Beautiful, Defiant Protests and Flag-Burnings Go Up Against Trump’s Fascist “Make America Great Again” July 4 Ugliness
| revcom.us
July 4 is a day when the blood-soaked foundations of America built on genocide and slavery and its history of conquest and imperialist domination around the world is celebrated as “greatness”… and now in 2020, a day when the fascist-in-chief on top of this empire is further ramping up the monstrous agenda of his regime that poses urgent and grave dangers to all of humanity and the planet.
On this day, people in cities around the country defiantly went into the streets—including revcoms who burned the hated symbol of this empire, the red, white and blue—in the face of the Trump/Pence regime’s rabid but very real threats against protesters.
America was NEVER great!
— The Revcoms (@therevcoms) July 4, 2020
We need an ACTUAL REVOLUTION & a whole new system.
Today, the RevComs burned:
- American flag
- Confederate flag
- Blue Lives Matter flag
What did you burn? Reply w pics.#FvckTheFourth #FrederickDouglass #fvckTrump #FlagBurningChallenge #WHATFREEDOM pic.twitter.com/8Idwak08R9
Hundreds have marched from Black Lives Matter plaza to near the base of the Washington Moniment, moving onto the National Mall between the tons of people sitting on the grass to watch the fireworks starting soon. pic.twitter.com/upN4h9JGLg
— Alejandro Alvarez (@aletweetsnews) July 5, 2020
The day before the 4th, Native American and other protesters went up against the National Guard and police to challenge Trump’s Nazi rally at Mt. Rushmore (see Native Americans Protest Trump Rally Held on Stolen Land).
On July 4, thousands marched in every major city from coast to coast in the continuing mass rising against the police murder of Black people and the systemic oppression of Black and other people of color. This included Washington, DC, where the Trump/Pence regime was holding an ultra-jingoistic celebration of America and its military power.
Refuse Fascism had issued a call for people to take to the streets on the 4th, pointing out, “America is at a serious crossroads. A fierce struggle for the future in underway.” And they said, “On July 4th and in the coming weeks, we must take to the streets in growing numbers to demand: The Trump/Pence Regime Must GO!” A CNN report on a range of protests on the 4th “demonstrating about racism, police brutality and President Donald Trump” included noting that “protests from a group called Refuse Fascism were planned for the day in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, DC.”
San Francisco Mission District
Washington, D.C.
New York City
Washington, D.C.
As part of his intensifying fascist moves, Trump had recently declared that burning the American flag should be illegal—which in effect would mean overturning the Supreme Court Texas v. Johnson ruling that affirmed that flag burning is constitutionally protected political speech. Joey Johnson, the defendant in that case, and a member of the Revolution Club, had declared, “I am determined to defy Trump on July 4th by burning an American flag at a fitting symbol of Trump and his fascist regime.” And he called on everyone who opposes the crimes of the U.S. empire to join him.
Joey Johnson was the subject of a July 1 op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, “This man made flag burning legal.” There were letters to the editor in response to the column, both for and against flag burning—including from Joey Johnson himself, who wrote that the piece was “accurate and fair” but that he wanted to “correct one possible misimpression — the idea that the movement for revolution has no actual alternative. There is a Constitution authored by Revolutionary Communist Party Chairman Bob Avakian for the new socialist republic we aim to establish, and Avakian has also developed a strategy through which millions can be mobilized, as conditions develop, to make revolution.”
On July 4, Johnson along with members of the Revolution Club in Los Angeles burned the American flag (along with the Confederate flag and a pro-pig “blue lives matter” flag) at the Trump “star” at the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Members of the Revolution Club in Chicago, New York City and Washington, DC also burned this hated symbol. In NYC, they did it right in front of the Trump Tower in Manhattan. In DC, revcoms met heated opposition to flag burning from some among the protesters. But as one person tweeting from the scene reported, the revcoms “managed to get a larger flag burning outside the gated Lafayette Square [near the White House] to chants of ‘slavery, genocide and war—America was never great.’ Within seconds, it’s reduced to ash.”
On this page are some pictures and videos from today. Check here at revcom.us for further coverage.
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