strength of the evening was how directly people were challenged and invited to get involved, but there was also an important weakness to learn from. People weren't really organized on the spot and this was linked to not enough actively working to involve people there in solving the many big challenges of pulling off this fight to drive out the regime – like reaching the numbers of people who must be mobilized, waging the kind of ideological struggle against national chauvinism and individualism that BA wages in the film, and more.

For the final 45 minutes of the evening, the lobby and Revolution Books tables – and, when the building had to lock up, the street out front – were abuzz with discussion and strategizing among people getting to know each other better and working together to find ways to act on what they had just experienced.

The Slaughter of the Kurds, the Fight over "American Interests," and the Interests of Humanity

Updated October 13, 2019 | revcom.us

This past week, Donald Trump withdrew American soldiers from a Kurdish area of Syria.¹ This gave Turkey a green light to cross the border and attack the Kurdish-led militias controlling the region, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The SDF had earlier allied itself to the U.S. to drive out the reactionary Islamic fundamentalist force ISIS.

In doing so, Trump came under political attack not only from the Democrats and sections of the U.S. military and spy agencies, but also some otherwise reliable Republican-fascist allies.

Four things need to be said about this:

First, this Turkish invasion will lead to terrible slaughter and excruciating suffering for those who are not outright killed. At this point, the only question is how bad it will be.

Second, with little concern for the lives of the Kurdish people, those within the US ruling class who have criticized Trump for this have largely either posed this in terms of what is best for “U.S. national security” or made a putridly narrow appeal to protecting American lives (“these Kurdish fighters are shedding blood to protect Americans from terrorist attacks by ISIS, so we should support them to keep doing that”).² Trump defends this move in those same terms.

These phrases cover over the reality of a system of imperialist domination of the huge majority of the world’s people and nations, and the imperialist competition over who will be top dog. The U.S. military has murdered nearly ten million people since the end of World War 2 in defense of that system—a system which grinds up the lives of billions of people worldwide in its daily operation and which causes the needless death of millions of children a year through preventable disease.

Third, this is not the first time that forces which have gained the leadership of the struggle of the Kurdish people have tried to ally themselves with greater powers than their immediate oppressor—like in this instance, the U.S.—to gain some form of national self-determination. Every single time this has led to betrayal. This history shows what happens when the masses of people are not led to sharply distinguish their interests from those of the imperialists who promise them deliverance but give them betrayal, and continued oppression.

Fourth, this move by Trump and Turkey is occurring in the context of major changes in the Middle East. Great-power rivalry for the domination of a strategically vital part of the world is heightening, even while regional powers like Turkey and Iran seek to extend their sphere of influence and seek to contend in this mix. Differences and splits in the U.S. ruling class are really sharp over how to extend and maintain U.S. dominance, and this is what is meant by U.S. “national security” interests—the national interests of the U.S. imperialists.

In regard to the significant splits among the rulers that this has widened, it's important for all concerned about humanity and the danger of fascism to return to the crucial orientation which appears on this site every week:

The Democrats, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, etc., are seeking to resolve the crisis with the Trump presidency on the terms of this system, and in the interests of the ruling class of this system, which they represent. We, the masses of people, must go all out, and mobilize ourselves in the millions, to resolve this in our interests, in the interests of humanity, which are fundamentally different from and opposed to those of the ruling class.

This, of course, does not mean that the struggle among the powers that be is irrelevant or unimportant; rather, the way to understand and approach this (and this is a point that must also be repeatedly driven home to people, including through necessary struggle, waged well) is in terms of how it relates to, and what openings it can provide for, “the struggle from below”—for the mobilization of masses of people around the demand that the whole regime must go, because of its fascist nature and actions and what the stakes are for humanity.

And to further quote Bob Avakian, who pointed to those paragraphs in his new preface to “Individualism, BEB and the Illusion of ‘Painless Progress’” and wrote that “Clearly, the removal of not just Trump, but also the Christian Fascist Vice President Mike Pence, and indeed this whole fascist regime, is of urgent importance. But this will only serve the fundamental interests of the masses of people—not just in this country but in the world as a whole—if this is achieved, not on the basis of confining things within the terms of and through the furthering of the ‘national interests’ of the monstrously oppressive U.S. empire, but on the basis of the mobilization of mass opposition to the fascism of this Trump/Pence regime, which has been produced by and risen to power through the ‘normal functioning’ of this system, of which it is an extreme but not somehow an ‘alien’ expression.”

1. The Kurdish people are a bitterly oppressed minority who live in the nations of Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq, and they are the main group in this area of Syria. [back]

2. Christian fascists have more cast this as a question of defending religious freedom against Sunni Islamic fundamentalist forces like ISIS. Christian fascists who are now in power with the Trump/Pence regime want to institute a Christian-fundamentalist fascist form of rule in society. They perceive and portray their fascist view of Christianity as under siege, and locked in a holy war for domination, and recast current conflicts in society in this framework.  [back]

As Trump Blatantly Tramples on the Constitution and Whips Up His Fascist Mobs...

Do You Really Think That Just "Relying on the Process" Will Drive Out the Fascist Regime?

October 12, 2019 | revcom.us

This week the Trump/Pence regime has counterattacked in two ways against the attempts of the Democrats to impeach Trump.

First, the regime has gone further in defying the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law, ordering all those in the regime not to obey what are in fact lawful subpoenas from Congress to testify and declaring in a public letter from White House Counsel Pat Cipollone to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that the whole impeachment process is by definition “illegitimate.”

Second, Trump himself has held televised rallies to further stir up, weld together, and prepare for battle the fascist mobs who support him. His speech to a crowd in Minneapolis was more racist, jingoistic, and misogynist than ever and his message to them was clear: “they want to erase your vote ... they want to erase your voice, and they want to erase your future.” These rallies are part of an all-out fascist mobilization for Trump, including through FOX TV (more accurately known as Fascist News Network).

In fact, those who support Trump not only fear their future may be “erased,” but they are willing—and the fascist regime is organizing them in these rallies—to fight to defend that future, violently if need be. The Minnesota rally featured a conflict between the mayor of the city and the head of the police union over whether the police could attend in uniform. When the mayor ruled that they could not, a huge number of police came as a bloc anyway, dressed in red MAGA gear. Trump crowed from the stage that “Cops love Trump, and Trump loves cops.”

In the face of this, can you just sit at home and watch TV and hope that somehow the Democratic Party-led impeachment process will go forward and actually remove Trump, while you stand aside or maybe ease your conscience by sending a check to some candidate? Can you really put your faith in these Democratic politicians to deal with this kind of thing? What evidence makes you think, given their sorry record of capitulation to this fascist movement over the past 30 years, that they will? In fact, many of these Democrats concede in advance that Trump will likely stay in office no matter what happens, because of Republican dominance of the Senate. Without massive, sustained, nonviolent action from below demanding that the Trump/Pence regime be OUT NOW, carried out by millions with the same conviction that this is a fight for a future worth living, do you really think Trump and Pence and the rest will just accept the result, if somehow he were convicted in a Senate trial? The outcome of this battle will be disastrous and potentially catastrophic if those who are on the side of humanity do not understand that the stakes here really are the future of humanity and are willing to act on them with at least the same level of conviction as those fascist mobs Trump marshals.

In this light, there was one encouraging sign in Minnesota—the thousands who came out to oppose Trump and stand up to the MAGA mobs. More, much more, of this spirit and these kinds of actions need to happen... and need to feed into a broad movement around the single unified demand of OUT NOW!, beginning in New York and Los Angeles on October 19.

October 11, 2019, Minneapolis protest against Trump. Photo: Lorie Shaull/Flickr