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Revolution #192, February 14, 2010

EDITED TRANSCRIPT OF A TALK BY BOB AVAKIAN, CHAIRMAN OF THE REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNIST PARTY, USA, FALL 2009

UNRESOLVED CONTRADICTIONS, DRIVING FORCES FOR REVOLUTION

[Editors' note: The following is the ninth in a series of excerpts from the text of a talk by Bob Avakian in Fall 2009, which is being serialized in Revolution. The first eight excerpts appeared in Revolution #184, #185, #186, #187, #188, #189, #190, and #191. The entire talk can be found online at revcom.us/avakian/driving.]

Solid Core and Elasticity

In terms of the development of the organized communist movement, from now and looking to the future, there is another important question that I want to address: the relation between ideological unity and cohesion on the one hand and decentralization on the other hand—another expression of solid core and elasticity. This gets focused to a large degree around this contradiction: the need for, but at the same time problems related to, leadership. This has been a difficult contradiction for our movement, historically as well as in more recent times. Without going into great detail here, in a way that is neither necessary nor appropriate, and is not helpful to our cause, I do want to point to some recent negative experiences that our movement has undergone and to what lessons should, and should not, be drawn from this.

Vanguards and individual leaders: real contradictions, and the decisive importance of line

There is the experience of the Communist Party of Peru within the last couple of decades: even though there were all along real problems with significant aspects of its ideological and political line, this was a party that was, broadly speaking, on the revolutionary road and fighting under the banner of communism, and then it experienced, and our whole movement experienced, a severe setback when, first of all, the top leadership and in particular the main leader, Gonzalo, was captured by the other side, and then on top of it he called for an end to the revolutionary struggle, in effect, with all the confusion and disorientation which that gave rise to over a number of years. Here we see the phenomenon where the top leadership is taken and/or goes off track, and the struggle suffers a severe setback.

We have, unfortunately, also seen this more recently with the experience in Nepal and the line that has been taken by what is still the dominant leadership in the party there, which is now calling itself the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). This is not to say that the struggle is over, that it has been resolved completely and irrevocably in a negative direction, that revisionism has fully and unalterably triumphed in that party; but it's clear that the line that has come to dominate and the core of leadership which still has the predominant position in that party is an embodiment of revisionism at this point and represents a program and direction that will lead to the defeat of the revolution there.

People look at experiences like this and they say: "You have these revolutionary struggles and the leadership goes bad or the leadership gets captured or killed, and that's the end of the struggle." Some people are more vaguely, and some more clearly, aware of these experiences and are drawing conclusions along these lines. And there are those who are attempting to force this into a framework of arguing for a line that is opposed to recognizing the importance of, or promoting, individual leaders.

For example, we know that the Indian party—the Communist Party of India (Maoist)—wrote a polemic which contains some valid points but also some questionable and problematic points in terms of its critique of the course taken by the Nepal party. One problematic element in this critique is that it puts a great deal of emphasis—what is actually undue emphasis—on the fact that the Nepal party had, for a number of years, built up the prestige of its main leader, Prachanda. The Indian party's critique links this to a general assertion that when you build up an individual leader, then you make it that much harder to criticize that leader if and when they go off the track or even take up revisionism. While there may be some truth to this, focusing on this in the way that is done in this critique by the Indian party reflects an incorrect line. It is true that when particular leaders are built up and they gain a certain prestige, this does give them a certain disproportionate weight and influence. But the more fundamental fact is that leaders who play a certain role will objectively have a disproportionate influence in any case.

An analogy can be drawn, for example, to a point that has been made about the international communist movement overall. During the period of the Third International of communist parties (the Communist International, or Comintern), the Soviet Union, for several decades, was essentially the only socialist state in the world, and as a result the Soviet party and its leadership definitely had a disproportionate influence. This was a real contradiction, with an objective basis, and there were negative consequences that were associated with this. As a result of such negative experience, both in regard to their own revolutionary struggle and more generally, the Chinese communists drew the conclusion that it is bad to have Internationals—bad to have formal organization of communist parties and organizations throughout the world. But, in analyzing this whole experience, we have pointed to the fact that, regardless of whether you have institutionalized communist organization internationally, parties which lead major revolutionary struggles—and, even more, a party which leads in the seizure of power and the establishment of a socialist state, with that party exercising overall leadership within such a state—such parties will in any case acquire a great deal of prestige and influence. Such was the case with the Chinese Communist Party itself, especially after the nationwide seizure of power in China in 1949, and particularly through the upsurge of the Cultural Revolution in China from the mid-1960s to the mid-'70s. Leaders of revolutions and of revolutionary parties which succeed in coming to power, such as Mao Tsetung, will have a disproportionate influence, whether or not a "cult of the personality" is consciously and deliberately built up around them. You do not solve this problem, this contradiction, by not having institutionalized organization of communist parties on an international level. And, as we have also pointed out, in significant ways this problem is actually heightened by not having such organization—since certain parties and leaders will in any case have great prestige and disproportionate influence, but without international communist organization there is no established framework in which this contradiction can be systematically addressed.

Speaking specifically of individual leaders, well if certain particular leaders do come forward and play an outstanding role, then that is an objective phenomenon. The masses of people should understand that phenomenon, both because it is an important part of reality that they should grasp correctly, and also because that is the only basis on which they can be mobilized to defend such leadership, which is vitally important for them and the cause of their emancipation. You don't solve the problem that individual leaders, as well as leaderships of parties collectively, and parties as a whole, can go off track—can go "bad," can take up a revisionist line and turn from being a vanguard force of revolution into a counterrevolutionary force—you don't solve that by bourgeois-democratic means, by denying the particular role of individuals and promoting ultrademocracy and a petit bourgeois-democratic view that ignores, or refuses to acknowledge, the objective roles of different people and forces, and which, more fundamentally, denies, or ignores, the underlying material basis for why vanguards are necessary and formed and why certain leaders come to the fore of certain revolutions and revolutionary parties at given times. You don't solve problems that are associated with that by trying to ignore the contradictions which give rise to the need for vanguards, or by trying to deny the reality that an outstanding leader has emerged when that is actually true—is an important part of objective reality—and in its principal and essential aspect is a very positive and favorable factor for revolution and the advance toward communism.

To return, for example, to the situation with the Nepal party, the essential problem with that party now is not that they unduly promoted an individual leader. The essence of the problem is that this leader, and the still dominant leadership of the party collectively, has adopted a revisionist line which now predominates in that party. In other words, this is another expression of Mao's basic point that the ideological and political line is decisive.

And this itself involves important contradiction. On the one hand, it is line that is decisive, and not the question of whether individual leaders are built up or not built up, or whether somehow you could try to avoid the phenomenon of certain individuals playing a disproportionate role. In fact, if a particular leader is, on the basis of a correct line, playing a disproportionate role and you try to deny that and you ignore the underlying basis for why that emerges, you are actually robbing yourself and the masses of people of one of your great strengths. In my writings on philosophy, and in discussions with other comrades about this question, emphasis has been put on the contradictory nature of reality and how this is the basis for and the process through which change takes place. The point has been stressed that unevenness is in fact the basis on which change occurs and that the basis for change which this unevenness provides can be a tremendous strength for rising and revolutionary forces.¹ But, if you deny this unevenness or seek to suppress it—out of ignorance or as a result of consciously choosing to ignore the underlying contradictory reality which gives rise to it—you are only weakening the process of revolution.

All that is one side of the contradiction. The other side, however, is that there are problems associated with the historical process in which vanguards and particular leaders play a disproportionate role. This is not essentially owing to the willful action and errors of communists; the fundamental basis for this problem does not lie in the fact that communists choose to build up the authority of a leading group within the party or even a particular leader within the overall collectivity of the party. Of course, there have been situations where the authority of leadership bodies, or particular leaders, has been built up artificially and wrongly; but the more profound problem is that, even where legitimately and necessarily, and as a reflection of the underlying contradictoriness of material reality, certain people have come to play a more important and disproportionately influential role than others within the revolutionary process, there has been the phenomenon that when such leaders have either gone off track—have even reversed course and gone from being revolutionary to being counter-revolutionary—or have been taken from the people, either by "natural causes" or by the actions of the enemy, the communist movement has suffered severe setbacks.

We can look at the larger dimension, beyond the particular and more recent experience of the party in Peru or the party in Nepal. We can look in the more sweeping sense, over a century or so, at the restoration of capitalism in former socialist countries, not only in the Soviet Union shortly after the death of Stalin, but also in China very soon after the death of Mao. Now, those two experiences are very different in a number of important particulars, but at the same time they are both part of the more general phenomenon that certain powerful influential leaders arise who do actually—and not principally as a result of artificial factors—assume a disproportionate role and have disproportionate influence within the overall collectivity, and then when those leaders are lost to the revolution, in one form or another, this creates much more favorable conditions for a setback or defeat for the revolution.

This was very dramatically demonstrated in the experience of China after the death of Mao. It was literally a month after Mao's death that the revisionist coup, which began the restoration of capitalism, took place in China. Much as this is hidden from people, this was a process not of the revolution going bad in some abstract sense (or the revolution "eating its own children," in some distorted sense) but of an actual military force being wielded by high-ranking leaders within the Chinese Communist Party who had taken up the revisionist outlook and were fighting for a revisionist program of capitalist restoration, who wielded the armed forces to kill or arrest thousands and tens of thousands of genuine revolutionaries who were fighting to persevere on the revolutionary road toward the goal of communism.

So, once again, looking at this not only in terms of the more immediate experience of the last decade or two, but in this broader historical dimension, the problem is, in essence, not one of too much authority invested in a single powerful leader. During the period of the greatest achievements of this whole first stage of socialist revolution, representing the greatest advances toward communism in the world, during the high point of the whole communist revolution up to this point in history, namely through the Cultural Revolution in China, a great deal of authority was invested, legitimately and as an actual reflection of objective reality, in a particular leader, Mao, who did exert a tremendously—and tremendously positive—disproportionate influence. This is something which must not be lost sight of: Mao did exert a very significantly disproportionate influence, and this significantly disproportionate influence was a very positive one.

Yet, here we also see the other side of the contradiction—that when Mao was no longer able to exert that positive influence (when he was no longer alive), then the strength of the revisionists was great enough to overpower and overcome the remaining revolutionary forces who were fighting for the same basic line as Mao. So, is this in one sense a weakness within the overall process of the communist revolution? Is this a problem of ours? Yes, it is—but not in the way that people mean when they locate the essence of the problem in the disproportionate role and the building up of an individual leader—any more than the fact that a party as a whole can become revisionist, while a very real contradiction and problem of our revolution, means that the essence of the problem lies, as many now wrongly assert, in the very existence of the vanguard, and you would be better off without such a vanguard.

Owing to contradictions in the actual material world—in human society as it has developed up to this point, in interaction with the larger natural world, and not by some metaphysical process guided by some supernatural force—there is a profound objective need for a vanguard force to lead in the process of communist revolution. And at times—not in every situation, but at times—these very same contradictions, and the unevenness within them, give rise to individual leaders who play a particularly important role and exert a particularly disproportionate influence; and, if they do so on the basis of the correct line rather than an incorrect line, that will be a very positive disproportionate role.

But, again, the other side of the contradiction is this: If, for whatever reason, they are no longer able to play that role—if they either "go revisionist" (adopt a revisionist line), or if they are taken from the people and are lost to the revolution in one form or another—then this is not only a great loss in some abstract sense, but it can greatly affect the (if you will) balance of forces between revolution and counter-revolution and can provide, yes, real openings for counter-revolutionary forces, including in a concentrated way within the vanguard party itself. But neither the role of the vanguard party itself nor the role of these individuals, when they do emerge and play this disproportionately positive role, is owing to the subjectivity of the revolutionaries, to their erroneous idea of how to exert leadership, to arbitrary attempts to build up authority, but is owing to profound underlying contradictions marking human social relations, not only in particular countries but on a world scale, at this point.

So this is a real objective problem, or contradiction, for our revolution, and it will remain such and will repeatedly assert itself, including in acute ways at various times. So we do have to find the means to deal in a better way with this contradiction in the future—but we have to deal with it on a materialist basis, proceeding from actual material reality and the actual contradictions that we're confronted with which give rise to the need for a vanguard and, yes, the need for individual leaders—and which hopefully will more and more give rise to a number of outstanding leaders who are able to exert a disproportionately positive influence, but whose loss will, on the other side of things, create better conditions for the revisionist forces to launch attacks and even perhaps to succeed, in certain conditions, in turning the revolution around, into its opposite.

In sum on this point: There is a need for vanguards (for Leninist parties, to use that terminology) and for leadership cores of such parties; and in every party, within its overall collectivity, there will be individual leaders. But not every such individual leader will objectively play the role of an outstanding leader in terms of their contributions to the communist movement overall and its fundamental objectives. Here again, there is the need for and the importance of a scientific assessment of individual leaders—of what role they actually play in relation to the fundamental objectives of the communist revolution—and the need to portray the role of such leaders in a way that actually corresponds to reality, neither overestimating and overstating nor underestimating and understating this with regard to any particular leader but, as with all phenomena, scientifically assessing this and portraying it in accordance with this scientific assessment.

Ideology and Organization, Centralization and Decentralization

With this historical experience and its material basis in mind, and confronting the challenges of the beginning of a new stage of communist revolution, here are a few thoughts on handling this contradiction—a few thoughts, in other words, on solid core and elasticity in terms, first of all, of ideology, where there is a great need to further forge unity on a higher level, and how this relates to organization, the organization of communists in particular.

As we fight to bring into being a new stage of the communist revolution in the world and fight to repolarize and bring forward new forces around the New Synthesis as the most advanced expression of the communist ideological and political line that we have today, we need to keep this particular contradiction in mind: how to effect the best relation between solid core and elasticity; how, learning from past experience, positive and negative, to even better achieve the necessary centralization, especially ideologically—a firm and deeply grounded unity and cohesion, a solid core in that sense ideologically, as the key and pivot—in dialectical unity with decentralization, including organizational decentralization in particular.

Returning, in this context, to the question of individual leaders, one of the main roles of such leaders precisely lies in bringing forward other leaders and a broader collectivity of leadership, including cores of new leaders from the younger generations of communists who come forward. This is a challenge which must be very consciously understood and taken up by the communist leadership; and where there are people who do have a disproportionate influence—in other words, outstanding leaders who do play a disproportionately positive role—this is one of the most important things that they, working together with and overall through the collectivity of leadership, have to consciously pay attention to.

At the same time, in the practical struggle in various forms, this aspect of ideological solid core—firm and deeply grounded unity and cohesion ideologically, not as some sort of absolute and unchanging category, but a unity that's continuously being developed and deepened, through struggle—has to be handled in correct relationship with a decentralized dimension of organization, both with regard to the revolutionary struggle overall and with regard to its leadership, on various levels. This is an historical problem which we have to address—dig into and struggle to develop the means to handle better than we have in the past, even while there is much positive experience to learn from.

A key to correctly handling this is the recognition of the fact that the deeper and the firmer the ideological unity and cohesion is—not just unity on whatever basis, but unity on the basis of a correct revolutionary and communist line—the more that this exists, and the more that it is continually strengthened and further developed and deepened, the more possible it should be to develop elasticity, including in the sphere of organization. But, as with every other aspect of the revolutionary struggle, this will not happen spontaneously. It will only happen if it is consciously understood and consciously addressed and worked on by the leadership that does exist, leadership that is united firmly around the correct line and does embody the necessary, and constantly developing, ideological unity and cohesion. It has to be a conscious task that we set ourselves, in other words, at every stage of the struggle and looking to the further development of the struggle.

Mao paid attention to this problem of (as he characterized it) bringing forward successors to the revolution. It is interesting that Mao made the comment, during the course of the Cultural Revolution, that at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution he was thinking in terms of bringing forward a core of intellectuals as successors in terms of the top leadership of the revolution, but he became disillusioned with the intellectuals because they proved unreliable. So, then he began to think more in terms of the whole Red Guard phenomenon—unleashing the youth as a revolutionary force.

But, while a very positive factor, that did not and could not solve the problem—and Mao recognized it didn't solve the problem—of a core of leadership. And, as is emphasized for example in "Ruminations and Wranglings," as regards the core of leadership—the political and literary representatives of a class and of the revolutionary struggle which embodies the fundamental and highest interests of a class, and in particular the proletariat at this stage of history and in this revolution we're talking about—that leading group is going to be made up of people who are in essence intellectuals, people who are capable of working with and developing ideas and grappling in the realm of theory. This will be true regardless of where those people come from originally—whether they come out of the basic masses or the middle strata or more specifically from a family of intellectuals, or whatever. We're not going to be able to eliminate that contradiction—involving the disproportionate role of intellectuals—until we are very far down the road toward the transformation of the contradiction between mental and manual labor, as part of the overall transformation of the basic contradictions characterizing society as a whole in the transition from the bourgeois epoch to the epoch of communism worldwide.

So, I understand the spirit of what Mao was getting at when he said that at first he had hoped to rely on a core of intellectuals, but then they proved unreliable. Yet, we still have to work through that problem. This has to do with the "transfer of allegiance" of a section of the intelligentsia. We have to both bring forward and develop and (in the correct sense of this word, and not in a narrow sense) "train" intellectuals from among the basic masses; but as we do so, we have to recognize that they will, in significant aspects, become different than they were before, and different than other masses from whom they've come, as they develop into intellectuals. That represents an objective change in their position and in what they embody. It is overwhelmingly positive—its positive aspect can be and must be developed as principal—but you are not going to resolve the contradictions between intellectuals and broader masses (or between a class of people, broadly speaking, and the political and literary representatives of that class) in the way Stalin thought you could—by bringing forward people to be intellectuals (or in that case more like engineers and technicians, although it does seem to have been a little more broadly conceived) from among the workers and peasants.

We are going to need to develop a core of intellectuals, in the sense in which I'm speaking of that—political and literary representatives of a class, to again use Marx's important formulation—who are reliable. Not in the sense that anybody's guaranteed against going revisionist, but reliable in the sense that they are deeply grounded in and firmly united around taking up and applying—and are continually learning, in the context of the collectivity of the party and in the course of the revolutionary process overall, how to more firmly grasp and better apply—the scientific communist outlook and methodology.

We have to meet this need and challenge both by bringing forward people from among the basic masses who show that potential, and then developing them, but also by winning over (achieving that "transfer of allegiance" of) a section of people who are already among the intelligentsia. We should not underestimate or downgrade or hold our nose at the prospect of that latter aspect. Intellectuals who are won to communism and really take it up and take it to heart are a tremendously valuable resource for the proletarian revolution and can fulfill an indispensable need in terms of actually carrying forward the revolutionary process. We should thoroughly rupture with any economist and reified and revengist notions which would underestimate and downgrade the importance of such intellectuals and of the need—not only within particular countries but now speaking more of the international dimension—to achieve that "transfer of allegiance," of even a small core now within the intelligentsia, bringing forward even a small number of people who do become deeply grounded in and ardent and active advocates and fighters for communism and revolution.

We will not be able to wish away or will away the contradictions that are bound up with these phenomena I've been speaking to—the role and importance of particular outstanding leaders, or a small leading core of a party, or a vanguard party as a leading force more broadly in relation to the masses of people and the revolutionary struggle that is necessary for, and represents the road to, their emancipation. Again, "it is what it is." This is where we are in the process of making revolution, these are the material conditions that we have to confront and transform—once again, transforming necessity into freedom through struggle, and not by seeking to evade necessity or avoid contradiction.

But we can and must be consciously aware of, keep constantly in mind and struggle in a strategically conceived way to work on, these contradictions—to continually bring forward new leaders and to continually strengthen and further develop the collectivity of leading cores for the communist struggle. This is a very important challenge and task both for particular parties but, especially in the current context and given the crossroads the communist movement as a whole is facing, it is also a very important challenge and task on the international level.

We won't be able to do without—and in fact we should recognize the overwhelmingly principal positive character and role of—leading cores and of outstanding individual leaders where they do objectively emerge and play that role. But, at the same time, we should consciously "work on" the contradictions that are bound up with that, on the correct basis.

If we try to handle the contradictions involved with the disproportionate role of vanguards, of leading cores, and of individual outstanding leaders where they emerge, by artificially undermining and diminishing the role of those vanguards, leading cores, and outstanding individual leaders, the results will be very bad and it will be very harmful to the cause of the people in whose name these ultra-democratic and petit bourgeois-democratic cries against leadership and individual leaders are often raised. What is required, in opposition to that, is an orientation of recognizing, confronting and struggling to transform the objective material conditions that give rise to the need for such vanguards, leadership cores, and individual leaders and, on that basis, seeking to move that contradiction forward in a positive way, not by undermining and diminishing the role of vanguards, cores of leadership and outstanding individual leaders where they emerge and play that role, but by bringing forward new waves of leadership. This requires working consciously to raise the level of those who are committed to the communist cause but are not yet capable of playing an overall leadership role—enabling them to increasingly develop their ability to grasp and apply the scientific outlook and method of communism and in this way take initiative in leading. Proceeding in this way can lead to very positive results and can make a very important contribution to the revolutionary struggle and the cause of the emancipation of the masses of people, for whom leadership genuinely does need to exist—a leadership whose role is precisely to enable the masses to emancipate themselves through continually raising their ability to consciously struggle for that goal.

1. In this connection, see for example "'Crises in Physics,' Crises in Philosophy and Politics," in Revolution #161, April 12, 2009. [back]

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Revolution #192, February 14, 2010

International Women's Day 2010: A Time to Act

Unleash the Fury of Women as a Mighty Force for Revolution

March 8, International Women's Day 2010, is a time to act.

There are no more monstrous crimes committed anywhere in the world than those against women. There are no more righteous reasons to resist than the horrors women go through every day. And if this were the only reason—and it is not—these crimes alone would pose the need and demand for revolution.

This International Women's Day must be marked by visible and dynamic manifestations of a new spirit of refusal among both women and men to accept "women's place"—whether under medieval veils or on display as "modern" commodities in everything from increasingly degrading and violent pornography to the advertising we are bombarded with every day and in a million other ways. It should be a step forward in building a movement for revolution in this country with the unleashed and focused fury of women being a powerful force propelling it forward.

While people will come together to mark International Women's Day with forums, cultural presentations, "speak bitterness" sessions and other expressions, there should also be actions. These actions must call people forward and uncork the suppressed sentiments of many, many people for a different life—a life where all are free from brutality, degradation, scorn, shame and fear. These actions need to puncture through the stifling and suffocating atmosphere of the "way things are."

And International Women's Day must be marked by the strength and great joy that come from standing up against these outrages, especially with the knowledge that there is a way forward. As the Message and Call from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, "The Revolution We Need... The Leadership We Have," says:

It is up to us: to wake up...to shake off the ways they put on us, the ways they have us thinking so they can keep us down and trapped in the same old rat-race...to rise up, as conscious Emancipators of Humanity. 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.

The Heroic Example of Iranian Women

We need to uphold and learn from the heroic example of Iranian women who have been in the front ranks of the history making upsurge in Iran that began last year and continues, in waves, today. Their widespread participation has made the whole question of the oppression of women—especially that carried out by Iran's ruling Islamic fundamentalist theocracy—a critical component of the struggle.

International Women's Day in the U.S. will be spearheaded by a demonstration in Los Angeles in conjunction with comrades in the international movement, as in the last two years. With the upsurge in Iran, this assumes even more importance this year. There is great potential to draw in people of all nationalities, including from the sizable Iranian community in Los Angeles, and to have a major impact in putting forward before all the possibility of another, truly liberating way that breaks through the deadly and stifling "choices" of fundamentalist Islamic theocracy or capitalism-imperialism. As a part of that demonstration, we and others will be representing for a real revolutionary communist alternative, one that emancipates all humanity from every chain of this imperialist world order.

A Whole Range of Actions

Demonstrations also need to take place in other cities, large and small, and they need to involve people of different strata—artists, professors, students and youth, and more. What if there were militant marches through neighborhoods of those on the bottom of society and/or campuses? What if there were demonstrations outside "crisis pregnancy centers"/fake abortion clinics exposing their anti-abortion program or at the doors of pharmacies that refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control? The sharpening of the attacks on abortion in the last year—including the murder of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller, the health care bill which threatens to exclude coverage for abortion procedures, and fanatical and threatening anti-abortion protests at clinics from Houston to Akron should be one part of what is called out and taken on boldly and without hesitation.

People can learn from those who defiantly stood up to hundreds of anti-abortion fanatics in Houston, as well as the Cleveland protests against police refusal to investigate the rapes and murders of 11 Black women on Imperial Avenue. This and other important work should be built on as well as learned from.

Break the Chains! Unleash the Fury of Women as a Mighty Force for Revolution!

All of this—all forms of activity and IWD as a whole—should raise and embody the slogan, Break the Chains! Unleash the Fury of Women as a Mighty Force for Revolution! The various expressions—forums, cultural performances, speak-outs, etc.—as well as the demonstrations should manifest this festive and determined spirit, from how they are organized to the content of the events. They should at the same time project the liberating future that revolutionary state power can bring to women and men, a future given real life, and very poetically so, in the "Imagine" section of "A Declaration: For the Liberation of Women and the Emancipation of All Humanity."

These events, demonstrations and all the work leading into them must involve going up against the reactionary morality around the role of women in all its forms, including religious as well as the "guy-land" porn mentality. But it should also and MUST also creatively and fully bring to bear our communist morality—and as we do so, uniting as well with the progressive elements of the morality of people who are not communists but who are repulsed by the moral terms of this society and long for something better.

People can get involved and be part of this, no matter what their level of unity or ability to commit time is right now. One important part of our morality is our firm conviction that whenever any outrage or abuse is committed against any woman anywhere in the world, it is part of oppressing women as a whole and must be opposed.

There is a huge gap in this country between the depth of horrors we now face and the current level of resistance and struggle, and that gap needs to be closed. Our actions on IWD can help do that by bringing forward sharp and uncompromising exposure of the crimes against women—the chains that today more than ever stunt lives and crush dreams—and, along with that and indispensable to unleashing people, the liberating possibility of not only breaking those chains but getting to a whole new place in human history where oppression in any form will be NO MORE.

Bringing Bob Avakian into the Mix

Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, has opened the way for this through his deep scientific analysis of the history of past revolutions as well as the situation in the world today, and his development of a new synthesis of communism that has heightened the possibility for bringing forward a new wave of communist revolution in this country and the world. He not only has taken up and wrangled with the pressing questions that urgently present themselves but, in his scientific method and approach, challenges and provokes others to do the same.

The question of the oppression of women and the struggle for their complete emancipation is coming to the fore ever more sharply throughout the world today. Bob Avakian's new talk, "Unresolved Contradictions, Driving Forces for Revolution," currently running in Revolution, and in particular, Part 3, "The New Synthesis and the Woman Question: The Emancipation of Women and the Communist Revolution—Further Leaps and Radical Ruptures," is a striking manifestation and continuation of this pathbreaking work and communist leadership. It contributes to forging a new approach with breathtaking possibilities for the future, unsparingly and deeply critiquing the communist movement, including our own party, on this, and poses sharp questions that must continue to be seriously dug into—and urgently—in order to advance further.

This talk opens up in a living way the possibility for unleashing women as a mighty force for revolution by breaking open this question as never before, and the leadership of Bob Avakian on this question, as on so many others, needs to become widely known. The new talk along with the Revolution Talk which is now online needs to be engaged in salons, grappled with on campuses, street corners and in coffee shops; through posting provocative quotes printed in Revolution newspaper and in other creative ways.

There are many resources that can and should be brought to bear in the coming weeks: "A Declaration: For Women's Liberation and the Emancipation of All Humanity" (Revolution #158, March 8, 2009); the Revolution review of the film Precious: Based on the novel "Push" by Sapphire; articles on the Richmond gang rape, the Twilight saga, and many more.

Further reading and resources are available at revcom.us.

In all this, International Women's Day must give expression to the full fury of women and help fuse longings for a different world with the scientific possibilities of bringing that world into reality, lifting sights to imagine and work towards a future that really is possible.

Resources:

"The Revolution We Need... The Leadership We Have," Revolution #170, July 19, 2009, revcom.us/a/171/statement-en.html

"A Declaration: For Women's Liberation and the Emancipation of All Humanity," Revolution #158, March 8, 2009, revcom.us/a/158/Declaration-en.html

The Revolution Talk—Revolution: Why It's Necessary, Why It's Possible, What It's All About, a film of a talk by Bob Avakian, revolutiontalk.net and youtube.com/revolutiontalk

"Unresolved Contradictions, Driving Forces for Revolution," by Bob Avakian, revcom.us/avakian/driving, especially Part III, "The New Synthesis and the Woman Question: The Emancipation of Women and the Communist Revolution—Further Leaps and Radical Ruptures"

"Los Angeles: Celebrating Resistance and Internationalism INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY," Revolution #159, March 22, 2009, revcom.us/i/159/159IWD_LA.pdf

"From a Staff Member of Revolution Books, Cleveland" Revolution #173 online, August 17, 2009, revcom.us/a/173online/akron_womens_medical_center-en.html

"Letter from Cleveland: 'He's talking about revolution and that is what we want,'" Revolution #188, January 10, 2010, revcom.us/a/188/dvd-cleveland-en.html

"A Time for New Beginnings: Taking on the Christian Fascists in Houston," Revolution online #191, February 7, 2010.), revcom.us/a/191/WCW_houston-en.html

The Revolution review of Precious—"The Potential of Precious Girls Everywhere," Revolution #184, November 29, 2009, revcom.us/a/184/precious-en.html

"The Horror of the Richmond Gang Rape... And Making the Connections," Revolution #182, November 9, 2009, revcom.us/a/182/Richmond-en.html

"The Twilight Books: Dear Bella," Revolution #176, September 13, 2009, revcom.us/a/176/twilight-en.html

"Wrestling with Twilight in Harlem," Revolution #178, October 4, 2009, revcom.us/a/178/twilight_harlem-en.html

From the Burkha to the Thong: Everything Must, and Can, Change!
We Need Total Revolution
A National Campus Speaking Tour by Sunsara Taylor, www.revcom.us/a/192/ST_Tour-en.html

Permalink: http://www.revcom.us/a/192/haiti_journal-en.html

Revolution #192, February 14, 2010

Announcing:

Reporter's Journal from Haiti

In the last week of January a reporter for Revolution traveled to Port-au-Prince to investigate the causes and consequences of the earthquake in Haiti, and to talk to a wide range of Haitians about their experiences, their feelings and their thinking about what is known in Kreyòl as the "Katastrof." He stayed for one week in different encampments of people made homeless by the quake. He was able to tour a large part of the earthquake zone, including parts of the huge working class districts of Delmas and Carrefour, the suburbs of Pétionville and Kenscoff, the downtown business, residential and governmental districts, and the field-hospital-and-shantytown in the nearby town of Léogâne, which lost over 80% of its buildings and at least 20,000 people in the quake.

During his time in Haiti our Revolution reporter spoke with dozens of people. They included former peasants who were part of the great migration from the countryside that swelled Port-au-Prince from one million to three million people in the last 20 years, street vendors, aid workers, youth, retired factory workers, radicals and revolutionaries, preachers, businessmen and small capitalists. He took part in intense street debates and quiet discussions about the reasons for the complete lack of U.S. aid in most parts of the zone, and for the brutality and incompetence of the Haitian government in this crisis. In the midst of these discussions, some people were introduced to the RCP's Manifesto, "Communism: The Beginning of a New Stage."

From these interviews and discussions a vivid picture began to emerge of a country which has struggled to deal with centuries of foreign intervention and oppression and with semi-feudal local despots. Haiti, already a country of shantytowns and a people on the edge of existence, has been knocked back by a devastating natural disaster. And now, as we have exposed in the pages of Revolution, Haiti is experiencing the subordination of humanitarian aid to the strategic interests of the U.S. imperialists. But this was also a picture of youth who are unbroken, staying up late into the night to talk revolutionary politics. There is feverish questioning and debate, as well as outbreaks of struggle and resistance.

In coming weeks, Revolution will bring you reports from this trip. We urge you to read and spread them to people all over the world, to contribute your own thoughts, and to raise money to help pay for this important revolutionary journalism, and to facilitate future trips to Haiti and elsewhere when dramatic events demand it.

Permalink: http://www.revcom.us/a/192/Iran-en.html

Revolution #192, February 14, 2010

Waves of Struggle Continue in Iran

The struggle in Iran has continued to simmer and erupt. Iranian people—especially youth and women—took to the streets in protest at the end of December. And more protests are planned for later this month.

Last June, one candidate in the Iranian elections—the prime minister, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—seemed to steal the election. This was one outrage too many for millions of Iranian people, who had attached their hopes for change to a competing candidate, Mir-Hossein Mousavi. The people rebelled in the streets, and the section of rulers that had backed Mousavi also began to oppose the government. The government—headed by Ahmadinejad and the overall religious ruler Khamenei—reacted with fierce repression. The government beat and jailed people, and even murdered dozens of protesters, on the streets and in custody. Now the state has begun to hang people involved in the protest movement. Meanwhile, the rulers of the U.S. are attempting to use the crisis to further their own interests; they want to force Iran to conform more to U.S. aims in the region, and even totally change the regime.

Iran is an Islamic Republic—its laws are based on the Qur'an (Koran). One thing this means is that women are severely discriminated against—forced to dress in certain ways, unequal before the law, and constantly harassed by religious police. Mousavi wants to maintain this form of rule, while reforming some aspects of it. Ahmadinejad represents those who want to crack down harder.

As this struggle has developed, the masses have begun to get out of Mousavi's control. At the end of December, there was sharp fighting in the streets, which went further in its demands and opposition than ever before. Increasingly people are calling into question the Islamic Republic itself. But Mousavi wants to maintain the Islamic Republic—he just wants to reform some aspects of it in order to make it better able to contain people's anger and to fit itself into the imperialist geostrategic order and economic structure in a way more advantageous for the clique he represents. As a result, Mousavi is now offering to compromise.

Revolutionary communist forces are in the thick of all this, working to bring forward a real alternative and win masses to all-the-way revolution, one that would both overthrow the Islamic Republic and rupture with U.S. imperialism.

See our article online for more analysis of Mousavi's maneuvering and the overall struggle ("Fearless Upsurge Rocks Iran," revcom.us/a/189/iran-en.html).

Permalink: http://www.revcom.us/a/192/AWTWNS-Iran-en.html

Revolution #192, February 14, 2010

From A World To Win News Service:

Iran: "What is Mousavi's message?"

February 1, 2010. A World to Win News Service. The radical struggle of the Iranian people on Ashura (the Shia holiday on December 26) indicated new developments in the people's movement and triggered panic reactions within different factions of the ruling class and other bourgeois sections. In the face of the regime's extreme brutality protestors defended themselves, fought back and gave the regime's murders and thugs a taste of the people's potential power. These struggles terrified both the ruling clique and that part of the regime the has been removed from power, the leaders of the so-called Green (Islamic opposition) movement. The government announced that 500 were arrested that day; human rights and lawyer's organisation say that 1,000-2,000 people are still in prison. The location of most of them is unknown and they have not been able to contact their families. They are under severe pressure to confess to false accusations. (BBC Radio Persian Service, January 24)

Mir-Hussain Mousavi and other Green leaders backed down from their earlier positions. They have been issuing statement advocating a compromise "way out of the crisis." In many cases they have gone so far as to condemn the people's struggle. At the same time they are asking the ruling clique to abandon its monopoly on power and co-operate and ally with them once again to save the Islamic Republic and its principles before the people's struggle crushes them all. Mousavi's statement number 17 and the speech by Mohammad Khatami (president 1997-2005) the day after are the best known examples of this. Khatami condemned as "extremists" those who chanted slogans against the Islamic Republic and Velayat-e Faqi (the Islamic Republic's founding principle of clerical rule, or in other words the person and position of the Supreme Guide,  currently Ali Khamenei).  Medhi Karoubi, the other main Green leader, issued a statement recognising the legitimacy of the Ahmadinejad government on January 25. He said that while the June elections was "marked by massive fraud," "Ahmadinejad is the head of government, or in other words, the president of Iran, because the Guide has validated the election." While offering his hand to the regime in this fashion, Karoubi's statement narrowed the focus of his criticism to Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of the regime's Guardian Council, who has prominent in calling for punishment of the Green Movement leaders. On 27 January the Islamic Republic hung two prisoners arrested in conjunction with the recent protests. Leading prayers the next day, Jannati said, "For the glory of god, more opposition members should be executed!" Sixteen more demonstrators have now gone on trial, and five face death sentences.

There are some signs of behind-the-scenes negotiations between the two reactionary factions, to suppress the people and prevent further radicalization. For example, the regime might sacrifice the murderer Judge Saeed Martazavi, responsible for many atrocities in the notorious Kahrizak prison. Ahmad Khatami (no relation to the ex-president), the imam who leads the Friday prayers, gave a sermon where contrary to his previous tough speeches against the rival faction, he abandoned his usual threats and instead adopted a softer approach and even called the Greens "brothers."  

While the ruling power is heightening their atrocities against the people, and the Greens are backing down, the people are preparing themselves for another round of battle on February 11, the anniversary of Iranian revolution.

Following is a statement dated January 5, 2010, by the Communist Party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist) analyzing Mousavi's statement no. 17 and its context.

*****

Amidst the threats of more bloodshed Iran's criminal rulers are making against the people and on the eve of their medieval trials, more arrests and more quick executions of the people, Mr. Mousavi has issued a statement that has drawn much attention. The central point is his concern that the Islamic Republic may fall apart, and his complaint that his warnings have been drowned out by the criminal threats of the ruling clique. In this statement Mousavi has retreated from his previous position of refusing to recognise the legitimacy of the Ahmadinejad government. This retreat is not because of the threats that the rulers are making against the people but because of Mousavi's fear that what may lie ahead is not just a change of government but the collapse and complete disappearance of the whole Islamic system.

This statement was issued exceptionally quickly, shortly after the militant struggles on Ashura, and it is related to the attitudes people displayed and the slogans they chanted on that day.

Despite the ebbs and flows, over the last few months the people's movement has developed and gone beyond the red lines set by Mousavi and his trend. The Mousavi leadership has been seriously questioned and doubted by an increasing number of people—not all, but a large section of the people. On Quds [Palestine Day, September 28], the people's struggle was still mainly within the framework imposed by the "Green" leadership, but the 13 Aban [November 4] demonstration saw the first raising of radical slogans and people resorting to more offensive tactics. At that time Mousavi warned against these slogans, calling them "deviations" and expressed his concern about them. While "Death to the leader!" and other slogans against Velayat-e Faqi targeting the whole system were repeatedly chanted on November 4, in the December 6 Student Day protests these slogans were more broadly chanted and they were widely popularised during the Ashura struggles.

In his statement Mousavi admits that he did not call for a demonstration on Ashura but the people poured into the streets anyway. What he means is that at this point leadership over the movement is slipping out of his hands. Both Mousavi and the rival faction within the regime are aware of the potential danger of this situation. Even if there is no declared or undeclared agreement between the two rival factions, they both know that as long as the control of the people's movement is in the hands of people from the inner circle, there is always a way to save the regime and prevent its falling apart.  

Mousavi's statement is an expression of an emergency situation and concern about the direction that the people's movement is heading and its consequences. Some important aspects of this upsurge imply that more serious and radical battles are on the way, battles that can set fire to the palaces of the reactionaries and bring to the forefront the new approaches that could put an end to the whole system once and for all.

Mousavi tries to paint a false picture of what the people's movement was like on Ashura, covering up the radial struggle of the people, he is well aware of the potential hidden within the different layers of this upsurge. He refers to "mourners for Imam Hussein" [as emblematic figure of Shiaism whose death this date commemorates] who (according to him) peacefully chanted Hussein's praises that day. But he knows full well that for the first time in Iranian history, in 2009, Ashura was not observed as a religious day of mourning but as a great festival of the people. He knows full well that the groups of mourners were the smaller section of the people, while the greater section of the people turned away from tradition and religious customs and converted Ashura into a day of struggle against the religious reactionaries. 

If Mousavi, as he claims, has seen shocking pictures of that day, there is no doubt that what shocked him were the bare-headed women courageously taking part in discussions among the crowd. The sight of so many unveiled women was unprecedented, even at the start of the people's movement. This conduct is still rare but it could mark the start of a new mood that could spread quickly.  

Mousavi says that he has "seen photos and videos showing people who see the security forces and Basiji as their brothers and ... are trying not to harm them."  Such pictures do exist. But certainly he must also have seen other videos that motivated him to write his latest statement. This was the first time that film sent throughout the world showed people teaching the Basiji thugs and other repressive forces a lesson. Some videos showed stone-throwing youths on the offensive and the repressive forces in retreat. They showed people seizing small security forces outposts and so on. Spontaneously putting their lives on the line in struggle, people were expressing the futility of superstitious belief in a "peaceful approach" and declared on the battlefield they will reply to reactionary and unjust violence with their own just fury.

Even though this attitude is small and in an embryonic stage, it could be the start of something big whose most important feature is going on the offensive. In the eyes of Mousavi & Co. it was not supposed to be this way—the criminal Basiji were supposed to be considered the people's brothers. But the people's vigilance and revolutionary fury brought their plan to nought.

In the wake of the December 26 events, Mousavi's main message to the whole of the Islamic Republic's rulers is this: "It's not too late yet." Neither the regime's current inner circle nor the system's "Green" supporters now on the outs have explained what it is not too late for, but Mousavi himself expressed it implicitly in his statement: It is not yet too late to stuff the genie back into the bottle; it is not too late to come to a behind-the-scenes agreement on this or that election parameter to drive the people off the political stage and make them inactive, and start to patch up the system that is falling apart. It is not late to spread the line of national conciliation and reverse the "people's changed verdict on (our) system" and regain the trust in the system they have lost.

The importance of Mousavi's recent statement is that it is a warning of the possible collapse of the whole system in the face of the broadening militant struggles of the people, spreading of the kind of "disrespect" for religion that people manifested on Ashura when they went so far as to rip apart portraits of the Islamic Republic's founder Iman Khomeini and so on. Like all the other reactionaries, Mousavi needs the support of the people, but of people who don't go beyond mourning for Imam Hussein in the streets and who in the face of oppression remain abject, humiliated and silent. Those who violate these red lines and get out of control are no longer of any use to people like Mousavi. Their goal is to channel the struggles into the confines of contradictions and differences within the ruling power once again—before it's too late. These differences include how to make the repressive organs more effective, and how to interpret the rotten and backward constitution in order to engage the people in the game of "pluralism and people's opinion" again. What they really mean is the pluralism and opinion of the people at the top of power hierarchy. In this way they seek to re-impose anti-women and enslaving Islam with a newly made-up face, that of a generous and merciful Islam.

The line of Mr. Mousavi's statement accords with the goals he put forward during his presidential campaign: The salvation of the Islamic Republic system and painting over of some of the shameful aspects of the 30 years of its shameful rule. Now that he is faced with the developing people's movement and losing its leadership, he has come forward to present his way out of the crisis and save the system before it's too late.

The fact is that the basic demands of the people are not that the regime "recognize the existence of the present crisis" as Mousavi claims, nor a return to the ballet boxes of June 12 [the date of the last so-called presidential election]. The level of the people's demands since then has continually risen and today they are asking for the demolition of Velayat-e Faqi with no preconditions. But this wave will not stop there. People should consciously consider the following: It is out of the question and impossible for things to go back to where they were before the June elections [as Mousavi demands]. There is no doubt that the demand for freedom and equality for all the people—independent of their gender, nationality, religion or no religion—is in the hearts of all those fighting heroically against the murderers of this reactionary system.

There is no doubt that spirit of freedom has boiled up in our veins for the last six months more than at any other time. So we will chant clear slogans against compulsory hijab [head covering], for freedom of expression and publication, for the realization of the rights of people's independent organisations, and for the right to strike of workers, teachers, nurses and other employers. There is no doubt that the sacrifices that the people are making in the struggle against oppression and suppression will be more clearly embodied in the slogan Overthrow the Islamic Republic system as a whole.

The train of the political developments in Iran is accelerating and whoever stands in its way will be thrown aside. 

A World to Win News Service is put out by A World to Win magazine (aworldtowin.org), a political and theoretical review inspired by the formation of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement, the embryonic center of the world's Marxist-Leninist-Maoist parties and organizations.

Permalink: http://www.revcom.us/a/192/ST_Tour-en.html

Revolution #192, February 14, 2010

From the Burkha to the Thong:
Everything Must, and Can, Change—WE NEED TOTAL REVOLUTION!

A National Campus Speaking Tour by Sunsara Taylor

IF YOU ARE A WOMAN
YOUR BODY IS A BATTLEGROUND

Anywhere you look, women are being slammed backwards. In Bangkok and Bangalore and Moldova young women are stripped naked and sold across borders as sex slaves. In Indonesia and Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia women are shrouded in veils, kept as property, and even killed if they somehow "dishonor" their family.

Meanwhile, in the U.S. we are told women are no longer oppressed. Yet, how many will learn to starve themselves, cut themselves, hate themselves, internalizing the images that saturate society of women as objects of sexual conquest, the butt of a joke, or baby-making machines? How many will be taught that their value is reducible to being sexually desired by men, but called "sluts" if they actually have sex? How many will be beaten, raped, or told that nothing they accomplish is more important than motherhood? And all women still have to look over their shoulders walking home at night.

To be born female on any part of this planet is to be born into a lifetime of danger, disrespect, discrimination and denigration. What happens to a woman—whether toiling her life away in sweatshops from China to Haiti, being raped by soldiers in the Congo, or being denied an abortion in the U.S.—is NOT her individual problem. What happens to 3½ billion human beings is not individual, it is systemic and global. It happens to all of us.

It doesn't have to be this way! There is no longer the need for women's role in society to be dictated by their biological role in childbearing. There is no longer the need for humanity to be hemmed in by patriarchal traditions and oppressive religious morality. Today, this is as insane as it is cruel, as it is utterly unnecessary.

But, the oppression of women is woven so deeply into the fabric of society here and all over the world that it will take total revolution—communist revolution—to liberate women.

On campuses nation wide, Sunsara Taylor will make the case for why there is no biological, god-given, or man-made reason why things have to remain this way—and how things can change through revolution and through building a movement for revolution—starting now! She'll be recruiting a new generation to put their lives in the service of this most liberating, and meaningful, struggle.

Sunsara Taylor is a writer for Revolution newspaper, a host of WBAI's "Equal Time for Free Thought," and sits on the Advisory Board of World Can't Wait. She has written on the rise of theocracy, on wars and repression in the U.S. and led in building resistance to these crimes, and contributed to the movement for revolution to put an end to all this. She takes as her foundation the new synthesis on revolution and communism developed by Bob Avakian. You can find her impressive verbal battles with Bill O'Reilly, and her various political commentary on things from abortion to religion by searching "Sunsara Taylor" on youtube.

Permalink: http://www.revcom.us/a/192/roe_v_wade-en.html

Revolution #192, February 14, 2010

Confronting Abortion Opponents at Roe v. Wade Events

On Friday, January 22, tens of thousands of anti-abortion protesters rallied in D.C., as they do every year on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion 37 years ago. Some 100 people, mostly women, countered them with a pro-choice event in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, going up in the face, literally, of being menaced, getting death threats, and being prayed at. They went face-to-face with young people— many bused in from Catholic schools—who have been brainwashed to believe that allowing a woman to choose whether or not to have a child is "killing babies." One pro-choice high school student brought a home-made sign that said "Trust Women" on one side, and "Women Are Not Incubators," on the other.

On Saturday, January 23, a West Coast "March for Life" brought thousands of people against abortion into San Francisco. Earlier at the same spot, 200 people rallied against them in a "Day of Action for Reproductive Justice—Stop the War on Women," where speakers included State Assemblyman Tom Ammiano. In addition, a few dozen pro-choice activists ranging in age from 20 to 81 infiltrated the beginning of the "March For Life" and staged an action that briefly halted the march—they held a banner reading "Anti Choice Bigots Not Welcome in San Francisco" crosswise, until police roughly yanked them off the street.

The previous day in Oakland, a hundred pro-choice activists surrounded the area's largest abortion clinic, protecting it and upholding the right to abortion while anti-abortion activists protested there.

For more on these events, see Debra Sweet's blog at worldcantwait.org.

Permalink: http://www.revcom.us/a/191/WCW_houston-en.html

Revolution #192, February 14, 2010

From The World Can't Wait

A Time for New Beginnings: Taking on the Christian Fascists in Houston

By Jamilah Hoffman

On January 18th, a group of anti-abortion religious fundamentalists came to Houston to protest at a new Planned Parenthood facility. These people call Planned Parenthood's new Houston location an "abortion super center" because of its 78,000 square feet, and they call the location of the building itself racist because it is situated near Black and Chicano neighborhoods.

They claim that Planned Parenthood chose this location to target neighborhoods of the oppressed for abortions. Their agenda is to enslave women. Those of us who support a woman's right to choose, who stand in opposition to the oppression of women, came out in support of abortion rights and Planned Parenthood.

news coverage from KIAH, Houston

Walking to the protest, and seeing the hundreds of anti-abortion protesters already in place, tape over their mouths with the word "Life" written on it and with reports of hundreds of more in place, set to march to Planned Parenthood, reinforced for some of us that things have sharpened politically, and that there is a need for a new movement that will take on the religious right, and put up a strong pole of resistance that can attract many more people to it.

About 1,500 people came out against abortion, bussed in by church groups throughout the area. They were countered by about 50 of us, who ranged from the Student Feminists Organization at the University of Houston to Revolutionary Communists, Anarchists, and the general public. Before we arrived at the location we knew that we would be outnumbered. Local media had given plenty of positive air time to Lou Engle, and his group, The Call to Conscience, which had called for the protest against Planned Parenthood.

While I am not pleased with the lack of people we were able to mobilize, neither am I discouraged. I think what happened in Houston reflects what is actually going on broadly in society. Bob Avakian talks about this pyramid dynamic and how right-wing politicians mobilize their social base, to a certain extent, to promote their agenda because that agenda is about the continuation of oppression and exploitation and it benefits them, while the Democratic Party is reluctant to do the same with their social base because they don't want things to go too far to the left where they can lose control. And many people who oppose the atrocities and attacks upon the people feel paralyzed.

Avakian also speaks to the ability of the people to change this situation, through determined actions, and through countering the ideological offensive and confusion of the right wing. Over the past couple of months some of this has begun to develop, even if in still a very beginning way, in Houston, as courageous women at the University of Houston have stood up to expose and oppose the fascist woman haters who seek to outlaw a woman's right to choose completely.

It was quite clear from the beginning that any counter protest that we held was going to be challenged by the State in the form of the police. The police had a heavy presence, and set up barricades in the middle of the street to keep the two sides apart. Actually, they were trying to keep us "protest pinned". They were focused entirely on the pro-choice side. The second we held up our signs, the cops wanted to know "who was in charge", and asked us, "Don't you want to move? It would be better for your signs to be seen?" Meanwhile, they tried to keep our message from being seen and heard.

It looks like Houston, and this new Planned Parenthood facility, is becoming a focal point in the battle around abortion rights. What is painfully clear is that having leaders in the women's movement, who tell us to lobby and vote for pro-choice candidates, and who then turn around and vote for legislation that strip away the right to abortion, demobilizes and demoralizes people. But it is also clear that there is a growing number of young women – and men – who are determined to make this a two sided fight.

We need a new movement that is willing to take on the religious right, that isn't afraid to take a bold stand, and which realizes that you don't seek common ground with those who would want to kill you, but instead, you resist.

Permalink: http://www.revcom.us/a/192/tiller_killer-en.html

Revolution #192, February 14, 2010

The Murderer of Dr. George Tiller:

Convicted... After Being Given a Stage to Justify Murder of Abortion Doctors

On January 29, Scott Roeder was convicted of the murder of Dr. George Tiller, the courageous doctor who provided abortions for women. Roeder gunned down Dr. Tiller in a church, shooting him in the head on May 31, 2009. A Wichita jury found Roeder, who confessed to the killing, guilty after just 37 minutes of deliberation.

Dr. Tiller, whose watchword was "trust women," was one of the few doctors in the U.S. who specialized in performing late-term abortions. Women came to him from around the country, often under very stressful medical and/or personal conditions. Writing in Revolution after his murder, Mary Lou Greenberg described how the walls of the waiting room in Dr. Tiller's clinic were filled with moving letters of appreciation: "A woman's anguish in learning of her fetus' sure-death condition and the comforting compassion of Dr. Tiller; the desperation of another at an unplanned pregnancy and gratitude for the non-judgmental care at his clinic; the loneliness of feeling abandoned and fearful for the future. I will always remember the words of one: 'Thank you for giving me back my life.'"

The judge in the trial gave Dr. Tiller's confessed killer almost unconstrained freedom in court to proclaim the killing of Dr. Tiller as justified, and his "testimony" served as both a chilling call for the violent enforcement of forced motherhood, and for others to follow his example. He was allowed to testify that, "Those children were in immediate danger if someone did not stop George Tiller," invoking a non-existent threat to non-existent "children" to justify the murder of a living, heroic abortion doctor.

After all this was allowed to come out, the judge then ruled the jury could not consider Roeder's legal argument that he was guilty of manslaughter, but not murder, because he was acting to save "unborn children" who were in "immediate danger."

Two former Kansas prosecutors, who had hounded Dr. Tiller for years with bogus criminal charges, were called to testify for the defense. The judge ended up ruling that their testimony was not necessary, but the fact that they were called to testify speaks to the connections between the legal hounding of Dr. Tiller and the societal atmosphere that led a Roeder to assassinate him. Dr. Tiller's clinic, home, staff, and patients were harassed for decades, with an all-out assault starting in 2001 by Operation Rescue, whose leader, Troy Newman, moved to Wichita with the stated purpose of "taking out" Dr. Tiller.

How are we to understand why, in U.S. society today, ghouls from the dark ages like Roeder are engendered, unleashed, and given prime time TV podiums, and a considerate hearing by the mainstream media? Over the past decades, tremendous economic and social changes in U.S. society, along with the protests and social ferment of the 1960s, placed strains on "traditional patriarchal values." This is one of the key things that have placed great stress on the social fabric that holds U.S. society together. And in response, there have been, from the powers-that-be, moves to forcefully reassert the oppressive view that a woman's place is defined by being a breeder of children. Moves to restrict and ban abortion are a cutting edge in that.

There is, right now, a great need for that kind of defiant spirit and action—inspired in part by Dr. Tiller's life—to defend the right to abortion.

Permalink: http://www.revcom.us/a/192/tebow-en.html

Revolution #192, February 14, 2010

The Toxic Message Behind the Tebow Super Bowl Ad

Super Bowl ads are notorious for degrading women who are routinely displayed nearly naked as objects for the gratification of men to sell beer, cars, and even more fundamentally this society's view of the role of women.

Super Bowl XLIV featured an ad that degraded and subjugated women from a different—though fundamentally not so different angle. CBS broke with their policy against "advocacy" ads during the Super Bowl (they refused to run an ad from a gay-tolerant church in a previous Super Bowl), to run 30-second ads from Focus on the Family featuring college football star Tim Tebow and his mother, Pam Tebow. The ads themselves didn't specifically mention abortion, and only alluded to Pam Tebow's "difficult time" in pregnancy, but sent viewers to the Focus on the Family website for a viciously anti-abortion message.

There, in a much longer video, Pam Tebow tells the story of being with her husband—a Christian missionary in the Philippines—and being told by a doctor that she needed an abortion "to save my life." Instead of even considering the doctor's advice—Pam Tebow says "we didn't need to think about this"—she testifies that she "just trusted god." And "god" then personally watched over her pregnancy, and now her son has grown up to be a football star.

On one level, this is a criminally insane message that—to the extent it is listened to—will result in women ignoring scientific medical care, and dying unnecessarily. On an even worse level, the Tebow family message is that women should risk or give up their lives, "without thinking," to serve their Biblically assigned role as child-bearers.

What's the logic, and morality behind glorifying that?

Sunsara Taylor and Janai Garfinkel wrote in a piece submitted to NYU News, "There's no inherent value in risking one's life for a pregnancy.  Fetuses are not people.  They have the potential to become people, but until they are born, they are a subordinate part of a woman's body. If she decides to terminate that pregnancy, for whatever reason, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. If a woman does have a child and it grows up to do great things, that doesn't validate her any more than if it does terrible things that means she has failed.

"The only framework in which it makes sense to celebrate a woman for risking her life to have a child is if you are stuck in the Dark Ages.  You know, back in the day when a woman's worth was reducible to the 'quality' of children she bore to her husband and master."

In the Focus on the Family video, Pam Tebow speaks of studying Timothy in the Bible to get her through her pregnancy. As Sunsara Taylor and Janai Garfinkel point out, "Tim and Pam Tebow and Focus on the Family are...Biblical literalists. That means they believe it is a woman's job to make babies and obey men. If you don't believe us, read it in the Bible.  In 1 Timothy 2:13-16 'god' explains the curse put on women for 'deceiving' Adam in the 'Garden of Eden' and how we can only be saved if we bear children."

And, they add: "Women are not breeders. We are not lesser beings. We are not objects created for the sexual pleasure of men.  We are human beings, capable of participating fully and equally in every realm of human endeavor.  It is time that we be portrayed as such."

Permalink: http://www.revcom.us/a/192/snapshots-en.html

Revolution #192, February 14, 2010

Revolution Talk online–out in the world

SNAPSHOTS

Before the week of the big push to get the Revolution Talk online out in the world we made a plan for enlisting people in the effort. We talked about people we knew who had watched the video—either in the recent period when we have been going out with the statement—or even going back some years. And we added people we knew in different parts of the city, in schools and community centers who maybe hadn't watched the Revolution Talk yet—but should—and who could get word of it out in key places.

What follows are some brief snapshots from our efforts:

An old friend from the projects was very excited to hear the entire talk was online. She has had a selection of cuts from the DVD for a number of years now and many in her family have watched it many times.

Her whole family is on Facebook. She has hundreds of friends across the country on Facebook, including people she reconnected with that she hadn't heard from since high school. Even one of her mother's friends is on Facebook and hooked up with her there.

So, she is going to organize a showing of the DVD for her family to get them on board and then have everyone spread the talk through Facebook.

She has pledged $20 for the effort and took 100 pluggers to get out at work.

•  •  •

We showed the "A better world is possible" cut to a woman who has a shop (and to her daughter who is in the 8th grade). She said, "Wow, seeing this makes everything clearer. He makes a lot of sense." We first met this woman when a friend of hers was shot more than a dozen times by the police and killed. She has taken things in her shop to get out, including the special prison issue, "From the Hellholes of Incarceration to a Future of Emancipation" (Revolution #183, November 15, 2009), and had a trial subscription to Revolution.

She has always been somewhat interested but this is the first time she "lit up." She got the whole DVD and vowed to watch it that night.

She was really excited about this and thought it would make a big difference. She said, "You know, people really don't read that much—and having this online will make it available to people."

She knows a lot of guys that sell DVDs, including some who burn them for others. She is going to be sure they get the pluggers.

•  •  •

We got together with a young woman and her father who we met over the summer in a hard-hit part of the ghetto. Since we first met them we have watched a number of cuts of the video together and had deep discussions getting into their agreements and disagreements. They took 300 pluggers. He is going to get some out at a local college where he works. She is going to get them out at her high school.

•  •  •

Another young woman from another ghetto who we met at a march for justice for a young man murdered by the police, and who came to the kick-off event for work with the RCP's Message and Call, "The Revolution We Need... The Leadership We Have," said if she felt like this was something she wanted to take up, she would contact US. Basically, a "not interested" response.

•  •  •

We spoke with another man and woman we know. We've known him for a long time—he's an activist whose history goes back to the Civil Rights struggle in South Carolina in the early '60s. A year or so ago he hooked up with the woman, who is just beginning to get politically active, though she says "anyone who is Black has always been in the struggle."

She goes to college. Last semester she had a class surveying social sciences where they compared communism, socialism, liberalism and conservatism. In doing research for the class she found Bob Avakian's Revolution Talk clips on YouTube. She brought them up in class and people said, "He's got some good things to say. We can take up parts of his program without having to take up his whole program." The "we" was particularly "Black People" and in regard to what will solve Black people's problems.

Now she is reading the Manifesto from the RCP, "Communism: The Beginning of a New Stage" to get deeper into communism. And she is watching the whole Revolution Talk online. Together, they got 300 cards to get out. He is going to a bunch of King Day events. She will get materials around at the community college.

•  •  •

We caught up with a woman who teaches high school. She said she would download and watch the Talk. The school, and the students, are on Facebook. She is going to watch some sections with her students and then encourage her students generally, and certain students in particular, to spread the Talk through Facebook.

•  •  •

We reached an OG we first got to know after his son was shot by the police. He loves the Talk. At one point he made all of "his guys" sit down to watch large portions of it. He was excited it was online and asked "what took y'all so long?"

•  •  •

We spoke with a man we met last summer. At that time we watched several cuts from the DVD with him and his partner, and had a deep and engaging discussion of them. We had some catching up to do.

We brought the Message and Call. He thought it was important to try to break things out of where they are at now and particularly important to get to younger teenagers who haven't, yet, been "taken over by the street." He wondered why the prevailing morés went from where they were in the sixties to where they are today; we got into the analysis that is gone into in "The Plague of Violence Among the People—and the Real Solution" (Revolution #146, October 26, 2008) that ran in Revolution a while back.

We got into what Bob Avakian has done in the new synthesis, digging in to the revolutions of the past and looking at the overwhelmingly positive things they did accomplish which have been denied and lied about, while also digging in to their shortcomings and weaknesses. And on that basis re-envisioning a vibrant and visionary socialism and putting communism on a more scientific basis. Now this friend wants to dig into some of the Chair's theoretical works.

He will take materials to the college. He made suggestions of faculty at his college to talk with, and suggested putting on a fundraising event, particularly a talent show or a stepping set, and getting to the sororities and fraternities at the college. He asked if we had someone who could go out and speak to groups. And he suggested getting the commuter stations in the morning when thousands of people are coming through.

•  •  •

At a youth center in the ghetto, we showed the director there the clips "Youth deserve a better future" and "A better world is possible." We all discussed what it has meant that youth don't see the possibility for the world to be any different—and compared it with a time (the '60s) when they did see that.

We talked about what difference it made to have Mao's China as an example. And what the powers-that-be have done to reverse the verdicts of the '60s and promote an ethos of "I've got to get mine."

The discussion ranged to the point Bob Avakian makes about the conservative economist saying: "Crime is a rational choice" for youth in the inner city. What that says about the system—and what that has meant (and means) for the situation we find ourselves in today. The director spoke at length about the prevalence of crime and the tragedy of so many youth getting caught up in the criminal justice system.

We asked what people were saying about Haiti. When one youth said, "No one is talking about that and anyway, we can't do anything about it so why think about it?" we challenged them on that attitude. The women at the center joined in and we all got into what led to the situation in Haiti—the whole history starting with Haiti having the only successful slave revolution and how the U.S. has dealt with Haiti since then. The women made a point of exposing how the Haitian masses are portrayed in the media—in the service of justifying the U.S.'s military occupation.

The youth center is setting up its own Facebook page and most youth in the program are active on Facebook. We left pluggers and posters at the center. People at the center want us to come back regularly.

•  •  •

From these experiences we got a small taste of the potential impact this Revolution Talk can have in helping people see the possibility for a different world. And their willingness and desire to play a role in taking up the talk and spreading it.

Permalink: http://www.revcom.us/a/192/bear_witness-en.html

Revolution #192, February 14, 2010

People Speak Out Against Police Brutality

The following interviews are a response to a call last September in Revolution.

BEAR WITNESS! Tell us your story about police abuse. If the police have... sweated you at school dogged you in the streets hit on you or otherwise sexually harassed you, or ... if the police have racially profiled, threatened, tasered or brutalized you or any member of your family... Write to us!!! Tell us your story.

At the end of 2009, revolutionaries took this call to high schools and neighborhoods in the south Los Angeles area. They talked about why speaking out was an important form of resistance and standing up to all this abuse and repression. All these voices are of young people, Blacks and Latinos, men and women, who know first hand the epidemic of police brutality in the U.S. and who struggled through both their fears of retribution from the police for telling their stories -- and the pain of reliving these experiences.

Hi, I'm K. -- and I'm L. -- and we're about to tell you basically about the police harassing us every day. My story is, well I live in the 40s, and that's a known gang, and a lot of cops hide around there. Not too long ago like last month or something, I was walking with one of my friends, and the police stopped us and then they pretty much harassed us because we didn't have nothing. They pretty much racial profiled on us, thinking we got something just 'cause we Black, African Americans. We don't have no rights if you get to push us around, and frisk us when you don't have no reason to frisk us. That's really no reason to do that just 'cause we're African Americans. That's not a reason to racially profile us. That's why we feel that we should stop the police brutality because it's not right. Just 'cause we live in a certain area doesn't mean we're the people – just 'cause they doing certain things doesn't mean we doing certain things.

I'm L. again. I stay in the 40s. Every day I walk home, the police be harassing us every day. They think we got a burner on us, run up in your property for no reason, no search warrant, they want to come up in your house. My daddy got shot. They tried to dog my daddy out because he was on parole. You know the police kinda fuck you over here.

K: Yeah, they really is. One of my friends actually had a gun drawn to him when he didn't have nothing. They just pulled the guns out on us just because we had something that they said so-called looking like a gun, which it wasn't. It was a flashlight.

Revolutionaries: So it sounds like you guys got more than one story.

K: Yeah. Every day I walk along the street, the police harass me. And it's that same cop.

L: There's been a gang sweep not too long ago where they're trying to get the 40s, and every time they pass, they say, "We're going to get you all." And we're not even doing anything illegal. I feel that's very wrong and disrespectful. Just because you have that authority, why you abuse that authority against us?

Revolutionaries: What are some other stories that you've heard of being harassed by the police or other stories that you want to share?

K: The gang injunction is wrong, because what if you're not doing nothing wrong and you in your house, they just pick you up because you over there. What if you got a granny that stay over there and you go to jail because you're trying to go see your granny? I feel that's wrong. You feel me?

L: They always want to fuck with somebody for no reason, like they always messing with you. You could be like walking down the street minding your own business they put the gang injunction on you.

K: The police even put drugs on you. You supposed to be helping us, not putting people in jail, messing people up. Giving people time in jail, like life and all this stuff. They even want to put kids in jail for a long time. And then when they get out of jail they're going to still have a young mind. So they gonna come right back out and mess up.

L: Just because one of my bros is from somewhere. It ain't my fault he from there. It ain't my fault he got that tat. Like that's his problem. How you know we gang bang? We probably just walking home. It just so happens that he's a gang banger. They just want to mess with people. They just want to mess with people all day like.

K: It don't make no sense why the police do what they do, they just mess with people for no reason and they don't have to have a reason. You could go to the store or park 'round the corner from your house the police going to pull you over, "Oh, where you from? You got some chucks on, lift up your shirt."

Revolutionaries: How come they ask you to raise your shirt?

K: See if you got a burner, got a gun, or got a blue belt hanging. They go in your pocket, and there ain't nothing in your pocket and all of a sudden there's some dope in your pocket. Now you sitting in jail.

And they want to get people for life and stuff for robbery. One of the homies, 17 years old, got life for some dumb shit. The police out here are scandalous. It's only like Hispanic and Black communities.

L: I just got out of camp. I did six and a half months. It's all Mexicans and Blacks. I only got out of my whole six months in jail, I only seen one person in jail that was white. It goes to show that all they trying to do is get rid of the young Blacks and stuff, Blacks and Hispanics so we don't have no future. And there's nothing we can do. They always say, "Oh, don't gang bang, do good and that." But it's not that. It's just because of the color we is that we automatically get put up in there. I know some of the people in jail that's not gang banging, that don't want nothing to do with gang banging, but in jail just because of what color their skin is. And then they always trying to say it's 'cause of the way we dress. It's a free world; we can dress any way we want to dress. But I think it's messed up how we always get picked on just because of what color we are and how we look and walk and talk. I don't think that's no fair. There's nothing we can do. They always say we can make a change. There's nothing we can do to make it in a world where you got crooked police officer.

K: That's why we're doing this interview. That's why we do everything we do that's why I do what I want to do because either way it go. I could be a square and I'm-a still go to jail or I'm a guy, whatever. You don't got to gang bang to go to jail, none of that. So when people talk about "make a change," you can't make a change when the law is just the same people.

L: Hey, the police is just a gang with a badge. That's all they is.

K: They just a gang that can do whatever they want to do. They run into your house, be disrespectful to the women.

Revolutionaries: Are there any stories about disrespecting women?

L: Man, the police is so thirsty when it come to women. I done seen the police hop out when they see some females. And you know how most females like to say like, "oh, no he not doing . . ."—"Shut up, bitch, I ain't talking to you." I done seen this police brutality. They grab a girl by the back of her head, slam her all on the car. For no reason.

K: The Johnnies, they even beat us up. They got them in the school right now and they want to give us tickets if we come to school late.

L: The Johnnies is the police. That's what we call them.

K: My momma went to jail when I was five years old. She been there ever since. To this day I hate the police 'cause when we was little, when my momma was going to jail they threw my cousin, he was like seven years old, they threw him down like ten stairs and he fucked up his whole foot and to this day he walk funny 'cause the police messed up his foot. He was only like seven years old.... The police got my momma when she was pregnant with me 'cause she robbed a Coca-Cola truck.

L: Right now, my daddy been in jail for thirteen years. He's gonna get out in February. My pops went to jail for being at a club. He was at a club and they gave him a whole year for that. At a club. They hit him with violation of parole.

K: The police give people six months if they're from a gang. What's up with that? They're from a gang, too.

L: They trying to give people life for gang enhancement.

K: The police they kill innocent kids and all that.

L: There's a book, actually, I can't think of the name of it, it's like stories of people that got killed by the police.

Revolutionaries: Stolen Lives?

L: Yeah, Stolen Lives.

K: It's so crazy because they say, this is for a better this, this is for a better that, but how can we accept change, that something will change when it's the same people in the office. You can't expect the police people to change when you got the same chief that been working there for the last twenty years, the same stuff going on. Like with Obama. Like when Hillary was running. How can they expect change when the same family that's been running the White House so-and-so years, Bush-Clinton, Bush-Clinton. C'mon, how is that supposed to change? But now we got Obama, that's something new. I think we should start doing the same thing with the police, though, 'cause all they do is harass little kids. They pull over skaters.

L: There's a lot of police that racial profile. Since we got a Black president, they just riding around like, "aw, let's get him 'cause he Black." They basically mad 'cause Obama made the change and he's in the White House and he's Black, African American.

Revolutionaries: What's the worst police brutality story that either you went through or you heard somebody else went through?

K: I was asleep and the Johnnies ran into my house and they put stuff on my step-daddy and they were trying to take my moms. That's the worst one that I went through. Another one I was in my uncle's shop and they ran up in there. I was only two, but they got guns to everybody's head and all that. I was only a little kid and I wasn't supposed to see that.

L: Worst one happened to me, my daddy got shot. He told them he was on parole, they started snatching him up all different and shit before he told them that.

K: The worst I had was July when I was arrested with my cousin Marcus. He ran from the cops and they thought we had guns and stuff just 'cause he ran. The gun was on the back of my head. I was pretty scared. Thought he was going to shoot me. He had the gun pointed to my head saying, "Don't move."

L: The worst I had was right before I went to jail, March 26. It was me and my homey. We was minding our own business, and out of nowhere the police come and one of the homies he cut his whole leg open like and I'm like helping him tie up his leg and stuff, the Johnnies come like all three put the burners to my face, like "Don't fucking move." I'm like, "I'm just trying to help him with his leg, you know." "I don't give a fuck about him. Fuck him and his leg." His leg is really fucked up. He can't even walk. They're just draggin' him. They're not even trying to help him up. They pick him up in handcuffs and just dragging him and just throw him in the car like not even caring whether he alright or not. Then they got us like all out and they not caring they just talking shit like they being disrespectful and then when you say something back they like, "You want to talk shit?"

K: We don't have to lie about this, man. The cops, they talk to us any way. They want to call us all type of words and actually they do this just to provoke you. They actually say that just to see how your face going to react, to disrespect our gang or whatever. They actually say that to see the reaction on your face. I remember one time, the police, we're minding our own business at the mall. There's probably like ten of us. They got some of the homies, so we go down there just to see what's going on. The police just grab us up, like, "Just come here," and the next thing they're putting us all in handcuffs. And I promise you not one person didn't get beat up by the police that day. Especially me. I didn't have nothing to do with what was going on. I'm being smashed into the car, I'm being beat up by the police. One of the homies is sitting there and then the officer told a joke and he started laughing, the officer come behind him and slapped him in the head. Fired on another homey, really beating him up. He in handcuffs, they're really beating the shit out of him and there's nothing he can do about it. He's putting his knee all in the homey's stomach. As far as that go, fuck the police. They're crooked. Fuck the police. Fuck y'all. We don't need y'all.

Permalink: http://www.revcom.us/a/192/mineo-en.html

Revolution #192, February 14, 2010

It's Bloomberg-Kelly Time!

When Is Rape a Penalty for Smoking Marijuana?!

Michael Mineo, 25 years old, was on his way to work at a Brooklyn, N.Y., tattoo parlor in October 2008, walking down the street with marijuana rolled inside a cigar. When several cops approached him, he ran into a nearby subway station. Four cops surrounded Mineo and began kicking and beating him. Then one of the cops took a baton and rammed it up Mineo's rectum, causing him excruciating pain and bleeding.

At the trial of the rapist cops now being held in Brooklyn, Mineo testified that he asked the cops to call an ambulance. The cops ignored his pleas. One cop told him, "You liked it." He was released with a warning not to tell anyone what happened. "We have your address," one cop threatened. "We'll find you and put a felony on you." Mineo managed to get to a hospital with the help of friends.

The only reason that three cops are now on trial for the assault on Mineo is that one cop who was at the scene broke the "Blue wall of silence" by talking about what actually happened. According to news reports, he decided to speak out days after the incident because he thought the police investigation was focusing on the wrong cop, not the one who used the baton on Mineo. At the time of the incident, this cop did not try to stop or even speak out against the other cops, or help the injured victim. (Revolution will have further coverage of the case in a future issue.)

Flash back to 1997: Haitian immigrant Abner Louima is raped with a broom handle at a Brooklyn police station. As Louima is assaulted, one of the cops shouts, "It's Giuliani time"—invoking the name of then Mayor Giuliani who had given the NYPD the green light to murder and commit atrocities.

It's now (Mayor) Bloomberg and (Police Commissioner) Kelly time. Under them, the police are making a record number of stop-and-frisks, harassing and brutalizing hundreds of thousands of people a year—mostly Black and Latino, and almost always without even charging the victims with anything. Mineo had a joint when he was stopped. But since when is rape a punishment for smoking marijuana?!

Permalink: http://www.revcom.us/a/192/black_history_month-en.html

Revolution #192, February 14, 2010

Join special efforts to spread Bob Avakian's Revolution talk during Black History Month:

Beginning today and for the next four weeks, new clips from Bob Avakian's talk, Revolution: Why It's Necessary, Why It's Possible, What It's All About will be posted online at revolutiontalk.net and youtube.com/revolutiontalk.  These will focus on the history and present day reality of the oppression of Black people, and the kind of revolution it will take to liberate Black people, as a part of emancipating all of humanity.  This will be an important opportunity to introduce people broadly to Bob Avakian and all the answers posed in this powerful talk concentrating "the revolution we need and the leadership we have."  Everyone who wants to see this out there should begin now making plans to get these clips online—to campus list-servs, via email to Black studies or history profs, think about teachers you know who are in relevant academic associations, etc.  Also, these should go out online to education and cultural blogs, and all over Facebook—talk with individuals you know about posting these on their FB pages every week or getting them out on other online social networks.  Funds need to be raised for focused advertising. 

Along with these online efforts, February 22-28 will be a week of concentrated on-the-ground promotion.  There are stickers and postcards available online along with one-page sheets utilizing quotes from the talk itself.  These are particularly powerful as these quotes concentrate powerful truths that can stop people in their tracks, provoke them to look at something in a new and different way and may inspire people to go check out the full talk.  Finally, there will be a new flyer available about these clips for Black History Month this week at revcom.us and facebook.com/revolutiontalk.  This week of focused on-the-ground promotion will build off other efforts at saturating areas with revolutionary materials but should focus on high schools and colleges.  People should make plans and begin outreach now.  There are all kinds of ways people can be involved but they need to be brought in on these plans right away.  Contact student groups (in particular, though not only, Black student unions that will probably be very active during this month), professors and teachers you know or want to get to know about this.  There are community groups and charter schools that would also want to schedule someone to come in, play a clip and open up discussion on these urgent questions.

The REVOLUTION is real. Watch it. Spread it.

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