Revolution #207, July 8, 2010
Arizona Freedom Summer Statement to Anti-July 4th Picnics
Revolutionary greetings to all those at the anti-4th of July picnics from the Arizona Freedom Summer. We are with you today and we are having our own gathering in Phoenix.
A carload of five youth are stopped by the Phoenix police for a broken headlight and when they protest that there is nothing wrong with the headlight, the cops smash it in. None of the young men had papers and all were taken in, some are still being held and others have already been deported. We have been told that routine traffic stops end up with people being deported, and this goes on every day. People hesitate before leaving home for work, knowing that a stop by the police, at any moment and for whatever reason—like your car being parked wrong—could mean you won't make it back home, and then what will happen to your children?
All of this is occurring before SB 1070, the Arizona law that targets immigrants with no papers and in essence legalizes racial profiling, goes into effect on July 29. Throughout Arizona, racial profiling of immigrants, mass arrests, deportation, and deaths at the border—all this is happening right now!
The situation on the ground in Arizona is one of terror for the masses of immigrants. It comes at them from all angles, from Governor Brewer with the Arizona State government, from law enforcement like Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County and the Border Patrol, and from the extreme forces of reaction like the Minutemen and Nazis. People are feeling stifled, and many of those who don't think that they can do anything to stop this are leaving the state. At the same time, there are people standing up and finding the ways to go up against all this.
In the midst of this extreme polarization, the revolutionary communists have brought the Arizona Freedom Summer to the neighborhoods where immigrants live, to the Warped Tour in Phoenix, to an anti-SB 1070 demonstration in Tucson, to a swapmeet and the Art Walk in Phoenix. We have begun to bust through the negative polarization with our slogans:
We are all illegals! We don't gotta show no stinkin' papers!
We don't have an immigration problem, we have a capitalism problem!
No more troops! Demilitarize the border!
We have connected with people who are looking for leadership and a way to transform this current situation. Our slogans and the Message and Call from the RCP—The Revolution We Need... The Leadership We Have—have had a magnetizing effect on people in taking on this attack and in them beginning to grasp the need to repolarize for revolution.
We have started uniting with people who hate this law to oppose it and to change the current dynamic where every day people are being told to view immigrants as a problem. We have brought forward the truth that it is this system of capitalism-imperialism that is the problem we need to deal with. It is this system that compels people to come here, seeking a way to survive, and then forces them to live under conditions of terror and with no rights. And it is this system that promotes ugly racism and American chauvinism through their media and their laws.
At the Warped Tour this past week, thousands of young people from all over Arizona found out that there is a movement for revolution in this country, and right now in this state. They heard the revolutionaries denouncing the Nazi-like racism bubbling up in Arizona and found a group of people that refuses to back down and accept it. This had an electric effect and our booth was busy all day with people signing up to get involved. Native Americans from all over Arizona took stacks of the Message and Call to take back to the reservations. A young Latina woman faced off against another youth in front of our banner. She told him about how Jews in Germany were forced to wear special badges so they could be targeted and took a bunch of "We are all illegals!" posters to put up.
With SB 1070 and the intense anti-immigrant fervor that exists here, Arizona has become a concentration and "ground zero" in the struggle to oppose the reactionary targeting of immigrants that is being whipped up all over the country. What happens here, now, will have reverberations nationally and beyond—positive or negative.
Right now, we are a small group, and we have begun to make a difference. We and the people we have met have seen the potential of what can be changed and have taken up that challenge. But there is much more that needs to be done to step up the opposition to SB 1070 and the whole reactionary offensive, and to change the polarization as part of the movement for revolution.
Join us in any way you can. We cannot overstate the importance of people coming here to be a part of the Arizona Freedom Summer. Every single person who comes here to join us will make a difference.
We need people and we need funds to support the people who will be coming here. Spread the word!
Sign up today to join the Arizona Freedom Summer. If you can't come earlier, come on July 29, when many people need to be here to stand with the people in Arizona and send a message that these kinds of laws will not be accepted.
"The days when this system can just keep on doing what it does to people, here and all over the world…when people are not inspired and organized to stand up against these outrages and to build up the strength to put an end to this madness…those days must be GONE. And they CAN be."
For more information go to our Facebook page at Arizona Freedom Summer. Donate* funds today (checks can be made out to RCP Publications earmarked for Arizona Freedom Summer).
*Contributions or gifts to RCP Publications are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes.
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