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The Democrats Have Already Said They Will Accept a Trump Election as Legitimate
What Does That Mean? And What Must We Do?
October 31, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA
ON "PRINCIPLED COMPROMISES," AND OTHER CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY
* Writing in the New York Times “Book Review” section (Sunday, October 25, 2015), speaking about the convention in 1787 that “led to the creation of the United States Constitution,” Robert E. Rubin, former Secretary of the Treasury under Bill Clinton, actually says the following:
“Disagreements about the extent of federal power and the design of our democratic institutions were resolved through long arguments and, ultimately, principled compromises.” (Emphasis added)
Principled compromises?! The founding of this country on the basis of institutionalizingslavery—officially establishing the “right” to own slaves, and the status of slaves as less than human, in its founding Constitution—that is a “principled compromise” in the eyes of a present-day representative and functionary of the ruling class of this country. And the fact is that no major politician and no other significant representative of this ruling class will, or can, denounce this country, since its very founding, and denounce its “founders,” in the terms in which they deserve to be denounced: monstrously criminal. If founding a country on the basis of institutionalizing slavery is not a monstrous crime, what is? The fact that no significant representative and functionary of this system, in this country, can recognize and acknowledge this as a monstrous crime—and instead they all uphold as “great men” those, like Thomas Jefferson, who founded a country on the basis of this monstrous crime, and who perpetuated this crime for generations—that gets to the very core of what this system is all about and why there is a great need to put an end to this system at the earliest possible time, and replace it with a system that has no need, no place, and no apology for slavery in any form.
* Unbelievable as it may seem, in the 21st century there are still people—including people in positions of power and authority—who are determined to force women to bear children, regardless of the situation, the feelings, and the better judgment of those women themselves. That is a way of enslaving women to the dictates of an oppressive male supremacist, patriarchal system; and that is what the cruel fanatics who are determined to deny women the right to abortion are really all about.
* On Elections: Choosing between oppressive rulers will not stop them from ruling over and oppressing you and committing horrific crimes against humanity. This is true of all the major presidential candidates, of both the Republican and Democratic parties, and it will be true of anyone who becomes president, or occupies any major political office, under this system. What supporting these people does accomplish is making you complicit with these crimes.
To start with the obvious, this is the most volatile and unconventional election in living memory. Anything could happen. On October 28, James Comey, head of the FBI, took the unprecedented step of releasing word of the fact that an investigation was being conducted of emails of someone in the Clinton camp that could bear on Hillary Clinton herself. This goes way beyond the “norms” of American politics, in at least three ways. First, FBI personnel do NOT customarily release word of current criminal investigations, and Comey’s superiors in the Department of Justice apparently made this clear to him. Second, neither Comey nor anyone else has examined the emails in question to actually see what, if anything, is there. Yet that distinction will be lost on most people, who will hear only the sound bite about “Clinton once again under criminal suspicion.” Third, the Justice Department itself traditionally proceeds with great caution in releasing anything that could pertain to an election less than 60 days prior to that election.
We won’t speculate here on Comey’s motivation, nor on whether there are forces at whose behest he is acting, or who they might be. But the objective effect of this extraordinary act is to greatly benefit Trump very close to the election.
This takes place in an election in which one candidate—Trump—is purveying an openly fascist platform beyond what has been done in American politics before. Trump goes beyond George W. Bush, for instance, in his open and inflammatory pledges to persecute immigrants, to criminalize and demonize Muslims within the U.S., to launch a wave of police repression against Black people and other oppressed communities, and to not only utterly outlaw abortion—Bush also pledged to do that—but to legitimize and encourage the crudest misogyny in everyday life. Bush attacked the press—and Obama has gone after whistle-blowers, who have leaked to the press, in unprecedented ways—but Trump promises to go far beyond that, both with legal measures and through his naked contempt for the press itself. Bush gutted key elements of the rule of law—and with a few exceptions, Obama (despite his promises) let Bush’s attacks on basic rights stand. But Trump goes beyond that, essentially vowing to do away with it altogether.*
Most extraordinary of all in this regard, Trump not only routinely vows to lock up Hillary Clinton, his opponent, but has implied, at least, twice, that she should be assassinated.
As part of this whole package, Trump has for some time been agitating his followers to intimidate Black people, immigrants, and other people of color and to suppress their right to vote. Now at least one armed fascist group has publicly responded. An article in the October 27 Washington Post stated that:
Amid growing concerns about possible violence and vote fraud on Election Day, the Oath Keepers, a national group of former military and law enforcement officers, has urged its members to “blend in” with voters and do “incognito intelligence gathering and crime spotting” at polling places across the country on Nov. 8.
“In particular, we are calling on our retired police officers, our military intelligence veterans, and our Special Warfare veterans (who are well trained in covert observation and intelligence gathering) to take the lead,” group leader Stewart Rhodes said in a “call to action” on the group’s website and in a YouTube video urging members to “help stop voter fraud.”
The Oath Keepers are officially nonpartisan, but their concerns clearly echo Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s warnings about a “rigged” election and his calls for his supporters to monitor polling places for evidence of fraud by supporters of Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. (“Militia group calls on members to patrol polls on Election Day,”by Kevin Sullivan)
All of this will mean an intolerable leap in oppression and repression against the oppressed and those who stand with them, and it must not just be resisted... but STOPPED.
Democrats Confer Legitimacy on Trump While Trump Declares the Election to Be Rigged
But Don't You Have to Accept Majority Rule? And Don't You Have to Go by the Rules?
Hell No.
In fact, why the fuck should you? The majority for a long time in the U.S. favored slavery. Should people have confined themselves to "working within the system"? To waiting for the elections? Or should they have defied the laws of the system and the "will of the majority" by the underground railroad, refusing by force to allow law enforcement to take away runaway slaves, launching armed rebellions against slaveholders and the slave state, and launching armed attacks against the government itself?
The majority of the white invaders of this land and their descendants for a long time favored outright genocide against the native people who had lived on this land for thousands of years. Should the Native American Indians have tried to convince a majority to allow them to live? Or should they have resisted with arms, as they did do, defending themselves and at times waging war against the invaders?
During the war in Vietnam, the U.S. committed horrible war crimes. Should people have waited and worked to get "peace" candidates? Or should they have broken the laws as they did, refusing to cooperate, resisting within the army itself, and often vigorously disrupting business as usual?
The point is this: majorities are often wrong, especially in a society in which one class dominates wealth, political power and access to working with and spreading ideas. That is, especially in a society like this one—U.S. capitalism-imperialism. This is related to another point: majorities can be created by those who hold power. They use the media and education system to mold how people view things. They use the habits of subordination bred by a system divided into exploiters and exploited, oppressors and oppressed. They can use the force of the state to back their views up to do this. Even when they can't get a majority in the near term, they use their power to impose their will and force people to relate to the new reality. Thus did George W. Bush, when faced with literally millions of protesters demanding that he not go to war in Iraq, famously say that he's not "going to decide policy based upon a focus group."
Especially in capitalist society, those who are fighting against oppression will have to defy "the will of the majority" (as it is expressed through forms like elections under capitalism) and break the rules of the state which constrain expression. And this becomes even more important precisely as those forms of repression tighten.
As part of this situation, there has been the ongoing controversy over Donald Trump’s continuing allegations that the elections have been rigged in advance, and the belief that he has stoked among his followers that any Clinton victory would be illegitimate. Trump refuses to back down; and this has led more than a few of his followers to speculate on civil war should Clinton win.
And what have the Democrats done to oppose this? They have pledged to respect the results of the election, even if Trump wins. Think of the implications. Suppose that Trump does win—which is far from impossible! Every leading Democrat has now declared in advance that this should be accepted. By doing so, they are doing nothing less than paving the way for fascism to be implemented. The reasons for this are pointed to in BAsics 3:11 from Bob Avakian:
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!
What Must NOT Be Done?
We said at the outset, and we’ll repeat, that what Trump is threatening must not be tolerated. These would represent leaps in the oppression even beyond what is now being endured.
What must NOT be done is to rally round Hillary Clinton and throw ourselves into her election, or even vote. First off, as just pointed out, Clinton does not fundamentally oppose Trump. Why else has she bent over backwards NOT to attack his essential legitimacy, while he has never ceased to attack hers? Why has she refused to take him on on his most egregious attacks and remarks (for instance, his threat to re-imprison the Central Park 5, who served long years in prison framed up for a crime for which they were totally exonerated—a frame-up which Trump actively abetted)? Why have the terms of her criticism focused on Trump being too unstable to defend the blood-soaked interests of U.S. imperialism around the world, and too crude to tamp down the very explosive contradictions of a society wracked with oppression of many different kinds?
Second, Hillary Clinton is a major imperialist tool in her own right. If anything, her foreign policy is much closer to “traditional” Republican positions than Trump’s. She is very gung-ho on using U.S. military power to trample on and dominate people all over the world, and this, too, has been a major part of not just her campaign but her actual history. Within the U.S., Clinton and her husband out-Reaganed Reagan by not just cutting welfare but abolishing it, and by pouring 100,000 cops into the streets and presiding over (and helping to foment) a major leap in mass incarceration. Last Friday she didn’t even bother to pay lip service to the righteous protesters at Standing Rock—her national campaign headquarters refused to even accept a letter from a Native American youth delegation and had them bum-rushed by dozens of NY pigs instead. (See “Cold Shoulder and NYPD at Clinton HQs... Pepper Spray at Standing Rock.”)
Both Clinton and Trump are products of this capitalist-imperialist system. They are fighting over which program will best preserve and extend it. Both of them aim to, and must aim to, control and repress the people, not unleash and liberate. Voting for Clinton not only will do nothing to actually deal with the root causes, it will make things worse. It will ideologically disarm and corrupt the outlooks of those who get into this.
To again quote BAsics:
If you try to make the Democrats be what they are not and never will be, you will end up being more like what the Democrats actually are.
Authored by Bob Avakian,
and adopted by the
Central Committee of the RCP
And what they are are instruments of imperialism: the very system that got us into this mess, the very system that’s a HORROR for the seven billion people on the planet.
A Way Out—A Way Forward
Should Trump get in, it may well fall to the revcoms to lead the defense of certain institutions of bourgeois democracy (the rule of law, for instance, or basic legal rights of Black and other oppressed nationality peoples, the right to abortion, etc.). And even if Trump does not win this particular election, and even if there is not an immediate aggressive assault by the forces he has brought forward, one thing is very clear: this fascist movement is not going away any time soon and will be moving in different ways and has to be resisted.
But this cannot be done on the basis of defending bourgeois democracy itself. Such resistance must be built as part of the movement for revolution, to get beyond this madness. This will be a challenge, as other forces will contend to bring this back into the terms and framework of returning to the status quo—the way things are right now. Moreover, people will spontaneously tend to frame things in those terms, as they have been taught to. But the status quo—”the way things are”—is a) intolerable for the vast majority of humanity, b) what got us to this nightmare point in the first place, and c) is way far short of what could be wrenched out of a crisis like this.
We need right now to be agitating around the fact that America Was NEVER Great, that this system is a horror, that it must be overthrown at the earliest possible time, and that the choices being dictated to people in this election are evidence of that.
A crisis sparked by a Trump victory or a contested one by Clinton could 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 will mean not only uniting with people when and where they rise up, but calling on them to fight sharp injustices coming down where they are not yet acting. This means continually bringing forward to people in living ways that it is the system of capitalism-imperialism that got us into this horror in the first place, and that this system has been nothing BUT horrors for the people of the world since day one. This will mean bringing out that there is a WAY OUT—that we have the leadership, in Bob Avakian and the party that he leads... that we have the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America that Bob Avakian has written and that charts out a society that is on the road to emancipation and that will be a society where people can truly flourish, together, as that struggle goes forward... and that there is a strategy to repolarize and realign the millions needed for an actual revolution and a way to fight and defeat the enemy when that possibility emerges.
And it means right now moving forward, with urgency, to lead others to confront—and act on—the developing situation.
AMERICA WAS NEVER GREAT! OVERTHROW, DON’T VOTE FOR, THIS SYSTEM!
*Trump has called for torturing people suspected of links to “terrorists” and kidnapping and murdering their family members. And Trump 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. [back]
Carl Dix is a courageous freedom fighter from the 1960s who went on to become a revolutionary fighter and a communist. Dix spent two years in military prison for refusing to fight in the unjust Vietnam War. He emerged unrepentant and went on to become a founding member of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), USA, dedicating his life to the emancipation of all humanity. Today, Carl is a follower of and advocate for Bob Avakian, his leadership and his visionary new synthesis of communism. Carl Dix and Cornel West co-founded the Stop Mass Incarceration Network (SMIN), and Rise Up October that brought thousands into the streets in New York City demanding a stop to police terror.
Why I Am Not Voting In This Election, Why You Shouldn't Either... But Why I Will Defend The Right Of Black And Other Oppressed People To Vote!
By Carl Dix
November 2, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
I am not voting in this election. I’m telling you not to vote. But I’m also gonna be defending the right of Black and other oppressed people to vote come Election Day, and doing that as part of organizing for an ACTUAL revolution—and I’m asking you to join me.
Let me break all that down.
Why I'm NOT Voting...
I am not voting in this election. First off, why the hell should I? Why should anybody, who wants to end oppression, vote? This system is responsible for horrors here and all over the world—from refugees dying trying to escape imperialist wars to people gunned down by police in the streets right here... from women being used, abused and degraded on a worldwide scale to the environment being destroyed. Voting is set up by that system and endorses that system. It’s like if during slavery they had let people vote for which slave master they wanted to be owned by—not only would you still be a slave, but then they’d use the fact you voted for one of the slave masters to say, “see, slavery’s not so bad—and by participating in choosing between slave masters, you’re agreeing with that.” We don't need a better form of slavery—we need a whole new world, without any kind of slavery, exploitation or oppression. We need a revolution—an actual revolution where masses of people OVERTHROW the system—to get to that world.
Read the entire HOW WE CAN WIN—How We Can Really Make RevolutionHERE
Voting keeps you in the world as it is. Voting isn't neutral—it does harm and it's designed to do harm. Not only that, any gains that people have made in this country have been won thru determined struggle, not thru elections. That's why we in the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) say: “America Was NEVER Great! We Need to Overthrow, Not Vote For, this System.” And it's why we are organizing right now for an actual revolution at the soonest possible time and why you need to be part of this.
I know we're being told we should vote for Clinton to keep out Trump. And let's be real: Trump is a fascist who demonizes Muslims and immigrants, who hates and demeans women, and who totally disregards the humanity of Black people. He calls for letting these pigs run even more rampant against Black and Brown people. He trumpets “America Number One” “hate-riotism” and utterly disrespects, in word as well as deed, the rule of law. The fact that this unapologetic snorting pig of a fascist has been built up and treated as a legitimate candidate for president by this whole system, from day one right down to today, tells you a lot about how IL-legitimate this whole damn system is!
But Hillary Clinton serves the same damn system. Clinton is a proven war criminal. In the 1990's, her husband's administration, in which she played a key role, imposed sanctions on Iraq that caused the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children. The Clinton administration considered this to be acceptable collateral damage.
She brags about her role in the toppling of the government of Libya, which led to the deaths of many thousands and the further growth of reactionary Islamic jihadism. From the ’90s till now, she's loudly backed up Israel in every single move of aggression against the Palestinian people. In the 1990's, she called Black youth “super predators” who needed to be “brought to heel” and she supported flooding the streets with 100,000 cops and taking away legal rights from defendants. These moves more than doubled the number of people in prison from a little less than a million to over two million! That’s something that Donald Trump could be and would be proud of —and he was back then, even praising Hillary Clinton and calling Bill Clinton a great president back in 2008—before these “thieves fell out.” She is a monster who brags about her blood-soaked expertise to be the commander in chief of this empire. And to boot, she's refused to call out Trump for what he is—a goddamn racist-fascist—and has said that she'll respect the results if the fascist wins!
The truth is this: whoever wins will shed whatever blood it takes to serve this system, to keep this capitalist-imperialist global empire in effect—here and around the world. Clinton and Trump are criminal choices of a criminal system, and people need to reject them both.
Bob Avakian, the architect of the new synthesis of communism and the leader of the revolution, puts it like this: “Choosing between oppressive rulers will not stop them from ruling over and oppressing you and committing horrific crimes against humanity. This is true of all the major presidential candidates, of both the Republican and Democratic parties, and it will be true of anyone who becomes president, or occupies any major political office, under this system. What supporting these people does accomplish is making you complicit with these crimes.”
But Why I'm Defending the Right to Vote
In an unprecedented move, Trump has refused to agree to accept the results of the election, asserting that the only way he could lose is if massive voter fraud stole the election from him. And he has called on his supporters to go into and “monitor” polling places in Chicago, Cleveland, Phoenix, and Detroit—i.e., cities with large numbers of Black and Latino people, as well as people from countries with large numbers of Muslims. This comes down to calling the dogs into the street against Black people, against immigrant citizens, against anyone whose skin isn’t white. And a number of fascist groups have taken up this call and are organizing to go to the polls to intimidate people on election day.
This kind of voter intimidation has a long ugly history in this country. Black and Latino people fought and died for the right to vote—up against threats, lynchings, KKK terror, and persisting down to today's voter ID laws, which disproportionately target Black people and other people of color. Donald Trump now revives this and threatens to take it to a whole other place.
We can’t let shit like this go down.
Any attempt to take away people's basic rights, like the right to vote, not only insults and denies their humanity, it comes down to trying to beat down and degrade them so far that they could never raise their heads. If this foul plan succeeds, it will further fuel the fascist forces who want to see Black people back in slave chains or dead, immigrants out of the country, and other “minorities” “in their places.” On the other hand, if we beat this back, if we reach out and win support in all kinds of places as we do, if we make clear that this is not part of keeping the world as it is but fighting for a whole new world through revolution, then we can turn this attack around.
I will call out and fight against any attempts to deny or restrict the rights of Black people and other oppressed people to vote. And I will stand together with those who want to genuinely fight these attempts to deny the rights of oppressed people to vote.
Again, I will do this as part of ORGANIZING FOR AN ACTUAL REVOLUTION. REVOLUTION, and nothing less, which is what's needed to end these horrors. And be clear: the conflicts among the ruling forces are sharp and no one knows where all this will go—but if you really want a better world, you can't respond to this by falling in behind one side or the other of the oppressive rulers! Be part of the revolutionary forces, taking advantage of this situation to build up the forces for revolution.
This revolution is possible. We've got the leadership, in Bob Avakian (BA), who has brought forward a new communism, and the Revolutionary Communist Party that he leads. We've got the vision and plan for REAL emancipatory society, where people have the right not just to vote but to remake all of society on the path to ending all exploitation and oppression, in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, written by BA. We've got the strategy to win which you can check out in “How We Can Win.” What we need now, as we head into what will be heavy times whatever happens on November 8, is YOU!
Throughout this week and on Election Day, I will be building a fight to stop the attacks on people's right to vote as part of building this revolution. And I will be there after, whatever happens, fighting to wrench a whole new world out of this rotten one.
Week Two of the Get Into the Revolution National Organizing Campaign and Tour—
Lessons, Transformations, Challenges
by Sunsara Taylor
October 31, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Noche Diaz, October 29
There was no denying the power of the revolutionaries on stage on October 29 for the Get Into the Revolution National Organizing Campaign and Tour rally in Chicago. Noche Diaz convened the rally, welcoming and giving confidence to everyone in attendance that they were in the right place if they yearned for a better world. The Revolution Club marched and chanted, attracting the attention of passersby and giving notice that they were fighting for revolution to emancipate the billions of people whose interests they represent. A member of the Chicago Revolution Club spoke about Noche, how deeply he is loved by the people but viciously hated by the enemy. She exposed the two arrests he had already suffered in the last week, read the statements of support that had come in from Chuck D., Dr. Cornel West, and Edward Asner, and called on everyone to stand with him when he defies the University of Chicago ban on him this Tuesday.
Carl Dix called out the ongoing genocide and crimes being carried out by the U.S. government up at Standing Rock in North Dakota, challenged people to see how this—and many other outrages—are rooted in the nature of capitalism-imperialism, and exposed the sham and harm of U.S. elections. He spoke deeply about the kind of person and the kind of leader we have in Bob Avakian and the importance of everyone taking up the scientific approach he has forged. This speech gave everyone a deep sense of the urgent need for revolution, as well as the basis for it and the tremendous strengths we have in our leader, Bob Avakian, and the strategy and approach he has forged.
Then, the Revolution Club stepped to the stage to read the full statement, “HOW WE CAN WIN—How We Can Really Make Revolution.” This was powerful. The Club had stayed up late into the night rehearsing this reading the night before, but it was much more than rehearsing. They were wrestling with the meaning of the statement, each paragraph and almost each sentence. As individuals, but above all as a collectivity, they were getting inside the meaning and the dialectics of it, internalizing the strategy and approach captured in it in a much deeper way. On stage, the totally audacious and deeply scientific nature of this statement came alive, as did the real feeling of a collective force dedicated to carrying it out.
The culmination of the rally was the induction of the Chicago Revolution Club as official members of this Club and leaders of the masses in revolution. Leaders of the national tour spoke about what it means to take up the responsibility to join the Revolution Club, to consciously study and apply the science of revolution that has been advanced by Bob Avakian, and to fight to advance this revolution in the world. They recognized the transformations and forging that has gone on with members of the Revolution Club here in Chicago and the importance of them being upheld publicly and looked to by masses for leadership. They called on new people to rise to the challenge of joining the Club officially and on members of the Club to advance to joining the Party. Then, the members were presented with official Revolution Club Member patches to sew onto their RevClub T-shirt, and they stepped forward to become official, recognized members of the Revolution Club. Everyone present erupted in applause.
A Shortfall in Turnout—A Challenge to Solve
Read the entire HOW WE CAN WIN—How We Can Really Make RevolutionHERE
But, just as the power of the content and collective strength of those on stage was undeniable, so was the fact that the turnout was far less than what we had aimed for. Despite a lot of receptivity and interest in the neighborhoods among the masses, very few new people showed up for this rally. This matters because, as stated in “HOW WE CAN WIN,”making advances in this now has everything to do with hastening—and having a real chance to win in—a future revolutionary situation.
In THE NEW COMMUNISM, Bob Avakian writes of accumulating new forces and then wielding them to have an even greater impact, on that basis accumulating even more forces and impacting on an even higher level, and again and again. This is a dynamic we have not yet mastered and which we must urgently put ourselves to. At the same time, the potential for this is palpable every time we go out. We are working to make a deeper analysis of this, and—on that foundation—to identify the pathways to build on the beginnings we have made. There is a lot we are still working to sift through, correctly understand, and build on.
Every time we’d been out with revolution into the neighborhoods of the most oppressed, we had connected powerfully with people, inspired and drawn many to checking out and beginning to engage the revolution. At least five times, the Revolution Club had posted up to observe police when they were fucking with youths and others in the neighborhood. Every time, this made a very big impression on friend and foe alike.
The last time, the revolutionaries were engaging deeply with a group of masses on a corner when pigs rolled up to assess the scene and test out the revolutionaries. The Revolution Club got in disciplined formation and the scene grew tense as folks from the neighborhood watched. A member of the Revolution Club pulled out a bullhorn and let loose: “These pigs want to know if we are going to talk to them, but we don’t talk to live animals! These pigs roll into these neighborhoods. They shoot and beat and murder our youth. They enforce the system of oppression.” But she wasn’t just fearless, she was disdainful. Reconsidering her statement that “no one should talk to live animals,” she added, “Except maybe horses, they’re kind of cute.”Everyone on the corner fell out laughing. Then they began lining up alongside or directly behind the revolutionaries.
The agitator continued, “We are the Revolution Club and we are getting organized to make revolution and to overthrow their whole system and bring into being a new system and new world into being.” The pigs tried to flip the situation by insisting that the revolutionaries “aren’t from the neighborhood.” A Black man who had recently buried his teenage son who was killed in gang violence would have none of it. “What are you talking about?” he answered back. Gesturing to an older white revcom, he said, “This is my step dad!” Again, the masses erupted in defiant laughter. When the pigs finally left, a woman went up to the revcom on the bullhorn and gave her a huge hug. Then, she proceeded to hug every single person wearing the “BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS!” T-shirt. The whole experience was one of joy and defiance.
This is just one taste. There were many other engagements to sift through. Folks were drawn to and inspired by our agitation about the full liberation of women, bringing alive the nightmare inflicted by this system on immigrants, by the vision of a nationwide revolution organizing tour. People opened up to us about many things, including the feelings of revenge—feelings some were fighting to resist but which still filled their hearts—over loved ones who had been lost in gang violence on the streets and we struggled over this. By the day of the rally, posters for the rally were up all over several neighborhoods—including many that had been put up by people from the neighborhood who had taken stacks.
A relatively small, but significant, group of people we had met had begun to go through the process of becoming an official member of the Revolution Club. Yet, there is still a pattern of people hanging back, not fully joining in or following through.
One thing we are fighting to master more fully is how to take on these attacks from the enemy in a way that rallies even more forces to step forward into the revolution, both on the level of new people themselves deeply engaging and get involved with this revolution and spreading it, as well as on the level of fighting for the right of the revolutionaries to function unassailed.
Other things we’ve summed up are that, especially in the beginning, we weren’t enough bringing alive the full scope of the revolution and why it is needed, and on that basis waging sharp enough ideological struggle to get into this revolution. There is almost certainly more we need to learn and sharpen up in our approach to this still. Also, we have summed up that we are still under-utilizing the “HOW WE CAN WIN” pamphlet, both in our work to recruit people and in the broadest projection of this revolution from the very start. The rehearsed, collective reading of this pamphlet is something we want to do more of—on street corners, in schools, and in other formats.
While we are still in the process of fully synthesizing our first couple of weeks on this year-long tour, a few things can be said at this point: We have a real beginning, we are getting a more scientific understanding of the terrain and the work it will take to make the necessary breakthroughs and of what we have yet to learn and struggle through, and it matters a great deal that we have a stronger, more scientific, and more dedicated core of people going to work on this problem together.
When the Enemy Attacks, We Politically Mobilize the People and Come Back Stronger
November 7, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Revolution Club, New York City, October 22 National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation. Photo: Special to revcom.us/Revolution
The Revolution Clubs around the country have been boldly taking revolution and the new communism, developed by Bob Avakian, out to the masses—leading people to get organized for revolution. They have been mobilizing masses of people to stand up against the crimes of this system. They have been challenging the police when they roll up and attempt to violate people’s rights in the neighborhoods. They have been challenging the reactionary authorities of all kinds—on campuses and elsewhere—who are working to keep the masses of people in line.
This is a breath of fresh air!
No advance for the oppressed has ever been won without people breaking the rules and refusing to go along with the way the system works to keep people down. It was against the law, let us not forget, for Black students to sit down at a “whites only” lunch counter during the civil rights movement. It was against the law for young men to set their draft cards on fire and refuse to fight for the U.S. in the genocidal war against Vietnam. It was considered “scandalous” and “strident” when women first publicly demanded the right to birth control and then abortion. Yet, all of this—and much, much more—was absolutely righteous and necessary!
It is very good that today, revolutionaries are spreading the spirit of defying an unjust and oppressive system and its illegitimate rules. We need much, much more of this!
Not surprisingly, however, when you defy this oppressive system, the authorities hit back. In recent months, revcoms across the country have been arrested, brutalized by police, and in many places face the threat of serious jail time. In carrying out these unjust attacks, the authorities have frequently and flagrantly violated their own rules. For example, it is unquestionably legal and constitutionally protected speech to burn the U.S. flag, yet when the revcoms did this in front of the Republican National Convention last summer, they were arrested, held preventatively, and are now facing heavy charges.
Read the entire HOW WE CAN WIN—How We Can Really Make RevolutionHERE
Noche Diaz and the Revolution Club
returned to the University of Chicago November 1, defying a permanent ban issued October 26 by UC and Chicago police that put him under threat of arrest if he ever set foot back on University of Chicago campus property again. Photo: Special to revcom.us
Why Does the System Attack?
The system’s enforcers carry out these attacks because they are deeply fearful of the masses of people they oppress and exploit. They know that their system has forced millions to live on the edge, and daily drives millions over the edge. They know that many—even among those with more privilege—are deeply troubled by the injustices around them. The system is fearful—and determined to prevent—these masses of people from rising up against them. This is why they attack whenever people rise up.
Additionally, the rulers have summed up from history the disproportionate importance of revolutionary leadership. This makes them even more fearful of the masses—and determined to prevent them from connecting up with the leadership, strategy, and organized force for an actual revolution. The Revolutionary Communist Party, its leader Bob Avakian, and the Revolution Clubs are playing a leading role in society—for revolution, representing on a scientific basis the fundamental interests of the vast majority of humanity. And they are fighting for the only way out: nothing less than an actual revolution to overthrow this system, and bring into being a radically different, and far better, system. This is why the rulers and other reactionary authorities attack the revcoms in particular.
The rulers can’t stop causing the misery they inflict on the masses of people—they can’t stop their police from murdering Black people, they can’t stop the attacks on immigrants, they can’t stop the degradation and brutality against women, they can’t stop the destruction of the environment, they can’t lift their boot off the people of the world who are dying under their bombs and occupations. So, they work hard to keep people cowed and intimidated, to keep people beaten down and divided, to keep people ignorant of the way out, or to keep people thinking that the most they can do is work for “change through their elections” or by appealing to their system. In other words, fundamentally, the system attacks because it is vulnerable and the rulers’ fear of the people they oppress.
The System Is Vulnerable, But It Has Real Teeth
Still, there is no getting around the fact that the system has real teeth. Their enforcers can hurt people and they can tie people up with court cases and prison time. They want to get revolutionaries “out of action” and they want to send a message to others not to even dare to step into the revolution.
So, how do we handle this?
The statement “HOW WE CAN WIN” says, “We need to oppose and disrupt the moves of the ruling powers to isolate, ‘encircle,’ brutalize, mass incarcerate and murderously repress the people who have the hardest life under this system and who most need this revolution. We need to ‘encircle’ them—by bringing forth wave upon wave of people rising up in determined opposition to this system.” While this statement is referring specifically to the way we must respond to the system’s attacks on the most oppressed masses, the same principle applies to how we must respond to the system’s attacks on the revcoms.
When they attack us, we have to turn their attacks against them. We have to turn every roadblock into a stepping stone. How?
We have to use their attacks to wake up even greater numbers of people to what is being fought out and why they need to take a stand themselves. We have to expose the hypocrisy and unjust nature of the attacks in a way that causes many more people to question—and themselves challenge—the rules and the authority of the state, many for the first time. But this only happens if you work to draw even more people forward into the struggle as you go back at the enemy with even more defiance.
Think, for example, about what went down in Ferguson, Missouri, after the police murdered Michael Brown. The initial protests were righteous and drew in hundreds from the area. This inspired many around the country. But it was when the police and National Guard came in with tanks, stun grenades, and heavy artillery, and when people defiantly stood up to that, that millions throughout society were forced to take notice and pick a side. Because people stood strong, the militarized repression of the state had the effect of inspiring even more people to step into the struggle in waves across the country, and to begin to question the very legitimacy of this system’s armed enforcers—rather than scaring people off.
That struggle has not advanced in a straight line, and the state has worked overtime to demonize Michael Brown and those who stand up against police murder. It has also worked overtime to bring people back into the dead end of their elections and various meaningless reforms. But all this is still in play. We can influence how this plays out going forward. In this, and overall, the broader lessons—of how struggles advance by standing up to and defying repression, not avoiding it or retreating in the face of it—remain.
When the revcoms get attacked, we have to use these attacks to expose to even greater numbers of people the unjust and vicious character of the system and its attacks. When they single out and attack revcoms in ways that violate their own rules, or are completely out of proportion with how they respond to people with a different message and mission, we have to expose this. We have to use this to show how it is that the system’s ruthless and unjust nature requires them to lash out and prevent people from hearing the message of revolution. We have to challenge people to defy these attempts, and to look for themselves into the new communism that has been forged by Bob Avakian. We have to bring alive, when the eyes of many more are watching, the living contrast between the hypocrisy and illegitimate authority of the system and the liberating morality and authority of the revolutionary forces. And, we have to challenge and inspire even broader numbers of people—including many who don’t yet know what they think of the revolution we are fighting for—to stand on the right side and defend those who are refusing to bow to these attacks.
Through all this, we can shatter the superstitious awe that people are trained to have towards the state and its enforcers. We can inspire many to understand that, as ruthless as they are, they are not all powerful and their power is not permanent. We can increasingly bring alive the fact that there is a whole other way the world could be organized through communist revolution that is worth fighting for, and that there is a revolutionary force to join with right now that knows how to get there.
In other words, the more the revolution stings this system politically, the more they hit back with counterrevolution, attempting to brutalize and punish the revcoms and the masses in such a way that it sidelines them. In the face of this, the revolution doesn’t retreat or play by their rules—it hits them even harder politically, bringing forward more masses with even more daring and imaginative actions. Through all this, we “encircle” them with mass support and we disrupt their plans to shut us down. We do this both by refusing to play by their rules and finding ways to use their rules againstthem.
All this is not a distraction from the work of advancing the revolution. This is a key part of how revolution develops and gains strength—through stepping up the fight against this system’s crimes, even more boldly spreading revolution and communism, and using their attacks to mobilize more people into the revolution and come back even stronger. Revolution... counterrevolution... MORE revolution—that’s the logic of the movement for revolution.
#RevCom marches out. Throngs of students, frat idiots, pigs. Beautiful & necessary challenge to "American Greatness"
University of Chicago, November 1:
At this time of unending war, refugee crisis, climate change & mass incarceration, THIS is the education students REALLY need. #RevCompic.twitter.com/a9uyKO0PHl
The Revolution Club was out at UCLA last week with the Get Into the Revolution National Organizing Campaign and Tour, spreading the message that America Was NEVER Great! We Need to Overthrow—Not Vote For—This System!, organizing students into the movement for revolution and building support for Noche Diaz and other Revolution Club members who were viciously assaulted and arrested at both University of Chicago and CCNY.
Videos and tweets on this page are from @SunsaraTaylor. Follow her on Twitter.
Revcom.us received the following “Five Day Plan” and “Three Reasons” from the Get Into the Revolution National Organizing Campaign and Tour which they used to mobilize in Chicago for the rally they held on October 29. The approaches and concrete forms of organization and entry-level tasks for new recruits to the revolution can be learned from and replicated by Revolution Clubs around the country.
Standing With Struggle, Connecting People With Revolution
November 7, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Standing Rock encampment , November 5, 2016. Photo: Special to Revolution/revcom.us
November 3: 300 clergy and lay people from all over the country, answering a call that was put out for the religious community to come to Standing Rock for an action to stand in solidarity with the Native people.
Photo: Special to revcom.us
On November 5, delegations from Hopi and Lakota tribes arrived at the main camp at Standing Rock. The Hopi Tribe from Arizona ran all the way. A powerful impact! Photo: Revolution Club, NYC @NYCRevClub
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We have continued to spread the message, “HOW WE CAN WIN“ and are meeting a lot of interesting people and learning a lot off this, and we have made some significant advances in building a core of people here who are getting with the movement for revolution.
The day after the Turtle Island action, over 445 clergy members came to Standing Rock for an action to stand in solidarity with the Native people to stop DAPL. Throughout this action, helicopters and planes flew overhead, and as the clergy walked and sang their way onto the road that is blocked by National Guard tanks and police vehicles, more police vehicles quickly arrived on the scene. The next day, we learned that 14 clergy members were arrested while demonstrating in the Capitol Building in Bismarck, and there has been a deafening silence on this powerful action by mainstream media.
The role of the police is not to serve and protect the people. It is to serve and protect the system that rules over the people. To enforce the relations of exploitation and oppression, the conditions of poverty, misery and degradation into which the system has cast people and is determined to keep people in. The law and order the police are about, with all of their brutality and murder, is the law and the order that enforces all this oppression and madness.
—BAsics 1:24
Also, on Saturday, delegations from the Hopi tribe from Arizona and the Oglala Lakota Nation arrived at camp, raising their fists to people cheering and raising their fists back in celebration. It was an incredibly exciting and powerful moment. More tribes continue to join this struggle, including from an Apache tribe, and this is extremely important.
Something Very Important Is Happening at Standing Rock
Something very important is happening here at Standing Rock. This struggle is drawing all kinds of people who want to stand up and fight, both Native and non-Native, many traditional and some more rebellious. From professionals, to students, to young people working in the framework of “my reality vs. your reality” and “love your oppressor,” to people who want to take direct action to stop this. The point is, they are all here, they have all come to take this righteous stand, and many are meeting the movement for revolution.
People drive 25 hours non-stop from the West Coast to spend less time than that here because they feel they have to come and be part of this heroic and historic struggle. Others come planning to spend a few days and two months later are still here. We have spoken to person after person, from people in their early 20s to 70-somethings who have put their lives on hold, leaving family, friends, jobs or retirement to throw themselves into this struggle. People tell us of leaving family and friends who just do not understand why they have come, while others have been joined by their loved ones. One middle-aged man who drove with a group from Los Angeles to spend three days here said he is going to convince his 72-year-old retired father to drive his RV from Southern California to stay here through the winter. People deeply feel that they have to be here, that they have to take a stand to stop the genocide of the Native people and the poisoning of the water and the environment globally.
We met and spoke a couple of times with a young white man from a Michigan college town. He has been here a couple of weeks. He had answered the call for people to come who had the skills to help people prepare for the brutal North Dakota winter of below-zero temperatures. He came by himself. When we talked with him the second time, he had read “HOW WE CAN WIN” and united with a lot of what was in the statement. He said that he felt a revolution was in fact necessary and past due. He talked with us about how he lost many friends before coming to Standing Rock, over struggling with them to confront reality and to do something about the horrors going on in this society. He felt that the culture and the mainstream media had a lot to do with what people think, and people like his friends having the space to not deal with this ugly reality, and basically just tune out. We got into how at moments like this, sudden “jolts” in society can change how a lot of people think, what people normally accept, and how these jolts can even then have an impact on the mainstream media, culture, etc.
We read from the introduction of THE NEW COMMUNISM, which we kept referring to in our conversation in terms of the real breakthrough that this represents, to give him a sense of the book.
With him, and everyone we met, we got into the leadership of Bob Avakian—who he is, what that leadership means. That BA’s new communism is a breakthrough in the scientific approach to making revolution and emancipating all humanity. And telling people about who BA is as a person, and his role leading the revolution here.
And we also read from the strategy statement in BAsics, which gets into this question of “jolts” in society, and the need for it to be the case that through such situations, leaps are made in building up the movement and the organized forces for revolution, creating in this way a stronger basis towork for further advances. And we put this challenge to him, to be part of the thousands discussed in the “HOW WE CAN WIN” statement, and to seriously engage this work and be part of spreading it.
We spoke to one of several African-American ministers who participated in the clergy action, who talked about the connection between enslaved Africans and the Native peoples in this country, and how this system is built on this oppression. We got into this with her, and she had a lot of unity with what we were putting forward with this revolution and felt that many more people need to imagine a radically different kind of world. We strongly agreed with her on this, but that we don’t have to just imagine it, we could actually make that real, and we gave her a copy of “HOW WE CAN WIN” and showed her the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America. She was very interested in this and was looking forward to reading the statement and staying in touch.
Connecting, and Struggling, Over “HOW WE CAN WIN”
“HOW WE CAN WIN” is spreading among different circles here. Word is getting out among some Native youths that revolutionaries are in the camp. Some are reading “HOW WE CAN WIN” and have written down a list of questions that they have for us. A couple of youths, one Sioux and one white, stopped to talk and were very excited to hear people talking about revolution. They talked about both the genocide of the Native people and the destruction of the environment and how we need a revolution. Their conception of revolution has a lot of anarchist influences of people working without government interference. They really did not know what communism is, but one of them was talking about the bad rap it has but said that it sounds good.
While talking with them, a young Native man they know came up and started listening. When he heard us say, “We are with Revolution newspaper, revcom.us, the voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party,” he got very excited, exclaiming, “You are those people?!”, and shook our hands. He had seen the website, revcom.us. We read out loud the first paragraph of “HOW WE CAN WIN,” and the first paragraph and first two sentences of the second paragraph in the “What We Need To Do Now” section. (revcom.us/a/457/how-we-can-win-en.html) The second Native youth responded that what we need to do is stop the pipeline and protect the Native people. Well into the conversation, the white youth said, “I have to admit, I used information from revcom.us in a college policy debate.” They told us where they are staying and we made plans to get more into “HOW WE CAN WIN.”
One college student, from southern Colorado, took a month off school to be here and cover what was happening on the ground, and he talked to us about reading The Communist Manifesto in school, and having this feeling, along with his classmates, that there was something to this idea of communism, but that we were “too deep in this shit” as far as this horrible society we are living in today, and that this idea of communism was just that, a good idea. He spoke of the frustration of just reading this and discussing it as just ideas; nothing actually realizable. We got into the statement “HOW WE CAN WIN” and he thought this was very good, different in that it was actually dealing with the real world, and talking about ways to make this real. We got into questions of what a revolutionary crisis is, how to transform people today, and the importance of people stepping into this revolution now.
We have been “pre-emptive” in anticipating that BA is going to be a contentious question among people, including the bullshit people are going to run into on the Internet and getting into the kind of leadership people actually need and how BA measures up in those terms. We had a little experience with that on the spot while we were discussing “HOW WE CAN WIN” with a couple of young Native women. Someone passing by made a snarky comment about “Oh, the RCP.” We challenged him to come join and say what his strategy for revolution was, and he said “not cult of personality.” In this instance, the young women we were talking to at the time were furious that some asshole was being so dismissive and disruptive while they were grappling with such an important question.
The revolution is meeting Native people who have gone through the horrors of alcoholism and drug addiction that plague so many and have turned to Christianity for help. We met a man at breakfast one day who had this kind of experience, and was now very religious, and he asked why we were here. We told him we were here to stand with the Native people who are standing up, to report from the ground, and to spread the statement “HOW WE CAN WIN,” and get into this with people.
He felt that what we were putting forward would just put people in harm’s way, and we responded with putting forward that the ones who are putting people in harm’s way—and the planet itself—is this system, but that when they do these things, when they make these moves like what they are doing with the pipeline, by the terms of this system, they are just “smart businessmen,” and he responded, “Yeah, like Trump!” Then he asked us what we believed in. We responded that we believe in humanity and their potential to radically change the world. He asked, “So you don’t believe in a higher power?” We responded, no, that we apply a scientific method and approach, an evidence-based approach, to understanding the world and the real pathways for change.
We got into the question of evolution, as he started to pose his understanding of “intelligent design,” and we suggested that he get into the book by Ardea Skybreak, The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism—Knowing What’s Real and Why It Matters, and broke down scientifically how human life actually evolved, and that there are a lot of real scientific connections between human life and the Earth itself, which many people here say they feel spiritually, but we got into how we can understand this scientifically, and that it is actually an incredible thing to be able to understand! That it doesn’t take away any of the awe and wonder of the connections between humanity and the planet but gives us a materialist grasp of that connection.
Stakes for the Future of Native People, the Planet, and Humanity
One night, while enjoying an incredible dinner made at the famous Grandma’s Kitchen (where you get a delicious dinner and a hug from Grandma!, a Paiute from Bishop, California), we met an older couple from far Northern California. The woman told us about how she was a licensed health professional, and just kept seeing posts on Facebook about Standing Rock, and would cry every time she saw these posts, feeling so strongly that what was happening to the Native people was outrageous, and one day she decided to take a leave of absence from her job, and that was about a month ago, and she has no intention of going back any time soon and in fact does not want to go back. She talked about how her whole life had changed since coming to Standing Rock and how connected she felt to this struggle.
She was recently joined by her partner, a guy who described himself as a full-time activist. He is cataloging the rapid extinction of species in the world. He spoke of his many experiences fighting against the crimes of this system, and his frustrations over the fact that things have not changed; that this system continues to do what it does to the masses of people, and in particular he spoke of the crimes being committed in the Middle East. In the face of the continuing crimes of drone attacks by the U.S., his group has gone from advocacy to nonviolent direct action.
We brought out “HOW WE CAN WIN” and they were both very excited to hear about this, as they had never heard of BA and this Party. They were interested in Bob Avakian’s background.
And we discussed the question of “Why We Need a Revolution” as they both felt that was basically true, but still believed that the most we could do was vote for Jill Stein. So we got into this and walked through some examples of why this system cannot resolve these big problems, in particular the environmental crisis, because of this fossil fuel economy that can’t factor in the damage being done to the environment, as that is an externality to the need for accumulating more and more profit. They thought seriously about this point and ended up getting THE NEW COMMUNISM and the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America. And we plan on getting more into this with them.
This struggle is not slowing down or giving up. It continues to grow and more people are needed to take a stand with the Native people, for their land, for the planet as a whole, and for the future of humanity.
“We did nothing wrong—we have right on our side”
RNC Flag Burners Go On the Offensive
November 5, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Joey Johnson at Republican National Convention. Before setting the flag on fire, Joey chanted, "1, 2, 3, 4—Slavery, Genocide, and War! 5, 6, 7, 8—America Was NEVER Great!" Photo: revcom.us
On July 20, Donald Trump was being nominated by the Republicans with a program of fascist law and order, misogyny, and unbridled vitriolic racist attacks against Blacks, Chicanos, other Latinos, Muslims, and immigrants. Outside the convention, Joey Johnson lit the American flag on fire as the Revolution Club chanted “1, 2, 3, 4—Slavery, Genocide, and War! 5, 6, 7, 8—America Was NEVER Great!” As previously written (“Joey Johnson and the RNC 16 Put the System on Trial in Cleveland”), the revcoms “had a right to do what we did at the RNC... and it was right.” Even before the flag was lit, a mob of police and fascist Infowars/Trump operatives assaulted the protective perimeter of Revolution Club members. The police violently arrested Joey Johnson and at least 16 other people. The victims of this assault, the RNC 16, face multiple misdemeanors and felonies. There are significant new developments in the battle to free them.
Attorneys for the RNC 16 have filed several important legal motions. One is to throw out the charges. These charges are utterly illegal and unconstitutional, in addition to being outrageously unjust. The fact is that the right to burn the flag in protest was won by Gregory “Joey” Johnson himself in the historic 1989 U.S. Supreme Court case Texas v. Johnson, which determined that flagburning is protected by the First Amendment.
People's Tribunal Finds the System Guilty
Video of the People's Tribunal, originally held at the Cleveland Courthouse, September 29, 2016
Also, the defendants argued that the question of whether to dismiss the charges should be heard and ruled on by a single judge, rather than several different judges. In addition, the defendants are fighting to force authorities to turn over evidence that will reveal how a whole slew of government agencies and fascists collaborated and conspired to attack them when they exercised what is supposed to be a constitutionally protected form of free speech.
Motions in the Legal Arena
On November 3, the RNC defendants appeared in court for a hearing to determine if their motion to dismiss the charges against 14 misdemeanor defendants would be argued in front of one judge or would be put before the eight different judges to whom the different defendants are presently assigned. This may seem like a simple procedural matter, but it gets to the heart of what the case of the RNC 16 is actually about. All the charges against the RNC 16 stem from one pre-planned illegal assault involving federal, state, and city police agencies on those who dared to challenge everything that was concentrated in the Republican National Convention (RNC) and as such, the defendants were in court with their attorneys to argue that their motions to dismiss should be argued and decided together before one judge.
Just prior to this hearing, defense attorneys received the prosecution’s response to defendants’ demands for all the documents that could reveal how “The system, with its Secret Service, FBI, and Cleveland police and the alt-right Infowars operatives were all collaborating together to spy on and attack the Revolution Club even though the system’s own court said flagburning is protected political speech. Now the powers-that-be want to prosecute the RNC 16.” [from the RNC16 brochure]. Important revelations were made in the prosecution’s responses.
At the Courthouse: Taking the Case to the People
It was clear from the moment that the RNC 16 showed up at the INjustice Center that this was going to be a different day from the routine that daily grinds people through those halls.
The RNC 16 assembled outside all wearing BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! T-shirts, and began chanting in unison: “1, 2, 3, 4—Slavery Genocide and War! 5, 6, 7, 8—America Was Never Great!”; “It’s Time, to Get Organized, For an Actual Revolution” “Who are We? The Revolution Club. Who’s Our Leader? Bob Avakian”—which is what they had chanted with fire and determination at the RNC, even as they were being assaulted and arrested on July 20.
People coming to court watched with curiosity as the RNC 16 chanted defiantly. In one incident that reveals a bit of the scene at the courthouse, a young Black man with an American flag pin on his jacket was about to walk into the building when Joey Johnson handed him a flyer about the RNC 16 demanding that the charges be dropped. “Get into this flyer, man. They are putting us on trial for burning the flag,” JJ said. The young man said, “I’m alright.” Johnson replied, “You’re alright, but the world is completely fucked up.” After hearing this, the man immediately took off the pin and threw it down on the ground.
The revcoms moved together, marching into the courthouse in formation, heads held high and determined. One of the RNC 16 defendants later reflected, “We knew that we did nothing wrong, we had right on our side and we are going to fight this.” The whole courtroom was filled to capacity with the RNC 16 defendants, their lawyers, and supporters. All of this served notice that these people are going to fight these charges, and are going on the offensive to put the system on trial.
The hearing over who would hear arguments to dismiss the cases was short, but it established that the arguments for dismissing these charges are going to be heard by a single judge, giving the defendants better conditions to bring to bear all the elements and facts of what actually happened—the full picture as opposed to the baseless criminal charges, making the case that it is the police and government who acted illegally—and why these charges must be dismissed immediately.
Prosecution tries to keep hidden the conspiracy against the RNC16
The prosecution is refusing to turn over key documents demanded by the defendants. The defendants have a legal right to demand this material. It is part of bringing to the light of day all the different government agencies involved in the pre-planned assault on the revcoms; the defendants’ attorneys subpoenaed Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams to turn over the documents.
Here are some of the 35 categories of documents the attorneys are demanding:
“policies, procedures, protocols, plans, briefing information, directives, etc., regarding the conduct of members of the Cleveland Division of Police and/or any other law enforcement officers cooperating with and/or acting as the agent of the Cleveland Division of Police with respect to any and all protest activities occurring during the 2016 Republican National Convention, including, but not limited to, documents and/or other materials supplied to the Cleveland Police Department by other police or government agencies such as the Ohio State Highway Patrol, the Department of Homeland Security, and/or the Secret Service.”
“...Cleveland police plans, tactics, strategy, etc., to be utilized by members of the Cleveland Division of Police and/or any other law enforcement officers cooperating with and/or acting as the agent of the Cleveland Division of Police on July 19 and 20, 2016, or any other time, in relation to expected protest activities at the 2016 Republican National Convention, including, but not limited to, information, intelligence or other material supplied to the Cleveland Division of Police by other governmental agencies such as the Ohio State Highway Patrol, the Department of Homeland Security, and/or the Secret Service; and
“Copies of all documents and/or communications of any kind that refer in any manner to the activities and/or conduct of Alex Jones on July 19, 2016 in connection with the 2016 Republican National Convention.”
(From Defendant’s Criminal Subpoena to Cleveland Police Chief Paul Williams to produce documents)
So what is the prosecutor’s response to these demands? They filed a motion to quash the production of these documents to stop these documents from being turned over. First, they argued that “Defendants cannot request anything and everything, hoping to find something to use against the City of Cleveland ... this is further evidence Defendants are on a fishing expedition to obtain records Defendants are not privy to see.” (our emphasis). They further argued that such documents would not be turned over because of a Supreme Court of Ohio Criminal Rule (aptly named) which states that “Disclosure will compromise an ongoing criminal investigation or a confidential law enforcement technique or investigation regardless of whether that investigation involves a pending case or the defendant.” In citing this rule, they argue, “In the case at hand ... many of documents ... would fall under the non-disclosure rule as they would disclose confidential law enforcement techniques or investigations. Any requests for plans, strategies, tactics, methods of intelligence gatherings or briefings would fall under the non-disclosure law.” (From City of Cleveland’s Motion to Quash Chief Calvin Williams’ Subpoena Duces Tecum filed October 25, 2016)
So we asked the Pig Latin Translator who appeared at the People’s Tribunal to translate this for our readers:
“Here’s what really happened: Yes it is true, Homeland Security and the Secret Service were in charge of the overall security for the RNC. Yes, this did include FBI agents, along with local police, paying ‘home visits’ to dozens of community organizers and activists, as well as people associated with supporters of the Revolutionary Communist Party. They questioned people about their plans for the convention, and the plans of other groups and individuals, asking some for their political and social affiliations—with the purpose of harassing and intimidating people from coming to protest at the RNC. In fact, deputy police chief, Ed Tomba, said, ‘The Cleveland police have a very robust pre-convention intelligence team. We have a real, real good idea of who we think is coming here and what their objectives are. And if we can deter those objectives, that’s what we’re going to do.'
The People's Tribunal was re-enacted at the Cleveland Courthouse on November 3.
Noche Diaz questions a man dressed as a pig named "Chief Pig Calvin William" in front of the Justice Center. (Photo: @chandaneely/Twitter)
Revcoms dressed as pigs stand on the steps of the Justice Center in downtown Cleveland. (Photo: @chandaneely/Twitter)
“But what the prosecutor is saying here is that we are not going to disclose how such information was used and how this was carried out. This is exactly what the Criminal Rule is saying, these defendants are being criminally charged for carrying out constitutionally protected political activity including flag burning, so of course we are not going to turn over any documents that expose the law enforcement techniques used to do that, including the role of the pro-Trump alt-right Infowars Alex Jones operatives, even though they admitted on tape they planned and did assault Joey Johnson to try to stop him from burning that flag. All this would expose that the criminal charges against these defendants are based on a pack of lies, as well as other dirty, unconstitutional, repressive shit we're carrying out.” (For more, see RNC 16’s People’s Tribunal video and transcript.)
Lastly, it should be noted the prosecutor did not deny that such documents exist.
People’s Tribunal After the Hearing
After the hearing ended the Revcoms went to the steps of the courthouse to re-enact the People’s Tribunal. During the tribunal, cars stopped and recorded segments of it. Some people joined the RNC 16 in the Jury Booth and helped deliver the verdict—yelling guilty at each criminal count the pigs were convicted of and chanting, “The whole damn system is guilty as hell.”
The pig pen jail with its collection of pigs inside being put on trial—Pig Secret Service, Pig FBI Chief, Pig Prosecutor McGinty, Pig Chief Williams, Pig Alex Jones—attracted a lot of attention. People watching shook their heads in disgust when hearing about the crimes of the system and learning that all the statements in the tribunal were actually made by each pig and are available in the public record.
The revcoms who were the people’s prosecutors were fired up and full of disdain for the system and its operatives; in their biting and sharp presentation of evidence against these pigs, they showed what was going on before, during, and after the illegal arrests and how the system directly targeted the revolutionaries and champions of the seven billion people of Earth while the Nazi rally was taking place inside the RNC Convention hall.
The RNC 16 ended their evening by watching two films: Chicago 10, a documentary on the trial of the Chicago 8 arising out of the protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe.”
Chicago Cop Kills Joshua Beal During His Cousin's Funeral Procession
Revolution Club Stands with Family vs Police and Racist Mob
November 6, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
From the Revolution Club, Chicago:
Joshua Beal
(Photo: courtesy of his family)
November 5—Twenty-five-year-old Joshua Beal was in town from Indianapolis to serve as a pallbearer at his cousin’s funeral. Joshua was brutally murdered by a Chicago police officer while in a funeral procession. His aunt described him to us: “He [Joshua] just graduated from college, Ivy Tech College in Indianapolis. He was so happy in the graduation. And he was a father of two. Two young boys. He was a dedicated father.”
The funeral procession was driving through the overwhelmingly white Mt. Greenwood neighborhood on the far southwest side of Chicago around 3 pm on a sunny afternoon. This area is a notoriously racist enclave, home to many cops and firefighters. According to witnesses, an off-duty cop in plainclothes tried to force the car Joshua Beal was riding in off the road. Other members of the funeral procession got out of their cars out of concern about the situation. The off-duty cop threatened Joshua's 17-year-old cousin with a gun in her face. A bystander video shows this off-duty cop in street clothes wildly threatening people with a gun, including women dressed for a funeral.
Then, according to various accounts, a uniformed Chicago police sergeant driving by on his way to work jumped out of his car and soon afterwards emptied his gun into Joshua. Over 13 shots rang out.
When we heard about this outrage, the Revolution Club went to the scene, arriving in the early evening. We found members of Joshua’s family sitting in a Mt. Greenwood Burger King—unable to leave because police had surrounded their cars as part of the “crime scene.” A Club member explained to the family members who we were, and we began talking with them. Already grieving for the loss of one loved one who had been buried that day, this family was now dealing with the murder of another—shot down in front of their eyes by Chicago police.
At the Burger King after the police murder of Joshua Beal (Photos: Special to revcom.us)
The family members told us stories of being taunted by racists in Mt. Greenwood. They had been called “n****rs” and “monkeys” and were told to “go back to the ‘hood” by white people shouting from their cars as they drove by.
The Revolution Club brought a Stolen Lives banner into the BK and unfurled it. Many family members gasped, as they looked at the faces of so many others murdered by police. At this point, the Burger King manager announced that the family would have to leave the restaurant. This callous racism was called out by the grieving family members and people from the Club. “This is not Mississippi in 1960. This is 2016.” “They are afraid of too many Black people in this place.” Everyone stood firm, saying, “We paid for food and we aren’t leaving.”
The manager called in the police. The police arrived in force, further crowding the Burger King. They ordered everyone to leave, announcing that the BK was closing its doors early. People were forced outside into the dark and the cold without coats or sweaters.
Outside the BK, protestors from the Black Lives Matter movement began to arrive to support the family. Significantly, two white youth from Mt. Greenwood also joined the group in solidarity with the family. These white youth described the hard-core racism of the neighborhood.
As we were gathering outside, an angry white youth walked up to the Burger King wearing an American flag bandana and a “Blue Lives Matter” t-shirt and carrying a baseball bat. He was led away by police but apparently not arrested, even though he was clearly looking to commit a racist assault. This was in sharp contrast to the fact that some family members in the funeral procession had been arrested by the police. As of early the morning after, Joshua's brother was still in custody, charged with aggravated assault on a cop—AFTER HIS BROTHER WAS MURDERED DURING A FUNERAL PROCESSION!!!
Video taken by a bystander shows off-duty cop waving a gun, shortly before Joshua Beal was killed by another Chicago cop.
Across the street from the BK, a racist mob began to gather. White people with baseball bats out their windows drove by. “N*****rs,” a white man shouted. A group of white people gathered on the same side of the street as the family. Thinking they might be press, someone from the Revolution Club went over. They turned out to be off duty-cops and their friends. They began shouting and chanting, “CPD! CPD!” Drivers going by shouted out, “Trump, Trump, Trump.”
One of Joshua's family members, stunned to see this, talked about how her mother had told her of scenes like this but that in her four decades in Chicago, she had never confronted a racist mob like this. One Club member commented, “This is what the day after the election could look like.” It was really ugly.
The Revolution Club got on a bullhorn and denounced the brutal murder and racist actions and called for people to get organized for an actual revolution, calling on people to come and stand with the family and oppose the outrageous police murder and the racists in Mt. Greenwood. A crowd of people who had been commemorating the birthday of Rekia Boyd—a 22-year-old Black woman murdered by police in 2012—came from the West Side to stand in support of Joshua's family.
Read the entire HOW WE CAN WIN—How We Can Really Make RevolutionHERE
In the course of all this, Club members distributed copies of the statement from the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party, “HOW WE CAN WIN,” and our new flier “Stop Killing Each Other. Start Fighting the Real Enemy. Get Into the Revolution,” and we talked with people about how we were recruiting people into the revolution. A white youth from Mt. Greenwood told us he had been looking for people who were into revolution and made plans to connect up with the Club. We walked through the points in “HOW WE CAN WIN” about what a revolutionary situation is and how we can defeat them with this youth and several family members. One family member from Milwaukee remembered how the chief of police of Milwaukee had accused the Revcoms of leading the rebellion against police murder in that city this summer.
It was chilling how connected many of the people there were to others who have been murdered by the police. One young man was a friend of Sylville Smith, who the police murdered in Milwaukee in August. Several family members were related to Rekia Boyd, and another was close friends with the father of Paul O’Neal, killed in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood last summer. We learned this as people looked at our Stolen Lives banner and talked about the people they knew on it who had been killed by the police.
After an hour-long standoff and six hours after Joshua was murdered, police allowed Joshua’s family to return to their cars and leave the area. The Revolution Club is joining the protests called for Mt. Greenwood for Sunday, November 6. Stay tuned.
From the Revolution Club, Chicago:
Interview with Aunt of Joshua Beal
This is from an interview we did with the aunt of Joshua Beal, who was killed by a cop in a Chicago neighborhood while in the funeral procession for her son, Marcus Washington, the young man who was being buried that day.
We were in the limo. They were maybe six cars behind, and we just got a phone call, “Stop, turn around—they just shot Josh.” We were thinking it was some guys that came up here from Indianapolis that did it.
When I heard it was police, my heart just dropped. “You’re here to serve and protect—not just kill!” They wasn’t in any threat. They wasn’t in any danger. They never identified themselves. My cousin told them, because of what happened to my cousin, he has a license to carry! He told them that. He had his hands up and they killed him. He [Joshua] just graduated from college, Ivy Tech College in Indianapolis. He was so happy in the graduation. And he was a father of two. Two young boys. He was a dedicated father, to his fiancée. He took care of home. His girlfriend never worked. He has his own business, so he took care of home. He was the sole provider. And then I was talking to Ann [his fiancée ]... She didn’t know he was deceased. She has nothing. Nothing! And I don’t know... I’m thinking about the kids.
Revolution Club: So this off-duty cop broke into the funeral procession with his car?
Yes, he tried, he was trying to run her off the road. He actually tried to run her off the road... And for him not to identify himself. They think he’s just a regular guy on the street trying to do that. And then when he pulled her out the car and put the gun up to her head... You know that’s when everybody got out the car. But I don’t know exactly, exactly what happened because I wasn’t there. I just know what my people were telling me.
Revolution Club: And you say the police detained...
My daughter, the sister of the deceased. The brother of the deceased and the fiancée of the deceased. Why? I have no idea.
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.)
Watch the Launch of this Pathbreaking New Book from Bob Avakian
Featuring: Cornel West/Carl Dix, Moderated by: Andy Zee
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.
Editors' note: The following is an excerpt from the new work by Bob Avakian, THE NEW COMMUNISM. In addition to excerpts already posted on revcom.us, we will be running further excerpts from time to time on both revcom.us and in Revolution newspaper. These excerpts should serve as encouragement and inspiration for people to get into the work as a whole, which is available as a book from Insight Press. A prepublication copy is available on line at revcom.us.
This excerpt comes from the section titled "III. The Strategic Approach to An Actual Revolution."
Excerpt from the section:
Forces For Revolution
Let’s dig further into the strategic approach to revolution. What are the main forces for revolution, and what are other groups in society where large numbers of people have to be won either to be actively involved, or to be supportive, or at least to have a stance of “friendly neutrality” toward the revolution (in other words, at least not opposing it)? Obviously, this relates to the point I was emphasizing before about not being encircled, surrounded, and crushed. What are key contradictions that have to be confronted—where necessity has to be transformed into freedom and initiative for the revolutionary forces, in significant ways—to create the basis to go all-out with a real chance of winning?
First, it is important to recognize that revolution can not and will not be made by just spreading the idea of revolution around, and perhaps getting some positive responses. (Hey, thumbs up on Facebook!... Tweet out a message in favor of revolution!) Yes, it is very important to propagate the need for revolution, in a living and compelling way; but here is a point that needs to be emphasized: Accumulating organized forces for revolution is, and must be, a key objective in building toward an actual revolution; and whether or not real advances are continually being made in accumulating such organized forces is a key measure of progress—or lack of progress—in building the movement for an actual revolution. Here we can take something from Marx and adapt it to the current point: Accumulate, Accumulate, Accumulate!—Accumulate more and more capital!—that, said Marx, is the Moses and prophets for the bourgeois. Well, we can say for the proletarian revolution: Accumulate, Accumulate, Accumulate!—Accumulate organized forces for this revolution!—that must be a crucial commandment and guide!
And it’s not just accumulate over here, off in some corner. We could put it this way: It’s accumulate, impact; accumulate further, impact more; accumulate further... and on and on—even while taking into account the larger picture of what’s happening out in the world at large, as is pointed to at the beginning of Part 2 of Making Revolution and Emancipating Humanity. What do I mean by accumulate, impact? I mean that when you have organized forces, you can have a magnified impact on political situations and on the political terrain overall. To just take an important but relatively small-scale example, compared to the society as a whole, imagine if, in these upsurges in Ferguson or in Baltimore, you had an organized force of revolutionary communists of even a hundred people who were able to come on the scene, putting forward that program and organizing people around that program in the midst of that upsurge—think of the way that you could change all the dynamics in that situation. Whereas, if you have a few people there, who are even doing very good work, your ability to impact that situation is gonna be so much more limited. Now, you still have to try to impact it to the maximum degree—and, to do that, one of the things you have to do is to get very good at agitation, which is something we really need to strengthen and develop. But imagine if you could have a major impact in situations like this.
I was watching this thing on CNN when Don Lemon was out in the street interviewing somebody in the aftermath of the massacre of Black people in that church in South Carolina. Now, someone portrayed Don Lemon this way, and I think this really captures something about the role he plays: “I’m Don Lemon—I’m not really a Black man, but sometimes I play one on TV.” That gets to an important aspect of the role he plays as a puppet for the powers-that-be. But, in any case, Don Lemon was out interviewing somebody, playing his usual Uncle Tom role, and this Black woman came up behind him and started yelling, and they were live so it was hard for them to cut away, it took them a while to cut away. She started yelling, “Talk about the anger, Don. Don’t talk about the forgiveness, talk about the anger, talk about the anger, Don. Obama’s an Uncle Tom, too, Don. Talk about how Obama’s an Uncle Tom, Don. Talk about the anger. Are you talking about the anger, Don? Don, you’re an Uncle Tom.” Now, this is one woman standing behind him. Imagine if you had a hundred people, not saying exactly what that woman was saying but even more impacting the situation with compelling agitation proceeding from a revolutionary communist understanding. Then it changes everything. It changes the whole terrain—even with that number of organized forces, you’re changing the whole terrain. And then every force in society has to react differently.
Or think about this: Every time the masses rise up now, you have this situation where—here they come again—these “community leaders,” which is an updated version of what the ruling class and its mouthpieces used to call “Responsible Negro Leaders.” They are mobilized by the ruling class: religious figures of various kinds (not all of them, but too many of them), so-called community leaders, and others, including some who claim to be on the side of the people—they come out there in the situation where the people are angry, they’re in the street and they’re confronting the police, and these forces form a line, linking arms together, and they face the people. Now imagine if you had a force of even 30 people in that situation that came out there and said, “You motherfuckers are facing the wrong way! If you’re supposedly standing with the people, you should be forming a line opposing the pigs. Those are the ones harming the people. Turn around and face down the pigs!” You change the whole terms—and then the Don Lemons really have to “go to commercial!” You are affecting the terrain by having organized forces united around a revolutionary line. Even in a situation like that, it goes out to the world, especially in this age of the internet. It goes all over the place. And then people do want to know: Who are those forces that did that? Who are those forces that stood with the people and stood between the police and the people, facing the police and not allowing the police to attack the people? Who are those people who, while they were doing this, said, “We’re doing this for revolution, to get rid of this brutality and murder, and all the other shit that people are going through in this country and around the world”? See, when you have organized forces moving like that, then you seriously impact the situation, and then you draw more forces. It’s not that they all join up with you right away, or that you should bring them fully into the ranks of revolution right away, before they even have a chance to get a basic understanding of what this revolution is all about. There’s work and struggle that has to go on. But you’re able to get this dynamic going where you’re growing, you’re wielding your organized forces for revolution in a way to significantly impact society and drawing people to you, and through struggle accumulating more organized forces... and then you are able to do more to affect the situation, once again through a lot of struggle. This is the dynamic we have to advance while, once again, not narrowing our sights to just that dynamic, but looking at the whole world and how we affect the whole world toward the goal of revolution. But this is why we have to be seriously working to accumulate organized forces for revolution and to wield those forces to impact the terrain, and accumulate and impact more, while not approaching that in a narrow and linear way (as if everything will just go forward, from advance to advance, in a simple straight line, directly out of what we’re doing).
This is the correct basis for the point that’s made, and for correctly understanding the point that’s made, in “On the Strategy for Revolution,” about the “thousands” and their relation to the “millions.” It’s not just some vague notion of “thousands of people” who sort of go “thumbs up” on the idea of revolution (or even are very enthusiastic about it). If you’re talking about leading millions, you need an organized force of thousands of people, a growing number of people, in the thousands, who are oriented, organized, trained and led to be an actual revolutionary force and pole of attraction—not some vague bunch of electrons floating around with no real solid core.
Contents
Publisher's Note
Introduction and Orientation
Foolish Victims of Deceit, and Self-Deceit
Part I. Method and Approach, Communism as a Science
Materialism vs. Idealism Dialectical Materialism
Through Which Mode of Production
The Basic Contradictions and Dynamics of Capitalism
The New Synthesis of Communism
The Basis for Revolution
Epistemology and Morality, Objective Truth and Relativist Nonsense
Self and a “Consumerist” Approach to Ideas
What Is Your Life Going to Be About?—Raising People’s Sights
Part II. Socialism and the Advance to Communism:
A Radically Different Way the World Could Be, A Road to Real Emancipation
The “4 Alls”
Beyond the Narrow Horizon of Bourgeois Right
Socialism as an Economic System and a Political System—And a Transition to Communism
Internationalism
Abundance, Revolution, and the Advance to Communism—A Dialectical Materialist Understanding
The Importance of the “Parachute Point”—Even Now, and Even More With An Actual Revolution
The Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America—
Solid Core with a Lot of Elasticity on the Basis of the Solid Core
Emancipators of Humanity
Part III. The Strategic Approach to An Actual Revolution
One Overall Strategic Approach
Hastening While Awaiting
Forces For Revolution
Separation of the Communist Movement from the Labor Movement, Driving Forces for Revolution
National Liberation and Proletarian Revolution
The Strategic Importance of the Struggle for the Emancipation of Women
The United Front under the Leadership of the Proletariat
Youth, Students and the Intelligentsia
Struggling Against Petit Bourgeois Modes of Thinking, While Maintaining the Correct Strategic Orientation
The “Two Maximizings”
The “5 Stops”
The Two Mainstays
Returning to "On the Possibility of Revolution"
Internationalism—Revolutionary Defeatism
Internationalism and an International Dimension
Internationalism—Bringing Forward Another Way Popularizing the Strategy
Fundamental Orientation
Part IV. The Leadership We Need
The Decisive Role of Leadership
A Leading Core of Intellectuals—and the Contradictions Bound Up with This
Another Kind of “Pyramid”
The Cultural Revolution Within the RCP
The Need for Communists to Be Communists
A Fundamentally Antagonistic Relation—and the Crucial Implications of That
Strengthening the Party—Qualitatively as well as Quantitatively
Forms of Revolutionary Organization, and the “Ohio”
Statesmen, and Strategic Commanders
Methods of Leadership, the Science and the “Art” of Leadership
Working Back from “On the Possibility”—
Another Application of “Solid Core with a Lot of Elasticity on the Basis of the Solid Core”
Appendix 1:
The New Synthesis of Communism:
Fundamental Orientation, Method and Approach,
and Core Elements—An Outline
by Bob Avakian
Appendix 2:
Framework and Guidelines for Study and Discussion
Prisoners on THE NEW COMMUNISM, BA and Ardea Skybreak
Updated November 7, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
The following letters from prisoners were sent to the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund in the last six weeks. Funds are urgently needed to fulfill the many requests from prisoners for Bob Avakian’s new book, THE NEW COMMUNISM, for subscriptions to Revolution newspaper, and for other revolutionary literature.
The views expressed here are the views of the writers and not revcom.us/Revolution newspaper. We greatly appreciate receiving these letters and encourage prisoners and others to keep sending correspondence.
Get THE NEW COMMUNISM into the hands of prisoners!
Here's how. The publisher has a special offer: Buy one paperback for yourself from Insight Press, and buy a second book at 50% off for a prisoner and it will be sent directly to a prisoner. Total price for this offer is $25.50, plus $5.00 for shipping.
Financial support from those who see the transformative role of revolutionary theory is the only way prisoners get this literature. There is much more demand for revolutionary literature than the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund (PRLF) can currently meet. And yes, you may donate Tax-Deductible as well.
$35 will deliver a one-year subscription of Revolution newspaper: The voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party.
Tax-deductible donations can be made here, or by check/money order, payable to Global Exchange/PRLF, and mailed to PRLF: 1321 N. Milwaukee Ave., #407, Chicago, IL 60622
Regular (non-tax-deductible) donations can be made here or by check/money order, payable to PRLF, and mailed to PRLF: 1321 N. Milwaukee Ave., #407, Chicago, IL 60622
Contact PRLF: email PRLF_fund@PRLF.org, or call 773-960-6952
Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund is a sponsored project of Global Exchange, a 501c3 nonprofit international human rights organization. Contributions on behalf of Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund may be made payable to Global Exchange/PRLF and are tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.
Prisoner Writes on Bob Avakian’s THE NEW COMMUNISM:
“I have read and reread the great work and am now using it with other comrades in our study groups”
The following is an excerpt of a letter from prisoner:
THE NEW COMMUNISM is yet another great scientific work produced by Bob Avakian. The most well rounded materialist of our time. This is the most comprehensive, most in-depth work yet. I love how he, in the most simplest terms, dissects not only the problems that the world faces at the hands of capitalism-imperialism, but also details in very real and meaningful ways, what we as communist revolutionaries face in our struggle as emancipators of humanity. But most important of all is how in this single book Chairman Avakian outlined what is meant by “new communism.” While explains why a new communism is indeed necessary in order to emancipate humanity. I have read and reread the great work and am now using it with other comrades in our study groups. EVERY WORK by Chairman Avakian should come with a study and discussion section. Great book and truly, its content is revolutionary in the most fundamental sense of the word. Thank you for sending me the copies and thank you Chairman Avakian for putting so much into emancipating humanity.
In Struggle,
From a prisoner in California:
Please send me the soft-cover version [of THE NEW COMMUNISM] & I should be writing soon in regards to your request. But for the record I think the talk is pretty heavy, gives a good overview of communism, its missteps, setbacks, triumphs & present day state of affairs. But most importantly the book & the new synthesis in general is a great place to turn to in regards to how do we go about challenging ourselves & others to confront & dismantle u.s. capitalism & build a "new stage" of scientific socialism internationally.
As I also stated previously Skybreak's book SCIENCE AND REVOLUTION is just as vital & she clearly uses the new synthesis & her scientific grasp to plunge a mighty dagger in the monsters gut & I know how important it is for her and the party to promote the leadership of B-A & I believe this is rightly so...But I also believe her voice is just as urgent even if not just as heavy. But speaks volumes to who & what the party is. So im screamin' both B-A & Skybreak to all who will listen.
From a prisoner:
I would like too start off by giving thanks to Mr. Bob Avakian and the PRLF volunteers. I appreciate the PRLF for reaching back out. To take time out of yall day to help spread the word and help uplift those who might feel forsaken by their people, or who's looking for a better way of life.
By reading articles and books I can understand yall point of view. Which drive me to want to learn more and be as much of the help. To take the literature that I learn and share it with others.
More of my issues is the people, and what I mean when I say the people, is that they are lost and have no idea what's going on around them. They rather sit around and blame other people for their problems and do nothing and how can I blame them, I was once that way. Until I meet a brother by the name XXX. Who told me all about Revolution. I then learned that we shared a lot of the same thoughts.
So for those who are waiting for the time to stand for something, I would like to be of help. To do this I will need all the literature that I can receive. So to name a few, 1. Constitution of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, 2. Six Resolutions of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, 3. Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, 4. Science and Revolution, 5. BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS!, 6. Break ALL the Chains.
I'm also on my way home
From a Black prisoner:
Insurrectionarylove!!... One of my comrades just tossed me the August 15, 2016 edition of Revolution and I am really impressed with BA's piece: THE NEW COMMUNISM. I grappled with thoughts of revenge myself but BA put that shit in proper perspective for me as well as a couple of other points....RCP's publications are all bammin' thru like a ma'fucka!! Subs to Revolution as well as books such as BAsics and other publications are desperately needed here. I resisted the hell out of BA for some years now. But now I'm forced to get into the line he's pushing and get DEAD SERIOUS ABOUT REVOLUTION. Help me, help the youth bring about a CHANGE.
Excerpted letter from prisoner in California, August 16, 2016:
I will continue to let others know, that getting a copy of the book is very important to understand why we need communism, and also how very important it is to destroy the capitalist system. I've shared my xerox copy with 3 other revolutionaries who by now should've written you for one of there own copy. As you know we New Afrikans inside this prison diaspora practice scientific socialism as our world view, and by so doing, have laid the foundation for others to follow. I can see the transformation of peoples values and ideas change around this practice, and it can only increase as the understanding of destroying capitalism develops. I look forward to hearing from you volunteers regularly, and I will try to submit more articles for you to put on your website.
In struggle,
From California
From a prisoner:
I hope that everyone in the Party is doing well. I remember when I dreamed of paroling and joining the Party, but now my dream is coming closer to materializing into reality. When I am released, one of my priorities is to work with the Party, because had it not been for a member of the Party like Ardea Skybreak, I would not be as advanced in science and evolution as I am today.
And I know if an older man like me can learn about evolution and science, imagine what a young child in the inner cities could learn in their life span? You see, for me, the ship has sailed. But my legacy is an altruistic legacy, and that is to teach a young inner city child something about evolution and biology and that child goes on to be a scientist or doctor etc. Then my mission would be well done.
In addition, would you please send me Science and Revolution. And once again thank Ms. Skybreak for changing my life by teaching me so much. When Revolution comes Ms. Skybreak should be in charge of scientific education.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Excerpted letter from prisoner in Indiana, September 14, 2016:
Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund...
Greetings Comrade. I am writing to acknowledge that I received the book BAsics by Bob Avakian you sent me and wanted to thank you for such a gift. Having already a copy of the book I knew what a jewel it is. Reading Mr. Avakian's view on some of the most important issues of our time has brought me a lot of insight on the world in which we live. Like all of you I too recognize the inherent contradictions of this capitalist society and the need to organize ourselves to bring about revolutionary change in the nature of our conditions. As a New Afrikan prisoner who has spent the past twenty five years incarcerated, railroaded for the attempted murder of a pig (police officer), I can definitely relate to the message and good work you all are doing out there. It was after reading BAsics that I first reached out to you and started receiving your monthly newspaper "Revolution", which has open my eyes to the large and diverse community of activists out there working to prepare for the day when the people will be ready for a real revolution. Being a conscious minded prisoner activist naturally I was excited and wanted to join all of my comrades in order to do my part. Yet I realize I don't have to wait till I am set free here within the next few years to take action. Why not educate and organize those around me to wake up and realize their conditions and the power we have to effect change.
Force to grow up in prison over the years through serious deep soul searching I've been able to transform my mind-set from petty criminal to one of social consciousness. With this new state of mind came with a desire to challenge the conditions of my confinement. For the past few years I've been at constant odds with the pigs who run this slave camp and the entire administration has nothing but contempt for me....
Year by year we are being stripped of every meaningful program and opportunity which is replaced by superficial ones that while looking good on paper doesn't offer us anything useful in the area of marketable job skills. Though I realize your organization preach no participation in the system at all, the reality is that people in here are so program that it is hard to get them to see the system as illegit. And if you even mention the possibility of doing away with that system they look at you as if you're crazy. We gotta first bring to light the contradictions then demonstrate why it is that those contradictions exist and explain the only way to rid ourselves of them is to do away with our oppressor. So that is why I do the work I do because my mission is to free our minds from the chains that lock them into the slave like conditions that they find themselves. To be effective at this requires not just dedication on my part but the support of the community out there I am a part of, the revolution community. It is with this purpose in mind to hope that we can build a relationship beyond me being just someone on your mailing list. I would like to correspondence with those amongst you who are willing to share and supply information I can use to help educate my fellow prisoners. I also need help in getting out the word on the abuses taking place behind these walls for if I expose them they won't be able to blatantly continue to do it.
Below you will find a list of other books I am interested in as you requested I supply you with. Like with all literature I read there are books and I pass them around so that others can receive the knowledge as well. One more thing before I go. Do you have any back issues of the Revolution with that "Stop Murder & Terror By Police" and the faces of some of those murdered by police? If so I would love a copy of that if you don't mind. Thanks once again for everything and I look forward to hearing from you all soon.
America—Up to Its Eyeballs in Mass Murder and Starvation in Yemen
Updated November 14, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
While the presidential election campaign was going on, America was up to its eyeballs in the mass murder of thousands of people, and the starvation of millions more. These war crimes were never mentioned, and many may never have heard about the country being devastated: Yemen.
Map: revcom.us
Yemen is located at the tip of the Arabian Peninsula and is one of the world’s most impoverished countries. Since March 2015, Saudi Arabia has been flying warplanes supplied by the U.S., guided by U.S. intelligence, refueled by U.S. tanker planes, and dropping U.S.-made bombs on Yemen. These bombs have destroyed homes, factories, funeral parlors, schools, and markets, and killed thousands of ordinary people.
This savage campaign is aimed at crushing the Houthi rebellion because it threatens the reactionary interests of Saudi Arabia and the U.S. The Houthi movement is based among followers of the Zaidi branch of Shia Islam, who are over a third of Yemen’s 25 million people. The Houthis are fighting under the reactionary Islamist banner of Ansar Allah (Partisans of God). They’re politically supported by and have some ties to the reactionary Islamic Republic of Iran.
Markets, Homes, Funeral Parlors—Now a Prison
Rubble after a funeral hall was destroyed by a Saudi-led airstrike in Sana'a, Yemen, October 13. (Photo: AP)
The infrastructure of life in and around Saada, Yemen (above) has been devastated from U.S.-backed airstrikes by Saudi Arabia: 178 bridges, 13 power stations, 17,193 houses, 173 schools, 118 markets and 696 farms have been destroyed or damaged according to AP. (Photo: AP)
The latest Saudi massacre happened on October 30, when Saudi warplanes bombed a jail full of prisoners in the Houthi-controlled city of Al Hudaydah. At the time, the prison held 84 inmates; it was reduced to rubble by a direct hit which collapsed the roof. Sixty people were killed. They were mainly prisoners.
The U.S.-backed Saudis are waging a barbaric war against a whole section of Yemen’s population numbering in the millions. The United Nations reports that over 4,000 civilians have been killed and over 7,000 more wounded since the Saudi campaign began, mostly by the Saudis.
After the prison bombing, for the first time in the 19-month war, the U.S. called on Saudi Arabia to stop attacking civilian targets. Yet Saudi Arabia remains a key U.S. ally, military aid and support continue to flow, and the U.S. continues to uphold Saudi Arabia’s “right to self-defense,” their excuse for attacking Yemen in the first place.
War by Starvation and Disease... A Country “on the Verge of Collapse”
The Saudis are also waging war by a blockade that’s prevented food and needed supplies from getting to Yemen’s people.
Now 80 percent of the population—more than 21 million people—urgently need humanitarian aid. Some 1.5 million children are acutely malnourished. The World Health Organization has reported that deadly cholera is spreading. The UN warns that Yemen is on the verge of collapse.
The Destruction of Saada
Saada is an old town in northern Yemen where 50,000 people live. It’s also the birthplace of the Houthi movement. On November 4, the Associated Press reported the city had been devastated by the U.S.-Saudi bombing campaign: “All along the main street, buildings are crumpled beyond recognition, roofs punched in and pancaked. Historic mud-brick houses in its walled old city are pounded to dust.”
Imperialism means huge monopolies and financial institutions controlling the economies and the political systems—and the lives of people—not just in one country but all over the world. Imperialism means parasitic exploiters who oppress hundreds of millions of people and condemn them to untold misery; parasitic financiers who can cause millions to starve just by pressing a computer key and thereby shifting vast amounts of wealth from one place to another. Imperialism means war—war to put down the resistance and rebellion of the oppressed, and war between rival imperialist states—it means the leaders of these states can condemn humanity to unbelievable devastation, perhaps even total annihilation, with the push of a button.
Imperialism is capitalism at the stage where its basic contradictions have been raised to tremendously explosive levels. But imperialism also means that there will be revolution—the oppressed rising up to overthrow their exploiters and tormentors—and that this revolution will be a worldwide struggle to sweep away the global monster, imperialism.
Bob Avakian, BAsics 1:6
The infrastructure of life in and around Saada has been shattered: 178 bridges, 13 power stations, 17,193 houses, 173 schools, 118 markets, and 696 farms have been destroyed or damaged. One local organization documented the killing of 2,262 civilians, including 397 children, in the area from March 2015 to March 2016.
Fear is a constant. “The more crowded a place is, the more we are afraid of bombings,” a 15-year-old girl said. Her family, like 4 of 10 Saada residents, had fled the town.
Why Is the U.S. Backing the Saudi Slaughter?
Why is the United States backing and enabling Saudi war crimes in Yemen?
Because the U.S. is a capitalist-imperialist power. It economy, wealth, and international influence are based on a global empire of sweatshop exploitation, resource plunder, and brutal oppression—enforced by the world’s biggest military. The Middle East region is a key part of this. It contains the world’s largest concentration of oil and natural gas. Important trade routes pass through the region. The U.S. has a number of military bases there.
Now the region is being torn by wars, upheavals, and deep suffering and anger. The U.S. is desperately working to protect key allies, like Saudi Arabia, while it fends off regional and global rivals, and the spread of anti-U.S. Islamic jihadism.
Saudi Arabia has been shaken by the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal, and then the 2014-2015 Houthi uprising. Both could strengthen their archrival Iran’s position in the region. So the U.S. has stepped up the arming of Saudi Arabia and backed its murderous war, even as the U.S. may have differences with some Saudi moves.
System’s Crimes Will Continue—No Matter Who Is “Commander in Chief”
Saudi Arabia’s American-backed and -enabled crimes against Yemen have taken place under Obama, a Democrat. As his Secretary of State in 2011, Hillary Clinton personally oversaw the sale of $29.4 billion in U.S. weapons to the Saudi kingdom, including some 84 advanced F-15SA fighters, which are now in all likelihood being used to attack Yemen. An International Business Times investigation found that U.S. arms exports to Saudi Arabia increased 97 percent when Clinton ran the State Department.
Now, Donald Trump has been elected. Trump is a dangerous, outright fascist and war criminal in waiting.
Here’s the reality: no matter who is “commander in chief,” America backs barbaric, fundamentalist despotisms like the Saudi kingdom. And it backs and has carried out horrific crimes that have shed oceans of blood—in Yemen and around the world.
STOP Wars of Empire, Armies of Occupation, and Crimes Against Humanity!
Case #73: The CIA-Directed Murder of Patrice Lumumba
November 7, 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.
Patrice Lumumba waves to crowds in Leopoldville, Congo, in August 1960. Lumumba had been elected Prime Minister of the newly-founded Republic of the Congo, a country in Central Africa. A revolutionary nationalist, Lumumba was a major leader in the country's fight for independence from Belgian colonialism. (Photo: AP)
In one of the last photos taken of him while still alive, Patrice Lumumba is shown captive on December 2, 1960. The CIA orchestrated a coup against Lumumba, using Congolese Army Colonel Joseph Mobutu, to carry it out and to murder Lumumba. (Photo: AP)
The crimes of colonialism and imperialism in Africa are exemplified in the Congo. King Leopold II of Belgium ran the so-called Congo Free State as his private property, amassing an enormous fortune by turning most adult males into slaves to collect wild rubber and ivory from the jungle. After the Belgians discovered gold in 1903, they worked thousands to death in gold mines. It has been estimated that about 10 million people out of a population of 20 million lost their lives under King Leopold’s barbarous rule. The women and children were held hostages—their hands, noses and ears often chopped off when the men in their families did not meet their rubber quota or failed to return.
THE CRIME: On January 17, 1961, a firing squad shot to death the Congolese anti-colonialist fighter and leader Patrice Lumumba. His body was buried, but then dug up and dismembered with saws and axes. Then Lumumba’s body was burned and dissolved in acid so there would not even be a corpse around which his supporters could rally. This brutal murder was carried out by some of Lumumba’s Congolese enemies, but it was the U.S. imperialists who called for and orchestrated it. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was in the forefront, aided by imperialist Belgium, which had ruled over and tormented the people of the Congo for the previous 75 years.
In the few months prior to his assassination, Patrice Lumumba had been the first elected prime minister of the Republic of the Congo, newly founded on June 30, 1960. A revolutionary nationalist, Lumumba was a major leader in the country's fight for independence from Belgian colonialism. He intended to use the country's vast resources to improve the lives of the Congolese people. They had endured unspeakable suffering under Belgian rule, with literally millions having died on its plantations and in its mines. Now their hopes and aspirations rode with Lumumba.
Lumumba's rise to power alarmed Belgium. While having been forced to grant the Congolese people formal independence, it had no intention of giving them real independence or surrendering its economic interests in the mineral-rich land—rubber, ivory, and copper, diamonds and gold and much more.
Nor did U.S. imperialism. By the 1960s, it too was exploiting the Congo's vast resources and was determined to expand its economic, political and military influence there and in Africa more broadly. It wanted to establish a weak, compliant, bought-off government that wouldn't stand in its way, and they saw Patrice Lumumba as someone who did.
The U.S., with Belgian assistance, began plotting to remove Lumumba from office and silence him... for good. To accomplish this, they took advantage of the fact that the country was not yet really in the hands of, as Lumumba had put it, “its own children.”
Behind the façade of formal independence, Belgian military officers still controlled the Congo’s army and police. The mineral corporations still had tight control over the wealth of the country and over an apparatus of corrupt politicians. Secret agents of the U.S. CIA, Belgian intelligence, and other powers were working day and night to keep power firmly and permanently in the hands of forces subservient to imperialism.
Among those eager to collaborate with imperialism was Joseph Mobutu. He had been a colonel in the Belgian colonial army, and was made head of the “new” imperialist-controlled army. And Mobutu was working hand-in-hand with the CIA on how to kill Patrice Lumumba.
According to former CIA agent John Stockwell:
“The CIA had developed a program to assassinate Lumumba.... The program they developed, the operation didn’t work. They didn’t follow through on it. It was to give poison to Lumumba. And they couldn’t find a setting in which to get the poison to him successfully in a way it wouldn’t appear to be a CIA operation. I mean, you couldn’t invite him to a cocktail party and give him a drink and have him die a short time later, obviously. And so, they gave up on it. They got cold feet. And instead, they handled it by the [CIA] chief of station talking to Mobutu about the threat that Lumumba posed, and Mobutu going out and killing Lumumba, having his men kill Lumumba.” (Democracy Now!, January 21 and May 10, 2011)
To carry out the CIA’s assassination directive, Mobutu staged an army coup d’etat, suppressing political organizations in the capital. Then, on October 10, 1960, Lumumba was put under house arrest, guarded by army and United Nations troops. He soon escaped and tried to get to his main base of mass support in the city of Stanleyville, but five days later he was recaptured by Mobutu’s men. He was then flown to the city of Leopoldville, where he was shown to journalists and diplomats. Following that, he was passed from one group of his enemies to another, to be beaten and tortured. Finally, he was flown to Katanga province and his archenemy Moises Tshombe, for execution.
THE CRIMINALS:
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower: There was a massive effort over the years to cover up the central role played by the U.S. in Lumumba’s murder. Yet it came to light that President Dwight Eisenhower called for Lumumba’s assassination during a White House national security meeting in August 1960, less than two months after the Congo became “independent” and Lumumba was elected to be prime minister.
Allen Dulles, director of the CIA: The CIA overall orchestrated and directed Lumumba’s execution. Dulles called Lumumba a “mad dog,” and stated in a memo to the CIA station chief in the Congo that Lumumba’s “removal must be an urgent and prime objective.” In a message to President Eisenhower on September 21, Dulles wrote that Lumumba “remained a grave danger as long as he was not disposed of.”
Frank Carlucci: One of the CIA agents involved in organizing Lumumba’s assassination. Carlucci later became President Ronald Reagan’s secretary of defense.
Joseph Mobutu: For his role in Lumumba's assassination and bringing a swift end to any notions of real independence for the Congo, the U.S. backed Mobutu’s 32-year-long rule. With U.S. support, he ruled the country with an iron fist, crushing attempts at building rebel movements while amassing a personal fortune of more than $4 billion. All the while the U.S. had free rein to plunder the country’s rich resources.
THE ALIBI: The imperialists initially claimed that Patrice Lumumba had been killed by “outraged villagers,” and then later changed their story, blaming his “Congolese enemies.” This cover story was designed to hide who Lumumba’s real assassins were. It was also used to justify setting up the puppet, pro-U.S. Mobutu government, and keeping the Congo under U.S. control—the argument being that the country’s instability, chaos and warring factions (which the imperialists themselves were responsible for creating) proved that the people of the Congo were incapable of ruling themselves.
Not only did slavery play a major role in the historical development of the U.S., but the wealth and power of the U.S. rests today on a worldwide system of imperialist exploitation that ensnares hundreds of millions, and ultimately billions, of people in conditions hardly better than those of slaves. Now, if this seems like an extreme or extravagant claim, think about the tens of millions of children throughout the Third World who, from a very, very early age, are working nearly every day of the year—as the slaves on the southern plantations in the United States used to say, “from can’t see in the morning, till can’t see at night”—until they’ve been physically used up....These are conditions very similar to outright slavery....This includes overt sexual harassment of women, and many other degradations as well.
All this is the foundation on which the imperialist system rests, with U.S. imperialism now sitting atop it all.
Bob Avakian, BAsics 1:4
THE ACTUAL MOTIVE: In the years immediately following World War 2, the U.S. began to establish itself as the world's major imperialist power, and controlling the Congo was part of establishing its hegemony in Africa. That meant continuing to exploit and plunder the Congo. It also meant suppressing anti-colonialist struggles and blocking any advances in Africa by contending European powers and, most importantly, by the Soviet Union. By the mid-1950s, capitalism had been restored in that formerly socialist country, and by the 1960s it was emerging as an imperialist rival to the U.S.
In late 1960, as the Congo sank into imperialist-inspired chaos and stood on the brink of government collapse and civil war, Patrice Lumumba had sought support from several foreign forces as well as the United Nations. But when UN troops arrived in the Congo, Lumumba quickly learned that they answered not to his government but to the Western powers, including the U.S. and Belgium.
With no assistance coming, Lumumba eventually turned to the Soviet Union, which seized the opportunity to contend with the U.S. by sending planeloads of “advisers” and agents. The U.S. ambassador to the Congo referred to Lumumba as “Lumumbavitch” and he was denounced as a communist or “communist dupe,” creating yet another rationale for his elimination.
Lumumba, while not a communist, was a courageous, charismatic leader who had emerged as one of Africa's, and the entire Third World's, most vocal opponents of colonialism and advocates of national liberation and sovereignty. This too put him in the crosshairs of the U.S., which was attempting to bloodily crush the gathering global wave of anti-imperialist uprisings and revolutions.
Murdering Lumumba and installing the brutal Mobutu regime turned the Congo into a bulwark of U.S. imperialism in Africa. For instance, his regime served as a springboard for U.S.-backed military intervention against its Soviet-backed neighbor Angola in the 1970s.
Patrice Lumumba was only 35 years old when assassinated and knew that his anti-imperialist stand and actions could lead to his early death, but he never backed down. A week before his execution, he wrote to his wife, Pauline:
“The brutality, mistreatment, or torture has ever forced me to ask for grace, for I prefer to die with my head high, my faith unshakable, and my confidence profound in the destiny of my country, rather than live in submission and scorn of sacred principles. History will one day have its say, but it will not be the history that Brussels, Paris, Washington, or the United Nations will teach, but that which they will teach in the countries emancipated from colonialism and its puppets.”
Sources
Democracy Now!, January 21 and May 10, 2011 interview with Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa, Houghton Mifflin, 1999
Heinz G. and Donnay H., Lumumba: The Last Fifty Days, Grove Press, New York, 1969
Lumumba, a documentary film by Raoul Peck, 2000; see www.zeitgeistfilms.com for information
Kingsolver, Barbara, The Poisonwood Bible, Harper Perennial Library, 1998. A brilliant novel told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959.
Ludo de Witte, The Assassination of Lumumba, Verso, 2001
Check It Out: Anna Deavere Smith's Notes
From the Field
November 8, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Millions
watched the video of Freddie Gray being dragged off, legs limp and
twisted, to a police van. But who has met Kevin Moore, the Baltimore
deli worker who dared to tape this crime? Who's heard him tell the
story with the image of Freddie Gray projected two stories high
behind him, screaming in agony, almost impossible to listen to?
The
uprising two days later in Baltimore was all over YouTube, but few
have gotten to know Allen Bullock, the young Black man that
authorities tried to put away for years for allegedly trashing a
police car. Take a minute right now to watch Anna Deavere Smith bring
Allen to an audience in a clip from her one-person play Notes From the Field.
Allen
is one of 19 people Smith inhabits during this gripping show now
playing at the Second Stage Theatre in New York through December 11.
(It may travel to other cities and be broadcast on TV.) Smith
interviewed some 250 youths, prisoners, parents, teachers, public
officials, activists, and others for this play, which she calls a
"living documentary."
A
central focus is those this system casts off. She takes you inside
their lives, with insight and empathy, no condescension. What choices
has this system offered them? What future? Why did Freddie Gray make
eye contact with the police? Why did he run?
Smith
grew up in Baltimore; she returns as the city erupts, and for anyone
in her audience who may have asked why these youth revolted, why so
fierce, the reasons—visceral and very specific—are
onstage. One more murder by police which can't be denied, piled onto
lives filled with insult and predation by police. Allen: "The
police, they don't care.... Four times, I think I remember four times
they beat me, like four times, I think I remember four times, four
times...."
Anna
Deavere Smith has created 18 one-person shows based on
interviews—including Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights,
Brooklyn and Other Identities and Twilight: Los Angeles,
1992—about uprisings in Brooklyn and in LA. She was a
finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and is widely recognized for
creating a new form of theater.
In
Notes From the Field, she delves into the horrors of police
terror, mass incarceration, and the intensifying oppression of Black
and other oppressed people. "There's so much to learn about, how
do you get an audience to change its position from the passive
spectator?" she told the New York Times, "What
causes an audience to really say, 'Well, what can I do about this?'"
Smith
portrays various people who are trying to address these screaming
outrages from within the framework of this system. There are parents,
teachers, and school administrators trying to "save one kid at a
time" through education. The president of the NAACP Legal
Defense and Education Fund calls the problem one of investment—in
prisons, not schools. The evening concludes with Democratic Party
Congressman and former civil rights activist John Lewis telling of
former adversaries—cops and Klan members—apologizing to
him, holding out the hope of societal reconciliation. But
reconciliation and reforms aren’t the answer.
The
horrors that Anna Deavere Smith so movingly brings to the stage are
woven into the fabric of this society, and can't be resolved by
education, reconciliation, or other reforms within this system's
framework. It is urgent that everyone confront these issues,
and wrestle critically with where they spring from and what it would
take to end them. Revolutionaries need to bring the scientific
understanding of their real roots and the revolutionary solution
needed to actually address them to performances and discussions of
this important work.
So
if you can, be sure to see Notes From the Field!
Two Trials of Racist Murderers Begin:
Eyes of the World on Charleston, South Carolina
November 7, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
There would be no United States as we now know it today without slavery. That is a simple and basic truth.
Bob Avakian, BAsics 1:1
April 4, 2015, North Charleston, SouthCarolina: Walter Scott, a 50-year-old Black man, chased down, shot repeatedly in the back, and murdered by North Charleston cop Michael Slager. Walter Scott’s cold-blooded murder was captured on video by the lone witness to this event, and has been seen by millions.
June 17, 2015, Charleston, South Carolina: nine people at a Bible study class in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church murdered by white racist Dylann Roof when he sprayed a room full of people with a 45-caliber semi-automatic gun. Outpourings of grief, anger, and determination to put an end to the long, ugly history of racist murders spread across the country.
A System Steeped in Oppression
On October 31, Slager’s murder trial began in a Charleston courthouse. A week later, on November 7, Roof’s trial is set to begin in a federal courthouse across the street.
The eyes of the world are once again on Charleston. News media from across the country and around the world have gone to the city. Elected officials and religious leaders have begun pleading for “peace.” Judicial, legal, and police forces are being mobilized to enforce what this system calls “justice” and “order.”
Mayor John Tecklenburg said the trials are “truly an opportunity for the city of Charleston to continue—not start, but continue—to show the world a community that’s united in the belief that love conquers hate. A belief in our justice system that it can work, a belief in our community that we will come together and stay together no matter what challenge is before us.”
Police chase and execution of Walter Scott.
This is sheer, brazen bullshit.
Slager is on trial because Feidin Santana, a courageous immigrant who was the only witness to the murder, took a video of Slager running after Walter Scott and shooting the unarmed man multiple times in the back, and let the world see what happened. Without this video, Slager’s lies that he was in a fight for his life would never have been exposed and challenged. He would have been like the hundreds and thousands of other cops who murder Black and Latino people in this country and never are even charged, much less convicted of anything. As a reporter for the Charleston Chronicle, the city’s Black newspaper, said, “In my 40-year police reporting career, this is first time any police officer has been brought to task for an unarmed shooting.”
The acts of Dylann Roof—the Nazi loving, Confederate flag waving, virulently white supremacist, mass murdering Dylann Roof—are not “inexplicable,” as the former mayor of Charleston claimed. He and others filled with the same violent, festering racist hate are not just “loosely connected to the history of race in this country,” as New York Times columnist David Brooks said on PBS News Hour.
He is an expression and product of a country founded on genocide, slavery, and theft. The horrific oppression begun centuries ago with those monstrous crimes continues and deepens today, though under different forms. Few places concentrate the legacy and ongoing continuation of the oppression of Black people seared into this country more than Charleston and South Carolina.
Charleston was a pillar of the “slave trade”—scholars estimate that 40 to 60 per cent of enslaved Africans entered the U.S. through Charleston and other “low country” South Carolina ports. The U.S. Civil War began when Confederates fired on a fort in Charleston’s port. Just months after the Civil War ended, South Carolina enacted “black codes” that became the model for the brutal, lynch mob apartheid of Jim Crow. The Confederate flag, known to the world as a symbol of white supremacy, flew over all government buildings in the state until massive outpourings after the Emanuel A.M.E. massacre demanded they be taken down. For over 50 years, Black people have been driven out of the city where they once formed a majority, in the 1960s and again in the 1990s by what the Charleston Post and Courier called “forced relocations.” Today gentrification and rising prices aimed at making the city “safe” for the tourists who want to soak up the “charm” of its slave-holding, antebellum (before the Civil war) atmosphere have changed the city from majority Black to majority white.
Michael Slager, the murdering cop, is a modern-day embodiment of the slave catchers who hunted down Black people—getting paid for enforcing brutal subjugation, backed up by law and custom for doing so. Dylann Roof is a fitting heir to the Southern (and American) tradition of the murderous lynch mobs that terrorized Black communities.
Ten people in Charleston are dead because of a marauding racist killer and a cop who thought he could kill Black people with impunity. Representatives and defenders of this system feel under intense pressure to provide a semblance of a “fair trial” in both these cases.
It is vital to wage a determined, relentless fight for justice in these trials. The wanton slaughter of Black, Latino, and Native American people, long protected and covered by U.S. law in U.S. courts, both state and federal, must stop! But whatever the outcome of these cases, there can never be an end to the savage oppression of Black people and its brutal enforcement by the police and the legal system until actual revolution puts an end to this system of U.S. capitalism-imperialism.
Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution!
Revolution will provide coverage of both trials, and the ongoing situation in Charleston.
Standing Rock Interview: New Zealand-born Samoan Activist Tu'ulenana Iuli
November 7, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Revolution: If you could tell me your name...
Tu’ulenana Iuli: My name is Tu’ulenana Iuli. I’m a New Zealand-born Samoan. My parents emigrated from Samoa to New Zealand and I was born and raised in Auckland and I immigrated to Australia.
Revolution: Could you share with us why you’re here, why did you come?
Tu’ulenana Iuli: We’ve had a lot of struggles in the land where I was born in terms of indigenous rights, in terms of treaties, honoring duel sovereignty, the sharing of the rights of indigenous people of the land and non-indigenous. So there’s discussion and development going on in terms of language and cultures that were repressed before, then and now. We fought to get our language and culture reinstated in education, also health services, also justice services. And in doing all these things, First Nations, American people have come to support us every time. So there is the reciprocal factor that we come to another First Nations indigenous people in this country. If we look at what the needs are, Standing Rock stands for us like that, and I think it stands for a lot of other indigenous nations. They see hope for their own stands that they need to make for the land, for the water, for the air they breathe. Standing Rock represents for us.
Revolution: What do you think the world needs to know about what’s happening here?
Tu’ulenana Iuli: People in the world need to know that again the tiny few that control the minerals and fossil fuels are controlling what happens to the land and the water, and that the people of this land have decided they can’t afford to allow that to happen to their water and they’re prepared to give up their freedom, their liberty. They’re prepared to give up jobs, everything, to be here, to announce to everybody that we will not allow that to happen. And that’s, for some it’s quite magical, there’s a story that has drawn everybody, and the whole world is watching. I’ve gotta say that the magnitude of this protest action, because there are many around, it just seems to raise this collective of Standing Rock as the place we are watching and it just makes so much sense, about us being together and fighting for this.
Revolution: What do you think are the consequences if DAPL is successful in building this pipeline and what do you think are the consequences if the people are able to stop it? What difference does it make?
Tu’ulenana Iuli: For me, myself, and this is how I think of it—Standing Rock is a victory today, it’s raised hope for others everywhere. And there are small Standing Rocks or other Standing Rocks around. It means that this is an ongoing, everything, every day this is a victory for us. Every moment that we spend here is a victory for us. If, what happens, if the Black Snake is able to be stopped, then I believe it will be a great victory, not only for Standing Rock but for the whole. This is the biggest free enterprise, commercialized country in the world, they lead. And if a group of people that believe in looking after their communities, looking after their water, after the land, get a victory, then that will stand for a lot of things, a lot of people. As I see it, it’s already started, it’s already created that influence, and I can’t see it not stop, it’s not going away, whatever the results. I mean, right now, people are talking about Standing Rock instead of the so-called elections. Doesn’t matter—who are they? They do the same thing anyway. But Standing Rock makes a difference, I think that’s true.
Revolution: What would you tell people—thousands of people have come through here, there are something like 280 First Nation and Native American tribes that have supported this, over 200 have come out—what would you say to people of the world about why they need to come to Standing Rock and stand with people here?
Tu’ulenana Iuli: I think that people have seen what’s happening here and realized that certain elements within communities are not good for you and your people and your communities, and if you decide to make an effort to ensure their safety or protection, then I think you should take this as a good reason to take those measures. Look towards your community and look at what Standing Rock has done and see that you can create whatever you need to do. That ordinary people, even those with no money, with lack of justice, lack of health, statistically can stand and say, look, we’re going to stand for everybody. And if they can do that, then a lot of people can take a little heart from what they do, in other places.
Revolution: You raise the question, what do we need to do next; what do you think?
Tu’ulenana Iuli: This group over here, look over here, they’re standing, they’re eating, chopping wood together. Half of these people wouldn’t talk to each other two weeks ago, but you put them in this place, they listen to prayers together, they talk to each other, they ask each other politely, excuse me? They’re integrating and that’s great because Standing Rock is here. I came here for two days and for three nights. There is this love thing that goes on because you get attached to the magnetism of this.
Everybody knows that they’re going to tell the story of this place and how it affected them to whomever they love. I’m just one of the many thousands who have come through. I think I sort of see, it’s kind of like a Woodstock of that time. ’Cause I wasn’t there, but people talk about how, yeah, I was there. But this is different, totally different. The movement, the timing, doesn’t that say something about the second generation? This was expected.
Funny, as I spoke before about the elections, it’s funny how they play themselves out to be quite a theater show. If they came out looking at this, this is quite serious in comparison. This is something ordinary people want to see. Ordinary people want to stand here. They never met each other before but they don’t care about no theater. They stand in front of the barricade, they look at soldiers—armed soldiers—they put their hands up, saying the same words: Mni wiconi! (Water is Life!). Being here, you feel it.
Methodist Minister, Reverend Matt Richards at Standing Rock
November 5, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
November 3: 300 clergy and lay people from all over the country, answering a call that was put out for the religious community to come to Standing Rock for an action to stand in solidarity with the Native people.
Photo: Special to revcom.us
Editors’ note: As U.S. society divides out around the struggle at Standing Rock, there are forces working to intensify an atmosphere of racist hatred against Native Americans among white people in rural North and South Dakota. At the same time, there are significant voices of support for the struggle at Standing Rock from those communities. Reverend Matt Richards from Miller, South Dakota, a town of around 1,400 people, is one of those voices. The Revolution correspondents at Standing Rock spoke with him on November 2, when he was part of a mobilization of clergy for Standing Rock.
Revolution: Can you tell me who you are?
Reverend Richards: Matt Richards from Miller, South Dakota, serving the United Methodist Church. I’m Senior Pastor at Miller UMC.
Revolution: That’s how far from here?
Reverend Richards: That’s about three and a half hours south.
Revolution: What brought you here?
Reverend Richards: Just working with several clergy via a Facebook group, clergy standing with Standing Rock. Saw the call for clergy to come register and come attend. Actually it goes deeper for me. In 1980 my mom got a teaching job on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. So from 1980 to 1985 I was a student at the elementary school on the reservation and I was introduced to Native American culture, the Lakota Sioux culture. Had friendships with many Lakota Sioux there. And so I’ve been at the center... my theology and my understanding of who we are as a people, as God’s children, we are all relatives, to me that means the same thing. Trying to work for justice and environmental justice with the earth and water means a great deal to me and should mean a lot to everyone.
Revolution: What do you think people need to know about what’s going on here?
Reverend Richards: I think people need to understand that this is one more attempt to create enmity between Lakota Nations, all Native Nations, and the government. Those with power involved, I believe it’s an attempt to close the book as far as genocide, and we’re at a point in our society where this is an opportunity for those of us who have descended from the people who benefited from wealth, power, and the enslavement of people, the genocide of so many indigenous people, to experience redemption, to experience reconciliation. That’s a heartfelt gesture—it needs to be more than just lip service. To come here and to hear the stories, connect with people and understand true culture is essential in bridging that gap and that pain that still exists.
Revolution: And what would you tell people who read this or listen to your voice about why they should come here?
Reverend Richards: Come here to just learn about what is really going on here. There is a lot of... if you look on Facebook there is a lot of disbelief as to what’s really happening here. It’s really something here, you come into the camp here, you get to the center here where there’s the sacred fire, they’ve got these wonderful erase boards that essentially give the flow chart of directions of nonviolent protests and non escalation. And you see so much of that on Facebook and other social media sites, that people just don’t believe what is taking place here. And come and see for yourself. And also come with the awareness that you are a guest, that you are here to learn and also to hear about the story of No Access, No Pipeline. It’s great.
Revolution: What does your congregation think about this?
Reverend Richards: There’s a mix. We’ve got people who just do not agree with what is taking place here. But there are others who do support and are understanding of what is taking place. Our bishop has written an extensive letter of support, which does give us a little cover, I would say. But it’s still a challenge working in local congregations of predominantly white people who have lived lives of white privilege, as I have as well, learning what that means and acknowledging our human brokenness.
Revolution: Let me ask you this, theologically speaking and I’m an atheist, fighting against the attacks by the police, mass incarceration, other crimes of the system. This system is un-reformable. It’s a system of white supremacy and they could not NOT kill Black and Latino people, even if they wanted to, because of the workings of capitalism. There is the addiction to oil that is at the center of this system worldwide. These pipelines are part of the U.S. becoming, as they say, self sufficient, which means it doesn’t matter the lives of the people, their compunction to expand or die... But what I wanted to ask, as a person of faith, what do you think as a person of faith, what is your responsibility, when these kinds of injustices are happening, what’s the responsibility of people of faith?
Reverend Richards: It’s first and foremost to be faithful in prayer—to center yourself in prayer and praying for the Holy Spirit to enter in. And second, before there are any judgments made, be like Paul, learn the context, learn the culture. If you are going to attempt to judge, either one way or another, you have to do your understanding of context, do the research, do the study. Experience something before you make such a judgment. And then if you come out on the other side of that in a place of compassion and strengthened faith in what is taking place, don’t be afraid. Be courageous, be brave. Know that God is doing something new, that those who look at Christianity as just a white man’s religion, Jesus was Hebrew.
Revolution:How does your way of thinking guide you to act?
Reverend Richards: One, I’m here, we’re going to go to some training on approaches to protesting and non-escalation. I plan to be present, I plan to be part of the protest and tomorrow we’re going to see. This clergy group that is gathering—between 500-600 clergy—ascending to this area, some say descending, but I’d say, ascending, to be involved, to get firsthand experience and to join all our relatives in the stand against DAPL (Dakota Access Pipeline).
Revolution: Any last comments you want to make?
Reverend Richards: Just want to put a shout out to people in Miller, South Dakota. I do love and care for you deeply and I know that some of you support me and I’m working for what I believe is right and don’t intend to push my beliefs on the congregation in any way, shape, or form.
November 3, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
About 300 clergy and lay people from all over the country this morning, answering a call that was put out for the religious community to come to Standing Rock for an action to stand in solidarity with the Native people. Following is an interview, at Standing Rock, with one of those who answered that call.
Revolution: Tell us your name and who you are with.
Reverend White-Hammond: I’m Reverend Mariama White-Hammond and I’m from Boston, Massachusetts, I’m a minister of Bethel AME Church in Boston.
Revolution: And why are you here?
Reverend White-Hammond: There are so many reasons. I think the biggest reason is that we were asked to come. I have been following what has been going on at Standing Rock. I am also part of a group in Massachusetts that’s resisting a fracked-gas pipeline. And what we realize is, in addition to these pipelines being dangerous—so that is the first issue is that there’s just no regard for the human life that’s here right now, no regard for the beauty of this creation, of God’s creation, that we don’t have a right to destroy in the here and now. But we also know that this system, this way of being, this addiction to fossil fuels, is the death sentence for our future generations. And so I’m a clergy person and I felt called to be there to help people find who they’re supposed to be, really connect with their deeper spiritual traditions. I work, for instance, with people who have addiction. And it’s a real hard thing for people to turn around, and I think our country has an addiction. And I so I’m here because I feel like Standing Rock is calling out that addiction. Not just for themselves but also to lead us in the way that we need to be going and we’re not going.
So, as a person of African descent I felt it was of particular importance because we have also felt the oppression that comes when people don’t honor our lives, don’t think that we matter, don’t think that we have the same rights to live in our land and be safe that everybody else has. And so I felt it was important to come for that reason. But I see so many things connecting in this. It’s not just one thing—there were so many things that called to me to be here.
November 3: 300 clergy and lay people from all over the country this morning, answering a call that was put out for the religious community to come to Standing Rock for an action to stand in solidarity with the Native people.
Photos: Special to revcom.us
Revolution: What would you tell people who are listening to this or reading what you have to say about why they should come here?
Reverend White-Hammond: I think some people should come here. But I also think we need to stand in solidarity all across the country. Going back to Massachusetts we’re asking, what are the financial interests, what are the governmental interests that are also helping this to happen here. So I think we need people to come here to stand, to push back. But we also need to make it untenable in other places. It’s not OK for big banks to pretend like they have nothing to do with this. They do have something to do with this. And we need to make them feel this all across the country, not just here. So I think it’s important to come here. But I also think, not everybody is going to be able to come, it costs a lot of money sometimes to come. And I think that there’s also a strong importance to being in solidarity where you are—to seeing the interconnectedness between these institutions that make this happen. We see the police out here, right? There’s a few of them in the car but they are backed by lots of other people who are not here, but need to be held accountable for what is happening here.
Revolution: I guess what I would pose is, here we have a system of capitalism-imperialism; there has been a genocide that has been going on for hundreds and hundreds of years. There’s right now an epidemic of police killing Black and Latino people in this country, there’s the mass incarceration; the wars for empire. There’s what you talked about, the addiction to fossil fuels and the destruction of the environment. I guess the question I would pose to you, from your point of view, what is it actually going to take to change all this?
Reverend White-Hammond: It’s interesting, I just was having a real deep conversation—so, for me I believe this is a spiritual crisis. For instance, for years scientists have been telling us about climate change but people don’t seem to be able to move. And part of what it is, is I think that we are sold a way of being, a way of living. A lot of that has to do with manifest destiny and why people came here and you’re gonna have this better life. And now I think more people are awakening to the reality that that “better life” was always built on the oppression of other people. It was built on the oppression of people in Central America. It was built on the degradation of the land. And so now that we are getting more clear on the costs—and some of us have felt the costs for a long time. But I think more and more people are getting clear about the costs—we have to ask ourselves the fundamental question like, are we ready to walk away from this way of being and into a new way?
Do I have all the solutions? No. Do I know how we’re going to get there? Not exactly. But I do know we need a new economy. We need a new way of being with each other. We need a new way of being in community with each other. We need to be a lot more local instead of shipping things all over the world, which we now know that way of being doesn’t work. But you can recognize something is wrong. This is a human challenge; we often see something in our lives and know it’s wrong. But it’s hard, it’s hard work to say I’m gonna walk away from this into something else. And so that’s why I think as people of faith, as clergy folks, we have a specific responsibility to say we want to help you find the moral and personal courage to walk away from a system we know is not working, as well as the vision and creativity to imagine what a new world would be like.
Interview with Noche Diaz:
Revolutionary Communist Defies Ban at the University of Chicago
November 6, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Noche Diaz is a member of the Get Into the Revolution National Organizing Campaign and Tour. On October 26, the University of Chicago and Chicago police violently assaulted and arrested him for revolutionary speech inside a campus cafeteria. And then, in addition to pressing charges against him that carry a full year in jail, the University of Chicago and Chicago police issued a permanent ban against him and threat of arrest if he set foot back on University of Chicago campus property ever again. On November 1, he and the Revolution Club and others with him defied that ban.
Noche Diaz (center) at the University of Chicago, November 1. (Photo: Special to revcom.us)
Revolution: On November 1, you defied that ban at the University of Chicago. Before getting into what happened, why was it essential to do that?
Noche Diaz: It was important to come back on campus to defy the ban for probably some of the same reasons why they felt it was important to institute the ban. We were actually bringing a very important message—not just a message, the reality—that America was never great! It was founded on genocide and slavery. It has expanded through the basis of wars of domination that have destroyed the lives and entire societies of people all over the world.
And there is an election season right now where people are being told to choose between a fascist monster like Donald Trump and an imperialist recidivist war criminal like Hillary Clinton. These are not just criminal choices in their own right, of bad people, but they are criminal choices of a criminal system that has to be overthrown. And we’re on tour to organize people into this revolution, and get organized for the time when we can actually overthrow this system, as soon as possible.
This needs to be something that students need to relate to broadly speaking, on campuses and universities, and at the University of Chicago. For one thing, everybody has to confront that reality. Look, this is not just the history of America, it is current reality. It takes new forms. Look at what’s going on with the Dakota Access Oil Pipeline, with the Sioux people at Standing Rock—this is a continuation of this genocide, and also a marriage of that with destroying the environment and destroying the water, all for the blind pursuit of profit, and all driven by the logic of capitalism and this whole system.
At the same time, police murder and mass incarceration continue to go on and on against Black people and Latinos. And the police consistently and continually get away with this kind of murder. You have this massive crisis throughout the world of millions of refugees fleeing their homelands, because of destruction wrought by imperialist wars and the unleashing of Islamic fundamentalist forces offering nothing but horrors for humanity and no way out.
Posters with important statements of support from Ed Asner and Cornel West.
.@Noche_RC: Oh, that's right, that's the genocidal rag I was talking about. Slavery, deathsquads, America is land of thief, home of slave. pic.twitter.com/3QCxyFTZmD
This is the reality. This is the world people live in, which is largely kept from people. Or, to the degree that people get in on wrestling with it, it’s all on the terms of how to get in on this system and, in different ways, in the interests of this system. Or, for some of the better people, how to do some good for some people but never dealing with what the actual problem is, what the source of it all is, and what’s the actual solution to this.
So we are there to bring a very different message to people, and as the most important part of this, we were introducing people to Bob Avakian’s new communism, and the leadership he is providing for this revolution. He’s the most radical leader on the planet. The most liberating revolution leader—the most scientific. These are ideas that challenge conventional thinking, not only in this society, but even within the communist movement. He has developed the framework for a new society, on the road to real emancipation. And he is leading a party, and a movement, that is getting ready for an actual revolution right here in the belly of the beast.
This is the message we were there to take out. This is the message they were trying to stop us from connecting up with the students. That is why we needed to defy that ban, together with the fact that it is unacceptable to have a university touting itself as a bastion of “free speech” and a place where there is an exchange of ideas and doing this. The same day we went to defy the ban, it was announced that University of Chicago is the number one university in the country for intellectual diversity. My ass! So, it is especially outrageous for them to rule out radical thinking, and especially outrageous and unacceptable that they do this while they proclaim themselves number one in intellectual diversity and tout their “freedom of speech” and all this garbage and nonsense. That’s the main reason we thought it was important.
And then, look, we aren’t just spreading a message, we are out to recruit people into this revolution. And this is going up against the dominant thinking that justifies all this oppression and exploitation. This is a radical challenge to this system and its authorities. And it’s not going to advance and develop in any other way than taking on the ways they try to suppress and repress people who stand up to their injustices, and who call them out and challenge them where they are supposed to be unchallenged.
So we felt like this was absolutely necessary for those two reasons.
And, they need to become part of this revolution, which will not take place any way other than being able to resist the repressive measures that come out against this revolution. Because at the end of the day, for all their talk of democracy and freedom, this is in fact a dictatorship. All these terrible things they do are enforced with brute force, both with the gun for the masses of oppressed people, and with the intellectual hammer, where radical discourse is bullied out, or repressed the way we were. And the terms of discourse are totally locked within the confines of “make America great again” or “America was always great,” and choosing the lesser evil within that.
Revolution: Before you went back on campus, there were some very important expressions of support, right?
Noche Diaz: Yes. Very importantly, very quickly, some prominent voices came forward to condemn this attack. The video of my arrest and the message I gave while I was being put in the police vehicle was shared and spread by many, many people on social media, including important voices like Chuck D, who also commented that I happened to be bringing more logic to the discourse than the whole presidential campaign. You had the actor Gbenga Akinnagbe, the actor best known for his role in The Wire—and who has also put himself on the line opposing stop-and-frisk and standing up to injustice—he also made a comment while sharing that video.
And then there were major and important statements of support from Cornel West and Ed Asner. Ed Asner is an alumnus of the University of Chicago. He issued a powerful, provocative, and insightful statement talking about the Trumpification of the University. I recommend people read that statement, it’s available at revcom.us. Think about what he’s speaking to there. I appreciated his support and also him throwing in on the problem.
There were others too—reverends from New York and professors who I’ve had the opportunity to work with in the past and who issued statements of support. And Rev. Kim Ziyavo, of the Blessed Dorothy Day Mission and The United American Catholic Church, she expressed support and committed to come, and did come—she joined with us on the day itself in defying the ban.
And, of course, the Revolution Club in Chicago had my back and was out there with me, and that was also important.
There needed to be more from students themselves, besides just in whispers saying they found it outrageous and didn’t think it was right—which some of them did. That’s some of the problem we’re dealing with. I was thinking about Ed Asner’s point about the “Trumpification” of campus, the unleashing the backward students, and passivity of the better ones.
Revolution: OK, so let’s get to what happened when you went back on campus!
Noche Diaz: So we arrived, and gathered up with the Revolution Club in Chicago, and Reverend Kim, and we marched onto the campus in the middle of what they call the Quad, the central courtyard area, where everyone passes through. We walked in with a crew of nine or more of us, including Gloria Pinex, whose son was murdered by the police in Chicago.
We went onto campus and defied the ban. Police were out on campus, but the police kept a certain distance for reasons they felt they had to. We went to the center of the courtyard. Myself, and also the young woman who was brutally attacked by police when I was arrested—and she was hospitalized—spoke. She spoke, and announced who we were.
I issued a statement to the students: America was never great. We need to overthrow this system, not vote for it. And challenging students to get into Bob Avakian. And I spent some time walking through with people why this matters, and what they do at this time matters.
It was good that a large number, 40 or 50 students, gathered and heard that message. Some knew about it. Some were attracted, on a nice sunny day, hearing the message of revolution, of communism, of the Get Into the Revolution National Organizing Campaign and Tour, and get into the revolution! I spoke for 15 minutes or so.
After I presented some things, a couple students [laughs] rushed up with their American flag. I said thank you, hold that up because this is the flag I was talking about. This is the flag that flew over all the crimes this country committed here and around the world. This is the flag we burned in Cleveland during the Republican National Convention. This is the flag that deserves no respect. And this drew out some of the better students to make some noise in opposition to them celebrating the flag.
And then we had a combination of debate and Q&A, with some of the backward ones but also some of the better ones who wanted to weigh, and wrestle with, and critically challenge what we were saying about communism, and what is new about Bob Avakian’s new communism.
There was a nice scene for a while of a dozen or two students, along with the revolutionaries, exchanging in this kind of way. And there were people going around with a petition to drop the charges, because there is an ongoing struggle. I’m still facing the initial charge of criminal trespassing. And the ban is still in effect. We defied the ban but it is still in effect. Some students signed the petition and it has to be taken up in a bigger way.
One great thing, in the student newspaper The Maroon, they ran the two stories side-by-side: "Communist Plans to Defy Ban" and "University Ranked First for Intellectual Diversity."
Now there have been some pieces in TheMaroon attacking this. But the game is afoot. There is a real engaging with the students. Things were opened up. Things are more controversial and more sharp—it was not that people heard us and were just welcoming us. It did matter to bust that open. We need students who can engage with ideas, to do intellectual work, to do critical thinking. We need them going to work on the problems of the revolution and the problem facing humanity. It’s not OK for us to say too many of them are in a bad place right now and later for them. Both because there have been interesting things that have been going on among students over the last year, but also because we need them to much more be weighing in on what’s going on in the world, and critically thinking about what’s going on, and engaging this new synthesis of communism that Bob Avakian has been developing, which is really a foundation for a whole new wave of revolutions throughout the world. It is a major breakthrough in human understanding that has to be critically engaged and taken up by people, not just here but around the world.
Video Exposes Savage Assault by Pigs and Attack Dog on Unarmed Black Man
November 7, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Watch this police dash-cam video. The picture is a little fuzzy—but there’s no mistaking that what it shows is sickening and enraging. A group of cops are brutalizing Frank Baker, a 53-year-old Black man, who falls to the ground. He cries out in terror and pain—not only because of the beating but because a snarling police attack dog is biting down on his leg. The cops shout at Baker, “Don’t fucking move” while praising the dog, “Good boy.”
Images flash into your mind as the short video plays. Runaway slaves being hunted down by slave catchers and their packs of dogs... Bull Connor unleashing police dogs on teenage protesters in Birmingham... LAPD, with their swinging batons, swarming on Rodney King lying helplessly on the ground...
Editor’s note: Tyisha Miller was a 19-year-old African-American woman shot dead by Riverside, California police in 1998. Miller had been passed out in her car, resulting from a seizure, when police claimed that she suddenly awoke and had a gun; they fired 23 times at her, hitting her at least 12 times, and murdering her. Bob Avakian addressed this:
“If you can’t handle this situation differently than this, then get the fuck out of the way. Not only out of the way of this situation, but get off the earth. Get out of the way of the masses of people. Because, you know, we could have handled this situation any number of ways that would have resulted in a much better outcome. And frankly, if we had state power and we were faced with a similar situation, we would sooner have one of our own people’s police killed than go wantonly murder one of the masses. That’s what you’re supposed to do if you’re actually trying to be a servant of the people. You go there and you put your own life on the line, rather than just wantonly murder one of the people. Fuck all this “serve and protect” bullshit! If they were there to serve and protect, they would have found any way but the way they did it to handle this scene. They could have and would have found a solution that was much better than this. This is the way the proletariat, when it’s been in power has handled—and would again handle—this kind of thing, valuing the lives of the masses of people. As opposed to the bourgeoisie in power, where the role of their police is to terrorize the masses, including wantonly murdering them, murdering them without provocation, without necessity, because exactly the more arbitrary the terror is, the more broadly it affects the masses. And that’s one of the reasons why they like to engage in, and have as one of their main functions to engage in, wanton and arbitrary terror against the masses of people.”
—BAsics 2:16
This happened in St. Paul, Minnesota, on June 24. Frank Baker was doing nothing unlawful. He didn’t have a weapon on him. He was simply coming home from work and talking on his cell phone in his parked car when he was set upon by these vicious pigs and their K-9. After brutalizing Baker, the police citedhim for “obstruction” (prosecutors later decided not to pursue the case). This outrage is only now coming to widespread attention because the St. Paul police finally released the video—following a request under state law from Minnesota Public Radio News—and the police chief had to issue a public apology to Baker.
The cops claimed in their report that they were acting on an alert about an armed Black man with dreadlocks and white shirt—and that they thought Frank Baker was their suspect. Haven’t we heard this over and over again, where cops beat, arrest, and even execute innocent Black people because they “fit the description”? In fact, we heard it this July when a cop stopped Philando Castile, a 32-year-old Black man, in a St. Paul suburb—the cop telling the dispatcher that Castile looked like a robbery suspect because of his “wide-set nose” and proceeding to shoot him dead through the car window.
The cops said that they unleashed the dog on Frank Baker because he supposedly hesitated getting out of the car and the cops couldn’t see both hands. Again, how many times have we seen this before, where Black people are brutalized and even killed for nothing because the pigs claim they didn’t obey orders fast enough or made a “wrong” move? Too many times to count... and it has to fucking stop!
On that night back in June, the bites of the police dog “went down to the bone,” according to Frank Baker’s lawyer. He needed multiple surgeries and still has huge, deep scars on his left leg. As Baker was on the ground, writhing in agony from the dog literally tearing flesh off his leg, one of the cops also delivered several kicks full force into his midsection—resulting in a partially collapsed lung and broken ribs.
Now, four months after this criminal assault on an unarmed man, the police chief has had to publicly admit to what happened. He announced that the K-9 cop involved was suspended for 30 days and the cop who kicked Baker was placed on unpaid leave. And he said the case has prompted the force to put in place more “training ... to make sure this doesn’t happen again.” This is an insidious attempt to try to limit the damage from the exposure that’s been forced to the light of day and to misdirect the widespread outrage among the people toward false “solutions” like more training for the pigs.
Why weren’t the two cops not only immediately kicked off the force but hit with criminal charges for the terror and serious injuries they inflicted on Frank Baker? What about the other cops on the scene or, for that matter, their supervising officers, who knew what happened—why aren’t they even punished within the department, let alone charged with abetting the assault and conspiring in its cover-up?
Because to do so would start pointing to the reality that this is not just about this one incident or a few “rotten apples.” The police across the U.S. play a definite role for those who rule over the people. It is an armed force that serves and protects a system—a capitalist-imperialist system that has as one of its key pillars the continuing, and in many ways intensifying, oppression of Black people as well as Latino, Native American, and other oppressed people.
NYPD Pigs Tase and Kill a Man with Learning Disabilities
November 4, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Ariel Galarza (Facebook)
Two weeks after the NYPD executed Deborah Danner, a 69-year-old Black woman who suffered from schizophrenia (see “Chronicles of a Police Murder Foretold: The NYPD Execution of Deborah Danner & the Sick System Behind It”), the murderers with badges struck again. Ariel Galarza, a 49-year-old man who had learning disabilities, died after being tased twice by cops at his apartment in the Bronx, the same NYC borough where Deborah Danner was killed.
As reported by the New York Daily News, Mildred Galarza said her brother Ariel “received disability payments and was never able to learn to write. He had a mild form of asthma and suffered a stroke earlier this year.” An upstairs neighbor said Ariel was “not an aggressive guy at all, he’s a real good man.” According to the neighbor, “He was real good with my son. My son called him ‘Big Buddy.’”
None of this mattered to the pigs who showed up at Ariel Galarza’s door in response to a 911 call about someone who supposedly had a knife and was yelling. All we know about what followed is that the police claim they had to use their taser when Galarza held up a glass bottle and again when he resisted being handcuffed... and that he ended up dead after suffering a heart attack from the electrical shock. The second stun gun blast was delivered directly on his body.
No one should take the pigs at their word, in this or any other instance. Over and over again, cops have justified cold-blooded murders by claiming they felt their lives were “in danger”—and over and over again, except in very rare circumstances, they walk away without even being charged with any crime, let alone convicted. Look at Michael Brown, shot down as he had his empty hands raised, by a cop who described him as a “demon.” Or Omar Abrego, an unarmed Mexican immigrant who was chased down and beaten to death by LA cops. Or the Tacoma police murder of Jacqueline Salyers, an unarmed 33-year-old Native American woman who had three kids and was pregnant at the time she was killed. The horrific list goes on and on. And the police are backed up by the laws of this system, which say that if the pigs have a “reasonable” belief that they are physically “threatened,” they are “justified” in using deadly force.
Even if Ariel Galarza, for whatever reason, was acting unusually and did have a bottle in his hand—why would that be any reason to blast him twice with high-voltage shocks from a taser, which is known to potentially cause serious injury and even death? Why do the police, in these types of situations, immediately resort to using violent force against the people—instead of talking to family and neighbors to learn more about what’s happening, and taking steps to resolve the situation without people getting hurt?
This isn’t about a need for more “training” of the police, better rules and regulations, body cameras to monitor cops’ actions, or any other such reforms. The reality is that when the police carry out wantonly brutal, murderous, terroristic acts against the people, and get away with it time after time, they are doing their job. Bob Avakian got to the heart of what the police are about when he said (in BAsics 1:24):
The role of the police is not to serve and protect the people. It is to serve and protect the system that rules over the people. To enforce the relations of exploitation and oppression, the conditions of poverty, misery and degradation into which the system has cast people and is determined to keep people in. The law and order the police are about, with all of their brutality and murder, is the law and the order that enforces all this oppression and madness.
People do not need to work for “better police” or more “oversight” of the cops or any other such harmful notions that will only help keep the police murders and brutality going on and on. What is needed is to demand that police murders and brutality must STOP, and to do this AS PART OF preparing for an actual revolution to overthrow the system behind these cops, at the soonest possible time. Everyone who hates the epidemic of murders by the police, and all the other crimes of this capitalist-imperialist system—get into this revolution NOW. Find out how here.
You know it is insanity that on the last weekend of October when children should be having Halloween fun—instead 17 people were killed and another 42 wounded in Chicago. Some were just teenagers including twins. All were loved. Family, friends and communities grieve and mourn for lives cut short. And this goes on daily.
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS MADNESS?
Many say that we are doing this to ourselves. BUT there is a system that is shaping our people’s choices even before birth. Robbed of any meaningful future, “presumed guilty” for being Black or Brown, hounded and shot down by police, incarcerated in huge numbers. This system of capitalism is responsible for the conditions people find themselves in—conditions that are not of their choosing. This same system also pumps out ideas that seem as natural as the air we breathe—like “you should get yours” and “do what you have to do” to get over. This system is the hidden hand playing you and squeezing the trigger.
Why should we do what they want us to do—killing and crippling each other, trying to beat down or beat out each other, ending up in jail, or paralyzed, or dead at an early age—instead of joining together to go up against the system that has got us in this mess in the first place?
Bob Avakian New Year’s message—A Call to REVOLUTION
AND yes, our youth themselves must get out of this. You need to stop being played. But that won’t happen the way people say. Youth are angry and “they just don’t care.” But that anger is being directed at the wrong people... at people who are caught up in the same situation just a few blocks away... that anger is NOT directed at the real Ops—the enemy who has you locked down and locked out. The real enemy is terrified you will wake up. Why do you think they set this in motion in the first place?
We say to our youth—GET INTO THE REVOLUTION. Learn about the revolution and its leader Bob Avakian (BA). Fight the real enemy—not for revenge, not just to fight, but for REVOLUTION. For the power to bring a whole better world. We need to get rid of this rotten system, with its racism, its oppression of women, its wars and all the rest. We need to overthrow this capitalist-imperialist system AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. This is the only path out of this madness.
To all those who want to help these youth—you too need to get with the revolution. You need to CHALLENGE these youth to get with something that matters and that really can change everything.
Humanity Needs Revolution and Communism
Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution
Look Who's Talking About Peaceful Transfer of Power and Respecting Elections
October 27, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
From a reader
Donald Trump says he will recognize the results of the election if he wins. He is throwing up for grabs one of the basic tenets of U.S. capitalist democracy, in service of a fascist agenda. In response, Hillary Clinton and many voices in the mass media insist that the peaceful transfer of power, based on respecting the results of an election, is one of those things that supposedly make America great.
Reality check! The United States has “respected the results of elections” around the world with invasions, coups, assassination, brutal death squad regimes, and mass murder whenever the results of an election don’t match their interests.
What Happens When An Election Doesn’t Go America’s Way...
A regular feature of revcom.us. Each installment focuses 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.
Case #98 1953: CIA Coup in Iran: Torture and Repression—Made in the U.S.A. In Tehran, Iran on August 19, 1953, mobs joined by the military took over streets chanting “Long live the Shah! Death to Mossadegh!” They ransacked pro-Mossadegh newspapers and attacked his supporters.
Case #100 1965 Massacre in Indonesia. Members of the youth wing of the Indonesian Communist Party being hauled to a Jakarta prison, October 30, 1965. (AP photo)
Case #75 Obama, Clinton and the 2009 Military Coup in Honduras. Honduran troops inside the presidential palace during the arrest of the president during the 2009 coup. (Photo: rbreve/flickr)
In Iran, in 1953, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) along with British intelligence launched a military coup overthrowing Iran’s elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, after he nationalized Britain’s Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. They put the Shah in power and he ruled as an iron-fisted U.S. puppet for 25 years. When millions rose against the Shah in 1978-79, he shot down thousands with U.S. backing before being ousted. The 1953 coup and what followed ended up helping pave the way for a new Iranian nightmare: the 1979 founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran. (See “Case #98: 1953 CIA Coup in Iran: Torture and Repression—Made in the U.S.A.“ in the American Crime series at revcom.us).
In Indonesia, in 1965, the CIA organized and coordinated the mass murder of up to a million communists and others by Indonesian fascists. Bloated corpses clogged and choked the rivers of Indonesia. The objective was to remove the elected government of President Sukarno, who the U.S. saw as too closely associated with the wave of revolutionary nationalist and communist revolution in Asia in the 1960s. The rivers were choked with bodies, and the reign of terror inflicted on the hundreds of millions of people in that country still defines life there today. (See “Case #100: 1965 Massacre in Indonesia“ in the American Crime series at revcom.us).
In Chile, in 1973, the U.S. government orchestrated a coup d’etat that overthrew the elected government of Salvador Allende and installed the fascist regime of General Augusto Pinochet. At the time, Chilean revolutionaries spoke of tens of thousands of victims. Today’s Chilean government says 3,000. Some estimates say that 400,000 people were tortured. A whole generation of intellectuals and others who could escape was driven into exile. Many of those murdered during Pinochet’s years in power were “disappeared,” kidnapped by the U.S.-installed regime and never seen again.
And with Hillary Clinton serving as U.S. Secretary of State, the U.S. backed a coup in 2009 in Honduras, where the military deposed elected president Manuel Zelaya, a liberal-leaning populist, and installed a more openly fascistic and pro-U.S. regime. That plunged the Honduran people even more deeply into the hell of U.S. domination, state-sponsored political assassinations, and terrorism, and intensified violence, poverty, and oppression. These horrors remain in effect to this day, with U.S. backing. (See “Case #75: Obama, Clinton and the 2009 Military Coup in Honduras“ in the American Crime series.)
Installing and Backing Fascist Regimes Across Asia, Africa, and Latin America
Those four examples just scratch the surface of the history and present-day reality behind declarations of “respect for democratic elections.” That’s a metaphor, but it’s not an exaggeration.
In the 1950s, Britain’s South American colony, British Guiana, was wracked with anti-colonial protest. In response, and in reaction to the election of a president Britain viewed with suspicion, Winston Churchill called for “American support in doing all that we can to break the communist teeth.” In 1953, with U.S. backing, the British suspended British Guiana’s constitution, fired its legislators, and arrested the elected president, Cheddi Jagan.
In Guatemala, in 1954, the U.S. engineered a coup that overthrew elected president Jacobo Árbenz after his government nationalized unused land held by United Fruit, a U.S. corporation, to distribute to peasants. Decades of intensified death squad terror and genocide followed.
In 1960, the CIA orchestrated the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, a popular nationalist leader and opponent of colonialism in the Congo. After Lumumba became the Congo’s first prime minister, CIA Director Allen Dulles ordered that his “removal must be an urgent and prime objective.” After Lumumba’s assassination, the U.S. installed Joseph Mobutu who ruled as a brutal and corrupt enforcer for imperialist interests.
In 1962, the U.S. ruling class was worried that the elected government of Souvanna Phouma in Laos was “neutralist and a compromiser with the Reds.” (Time magazine, 6/8/1962). The U.S. forced the downfall of that government and its replacement by a right wing, pro-U.S. general, including by shutting off U.S. economic aid.
In March 1970, the constitutional monarchy of Norodom Sihanouk in Cambodia was overthrown in a coup and replaced by a regime headed by U.S. puppet Lon Nol. There is conflicting evidence as to whether the U.S. orchestrated the coup—by hard-core pro-U.S. military officials—but it was quick to rush to support it.
What the U.S. REALLY Brings to the World
And look up these U.S. directed or backed coups that overthrew popular or elected governments: Ecuador, 1960-63; Brazil, 1964; Dominican Republic, 1963; Cuba (repeated attempts to invade, assassinate, and orchestrate “regime change”); Bolivia, 1964; Ghana, 1966; Greece, 1967; Bolivia, 1971; Jamaica, 1976; Chad, 1981; Grenada (by invasion), 1983; Nicaragua, 1981-90 (destabilized an elected government by sponsoring a massive campaign of terrorist attacks); Haiti, 2004.
How does this all square with the claim by the rulers of the U.S. that they are the global champions of democracy? The reality is what Bob Avakian says:
The essence of what exists in the U.S. is not democracy but capitalism-imperialism and political structures to enforce that capitalism-imperialism. What the U.S. spreads around the world is not democracy, but imperialism and political structures to enforce that imperialism. BAsics 1:3
We had to vote for Obama and the Democrats, we were told, to put a stop to the great harm that was being done by George W. Bush and the Republicans. But did voting for Obama, and having Obama as president, prevent the fascism that has increasingly characterized the Republican Party from reaching a dangerously new level with the Trump candidacy? Obviously not. But why not? Because Obama and the Democrats, as well as Trump and the Republicans, are products and representatives of the same system of capitalism-imperialism, and that system has its fundamental dynamics and ways it has to function, which mean that anyone who rises to the top of that system must continually commit crimes against humanity.
Funneling good sentiments and intentions into voting for Democrats, time after time—accepting and “validating” the logic and assumptions of this system, rather than opposing the whole system and its endless crimes, presided over by both Democrats and Republicans—has made people complicit with these crimes and has contributed to the situation we are in, where an overt, undisguised fascist candidacy, embodied in Trump, is contending seriously to assume the leadership of this system, and it is now being insisted that only voting for Clinton, who is guilty of many despicable and monstrous crimes against humanity herself, can stop Trump and what he represents. 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?
Why Hillary Clinton Has Never Been, Is Not Now and Cannot Be a Champion for Women
by Sunsara Taylor
October 24, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
You cannot break all the chains, except one. You cannot say you want to be free of exploitation and oppression, except you want to keep the oppression of women by men. You can't say you want to liberate humanity yet keep one half of the people enslaved to the other half. The oppression of women is completely bound up with the division of society into masters and slaves, exploiters and exploited, and the ending of all such conditions is impossible without the complete liberation of women. All this is why women have a tremendous role to play not only in making revolution but in making sure there is all-the-way revolution. The fury of women can and must be fully unleashed as a mighty force for proletarian revolution.
To all those who listened and cheered because Hillary Clinton finally spoke firmly about abortion during the recent presidential debate against Trump:
1. Why the fuck has it taken her so goddamn long? Hillary has spent decades preaching the defensive mantra that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare.”The idea that abortion should be “rare” is rooted in the LIE that there is something wrong, shameful, or even “sinful” about abortion. No! Fetuses are NOT babies, abortion is NOT murder, and women are NOT incubators. There is nothing morally wrong with abortion and it should be available as often as necessary, to women who desire one for whatever reason, without shame or apology. What is immoral is forcing women to have children against their will—that is a form of enslaving women. But, for decades, Hillary Clinton—and the Democratic Party as a whole—has conceded the moral high ground to the Christian fascists who would deny women the right to abortion, has preached “respect” for the anti-abortion movement and its enslaving outlook and positions, has capitulated time and again as anti-abortion laws and restrictions are passed and abortion clinics are closed down nationwide, and has added their weight behind the mountains of shame that are piled on women who choose to use abortion by promoting the view that it should be “rare.” One debate in which Hillary speaks firmly about the right to abortion without apologizing or being defensive does not wipe the slate clean, does not make up for decades of damage she has had a direct part in.
2. No matter how different her political positions on abortion—and women, in general—are from Donald Trump and the other varieties of American fascists, she never has and never will firmly stand up against them and wage the fight necessary to defeat them. The record of the Democratic Party over decades has been one of capitulation and defensiveness in the face of relentless legal, ideological, and terroristic assault on abortion rights and abortion providers. Hillary and the Democrats were silent when Dr. George Tiller, a heroic late-term-abortion provider, was assassinated by a Christian fascist gunman in his church seven years ago. They were silent when a clinic in Wyoming was vandalized in 2014 so severely it has been unable to reopen. Hillary was silent on almost every single one of the more than 200 laws passed that closed dozens of abortion clinics between 2011 and 2013.
There is a reason for this silence. The reason is that no matter how sincere their belief in women’s right to abortion may be, they represent and preside over the system of American capitalism-imperialism, and they value and cherish the preservation and stability of that system above all else. They know that the Christian fascist wing of the ruling class and its social base of millions will stop at nothing to completely criminalize all forms of abortion and birth control. They know that defeating this fascist movement will require not merely a few soothing words from a few politicians, but a massive and ferocious struggle in the streets on the part of millions and in the culture and throughout society as a whole. They know that such a struggle would be profoundly destabilizing to their system and empire. It would interpenetrate with—and inspire people to stand up against—the many other outrages and crimes that are baked into this system: the police terror and murder, the drones and wars for empire, the destruction of the environment, and the massive demonization and deportations of immigrants. And they know that such a struggle would be hard to contain and keep within the bounds of this system. Patriarchy and the oppression of women is woven into the very foundation and functioning of capitalism-imperialism, and to really put an end to all of it—the rampant rape throughout society but especially in the military and on the police forces and in the halls of power; the cult of motherhood and shaming of women who step out of the domestic role; the hatred and shame hurled at women who enjoy sex; the revenge and humiliation of women mainstreamed in porn and strip clubs and sexual slavery; and more; as well as all the other crimes of this system—will take ripping this system up from its foundation and building a whole new society and world. It will take an actual revolution.
So, the kind of massive fight among millions in this country to defeat the Christian fascist program is a genie that Hillary and the Democrats, acting as rulers of this system, do NOT want to let out of the bottle. They fear the upheaval this would cause—and the dynamics it can set in motion—even more than the fascism of Trump and others.
3. Need more proof that Hillary Clinton will not and cannot be the champion women need—not even on the question of abortion? Just look at what she did the very next day after the debate. She sat and joked together with Donald Trump—the man who brags about sexually assaulting women in the crudest and most humiliating terms, the man who promised to “punish” women who get abortions, and who used the last debate to spread vicious and shaming lies about abortion to millions around the world—at a Catholic forum. She prayed with Trump in private and told him, “Donald, no matter what happens, we need to work together afterwards.” Then, she and Trump sat together on either side of Cardinal Timothy Dolan. Who is this “great unifier” Dolan? Who was this man chosen to bring the two candidates together? Timothy Dolan is so viciously against women being able to decide for themselves when and whether to have a child that he not only opposes all abortion in all circumstances, he personally led the movement of Catholic bishops nationally to break the law and refuse to allow secular women employed in Catholic hospitals and other institutions to get birth control coverage. Seriously. This dinner, cozying up to and seeking common ground with Trump on terms set by this arch-fascist bigot Dolan, speaks louder than one minute of lip service for abortion after 30 years of craven capitulation. Hillary is not, cannot be, and will not be a champion for abortion rights. Stop deluding yourselves.
4. There IS a way to beat back the escalating assault on women’s right to abortion—and, there is a way to break ALL the chains that bind women. This will not happen and cannot happen by voting for the Democrats. But it can happen through building massive political resistance to every assault on abortion—in the culture, in the laws, and in the street harassment and terror. By raising the slogan and fighting for its realization: Abortion on Demand and Without Apology! And, most of all, by linking this to—and strengthening—the movement to overthrow this whole system of capitalism-imperialism at the soonest possible time.
The leader we need to look to is named Bob Avakian (BA). As part of leading the all-round revolution that is necessary to emancipate all of humanity, BA has fought for decades to expose and reveal the vicious immorality of those who would deny the right to abortion, the deep roots of this patriarchy in thousands of years of tradition’s chains, the way all this is woven into and required by the system of capitalism-imperialism, the kind of ferocious struggle required to beat these attacks back and the profoundly liberating contribution that can—and must make—the fight to put an end to slavery and exploitation of every kind in every part of the world through an actual revolution. Bob Avakian and the Party he leads, the Revolutionary Communist Party, are not afraid of the upheaval it will require to beat back this fascist assault because they have no interest in preserving this system or any of the crimes it carries out against humanity on a global scale and hourly basis. Rather, BA—and the movement for revolution he leads—are fired with the determination to unleash the fury of women as a mighty force for revolution. Determined to lead men to take up this fight out of the deep understanding that it is impossible to break all the chains but one. Determined to bring into being through revolution a world free of exploitation and oppression in every form.
If you are horrified by the open misogyny and cruelty towards women being main-staged and mainstreamed by Trump, don’t settle for the “lesser” yet truly towering evil of the Democrats. Join in resisting these crimes and learning about, getting into, spreading, and becoming part of the actual revolution to bring about a whole different and far better world. Do this today. Here’s where you start: HOW WE CAN WIN—How We Can Really Make Revolution.
"Voting has gotten us mass incarceration and voting has gotten us a Donald Trump!"
November 7, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
The Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund received the following letter from a prisoner.
Dear P.R.L.F.
Sincere greetings and respect,
I am now at a new facility. Just before I left I received the copy of the book you sent. You asked us to read it and write something for the promotion of the book next month. I hadn’t really had time to read it as I was packed up and leaving.
In the brief moments I took to glance at it before leaving however, it looked very interesting. The people are in dire need of understanding this racist and capitalist system. I hear people saying, “You must vote, your vote counts!” Count for what?! Yes, at one time many people [thought] that our votes counted. But one could easily make the claim that our votes at this point would only further add to our oppression. Voting has gotten us mass incarceration and voting has gotten us a Donald Trump! So what might further voting get us?! At one time people thought the world was flat, at one time many people thought slavery was O.K. I believe one of the reasons why we are in this mess also is because of our inability to see this system for who it is and what it is. With every election we think “Change is coming this time”. And it did. But just not the kind of change we wanted or expected. The question also could be asked, “Did Obama produce a Donald Trump?” Could his inability to courageously make the structural changes needed produce a Donald Trump? So does our vote count? The question should be asked “Not if our vote ‘counts,’ but does our vote matter?” “Counting” votes means nothing if it doesn’t matter. And up until this time in our history, I can’t see where any of our votes EVER mattered.
We also hear, “Vote with your heart, vote with your conscious.” America has never had a “heart” or a “conscious” for its poor and oppressed. But we are asked to have one to vote. Hypocritical.
Well I hope I’ve said something beneficial. Your newsletters and books are very educational, inspiring, and motivating. And thank you for giving a voice to the voiceless.
Intervening at UCLA: Who are the REAL Criminals and What's the REAL Solution?
November 7, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Correspondence from Revolution Club, LA:
“...immigrants are not the real criminals, the criminals are this country and this entire system that feeds off the exploitation and oppression of the people of the world. We are the Revolution Club and we are organizing people to get into this movement for revolution to overthrow this system at the soonest possible time.” This is the agitation that met people as they were leaving a reactionary event hosted by the Bruin Republicans at UCLA.
This pro-fascist club at UCLA has become rather infamous for the positions they take on social issues (such as LGBT rights, women’s rights/feminism, and immigration) and the events they hold in relation to their positions. This time around, they hosted Sabine Durden, a featured speaker at the RNC this summer, who is “a legal immigrant from Germany and now proud American citizen, Sabine will share Dominic’s story to continue his legacy and shed light on the destruction of her family at the cost of illegal immigration.”
Revolution Club UCLA intervenes in an event sponsored by the pro-fascist Bruin Republicans club.
When the Revolution Club marched into the area, chanting “It’s time, to get organized...” and “We are the revcoms,” most of the attendees were already seated inside. There was a small crowd standing around and in line to get inside, and campus pigs were lined up and stationed outside. We got into formation and posted up facing the crowd, announcing who we are and why we came, as part of actively organizing for an actual revolution to bring this system down at the soonest possible time, and as part of that, to repolarize society and oppose all the oppressive bullshit ideas the system and its mouthpieces spew out and which people broadly then take up—in this case, xenophobia, racism, and putrid nationalism. The scene wasn’t so great upon arrival as most of the people outside were pigs or supporters of the event, but we decided to stick around until the end of the event to catch the people coming out and to send two people into the event to see what would go down.
The event was exactly what you’d imagine from an individual who tours with Donald Trump and an organization that supports him. Durden told the story of how her son died: She listed the criminal record of “an illegal alien” who had been deported for drunk driving and came back “without consequences,” got deported once more and came back again, and the third time around he killed her son while drunk driving. She said he got probation and “only 35 days in jail,” and that if anyone else had done the same thing, they’d have been in jail a much longer time, trying to prove the idea that “illegal immigrants” somehow get preferential treatment. The whole of her story is that her son was killed because the individual came into this country illegally and got break after break but decided to not learn and do the right thing, as in become a legal, naturalized, assimilated, and proud American citizen. As she argued, criminality is completely tied in with the individual’s status as an “illegal” immigrant—their very existence is criminal.
At the Q&A portion of the event, many in the crowd erupted at the racism and ignorance being disseminated by Durden and the Bruin Republicans (half, if not over half, of the attendees were in opposition to the event). Some gems of ignorance include: accusations of xenophobia and racism are boring and worthy of only a “yawn”; Donald Trump has a great sense of humor; it’s very hard to trace/see the legacy of the oppression that founded this country and to address it (as in the genocide of Native peoples and the enslavement of Africans); someone called for an individual who was disrupting the event by doing Spanish chanting to “get a job” and that “he needs to be deported.” One woman in particular addressed the argument being made that just like the homes we live in, you have to have walls and a door with a lock not just to keep those you don’t want inside out, you have to have those things in order to protect those living inside. She passionately asked about people like herself, a Black woman, who are afraid every day of their lives, even in their own homes, because you never know what’s going to go down. The speakers completely dismissed her and asked her to tone down her passion, to which she and the crowd responded hell no, we will not tone anything down!
Read the entire HOW WE CAN WIN—How We Can Really Make RevolutionHERE
We have since summed up that there’s even more we could have done in leading people to understand and act on the illegitimacy of this whole system, but here’s some of what happened after the event: Once the event was over, the other members of the club set up outside the door with an American rag on the floor surrounded by the “HOW WE CAN WIN” pamphlets and palm cards for THE NEW COMMUNISM. As soon as people started flooding out, we started agitating about who we are and what were working for, an actual revolution, the only way there is to address the crimes of this system, including demonization of immigrants and the genocidal persecution of Black and Brown people. We called on people to stand on the rag and quite a few readily joined us and began chanting passionately alongside us. People were openly confronting and debating those who came out of the event with pep in their step after having their racist ideas bolstered. There were a lot of moments of tense confrontation between the openly racist and those in opposition to them, which included people from other, progressive campus groups.
After most of the crowd had left the event, the Revolution Club stuck around to talk to those who were left, and who happened to be the most defiant and willing to oppose what was going on. They were eager to stay in contact with the revolution and get into deeper conversation, and we are planning on meeting up with them again soon.
This important intervention from the Revolution Club got attention from several reactionary websites and was tweeted about by the fascist Ann Coulter who said, “Our new country’s going to be great! UCLA Students Shout Down Mother Whose Son Was Killed by Illegal Alien.”
Rally at City College of New York:
STOP the Arrests and Attacks on the Revolution Club!
Drop Orders Barring Revolutionaries from Campus!
November 3, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Today, members of the New York City Revolution Club, joined by Carl Dix and other supporters rallied in front of the North Academic Center, in the heart of the CCNY campus, to denounce last Friday’s arrests of four members of the Revolution Club—the CCNY4—for bringing revolution to the campus, and then the University’s outrageous orders barring two of the revolutionaries from campus.
Carl Dix began the rally saying: “In today’s world—with tens of millions of people driven into exile by wars for empire, the environment being ground up, police getting away with murdering Black and Brown people, women subjected to degrading treatment, immigrants hit with massive deportation raids and more - students need more than anything else to be connected with the way out of these horrors. That way out is by the revolutionary leadership of Bob Avakian and the new synthesis of communism he’s brought forward.” He exposed how the CCNY administration is attempting to suppress engagement with revolutionary ideas on campus through barring revolutionaries from coming onto the campus under the threat of arrest. Dix challenged students to stand with revolutionaries to defeat this attack. Nicholas Heyward Sr., whose 13-year-old son Nicholas Heyward Jr. was murdered by the NYPD in 1994 for playing with a toy gun, challenged the students to confront the reality of police terror, and expressed his support for the Revolution Club being at CCNY. Other statements of support were read, including from Prof. James Vrettos of John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Today, another 20 or so students joined the 100 people who had already signed the petition “Support @NYCRevClub.”
After the rally people marched to the administration building to deliver a statement to CCNY’s Interim President, Vincent G. Boudreau, demanding the order barring two members of the Revolution Club be lifted and that the administration and the NYPD stop arresting and jailing people with the Revolution Club for coming on campus. Afterward Carl Dix concluded by putting CCNY on notice that this battle to lift the order barring revolutionaries from the campus was not over, and the revolution was NOT going away.
Carl Dix and Nicholas Heyward Sr. at CCNY rally, November 3.
Photo: Special to revcom.us
America was never great!!! Students getting a real education today at Cleveland state...
Just days leading into the 2016 presidential election, with all the fascist Trump ugliness being unleashed across the country, revcoms marched onto Cleveland State University (CSU) with the message, "America was NEVER great! We need to overthrow— not vote for— this system!" With that simple and radical message, standing on an American flag and holding a sign promoting THE NEW COMMUNISM by Bob Avakian, we drew out a shitstorm of "USA"-chanting, America-first bigots and assholes, and brought a real lesson to the students of CSU: a challenge to "America's greatness" and the fascists promoting it, and what is the real WAY OUT of this mess for humanity—revolution, nothing less.
The revcom crew hitting the ground in Cleveland this week are part of the Get Into the Revolution National Organizing Tour and the RNC16: the 16 Revolution Club members who were illegally arrested this summer for daring to project revolutionary authority in opposition to the Trump Nazi-rally, burning the U.S. flag at the entrance to the Republican National Convention. We were dragged back to Cleveland by the criminal INjustice system for a court hearing November 3 and decided to make good use of our trip!
When we first got to the quad, it was a sleepy mid-day Friday at CSU and a few people passing through stopped to talk in quiet one-on-one discussions. As more people started passing through the area, we sharpened up our message over the bullhorn: of the actual history of this country, why we need to overthrow, not vote for, this system, and the leadership and science we have for an actual revolution. At first a small group of students gathered on a second-floor landing a little distance from us, watching and yelling out a couple things. The comrade on the bullhorn challenged them to make an argument defending this American rag, and all the crimes against humanity it stands for. Other Trump assholes came up to physically try to go after the revcoms, but were prevented from carrying out their attack by comrades who blocked the blows and other students who grabbed and yanked away one of the assholes. The police came in and, instead of attacking the revcoms like they did last summer, decided this time it was in their interests to masquerade as "neutral."
Read the entire HOW WE CAN WIN—How We Can Really Make RevolutionHERE
Some of the reactionary Trump fools ran off and came back carrying a U.S. flag on a pole, and at that point a crowd had already begun to form. For more than an hour, we debated and chanted and engaged students in the courtyard, including passing out the "HOW WE CAN WIN" booklet and Carl Dix's statement, "Why I Am Not Voting In This Election, Why You Shouldn't Either...But Why I Will Defend the Right of Black and Other Oppressed People to Vote." The most vocal and numerous were the America-first assholes. At the same time, there were others there listening, some in snarky amusement, but others who were seriously watching the whole thing and were challenged with joining the forces for revolution. "When was America great?" challenged one of the revcoms. One reactionary said America was great in 1776. The revcom turned to a group of Black high school students who were watching all this with their social studies class and asked them, "What was happening in America in 1776?" A young woman answered, "slavery!" When we marched away through the cafeteria, we were followed by flag-wavers, police, and dozens of other students.
After leaving CSU, we marched through downtown Cleveland to join up with a protest in support of the Standing Rock water defenders, arriving towards the end. We arrived chanting "America Was Never Great." And as the rally ended, we stood in formation and a revcom spoke powerfully to the protesters in solidarity with Standing Rock and bringing forward the need for an actual revolution, that we have the leadership and plan for it, and calling on everyone there to join in getting organized for revolution. Many people appreciated the message and stuck around to talk afterwards, with some getting into "HOW WE CAN WIN" and getting connected with the Revolution Club plans for the rest of the week.
Frequently Asked Questions on Revolution and Communism
Updated November 30, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
What is a Revolutionary Situation?
by Bob Avakian
What is a Revolutionary Situation? A deep crisis and sharpening conflicts in society and in the government and ruling circles, where they cannot find a way to resolve these conflicts—in society and among their own ranks—which do not make things worse for them and call forth more resistance and further undermine people's belief in their "right to rule" and in the "legitimacy" of their use of force to maintain their rule; programs of "reforming" the system are shown to be bankrupt, totally unable to deal with what more and more people recognize as profound dysfunction and intolerable injustice of the whole setup; those, in society as well as among the ruling class, who are trying to enforce the existing system are on the political defensive, even if lashing out; millions of people are actively seeking radical change, determined to fight for it, willing to put everything on the line to win it, and searching for a force to lead them in doing so; and a solid core of thousands is united around a leadership, an organized vanguard force with the vision and method, strategy and plan—and deepening ties among masses of people—to actually lead the fight to defeat and dismantle the violent repressive force of the existing system and its power structure, and to bring into being a new revolutionary system that can provide the means for people to radically transform society toward the goal of abolishing oppression and exploitation.
An actual revolution is a lot more than a protest. An actual revolution requires that millions of people get involved, in an organized way, in a determined fight to dismantle this state apparatus and system and replace it with a completely different state apparatus and system, a whole different way of organizing society, with completely different objectives and ways of life for the people. Fighting the power today has to help build and develop and organize the fight for the whole thing, for an actual revolution. Otherwise we’ll be protesting the same abuses generations from now!
We
talk about the “5 Stops”—five huge horrors
generated, or kept going, by this capitalist-imperialist system.
These include the genocidal persecution, mass incarceration, police
brutality and murder of Black and Brown people; the patriarchal
degradation, dehumanization, and subjugation of all women everywhere,
and all oppression based on gender or sexual orientation; the wars of
empire, armies of occupation and crimes against humanity of this
empire; the demonization, criminalization, and deportation of
immigrants and militarization of the border; and the destruction of
the planet by capitalism-imperialism.
All
of these demands are eminently reasonable and should just be basic to
any humane society. Yet none of these demands have been met by this
capitalist-imperialist system, and none can be—because the
source of each of these horrors is structured into the very
functioning of the system.
The
Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America,
written by Bob Avakian, provides a blueprint for the new society,
socialism. The new Constitution
outlines the new socialist political system, brought into being by
the revolution, which supports the masses of people in transforming
all of society while protecting the rights of individuals; it
provides the goals, principles, and structure for a new revolutionary
economy, no longer based on exploitation, worldwide plunder, and
environmental devastation; and, most of all, it provides a framework
for humanity to carry forward the transition to communist society.
Communist
society will have eliminated all divisions into classes, all
production relations1
which give rise to those divisions, all the relations between groups
of people which correspond to those relations, and all the ideas
which reinforce exploitation and oppression.
1
“Production relations” refers to who owns and controls
the means through which the production of society’s wealth is
carried out; how do people relate to each other in carrying out
production; and how is the wealth produced through this process
distributed.
Communism
is the goal of the revolution, a movement, and most of all a
scientific method and approach to understanding human society and,
indeed, all of nature. Communist society has been described above. As
a science, communism was founded by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels,
who also founded the communist movement. This science, and the
movement based on it, was further developed by V.I. Lenin and Mao
Zedong. Today, Bob Avakian has put that science on a new footing. He
has developed a new synthesis of communism that has ruptured with
elements of communism that previously ran counter to its overall
scientific method and approach, and on that basis taken the science
forward in many dimensions. To be a communist today means to be a
follower of Bob Avakian.
What
has been the history of communism and of communist revolutions?
Leaving
aside a very brief revolution in Paris, France in 1871 (the Paris
Commune), the first communist revolution was made in Russia, in 1917,
and led by V.I. Lenin. Communists held power there for nearly 40
years, before that revolution was finally reversed and overthrown. In
1949, Mao Zedong led the Chinese Communist Party to seize nationwide
power in China. The revolution carried forward for 27 years and
reached its highest pinnacle in the Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution before it too was reversed—this time in 1976.
Though China today, along with some other regimes, still claims the
name of “communist,” there are, in fact, no longer any
societies in the world on the communist road.
As
was stated in the
Manifesto from the Revolutionary Communist Party, Communism: The
Beginning of a New Stage:
The first stage of
the communist revolution went a long way, and achieved incredibly
inspiring things, in fighting to overcome the very real obstacles it
faced and to advance toward a world where all relations of
exploitation and oppression would be finally eliminated and people
would enjoy a whole new dimension of freedom and would undertake the
organization and continuing transformation of society, throughout the
world, with a conscious and voluntary initiative unprecedented in
human history. But, not surprisingly, there were also significant
shortcomings and real errors, sometimes very serious ones, both in
the practical steps that were taken by those leading these
revolutions and the new societies they brought forth, and in their
conceptions and methods. These shortcomings and errors were not the
cause
of the defeats of the initial attempts at communist revolution, but
they did contribute, even if secondarily, to that defeat; and, beyond
that, this whole experience of the first stage—with both its
truly inspiring achievements and its very real, at times very
serious, even if overall secondary, errors and shortcomings—must
be learned from deeply and all-sidedly, in order to carry forward the
communist revolution in the new situation that has to be confronted,
and to do even better this time.
What is the
strategy to actually make a revolution—to win?
The
Party, led by Bob Avakian, has developed the strategy to bring
forward the millions necessary to actually win a revolution, and the
strategy—once those millions have come forward— to
actually meet and defeat this system’s instruments of violent
repression.
Bob Avakian (BA) is the architect of a whole new framework of human
emancipation, the new synthesis of communism. This new synthesis is
based on more than 40 years of revolutionary work critically
analyzing and drawing from past revolutionary experience and theory,
and a broad range of human activity and thought. It is a continuation
of, but also represents a qualitative leap beyond, and in some
important ways a break with, communist theory as it had been
previously developed.
Fundamental
and essential to this new synthesis of communism is its emphasis on
applying a thoroughly and consistently scientific
method and approach to understanding the dynamics of society and to
charting pathways for its revolutionary transformation. By breaking
with aspects of communism that have run counter to its scientific
method and approach, Bob Avakian has qualitatively advanced communism
as a science, and in so doing, has created the foundation and point
of departure for a new stage of communist revolution which he argues
is urgently needed in the world today.
This
scientific method and approach is key to the breakthroughs of the new
synthesis, which include: deepening the understanding of
internationalism; developing new insights into the strategic approach
to revolution, which reveal the actual possibility of making
revolution, even in a country like the U.S.; and re-envisioning how
to go forward in the struggle to create a radically new—and
truly emancipatory—society. Bob Avakian is the author of the
landmark work The
Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America (Draft
Proposal),
which provides a comprehensive, visionary, and at the same time
concrete, framework and guide for building this new society as
an important part of advancing towards a communist world free of
exploitation and oppression.
Bob
Avakian has been the Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party,
USA since its founding in 1975. He has dedicated his life to serving
the cause of revolution and the emancipation of humanity, and has
consistently taken responsibility for leading the movement for
revolution—both
theoretically and practically. As a leader, he embodies a rare
combination: someone who has been able to develop scientific theory
on a world-class level, while at the same time having a deep
understanding of and visceral connection with the most oppressed, and
a highly developed ability to “break down” complex theory
and make it accessible to a broad audience.
The
Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, is the vanguard of the
revolution. The Party takes as its foundation the new synthesis of
communism brought forward by Bob Avakian and Bob Avakian leads the
RCP,USA in its struggle to make revolution in the U.S., as part of
making revolution worldwide.
Continually
building and strengthening the Party is crucial in preparing for the
actual revolution that is urgently needed. Anyone
who is helping to build the movement for revolution the Party is
leading, who hungers for, and is ready to dedicate their life to
fighting for, a radically different world, without exploitation and
oppression in any form, and who feels that they agree with the goals,
methods, and principles of the Party, can and should apply to join
the Party.
Such an application will lead to a process of systematic discussion
of the line of the Party, beginning with the Six
Resolutions of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist
Party, USA, January 1, 2016
(available at revcom.us), the responsibilities of Party members as
set forth in the Constitution of the Party, and other important
questions, which will be the basis for determining whether the person
applying is in fact ready to join the Party, or whether a further
process of work and discussion with the applicant is required before
they can be accepted as a Party member.
Why Isn’t the Racist Lynch Mob in Cop-Enclave Mt. Greenwood a Major News Media Story??
All people of conscience need to take a stand against this ugly racism and demand Justice for Joshua Beal.
The openly white supremacist character of “Blue Lives Matter,” was revealed Sunday in Chicago as a vicious mob of hundreds of white people confronted revcoms and other protesters standing up against the police murder of Joshua Beal. Beal was murdered by an off-duty Chicago cop while he was part of a funeral procession travelling through the neighborhood of Mt. Greenwood where many white cops and firefighters live.
The crowd had the feel of a lynch mob, with signs that read, “animals go home”; “keep out of our town, you fucked yours up, don’t come over here”; “Justice WAS done” referring to Joshua’s murder. Some seemed overjoyed that a Black man was killed—one man was overheard saying, “This is the spot where he was killed? Let’s have a barbeque!”
But this was not only a vitriolic racist crowd, it was filled with people who identified themselves as “relatives” of cops, and every indication is that some were off-duty cops. They chanted repeatedly, “N**ger go home,” and “CPD, CPD, CPD,” joining their unmistakable white supremacist message with their support for the police terror against Black and Latino people. It brought together the ugly reality that the foundation of this system is slavery, genocide and war and why it has to be overthrown by revolution.
Dee Williams from the Revolution Club Chicago gave this statement:
“The police murder of Joshua Beal was a lynching, and this crowd was like a lynch mob of old. It made me think of footage of the racists attacking the Freedom Riders in the South in the 1960's or the racist mobs in Marquette Park here in Chicago in the ’60s and ’70s. They shouted “CPD, CPD, CPD” and “Trump, Trump, Trump,” a testament to what this ugly election has unearthed from the soil of Amerikkka and the enforcers of this system. Being out there deepened the resolve of members of the Chicago Revolution Club to organize many more people into the revolution and speed up the time when we can overthrow this system of capitalism-imperialism and bring a whole new world into being. All people of conscience need to take a stand against this ugly racism and demand Justice for Joshua Beal.”
In the midst of this, a young white student and her two friends crossed the line and stood with the people protesting the murder of Joshua Beal. She held the Stolen Lives banner with pictures of dozens of people killed by police. She said: “Most of my friends are on the other side, this infuriates me, they are probably really pissed at me for crossing the line, but I couldn’t take it anymore.” She continued, “I am here today for the injustice of people that just keeps happening, this racism that’s institutionalized into our homes and in our backyards, in Mt. Greenwood especially. Mt. Greenwood is so racist, man, we just had somebody shot... so many times... and people want to deny and say it’s not because of skin color, but what else is it? I’m ready to make a stand now, I’m ready. Before I would sit quietly, you know, maybe protest online, but now I’m ready to make my voice heard... and speak for those... amplify their voices, not speak over them, but amplify their voices. Thank you.”
The truth must be known about this outbreak of white supremacy and racist hatred needs to be met head on. People from all walks of life, and all nationalities need to take a stand. No one can stand aside. Which side are you on?
“Revolution, Nothing Less!— Ask Us How We Can Win”
November 8, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Travis Morales at Standing Rock
DONATE HERE TO SUPPORT REVCOM.US CORRESPONDENTS AT STANDING ROCK
Riley Ruiz at Standing Rock
For a couple of hours Monday afternoon, we put a sign on the back of our pickup truck that read, "Revolution, Nothing Less!—Ask Us How We Can Win". During this time nine people stopped, most asking, "HOW
WE CAN WIN—How
We Can Really
Make Revolution," and we had substantive discussions with just about all of them. On the spot, two of the people read the entire pamphlet, "How We Can Win", and most read a part of it. Several had a lot of initial unity with the overall content in the pamphlet, and in particular the fact that this system is irreformable. Almost the entire time, we had a very exciting scene around our truck getting into things with all kinds of people. And it is important to note, that in several of our conversations, people asked us if we were getting any flack for putting out a statement like this, and so we told these people, that in fact we have come under attack, and that there is a National Organizing Tour that has already come under attack at its first stop in Chicago, and as well at CCNY with the local tour in NYC, and that this needs to be opposed and word spread about this because we cannot allow revolutionaries to be attacked in this way, and this needs to be a further exposure of the illegitimacy of this whole system.
One person with whom we spoke at length, a young person who has travelled all over the world as a photographer read the entire pamphlet on the spot, and raised a lot of serious questions. He asked, "How would you sustain after the revolution and what kind of system will be in its place?"; "What about morality, because that is not reducible to science?"; "How do people participate in the new society?"; "How is this different than previous communist societies that were dictatorships?". So we got into these things, we read from BAsics, in particular the supplement on “Reform or Revolution, Questions of Orientation, Questions of Morality'” and 1:22 and got into this question of the dictatorship of the proletariat instead of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. He flipped through some of the New Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, took a picture of this and was looking forward to reading more online and staying connecting with the revolution. We also gave him 50 copies of the pamphlet and he said he would get these out back in his home town on the West Coast. He thanked us for our persistence, speaking to both what we were doing there but, also, in the overall.
A youth that is part Native from the Hudson Valley in New York stopped and read the entire, "How We Can Win". His attitude after reading it was, "Where can I connect with you?" He said, looking at the situation in this country, "This may be the last presidential election we have." He raised several times that no one has a plan and we need one. He meant both a plan to protect his family but, also, a plan for what the people should do in the face of what is developing. He is grappling with how "they" don't care about the poisoning of the food we eat, "they" just care about making money, and this really angers him. He took two copies of "How We Can Win" to get to people camping with him.
A young white man read the entire "How We Can Win," parts of THE NEW COMMUNISM and flipped through the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America. He was mostly listening to the engagement we were having with someone else when he came up to us, but he had some questions about how it would be possible to get beyond all this oppression; how it would not just recreate itself even after a revolution. He said he agreed with a lot of what we were saying in terms of the system, but didn't think we could win at this point, and so we spoke about what a revolutionary situation actually is, what is needed to go all out for power. He asked if we were 'wedded' to socialism and communism and we posed that it isn't a matter of us liking those kinds of systems but that they are necessary, if you are serious about uprooting all exploitation and oppression; that you need socialism as a transition to communism. He said he had differences on the need for socialism and communism, but didn't want to get into them right there, but we told him we're not afraid of disagreements and that in fact, we wanted to hear his disagreements and get into things more. He also expressed that he didn't feel he could identify with any one group at this point in his life, seemed more an individualist approach so Riley posed that she was a revolutionary and a communist because she became convinced of the need for revolution and communism in the world.
A part Native and Chicano man from Southern California came up to us, interested in the sign, and we briefly told him what we were about. He saw our sticker on the sign, and said "Yeah, America was never great!" He asked if we meant a 'violent revolution' and we got into what a real revolution was, and that we are not yet in a position to make such a revolution, but are getting organized to do this at the soonest possible time. He then went on to tell us a lot of his background; How this was his first ever time connecting with other Native people and he was very glad to have done so. He talked about how he was in social groups in California who were caught up in nonsense, fighting each other, "foolishly fighting over a corner" and how the struggle at Standing Rock was something actually meaningful to fight for. He participated in three sweat lodges but said he is into Jesus Christ and would not do those again. But he would be able to tell his kids that he had done it. He invited us to his camp to meet more people from his tribe and was looking forward to getting more into things with us.
An older man from Seattle, who was a freelance photographer, came up to us off the sign and asked for a brief explanation... We got into who BA was, what this party represented, and what was concentrated in 'How We Can Win'. He expressed a lot of unity with this, and agreed that this system is irreformable, and took the pamphlet with him to read and said he would be back to get into what he thought about it.
Tuesday afternoon we put up the sign, and again this drew a lot of people while we were out there for a few hours. We summed up from the experience we had the day before, that we needed to be sharper when people came up to us and asked us the question that we wanted them to ask! Not that we felt we needed to just give them the short version of what was in the pamphlet, and do all the work for them in that way, but more we were wrestling with what is it that is the most decisive thing that people need to understand about this, what is the most decisive thing that you need to actually win, and so we started answering this question by putting forward what is in Resolution #1 from the Six Resolutions of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA put out on January 1,2016.
Resolution 1:
The new synthesis of communism brought forward by Bob Avakian, on the basis of 40 years of revolutionary work, represents a qualitative advance in the scientific approach to making revolution and emancipating humanity. It provides the foundation and point of departure for a new stage of communist revolution that is urgently needed in the world today.
Where there is oppression, there will be resistance—the masses of people will continually rise up against their conditions of oppression and those who enforce this oppression. But, without the necessary scientific theory and leadership, the struggle of the oppressed will be contained, and remain confined, within the system which is the source of oppression, and the horrors to which the masses are subjected will go on, and on. The new synthesis and the leadership of Bob Avakian represents and embodies the scientific understanding and approach the masses of the oppressed need to make the revolution they need—a revolution whose ultimate goal is a communist world—to emancipate themselves and ultimately humanity as a whole.
As Bob Avakian himself has emphasized, the new synthesis:
represents and embodies a qualitative resolution of a critical contradiction that has existed within communism in its development up to this point, between its fundamentally scientific method and approach, and aspects of communism which have run counter to this.
And:
What is most fundamental and essential in the new synthesis is the further development and synthesis of communism as a scientific method and approach, and the more consistent application of this scientific method and approach to reality in general and in particular the revolutionary struggle to overturn and uproot all systems and relations of exploitation and oppression and advance to a communist world. This method and approach underlies and informs all the core elements and essential components of this new synthesis.
As with all scientific approaches to understanding and transforming reality, communism must continue to develop, and it has undergone a qualitative development with the new synthesis, which is a leap beyond, and in some important ways a rupture with, what has gone before. Recognizing this is the essential dividing line today between genuine revolutionary communists and those who may profess to be for communism and revolution, but who in fact are not. Just as, in 1975, being a communist meant being a follower of Mao and the path that he had forged, so today being a communist means following Bob Avakian and the new path that he has forged.
And from there we would use the 'How We Can Win' pamphlet as our guide, pointing to the 3 questions that it is answering, doing some agitation about why this system is irreformable, with a particular focus on the question of the environment, and encouraging people to read it on the spot, and to be part of spreading this as they get deeper into it. So from there, we encouraged people to share their thinking on this, their agreements and disagreements, ideas, etc.
An interesting group of three young men and one older white man came over to talk with us. Two of the younger guys were people of color from North Texas and the other was a white youth from Colorado. They came up to ask, "So how can we win?" And once we ran some basic things down, they immediately had a lot of questions, while the older man gave the pamphlet back to us. After we did some agitation about what capitalism/imperialism does to the people of the world and how it cannot help but commit these crimes and broke down the 3 questions being answered in "How We Can Win', one of the Texas youth said he agreed with what we were saying about what capitalism does, while the other asked, "Couldn't we have a separation of capitalism and the government?" and basically let capitalism operate but not do these horrible things. People raised that the problem is human nature so we got into how what people think and their desires are determined in the main by the kind of society in which they live, the economic system and how that shapes what people think is desirable and possible. We gave the example of people living under feudalism did not expect to change the strata into which they were born, that serfs expected to live and die a serf or noble expected to live and die as a noble, because that was the way those systems operated. One of them said, "You are trying to change how people think.", and we said, "Yes", that is part of what will characterize the new socialist society after a revolution will be that you will have an economic system that is meeting the needs of people, and a political system that is backing up the people in breaking down the oppressive divisions among people, and all the ideas that flowed out of capitalist society, for example the 'dog eat dog' mentality. The same youth that asked about the separation of the government and capitalism, when asked why he came, said, "Climate change is the defining issue of our time." While some of the discussion was happening, the youth from Colorado was handed THE NEW COMMUNISM and he read the front and back cover as well as the last paragraph of page 3 and all of page 4. He later said, "I know what the next book that I buy will be." He was agreeing with a lot of what we were saying about the problem and the solution.
We met a young guy from Western Europe, who said he came to the states to visit a friend and once he heard about this, he felt that he needed to stay and join this meaningful struggle. He expressed a lot of unity with the fact that this system of capitalism imperialism is the root cause of so much suffering in the world, including the ongoing genocide of the Native people, and he talked about how he had managed to live basically off the grid back in Western Europe but recognized that it wasn't doing any good for anyone else, and that it was just allowing the system to continue doing what it does. He raised the fact that even if the battle at Standing Rock wins, the system will still exist, and so these horrors will continue. He felt that 'revolution' was a bad word in this society, and so we got into why that is the case, and how this system turns around and blames the people when they rise up and rebel against them and their crimes, when the real criminals, are those that hold power, and the real violence is coming from their vicious system.
At one point, we had the sign down to take a break, when an older white woman that retired to Southern Arizona was passing by us and stopped to talk. We asked her why she had come to Standing Rock. She broke into tears as she talked about horribly this country treats and continues to treat Native people, "It's so horrible how they keep running over these people." She kept saying, "It has to stop, it has to stop." She said she came here to help out in whatever way she could, and could see after just being here for a couple days, that there was a definite need for more people to join this struggle on the ground. We gave her a copy of "How We Can Win" and talked about the analysis problem and the solution this is putting forward. She asked if we meant by a violent revolution. We said we have to start with science to analyze how this system works, and from there we got into what an actual revolution is; that it would be nice if they would just step aside but how that is not reality, and that we see what they do to people who oppose them, including what they have done to peaceful protesters here in Standing Rock. We went on to get into how applying science to all these big questions on how we could defeat them, how BA (Bob Avakian) has led this Party to this understanding that is concentrated in this pamphlet, and including on the question of how we could defeat them. She spoke about the tremendous hope this struggle has given her, in terms of the potential of people to come together and fight for a just cause, and we united with her, but also posed that what we have here with this new synthesis should also give people tremendous hope, for a radically different way the world could be, but that it is more than just hope, it is scientifically grounded, that there is an actual basis to make this real, to actual emancipate humanity. She left us looking forward to reading the pamphlet and get more into things soon.
After this, again without the sign even posted up, a young white guy from Colorado came by and stopped to talk. He had also just arrived at camp and when we talked about why we were there, he had a lot of unity with this and described how he and some of his friends back at home talk about revolution but couldn't imagine ever actually being able to defeat them. We got into this, and talked about BA and how he struggles with people throughout his work to take up a scientific method and approach, and why that is necessary to be able to understand how you could actually defeat them. He thought this was right on, and said he hadn't thought of this before and was really excited to have met us, and wants to talk more about ways to be part of this revolution going forward.
So just from these couple of days with this sign up we have drawn forward a lot of people, and this is very representative of the openness of people here, in a situation where people are standing up, raising their sights, and more open to the idea of radical change.
• SEND US PHOTOS & VIDEOS of high school walkouts, street protests, and other forms of mass protest by people refusing to accept Trump and a fascist America!
Let
them not fool you—with Obama’s soothing and comforting
talk of all of them being on the “same team” and the
election being merely but an “intramural scrimmage,” some
saying Trump is “softening” on his hatred and hated
policies, and that he does not really intend carrying them through,
and yet others saying “let’s give him a chance.”
NO!
Miles Solay of revolutionary rock band Outernational reading the important statement from www.revcom.us: "In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America."
Seattle, November 20: 500 people rally and march in “#DumpTheTrump #NotMyPresident” protest. Photo: Special to revcom.us
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, November 16. (Credit: Devyn Giannetti/Twitter)
A diverse crowd of about 300 people marched from Wright Park, Tacoma, Washington, down a major avenue blocking all four lanes of traffic, November 19.
New York City, Jimmy Van Bramer, a member of the city council, led a march from Queens across the Queensboro Bridge to Trump Tower in Manhattan. Photo: Special to revcom.us
Los Angeles, November 12.
Protests Continue Against the Election of Fascist Trump
Updated December 5, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Updates Through December 4
2,000 Protest in Hollywood, CA - Seeking A Way Forward to Stop Trump and His Fascist Regime
Photo: Special to revcom.us
From a reader: On Sunday, December 4, 2,000 people marched down Hollywood Blvd. and rallied at the CNN headquarters in opposition to Trump. The event attracted a cross section of middle strata people, many of them electoral progressives, "third party" Greens and democratic socialists. The event was coined "Bernie's Unity March" and "Our Political Revolution, Phase Two." Many hundreds carried the posters with the slogan “In The Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America.” We had a plan to distribute Revolution newspaper to everyone at the event, and people were greatly appreciative as well as challenged. We got over $500 in donations for the 700 Revolution newspapers, 325 posters and 600 flyers that were distributed.
At CNN, the Revolution Club led hundreds in pledging “In the name of humanity, we REFUSE to accept a fascist America.” One of the main slogans of the march was "Love Trumps Hate, That's What Makes America Great," but that conclusion was being challenged by what the Club was exposing about “America Was NEVER Great,” the reality of the foundation of the country being genocide and slavery and America's continuing crimes. At the end of their speech, the Revolution Club clearly spelled why there was a need for revolution and that there is leadership for this revolution, concentrated in Bob Avakian.
Queens, New York City: Rally and March to Call for a Hate-Free Zone
Photo: Special to revcom.us
From a reader: On December 3, the South Asian immigrant group DRUM, with 42 organizations as co-sponsors and 26 organizations as endorsers, led an action in the Sunnyside and Jackson Heights neighborhoods of Queens to demand New York City be a hate-free zone. More than 300 people came out and it was a very diverse and determined group—a large number were South Asian and Arab and Muslim immigrants. There was a significant presence of Latin American immigrants, LGBT immigrant groups, and many white people there to express their strong opposition to the attacks and demonization of immigrants, Muslims, and gay people. There were people with homemade signs like “Organize, Not Normalize” and “Here to Stay, Here to Fight” and many against hate and for sanctuary for immigrants. Our crew got out the print issue of Revolution newspaper and the statement “In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America,” which was warmly received by the vast majority of the people there.
Banner in front of the Episcopal Church of Our Saviour in Silver Springs, Maryland, that replaced the one defaced by fascists. Photo: Robert Harvey/Facebook
Seattle Women March Against Hate
From a reader: On Saturday, December 3, about 5,000 people rallied and marched in a protest called Seattle Women March Against Hate. They gathered at Volunteer Park in an upscale neighborhood and from there marched to Cal Anderson Park in a student, LGBT, and youth neighborhood. The crowd was largely but not exclusively white and middle class, mostly women but also many men. One sector was older middle class women, and there were also many young women there. Overall there was a deep receptivity to the statement “In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America!” Revcom.us supporters got out about 1,500 copies of the statement and 170 of the latest print issue of Revolution newspaper. This march of thousands was important, but the resistance needs to go to a whole other level to prevent the consolidation of fascism.
Updates Through November 25
“Black Friday” Protests
On “Black Friday,” the day after Thanksgiving, there were protests around the country against Trump, supporting the Standing Rock struggle against modern-day genocide of Native Americans and environmental destruction, denouncing murders by police, and opposing exploitation of minimum-wage workers. We received this snapshot from a reader on the protest in Seattle:
“November 25: Over 1,000 people marched and blocked the main streets and intersections of the downtown shopping core on Black Friday, declaring it ‘Black Lives Matter!’ Friday and chanting ‘No Trump, No KKK, No Racist USA.’ Over 1,500 copies of the statement ‘In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America’ were distributed along with Revolution newspaper.
“The response of shoppers and tourists was highly polarized, with some people crossing police lines and reaching over barricades to grab the statement, while a smaller but more vocal minority angrily shouted ‘No!’ and ‘Get over it’ or got offended that others would call Trump a fascist and refuse to accept his victory.”
Day Before Thanksgiving
The night before Thanksgiving, November 23, 200 people marched through the streets of Minneapolis. They chanted, in Spanish and English, against Trump’s threats to immediately deport millions of immigrants and his whipping up of open racism, and called for cities to become sanctuaries for immigrants.
Earlier in the day, at Towson University near Baltimore, 100 students mobilized to oppose a campus rally called by Trump supporters. Among the few who showed up for the pro-Trump rally was one wearing a “Nazi-esque arm band with a T in the place of a swastika.”
“Fuck Donald Trump” Show
On Thanksgiving Day, Portland’s Roseland Theater was the venue for two sold-out shows by the Compton rapper YG and his crew, who are on their Fuck Donald Trump tour. YG, along with Nipsey Hussle, had released a song and video titled “FDT (Fuck Donald Trump)” in the summer. According to Billboard.com, “During the evening performance, the artists didn’t water down their message, taking the opportunity in each of their sets to start ‘F—k Donald Trump’ chants. Sad Boy, perhaps best known for describing the discrimination Hispanics face in L.A. on YG’s song ‘Blacks & Browns,’ exercised his freedom of speech by having his hype man wave Mexico’s flag as a signal of pride. It felt like a direct middle finger to Trump and his stance on immigration.”
Going Up Against Emboldened Fascists
Trump has energized and emboldened fascists, racists, and reactionaries of all kinds. And people are taking this on in various ways from their viewpoints. These are some recent examples:
» Silver Springs, Maryland: In the Thanksgiving Day parade here, a number of people carried a banner saying “Silver Springs Loves and Welcomes Immigrants!” The story behind this banner involves people coming together to make a stand against Trump-inspired fascist attacks on immigrants. The Episcopal Church of Our Saviour has a congregation that is mainly made up of immigrants, from 50 different countries. A few days after the election, the church’s pastor found that a banner in Spanish that usually hangs outside the church was defaced with an ugly message saying “Trump Nation. Whites Only.” The same words were also painted on the church’s brick walls. When the pastor, Robert Harvey, was leaving the church a few days later, he found that someone had put a new banner up outside a church with a very different message—this was the banner carried in the Thanksgiving Day parade, and which received cheers from the crowds lining the parade route. The banner was the work of a middle school teacher who said that at first she was overwhelmed by “a feeling of hopelessness and impotence” after Trump’s election—but when she heard about the fascist graffiti on the church, she decided she must act and raised the money for the banner. Other people also came to the church with flowers and messages of support for immigrants.
» Burlington, North Carolina: A group that declares they are for preserving “Southern rights” announced a rally at the municipal building on Saturday, November 26. Immediately, people opposed to these reactionaries mobilized a counter-protest, including religious people speaking out against those using the Bible as justification for their poison. Rev. Holly Lux-Sullivan, an organizer of the action, said about the group promoting “Southern rights”: “The things their website says and things their founders say sound very much to me like thinly veiled racism, homophobia, xenophobia, misogyny, and so we wanted to be here to speak for love and justice for all. We are here about love and peace, and not exclusion of forgetting that part of Southern heritage was a horrific time of slavery, and we don’t want to go back to the ‘way things were.’”
» Albuquerque, New Mexico: On November 23, at a Smith’s grocery store, a woman began harassing another shopper who wore a hijab, yelling things like “You’re a terrorist, get out of here.” One witness posted on Facebook: “The entire store banded together and yelled at the Nazi to get out. Smith’s employees dragged the racist out. They later escorted the woman to her car past the screaming Nazi.”
Rally at Adam Yauch Park in Brooklyn, NY, November 20. Photo: @DanielSquadron/Twitter
» Brooklyn, NY: On November 20, hundreds of people gathered at Adam Yauch Park to make their voices heard against fascist graffiti, including swastikas and the words “Go Trump,” that had appeared in the park after the election. Adam Yauch, who died in 2012, was a founding member of the rap group the Beastie Boys. Yauch spoke out against racism, including on national TV at the MTV Music Awards in 1998 when he denounced “racism that comes from the United States toward Muslim people and towards Arabic people.” The rally included Jewish and Muslim religious leaders. According to a tweet from the Beastie Boys, the action was meant to “denounce hate and intimidation in Brooklyn and across the country.”
~~~~~~~~~~
In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America! at the Doo Dah Parade in Pasadena, CA
From a reader:
November 20—The Pasadena Doo Dah Parade is a popular farcical and flamboyant parade held in Pasadena, California, each year. Absurd and unique participants such as the Shopping Cart Drill Team, the Bastard Sons of Lee Marvin, and the Men of Leisure Synchronized Nap Team form contingents, and thousands of people line the streets to watch and have fun.
On Monday night, November 21, people from a number of environmental groups used a high-powered projector to project huge images and text onto the front of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) headquarters to protest Trump’s stand on climate change. Trump appointed Myron Ebell—who denies that human-caused climate change is happening, and is close to the coal industry—to head the transition at the EPA and who may be named its head. (See “Trump’s Victory—A Disaster for the Environment Requiring Massive Resistance,” at revcom.us) Messages projected onto the EPA building included “Don’t Let a Climate Denier Take Over the EPA” and could be clearly seen from the building across the street—the Trump Hotel.
As protests have continued around the country this week, one thing to note is the fact that people are taking it to the streets not only in larger cities but smaller areas as well, like Bozeman, Montana, where hundreds marched last Sunday; Providence, Rhode Island; Columbus, Ohio; Gainesville, Wilton Manors, and Palm Beach, Florida, where people marched around Trump’s estate; Newport News, Virginia; Palm Springs, California; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Charlotte, North Carolina; Springfield, Missouri; and Northampton, Massachusetts. A revcom.us reader who is helping this site cover the nationwide protests observed, “I personally believe that some of these protests in smaller towns and smaller cities, and in spread out parts of the country (like Bozeman, Montana) are ... important indicators of the moment we’re in.”
On Tuesday, November 22, the group IfNotNow, a U.S. Jewish organization that opposes Israel’s occupation of Palestine, protested outside Pennsylvania Republican Senator Pat Toomey’s office to demand that he denounce Steve Bannon, the virulently white supremacist fascist Trump chose as his chief strategist. A first year rabbinical college student, who said her grandmother was a Holocaust survivor, said: “We have seen this before, and we know the most dangerous thing we could possibly do right now is to wait it out and see what happens.” Many people carried white roses—the symbol of a group of students and professors in Germany who resisted Hitler and the Nazis.
The statement “In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America” is getting out in some of these protests—and it urgently needs to spread much, much more broadly, into the hands of hundreds of thousands in the protests, through social media, and other ways. On Sunday night, November 20, there was a “#DumpTheTrump #NotMyPresident” rally and march of 500 people in Seattle. A reader wrote about an important part of this scene: “TV news coverage included a revcom.us supporter reading out the statement ‘In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America’ on the mic. After she did, she then asked people to join her in making a pledge: She then ‘mic checked’ the full title of the statement. Stacks of the statement were passed into the crowd to distribute and also take back to people’s communities. About 1,000 copies total were got out during the whole event.”
Updates through November 20:
As
Trump and the incoming fascist regime forge ahead toward taking over
the White House, protests have continued across the country—on
the campuses and in the streets and with a broad range of people
raising their voices in different ways.
Throughout
the week of November 14, thousands of high school and college
students walked out, rallied, and marched, taking the lead in
protesting Trump. On Monday, more than 1,000 high school students
from at least a dozen highs schools in Oakland, California, marched
out of classes. At the rally downtown, an Asian student got repeated
cheers when he said, “We are in protest against regressive
policy, regarding religion, abortion—who is to say you can’t
do what you want with your own body? We are not here just to protest Trump, we are here to protest Pence—the man who as part of the Republican Party opposes gay marriage, abortion... We are here to organize. We are here to say to the system, fuck you!"
In
Silver Springs, Maryland, a suburb north of Washington, DC, 500
youths from five high schools joined together—chanting “we
reject the president-elect” and blocking downtown traffic.
Hundreds of students marched on the state capitol in Denver,
Colorado, and on city hall in Portland, Oregon. In Los Angeles, 4,000
students from at least a dozen high schools—many expressing
fear and anger that friends and relatives who are undocumented are
now under even greater threat of deportation—walked out. The
next day, November 15, more than 1,000 middle and high school
students walked out in DC and protested outside Trump International
Hotel. Among the other student protests that day, hundreds of high
school and college students joined together in New York City and
marched down busy 5th Avenue in cold, rainy weather. The high school
walkouts continued through the week.
Anti-Trump Jewish Protesters Occupy Trump Transition HQ in Washington, DC, Shut Down Bannon in New York
On November 17, anti-Trump Jewish protesters occupied Trump’s transition headquarters in Washington, DC.
On Sunday night November 20, in New York City, hundreds of Jewish people and others, including Muslim people, staged a loud protest for hours outside a conference of the Zionist Organization of America where Trump's Senior Counselor Steve Bannon was supposed to speak. They defied repeated threats by the NYPD to arrest them. Some protesters emphasized unity with Muslims targeted by Trump. Many signs invoked the legacy of the Holocaust, Hitler's genocide against Jews and others in Nazi Germany. Mainstream news is reporting that Bannon did not show up for the event.
Oakland, CA, November 14, more than 1,000 high school students from at least a dozen highs schools marched out of classes. Photos: Special to revcom.us
Portland, Oregon, November 16, Protesters chant before approximately 100 students march through the streets. Photo: AP
Jackson, Mississippi, November 16. Students protest at Millsaps College. Photo: AP
Brown University, November 16. Hundreds of students walked out of their classrooms and activities at 3 p.m.
November 16, Yale University students to join together and declare Yale as a "Sanctuary Campus" protecting undocumented immigrant college students. Photo: Eino Sierpe
Rutgers, NJ, November 16. Hundreds of Rutgers University students block College Ave. in New Brunswick. Photo: AP
Wichita Falls, Texas, November 16. Students from Midwestern State University march in protest. Photo: AP
The
high point of protests on college campuses during the week was on
Wednesday, November 16, when thousands of students walked out of
classes, held rallies, and marched around campuses and through city
streets demanding that their schools become sanctuaries—places
of protection for undocumented immigrants, LGBT people, and others
who Trump has targeted for increased repression. Students were called
to action via social media hashtag #SanctuaryCampus. Walkouts
reportedly took place in more than 100 campuses, including NYU and
Columbia in New York City; Ivy League universities like Yale,
Harvard, Princeton, and Brown; Notre Dame; Stanford; University of
Southern California; Oregon State University at Corvallis; University
of Memphis; Rutgers in New Jersey; University of Michigan; Oberlin in
Ohio; and Middlebury College in Vermont
Other
marches and various kinds of protests took place in cities across the
country, including demos of hundreds in smaller cities like Tacoma,
Washington, and Albuquerque, New Mexico. In Seattle, 5,000 people,
mainly white and middle class, held hands to create a 2.8-mile human
chain around Green Lake.; One participant said, “We just want
to come together and let everybody know we will protect you, we are
here to fight for you. We will not stop.”
There
were a number of actions where people went directly up against
fascists and white supremacists. There were several such protests on
Saturday, November 19. In Austin, Texas, several hundred people
confronted a racist group calling themselves “White Lives
Matter,” some of them armed, who were protesting a new monument
recognizing contributions of Black people to the state.
In downtown
Washington, DC, several hundred people protested outside the Ronald
Reagan Building and International Trade Center, where the National
Policy Institute, a white supremacist group, was celebrating Trump’s
victory. New York City, Jimmy Van Bramer, a member of the city
council, led a march from Queens across the Queensboro Bridge to
Trump Tower in Manhattan—Van Bramer had received a threatening
email after announcing the march, saying in part, “Rest of the
people from Queens do not agree with your homosexual lifestyle, so
get the fuck out of this country, you fucking traitor...Execution is
the penalty for a traitor...”
People
with voices of influence, including in the arts and entertainment
communities, have been speaking out. Fashion designer Sophie
Theallet, who has designed dresses for Michelle Obama, declared
publicly that she refuses to have anything to do with designing for
Melania Trump, saying, “The rhetoric of racism, sexism, and
xenophobia unleashed by her husband’s presidential campaign are
incompatible with the shared values we live by... I encourage my
fellow designers to do the same.” Singer John Legend said,
“Trump is saying Hitler-level things in public... And I feel
like it’s dangerous for us to be complacent.” Read other
voices of conscience here.
The
protests and different expressions of resistance that have been
happening are significant—and need to not only continue but
grow and become even more determined and broad. In the midst of this,
it is very important that the revcom.us statement “In the Name
of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America” has been
getting out and taken up by all kinds of people. (For example, see a
report
from the Revolution Club, Los Angeles about school walkouts in that
city.) The statement needs to spread much more widely throughout
society.
Students Across the U.S. Protest to Demand Campuses Become Sanctuaries for Immigrants
As part of his fascist program, Trump has vowed to build a border wall, throw out Obama’s policy of deferring deportations for some undocumented youth, and immediately deport millions of immigrants. Members of his circle have talked about instituting a “registry” of Muslims in the U.S., even making comparisons with the rounding up of 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry in the U.S. into concentration camps during World War 2. In the face of this, on Wednesday, November 16, thousands of college and university students across the U.S. walked out of classes, rallied, and marched to demand that their campuses become sanctuaries for immigrants.
Columbia University, New York City, November 16. Photo: Special to revcom.us
Students were called to action with the social media hashtag #SanctuaryCampus, and walkouts reportedly took place in more than 100 campuses, including NYU and Columbia in New York City; Ivy League university like Yale, Harvard, and Brown; Notre Dame; Stanford; University of Southern California; Oregon State University at Corvallis; University of Memphis; Rutgers in New Jersey; University of Michigan; Oberlin in Ohio; and Middlebury College in Vermont.
A student involved in organizing the protest at NYU told the NY Post: “'We as students are walking out today because we recognize undocumented students are among the most vulnerable on our campus and so we are rallying to say that, as citizens or students with privilege, we will put our bodies on the line between them and a Trump presidency.”
At the University of Memphis, where about 100 students took part, chants included "Say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here" and "No racists, no KKK, no fascist USA.” That “...no fascist USA” chant was heard on different campuses, including at Rutgers, where more than 1,000 students, teachers, and staff marched on the campus and took to the streets.
The protests on the campuses need to continue, spread, and become even more determined, as crucial part of the overall resistance against fascist America. As we said in “To ALL Revolutionaries, Students, Professors, and Others on Campuses! With the election of Trump, we confront a FASCIST America, No Less!” [link]: “Establish Trump-free and fascist-free zones! We need teach-ins and sit-ins! We need massive multifaceted resistance to the whole program represented by Trump, any acts of white supremacy and misogyny, any attacks on immigrants and Muslims, and other manifestations of fascism.”
Anti-Trump Protests Continue for a 6th and 7th Straight Day Around the Country
Students took the lead in carrying forward protests against Trump for a sixth and seventh straight day. Hundreds of high school students around the country organized walkouts.
Monday, November 14
Students walked out of schools in California, Colorado, Maryland, Washington and other states. In Los Angeles, more than 1,000 students marched out of classes. Many said they have relatives and friends in the country illegally who they fear will be deported. The United Teachers Los Angeles union applauded the walkouts, saying the union "stands proudly" with the students.
Los Angeles: High school students protest in front of Los Angeles City Hall, November 14. Photo: AP
In Oakland, a citywide protest drew more than 1,000 students from at least a dozen high schools. In Denver, 200 middle and high school students walked out of two charter schools to march to the state capitol. In Silver Spring, Maryland, a northern suburb of Washington, DC, youth from five high schools all walked out and marched together, 500 strong, chanting "we reject the president-elect" and blocking traffic on a busy downtown street. In Portland, Oregon, hundreds of students from at least three schools walked out and marched to City Hall.
Thousands of students from high schools all over Los Angeles walked out to protest the election of Donald Trump. In some schools, they did this in real defiance against school administrators trying to prevent students from walking out. In one school, they had a large sign in front of the school that said, “Don’t Walk Out, WALK IN.” Other schools sent home letters to parents so that the parents could stop the youth who wanted to walk out. One school in particular made an announcement that said, “Students should remain on campus where they’re safe. Ignorance can often lead to violence: please understand that the greatest way to overcome ignorance is through education.” Despite these efforts of the administrators in different schools, over 4,000 students from different high schools walked out and marched to City Hall. Read a report from the Los Angeles Revolution Club
LA Revolution Club on Election Night at UCLA
Election Day: We went out to an event at UCLA on election night where they were showing the election results and got out “How We Can Win.” There were hundreds of students there, most of whom were rooting for Hillary (we could tell because they yelled in approbation every time Hillary won a state). We misassesed the potential for something to erupt there and we left early, but then heard that this event turned into a protest. It went through Westwood where someone set fire to a Trump piñata and it ended up at the dorm area, where I and another comrade caught up with it. It was dying down by this point but there were still a couple hundred students sitting together chanting, “Love Trumps Hate.” We pulled out the American rag, stepped on it and did some agitation, saying that America was never great! Trump is an open fascist, and we need to resist him and what he stands for, and get organized for an actual revolution. I called on people to take a pamphlet from us and to join the Revolution Club. Many people were listening intently. Read more
Tuesday, November 15
Washington, D.C., more than 1,000 middle school and high school students staged a walkout and protested outside of Trump International Hotel, holding signs that read "Boycott Bigotry" and "Stronger Together." The demonstrations were organized by Wilson High School students.
Just outside of D.C. in Beltsville, Maryland, students walked out of High Point High School and held a sit-in, blocking major roads for more than half an hour. Students held an anti-Trump protest at Ohio State.
Hundreds of high school and college students in New York City came out in cold, rainy weather and took to the streets again, marching down 5th Avenue.
Sunday, November 13:
Youth, together with the Revolution Club in Los Angeles, protest Trump at CNN building in Hollywood.
Saturday, November 12:
Tens of thousands marched in cities from coast to coast. This
day saw the largest protests since Tuesday’s election—with
over 10,000 in Los Angeles and more than 10,000 in New York City. For
the fifth night, in Portland, Oregon, protesters went up against the
police who attacked and arrested demonstrators.
One demonstrator in Los
Angeles was quoted in the press, expressing the sentiment of many in
the crowd: “If you’re gay, if you’re LGBT, if
you’re Muslim, if you’re Latin, if you’re special
needs, if you’re female, it’s a much unsafer place now.
What is happening today [protests] is going to be the normal for a
while, because we’re not going to just sit back and watch our
rights being taken away, our health care being taken away.”
In Cincinnati,
anti-Trump demonstrators were joined by hundreds of people protesting
the hung jury in the murder trial of a University of Cincinnati cop
who shot and killed Sam DuBose, a Black man, in July 2015.
There were protests
with thousands of people in other big cities, like Chicago, Miami,
and Atlanta, as well as demonstrations of hundreds in smaller cities
like Detroit; Minneapolis; Kansas City, Missouri; Olympia,
Washington; Worcester, Massachusetts; Iowa City, Iowa; Dayton, Ohio;
Oklahoma City; Salt Lake City; Providence, Rhode Island;
and Las Vegas.
Friday, November 11:
On Friday, for a fourth night in a row, thousands took to the
street across the country in protests against Trump—some
disrupting traffic and blocking interstate highways, some going into
the early morning hours of Saturday. Cities included: New York; Los
Angeles; Miami; Chicago; Portland, Oregon; Atlanta; Miami; Iowa City; Washington, DC; New Haven, Connecticut; Orlando; Boston;
Asheville, North Carolina; Nashville; Columbus, Ohio; San Diego;
Denver; Kansas City, Missouri; Norfolk, Virginia; Philadelphia; and
Detroit
The New York Times
reported that demonstrators in Atlanta rushed over a bridge to block
a highway, and in front of the Georgia State Capitol, a U.S. flag was
set on fire as protesters “revising Mr. Trump’s campaign
slogan, chanted, ‘America was never great.’”
In Los Angeles, a
protest of 3,000 people who blocked the 101 Freeway and marched
through downtown went into early Saturday; and police arrested around
200 people. Thousands marched in Miami, surrounding cars and blocking
both lanes of Interstate 395 and then went through downtown.
In Iowa City, hundreds of demonstrators marched through downtown and shut down
Interstate 80; earlier in the day, 200 high school students walked
out of class and marched through downtown. At the protest in Dallas,
people dragged and kicked a Trump piñata through the streets.
Chicago, November 12. Photo: Special to revcom.us
Cincinnati, OH, November 12. Anti-Trump demonstrators were joined by hundreds of people protesting
the hung jury in the murder trial of a University of Cincinnati cop
who shot and killed Sam DuBose, a Black man, in July 2015. Photo: @DariceChapel
Los Angeles, November 10. Photo: twitter/@SophiaArmen
Columbus, OH, November 10. Photo: twitter/@_miabarnes
Minneapolis, November 10. Photo: twitter@bengarvin
American University, Washington DC, burning the U.S. flag. November 9. Photo: twitter/@kneeczarr
Thursday,
November 10
For
a third night after the election, protests spread across the country
in response to the Trump election. CNN reported that “Tens
of thousands filled the streets in at least 25 U.S. cities
overnight.” Thousands rallied in front of Trump Tower in
Manhattan. Hundreds marched in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Los
Angeles; there were protests in Madison and Milwaukee,
Wisconsin, and Dallas, Houston, and Austin, Texas. Protests took
place in Columbus, Ohio; Greensboro, North Carolina; Salt Lake City,
Utah; Louisville, Kentucky; Indianapolis; Athens Georgia; and Tampa,
Florida.
Thousands of protesters stepped into the streets in Portland, Oregon with determination, not backing down in the face of the riot police that attacked with pepper spray and rubber bullets—and going up against vilification by the media and officials for their righteous resistance.
High
school students in the Bay Area, from San Francisco to the East Bay
to surrounding suburbs, walked out of school in their thousands.
Thousands occupied the streets of Oakland, and there were fires and
clashes with police.
Protests
continued in college and university campuses all over, from large
schools to small—from Michigan State University to Texas State
University and elsewhere. One correspondent wrote, “Two
dozen students at Antelope Valley College [in southern California]
organized a rally at library plaza. We chanted ‘racist sexist
anti-gay Republican fascist go away” and shouted calls for
people to fight in defense of immigrants, the gay and lesbian
community, Muslims and women! At one point students took up the chant
‘always so full of hate, America was NEVER great.’”
According
to the AP, “A
Louisiana University football coach disciplined four players in
response to a locker room video showing members of the team dancing
and singing the lyrics of the a rap song by YG and Nipsey Hussle called FDT ‘Fuck Donald Trump’
and the video was made sometime shortly before Tuesday’s
election in which Trump was elected president.”
Protesters
represented a wide range of perspectives. Many of the signs and
chants included defiant outrage at Trump’s attacks on
immigrants (“I will not live in fear,” “Fight back,
stand up,” “¡Si se puede!”). A Trump effigy
was set on fire outside Los Angeles City Hall. Lady Gaga, Mark Ruffalo, and Cher were among
the thousands protesting outside Trump Tower in NYC late on election
night.
A
correspondent in Seattle, where 5,000 people were in the streets on
Tuesday night, reported: The
feeling was that of the despair and shock hanging in the air being
transformed into activity and brave resistance. A backdrop to this
was a massive array of armed pigs in riot gear, on bicycles, on
motorcycles, and in cars...”
We
continue to receive reports from protests and will update this page
as we hear more.
November 9, Day After Election
Protests vs. Trump Spread in Streets and Campuses Across the Country
Protests spread—November 9, 2016
On the day after the election of fascist Trump as president, protests continued and spread in cities and on campuses across the U.S.
In the morning, protesters were out in front of the Massachusetts State House in Boston, and later in the day thousands of college students and youth rallied downtown and marched through the streets.
In the evening, thousands of people took to the busy Manhattan streets in New York City. In Chicago, according to a correspondent, “Thousands of angry young protesters of all nationalities swarmed the area around Trump Tower. They marched back and forth over major streets around the Trump Tower, including taking over all six lanes of Michigan Avenue on the Magnificent Mile. At one point crowds broke through the police lines guarding Trump Tower.” The protesters then shut down Lakeshore Drive, a major multi-lane thoroughfare. People were out in the streets Oakland and San Jose, California; Tempe, Arizona; Portland, Oregon; and various other cities.
New York City (Photo Revolution/revcom.us)
Sit-in at Trump Tower, Chicago (Photo:@ShararehDrury/Twitter)
In Austin, Texas, as reported by one correspondent, “Hundreds of University of Texas students gathered on the campus Wednesday and set off on a powerful march through downtown Austin. ‘Out of your jobs and into the streets,’ ‘Hey, hey, ho, ho, Donald Trump has got to go,’ ‘Si se puede,’ and other chants rang out as protesters temporarily blocked Austin’s busy Congress Avenue bridge. Many protesters carried homemade signs, including one that read ‘America was Never Great.’”
Students from Fisk University, a historically Black school in Nashville, Tennessee, marched to the state capitol and blocked an on-ramp to a freeway. At the American University in Washington, D.C., hundreds of students protested in front of the campus center, and several U.S. flags were burned—while other pro-Trump protesters tried to stop the flag burning and shouted “USA, USA.”
Albany High School students at Sather Gate, UC Berkeley. (Photo: Special to revcom.us/Revolution)
There were walkouts at high schools in different cities, sometimes joining with college students and others. A correspondent in the San Francisco Bay Area reported, “Berkeley High School students and Albany High School students broke out of school today and marched to UC Berkeley.” In Colorado Springs, known as a “military town” with a major Air Force base nearby, students from the University of Colorado campus and Palmer High School joined together to march through downtown.
Protests erupted immediately after the election results were announced:
On college campuses and in cities around the country, furious, defiant protesters took to the streets expressing outrage and resistance in immediate response to the Trump election. And outrage took expression in the Twitter feed: #notmypresident.
As Donald Trump took the stage to deliver his presidential acceptance speech early Wednesday morning, protesters took to the streets of Manhattan. Other street protests broke out in Oakland, Portland, and downtown Los Angeles. Protesters outside the White House chanted "Fuck Donald Trump!"
In Berkeley, a correspondent reports: As the election returns were coming in, at least 5,000 UC Berkeley students gathered to watch, before a giant screen set up in the center of the campus. As it became clear Trump was winning, revolutionaries marched through the crowd, “1,2,3,4, slavery genocide and war, 5,6,7,8, America was never great!” “It’s time, to get organized, for an actual revolution!” rang through the crowd, getting out flyers with the memes “People say ‘don’t you have to accept Majority Rule?’ The majority for a long time in the US favored slavery. Should people have confined themselves to ‘working within the system?’ HELL NO.” After Clinton’s campaign announced she would make a statement in the morning, and the giant screen was shut down, hundreds started marching off the campus, to the streets, towards Oakland—chanting “not our president”, and “Fuck Donald Trump.” Protesters stormed onto a freeway and shut it down.
Protests broke out at other University of California campuses, including Santa Cruz, Davis, and San Diego. Hundreds rallied at San Francisco State.
At the University of Oregon campus in Eugene, hundreds of University of Oregon students marched and gathered in an anti-Trump protest in response to the presidential election results. Students rallied on campus and spoke out against Trump.
Social media has reports of protests at other schools coast-to-coast including Columbia in NYC, Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles, and the University of Pittsburg.
Donald Trump has now won the presidency. Under the slogan “Make America Great Again,” he has viciously attacked Mexicans and Muslims, threatened to deport millions and boasted that he will build walls and close borders. He incites people to fear and hate those who are “different,” or who come from other countries or nationalities, or practice different religions. He crudely demeans and degrades women, and openly boasts about molesting them. He’s a champion of white supremacy who has insulted and threatened Black people, and whipped up a racist lynch-mob mentality. Trump has mocked the disabled. He is an aggressive and unapologetic militarist, who threatens to use nuclear weapons and will have his fingers on the nuclear codes. He openly advocates war crimes and crimes against humanity—including torture and killing the families of people accused of terrorism. He plans to pack the Supreme Court with justices who will gut and reverse the right to abortion, gay rights, and other important legal rights. He calls climate change a hoax and his policies will wreak further devastation on the environment. He has attacked and threatened the press and stirred up his supporters to do the same. Trump has utter contempt for facts and the truth, and consistently lies to advance his agenda. As for the rule of law, Trump went so far as to openly threaten his opponent, Hillary Clinton, not only with jail, but even assassination. Donald Trump is an outright fascist. And he is now the president-elect.
Fascism is a very serious thing. Fascism foments and relies on xenophobic nationalism, racism, and the aggressive reinstitution of oppressive “traditional values.” Fascism feeds on and encourages the threat and use of violence to build a movement and come to power. Fascism, once in power, essentially eliminates traditional democratic rights. Fascism attacks, jails, and executes its opponents, and launches violent mob attacks on “minorities.” In Nazi Germany in the 1930s and ’40s, under Hitler, fascism did all these things. They imprisoned millions in concentration camps and exterminated millions of Jews, Roma people (Gypsies), and other “undesirables.” And Hitler did almost all of this through the established institutions and the “rule of law.” This is where this goes. And yes, Hitler himself could “talk graciously” when he felt it would serve his interests and lull his opponents.
Trump did not even win the popular vote, (even though he did win the “electoral college” which decides elections in the U.S.). Hitler himself came to power through democratic procedures, including through the process of elections. Should people have accepted Hitler?! Unfortunately, they did, at a horrific cost to humanity. Today, with nuclear weapons, that cost could be far higher.
In the name of humanity, we must refuse to accept a fascist America!
The fact that Trump won as many votes as he did must be understood. The fact that he got more than even 10 percent of the vote is disgraceful and reveals some very ugly things about America. So why did this happen? The world today is turbulent, full of changes. Those who supported Trump’s fascist program were overwhelmingly sections of white people, especially but not only white men, who yearn for the days of open white supremacy and American global domination, and the blatant subjugation of women. A significant minority of white people did oppose him, but we have to confront how deep the racism, the national chauvinism, and the hatred of women is woven into this society... and not give in to this, but vigorously challenge and fiercely oppose it.
But even more than this, Trump was backed by powerful forces in this society. Beyond those who directly supported him, the media, the Democratic Party, and others treated him as a legitimate candidate, refused to call him out as the fascist he is, and now call on everyone to accept his ascension to power. All the major powerful forces in this society bear the responsibility—it is they who have, over decades, either built up this fascist force or have “enabled” it.
You cannot try to “wait things out” with fascists. Those who lived through Hitler’s Germany and sat on the sidelines, looking on as Hitler rounded up one group after another, became shameful collaborators with monstrous crimes against humanity. Trump and his regime must be resisted and defied, beginning now, in many different ways and in every corner of society.
Reconciliation and collaboration would be nothing less than criminal and deadly. Literally. Come together... resist... and let the whole world know that we will not allow this to stand!
Election Night in Mount Greenwood—
This Is Amerikkka 2016.
November 9, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
On election night, what was playing out at the ballot box was also playing out in the streets of Mt. Greenwood in Chicago. On Saturday, November 5, off-duty pigs had killed a young Black man, Joshua Beal, who had come from Indiana to take part in a funeral for his cousin’s burial.
The racist outpouring that night where the family was gathered and again at a protest the next day from this all-white enclave of cops and cops’ families and supporters in Chicago, was a naked display of ugly white supremacy. The revcoms put out a challenge to the major media about their failure to cover the white supremacy of the cop-loving mob. Articles and editorials have begun to appear, and the Mayor was forced to make a timid rebuke of the racist vitriol spewing out from Chicago Police Department members/supporters.
On Tuesday, election night, a small number of activists, religious figures, and the Chicago Revolution Club marched into the middle of hundreds at what was in effect a “Pigs Lives Matter” demonstration in Mount Greenwood. Once again the virulent white supremacy was on display as this mob yelled at Black people in the protest—“n***er,” “coon,” “This is America, not Africa.” Police allowed these racists to flood from the sidewalk into the street when the protestors arrived in order to surround and threaten physical violence. People there described it as incredibly intense. For more than an hour and a half, the protestors stood their ground and got in the face of these reactionaries who were chanting, “USA, USA, CPD, CPD, Trump, Trump, Trump.” Within this scene the Revolution Club was a strong pole of attraction in their shirts as they led chants of “1,2,3,4 Slavery Genocide and War; 5, 6, 7, 8, America Was Never Great.” “Sixteen shots and a cover up; thirteen shots at a funeral.” They called for revolution to sweep away the white supremacy embedded in this system.
DNAinfo’s reporter grew up in this part of Chicago and was receiving tweets that he is a “n***er lover” and had been made into a “hood rat.”
On the other side, one teenager, whose mother is a cop, said he considered Black Lives Matter protestors domestic terrorists. Another cop’s family member said they were tired of gang funerals going through their area and now there is one less to worry about since the police killed Joshua Beal.
Father Pfleger was one of the religious figures present. The well-known Catholic priest posted, “Just got back from the protest in Mt. Greenwood at 111th and Kedzie. I have not seen so many angry White People filled with such Hate since a child in 1966 in Marquette Park [Ed—This is a reference to when mobs of white people attacked with bricks and bottles a march led by Martin Luther King to integrate housing].... I was called every name and cursed with every word, by adults and children walking with their parents... an area that is not only White, but heavily Catholic, and will be at church on Sunday... I am embarrassed as a Priest and a Catholic to witness what I witnessed tonight.... Earlier today a man said he wanted to break my legs and drag me from a truck.... Mt. Greenwood you should be embarrassed... by those who represented you tonight....”
Some of the activists at the protest thought they could appeal to the reactionaries through prayer and patriotic displays (while taking a knee). This is a dangerous illusion. What was on display in Mt. Greenwood was a celebration of the execution of a Black man, the white supremacy of the Chicago Police Department, cops angry that their killing with impunity has been dragged out into the light of day with the murder of Laquan McDonald, and pumped up as part of the fascist social base unleashed by Trump.
Read the entire HOW WE CAN WIN—How We Can Really Make RevolutionHERE
This situation is roiling around the city and interpenetrating with the election of Trump. After the police shooting of Joshua Beal and the protests over it, a student at Marist, a Catholic high school in the Mt. Greenwood area, had texted, “I F***ing hate N***ers.” Her friend replied “same.” A tweet with a screen shot of this text went viral. The high school had to issue a statement as did the Catholic Church condemning the racism. Now at high schools around the city, students are holding mini-rallies to condemn this and organizing to all go down to Marist to take a stand on Friday, 11/11. Only 12% of the Marist student body is Black. One student expressed how deeply angry she was about this text to the Chicago Tribune, “A senior who is black said that while she has been called racial epithets before and during her time at Marist, she was shocked and hurt that the girls whose text messages were publicized, some of whom had been longtime friends of hers, would say such things.... She said she feels like their relationships have been irreparably harmed by the texts and doesn’t plan to reach out to any of the girls about the messages.”
DO NOT TURN AWAY, DO NOT BACK DOWN. PREPARE FOR STRUGGLE!
Posters, fliers, for
In the Name of Humanity,
We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America
Updated November 23, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Get these out all over!
Make copies of this statement and distribute it everywhere. Take it out at protests and programs. Get it to religious congregations, students and youth, cafes and laundromats, gatherings of every kind. Spread it on social media. Millions need to see and join with others to stop this direction and spreading this statement now will have a crucial impact on this.
Posters
17x22 Poster of "In the Name of Humanity, We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America," English and Spanish
We are here posting this flier both with and without attribution to "www.revcom.us" at the bottom. Everyone who recognizes the importance of this message reaching hundreds of thousands is very welcome to download, distribute and post it either with or without attributing it to revcom.us.
Leaflet of statement: "In the Name of Humanity, We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America," English and Spanish
After Chicago Pigs Murder Unarmed Black Motorist on Way Home From Funeral...
People Stand Up Against Killer Cops and Neighborhood Trumpite Goons
November 12, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
November 9, 2016, Mount Greenwood in Chicago
Protest called for Sunday, November 20:
The following call has been issued:
We Oppose White Supremacy.
We Stand Up to Racist Mob Threats in Mt. Greenwood IL
To All People of Consicence:
We oppose white supremacy!
We will stand up against racist mob threats in Mt. Greenwood!
Protest: 2 pm, Sunday, Nov 20, 111th & Kedzie, Mt. Greenwood, Chicago
Initiating signatories:
Buddy Bell, Chicago
Fr. Bob Bossie, SCJ
Hank Brown, SNCC 1968, Revolution Club Chicago
Rev. Ronna Case, retired
Mark Clements
Rev. Jason Coulter, Ravenswood United Church of Christ*, Community Renewal Society*
Kevin De Beck Ministerial Intern, Unitarian Church of Evanston*
Airickca Gordon-Taylor, Cousin of Emmett Till
Pastor Gregg L Greer, Freedom First International, SCLC
Tio Hardiman, Violence Interrupters, Inc.
Pat Hill, Director of Chicago Independent Human Rights Council
Ted Jennings, Chicago Theological Seminary*
Rev. Taigen Dan Leighton, Ancient Dragon Zen Gate, Chicago*
Rev. Gregory Seal Livingston
Nancy Michaels
Mansfield Institute for Social Justice and Transformation, Roosevelt University
Quintus AO Maximus
PHENOM, HipHop Youth Development Specialist
Indigo Quashie, Chicago Children’s Choir*
Rev. Matthew Ross, Eureka M.B. Church*
Ted Sirota, Drummer
Marc K Smith
Wanda Taylor, mother of Marcus Landrum, killed by police in 2008
Edward Ward
Tracy Washington, mother of Marcus Washington
& cousin of Joshua Beal
Dee Williams, Revolution Club Chicago
*For identification purposes only
To sign this call, and for updates and the full text, go here, for a PDF flyer go here, and for "We Refuse to Accept Racist White Supremacy in Mt. Greenwood: FACT SHEET," go here.
As I have said a number of times: These reactionaries should not even be allowed to use “conservative” to describe themselves. We should say, “Conservative, my ass, these people are Nazis.”
What Trump actually
means by “make America great again” was given living and
horrifying expression on the streets of the Chicago neighborhood of
Mt. Greenwood. Mt. Greenwood is an almost all-white neighborhood on
the South Side of Chicago. It is home to many cops and firefighters.
What is playing out in Mt. Greenwood should be a loud siren further
awakening people in Chicago and around the country to the immediate
and urgent stakes posed by Trump’s election.
In the days surrounding
the presidential election, crowds of rabid racists, including many
off-duty cops and their families, clearly on the offensive as a
result of Trump’s campaign, are out to violently restore white
supremacy as part of the larger fascist project.
On Saturday, November
5, at least three off-duty pigs were involved in the shooting death
of a young Black man, Joshua Beal, in the middle of a sunny afternoon
in Mt. Greenwood. Beal, the father of two, had come from Indiana to
take part in a funeral for his cousin. An off-duty pig in plainclothes tried to run a 17-year-old driver off the road and then
pulled a gun and threatened her. According to the family, Beal and
other family members got out of their cars in the funeral procession
out of concern for her safety. Then another off-duty pig on his way
to work jumped out of his car and shot 13 bullets at Beal.
But this was not all.
Joshua’s brother was arrested and held for days for tackling
one of the off-duty maniacs in an attempt to save his brother’s
life.
And that still was not
all. The family, in complete shock, was told to wait at a local
Burger King until the police released their cars from the crime
scene. The Revolution Club and activists in the fight against police
murder came to the BK to support the family. Meantime all around the
BK, racists began to gather. White people with baseball bats sticking
out of their car windows drove by. Shouts of “n***ers”
rang out. A group of white people who turned out to be off-duty cops
and friends began shouting and chanting, “CPD! CPD!” Cars
driving by chanted back “Trump, Trump, Trump.”
The very next day and then again on election night, protests were held in Mt. Greenwood over the police murder of Joshua and to call out the overt displays of racism as unacceptable. Both protests were small and met by hundreds
of rabidly racist white people clogging the streets. Off duty cops,
cops’ families and their supporters put on brazen and ugly
displays. They celebrated the execution of a Black man; called Black
people who came to protest “coons” and “n***ers,”
spewed ignorant shit like “this is America, not Africa,”
and told people to get out of their neighborhood. They called Black
Lives Matter a terrorist organization. They growled about how sick
they were of the “liberal narrative” making cops look bad
(imagine the nerve after endless exposures of racist police brutality
and murders in Chicago, all unpunished!). All the while, they were
threatening physical violence on protestors. Trump was supported by
the police union in Chicago and many places around the country. “Blue
Lives Matter” chants filled the Republican National Convention
in Cleveland and the streets of Mt. Greenwood.
Father Michael Pfleger
came out on election night. The very well-known Catholic priest
posted afterward, “Just got back from the protest in Mt.
Greenwood... I have not seen so many angry White People filled with
such Hate since a child in 1966 in Marquette Park [This is a
reference to when mobs of white people attacked with bricks and
bottles a march led by Martin Luther King to integrate
housing—Ed.].... I was called every name and cursed with every
word, by adults and children walking with their parents... an area
that is not only White, but heavily Catholic, and will be at church
on Sunday... I am embarrassed as a Priest and a Catholic to witness
what I witnessed tonight.... Earlier today a man said he wanted to
break my legs and drag me from a truck.... Mt. Greenwood you should
be embarrassed... by those who represented you tonight....”
The Revolution Club
very courageously and boldly made up a significant presence at all
three protests together with a handful of Black activists and others
who were outraged over the murder of Joshua. For more than an hour
and a half on election night, the protestors stood their ground and
got in the face of these reactionaries who were chanting, “USA,
USA, CPD, CPD, Trump, Trump, Trump.” The Revolution Club was a
strong pole of attraction in their shirts as they led chants of “1,
2, 3,4, Slavery Genocide and War; 5, 6, 7, 8, America Was Never
Great.” “Sixteen shots and a cover up; thirteen shots at
a funeral.” They called for revolution to sweep away the white
supremacy embedded in this system.
While small in number,
the protestors refused to be intimidated by the howling mobs. Many
more people should have poured out to protest this. Some people
undoubtedly thought it was too risky to go right up against this.
But history has repeatedly shown it is far riskier to do nothing and
to retreat to “safe” spaces. The purpose and point of
going up against this is not just to make a statement, but to both
reveal the virulence of the infection and to draw forth others to
FIGHT this. If the revcoms and later Father Pfleger in particular
had not been there, the nastiness of the infection would not have
been revealed. Much more needs to be done quickly to inspire and
challenge people to come forward to fight it.
People need to take
heart from and also give backing to a few white youths from the
neighborhood who right on the spot took a very courageous stand. In
the midst of the scene in Mt. Greenwood, a young white student and
her two friends crossed the line and stood with the people
protesting the murder of Joshua Beal. (There were also a couple of
white youths from the neighborhood who came to stand with
Joshua’s family the night of his murder.) This young woman
held the Stolen Lives banner with pictures of dozens of people
killed by police. She said: “Most of my friends are on the
other side; this infuriates me, they are probably really pissed at
me for crossing the line, but I couldn’t take it anymore.”
She continued, “I am here today for the injustice of people
that just keeps happening, this racism that’s
institutionalized into our homes and in our backyards, in Mt.
Greenwood especially. Mt. Greenwood is so racist, man, we just had
somebody shot... so many times... and people want to deny and say
it’s not because of skin color, but what else is it? I’m
ready to make a stand now, I’m ready. Before I would sit
quietly, you know, maybe protest online, but now I’m ready to
make my voice heard... and speak for those... amplify their voices,
not speak over them, but amplify their voices.”
As they did right in
the midst of this situation, the revcoms need to wage a determined
struggle to expose how this foregrounds and represents the actual
program of these fascists, rooted in the whole history of this
country and how they have played white people to keep capitalism
humming along. We need to be winning large chunks of this generation
of white youth to reject this in deed as well as in word. This
happened during the 1960s in a major way and the powers that be were
very threatened by it.
We need to make this a
question very broadly. While the major media reported on the police
killing of Beal, there was initially no coverage about the ugly
response from the neighborhood. The revcoms issued a public
challenge to the major media for its failure to cover the
racist garbage spewing out of Mt. Greenwood—soon after
articles, editorials began to appear, forcing the Mayor to issue a
timid rebuke of what he called “ethnically tinged”
language. “Ethnically tinged”? The word n***er from the
mouths of pigs is lynch-mob-noose-speak! Now reporters are
pointing out police are wearing Trump buttons and defending Trump
while on assignment at the large “not my president”
demonstrations that have broken out.
This situation is
roiling around the city and interpenetrating with the election of
Trump, although it is unclear if the thousands who poured out to
decry Trump’s victory know about what is concentrated in Mt.
Greenwood. After the police shooting of Joshua Beal and the protests
over it, a student at Marist, a Catholic high school in the Mt.
Greenwood area, had texted, “I F***ing hate N***ers.”
Her friend replied “same.” A tweet with a screen shot of
this text went viral. One Black student at Marist expressed how
deeply angry she was about this text to the Chicago Tribune,
“[she] said that while she has been called racial epithets
before and during her time at Marist, she was shocked and hurt that
the girls whose text messages were publicized, some of whom had been
longtime friends of hers, would say such things.... She said she
feels like their relationships have been irreparably harmed by the
texts and doesn’t plan to reach out to any of the girls about
the messages.”
The high school had to
issue a statement, as did the Catholic Church, condemning the
racism. At high schools around the city, students held mini-rallies
to condemn this and organize to go down to Marist. Only 12 percent
of the Marist student body is Black. In response, the school shut
down for the day of the protest while police blogs spread lurid
tales that a notorious gang was coming to Mt. Greenwood to harm
children. Some of the high school students who called the
demonstration publicly cancelled it and were bamboozled into meeting
with the police chief and Marist’s principal to “dialogue”
instead. People, including these young student protestors, need to
look at what was on display in Mt. Greenwood—what does this
tell you? The Black police chief was out there within hours
defending the police murder of Joshua Beal. He has not said a peep
about the racist mobs made up of members of his department. Do not
conciliate with these murderers.
The Revolution Club
made thousands of stickers that say, “I Used to Be a White
American, but I Gave It Up in the Interests of Humanity” to
get out at these schools over the next few days and is looking to
call forward the youths who do want to go out and challenge these
white students at schools like Marist to hold teach-ins and
convocations and protests.
RIGHT NOW IN
CHICAGO AREA AND BEYOND—AMONG ALL SECTIONS OF PEOPLE OF ALL
NATIONALITIES, ARTISTS AND PROFESSIONAL, RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES AND
PEOPLE OF CONSCIENCE AND YES, AMONG LARGE NUMBERS OF WHITE
PEOPLE—YOU NEED TO SPEAK OUT, ORGANIZE AND MOBILIZE AGAINST
THIS RACIST UGLINESS THAT TRUMP’S ELECTION IS CALLING FORTH.
AND YES, WE NEED TO MARCH THROUGH MT. GREENWOOD. WE MUST SAY TO THE
WORLD LOUDLY—THIS STOPS HERE. THIS STOPS NOW. THIS LYNCH MOB
RACISM IS ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE. AND NOW THAT YOU KNOW, YOU CAN
NOT BE SILENT—SILENCE IS COMPLICITY.
There are plans for a major protest called "We Oppose White Supremacy! We Stand Up to Racist Mob Threats in Mt. Greenwood IL"—Sunday, November 20, 2 pm, at 111th & Kedzie in Mt. Greenwood, Chicago. See the call for the protest and signatories here.
Get Into the Revolution National Organizing Campaign and Tour Representatives Arrested at Anti-Trump Demonstration Today
November 12, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
In Chicago, for the fourth day in a row, people have taken to the streets to protest Trump. Overall, there have been few arrests. The Get Into the Revolution National Organizing Tour and the Revolution Club have been targeted for arrest. Two members of the tour were arrested toward the start of today’s protest for doing agitation on a sound system calling on people to refuse to accept a fascist America. Lucha was speaking to some of the thousands of young people who have been compelled to take to the streets, many for the first time, as they make their rejection of Trump known. The person holding the sound system was also arrested and the sound system confiscated (use of sound is legal). The charges and bail are not known at this time. (See the video). Call the Chicago Police Department 1st District headquarters (312-745-4290) and the mayor’s press office (312-744-3334) and demand release of the two protesters arrested this morning while protesting Trump’s election.
Also, Thursday, Iggy of the Revolution Club was arrested for telling a cop “this is a peaceful protest” and held overnight before he was bailed out.
Friday, November 11. This afternoon, several news media outlets released articles stating, “The Obama administration is set to approve the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline project to begin as early as the beginning of next week.” The original article came from a source reporting for Politico and was picked up by The Hill and The Daily Beast. According to the articles, there are reports that the approval is “related to the election of Republican nominee Donald Trump who would eventually approve the project anyhow.” And the Daily Beast reported, “The announcement, however, is expected to escalate conflicts at the Dakota Access protest site, which may lead the Obama administration to postpone its decision until later next week.”
Less than an hour later, the Obama administration came back denying this, with an administration official stating, “The process is ongoing and no decisions have been made.”
These updates are coming just hours after about 40 people were arrested among a group of about 100 protesters who entered a DAPL construction site and allegedly damaged equipment and ran some DAPL workers off the site.
So even as there are people here who are NOT in a mood to sit by as this pipeline continues to go through, these updates indicate that this system has some serious problems on its hands, sorting out how to go forward with this pipeline, as more people continue to arrive at the encampment to support the Standing Rock Sioux, and masses of people, night after night, have continued to take to the streets around the country opposing Trump, chanting “Not Our President!”
All this further emphasizes the need for what is being called for in “We Refuse To Accept a Fascist America.” What people do NOW matters a great deal, and could determine the direction of the struggle here at Standing Rock, and the direction of things overall, against a fascist America.
Standing Rock encampment , November 5, 2016. Photo: Special to Revolution/revcom.us
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Imperialism means huge monopolies and financial institutions controlling the economies and the political systems—and the lives of people—not just in one country but all over the world. Imperialism means parasitic exploiters who oppress hundreds of millions of people and condemn them to untold misery; parasitic financiers who can cause millions to starve just by pressing a computer key and thereby shifting vast amounts of wealth from one place to another. Imperialism means war—war to put down the resistance and rebellion of the oppressed, and war between rival imperialist states—it means the leaders of these states can condemn humanity to unbelievable devastation, perhaps even total annihilation, with the push of a button.
The crimes of colonialism and imperialism in Africa are exemplified in the Congo. King Leopold II of Belgium ran the so-called Congo Free State as his private property, amassing an enormous fortune by turning most adult males into slaves to collect wild rubber and ivory from the jungle. After the Belgians discovered gold in 1903, they worked thousands to death in gold mines. It has been estimated that about 10 million people out of a population of 20 million lost their lives under King Leopold’s barbarous rule. The women and children were held hostages—their hands, noses and ears often chopped off when the men in their families did not meet their rubber quota or failed to return.
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November 20—The Pasadena Doo Dah Parade is a popular farcical and flamboyant parade held in Pasadena, California, each year. Absurd and unique participants such as the Shopping Cart Drill Team, the Bastard Sons of Lee Marvin, and the Men of Leisure Synchronized Nap Team form contingents, and thousands of people line the streets to watch and have fun.
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New York City (Photo Revolution/revcom.us) 
Sit-in at Trump Tower, Chicago (Photo:@ShararehDrury/Twitter)
