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Revolution #461 October 17, 2016

THE NEW COMMUNISM by Bob Avakian Launched at a Great Program in Harlem

October 13, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

On October 8, Bob Avakian’s pathbreaking new book THE NEW COMMUNISM was launched into the world. Over 260 people came out to the historic center for Black culture in Harlem, the Schomburg Library, to hear Cornel West, Carl Dix and Andy Zee, along with others, welcome this book into the world. By the end of the event, very few people had left; and those who remained had gotten into something very special and, for many, very new.

Communism—Today

People sat rapt as Sunsara Taylor and Noche Diaz read excerpts from the new work. The readings—which can be seen with the entirety of the program on the Livestream presentation—covered different parts of the book, bringing out both the scope and the scientific breakthrough of BA’s work and leadership, as well as his humanity, his integrity, his sense of humor, and his feeling for the people.

Carl Dix gave a passionate talk on the new book and Bob Avakian himself. He gave the audience a sense of BA’s work over the decades—the content of that work (as concentrated in THE NEW COMMUNISM), and what motivated him to do that work. He spoke movingly of the connection between BA and the masses, especially those on the bottom of society, and he went into the courageous character of his leadership. He traced the outlines of how the new synthesis came out of a decades-long interrogation of reality. “The core of the scientific understanding of how to make revolution and emancipate humanity developed by Marx, Lenin, and Mao is continued in what BA has developed, but he has identified and broken with some secondary but significant unscientific aspects that had been in communism as it had previously been understood, and that were holding it back,” Dix said. “As our Party has said, to be a communist today means to be a follower of BA. This is a very big deal—the science of human emancipation has been rescued and advanced to a new level—and we should appreciate what a big deal that is.” Dix went deeply into the work that BA has done on leadership, and the way in which that leadership is both absolutely necessary and bound up with contradictions—the subject of Part IV of THE NEW COMMUNISM. He gave this a personal dimension as well, as he went into BA’s launching of the Cultural Revolution within the RCP to rupture it back onto the revolutionary road.

Integrity, Commitment, and Analysis

Cornel West, coming from his point of view as a revolutionary Christian, spoke on the integrity and importance of BA’s leadership and its relation to the whole “profound commitment [of Black people] to trying to understand this capitalist civilization in profound decay and pervasive decline.”

West went on: “What I love about this particular text is three things. One, there is a revolutionary integrity. And we live in a capitalist civilization across race, across class, across sexual orientation, across national boundaries, in which everything is for sale and everybody is for sale...” He spoke of the revolutionary internationalism that grounds the whole work. And he concluded on the “5 Stops”:

And in his analysis—and then I’ll sit down—five different stops that he has. I love this section of this text. I love it when he talks about my people being all people. I learned that in Sunday school, he learned it in the communist party, but that’s alright. My people across the board—I don’t care who they are. But the five stops—he always puts the struggle against white supremacy at the center. That’s not true for most American leftists, it’s certainly even not true for most American socialists. Second, the centrality of the issue of gender, the vicious forms of patriarchy inseparable from that white supremacy. Third, empire—invasions, dominations... And the fourth, the planet—not just global warming. It’s ecological catastrophe that is impinging every day primarily owing to corporate greed and the elites who are in the driver’s seat of a capitalist civilization that cuts across national boundaries—that’s what you find in this text. And last but not least, the concern about our precious immigrant brothers and sisters and the vicious scapegoating that’s going on, the deportations under neo-liberal presidents, no matter what color they are. The attempt to [not] lose sight of their humanity. How do you bring these together in such a way that you have a united front? And that’s in part what he’s calling for, and I as a revolutionary Christian in the name of Jesus will be part of that united front, even given the disagreements that we might have. That’s why I like this text. That’s why it’s important.

Annie Day spoke on the work of The Bob Avakian Institute, which is dedicated to preserving, projecting, and promoting the works and vision of Bob Avakian, with the aim of reaching the broadest possible audience. She set forth a vision of a very dynamic period coming off the publication of THE NEW COMMUNISM, and she gave the audience “three assignments” coming out of this program: to donate funds to get the word of THE NEW COMMUNISM way out into society, including in a program to subsidize those who live lives on the desperate edge; to bring speakers from The Bob Avakian Institute to schools, religious groups, community organizations, book clubs, unions, etc.; and to themselves get into this work, including by coming to discussions of the work.

This was followed by a deeply joined conversation between Carl and Cornel, which was moderated by Andy Zee of Revolution Books in Harlem (which, along with The Bob Avakian Institute and Insight Press, co-sponsored the celebration). They focused in particular on morality and leadership—including getting into BA’s discussion in the book of the Cultural Revolution within the RCP that Avakian leads.

Find out more about the revolution         Find out about BA, the leader of the revolution

Will You Be Here?

Andy Zee sent the audience home. He said:

We began this afternoon with a question and answer that was posed by Bob Avakian in the introduction to THE NEW COMMUNISM. This was a question that was raised to the revolutionaries in Baltimore in the wake of the righteous rising after the police murder of Freddie Grey. People asked revolutionaries, “Will you be here? We’ve seen a lot of groups come and go and a lot of talk, but will you be here?” And he told of a woman from the same streets, who said, “I’m worried because I’m beginning to hope.” BA answered that: If we don’t answer this with the determination to follow through and the responsibility to be there, not only for that one woman and certainly not for ourselves alone, but for the emancipation of humanity—then “we should get up and leave.” But you all are still here, late on this Saturday afternoon. And so are we.

This is a bigger responsibility than one afternoon, even as this afternoon should be a first step into becoming an emancipator of humanity—or your first step in learning why the world is the horror that it is, learning to be scientific, learning to confront reality as it actually is, learning to go for the truth, to be able to cut to the root of why there is so much suffering in this world and why it is at this point in the history that all these outrages the world faces are so damn unnecessary.

Digging into the why and the how the world could be radically transformed through an actual revolution so that all of humanity can live and flourish in a world where people are no longer divided into rich and poor, masters and slaves, rulers and ruled. No longer fighting and slaughtering each other, but working together for the common good. No longer locked in ignorance, but consciously understanding and changing the world. And no longer destroying the earth but acting as its caretakers.

This is possible. The roadmap, the science, the framework, for how to know and change the world and the contradictions that humanity will have to traverse to get free and how to traverse them—are now in your hands if you dig into this book. And get into BA and get with the party and the movement for revolution he leads. Will you be there? [Someone from the audience shouts: Yeah!]

The program was followed by an extremely lively session out in the lobby, with people going back and forth over the questions and issues raised by the program, many getting connected with organizations that are key to the movement for revolution. Eighty copies of the book were sold and many more people left determined to get one. Then, though the event had run for more than three hours, somewhere between 70 and 100 people wanted to discuss things still more, and gathered for an impromptu question/answer with Carl, Cornel and Andy at Revolution Books, which ran to 6:30 p.m. (and then itself was followed by even more wrangling).

What came through in all of this was the potential power of BA’s new synthesis of communism to transform people, and through revolution, the world. As Ardea Skybreak says in her book-length Interview Science and Revolution, discussing the difference that this vision can begin to make as it gets out into all of society, engaged and taken up: “We’ve seen it before, we’ve seen it in previous periods of revolutionary upsurge. The people get better. The people get smarter. The people get more lofty. They dream bigger, and they act in accordance with these bigger dreams. It’s a beautiful sight. And that’s a lot of what BA is actually giving us the tools to accomplish.”

 

 

 

 

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Revolution #461 October 17, 2016

Three Things You Can Do to Put
THE NEW COMMUNISM
Before All of Society

October 10, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Find out more about the revolution         Find out about BA, the leader of the revolution

 

 

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Revolution #461 October 17, 2016

Get Into the Revolution National Organizing Campaign and Tour in Chicago
Day 1 at a South Side High School

October 17, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

From a Revolution Club member participating in the Get Into the Revolution National Organizing Campaign and Tour:

Beginning now, we are on a mission for the next year to organize thousands into the ranks of the revolution.

We’ve just arrived in Chicago, and our very first day out began with an invite to an assembly of high school youths on the South Side. This was a group of about 50-60 Black youths, as well as some teachers and staff from the school.

The assembly began with a showing of part of a film about mass incarceration. Then, from the back of the assembly, the room filled with the sound of “1, 2, 3, 4! Slavery, Genocide, and War! 5, 6, 7, 8! America was NEVER great!” “It’s time! It’s time! To get organized! For an ACTUAL revolution!” as the Revolution Club marched from the back of the assembly to the front of it, on stage, where chanting continued: “Who are we? REVOLUTION CLUB! Who’s our leader? BOB AVAKIAN!” and then a member of the Chicago club introduced to the students Carl Dix.

Carl, starting with the message that we are here to recruit you, laid out why America was never great, and we need to overthrow, not vote for, this system. He introduced people to the leadership we have for this revolution, Bob Avakian, and the science and strategy BA has forged. That we are on a mission to organize people to overthrow this system as soon as possible. He talked about the mission of this tour, and what is concentrated in the “How We Can Win” statement from the RCP Central Committee. A member of the Revolution Club who is part of the national tour then talked about the focused effort we are waging here to really take on this epidemic of people killing each other, and get people into fighting the real enemy, this system, and its enforcers. And she compelled people to understand their potential role and responsibility to be part of the thousands coming into the revolution now.

Find out more about the revolution         Find out about BA, the leader of the revolution

To give you a sense of who the audience was, in this school and this city: This morning we woke up seeing stories of two killed and nine injured in shootings among the people yesterday. To people here, this was just another day in Chicago. Seems like everyone’s been to funerals of friends or family who’ve been killed this way. I said funerals, not a funeral. The school is focused on what this system labels as “at-risk” youth. In other words, youth this system has no future for. Numbers of them were either already in, or actively considering joining, one street organization/social club or another; several knew people who had been murdered by the police or had seen people murdered by police. And they were some of the brightest and sharpest youths you can encounter.

They responded viscerally to not just hearing about the horror of this system, but also to hearing about another way. One of the students asked, “I’m kinda offended, but also I’m kinda not offended, because you keep saying ‘us’ and ‘our people’ but you’re talking about what happens to us, people who are our color, and you’re their color.” The revcom responded by saying, “That’s a good question. I’m a revolutionary communist. That means my people are the people of the world. My people are Black people... Latino people... Native Americans... the women in Bangladesh who make our clothes...” and there was an eruption of applause.

They responded with many deep, serious, and often challenging questions. “What are you going to replace this with?” “What if there are people in the new society who just want to do the same things that are happening now?” “Is this going to be peaceful?” “Is there really no point to voting?” “How are we going to get people to fight for us when we won’t fight for ourselves?” “There were leaders before, like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., and they were killed. What about Bob Avakian makes you think you can win?” “Are you talking about going to war, because I’m ready?”

There was serious engagement after the assembly, where people stayed around to talk more. People were getting into the “How We Can Win” pamphlet, especially the Points of Attention for the Revolution. Some people were taking several copies of this pamphlet to spread amongst those they know. People were talking about how we’re going to organize people into the revolution. Some were looking at the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America. A couple of people got BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! T-shirts. People were engaging with the revolution, and this was happening with a vibe of people weighing what their role was going to be. We were working, and struggling to have them work with us, on what it means to get into the revolution and become organized into its ranks.

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/461/sunsara-taylor-women-2016-en.html

Revolution #461 October 17, 2016

Women Are Not Bitches, Ho's, or Punching Bags... Women Are Full Human Beings

by Sunsara Taylor

November 14, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

This is an edited and shortened version of an article originally posted at revcom.us on October 15, 2016.

It’s 2016, and Donald Trump has been elected to be the president of the United States—a man caught bragging and laughing about sexually assaulting women: “Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.” “I just start kissing them... I don’t even wait.” “I’m the owner of the pageant and therefore I’m inspecting it. ... You know, they’re standing there with no clothes. ... And you see these incredible looking women, and so I sort of get away with things like that.”

As if women are not people. As if they exist only to look good for him, to sexually please and flatter him, to submit to his groping hands, his physical assaults, his crude insults. As if viewing women this way was something to laugh about.

All this is not “just words.” It’s a punch in the face to women everywhere. These are boasts about the actual violation of real women—the infliction of trauma and pain, of humiliation and insult. It’s a green light to men everywhere, permission to excuse and revel in the violence this society inculcates and unleashes against women. It is a statement to millions of women who have been raped, harassed, groped, flashed, hit, stalked, “brushed up against,” and silenced: shut up and get used to it.

What Kind of System Produces THIS?

Any system that could produce a man like this—not only a violent misogynist and serial sexual assaulter, but a vile racist, hateful xenophobe, a brutal fascist, and all-around predator—that could produce a whole culture where someone like this could command a frothing-at-the-mouth, violently loyal social base of millions, where a man like this could be put forth and backed by major ruling institutions, supported, promoted, and excused by the ruling class media, and backed by powerful donors and interests—such a system is COMPLETELY ILLEGITIMATE.

It has no right to rule over the masses of humanity.

It has to be overthrown at the soonest possible time.

After women from all walks of society courageously stepped forward to put their faces to sexual assault, Trump’s response? To dismiss and excuse this sexual violence as “just locker room banter” and to lash out further at these women. To suggest that these women were not “attractive” enough to “deserve” his sexual predations. As if being groped, humiliated, raped, harassed—having one’s humanity violated and one’s body degraded for someone else’s perverse power-trip—were a “compliment.” No! It is NOT a “compliment” to be preyed upon, demeaned, and degraded. It is a violation. It is painful and humiliating. It is traumatic and something that no one should ever have to endure.

Again, any system that would consider this slithering, blustering, world-class creep after he lashes out in this way as a legitimate president, has no right to rule. It must be overthrown at the soonest possible time.

This shit does go on in locker rooms. Men joking and boasting about women as things to be used and abused, ranking their value according to objectifying and demeaning physical standards, encouraging or looking the other way while men violate or abuse women. It goes on in the frat houses—where new recruits have been mobilized to chant “No means yes and yes means anal.” It goes on in military barracks—where violent and cruel porn is used to pump people up before they go out and kill, where one in three women is raped or sexually assaulted. It goes on in the office suites of Wall Street and strip clubs; in video games that reward players for beating prostitutes to death. In the hotels of traveling businessmen where 40 percent of housekeepers report having been groped, sexually assaulted, or flashed.

Heart-wrenching voices have poured out on Twitter—MILLIONS of women describing their first sexual assaults.

The fact is, the oppression of women is deeply woven into every aspect of this “modern” society. Its roots are thousands of years old, and while some of the forms have changed, it is not “getting better.”

In fact, in many ways, the vindictiveness of this misogyny and the cruelty of its violence are escalating—precisely as a backlash and revenge against the major changes that have taken place in recent decades in women’s place and traditional roles, including the changes women have fought for and won. So now they are being assaulted for challenging thousands of years of patriarchy’s barbaric chains. This, in fact, is one thing that explains the rise of this reeking pig and how he clawed his way to the top to win the presidential election.

The Most Important Thing...

But here is the most important thing: as vile as Trump is, Trump and the violent misogyny he embodies are NOT a problem that can be solved by electing a Democrat—even if they can sometimes speak compellingly against the crudest expressions of this slave-master talk about women.

Differences, Yes. But Trump, Obamas, Clintons Are Still Products, Representatives, Functionaries of the Same System

Yes, Hillary Clinton, the Obamas, and the Democrats aren’t exactly the same as Donald Trump. But all are products, representatives, and functionaries of the same system as Trump—a system which in a thousand ways embodies and enforces the most horrendous oppression of women, in this country and throughout the world.

The reality is that the system represented by the Obamas, the Clintons, and the Democrats, as well as the Republicans, rests in a fundamental way on a worldwide network of sweatshops, where masses of people, a large number of them women and girls, are viciously exploited.

What have the Clintons, Obamas, and Democrats done about the massive dissemination of woman-degrading pornography, which is encouraging and conditioning whole generations of males to regard and treat women as subhuman objects of exploitation and degradation? What have these liberal representatives of this system actually done about the international enslavement and trafficking of millions and millions of females, a huge number of them young girls?!

The fundamental fact is that this system could not do away with the oppression and degradation of the half of humanity that is female, and on the contrary can only maintain and enforce this, including in the most horrendous forms, regardless of what the sentiments of individual representatives and functionaries of this system might believe or wish.

The world doesn’t have to be this way. Men are not born baby-Trumps. Misogyny and patriarchy are not ingrained in human nature. They are products of a system that can and must be overthrown at the soonest possible moment.

UNLEASH THE FURY OF WOMEN AS A MIGHTY FORCE FOR REVOLUTION!

WE NEED TO OVERTHROW, NOT VOTE FOR, THIS SYSTEM!

 

 

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Revolution #461 October 17, 2016

The Elections Crisis and the Real Stakes in November

October 17, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Point One: Donald Trump is an open, brutish fascist. This is not news. His racism, his putrid outlook toward women, his all-round piggishness—this has not only been known for a long time, this was his road to “celebrity” and then to the Republican presidential nomination. The more openly fascist he has gotten—including his open thuggery and outright slander, his open contempt for the rule of law and promotion of extra-legal violence against those who oppose him—the more free promotion he got from the media, and the more he steamrolled to the nomination of one of the two major parties. Even now when he is all the way out there, caught on tape bragging about sexual assault and demeaning women in the most crude and hate-filled terms, and even now when he has responded to this exposure by doubling down on his open misogyny and threats, the overwhelming majority of the Republican Party—again, one of the two major, semi-official and “legitimate” parties of this system—is sticking with him, or—at least not openly—refusing to break with him. And again—not only has all this about Trump been known for a long, long time, but it has also been clear for decades now that the Republican Party itself has, as a core element of its strength, nurtured and fostered a core base around open, unapologetic, no-holds-barred racism, xenophobia, misogyny, “America-first-ism,” and a proud and aggressive “know-nothingism.” Reactionary shit that the Democrats, by the way (or not so by the way), have refused for decades to call out as illegitimate or beyond the pale of discourse, or oppose in any meaningful way. Make no mistake: these veins, rooted in the founding, history, and current-day reality of the U.S., run very deep in both political parties and, indeed, this whole political system. This is part of why it is absolutely correct and important to insist that “America Was NEVER Great!”

Now, however, Trump has come forward to give expression to and further legitimize the most backward sentiments of these social forces and to mobilize them into a much more aggressive and openly fascist force. This reflects the fact that some of the ways in which those who run this system have held it together are no longer working, and there is a fierce fight between different sections over what must be done in response to that. Whatever happens in this election—and Trump could still win this, and, in any event, will receive tens of millions of votes, which will serve to endorse and legitimize his whole thing—those conflicts are not going away. The core elements of the ruling class which have grouped around and supported Trump will continue to stoke and rouse this base, working to unleash it against the masses—and against their opponents within the ruling class.

Point Two: The Democrats represent no positive alternative, but are merely rivals to preside over the same worldwide, massively predatory and murderous system of capitalism-imperialism. At the very time Trump was running wild last week, the Democrats were not only backing up their Saudi Arabian allies in carrying out horrendous bombing raids that killed over a hundred people at a funeral in the Middle Eastern country of Yemen, they were stepping up their own direct involvement in that war with missile strikes against forces within Yemen. Quiet as it’s kept, the “peace president” Obama has carried out bombing raids in seven countries this year alone, and ordered “special operations” (that is, secret military aggression, complete with assassinations, midnight raids, etc.) in many more. Hillary Clinton has added on with calls for even more military action and for stepping up the highly repressive policies and surveillance kept in place and heightened under Obama, to which she also contributed as senator and secretary of state.

And you can go from there. They may talk more nicely than Trump about immigrants, but they continue to deport record numbers of people from this country. They say they will “do something” about mass incarceration and police terror, but in reality they have done and will do nothing beyond a few reforms to “re-legitimize” the police and courts in the eyes of the people, because this terror is required by and built into their very system.

As Sunsara Taylor’s article makes clear, whatever their rhetoric and even, perhaps, their personal sentiments, the system that they are wed to and which they defend with all their might, benefits from and is integrally bound up with the oppression of women. Here it must also be said that Trump has, from the beginning of his forays into political life, been a “champion” of white supremacy—starting with his call for the death penalty for the Central Park 5—a call which he has persisted in up to two weeks ago, despite their having been exonerated and it having been definitively proven that they were in fact framed (a framing to which the hysteria generated by the likes of Trump contributed). This has also come out in his persistent, hate-filled demonization and denigration of Mexicans and Chicanos, his demands to persecute Muslims and people from the Arab and Central/South Asian countries more generally, and so on.

Point Three: Because of all this, this is no ordinary election. The potential for further and much deeper crisis to erupt in the days to come, and especially around the election itself and its immediate aftermath, looms very large. The already sharp conflicts between sections of the ruling class could deepen and crack further. Such crisis can act as a jolt on people, jarring them out of their normal way of looking at things and leading them to question and resist what they normally accept. We need to come from behind to be ready to seize on whatever does happen to hasten REVOLUTION, preparing and organizing masses of people to respond to this not by falling in behind one side or the other of the oppressive rulers, but by taking advantage of this situation to build up the forces for revolution.

This means confronting the actual situation and fighting to take things as far as possible, including in the current Get Into the Revolution National Organizing Campaign and Tour, working to bring into being a revolutionary situation—a situation, as the Party statement How We Can Win says, “Where millions and millions of people refuse to be ruled in the old way—and are willing and determined to put everything on the line to bring down this system and bring into being a new society and government that will be based on the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America. That is the time to go all-out to win. That is what we need to be actively working for and preparing for now.”

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/461/your-government-is-behind-monstrous-war-crimes-in-yemen-en.html

Revolution #461 October 17, 2016

U.S. War Crimes in Yemen

October 15, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

On Saturday, October 8, hundreds of people gathered in Yemen’s capital Sana’a to mourn the death of the father of an official in the government backed by the Houthi movement and elements of the former regime. These are forces which have been under assault by Saudi Arabia and its allies, including the U.S., for the last 18 months.

Suddenly, Saudi warplanes struck—bombing the funeral reception hall multiple times. Over 140 mourners were massacred. Another 600 were wounded, including leading Houthi figures and other officials.

“There were over 800 people in the hall, including the elderly and children,” one survivor told journalists. “Suddenly we heard the sound of airplanes, and then the bombing took place. The first bomb ripped through the ceiling and exploded, with the basement destroyed as well. I was injured and was at a loss. The heat made me feel I was burning. I got up and ran toward the door, where people came in to rescue us. Just then, the second bomb came and hit those people coming to rescue us.” (Salim Saleh Rowaishan, quoted by Democracy Now!, October 10)

“When I got there, there were more than 50 burned bodies,” one witness cited by Human Rights Watch stated, “many where you can still tell the features, but half of their body was gone, half of their head was gone, but the others, it was very, very hard to tell who they were.”

This wasn’t a military base or an airfield. These weren’t troops engaged in combat. This was a funeral. Bombing it was a war crime!

The Saudis initially claimed they knew nothing of the attack, but soon said they’d conduct an investigation into “reports about the regrettable and painful bombing.”

“Regrettable”? “Painful”? The funeral massacre in Sana’a wasn’t an exception; it was a damning concentration of how the Saudis have waged the reactionary, U.S.-backed war they launched in March 2015.

Reactionary War in Yemen

Yemen is in the hellish grip of a reactionary civil war, fueled by reactionary regional and global powers.

Yemen is an impoverished, relatively small country, which is largely rural. It is a society still characterized to a large degree by feudal relations. Yet its history and location make Yemen strategically important to both U.S. imperialism, and to the Islamic fundamentalist Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Yemen is at the mouth of the Red Sea, which leads to the Suez Canal, through which enormous amounts of oil and global trade flow; it sits along Saudi Arabia’s southern border and is close to northeast Africa.

For 33 years, until 2011, Yemen was ruled by the pro-U.S., pro-Saudi despot Ali Abdullah Saleh. In 2011, hatred of Saleh’s regime erupted in massive nationwide protests, when the “Arab Spring” upheavals rocked the region. The U.S. decided Saleh had become a liability and forced him out. But the Yemeni state, in particular the military, remained in place. Major General Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who was backed by the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf states, was installed as the head of state in early 2012. Hadi was no different or better than Saleh, and Yemen’s upheaval continued.

In August 2014 a combination of Houthi fighters and elements of Yemen’s military still loyal to Saleh seized control of Sana’a, the country’s capital city. Most Houthis (named after the leader of their 2004 uprising against the Saleh regime) live in the north and are members of the Zaidi branch of Shia Islam. Zaidis make up about a third of Yemen’s population. Zaidi religious authorities—imams—ruled North Yemen for centuries until the early 1960s. The Houthis are fighting under the reactionary Islamist banner of Ansar Allah (Partisans of God) and have been accused of massacres and indiscriminate killings themselves. They’re politically supported by and have some ties to the reactionary Islamic Republic of Iran. In February 2015, the Houthi-Saleh forces took over the central government, and President Hadi was driven into exile in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia felt this turn of events was a serious threat to its interests, including its contention with Iran. With U.S. backing, the Saudis pulled together a military alliance with other regional states and, on March 26, 2015, this alliance launched a savage bombing campaign against the Houthi-Saleh forces with the goal of restoring their puppet Hadi to power.

The Saudi War of Terror

The Saudis have been waging a war of terror through the air, and a war of starvation by naval and air blockade. Throughout this barbaric campaign, they’ve repeatedly hit civilian targets—hospitals, potato chip factories, neighborhoods, and schools. The UN reports that 4,125 civilians have been killed and 7,207 wounded since the Saudi air campaign began, mostly by the Saudis, dropping mostly U.S.-made bombs. One Yemeni parent wrote of his children saying, “we sleep afraid, we wake up afraid.” (New York Times, October 11).

And now they try and wash away all this blood and these monstrous crimes with words like “painful” and “regret.”

The U.S.—Neck Deep in Yemeni Blood

After the October 8 funeral massacre, the U.S. government acted like an innocent bystander, upset with the behavior of one of its friends. A White House spokesperson said the U.S. was “deeply disturbed” by the bombing, and the Saudi’s “troubling” attacks on Yemeni civilians. He pledged the Obama administration would review U.S. support for Saudi’s war and was “prepared to adjust our support so as to better align with U.S. principles, values and interests.” He insisted the U.S. wasn’t giving the Saudis a “blank check.”

In reality, the U.S. has been neck-deep in this war from the start, and neck-deep in Yemeni blood. Whatever its differences with the Saudi regime―and there are real differences and sharp tensions―it remains a key cog in the U.S. global empire. The rulers of the U.S. are compelled to back Saudi Arabia. And back Saudi Arabia they have.

Find out more about the revolution         Find out about BA, the leader of the revolution

The U.S. has sold Saudi Arabia $110 billion in arms under the “antiwar” President Barack Obama. It’s been arming and supporting Saudi Arabia’s vicious, criminal bombing war against the Houthis for the last 18 months. The Saudis are flying U.S.-built planes, dropping U.S.-built bombs, getting refueled by U.S. air tankers (over 5,700 times at last count) and getting U.S. technical and intelligence support, including from a team of military personnel sent by the Pentagon to Saudi Arabia to help plan its air war.

This is why fragments from a U.S.-made bomb were found at the scene of the October 8 Sana’a funeral massacre!

The U.S. has kept up this support, including recently selling the Saudis an additional $1.15 billion in additional arms, even after repeated, well publicized Saudi massacres of civilians. And they did this after the Obama administration was warned by government lawyers it could be considered a co-belligerent in the war under international law and implicated in war crimes.

These are the “principles, values, and interests” the U.S. pursues out all over the world.

U.S. Cruise Missiles: Not Enforcing “Freedom of Navigation,” but Enforcing a Blockade Starving Millions

The U.S. rulers have been acting in the shadows during Saudi Arabia’s savage war. Until now.

Early on Thursday, October 13, five days after the funeral massacre, a U.S. destroyer, operating off Yemen’s coast, fired three cruise missiles. They destroyed what the U.S. says were Houthi-controlled radar stations. The U.S. Navy claimed this was “self-defense” in retaliation for the firing of several missiles at another U.S. warship sailing off Yemen in the days before. The ship was not hit, the Houthis deny they fired any missiles at U.S. ships, and the U.S. produced no evidence that they had.

Afterward Pentagon officials acted as if this attack, which was approved by President Obama, had nothing to do with the 18-month war between Saudi Arabia and Houthi-led factions in Yemen. They insisted that the U.S. was not seeking “a wider role in the conflict,” and that the missile attack on Yemen was simply a matter of protecting the “our personnel, our ships, and our freedom of navigation in this important maritime passageway,” as if the ships were on routine patrols.

But these weren’t routine patrols. The week before the attacks, the U.S. had dispatched these warships to Yemen’s coast because someone—reportedly Houthi forces—hit and nearly sank a ship from the United Arab Emirates. What was a ship from the UAE doing in the area? It was part of an air and sea blockade the Saudi-led coalition has imposed on Yemen since the beginning of the war.

Yemen is a country that imports 70 percent of its fuel, 90 percent of its food, and 100 percent of its medicines! The Saudi-led coalition, including Egypt and other Gulf states, has been strangling and starving this already impoverished, vulnerable population with a blockade that, according to the UN, has cut off 85 percent of the country’s imports—including medicine, water, fuel, and, yes, food. The Saudis have even bombed major airfields and bridges to prevent supplies from entering Yemen, especially Houthi-controlled areas.

This blockade has had horrendous consequences for Yemen’s people: half the population—some 14 million people—are now suffering hunger or malnutrition. Of Yemen’s roughly 28 million people, 80 percent—more than 22 million Yemenis—are in desperate need of humanitarian aid. There are dire warnings that Yemen is on the brink of famine and collapse. Starving and punishing a whole population is a towering war crime!

The “innocent bystander” America has backed this from the start. The U.S. Navy, which claims to merely be upholding “freedom of navigation,” hasn’t been insisting that food and medical aid, arriving by ship, should be able to penetrate the Saudi naval blockade and deliver needed aid! Just the opposite. In fact, early in the war, the U.S. stopped an Iranian ship from sailing to Yemen, claiming it carried arms. In other words, the U.S. hasn’t been protecting everyone’s “freedom of navigation”—it’s been supporting and enforcing the Saudi-led blockade of Yemen.

Now the U.S. is deploying warships to Yemen’s coast to protect the ships carrying out this criminal blockade. And the U.S. attacked Houthi installations. This constitutes direct military support for—and for the first time, direct military involvement—in the criminal Saudi blockade and its war. (And these U.S. cruise missiles also sent a broader message: no one threatens America’s naval enforcers with impunity.)

What the Fuck Is the U.S. Navy Doing in the Red Sea Anyway?
Imperialism—Not “Self Defense”

The U.S. is directly enabling Saudi Arabia’s air massacres and mass starvation of Yemen’s people—and now directly firing cruise missiles in support of the Saudi war effort for their reactionary interests. Why?

The reactionary rulers of Saudi Arabia are desperately fighting to maintain their extremely oppressive, Islamic fundamentalist, absolute monarchy. They have been shaken by shifts in the world economy and the global petroleum market, as well as by the 2011 “Arab Spring” upheavals. They are locked in a range of conflicts with the reactionary Islamic Republic of Iran and the growth of Iranian influence in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine. They’re concerned that rapidly shifting sands of regional alliances will leave their regime in a more precarious situation. Everywhere they’ve sought to fund, arm, and restore tyrants they can deal with. With U.S. backing, they organized an Arab League initiative—supported by Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf States—to form a 40,000-man military response force to combat Iranian influence in the region.

The Saudis are increasingly nervous about the erosion of U.S. power in the region in the wake of the failure of the U.S. rulers to restructure and strengthen the U.S.-dominated regional order, including in Afghanistan and Iraq. The U.S.-Iran nuclear deal, which was bitterly opposed by the Saudis, as well as the prospect of a Russian-Assad victory in the Syrian war, as well as the ongoing fragmentation of Iraq, have heightened Saudi fears and intensified its fierce regional rivalry with the Islamic Republic of Iran. And Saudi Arabia has long considered Yemen, which is on its southern border, important to its stability and security.

For all these reasons, the Saudis have been determined to crush the Houthi-Saleh uprising. This uprising could give Iran further influence in the region (even as it does not appear Iran is providing the Houthis with much, if any, military support). These tensions and concerns were reflected in the 2015 “shake-up” within the Saudi monarchy and royal family, which reportedly has put proponents of more aggressive Saudi action in charge. (New York Times, April 30, 2015)

For their part, the U.S. imperialists are desperately maneuvering and fighting to maintain their overall regional and global dominance over a world of exploitation and oppression (and there are very sharp arguments in their own ranks over how to do that, including over exactly how to deal with Saudi Arabia). Saudi Arabia—the world’s leading oil exporter with the largest petroleum reserves on the planet and enormous cash reserves—has been a crucial pillar of the U.S. empire since the 1940s. So the U.S. is determined to maintain its stability, including by reassuring the Saudis that in the wake of its nuclear deal with Iran, and ongoing conflicts and tensions over other issues, the U.S. will continue to stand by the Saudi kingdom.

This also means making clear to Iran that the U.S. is determined to remain the region’s dominant power—including by combating Iranian moves that could erode that. One of those interests is global—maintaining the U.S. status of military guarantor (dominator) of trade and navigation, in this case through the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, and the Suez Canal, which are major arteries of world trade. For instance, some 30 percent of world maritime oil shipments flow through the Persian Gulf and more than eight percent through the Suez Canal. In addition, Russia’s growing military involvement and assertiveness in the region—particularly in Syria—looms very large for the U.S., and heightens the importance of its alliance with Saudi Arabia. (For background see: “Obama & U.S. Imperialism: Pushing Yemen Deeper into Hell,” Revolution/revcom.us, May 4, 2015.)

The rulers of the U.S. are behind horrific and ongoing crimes against humanity in Yemen. They are backing and enabling the Saudi massacre in Yemen, and now directly, militarily, enforcing a barbaric blockade aimed at starving the civilian population.

STOP WARS OF EMPIRE, ARMIES OF OCCUPATION, AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY!

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/461/question-about-attack-on-film-the-birth-of-a-nation-en.html

Revolution #461 October 17, 2016

Question: Why Do So Many People on the So-called "Left" Attack the Film The Birth of a Nation and Discourage People from Seeing It?

October 17, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Answer: Because this film depicts the 1831 slave rebellion led by Nat Turner, up against overwhelming odds, as something positive and heroic; and it clearly implies that such revolts, even if defeated and messy, are essential to the process of any oppressed people breaking off their shackles. Whatever reasons they may profess for attacking this film, the fear of and opposition to such revolts (and to the prospect of upheaval today), along with the mind-set of conciliating with oppression, at the very least strongly influences their thinking. This is also why such critics have suddenly been given such a major platform.

To gain genuine emancipation from ALL oppression—and such emancipation IS possible—we need more than revolts and rebellions, however just; and we need a vision encompassing all of humanity. But such emancipation will never happen without grasping what is genuinely liberating—not to mention profoundly just—about revolts like that led by Nat Turner. To oppose such revolts—and to attempt to suppress works of art which basically uphold them—only contributes to keeping the world as it is.

See the movie.

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/461/call-from-carl-dix-october-22-en.html

Revolution #461 October 17, 2016

Build the Fight to Stop Police Terror as Part of Organizing for an Actual Revolution!
On October 22: Stop Police Terror! Which Side Are You On?

A Call from Carl Dix

October 17, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

October 22, 2016, the 21st annual National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation, occurs at a critical time. This is a time when police continue to get away with murdering people; when the whole system works to justify this wanton police terror and exonerate the murdering pigs. It is a time when more than a million people are caged in the hellholes this country calls prisons, when millions of children are stamped as future criminals even before they are born, and a time when millions of formerly incarcerated people are treated like less than full human beings after they have served their sentences. A time when Trump and Clinton both promise increased repression if they become president. All this is illegitimate and unacceptable. It must be STOPPED!

These horrors fall heaviest on Black, Latino and Native American communities. And they are built into the very way this system operates. You can’t reform this shit away. You can’t vote it away. You can’t lobby elected officials to get them to do something about it because their system needs this brutality, incarceration and repression to suppress people they have no future for, and who they hate and fear.

This system has no answer for people who want to see this suffering ended, but the revolution does. Through revolution we could end all the horrors the capitalist-imperialist system enforces on humanity. We could bring into being a society where those entrusted with public security would sooner take a bullet themselves than kill or injure an innocent person.

And we in the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) are organizing right now for an actual revolution; one that overthrows this system, that dismantles its police forces and its military, and brings a totally different and far better system into being. We have the leadership for this revolution in Bob Avakian, the leader of the RCP, and we have the strategy for how to make revolution in a country like this. If you yearn to see a world where these horrors are no more, you need to get with this revolution!

The rulers of this system are afraid that those they have held on the bottom of this society will rise up against the terror they have been subjected to. They fear that this will call into question the legitimacy of the force that they claim to have the sole right to use against the people to keep them down. And they fear many more middle-class people of conscience being awakened to these horrors, and taking part in fighting against them. They especially fear the potential for all this resistance to get connected with the actual revolution the RCP is organizing for.

On October 22, 2016, let’s bring the system’s worst nightmare to life! People have shown over the past two years the potential to stand up and fight back against police getting away with murder. Let’s strengthen that resistance, mobilizing people to stand up against the brutality and murder the police inflict and the other atrocities committed by this system, bringing together the rage of those who bear the brunt of all this with the determination of people from other sections of society to not stand by while all this suffering is being enforced. And this resistance must be built as part of organizing for an actual revolution that overthrows this system because as long as the system remains in effect, these horrors will go on and on.

STOP POLICE BRUTALITY, REPRESSION AND THE CRIMINALIZATION OF A GENERATION!

WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?

GET WITH THE ACTUAL REVOLUTION!

 

 

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Revolution #461 October 17, 2016

 

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Revolution #461 October 17, 2016

Joey Johnson of U.S. Supreme Court Decision Texas v. Johnson Responds to:
Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Comments That Colin Kaepernick and Flag Burners are "Dumb, Disrespectful and Arrogant"

October 14, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Editors' note: After Joey Johnson issued this statement, Ruth Bader Ginsburg came out with a statement saying, "Barely aware of the incident [the refusal of Colin Kaepernick and others to stand for the national anthem] or its purpose, my comments were inappropriately dismissive and harsh. I should have declined to respond." Joey Johnson's statement continues to be very relevant.

Statement by Gregory “Joey” Johnson, defendant in 1989 U.S. Supreme Court case Texas v. Johnson that upheld burning the American flag in protest as protected speech... AND current defendant along with 15 others (the RNC16) for burning the American flag on July 20, 2016 outside the Republican National Convention in Cleveland as Donald Trump was being nominated for president. 

When Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg was asked by Katie Couric how she feels about San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and other athletes refusing to stand for the national anthem, Ginsburg said she thinks it is “dumb, disrespectful, stupid and arrogant” and said she would have the same answer if she was asked about flag burning.

Colin Kaepernick has said, "I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color...There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder." Kaepernick courageously set off a new wave of protests against the ongoing horror of the murders by police of thousands of people, overwhelmingly Black and other people of color, captured on video after video, yet with the police rarely even being charged, let alone sent to prison.

All the people who refused to stand up for the national anthem were absolutely right to do so. And I think a lot more disrespect for the national anthem and the flag is needed.

I was the defendant in the U.S. Supreme Court case Texas v. Johnson (1989). I was arrested for burning the flag outside the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas, Texas as Ronald Reagan was being nominated for a second term. I was tried, convicted, and sentenced to a year in jail.  I fought for five years, until my victory when the Supreme Court ruled that flag burning is protected political speech.

Today in the U.S., it’s the same flag and even worse nationalistic chauvinism. First, the Republicans and Donald “Mr. Fascism” Trump, fangs bared, swearing only he can make America great again by hunting immigrants, cheering killer cops, bashing women, carrying out pogroms against Muslims, and ramping up American military firepower. Then there’s the “reasonable” and experienced imperialist war criminal, Hillary Clinton, insisting that “America is already great!”—while the system’s prisons, drone strikes, and world-wide exploitation crush the lives of millions and millions.  

“1,2,3,4, Slavery, genocide and war! 5,6,7,8, America was NEVER great!” is what I and other Revolution Club members chanted in a protest outside the Republican National Convention this summer. Then I stood inside a circle of Revolution Club members and stated, “America Number 1? America first? It always has been first: at genocide... at slavery... at exploitation... of destruction of the environment... of torture... of coup d’états... of invasions. We’re standing here with the people of the world today.” Then I burned the flag, that symbol of empire and oppression, as Trump was being nominated inside the convention. 

For this, 16 of us were assaulted by police and right-wing operatives of Trump, illegally arrested, and now face serious criminal charges.  We are being prosecuted even though the Texas v. Johnson decision determined that burning the flag in protest is “symbolic speech” protected by the First Amendment. This criminal case is outrageous; it must be fought, and it reveals that the essence of what exists in America is not democracy but a dictatorship of a capitalist class and its state, willing to disregard its own laws and rights when it suffers political exposure.

Although Ginsburg says she doesn’t think anyone should be jailed for refusing to stand for the national anthem or for burning the flag, she spoke as if this is just a matter of her personal opinion—without pointing out that this matter has already been decided by the Supreme Court.  So her statement denouncing Colin Kaepernick—and flag burning—contributes to the system’s efforts to criminalize these important forms of dissent and enforce patriotism.

Arrogance? In reality, it’s Ginsburg who’s full of imperial arrogance, as she denies and tries to cover over the real crimes of the system people are outraged against.

 

Find out more about the revolution         Find out about BA, the leader of the revolution

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/461/high-stakes-intensifying-contradiction-at-standing-rock-en.html

Revolution #461 October 17, 2016

High Stakes, Intensifying Confrontation at Standing Rock

October 17, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

The Dakota Access Oil Pipeline (DAOP) threatens the water supply and tramples on burial grounds considered sacred by Native Americans at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation.

What started this summer as a defiant stand by a determined few at Standing Rock has drawn hundreds of Native tribes—including ones with longstanding historic conflicts—along with environmental activists and all kinds of people who have felt compelled to take a righteous stand. Thousands of people are now part of an encampment near the Standing Rock Reservation, determined to stop DAOP from encroaching on tribal lands.

The DAOP is a 1,200-mile monstrosity. DAOP begins where oil is extracted through environmentally devastating fracking in northern North Dakota, near—but on the U.S. side of—the Canadian border. On completion, DAOP will pump 500,000 more barrels of oil a day into the environment, escalating the global climate change crisis. In length and in the volume of oil capacity, DAOP is on the same scale as the Keystone XL pipeline. (See “Keystone XL Pipeline and the Deadly Calculations of Capitalism” for background.) DAOP hasn’t attracted the same level of international attention as Keystone XL, in part because it does not cross the U.S./Canada border.

High Stakes on Both Sides

Capitalist investors have $4 billion at stake in the completion of the Dakota Access Oil Pipeline.

Beyond that, the ruling class of the United States—whatever their conflicts over things like the role of coal, and whether or not to even acknowledge the climate crisis—are all committed to what they call U.S. “energy independence”—translation: increasing domestic fossil fuel extraction to gain strategic advantage over rival world powers, as part of dominating a world of exploitation and oppression.

The defiant stand of the heroic “water defenders,” as many at Standing Rock call themselves, has posed big questions about the nature of an oil-addicted system, and ongoing genocide against indigenous peoples, who are, to a great degree, fighting to survive in regions around the world targeted for capitalist resource exploitation.

Adding to the urgency at this juncture of the struggle is the prospect of the brutally cold Dakota winter, where temperatures often drop below minus 30 degrees, accompanied by ferocious Plains winds and large snow drifts. That will pose serious challenges for maintaining the encampment, as well as for pipeline construction.

Mass Arrests, Ratcheting Up Repression on October 10

Throughout the summer, protesters at Standing Rock have been subjected to a whole array of violent repression and terror. Local police have made dozens of arrests. Lawless company goons have set dogs on protesters in scenes reminiscent of police attacking Black civil rights protesters in the 1960s. And mainstream and Trump-style fascist media (which are barely distinguishable from each other in rural North and South Dakota) have whipped up a climate of violent hatred for “the Indians” among significant numbers of whites in the area, who are armed and openly threatening to Native Americans and those they perceive as supporting them. The New York Times characterized this side of the situation in a headline, “Ranchers Tote Guns as Tribes Dig In for Long Pipeline Fight.”

On October 9, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit denied the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s request for an injunction to halt pipeline construction. Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) immediately resumed construction, which had been temporarily halted.

The next day, October 10, the official federal “holiday” that celebrates the arrival of the genocidal colonialist invader Columbus, protesters were out confronting the pipeline crews. Mandan, North Dakota, police arrested 27 people engaged in peaceful protest (the Standing Rock Reservation straddles and includes significant territory on both sides of the North Dakota/South Dakota border). Most were jailed overnight and released later, and one has refused to be released on bail.

Revolution spoke with a member of the Red Owl Collective, an initiative of the National Lawyers Guild, which is providing volunteer legal services for water protectors. She told Revolution that the 27 people arrested on October 10 included an indigenous elder, and that a young woman was assaulted during her arrest. Another person arrested was an alderwoman from Madison, Wisconsin, who came to present a declaration of support from her city to tribal authorities. The activist with the Red Owl Collective, who has been encamped at Standing Rock since August, said, “The arrests are part of escalating tactics to put a chill on free speech and assembly.”

Actress Shailene Woodley was also among those arrested on October 10. In a livestream of her arrest, seen by several million people, she called out authorities for targeting her to send a message. Edward Snowden sent a solidarity message in response, as did Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who stars in the movie Snowden (Shailene Woodley co-stars in that movie).

Find out more about the revolution         Find out about BA, the leader of the revolution

In another outrageous move, on October 14, authorities announced they were moving to bring new and escalated “riot” charges against journalist Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! On Saturday, September 3, Amy Goodman filmed security guards working for the pipeline company attacking protesters with dogs and using pepper spray. Five days later she learned that a warrant was issued for her arrest. In addition, the Red Owl Collective representative told Revolution that an arrest warrant has been issued for a journalist for Digital Smoke Signals.

Describing the combination of arrests, company thugs, and the mobilization of armed racists, the Red Owl Collective activist told Revolution, “Everybody is concerned for their personal safety.”

Which Side Are You On?

The defiant and heroic stand of the protesters at Standing Rock—and the vicious repression they are up against—present a challenge to everyone to stand with and support this struggle. The rulers of the U.S. find themselves caught in an awkward situation that points to the history and present day reality of genocide against Native Americans, theft of their land, and plunder of resources in the areas supposedly set aside for them as “reservations.”

Indigenous activists from as far away as Ecuador and Hawai’i have been part of the encampment. They have been joined by thousands of others. In addition to the Madison City Council resolution referred to earlier, 18 other U.S. city governments have passed resolutions or written letters opposing construction of the Dakota Access pipeline including Seattle, Washington; Saint Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota; Cleveland, Ohio; Portland, Oregon; Berkeley, Santa Barbara, and Oakland, California; Asheville, North Carolina; Sitka, Alaska; and Urbana, Illinois.

St. Louis, Missouri, said in its resolution: “Recent oil spills, including the release of 80,000 gallons of oil near Tioga, North Dakota in October 2013; 51,000 gallons of oil released into the Yellowstone River upstream from Glendive, Montana; as well as the release of 1,000,000 gallons of tar sands crude in Michigan’s Kalamazoo River in July 2010, demonstrate the danger for downstream communities, fish, and wildlife from oil from pipelines such as the Dakota Access.” (See “Standing With Standing Rock: 19 Cities Express Solidarity Against DAPL,” Indian Country Today Media Network.)

Support has come in from around the world, including delegations from Europe. On October 13, the Swedish parliament sent a letter to Barack Obama and other U.S. officials saying, “We strongly oppose the treatment of unarmed civilians and media persons, by police agencies and state authorities, that have been demonstrated these past weeks, since the protest against the Dakota Access pipeline started.”

On October 11, nine climate activists were arrested for attempting to shut down all tar sands oil coming into the United States from Canada by manually turning off pipelines in Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, and Washington State. One of the protesters, Leonard Higgins, said, “We’re in a state of emergency to protect our loved ones and our families, our communities. We need to step up as citizens and take action where our leaders are not. That’s what I’m prepared to do when I close the valve.”

Conscious of the stakes from the perspective of representing a system of global exploitation and oppression, while branding itself a champion of human rights, and concerned with how all this looks to the world, the Obama administration has tried to maintain a face of impartiality in this standoff. In September, the U.S. Departments of Army, Justice, and Interior asked Energy Transfer Partners to stop construction within 20 miles on either side of the Missouri River while the Army Corps of Engineers conducted more review and promised to work with tribes who have called out the federal government for not consulting properly with them on the pipeline route.

In an interview with Revolution, journalist and Native American activist Simon Moya-Smith noted, “The Army Corps of Engineers is asking, they’re requesting, that the Dakota Access Pipeline be halted. These are not injunctions. These are requests. They’re just asking. And if they don’t stop, there’s no repercussions. So why would they stop?” And he said this is “like asking a dog that’s biting, speaking of dogs, right, to release when you know it won’t.”

Two sides are sharpening up at Standing Rock. There are high stakes for the battle against the ongoing genocide against indigenous peoples, and to defend this planet’s critically wounded environment.

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/461/interview-with-simon-moya-smith-en.html

Revolution #461 October 17, 2016

Interview with Simon Moya-Smith about Standing Rock

"Taking it back to the beginning – another example of Native Americans fighting for our rights as human beings."

October 17, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Revolution Interview
A special feature of Revolution to acquaint our readers with the views of significant figures in art, theater, music and literature, science, sports and politics. The views expressed by those we interview are, of course, their own; and they are not responsible for the views published elsewhere in our paper.

 

Simon Moya-Smith is a Native American journalist and activist. Revolution spoke with him as he was returning to Standing Rock, where he has been part of the battle to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline that endangers the water supply and encroaches on land that is precious to the traditions of the Native people in the area.

Q: I want to get into what’s happening on the ground right now at Standing Rock, but also get your insights into the context for and significance of this struggle, both for Native peoples but also for humanity and the environment.

A: Taking it back to the beginning, this is yet another example of Native Americans fighting for our rights as human beings. Our allies have joined the Native American struggle against the aggressive settler-colonialism of the 21st Century, recognizing that water is the first medicine. When you get sick, what do you do? You take ice chips. Or when you’re sick, you get an IV. Hydration is key. So what you’re seeing now with all these arrests are invaders arresting indigenous peoples and our allies for protecting our land, and our water, and future generations.

What we know about pipelines is they do leak. That’s the basics of it, right? That’s why plumbers exist, because pipes will leak. And these pipes are definitely dangerous because they’re close to a water source, the Missouri River, which is the main water source for the Standing Rock people. And the sense that people have out there is one of, we are our great-grandparents' kids—the ones who went through the boarding school systems, the ones who went through their own form of resistance in their day, against the oppression that they felt. They had to stand up and do something. Just like in the 1970s with the Wounded Knee occupation over there at Pine Ridge. This feels similar to that, in that once again, here we are, fighting for our rights as human beings. And we’re extremely happy that we have celebrities like Shailene Woodley there. Yesterday, Dave Mathews went up there. People are realizing that the Native American is still being threatened by the descendants of people who sought to exterminate us and steal our land.

Q: The Army Corps of Engineers put out a statement “asking” the pipeline builders to pause construction at Standing Rock. Can you speak to that?

A: Sure. The Army Corps of Engineers is asking, they’re requesting, that the Dakota Access Pipeline be halted. These are not injunctions. These are requests. They’re just asking. And if they don’t stop, there’s no repercussions. So why would they stop? That’s the problem, they’re making a request. You’re asking these people to stop building the pipeline and you know they are not going to do that. So what are you trying to do? What message are you sending by just asking the company to stop it when you know they won’t? Those are hollow words. It’s like asking a dog that’s biting, speaking of dogs, right, to release when you know it won’t.

Q: If I understand what you’re saying, this allows the U.S. government to appear benevolent and neutral...

A: Sure, right? Exactly. They’re trying to make it appear they’re on the side of Native Americans while maintaining a position of safe impartiality.

Q: I understand Standing Rock is part of a much larger area the U.S. government promised to Native peoples.

Q: What you’re talking about is the Fort Laramie Treaty. The Fort Laramie Treaty was after the westward expansion and encroachment by white invaders. Not settlers! Remember, it does violate a fundamental law of physics to call them settlers before you call them invaders. You first have to invade before you can settle. What they did, they invaded. So it’s not incorrect to refer to European encroachment as an invasion. So there was a European invasion headed our way.

So once they started to settle this area, there was an agreement with a number of Native American tribes and nations, I think it was five that signed the treaty. And the treaty essentially said, “This territory is yours, you don’t have to worry about white people ever coming in here or trying to take your territory.”

But then it continued to shrink. It continued to shrink because there was no comprehension of oil and mineral extraction when reservations were set up. Some reservations were put on oil or mineral-rich land. And then the United States went and found that out, and it was like “Jesus, we have these treaties with the Indians, but there’s a lot of fucking oil under there. How are we gonna get that out? We have to move them off the reservations. Maybe we can squeeze them into cities.”

So, in the 1950s they had the Indian Relocation Act. The Indian Relocation Act wasn’t removal. Removal was removing Native Americans from their territory, like in the Trail of Tears. But relocation was trying to get Indians off reservations into cities. Give them a little dough so they can go to vocational schools. And it didn’t work out it that well. It was culture shock for a lot of Native Americans. They came from living in these rural environments, living with their own people, to urban environments where there were no other Native Americans other than ones relocated from reservations.

I’m a descendant of the relocation era. My grandmother moved from the Pine Ridge reservation to Denver. So, I was born in Denver. But I’m a descendant of the relocation era.

Q: Talk about this pattern of the U.S. government ripping up and violating treaties with Native peoples when resources were found under their land.

A: Look up the Elouise Cobell settlement. She has since passed. But she sued the United States government because she believed they were mis-managing funds from resources on their reservation. And there was finally a settlement by the United States government in favor of Elouise Cobell [editors’ note: Elouise Cobell was lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit filed in 1996 against the U.S. government for illegally stealing billions of dollars of resources including timber, minerals and oil, from Native American reservations]. More Native Americans are recognizing they are not getting their cut of extraction of natural resources coming out of reservations.

Now, there is extraction when Native Americans say there shouldn’t be extraction. Which brings us back to the Dakota Access Pipeline. Even though they’re not drilling on Native American territory, they are desecrating our land and cutting through a sacred site. And this brings us back to treaty violations, as we mentioned before. The Fort Laramie Treaty. You wrote down on a piece of paper You’re mucking up the legal jargon so you can violate the treaty—convoluting something as simple as you don’t violate treaty.

They don’t violate treaties with France, or Russia. But they violate treaties with Native Americans because we don’t have an army. We don’t trade with them, they just take. They do what they wanted to do, and we’ve been standing in opposition to this form of aggressive theft for centuries.

Q: It seems there is an important convergence at Standing Rock of thousands of people, putting their bodies on the line, taking a stand there, right? Not a beginning, as you say, but a resurgence of struggle with significance both for the struggle against genocide against Native peoples but also for the survival of the planet.

A: Yeah. It’s true. When I was at Standing Rock, I was just sitting by my car, and I see a group of Samoans, actually, come by. They’re looking around, they didn’t know where to go, so I waved at them, “Hello! Hello!” They were sweet and wonderful people. They just needed directions, right? So I directed them to the tent, and they can speak with the elders over there.

And if you look, it’s not just indigenous people even though indigenous people are converging. Ecuadorians came. Hawai’ians had come. Indigenous peoples are converging. But also other people. You’ve got Irish, English, Scottish contingents. They are indigenous to their land, and they have to drink water, you had people coming that are indigenous not to this land but to their land, and they know water is important for them.

You were mentioning, here in the United States, a collection of so many different nations. You have the Crow, you’ve got the Oglala, so many nations coming into one territory, like what we did when we kicked the shit out of Custer. We had to do that, you know. We came together as nations. We were like, OK, here comes the army. We’re all Indians to them. They want to kill you, so we have to take this guy [Custer] out.

Now you have a collection of so many nations on the camp itself. You have banners and flags, that represent many nations. You can look over to your left, and over here are the Crow, over here the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, the Oglala Lakota over there, the Sicangu Lakota across the river, coming together because we have faced the same aggressive settler-colonialist aggression for centuries. They don’t discriminate—even today, people look at Native Americans as one big fucking group—everybody has a headdress, everybody has long hair and braids. Even though if look to the north, you see our relatives in Alaska, they look nothing like the Oglala. The Oglala look nothing like the Seminole. We’re all separate, sovereign, indigenous people that are based in a certain locale. The Ute are mountain people. The Ojibwa are forest people. The Oglala are the plains people. The Tulalip in the Pacific Northwest, they’re the ocean people. We’re all very different in our languages, our culture, spirituality. But when it comes down to this, we’re all facing the same goddamn threat. They’re well aware that it could be only a matter of time before a pipeline wants to cut through their land, and they’re going to try to justify it in the same way.

 

 

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Revolution #461 October 17, 2016

Cheers to Actor Hal Holbrook for His Defense of Nate Parker's The Birth of a Nation

October 17, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

The film The Birth of a Nation, which recently opened in theaters, is under a huge attack in the form of a whipped-up controversy over 17-year-old allegations of sexual assault against the film’s writer, director, and star, Nate Parker. This film powerfully dramatizes the heroic slave rebellion led by Nat Turner, and it is a must-see. But the attacks on Parker and his film—in the New York Times and other major media, and including prominent Black and feminist voices—have negatively impacted the film’s reach and impact. (See “The Birth of a Nation Can Contribute to Liberation—Re-Prosecuting Nate Parker Does Not” by Sunsara Taylor.)

In the face of these attacks on this important film, actor Hal Holbrook wrote an insightful letter that was published in the op-ed pages of the October 15 New York Times:

I am finding it hard to accept the apparent rebuff at the box office of “The Birth of a Nation,” particularly after seeing the film last weekend. It is an exceptional piece of artistry and a vital portrait of our American experience in trying to live up to ideals we say we have. No one should miss it—no one who respects our country and its long struggle to define itself.

I am sorry about the conflict with Nate Parker’s past, but let’s try for some honesty here. “Rosemary’s Baby,” as I recall, had a similar tag on its director. It did well. If you want to make a list of the directors and actors who have rather public indiscretions, and who have in some cases been acquitted of them, start counting.

What troubles me is this: Are we being particular here with this extraordinary film because it’s about the racist curse we are struggling to erase from our country and its director is black? The curse is there. Go look at it. Do we have the courage to do that? It’s a fine work.

A number of others have spoken out in defense of the film. Before the film opened nationally, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, said, when asked about the “controversy” around the accusations against Parker: “That’s one issue. That’s his personal issue and then there’s the issue of the movie. And with the issue of the movie, the important thing is for people to see it and enjoy the film, be impressed by the film, and I think that is what is important.” Roland Martin, journalist and TV commentator, said, “Enough of somebody else describing our history! Here is an opportunity for us to see a Black freedom fighter on the big screen, because trust me, rarely will Hollywood show you Black freedom fighters the way they have in this movie.”

There needs to be many others who are taking a right stand and speaking out against the attempts to undermine The Birth of a Nation. The destructive attacks on this film have to be rebuffed. The film needs to be seen by many people, of all nationalities and walks of life, and discussed and debated on its own merits.

 

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Revolution #461 October 17, 2016

From A World to Win News Service:

Colombia: "The dead-end peace agreement is now in limbo"

October 17, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

October 10, 2016. A World to Win News Service. The following is by the Revolutionary Communist Group (GCR) of Colombia (posted on acgcr.com October 4, 2016).

Everything seemed to be going full steam ahead last September 26 when, after four years of public negotiations, the peace agreement between the Colombian state and the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) was signed in Cartagena, Colombia. Many of the country’s big shots and 15 presidents, 37 chancellors and 10 heads of international organizations, including the UN and the Organization of American States, attended the ceremony marking the end of a war that has lasted more than fifty years. In a fast-lane “special legislative procedure for peace”, parliament was to pass amnesty legislation a few weeks later. FARC guerrillas were to gather in camps located in some twenty zones, under the supervision of the Colombian army and the UN, and the guerrillas were to turn over their arms to the UN in the last three months of the six-month cantonment process. At that time, about April 2017, the FARC was to launch a legal political party to consummate their entry into the establishment. But one gear was missing from this machinery: it was hoped that the agreement that had been reached in Havana and signed in Cartagena would be endorsed by a referendum held on Sunday, October 2. This step was considered a piece of cake, since polls had predicted an overwhelming victory for the “Yes” vote. Both sides had agreed to the date for that vote, chosen because it is the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, who was actually a misogynist defender of the caste system in India. That icon of “non-violence” was complicit with the brutal apartheid system in South Africa, where he lived for several decades, before returning to India to lead the people in a reconciliation between British imperialism and the country’s reactionary regime aimed at preventing the crisis situation from moving toward a revolutionary resolution.

But the polls proved disastrously wrong. With the unexpected triumph of the “No” vote in the referendum, the agreement has been put on hold. This outcome was considered so implausible that the Washington Post summed it up with a meme saying, “If Colombians were dinosaurs, we would vote for the meteorite” [whose impact with the Earth triggered their extinction]. Yet the “No” vote won by a narrow margin, less than half a percentage point (49.78 percent for “Yes”, versus 50.21 percent for “No”), with a very high level of abstention (62 percent). Both the FARC and the government of President Juan Manuel Santos had bet everything on the victory of the “Yes” vote in the referendum. All along Santos insisted that he had no “plan B,” and the FARC, even after the results of the plebiscite were known, insisted that there was no turning back from their abandonment of the armed struggle. Not even the most extreme right, the main promoters of the “No” vote, had taken into account the possibility that they would win. Now they are scrambling to go from being part of the background scenery to playing a leading role in the negotiations drama.

The split in the ruling classes between supporters and opponents of the peace agreement is tragicomic. On the one hand, they have used clumsy lies to trick, manipulate and degrade a great many people, as they often do, to drag them into one or the other camp. On the other, while the differences among the right are in many ways only a question of nuance, there is a real division of opinion about how to deal with the guerrillas and particularly about the peace agreement, reflecting the interests of different, although closely related, economic and social sectors. The agreement would affect very sensitive issues for the sector led by ex-President Álvaro Uribe, especially the big landowners, a sector that tends toward fascism (Uribe’s conception of the state is based on the work of Carl Schmitt [a Nazi legal theorist, later pro-American, known for his advocacy of the removal of legal constraints on the exercise of state power]) as part of what has already been a long period of rightward drift (with the increasing influence of religious obscurantism) for the whole traditional political spectrum, including the armed reformists.

Lenin was very insightful right when he wrote, “People always were and always will be the foolish victims of deceit and self-deceit in politics until they learn to discover the interests of some class or other behind all moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and promises. The supporters of reforms and improvements will always be fooled by the defenders of the old order until they realize that every old institution, however barbarous and rotten it may appear to be, is maintained by the forces of some ruling classes.” The different visions on both sides of the peace agreement and the disputes about the plebiscite itself are full of “moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and promises”―and behind them we must “discover the interests of some class” or class sector.

*****

The agreement comprises five points: (1) policies for comprehensive development in agriculture; (2) political participation; (3) end to the conflict; (4) solution to the problem of illegal drugs; (5) the victims. There is an additional point about the implementation, approval and supervision of the agreement. Of the five points, the one that bothers the far right the least is the end of the conflict. The two most bothersome are the points about land (1) and justice for the victims (5). The point about land, which calls for clearing up land titles and property rights in the countryside, would expose the land usurpers who have resorted to barbarism, causing about a million deaths in wave after wave of violence with their “chulavitas”, “pájaros” and other kinds of paramilitary forces during the last century and through today. Many big landowners, especially cattle ranchers and industrial agricultural producers (with large plantations) would find it difficult to explain how they acquired “their” lands. The point about justice would mean punishment for thousands of military men including generals (and their civilian superiors) who committed or ordered genocide, like the case of the more than 5,000 civilians known to have been murdered [and their bodies used by the authorities] to substantiate claims of casualties inflicted on the guerrillas, the so-called “false positives”. The instigators and financial backers of the paramilitary groups would be called to account. Among them, Uribe himself, along with his family and friends, would have a lot of explaining to do. Yet with the points about political participation (2) and democratizing rural property (1), the “final” agreement signed in Cartagena concentrates the common aspirations of both sides, both of them waving the flag of bourgeois democracy as the pinnacle of history.

But the agreement turns out to be less than meaningful for the people insofar as it does not seek to transform anything radically (radical in the sense of getting to the roots of things). What it does mean is an opportunity for the imperialists and local ruling classes to shore up their system (the system of the production and exchange of commodities that characterizes capitalism) and legitimize it in the eyes of the people, and an opportunity for the FARC reformists to become more directly a part of the establishment. And despite the political tug of war over the past few months, the talks between the government and the ELN [National Liberation Army, another, smaller guerrilla group, formed in 1964 under the influence of Cuba] seek to achieve the same ends, even if right now they maintain that they are not going to come to an agreement without significant changes in Colombian society.

One of the objectives of this peace process with the traditional guerrillas is to ensure, with their support, that there will be no further armed mass uprisings against the oppressors and everything reactionary, and to further steer the general discontent among the masses into channels through which the local ruling classes and the imperialists can ensure the defence and legitimization of their social order. This is an order in which imperialist domination disarticulates and distorts the national economy, developing productive enclaves as required by imperialist needs, using natural resources as raw materials to be inserted into global circuits of production and accumulation, including the production of cocaine, which involves all the ruling classes and the financial system that, in the end, crowns the whole drug business. This order conditions development in some regions and also makes deals with semi-feudalism, which is still rampant, especially in the whole political and social superstructure, widening the gap between the growing and deepening poverty of the masses and the parasitism of a handful of imperialist servants who also control the media to maintain an iron dictatorship.

Unmasking and rejecting the “peace agreements” as a fatal illusion for the people does not mean taking the same side as the reactionary sector (ex-presidents Uribe and Andrés Pastrana and the rest) that has (so far) opposed those agreements, people who, in the words of the ex-president, Belisario Betancur, “are, in their way, helping to bring out the shortcomings of the process”―in other words, turning the whole situation further to the right in political terms and benefiting the ruling classes as a whole and imperialism. Nor does this position mean opting for the reactionary war. It is simplistic to argue that we have no choice but to take one or the other side in the country’s present political polarization, that we have to back either the much-trumpeted “peace” or a brutal war against the people in which neither the FARC nor the ELN represent anything positive in terms of people’s aspirations for something radically different. In fact, both are playing into the hands of the system with their armed struggle that was never intended to be more than a bargaining chip to win a few reforms while leaving the overall framework of exploitation and oppression intact. This is a simple expression of destructive “determinist realism”, a passive and reactionary understanding of objective reality and “necessity” that declares that “what is desirable is what is possible and what is possible is what exists”.

The predominant positions in the political polarization around the “peace agreements” between armed reformists, on one side, and the imperialists and Colombian ruling classes on the other, represent nothing but a dead end for the masses—poor peasants, youth, women, etc. The terms of the debate that many people have been pushed to accept and which fill the media represent a smokescreen behind which imperialism is more deeply penetrating the country and inserting it into the global dynamics of the capitalist-imperialist system. At the same time, there are increasing efforts to control and repress the people. For example, the fascist new code of conduct for the police has been tacitly accepted. The situation is being used to propagate reactionary verdicts on the people’s struggles and on the possibility and necessity of a real revolution.

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This is part of the framework for this agreement, which cannot be seen as simply a “Colombian thing” or a regional affair. The imperialists see it as part of an historical question. They are ecstatic that the world’s oldest so-called “Marxist” guerrillas are giving up “the revolution” and agreeing to become part of a democratic state.

But first of all, the FARC has never represented either revolution or communism, no matter how often these words might be used, and what they are giving up on is not revolution. These false claims are enabled by today’s ubiquitous lies and distortions about revolution and communism. Even when it was under the influence of the now defunct Communist Party of Colombia, the FARC arose as a form of peasant self-defence against government repression, organized to fight for a few changes in the land distribution dominated by big landlords, and to oppose the rigged political system under the two-party National Front, a political deal to pass the government back and forth every four years between sectors of the ruling classes concentrated in the Conservative and Liberal parties. This arrangement, which lasted from 1958 to 1974, was supposed to be a way to share power and settle the disputes that had taken a violent term at the end of the 1940s. The FARC programme basically represented the interests of settler peasants who had opened up new regions for cultivation in the face of pressure from the big landlords (and, in recent decades, the acquisition of extensive landholdings by imperialists and local entrepreneurs involved in agro-industrial production and global food and fuel crop speculation), and the middle peasantry that demanded that the state bring about reforms in terms of land access, but without radical opposition to imperialist domination and the property relations and reactionary ideas associated with this domination and feudal backwardness. The FARC—and the ELN—have coexisted with and defended the property of big landlords and agro-industrial firms owned by multinationals and local big landowners, as long as these owners pay the “revolutionary taxes” demanded of them, and have benefited, directly or “indirectly”, from drug trafficking. Their goal has always been to join the establishment by means of an agreement that would allow them to end their armed struggle with the achievement of a few barely liberal reforms that are fully in line with the capitalist development imperialism requires.

“Comprehensive agrarian development”—one of the agreement’s “major accomplishments”—is to be accomplished by “an alliance between businessmen and peasants” through the establishment of new Peasant Reserve Zones. Under this scheme, a few hectares of barren land would be handed over to organized peasant communities so as to restrict the monopolization of land ownership. Similar mechanisms were set up by the state in the 1990s and denounced by FARC at that time. The objective of the promised infrastructural improvements, access to credit and technical assistance is a more rational—capitalist—organization of exploitation in the countryside and of peasant labour. The idea is to deal with the legal obstacles to such changes after decades of a brutal war against the masses of people in the countryside. A much greater concentration of land ownership was brought about by driving people off the land and massacring them. Today, according to a recent census, 0.4 percent of property owners hold 42 percent of the land dedicated to crops and livestock, while 60 percent of families in the countryside have no land at all. There is a greater concentration of land ownership today than before the agrarian reform laws of the 1960s. The peace agreement implicitly accepts the Santos government’s agrarian programme. Santos’s proposed Rural Economic and Social Development Zones are perfectly compatible with the Peasant Reserve Zones that the agreement calls for.

Secondly, what is being agreed to is not the end of a revolutionary armed struggle. Although the FARC and ELN have taken up arms, a radical form of struggle, their goals have nothing to do with getting to the roots of problems. They are not radical goals. What is needed is a revolutionary communist leadership that embodies a scientific method and approach and a truly liberating morality consistent with the highest aspirations of all humanity to guide the masses, and for the masses to make this vision their own, striving for the elimination of “the four alls”: the abolition of all class distinctions, all the relations of production on which they rest, all the social relations that correspond to these production relations, and the revolutionization of all the ideas that correspond to those social relations. There is absolutely nothing like this in the outlook of the FARC and ELN.

The decisive question for the people is whether this capitalist-imperialist system, and the concrete expression of its domination in countries like Colombia, will continue devastating lives and the planet itself, legitimizing its actions through all of its political representatives—including those who present themselves as leftists—or whether, on the contrary, there will be a new repolarization with the development of a movement for revolution led by a real revolutionary communist party, one that makes Bob Avakian’s new synthesis of communism its own, so that amidst the struggles against the outrages committed by this system it can lead the people to transform themselves to struggle radically and carry out a real revolution that can allow humanity to shake off all the dark years of oppressive and exploitative societies. This is the revolutionary communists’ crucial challenge.

As the traditional parties are falling into chaos and the functioning of this bourgeois democracy is making millions of people more frustrated and angry every day, there are tremendous possibilities to show the necessity for a radical solution to all this: the revolutionary overthrow of the existing order and the establishment of a new, really revolutionary state that can mobilize the people to begin to solve the problems humanity faces and overcome the divisions and inequalities that now devastate it. The growing polarization of society presents serious dangers. But these same explosive conditions also bring real opportunities to begin to forge a different kind of future. There is an urgent need for millions of people to unite to confront the enormous problems of the people in Colombia and the whole world from a perspective based on the needs of oppressed humanity. We have to lift our sights beyond the horizon of the present system and begin to build a movement that not only fights the reactionary onslaught but can also take us to the only real solution, communist revolution.

 

 

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Revolution #461 October 17, 2016

Case #76: U.S.-UN Sanctions on Iraq—"A Legitimized Act of Mass Slaughter"

October 17, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Bob Avakian recently wrote that one of three things that has "to happen in order for there to be real and lasting change for the better: People have to fully confront the actual history of this country and its role in the world up to today, and the terrible consequences of this." (See "3 Things that have to happen in order for there to be real and lasting change for the better.")

In that light, and in that spirit, "American Crime" is a regular feature of revcom.us. Each installment will focus on one of the 100 worst crimes committed by the U.S. rulers—out of countless bloody crimes they have carried out against people around the world, from the founding of the U.S. to the present day.

 

The Crime: From 1990 until 2003, the U.S. and the United Nations imposed crippling economic sanctions on Iraq, then ruled by Saddam Hussein. These sanctions began even before the U.S. destroyed much of Iraq's infrastructure, including its electrical, water, and sewage treatment systems, during the January-March 1991 Persian Gulf War, and continued for more than a decade after the war ended. The results were catastrophic for millions of Iraqis, especially for the young, the sick, and the elderly.

Iraq depended on selling oil to buy needed imports of food and equipment for its industry and infrastructure. But U.S.-UN sanctions prevented this—both by preventing Iraq from selling enough oil and by blocking needed imports, often under the claim that they could be used by the military. Iraq’s economy was crippled, and it couldn’t fully repair its shattered electrical and water systems, or buy needed food and medicines. Even chemicals needed for treating water were being blocked.

The result was economic collapse, declining agricultural output (including due to lack of spare parts), widespread shortages of food and medicines, and most devastatingly a crisis of contaminated water.

Before the 1991 Gulf War, 96 percent of Iraqis had access to abundant supplies of safe drinking water. Three years later less than half had such access. In 1991, a UN team reported, “In Baghdad untreated sewage has now to be dumped directly into the river—which is the source of the water supply."

This led to an explosion of water-borne diseases—typhoid, cholera, and especially diarrhea which hit children the hardest. “Since the war Iraqi children have been exposed to biological warfare, massive biological warfare," Dr. Ameed Hamid, director of Iraq’s Red Crescent Society, summed up in the summer of 1991. “When you destroy the infrastructure of a country, sewage with all its germs will flow into the streets; you stop pure water from reaching the children; you give them malnutrition; you prevent medicines from reaching the country. So it’s an excellent environment for death and disease.”

Some children were caught in a vicious cycle: food shortages made them susceptible to disease, while diarrhea from contaminated water made it impossible to absorb the food they did consume, and the lack of medicines made it worse.

Death, disease, and suffering were inflicted on an enormous scale. In 1997, the UN reported that more than 1.2 million Iraqis had died since the beginning of the Gulf War as a result of medical shortages caused by the war and sanctions, including 750,000 children below the age of five.

A 1999 survey by UNICEF and Iraq’s Ministry of Health found that the rate of infant mortality among children under five living in south and central Iraq (where 85 percent of the population lives) had risen from 56 per 1,000 live births in 1984-1989 to 131 between 1994-1999—and was continuing to rise over time.

UNICEF’s estimate of the staggering death toll: 500,000 or more.

Iraqi children under five were dying at more than twice the rate they were before the Gulf War. That’s roughly 5,000 Iraqi children under five dying each month thanks to U.S. actions.

Denis Halliday, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq from August 1997 until September 1998, called sanctions “a deliberate, active program—it’s not just negligence, it’s active—it’s a deliberate decision to sustain a program that they know is killing and targeting children and people. Then it’s a program of some sort, and I think it’s a program of genocide. I just don’t have a better word.”

The Criminals:

The administrations of presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton (including Hillary Clinton, a key player in his administration), and George W. Bush: President George H.W. Bush oversaw the imposition of sanctions, the launching of the 1991 war, and the continued enforcement of sanctions afterward. These punitive sanctions, as well as a stringent disarmament program and frequent military attacks, were continued under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, even as their murderous impact was widely known.

The United Nations: Imposed sanctions on Iraq from 1990-2003.

U.S. Military and CIA: Planned and carried out the destruction of Iraq’s infrastructure and water and electrical systems. Declassified Pentagon studies revealed that U.S. military and intelligence agencies carefully studied Iraq’s water system ahead of time, assessed its potential weaknesses, predicted the catastrophic health impacts of disrupting it, and studied the means to prevent its reconstruction. The U.S. then went ahead and bombed Iraq’s electrical system, virtually shutting down its water and sewage treatment systems, while maintaining the sanctions that prevented its repair. The documents further show that U.S. government analysts tracked the resulting spread of disease.

The U.S. media: Played a crucial role in rationalizing, excusing, and covering up U.S. crimes. For instance, the New York Times, which helped spearhead Iraq coverage, editorialized on July 24, 1991: “To accept human suffering as a diplomatic lever is tormenting—but preferable to leaving the Persian Gulf allies with no credible way to compel Iraqi compliance but resuming military attacks... this is the wrong time to relax the embargo.”

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In Their Own Words:

Leslie Stahl of 60 Minutes in 1996, asking about the impact of sanctions: “We have heard that half a million Iraqi children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And—and you know, is the price worth it? Madeleine Albright, UN Ambassador under Bill Clinton:“I think this is a very hard choice, but the price—we think the price is worth it.”

Pentagon planner on U.S. strategy in 1991 war: People say, ‘You didn’t recognize that it was going to have an effect on water or sewage.’ Well, what we were trying to do with sanctions—help out the Iraqi people? No. What we were doing with the attacks on infrastructure was to accelerate the effect of the sanctions.”

THE ALIBI: U.S.-backed UN sanctions were imposed in August 1990 after Iraq invaded Kuwait. The declared purpose was to force Iraq’s military to withdraw. After the 1991 war, when Iraq withdrew from Kuwait, sanctions were continued under UN Resolution 687 with the stated objective of compelling Iraq to rid itself of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons of mass destruction (and fulfill other UN resolutions). When Iraq disarmed, sanctions were to be lifted.

While the sanctions regime went through various phases, the U.S. consistently claimed the sanctions were not cruel, that humanitarian goods, including food, were being allowed into Iraq, and that sanctions would be lifted only if Hussein had complied with UN demands to disarm. In 2000 Bill Clinton said if Iraqis were hungry or lacked medicine, it was Saddam Hussein’s fault. And Bush II told the UN in September 2002: “Saddam Hussein has subverted this program, working around the sanctions to buy missile technology and military materials. By refusing to comply with his own agreements, he bears full guilt for the hunger and misery of innocent Iraqi citizens.”

THE ACTUAL MOTIVE: The U.S. claim that sanctions were aimed at compelling Iraq to disarm was a lie; they were aimed at crippling and overthrowing the Saddam Hussein regime. His continued rule was deemed a long-term threat to U.S. control of the Persian Gulf and broader Middle East, as well as a blot on its drive, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, to enforce its status as the world’s sole imperialist superpower. Sanctions were aimed at crippling the Hussein regime by preventing it from rebuilding its industry, economy, and military, and making life so miserable for the population it would trigger a military coup that would topple the regime. Robert Gates, Bush Sr.’s deputy national security advisor, admitted in 1991 that “Iraqis will be made to pay the price while Saddam Hussein is in power. Any easing of sanctions will be considered only when there is a new government.”

The U.S. also lied about Iraq’s compliance with its disarmament demands. Within six months of the end of the 1991 Gulf War, Iraqi weapons programs were being discovered and destroyed. Iraq may have destroyed all its weapons of mass destruction by the early 1990s, according to a high-level defector, and certainly by the late 1990s. In October 1998, the International Atomic Energy Agency certified that Iraq had provided it with a “full, final, and complete” account of its nuclear weapons programs, and that the agency had found no evidence of any prohibited nuclear activities since October 1997. A similar report was issued by the UN a year later on Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons programs. In other words, Iraq was disarmed and the U.S. rulers knew it. This is why the U.S. found no weapons after the 2003 invasion.

Yet sanctions were continued under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush despite the fact that the Iraqi people were knowingly being tortured and killed by their impact. Fairfield University professor Carol Joy Gordon concluded that the U.S. government turned UN sanctions into “a legitimized act of mass slaughter.”

Sources:

Larry Everest, Oil, Power & Empire: Iraq and the U.S. Global Agenda (Common Courage 2004), Chapters 5, 6, 7

Thomas Nagy, “The Secret Behind the Sanctions: How the U.S. Intentionally Destroyed Iraq’s Water Supply,” The Progressive, September 2001

Joy Gordon, “Cool War: Economic Sanctions as a Weapon of Mass Destruction,” Harper’s, November 2002

UNICEF and Government of Iraq Ministry of Health, “Child and Maternal Mortality Survey 1999: Preliminary Report,” July 1999 (www.unicef.org)

“Punishing Saddam,” CBS, 60 Minutes, May 12, 1996

"Iraq Under Siege," The Tech, May 5, 2000

 

 

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Revolution #461 October 17, 2016

How This System Works—And Why It Must Be Overthrown

Updated November 2, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

(Note: This is a shorter version of the original article, that people can duplicate or use to read aloud with people. Download PDF for printing this statement.)

 

Capitalism is a “mode of production”—the specific way that society is organized to produce and distribute the necessities of life.  Billions of people worldwide work collectively to produce these necessities.  Yet the means of producing this wealth are privately owned and controlled by a much smaller ruling class, the capitalist-imperialists.  These capitalists exploit the billions on the planet who own no such means and must exchange their ability to work for a wage, or search desperately for some other way to survive. 

The capitalist-imperialists on top set the terms for all of society, including the hundreds of millions “in the middle” who may own a small business, or work as a professional, a manager, a teacher, etc.  And these capitalists compete with each other, in a ruthless, expand-or-go-under struggle to stay on top.  On the basis of that ownership and the control over the wealth that comes with it, the capitalist-imperialist class dominates politics, culture, and ideas—and builds up a massive machine of repression and military might to maintain its rule.   They use force—they dictate to—those who do not go along with those terms.  And they fight with each other over how to rule.

All the forms of oppression today—one people or nationality dominating another, men dominating women, the senseless wars of plunder—benefit these capitalists, either economically or politically.  At the same time, attempting to uproot these sources of outrage, abuse and oppression would NOT benefit these capitalists.  The social upheaval that would result would disrupt all of society, including production.  The resources needed to heal the scars of oppression, or on the other hand, to stop the destruction of the environment, would be vast, and would cut into “profitabililty.”  And these oppressive structures actually economically benefit the capitalists in many ways—through forcing oppressed people to work for less, taking advantage of their conditions to “skin them twice” (using discrimination in lending, for instance, to charge extra high mortgage rates to Black people).  Because of this, the system keeps them going.  

Even more important: the capitalists could not solve these problems even if they wanted to. 

Here's why.  Capitalism “works” and can only work through the competition of one capitalist, or bloc of capital, against another.  Each capitalist must pursue profit and more profit.  To do so, they must carry out production ever more efficiently and cheaply, on an ever larger and more technologically advanced scale, and exploit the workers at their command as thoroughly and ruthlessly as possible.  If they do not, some other capitalist will seize the opening and drive them under. 

This compulsion to expand or go under underlies and has ultimately driven every crime of capitalism.  It drives and shapes every change in the way people work and go about their daily lives.  But it is blind, and out of the control of society.  Today, with the development of capitalism into the worldwide system of imperialism, the shark-like dynamic plays out on a worldwide political scale, in gangster-like wars of one power against another. 

The point is this: even if somehow one set of capitalist-imperialists were to be convinced, against all their “bottom-line” interests, to agree to the social upheaval needed to abolish and transform the oppression that mark and dominate this society; and even if these capitalists could be convinced to redirect the necessarily massive resources in an attempt to solve these problems... they would, very immediately, run up against the very way this system works: eat or be eaten.  They would be crushed. 

This is how the economic and political system we live under works.  These are the rules of the game.  For these reasons, in order for humanity to breathe freely, nothing short of, and nothing less than, a revolution against capitalism-imperialism—a revolution which defeats and dismantles the institutions of violent repression which capitalism-imperialism deploys for its protection and expansion—is absolutely necessary. 

 

 

Additional Readings:

"Preliminary Transformation into Capital"... And Putting an End to Capitalism

Excerpt from The New Communism, “Through Which Mode of Production” 

Naomi Klein’s “This Changes Everything” vs. Actually Confronting the Climate Crisis

Everyone's Talkin' About Inequality—Let's Talk About the System Causing It
Lesson from Bangladesh

 

 

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/461/october-22-national-day-of-protest-to-stop-police-brutality-repression-criminalization-of-a-generation-en.html

Revolution #461 October 17, 2016

October 22nd National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation

Updated October 20, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Revcom.us and REVOLUTION newspaper call on everyone to support and be part of the annual October 22 protests against police brutality, repression, and the criminalization of a generation. In the face of an intolerable situation in which lying murdering pigs continuing to go free... in which millions continue to be packed off into hellish prisons and then destined for lives as pariahs and outcasts, and with this way disproportionately devastating the Black, Latino, Native American and other oppressed communities... and in which increasing repression in all aspects of life has been intensified by the Obama regime, with both Trump AND Clinton promising worse... this resistance must be strengthened and it must be increasingly linked to and built as part of preparing for an actual revolution at the soonest possible time. This system cannot do without this cancerous repression; the revolution will cut it out and end it on Day One of the New Socialist Republic in North America.

Chicago March and Rally

Time: 1pm
Place: Water Tower Park, Michigan and Chicago (820 North Michigan Avenue)
Day:  Saturday, October 22

Call from Gloria Pinex—Mother of Darius Pinex, Murdered by Chicago Police, January 2011

Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired of:
Murder by Police,
Strung Out On Drugs.
Trumped (on), Stomped (on), Framed,
Being Controlled,
Seeing Our Babies Dying to This System,
No More Telling Us Who to Vote For

For the last 5 years I have struggled with my son’s death by police. Darius was murdered by the CPD. I have had a long fight for justice for me and my family. As I fought I learned no police officer will face any time in jail because they are protected by this system.

The reason I am standing up and calling on you to join me is because this has to stop! There are far more innocent people being murdered out here on these streets and around the country by—cops. The system has no future for us. We need a change. 1134 people were killed by police last year alone.

BE THERE! OCTOBER 22nd, 1PM:  WATER TOWER PARK, 820 NORTH MICHIGAN

Enough is Enough!
They killing us every day.
So I ask you, “Which side are you on?”

*LATE-BREAKING ALERT

After granting a permit for the march on Michigan Avenue, the city is trying to maneuver to go back on it. Indications are that they will try to restrict the march to the sidewalks. It is very important that people come out on Saturday, October 22, 1 p.m. at Water Tower Park (820 N. Michigan Ave.) and take to the streets as part of building the kind of resistance needed to stop the way police get away with wantonly murdering Black people in Chicago and across the country. October 22 follows 2 days after the second anniversary of the murder of Laquan McDonald and in the wake of Rahm Emmanuel's plan to hire 1,000 more police to occupy and terrorize oppressed communities. While murdering cops and all those who cover up for them walk free, people are being prosecuted with felonies for protesting police murder and now the city is trying to keep people from being able to march in the streets. ENOUGH! COME OUT FOR O22—MAKE IT UNMISTAKEABLE THAT YOU ARE STANDING UP AGAINST POLICE TERROR.

* * * *

New York City

Assemble at noon in front of the Harlem State Office Building at 163 W. 125th St. on the corner of Adam Clayton Powell for a rally and march, followed by a Stolen Lives Induction Ceremony. Check Facebook events page for more info and updates.

* * * *

San Francisco Bay Area

11:30 a.m.: Meet at Fruitvale (BART) Station Plaza (on the International Blvd. side), for car caravan thru East Oakland, and then at 3:30 p.m. go to Rally for the 50th Anniversary of the Black Panther Party, at 3:30 at Oscar Grant (City Hall) Plaza, at 14th and Broadway, downtown Oakland

* * * *

Los Angeles on October 22:

Gather at 11am at the corner of 107th and Western Avenue for a Car Caravan thru the streets of South Central as part of the 21st Annual National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation!

The Revolution Club, Los Angeles is taking up the Call from Carl Dix to Build the Fight to Stop Police Terror as part of Organizing for an Actual Revolution! On October 22nd: Stop Police Terror! Which Side Are You On?

Contact the Revolution Club, L.A. 323/331-1769; revclub_la@yahoo.com; or follow us on social media @revclub_la

* * * *

For an updated list of October 22 actions for 2016 in cities across the country, go here.

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/461/arne-duncan-says-he-can-buy-the-youth-of-chicago-for-peanuts-en.html

Revolution #461 October 17, 2016

Former Secretary of Education Teaches a Lesson in Reactionary Bullshit

Arne Duncan Says He Can Buy the Youth of Chicago for "Peanuts"—The Revolution Says We Have a Whole World to Win and a New One to Build

October 17, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Arne Duncan is in the news for his plan to stop the violence among the youth. According to the Chicago Tribune (October 16): “Arne Duncan has been spending time recently at Cook County Jail. The former U.S. education secretary goes on to talk to ‘the shooters,’ he said, to get their input on how to curb the city’s soaring gun violence.... Every time I’m with them I’m telling them, ‘Here’s my grand bargain: We’re going to employ you, we’re going to give you a chance to work and make a legal wage, but you have to stop shooting, you have to walk away from that,’ Duncan said. ‘So what is that price point? What does that take?’ And the consensus is about $12 to $13 an hour. It’s peanuts.”*

Let’s set the record straight. Arne Duncan shouldn’t be visiting “shooters” in jail as if he is some benevolent person trying to do better in the world. People like him who run this system are responsible for the deaths and ruining the lives of millions more people here and around the world than even the worst gang members could ever imagine.

For over a decade, Arne “teach to the test” Duncan has been in charge of schools—first, in Chicago and then, as U.S. secretary of education under Obama until last year. His national program for the schools was “Race to the Top.” Teachers described it as a system to TEST AND PUNISH. Translated, that means force the students to memorize isolated facts and then punish schools and teachers that didn’t do well on the standardized testing. Programs like this gutted the joy out of teaching and learning. It stripped out funding for important extracurricular activity like music, theater, art, and journalism as resources had to be devoted to test preparation. It trampled on critical thinking. He’s now managing partner for a “philanthropic” organization.

Inner-city schools have been designed to fail the masses of Black and Latino youth—funneling them off to prison, onto the mean streets, or into the U.S. military killing machine. And then they turn around and blame the teachers, the community, the youth... blame anybody but this system. They have a few “escape hatches” for a few kids who can make it through, but in the main these schools are graveyards for the potential of our youth. This system has a name, capitalism-imperialism—and it has shown over and over it has no future for our youth.

While gangs have always been part of urban capitalism, the dramatic rise of gangs 40 years ago came when industrial production was pulled out of the inner cities. Capitalism was driven to seek more profitable ways to invest in the rural areas and in the oppressed nations of the world. At the same time, there was wholesale funneling of drugs into the same areas suffering major loss of jobs, including with the connivance and manipulation of the U.S. CIA. The gangs controlled this trade, and a huge wave of violence over who would be on top raged.

Duncan even admits that in these situations it is “a rational choice to work in the illegal economy because that is the only choice they have.” When the rulers, for whatever reason, decided to move against some of the leaders of some of the gangs—and Duncan himself comes very close to admitting this in his interview with the Chicago Tribune—the destruction of the gang hierarchies as well as tearing down public housing virtually guaranteed a wave of anarchic violence, of youths killing each other. What does that tell you about this system? What does that tell you about where the guilt for this terrible mayhem really lies? This is not a small-time player; this is Obama’s guy and his secretary of education until recently.

The real story is that the rulers look at the youth in these areas as “social dynamite.” When the drug trade served them, they controlled it. When they decided to go in a different direction, they cracked down. Throughout, they created massive data bases on the youth, locking them up and locking them down in heavily policed neighborhoods. The gutting of the public schools and the placing of police, metal detectors, extreme punishments for minor mischief, etc. is all part of the same picture—and this, too, is especially intense in Chicago.

So years of overseeing the destruction of young people’s futures makes Arne Duncan really qualified for his new job. And what is this game that he’s hyping in the Chicago Tribune? Some puny ass program to save a very few young men from the meat grinder he was busy feeding them into in the first place. This is like an arsonist setting a house on fire then bringing a few jugs of water to splash on the victims being burned up by it.

Remember this: one-half of all Black young men in Chicago ages 20 to 24 are not working or in school. Duncan’s plan is to get businesses to hire small groups of young men in 15 of the hardest hit neighborhoods. Right now this means jobs for about 25 young men. EVEN if he realizes the full plan, this is a measly 375 jobs. Temporary jobs at that.

These are pitiful efforts to pretend that something is being done about the horrendous situation these youth confront. At the same time, Chicago mayor Rahm Emmanuel, who worked with Duncan in the Obama administration, is implementing the main program to deal with the youth in Chicago—1,000 more cops to suppress these youth. (See “Rahm’s Only Answer to Violence Among the People—Ratchet Up State Violence Against the People.”).Yes, the same Rahm Emmanuel who closed more than 50 schools and cut others to the bone, laying off teachers and even forcing parents to fight to keep open a school library.

In an earlier interview Duncan described a 12-year-old, weary of hearing his mother cry because she couldn’t pull together the rent, so he was driven to crime to help out. What kind of system is it that leaves children as young as 12 years old to try to come up with the rent to keep a roof over their family’s heads and food in their bellies? This capitalist-imperialist system that has no way to profitably exploit hundreds of thousands of youth—and this system needs to be done away with as soon as possible.

Even the “liberals” who acknowledge that there are social and economic causes of “crime” on some level urge immediate and harsh punitive measures. This is revealed by Elizabeth Hinton, who points out in her new book From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime, “In the mid-1970s, Senator Edward Kennedy wrote that even if ‘social policies we initiate in the 1970s will reduce the crime rate in the 1980s... that is too long to wait.’” And then there is Bill (and Hillary) Clinton, who did more to increase mass incarceration than any president in U.S. history, or in the history of the world. They were always claiming there would be some social program later on, but first they had to “bring these youth to heel” (to paraphrase Hillary). So, when Clinton passed the vicious “Omnibus Crime Bill” in 1994, they included some money for midnight basketball!!

Duncan literally says that he can buy some “social peace” for “peanuts.” The revolution does not offer peanuts or dead-end jobs or a life dedicated to addicting people to poison and dying, or going to prison, before you’re 25. The revolution “offers” one thing: the chance to fight with everything you have for a whole different world through revolution, a communist revolution where the ultimate goal is a world where people work and struggle together for the common good. A world where everyone contributes whatever they can to society and gets back what they need to live a life worthy of human beings... where there are no more divisions among people in which some rule over and oppress others, robbing them not only of the means to a decent life but also of knowledge and a means for really understanding, and acting to change, the world.

Right now, the Get Into the Revolution National Organizing Campaign and Tour is in Chicago, and the likes of Arne Duncan offer the youth of Chicago a stark choice. Which will it be? Scuffling and hustling in the illegal economy, daring death every day... for nothing? Trying to get in on some bullshit never-gonna-happen scheme of the system? Or standing up, fighting against the REAL ENEMY, for something that really counts?

That is the choice. It’s as simple and stark as that.

 

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* Everybody who wants an example of the nauseating paternalism and disgusting mercenary outlook and morality of the bourgeoisie should read this article for an excellent teacher by negative example. [back]

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/461/updates-from-national-organizing-tour-chicago-october2016-en.html

Revolution #461 October 17, 2016

Updated November 12, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/462/national-tour-chicago-get-into-the-revolution-now-rally-en.html

Revolution #461 October 17, 2016

October 20, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

The National Tour is in Chicago

GET INTO THE REVOLUTION NOW!

RALLY Saturday, October 29, 1 pm

Downtown in Grant Park at the Northeast Corner of Michigan and Congress (Near the Native American on horse statue. In case of rain, call for location of indoor rally.)

 

This system grinds up, oppresses and kills people all over the world. This system locks down generations of Black and Brown youth, brutalizing and incarcerating them and even blowing them away—or else setting them up to fight each other, when they should be fighting the REAL enemy. This system teaches men to disrespect and brutalize women, when the fury of women must be unleashed for revolution. This system wages unjust wars, it destroys the environment, and it persecutes the millions of immigrants who it uproots.

This system has to be OVERTHROWN.

Look at this system’s election and their candidates. They are nothing but gangsters fighting over who will rule the empire. Whoever wins, it will mean nothing for the people but more of the same. Unless and until WE get organized to build our strength, and reach out to others. We need to take advantage of the conflicts between the rulers and get ready for a REAL revolution to overthrow them.

We need to make revolution to OVERTHROW this system. The Get into the Revolution National Organizing Campaign and Tour is in Chicago to recruit YOU into the Revolution. Don’t miss the Revcoms on October 29—people who have a real understanding of WHY we need nothing less than a revolution... what that revolution would do... how we could make such a revolution at the soonest possible moment... and where YOU fit in.

“Those this system has cast off, those it has treated as less than human, can be the backbone and driving force of a fight not only to end their own oppression, but to finally end all oppression, and emancipate all of humanity.”
—Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party

AMERICA WAS NEVER GREAT!
OVERTHROW, DON’T VOTE FOR, THIS SYSTEM!
STOP KILLING EACH OTHER! START FIGHTING THE REAL ENEMY!

More info: Chicago Revolution Club,
312-804-9121, email: revclub.chi@gmail.com

 

Tired of trying to be the baddest broke-leg MF’er?
Watch Bob Avakian, the leader of the revolution:

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/461/nypd-pigs-murder-deborah-danner-in-her-own-home-en.html

Revolution #461 October 17, 2016

October 19, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

From the Revolution Club, New York City

NYPD Pigs Murder Deborah Danner in Her Own Home
How Many More? Enough/Basta Ya!  ...
Police Murder Must Stop NOW!
It's Time to Get Organized for An Actual Revolution

 

Speak Out and Protest
Thursday, October 20, 5:00 pm
Union Square, South Side

Deborah Danner, a mentally ill elderly Black woman was shot down by the NYPD Tuesday. In her own home by police responding to calls for help.

Over and over and over again, this system and its enforcer pigs murder innocent people. Eric Garner... Philando Castile.... Alton Sterling.... Keith Lamont Scott... and now Deborah Danner, a woman suffering a psychiatric crisis, who like too many mentally ill people before her, was shot dead by the police, when compassion and help are what's required.

Police murder and white supremacy are built into this system. A system which needs to be overthrown at the soonest possible time—and it can be! It’s Time to Get Organized for an Actual Revolution. Get With the Revolution Club! We say:

This Has to Stop Now! It’s Up to Us!
Speak Your Rage, Protest This Hideous Murder  

FIGHT THE POWER,
AND TRANSFORM THE PEOPLE,
FOR REVOLUTION!

 

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/461/trump-goes-even-further-in-openly-rallying-white-supremacist-fascists-en.html

Revolution #461 October 17, 2016

Trump Goes Even Further in Openly Rallying White Supremacist Fascists

Updated October 20, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Update October 20: The following article—exposing what is behind Trump's claim of "rigged" elections—was posted Wednesday afternoon, before the presidential debate in which Donald Trump refused to promise to recognize the validity of the result of the election.  While we intend to speak further to the particular implications of that, the analysis and points below remain extremely relevant in their own right—and barely spoken to, if at all, in any of the commentary thus far on last night's debate.

Let’s be clear what Trump is really saying when he says that the “election is rigged” and then tells his supporters to go into and “monitor” the voting in big cities with lots of Black and immigrant voters. He means that his backers should go out and intimidate Black people and dark-skinned immigrants from exercising what is in fact their right. Whatever his aims in terms of the election, he is aiming to further mobilize a combative white supremacist social base, willing to fight against Black and Brown people exercising their rights, and for fascism.

Any such attempt in any city must be vigorously opposed, with real determination. While the right to vote in this system is nothing but an exercise in which people choose who will oppress them, any attempt to deny that right to people based on their nationality cannot be tolerated. This is especially true when Black people, along with some whites, bled and died for the right of African-American people to vote, including in the 1960s. Even today shameless white supremacist politicians maneuver to exclude Black and Brown people from the ballot, and this is backed up by the “White Supremacist” Court. And please note: as of this writing, no significant Republican or Democratic politician has denounced this open call for white supremacist intimidation and terror for what it is and the forceful terms it demands. No, all they mount against Trump are weak cries that the system is “fair.”

When Trump says that the system is “rigged” it strikes a chord with some. In fact, the system works the way it is supposed to work: to keep people confused and powerless. The howling irony in all this is that the racist, sexist, xenophobic, money-grubbing asshole Trump himself is a product and beneficiary of how the system works. The capitalist-imperialists who rule society are the ones who determine and dictate who gets a hearing... what gets debated... which terms get set. They determine the choices that we get. They may fight among themselves over this, as they are now, but the terms of this fight are confined within the framework of what is best for this system. Enough of them wanted Trump out there to win him the nomination; and even those who didn’t, including the Democrats, never denounced him and what he stood for as utterly illegitimate and reactionary. This system is not “rigged”—in the sense that Trump means it—it is illegitimate, and Trump himself is Exhibit A. This guarantees that whoever wins, be it Clinton or Trump, will fight for the interests of this system as he or she (and the people around them) see those interests. So again, that is not rigging—that is how the system works… and why it must be overthrown.

As we said in our earlier editorial this week, this is no ordinary election—and Trump’s open call not only for white supremacist intimidation and possible terror at the polls is part of what makes it so. And as that editorial said:

The potential for further and much deeper crisis to erupt in the days to come, and especially around the election itself and its immediate aftermath, looms very large. The already sharp conflicts between sections of the ruling class could deepen and crack further. Such crisis can act as a jolt on people, jarring them out of their normal way of looking at things and leading them to question and resist what they normally accept. We need to come from behind to be ready to seize on whatever does happen to hasten REVOLUTION, preparing and organizing masses of people to respond to this not by falling in behind one side or the other of the oppressive rulers, but by taking advantage of this situation to build up the forces for revolution.

This means confronting the actual situation and fighting to take things as far as possible, including in the current Get Into the Revolution National Organizing Campaign and Tour, working to bring into being a revolutionary situation—a situation, as the Party statement How We Can Win says, “Where millions and millions of people refuse to be ruled in the old way—and are willing and determined to put everything on the line to bring down this system and bring into being a new society and government that will be based on the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America. That is the time to go all-out to win. That is what we need to be actively working for and preparing for now.” (From “The Election Crisis and the Real Stakes in November”)

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/461/challenging-protesters-at-trump-tower-to-get-to-the-root-of-the-problem-and-the-real-solution-en.html

Revolution #461 October 17, 2016

From the Revolution Club, NYC:

Challenging “Pussy Power” Protesters at Trump Tower to Get to the Root of the Problem and the Real Solution

October 20, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

October 19—The Pussy Power rally at Trump Tower was filled with furious people whose energy and rage against Donald Trump and the culture of rape, misogyny, and oppression he represents was being preyed upon by opportunists from the Democratic Party, in all their narrow-minded vileness.

Chants were raised and signs flew high, bearing slogans like “Grab him by the BALL‑OT” and “This pussy votes!”

The Revcoms and a few people who had shown up to run with the Revolution Club initially marched through and around the crowd. Our signs said: “America was NEVER great! We need to OVERTHROW this system!” And “Women are not bitches, hos, sex objects, breeders, or punching bags! Women are full human beings!” And “Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution.” Some signs also included images of the cover of THE NEW COMMUNISM.

We chanted: “Break the chains! Break, break the chains! Overthrow the system—women are NOT slaves!” And “Fascist Trump and Imperialist Clinton: Criminal Choices of a Criminal System!” And “1-2-3-4 Slavery, Genocide, and War—5-6-7-8 America Was Never Great”.

The rallying crowd was penned in by barricades. And the roaming pigs, high on power and testosterone, could barely keep it together enough to grease on sickening smiles and insist that people get off the sidewalks and stay penned in...although a couple of them were clearly pushing and prodding protesters.

The Revcoms went in among the crowd, and after a brief tête-à-tête to determine what would be done to draw the crowd away from the near-drowsy stupor they seemed to have been lulled into (undoubtedly by the certainty that “pussy power” would rid the world of Donald Trump and everything he represents, and all they had to do to make this happen was hold their noses and cast a vote for a war-mongering super-predator like Hillary Clinton).

We made our way to the larger conglomeration of media, by the oozing epicenter of democratic action (large neon signs reading “VOTE” and so on), and whipped out our bullhorn...

Members of the Club, as well as others who were running with the Club started agitating. We called on people to cast off illusions and realize that they were being played, channeled into supporting the same illegitimate system that continually gives rise to and justifies the crimes of Donald Trump and many others like him. We challenged them to get to the root of what the ACTUAL problem facing humanity is—a system that is rotten to the core and built on the backs of millions of people who are enslaved and exploited for the sake of profit by a relative handful of competing capitalists. We urged, if we are ever to break the chains that shackle women here and all over the world, we must overthrow and get beyond the system of capitalism-imperialism. This agitation did not fly with the Democrats. A rabid few of them began to threaten the Revcoms and one of them began to scream into the ears of the person who was agitating. Another one tried to grab the bullhorn, scratching and pulling at the Revcom holding it. This went on, as the other Club members kept up the steady chant of “Slavery, genocide, and war!” until a few people intervened to pull the Democrats away and block their advances.

For another half-hour the RevComs went among the people, handing out the Revolutionary Communist Party Central Committee statement “HOW WE CAN WIN—How We Can Really Make Revolution.” We tried to engage people then, but the response was sparse and largely unfocused, as people shoved the statement into bags and pockets and continued to chant about how Hillary Clinton would somehow end rape culture... Pro-Trump marchers nearby yelled into the crowd, accusing “feminazis” of waging a war on men, and Hillary Clinton of “supporting her rapist husband.”

Then the crowd started to thin out a little. A few people who were interested in the “Mein Trumpf: A Thoroughly American Fascist Pig!” and “Women Are Full Human Beings!” posters came up to take photographs of them, and we spoke with them about the need to press forward in the struggle to emancipate women and seize power from the capitalist-imperialists. We put forward the question and challenge posed by BA in one of the pieces in his compilation Break ALL the Chains: Bob Avakian on the Emancipation of Women and the Communist Revolution: “Can This System Do Away With, or Do Without, the Oppression of Women?” We invited them to the Revolution Bookstore, and to engage seriously with the real problem society faces and the solution concentrated in this movement for revolution.

Find out more about the revolution         Find out about BA, the leader of the revolution

We broke up into groups again, and went among the people who were still arguing with the Trump supporters, giving interviews to the media, and waving signs at half-mast. One Revcom spoke with a small group of about six young women who had been giving interviews to the media (the newscaster listened in for a few minutes as well, before retreating). She pointed out the real stakes of these elections (taking orientation from the October 17 revcom.us article: “The Elections Crisis and the Real Stakes in November.” Especially emphasizing that whether or not Trump wins in November, the storm of fascist hatred and misogyny whipped up around him will have been legitimized in the tens of millions among the masses and the ruling class, and that storm will not simply blow away, whether or not Hillary Clinton secures more votes during the process. And also that regardless of what the personal feelings of Clinton are, the system that she represents has patriarchy and exploitation of women woven into it. She challenged them, as human beings, to take up the responsibility of really digging into the solution to this, not just lining up behind one side of the ruling class or the other, but to really take responsibility for themselves and the masses of humanity, and actually work to overcome ALL forms of oppression, with a real revolution, and the strategy and leadership to bring this into being.

Learn About the Revolution Club HERE

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/462/trumps-refusal-to-accept-the-election-results-en.html

Revolution #461 October 17, 2016

Behind Trump's Refusal to Pledge to Accept Election Results

Trump's Fascism, Clinton's Refusal to Call Him Out, and the Illegitimacy of This Whole System

October 22, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Wednesday, October 19, at the presidential debate, Donald Trump refused to pledge that he would recognize the results of the election. In the days since, there has been an uproar from the media and many politicians. “This goes against what makes America great,” they say. When they try to explain Trump’s motives for what is, in many ways, an unprecedented statement, they may say that he’s a “narcissist” or that he has the “wrong temperament”—Hillary Clinton at the debate even said that it’s because he’s a sore loser, and compared this to the way he acted when he lost the Emmy award for his TV show.

It’s way deeper than that. And way more significant than they’re letting on.

The Elephants in the Room: Unbridled Racism...

First, let’s look at what they are NOT saying. A lot of Donald Trump’s argument that the election is supposedly rigged boils down to the idea that Black people and immigrants are going to be committing voter fraud. So let’s ask this: Where was the question at the debate, or the statement from Clinton, that called attention to the fact that Trump in the days leading up to the debate had been essentially calling on his supporters to prevent Black people and immigrants from voting by directly confronting them at the polling places? Where was this even mentioned?

Indeed, where during or after this debate was there even mention of the fact that Trump has recently made a point of calling for the re-imprisonment of the Central Park 5—despite the fact that the railroad of these Black and Latinos youths was a notorious racist frame-up in which Trump himself was a major player, and that they have been convincingly exonerated?¹

Trump’s whole campaign has normalized open and vitriolic racist attacks against Mexicans and Chicanos, Black people, Muslims, and immigrants way beyond even what Reagan and Bush I did. And by the way, despite Obama and Clinton now wanting to “claim” the mantle of Ronald Reagan, he not only ran an extremely racist campaign but was infamous while he lived for his racist agitation and actions.²

Hillary Clinton’s tepid criticism of Trump at the debate for “going after” different groups of people doesn’t begin to capture the real venom involved at every single one of his rallies, the real terms of it, and the real aims. And now, should Trump persist in this, there is the real possibility of armed white supremacist fascists answering his call to “monitor” the vote in the big cities. (See “Trump Goes Even Further in Openly Rallying White Supremacist Fascists,” update October 20, 2016.)

...And Fascism

Here’s another elephant in the room, just as big as the first one: Trump’s whole campaign has been an openly fascist one, giving vicious and aggressively open expression to the ugliest trends. Where was, and where is, the major politician of either major party who is willing to say that Trump all along has been whipping up an openly fascist movement and analyzing his threat in that light?

Trump calls into question the traditions of U.S. capitalist democracy from a reactionary point of view of making things even more repressive.

And no, the elections are not “rigged” in the sense that Trump means it. Trump implies that if only they were done by the rules, all would be well. Trump is pushing the idea that the system works perfectly, but it’s been broken by corrupt people like the Clintons, and now we need a “strong man” to make the system work. No—this system has never “worked” to do anything but grind down and exploit billions, from the slavery and genocide on which it was founded to its worldwide empire today. The elections themselves are designed to serve the rule of the capitalist-imperialists as a class.

Ask yourself this: if the capitalist-imperialists did NOT control the elections, then how in the world would an ignoramus like Trump get so much free air time and publicity? No other candidate even came close to him on this. How did Trump go on and on, debate after debate, and interview after interview, without being shredded—or even seriously confronted—for his racism, his lies, his views of and attacks on women, his open attacks on the rule of law, and all the rest? What does it say that all the candidates in the Republican and Democratic parties treated him as “legitimate”—when, again, it has been clear all along that he is a brutal fascist?

Let’s be clear: Donald Trump may cultivate the image of someone “who says what he thinks,” but in running this fascist stuff, Trump represents a significant section of the U.S. ruling class. Again, this is reflected both by how every major political player in this system still treats him as legitimate and will not call out his fascism. It is further reflected by the presence of significant ruling class politicians and forces who are in Trump’s camp. This includes people like Rudolf Giuliani with his ties to the police forces and repressive apparatus, Mike Pence with his deep ties to the Christian fascists, Newt Gingrich with his past history as the Speaker of the House of Representatives and key Republican leader, retired general Michael Flynn with his background of high-level military positions, etc.

These forces have for a long time pushed the idea that much greater repression is needed to hold society together. They look around at the fact that for large sections of people the so-called “American Dream”—the idea that each generation would at least be materially better off than their parents—is dying. They see potential in that for disillusionment, questioning, and unrest and they don’t like it—or they want to turn it to reactionary purposes. They see both a necessity and an opportunity to direct the resentment of millions of whites toward Black and Latino people, and toward immigrants of color—and they seize on it. They look at the threats to American domination of the world (which is in fact the basis for that “dream” in the first place), and they see the need for more militarism and more repression to shore up that domination. They look at the way that changes in the economy are undermining “traditional relations,” and they attempt to cohere both men and women around the “traditional family”—and, in Trump’s case, the traditional prerogatives of males to openly and grossly prey upon women—to batter down women’s rights. They look at legal rights that people have fought for, and they see obstacles. In their view, if they need fascism to do all this, so be it.

What “Alternative” to Trump Does Hillary Clinton Actually Offer?

Donald Trump is a non-stop misogynist, a naked racist, a compulsive liar, and yes, on some level a ridiculous, fucking idiot (even as there’s a very deadly fascist logic to all this and a very ugly mass movement behind it). He’s got an ugly past and an uglier present. So in a certain sense, it’s relatively easy to look good in comparison. But what program was Hillary Clinton actually putting forward in “opposition” to Trump? And what’s her history?

Yes, Trump’s a raging jingoist, beating the drum for American military superiority and domination—but how did Clinton expose and counter that? By denouncing Trump for being a lightweight who’s too soft to run the U.S. empire! Mocking him as “Putin’s puppet” because he’s not “tough enough” against Russia. Because he was hosting Celebrity Apprentice while she was in the “Situation Room” overseeing the assassination of Osama bin Laden. Because he’s for “backing down” and conceding Aleppo, and Syria as a whole, to Russia, while she’s ready to escalate the war with a no-fly zone.

Clinton cited 10—apparently former presidents and VP’s—who’ve been responsible for the U.S. nuclear arsenal, who’ve said “they would not trust Donald Trump with the nuclear codes or to have his finger on the nuclear button.” But what about Clinton’s fingers? Military officials are now warning that the no-fly zone she’s proposing in Syria could lead to a direct U.S.-Russia confrontation, with the potential to go nuclear. And let’s not forget that it was a “liberal” and very down-to-earth, “sensible” Democratic president—Harry S. Truman—who is the only person in history who actually utilized these weapons of mass incineration. Or that it was another liberal and one with intellectual pretentions—John F. Kennedy—who came closest by far to igniting a nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. Such is this system’s “lesser evil” and “realistic” alternative to Trump on foreign policy.

Clinton brags about her qualifications. Well, what are those qualifications? Being neck-deep in the first Clinton administration military embargo (“sanctions”) against Iraq, which resulted in the deaths of half a million children.³ Taking the lead in deciding to make war against Libya, which led to thousands of deaths directly and which made the refugee crisis much worse, leading to untold suffering. In other words, she’s arguing her qualifications to be—and promising to be—much more aggressive in using American force and violence all over the world.

What alternative did Hillary Clinton propose in opposition to Trump’s naked, violent anti-immigrant racism and incitement? She agreed on the need for border security. She feels walls should be built in places where that’s “appropriate.” And she went after him for hiring undocumented immigrants and hurting American workers. All this while staying totally silent on the fact that the Obama administration she was part of and still supports deported 2.5 million people—more than any president in U.S. history.

And what about women, where surely there’s no comparison; Hillary Clinton’s program really is fundamentally different than Trump’s ugly misogyny, right? Some of Clinton’s current positions, such as on abortion, are not identical to Trump’s. But a champion who’s “found her voice” for women? As Sunsara Taylor pointed out in Revolution, as Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama are excoriating Trump for abusing women, “To cite just one dimension of this: Even as Michelle Obama was delivering her recent speech, Saudi Arabia, with U.S. backing and U.S.-supplied arms, etc., is bombing and blowing to pieces large numbers of civilians, including many women and girls, in Yemen; and the same Saudi Arabia, a key ally of the U.S., embodies some of the most horrendous oppression of women and girls anywhere in the world.

“And this isn’t all. There is the reality that the system represented by the Obamas, the Clintons, and the Democrats, as well as the Republicans, rests in a fundamental way on a worldwide network of sweatshops, where masses of people, a large number of them women and girls, are viciously exploited.” (See “Women Are Not Bitches, Ho’s, or Punching Bags... Women Are Full Human Beings,“ October 15, 2016).

Find out more about the revolution         Find out about BA, the leader of the revolution

In other words, Hillary Clinton is just as much a representative of the system of capitalism-imperialism as Trump is. What separates them is that she represents a section of the ruling class that believes a different set of “cohering norms” (what people agree to as “legitimate”) is needed to keep the U.S. as top dominator of a rapidly changing world. These include at least the appearance of “inclusivity” and “diversity,” some form of a social safety net, and the claim of adherence to the rule of law (while continuing to further undercut and shred the actual rule of law and legal rights of the people as Obama has done). Clinton and those she represents believe that traditional notions of bipartisanship are essential to holding this monstrous empire together at a time of tremendous stress, strain, and challenge. They think that the GOP/Trump program would destabilize, weaken, and threaten the whole oppressive system.

The Democrats and the “Pyramid of Power”

It’s important to understand that Clinton and the Democrats also appeal to a different social base than the Republicans.

In “The Pyramid of Power And the Struggle to Turn This Whole Thing Upside Down,” BA explains:

Who are the people that they try to appeal to—not that the Democrats represent their interests, but who are the people that the Democrats try to appeal to at the base, on the other side of this pyramid, so to speak? All the people who stand for progressive kinds of things, all the people who are oppressed in this society. For the Democrats, a big part of their role is to keep all those people confined within the bourgeois, the mainstream, electoral process...and to get them back into it when they have drifted away from—or broken out of—that framework. Because those people at the base are always alienated and angry at what happens with the elections, for the reason I was talking about earlier: they are always betrayed by the Democratic Party, which talks about “the little man” and poor people and the people who are discriminated against, and so on. And at times they’ll even use the word oppression. But then they just sell out these people every time—because they don’t represent their interests. They represent the interests of the system and of its ruling class. But they have a certain role of always trying to get people who are oppressed, alienated and angry back into the elections. You know: “Come on in, come on in—it’s not as bad as you think, you can vote, it’s OK.” This is one of the main roles they play. But the thing about them is that they are very afraid of calling into the streets this base of people that they appeal to, to vote for them. The last thing in the world they want to do is to call these masses of people into the streets to protest or to battle against this right-wing force that’s being built up.

This points to a key reason why Clinton and the Democrats do NOT want to directly call out Trump for what he actually is—a fascist—and do NOT want to make a big deal out of his threats to unleash armed racists at the polls. As BA points out, the Democrats fear that doing so would arouse and unleash their social base in confrontation against these fascists, and that then “the genie is out of the bottle.” That is, as people begin to question and resist what they normally accept, the movement for revolution can seize on this to advance the revolution and expand its organized forces.

It is very important that every progressive person, everyone wanting to see change, who believes that the Democrats are “our only hope” in this situation, come to grips with this basic point from BAsics 3:11:

These right-wing politicians (generally grouped within the Republican Party) can, will, and do actively mobilize this essentially fascist social base...yet, on the other side, the sections of the ruling class that are more generally represented by the Democratic Party are very reluctant to, and in fact resistant to, mobilizing... the base of people whose votes and support in the bourgeois political arena the Democrats seek to gain. This (Democratic Party) side of the ruling class generally is not desirous of—and in fact recoils at the idea of—calling that base into the streets, mobilizing them either to take on the opposing forces in the ruling class and their social base or in general to struggle for the programs that the Democratic Party itself claims to represent and actually in some measure does seek to implement....

As an amplification of the basic point here, it is important to recognize this: Within the framework of the capitalist-imperialist system, and with the underlying dynamics of this system, which fundamentally set the terms, and the confines, of “official” and “acceptable” politics, fascism—that is, the imposition of a form of dictatorship which openly relies on violence and terror to maintain the rule and the imperatives of the capitalist-imperialist system—is one possible resolution of the contradictions that this system is facing—a resolution that could, at a certain point, more or less correspond to the compelling needs of this system and its ruling class—while revolution and real socialism, aiming toward the final goal of communism, throughout the world, is also a possible resolution of these contradictions, but one that would most definitely not be acceptable to the capitalist-imperialist ruling class nor compatible with the imperatives of this system!

Trump, the “Lesser Evil” Clinton, and the Illegitimacy of This Whole System

Donald Trump’s fascism, Hillary Clinton’s refusal to call this out or mobilize serious opposition to it, and the fact that both represent the same oppressive, murderous system, exposes the bankruptcy of the “lesser evil” argument, and the illegitimacy of the whole set-up.

As we argued in “The Deadly Logic of the Lesser Evil”:

As for the argument, “Well, yes, Clinton is not what we really want, she is actually quite bad, but she is ‘the lesser evil,’ and there are realistically only two choices—either Clinton or Trump—so if you don’t go for Clinton you are helping elect Trump,” this actually amounts to nothing more than the argument that, “As long as you accept the logic and ‘choices’ dictated by this system, you have to accept the logic and ‘choices’ dictated by this system.” Doesn’t the fact that this system has produced someone like Trump as a “legitimate” candidate, heading one of the two major political parties of this system—doesn’t this powerfully demonstrate the utter illegitimacy of the whole system? And the fact that Clinton and the Democrats will only oppose Trump with arguments that amount to insisting that they are better representatives of this same system, and can do a better job of perpetrating its crimes—doesn’t this powerfully demonstrate the urgent need to break with the logic and assumptions of this system and rise up against it and those who represent it, including Clinton as well as Trump? (August 1, 2016)

This gets to the very essential point made by Bob Avakian:

“The much-proclaimed democracy under this system is a sham, and worse—it promotes the illusion that it is expressing ‘the will of the people,’ while really involving the people in ‘legitimizing’ the rule of a rapacious and murderous class of capitalist-imperialists, who dominate and shape the electoral process, and political decision-making overall, and whose rule is in reality a dictatorship that fundamentally relies on brutally oppressive force and violence.” (June 6, 2016)

What Must Be Done

This underscores the importance of what we wrote in Revolution only a few days ago and how it has taken on increased urgency with the wildly unpredictable but very possibly convulsive turns events could take up to November 8, and afterwards:

[T]his is no ordinary election. The potential for further and much deeper crisis to erupt in the days to come, and especially around the election itself and its immediate aftermath, looms very large. The already sharp conflicts between sections of the ruling class could deepen and crack further. Such crisis can act as a jolt on people, jarring them out of their normal way of looking at things and leading them to question and resist what they normally accept. We need to come from behind to be ready to seize on whatever does happen to hasten REVOLUTION, preparing and organizing masses of people to respond to this not by falling in behind one side or the other of the oppressive rulers, but by taking advantage of this situation to build up the forces for revolution.

This means confronting the actual situation and fighting to take things as far as possible, including in the current Get Into the Revolution National Organizing Campaign and Tour, working to bring into being a revolutionary situation—a situation, as the Party statement How We Can Win says, “Where millions and millions of people refuse to be ruled in the old way—and are willing and determined to put everything on the line to bring down this system and bring into being a new society and government that will be based on the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America. That is the time to go all-out to win. That is what we need to be actively working for and preparing for now.”

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1. For background on the Central Park 5 case, see “How Trump Agitated for the Railroad of the—Innocent!—Central Park 5: Donald Chump, the Lynch Mob Master,” May 9, 2016 at revcom.us and “Propaganda Instruments of the Ruling Class... And the Railroad of the Central Park 5,” December 16, 2012, by Bob Avakian, also at revcom.us. [back]

2. In 1980, Ronald Reagan officially kicked off his campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, in Neshoba County, at a fairgrounds used as a meeting place by the KKK and where, in 1964, civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney were killed. Such symbolism characterized how Reagan appealed to and promoted white supremacy without actually using overt racist language. The tone of George H.W. Bush’s campaign for president was set with the infamous “Willie Horton” ad that showed a Black man who, while on his ninth furlough from a Massachusetts prison, was arrested and charged with rape. Bush’s campaign manager bragged that it wouldn’t be necessary to say Horton was Black, that because of the ad “Every woman in this country” would “know what Willie Horton looks like before this election is over.” [back]

3. For background, see “American Crime Case #76: U.S.-UN Sanctions on Iraq—‘A Legitimized Act of Mass Slaughter’,” October 17, 2016. [back]

 

 

 

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/462/o22-alert-chicago-en.html

Revolution #461 October 17, 2016

October 22, 2016:
Ground Zero Chicago—Brutal Pigs Attack Defiant March Against Pig Brutality

Updated October 24, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

October 22nd is the National Day of Protest Against Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation. This year, there was a range of defiant protest expressing outrage among different sections of people over the ongoing and escalating epidemic of police terror.

Resistance to murder by police is essential if the oppressed are not to be ground down, and unable to raise their heads, and instead can play a critical role as emancipators of humanity. And the struggle against police murder has been where the most defiant resistance to the many crimes of this system has been going on. This is a struggle through which many are being led to question the legitimacy of this system.

A Basic Point of Orientation, posted at revcom.us, says:

It is very important that people rise up and refuse to accept the continual murder of people, particularly Black people as well as Latinos, by police—this, and the other outrages and atrocities continually perpetrated by this system (as concentrated in the 5 Stops), cannot go down without people fighting back and rocking back the powers-that-be. But this must be built toward revolution—an actual revolution that overthrows this system at the soonest possible time—because there is no solution to these outrages under this system, and as long as we live under this system, this will go on...and on. There is a way that we can make a real revolution —and bring into being a radically different and better society: we have the strategy, program, and leadership for this revolution, in the work of BA and the Party he leads, the Revolutionary Communist Party. Everywhere we go, and in everything we do, even as we are continuing to learn more about it, we need to be spreading the word about this revolution far and wide, and organizing for this revolution, drawing people around and into the Revolution Clubs, on the basis of the statement from the RCP Central Committee.

The Revolution Club, and the revcoms, represented, and were organizing for that.

October 22nd in Chicago

Chicago was ground zero for October 22nd this year. Protesters with a permit to march in the street were viciously attacked by police who tore their “Stolen Lives” banner from them, tackled and brutalized them, and arrested them.

The day kicked off with speeches by Carl Dix, an initiator of October 22nd and representative of the RCP and Noche Diaz from the Revolution Club.

LaToya Howell spoke. She is the mother of 17-year-old Justus Howell who was murdered by Zion, Illinois police. Gloria Pinex spoke. She is the mother of Darius Pinex who was murdered by Chicago police. Mark Clements spoke, he had been tortured by Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge. And this powerful testimony represented the tip of the iceberg. Just a few of the victims:

In August, Paul O’Neal, an 18-year-old unarmed Black youth was shot in the back by Chicago police as he ran away from them. Video showed Paul O’Neal, lying on the ground, dying, surrounded by cops, while they plan how to cover-up the murder.

Late December 26th, Quintonio LeGrier, a Black college student, placed desperate calls to 911 asking for help with a mental health crisis. Bettie Jones, a 51-year-old mother of five who lived downstairs in his building, came to help. A few minutes after Quintonio’s last call to 911, Chicago police arrived on the scene and immediately opened fire, murdering the two unarmed victims as they stood inside the entrance to their building.

Laquan McDonald, 17 years old, was gunned down on a busy street by a Chicago cop just seconds after the cop pulled up and jumped out of the squad car in 2014. Video, later released, showed Laquan was walking away from the cops, hands at his side, when a cop shot him 16 times. This cold-blooded execution of a teenager was followed by a massive cover-up.

Each of these murders has been met with outrage in the streets. The murder of Laquan McDonald unleashed a torrent of protests that continued day-after-day, last year, including thousands of people shutting down the Magnificent Mile, Chicago’s most prestigious shopping district, last “Black Friday.”

And as protests have rocked the city, revelations of torture, brutality, and the role of Chicago police in the city’s deadly drug trade have been brought to light.

There have been new revelations of ongoing, systematic torture by police in a city where police commander Jon Burge tortured, and organized the torture, of Black men in Chicago for 20 years or more. In 2015, the Guardian newspaper exposed a secret police torture chamber—Homan Square—in the heart of the overwhelmingly Black West Side, where police secretly detained people as young as 15 years old, beat them, shackled them, refused them access to attorneys. In at least one case a man was found dead after being “interviewed” at Homan Square.

Just this month, forty thousand copies of the pamphlet “Code of Silence,” a publication of The Intercept, have been distributed in Chicago by The Invisible Institute. The pamphlet exposes how police “were major players in the drug trade on the South Side.” And how Chicago officials protected “a massive criminal enterprise within the [Chicago police] department.”

Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel’s “answer” to all this? 1000 more police.

All that and much more set the stage for October 22nd in Chicago this year.

The city of Chicago had granted a permit for two lanes of traffic, and protesters had an enlarged copy of the permit—poster sized—to show to police and the media. Still, police on bicycles and with cars repeatedly shoved people as they were stepping into the permitted region of the march. Police tore the Stolen Lives banner from people’s hands, dragged people into the street, tackled them, piled on them, and arrested them.

The Revolution Club was in the lead. And the moment the march stepped into the street, they were viciously attacked by the very pigs that carry out a reign of terror. Police on bicycles and cars attacked and shoved people as they were stepping into the permitted region of the march. Noche Diaz of the Revolution Club, who is part of the Get Into the Revolution National Tour, was among those singled out for attack and arrest. The march continued, marching through downtown Chicago, reaching thousands of people in the face of an intimidating police presence.

Activist De Ray Mckesson re-tweeted a video of the attack on the march to his 580,000 followers and it has been re-tweeted 900 times.

There are critical stakes of the battle to defend those arrested, and spread the message the Revcoms brought into the streets. And to recruit people into the movement for an actual revolution. The Get Into the Revolution National Tour is in Chicago, and is having a rally Saturday, October 29, 1 pm Downtown in Grant Park at the Northeast corner of Michigan & Congress.

The Revcoms were also in the streets on October 22nd in several cities around the country, including in New York City, Los Angeles, and Oakland.

On this page are snapshots and reports from among those we received from around the country.

More From Chicago

From inside the paddy wagon, people were illegally jumped by police, brutalized, and arrested for participating in a permitted march, sent this message:

Demonstrators and the Revolution Club were viciously attacked by the Chicago Police at O22—the national day of protest against police murder and brutality. The March was permitted. Police targeted people, they beat people with batons, threw people to the ground, viciously twisted people and threw them in the paddy wagon. People should vigorously denounce this police riot and should remain in the streets fighting police murder and all the crimes that this system because it’s against humanity. Get with the revolution. Stop Police Murder. Indict and convict killer cops and send them to jail. The whole damn system is guilty as hell. We refuse to be silent in the face of the vicious brutal murder being [carried out by] the police across this country. Revolution is what we need to liberate people around the world.

Later on October 22nd, about 300 people rallied at Millennial Park in Chicago. This was a combination of CPAC (Civilian Police Accountability Council) and folks who turned out for rapper Vic Mensa’s video release of 16 Shots. The Revolution Club (somewhat diminished in numbers from the earlier arrests, but still powerful) marched up and chanted and got in formation and agitated before the thing officially started, and got attention (positive and negative) and then dived into it with a bunch of folks. The HOW WE CAN WIN—How We Can Really Make Revolution pamphlet got out to nearly everyone—and some people got pretty deeply into what this revolution is about, why you need one, what it means, the strategy, and the mission of the tour.

One group of five young Black friends came from hearing about the protest on rapper Vic Mensa’s twitter feed, watched the Club march in, in style, and watched the mixed reaction as well from forces representing different outlooks on the problem and solution, and different agendas (including ones opposed to revolution). These folks listened to what the Revolution Club was saying, and got into discussion of reform vs revolution, this country’s whole history and why the cops never go to jail, what that means and what it will take to stop, plus broadening out to the 5 stops.

At one point in the back and forth, one of the youth who came to the protest pulled the HOW WE CAN WIN—How We Can Really Make Revolution pamphlet back out of his pocket and began leafing thru it, reading parts. He commented, “You don’t hear many people in favor of communism... I guess that is part of their brainwash.” He was positively intrigued and inclined towards this, not so much communism, but that we were completely unconventional.

Later one of them asked, “What do you think of Black Lives Matter.” The Revcoms said, “As a slogan and rallying cry, absolutely righteous and needed!” They broke down how Black lives have NEVER mattered to America from slavery, Jim Crow, down to today and how essential it is everyone who is in the streets standing up and demanding this now... But they brought out the reality that “You are not going to pass some reforms or laws and get these cops to stop killing...” and the need to overthrow, not vote for the system, and to be getting ready for that now. There were deep discussions with many different knots of people throughout the evening—about reform vs. revolution, the limitations of non-violence, what it will take to get ready for an actual revolution—a lot on the mission of the tour—and some getting into the 6 Points Of Attention of the Revolution Club.

The Revolution Club got into things with clusters of students as well who came out—from University of Illinois, Chicago; and Columbia College. Protesters marched on the sidewalks through busy downtown Chicago till around 9pm.

 

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Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/462/the-2016-national-day-of-protest-en.html

Revolution #461 October 17, 2016

Updates from around the country:

The 2016 National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation

Updated October 24, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us