The System Lashes Out at Revolution Club Chicago, 7 Arrested at Puerto Rican Parade

A Sign of Strength or Weakness? Make These Attacks a Rock They Drop on Their Own Feet and Advance the Revolution Through This

June 19, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

“While awaiting the necessary conditions to go all-out for revolution, we need to hasten this and actively carry out the “Three Prepares”: Prepare the Ground, Prepare the People, and Prepare the Vanguard—Get Ready for the Time When Millions Can Be Led to Go for Revolution, All-Out, With a Real Chance to Win. We need to Fight the Power and Transform the People, for Revolution—protest and resist the injustices and atrocities of this system, and win people to defy and repudiate this putrid system and its ways of thinking, and to take up the outlook and values, and the strategy and program for revolution, and defeat the attempts of the ruling powers to crush the revolution and its leadership. (Underlining added)” How We Can Win— How We Can Really Make Revolution, pages 5-6

Chicago’s annual “People’s Puerto Rican Parade” down Division Street in the Humboldt Park neighborhood was held on June 16.  Humboldt Park is one of the largest concentrations of Puerto Ricans in the U.S., a center of historic gang conflicts and police killing people. There is a huge reservoir of outrage in the neighborhood in the wake of all the unnecessary deaths this system has inflicted upon the Puerto Rican people in the wake of Hurricane Maria.

The Revolution Club made plans to take our message of revolution, concentrated in the pamphlet “HOW WE CAN WIN” and the special flier for the parades, to the crowds at the parade and call on people to enlist in the revolution. We planned to be in the park all day and do an outdoor showing of the film of BA’s talk in the park at dusk.

We arrived on the scene well before the parade was to step off and set up on a sidewalk near an empty lot, along the parade route.  There were vendors all along the parade route selling Puerto Rican flags, food, drinks, etc. Many were blaring loud music from their booths. Shortly after we set up, the crowd of police came, surrounded us, said we needed a permit, can’t use sound and were trying to shut us down. We challenged that this was not the case and the police backed off and left.

For about two hours, we agitated and organized. We had huge posters of the “Five Stops” and another one made especially for the parade with photos of the devastation in Puerto Rico. We agitated over a bullhorn, ripping into the glaring contradication of U.S. imperialism’s historic role in Puerto Rico and Trump’s outrageous neglect of the Puerto Rican people since the hurricane, as well as tearing into the “Five Stops” and our full core message. We got out copies of “How We Can Win—How We Can Really Make Revolution” and the flier on Puerto Rico and enlisted people in the revolution.

Shortly before the parade was about to start the pigs returned. This time more than a dozen of them. They surrounded the club. Noche Diaz continued to agitate about the U.S. role in Puerto Rico and also the role of the police. Then they swarmed and began grabbing people, dragging them to the ground and arresting seven club members. (See video at right.)

Why were these pigs lashing out in this way?  A white-shirt cop let the cat out of the bag. A club member’s video of the agitation and arrest picked up this white-shirt talking on his radio (presumably to someone higher up) and saying he gave people a warning about “inciting the crowd.” They were trying to stop what we were saying and the potential for people to hear it. It is clear that they fear this message connecting with the masses. They did not like the content of what we were saying. We were not “inciting the people” and they made up different charges at the station. Everyone was charged with misdemeanor obstructing the police and Noche was also charged with two municipal code violations (tickets) for disorderly conduct and a sound ordinance.

After the arrests, emails, texts, and tweets went out immediately, calling people to call the nearest police station and demand the release of the revolutionaries. Calls came in from around the country. It took a while to find out where the police actually took the arrested club members. They weren’t at the nearby police stations. People feared they might be locked in a paddy wagon in the blistering heat.  The police at the nearest station finally began telling people where they were in order to get people to stop calling them.

Supporters of the revolution joined the club members left in the park. They weren’t going to let this arrest shut down the club's plan. They made a big sign about the arrests and went out to the crowds with “How We Can Win” and the parade flier with a call for the film showing on the back.
 
They set up, with posters and displays in the park and got ready for the outdoor film showing. Police watched from across the street but left the crew alone. At dusk they started playing the talk. People streaming by caught parts of the film, some came to the table for materials, and took fliers. One young man ran up and saying, “Bob Avakian, that’s my man.”  He turned out to be a history student from Wisconsin who knew all about BA’s history with the Black Panther Party. He left his number as he rushed off to join his friends.

This arrest of seven people from the club, followed the arrest of four people, including former Black Panther and veteran revolutionary communist, Joe Veale, the previous Saturday (see “Action Alert: 7 Members of Revolution Club Chicago Attacked by Police at Puerto Rican Parade Demand That the Charges Be Dropped!”), and an outrageous hearing in Maya’s court case on Tuesday (“Judge Slams Down the Rules in 'Sacred Space', Threatens Maya and Her Supporters with Jail”).

This strategy of repeated arrests, tying people up in lengthy and costly court battles, which sends a message to the masses “you hook up with them and this is what you will face,” is a long-time strategy of the political police. This, accompanied with violent murders directly by the police or people whipped up by their COINTELPRO efforts to spread lies and pit different groups against each other, was used to crush the Black Panther Party in the 1960s.

This lashing-out presents us with powerful necessity to turn these attacks around. This is how the revolutionary movement develops. The revolutionaries step out, make advances, and the counter-revolution attacks, and their attacks must be met with more revolution. This involves waging battles in the legal arena, the arena of public opinion, and rallying people broadly to defend the Revolution Club. In doing this we can wrench out new freedom, rally many more forces fully into the revolution and bring others into supporting this movement in various ways. 

Here are the Revolution Club’s immediate plans for doing exactly that:

  1. File for a temporary restraining order (and then a permanent restraining order) on the Chicago police from attacking and arresting the Revolution Club for engaging in protected speech.
  2. Hold a press conference with lawyers and others to announce above filing in court.
  3. Compile a fact sheet about the breadth of attacks to be used to reach out to lawyers, journalists, First Amendment activists, and freedom loving people broadly in society.
  4. Issue a “Hands Off The Revolution Club” statement that can be signed, distributed broadly and posted in key areas.
  5. Reach out to Refuse Fascism and anti-repression organizations to issue statements in support of the Revolution Club and rally others in support.
  6. Enlist legal observers, clergy, and other supporters, etc. to go out with the club when they are taking their message to the people.
  7. Raise funds everywhere including rallying people to organize a fundraising event soon.

Finally, turn these attacks around by stepping up exactly what the authorities are trying to stop. Getting the strategy for revolution, concentrated in “How We Can Win— How We Can Really Make Revolution,” out even more widely and continuing to strengthen our agitation around our core message and organize, organize, organize many more people into the movement for an ACTUAL revolution.

Memorial Day Weekend: Chicago Police Drive Black Teens Out of Downtown

The repression directed against the Chicago Revolution Club is an effort to suppress revolutionary leadership. The authorities are also working hard to suppress those most in need of revolution. What they really fear is the two getting connected.

Black youth often come downtown from the south and west sides to escape gang conflicts and police harassment in their neighborhoods. They come to relax on the beaches, hang out and just chill. They often get fucked with by the police. In a scene reminiscent of South African apartheid, the police in Chicago ran roughshod over crowds of Black teens who came downtown over the Memorial Day weekend.

Here is the Chicago Tribune’s description of this:

Officers also descended on beaches and parks south of Fullerton, the downtown area that includes North Michigan Avenue and the South Loop. Much of their efforts focused on large groups of youths that were at times roaming through those areas, some of them causing disruptions to people and businesses. In one instance, groups of teens damaged property at a Target store at Roosevelt Road and Clark Street, Chicago police said.

Several people from these crowds were arrested on misdemeanor reckless conduct and disorderly conduct offenses during the weekend. Officers would corral the groups onto CTA Red Line trains at Chicago Avenue and State Street, forcing them to ride toward the South Side, police sources said.

The crowds swelled so much at Chicago and State that, according to CTA spokeswoman Irene Ferradaz, a Red Line train was stopped for almost 15 minutes at the request of police to get people off the train. Buses were also deployed to transport people away from the area.

Much of the teenage crowd aboard the trains exited at 35th Street and tried to make their way east toward the lake, only to be met by more cops along the way, police sources said.

In case it isn’t clear to people not from Chicago: The pigs stopped trains downtown, emptied them and forced crowds of youth onto the train to the South Side. Then when the youth exited and moved toward South Side beaches, the police vamped on them again.

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