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Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Updated June 26, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

From RefuseFascism.org:

On July 15, 2017:

To all who agonize and rage at what’s being done to the people, protest and demand:

THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO!

In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America!

Immigrants are full human beings, not “illegals” or criminals, to be demonized, terrorized, hunted down, locked up and thrown out.  NO! We will not accept the cruel and brutal future of the Trump/Pence Regime ... they must GO!

Muslims and refugees are full human beings, not people to be shunned, banned, and cast out to be swallowed up by oceans and wars.  NO!  We will not accept the cruel and brutal future of the Trump/Pence Regime . . . they must GO!

Women and LGBTQ people are full human beings, not objects to be grabbed, demeaned, victimized and denied their fundamental right to control their reproduction, and how they choose to live.  NO!  We will not accept the cruel and brutal future of the Trump/Pence Regime . . . they must GO!

Black and Latino people are full human beings, not people to be denied the right even to live, gunned down by the police with impunity, incarcerated in genocidal numbers, and denied basic rights. NO!  We will not accept the cruel and brutal future of the Trump/Pence Regime . . . they must GO!

The people of every country are full human beings, and not collateral damage to be subjected to massive bombing, invasions, occupations, the danger of nuclear war, and a program of “America First” that would bludgeon them into submission. NO! We will not accept the cruel and brutal future of the Trump/Pence Regime . . . they must GO!

The children, elderly, disabled and poor of this country, as in every country, should have food for sustenance, health care to live, homes to live in, and not be denied with cruel calculation for the benefit of the few.  NO!  We will not accept the cruel and brutal future of the Trump/Pence Regime . . . they must GO!

The earth and the species who inhabit it – including humanity – should sustain life and not be despoiled by ignorance, greed, and the disregard of science.  NO!  We will not accept the cruel and brutal future of the Trump/Pence Regime . . . they must GO!

IN THE NAME OF HUMANITY: THE TRUMP AND PENCE REGIME MUST GO! Only the people acting together in the streets and public square can force this demand before the world.  Should we fail to do so, the future and values we aspire to could be brutally cut short by the actions of the Trump/Pence Regime.

The Trump/Pence government has been step by step criminalizing dissent and bludgeoning the truth with worse to come.  Stripping away basic rights and the rule of law is at the core of fascism.  Group after group is demonized and targeted along a trajectory leading to real horrors.  We must not let this be normalized. History has shown that fascism must be stopped before it becomes too late.

The demand: “The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go,” can unify people and our resistance. There are different programs of struggle against the multiple attacks of the Trump/Pence Regime, people have diverse views for how to achieve a better future, and all of this should be aired, shared, and debated. But, if we don’t stop the consolidation of fascism by organizing together to demand that the Trump/Pence Regime must go, people’s lives here and around the world, and the earth itself will face greater catastrophe.

Now is the time to act. The scandal and turmoil the regime faces is an opening through which the mass action of the people could burst through and make our demand resound throughout the country, in the halls of power, and around the world.

On July 15th “The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go,” must be spoken, shouted, and acted on with fiercely creative determination. We have righteously marched for women, for science, for the climate, for immigrants, for Black Lives, for LGBTQ Pride.  Now the resistance must pull together to drive this regime from power.

July 15th must be a day when every person, every group – religious, community, service, political organization – all who feel the tremendous threat to humanity posed by the Trump/Pence regime – stand together showing the world that people here are determined that this regime must go ... not in two years or four, but now.

July 15th must mark a leap to more sustained struggle, inspiring people to see the possibility of ousting this regime through unleashing the tremendous power of the people – aiming for the time when millions can be moved to fill the streets of cities and towns day after day and night after night, declaring this whole regime illegitimate – Demanding, and Not Stopping, Until The Trump/Pence Regime Is Driven from Power.

On July 15, with conviction and courage, overcoming fear and uncertainty, we will act together to resist and say NO!... Not for ourselves alone, but in the name of humanity.

Endorse the Call for July 15 Protests HERE

Contact Refuse Fascism to volunteer, or to make
your organization a partner or co-sponsor of July 15
917-407-1286; info@refusefascism.org

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/496/critical-juncture-july-15-nationwide-protest-demand-trump-pence-regime-must-go-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

A critical juncture... July 15, 2017 nationwide protests to demand:

The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!

In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America

by Andy Zee

June 19, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

“The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go.” Millions of people feel this, bone deep. Yet, for all the sound and fury in the media, for all the righteous protest, for all the real legal obstacles and jeopardy that Trump and his cohorts are in, the regime treacherously careens on—instituting one draconian measure after another—as belligerent as day one. And yet, even as people feel besieged by the breathless and dizzying spin of “Breaking News,” the Democratic Party and their “independent” supporters tell people that it is going to be a long haul—until at least the 2018 congressional election—even for impeachment because not one Republican has seriously broken from Trump. And, some say, people should just work for the 2020 election because impeachment will bring in Pence, who is as bad as Trump.

This is not acceptable. This regime must go, and soon. We must break out of the terms of thinking and acting through the normal “way things work” of the system. Too much is at stake. The damage that the Trump/Pence regime has already done to destroy lives and the environment is far worse than people know. Should the regime be able to fully consolidate their fascist vision and program, this will have dire impact on the whole world, potentially nothing short of catastrophe. This must be a summer of struggle, with July 15 a crucial focal point that brings together the resistance in powerful protest in cities across the country to forcefully demand: “The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go. In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America.”

A Crucial Juncture... A Time to Act

The country is at a crucial juncture. The following four factors argue that this summer, going into the early fall, is the time when we can and must act on this demand. First, are the deadly measures the regime has already taken against immigrants, Muslims, women, Black and Latino youth in the inner cities, and the environment—each of which they have said are just first steps. Second, the regime has already subverted, and plans to further subvert, the rule of law, the separation of church and state, the right to dissent, and traditional “checks and balances”—all measures that break with and discard the form of bourgeois democracy. And, even as they have not succeeded in fully tearing up all democratic rights, that is their agenda. Third, the serious investigations and legal cases mounting against the regime increasingly compel them to act like cornered rats—lashing out in dangerous ways and most importantly to ram ahead with implementing their full fascist program, even as they have not yet succeeded in doing so, providing a window now for determined action. And, fourth, taking the first three factors fully into account, this summer is the time when the movements of opposition can still, and urgently need to, take a leap and demand that the whole regime must go... or else, the initiative that the people gained in the first five months of the regime could be lost and the opportunity to stop the consolidation of fascism squandered.

For these basic reasons, RefuseFascism.org has called for mass protests in cities and towns across the country on Saturday, July 15, 2017. The demand that “The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go” can unify the people and the diverse streams of resistance that have acted against the regime. This demand gives expression to people’s outrage simmering beneath the surface—anger that is now suppressed as people are reduced to being spectators: watching hearings and reading blogs or working for the “long haul” while the meat grinder of the Trump/Pence fascist regime tears through immigrant communities, rips away health care and basic food support, destroys the planet and threatens and wages even more war. There are many organizations with different programs for fighting against the many-pronged attacks of the Trump/Pence regime, and there are different visions and programs for how to achieve a better future. All of this should be aired, debated, and struggled over, but if we don’t stop the consolidation of fascism by organizing together to demand that the Trump/Pence regime must go, all of our struggles could be crushed. Already, massive fines and long prison terms for even basic protest are being put into place across the country... fascist thugs are mobilizing... with fascism, it can become too late.

Do not make a potentially fatal mistake; this regime is fascist. Argue if you must that this is authoritarianism, or “proto” or “neo” fascism, but does that give you solace and a reason to not drive it out? If so, that is unacceptable. All the more so because this regime is hell-bent on imposing fascism: with all the arrogance and ignorance, the Bible taken literally and the flag, the racist genocide and misogyny that is the true face of Make America Great Again. Yes, there are differences from German fascism in the 1930s, but two important points: one, there are striking parallels to the rise of fascism in the ’30s. And, second, and at the heart of the matter, the essential character of fascism is present: a qualitative change in how society is governed—through essentially open terror and the elimination of basic democratic rights. Only in the U.S. today, Donald Trump has nuclear weapons and the most powerful military in world history under his command.

Immigrant communities are already living under a new frightening terror. Some immigrants’ rights leaders who have been fighting against deportations for years have said that everything that they have done in the past is not workable now under the Trump/Pence regime. The Trump/Pence regime has put forward and is implementing a program of the most vicious imposition of poverty, punishment, patriarchy, racism—unleashing the police against Black and Brown communities and all who dissent, and imposing and re-imposing reactionary “traditional values” against women and LGBTQ persons. We won’t go back. To go forward, we must drive these fascists out.

July 15—A Leap and a Gathering Wave of Struggle

To all who are confronting members of Congress over their vicious cutting of essential health care for millions, keep on them, but now is the time to also be raising the demand that the Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! And, now is the time for you to be part of organizing for July 15.

July 15, in cities across the country, “The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go” must be spoken, shouted, and acted on with fiercely creative determination. People have marched for women, for science, for the climate, for immigrants, for Black lives, for LGBTQ pride. Now the resistance must pull together to drive this regime from power.

July 15 must be a day when every person, every group—religious, community, service, political organization—all who feel the tremendous threat to humanity posed by the Trump/Pence regime—stand together showing the whole world that people here are determined that this regime must go... not in two years or four, but now.

July 15 can and needs to be a leap to more sustained struggle through the rest of the summer, aiming for the time, early this fall, when “millions of people can be moved to fill the streets of cities and towns day after day and night after night, declaring this whole regime illegitimate—Demanding, and Not Stopping, Until the Trump/Pence Regime Is Driven from Power.”

July 15 must not be just “one-off” demonstrations, but mark a new and gathering wave of struggle, taking as its model through the summer how ACT UP in the 1990s, through determined, creative action, changed the thinking of millions of people about AIDS and forced the powers that be to meet their demands.

Demanding that a regime be removed from power is bigger than that, but as a result of the struggle in the 1960s, combined with sharp contradictions that the U.S. ruling class faced internationally and domestically, Vice President Agnew was removed from office, followed by President Nixon being prevailed upon to resign. Removing Trump and Pence will not go down in the exact same way. But it is possible. The only way for this to happen in a way favorable to the people is through resolute struggle that puts forward a firm demand from below—recalling the struggle that ousted the president of South Korea this past winter, or the struggles of the Arab Spring that ousted regimes. Are there differences here? Yes, but if we act with courage and conviction, overcoming fear and uncertainty, waging unrelenting struggle in cities and towns across the country, not only will the eyes of the world be on our actions, but then, too, every faction of the powers that be will have to respond to us—to our demand, that Trump and Pence must go!

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/july-15-protest-locations-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

July 15 Protests

Updated July 9, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/498/tens-of-thousands-confront-global-oppressors-at-g-20-summit-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Tens of Thousands Confront Global Oppressors at G-20 Summit

UPDATED July 8, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Hamburg News update [Saturday]:
Saturday, July 8. More than 50,000 people flooded the streets of Hamburg, Germany for a third day of protest against the G-20. There were two separate demonstrations that then converged making it the largest demonstration since the G-20 started on Thursday.

The police had the city center on lockdown, with the main streets barricaded after clashes between the cops and protesters the night before, when protesters had again fearlessly gone up against the police, erecting barricades using trash cans, bicycles, and road signs. One protester told a reporter, “The police are provoking people by running into the protests, crowding people together so that they start to panic. They know people will get injured.” Hundreds of cops went into buildings to arrest people and continued to use water cannons against protesters. At least 11 protesters were severely injured after they fell from a wall during a confrontation with the police. News reports on Saturday said that at least 143 people have been arrested and another 122 taken into custody. And now the police are going after people, including calling on people to upload photos and videos to their server to help identify people to be arrested and prosecuted.

On Saturday, once again, people spoke out in different ways against a long list of outrages perpetuated by the capitalist system: holding signs and chanting about climate change, the rights of women and migrants, Kurdish independence, LGBT rights, environmental issues, and more. Hip-hop and Turkish music blasted out from speakers. The huge crowds of protesters included all kinds of people, including lots of youth, families with their children, and Kurdish groups. One news report described the protest as an “eclectic and international mix ... a show of anti-capitalist muscle in earshot of the world’s top leaders who were finishing up at the G20 summit.” Some of the signs read: “One World―One Vibe,” “Unlimited Solidarity,” and “Hamburg Shows Attitude.” For days tens of thousands had taken to the street, marched, taken over parks, defied police orders to disperse, and defended themselves against vicious police attacks—sending a message to the whole world of protest and RESISTANCE against the G-20 and all it represents.

~~~~~~~~~~

Friday Night, July 7. In Hamburg, Germany, over the last two days, some 100,000 people have taken to the streets in protest and rebellion and reporters on the scene say it doesn’t look like this is going to end anytime soon. People are protesting the G-20 meeting and acting against a whole host of outrages perpetuated by the capitalist system. In many ways these protesters in Hamburg are speaking for many more around the world—going fearlessly right up in the face of the heads of state who carry out crimes against the people all over the world.

The G-20 (short for Group of 20) is dominated by the world’s most wealthy and powerful governments, and their annual summit is where they get together to compete over and plan how to continue preying on the people of the world. Many protesters came to confront Trump, who is there representing the U.S., and who is despised, among other things, for his attack on any effort to combat life-threatening climate change and his war on immigrants. Some of the signs people carried read: “No Ban, No War,” “War on Terror, War on Climate, War on the Poor, NOT IN MY NAME,” “Capitalism Kills,” “Stop Ruining Our Amazing Planet,” “Planet Earth First,” “Build Bridges Not Walls,” and “Freedom of Movement.”

The G-20 is taking place at a time when the world is facing its biggest problems perhaps in human history: continuing wars in the Middle East; massive migration due to famine and war; climate change threatening the very life of the planet; a growing danger of nuclear war. And the “world leaders” presiding over the imperialist world face big contradictions and uncertainty. The Western-dominated post World War 2 order is breaking apart on many fronts. The exploitation and oppression of people around the world is ever more unbearable, giving rise to protest and rebellion. And as tensions between big powers intensify, fascism has reared its genocidal head—with the fascist Trump/Pence regime and other fascist leaders in Europe. None of the leaders gathered at the G-20 have any answers to these world problems—because they’re representatives of the global capitalist-imperialist system, fighting over how to maintain their own reactionary interests and that system overall.

There were actions leading up to the summit—12,000 people took to the streets in a protest which was called “G20—Welcome to Hell.” One protester, quoted in the news, said the “point is to disturb the G20... it’s not right that a few countries get to decide what happens to the rest of the world at this summit.”

On Thursday thousands of militarized police confronted protesters, demanding people wearing masks take them off. Then when the police moved in to try and separate those wearing masks from the rest of the march, all hell broke loose as people defended themselves against the pigs. Police unloaded with high-powered water cannons, pepper spray and batons, claiming they had been attacked with bottles and other objects. For hours, there were skirmishes in the streets and defiant protesters stayed in the streets past midnight. Then on Friday, protests continued as tens of thousands continued to take to the streets, with more clashes with the police in some areas. People are righteously going up against the vicious attacks by the police, refusing to back down—which should give heart to all those who hunger for a better world.

By Friday night, some news reporters were estimating that 100,000 had taken part in protests—and more than 20,000 police had been mobilized against the demonstrations. On Friday night, a CNN crew on the scene said the sea of protesters stretched for at least one mile. Earlier that day, climate activists in 15 boats tried to reach a concert hall where G20 participants were gathered; some of the Greenpeace activists jumped into the water and started swimming toward the building before the police stopped all of them.

On Thursday and Friday police viciously attacked people with teargas, water cannons, and flash-bang grenades. Water cannons were used against people standing on bridges and rooftops—seriously endangering people’s lives. There have been more than 80 arrests and dozens of others detained and at least 14 demonstrators have had to go to the hospital, three with serious injuries.

The democratic Germany hosting the G-20, with its “moderate” chancellor Angela Merkel, has its police violently attacking the protests—revealing once again that bourgeois democracy has always been a ruthless capitalist dictatorship, even if at times it wears a tattered velvet glove. The media and authorities decry the “violence” of the protesters even as the G-20 carries out daily violence on an astronomical scale globally—from its wars of empire, to the savaging of the planet itself, to the brutality against and oppression of the masses every day.

It has been reported that there have been as many as 30 different protest marches in different parts of the city. Some were attacked by the police. There have been creative actions, like the day before the summit began where 1,000 artists from many countries carried out a powerful performance piece—covering themselves in ash and walking around like zombies, “to move the people in their hearts, to give them the motivation to get politically engaged again.” And as G-20 leaders gathered to hear a Beethoven concert at Hamburg’s famous Elbphilarmonie concert hall, protesters responded by blaring the music of Jimi Hendrix.

The name of one of the protests in Hamburg, “G20—Welcome to Hell,” speaks to the reality of a world of horrors created by capitalism—a world in which eight people have more wealth than 3.5 billion, a world of unending wars, a world whose fabric of life is being shredded, a world with billions with no jobs and no futures. As protesters are pointing out, those who rule over all this have no right to dictate the future of the people and the planet.

The future under the G-20 IS a hell. But there can be a better future. The myriad of contradictions faced by these world leaders; the breaking apart of formerly stable institutions; continuing rebellions from those who refuse to live this way—all this can present openings for revolution.

~~~~~~~~~~

July 6: Tens of thousands of people from all over Europe and beyond have been defiantly protesting in Hamburg, Germany, bringing their demands and their outrage to the G-20 Summit. The G-20 (short for Group of 20) is dominated by the world’s most wealthy and powerful governments, and their annual summit is where they get together to compete over and plan how to continue to prey on the people of the world. Many protesters came to confront Trump, who is there representing the U.S., and who is despised, among other things, for his attack on any effort to combat life-threatening climate change and his war on immigrants. One train entered the station with young people hanging out the windows holding up cutout signs with fists and “Stop Trump” painted on them.

Even before the march began thousands of militarized police confronted the protesters and demanded that people wearing masks had to take them off. When the police moved to separate those wearing masks from the rest of the march, all hell broke loose. Police unloaded with high-powered water cannons, pepper spray and batons, claiming they had been attacked with bottles and other objects. For hours, there were skirmishes in the streets.

More than 100,000 demonstrators are expected to be in the streets over the next two days.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/498/hamburg-correspondence-supporters-of-bob-avakians-new-communism-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Correspondence from Hamburg from Supporters of Bob Avakian’s New Communism

July 8, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Supporters of Bob Avakian’s new communism rallied protesters who were attacked by police in Hamburg, and reached thousands with leaflets promoting the new communism and the statement from Refuse Fascism: NO! In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America! Drive out the Trump/Pence Regime! Credit: Special to Revolution

Thursday night—Following a murderous jihadist attack last year, Donald Trump had contemptuously thrown out the word “hell” to deride Europe’s inner cities—and its rebel youth had not forgotten. A huge banner rode high over the crowd who assembled on a warm summer’s day along Hamburg’s centuries-old harbor proclaiming defiantly to Trump and the G-20 leaders: “Welcome to Hell!” The 12,000 protesters, with several thousand militant “black bloc” anarchists in the fore, had marched barely 300 meters when they were stopped by a phalanx of riot police some 10 rows deep. Within minutes, the riot police ran with truncheons raised into the protestors, trying to cut off and isolate what they considered the hard-core militants. Hamburg has deployed an arsenal of 33 water cannon at all times for several days now and three opened up on the protestors—much of even Germany’s mainstream press expressed amazement at the viciousness and large scale of the unprovoked attack.

As thousands backtracked in the face of the police onslaught, the team of supporters of the new communism unfurled two of their banners and acted as a rallying point. They quickly brought together a couple of hundred of the dispersed protestors on an almost hour-long wildcat march through Hamburg’s back streets. The marchers were greeted warmly by the residents of social housing blocks, who included some of the newly arrived refugees from Syria and the Mideast. The march was tracked overhead by one of the 23 police helicopters that now buzz through the city’s skies almost 24 hours a day—eventually squads of riot police were mobilized to disperse the march—but not before word of revolution and the new communism had gotten out broadly in a new part of the city.

Several thousand leaflets were distributed and the team had aroused widespread respect and curiosity for its bold promotion of revolution and the new communism, not only from many of the radical youth who’d come, mostly from Germany but from throughout northern Europe and even further, but also from press from over a dozen countries. Interviews were conducted with Russian and Chinese national media curious about the “new communism,” and many others.

One question that came especially from some of the more mainstream media was about the violence—this, in the shadow of the summit of G-20 leaders whose wars have spilled the blood of many hundreds of thousands, who incarcerate millions, who have driven millions out of their homes, watching idly as several thousand drown every year in the sea “protecting,” in their eyes, Europe from Africa and the Middle East.

Friday—as the summit actually began, the city shuddered to a halt. A large-scale student strike brought hundreds of students from the high schools and universities down to the edge of the “blue zone”—a large buffer area surrounding the inner “red zone” reserved solely for attendees of the summit. The students, joined by the team, set off boldly, and marched through the city streets, past the dozens of riot police guarding every major cross street into the blue zone.

By the end of Saturday’s mass protest, over 20,000 copies of a leaflet, titled in German, “Humanity Needs Revolution and the New Communism,” will have been distributed, along with many thousands of the statement from Refuse Fascism: NO! In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America! Drive out the Trump/Pence Regime!

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/465/other-voices-on-trump-resistance-en.html#vstrathairn

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/469/sparks-of-outrage-and-protest-potential-for-mass-resistance-to-stop-the-fascists-from-consolidating-power-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Sparks of Outrage and Protest Against the Fascist Trump-Pence Regime

Updated January 10, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Earlier Sparks of Outrage and Protest

• A Festival of "NO!" on New Year's Eve—Sights and Sounds
• Black Lives Matter Sings Anti-Trump Christmas Carols at Posh Trump Golf Club
• Jewish Protesters in 25 Cities Stand Against Attacks on Muslims 12/22/16
• American Geophysical Union Conference: Scientists Raise Their Voices Against Trump’s Attacks on Science 12/17/16
• Hundreds of Jews Protest Hanukkah Celebration at Trump Hotel: "We have to be alert and fight back." 12/17/16
• San Francisco Teachers and Students: "We refuse to cooperate with or normalize a government administration that empowers, enables, and emboldens the forces of fascism and white supremacy" 12/17/16

~~~~~~~~~~

On Saturday, December 10, in San Francisco, 500 people marched in the rain to deliver the message “This Is Not Normal!” The action was initiated by people who had never organized a protest before. The march involved a broad range: people from the LGBT community, tech workers, students, artists, feminists, and others. The Revolution Club led many chants taken up by the march, like “We will not conciliate! We will not accommodate! We will not collaborate!” and read the statement “In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America” from the rally stage. Joey Johnson, revolutionary communist and notorious flag burner, spoke to the huge stakes for humanity in stopping the fascists, and pointed to Trump’s threat to jail and strip citizenship from people burning the American flag as one concentration of the fascist program.

On the same day, in Los Angeles, thousands of people from many walks of life converged downtown to demand the complete stop of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). The DAPL threatens the water source for the Standing Rock Sioux people and sites that are important to their culture, and if completed will add significantly to the the global climate change endangering the planet. More than 600 copies of Revolution newspaper were distributed along the march, and hundreds of people carried posters declaring “In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America.”

On Monday, December 5, hundreds of Boston high school and college students walked out of classes and rallied at Boston Commons. According to the Boston Globe, the students delivered a list of demands to the Massachusetts governor and the Boston mayor, “to protect minorities and immigrants, support public education, and denounce white nationalists who have been energized by a Trump victory.”

Trump has threatened to immediately deport millions of immigrants and cancel Obama’s temporary deferrals of deportations of young undocumented people. In response, students across the country are organizing and acting—through walkouts, rallies, and petition campaigns—to demand that their schools become “sanctuary campuses” that protect undocumented immigrants, as well as LGBT people and other who may come under attack from the government as well as fascist mobs. (See “Students Across the County Demand Sanctuary Campuses: Schools Should Be Safe Zones from Fascist Attacks—No Matter What”)

On December 6, at Texas A&M University, neo-Nazi leader Richard Spencer’s appearance on the campus was met with righteous protest by hundreds of students and hundreds of others from Houston, Austin, and other cities and towns in Texas. This school is known as one of the most conservative state universities in the country—so this raucous protest of thousands was very significant. (See “Thousands Protest Neo-Nazi Richard Spencer at Texas A&M”)

On December 7, on the anniversary of the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor that began the war between U.S. and Japan, a number of Japanese American community organizations in Los Angeles led a protest in the Little Tokyo neighborhood against Trump’s attack on immigrants and Muslims. They compared what Trump is saying and threatening to the U.S. government’s vilification, mass round-ups, and imprisonment in concentration camps of people of Japanese ancestry during World War 2. There were calls for Little Tokyo to become a sanctuary for those singled out by Trump, and for people to “put their bodies” between those targeted and the authorities. 

The Jewish group IfNotNow, which came together in 2014 to opposes the horrific U.S.-backed Israeli war on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, has been protesting Richard Bannon, the white-supremacist, anti-Semitic neo-Nazi who is Trump’s “chief strategist.” On December 8, IfNotNow in New York City posted on their Facebook page: “This morning, we delivered white roses to the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, and demanded that they join our call to #FireBannon. The white rose was used by students from The University of Munich as a symbol of nonviolent resistance to the Nazi regime, and now we claim it as our own—to demonstrate our resistance to state-sponsored hate as the #JewishResistance.”

On December 10, 200 people marched around the M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore to protest Trump who was attending the Army-Navy football game. The Baltimore Sun said that the protesters chanted “No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here” and “We reject the president-elect” and held up signs like “Resist” and “Make fascists hide again.”

On Friday, December 9, at the annual awards ceremony of the International Documentary Association (IDA) held at the Paramount Theater in Los Angeles, TV writer and producer Norman Lear said from the stage that the country is entering “a very dangerous time” with the election of Trump, which poses “serious obligations”: “If, for example, he or his administration in any way threatens the free speech rights of our documentary filmmakers, the IDA and every supporter in this room must—will, I am sure—hunker down together and fight our asses off.” According to Hollywood Reporter, “Feelings on this topic were clearly running high all around, as an audience member yelled, ‘He’s a fascist!’ during Lear’s speech.”

Spurred by the rise of Trump, a website called “Professors Watchlist” has been posting names professors they accuse of “leftist propaganda”—more than 200 names so far. This kind of fascist witch-hunt on campuses will only become more extreme if the Trump regime is allowed to firm up its grip on power. When two professors at Notre Dame university appeared on the list, more than 100 faculty members at the campus took a stand against the witch-hunt with an open letter saying the watch list should add their names in order to reaffirm “our values and recommitting ourselves to the work of teaching students to think clearly, independently and fearlessly.” See the “Other Voices Against Trump” page at www.revcom.us for this statement and other voices of resistance, including MIT professors, Cornel West, New York Times columnist Charles Blow, and others.

There are various calls for protests in Washington, DC, as the date for Trump inauguration approaches. On December 10, Shaun King—New York Daily News writer and widely followed social media commentator—sent out a tweet saying: “Many people asking me if people should clog the streets of DC to prevent the inauguration ceremony. On general principle alone, YES.” A few days earlier, filmmaker Michael Moore tweeted: “Disrupt the Inauguration. The Majority have spoken—by nearly 2.7 million votes &counting! Silence is not an option.”

Update: On December 12, there were protests in a number of cities around the country in response to a "Women and Allies" call to "deliver the message in a unified voice that we are ready to stand against any government action that would serve to erode the rights of women and other vulnerable groups." See "'Women and Allies' Actions Oppose Trump-Pence Attacks."

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/498/charlottesville-virginia-kkk-defenders-of-slavery-confronted-by-1000-protesters-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Charlottesville, Virginia:
KKK Defenders of Slavery Confronted by 1,000 Protesters

July 8, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Earlier this year, the city council in Charlottesville, Virginia, decided to remove a public park statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee—who led a war to defend and expand the enslavement of Black people. The council also changed the name of the park from Lee Park to Emancipation Park.

As has happened in other cities, the decision to remove these blatant symbols/celebrations of SLAVERY provoked the outrage of all kinds of white supremacist scum—both official and “good old boy” variety. In May, a nighttime rally of 100 people with burning torches, some with automatic weapons, chanted “We [white people] will not be replaced.” On Saturday, July 8, the KKKers rallied again—and were confronted by a huge counter-protest.

The KKK had announced beforehand that they were going to come armed to their rally, and the city granted them a permit for their march.

A small handful of klukkers, a couple dozen, showed up, wearing white KKK robes, sporting handguns in holsters, carrying Confederate flags, and shouting “white power” slogans. And a crowd of about 1,000 counter-protesters, people of many different nationalities, rallied to SHUT THESE MOTHERFUCKERS DOWN. The counter-protest was organized by members of Black Lives Matter and the Charlottesville Showing Up for Racial Justice group. People shouted, “shame” and “racists go home.”

More than a 100 police were there and (as usual) set up a line to PROTECT the KKK—and attack those taking a determined stand against white supremacy and slavery. Wearing riot gear, the police declared the counter-protesters “an unlawful assembly,” used tear gas and pepper spray to disperse the crowd, and arrested 23 anti-KKK protesters.

Jalane Schmidt, a professor at the University of Virginia who has been among those calling for the removal of the statue, was in the crowd and told reporters, “It is important for me to be here because the Klan was ignored in the 1920s and they metastasized. They need to know that their ideology is not acceptable. I teach about slavery and African American history and it’s important to face the Klan and to face the demons of our collective history and our original sin of slavery. We do it on behalf of our ancestors who were terrorized by them.” (Washington Post, July 8, 2017)

There is a growing demand and movement in a number of different cities to take down Confederate monuments. And the KKK and white supremacists are crawling out, armed, to defend “white culture,” their racist “way of life,” and what they consider a glorious history of the South, i.e. defending SLAVERY.

This battle—between defenders of slavery, and all those who recognize the need to take a determined stand against white supremacy—is intensifying as KKKers in a number of cities are vowing to hold more protests against the removal of Confederate monuments. In Charlottesville there is a “Unite the Right” rally planned for next month.

What does it say about America, that for over 100 years now after the Civil War, there are some 1,500 Confederate place names and other symbols in public spaces, both in the South and across the nation; and that now, as there are moves to take these hated symbols of white supremacy down, this is provoking a heated battle?

This is a completely illegitimate system whose whole history is steeped in white supremacy and the oppression of Black people—which continues in many forms today. And as revcom pointed out in May when the KKK rallied in Charlottesville: “This violence-tinged defense of slave owners and genocidal regimes of the past is not just about ‘history’—it is BLATANT terrorism being directed specifically against Black people, and more broadly against all the groups being targeted by the Trump/Pence regime: immigrants, Muslims, LGBTQ people, and anyone who stands with them.”

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/498/trump-in-poland-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Trump in Poland
Raising the Battle Flag of White Christian Fascism

July 8, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Picture the scene: July 6, Warsaw, the capital of Poland, a country ruled by an ultranationalist, ultra-religious, law-and-order party—i.e., a fascist party, “Law and Justice.” Thousands of Law and Justice supporters have been bused into the city to welcome their brother-fascist, Donald Trump. American flags are waving in people’s hands, and making absolutely clear what this is about, right in the middle, 5,000 miles from the American South, flies a big Confederate flag. That flag was a fitting symbol of what was to come.

This was a major speech by Trump celebrating the superiority of white, Christian people and culture (euphemistically referred to as “our Civilization” or “the West”) now and down through the centuries, and calling people to a holy war to defend it.

Trump declared “the West” is “the fastest and the greatest community. There is nothing like our community of nations. The world has never known anything like our community of nations. We write symphonies. We pursue innovation. We celebrate our ancient heroes, embrace our timeless traditions and customs ... and cherish inspiring works of art that honor God.”

As Trump exhorted the crowd: “[W]hat we’ve inherited from our ancestors has never existed to this extent before. And if we fail to preserve it, it will never, ever exist again.... [E]very foot of ground, and every last inch of civilization, is worth defending with your life.”

What Are the Actual “Values” of “the West”?

What has been most characteristic of “the West”? Symphonies??? No. To put it simply, the legacy of “our civilization” that Trump celebrates makes Game of Thrones look like the Woodstock festival of peace and love.

As early as the 15th century, and through the 19th century, colonial powers of the white, Christian “West” enslaved millions of Africans and sold them into generations in hell in the Western Hemisphere. In Peru, the Spanish reportedly worked eight million indigenous people to death in their silver mines. In Congo, Belgian colonialists routinely chopped off the hands of miners who failed to meet their daily quota. In India, the British took rebels against their rule and tied them across the mouths of cannons which they then fired. In the U.S., Australia, and Canada, genocidal wars virtually wiped out the Native populations. In the 20th century, wars over who would control the biggest empire, along with wars to control the colonized peoples, killed easily 100 million people. (Hitler, who led Germany in the most savage of these wars, was also quite fond of bragging about the marvelous symphonies that German musicians had created, and thus trying to depict Nazi savagery as somehow being in the interests of humanity!)

And they justified all this butchery, barbarism, and blood with the racist mantra of the “White Man’s Burden”—insisting as they murdered, raped, and plundered that they were doing those they slaughtered and enslaved a favor by bringing them the glories of “Western civilization.”

There is nothing in any of this that any decent human being should want to celebrate, much less violently defend. To the contrary, we should do everything we can to wrench society beyond the long dark night of oppressive class societies, and into a future that transcends wars and other crimes that have served exploiting classes and the domination of humanity by the imperialist powers Trump glorifies.

What Does Trump Mean by “the West” and by “Our Civilization”?

In truly Hitlerian tones, Trump railed, “[T]here are dire threats to our security and our way of life.” From whom? From enemies “from inside or out, from the South or the East.”

Journalist Peter Beinart points out that Trump used the terms “the West” and “our Civilization” a total of 15 times in his speech. And Beinart makes an important point: “The West is not a geographic term”—for example, Australia (in the South Pacific) is definitely part of “the West,” but Mexico and Haiti, definitely are not. Nor is Trump using it to describe countries which respect formal democratic rights like freedom of speech and the press. In fact, Trump himself is a vicious enemy of such rights, and Poland is now in the process of sharply curtailing freedom of the press, cracking down on the independent judiciary, etc.

No, what Trump means—and what his fascist supporters understand—is the nations of Europe, as well as settler states (like the U.S.) established by European colonists, that were historically either overwhelmingly white or were solidly white supremacist, and Christian (or Judeo-Christian).

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.

See all the articles in this series.

In this clash of civilizations paradigm, and in a speech written by “white nationalists” (white Christian fascists) Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, the existential threat “from inside and out,” from “the South or East” are the billions of people in nations ravaged by Western imperialism. And to the extent reactionary Islamic fundamentalist Jihad has taken root in some of those places—in the soil and environment created by imperialism—that and any other challenges to Western imperialism must be crushed “at any cost.” And, in this genocidal paradigm, because they undermine the white supremacist coherence of “the West,” Muslims must be banned from entering the U.S., Europe, and Australia, and treated as pariahs, demonized, terrorized, hunted down, and driven out of those countries. That, in the context of a horrific global refugee crisis that has driven 65 million human beings from their homes as a result of the economic, military, and environmental horrors produced by “the West.” How is this different than Hitler’s targeting the Jews, and where do you think this will lead?

We cannot here survey the whole deadly package for the fascist restructuring of societies in “the West” that flows from this genocidal clash of civilizations agenda, but we have to take particular note of something in that regard in Trump’s speech. He bragged that in “the West,” “We empower women as pillars of our society and of our success.” In the next sentence, he made clear what he means by this: “We put faith and family ... at the center of our lives.” This directly echoes the Nazi slogan “Kinder, Küche, Kirche” (“Children, Church, Kitchen”) as the way in which women are “pillars” of society. This is an extremely patriarchal view that does not see women as full human beings.

Speaking in Poland—a country with the most draconian prohibitions against abortion in “the West,” and where the rulers have forged a tight bond with Catholic fundamentalism—Trump said, “We can have the largest economies and the most lethal weapons anywhere on Earth, but if we do not have strong families and strong values, then we will be weak and we will not survive.” (emphasis added)

A War Cry From a Nuclear-Armed Madman

Over and over in his speech, Trump invoked wars, in graphic and bloody detail. Invariably he wildly distorted the nature and context of those wars to contort them into the paradigm of the white Christian West fighting desperate battles of survival against existential threats from enemies of white Christian civilization. He wasn’t doing this to teach a fractured history lesson—he was doing it to forge a section of people to go along with, and fight and slaughter in, coming wars.

How else do you understand him demanding that people be willing to fight for “every foot of ground, and every last inch of civilization ... with your life”? Or, posing the question of whether “the West has the will to survive”?

And this from the mouth of the madman who asked a national security expert three times in one meeting: If we have nuclear weapons, why can’t we use them?

A Fascist Speech From a Fascist President Who Must Be STOPPED!

This speech should serve as a final, loud, obscene wake-up call: This regime is not just stupid and opportunistic. It is not impotent, unable to do any damage, unraveling and bound to go under soon.

No, this speech shows that the regime is thoroughly and coherently fascist, and that whatever bumps and detours it encounters, it is on the offensive, not only in the U.S. but internationally. This is a fascist regime, a product and extreme manifestation of capitalism-imperialism, and an imminent threat to humanity.

And this speech points, very sharply, to the need to seize the time, while things are still in a state of flux, to mobilize the millions and tens of millions who would hate to see a world like this, to take to the streets and stay in the streets until this regime is driven from power.

How Liberal Dan Rather, and Conservative David Brooks, Embraced a Fascist Speech

Trump’s speech was steeped in crude white supremacy and xenophobia, oozing with Christian fanaticism. Appropriately, fascist commentators loved it. Breitbart gushed that Trump is “protecting our borders” and “preserving Western Civilization.”

There were valuable exposures of Trump’s speech in “Trump’s alt-right Poland speech: Time to call his white nationalist rhetoric what it is...“ by Amanda Marcotte at Salon.com and in the piece “The Racial and Religious Paranoia of Trump’s Warsaw Speech” by Peter Beinhart in The Atlantic. But overall, mainstream liberal and conservative critics mainly embraced it.

Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather tweeted: “President Trump pro-NATO speech in Poland is the best of his Presidency.” Rather’s embrace of a fascist speech, because Trump made some criticisms of Russia and—speaking to a crowd of Polish fascist-nationalists—promised to go to war against Russia if they attack Poland, is a salient warning to where making the terms of opposition to Trump being about him being “soft on Russia” can lead!

Conservative columnist David Brooks upheld the speech on NPR, welcoming Trump’s promotion of “Western Civilization,” while denying that singing the praises of the West was “exclusionary” towards people of other cultures and traditions. “I don’t think Western civilization is in clash with other civilizations.... But I happen to think we do have a civilization that, you know, you can draw it back to the Bible, to Plato, through the Enlightenment.... [I]t’s not exclusionary. It’s not necessarily hostile to other identities. It’s not hostile to other civilizations. But it’s a realization that you were formed as a part of a great tradition. And so I thought Trump’s speech was sort of part of that.”

Brooks does concede that “there could be an ugly side,” but he, Rather, and too many other commentators are evidently oblivious to what happened right in front of them. Trump was not—as Rather seemed to think—“standing up” to Russian authoritarianism and big power bullying. He was calling on Russia to stop making trouble in Europe and stop flirting with Islamic “enemies of civilization” in Iran and Syria, and join the U.S.-led West in its Crusade against Islam.

In “Marxism and the Enlightenment,” Bob Avakian (BA) speaks to the two sides of the Enlightenment, including:

Marxism agrees with that aspect of the Enlightenment that says that the world is knowable, that people should seek to understand the world (or reality generally) in all its complexity, and that they should do so by scientific methods. Now, there is a difference, a profound difference, between bourgeois scientific methods and the scientific method of dialectical and historical materialism, but it is a tenet and a basic premise of the Enlightenment that people should seek to understand the world by scientific methods, and this is a principal reason why the Enlightenment has been brought under attack-and today is once again being brought under attack-by religious obscurantists and other reactionary trends. That’s the aspect of the Enlightenment with which, in a general sense, Marxism agrees.

And he also emphasizes that, among other differences:

[O]f course, politically, the revolutionary proletariat opposes and represents a radical rupture with the system of bourgeois political rule which essentially corresponds to the Enlightenment. And, more particularly, we oppose the use of the Enlightenment, and the scientific and technological advances associated with it, as a way of effecting and justifying colonialism and imperialist domination, in the name of “the white man’s burden” or the alleged “civilizing mission” of the “more enlightened and advanced” imperialist system, and so on. This is another way in which we differ, profoundly, from at least important aspects of how the Enlightenment (and associated things) have been applied.

And in the section “Religious Fundamentalism, Imperialism and the ‘War on Terror’” in Away With All Gods!: Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World, BA speaks to one way in which this plays out in relation to the current conflict between Islamic fundamentalism and “the West”:

[I]mperialist conquest and exploitation, with all the consequences it has led to, including the installing and backing of corrupt and tyrannical “local governments” and the devastation of much of the way of life and the living conditions of the large majority of the population, has actually strengthened tendencies which identify ideas associated with “the West”—such as the progressive aspects of the Enlightenment, with its spur to critical thinking, its challenging of religious dogma, and its contribution to the separation of politics from official religion—as alien and antagonistic to the needs of the people.

Brook’s defense of a fascist speech reflects the dangerous and criminal place one ends up following “logic of the logic” of one-sidedly upholding the Enlightenment.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/498/whats-so-great-about-NATO-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

What’s So Great About NATO? Not a Goddamn Thing!

(Unless You’re Fighting to Preserve a World of Exploitation, Domination, and Horrors)

July 8, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Donald Trump is getting near universal praise in the U.S. establishment, including from some vociferous critics, for uttering some more forthright words of support for NATO. In his speech in Poland, Trump praised this U.S.-European military alliance, reaffirmed NATO's Article 5 committing all members to go to war if any are attacked, and criticized Russia’s “destabilizing” activities in Ukraine and support for the governments of Iran and Syria.

Why all these kudos? Trump’s criticisms of and lukewarm support for NATO, while hesitating to criticize Russia, have been a big flashpoint of struggle within the ruling class between the Trump/Pence fascists who are bent on radically reshaping America, including in some ways its relationship to the rest of the world, and those imperialists who want to preserve the existing structures and world order, including NATO, because it has been a key U.S. tool for dominating the post-World War 2 global order.

Expressing this latter perspective, former CBS anchor Dan Rather, who has written stinging criticisms of Trump for attacking the press and trampling on the rule of law, tweeted: “President Trump pro-NATO speech in Poland is the best of his Presidency” and “Trump Poland speech reverses previous statements questioning value of NATO. And first time he has been so critical of Russia.” As if Trump may have finally “come to his senses” and would become a more “normal” imperialist marauder. Fat chance, Dan.

What’s So Good About NATO for Humanity?

Praise NATO? This 29-country, U.S.-dominated military alliance was formed after World War 2 to surround and threaten the socialist camp, that existed at the time, headed by the Soviet Union and China.¹ From the start, NATO has always reserved for itself the “right” to use nuclear weapons first to advance its imperialist interests! NATO’s formation was part of the forging of the American-led “European alliance” by the U.S. rulers and the CIA working with a cabal of former Nazis, fascists, and other reactionaries, many of whom became prominent officials in post-war Europe. One of this alliance’s first moves was launching vicious and very heavy reactionary attacks against communist parties in Europe which, while already heavily weighed down with non-revolutionary, revisionist lines, were nonetheless seen as obstacles to the U.S. domination of the continent.

Today, NATO countries, with the U.S. leading the way, together spend nearly $1 trillion a year—more than half the world’s military spending—on instruments of death and destruction in service of Western imperialism.

Led by the U.S., NATO talks about “keeping the peace” and “humanitarian work” but what does it actually do?

For decades, the U.S. bloc faced off with the former Soviet Union (by the mid-1950s an imperialist state) and its Warsaw Pact bloc of countries—nose-to-nose, nuke-to-nuke in Europe. Both sides were armed to the teeth, threatening humanity with a nuclear holocaust. NATO was right in the thick of it and nukes are still its “core component” and “supreme” guarantor.

After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, did NATO turn its swords into plowshares? No, it aggressively recruited former Warsaw Pact countries into its ranks and moved its weapons right to Russia’s border, heightening the tensions and rivalry between U.S.-NATO and Russian imperialism. Now NATO is flying “air policing missions” and installing U.S. Patriot “defense” missiles in Eastern Europe, again threatening the world.

NATO’s crimes haven’t been limited to Europe by any stretch of the imagination. NATO deployed aircraft to Turkey in 1990 and 1991 in support of the U.S.’s massive Persian Gulf War invasion of Iraq, an imperialist slaughter which left 100,000 to 200,000 Iraqis dead. In the 1990s, as the former Yugoslavia was splitting apart, the U.S. and NATO forces, deployed in the name of humanitarianism, indiscriminately bombed farmers, suburbanites, city dwellers, factory workers, reporters, diplomats, people in cars, buses and trains, hospital patients, the elderly, and children, to extend Western imperialist control. NATO forces remain in Kosovo to this day.

When the U.S. invaded and occupied Afghanistan in 2001, NATO was right with them, and remains there nearly 16 years and hundreds of thousands of direct and indirect deaths later, its bombs having obliterated wedding parties, farming villages, people walking to visit neighbors or relatives.

In 2011, NATO’s seven-month bombing campaign to topple the government of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi led to a reactionary bloodbath that left between 10,000 and 50,000 dead, and turned Libya into a nightmarish battlefield between jihadist, warlord, and imperialist forces, making life hell for millions of Libyans.

In 2016, as thousands of migrants were fleeing across the Mediterranean to escape famine, war, poverty, and persecution, NATO sent warships to the Aegean Sea between Greece and Turkey—not to rescue them, but to discourage further migration and perhaps position military forces nearer Russia and the Middle East.

All of NATO’s war making—and “peacekeeping”—has been aimed at maintaining a world of Western imperialist, especially U.S. imperialist, global exploitation and domination that confines billions to lives of degradation, brutality, and endless poverty, defending a system which is now shredding Earth’s thin life-supporting membranes.

Why are these crimes and war crimes any less criminal, or these horrors any less horrible, because the U.S. teams up with allies rather than “going it alone”? Since when is a gang of criminals less threatening than an individual thug? Isn’t ganging up called racketeering?

What’s so good about NATO? Not a goddamn thing! It’s a bloody nightmare for humanity!

People should hate Trump because he’s a fascist—not because he doesn’t support the blood-soaked NATO alliance enough! And we need to drive the whole Trump/Pence fascist regime from power—but not to return to the “normal” world of imperialist pillage and mass slaughter! Praising Trump for supporting NATO and confronting the rival imperialists in Russia is fighting to maintain a predatory world order that was NEVER GREAT and that’s now fracturing at the seams. We need to go forward to fight for a world without capitalism-imperialism, and the nightmares its “normal” workings visit on billions and the planet.

No one with any heart for the people should want to preserve that. Stop thinking like Americans, people, and start thinking about humanity!

1. For more on this, see the interview with Raymond Lotta: “You Don’t Know What You Think You ‘Know’ About... The Communist Revolution and the REAL Path to Emancipation: Its History and Our Future” [back]

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/498/academics-who-offend-trump-targeted.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

The Stakes of Standing Up to Threats and Terror Targeted at Academics Who Offend Trump

July 8, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

At least eight professors on different U.S. college campuses have been the targets of death threats and harassment, most in the last month, from pro-Trump white supremacists, misogynists and Nazis. These attacks have led to one firing, two incidents where campuses were temporarily closed, and scholars forced to cancel speaking engagements or leave town. Most of the professors being singled out are women and/or people of color. Overwhelmingly these attacks are based on comments or statements they made on social media or elsewhere, manipulated to discredit them as scholars while unleashing the vicious, hardcore social base of the Trump/Pence regime against them. These attacks are one front of an overall assault on critical thinking and dissent in academia, in service of the Trump/Pence regime. They cannot be tolerated.

Campus Reform—a right-wing “news” site aimed at academia directed by the powerful, conservative Leadership Institute—is the source of many of these attacks. Students are sent to comb through professors’ remarks on Facebook or Twitter, or elsewhere in public, searching for “liberal bias and abuse on America’s campuses.” Comments are taken out of context, distorted, and turned into hit pieces to be picked up by Fox News, the National Review, and other right-wing national media. Their sensationalized coverage whips up online pro-Trump trolls to terrorize these professors.

Meanwhile, Republican state congressmen threaten legislative action if the institutions don’t discipline their faculty. The impact is sending a chilling message throughout academia, exposing every professor to the threat that any off-hand or controversial remark they make in any context can be used to ruin their careers and silence their work.

Who Is Being Targeted?

• Katherine Dettwyler, adjunct professor at the University of Delaware, permanently lost her position at the university because outrage was whipped up about online comments she made critical of the actions of the American student imprisoned in North Korea who recently died.
• John Eric Williams, associate professor of sociology at Trinity College, had his life threatened for sharing a controversial article about race, violence and politics on social media. Williams was then put on leave by Trinity.
• George Ciccariello-Maher, associate professor of politics and global studies at Drexel University, had his life threatened, and now is being investigated by Drexel for controversial and tongue-in-cheek tweets targeting white racists, and condemning the ongoing U.S. slaughter in Mosul, Iraq.
• Professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, assistant professor of African American studies at Princeton University, was flooded with racist, sexist slurs and threats following her commencement address at Hampshire College, in which she said Donald Trump had “fulfilled the campaign promises of a campaign organized and built upon racism, corporatism and militarism.” Professor Taylor had to cancel talks in Seattle and San Diego. To their credit, Hampshire College’s President and Chair of the Board issued a strong statement condemning this intimidation and fully supporting Professor Taylor.

The list goes on, including Professors Dana Cloud at Syracuse University; Sarah Bond at the University of Iowa; Tommy Curry at Texas A&M University; and Joseph Palermo at Sacramento State University, who’ve each been similarly threatened and terrorized.

Why Critical Thinking in Academia Is Under Attack

Political attacks on academics whose work challenges the agenda of the ruling class are not new. Academia is one place in this society with relative freedom to explore ideas. And in the past few decades, significant groupings of professors coming out of the 1960s especially, have brought forward new scholarship that sheds light on and refutes the official narratives about America’s history and role in the world. While it hardly dominates the overall character of universities today, this kind of intellectual challenge has been seen by a section of those in power as an extremely dangerous threat to the legitimacy and stability of this system. Scholars have been singled out and hit with overt blacklisting, invented academic scandals (as in the case of Ward Churchill), denial of tenure or other forms of censorship and suppression. And there has been a systematic effort to discredit academia as a whole.

Bob Avakian has emphasized that the imperialist agenda of those who rule cannot stand up to critical thinking and a rational pursuit of the truth. And so those behind this agenda have to change the definition of what is the truth and how the truth is arrived at. And they have to rule out of order and beyond the pale critical thinking and dissent that calls into question not only the justification of particular policies, but also the foundation on which those justifications are built. (We encourage readers to listen to BA’s talk “‘Balance’ Is the Wrong Criterion—And a Cover for a Witch-hunt—What We Need Is the Search for the Truth: Education, Real Academic Freedom, Critical Thinking and Dissent,” one of his 7 Talks.)

New Level of Political Assault on Academia

With the coming to power of the Trump/Pence regime, the attack on academia has taken on a whole other level of virulence and danger. Within days of Trump’s election, a “Professor Watch List” was publicized, announcing a list of 185 “unAmerican” professors who should be “watched,” and calling on students to report other professors. Very significantly, the person who started the “Professor Watch List” spoke at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland where Trump was nominated. This was followed by the battle at UC Berkeley where pro-Trump fascist propagandists were denied a platform to spew their poison on campus (see sidebar).

So far none of the threatened professors have been physically harmed. The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the American Sociological Association are condemning the attacks on individual professors and calling on universities to protect those whose speech is targeted. There is no exaggerating the stakes involved in resisting these attacks, not just for the colleges and universities, but for whether this regime will succeed in enforcing a uniformity of views in society as a whole. The most powerful opposition must be built, determined to stop these attacks and the whole assault aimed at delegitimizing, and silencing academia, as a vital part of stopping this fascist regime and advancing toward an actual revolution.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/498/republicans-ferocious-assault-on-healthcare-and-real-answer-to-those-attacks-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

The Republicans’ Ferocious Assault on Health Care… And a REAL Answer to Those Attacks

Updated July 26, 2017, first posted July 3, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Editors' note: Since this article was first posted, the health care bill first hit a dead end, and now (as of July 26) Trump and the Republicans are in the midst of an intense offensive to get a Senate bill passed. We will be covering these developments.

The Republican Senate health care bill, cooked up by a leading core of Republi-fascists behind closed doors, was released on June 22. It was intended to be rammed through to a vote within the week, but it ran into sharp conflicts within the ruling class. As we go to press, the Republican bill is on hold, but another vote is planned for July. The prospect of these killing attacks becoming law is far from a dead issue. 

The Senate version of the Trump/Pence “health care” bill would strip health coverage from 22 million more poor and oppressed people over the next decade. It would raise costs, reduce coverage, cut vital services, slash Medicaid, defund Planned Parenthood, and kill even more people than are already dying because of this capitalist health care system. At the same time it will cut nearly $1 trillion in taxes for corporations and the most wealthy.

Slashing Medicaid is at the heart of the Republican’s Senate bill. Medicaid covers 20 percent of all citizens and legal residents; 40 percent of all children; half of all births; and 64 percent of all nursing home residents. This bill threatens the lives of broad sections of the poor of all nationalities: those sick with pre-existing conditions, children and adults with disabilities, women, and the growing population of older adults.  

And the anti-woman outlook of Christian fascism is embedded in the bill. Medicaid payments will be blocked for care provided by Planned Parenthood, endangering the lives of millions of women who rely on Medicaid and Planned Parenthood for life-saving cancer tests, maternity care, and birth control. 

All this would come down hardest on Black, Latino, Native American and other oppressed people.

Attacks on Obamacare have, for years, been a rallying cry for the fascist agenda now concentrated in the form of the Trump/Pence regime. Their assault on Obamacare is based on an outlook that society and government have no responsibility for anything bearing on the well-being and welfare of people—a vicious individualism aimed especially at the poor and minorities—as well as an insane and poisonous hatred of Obama, and of Black people in general, that these Republicans tap into and unleash. The fascists fed a feeling among a native born, white, Christian social base that Obama being president meant that America is not “theirs” anymore and that they must “take it back” from “freeloaders” (Black people and immigrants), with an all-but-open appeal to white male entitlement.

This madness turns “who feeds whom” in this country 100 percent upside down. As Bob Avakian says: “There would be no United States as we now know it today without slavery. That is a simple and basic truth.” (BAsics 1:1) For 250 years, there was the horror of the exploitation of slaves in conditions of indescribable hell... followed by nearly a century of continued brutal oppression in the fields, now as serf-like sharecroppers, and then many decades more of super-exploitation that built up the industry of the U.S., with Black workers being confined to the most dangerous, low-paid and filthiest jobs, last hired and first fired... down to today, with Black people continuing to be discriminated against and oppressed including in employment and credit.

And millions of immigrants have been and are exploited mercilessly, first in the countries they left and now here, by capitalism-imperialism. Undocumented immigrants are denied welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, and most other public benefits, even as they pay billions of dollars in sales taxes and in Social Security taxes for retirement benefits they will never receive.

The Status Quo Is No Answer, but There IS an Answer

Trump and the Republicans’ “health care” bill is a horror. In the face of this murderous attack on the most basic kind of medical care, what is urgently needed is an unrelenting resistance that says this Trump/Pence fascist regime has to go!

At the same time, the answer is not to defend the status quo. Obamacare reflected a consensus among powerful sections of the capitalist class that something major had to be done to contain health care costs and expand coverage, in part to maintain social stability in society. But these reforms were constrained by the reality that under capitalism, health care—like everything else—is a commodity to be sold for profit, and subject to the overall needs of a system built on exploitation and oppression.

Even with Obamacare, millions of people have gone uncovered and millions more receive care that is inadequate, often ineffective and very often demeaning. Meanwhile, massive public health crises—the unchecked AIDS epidemic among Black and Latino gay and bisexual men, the opioid addiction epidemic, the diabetes epidemic (overwhelmingly focused among the oppressed), cervical cancer—are either ignored altogether, or the treatments for which get warped and distorted through the demands of capital and its white-supremacist and patriarchal biases.

Yet the basis exists for a huge leap forward in the health and well-being of the masses of people in this country, and this can be done in a way that benefits humanity all over. This points to the facts that a) all this horror and degradation, and being caught in a battle to prevent it from going to a whole lower level, is not necessary, and b) we could do far better. Read from Article 1, Section 2, Point 7, Heading H from the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America on what it says about health care. A different—a far better—world is in fact possible... if we are willing to fight for it.

For more on the analysis of Obamacare, see “The  Shutdown, the Showdown, and the Urgent Need To Repolarize… for Revolution” on www.revcom.us

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/breaking-with-old-ways-of-thinking-getting into the-revolutionary-process-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Breaking with Old Ways of Thinking...Getting into the Revolutionary Process

July 9, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Ardea’s experience may not be that unique and well it shouldn’t be; all of us should be grappling with these questions, but in a culture of “me me me” that may not seem “kool.” But anyone with a heart... a heart for humanity... and yes driven by the love of humanity and not simply anger and revenge, and not that anger is bad because you need to be angry at the injustices and unnecessary suffering caused by this system. A fire in the belly that not just makes you angry but actually gets you up to do something about it. After that you need to get an understanding of why so much suffering happens and why simply working on reforming the system isn’t going to end all the unnecessary suffering because in fact it’s the very nature of capitalism to exploit the majority of humanity for the benefit of some and then the violent reinforcement of that system. A system that will not shy from violence and often uses that violence not just against revolutionaries but just those that oppose U.S. imperialism or you can be doing nothing but walking home and are met with violence by some pig simply for the color of your skin. Violence is part of the fabric of this system.

Now with a heart for humanity, a fire in the belly, and a basic understanding of the nature of the capitalist-imperialist system we can start getting into the revolutionary process. First, that’s going to take some work and sacrifice. It’s gonna require time to study, and struggle things out and breaking out of old ways of thinking and dedicating your life to something bigger than just “self.” And yes continuous study to get a deeper understanding so that you can better fight against the system and not get discouraged on the road to revolution or get sidetracked towards a reformist road.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/498/another-day-in-the-hood-until-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

From the Revolution Club in Chicago:

Another Day In the 'Hood—Until...

July 4, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

On Sunday of the July 4th weekend, three members of the Revolution Club pulled into a South Side Chicago neighborhood to catch up with some people about the upcoming anti-4th of July picnic. On a stretch of the block where there are usually a lot of people around, it was empty and police were roaming around in the yard of an abandoned house. The revcoms started blowing whistles, and some people gathered while others nearby hung around watching.

The pigs in the yard turned around at the sound of the whistles and came towards where the revcoms were blowing whistles, walking out of the yard. They were trying to laugh it off and make fun of it, as they were heading back towards their car to leave. People were digging that the whistles were having an effect on the police. The pigs decided not to leave. They sat in their car and one of them started yelling out to the people gathered around that if this kept going, they were going to come down harder on people there.

Some people started telling the revcoms they should stop blowing the whistles so that the pigs will leave. Some started saying if you keep doing this, when you leave they are going to come back and come after us. Others said to keep it up, that these police mess with them all the time, and some who had whistles periodically added in their own whistle-blowing. The revcoms spoke and agitated to people: yes, they will come back, if you stand here and stand up to them, they will try to make you pay for it—because that is the whole point of what their role is: they are here to enforce the conditions they’ve got you in, they are the overseers keeping you on the plantation, they are here to keep you in your place and they want you to bow down, to obey, to run from them. They don’t want you to stand up, they don’t want you to get with the revolution. But there’s no way to freedom without a cost, there’s no way to fight to get rid of this system without going THROUGH THEM. The revolutionaries will stand with you, and every time they hit, we will bring forward more forces for revolution and strengthen the ability of people to fight back, and lead people to fight all the way through to get rid of the whole system these pigs are enforcing.

The pigs had called a sergeant onto the scene and they began gathering up like they were getting ready to move on the revcoms. There were about 20 people around—nobody had left and a couple more had gathered, but people were still weighing where they stood in relation to all this. Then, two guys who are known and respected in the neighborhood walked right up to the revcoms, a few feet away from where the police had lined up in a stand-off, and hugged one of them, calling him by name and thanking him for what the revolutionaries were doing. This changed things. The guys knew very well that they were making themselves a target to the police by stepping forward in this way, but they felt compelled to stand with the revolutionaries in this situation. And in doing so, they set an example for others around. The pigs shifted to making more outright and explicit threats, and at the same time the people around got firmer in their own support for the revcoms and standing with them.

One pig in particular, nicknamed GI Joe by the masses, started saying, “Nobody gets a pass around here anymore,” but at that point, the more they huffed and puffed, the less intimidating they looked. His tough guy posturing just looked more and more ridiculous as he zeroed his frown in on one of the revolutionaries trying to look intimidating and that elementary schoolyard shit wasn’t working. One youth joked afterwards that this pig thought he was Denzel Washington in Training Day (and for those who have seen the movie, all the threats made by Denzel’s character didn’t make the people go along).

Eventually, the pigs had to back off, reduced to oinking and snorting out threats as they left, promising to come back and find any excuse—and no excuse—to retaliate and come down hard on people there. Even while some people were predicting, “Somebody over here is going to go to jail tonight,” there was an air of celebration as the pigs drove off. People came up asking for whistles and Revolution—Nothing Less! t-shirts and put them on right there. Up and down the block people were in conversation with the revolutionaries—talking about how to get organized to stand up against attempts by the pigs to retaliate, and talking about what the revolution is about and what it means to get organized for revolution. People were watching clips of Bob Avakian and getting introduced to the leadership we have for how to fight, how to win, and how to make a revolution that is worth winning, to get to the emancipation of all humanity.

This is promising. But the revcoms know that this can’t be a one-shot feel-good one day thing—the organizing has to be done for real, and people from this neighborhood can’t just hold it down here, they have to be part of spreading this citywide.

The revcoms also know that the pigs will try to make good on their threats. But it is clear, right from the mouths of the pigs themselves, that any arrests in this neighborhood will be in retaliation for people exercising their right to assemble and hear people talk, and the revcoms will stand with the masses in fighting any of these bullshit, illegitimate arrests. In fact, we are going back to the neighborhood this week to make good on people’s requests and desire to get organized, and to stand with them against any attacks for daring to raise their heads.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/avakian/science/09ba-science...epistemology-and-morality-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/495/why-knowing-what-is-true-has-everything-to-do-with-getting-beyond-a-world-of-horrors-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

A presentation by Andy Zee, spokesperson for Revolution Books, NY on behalf of The Bob Avakian Institute

Why Knowing What’s True Has Everything to Do With  Getting Beyond a World of Horrors: 
The Breakthrough of the New Communism Developed by Bob Avakian

June 14, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

I want to thank the co-sponsors of this event: the Bunche Center, AAP, The American Indian Studies Center, Prof. Macías and discussants Professors Andrew Apter and Juan Gómez-Quiñones; I thank all of you in the audience for joining us this afternoon.

And, a special appreciation to The Bob Avakian Institute for hosting this event. I want to begin by drawing your attention to why this Institute matters.

As we meet this afternoon, masses of people—billions in actual fact—suffer horribly, the planet is in extreme peril, and the potential for humanity to move beyond a world of mass starvation, disease, wars without end, degradation, oppression and exploitation is thwarted and stifled by the workings of the system of capitalism-imperialism that prevails everywhere throughout the world.

There is the basis in the productive capacity, the technology, and the creativity and knowledge of people to transform the world to move beyond the economic, political and social formations that today so brutally destroy lives and crush spirits. Unlocking that potential requires understanding it—comprehending the complex reality of the world as it actually is so as to discover the pathways to fundamental change through a strategic approach to an actual revolution and for a radically new society on the road to human emancipation. This is the breakthrough and ongoing work and leadership of Bob Avakian. 

For over 40 years Bob Avakian has been digging into the reality humanity faces, grappling with the theory and the practice to break out of the long dark night of millennia of oppression. He critically examined the liberatory first communist revolutions of the 20^th Century, first in the Soviet Union and then the People’s Republic of China—how they began blazing a path to a world where slaves would be slaves no more; and he critically delved into their defeats, fearlessly excavating and interrogating their shortcomings in method and approach and how they went at the problems encountered in forging a world where exploitation is not the engine that drives the world, undergirding all the other forms of oppression that people suffer.

Drawing from this experience and ranging widely from scholars, scientists, and artists and as well as from sports and music, Avakian has made a qualitative breakthrough in putting revolution and communism on a thoroughly and consistently scientific footing—stripping away those previous aspects of communist theory that were not scientific. With this as the foundational method and approach of the new synthesis of communism, Bob Avakian has made breakthroughs in the strategy for actual revolution. He has developed a radically new conception of socialism, authoring the Constitution for the future socialist state as both a far more liberatory society and one that is on the road to communism. And he has made a breakthrough in internationalism—in the understanding of why in order to free humanity from the chains of imperialism the whole world must come first.

Bob Avakian developed the New Communism while leading the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA to be a vanguard force for an actual revolution in a period where revolution was regarded by most as a thing of the past. Yet, today we face a moment in history where more than ever the world cries out for an emancipatory revolution and there is a new framework for revolution in the new synthesis, yet this breakthrough in revolutionary theory, so necessary for an emancipatory revolution, is not known, and the forces for that revolution need to be brought forward.

I encourage you to find out more about and to support the work of the BA Institute whose mission is the preserving, projecting, and promoting of the works and vision of Bob Avakian with the aim of reaching the broadest possible audience. Today’s program furthers that mission and my talk is rooted in Bob Avakian’s leadership and the new synthesis of communism. I look forward to an exchange of views based on this. And I hope each of you will be provoked and inspired to get more deeply into BA’s work and support and join in the work of the Institute. So let’s get into our topic, Why Knowing What’s True Has Everything to Do With Getting Beyond a World of Horrors.

Bob Avakian has written:

The struggle in the realm of epistemology—the theory of knowledge and how it is acquired by people, the theory of what is true and how people come to know the truth—is a crucial arena in the overall battle for the emancipation of the oppressed and exploited majority of humanity, and ultimately of humanity as a whole. Grasping the defining characteristics and the importance of the scientific method—and, most of all, the most consistent, systematic and comprehensive scientific approach to reality, the communist world outlook and method, which can embrace without replacing or suffocating the many fields of human knowledge and endeavor and can give expression to the richest process of learning about reality and transforming it in the interests of humanity—is of vital importance for this emancipatory struggle.¹

Humanity is locked into a world of deprivation, wars, environmental devastation, brutal oppression of minority nationalities in different countries around the world. Black people in the U.S. are subjected to unending discrimination and a slow genocide with 2.3 million locked away in hellhole prisons while police brutality and murder continue unabated and unpunished. Women here and around the world are degraded and oppressed in ways that are unspeakable for those with eyes willing to confront the brutal reality that half of humanity faces. Bob Avakian has sharply pointed out that today people can say, depict, and do to women what you could not do to any other group of people. That’s true, and that’s one reason why the liberation of women is a cornerstone of the New Communism and the revolution to achieve it.

The goal of the New Communism is a total revolution—the most radical revolution in human history that aims at nothing less than overcoming all forms of oppression and exploitation all over the world, a society where humanity could truly flourish. To make such a revolution requires understanding reality as it actually is, a method and approach to discover what’s true and then to transform the world on the basis of the actual underlying material conditions and the contradictions in those conditions.

We meet today as a full out fascist regime is in power here in the world’s most powerful nation. Matters of epistemology are thrown into sharp relief as is everything else in society. “Fake News,” “alternative facts,” conspiracy theories— to say these false narratives are mobilizing people in harmful ways is understatement. Going deeper, they obscure and divert people from understanding the essence of what is happening and acting in ways commensurate.

The Trump/Pence regime is furiously battling to consolidate fascism here. Their enraged social base is moving on campuses and holding KKK/Nazi style rallies around the country. Their rabid followers attack immigrants as the enemy. Two courageous heroes in Portland were murdered and one seriously wounded for standing up to this. These men are models of acting on your moral conviction based on what is right and true. The Trump/Pence regime has not yet succeeded in consolidating fascism in law and society, but they are moving rapidly. And even with the significant opposition expressed in several mass demonstrations and many smaller protests over the last five months, there is not, as yet, the level of unrelenting political struggle from below, from the people, aimed at driving this regime out of power, which is the only way to stop them.

This cabal of fascists headed by Trump and Pence came to power under the signboard of a mythology of Make America Great Again, a narrative that, if you will excuse the pun, trumped and encompassed two other reactionary narrative myths: [1] that this country is the biblical shining city on a hill whose future requires defeating the elite demons running the world, banishing all “others” who are not white men (and “their” submissive wives), ostracizing all who are not fundamentalist Christians, thereby returning America to, as they would have it in their myth, a theocratic Christian state; and the second myth: that the greatness of America rests on the ingenuity of the self-made man, that the greatest good, and even virtue, comes from a society where naked self interest is unfettered, in short, Gordon Gekko ideology—“greed is good.” The Trump/Pence regime, as with all fascist regimes, is built on promoting and enforcing a worldview of lies, of alternative facts—a narrative—of the victimized, that tells of an aggrieved class of the “entitled,” anointed by God or by virtue of what they believe is their innate superiority and entitlement that is being kept down by alien forces—foreigners, non-Christians, elites, people of color, “losers” in the lexicon favored by Trump; all of whom are peoples to be vanquished in order to return the country and the aggrieved white men to their rightful place.

This fascist mythology, the America First and Make American Great Again narratives clash with what has been the more dominant narrative promoted by the Democrats, liberals and progressives, media talking heads and mainstream press of America as the land of liberty and equality, of freedom for all, of “give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free”; a country always progressing towards a more perfect union; where what’s good for business is good for all, and if there is still inequality, there can be some regulation of capitalism to placate the middle class; and as for the poor, the benevolence of the rich can offer some alms through NGO charity, while poverty and punishment is the real deal, with mass deportations and incarceration, yes under Democrats Bill Clinton and Obama, because this system has no future for millions locked on society’s bottom. If the more “awake” followers of this liberal myth point out the actual misery that is everywhere in this the richest country in history, the pathetic bottom line answer is: “Well, this may not be the perfect system, but it’s better than any other.”

None of these narratives are true. All reflect the interests of different sections of the ruling classes. They overlap and obscure the reality of America founded on slavery and the genocide of the native peoples; the theft of 1/3 of the land of Mexico; the bloody history of the U.S. becoming the world’s dominant imperialist power, where for every year of its existence it has waged a war of conquest, meddled in the elections of other countries when not outright fomenting or directing coups d’état. They conceal that the U.S. is ruled by a dictatorship of a ruling class that enforces a system of exploitation; and that what we are experiencing now is an acute struggle at the top that is drawing in every other class and social force over what will be the cohering form of this bourgeois dictatorship: whether it will be fascism, which relies on open terror and violence in which civil and legal rights are effectively nil, or the normal oppressive workings of bourgeois-democracy.

This is not some other narrative, a radical communist narrative; this is historical fact and current reality. History that tells of enormous cost to humanity when people believe and act on stories that aren’t true. This underscores the tremendous stakes and the import of a scientific approach to reality. 

What is science? And, can it and should it be applied to society?

Ardea Skybreak in the book SCIENCE AND REVOLUTION, On the Importance of Science and the Application of Science to Society, the New Synthesis of Communism and the Leadership of Bob Avakian paraphrases Neil deGrasse Tyson and says “Science allows you to confront and identify problems, to recognize problems and figure out how to solve them, rather than run away from them.” She says, “It’s a tool–science–a very powerful tool. It’s a method and approach for being able to tell what’s true, what corresponds to reality as it really is...” And, “Science is an evidence-based process.” She goes on to make a very important point:

Without science, you can only say what you as an individual think reality is, or maybe you can say what a whole bunch of people think reality is, or maybe you can say what a government, or religious authority, or some other authority might tell you reality is like, but that doesn’t make any of it true. Without science you are at the mercy of being manipulated, of having your thinking manipulated and not being able to tell what’s right from what’s wrong, what’s true from what’s false.

Take a moment and think about the implications of that.

To know and change the world requires understanding the world as it actually is—looking beneath the surface to discover the social processes through which people provide for the needs of life and to rear new generations of people. Just as a microscope and a theoretical understanding of cells, of DNA, provide tools to discover the mechanisms of life and the pathways to curing disease, so too does the scientific theory of communism—dialectical materialism—reveal the roots of society and how it can be “cured.” What is the economic foundation of society? What is the character of the institutions that arise on this foundation? How are all the social relations—the forms of oppression that we are all too familiar with today shaped and constrained by this economic system? How do traditional ideas reinforce these economic, political, and social relations? And, decisive to changing all of this, what are the contradictions developing within all of this that we can go to work on to lead a total revolution? 

We really can struggle to get to a “world where people work and struggle together for the common good… Where everyone contributes whatever they can to society and gets back what they need to live a life worthy of human beings… Where there are no more divisions among people in which some rule over and oppress others, robbing them not only of the means to a decent life but also of knowledge and a means for really understanding, and acting to change, the world.” This, a total revolution, is brought to life in Bob Avakian’s THE NEW COMMUNISM, The science, the strategy, the leadership for an actual revolution, and a radically new society on the road to real emancipation.

Making revolution to emancipate humanity throughout the world is complex. It is also real, and rooted in the real world contradictions we face.

Despite his surreal appearance Donald Trump is also real, “Make America Great” mobilizes a fascist base with a false narrative, but the Trump/Pence regime holds power and is backed by power, and thus their ideas and policies are being realized, and should the regime fully succeed, more and more people will come to see that they are “right.” Watch cable news and you see this normalization unfold. And, on the other side, despite its mythology, this land does not belong to you and me, America and capitalism-imperialism are not the land of opportunity and forces for good and the best that humanity can do. But, based on its power and control of all the institutions of society, this is what many if not most people in this country believe to be true.

Perhaps as a little kid a parent tried to teach you that “might doesn’t make right?” But, then life teaches you otherwise. Unless you take up a scientific approach to knowing and changing the world, you won’t understand why it is that what is wrong so often prevails, or, get the science that lies behind the insight of Karl Marx that: “The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas” and how that can be worked on and transformed through revolution.

If you don’t understand the underlying dynamics of society, you will be played. We run into this all the time: the politicians and pundits declare, and people follow suit and say: the problem is corruption, or money in politics, or greed, or human nature.... The list goes on. Without understanding how a society functions, getting under the hood of how it works, you can’t really know or solve the problem. Police brutality and murder disproportionally target Black and Latino youth, with pigs never held to account. No justice, only payouts to keep quiet. What you think needs to be done about this unconscionable outrage depends on whether you understand what the root of the problem is. Give the police “sensitivity” training? Have a community review board? Wear body cams? Not even close. The problem is that the job of the police is to serve and protect the capitalist system—their function is to protect the right of the ruling class to exploit and oppress the masses and if there is no way for the masses to survive, then they must be terrorized into submission, locked up or killed. The deep foundational structure of white supremacy in this country has and will continue to result in the most brutal repression and targeting of Black and Latino youth. You can’t reform that away. It’s too woven into the fabric of the system and its functioning. We must fight the power, and transform the people, for revolution. But to understand that, you need science.

If you go to the doctor because you have symptoms that could either indicate a sore back or cancer of the spine, or perhaps a chest discomfort that could be acid reflux or a heart condition, for sure you know that you want a doctor grounded in the latest scientific medical understanding to determine what is the specific disease causing your symptoms, followed by what are the tested treatments for the correctly diagnosed disease. You don’t want to take a TUMS for a heart attack... or, rub on some Ben Gay for cancer... nor should you want to be told the “cure” is for you to atone for your sins and pray.

The same is true for diagnosing and setting a course of treatment for the ills of society. But when it comes to human society, even many scientists say that you can’t apply scientific methodology. That it’s too complex, too subjective. This is nonsense. Ardea Skybreak makes the point that it is exactly the opposite—because of the complexity of human society, a scientific approach is all the more needed. 

Materialism vs. Idealism

At the heart of the matter, is, well, matter. All of reality, even the processes of our consciousness take place through matter in motion. Our ideas are reflections of objective material reality and they can impact objective reality. And, that is one reason we can know that reality objectively exists.

Philosophically, this is reflected in two modes of thinking: Materialism vs. Idealism. Materialism—dialectical materialism—means your conception of the world flows from a fundamental understanding that everything exists as matter—matter that is constantly changing, that is always in motion, moving through contradiction. And, this stands in opposition to philosophical Idealism—the view that, as Avakian writes in The New Communism,

[R]eality is an extension of ideas—ideas in the mind of individuals. For example: “Maybe this doesn’t exist for you, but it exists for me.” We hear this kind of thing all the time, this relativism: “Well, that may be your truth, but my truth says something different. God may not exist for you, but God definitely exists for me.” No! If god exists at all, then god exists for everybody.

Avakian stresses that it matters not just “what people think, but, even more fundamentally, how they think—and how they ‘approach the world.’” And, that this is not only sharply contended in society and the world, but “also among many who claim to be seeking some kind of ‘progressive’ or radical change, and even among many who proclaim to be communists.” Unfortunately, such idealist approaches to social change, and revolution, result in a kind of religious approach that views the arc of history always bending towards progress, or what has too often prevailed among communists, that communism is inevitable. Such views disarm people from being able to confront, act on, and transform the reality they actually face.

Relativism vs. A Scientific Approach to Reality

Alternative facts, being guided by narratives, and not what is actually true, reaches both the absurd and the deadly dangerous with Trump and his whole regime: “I had the biggest inaugural crowd... Mexicans are criminals and rapists... Muslims all potential terrorists... climate change a hoax”—dangerous lies, but backed up by Fox Media and the power of the state.

How different is this methodologically from Obama saying that the problem Black youth face is that they don’t take personal responsibility and they should pull their pants up? Really? Is this the cause of the oppression of Black people? No, and believing it because Obama as the first Black president said it doesn’t make it true, it makes it all the more dangerous.

And, on the campuses this relativism is rampant in identity politics: a mode of thinking where who is speaking, and whether they are, or are not, the most oppressed person in the room, determines the validity of their ideas. Communists have also had a variant of this: that the workers or the most oppressed have a special purchase on the truth. Ok, it is sometimes the case that those who have lived a life under the most vicious boot of this system may more readily gravitate towards revolution, but their position in society does not in itself provide an understanding of how society works, or of the theory, strategy and programs to transform it. Another example, all too common on the campuses, is if an uncomfortable truth is spoken and this upsets someone, then a safe space must be created where this intrusion of the true brutality of the real world is prohibited. 

Or, in the social movements of resistance this slogan is chanted in demonstrations: “The people united will never be defeated.” Is this true? No. Bob Avakian has pointed out that people have been united and been defeated—many times. Both for reasons that their adversaries were stronger, and sometimes because of shortcomings or mistakes in how the struggle was led. Yes, it is good and necessary to unite people around a correct understanding of reality and a strategy and plan that flows from that. But it is just a seemingly “useful” political truth that “the people united will never be defeated.” And, it misleads.

This is a reflection of what Avakian has critiqued as populist epistemology—that whatever most people think at any given time defines what’s true. Facebook reality, thumbs down.

The mode of thinking that denies that there is objective reality, that there is only subjective experience: “I have my truth and you have yours,” leaves people unequipped to deal with the momentous problems humanity faces; it leaves you blind to discover where there are sharp and profound contradictions brewing beneath the surface that could hold the potential for revolutionary struggle. You can’t act with conviction about anything other than yourself.

It is prevalent in academia that to even claim there is objective reality is totalizing —totalitarian—because it doesn’t leave room for my ideas. Some who are influenced by postmodernism claim that the insistence that there is objective reality and a scientific way to understand and transform that reality is what led to the problems of the 20^th century revolutions.

This relativism—that there is no objective truth, that we can’t act with any certitude about what has been determined through scientific verification is true, is nonsense, but not just that. The relativist construct of competing narratives that must all be brought together is wrong and harmful. Does the history and present lived reality of oppressed and marginalized peoples need to be uncovered, told, paid attention to, and redressed? Yes. But, what is true about that history is true not just for that group, it is part of the history of humanity and its causes and solutions sought in the larger reality, with unity forged on that foundation. Relativism keeps everyone and the struggle “in their lane,” confined to thinking about and only acting on what concerns them; it cuts off the kind of process necessary to know and change the whole world.

Avakian makes the point in The New Communism that “everybody who’s a relativist is relativist until it really matters to them.” You wouldn’t let your kid run out in the street in front of a car because who’s to say if the traffic is real for him or her? 

The relativism of Trump and his world of “useful” alternative facts, on the one hand, and the relativism that pervades and poisons the movements of opposition, on the other, are completely diametrically opposed in morality—one stands on the side of gloatingly enforcing oppression, and the other in fighting against oppression and wanting a more just world. But, methodologically the parallels of proceeding from “your truth,” or your group’s “reality,” from what’s useful to you and your cause, people, gender—in the immediate moment—will and can only lead away from understanding the root of the problem humanity faces, and to leaving the world the horror that it is. 

Before concluding, since I just brought this question of epistemology back to Trump, I want to commend your attention to two works by BA: “The Truth About Right-Wing Conspiracy… And Why Clinton and the Democrats Are No Answer,” and The Coming Civil War and Repolarization for Revolution in the Present Era, which not only deeply reveal the roots of fascism in America, but are a stunning example of the scientific approach of Bob Avakian.

When you get into The New Communism, when you dig into the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, and other works, you will see that he not only advocates for a scientific approach to reality and to making revolution, but in what is a real game changer, Bob Avakian breaks ground in creating a new framework for how masses of people can wield and apply science to society, creating a movement today and a future society to unleash the maximum creativity, ferment, experimentation and dissent, on the basis of a solid core of understanding, as integral to carrying forward the aims and objectives of the revolution to emancipate humanity.

I am going to conclude with this quotation from the handbook for revolution, BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian that was reprinted on the promotional flyer. This both serves as a certain concentration of the qualitative breakthrough in the scientific epistemology of the new synthesis and brings home why it is so integral to humanity getting free. With all that the people of the world face, we are fortunate to have this work, leadership, and Institute at this moment. Hopefully this quotation will also serve as a provocation for our discussion.

For humanity to advance beyond a state in which “might makes right”—and where things ultimately come down to raw power relations—will require, as a fundamental element in this advance, an approach to understanding things (an epistemology) which recognizes that reality and truth are objective and do not vary in accordance with, nor depend on, different “narratives” and how much “authority” an idea (or “narrative”) may have behind it, or how much power and force can be wielded on behalf of any particular idea or “narrative,” at any given point.

1. “A Leap of Faith” and a Leap to Rational Knowledge: Two Very Different Kinds of Leaps, Two Radically Different Worldviews and Methods“ [back]

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/495/unity-and-struggle-the-ba-institute-forum-at-ucla-june-5-2017-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Unity and Struggle: The BA Institute Forum at UCLA, June 5, 2017

'Science and Revolution, Why Knowing What's True Has Everything to Do with Getting Beyond This World of Horrors:
A Presentation and Exchange on the New Communism Developed by Bob Avakian'

June 14, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Video of Event

Report of Event

This was received from The BA Institute.

The Bob Avakian Institute sponsored a timely engagement on the epistemological heart of Bob Avakian’s new synthesis of communism on June 5 at UCLA titled: “Science and Revolution, Why Knowing What’s True Has Everything to Do with Getting Beyond This World of Horrors: A Presentation and Exchange on the New Communism Developed by Bob Avakian.” The other co-sponsors were The Ralph J. Bunche Center of African American Studies, The American Indian Studies Center, The Academic Advancement Program, and Prof. Reynaldo Macías of Chicana/o Studies. 

The event included a presentation from Andy Zee, spokesperson for Revolution Books, NY on behalf of The BA Institute, with responses from Andrew Apter, Professor of Anthropology and History and Juan Gómez-Quiñones, Professor of History, both from UCLA. This was followed by discussion among the participants and some questions from the audience.

The organizing of the event and its thematic came together through discussion with a number of the participants and co-sponsors about the work and mission of The Bob Avakian Institute. There was a strong sentiment that we had to speak to the dangers of the moment we’re facing with the Trump/Pence regime while focusing on and engaging the new synthesis of communism developed by Bob Avakian. Our prepatory discussions focused on whether science—which all agreed was under attack in dangerous ways—could and should be applied consistently to human society and the struggle for human emancipation, the breakthrough which is at the heart of Avakian’s work. 

The event itself held a sharp, deep and lively exchange taking off from these questions, and The Bob Avakian Institute will be posting video soon. About 50 people were in attendance including a number of Directors of several UCLA Centers, faculty, both graduate and undergraduate students as well as anti-fascist activists and members of the LA Revolution Club. After the event, a UCLA professor commented that this was a rare coming together of serious significant university centers to sponsor an exchange on revolutionary communist theory connected to the current political moment. 

The three participants came together with a lot of unity and heart for the conditions of the oppressed around the world, and real concern about the dangers for humanity represented by the Trump/Pence regime. At the same time there were sharp differences about whether, on the one hand, a scientific approach is biased, too limiting or even dangerous and thus not desirable, or on the other hand, as concentrated in the breakthrough of the new synthesis of communism developed by Bob Avakian, science is essential as the most consistent, systematic, and liberatory means to understand the source of all the forms of oppression and exploitation, and on that basis, to ground and carry forward the vision and road to the revolutionary transformation of society towards human emancipation.

Andy Zee talked about the world historic importance of Avakian’s work, and the role that Avakian is playing today as the architect of a new stage of communist revolution and leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. His talk led people to confront the extreme dangers bound up with the fascism of the Trump/Pence regime and the roots of this fascist program and ideology in America, with a focus on the unleashing and cohering of their fascist social base with the narrative of “Make America Great Again," based on lies, “alternative facts,” and a false narrative of an aggrieved white male America kept down by elites, immigrants, Muslims, people of color and women. He then went into the myths of the narrative mythology of America that the Democrats tell and its variants in the progressive social movements. While acknowledging the sharply posed moral and political differences between those who advocate and enforce oppression and those who oppose it, he dug more deeply into the anti-scientific relativism and instrumentalism that underlie the method and approach that these polar opposites share. He contrasted this to what’s needed: the scientific heart of the new synthesis of communism, speaking to what science is and, in a living way, why any approach less or opposed to this, will not lead to the emancipation of all humanity. He ended his talk by going back to BAsics 4:10 which helped frame the event as a whole. 

Professor Juan Gómez-Quiñones began by going back to Karl Marx, contrasting Marx’s approach to the pessimism of other thinkers of the 19th century, including Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and others. He upheld Marx’s economic and political analysis in several concrete ways and how this laid the basis for people to see the potential for how a better world was possible. He upheld the universality of this theory in pointing to how we are all sisters and brothers under the skin. But he also raised a number of criticisms of what he argued was a Eurocentrism from Marx, including a wrong approach to the cultures of the oppressed around the world. Later, in the discussion, Professor Juan Gómez-Quiñones talked about the uniqueness and importance of the work Avakian is doing. He made the point that we need living analysis that could bring us out of this situation the world is in. In the context of what was a brief Q&A and discussion, Professor Juan Gómez-Quiñones did not go into an assessment of BA’s new synthesis, but highlighted that there are not others who are doing work like BA, and that the work needs to be engaged on that basis.

Professor Andrew Apter began his comments with a personal appreciation for Avakian’s foundational political experience in the struggle of Black people, and told a personal anecdote about going to the same middle school in Berkeley. He argued that Marx is incredibly relevant to understanding the situation in the world today. While Prof. Apter agreed on the need for philosophy to be rooted in reality, he raised a number of concerns and differences in particular over whether science could be applied to human society in the way science can be applied to nature. He also criticized what he felt were confining, and even repressive, dangers in applying a scientific approach to human society. He argued, in contrast to the scientific method that Avakian is arguing for, which Prof. Apter critiqued as “scientism,” that critical theory provides the best framework we have today for understanding the world. 

All this was joined and struggled over in the discussion.

Annie Day, the Director of The BA Institute, spoke briefly about the Institute, the importance of its mission and ways people can contribute—by becoming a Friend of the Institute, assigning BA’s work in their classes, and being a part of future events and salons.

The discussion and Q&A got into a number of different topics ranging from the significance of the breakthroughs that Marx made and how; whether Avakian has taken those further; how to understand the role BA is playing in the world today; the need for an actual revolution and what is required for that; struggle over the approach one should take evaluating the first stage of communist revolution; struggle over what science is and isn’t; questions concentrated in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, including what it will take to emancipate oppressed nationalities within the U.S., how that’s handled in that Constitution; and, underlying these differences was the philosophical, methodological difference between materialism vs. idealism.

What energized the participants, the sponsors, and the audience was how through this discussion, including the at times sharp struggle about the basis, goals and methods for change, there was shared deep unity about the horrors facing humanity and the need for people to act. In addition, there was a collective sense—coming from different and even divergent perspectives—that Avakian is making important contributions that all need to learn from and whose work needs to be known and engaged throughout society.

As this was just a beginning to the kind of discussion Avakian’s work can open up, The BA Institute looks forward to further discussions and exchanges throughout the summer, and will be aiming to set up more panels and presentations in the fall.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/498/michael-slate-interviews-sam-menefee-libey-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Michael Slate Interviews Sam Menefee-Libey on Fascist Persecution of Inauguration Day Protesters

"The appropriate response to crisis is for people to stand up and mobilize and take action..."

July 5, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

The following is from an interview with Sam Menefee-Libey from the Dead City Legal Posse, on June 16, 2017, on The Michael Slate Show on KPFK Pacifica radio. Revolution/revcom.us features interviews from The Michael Slate Show to acquaint our readers with the views of significant figures in art, theatre, music and literature, science, sports and politics. The views expressed by those interviewed are, of course, their own; and they are not responsible for the views published elsewhere by Revolution/revcom.us.

Michael Slate: Joining us now to talk about what happened in Washington, DC during the demonstrations against the fascist Trump on his January 20 inauguration and the continuing assault against more than 200 demonstrators who were arrested that day and are currently being prosecuted on major charges. Sam Menefee-Libey, welcome to the show!

Sam Menefee-Libey: Thanks very much for having me!

Michael Slate: For those who don’t know, can you describe what was going on in DC on the day of Trump’s inauguration and the J20 Defendants?

Sam Menefee-Libey: Sure. I’m a member of the DC Legal Posse, which is a group that became a collective after the mass arrests on January 20. On January 20, Trump’s Inauguration Day, there was an organization called Disrupt J20 that pulled together folks who engaged in all forms of direct action. People from across the country and across the world did things like blockading checkpoints onto the Mall, for folks who would become spectators for Trump. So, if you go and see aerial photos of the Mall that day, you’ll see that the north half of the Mall is notably emptier than the south half, and I think it’s from a direct action undertaken by folks that day. There were parades of resistance, there were festivals, there were fairs, there were speak-outs, there were concerts, there was also an anti-capitalist, anti-fascist march. That anti-capitalist, anti-fascist march was met with hundreds of cops in full riot gear who indiscriminately deployed pepper spray and what are called stinger grenades, which are like concussion grenades with rubber cluster munitions in them. And they wound up kettling over 230 people. Over 200 of those people are still facing charges. They mass-charged all 230 with felony riot, and subsequently in a superseding indictment at the end of April added eight more felony counts including conspiracy to riot, destruction of property, assaulting a police officer. It’s been really crazy.

Michael Slate: Now tell me this, Sam, when you say that they kettled people, what does that mean?

Sam Menefee-Libey: Kettling is a technique that has been banned by the European High Court of Human Rights, amongst other things, where basically riot cops surround and compress and don’t allow people to escape. Oftentimes it means that they are creating a line with shields that you can’t break through, and then deploying, with so-called less-than-lethal munitions, into the kettle to basically try to do mass arrests. And that is brutal brutality.

Michael Slate: Now in this case what you’re talking about is they penned people up in this kettle maneuver, and then basically went in, did their beating, pepper sprayed them, and attacked them in other ways. Now, when they captured people in this kettle, there were a number of people who were simply marching in the demonstration as well as others who were simply crossing the street and, as I understand, there were also a number of journalists captured in the kettle. People were just rounded up, and many of them were also clubbed and gassed. When I read about it I was reminded of the kinds of assaults the apartheid South African police used to bring down on South African township demonstrators.

Sam Menefee-Libey: Exactly. There are dozens of videos online of police brutality both in and outside the kettle on Inauguration Day. You can go to our website, you can go to DClegalposse.org, there are numerous videos. Yeah, there were over 230 people kettled by the Metropolitan Police Department, which is the police department in DC. People were subjected to all sorts of so-called less lethal munitions, and then held for often, I mean, over nine hours without access to bathrooms, food or water, before being processed. And actually the MPD didn’t have the capacity to deal with over 230 arrestees, so they shuttled them all over the city, and most of those arrested didn’t have very much to eat, if anything. They didn’t provide any options for the vegans in the group, and no one had any opportunity to wash off any of the pepper spray, so everyone kept reactivating pepper spray all night and all through the next day.

People were held in jail overnight before being arraigned for felony riot the next day. They sat there all day. They were kettled a little after 11 am, and the cops continued to be brutal to people both in and outside the kettle. A little after 1 pm, the MPD started indiscriminately throwing stun grenades and pepper spraying the crowd outside the kettle, and that lasted for hours. So people were actually terrified since there were explosions going on around them and massive amounts of pepper spray and screaming and they saw children getting hit with pepper spray, and people being indiscriminately attacked. Folks were terrified, they didn’t know what was happening and no one would tell them. They were just trapped there for hours and hours and hours.

Michael Slate: You’ve already mentioned this, but I want to get into it a little bit more, the charges that people are facing. You had these hundreds of people who were marching in a demonstration and they’re not facing individual charges, where the cops would charge people with what they claimed people did. But this was a group arrest and they are all faced with group charges and group punishment.

Sam Menefee-Libey: Right. Listeners can go online and find the superseding indictment that was released on April 27 and they can read through it. There are a couple of people here and there who are alleged to have committed specific acts, but most people are being charged en masse. Even the five counts of destruction of property are being charged against everyone, as if everyone was responsible for each effort, each act. And it’s really wild; the lack of particular suspicion here has lawyers across the country both baffled and up in arms.

Michael Slate: How many years in jail are people facing?

Sam Menefee-Libey: We’ve got different numbers from different people, but they average about 75 years, if they’re convicted on all counts and sentenced to the maximum.

Michael Slate: Seventy-five years in jail!

Sam Menefee-Libey: For showing up to a protest.

Michael Slate: This is extremely significant and it opens the door for this Orwellian-quality legal oppression. You know, the idea that people are guilty by virtue of being at a demonstration, not of anything that happened at that time or in the immediate vicinity.

Sam Menefee-Libey: Yeah, it stretched the capacity of the DC Superior Court, where the cases are actually being tried. They don’t know how to handle this many people. It’s been almost comical if it weren’t so scary and sad, to see the judge trying to deal with dozens of defendants in a single-status hearing, and to wonder how they are going to have the capacity to bring all these folks to trial. And they upped the charges afterward, and this seems a clear-cut case of punitive charging where they’re just trying to get people to plead out. They don’t have the capacity to actually grant people’s right to trial and respect people’s right to due process. So they’re just trying to stack on charges until people buckle under the pressure or the terror of the possibility of spending the rest of their lives in prison, and plead to some lesser charge.

Michael Slate: So basically these charges are piled or applied to each defendant indiscriminately, no matter what they can prove that individual did or did not do.

Sam Menefee-Libey: Exactly. So as you mentioned earlier, of the initial 230 arrests there were legal observers, journalists, lawyers, medics and a number of people had their charges dropped. But several medics and several journalists are still facing charges, the same charges as everyone else. And their charges are just as bogus as everyone else’s charges.

Michael Slate: This really is a fascist assault on democratic rights. In this case they are using existing laws to carry out this kind of oppression. You’ve spoken about this in relation to the trashing of the First Amendment. Let’s talk about that.

Sam Menefee-Libey: This is a weird case, but I guess it’s not weird, right? It’s totally typical. It’s the same sort of situation and experience that millions of people in the United States face in their confrontations with the so-called criminal justice system—especially people of color and especially people on the left. Here we have an instance where an assistant U.S. attorney, Jennifer Kerkhoff, who’s an Obama appointee, who is explicitly trying to overturn a standing case precedent that says that riot statutes can’t be applied to First Amendment activity and is blatantly trying to set a new precedent that allows all of these standing laws to be applied to protesters and resisters and dissenters and those who are trying to create a better world.

Michael Slate: There’s something else you brought out, in terms of all the people that have been arrested. We’re talking about the Nazification that’s going on across the entire country. Many people who have been arrested in demonstrations are careful not to bring names and addresses to the demonstration because it is possible if you get arrested, the cops will take down the names you might have on you and start adding them to the “keep an eye on” list. And in this case they took people’s cell phones and examined them for content, is that right?

Sam Menefee-Libey: They did. Yeah. Everyone who had a cell phone at the time, it was confiscated and it was held as evidence. No one has gotten their cell phones back. Most of the cell phones were encrypted and there was reporting done by Mashable, I believe, that said that an Israeli security company, Cellibrite, has been hired to hack into these encrypted cell phones. They also raided another activist’s house on April 3 and took every piece of electronics in the house that belonged to him and anyone else in the house, including the speakers he had attached to his computer. They’re clearly trying to data mine as much as they can. And there have also been multiple subpoenas for people’s online social media accounts and their online profiles. They really are trying to go in and track down every piece of public and private information they possibly can about people and weave it together into some sort of argument that will allow them to apply these laws and send people off to prison [essentially] for life for protesting.

Michael Slate: Now the other thing here is, you also talk about doxxing happening to some people. Tell people what it is and what it means when it’s happening.

Sam Menefee-Libey: Yeah, doxxing, d-o-x-x-i-n-g, sometimes with just one x, is a process where folks have personal and sensitive information put out online, oftentimes for the purpose of them being bombarded by harassment or sometimes even the threat of physical violence. There have been a series of doxxing incidents in this case. The first major one was actually a PDF with the charging documents for all 230 arrestees, with their full names and addresses, that was posted online, on, I believe, [right-wing troll] Chuck Johnson’s website. And metadata later suggested that that PDF came from an officer of the MPD. So we’ve seen both doxxing by online trolls hacking into people’s accounts but also doxxing by members of the police.

Michael Slate: Right now, what would you say is imperative for people to understand and for people to do?

Sam Menefee-Libey: That’s a great question. I think that it’s really important right now that folks start paying attention to these cases that are just criminally under-covered. There’s been some great reporting from Patrick Strickland at Al Jazeera, there was a great piece in The Baffler by Maximillian Alvarez, and if you go to our website at DClegalposse.org and there’s a website defendthej20resistance.org that has all the news clips and that has been updated consistently so folks can get a good handle on what’s going on. And as you mentioned earlier, Al Jazeera did a live video with time sync that gives an overview of the case to date that folks should be able to find online, through time sync’s Facebook page, through their website, through DClegalposse’s website or just by Googling my name Sam Menefee-Libey. So people gotta start paying attention. We’ve raised tens of thousands of dollars so far, but for over 200 defendants that’s just a drop in the bucket. We’ve gotta raise more money. You can donate at DClegalposse.org, or there are places you can donate to regional groups of defendants on Defendj20resistance.org, We’re also going to be pursuing the DC Council after the Office of Police Complaints issued a report condemning police brutality on Inauguration Day and suggesting an independent investigation. We testified to the DC Council and the DC Council has allotted $150,000 for an independent investigation into the Metropolitan Police Department’s actions on Inauguration Day. So people should pay attention to that and should call the DC Council and ask about that and pressure the council to start the investigation immediately. They can also get more information about that on our website.

Michael Slate: I just want to get this out to people—Crimethinc, tell them how to spell it. There is a video which people should see,  Fighting State Repression: An Overview of the J20 Prosecution.

Sam Menefee-Libey: Yeah, crimethinc is c-r-i-m-e-t-h-i-n-c, and you can find it on Facebook or at crimethinc.com.

Michael Slate: Now I want you to step back for a minute, Sam, and just look at this in relation to the day before January 20. What is it that made you and made others that you work with feel compelled to be out in the streets like that? And that continues to make you feel that you have to, beyond the camaraderie and the need to step in and support each other, what continues to make you feel that this is the most important thing that people can be doing, in terms of what you did—the demonstrating at the inauguration, and the seating of the fascist ruler. What is it that you think is so important about that and what can you say to people in terms of what they need to do?

Sam Menefee-Libey: You know, I think we’ve seen mobilization all across the country, millions and millions of people, many of whom have never shown up before precisely because things are horrifying right now. We have a looming climate catastrophe, we have a situation where eight men control as much wealth as the bottom half of the entire world’s population, we have a carceral state that houses and continues to engage in repression of millions of people, especially people of color, all across the country. We have money that can totally wreck the political process, we have under-funded political parties, we have an entire situation where we are in crisis, and the appropriate response to crisis is for people to stand up and mobilize and take action and demand that they have control over their lives.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/498/michael-slate-interviews-historian-peter-fritzsche-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Michael Slate Interviews Historian Peter Fritzsche

How ordinary Germans became supporters of Hitler and the Nazis, and complicit in unspeakable horror

July 3, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

The following is from an interview with Peter Fritzsche on April 21, 2017, on The Michael Slate Show on KPFK Pacifica radio. Revolution/revcom.us features interviews from The Michael Slate show to acquaint our readers with the views of significant figures in art, theater, music and literature, science, sports and politics. The views expressed by those interviewed are, of course, their own; and they are not responsible for the views published elsewhere by Revolution/revcom.us.

Michael Slate: Historian Peter Fritzsche is the author of Life and Death in the Third Reich and An Iron Wind: Europe Under Hitler and one that really knocked me out, Germans into Nazis. And we’re talking about how ordinary Germans became supporters of Hitler and the Nazis, and complicit in unspeakable horrors. Peter, welcome to the show.

Peter Fritzsche: Glad to be here Michael. Thanks.

Michael Slate: Let’s jump right into it. Let’s talk about how Germany became a fascist country, ruled by a brutal dictator for more than 10 years.

Peter Fritzsche: There are two extraordinary events that happened in the early 1930s. One is the huge rise of the votes for Hitler, between 1930 and 1933. He topped out at 37 percent, and in the parliamentary system, coming from nowhere, that’s a huge number. And that gave him a kind of democratic legitimacy. Moreover, he had a press empire. He had thousands of supporters. He had paramilitary troops, so he had real political power that was visible to almost all Germans by 1932, 1933, but he didn’t have everybody. There were millions of socialists, millions of communists, millions of Catholic voters who were not necessarily for Hitler. But within 100 days of the last election in Germany in March 1933, he had completely dismantled democracy, prohibited all political parties and was riding a wave of popular enthusiasm that historians today are still trying to understand....

Michael Slate: This is one of the things I think we really have to dig into because you can see it happening now. It actually has a lot of potential for repetition, here. The whole point of this popular myth around how Nazi rule in Germany was imposed. You’ve argued in your books that there actually was a reason why Germans became Nazis.

Peter Fritzsche: There is a factor of imposition. They did imprison tens of thousands of socialists and communists in 1933. But this was a popular movement and Nazism was popular because it was different. It wasn’t a “big business” party. It was not associated with middle class interest groups and it was not associated in the minds of its voters with socialism, communism, and internationalism. It was a third way that combined, in the minds of Nazi voters, social progressive policies that would invite workers back into the nation, but would also think, “Germany First,” that Germany had been humiliated, [by] the Treaty of Versailles. It needed to gather all its national energies in order to act on the international stage and recover economically. So, the name of the Nazi party is NSDAP. That means “National Socialist German Workers’ Party.” That acronym is basically the explanation for why the Nazis were able to profile themselves as a new and different force, especially in economically bad times when people were rejecting what they called “the system,” in droves.

Michael Slate: One of the things that really troubled me is when I’m reading this and I’m studying this stuff and reading your books, I keep thinking, in addition to the people who were really jumping into the Nazis and loving the Nazis, they liked the new society but they didn’t like the Nazis. They sort of managed to find some kind of common ground where they became involved in everything that the Nazis were doing on the ground in the country at the time. This actually means that they accepted a lot of the stuff that was the buildup to and pretty quickly, the horrendous stuff, the unspeakable stuff that was done by the Nazis.

Peter Fritzsche: Yeah, it’s a great question and I make a distinction between Nazis and the Third Reich. And you could love the Third Reich, you could support the national revolution of 1933, but not necessarily love the Nazis down the block. And in a dictatorship it’s much easier for corrupt, nepotistic local leaders to be quite powerful. And there’s no doubt that lots of Germans mistrusted the local Brown Shirts in the neighborhood. But the big revolution, “The National Revolution” as it was called, and the larger project of building a Third Reich, of healing the divisions of German history, of creating a sort of ethnic consciousness that would make Germany strong again both inside and outside its borders—that was indeed widely accepted and won increasing assent. Indeed in 1945, many, many Germans blamed the Nazis for betraying and destroying the Third Reich.

Michael Slate: At the same time as you’re talking about all this, there was sort of this point about people themselves turning a blind eye at best and sometimes actually justifying a lot of horrendous things that the Nazis ended up doing. There were all the people that they took out along the way, but then there were also the Jewish people. Reading your books I sort of got a sense of, OK, but people turned a blind eye to this and then sometimes even sort of welcomed this as necessary.

Peter Fritzsche: Something happened in 1918, when Germany lost the war. [Millions of Germans were convinced that this defeat happened because] it was betrayed from within. And the only way you’re going to get your affluent, peaceable, ethnic community is to slay the enemies that betrayed you in 1918. Who exactly those enemies were, people differed [on]. They could be communists. It could be the Jews. It could be someone else. But they understood that there had to be eradication, cleansing, violence in order to reach the desired community imagined in the golden ages of the past, but also then projected onto the future. So, there was a willingness to accept ruthlessness and a willingness to say, “Well, we can’t have Judeo-Christian morality. We have to think as Germans and determine our actions on the basis on what helps Germany.”

Never before in modern history have people so identified their individuals with the body of the nation. And thinking like that means, if you think in terms of betrayal, if you think in terms of a Germany that somehow was lost could be regained, then you have to move against the betrayers. You have to move against the treasonists. That was the communists and that was the Jews. So, there was a lot of complicity, people were complicit in accepting Nazi violence. I don’t think the Germans would have voted for the Holocaust, but they accepted the exclusion of people who had previously been considered German citizens, because they had an ethnic based idea of the German future.

And this proceeded extraordinarily quickly. Within weeks of when the Nazis won their last election people became experts on the “Jewish Question.” How many percent of Jews should be lawyers, should be doctors. Had Jews proven themselves in WW 1? However you framed the question, the Jews were different. And that was the first step: the violent exclusion of people who are otherwise your neighbors, simply by saying, “Heil Hitler” instead of “good day.” You changed every day interactions. And so the exclusion of Jews from German life, called the “cold pogrom,” happened as much from below as it did from regime proclamations. It wasn’t necessarily, at first, a brutal violence, but it was the exclusion of your Jewish neighbors from the newly defined German community. And people wanted the Third Reich and [were] therefore willing to accept, even if they did think that there were what they called “excesses,” were willing to accept them, because they thought in ethnic terms and the Jews were on the other side.

Michael Slate: In your book Life and Death in the Third Reich, you talk about a lot of towns, a lot of cities where Jews would disappear and or people would see them getting on the trains or being trucked out, and then they would rush to get their belongings, or buy their belongings at a local flea market or take over their apartments, which is a level of complicity that is sort of astounding.

Peter Fritzsche: It’s extraordinary. Now, of course most people weren’t involved in that, but a lot of people were. The fact that Jews were being deported in the fall of 1941, and again in the spring and summer of 1942, was known. Then, often visibly, the Jews were brought to the train stations via buses or marches or on the streetcars. The apartments were then emptied and auctions were held. And auctions were advertised in the newspapers. And then people, you can read this in the diaries, had to make decisions whether they were going to buy Jewish linen and sleep in them or whether they weren’t.

Michael Slate: There are some chilling comparisons with the current Trump/Pence regime in the U.S., and anybody who’s listening to this show had to have thought that well before I just said that. There’s a lot of chilling comparisons with regard to immigrants and oppressed nationalities and deportations, arrests, demonization, police terror, etc. Let’s talk about that.

Peter Fritzsche: I ask my students when I teach my Holocaust class, “Why were people not outraged back then?” What outrage is happening to us today, that our grandchildren will say, “Why weren’t you outraged?” And I have two answers. Specifically, one is our huge prison population, which is four times more than our percentage of people in the world, and the willingness to see illegal immigrants and their families being torn apart. This isn’t yet a mass movement but it is happening here in Illinois. They took the guy who owned the Fiesta Café from a downstate restaurant and held him there for six weeks till there was so much outcry. But this is happening. Go to El Paso. Go to Nogales. Go to the border towns. People are scared. People are being taken because they’re presumed to be illegal and “illegal” under the new administration means also probably more criminal. And that means you’re assigning evil features to a collective group. This is very dangerous.

More dangerous is the idea that somehow we lost America; that America somewhere in the past was great, but it hasn’t been, but it could be again. That means your enemies are small in number but sinister and you have to get rid of them; if only we had not done these, and these, and these things. That creates internal enemies. That kind of thinking is extremely dangerous, that there was a wholesome America and now we’re going to get it back. And we’re going to get it back by eliminating, or getting rid of, or somehow undoing the harm between then and now.

And does that mean getting rid of civil rights? Does that mean getting rid of simple empathy when we talk about 11-year-old children, or 15-year-old children, or 17-year-old children who were, perhaps, not born in this country but belong in it? It’s a whole question of how we define “belong.”

That’s what’s happening.

Michael Slate: Yeah.

Peter Fritzsche: And if you change the definition of “belonging,” you’re policing that new border.

Michael Slate: Wow! Yes. Absolutely! Peter, one more question. When I first approached you about coming onto the show, I wrote to you and told you what I wanted to talk about in this first edition, because you are going to be back in about two weeks, I think. And you wrote back to me: “Remember this; no one could save Jews in 1942 in front of the gates of Auschwitz. You could only save those who would later and at that point unknowingly be murdered if you accepted refugees in 1938. That is, poor, non-English-speaking, possibly communist refugees, and that of course, was not done.” Let’s talk about that.

Peter Fritzsche: It was not done and you can look at the acts of Congress. So, we all would vote. We would all say: “No, no, don’t gas people in Auschwitz!” Of course. You’re not saving people from the gates of Auschwitz. You’re saving homeless, persecuted, lonely, scared people in 1938, with all of their foibles. They’re called refugees, and they could be us.

I was in Syria 10 years ago. I never imagined, could never imagine this. And now, so many millions of the people in that country, perhaps people I met, have no home, and no future.

Michael Slate: Alright, Peter. I want to thank you very much for joining us today.

Peter Fritzsche: Well, thank you Michael.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/498/what-everybody-knows-about-north-korea-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Michael Slate Interviews History Professor Bruce Cumings

What "Everybody Knows" about North Korea—and the Real History of U.S. Aggression

July 2, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

On Friday, June 30, after meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Donald Trump once again threatened North Korea with military aggression: “The era of strategic patience with the North Korean regime has failed and frankly, that patience is over.”

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) is an oppressive regime—not a revolutionary socialist state—a reactionary force in the world. For months now, the fascist Trump/Pence regime has threatened it, saying “all options” are on the table if Kim Jong-un does not end the country’s nuclear weapons program. Trump says he wants North Korea to be “dealt with rapidly” and his National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster says that every option being prepared involves a U.S. military attack. So now there is a real danger of a U.S. military attack, possibly including nuclear weapons, which could lead to the deaths of millions in the region.

The following is from a June 9, 2017 interview with author and professor Bruce Cumings on The Michael Slate Show on KPFK Pacifica radio. The U.S. rulers and media paint North Korea as the aggressor. But as Bruce Cumings reveals, there is a long history of U.S. war, threats and intervention against North Korea.

Revolution/revcom.us features interviews from The Michael Slate Show to acquaint our readers with the views of significant figures in art, theater, music and literature, science, sports, and politics. The views expressed by those interviewed are, of course, their own; and they are not responsible for the views published elsewhere by Revolution/revcom.us.

Michael Slate: In your book, Inventing the Axis of Evil, the truth about North Korea, Iran, and Syria, you make a point I thought was important for people to understand, which is that the United States terrorized North Korea with nuclear weapons during and after the Korean War, and was the only power to introduce nuclear weapons to Korean soil. So there’s a lot that’s just unknown by people even as the U.S. puts out all this stuff about how the North Koreans are crazy and they’re playing with nukes.

Bruce Cumings: It’s a little bit like the invasion of Iraq in 2003, where most people, including a lot of liberals, accepted the fact that Saddam Hussein was a vicious dictator who had WMDs, and there was no real background given; for example, our support of Saddam Hussein in the 1980s in the war with Iran.

Then we have a war, and the war goes very badly. It’s still a complete catastrophe. And all this history comes out. And if we were to go to war with North Korea, which has seemed closer under the Trump administration than it has been in some time, all of this would come out about the U.S. running an operation called Hudson Harbor in 1951, where B29s dropped dummy atomic bombs on North Korea to see whether they might be useful against troop concentrations and cities. President Eisenhower, toward the end of the war in May 1953, tested one of the largest atomic bombs ever tested, and also shot the first atomic cannon. And this was all put on the front pages of newspapers, and was intended to bring an end to the war and intimidate North Korea and China. And then as you said, in 1958, we installed hundreds of nuclear weapons, battlefield tactical weapons and short-range warheads on missiles, into South Korea. So we’re the first ones to introduce nuclear weapons on the Korean peninsula, and kept them there until 1991, when they were withdrawn on a world scale because the Pentagon felt that precision-guided high explosives, but non-nuclear weapons, would cause fewer problems. You wouldn’t have radiation and collateral damage [as you would] from nuclear weapons. So we drew them back.

We drew them back. But you can leave it to Donald Trump to tell you what the North Koreans still face, which is, for example, a Trident submarine, sometimes called Armageddon in one sausage tube. He mentioned that two of our nuclear submarines were off of North Korea last week. This is of course classified information. He’s not supposed to say that. He doesn’t know that. But the fact is that one of our nuclear submarines, or all of them, could run right up to the North Korean coast and obliterate North Korea in a matter of hours.

Colin Powell back in 1995, which should give your listeners an idea of how long this problem has been going on—it’s really 25 years we’ve been dealing with the North Korean nuclear problem—Colin Powell said if they ever used a nuclear weapon in anger, the U.S. would turn North Korea into a charcoal briquette.

I just want to say one more thing about that. If you imagine North Korea as the Green Team against the Blue Team, rather than the Evil Kim Jong-un with his crazy haircut against the always-perfect United States, you can see what they’re up against. It’s a small country, and the largest power in the world is constantly threatening it with nuclear annihilation. President Obama did this too. He routinely sent nuclear-capable B1 and B2 bombers over South Korea for exercises. So it’s a very dangerous situation, and I think it’s incumbent on Americans to put themselves in the shoes of the North Koreans and look at the world that they face, quite apart from all of our media stereotypes about how crazy they are, and how dangerous they are.

Michael Slate: When you want to talk about crazy and dangerous, you say that North Korea would not have had nukes if the U.S. had actually kept its word in the past.

Bruce Cumings: People who follow the situation closely, and high officials in the Clinton administration like Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Wendy Sherman, her very close aide on North Korea, have written about this—Bill Clinton nearly struck North Korea with a preemptive attack against their nuclear facility in June 1994. It was only later that people realized, or came to understand, how close we were to a war with North Korea at that time. But Jimmy Carter intervened when he heard about all of this. He flew to Pyongyang and talked directly with Kim Il-sung and got a freeze on all of North Korea’s plutonium.

It’s very important to underline that that freeze was completely monitored and checked for eight years, 24/7. You had UN inspectors on the ground, closed-circuit cameras watching it at all times. The reactors were sealed. And of course we know with our intelligence when a reactor starts up. So there’s no question. The North Koreans didn’t have an ounce of plutonium from 1994 to 2002. However, George W. Bush had already put North Korea in his Axis of Evil in 2002. Then in September he announced his preemptive doctrine, for which the euphemism was “anticipatory self defense.” And North Korea, along with Iran and especially Iraq, were listed as the countries for which this policy was developed. He then went ahead, of course, to invade Iraq in March of 2003, which was really a preventive war rather than anticipatory self-defense. We don’t need to get into this, but Saddam Hussein was actually writing a novel at the time and trying to do everything he could not to provoke the U.S.

After that happened, North Korea just said as openly and loudly as it could, Saddam Hussein didn’t have nuclear weapons. If he had had them, he wouldn’t have been overthrown. That’s not going to happen to us. They got back their plutonium, kicked out the inspectors, and systematically began building atomic weapons, and tested the first one just three years later, in 2006.

I don’t think it’s a partisan judgment, but a factual statement to say that George W. Bush had two enormous catastrophes on his hands. One is the invasion of Iraq, which basically wrecked the Middle East since 2003. And second, he is the primary person responsible for North Korea getting nuclear weapons. And I think many experts believe that. Madeleine Albright has written about that. But it doesn’t get out in the media at all, in part because so many of our people want to say, well, that’s six of one, half a dozen of the other. We’re not to sound partisan.

Michael Slate: One of the things you talk about is that most recently, the use of agreements, etc., have been kicked to the curb, that there’s an assumption that no one has been able to rein in the nuts in North Korea and their nuke program, and it’s time to fight or topple. Let’s talk about that.

Bruce Cumings: People routinely say that North Korea has always cheated and never has kept to its agreements. And I don’t know where they’re coming from because it’s simply not true. In addition to the plutonium agreement, the freeze and the missile deal, North Korea in 2000 also opened relations with many of our allies. So they have diplomatic relations with Canada and Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy. We’re one of the last countries not to have relations with North Korea, still trying to isolate it. But the fact is, North Korea was really reaching out, and then they faced the wall of hostility from Bush.

It is true, that if we continue to intimidate North Korea with nuclear weapons, and bring them into the theater by submarines and air power, anybody in North Korea would get a deterrent. In that sense, the critics of North Korea are right that North Korea, when it felt intimidated over many, many years, eventually developed nuclear weapons. It might have happened anyway. But the fact is we did have agreements with them that kept them from moving to nuclear weapons.

Finally, I would say in response to your question, that the discourse about North Korea under Trump has just been absurd, in that Trump, as I said, talked about our nuclear submarines off the coast. He has threatened North Korea. He’s also said he’d like to talk to Kim Jung-un over a hamburger. That might be the better way to go. But he’s so erratic, and the one thing the North Koreans notice is the submarines, the two aircraft carrier task forces that are in Northeast Asian waters right now. What Trump has done privately or secretly, or what the Pentagon has done, is just jam a bunch of hardware up against North Korea.

Meanwhile, our press, and that includes not just Fox News, but CNN and MSNBC, are constantly running scare stories about North Korea. I saw on CNN that Ana Navarro, one of their frequent commentators, even referred to Kim by his first name, saying, “Little boy Un is a maniac.” She probably thought that was his last name. But that’s the level of discourse that we’ve had about North Korea under Trump.

Michael Slate: You’ve also made a point, and I think this is really important, that there’s a whole different perception of the problem, the source of danger, in relation to nukes in Korea. There’s an epistemology that is always bad no matter when it’s used, which is based on “everybody knows.” And that is a very dangerous thing in relation to this. In reality there’s a long history, as you’ve been saying, of nuclear threats against North Korea itself. In fact, the U.S. has recently installed the THAAD missile defense system in South Korea. Let’s talk about those two things.

Bruce Cumings: Well, that was one of the more cynical ploys on the part of the United States in recent years. This Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system was jammed into South Korea while the current president, at the time President Park Geun-hye was being impeached, and before the election that was held earlier this month, which brought a progressive to power.

The U.S. fears that Moon Jae-in, the new president, will be an engager of North Korea like his mentor, Roh Moo-hyun, who was president from 2002 to 2007. So they wanted to get that system in and installed before the new president came into office. And he just complained last week that four launchers were brought in without his permission, or without his office being notified about that. In other words, we are continuing to add to the system even after he’s president without telling him.

There’s just an outrageous situation in our relationship with South Korea. We never have problems with the ruling party that goes back to the dictators, but we always have problems with liberals and progressives who want to try a different approach toward North Korea. The only time that has not been true was when Bill Clinton and William Perry brought American policy around to engagement for two years, 1998-2000. That’s the only time we’ve had direct talks with the North Koreans that have really yielded so much.

But I would expect that President Trump is not going to like President Moon very well, and we’ll see a lot of tension in their relationship, just as there was between George W. Bush and Roh Moo-hyun in the early 2000s.

I want to say one more thing about the THAAD system. It’s really designed not to knock down North Korean missiles. North Korea has short- to medium-range missiles that it can launch by the dozens, and there’s no way this THAAD system can knock them down. It’s really there to monitor North Korean long-range missiles and Chinese missile tests and long-range missiles. The Chinese have complained mightily about this.

I think the THAAD system’s installation in South Korea was primarily political, in that it was trying to get it in there before a progressive president was elected, and to do what the U.S. has been trying to do for many, many years, which is to weld South Korea, Japan, and the U.S. together in an alignment, or an alliance, to contain China. It doesn’t really have much to do at all with the so-called North Korean threat. But it has a lot to do with pissing off China and making sure the system’s in there before a president comes to power who might not like it.

Michael Slate: Just how dangerous is this situation, both in terms of war and even the impact of war on human survival?

Bruce Cumings: I’m in touch with 30 or 40 people who work on North Korea, former government officials, scholars. Somehow North Korea’s become the big deal. We have 15 or 20 websites dealing with it now that we never had 10 or 15 years ago. But in the last couple of months, I’ve seen time and again, very well-informed experts worrying about the U.S. and North Korea coming to blows. It could come from an incident that ratchets up into a war, or it could come from a preemptive attack. There was a great deal of talk back in March and April about Trump people favoring a preemptive attack on North Korea, on its missiles. You can’t really attack their nuclear facilities preemptively without letting loose a whole lot of radiation around the region.

There was almost a consensus inside the Beltway in the fall and winter that if North Korea keeps moving toward an ability to hit the United States with a long-range missile and a nuclear weapon, well we just have to think about preempting that. And it’s very, very dangerous, because along the DMZ, there have been cycles of preemption and counter-preemption both happening and envisioned by the respective militaries, North Korea, South Korea and the U.S., going back decades, going back to the Korean War. So to add the threat of a preemptive attack on North Korea’s missiles is to just come close to bringing forth the general war in the region that we talked about.

Dr. Bruce Cumings is the Gustavus F. and Ann M. Swift Distinguished Service Professor in History at the University of Chicago, and author of many books, including The Korean War, and Inventing the Axis of Evil, the Truth about North Korea, Iran and Syria (contributor).

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/498/defiant-struggle-and-support-intensify-at-adelanto-immigrant-detention-center-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Defiant Struggle and Support Intensify at Adelanto Immigrant Detention Center

July 6, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

From a reader:

A new hunger strike was declared on July 4 by over 30 immigrants imprisoned at Adelanto Detention Center, California’s largest immigration prison. This is the fourth time in less than a month that immigrants held there have gone on hunger strikes against the inhumane conditions. On June 12, nine people (known as #Adelanto9) began a strike to demand political asylum—and one has since been deported. The remaining eight began a second hunger strike on June 22. And about 30 women prisoners held a day-long solidarity hunger strike on June 14.

On July 4, the immigrants support group Sureñxs En Acción issued a statement:

While previous hunger strike by the #Adelanto9 primarily involved Salvadoran asylum-seekers, the current strike has spread to detainees from various nationalities, including a contingent of detained Haitians. In a handwritten letter delivered to supporters, the hunger strikers argue that bonds set as high as $50,000 are impossible to pay for refugees who “have had to cross 3 and in some cases 9 different national borders” and who “have been the victims of theft by different criminal groups that stole the little money we were able to bring with us.” Hunger strikers assert that the policy of setting impossibly high bonds exists in order to “break our spirit so that we give up our rights to due process.”

The statement also said that in retaliation for the June 12 protest, the #Adelanto9 were “beaten, tortured, denied medical care, placed in segregation, and denied their right to private attorney-client communications.” This included blocking of the phone numbers of the detainees’ legal counsel and prominent journalists from the Spanish-language network Univision.

Besides lower bond and release from detention, including the granting of asylum applications, the hunger strikers are demanding better medical care and documents provided in English or access to translation tools. The hunger strikers are also demanding that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) release the video of the June 12 attack on the #Adelanto9 and hold a press conference where “both sides” can tell their story. The letter from the prisoners on July 5 announcing the initiation of the new strike included the important point that they “are aware of cases where our Haitian brothers were deported and when they arrived in their country, they were murdered.”

On June 30, the American Civil Liberties Union issued a letter demanding that ICE and GEO Group, the for-profit company that directly runs the prison, immediately “Put a stop to the ongoing mistreatment of the hunger strikers; Initiate disciplinary proceedings for staff responsible for the abuse; Meet with the detainees to address their mistreatment and discuss the grievances that led them to initiate the hunger strike.”

Religious groups and family members rallied in support outside the Adelanto Detention Center, and they’ve been confronted by fascist Trump supporters screaming vile threats while waving their Amerikkkan rag. This poses the new terms in the struggle for immigrant rights in the era of the fascist Trump/Pence regime, and this fight needs to be part of the larger struggle with the unified goal of driving them out—with the July 15 protests across the country a crucial juncture in this.

From RefuseFascism’s urgent call for mass defiant protests July 15:

Immigrants are full human beings, not “illegals” or criminals, to be demonized, terrorized, hunted down, locked up and thrown out. NO! We will not accept the cruel and brutal future of the Trump/Pence Regime ... they must GO!

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/498/colin-kaepernick-on-4th-of-july-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Colin Kaepernick on 4th of July: “How can we truly celebrate independence on a day that intentionally robbed our ancestors of theirs?”

July 6, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

From a reader:

Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers starting quarterback, sent out a tweet on July 4 saying, “How can we truly celebrate independence on a day that intentionally robbed our ancestors of theirs? To find my independence I went home.”

After that tweet he posted a statement and a video on Instagram that explained what he meant by going home:

“What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence?” - Frederick Douglass.

In a quest to find my personal independence, I had to find out where my ancestors came from. I set out tracing my African ancestral roots, and it lead me to Ghana. Upon finding out this information, I wanted to visit the sites responsible for myself (and many other Black folks in the African Diaspora) for being forced into the hells of the middle passage. I wanted to see a fraction of what they saw before reaching the point of no return…

Kaepernick refused to stand for the national anthem last NFL season after he announced that “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.” At that time, he made a visual statement about police murder and brutality when he wore socks with a pig wearing a police cap during one of the team’s practices. In response to Donald Trump’s campaign slogan, of “Make America great again,” Kaepernick said, “Well America has never been great for people of color and that’s something that needs to be addressed.”

Kaepernick led the 49ers to the Super Bowl in 2013. After last season, he opted out of his contract with the 49ers. But despite having an excellent season, he remains unsigned by any team at this time, which has prompted several players to say that Kap is being blackballed for his political views.

Kaepernick has made it clear that he wants to play again, but he has not backed off his principles in order to have a team sign him. On June 16, after the acquittal of the pig who murdered Philando Castile, he tweeted, “A system that perpetually condones the killing of people, without consequence, doesn't need to be revised, it needs to be dismantled!” With that tweet he posted a meme that had two badges—one of a “Runaway Slave Patrol” and one of a “Police Officer” with the words “You can’t ignore your history. Always remember who they are.”

For more, see revcom articles about Kaepernick here and here.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/new-website-lynching-in-america-confronting-legacy-of-racial-terror.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Check It Out

New Website: Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror

July 10, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), collaborating with Google, has developed an important website that went up in June: Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror.

“Lynching in America” begins: “After slavery was formally abolished, lynching emerged as a vicious tool of racial control to reestablish white supremacy and suppress black civil rights. More than 4,000 African Americans were lynched across twenty states between 1877 and 1950. These lynchings were public acts of racial terrorism, intended to instill fear in entire black communities. Government officials frequently turned a blind eye or condoned the mob violence.”

The interactive site has many different ways that people can learn about, visualize, hear and get an understanding of these horrific American crimes. There is a map showing where lynchings took place, audio interviews with descendants of lynching victims, photos of lynching sites, profiles of lynching victims, and high school lesson plans for teachers. The site also includes a map of the Great Migration, showing how fleeing this terror sparked the relocation of millions of African Americans.

The Equal Justice Initiative says its mission is to end mass incarceration, challenge racial and economic injustice, and protect basic human rights for the most vulnerable people. Its website, https://eji.org/, has a range of important and informative posts which challenge people to confront the history and significance of these lynchings AND the ongoing and systematic oppression of Black people in America.

“An elaborate and enduring mythology about the inferiority of black people was created to legitimate, perpetuate, and defend slavery in America,” EJI writes. “This mythology of racial difference survived slavery’s formal abolition, was violently reinforced in the era of racial terror lynching, and fueled vicious resistance to the civil rights movement. Today, it is evident in our criminal justice system, which is six times more likely to incarcerate African American men than white men. If current trends continue, one of every three black boys born in America today will be imprisoned.”

This informative website comes in the context of a whole series of incidents this year where nooses are being displayed in a celebration of the lynching of Black people and a threatening show of white supremacy. Just to name some instances, nooses have been found: hanging from a tree outside the Hirshhorn Museum on the National Mall; inside the National Museum of African American History and Culture; outside middle schools in Maryland and Florida; at a high school in Cameron, North Carolina; at a high school in North Raleigh, NC, around the neck of a black teddy bear with a hate message aimed at the Black principal; at a fraternity house at the University of Maryland; at American University—where bananas were hung from nooses on the day the first Black woman was to begin as president of the university’s Student Government Association; and just recently, on July 5, at the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia, where a white worker took one of the ropes used to seal bags of coins, turned it into a noose and dropped it near a Black worker.

“Lynching in America” and the Equal Justice Initiative make important contributions in helping people confront the actual history of this country. Check them out.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/498/review-jay-zs-4-44-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Jay Z's 4:44

Financial Counseling on How to Be a Modern-Day Slavemaster When What We Really Need Is to Get Free

July 6, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Setting aside the artistry and heart-baring, Jay Z’s new album, 4:44, amounts to a celebration of this system as it is. This is nothing that people who want to get free should celebrate.

Jay is right—in his song “The Story of O.J.”—that this system treats every Black person—whether they be light, dark, faux, house, field, rich or poor—as a “nigga.” But the answer he gives to this is cruel and ugly. One or two billionaires “the same hue as you” is not going to do shit for the masses of Black people living from check to check, dogged by the pigs every minute of every day, can't get work and treated by every unjust authority in this system like they ain’t shit. But even worse: the wealth Jay is telling you to grab for comes through cutthroat competition and from the blood, sweat and brutal exploitation of people living in slums and shantytowns in every corner of this world... living in the same situation as people in Watts, in Englewood, in East New York or Jackson or where have you.

The other part of the cruelty here is that once again, Jay ends up blaming the youth themselves for the position they're in, saying it’s because they're not holding onto their wealth. He blames them for mimicking the shit this system tells them about personal value being bound up with personal wealth—meanwhile Jay parrots the same message. But is the fact that a handful of young rappers or hustlers waste their money the reason that the masses of Black people don't have “financial freedom”? This is straight bullshit!

This country was built on the backs of Black people, and since then, through all the struggle and change, the rulers of this system have worked overtime to keep Black people in an oppressed and exploited position—in every part of society. And they have used their KKK or pig police to terrorize them when they fought back. Right now, there is a literal genocide being waged against Black people—of mass incarceration and police terror, broken-down schools, horrible health care and all the rest, all about to be ramped up on steroids by the fascist Donald Trump. Especially now, people have to look at the real problem and stop being played by this system’s game.

Ain’t no slice of this system’s pie and ain’t no cake worth having! Let’s work to where we can tear this whole capitalist shit system down once and for all... let’s get serious about making a real revolution at the earliest possible time. Let's lift our heads, stop dogging each other, stop fighting and killing each other, stop trying to mimic the motherfuckers this system holds up as heroes, stop looking to wannabe kings and queens.

Jay rhymes about leaving a legacy of personal wealth for his family and small group of friends as if that’s something deep and full of wisdom. How is that different from Donald Fucking Trump and his family of parasites? Fuck that small-minded conservative old system shit! Instead, put everything on the line to leave a legacy of real liberation—breaking each and every chain holding down every exploited and oppressed sister and brother in the whole world. That’s what it can really mean to be free.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/stephen-hawkings-prediction-for-humanity-and-why-trump-pence-regime-must-go-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Letter from a Reader:

Stephen Hawking’s prediction for humanity and why the Trump/Pence regime must GO!

July 10, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Last November, Stephen Hawking, the renowned theoretical physicist, said humans have 1,000 years to leave Earth, or risk being annihilated. Most recently, in a speech he delivered to the Starmus Festival, a science/musical gathering in Norway, Hawking explained why he now believes that within 200-500 years, mankind will have to relocate elsewhere in the universe or face extinction.

In his speech titled “The future of humanity,” Hawking pointed to extraterrestrial dangers like asteroids, black holes, super nova, and solar radiation. And then he pointed to the human causes: “Humans have outgrown the planet, and have stripped it of resources.... We have given our planet the destructive gift of climate change, rising temperatures, reduction of the polar ice caps, deforestation and decimation of animal species, and we cannot be ignorant.” (Emphasis added)

On July 2, Hawking told the BBC that “We are close to the tipping point where global warming becomes irreversible.” “Trump’s action could push the Earth over the brink, to become like Venus, with a temperature of 250 degrees, and raining sulphuric acid.” Hawking said climate change is one great danger we can prevent if we act now. “By denying the evidence for climate change, and pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement, Donald Trump will cause avoidable environmental damage to our beautiful planet, endangering the natural world, for us and our children.”

Hawking is one of many who fear for the Earth, right now, due to climate change. This year, The World Economic Forum surveyed 750 experts on what the most likely and impactful risks facing humanity are in 2017. At the top was extreme weather events and food and water crises which are caused in part by global warming. (See http://www.climatecentral.org/news/climate-change-worlds-biggest-risk-charts-21050.)

The Earth is our only home. The likelihood of finding and traveling to another planet that could sustain human life in any foreseeable future seems more than remote. What is more likely is that we, the people of Earth, can save this planet from the peril it faces from capitalism-imperialism through revolution, and one of our most immediate missions to save this planet is to get rid of the Trump/Pence Regime that believes climate change is “fake news.”

As the call for the July 15 protest and demand that THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO! In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America! states, one of the seven reasons the Regime must GO is:

THE EARTH AND THE SPECIES WHO INHABIT IT—including humanity—should sustain life and not be despoiled by ignorance, greed, and the disregard for science. NO! We will not accept the cruel and brutal future of the Trump/Pence Regime...They must GO!

All out on July 15.

Find your local protest at refusefascism.org / @www.facebook.com/RefuseFascism/. If you can’t find one in your location, contact info@refusefascism.org or call 917-407-1286 to get the organizers’ material to hold your own protest on July 15.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/498/police-murder-of-alton-sterling-one-year-anniversary-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Grief and Outrage on the One-Year Anniversary of the Police Murder of Alton Sterling

July 7, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

On July 5, 2016, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, police tackled Alton Sterling to the ground, held him down, tased him, and then shot him dead in cold blood. In May, the Department of “Justice” announced there would be no charges filed against the police who murdered Alton Sterling. On July 5 of this year, the one-year anniversary of Alton Sterling’s murder by police, there were expressions of pain and outrage.

In the evening, a memorial service was held at the Arc of Safety Ministry. After the memorial, dozens of people went to the Triple S store. The store features a larger-than-life mural of Alton Sterling, and protesters displayed a striking banner demanding “Justice for Alton.” Alton Sterling’s family members and others gave passionate statements of grief and anger that one year later, there is still no justice for Alton. In response to promises of change and reforms, in the wake of mass and determined protests last year, one woman, a nurse who lives near the site of the murder, said “Nothing got better. Nothing changed... They haven’t even given us justice for Alton.”

Earlier in the day, in an incident spread widely on social media, Baton Rouge police brutally assaulted protesters at police headquarters, at an action organized by the New Black Panther Party. That protest included relatives of Alton Sterling. Police attacked with Tasers, stun guns, and pellet guns, and arrested seven people on specious charges of “entering and remaining after being forbidden” and “resisting an officer.”

Speaking of the exoneration of the cop who murdered Sylville Smith in Milwaukee, the refusal to indict Alton Sterling’s murderers, as well as the exonerations of police who murdered Philando Castile in Minnesota, and Terence Crutcher in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Carl Dix said:

This amounts to a statement from this system that no matter how outrageous the murders the police commit, no matter how many people have seen the videos of these murders; all the murdering pigs have to say is: “I feared for my life,” and they get a do not go to jail card.

Bob Avakian, the leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), says: “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.” I challenge anybody to deny the truth of this statement.

If the brutality, terror and murder carried out by the police was the only thing wrong with this capitalist-imperialist system, that would be reason enough to get rid of it once and for all thru revolution. And this is far from the only horror this system enforces on humanity. The RCP is organizing people into a revolution to overthrow this system at the soonest possible moment. If you want to see police terror and all the other horrors humanity is subjected to ended, you need to get with this revolution.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/498/one-year-after-police-murder-of-alton-sterling-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

One Year After the Police Murder of Alton Sterling:
Defying Pig Threats, Demanding Justice in Baton Rouge

July 8, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

From a reader who went to Baton Rouge, Louisiana:

One year after the police murder of Alton Sterling, and no pig has been charged, Alton’s family called for people to come to Baton Rouge for five days to “Commemorate Alton Sterling, Protest His Murder!” A team of Revolution distributors went to join them in Baton Rouge.

The crowds were much smaller this year. Veda, one of Alton’s aunts, said that people in the neighborhood are scared to come out, but she is not going to stop calling them to come out, because Alton still deserves justice. One woman from the community said that the police came to her house and warned her, “Don’t go to North Foster” (where the Triple S store, where Alton was murdered, is), but she came anyway.

Veda brought up how even more now, since Trump is the president, the police act like they can do whatever they want. Several people spoke to this. A longtime community activist said that Trump and his racist cronies are opening the door for more police killing Black people and getting away with it—look at how many cops got off just this month—and the only way out is for people to fight, for all people coming together to fight.

A couple of people brought up how the way they see it, Trump and the white supremacists are trying to start a civil war between whites and Blacks. One young woman added, “When Trump talks about make America great again, he’s just saying make America white again, and we need to come together to fight this.” One young woman, who was out there all day with her two little kids, responded to police brutality in the context of the fascist program, and said that she hates how Muslims are being treated right now and all the injustices people are enduring everywhere.

People were very happy to see Revolution newspaper, and several people said that they remember the Stolen Lives banner (showing the faces of dozens of victims of murder by police) that was a prominent part of the scene outside Triple S a year ago amid the protests after Alton’s murder. A couple of people said that they are glad that Revolution came back, because a lot of times, people just come and go, try to make a name for themselves, but they can tell that the revolution is serious about this and really care about the people.

One man came up and said that he doesn’t care if he lives or dies. That he had just spend 22 years of his life in prison, and is on parole for 40 more years. He said, show me what I can live for—and he got a copy of Revolution. The next morning we ran into him at Triple S again, and he said that he had started reading some of the articles, and that it was real deep, and something he wants to find out more about. But he asked how can he get involved, the system has him trapped.

There was a lot of debate over why more people hadn’t been coming out to protest. One guy agitated about Black-on-Black crime. Another guy started saying that there is Black-on-Black crime, white-on-white crime, there is crime no matter what race you are, so that’s not why people are being killed by the police. We had gotten out a lot of the Chicago Revolution Club communiqué, and several people said, Wow, they’re doing that? And one guy said he wanted a stack of them to give out in the community.

On Wednesday evening, there was an impromptu rally, and several people came up to speak and these were some common themes:

One young man said, “You gotta be willing to sacrifice some of yourself for this movement if you want to keep going, the reason more people aren’t out here is because they don’t see people committed to transforming the situation—and you want that to happen, you got to change your lifestyle—be like Veda.”

An 18-year-old woman said: “Why aren’t we doing more? Asking for more? There should not have been a man laying on this sidewalk with his blood splattered here!... Why are Black people just asking for peace? [Mocking the authorities] ‘We want you to be civil’—Civil?!—Civil?! We want you to treat us like humans!... Don’t tell me that at 18—and I have my whole life ahead of me—that this is what I have to settle for—Why?”

A man who distributed posters he made honoring Alton Sterling talked about the afternoon protest. Why go to the police station and subject yourself to that? “Standing up for yourself should never be condemned. We got condemned for standing up for ourselves, we got prosecuted for standing up for ourselves, we got beat and abused because we stood up for ourselves. And at the end of the day until we stand up for ourselves everything don’t matter what you do on a daily basis. Facebook don’t matter, Instagram don’t matter, Snapchat don’t matter. When you realize that this is the most important thing in your life—right now—that’s when you’ll come to terms with what’s going on right now.” He called on people to continue resisting and set an example for the youth.

Another man decried the fact that people’s tax money is going into the pockets of these murderers—who get paid time off for killing. He said, “I’m tired of saying ‘no justice no peace’—we want justice NOW.” And led the crowd in chanting that.

Veda said, “It’s about you, Black people! I love you all, love you enough to come out and protest this thing. We gonna be out here tomorrow and the next day and the next day. Come out here because I know you got children. I’m out here for mine.”

A woman who was listening said, with tears in her eyes, that she feels so bad for the families. She said that she had only daughters but now has six grandsons and she worries about them all the time—that if you’re born Black you’re in danger. She said how she was married for “way too long” to a police officer. When Alton Sterling was murdered she felt compelled to go down to the store, to be with people, to take a stand. When her husband asked her why she wanted to go mess around with all those “hoodlums,” she said, OK that’s it, and left him for good. She described how this Black man had become such a hater of his own people—calling them things like “roaches.” She had encountered the Revolution Club there last year and was excited to hear about what they are doing in Chicago and took extra papers and flyers to get out to people she knows.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/498/fighting-aids-in-the-time-of-trump-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Fighting AIDS in the Time of Trump

July 4, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

From a reader:

This June marked 36 years since the first cases of AIDS were recorded in the medical literature. As a result of the work of medical professionals, researchers, public heath officials, and brave and dedicated activists who fought for treatment and against stigmatization, life-saving drugs have been developed, and HIV/AIDS is no longer a death sentence. (HIV is the name of the virus that causes AIDS.) In fact, there is no reason that AIDS could not be eliminated—except for the obscene social and economic conditions in the United States and worldwide. Trump and his administration will greatly expand the already devastating toll that HIV/AIDS is having both in the U.S. and worldwide, perhaps causing over one million additional deaths and untold suffering.

A Genocidal Epidemic

While there has been progress in AIDS treatment and prevention in the U.S., HIV/AIDS is taking a devastating toll among certain sections of the population, especially Black gay and bi-sexual men and those who live in states in the Deep South (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas).

Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) predicted that if current rates continue, one in two African-American gay and bisexual men will be infected with the virus. Commenting on this, an article in the New York Times Magazine noted, “To offer more perspective: Swaziland, a tiny African nation, has the world’s highest rate of H.I.V., at 28.8 percent of the population. If gay and bisexual African-American men made up a country, its rate would surpass that of this impoverished African nation—and all other nations.” (“America’s Hidden HIV Epidemic” by Linda Villarosa, June 6, 2017)

In Jackson, Mississippi, 40 percent of all gay and bisexual men are living with the HIV virus, according to the Times article. In a time where there are life-saving drugs that can prevent almost all AIDS-related deaths, 2,952 people in the Deep South died with HIV as an underlying cause in 2014, according to an analysis from Duke University. Among Black men in this region, the HIV-related death rate was seven times as high as that of the U.S. population at large.

Greg Millett, a senior scientist for the CDC for 14 years, now vice president and director of public policy at amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, described to the New York Times how the actions of the U.S. government, especially during the administration of George W. Bush, contributed to this new stage of the epidemic: “It is no coincidence that new rates of HIV infection among gay men, especially gay black men, began to spike sharply from 2000 on, because of an anti-science campaign that allowed for little or nothing to be done for a maligned community simply due to ideology and bigotry.”

Millett told the Times that he is not optimistic about the prospects for Black men who are living with HIV/AIDS: “We are going to eventually end AIDS in the United States, but I fear it’s not going to happen for black M.S.M.,” he said, referring to men who have sex with men. “We have waited too long. With so many black gay men already infected, the horse is already out of the barn.”

“Trump doesn’t care about HIV. We’re outta here.”

On June 16, six members of the President’s Advisory Committee on HIV/AIDS publicly resigned from the committee and published an op-ed in Newsweek titled, “Trump Doesn’t Care About HIV. We’re Outta Here.” They said in their article, “The Trump Administration has no strategy to address the on-going HIV/AIDS epidemic, seeks zero input from experts to formulate HIV policy, and—most concerning—pushes legislation that will harm people living with HIV and halt or reverse important gains made in the fight against this disease.”

Citing the fact that 60 percent of people living with HIV in the United States are still unable to access the life-saving medications that have been available for more than 20 years, the former officials pointed to several of Trump’s actions as a huge step backwards in fighting the epidemic:

• During his campaign for President, Trump refused to meet with HIV advocates.
• Trump took down the Office of National AIDS Policy website the day he took office, and there has been no replacement for this website.
• Trump has not appointed anyone to lead the White House Office of National AIDS Policy. This means no one is tasked with regularly bringing issues related to the HIV/AIDS crisis to the attention of the government.

Making the Epidemic Exponentially Worse

In fact, it isn’t just that Trump and his administration don’t care. By fanning racism, anti-gay, and anti-scientific attitudes, by cutting funds for research and treatment, the epidemic is being made exponentially worse.

* Stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS and the LGBT community as a whole is already widespread and is viciously promoted by Trump and others. This stigma contributes to people not being tested for HIV. This has real implications. More than 20 percent of Black gay men infected with HIV have AIDS (meaning that they are very sick) by the time they receive their diagnosis. Early diagnosis is a key factor in effective treatment, which reduces viral loads thereby reducing HIV transmission.

*Trump and Pence have called for legal and legislative actions that allow discrimination against LGBT people in the name of “protecting religious liberty.” Before becoming vice president, Pence was known as one of the most anti-LGBT politicians out there. In 2006 he said that banning gay marriage is enforcing “God’s idea.” Pence is also a supporter of conversion therapy, dangerous and discredited practices aimed at changing a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

* In 2002, Pence, backing the abstinence-only educational policies of the Bush administration, promoted the lie that condoms were not effective in preventing transmission of HIV and that he considers condoms “too modern, liberal.” 

* Intravenous drug use (shooting up) is one of the ways that HIV spreads. Trump seems to favor a “war on drugs” approach, which has proven to be cruel, racist, and ineffective. In May, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price spoke against opioid replacement therapy, such as methadone and buprenorphine, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence that these are among the most effective treatments.

* Trump’s proposed budget includes a $186 million cut in the CDC’s funding for HIV/AIDS prevention, testing and support services. Speaking of these cuts, Carl Schmid, deputy executive director of the AIDS Institute said, “We would have probably a million fewer HIV tests because of that and we don’t know how many more people will become [HIV] positive and not get the messages.” 

* As part of huge cuts to the National Institutes of Health, the Trump regime aims to slash research in HIV and AIDS by $550 million.

* The Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program provides a comprehensive system of care that includes primary medical care and essential support services for people living with HIV who are uninsured or underinsured. Trump’s budget proposes a $59 million cut to the program

* Cuts to Medicaid proposed by Trump would deny services to many of the most in need: 40 percent of HIV-positive people rely on Medicaid. The AIDS Drug Assistance Program reported more than 9,000 people in the U.S. on a waiting list to get medication to treat HIV, primarily Black and gay men in the Deep South, where Medicaid expansion was blocked. As one AIDS activist in Mississippi said of the situation if the Medicaid expansion is phased out, “The entire country becomes Mississippi.”

Phill Wilson, chief executive and president of the Black AIDS Institute, told the New York Times, “For the most vulnerable, do we end up back in a time when people had only emergency care or no care and were literally dying on the streets? We don’t know yet, but we have to think about it.”

Can all of this be described as anything other than genocide (defined by Webster as “the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group”)?

The Global Pandemic

HIV/AIDS is a global nightmare, and the failure to address this is a major crime of the capitalist-imperialist system worldwide; 35 million people have died since the start of the epidemic. According to an article in the British medical journal Lancet (7/19/16), as of 2015, 38.8 million people are living with HIV/AIDS worldwide (and this number is steadily increasing), there are 2.6 million new infections annually, and 1.2 million people died in that year.

Of the people infected with HIV, 69 percent live in the poor countries of sub-Saharan Africa, and 91 percent of HIV-positive children are in Africa. Only about half of those infected with HIV worldwide receive life-saving drugs.

These are the conditions BEFORE Trump. “At least one million people will die in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere, researchers and advocates said on Tuesday, if funding cuts proposed by the Trump administration to global public health programs are enacted,” the New York Times recently reported (5/23/17).

Trump has proposed cutting $800 million from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), programs that address the AIDS pandemic. According to data compiled by amfAR, among the effects these cuts in 2018 will be:

• 62,057 new sexual transmissions of HIV
• 836,038 treatment interruptions among adults leading to 131,388 deaths and 258,742 children becoming orphans
• 57,639 interruptions to treatments to prevent mother-to-child transmission leading to 7,730 children being born with HIV and 3,865 children dying before the age of two
• 164,649 children experiencing treatment interruptions leading to 10,511 deaths

Cuts to international aid are not the only way that Trump will deepen the worldwide AIDS crisis. One of Trump’s first actions on taking office was to re-institute and make even stricter the Global Gag Rule, which denies U.S. funding to any organization that even mentions abortion to women seeking health services. This means that clinics that treat women with HIV would lose any funding if they discussed abortion as an option, even though almost all physicians would consider such a discussion necessary to inform a woman of her choices.

What Are YOU Going to Do?

Think about what all this means. Up to one million deaths worldwide. In the U.S., up to 50 percent of Black gay men becoming HIV positive, and many being denied treatment. This is not acceptable! We cannot remain silent in the face of these horrors. We need to drive out the Trump/Pence regime!

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/chicago-press-conference-and-anti-recruitment-protest-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

July 10, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

July 10, 2017

Immediate Release

Press Conference & Anti-recruitment protest

When: July 11^th (Tuesday) 1 PM

Where: US Army Recruiting Station Center, South Side

712 East 87th St. & Cottage Grove

Speakers: Carl Dix, representative of the Revolutionary Communist Party, other veterans

Who: Revolution Club Chicago

Contact: 312-804-9121 or revclub.chi@gmail.com

What: As the Trump/Pence Regime Threatens War with North Korea—

Carl Dix and the Revolution Club will be outside the military recruitment station with the message:

“To all Black and other oppressed people… and to all people who stand for justice –

DO NOT FIGHT FOR UNCLE SAM IN NORTH KOREA – OR ANYWHERE ELSE!!

Our Fight is Right Here!”

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/we-must-support-those-under-attack-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Received from RefuseFascism.org

We Must Support Those Under Attack

National Rifle Association Calls Its Supporters 'To Arms' Against Critics of Trump

July 10, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

This statement was issued by: Carl Dix, Sunsara Taylor, Cornel West and Andy Zee; who initiated RefuseFascism.org.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) recently put out two lurid and inflammatory videos. The first essentially called on the followers of the NRA, and Trump supporters generally, to attack those who are dissenting, protesting and resisting the imposition of this regime’s draconian measures. When some people protested this, they released a second video which continued in this same vein and raised the stakes by naming, and attacking, Tamika Mallory of the Women’s March, DeRay Mckesson of Campaign Zero, Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom of California, and Senator Patrick Murphy from Connecticut.

The mobilizing of the minions and trolls of this regime to go after specific individuals is not only chilling but could directly endanger those individuals. Particularly in the case of Tamika Mallory and DeRay Mckesson – African-American activists who are explicitly attacked for their associations with important movements for social justice – this is extremely chilling and must be opposed, especially given the history and current-day reality both of the US in general and the particular persons wielding power in this regime. This is also true for Linda Sarsour, a Palestinian-American Muslim activist who has also come under vicious attack from the extreme right. The warning of Pastor Martin Niemöller in Germany — that “first they came for the Communists and I did nothing, for I was not a communist, then they came for the Jews, but I did nothing for I was not a Jew…” and so on down the line – must be taken to heart and the grievous mistake that he criticizes must not be repeated in today’s circumstances.

We state our solidarity with those who have been singled out and declare as loudly as we can, “NOT this time, fascists.”

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/refuse-fascism-LA-we-will-not-back-down-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

RefuseFascismLA Responds to Fascist Threats: “We Will Not Back Down”

July 11, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

On Monday, July 10th, Refuse Fascism LA held a press conference to announce the upcoming nationwide marches on July 15th. The conference was held at Trump’s sidewalk star on Hollywood Boulevard. As the speakers and supporters of Refuse Fascism and the July 15th demonstrations gathered together for the press conference, Trump’s Hollywood Blvd. star was covered over by picket signs against the regime. From the very beginning the growing intensity of the battle to oust the Trump/Pence Regime was clear as various Trump supporters shouted out their opposition and occasionally tried to clear the posters away from Trump’s star.

Michelle Xai of RefuseFascismLA and the Revolution Club LA called on people to take to the streets and demand that the Trump/Pence regime must go. Michelle went on to describe how pro-Trump forces in Texas and Los Angeles have called for counter demonstrations. In Texas they have called for their forces to come armed. In LA pro-Trump forces have declared that they will come and defend Trump’s Hollywood star. Michelle denounced these modern day KKK forces. She went on to state that while “these fascists are on the march, we will not be terrorized into silence. We will not back down. And I have a message for the Trump/Pence regime: your days in the White House are numbered.”

Isabel Cardenas, one of the initiators of RefuseFascism.org, condemned the regime’s brutal assaults on and hunting down of immigrants and other vicious assaults and declared that this kind of thing is only done by an actual fascist regime. GrayWolf, the Director of the Southern California chapter of the American Indian Movement (AIM), spoke about many of the crimes the Trump/Pence regime has committed against the earth and went on to point out how dangerous Trump is: “This man is so dangerous he is going to ruin the world. That’s how serious it is. That’s why we need to start waking up, speaking out and standing up.” Josiah Gonzales of the California Freedom Coalition said that his group had decided to march in solidarity with the RefuseFascism.org movement because “our primary objective as an organization is to inform people, the public, of their political rights.” He went on to emphasize that Donald Trump “was not elected president. He was imposed upon the Republic and the people.”  Alex Sanchez, a founding member of the Defend Movement said, “Not another day must pass by with Donald Trump and Pence in office. I’m here to say that this evil regime must go.”

Luna, a member of RefuseFascism LA and emcee of the press conference wrapped things up by saying, “if this message resonates with you then all of you should be out here on the 15th. If you are out of town then organize a march wherever you are." Luna called Michelle Xai back for some final comments.  Michelle emphasized that this must be a two-sided battle, that when the fascists step up to defend this regime and attack the anti Trump/Pence people, “we respond by bringing forward thousands of people to be here at Hollywood and Highland and to be at protests throughout the country... the thousands of people who hate what this regime stands for. Those are the people we are calling forward to be here on July 15th to stand with the people of the world, to stand for what is right.”

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/carl-dix-the-naked-anti-black-racism-running-rampant-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

The Naked Anti-Black Racism Running Rampant in This Country Must Be Answered... and DEFEATED

by Carl Dix

July 11, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

• Too many white people protesting the removal of monuments honoring Confederate soldiers, generals, and statesmen who fought to preserve the “southern way of life” of enslaving Black people!
• Lynching nooses hung at museums, schools and other places all across the country!
• Ku Klux Klan rallies and marches happening!
• Cop after cop is acquitted of the murder of unarmed or unresisting Black people, and then demonstrators are shut down or violently arrested!
• In Houston, a right-wing group encourages people to bring guns and Confederate flags to counter a Refuse Fascism demonstration called for July 15.

Add to this two hate-filled videos from the National Rifle Association (which should be called the Nazi Rifle Association) calling on its base to defend the fascist Trump/Pence regime. These videos go at a broad array of forces in society that oppose the moves this regime is making, and within that they sharply pinpoint the struggles of Black people.

A clear picture emerges: a racist movement is being called forth and prepared to act as shock troops for the hammering of a fascist reordering of society into place.

This is part of the overall assault the Trump/Pence regime is aiming at Black people, with their talk of taking the gloves off the police, reinstating the mandatory minimum sentences that led to so many Black people being warehoused in prison and more. The capitalist-imperialist system was already enforcing a slow genocide on Black people.  The rise of this openly racist movement, coupled with the other moves of the Trump/Pence regime, bring closer the transformation of that “slow genocide” into a fast one.

In short: we must take very seriously the specter of civil war that these fascists are in fact raising; a civil war that has a large component of lynch mobs, “race war,” and genocide in it. In response to this, everyone must say NO! NO to this fascist regime and NO to all the forces it has summoned from the sewers of American life, and join the movement to drive this regime from power. And we must get ready to defend people against attacks from the violent, genocidal and totally illegitimate minions of fascism.

Everybody must also seriously ask why, 150 years after the Civil War, are we still fighting the same oppression, in new forms?  Why are too many white people rallying to the call to join the fascist regime in intensifying that oppression? And what must be done to finally end this madness?  There are answers to these crucial questions, developed over decades by Bob Avakian, answers that can be found at www.revcom.us.  The times are too serious not to dig into those questions and those answers, as we defend ourselves against attack and move forward to drive this regime out.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/80-arrested-protesting-republi-fascist-health-care-bill-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

80 People Arrested on Capitol Hill Protesting the Republi-fascist Health Care Bill

July 11, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

On Monday, July 10, in the face of Republican senators and the Trump/Pence fascist regime plowing ahead with their health care bill, protesters went into Senate and House office buildings in Washington, DC, in a righteous action against the cruel and vicious assault on health care. The police arrested 80 of the protesters. As they were handcuffed and taken away from the offices, some dragged by the cops, the protesters shouted, “Health care is a human right!” and “You are systematically killing people!”

The protesters are right—what Trump/Pence and the Republicans are doing to health care will literally kill many people. As we’ve written, “The Senate version of the Trump/Pence ‘health care’ bill would strip health coverage from 22 million more poor and oppressed people over the next decade. It would raise costs, reduce coverage, cut vital services, slash Medicaid, defund Planned Parenthood, and kill even more people than are already dying because of this capitalist health care system.... All this would come down hardest on Black, Latino, Native American and other oppressed people.” And the anti-woman outlook of Christian fascism is embedded in the bill, including blocking Medicaid payments for care provided by Planned Parenthood.

Trump and the Republicans’ attacks on the most basic kind of health care for millions of people are a horror—and resistance to this outrage needs to spread. And, as Andy Zee, an initiator of Refuse Fascism, wrote in a piece about the critical juncture represented by the July 15 nationwide “Trump/Pence Must Go” protests: “To all who are confronting members of Congress over their vicious cutting of essential health care for millions, keep on them, but now is the time to also be raising the demand that the Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! And, now is the time for you to be part of organizing for July 15.”

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/over-100-cops-viciously-raid-familys-4th-of-july-party-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Over 100 Cops Viciously Raid Family’s 4th of July Party

July 11, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Last week we ran this article about the Revolution Club Chicago facing off with the police, and the community refusing to side with the police. In the article, we mentioned that the police threatened people. Since then there have been a number of reprisals. This is an account of one of them: an interview with one member of the family whose party was raided (referred to here as XX).

Revolution: Describe what you were saying about what its been like, what happened at the party. However you were just talking to me. Go ahead.

XX: The night of the party, like, those were my children. It was my son that got arrested. Those were my nieces and nephews, and when I left they were all out here just on the porch. They weren’t in the street. They weren’t doing anything. As a matter of fact, when I left my grandchildren were still out here because they was still popping fireworks.

So when I left, I thought everything was good. Because I mean if I thought things were going to get out of hand I would have said something. I would have probably actually stopped the party myself. But everything was good, like I said. The family over there, they were outside. The family down the street, they were outside and the family down on that end, they were outside. So quite naturally the block is filled with people because it’s the 4th of July. We all grew up on this block so we all know each other. We’re all familiar with each other.

So, it’s one thing to come for somebody who like you mighta got a call that somebody had a gun and you want to come for them, that’s fine you know. If you are going to do your job, do your job.

But I’ve never seen three districts of police officers come on the scene for a party. I’ve never seen that. I hate to have to say that it was over a hundred white officers and only four Black officers. And they counted the Black officers. So when I get here it was like “Look Auntie, they all white.” I think the commander was a Black officer. But even my daughter said, “When they came up here and they was trying to, they got my son. You already got the person who you were looking for so why were you in my house? Why did you kick in my bathroom door. My bathroom door?”

My grandkids was inside in the bedroom. They want to go in the bedroom. My daughter say, with they tasers out and she was telling them, you know, “My babies are in there please.” My great nieces and nephews were in there and I had three of my grandchildren that were in there. My daughter was begging and pleading with them not to go in the bedroom. They kept telling her, “We don’t give a fuck! We don’t give a fuck. Shut the fuck up and we don’t give a fuck.” But you are in our house. And you saying this about my grandchildren. I have never witnessed anything like that.

[Referencing something that happened at another time] Now right over across that street, my son was shot 11 times. Right there. We was standing right there and two guys came through that driveway and I saw them first. I had to run and duck. I went that way, my son went and ran that way; they followed my son. They chased my son over in that gangway. He tripped and fell and the guy was over him shooting him. He has eleven bullets all in this area (points to stomach area) of his body.

So I don’t agree with my son having a gun, that’s not something I condone. I don’t agree. I don’t think he should have had a gun, I really don’t but he feel like he need it for his own protection because even at my own house I have been shot and almost killed.

But the way the police came that night [July 4th] they were like the gang bangers that night. And I feel like they came to kill and destroy. Now on the videos that I saw there was an incident over there. They dragged my niece down the stairs and down the block. My neighbor lives right down there and she videotaped it. She say, “Poor Y [gives her name],” they grabbed her, Not only did they drag her down the stairs. They dragged her down the block! My nephew, her brother, she was trying to protect her brother; he has two knots on his each side of his head from where they beat him up out here. A little boy was videotaping right over there against that fence. He was live on Facebook. They knocked him out.

And I say the news will come if a police officer got shot, the news would have been over here in droves. And then it’s, “Oh my god in Englewood [a South Side neighborhood] a police officer just got shot”. They like to, um what is the word, I’m looking for the word. Well, anyway, they like to media hype things up like gangs are over here. There’s no gangs. There is not a gang on this block. Not a gang member. Are they all cliqued up? Yes. But are they in a gang? No. There is no more gangs in the city of Chicago. They’re just a bunch of kids that get together and form their own groups and so everybody want to label them gang bangers. They’re not gang bangers. They’re my nieces and nephews.

That the police does not give them a opportunity like coming over here and taking the kids’ rim. What purpose was that?

Revolution: Describe that again because you were telling me about that. [She had described putting up a basketball hoop for the kids to play and the police taking it down.]

XX: The very next day, like after the commander came out. The commander came out the next day to try to smooth things over. But he came with Black officers. He didn’t come not with one white cop. And my brother said, the day after, he said it was early in the morning, and the police came, they came with some kind of dump truck or something and they loaded up the rim and they put it in the truck and they took it away. They didn’t ask did it belong to somebody or can you remove it from this street. They just came a got it and took it.

So now our 10-12 kids that live on this block, like they’re not out right now, if the basketball rim was up, when you walked up the street you would of saw the kids out here playing basketball. But now they can’t play basketball, so they probably in the house playing video games or something. They all have bikes but they prefer to play basketball over riding they bikes. Even the girls. So they gather right here and they play basketball. But they can’t even do that anymore because the rim that we got for them, that we put together to give them, they (the police) took it away from em. Why?

And I guess my other question would be, “Where’s our alderman, where’s the representation for us? When you knew there was 300 officers on one block, you didn’t have a problem with that? You don’t want to come out and investigate?”

All we trying to do is live over here safely. I mean, its bad enough we have to watch where we go. You see those vacant lots over there? I called 311 a few times to try to get the grass and the trees cut, because if somebody wants to come over here and even shoot at the three of us [referring to me, her, and another woman sitting on her porch] they can come right to that grass where you can’t see them and start shooting. And imagine how it look at night time. So it’s scary. So I’m calling and I’m saying please come and cut this. They haven’t come and cut it. Oh, if it’s not over five inches [it is way higher than 5 inches] tall they won’t come out and cut it. But a shooter can stand right there, and shoot at us right here. You know I just want people to care a little bit. You know people scared of these neighborhoods, but they not doing anything to help the neighborhood.

So now that you took the kids rim, where our kids supposed to go and play. Cuz we can’t send them to the park because it’s dangerous at the park. The police only police the park at what, 9, 10 o clock when the park is closed. Not during the day when it’s open and filled with people. You don’t see the police. Unless they riding by and they may see somebody standing outside selling loose cigarettes or something. They may harass them.

But I just think. I’m actually traumatized. I came home to a broke door that I couldn’t lock. I came home to a bathroom door that’s broken down, because, what was in the bathroom? You had the person that you were looking for, you never had a warrant to come to this address. The call you received never said this address. They told you that... that person was in the street and he had a gun. That’s what you said they said. You never said, “Oh we got a call at this address [gives the address] to come and you know and somebody had a gun.”

Revolution: What your nephew said that the police said to him, was they looked on Facebook for the biggest party, that it was preplanned. They looked for the biggest party and figured, I think, it's a big gang party or whatever, and that’s why they came.

XX: I believe so because my sister said that she was on another street [names the street.] Now I got family that live on that street as well. So they were having a 4th of July party too. And when actually I rode past there it looked like they was having a good time and again my sister say they went over there first but they didn’t go over there like they did here. They just went over there in the cars and they stopped the party. And I heard a couple people got arrested over there too. I don’t really know what happened but it was like that block and then they came over here. But they didn’t even come in police cars. They had parked their cars on the outside of the block and they walked. And they came through vacant lots and they came through gangways. For what? For a party that had maybe a hundred people out in the street? I just don’t understand.

And again, I been living here over 40 years. And I’ve never seen anything like that. Even when my son got shot they didn’t come by the boatload. Maybe four or five cars. But they didn’t come by the boatload. You know and no one [referring to when her son was shot] ever came back to ask me any questions. That very same night my son was shot 11 times, one of his very good friends, that I hadn’t seen in 10 years, live in Minnesota, he just came up to visit and he was killed in the back of my house. And they never came to ask to ask me anything. “Did you see what he looked like? Do you know anything?” No questions at all. Even when I was at the hospital with my son, they didn’t ask me no questions.

But as soon as we’re having a good time, and there’s nothing going on. Then here we go. You wanna come in like they were the gang bangers that night. They truly was. They were the gang bangers that night. My son said, “They were like all young, look they just came from out the military,” he was like, “they were hungry,” he was like, “they were waiting like they wanted something to happen.” My friend that lives over on the block, she said like, “I was trying to keep the peace but the police was like ‘man, lets move now, do what I say,’ cursing them out, not caring.” And my feelings are hurt because I been living here over 40 years and I mean I used to be a CAPS [community policing group] member. I used to go to CAPs meetings. Like my brother, he’s been political since he was a young guy, cuz my father was like the precinct captain and so my father was political too. So my brother has always been involved with the community.

And both us is like a little... I feel violated. But I am a little traumatized behind that, too. And then for you to ride up and down the block and now I’m being... having the light shown on me just for sitting on my porch. It’s just not right. [Here she is referring to that fact that since the raid on her house, the police ride along her street and if they see her sitting on the porch they shine a spotlight on her in an effort to harass and intimidate her.] And like I said, the news, if something happened with the police or somebody gets shot, the news is over here really, really fast. But you had over a hundred officers out here, that was intimidating people and there was no news coverage about it all. But I seen like 15 different Facebook videos. You know what I’m saying, it’s just not right and I’m trying to do something about it.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/press-conference-in-chicago-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Press Conference in Chicago:
Into the Streets July 15: Trump and Pence Must Go!

July 11, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Tuesday, July 11. A press conference was held by Refuse Fascism in Chicago to announce a protest on July 15 in Chicago that will be part of nationwide protests on that day saying: “Trump and Pence Must Go.”

Linda Solitaire of Refuse Fascism drove home a key theme reiterated by all the speakers—that the fate of humanity is at stake and everyone who agonizes over the threats and attacks of the Trump/Pence regime needs to join together and stand up on July 15. Solitaire said, “If you think you can’t make a change, you are wrong. We have to drive out this fascist Trump-Pence regime not just for ourselves, but in the name of humanity.”

Bishop Gregg L. Greer, President of Freedom First International said, “The very survival of the world is at stake and depends on what we do. The threat of nuclear war is progressing daily and people all around the world are saying we have to stop the rise of fascism here...We need everybody to take up this call and rise up. We must stop it now! Say NO!”

Ted Sirota, founder of Degenerate Artists Against Fascism, said DAAF is uniting artists from all over the world—Australia, Palestine, Greece—against this fascist regime. Sirota said, “Trump’s speech in Poland was a white nationalist and fascist speech. This regime is moving forward their fascist agenda daily, setting whole peoples up for genocide—clamping down on the Black and Latino masses on the South Side and West Side, Muslims, ICE raids on immigrants.” He said that “the Nazi genocide against Jews was underway for a long time before the ‘final solution’ where they were gassed in the concentration camps. We have to act now.” Sirota also read the DAAF 10 points of unity [available at the Facebook page of Degenerate Artists Against Fascism https://www.facebook.com/DegenerateArtists/ ]

Mark Clements, Chairperson, Campaign to End Torture, said, “It is important that we stand together against the Trump administration. I come from the struggle against the criminal justice system. I stand with Yusef Salaam who was railroaded as a teenager into prison for a crime he did not commit. We can’t wait four years, we must change the course of history now. I was tortured by the Chicago police in 1981 when I was a teenager and wrongfully sent to prison. Now with Trump I have great concern that the private prison system is booming again. This is a wake-up call to demand change. Come out on July 15, support our cause, Dump Trump!”

Father Bob Bossie, Catholic priest and long-time activist called on people of all faiths: “Come out to support those oppressed by this regime. Stand up for what is right.”

Sharon Sanders from United for Democracy Now!, one of the endorsers of July 15, was unable to attend the press conference but sent a statement which said in part: “Fifty years ago, the right-wing, from religious fundamentalists to billionaires who wanted it all for themselves, brilliantly planned to work behind the scenes to take over this country. Trump is only a symptom of the growing fascism in this country. People learned nothing from Nazi Germany. History is repeating itself. They believe it can’t happen here. Well, it is happening right before our eyes.”

At the end everyone chanted together: “Into the streets, July 15th, into the streets, July 15th, Drive Out the Trump Regime.”

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/standing-up-police-retaliation-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

From the Revolution Club Chicago:

Standing Up… Police Retaliation… Getting Organized for Revolution

July 12, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

When people in a South Side Chicago neighborhood took a stand against police terror with the Revolution Club last week, police threatened retaliation against the whole neighborhood. Since then, police have been coming down on people hard—to make people pay for their defiance, and to try to stop people from connecting up with the Revolution Club and the leadership of Bob Avakian (BA).

In the neighborhood as a whole, the questions are up: Who is responsible for this police terror? Is it worth standing up against your oppressor if it means they will come down on you harder? Is it possible to stand up against the pigs and change things or will they always win? Who is Bob Avakian and what is this leadership about? Should people be joining the Revolution Club and repping the T-shirt? And for some people, the question is up of who should I be living and fighting for and willing to risk something for: me and mine first, or the masses of humanity?

The threats last week came in response to members of the Revolution Club blowing whistles when they saw police in a yard where normally people are hanging out. First the pigs started to leave and then refused to leave. They threatened to go after people in the neighborhood if they didn’t turn against the revcoms, saying “nobody gets a pass around here anymore.” People were weighing what position to take in relation to this, but overall stood with the revolutionaries, and got firmer in doing that when a couple people in particular walked right up to the revcoms during the standoff with police and hugged and thanked one of the revolutionaries. The pigs left threatening to come back and to go after the people.

Later that night, after many people had gotten whistles and put on “BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS!” T-shirts, the hang-out house where the pigs had been in the yard was set on fire. The circumstances and timing of this are very suspicious and most in the neighborhood suspect the police are behind this, and say it’s not the first time police have done this kind of thing in that neighborhood.

Over the next couple days, police started driving their cars through the alleys, stopping people, handcuffing them, then letting them go. On the block where the whistle-blowing happened, they lined up several people and handcuffed them all to each other, then let them all go. Young people wearing the BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! T-shirt were stopped by police who questioned them about why they were wearing that T-shirt.

On July 4th, over 100 pigs from three different police districts raided a 4th of July family party. They came in like an army, kicking in doors, dragging and beating people, terrorizing children who were hiding in fear in the bedroom, and arresting 13 people, some who now face serious charges. The next day the commander, who is Black and is supposed to be a model of “community policing,” showed up to “apologize” (none of the charges have been dropped) and said they raided the house because they look for neighborhood parties on Facebook and raid the largest ones! This is just the boot of oppression straight up, no matter that it’s coming out of the mouth of a Black pig: police consider it a criminal act for Black people to even gather for a party—in this Amerikkkan home of the thief and land of the slave that ironically was being celebrated on July 4th.

The Revolution Club called for a community meeting in the park to talk about all this and what to do about it.

In the three days before the community meeting, the Revolution Club was out in the neighborhood getting into things with all kinds of people. Talking about what the police are doing to people and the need to stand up against this, talking with people about why the police are so afraid of people joining the Revolution Club and getting with BA, and getting into BA with people on the spot, watching BA Through the Years and reading quotes from BAsics. People have been shifting their opinions and positions throughout all this, sometimes day by day and even hour by hour. And people have taken steps into getting organized, in new and beginning ways and in the crucible of heavy efforts by police to stop people from doing this.

A woman familiar with seeing the Revolution Club at first didn’t want to talk to the revcoms when they came to the neighborhood to follow up after hearing the house had burned down. Then a couple guys on the block stopped to talk for a while, filling in the revcoms on some of what was going on with the police and agreeing that people shouldn’t be allowing the police to terrorize people into staying in their place. One of them put on a BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! T-shirt and discussed the Points of Attention for the Revolution.

The woman who hadn’t wanted to talk at first to the revcoms now stopped to talk. She had serious questions. What happens if people here don’t join this? Will you keep going with it? Won’t wearing the T-shirts make things worse for people because the police don’t like it? As we talked, another woman nearby started yelling at one of the revcoms because he told her there is no God. The woman asking the serious questions told the other woman to stop doing that and to respect what these people are doing and are about, even though she believes in God, too. After a deep discussion, she had to go, but later came back and bought cold water for all the comrades there.

Another day, late in the evening when people were out on their porches hanging out, some guys near where the July 4th party was raided wanted to know more about Bob Avakian after hearing a comrade talk about him and why people need to get into him. The Revolution Club members played BA Through the Years for them. They were surprised by the video—one said he was surprised that a white person was saying what BA was saying, another said it had less to do with him being white but that he didn’t expect to actually see somebody that was for real. There was struggle with them over not just liking this, but really getting into it and actually taking up this leadership. The difference was sharpened up over where you think you need to go and how to do that—trying to make some changes within this setup, or working to make revolution to overthrow it and lead a new society. And what role will they play in this. One friend intervened in the discussion with the other to tell him, “She is talking to the right people right now, but you have to go there.” He wasn’t necessarily ready to agree with that, but did say he would look seriously into it.

Earlier that day, a teenage woman about 15 years old opened up to talk for a little while with the revcoms. She responded to what the Revolution Club was saying about the police, and she said she hates the police, they killed her brother, and she named two people she knew who had been killed by police. The revcoms read several quotes from BAsics with her. We also read through the Points of Attention for the Revolution. She was especially attentive to BAsics 5:23 and the six Points of Attention, and a more serious conversation opened up. She raised that people who are stuck in the life can’t get out of it even if they want to, because people will still want to retaliate against them, and putting on a T-shirt can’t change that. She had a hard time seeing that people could start to represent something different among the people and that this could affect what others think and do, even while, yes, there is tremendous risk people are taking when they do that, but also that it is a risk worth taking because now you are fighting for a better world. We told her she could have a big effect on other people by joining the Revolution Club and fighting for the six Points of Attention, that everyone who steps into the revolution is part of forging a path for others to do that, too. She was thinking about all this, but walked away without resolving it one way or the other.

While all this was going on in this neighborhood, in another neighborhood nearby police had destroyed a memorial for one of the 15 people who were killed during the July 4th weekend from violence among the people. For all the crocodile-tear concern from the police and authorities about the shootings among the people, the pigs came through the vigil for Devonte Morgan cutting down the balloons and stomping on the candles. When people didn’t just put up with this, the police brutalized a woman who was dancing in front of their car. People defended themselves and, according to news reports, four people were arrested and a pig was injured. The Revolution Club went out to this neighborhood the day after people stood up, standing with people there, helping to strengthen them by bringing them the Revolution Club communique and whistles, connecting them up with the revolution, backing them up to re-do their vigil, and struggling with them against retaliation and revenge.

The day after the revcoms were part of the re-do of the vigil in the second neighborhood was the day before the planned community meeting in the first neighborhood, and things got more sharpened up. As Revolution Club members were talking to some people in the park, someone down the street called for the revcoms to come because somebody was being arrested. This time, it wasn’t only the Revolution Club members blowing whistles. Several people from the neighborhood were there together with them, actively standing up against and calling out the police. One pig car doing the arrest almost immediately turned into six cars as the Revolution Club and people from the neighborhood came up on the scene to blow the whistle and agitate on the role of the police and the need for people everywhere to stand up to what the pigs are doing. Two other times that day, the Revolution Club had to post up where the police were messing with people, blowing whistles throughout the day. The pigs responded by sticking out their middle fingers to the Revolution Club members, called one of the women a bitch and pointed out a couple of the men in a threatening way, as if to say, “We’re going to go after you.”

Together with the increased activity and hostility by the police was increased controversy among the people about who is responsible for all this pig activity and whether or not people should be joining with and supporting the Revolution Club. Someone who earlier in the week had started off telling the revcoms not to blow the whistles when the pigs were making threats, later donated $20 for people in the neighborhood to get T-shirts, and then another day came back and said the revolutionaries were the ones responsible for the house getting burned down. Overall, wearing the T-shirt began to spread, and became a way to take a stand. At the same time, familiar controversies popped up that are commonly used by opponents of revolution and communism to try to win people to oppose the revcoms—all of a sudden a couple people were calling Bob Avakian a cult leader and several people were saying they can’t get with the revolution because the revcoms don’t believe in God.

Throughout there has been a lot of struggle with people over whether we should be standing up to the pigs or not. Some people who were excited about standing up in the beginning have—at least temporarily—changed their minds since the pigs came back. Some don’t want to rock the boat too much, while others are thinking about how are we actually going to deal with the increased repression coming down from the pigs. It has been put to people that not wanting to cause more trouble with the police, who are there precisely to terrorize and keep the masses of oppressed people in their place, is the outlook of the slave getting used to slavery. There were slaves who didn’t want to run the risk of upsetting the slave master when Harriet Tubman came to talk to them about getting free—and there were those who knew they had nothing to lose but their chains who followed her.

Then there is the life of Harriet Tubman herself, who not only escaped slavery and led others to escape, but also struggled with people to not back down and rush back to the plantation once the dangers were getting real. Harriet Tubman never gave up and didn’t settle for helping a few slaves escape. She fought tirelessly to end the whole system of slavery, including helping to build for and plan an insurrection with John Brown. The work she did was part of what led to the Civil War that finally ended slavery. The real choice before people is whether they are going to have second thoughts about standing up to their oppressors or follow Harriet Tubman’s example in the fight to end the modern worldwide form of slavery that this capitalist-imperialist system has locked people into.

On the day of the meeting, some of the shoots of what is developing in the neighborhood could be seen, even while the turnout was too small. A woman who was angry at what police are doing and had heard of the Revolution Club before came to learn more about what the revolution is about. She participated in the meeting and left with a copy of BAsics and a BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! T-shirt. Two young guys who had stopped to go to a nearby store saw the enlargement of quote 1:24 from BAsics at the entrance to the park (about the role of the police) and came over wanting T-shirts and sat in for a few minutes of the meeting. A young guy who has been checking out the Revolution Club and running with it periodically, walked up to the edge of the meeting at first. He believes in God and has recently started thinking maybe he shouldn’t be involved with people who don’t. A pastor who unites with revolutionaries to struggle for justice, and who was attending the meeting, went over to talk with him and a few minutes later the young guy came all the way into the meeting and stayed for the rest of it. A supporter of the revolution who had come to the defense of the Revolution Club during the standoff with police couldn’t stay for the meeting, but stopped by to show his support. A young man about 12 years old walked over by himself to attend the meeting, saying the Revolution Club members had told him and his friends about it at his house a few days ago and he wanted to learn more.

These were important. And overall, the debate and ups-and-downs of the past week reveal something new. Which is precisely why the pigs have raised the stakes of all this and the questions are getting sharper. But the fact that the meeting did not have the turnout it needed indicated that people are still weighing all that is involved in stepping forward and taking responsibility to figure out how to go forward. The Revolution Club is actively working to figure out why and go more deeply with people around the issues, even as we step up the struggle.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/on-the-donald-trump-jr-russia-controversy-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

On The Donald Trump Jr./Russia Controversy

July 12, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

The evidence, conflict and controversy over Trump’s ties to Russia could serve to weaken the regime; if combined with a mass movement from below, that would be good for the people. But the rat is most dangerous when cornered.

Right now we must ACT, not watch; driving out a fascist regime is not a spectator sport. We are needed, now, all of us... manifesting to the world from where our voice is strong and clear: in the streets.

This coming Saturday, July 15^th, must be a day when every person, every group—religious, community, service, political organization—all who feel the tremendous threat to humanity posed by the Trump/Pence regime—should stand together showing the world that people here are refusing to accept a fascist America, demanding that The Trump/Pence Regime Must GO!

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/artists-activists-and-organizations-demand-the-trump-pence-regime-must-go-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

July 12, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

From Refuse Fascism:

RefuseFascism.org
Contact: 917-407-1286 / info@refusefascism.org
Interviews available

Artists, Activists and Organizations Demand: “The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!”

Calling for Major National Protests, Saturday, July 15

Over 100 organizations and individuals are uniting around a call for major national protests this Saturday, July 15 demanding The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America!

Signers include actors Ed Asner, Justin Theroux, David Strathairn, Raul Castillo and Michael Shannon; Carl Dix, spokesperson for the Revolutionary Communist Party; author and educator Cornel West; singer Lalah Hathaway and musician Arturo O’Farrill; poet and playwright Marc Bamuthi Joseph; scientist PZ Myers; and a number of religious leaders including Salman Aftab from the American Muslim Task force on Civil Rights & Elections and Rev. Chloe Breyer, the Executive Director of the Interfaith Center of New York. (See the full list of signers here.)

Taking place in over 17 cities, organizers declare: “We will not accept the cruel and brutal future of the Trump/Pence Regime . . . they must GO!... Only the people acting together in the streets and public square can force this demand before the world.”

RefuseFascism.org, the initiator of the July 15 protests, is currently occupying space in front of Fox Network News at 1211 Avenue of the Americas for 100 Hours of No!—100 continuous hours of indictment and protests in front of Fox headquarters in NY which will culminate in the July 15 protest.

1:00 pm, July 12: Refusefascism.org will present an indictment to The News Corporation.

Statement from David Strathairn

“Our form of a humane, compassionate, all-inclusive governance, guaranteed us by the founding principles of our constitution, a government, remember?, ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people’, is in a battle for its life against the vile, malignant, fascist agenda of the Trump/Pence regime.

“This regime and its co-conspirators is being allowed to infiltrate more widely, more deeply, and more insidiously, into the precious fabric of our daily lives, every day, assaulting our inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness by spreading bias, hatred, greed, and distrust; threatening to tear apart our own nation’s vital need for communality and inclusiveness; displaying a disgusting example of basic human decency; attempting to establish economic policies that will only fill their already bulging pockets while fleecing tens of millions of people of essential human services; trying to pass laws of ethnic, religious, and gender oppression; seeking to control the way we choose our public servants; arrogantly and ignorantly destabilizing crucial global alliances to a frightening degree; and willfully denying, while adding to, the undisputed scientific facts that the health of our planet is under serious duress. And this is all happening right under our noses.

“We have to stand up and say NO. However we can. Wherever we can. Before it’s too late. Add your voice on July 15th. The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go.”

Matthew Shipp, the renowned American pianist, composer and bandleader

He took the bullhorn in front of Fox News as part of the #100HoursOfNo to speak about the importance of driving out the Trump/Pence regime. Afterward, he commented about what he feels is one of the outrages about this regime: “In a day when cops are murdering Black kids you can’t have as an attorney general somebody who has... Jeff Sessions is the only person to my mind who Martin Luther King’s widow wrote a letter about saying he was capable of undoing the legacy of her husband. So why would somebody go and pick somebody like that to be the chief law enforcement officer? To me that is stunning—it’s galvanizing in the mind that something’s wrong.”

Statement from Perry Hoberman, installation artist and professor at the University of Southern California

“Every day, the Trump/Pence regime makes further progress in realizing their vision of a hideously unjust and unequal society, a cruel, racist, hateful, poisonous nightmare. And much of this process is happening behind the scenes, while we’re distracted by the latest mind-boggling episode of treason and twitter... We can’t let this happen. They have to be stopped. And they won’t be stopped unless all of us join the struggle.” (Full statement here.)

Statement from Isabel Cardenas, Salvadoran-American activist

“Standing up to oppression in large numbers is always the most effective way of pushing back against the most horrendous oppression. In this way we startle the conscience of society, making it more difficult for the Trump/Pence Regime to carry out its program. We must bring together all the people who agonize and rage at what this regime is doing to people—this is the only way to push back against, and ultimately stop this regime! Will you join us on July 15?” (Full statement here.)

Statement from David Zeiger, Documentary Filmmaker

“Twelve years ago I made a film, Sir! No Sir!, that told the story of the thousands of men and women who found themselves caught in the middle of one of the Twentieth Century’s greatest nightmares, the Vietnam War. Those Soldiers, Sailors and Marines defied prison, violent attacks, social ostracism, and even death to build a GI Movement against the Vietnam War and play a major role in exposing and ending that crime. Their movement went up against the most powerful military in the world from the inside! It was insane. It was unthinkable. It was irrational. It had never been done.

“And it changed the world.

“Now is the time to once again do the insane, the unthinkable, the irrational. Now is the time to set our sights on bringing this horrific government of Trump and Pence down. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, short of that will end this nightmare. Refuse Fascism has called for nationwide demonstrations on July 15 to take a crucial step toward that goal.”

RefuseFascism.org is a nationwide movement that unites people of many perspectives and from all walks of life who recognize that the Trump/Pence Regime is a fascist regime that must be driven from power through the mass political protest of millions of people. They do this not just for themselves, but in the name of humanity.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/10-nights-of-no-in-philadelphia-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

“10 Nights of No!” in Philadelphia—Projecting NO! to the Trump/Pence Regime

July 12, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

The Philadelphia chapter of Refuse Fascism issued a press release announcing “10 Nights of No!”—a series of large-scale digital projections displayed on iconic and heavily trafficked walls around Philadelphia from July 4 to July 14. The press release said: “These projections are part of building support for nationwide demonstrations on July 15th demanding that ‘The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!’ Refuse Fascism organizers state that they ‘will not accept the cruel and brutal future of the Trump/Pence Regime—they must GO!’”

The photographs on this page, originally posted at streetsdept.com, were taken on July 6 at the Federal Detention Center at 7th and Arch streets in Center City, on the third consecutive night of these projections.

Go here to see a Refuse Fascism Projection Tutorial on how to do projections like this in your own city:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQwWkIWWGt8

  

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/refuse-fascism-texas-right-time-to-follow-your-conscience-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

From Refuse Fascism in Texas:

When is the right time to follow your conscience?

July 12, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

This Saturday, July 15, we are calling on every Refuse Fascism supporter in Texas, all of you who rage against the actions of this regime, to converge on Houston to say in one unified voice, “In the name of humanity, Trump and Pence Must Go!”

Converge:  10 am, Sam Houston Park
1000 Bagby, at Lamar, Downtown Houston, 77002

Rally: 10:30 am, corner Sabine St. & Allen Pkwy

This week’s New Yorker magazine features an article about the current political scene in Texas being a harbinger of America’s future. “With right-wing zealots taking over the legislature even as the state’s demographics shift leftward, Texas has become the nation’s bellwether.” This article lays out in excruciating detail what we already know, that Texas is a key battleground where fascists, emboldened by the fascist-in-chief Donald Trump and his whole vicious cabinet, want to declare an all-out victory.

Yes, in Texas, there have been a slew of victories for their side, causing fear and upheaval among immigrants, people of color, women, LGBTQ people, and so many other targeted groups. And even in liberal Austin, armed right-wing vigilante groups consider it their duty to come out to protests and intimidate those who oppose their cruel and brutal vision. These Trump-supporting groups flanked the impeachment march in Austin and are keeping an eye on all protests in Texas as a way of freezing dissent. They have declared a victory over the impeachment march in Austin, and we should expect that they will be out in Houston on July 15 too.

We cannot hand these forces the future they want. The worst thing we can do, for the people of Texas and the people of the world, is to stay home and avoid the conflict. We must gather peacefully, we must raise our demand that the Trump-Pence regime must go, and we must stand together strong. There is a great joy in standing up for what’s right. This moment in history, when thousands across the country can set the example and inspire millions to step out and stop the consolidation of a fascist future, matters more than anything else right now. Come and be with us on July 15. If not now, when?

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/poster-1-trump-pence-regime-on-women-and-lgbtq-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

From RefuseFascism.org

The Trump/Pence Regime on Women and LGBTQ

Poster One in a series of seven posters

Updated August 26, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Women and LGBTQ people are full human beings, not objects to be grabbed, demeaned, victimized, and denied their fundamental right to control their reproduction, and how they choose to live.

The Trump/Pence Regime on Women and LGBTQ:

What they have done

• Promised to appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion; appointed Neil Gorsuch.
• Signed a law giving states the option to deny funding for Planned Parenthood and other organizations that provide legal abortions.
• Slashed funding to combat HIV/AIDS in the world’s poorest countries by 17 percent.
• Drastically reduced funding to women’s health care globally that provided access to birth control.
• Revoked Executive Order 13673 that required that companies receiving large federal contracts demonstrate that they have complied with laws that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender stereotyping, or gender identity.
• Took down the Office of National AIDS Policy website the day Trump took office, and there has been no replacement.
• Revoked federal guidelines that mandated transgender students have the right to use public restrooms that match their gender identity.
• In a lawsuit involving employment discrimination against LGBTQ people, the Justice Department filed legal papers arguing that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act banning sex discrimination does not protect workers from discrimination based on sexual orientation.
• Tweeted that transgender people will be banned from the U.S. military because they are a “burden.”

What they said they will do 

• Several states already have “trigger laws” that would immediately make all abortion illegal, except when the pregnant woman’s life is in danger, should the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade.
• Trump’s proposed budget would cut hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid and slash Planned Parenthood funding—endangering the lives of millions of women who rely on them for lifesaving cancer tests, maternity care, and birth control. Trump/Pence is also attempting to make birth control more difficult for women to obtain.
• Six members of Trump’s Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS resigned, stating his regime will push “legislation that will harm people living with HIV and halt or reverse important gains made in the fight against this disease.”
• Proposed Trump/Pence budget includes a $186 million funding cut for the Centers for Disease Control’s HIV/AIDS prevention, testing and support programs.
• Proposed huge cuts to the National Institutes of Health, including $550 million cuts to HIV/AIDS research.
• Proposed $800 million cuts from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and U.S. Agency for International Development programs addressing the AIDS pandemic—meaning there will be more than 830,000 AIDS treatment interruptions leading to an estimated 130,000 more deaths at minimum.
• Candice Jackson, a top Department of Education official, said they are reconsidering how they investigate charges of campus rape because, she claims, “90 percent” of the accusations “fall into the category of ‘we were both drunk...’”

What they have unleashed nationally

• Just in the first three months of 2017, five states passed 10 laws putting new restrictions on abortions.
• One new anti-abortion law, passed in Arkansas, makes it illegal for women to have an abortion without notifying the man who impregnated her—including if that man had raped her!
• In the first half of this year, Republicans in six states proposed laws to ban all abortions, and in 28 states introduced bills banning abortions under some circumstances. This includes a bill in Missouri that would allow employers to fire women who use birth control and landlords to evict women who have had an abortion or who are unwed mothers.
• Another new Utah law mandates that women receive “counseling” on “a medically unproven method to stop a medication abortion from completion after a first dose of the two-dose regimen,” according to the Guttmacher Institute.
• An unrepentant sexual predator, Trump repeatedly tweets degrading, violently misogynist attacks on women—helping create a culture of sexual assault, crude degradation, objectification and gross/open/celebrated disrespect towards women. Women are being threatened by men, even boys invoking Trump: “With Trump, we can grab you by the pussy,” one group yelled at a woman in Virginia.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/poster-2-trump-pence-regime-on-civil-liberties.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

From RefuseFascism.org

The Trump/Pence Regime on Civil Liberties

Poster Two in a series of seven posters

Updated August 17, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

The Trump/Pence government has been step by step criminalizing dissent and bludgeoning the truth with worse to come. Stripping away basic rights and the rule of law is at the core of fascism.

The Trump/Pence Regime
on Civil Liberties:

What they have done

• Over 230 protesters arrested at Trump’s inauguration were charged with multiple felonies, including federal riot charges, and 230 defendants face up to 70 or more years in prison. The government is now demanding massive and detailed information on visitors to a website used to organize those protests. The site’s web hosting provider says complying would amount to handing over roughly 1.3 million visitor IP addresses.
• U.S. agents now search cell phones and other electronic devices of people traveling internationally at a rate four times higher than in 2015. The head of Department of Homeland Security said visitors to the U.S. should be required to give up their online passwords and submit to social media searches.
• Trump has systematically accused the press of “fake news” and being an “enemy of the people”; refuses to hold regular press briefings; threatens individual reporters and news outlets; and has tweeted a video of himself beating up a CNN reporter.
• Trump and his spokespeople have attacked artistic expression ranging from comedians to a staging of Julius Caesar by NYC’s Shakespeare in the Park featuring a Trump-like title character.
• Attorney General Jeff Sessions has launched an aggressive campaign to identify and prosecute people who leak information to the press and opposes a federal “shield” law to protect journalists who refuse to disclose their sources.

What they said they will do 

• After Edward Snowden, a government security contractor turned whistle-blower, revealed the vast U.S. spying on people’s communication, Trump and Pompeo, now the head of the CIA, called for Snowden’s execution.
• Trump has publicly stated he wants to expand the government’s surveillance apparatus, including restoring parts of the Patriot Act that have been amended. While still a senator, Jeff Sessions helped derail a Senate bill that would have required law enforcement to get a warrant before accessing stored electronic communications like emails.
• The Trump/Pence regime has discussed rewriting libel laws to allow suits against those who criticize government officials or leak unflattering information. After the New York Times published parts of Trump’s tax returns in December 2016, Corey Lewandowski, former Trump campaign manager, said the Times’ executive editor “should be in jail.”
• Trump reportedly told James Comey before firing him as FBI director that journalists should be jailed for publishing classified information.
• TSA proposed requiring airline travelers to take all books out of carry-on luggage for agents to inspect.
• Department of Homeland Security announced plans to expand the use of facial recognition cameras at airport boarding gates to scan all passengers leaving the U.S.—from seven major airports currently to all airports.

What they have unleashed nationally

• Trump supporters are systematically attacking academic freedom. They have targeted progressive professors with online threats and terror, and fascist goons have gone to campuses to spread hate and attack students and professors.
• Republican legislators in at least 19 states have introduced bills criminalizing protest in different ways in response to the massive anti-Trump demonstrations, and other states may follow suit. Some have already been passed into law.
• A proposed bill in Arizona redefines “rioting” to be included in the state’s racketeering laws, allowing the government to seize the assets of people who participate or help plan protests that turn violent.
• A proposed bill in the Alabama Senate criminalizes “mass picketing” aimed at blocking access to streets and highways, airports or train tracks, places of business, and private residences, as misdemeanors punishable by up to a year in prison and $2,500 in fines.
• Proposed laws in North Dakota, Tennessee, Florida, Texas, Rhode Island, and North Carolina make it legal to run over protesters as long as the driver claims it was an accident.
• A new Georgia law called the Back the Badge Act of 2017 criminalizes various acts of resisting police or jail authorities.
• Minnesota is considering bills that will increase penalties for blocking highways from misdemeanor to gross misdemeanor, with penalties of up to a year in prison and a $3,000 fine. And they allow law enforcement or other government agencies to sue people convicted of unlawful assembly or public nuisance for the cost of government response to the protest.
• A proposed bill in Mississippi criminalizes “maliciously impeding traffic on a public road,” punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
• In Missouri a proposed bill makes it a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison for a protester to conceal “his or her identity with a robe, mask, or other disguise” while engaged in an unlawful assembly, and makes it a crime for two or more people to intentionally “impede vehicular traffic” by walking, standing, sitting, or lying on a public street or highway, punishable by up to 7 years in prison.
• North Dakota has increased penalties for “instigating a riot” from a Class C to Class B felony, with up to $20,000 in fines and 10 years in prison. Wearing a mask or hood to avoid identification or escape detention is now punishable by up to a year in prison and a $3,000 fine.
• An Oregon bill will expel students from their college or university if they participate in a violent “riot.”
• A Senate bill in Washington will criminalize “economic disruption,” defined as trying to influence government action by intimidation or coercion, blocking any vehicle or ship, or obstructing any oil pipeline, barge or power plant, with penalties ranging from 2 to 12 months in prison.
• In March 2017, a UN Special Rapporteur issued a report expressing concern about the impact these different bills and laws could have on free speech, assembly, and right of association.
• The National Rifle Association released a video attacking the New York Times, which ended with the warning, “We’re coming for you."

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/poster-3-trump-pence-regime-on-people-of-the-world-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

From RefuseFascism.org

The Trump/Pence Regime on People of the World

Poster Three in a series of seven posters

Updated August 16, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

The people of every country are full human beings, and not collateral damage to be subjected to massive bombing, invasions, occupations, the danger of nuclear war, and a program of “America First” that would bludgeon them into submission. 

The Trump/Pence Regime on People of the World:

What they have done

• The U.S. is waging war, in one form or another, in six countries—Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia, killing thousands.
• Trump now has his finger on the nuclear trigger and has repeatedly threatened North Korea with war, including a nuclear holocaust—“fire and fury like the world has never seen.” Defense Secretary “Mad Dog” Mattis warned of genocide: “The end of its regime and the destruction of its people.” National Security Adviser McMaster states the U.S. is preparing all military options including preemptive war.
• During Trump’s campaign, he asked a foreign policy expert three times: If we have nukes, why can’t we use them?
• The U.S. has deployed attack aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines off North Korea’s coast and carried out provocative military maneuvers, including flying nuclear capable B-1B bombers near its borders. With other powers, imposed new economic sanctions cutting North Korea’s meager annual export revenue by one-third.
• Twice deployed warships within 12 miles of islands in the South China Sea claimed by China, Taiwan, and Vietnam to challenge their claims and assert U.S. supremacy and “freedom of navigation.”
• In Iraq, U.S.-led forces killed an estimated 40,000 people in their nine-month campaign to take the city of Mosul from ISIS. Much of western Mosul was leveled by 2,000 U.S. air strikes and the 29,000 munitions fired by the U.S.-led coalition. Nearly a million residents were forced to flee and hundreds of thousands remain in refugee camps. After the U.S.-led Iraqi forces took control, there has been torture and summary executions.
• In Syria, U.S. air strikes in and around the city of Raqqa have led to the “staggering loss of civilian life,” more than 1,300 since the start of 2017.
• U.S.-supplied white phosphorous munitions have reportedly been used in the heavily populated cities of Mosul and Raqqa. White phosphorous munitions are toxic, stick to the skin, and burn so hot they can create deep second- and third-degree burns. Under international law, they’re banned from use in populated areas.
• Defense Secretary Jim “Mad Dog” Mattis dismisses civilian casualties as “a fact of life.”
• Stepped-up threats against Iran, which has been abiding by its 2015 nuclear deal with the U.S. and other powers, while the U.S. has imposed new sanctions violating it. Trump has ordered his staff to find ways to break the agreement, which would be a major step toward confrontation.
• Finalized the largest arms sale in U.S. history with Saudi Arabia—$110 billion in tanks, bombs, helicopters, and other equipment immediately, with tens of billions more likely to come.
• Explicitly supported the Saudis’ war in Yemen, which has led to over 10,000 civilian deaths, 17 million without enough food, looming famine, and a rapidly spreading epidemic of the preventable disease cholera, which now infects 500,000 Yemenis and has killed nearly 2,000. On average, one child under the age of five dies of preventable causes every 10 minutes.
• Yemen has been hit by more U.S. air strikes than in all of 2015-2016 combined.
• In March, the U.S. resumed drone attacks in Pakistan.
• In Afghanistan in April, the U.S. carried out 296 bombing strikes—its highest monthly total in five years.
• Dropped the world’s largest-ever non-nuclear bomb in Afghanistan in April weighing 11 tons and nicknamed MOAB—the “mother of all bombs.” Trump called MOAB “another very, very successful mission.”
• U.S. Special Forces are now deployed in 70 percent of all the countries on Earth.
• Backed brutal dictators including Philippines’ president Duterte, who has murdered over 7,000 people he claims are drug users or dealers; Egyptian president al-Sisi, who has arrested, imprisoned, and/or tortured thousands of dissidents; and has sold military equipment to the Nigerian government, which has bombed internal refugees.
• Launched the world’s largest, deadliest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, capable of carrying more warplanes and weapons, and launching more air strikes than any before.
• Pushed a House bill to spend $788 billion on the military, $68.1 billion more than the last Pentagon budget.
• Slammed U.S. borders shut and demonized Muslims and refugees during the greatest global displacement crisis in history. Over 65 million people (half are children) are fleeing wars, violence, and persecution.

What they said they will do 

• The commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet said “the answer would be yes,” if he were ordered by Trump to launch a nuclear attack on China.
• Deployed another 3,000 to 5,000 troops to Afghanistan. Discussing the profitable exploitation of the country’s mineral deposits estimated to be worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
• “Torture works,” insists Trump. Guantánamo stays open. Illegal torture including water boarding is being re-approved. Trump plans to bring back the CIA “black sites.”
• Trump’s CIA Director Mike Pompeo calls torturers “patriots,” Guantánamo “honorable and professional” and “a goldmine of intelligence,” and NSA spying “a very valuable asset for the intelligence community and for law enforcement.”
• Trump recently declared the U.S. would remain “the most powerful nuclear nation in the world, by far.”

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/poster-4-trump-pence-regime-on-environment-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

From RefuseFascism.org

The Trump/Pence Regime on Environment

Poster Four in a series of seven posters

Updated August 17, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

The Earth and the species who inhabit it—including humanity—should sustain life and not be despoiled by ignorance, greed, and the disregard of science.

The Trump/Pence Regime on Environment:

What they have done

• Withdrew the U.S. from the Paris international climate agreement on greenhouse gas emissions.
• The regime released a list of 860 environmental rules it’s reviewing or withdrawing—including drinking water standards for radon and lead levels, water quality standards on Indian reservations, ozone and methane emission limits, and air-quality standards for hazardous chemicals. Just ten of those standards save more than 10,000 lives and prevent 300,000 cases of illness and injury each year.
• Contrary to scientific consensus, EPA head Scott Pruitt denied on national TV that carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels is the main cause of global warming.
• Approved and expedited construction of the Dakota Access and Keystone XL oil pipelines, which will increase fossil fuel use and emissions and accelerate global warming.
• Attempted to block rules restricting leaks of methane, an even more harmful greenhouse gas than CO2, from landfills and from oil and gas wells.
• Approved the use of chlorpyrifos, a widely used pesticide shown to be harmful to children’s brains and nervous systems.
• Rescinded Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which put restrictions on carbon emissions from new and existing power plants.
• In a move lauded by the NRA, Trump’s interior secretary approved the use of lead ammunition on federal lands and waters.

What they said they will do

• EPA head Scott Pruitt attacks climate science and the reality and danger of climate change and plans to dismiss 38 scientists from the EPA’s Board of Scientific Counselors.
• In the name of doing an “update” to “reflect the agency’s new direction,” the EPA website has removed “Climate Change” as a topic from its menu of “Environmental Topics” and begun making content related to climate change unavailable.
• The Trump/Pence budget would slash the EPA budget by more than 30 percent and eliminate 3,200 jobs at the agency.
• Among the EPA programs targeted to be gutted or eliminated is “environmental justice,” which was supposed to help minority and other disadvantaged communities fight industrial pollution.
• Filed a plan to end rules protecting more than half the country’s streams and waterways—which flow into rivers, lakes, and wetlands—from pollution, which could end drinking water safeguards for one in three people in the U.S.
• Announced plans to roll back auto fuel efficiency standards and regulations restricting vehicle emissions.
• Trump instructed his interior secretary to review 40 national monuments to see if the size of land set aside for protection from development should be reduced.
• A Trump order for a review of bans on offshore oil drilling in parts of the Arctic and Pacific and Atlantic oceans points to renewed expansion of such drilling.
• Trump has said the U.S. environmental regulations are “out of control,” and has removed protections of certain species, like the Yellowstone grizzly bear, and ordered reviews of rules protecting other endangered species, like the greater sage-grouse.
• Although studies say the construction of Trump’s border wall will threaten more than 100 species of animals and plants, Trump claims no environmental review is necessary to put up the wall and plans to invoke “national security” to bypass it.
• The Bureau of Land Management proposed repealing rules on fracking on federal and Native American tribal lands that put some requirements on oil and gas companies, like safety measures on toxic chemicals used in fracking.
• The Department of Treasury says they will turn from promoting renewable energy in “developing” countries to supporting more coal-fired power plants and other fossil fuel projects.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/poster-5-trump-pence-regime-on-muslims-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

From RefuseFascism.org

The Trump/Pence Regime on Muslims

Poster Five in a series of seven posters

Updated August 17, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Muslims and refugees are full human beings, not people to be shunned, banned, and cast out to be swallowed up by oceans and wars.

The Trump/Pence Regime on Muslims:

What they have done

• Imposed significant parts of a Muslim ban that bars people from 6 Muslim-majority countries and all refugees from entering the U.S.
• To get around the obstacles put up by some courts to the Muslim ban, instituted “extreme vetting” that especially targets people entering the U.S. from Muslim-majority countries.
• After the initial Muslim ban, Trump fired the acting attorney general for refusing to defend the ban.
• Trump said nothing when a 17-year-old abaya-wearing Muslim girl, Nabra Hassanen, was kidnapped after leaving a Virginia mosque and battered to death with a metal bat.
• Trump appointed as his chief of strategy Steve Bannon, who sees America and the “Christian West” as being locked in an existential struggle with the Muslim world and non-European/dark-skinned people generally.
• Wisconsin sheriff, David Clarke, a fascist who spoke at the Republican Convention, called for intensified surveillance of Muslim communities.

What they said they will do

• ICE is targeting immigrants from Muslim-majority countries named in Trump’s original Muslim ban. In July, at least 114 Iraqi immigrants in Detroit—nearly all Chaldean Christians from Iraq—were rounded up in an ICE raid.
• ICE has announced that they have a list of 1,444 “deportable” Iraqis that they fully intend to go after, arrest and deport—as well as 4,801 Somali immigrants on the same list.
• When the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated significant parts of Trump’s Muslim Ban 2.0 in June, Neil Gorsuch, appointed to the Court by Trump, joined two others in an opinion declaring the ban should be restored in full—in anticipation of the Court considering the question in the fall.

What they have unleashed nationally

• Fascists rallied in dozens of cities across the country on June 10 in what they called a “March Against Sharia,” a major leap in the normalization of anti-Muslim bigotry.
• A Trump supporter in Portland, Oregon, murdered two Good Samaritans who came to the aid of women he was threatening because one wore a hijab. He shouted, “Muslims should die.” It took Trump 4 days to tweet that the attack was “unacceptable.”
• The number of hate crimes against Muslims in the first half of 2017 spiked 91% compared to the first half of 2016. There were 66 attacks on mosques in the U.S. in that period—compared to 84 for the whole of last year.
• A white man set fire to a convenience store in St. Lucie, Florida, in March while shouting “run the Arabs out of the country,” because he thought it was owned by Muslims (the owner is actually from India).
• A woman walking on a Milwaukee street in April was confronted by a man who pulled up to her in a car, demanded that she remove her hijab, pulled her to the ground, and slashed at her clothes with a knife.
• A worker at a Middle Eastern restaurant in Salem, Oregon, was attacked by a white man wielding a pipe and yelling “Get out of America” and “Arab, you need to leave.”
• In August, an IED exploded at Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington, Minnesota, as people were preparing for morning prayers.
• A Muslim cemetery in Castle Township, Minnesota, was vandalized with swastikas and graffiti saying “leave u r dead.”

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/poster-6-trump-pence-regime-on-immigrants-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

From RefuseFascism.org

The Trump/Pence Regime on Immigrants

Poster Six in a series of seven posters

Updated August 26, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Immigrants are full human beings, not “illegals” or criminals, to be demonized, terrorized, hunted down, locked up, and thrown out.

The Trump/Pence Regime on Immigrants:

What they have done

• One of Trump’s first acts in office was an executive order targeting all 11 million undocumented immigrants for deportation, regardless of any supposed criminal record.
• Arrests of immigrants are up almost 40 percent from the record highs under Obama.
• Every day since Trump/Pence came into office, over 400 people have been ripped away from their lives, families, and jobs by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In June alone, ICE agents arrested 13,914 people.
• Trump officials claim the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that gave temporary deportation relief to 750,000 mostly young immigrants (“DREAMers”) brought to the U.S. without documents when they were children is “under review”—but ICE agents have already arrested some DREAMers, like 22-year-old Daniela Vargas in Jackson, Mississippi.  A White House official said: “It’s enforcement first. Then we can get to all these other things.”
• In prepared remarks for an appearance at the U.S.-Mexico border, Attorney General Jeff Sessions wrote: “It is here, on this sliver of land, where we first take our stand against this filth.... This is a new era. This is the Trump era.”
• Over the June 10 weekend, at least 114 Iraqi immigrants—nearly all Christians who face extreme persecution and threat of death if deported—were rounded up in SWAT-team type raids by ICE agents in Detroit.
• Trump’s Department of Homeland Security appointed the former director of the virulently xenophobic group FAIR as an “ombudsman” whose role is supposedly to advocate for immigrants whose citizenship or visa applications have run into problems.
• In late July, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced new policies depriving state and local law enforcement of federal funds unless they cooperate with federal immigration crackdowns, including allowing ICE agents access to local jails and notifying ICE at least 48 hours before incarcerated undocumented immigrants are set to be released.
• In front of hundreds of police in Long Island, Trump declared that he was getting rid of immigrant “animals” who were causing gang violence in their communities. “They’re going to jails,” Trump yelled, “and then they’re going back to their country. Or they’re going back to their country, period.”
• Trump pardoned ex-Sheriff Joe Arpaio, infamous for mass torture and humiliation of immigrants in his jails and racial profiling of anyone suspected of being undocumented.

What they said they will do

• To step up anti-immigrant operations, the Trump/Pence regime plans to hire 5,000 more Border Patrol cops and 10,000 more ICE agents.
• Plans for Trump’s wall for the border with Mexico are going ahead, with the regime calling for the allocation of $1.6 billion to start construction, $23 billion for more boots on the ground, and other funds to build new detention prisons.
• Trump/Pence announced at end of June they will begin arresting parents and other relatives who hire “coyotes” to help their children cross the border into the U.S.
• Trump’s Pentagon is considering reneging on enlistment contracts for 1,000 foreign-born recruits without legal immigration status, who had been promised a path to citizenship for serving in the military—making them targets for deportation.
• Trump enthusiastically backed a Congressional bill that would cut the total numbers of legal immigrants and refugees admitted into the U.S. by half, effectively limited to well-educated English-speakers.
• The Department of Homeland Security extended the Temporary Protected Status for 58,000 Haitians—who had been driven out of their country because of devastating hurricanes and earthquakes—only to January 2018, at which time they may be forced back to a country that is wracked with a cholera epidemic on top of deep poverty.

What they have unleashed nationally

• Among the barrage of Republican anti-immigrant bills now in Congress is the Davis-Oliver Act which, among other things, would turn civil immigration infractions into criminal violations punishable by prison, expand immigration prisons, require local law enforcement to hand over to Department of Homeland Security a wide range of data on all immigrants who are arrested and suspected to be undocumented, and other draconian measures.
• States are also passing anti-immigrant laws; for example, the SB4 law signed by the Christian fascist Texas governor Abbott, requiring that local law enforcement detain a person they suspect of being undocumented until their immigration status is checked—the law effectively bans sanctuary cites and campuses in the state.
• Trump created a new government office under Homeland Security, called VOICE, which will “publicize” supposed crimes committed by undocumented immigrants. This anti-immigrant propaganda office is part of whipping up a climate of hatred and terror against immigrants.
• Republicans in Congress are introducing laws which would impose mandatory five-year minimum prison sentences for deportees caught re-entering the country.
• Tens of thousands of Central Americans, many of them children traveling alone, have entered the country over the last few years escaping brutality and death in their home countries and seeking asylum. The fascists are introducing bills to make asylum even more difficult to obtain.

• Among the victims of Trump-era anti-immigrant violence: Srinivas Kuchibhotla, an immigrant from India, who was murdered in February in Kansas by a white man shouting “Get out of my country” as he fired his gun; a Latino man in Lansing, Michigan, whose attackers yelled “Trump doesn’t like you” and stapled a note on his stomach saying “Go back to Mexico, wetback.”
• Nine immigrants were found dead and 17 in critical condition in a tractor trailer in San Antonio that had been turned into an oven because of the Texas heat.
• The attorney generals of 10 states and one governor wrote to Attorney General Jeff Sessions demanding that if DACA program for “Dreamers” is not ended by September 5, they will sue.
• In the first seven months of 2017, 239 people died trying to cross the Mexico-U.S. border, a 17 percent increase from the same period last year—even as there are significantly fewer people trying to cross. The further militarization of the border is forcing immigrants to cross the border at more remote and dangerous areas like the Arizona desert.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/poster-7-trump-pence-regime-on-white-supremacy-police-brutality-mass-incarceration-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

From RefuseFascism.org

The Trump/Pence Regime on White Supremacy, Police Brutality, and Mass Incarceration

Poster Seven in a series of seven posters

Updated August 16, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Black and Latino people are full human beings, not people to be denied the right even to live, gunned down by the police with impunity, incarcerated in genocidal numbers, and denied basic rights.

The Trump/Pence Regime on White Supremacy, Police Brutality, and Mass Incarceration:

What they have done

• Attorney General Jeff Sessions called for maximum charges and penalties for non-violent drug offenders, reversing policies reducing them, at a time when 2.3 million people, disproportionately Black and Latino, are already incarcerated.
• Sessions has put a halt on consent decrees with cities that aim to address some of the most egregious police abuses.
• Police across the U.S. have already killed over 1,090 people in the first 8 and 1/2 months of 2017, over 440 of them Black or Latino, with many unarmed.
• In the name of stopping the "carnage," Trump has sent more feds into Chicago, an advance guard for a stepped-up reign of terror on Black and Latino people.
• Under Betsy DeVos, the Department of Education is rolling back investigations of civil rights abuses against people of color, women, and LGBTQ people in public schools.

What they said they will do

• Trump declares he still wants to end Obamacare, which will result in an additional 217,000 deaths over the next decade and 22 million more people without health insurance—hitting poor, Black, Latino, and Native American people hardest.
• A proposed "Back the Blue Act" would make it harder to sue for damages for unjustified police violence, and turn even minor, often non-existent charges of assaults on police into federal crimes with severe mandatory minimum sentences.
• Trump's proposed budget will cut $192 million from the Food Stamps program over the next 10 years, taking food from many of the nearly 44 million recipients—about 26 percent Black, and including children and elderly, disabled, working poor and homeless people.
• Funding for the Special Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) will be reduced. Latinos make up 40 percent of WIC recipients, Black people about 20 percent, and Native people about 12 percent.
• Trump's budget would cut 13 percent of the Department of Education budget—$9 billion—which will lead to further deterioration of public schools in oppressed neighborhoods, while $1.4 billion will be added to encourage and support private, charter, and religious schools, including vouchers for religious fundamentalist charter schools.
• Other education cuts affecting oppressed nationalities in particular include elimination of $1.2 billion allocated for after school and summer programs serving 1.6 million students of working families, including after school food programs for low-income students.

What they have unleashed nationally

• The Trump regime has fostered a climate in which white supremacists feel emboldened, including a Mississippi legislator who declared that anyone wanting to take down Confederate monuments "should be lynched."
• In just the first five months following Trump's election, there were nearly 300 acts of racist threats directed against Black people.
• There is an epidemic of lynching nooses clearly meant to deliver a racist, threatening message. A series of lynching nooses appeared in Washington, DC museums in May and June: at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Hirshhorn Museum, and the National Gallery of Art.
• Other lynching nooses have appeared since Trump's election, at schools, universities, and communities across the country.
• After Black Texas congressman Al Green said that Trump should be impeached, he was flooded with telephone threats, like: “You’re not going to impeach anybody, you fucking nigger. You’ll be hanging from a tree.”
• Hundreds of armed fascist thugs descended on Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 12 for a KKK-Nazi rally, with this lynch mob murdering counter-protester Heather Heyer and injuring many more, and trooping through the streets yelling slogans against Black people, LGBT people, immigrants, and Jews. In tweets and statements before the press, Trump made clear his backing for the fascist mob.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/in-the-name-of-humanity-we-indict-fox-fascist-news-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

From RefuseFascism.org

100 Hours of NO!
In the Name of Humanity,
We Indict FOX FASCIST NEWS

July 12, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

While masquerading as “fair and balanced”, Fox News serves as a vehicle for stirring up racism, xenophobia and irrational fear of other peoples and countries among its overwhelmingly white audience. Fox has worked to turn millions into easy prey for leaders like Trump—who has had virtually unlimited access to airtime there—and to cohere them into a fanatical fascist movement.

Fox helped whip up war fever and mass hysteria over nonexistent “weapons of mass destruction” in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. It provided a platform for Trump and others to attack Obama as a “secret Muslim,” and “not an American,” as if being a Muslim was itself a crime, and being Black was somehow “un-American.” It feeds fear of “Muslim terrorism” and casts suspicion on Muslim communities, women in Muslim garb, Muslim places of worship.

In the name of free speech, its hosts complained bitterly about being the victims of persecution as they whip up hatred for women, LGBTQ people and any person who is not white and Christian. FOX regurgitates Trump’s lying portrayal of immigrants as dangerous criminals and a threat to “white womanhood.” It exaggerates and spreads fear of rampant crime even as crime rates drop, implying if not outright saying that people of color are the cause of crime. It celebrates police even as they kill hundreds of Black and Latino people annually; then shamelessly defames the victims as criminal scum who got what they were asking for. Its hosts have defended the “right” of businesses to refuse service to gay people. It has saturated the airwaves with pseudo-experts who attack the scientific understanding of the danger of human-caused climate change, and who fundamentally attack science and critical thinking itself.

And on and on … Fox has proven to be an open sewer of misinformation, disinformation and outright lies, hour after hour.

Here are just some of the flood of lies and reactionary garbage that comes out of Fox “Fascist News Network”:

• At least 28 times before courageous abortion doctor George Tiller was assassinated by an anti-abortion killer in 2009, Bill O’Reilly and others on Fox News repeatedly called Dr. Tiller “baby killer” and spewed other incendiary lies and attacks, and whipped up murderous hatred against Dr. Tiller.
• In a two-month period in 2013, 69% of Fox News guests talking about climate change and 75% of references to the subject cast doubt on the scientific reality of climate change—in contrast to 97% of the world’s experts who hold the consensus view based on scientific evidence about the danger of climate change.
• Donald Trump avidly follows the “Fox & Friends” morning show, tweets out lies straight out of Fox broadcasts, and regularly tells his millions of Twitter followers to watch Fox.
• In one of many lies in service of spreading anti-immigrant hatred, Jillian Mele of “Fox & Friends” falsely claimed that 21 sanctuary cities across the U.S. are “teaming up” with an immigrant rights group to “rush the process for illegals pouring over our borders.”
• Trump advocated the U.S. use of torture during his campaign, and in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity after his election, Trump renewed his support for waterboarding.
• After a cop in suburban St. Paul murdered Philando Castile, a 32-year-old Black man, Fox News hosts Hannity and Kelly criticized Castile’s girlfriend who was in the car with her 4-year-old daughter, for not doing more to help; a contributor used the occasion to attack Obama for violent attacks on police; and a guest, an NRA board member, used the killing to accuse Obama of trying to start a race war.
• Anti-abortionist Lila Rose appeared on the Tucker Carlson Tonight show on May 31 to promote the deceptive video footage that had been used by an anti-abortion group in a smear campaign against Planned Parenthood—after a federal judge had barred the release of the footage and ordered that all copies of it be removed from the Internet.
• Top Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly was let go after many women came forward to testify about being sexually harassed by him, as top management continued to back him—so far Fox News has paid $13 million to settle sexual harassment claims against O’Reilly. But this is just the tip of the iceberg of the whole misogynist, ultra-patriarchal culture at, and viewpoint consistently blasted out by, Fox News.
• After a white supremacist murdered two men who tried to stop him from harassing a young woman wearing a hijab and her Black friend on a Portland, Oregon train, Fox News’ Tucker Carlson downplayed his known history of neo-Nazi activity and claimed he was just an “unstable maniac,” whose actions were “hardly the behavior of a coherent white supremacist,” and “this guy wasn’t a right-winger.”
• Fox News anchors and commentators have consistently downplayed the implications and evidence of the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with Russia to affect the elections—host Gregg Jarrett said, for example, in late May, “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Collusion is not a Only in antitrust law. You can collude all you want with a foreign government in an election. There’s no such statute.”
• As part of the Trump-Republican assaults on health care, Fox News spreads thinly disguised racist lies about Medicaid, such as: Medicaid “was going to people who didn’t need it” (Ainsley Earhardt); Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion included “a lot of people who are not, by previous standards, considered poor” (Brit Hume); Medicaid expansion gave care to “a population who maybe could have gotten a job” (Marc Siegel).
• Fox News hosts and commentators have added to the dangerous Trump/Pence war threats around North Korea—including the host of “The Fox News Specialists” who said in June that if North Korea goes further with their missile development, “It may be time for a preemptive ”

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/confederate-flag-waving-racists-vs.people-acting-in-the-interests-of-humanity-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Confederate-Flag-Waving Racists vs. People Acting in the Interests of Humanity:

Fascists Issue Armed Threats Against Houston July 15 “Trump/Pence Must Go” Protest

July 13, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

A Texas fascist group is calling on its followers to come out—armed and waving Confederate flags—to counter the July 15 “Trump and Pence Must Go!” protest in Houston. This fascist outfit calls itself the “This Is Texas Freedom Force” (TFF)—they should actually be called the “Texas Freedom Farce.” They say with a straight face that the Confederate flag of slavery “is not considered a racist flag”—these are the kinds of ugly forces who think that the wrong side won out in the Civil War.

These are the kinds of white-supremacist neo-Nazis who think that Black people, other people of color, and immigrants need to be “kept in their place,” with threats and actual use of violence. Who believe women’s “God-given” role is to bear children. Who shout “America First” and consider themselves soldiers in a Christian fascist “holy war” against their enemies. And who think that with Trump and Pence in the White House, that it’s finally “their time.”

This is the future, people, if the Trump/Pence regime wins out and consolidates its hold on power. To those who haven’t become part of the fight to drive out this regime: are you OK with that?

The TFF takes credit for joining with other fascist forces earlier this month to surround and intimidate an Austin, Texas protest that was demanding Trump’s impeachment. And they say they intend to do the same at the July 15 protest in Houston. The TFF says in their call for July 15, “Side arms are welcomed with LTC [license to carry] card, Open carry is welcomed as well.”

These claims of TFF to be about “freedom” may be facile—but the activation of these fascist ground forces is very serious. The recent National Rifle Association (NRA) “recruitment” video (followed by a couple of others, and including scenes of burning of American flags in political protests, and people holding the Refuse Fascism “NO!” posters) was straight-up intended to agitate backward fascist-minded white people to prepare for a new civil war.

People who are acting in the interests of humanity to drive out the Trump/Pence regime vs. Confederate-flag-waving racist fascists—there are two very clear roads laid out here. And there is no “sitting on the sidelines”.

Refuse Fascism, Houston has put out a call: “We cannot hand these forces the future they want. The worst thing we can do, for the people of Texas and the people of the world, is to stay home and avoid the conflict. We must gather peacefully, we must raise our demand that the Trump/Pence regime must go, and we must stand together strong... Come and be with us on July 15th. If not now, when?”

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/a-real-life-horror-story-for-women-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

A Real-Life Horror Story for Women: Arkansas Law Would Force Rape Survivors to Notify Their Attacker Before Getting an Abortion

July 13, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Imagine you’re a woman who has been assaulted and raped. To add to the agony, you find that you are pregnant. But that’s not the end to the horror. In order to get an abortion, the state is compelling you to let the rapist know about the procedure!

This may seem like a nightmarish scenario out of a novel about a dystopian future. But it’s happening right now—in 2017 America. The state of Arkansas has just passed an anti-abortion law that makes it illegal for women to have an abortion without notifying the man who impregnated her—including if that man is someone who had raped her.

Adding to the reactionary perversity of this law, known as the “Tissue Disposal Mandate,” is that it is a provision being added to an existing law, called the Final Disposition Act, that gives family members of a person who has died say over what happens to the deceased’s body. Under the new provision just passed and set to go into effect at the end of July, the aborted fetus would be considered a deceased family member—and the man who impregnated the woman would have equal say with the woman regarding the disposal of the fetal tissue.

This is totally outrageous—and right in line with the Christian fascist anti-abortion movement’s fanatical, anti-scientific lies about how a fetus is a full human being with “rights” and claiming abortion is “murder.” No! Fetuses are not babies. Abortion is not murder. And women are not incubators—they are full human beings!

As Bob Avakian points out:

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. (From “ON ‘PRINCIPLED COMPROMISES,’ AND OTHER CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY”)

While the new Arkansas law does not explicitly give the man involved in the pregnancy the right to force the cancellation of an abortion, the law requires that there must be agreement on the method of “disposal” of the fetal tissue—and the man could go to court if there is a difference of opinion. Doctors who performed abortion procedures could face criminal penalties if they failed to inform the man about how the tissue would be disposed of. If a woman is forced to go to court over this matter, she could be forced to delay getting an abortion beyond the point where abortion is legal in Arkansas—right now, the state bans abortions after 22 weeks of pregnancy.

Click to read

On top of the Tissue Disposal Mandate, Arkansas has passed three other recent anti-abortion laws:

*A ban on dilation and evacuation abortion, a safe and common procedure used in second-trimester abortions.

*A requirement that abortion providers disclose private medical information on patients under 17 to the police and preserve fetal tissue from abortions for those patients as “evidence.”

*A requirement that abortion doctors obtain medical records of a patient’s “entire pregnancy history”—a medically unnecessary measure that could result in the woman not being able to get an abortion before the 22-week cutoff.

Arkansas is a “leader” in anti-abortion laws at the state level—but it is hardly alone. While abortion still remains legal under the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, a barrage of state laws in recent years have put increasingly onerous restrictions on women’s right to abortion. Just in the first three months of 2017, 431 anti-abortion measures were introduced in various state legislatures, and five states (Arizona, Arkansas, Kentucky, Utah, and Wyoming) passed 10 new laws adding to restrictions on abortion. Abortion clinics and doctors continue to be targets of violent threats and attacks from the anti-abortion movement.

And now there is a fascist regime in power in Washington that is taking the already intolerable situation faced by women under this system of capitalism-imperialism to a whole new level. Trump, the predator-in-chief, repeatedly tweets gross and violently misogynist attacks—helping to further whip up a culture of sexual assault, crude degradation, and objectification aimed at women. Mike Pence, the Christian fascist leader next in line behind Trump, vows to send Roe v. Wade “into the ash heap of history.”

There is a way to beat back the escalating assaults on women’s right to abortion—and to break all the chains that bind women under this system. This won’t happen by pinning hopes on the Democrats—under whose “legal but rare” stand on abortion, the Christian fascists continued to gain force and momentum. But it can happen by building massive political resistance to the war on abortion, as part of the movement for an actual revolution to overthrow the whole system of capitalism-imperialism at the soonest possible time and replace it with socialism—a radically new and better society moving toward a world free of all forms of exploitation and oppression (see the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, authored by Bob Avakian and adopted by the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA). And right now, there is an immediate and urgent need for people in their millions upon millions to be out in the streets as part of demanding, in the interests of humanity, that the Trump/Pence fascist regime must go!

Women Are Full Human Beings!

Fetuses Are NOT Babies!

Abortion Is NOT Murder!

Abortion on Demand and Without Apology!

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/louisiana-wanton-police-murder-of-dejuan-guillory-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Louisiana: The Wanton Police Murder of Dejuan Guillory

July 13, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

On July 6, 27-year-old Dejuan Guillory, a father of three, was shot and killed by a sheriff’s deputy in Mamou, Louisiana. The circumstances are all too familiar—yet again, a traffic stop ends in an unarmed Black man lying dead.

Guillory was DWB with his girlfriend, Dequince Brown, down a gravel road in rural Louisiana when a cop pulled them over. According to Brown’s attorney, Joe Long, an argument started and Deputy Paul Lafleur ordered them both to the ground—with his weapon drawn. Long said, “Guillory was on the ground on his belly with his hands behind his back. The officer had a gun trained at Guillory’s back, maybe a foot or two from Guillory’s body. They were still arguing back and forth, but Guillory was on the ground as directed, his hands were behind his back. He was not resisting. All of a sudden, a shot rang out, and Brown knew that Guillory had been shot. She then jumped on the officer’s back to stop him from killing Guillory.”

Adding to the complete outrage of this murder, Brown was then arrested—because she tried to stop the cop from killing Guillory—and charged with attempted first-degree murder of a police officer. She was jailed for five days and then released Tuesday, July 11, on $75,000 bond.

Long has given details on what happened, exposing this deliberate and unprovoked murder. Long affirms that Guillory was on the ground with his hands behind his back, begging for his life, pleading, “Please don’t shoot me; I have three kids,” when Lafleur fired his first shot. Then after Brown tried to stop the pig from killing Guillory, the cop fired three more shots into Guillory—in the back.

Long says two ambulances came to the scene, but “one ambulance loaded the deputy in and took him to the hospital. The other one left empty. When she [Brown] left in a police car, Guillory’s body was still on the gravel road.” (The cop was taken to the hospital because he says he was injured by Brown biting him.) Long says Brown never saw anyone trying to give Guillory CPR or help him in any way.

As Carl Dix stated recently: “If the brutality, terror and murder carried out by the police was the only thing wrong with this capitalist-imperialist system, that would be reason enough to get rid of it once and for all thru revolution. And this is far from the only horror this system enforces on humanity. The RCP is organizing people into a revolution to overthrow this system at the soonest possible moment. If you want to see police terror and all the other horrors humanity is subjected to ended, you need to get with this revolution.”

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/100-hours-of-NO-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Day 4:
100 Hours Of NO! at The FOX FASCIST NEWS NETWORK
Culminating On July 15

July 14, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Contact: 917 407 1286
refusefascism.org

(Above and below) Day 4 the Raging Grannies showed their solidarity with the 5-day-long continuing protest, and the upcoming July 15th national demonstrations.  The Raging Grannies are a singing group known all over the country and internationally.  The “Grannies” sang their songs ridiculing the Trump regime with parodies and satire—and seriousness.  They finished their short “concert” by singing their parody— “Trump Will Make Us Great Again,” to the tune of “Happy Days Are Here Again!” 

Day 1 through Day 3 of "100 hours of NO!" in front of Fox Fascist News Network. Protesters put chalk slogans on the sidewalk at 47th St. and 6th Avenue in Manhattan, in front of Fox "News," announcing the July 15th Demonstration at 4pm at Trump Tower.

Hawk Newsome, President of Black Lives Matter of Greater New York, spoke to passersby in front of Fox Fascist News on Thursday, Day 3 of Refuse Fascism's "100 Hours of NO!" "Donald Trump is exactly what America is. America is racism, America is sexism, America is oppression. Donald Trump is the embodiment of America. And not that bullshit pill they give us to take that says 'this is the land of the free and the home of the brave.'"

Wednesday, July 12th, 4 pm: Refuse Fascism, joined by 4 “Handmaids,” indicts Donald Trump and the Trump/Pence regime for the horrific crimes they have already committed against women in this country and around the world, with more in store, pointing to the facts on their poster, “The Trump/Pence Regime on Women and LGBTQ.”  

At Fox News Headquarters right now #FascistNewsNetwork #J15TrumpPenceMustGo https://t.co/goTfWVUNHU

— #j15TrumpPenceMustGo (@RefuseFascism) July 11, 2017

For 100 hours beginning at high noon Tuesday July 11 Sunsara Taylor, RefuseFascism.org, and many others are delivering a living indictment of the Fox Fascist News Network and the Trump/Pence Regime.

Posters lined the street, documenting the fascist crimes of the regime. Photo: @ericmcgregor

Refuse Fascism marching from Times Square to FOX Fascist News to begin “100 hours of NO!”

Right away the building security blocked the entrances to the public space in front of FOX to try to prevent the protest from setting up. The police showed up, but when confronted with the law, they were forced to back down.

Young girl from Birmingham, Alabama visiting New York with her mom. "We're saying NO! to TRUMP! NO! to TRUMP! We were just walking by and we saw it and she said "We must stop!" She said "'Mom, they're saying NO to TRUMP!'"

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/six-protesters-arrested-for-hanging-resist-banner-on-trump-tower-in-chicago.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Six protesters arrested for hanging "RESIST" Banner on Trump Tower in Chicago

July 14, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

This week in Chicago, six protesters, four of them Greenpeace activists, were arrested for hanging a large banner on Trump Tower. At the top of the banner was the word “RESIST” with an arrow pointing toward Trump Tower. Below it is a picture of the Earth with the word “DEFEND” emblazoned across it. Of the protesters arrested, the four Greenpeace activists face felony charges, and Trump Tower claims they caused tens of thousands of dollars in damage.

The action followed a number of resistance campaigns by global environmental groups resisting Trump’s attacks on the climate, humanity, and science. Greenpeace explained that the banner was a message “to show this administration that the people of Chicago—and people all over the country—will continue to RESIST Trump’s attacks on our clean air and water, and defend our communities and the planet!” One of the protesters being charged was quoted on Greenpeace’s website proclaiming, “This action demonstrates that we will not accept the threats that the Trump administration poses to people here and around the world.” He added, “Ignoring the science of climate change and removing us from the Paris Climate Agreement is just another indication that the billionaires who have hijacked our democracy are putting the short term profit of corporations over people and the planet.”

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/carl-dix-and-the-revolution-club-chicago-tell-the-youth-dont-fight-for-uncle-sam-our-fight-is-here-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Chicago protest against U.S. threats of war against North Korea

Carl Dix and the Revolution Club: “Don’t Fight For Uncle Sam...Our Fight is Here!” 

July 14, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

On July 11, in front of an Armed Forces Recruiting Station on Chicago’s South Side, Carl Dix and the Revolution Club went up against the Trump/Pence regime’s threats to make war against North Korea.

The Revolution Club marched into the parking lot of the strip mall where the imperialist death-recruiting center is located. The message on their banner was bold and clear:

To all Black and other oppressed people… and to all people who stand for justice—DO NOT FIGHT FOR UNCLE SAM IN NORTH KOREA—OR ANYWHERE ELSE!! Our Fight is Right Here!

In front of the military center, Carl Dix took the mic to tell people:

The United States is threatening war with North Korea. You got Donald Trump with his finger on the nuclear button, threatening to push it to start a war, telling us that this war is in some way a defense against a madman in Korea. But... a war between the United States and North Korea would be a war of a nuclear-armed bully, the United States, against a small country. And it would be a disaster for humanity. No one—not Black people, not other oppressed people, not anybody who cares about justice should fight in that war. In fact no one should fight in the United States' wars because these are wars for empire....

… you got this system, this capitalist-imperialist system, whose rulers unleash their cops to patrol Black and Brown neighborhoods like occupying armies spreading terror, brutalizing and even murdering people there. Warehousing people in prison. Pinning people down in segregated communities in cities like Chicago and elsewhere. Gearing the educational system to fail people. And then they wanna come to our young people and say “You gotta fight for your country.… It becomes your country when they go to war—they say ‘you got to go out and fight for it.’”

Well I say bullshit. This system... is unleashing attacks on immigrants, Muslims, attacks on women, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender people, that has everybody’s rights to protest and exercise free speech under attack, that’s even attacking sections of the capitalist media—this is not our system, its fight is not our fight. No one should fight in this war with Korea, no one should fight in any of the wars of this system.

But there is a fight that we should wage and that’s a fight to get rid of this system in the only way possible and that’s by getting organized into a revolution to overthrow this system to defeat and dismantle its military, police force and all the rest and to bring a whole different world into being. That is a fight that’s ours.... We got the leadership that we need for this revolution in Bob Avakian, the leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party, a man who has developed a strategy and approach for how to make revolution in a country like this, how to get in position to be able to lead millions of people to go all out for revolution when the time is right, to do that with a real chance to win and a vision of the kind of world we could bring into being. A world where the exploitation and oppression of this system has been done away with once and for all. We do have a fight and people need to get with that fight. They need to check out this revolution. They need to check out the leadership we have for this revolution in Bob Avakian. They need to get with this revolution.

Struggle with and among the people

An important part of this action at the military recruiting station was to actually STOP people from going in and joining the U.S. military. It was slow at the recruiting station while the Revolution Club was there (a lot of recruiting is done at schools and other places). Then, a 19-year-old Black youth walked up, headed towards an appointment at the recruiting station. It was not his first time there—he was in the process of being recruited into the military. When a Revolution Club member stopped him to talk, he said he wanted to make his life about something and was not seeing anything else out there for him. The revcom told him, “Look, the only time you count to this system is when they are ready to use you to kill other people. The reason there is nothing for you out here is ’cause they don’t give a shit about you. They want to keep you trapped in this shit here and all over the world. And to join their armed forces to enforce this shit all over the world.”

The young man replied, “I can’t argue with that.” The revcom told him, “They also have armed white supremacists to enforce all this shit—they don’t see police killing people as a problem, they see people fighting against it as the problem. If you want to make your life about anything, don’t join the enemy’s army—join the revolution. Joining the military makes about as much sense as a slave joining the slave master.” The young man said a few times, “I didn’t see it that way,” and didn’t really say much more. But he did walk away after that conversation instead of going in for his appointment with the imperialist recruiters.

Other people going through the parking lot said they were in agreement with what they were seeing and hearing. Some stopped to listen to Carl Dix. There was struggle among the people too. A woman who took some flyers and passed them out on the corner near the recruiting station gave one to a guy who looked at it and then tried to give it back to one of the revcoms, saying, “I’m only concerned about Black people.” The woman heard this and struggled with him, saying this IS about Black people! The revcom added, and it is not just about Black people, it is about ALL OF HUMANITY getting free. The man decided to keep the flyer.

A U.S. military veteran who works with Refuse Fascism also spoke and announced the July 15 nationwide protests to drive out the Trump/Pence regime. A vet from the Revolution Club also spoke.

After this bold action held the sidewalk in front of the U.S. Armed Forces recruitment center for over an hour, Carl concluded, saying the Revolution Club will be joining in the July 15 protests and calling on everyone to be there.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/to-the-brave-fighters-and-dreamers-of-july-15-from-the-revolutionary-communist-party-USA-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

To the Brave Fighters and Dreamers of July 15

From the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

July 14, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

This statement will be read at protests across the country on July 15, 2017.

On behalf of the Revolutionary Communist Party, I want to salute everyone who came out today. Everyone who stood up to the intimidation and threats, everyone who fought through the defeatism that’s out there, everyone who has responded to the relentless implantation of fascism with that most eloquent of answers: NO! We especially salute all those who over these past months have birthed the absolutely essential organization that is Refuse Fascism, and especially those of you who were living your lives and then answered the call posed by events and have thrown so much into this. This vehicle of Refuse Fascism is precious and the time is now for it to get far bigger, far stronger, and far more all-embracing so that we can drive out this regime before it’s too late!

Continue to not just resist, but go further in this battle. This is life and death for tens of millions of people and maybe more. Let’s struggle in the days to come to draw out every lesson we can from today and everything that has led up to this; let’s interrogate what we’ve done and then let’s do better... because the stakes are way too high to do anything less. Today can be and must be not just a “good thing to do,” but a point of departure for a whole new level of struggle.

But we want to ask you to go further, too. Listen to this invitation from the leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party, Bob Avakian, or BA, on page 3 of this month’s issue of Revolution:

An Invitation
From Bob Avakian

Let’s go on a crucial journey together—full of unity against oppression and lively struggle about the source of the problem and the solution. Pursue your own convictions—that the outrages that move you are intolerable—to their logical conclusion, and be determined not to stop until those outrages have been eliminated. And if this, as well as learning about other outrages, and ideas about how this all fits together and flows from a common source—and how it could all be ended, and something much better brought into being—leads in the direction of seeing not only the need for bold and determined resistance, but also the need for revolution and ultimately communism, then don’t turn away from that because it moves you beyond your comfort zone, challenges what had been your cherished beliefs, or because of prejudices and slanders. Instead, actively seek to learn more about this revolution and its goal of communism and to determine whether it is in fact the necessary, and possible, solution. And then act accordingly.

There’s a way to take up that invitation. Get into BA. Read THE NEW COMMUNISM, which puts forth just what it says—a new communism, a way to scientifically understand and transform the world, to make revolution and to keep that revolution on the road to emancipation. Get into The Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, which lays out a blueprint and framework for the radically new and far, far better world that really is possible through that revolution. Pick up and carry with you BAsics, the handbook for revolutionary fighters.

Here’s a chance, and a challenge, to learn where this madness we’re fighting today came from... how it flows out of a SYSTEM, of capitalism-imperialism. To learn WHY we need a revolution, and why that revolution can and must overthrow the system. To learn how such a revolution could actually come about. And to learn about your role in it.

Go to www.revcom.us every day, and learn how events fit together and what they mean for revolution. Go to Revolution Books if there is one near you. Join the Revolution Club, where you can not only learn about this but be part of fighting the power as part of making revolution, taking on every outrage and fighting in every corner of society, where you can change the world and change yourself in the process, with people just like you and with people very different from you, in a spirit of struggle and questioning and courage and love.

Let’s go forward together, let’s drive out this regime, and let’s move on then to build a whole new world where the hellish nightmares of today really are no more, and humanity can truly flourish.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/499/protesters-denounce-nra-for-inflammatory-videos-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

“We Will Not Be Intimidated Into Silence”

Protesters Denounce NRA for Inflammatory Videos

July 14, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

On July 14, hundreds of people rallied outside the National Rifle Association’s suburban Virginia headquarters in a protest against recent outrageous videos from the NRA. After the rally, about 200 people began a 17-mile march to the Department of Justice in Washington, DC, where they will demonstrate tomorrow at 10 a.m. The first NRA video basically called on their followers to attack those who are resisting and protesting the Trump/Pence regime.

When some people called this out, the NRA put out a second video that doubled down on the first by naming and attacking several individuals, including Tamika Mallory of the Women’s March and DeRay Mckesson of Campaign Zero. Tamika Mallory was at the protest at the NRA headquarters, as was Linda Sarsour, a Palestinian American activist who has also been the target of reactionary threats.

The July 14 protest was called by organizers of the Women’s March. The call for the protest—“We Know We Are Not Safe. But We Will Not Be Intimidated Into Silence”—was co-signed by over 70 other groups. The call began: “Recent actions of the NRA demonstrate not only a disregard for the lives of black and brown people in America, but appear to be a direct endorsement of violence against women, our families and our communities for exercising our constitutional right to protest. On July 14th and 15th, Women’s March and partners will mobilize a mass demonstration, again grounded in the principles of Kingian nonviolence, to denounce the false and intimidating rhetoric of hatred and send a clear message that our movement will proudly and bravely continue to strive for the respect of the civil and human rights of all people.”

As the statement “We Must Support Those Under Attack,” issued by Carl Dix, Sunsara Taylor, Cornel West, and Andy Zee, who initiated RefuseFascism.org, said in part: “The mobilizing of the minions and trolls of this regime to go after specific individuals is not only chilling but could directly endanger those individuals. Particularly in the case of Tamika Mallory and DeRay Mckesson—African-American activists who are explicitly attacked for their associations with important movements for social justice—this is extremely chilling and must be opposed, especially given the history and current-day reality both of the U.S. in general and the particular persons wielding power in this regime. This is also true for Linda Sarsour, a Palestinian-American Muslim activist who has also come under vicious attack from the extreme right…”

Organizers in front of Fox Fascist News Network send support to women in DC who are marching tonight against National Rifle Association after being threatened by name in the second NRA video message.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/500/July-15-protests-the-trump-pence-regime-must-go-en.html

Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Updated July 19, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

July 15, 2017, We Declare:

THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO!

In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America

 

In Chicago Carl Dix reads the statement from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA.

To the Brave
Fighters and Dreamers
of July 15

From the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

Read more

Summation and evaluation of the July 15 national day of protests will be at revcom.us in the coming weeks.

New York, New York

NYC: March to Trump Tower, Drive Them From Power

The message of July 15 resounded off the walls and streets of Manhattan, reaching, shaking up, and challenging people. The marchers came from all walks of life, with a wide range of perspectives and outrages, and a common determination to drive out the regime.

The day kicked off with a dozen or so people who had been part of 100 Hours of NO! In the Name of Humanity, We Indict FOX FASCIST NEWS. They marched through a street fair, down 6th Avenue, chanting, “No pussy grabbing, no patriarchy, no fascist USA;” and “No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA.”

Read More

Los Angeles, California

In the Face of Fascist Thugs Yelling "USA, USA, USA"—
Hundreds Rally and March to say "HUMANITY FIRST!"

Hundreds of protesters gathered at Hollywood and Highland, the site of the Trump Hollywood Star, to rally and march against the Fascist Trump/Pence regime. Fascist thugs came to contest the march, to try to intimidate and silence protesters, and to “defend” the Trump Star. They were not successful. People gathered for two rallies and marched through the street, shutting down Hollywood Blvd., powerfully demanding the Trump/Pence Regime MUST GO!

Read More

At Hollywood and North Highland...

San Francisco, California

Hundreds Rally at UN Plaza and March Through the Mission

Over 300 people joined the “Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!” rally at the UN Plaza. Then about 240 people marched, starting on Market Street, the main street in this city, and then going into the Mission district along Mission Street to 24th.

Read More

Chicago, Illinois

Rally begins in Chicago, at Grant Park. Photo: special to revcom.us

March to Trump Tower in Chicago

 

July 15: Rally and March of 100s in Downtown
...The march, which went through downtown and to the Trump Tower, had a big impact—hundreds of people lined the march route, clapping, joining the chants, and taking pictures; and some taking up signs and joining the march....
Read More

Revolution Club, Chicago, on March

Video: Refuse Fascism Chicago

Washington, DC

Notes from Washington, DC, Anti-NRA March

From a reader:

July 15, in the morning, more than 200 people came to a rally in front of the Department of Justice—this was a continuation of the protest called by organizers of the Women's March, Women's March from #NRA2DOJ, in response to the vicious videos from the NRA (see statement from Refuse Fascism, "We Must Support Those Under Attack") which began on the day before at the National Rifle Association (NRA) headquarters in suburban Virginia. People marched 17 miles from there to the Department of Justice, where a rally was held the next morning. There were very strong demands in relation to the fascist attack videos that the NRA had recently put out, and there were gun control advocates and people who had family members die from shootings. Linda Sarsour, Carmen Perez, and Tamika Mallory from the Women's March were among those who spoke. There were some NRA and Trump supporters, perhaps 10 on other side of street, but overall there was not the menacing atmosphere there had been at the NRA headquarters the day before.

Read more

After a rally yesterday at the NRA headquarters in suburban Virginia against recent fascist NRA videos, people marched to DC and rallied at the Dept. of Justice on Saturday morning. See “We Will Not Be Intimidated Into Silence” Protesters Denounce NRA for Inflammatory Videos. Photo: special to revcom.us

People march from the DOJ to the Trump hotel in DC as part of the July 15 nationwide Trump/Pence Must Go protests. Photo: special to revcom.us

Houston, Texas

Houston: Facing Down Armed Fascists – and Not Stopping Until This Regime is Driven from Power

Here in Texas, there was a mixture of excitement, tension and fear leading up to the July 15th rally and march to demand that Trump and Pence Must Go. About a week earlier, we learned that a group of fascists was coalescing to disrupt our event, and were in fact planning to become an armed presence at all protests to keep the protesters in line.

Read more

Atlanta, Georgia

The demo started with a rally/speak-out in front of the Martin Luther King Jr. historic site. There were about 75 people that came for the rally, but hundreds of tourists stopped to listen to the rally and take pictures. The rally led to a march down the Beltline, a path that surrounds the city and has many hundreds of people walking and biking. The march ended in Piedmont Park. The crowd was diverse, including immigrants, students, Black and white, multi-aged. There were people there from the Impeach movement, many that came directly after the Women's March (which took place a few hours before our march). There were '60s people and some that came to perform street theatre, like Donna J. Trump, who impersonates and mocks Trump. Among those speaking were a Somali immigrant who is a refugee activist, and a woman who works with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

The following was read at the Atlanta July 15 protest:

When I was born 80 years ago, Franklin Roosevelt was president of the United States. I’ve seen many come and go but Trump is without a doubt the worst yet! He is a dangerous man! Who obviously sees himself as a dictator! It is high time that a “groundswell” of opposition rise up from the people. Silence is acquiescence! I’m delighted that this group is coming together today to put the Trump Administration on notice that the people are “fired up” and will not take it anymore!”

—From Dr. Joe Beasley, who was Southern Regional Director of National Rainbow/PUSH Coalition and is chairman of Benedita de Silva International Foundation and the Asian American Center in Atlanta.

Boston, Massachusetts

The J15 rally was held in Statue Park in Davis Square, Somerville at the conclusion of a day-long arts festival. The rally was attended by 85-100 people, most coming off learning about it on Facebook. Some were with groups like Indivisible and Interfaith Worker Justice. One woman said she had voted for Hillary Clinton but was now so furious with the Democrats as well as Trump that she wanted to get with Refuse Fascism. Speakers and statements read at the rally were from: Refuse Fascism; Rev. Rob Mark of the Church of the Covenant; “To the Fighters and Dreamers of July 15,” from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA; activist with Interfaith Workers Justice Coalition, on the case of a Salvadoran immigrant who was recently detained for deportation by ICE while he was getting an extension on his work visa; Academics Against Fascism (AAF); a statement from a Refuse Fascism woman activist, who is a quadriplegic and could not attend the rally (the statement was read by a doctor with AAF); a Salvadoran woman (born in U.S.) who was not planning on speaking until she listened to Refuse Fascism statement. The rally ended with a singer/songwriter singing Woody Guthrie’s “Deportee.”

Cleveland, Ohio

A diverse group of 60 people came out: Black and white high school youth, women in their 80s, a young Black man representing proudly with a rainbow NO! sign, people in electric wheelchairs, a Muslim woman in a hijab, and people connected with Indivisible and the Cuyahoga Progressive Caucus. Several fascist militia men showed up, armed with automatic rifles and dressed in fatigues, trying to intimidate people. We did not let these fascists hold us back from our mission. At the rally, speakers from different perspectives spoke to the urgency of the demand: NO! In the name of humanity, the Trump/Pence Regime MUST GO!

Denver, Colorado

From RefuseFascism.org:

“We were at that state capital (one of the pictures shows the state capital with the posters lined up of “J’accuse … The Crimes Against Humanity of the Trump/Pence Regime“). I did a two paragraph speech.  I talked about each poster… we chanted “Trump/Pence must go!” as we started marching down Lincoln St to Fox News. 

On the way there [we stopped at] two other News Stations… We stood in front of CBS and chanted than we marched down to the next News Station ABC and chanted.  They looked out of their windows.  We continued on to Fox31 and we lined up the Indictment Posters and started chanting to show Fox 31 that we are protesting along with Refuse Fascism nationwide.  There was 3 people standing in the lobby and seen us coming.  They all ran for cover as if just the 8 of us there were going to storm the place.  I had one of my team contact them by phone and they sent down a reporter.  I handed the reporter the indictments on legal paper.  He went back inside the building and we started to chant again.  We succeeded in doing what we were suppose to do and we were glad that we did this along with everyone nationwide.

The walk was 1.5 miles.  I had one medic with us.”

Detroit, Michigan

Fifty people came together at the Joe Louis Fist Memorial in downtown to join in the nationwide day of protest. Speakers included Refuse Fascism, Metro-Detroit Political Action Network and others, followed by a spirited march through downtown behind a home-made banner, "NO! Drive Out Trump/Pence Regime!" (The National Lawyers Guild provided legal observers.)

Photo: Metro-Detroit Political Action Network

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Honolulu, Hawaii

Our march was loud, visible, and fast-moving as it moved through the Waikiki tourist district during the busy supper-hour.   Beaches and sidewalks were crowded; diners came to windows, and tourists came out to their hotel lanais.  Many clapped, raised their fists, or joined the chants.  A few shouted their support for Trump and some GI’s tried to get a group together to counter us while another group of GI’s showed their support. While much smaller than we’d anticipated (only about 25) the march ended with high spirits and strengthened determination.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Seattle, Washington

 

 

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Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Paris: Anti-Trump/Anti-Macron Protests on Bastille Day

July 15, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

On July 14, anti-Trump/anti-Macron protesters marched in the streets of Paris. The demonstration took place on Bastille Day—Trump was an honored guest at the military parade on this national holiday, which marks a turning point in the French Revolution. People were protesting Trump’s two-day visit to Paris to meet with France’s president, Emmanuel Macron.

This was a meeting of two reactionary heads of state who share much in common in terms of their reactionary anti-people programs and imperialist wars of empire. There is the fascist Trump, who is rapidly implementing and extending an extreme fascist program every single day. And then there is Macron—who defeated the openly fascist Marine Le Pen in the presidential elections in May. But Macron’s victory was in no way a victory for progress, nor did it remove the danger of fascism. The election normalized the fascist right wing in France and further legitimized its efforts to reach political power. And Macron’s program represents the continuation and acceleration of right-wing politics in France and internationally. He has pledged, among many other things, to rapidly remove rejected asylum seekers, throw many more petty lawbreakers into prison, and slash civil service jobs, social benefits, and social protection.

Trump’s meeting with Macron represented further efforts of the Trump/Pence regime to promote its fascist program internationally and cement the commitment of other imperialist countries to join in this reactionary agenda.

On Thursday, July 13, hundreds of protesters set up a “Trump-free zone” at the Place des États-Unis, a former site of the U.S. Embassy. Then on July 14, according to news reports, there were clashes between protesters and riot police who tried to block the streets and prevent the march from continuing. The police used tear gas and tried push back protesters, but after a stalemate, the cops pulled back and had to let the march continue.

There was a diverse range of anti-Trump activists, including pro-Palestinian groups, migrants’ rights activists, environmentalists, antiwar activists, and antifascists. Marchers chanted, “No Trump, no KKK, no fascist USA.” Many of those marching also came to protest Macron and his right-wing, anti-people policies, like his moves against workers’ rights.

The Independent quoted two tourists from the USA who attended the protest. A woman: “We feel he does not represent us, we don’t want people to think that he does and we’re doing everything we can to get him out office.” Her friend called Trump “hostile to the planet,” and said that when Trump withdrew from the Paris climate agreement, this was the “icing on the cake.”

 

 

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Revolution #499 July 10, 2017

Report from Washington, DC, Anti-NRA March

July 16, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

From a reader:

July 15, in the morning, more than 200 people came to a rally in front of the Department of Justice—this was a continuation of the protest called by organizers of the Women’s March, Women’s March from #NRA2DOJ , in response to the vicious videos from the NRA (see statement from Refuse Fascism, “We Must Support Those Under Attack”) which began on the day before at the National Rifle Association (NRA) headquarters in suburban Virginia. People marched 17 miles from there to the Department of Justice, where a rally was held the next morning. There were very strong demands in relation to the fascist attack videos that the NRA had recently put out, and there were gun control advocates and people who had family members die from shootings. Linda Sarsour, Carmen Perez, and Tamika Mallory from the Women’s March were among those who spoke. There were some NRA and Trump supporters, perhaps 10 on other side of street, but overall there was not the menacing atmosphere there had been at the NRA headquarters the day before.

Several of us from Refuse Fascism came there in support and in participation of this two-day march and rally. At the end of Saturday’s rally, the main moderator got on the stage and said she wanted to give a shout out to Refuse Fascism and held up the flyer for July 15 and encouraged people to connect with Refuse Fascism people in the crowd.

After the rally officially was over, one of the Refuse Fascism activists did a mic check about the importance of driving out the Trump/Pence regime and its direct connection to the vital issues of the rally. A crowd of people gathered around and expressed strong agreement. Then, with the chant “No Trump, No NRA, No Fascist USA” being taken up by many in the crowd, 75 people joined in a march to the Trump International Hotel, two blocks away. Many stayed in front of the hotel for a spirited speak-out. At the beginning and end people took the pledge: “NO—In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America!”

Throughout the speak-out, it was stressed that today, July 15, was a national day of action to drive out the Trump and Pence regime, in over 18 cities, and that everyone in attendance at the speak-out was contributing to adding powerful voices from DC to this national day of action.

 

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