A "Wave"—of Hype and Delusion?
Or What Humanity Needs: an ACTUAL Revolution!

January 16, 2019 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

On Saturday, January 19, tens of thousands of women and men marched around the country. The following statement was part of a REVOLUTION broadsheet passed out to thousands and thousands at these marches.

To all those who have come out to the Women’s March angry and anguished about what is happening to women and to all the billions of people all over the planet…

You are being played. This march will take you nowhere—at least nowhere good. We do not need a “wave” that will end up washing our anger and desire to fight back into the confines of the very system that causes the problems in the first place. We need an actual revolution.

All over the world, women aspire to break free from the shackles of male domination. They increasingly demand to be treated as full human beings in every sphere. Yet they are being slammed back on every front, and misled and misdirected by those claiming to stand for them.

It is no wonder that women dress as “handmaids” to protest when:

• the most fundamental right of a woman to decide if and when she will bear a child is being actively repressed by governments worldwide, with the U.S. Supreme Court increasingly infested with justices who intend to overturn this basic right;
• one in three women will be victims of sexual or physical assault at some point in their lives;
• tens of millions of women and children are bought and sold in the multi-billion dollar global enterprise of sex trafficking;
• hundreds of millions of women are trapped in virtual slave labor, working in sweatshops or in fields, or as maids, where sexual harassment and assault is the price of survival; other hundreds of millions in better jobs, or more professional situations and the arts, or in schools likewise face discrimination, harassment, abuse and assault, as has been graphically brought out in the past year;
• social relations between men and women in every sphere, from the home to the culture as a whole, are saturated with putrid male supremacy and “guy culture”;
• Dark Age religious fundamentalists with their even more openly repressive attacks on women have increasingly metastasized into the ruling cliques in a number of major countries—with the Trump/Pence fascist regime as a prime example.

But everywhere—including at the “Women’s March”—we are deluged with triumphalist bullshit in the face of this intensifying horror. Women’s March 2019 proclaims with great pride that “The 2017 Women’s March inspired hundreds of women to run, millions more to vote, and dozens to win elected office”; and that “The 2019 Women’s March marks two years of resistance to the Trump Presidency, two years of training new activists, and two years of building power, and this time we are coming back with an agenda.”

This idea that if you just get involved in working inside the system you can make a difference is a very old worn-out scam, but it gets refashioned every time people rise up, every time they hunger for change. It is the number one way to deceive and confuse people into thinking that this system can be made to work for the good of the masses of people.

It cannot. The oppression of women is stitched into the fabric of capitalism-imperialism, and you cannot fundamentally eliminate the one without getting rid of the other. Go here to find out why this is so. These horrors, among many more, are completely unnecessary at this stage in history. They are kept going not by a few men or some wrong-headed policies that can be easily switched out, but by the system of capitalism-imperialism. All this cries out NOT for the replacement of some men at the top of that system with some women, but for the overthrow of that system!

Think about it: women have headed up governments all over the world, from India to Germany, from Brazil to Britain (see “‘Women’s Waves’ of the Past: Know Your History—DON’T Repeat It!!”).  But has this fundamentally changed the conditions of the masses of women, or the people more generally, in any of these countries? NO! Why? Because no matter who gets put in that position, they have to play and govern by the rules of the system—or the system won't function and likely they would be forced out before that.

The point is NOT to stop fighting. The point is to see and wage that fight as part of something larger: making revolution, overthrowing (not reforming) this system, with the aim of emancipating all humanity.

And the possibility of revolution is real. There is a Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, which would be established as foundational law after the victorious revolution in this country and which clearly states the following in its preamble, as part of the fundamental principles of the new society:

The oppression of women arose together with the emergence of exploitative class divisions among human beings thousands of years ago, has been carried forward and become deeply entrenched in all societies ruled by exploiting classes, and was a marked feature of the imperialist United States of America and its domination and influence in the world. Abolishing and uprooting all this is one of the most important objectives of the New Socialist Republic in North America. This is expressed not only in full legal equality between women and men, but beyond that in the declared orientation and policy of this Republic to overcome all “tradition’s chains” embodied in traditional gender roles and divisions, and all the oppressive relations bound up with this, in every sphere of society, and to enable women, as fully as men, to take part in and contribute to every aspect of the struggle to transform society, and the world, in order to uproot and abolish all relations of oppression and exploitation and emancipate humanity as a whole.

That Constitution is the work of Bob Avakian, BA, who has brought forward a new communism and who leads the revolution in the U.S. As a critical part of this work, BA has done extensive and trailblazing work on the roots of the oppression of women, and the specific ways it is bound by a thousand threads to this capitalist system we live in today. He has critically drawn on past revolutionary experience, and developed a deeper understanding of what a socialist society must do to carry the fight further, after revolution has been made, in order to fully break every chain and emancipate all humanity. If you are really serious about ending the oppression of women, and of all humanity, then you need to get into the revolution and you need to get into BA.

Revolution will not be easy. It will involve tremendous effort and real sacrifices, facing twists and turns and solving a lot of complex problems; but it IS possible. (See HOW WE CAN WIN—How We Can Really Make Revolution, put out by the Revolutionary Communist Party.) We can bring into being a new world, in which all of humanity could flourish. Join with those who have already set out on the road to do that!

Light Sentence for Convicted Pig Murderer of a Black Youth

A Slap on the Wrist for a Killer Cop
A Slap in the Face to the Masses of People

January 21, 2019 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Last October, a jury found Chicago cop Jason Van Dyke guilty of second-degree murder of Laquan McDonald and 16 counts of aggravated battery. On January 18, a judge handed down a sentence for Van Dyke that is a sickening, brutal beatdown of Black people and an outrage against humanity. For the racist murder of Laquan McDonald, the ripping away of the life of a 17-year-old who was loved and was just beginning his life, this police officer got a sentence of six years, nine months—and he could be out in half that. This came just one day after another judge handed down a verdict of “not guilty” on three former and current Chicago cops, including Van Dyke’s partner, on charges of lying about and conspiring to cover up the murder of Laquan.

In the courtroom on January 18, the prosecution brought to the stand four Black men who testified about personal experiences with Van Dyke’s brutality and racism. All were routine traffic stops. One man had a gun pointed at his temple by Van Dyke, another was choked, all were called “motherfuckers,” and at least one called “nigger.” Edward Nance said Van Dyke violently pulled him out of the car, handcuffed him, slammed him face-first on the car, and dragged him by the cuffs. He had been a high school basketball and football referee at the time, but because of the physical and psychological trauma from what he had suffered at the hands of Van Dyke, “I can’t referee no more. I’m in constant pain every day.”

After a day of harrowing witness testimony revealing that Van Dyke was a terrorist-at-large hounding and brutalizing Black people long before the less than 15 seconds he took to decide to murder Laquan McDonald... after thousands and thousands of cases of police getting away with murder after murder after murder of Black, Latino, and Native American people... in a courthouse that every day is locking away the lives of Black and Latino people in a meat grinder of mass incarceration... after America’s entire history of white supremacy and lynch mob terror that the police proudly carry on into today... after all the struggle of the people and dragging truth into light required to finally get ONE of these killer cops found guilty of murder... this sentence, this sickening charade of a punishment, spits in the face of everyone who has a heart for justice. This came as the second in a one-two punch after the full acquittal of the three officers who were tried for the vast conspiracy to cover up and lie about the murder of Laquan McDonald.

Ironically, the outrageously light sentence on killer cop Van Dyke—and the acquittal of three fellow pigs the day before—comes at the start of the Martin Luther King Day weekend, which supposedly marks how far Black and other oppressed people have come in America. In fact, this sentence and yesterday’s verdict send the message loud and clear that there are still virtually no circumstances in America under which a cop can be seriously punished for murdering a Black man, woman, or child, or for systematically covering up and lying about these murders. This sentence and yesterday’s verdict strengthen the already devastating genocide of police terror and mass incarceration targeting Black, Latino, and Native American people. This sentence, and the previous day’s verdict, stand as a declaration and announcement of the absolute bankruptcy and worthlessness of this system and its supposed mechanisms of justice, and the crying need for revolution to overthrow this worthless system.

It has been true since day one in this country that white supremacy is woven into the fabric of America. What’s needed to bring an end to this is actual revolution, the overthrow of the system of capitalism-imperialism. What wasn’t always true, but IS true now, is that we have the science, the strategy, and the vision of and blueprint for a new society to make that revolution real. AND we have the leadership in Bob Avakian (BA), and the Party he leads, to take it to victory. BA has not only developed the new communism—he has brought forward a scientific understanding of the particular way in which the oppression of Black people has been bound together with a thousand ropes to the development of the capitalist-imperialist system. And how this oppression could be done away with as part of the revolution to emancipate all humanity. He’s provided strategic and tactical leadership for this, and he’s combined that with a deep-hearted connection to the masses of people.

So now that this system has shown you, again, its complete illegitimacy, what are you gonna do?

There IS a place for YOU in this revolution—not next year or next month, but now. Now is the time to go to work on preparing for revolution. Get with the Revolution Club, and learn about BA’s new communism as you Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution. Go to revcom.us and watch the speech by Bob Avakian, the leader of the revolution: Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution. Spread this everywhere.

This system cannot be reformed, it must be overthrown!

The Revolution Club and families of victims of police murder at the courthouse, after the slap-on-the-wrist sentencing of the cop who murdered Laquan McDonald, and shortly before cops who helped cover up the murder were found not guilty, January 18. (Photo: Special to Revolution/revcom.us)

Get with the Revolution Club!

You Can’t Change the World If You Don’t Know the BAsics

January 21, 2019 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Every week, Revolution features one quote from BAsics, by Bob Avakian, the handbook for revolution. We encourage Revolution Clubs and other readers, everywhere, to take the time to discuss the quote—the whole quote—and to write us at revolution.reports@yahoo.com with accounts of these discussions, or thoughts provoked in yourself by reading the quote.

Reposted from RefuseFascism.org

Report the Truth MSNBC–The Trump/Pence Regime is Fascist

January 19, 2019 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

White House lawyers have begun prepping legal justification for declaring a national emergency over the wall.

While nobody is sure what Trump declaring a national would mean or the implications, this highlights the great urgency and importance of acting together Saturday at MSNBC Headquarters, sounding the alarm on the reality that the Trump/Pence regime is fascist and it’s up to the people to act.

MSNBC is leading people to accommodate and conciliate with fascism. Although on the surface, it might seem like they are doing a lot of exposure on the Trump/Pence regime. They are not sounding the alarm on how the Trump/Pence regime is fascist. And every night they are brainwashing people to think that the “end of the presidency is near” while Trump hammers into place a fascist agenda into place.

For example, Thursday on Morning Joe, commentators talked about Trump declaring a national emergency but they said he was doing this because the wall is a “vanity project’ and NOT part of a fascist program of ethnic cleansing of immigrants.

Cosmetic plastic surgery is vanity project. Locking out, criminalizing, killing children at the border is ethnic cleansing.

People need to know the difference.

After having a commentator on speaking about the likeliness of Trump declaring this national emergency, commentators followed with... “Yeah, but his ratings on his speech didn’t do very well, so is his base getting worn out.”

MORE ON THE PROTEST…

January 12, 1PM at MSNBC Headquarters entrance, Refuse Fascism presented the facts that show that MSNBC is feeding its audience a steady diet of Russia, Russia, Russia and Mueller, Mueller, Mueller and how they are NOT sounding the alarm that the Trump/Pence Regime is hammering into place a fascist America.

Watch and share the video. The end of the Trump/Pence Regime is NOT near. It’s up to the people to be in the streets to drive this regime from power.

In a survey done in July, in one week; Rachel Maddow spent 123 minutes on Trump and Russia; 37 minutes on voting Democrat, Trump’s incompetence, cronyism, lack of patriotism, 12 minutes on abuse of immigrants and 0 minutes on white supremacy, the global environmental crisis, patriarchy, abuses of women, and LGBTQ people, US wars and intervention, Trump and fascism. As of July 3, 2018, they had aired nearly 500 segments on Stormy Daniels and 0 on the War on Yemen.

The effect of the illusions spread by MSNBC is to pacify and paralyze people at the very time that millions should be led to understand the danger of the Trump/Pence regime and to act accordingly. RefuseFascism.org is building a movement of tens of thousands of people who will take to the streets streets in a sustained protest that doesn’t stop until our demand is met: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go. As part of this effort, we are waging a societal wide challenge for people to break with illusions and lullabies that have catastrophic consequences for humanity.

Watch and share Facebook video
Refuse Fascism Live from MSNBC HQ: Report the Truth MSNBC—Trump/Pence Are Fascist

LAPD’s Surveillance Exposed in LA11 Political Prosecutions

Secret Police Stalk and Spy on Refuse Fascism and the Revolution Club

January 21, 2019 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Los Angeles prosecutors and the LAPD are revealing their true repressive nature in the prosecution of 11 members of Refuse Fascism and the Revolution Club (the LA11). The LA11 are facing criminal charges for a range of protests against the Trump/Pence fascist regime. These prosecutions are an escalation in the criminalization of political protest and a leap in state repression, moves that are greasing the skids for fascism.

The legal cases have just begun, and what has been revealed in discovery is outrageous: the LAPD used an informant to illegally and secretly record private conversations and even entire Refuse Fascism meetings; the police on a public college campus videotaped and stalked the Revolution Club and other political groups involved in First Amendment-protected political activities; and leaders were targeted with “conspiracy” charges—charges that the prosecutors were just forced to drop.

The state is arguing that these cases are only about protesters “breaking laws.” This is a lie. In fact, the police’s own records—their reports, recordings, and photographs—reveal they violated people’s basic rights for the purpose of criminalizing political protest.

The state is using these cases to make an example of what happens if protesters stop acting like an obedient movement of meaningless opposition—desperately and dangerously trying to keep people contained within the narrow bounds of what they consider safe and acceptable protest. But it is this system—their repressive apparatus, pigs, prosecutors, and spies—that need to be put on trial. In the service of an illegitimate fascist regime, they are harassing, surveilling, and criminalizing people who are acting in the interests of humanity. This needs to become a big question in society—exposing the nature of this system and the need for determined protest—with masses of people coming to the aid of these righteous defendants!

Who are the LA11?

The arrests of the LA11 stem from a number of incidents where members of Refuse Fascism and the Revolution Club were engaging in and/or supporting nonviolent civil disobedience and protests that took place between September 2017 and March 2018. These actions included holding banners across the Los Angeles 101 freeway on two occasions, stopping rush-hour traffic to send the message: “Trump/Pence Must Go!” (This group is called the Freeway 9.) Other protests in these cases took place on the UCLA campus, including a speaking event with treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin (the UCLA5).¹

These protests—which went viral on social media—sounded the alarm about the Trump/Pence fascist regime and called on millions to fill the streets in a sustained, mass nonviolent movement determined to drive this regime from power. The defendants include revolutionaries, social democrats, an anti-imperialist military veteran, students, artists, and others.

The LAPD’s Criminality Revealed

The criminal cases against the LA11 have yet to begin trial and for them to be able to defend themselves in court, the defendants are demanding that the state turn over all the evidence being used against them. The small amount of evidence that’s been turned over reveals two things: a dangerous level of political surveillance involving illegal activity by the police and that the state is using this surveillance and the political stand of the defendants as the basis on which they are going after the LA11, making the prosecution’s whole case illegitimate.

Key points to note:

*The Role of the LAPD’s Notorious Anti-Terrorist Division:

The first arrest reports include not only investigative reports by the LAPD’s infamous Major Crimes/Anti-Terrorist Division (ATD) but also state that the ATD took over the directing authority of these investigations, which included directing the city attorney (the prosecutor) as to what charges should be filed against the 11.

What is the ATD? A department that has historically been engaged in POLITICAL suppression and repression. The ATD and its predecessors have a sordid history of illegal spying, using informants and undercover police to identify, target, jail, and attempt to silence those they deem political opposition to the ruling authorities.

If, as they claim, this is just about a criminal charge of trespass or blocking traffic, why is the Major Crimes/Anti-Terrorist Division not just involved, but dictating what charges should be filed?

Because this is not about criminal charges of blocking traffic or disrupting an event, this is about repressing and aiming to silence political opposition.

* An LAPD Confidential Informant

The ATD sent a confidential informant (in other words, a spy) into meetings of Refuse Fascism (RF) for the purpose of “gathering intelligence.”

This informant secretly recorded at least four meetings of RF and private conversations with people attending those meetings. In California, it is illegal to record conversations without the consent of both parties. The reports from the informant include the content of political discussions, names of people at the meetings, different roles people play in RF, personal connections between people, license plate numbers, and fundraising goals.

The LAPD admits to spying on constitutionally protected political activism—recording and documenting people exercising what are supposed to be First Amendment rights! What does what the informant documented have to do with the supposed “illegal activity” of Refuse Fascism? It doesn’t! This is clearly a bogus excuse to justify the suppression of political dissent!

* UCPD Stalking of the Revolution Club at UCLA:

The discovery also revealed a pattern of stalking the Revolution Club by the University of California Police Department (UCPD). UCLA is a public institution that is legally responsible to ensure and protect everyone’s constitutionally protected speech and rights on campus.

The evidence turned over in the UCLA5 cases contains videotapes, photographs, and reports on the Revolution Club at UCLA—while they were at permitted protests, campus events, or even just carrying out political outreach while on campus. At one event, the camera systematically zoomed in on the faces of members of the Revolution Club as well as members of the Afrikan Student Union (an official student group), and even people just standing by and talking with members of the Revolution Club.

Included in the evidence is a six-page report by a UCPD detective chronicling the activities of the Revolution Club while on campus for over two months, again at protests or even when members of the Revolution Club were just passing out flyers and talking with students on campus about revolution and communism. The report includes the fact that, in one instance, the UCPD followed organizers and wrote down the license plate number of the car they left in.

The police at a public university are stalking and surveilling the Revolution Club! They are so afraid of this message connecting up with students... they are afraid of people determined to stand up against the fascist regime as part of this... they are afraid of students stepping outside the bounds of what they deem “acceptable play-by-the-rules” protest, that their campus police are scurrying around shadowing the Revolution Club!

*Conspiracy Charges:

In addition to bringing a range of criminal charges against those who participated in the civil disobedience on the freeway, the city attorney also filed misdemeanor charges of “criminal conspiracy” against two of the leaders of Refuse Fascism, Michelle Xai and Perry Hoberman.

Historically, conspiracy charges have been used to go after political leaders and amount to making it illegal to be part of organizing—or sometimes even discussing—a political protest beforehand.

In an important victory, just this past week, the state was forced to drop the conspiracy charges. However, the fact that these charges were being prosecuted further highlights the political nature of these attacks. One of the ATD reports shows that they wanted to file FELONY conspiracy charges and contacted the LA County District Attorney’s Office (which is responsible for prosecuting felony cases) about this. The ATD detective concluded that “using a misdemeanor offense of Criminal Trespass to charge a felony Conspiracy is contrary to the spirit of the law where First Amendment freedoms are concerned. For this reason, I would ask that the Criminal Conspiracy be charged only as a misdemeanor.”

By the LAPD’s own admission, the freeway actions were First Amendment-protected political acts. So how are misdemeanor conspiracy charges any less contrary to the right to political protest than felony conspiracy charges? This is bullshit. While there is a difference in penalty, First Amendment freedoms are supposed to be protected, not criminally prosecuted on any level!

There was no justification for these bogus charges in anything the state has provided except for the fact that Michelle and Perry are well-known leaders of Refuse Fascism. This is why they were singled out—and in its report, the state has basically said as much.

Michelle and Perry’s lawyer demanded that the LAPD turn over information about the informant, including his identity so he could be called as a witness in the cases. The court agreed and ordered that these files be turned over. Instead of complying with the court’s order—which would uncover more details about this informant and the level of political surveillance—the city attorney dropped the conspiracy charges against Perry and Michelle!

While this is an important victory, the other defendants are demanding that this information be turned over as it is essential to all these cases.

***

The LA11 are not being gone after for “criminality” but are being targeted, politically persecuted, and prosecuted on the basis of their political activity and political affiliations. In the eyes of this system and its enforcers, standing up against the Trump/Pence fascist regime is their real “crime”!

What’s shown through all this is that the essence of this system’s so-called “freedom and democracy” is its rule through brutal dictatorship, through political suppression by force. This is seen in the whole history of murder, harassment, and surveillance of forces who have organized against this system. This includes attacks on the Revolution Club taking place right now in Chicago, and includes a whole history of political suppression against Bob Avakian, the leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party, and a history of the LAPD’s use of undercover agents, illegal spying, and brutal attacks and arrests against the movement for revolution.

While there are differences in the ruling class about how to exercise this dictatorship, as concentrated in the struggle at the top over the Trump/Pence fascist regime, they share a unity over the need to suppress meaningful political protest and especially, forces for revolution. But a deep strategic weakness is also revealed: their hold on power, their use of force and violence, is completely illegitimate, enforcing an outmoded and illegitimate system. They have no fundamental answers to the horrors their own system creates except more violence and terror and, because of this, they are deeply afraid of those who represent a challenge to their whole system.

What’s concentrated in these specific cases now—and what everyone who wants a better world needs to understand—is whether or not people will be able to meaningfully oppose this fascist regime and the system overall. There are great stakes here. Will people be able to act commensurate with the danger facing humanity without being shut down and criminalized?

There is a real need and opportunity for many people—from all different perspectives—to come into this fight, raising funds for the legal defense and providing the defendants with a platform to make these cases known. This needs to be made a big debate in society, further exposing the illegitimacy of these prosecutions and the legitimacy of all those standing up right now against the crimes of this system, heightened by this fascist regime.

All those who care about the future need to stand up against these outrageous prosecutions and demand the charges be dropped! In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America!

1. There are 11 people being charged in cases stemming from six arrests. Some people arrested on the freeway were also involved in arrests at UCLA.  [back]

Trump’s Wall Is a Fascist Monstrosity and Must NOT Go Up...
But the “Border Security” of the Democrats Is ALSO a Machinery of Heartless Persecution, Demonization, and Deportation

Updated January 20, 2019 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Since the publication of the below article, the crisis around the wall and the government shutdown has heightened. The situation remains in flux, and we will cover major developments as they might occur.

Trump doubled down with his January 8 Oval Office address and his threats to use executive power to build the wall without Congressional approval.This signifies another big step in the fascist remolding this regime is undertaking.

At the same time, the Democrats have continued their tack of essentially accepting the basic terms of Trump. For all their stern faces and charges of Trumpian irresponsibility, they, like Trump, cover over the fundamental guilt of the U.S. imperialist system for driving people from their home countries and the essentially illegitimate character of U.S. borders in the first place. They, like Trump, frame the argument as one of how to repress and control these desperate immigrants rather than what must be done to the system that has created this.

They too “change the subject” to the suffering that is being brought down on people within the U.S. through this shutdown. They pit that against what is being done to our immigrant brothers and sisters on the border (and within the U.S.). To be clear: that suffering is real, and the fact that people who are going hungry and sick, or who are a paycheck away from being homeless, now face even worse privation, is indeed criminal and extremely ugly. But the Democrats are opportunistically using this to shift focus away from the larger crime being committed around immigration.

The conflicts between Trump and the Democrats are in fact real conflicts over how to handle immigration, as the article below points out. But at this point, they also touch very directly on “norms of rule.” That is, Trump is changing the “rules of the game” that the imperialists generally adhere to—rules that both govern relations among themselves and afford a level of civil and democratic rights to masses of people. And this has serious implications.

But as the article also points out, this system has no answer, and both sides are united, above all, on saving this system. The challenge before those who are infuriated and anguished over what they see at the border is not to choose between oppressors, but to grapple seriously with what is said below on the roots of the crisis; what is laid out in the accompanying article on the Democrats’ history and current stance on this question; and what it will take to end this—revolution.

* * * * *

Donald Trump has shut down the government to get his wall on the border. This fascist wall must not be built, period. If this wall gets funded, in whatever form and with whatever concessions, it will represent a major escalation in the attack on immigrants. Even if it is seen as “symbolic”—and that will be what the Democrats tell you when and if they cut a deal with Trump—what it will symbolize will be that the tens and hundreds of millions of people seeking refuge from conditions created by this imperialist system are subhumans who must and will be kept out of the “gated community” of the very countries at fault for the disasters. Symbols are symbols because they mean something. After all, forcing Jews in Nazi Germany to wear “yellow stars” could be seen as “symbolic”—but what did they symbolize? A program of genocide.

The imperialist system oppresses the vast majority of the world’s peoples and nations. That system grinds up the labor and lives of billions of people daily into their machinery of capital. That system wages wars that create havoc and tears apart the social fabric in those countries. That system destroys the environment in those countries, turning whole areas of the world into deserts through global warming. That system has no answers for the crisis it has created.

Trump, and the whole fascist tide around the world, is one reaction to this. But how do the Democrats—who, yes, are like the Republicans, a political institution serving this imperialist system—oppose this? By proposing their own program for “border security”—that is, for keeping out and holding down immigrants—with high tech sensors and drones in what they say is the “21st-century way” of doing this.

In other words, the Democrats are united with Trump on using tools of repression and intimidation to prevent people fleeing U.S.-created oppression in their home countries from seeking asylum here. The accompanying article—on what these Democrats have actually done when they have been in power and what they actually propose to do now—shows that they have, if anything, been even more bloody than Trump (while being more discreet about it). Where they differ now is on two main points:

One, the demonization of immigrants is at the very core of the fascist program of Trump, part of a whole thrust to “make America white again.” Trump wants the wall as a high-profile, easy-to-understand way to dramatize his highly repressive assault on immigrants more generally. We should not forget that even as now the Democrats and even many anti-immigrant groups downplay the importance of the wall, it is a fact that border walls are one part of brutally enforcing apartheid and separation and that the existing U.S.-Mexican border wall, much of which was constructed by Democratic president Bill Clinton, has been a site of brutality and terror against immigrants. Trump is using the controversy over the wall to mobilize and stoke the fascist base.

The Democrats go at this differently. They aim to maintain the support of those who are either victimized by or revolted by this program of ethnic cleansing, and keep them thinking and acting within the bounds or horizons of the current system. So while they too carry out highly repressive and even murderous policies on the border, they want to as much as possible keep their repressive policies out of the public eye. At the same time, they also want to promote a multilateralist multiculturalism, opening up immigration to those they regard as necessary to their economy and the projection of the U.S. role internationally. Thus, when they say that the wall is immoral—which is how those whom they see as their base feel about it—what they really mean is that it is “bad optics.” As the accompanying chart makes clear, it was the plan proposed by Bill Clinton that has ended up trapping and killing some 8,000 immigrant human beings in the desert over the past 20-plus years.

Two, the Democrats actually argue that their form of keeping immigrants out (sensors, drones, informant networks) is more effective than the wall.

So, yes, the wall—and behind that the whole program and mentality being promoted by the Trump/Pence regime—must be thoroughly rejected and stopped. But it won’t be stopped by the Democratic representatives of a system that created 65 million refugees in the world—or a party that agrees with Trump on the need for “border security” while regularly trampling on the sovereignty of the very countries that the U.S. dominates and oppresses through wars and proxy wars for the dominance of the U.S. over the planet.

Why should we let ourselves be bound, and bounced around, between the choices that they and their system give you—between the contending forces of a capitalist-imperialist dictatorship, competing over who can better carry out that dictatorship? Where has this gotten us? And where has this gotten the desperate people now suffering in unbearably crowded shelters in Tijuana or “icebox” detention centers in Texas or trapped in the U.S.-created and maintained killing fields of Honduras or El Salvador—after all these years?

No human being is illegal. What we need—and what we need to openly proclaim and fight for—is a world without borders, which means a world beyond all forms of exploitation, oppression and the violent antagonistic conflicts between people. What we need is REVOLUTION!

Watch these excerpts from the speech by Bob Avakian Why We Need an Actual Revolution and How We Can Really Make Revolution and from the Q&A following the speech

Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger by Rebecca Traister

Or: How to Domesticate Your Rage and Get In on a System That Exploits and Torments Women All Over the World

By Toni Redtree

January 16, 2019 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Rebecca Traister is a commentator on politics from a feminist perspective.  In her book Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger, she exposes how anger works for men in ways that it does not work for women within the system—and how women’s anger has been the fuel often igniting movements for social change in the history of the U.S. Traister goes after the rampant misogyny that marked the 2016 election, and the more general and pervasive oppression that female political candidates and women in the professions and business must face. To be clear: there is valid exposure of this in her book including in the treatment of Hillary Clinton. But the election of the first female president would not have changed this, nor will Traister’s prescriptions do anything but keep the same machine that generates that oppression going.

Traister in Good and Mad posits the problem as government not being truly representative, prescriptively implying that if that representation can be wrested from these white patriarchal men the majority of women could be free from subjugation. She states in her chapter Let’s Get Elected: “In the wake of Trump’s defeat of Clinton, a gang of women were eyeing the aging cast of men who’d been hogging America’s political power ... forever, and imagining they might replace them. Replacement. It was a particularly charged concept...” [Emphasis ours]

Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that fear of being “replaced”—backlash against the relatively minor concessions made to women and people of color—has fueled the rise of the Trump/Pence regime and the fascist movement more generally. But—much more fundamentally—NO! Replacement—that is, changing the faces in a system that remains fundamentally the same—does not make it represent those groups this system continues to oppress. "Replacement" just means you want to get to the top of it and grab “your” share of the spoils too.

Traister’s Fantasies vs. Historical Evidence

While a constant refrain, it is one that is thoroughly refuted by a mountain of historical evidence that women (and oppressed people) can come to the head of oppressive governments while the majority of the people they supposedly represent remain locked in subjugated existences and change anything significant for those people over any length of time. Did Obama’s election and presidency fundamentally change the situation of the vast section of people in the U.S. who are Black? Nearly every single country in South Asia has had women in power, sometimes for decades, with no real change in the horrifying oppression of women. There is more than enough evidence that women are equally capable of being pigs—presiding over a monstrous system—from Hillary Clinton to Theresa May to Angela Merkel.

There is NO historical evidence that women being equally “represented” in government have been able to fundamentally change or “reform away” the basic functioning of the capitalist-imperialist system, the very functioning of which engenders and reinforces—every second of the day—the systemic oppression and worldwide subordination of women. To the degree legal rights have been extended to women and other oppressed groups, they have largely required tremendous struggle and sacrifice from “below,” from the people—they have not been merely granted from on high!

Along with slavery, patriarchal rule was encoded into the nation’s founding—something Traister recognizes—but the fact is that the oppression of women continues to be integral to this system’s ability to function and exist. Even while a vast majority of the world’s female population has been drawn into the labor force, forces of reaction that aim to reassert and reinforce patriarchy have gained ascendance. Mike Pence, a Christian fascist, now sits within a heartbeat of the presidency; someone who believes in the literal biblical relegation of women to a man’s authority, and won’t sit alone in a room with a woman. 

Revolution Does NOT Mean Old Wine in New Bottles

Anyone who gets into the halls of Congress must play by the rules required by the system’s functioning and learn to “compromise,” as we hear incessantly from the Democrats… and as their actions prove. The subordination of women in this system cannot be “reformed,” “elected” or “represented” away—it’s in the nature of the beast.

None of this—especially changing faces atop this monstrous system—is remotely “revolutionary,” despite what Traister may claim. An actual revolution means a DIFFERENT system, not just different people administering oppression. An actual revolution requires the OVERTHROW of the system. It speaks to the ignorance of this society that one can get away with using the word revolutionary in the service of women motivated by something as hideous as getting atop—or their fair share in—a system as predatory, monstrous and outmoded as U.S. capitalism-imperialism!

Hillary Clinton—Exhibit A for Traister… and an Exposure of the American Chauvinism Saturating Her Approach

If there is a single example of the logical outcome of the political solutions in this book, it lies in Rebecca Traister’s shameless apology and support for Hillary Clinton.

Let’s state what should be an obvious and indisputable truth: Hillary Clinton is NOT a standard bearer for the liberation of women—she is a woman who is a war criminal. Just to take two examples:

• She is a woman who proved her hawk credentials as head of the Obama State Department—leading the charge to depose the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, as part of U.S. efforts to dominate the region. Traister, who laments Clinton’s inability to show emotion, has conveniently forgotten her Hannibal-Lecter-worthy performance gleefully announcing the slaying of Muammar Gaddafi. As Libya plunged into chaos, Clinton’s “competent” fingerprints are all over the crime scene of the thousands dead and the refugees fleeing the collapse of Libyan society, drowning as they try to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.
• Clinton’s fingerprints can also be found on the women and children stranded in squalid encampments at the U.S.-Mexico border. In 2009, the U.S. ambassador to Honduras told Secretary Clinton that the removal of the elected president, Manuel Zelaya, a left leaning liberal populist, would be an “an illegal and unconstitutional coup.” Despite this, and while issuing mild criticisms, Clinton lent legitimacy to elections that forbade Zelaya’s participation. The regime brought to power with the coup was openly fascistic and pro-U.S., plunging the Honduran people even more deeply into the grip of U.S. domination, state-sponsored political assassinations, and the intensified violence, poverty, and oppression that people are now fleeing by the thousands.

Hillary Clinton’s active support for the main policies of her husband, Bill Clinton, while he was President (and she was a major, if unofficial, member of his team)—policies of mass incarceration, of NAFTA and its devastation of Mexico, of the profoundly anti-woman and racist ending of welfare—were themselves criminal. Her role in the promotion of the slogan that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare” (thereby ceding the moral high ground to the Christian fascists) was particularly damaging.

Anyone who can put “Hillary Clinton” and “using your anger as a catalyst for change” in the same sentence—much less the same book—is automatically disqualified from using the word “revolutionary” in their book title.

Ultimately, the problem is Good and Mad not only reinforces “let’s get elected” as the horizons of what is needed, but it’s fundamentally not really all that mad—commensurate with the depth, the scale, the intensity of women’s oppression all around the world. The fury of women can indeed be a catalyst for fundamental and radical social change—one that gets to the roots of the problem through an actual revolution. But Traister’s outlook and program can only channel that fury into futility or, worse yet, becoming a cog in the machine.

(Next week: Traister on #MeToo—And what happens when “me” eclipses “too”)

How the Democrats Have Colluded to Restrict Reproductive Rights: 4 Examples

January 16, 2019 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

1. The Hyde Amendment

The Hyde Amendment, passed for the first time in 1976, prohibits federal funds from being used to provide abortions. This has hit poor, Black, Latina, Native American, and rural women hardest. In 1977, Rosie Jimenez became the first woman known to die after the Hyde Amendment deprived her and other women of safe abortion care.

Since 1976, The Hyde Amendment has been re-approved and signed into law every single year—including by three Democratic presidents: Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. Obama went so far as to further enshrine it through Executive Order 13535, which explicitly prohibited federal funds for abortion in the context of the Affordable Care Act.

2. “Safe, Legal, and Rare”

During Bill Clinton’s presidency, anti-abortion violence surged, and legislative attempts to end abortion mounted. Bill and Hillary Clinton responded that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare.” “Rare” implies that abortion is wrong, but abortion is not wrong. What is wrong is forcing a woman to have a child against her will. The Clintons repeated this mantra for decades, including during Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential bid. This craven ceding of the moral high ground to rabid anti-abortion fascists disoriented and demobilized millions as abortion rights were systematically stripped away.

3. Democrats Boycott the Funeral of Dr. George Tiller

In 2009, Dr. George Tiller was assassinated in his church by an anti-abortion fanatic. Dr. Tiller was one of the most respected abortion providers in the U.S. and one of just three to provide late-term abortions. More than 1,000 mourners attended Dr. Tiller’s funeral, including abortion providers from around the country and many former patients. Not a single Democratic politician showed up.

4. The Democrats REFUSED to Make Abortion Central to the Fight Against Gorsuch or Kavanaugh

Donald Trump promised to appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade. In response to both of Trump’s fascist Supreme Court appointments, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, the Democrats refused to make abortion central to their opposition. No leading Democrat stated that it is completely illegitimate and immoral for the state to force women to bear children against their will. The Democrats refused to throw down and mobilize people to stop these nominations. In the case of Kavanaugh, the Democrats focused instead on Kavanaugh’s alleged sexual assaults as a youth in a way that was not at the heart of the danger he posed and harmed important principles related to due process. All this rendered the millions who support abortion passive while legitimizing a court that is now poised to drop the hammer on the right to access abortion and birth control nationwide.

"Women's Waves" of the Past
Know Your History—DON'T Repeat It!!

January 16, 2019 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

(and if you don't know who these criminals are on sight, click the faces in the image below to find out...)

(and if you don't know who these criminals are on sight, tap the faces in the image below to find out...)

Pig Judge Lets Chicago Pigs Walk Free for Lying About and Covering Up the Police Murder of Laquan McDonald

January 21, 2019 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Just the day before a judge gave Chicago cop Jason Van Dyke an outrageously light sentence for the murder of Laquan McDonald, a different judge delivered another outrageous decision: a “not guilty” verdict on three former and current Chicago cops on charges of conspiring to cover up that murder. The hour-long statement read by the judge in court was not only a complete exoneration of the three cops on trial but a vehement defense of what the police did to Laquan McDonald. It was a “not guilty” verdict on the code of silence of pigs across the country.

The three cops were among at least eight on the scene the night Van Dyke killed Laquan in October 2014. Laquan had been followed for some time by a group of cops, who evidently saw no immediate threat, when Van Dyke rolled up to the scene, jumped out of the police car, and within seconds started firing on Laquan, with no conceivable justification. Even after Laquan crumpled to the ground from the initial shot, Van Dyke continued to fire, 16 shots in all. None of the cops on the scene gave any aid to Laquan or even attempted to find out what his condition was.

Within hours of the shooting of Laquan, Van Dyke and other officers who were on the scene and the detective in charge of “investigating” the incident met back together at area central. There they discussed the shooting and watched the dashcam video, which—as millions of people saw after it was forced into public much later—showed Laquan walking away from the cops, with arms at his sides, when he was shot. Only after the meeting at area central did the pigs who were at the scene write their reports and get interviewed by the “investigating” detective, David March. Two of the reports—by Van Dyke’s partner, Joseph Walsh, and by Thomas Gaffney—falsely echoed Van Dyke’s lying claim that he was acting in defense of his life to stop McDonald. The reports used basically identical language: that McDonald had committed “battery” right before Van Dyke shot him and was “aggressively” swinging a knife toward the police... and that after Laquan was shot and on the ground, he was still a “threat” because he kept trying to get up with the knife in his hand.

March, Walsh, and Gaffney were the three cops just acquitted by the judge—even though they were clearly guilty of lying about and covering up the murder of Laquan McDonald. But the fact is, it was an outrage to begin with that these three cops were the only ones even put on trial for the cover-up.

March’s report concluding that the shooting of Van Dyke was justified was reviewed and signed off on by a high-ranking deputy chief (who was later allowed to retire with a full pension). That was just the beginning. The machinery of the city administration geared up to protect the murdering police and conceal the truth. The police chief saw the dashcam video, and everyone from the “Independent” Police Review Authority, the district attorney, the city’s legal counsel, and all the way up to the mayor, Rahm Emanuel, who fought in court to try to prevent the video from being released had either seen it or been told exactly what it showed. They all knew about—and conspired in—the lies and concealment of the truth. All those involved in this criminal cover-up should have been indicted in their role in aiding and abetting the murder of Laquan!

Ex-Prosecutor Judge Gives Green Light to Murder and Lies by Police

During the course of the trial, a major part of the defense by the three pigs was—once again, as was the case during Van Dyke’s trial—to demonize Laquan McDonald and paint him as responsible for his own death. These pigs, who systematically lied in their reports, were given free rein by the judge to claim that the murder of a 17-year-old Black youth was justified because cops claimed their lives were in “danger.”

In the trial of Van Dyke, even with the lackluster prosecution, the jury concluded that the dashcam video showed what actually happened, and found him guilty of second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery. March, Walsh, and Gaffney opted for a bench trial—a trial before a judge, not a jury. Judge Domenica Stephenson is not only a former prosecutor, like many judges in Cook County, Chicago courts (see box)—when she was a prosecutor, she had worked closely with the lawyer of one of the defendants in this trial.

Along with letting the cops’ lawyers attack Laquan, Judge Stephenson also allowed wild and unfounded attacks by the defense on the personal character and integrity of witnesses against the police:

• At one point, one of the pigs’ attorneys grilled a Latino man, Mr. Torres, who, along with his son, was driving by the scene of Laquan’s murder and had pulled over and saw the cops shoot the Black youth. When these two eyewitnesses went to the cops and offered to tell what they had seen, they were told to go away. At the trial, the pig lawyer demanded to know why he hadn’t called 911. Mr. Torres answered that when you call 911, you get the police who were already there.
• One cop who was at the scene of Laquan’s murder testified that Detective March pressured her to lie in her report about what she saw—and when she refused, he altered her report without her knowledge to make it sound like Laquan was a threat. The defense savagely attacked this whistle-blower cop, accusing her of lying to save her job so she wouldn’t have to return to working at a fast food joint. She testified that as a result of refusing to go along with the cover-up, she has been labeled a rat in the police department and put on desk duty for fear that her fellow pigs would put her in harm’s way on the street.

The judge’s ruling not only totally exonerated the only three pigs charged in the cover-up of Laquan McDonald’s murder (among all those who were involved in this cover-up within the whole police department and city government hierarchy), but completely endorsed the lies pigs told to justify the murder. She went to great lengths, in a tone of barely disguised ridicule, to attack the testimony of the one cop who had not cooperated completely with the cover-up. She ruled (in direct refutation of what the jury in the Van Dyke trial decided) that the dashcam video doesn’t “show the vantage point” of the cops and therefore does not contradict what the cops’ wrote in their reports claiming Laquan posed a threat to their lives. She justified the cops’ assertion that they were the “victims”(!) of “battery” and that Laquan was the “offender.”

This acquittal amounts to a big, flashing green light for police all across the country to continue, and even step up, the brutality, murder, lying and terror that they carry out against Black people.

Dashcam Video of Officer Jason Van Dyke Shooting Laquan McDonald

Setting the Record Straight on Anti-Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the Important Difference Between the Two

January 18, 2019 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

The ruling class media and mainstream political spokespeople consistently conflate the legitimate and correct opposition to the state of Israel and the ideology of Zionism with anti-Semitism and hatred of Jewish people. At the same time, there is a rising tide worldwide of anti-Semitism—also strongly backed by sections of the ruling classes—which is a danger in its own right and perniciously influences the thinking of masses of people.

To set the record straight on this:

1) The state of Israel was founded by European Jews who migrated to the Middle East and settled on land that had been historically and continuously occupied by another people, the Palestinians. This movement was from the beginning conceived of and openly advertised by its main founder as a colonial project. At least half a million Palestinians were driven out of their land in a war of ethnic cleansing that included a substantial number of significant massacres. The new Israeli state received substantial support from various great powers, both in the period leading up to its founding and subsequently, and today occupies the role of the critical regional enforcer for U.S. imperialist interests. It is on this basis that people and institutions—including REVCOM—maintain that Israel is an illegitimate settler state. This view is not only utterly legitimate, it is objectively true and irrefutable. Attempts to label such a view as anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish, etc. and to suppress those who adhere to it are cowardly and dangerous; it is the use of power to suppress truth and forbid debate over that truth. Such attempts must be opposed, and all those who come under fire for either adhering to that view or supporting the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel¹ (a movement which actually stops short of that view) should be supported.

2) Anti-Semitism—views that in one way or another demonize and dehumanize the Jewish people as a people—has absolutely no truth or validity, should not be “up for debate,” and must be exposed for the reactionary poison that it is. Such views have led to or justified genocidal acts for several thousand years, including but not limited to the Nazi murder of six million Jewish people, and until very recently were “stock in trade” of most European ruling-class institutions, including the Catholic Church. Those who today proffer such views—from Alex Jones² to Louis Farrakhan to David Icke to ISIS, etc.—generally do so as part of a profoundly reactionary and often straight-up fascist discourse and program, and those views and programs must also be firmly opposed. As for oppressed people who fall for the lie that “the Jews” were responsible for the slave trade or today “control everything” behind the scenes: you are being played for fools and suckers, while the real enemy—the capitalist-imperialist system—is let off the hook.

1. The mainstream of the boycott, divestment, sanction (BDS) movement does not uphold the position that the state of Israel as a whole is illegitimate, but holds that the Israeli “settlements” (armed outposts) in the West Bank and Jerusalem—the territories occupied by Israel after a further war of expansion in 1967—are illegitimate. Even this is too much, however, for the imperialists and the supporters of Israel. [back]

2. It must also be noted that anti-Semitic views, especially in code words and “dog whistles,” have been part of Donald Trump’s approach for a long time—including his infamous characterization that there were “good people” on the side of the neo-Nazis and KKK attack dogs in Charlottesville who were, among other things, chanting openly anti-Semitic slogans. [back]