Reporter’s Notebook

Taking the Revolution to Where Things Are Hottest

April 1, 2019 | revcom.us

Right when the Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour was starting in Los Angeles, we got word that the District Attorney in Sacramento and the California Attorney General had decided not to charge the pigs who gunned down Stephon Clark last year in his grandmother’s backyard. This came right after six pigs in Vallejo, California, executed Willie McCoy in a hail of 25 bullets while he was sleeping in his car in a Taco Bell drive-through.

We had just come to LA from all over the country to launch this historic tour, to spread this revolution and its leadership everywhere, up against all the bullshit “solutions” that are no solution, and to recruit thousands of new people into the revolution. But we couldn’t stand aside from what was happening in Sacramento and Vallejo. Police murder after murder after murder of Black and Brown people, and the racist justification that these pigs “feared for their lives,” concentrate so much about this country and why we need a revolution.

It was really important—especially at this time when there is way too much silence on this—that people in Sacramento and Vallejo didn’t just accept these cold-blooded killings, that people have expressed their outrage and protested in defiant ways. This captured national attention. At the same time, we know that the oppression of Black and Brown people is systemic, that this system cannot be reformed, and that police murder will go on and on and on… until this system is overthrown. So we were determined that Stephon Clark and Willie McCoy would not just be more hashtags on an endless list, and that we would put real revolution on the map in Sacramento and Vallejo. As the Revolution Club, Los Angeles, statement on Stephon Clark said:

Ask yourself: Are we going to protest for days or weeks and then allow our anger to be corralled and swept into the killing confines of this system that shows us over and over again that you can’t vote this shit away or tweak some law that will somehow make pigs stop killing our youth? Will another 50 years go by until it’s our grandkids dying outside of our doorsteps and all we can do is cry while the murdering pigs who killed them stand over their bodies “getting their stories straight”? Fuck that!

“Let’s get down to basics: We need a revolution. Anything else, in the final analysis, is bullshit.”
—Bob Avakian, leader of the revolution

In making the decision about whether or not to head up to Sacramento and Vallejo, it was crucial to base ourselves on the reality of police terror against Black and Brown people as a key concentration of social contradictions under this system—and the revolutionary potential represented by all those affected by it, and all those sickened by it, if as HOW WE CAN WIN says, this is “transformed, through struggle, into revolutionary understanding, determination, and organization”—and not base ourselves on the strengths/weaknesses of the existing movement against police brutality.

Related to this, we had to take into account the current political situation. On the one hand, you have the fascist Trump/Pence regime unleashing open white supremacy and encouraging the pigs to be even more brutal. And on the other hand, you have the Democrats who have no solution to the conditions that this system has created for masses of Black people, besides putting forward more diverse faces to continue the status quo of mass incarceration and 1,000 killings by police every year.

This was on full display in the Stephon Clark case, as our article on the Crossroads in Sacramento pointed out, with the Republican DA and the Democratic Attorney General Xavier Becerra both coming to the same conclusion that the pigs who killed Stephon were justified. And the pathetic reform that these California Democrats are putting forward in order to funnel people’s anger back into the system, Assembly Bill 392, would do nothing to change that. At a time when the Democrats are trying to be all diverse and “woke” for the 2020 election while refusing to confront Trump’s white supremacist fascism, an uncontrollable outbreak of real struggle against police murder, connected up with the leadership we have to put an end to the system that causes it, is something these lying politicians really don’t want to see!

So while it was important for the majority of the tour to get started in LA, four of us got in a car and hit the road from LA to Northern California!

Part 1: On the Road

It was a beautiful day as we drove over the Grapevine (the mountains between LA and Bakersfield) and into the Central Valley. The hills are extra green right now cuz it’s been such a wet spring, and they’re alive with wildflowers. As we drove past all the farms and orchards in the Central Valley, which provide a lot of the fruits, vegetables, and nuts for the whole country, we reflected on the conditions of the workers, the toxic pesticides and fertilizers people are exposed to, and the high asthma rates. We talked about how irrational and environmentally destructive agriculture is under capitalism, where what is grown and how it is grown is all determined by the competitive chase for the highest profit. For example, one of the big cash crops in California right now is almonds, which are mostly produced for the world market. But these trees require a huge amount of water, even during droughts, which have been getting worse in recent years. And there are the horrific conditions of animals under capitalism, which we thought about as we drove by the Harris Ranch feedlot on Interstate 5, where thousands of cows are packed tightly together awaiting slaughter.

Long road trips, besides being a good time to relax and listen to music, are also a great opportunity to talk about deeper questions. So we took the time to get more into the strategy for revolution developed by Bob Avakian, and reground ourselves in why we were going on this trip. We read out loud the beginning of chapter 3 of THE NEW COMMUNISM, on “The Strategic Approach to An Actual Revolution.” While we had all read this before, in reading it again with fresh eyes, it really jumped out at us how different this is from the (non-revolutionary) approach of trying to unite with the movement and be the best fighters against injustice, and on that basis bringing some revolution to people. Bob Avakian lays out a whole strategic approach that starts first of all from what would be required to win an actual revolution and how we work today with those challenges in mind. For example, he speaks to the “encirclement and suppression” problem and poses the question: “How do we transform the situation so that, when the time comes, it’s not going to be the case that they can easily contain this revolution to those sections of the people that they’d, frankly, just as soon kill off anyway…”

One of the main things we grappled with is the concept that BA lays out of “hastening while awaiting.” There are many factors involved in getting to a revolutionary situation. It’s not just a matter of the revolutionaries having the will power to make it happen. There is the overall situation in society and the world which is setting the stage, and there are all these different forces acting on that stage from their own perspectives and class interests. For example, in Sacramento you not only have the pigs murdering people, which caused the masses to be “jolted” into political life, you have Republicans and Democrats responding to that, you have operatives for the system like Al Sharpton swooping in, you have “community leaders” preaching about reconciliation and “healing,” you even have a lot of activists talking about “revolution” when they really just mean protest and change within the system. But none of this will go anywhere good if we’re not hastening things as far as possible toward revolution.

In discussing this, comparing and contrasting it with how we had acted in these types of situations in the past, we came to a deeper appreciation of the need to step to people straight up with revolution and the leadership we have for revolution in BA. And this requires disturbing the air, challenging all the false paths and mental shackles holding people back, and stirring up controversy. And through doing that, we were determined to attract and organize those people who really are looking for away out of this madness, who want to want to put a STOP for real—not only to this nightmare of police terror but to all forms of oppression, so we’re not here generations from now protesting the same shit and worse.

Part 2: Day 1 in Sacramento: Lines Get Drawn, People Step Forward and Things Get Hot... in a Supermarket Parking Lot

[The following was originally posted at revcom.us a few weeks ago.]

After briefly stopping at the infamous state capitol building to record a message from the tour, the spot we ended up at was a strip mall near the neighborhood where the pigs murdered Stephon Clark that many of the people in the area frequented. There were a number of commercial businesses and a major supermarket in a larger shopping plaza, and there was a major passageway that much of the traffic had to go through to get to the stores there. We started off at the busiest intersection with some chanting and speaking about revolution and the murder of Stephon Clark. With our banner barely unfurled, after just a little while of being there, a man from mall security came in to try to shut us down. He threatened us, ripped up one of the signs with pictures of Stephon Clark and Willie McCoy (another victim of police murder in nearby Vallejo), and was putting hands on the people with the Revolution Club, including jabbing one comrade in the throat with his walkie-talkie before trying to choke the comrade with his hands. Not only did we refuse to be backed off by this wannabe pig, but a situation opened up where people began to come to our aid, pull up their cars and yell at this guy, recording him and catching him in the act, and there were people who came to stand with the revcoms. This was important because people got a clear sense of what side we were on and the question of where you were going to stand was posed very sharply. The security guy had ripped the sign with Stephon Clark’s and Willie McCoy’s faces on it and was openly attacking the message we were bringing forward, which we made clear in both the agitation and chanting we were doing.

A middle-age white woman who had initially been in her car recording when this wannabe pig was coming at us, yelled at him to stop putting his hands on us, before this wannabe pig turned to her and called her a bitch and threatened to beat her if she got out of the car. Moments later, she got out of her car and came over to further record him and see how we were doing. While we were talking to her, she said, “I’m here with my daughter, and I’m not someone who does all this, I am usually just in my church, but wrong is wrong. It’s wrong to put your hands on someone, and [tears began to come to her eyes and she pointed to the signs of Stephon Clark and others murdered by police] it’s wrong to shoot someone, and what happened to all these people is just... WRONG.”

Another person who stopped to stand with us was a young Black man who had just gotten off work from the nearby supermarket when he saw us being attacked and decided he had to step in. He was engaging with the message we were bringing about the need for people to get organized for revolution, with real doubts and questions about whether people could really come together to do something like that, including himself who he said is caught up in having to work like a slave. He didn’t just stand with us against the wannabe pig; after engaging with what the revolution was bringing people, he felt compelled to join in on the spot and worked with us to get out the statement to the cars coming through, and by the time he was leaving he was working on how to join us both to impact the upcoming protest on the anniversary of the murder of Stephon Clark, and to come together afterwards to watch the film of BA’s speech, as well as helping to get out materials to let other people know and bring them into this.

Before long, it wasn’t just the wannabe pig trying to intimidate and drive out the revolution, but the actual pigs, who showed up in force. They made some announcements and tried to back us off, but were not able to and eventually had to back off for various reasons, including the fact that people came to stand with us and that the authorities are on somewhat the defensive politically after being rocked by the protests against the murder of Stephon Clark and the refusal to bring charges against the cops who killed him. Throughout this whole back-and-forth with the pigs and wannabe pig, many people were drawn into finding out what we were saying and some even connected up and took materials to spread the word, but at this point most of the traffic was in cars, and many of the people we reached were rolling down their windows and reaching out for material, raising fists, and honking in support. So we decided we were just getting started.

We seized on the opening we had made and took to marching around the area and toward the major supermarket, going through the parking lot chanting with our visuals and banner. The six of us coming through, representing as a serious force, had an electrifying effect throughout the shopping area. We set up near the front entrance to the supermarket where we were able to speak to many more people on the bullhorn, and had a number of one-on-one engagements. Many of the people we reached were Black and Latino, some white, and mostly working class. In speaking to people en masse, we brought out not just exposure of the system and the murder of Stephon Clark, but also fought to really bring alive that there is leadership that people have in BA and that we were there to recruit people to get with the strategy for revolution that he has brought forward, and to begin acting on that strategy. We fought to give people a basic understanding of why having this leadership in BA is a real strength that people have if we’re going to really make revolution to end all oppression. We drew from HOW WE CAN WIN in posing how this goes against the lying politicians, those who front for the system and preach reconciliation, and dead-end solutions and reforms that won’t end a damn thing. We put to people that while the struggle that has taken place right here is important, this needs to be transformed into revolutionary understanding, determination, and organization. And, importantly, that means we’re here to recruit YOU, and that this was being done throughout the country with this national Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour.

Of the engagements we had with people, this included a woman who was part of the Black Student Union at her college and had been part of the protests in the city, and who live-streamed about 10 minutes of our agitation on Facebook. It included a guy who read closely the Points of Attention for the Revolution, commenting on how he really likes the point about breaking all the chains, and how women, men, and differently gendered people are equals and comrades. And it included a young white woman who responded to hearing about the strategy for revolution and the need to bring forward people now who could prepare for and lead an actual overthrow when the time is right by saying “I want to be a leader.”

It seemed to us that many of the people we interacted with here were people who didn’t find it too hard to agree with us that anything short of revolution was ultimately bullshit. But this does pose questions about how to involve and organize in an ongoing way those who have now been initially drawn toward the revolution, and how they can be part of meaningful ways to have an impact and contribute to making revolution. With everyone we talked to, we emphasized the importance of coming to the screening of BA’s speech that we set up for the next Tuesday in Sacramento, and also joining our contingent at the Stephon Clark march on Monday. We got out hundreds of copies of the Revolution Club statement about Stephon Clark with the Points of Attention for the Revolution on the back, and a number of people took stacks of them to get out to others.

One thing we did not do well at was putting to people the need for funds and fundraising as an important way to do that. But we do know getting people together in the coming days to further spread the word throughout the city, and to come together to watch BA’s speech, will be important markers and ways to go to work on this problem.

Coming next week: Sunday in Vallejo

“You Think You’re Woke...
But You’re Sleepwalking Through A Nightmare —

This System Cannot Be Reformed, It Must Be Overthrown!”

The Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour

Read about the Tour stepping up and stepping out »

Read the Call to the Tour »

Checks can be sent to:
RCP Publications, Box 3486, Merchandise Mart
Chicago, IL 60654-0486 (Mark for the Tour)

Revolution Club Bay Area @RevClub_bay Mar 16
Here in Sacramento! 52 yrs after the Black Panthers were on these same Capitol steps & the pigs are STILL getting away with murder. #StephonClark

Revolution Club at the State Capitol in Sacramento

"The system cannot be reformed, it must be overthrown," says protestors.
They are part of the national group, @tuneintorevcom #StephonClark pic.twitter.com/AhlH9SHnLi

— Emily Maher (@KCRAEmily) March 19, 2019

Revolution Club flyer for MEChA Action Against State-Sanctioned Displacement & Colonialism

April 2, 2019 | revcom.us

You Think You’re Woke...
But You’re Sleepwalking Through A Nightmare —

What Kind of World Do You Want To Live In? 
This System Cannot Be Reformed,
It Must Be Overthrown!

To you who are fed up with this society and “solutions” that are no solution...

To you who are angry and defiant and want to see an end to the white supremacy, the patriarchy and its many forms of gender oppression, the persecution of immigrants, the imperialist wars and occupations and threats, and the capitalist plunder and destruction of the environment—an end to all, or any, of the horrible forms of oppression and exploitation that define and intertwine with this capitalist-imperialist society...

To you who seek not justice for yourself or even just your own people, but the Emancipation of ALL Humanity...

We have two choices: either we live with all this—and condemn future generations to the same, or worse, if they have a future at all—or, we make revolution!

This is what we are going to work on NOW. There is a scientific approach that makes clear this madness is unnecessary. There is an actual plan for a radically better society on the road to wiping out all exploitation and oppression and emancipating humanity. There is a strategy to get the millions needed to make that happen. There is the leadership, in Bob Avakian (BA), the architect of the new communism and the leader of the revolution. These are great strengths on the people’s side. But, what is now missing and urgently needed is YOU—to get with, support, and become an organized part of the revolution.

MEChA Action Against State-Sanctioned
Displacement & Colonialism

Be part of Revolution Club Contingent

Join those who refuse to accept the world as it is and are carving out a pathway forward for the emancipation of ALL of humanity!

Meet @ Macarthur Park Station
Saturday March 30^th @ 9am
660 S Alvarado St, Los Angeles, CA 90057

Some Thoughts on the Mueller Report

April 1, 2019 | revcom.us

The official completion of Robert Mueller’s special-counsel investigation report and the public release of Attorney General William Barr’s summary of main findings marks a significant juncture.

There is much we do not know about the actual findings, and the aftermath is still unfolding. There are demands for the full Mueller report to be released, and there may be more in the report than has thus far been revealed. Further, both Mueller and Barr are long-term ruling class figures, and the report itself may be “less than candid” about some things that may have emerged in the investigation. In short, there is much we don’t know yet, and there may be much we won’t know, at least in the immediate future.

Even while this is the case, the long-awaited report, as reported by Barr, absolves the Trump campaign of colluding with Russia in the 2016 presidential election. Barr also took the exceptional step of rapidly following up with an opinion that there was no obstruction of justice in Trump’s actions such as firing James Comey, the ex-FBI director, as well as other seemingly blatant attempts to influence the course of the investigation. This was a charge on which Barr reports Mueller not taking a position.  

Nonetheless, on its own terms, the release of Barr’s four-page memorandum and the week that has followed marks a significant juncture. The lingering question marks on the electoral legitimacy of the fascist Trump/Pence regime—which for some time have been wrongly hinged on the question of Russian interference and Trump’s knowledge or coordination with that interference—are now sapped of potency. The regime, which has been constrained up to now and has needed to burst out of those constraints, feels vindicated, triumphant and unleashed to potentially go “full animal” in advancing their fascist program, as Steve Bannon urged. Meanwhile, large swaths of progressive people—whose attention has been narrowly directed to and focused by the media and Democrats on the Mueller investigation as a means to potentially remove or contain Trump—now seem deflated without this savior atop the system.

While this poses key immediate challenges to all those seeking a better world and an end to this nightmare faced by humanity, it is even more incumbent to step back and analyze what is at work. This necessarily involves confronting squarely the history of this country and the nature of this system that has given rise to this fascist monstrosity; it means looking unsparingly at the behavior of the Democrats and seeking the causes for that; and it requires drawing the conclusions that flow out of that, both as regards what must be done in relation to a fascist regime now feeling emboldened and, even more fundamentally, to the system that produced that regime.

Fascism Emboldened and Advancing—the Juncture and Its Immediate Aftermath

From its early days, Trump has labeled the Mueller investigation into his campaign’s alleged collusion with Russia a “witch-hunt” with no legitimate basis. Claiming exoneration, Trump has now gone on the warpath, seizing on this to advance the consolidation of fascism.

Barr’s verdict on the report gives him backing in this. Barr’s opinion enshrines an expanded scope of executive power that suddenly includes firing those investigating the presidency, thereby significantly weakening checks and balances against a presidency, one increasingly monarchist-style and above the rule of law. This itself is consistent with fascist rule that seeks to weaken and increasingly trample civil and democratic rights, the rule of law, and established norms of liberal bourgeois democracy. In increasingly manifesting this blatant dictatorial aspect and shredding its norms, fascism differs from liberal bourgeois democracy, even while both represent the rule of sections of the capitalist-imperialist ruling class over this system and society.

Fascism in imposing its rule must overcome and defeat opposition from other sections of the ruling class like the Democrats, or those opposed in the intelligence agencies, military, and mainstream bourgeois press. This was in full evidence this week, as Trump attacked the Democrats and the mainstream media as being “sick, sick, sick,” and his fascist MAGA audience chanted “Lock Them Up,” a refrain that originally referred to Hillary Clinton but has now expanded to include other “enemies.” In particular, Trump and his Nazi-Republican allies in Congress went full-throttle against Adam Schiff, demanding the resignation of the Democratic chair of the House Intelligence Committee, who is continuing investigations into the Trump campaign and its acts. The irony of this was in full display as Schiff launched a defense of, and in the terms of, the very norms the Republicans are shredding and show they care little about. Trump and allies in fascist media are seeking revenge against and neutralizing opposition from the mainstream press, saying the New York Times and the Washington Post, two major bourgeois publications, should return their Pulitzers for faulty reporting. Similar attacks were waged against former intelligence chiefs like John Brennan who voiced opposition to Trump, calling on media outlets to censor them. Most ominously, Trump bandied about possible accusations of treason.

As part of advancing the fascist agenda and program, Trump has also moved very quickly to escalate attacks on immigration, threatening to close the U.S.-Mexico border, as an act of collective punishment with disastrous consequences for the regular functioning of the border regions’ people and economy. He has moved to shift monies originally appropriated elsewhere to build his wall. His regime has moved to repeal Obamacare, attempting an end-run around a previous Supreme Court ruling that had affirmed it. As we report this week, there is a wide-ranging and comprehensive attack on women from a Christian-fascist perspective and aims, concentrated in attacks on abortion rights.  

The Democrats, for their part, reacted defensively to the attacks and in the main were very eager to change the subject altogether. While Schiff stuck to his theme of Russian collusion, the top Democrats acted almost as if this absolution of Trump hadn’t happened and wanted most of all to talk about “kitchen table” issues—again, during the very week that, as we have shown above, the fascists made huge steps.

Fascism in the U.S.—Arising from the History of this Country, Response to Challenges of Empire

I think it’s important to identify what we can call the triad of fascism, that is, the unapologetic aggressive assertion of white supremacy, male supremacy and American supremacy (or racism, misogyny and bellicose xenophobic jingoism, if you want to use other terminology), reinforced with defiantly—not apologetically, defiantly—ignorant and belligerent opposition to science and rational thought, combined with equally ignorant and belligerent assertion of the “superiority of western civilization”... [emphasis ours]

—Bob Avakian, in The Problem, the Solution, and the Challenges Before Us

As Bob Avakian has pointed out in numerous works, including the one above and especially in the film THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO! In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America. A Better World IS Possible, the Trump/Pence regime IS fascist, and is a product and manifestation of the ugly history of this country especially the white supremacy woven into its fabric since its founding and the time of slavery.

The deep and defining contradictions of this system—the oppression of Black, Brown and other people of color, of women, of immigrants, the destruction of the environment and imperialist wars – have found monstrous expressions with the fascist Trump/Pence regime. There is the rhetoric: Trump’s defense of “fine people” in what was a violent Nazi torchlight parade in Charlottesville (even after one of these Nazis ran down and killed one of the demonstrators), his calling of Mexicans “rapists” and insulting millions of immigrants as coming from “shithole nations,” his open calls to the police to be more brutal, and the list grows daily. And there are the acts: the widespread attack on immigrants with separating children on the border and banning immigrants from certain Muslim nations, the Justice Department giving full backing to murderous police shedding any semblance of "civil rights," threatening war first with North Korea and now with Iran, willfully escalating fossil fuel extraction and getting the U.S. out of the Paris agreement on global warming, and the list grows daily.  

In response to these, and other, challenges and centrifugal social forces, fascism has increasingly gained ascendance in the U.S. over the last decades, concentrated among the Republicans. There have been increasing challenges to U.S. domination around the world, especially in strategic areas like the Middle East, with losing wars, and the Far East, with an ascendant capitalist China. The economic workings of imperialism, with intensified globalization and automation, have led to a reconfiguration of the U.S. economy, with manufacturing jobs declining state-side, and with the influx of immigrants, leading to demographic changes in U.S. society. Over the past 60 years, there were both some concessions to the struggles of Black people, women, and other oppressed social groups in American society, coupled with intensified white supremacy and misogyny, in part called forth by those very concessions, in part as responses to the very workings of the system. A Christian fascist ideology and agenda, a key part of the Trump/Pence fascist regime, has grown in influence through successive Republican regimes, and is now launching a comprehensive assault to outlaw abortion, an escalation of male supremacy. The fascist agenda and remaking of society is not a superficial phenomenon, but one with deep roots at the very foundation of this country and a social base including in sections of the ruling class, and represents an openly repressive and even more oppressive approach to these challenges.  

We invite all reading this to watch THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO! In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America. A Better World IS Possible to get a concise but powerfully argued exposition of this from Bob Avakian.

Here we have to ask: Why did the Democrats move so quickly last week to change the subject after the Mueller report came out? Why in the months preceding it did they so steadfastly refuse to even use the term “fascism”—and indeed have spoken against it—and hew so stubbornly to their Russian theme?

The answer is that even with the sharp differences at times, both the fascist-Republicans and the Democrats represent the rule of the same system. And that system, including the Democrats, has NO ANSWER to the deep and defining contradictions outlined above. For example, many of the policies that Trump is carrying out full-force on immigration were initiated by Obama: incarceration of Black and Brown youth became a mass phenomenon with Clinton and police murder continued unabated under Obama—Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Freddie Gray, and the list goes on. Obama escalated the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, initiating drone attacks in other countries like Yemen.

Republicans and Democrats share the goals of U.S. domination atop the world, with its horrendous inequalities, oppression and exploitation (see this and this) even if the Democrats often (but not always) prefer the “softer” rhetoric of globalization, international allies, and diverse multiculturalism—all the time conciliating with the fascists in keeping the system intact. In actual fact, while the Republicans are indeed a fascist party, the DEMOCRATIC PARTY IS A MACHINE OF WAR CRIMES AND CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY... and if you refuse to believe this, please look at this and tell us where we are wrong.

Republicans and Democrats also share the goal of keeping the people within the U.S. firmly inserted into the capitalist system, with all the horrific social relations (white supremacy and misogyny among them) that involves, even if—again—the Democrats may prefer (at times) a “softer” mix or a multicultural veneer on the repressive powers of the state which, no matter the color of the person in office, are brought down with unremitting vengeance on Black, Latino and Native American people.

Republicans and Democrats both suppress those sections of people broadly constituting what the mainstream considers the “left” side of society, and their interests and concerns—the masses of Black people, of women, progressives who oppose U.S. domination around the world, who agonize over the destruction of the environment and the persecution of immigrants. Democrats by corralling these into the dead-end electoral channels of this system and through pacification, tokenism and petty bribery of some, and Republicans through intimidation and disenfranchisement when it matters, like the suppression of voting rights for Black people. And both resorting to open repression when faced with serious challenges and threats to the system from this section.

What Is to Be Done—an Actual Revolution, Mass Resistance

Two critical conclusions flow from the above:

First, the problem is systemic. It is not Trump per se. It is the fact that this is a system that in extreme times can be driven to a fascist approach to resolving its contradictions.

This country and this system is most emphatically not a force for good in the world, but on the contrary the greatest cause of unnecessary suffering for the masses of humanity. [emphasis ours]

–Bob Avakian in The Problem, the Solution, and the Challenges Before Us

This system cannot be reformed, it must be overthrown! What is needed is sweeping away this system at the soonest possible time with an ACTUAL revolution. There are only two choices: either we live with this system, with its horrors going on and on ... or we make an ACTUAL revolution.

While this revolution necessarily requires the meeting and defeating of the forces of violent repression of the ruling class, its goal is the bringing forward of a whole new and far better world—where the contradictions that do chain down the masses today are overcome and resolved as part of a worldwide process. How that would happen is beyond the scope of this article, but we urge all to read the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, by Bob Avakian, to see the vision and concrete plan laid out there.

Making revolution (see HOW WE CAN WIN—How We Can Really Make Revolution)—bringing forth the forces for revolution and hastening the time when such an all out struggle for power is possible—is occurring in the context of and on terrain that is increasingly sharply polarized, bringing to mind the period prior to the Civil War in the 1860s, and with fascists like Newt Gingrich openly evoking a coming civil war. While the fascists openly evoke such imagery, and are willing to go to extremes to impose their agenda onto society, the Democrats and their media mouthpieces, even while sharply opposing this, will do anything but acknowledge and call out this white-supremacist fascist remaking of society. As Bob Avakian points out, both for what it calls into question about the underlying system that produced this through its legitimate channels and elections, and for what is required, calling the masses of people into the streets, to go all out to prevent the consolidation of fascism, risks the very legitimacy and stability of the system itself. Instead, they oppose and seek to resolve this by upholding the norms of bourgeois democracy even as they are trampled upon and shattered by the fascists, a losing proposition.

Very immediately, in dealing with the now-intensified threat posed by the regime, what is needed is mass sustained nonviolent mobilization—aiming to drive out this fascist regime. Broad masses of people, in their millions, will have to be broken from just relying on the Democrats, their institutions and their leaders, their corralling and domestication of anger and dissent into the next election, to break out of the terms of this system—its rules, its functioning, its “normal channels”! This is the re-alignment and resistance needed on a societal basis. It’s up to US, not relying on THEM! Much needed mass resistance can be spurred by sharpening splits, conflicts and developments on the top of society—even while contributing to that. While being tense to these developments, it means reaching out very broadly and challenging many who are not convinced yet of the need, viability or desirability of revolution, and may never be won to it, to nonetheless live up to their convictions, without illusions and with effectiveness.

The relation between the movement for revolution urgently required, and the also very immediately required movement of nonviolent, sustained and massive demonstrations to drive out this regime can and must be one of a positively reinforcing dynamism. Bob Avakian has put it this way:

It is crucial to unite and mobilize people, from different perspectives, very broadly, around the demand that this regime must go, but it will be much more difficult to do this on the scale and with the determination that is required to meet this objective if there are not, at the same time, greater and greater numbers of people who have been brought forward around the understanding that it is necessary to put an end not only to this regime but to the system out of whose deep and defining contradictions this regime has arisen, a system which by its very nature has imposed, and will continue to impose, horrific and completely unnecessary suffering on the masses of humanity, until this system itself is abolished.

And the more that people are brought forward to be consciously, actively working for revolution, the growing strength and “moral authority” of this revolutionary force will in turn strengthen the resolve of growing numbers of people to drive out this fascist regime now in power, even as many will not be (and some will perhaps never be) won to revolution.

So, both to meet the immediate challenge of creating a political situation in which this regime will be removed from power – and in which the political initiative has been seized to a great degree by those who are determined to turn back the assault on humanity that is being carried out by this regime and to strive for a better world, however they understand that – and to advance toward the fundamental goal of revolution, it is vitally important that all those who have come to understand the need for revolution actively contribute to building the movement to drive out this regime, and do so from the perspective and in the overall framework of building for revolution.... [emphasis in original, paragraph breaks inserted]

–Bob Avakian in Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution

Q&A: It looks like there may be a coming civil war between the Democrats and fascists. How should we understand this and act to realign things?

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STOP the Demonization, Criminalization and Deportations of Immigrants and the Militarization of the Border!

U.S. Ramps Up Vicious Persecution of Immigrants

April 1, 2019 | revcom.us

Every month, thousands of people from Latin America make the dangerous trek north to the U.S. border. They are searching for jobs and very often safety. Countless hundreds die every year on this journey.

Why do these human beings risk themselves and even their children? Because the U.S. and its imperialist system has made their countries a living hell. And what does the U.S. do in response? It persecutes, demonizes, attacks, and murders them. It does this because its system requires it, and today it does it on steroids.

It is as if someone robbed their neighbor and set their neighbor’s house on fire, and then when their neighbor tried to escape, they locked the doors and sicced their dogs on them.

Let’s look at what’s been going on.

On March 19, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that immigrants, including permanent residents and others with legal status, can be detained without bail while facing deportation, even if the proceedings take months or years. This can be for the pettiest offenses, and even long after they have served their sentences. Right now, they basically have NO rights. This law was put into place by the Democratic president Bill Clinton and further cemented by Obama—and now Trump has taken this already unjust violation of civil rights even further, backed by the Supreme Court.

On March 6, it came to light that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) investigators have created a “secret database” with information on 10 journalists, at least one attorney, 47 immigrant rights organizers, and activists referred to in the database as “instigators.” DHS has been carrying out warrantless searches on journalists’ laptops and phones and rummaging through what are supposed to be confidential case files of refugees who are trapped in Mexico, trying to get in.

Just this week the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) began holding hundreds of immigrants outdoors, behind fences topped with concertina wire, under the Paso del Norte bridge in El Paso, Texas. Temperatures dropped to 40 degrees at night, as children slept on dirt and concrete. A CBP spokesman claimed, “We are doing everything we can to simply avoid a tragedy in a CBP facility”—so, they’ve just dumped people in this outside detention camp, like animals or worse. Just look at this picture and tell us it doesn’t look like something out of World War 2. [As we went to press, the camp was evacuated—with no word as to what happened to the people.]

This is on top of the ongoing way that the Trump/Pence regime has tried to use the census to gather information on the legal status of immigrants and combine that with Department of Homeland Security information and a host of other government information that could be used to create a “registry” of every immigrant. Such a registry could be used to organize police or military sweeps of immigrant areas for the purpose of carrying out the mass deportations that Trump has promised his followers.

Finally, this week Trump finalized plans to take money that had been allotted for other purposes to build his fascist wall, he cut off aid to certain Central American governments to pressure them to more forcefully repress would-be immigrants to the U.S., and he has now gone so far as to threaten to shut down the border itself!

This system, through its economic plundering, has turned a large part of the world into deserts and dumps. The imperialists and the workings of their system have destroyed the social structures in these countries. They have installed brutally repressive regimes to serve their interests. And they have launched wars and invasions when one or another of these countries “gets out of line.”

It is no wonder that people risk life and limb to leave these parts of the world and—with environmental destruction getting even worse—it is almost certain that this will increase tremendously. The fascists, under Trump and Pence, are waging something close to an open war on these immigrants. The Democrats have no answer but to slightly modify it.

They say, “‘We’ have to stop crime.” “Crime”? The crime here is what America has done to these countries and the people in them, and the crime on top of crime of what it is now doing to the immigrants.

They say it’s to help “the economy.” The “economy”—that is, the capitalist/imperialist system—has grown fat off the blood and bones of the masses in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Then they skin the ox twice by playing off the people here that they exploit and fuck over against these immigrants.

They say it’s to “protect our culture.” And what culture is that? A culture of white supremacist lynch mobs, pornography, money-grubbing, and violence.

What we need is a revolution against this criminal system and its worldwide exploitation, and against all the social relations and ideas that reinforce that rotten system. Listen to Bob Avakian break things down in these clips:

The demonization, criminalization and deportations of immigrants.

Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) held hundreds of immigrants outdoors, behind fences topped with concertina wire, under the Paso del Norte bridge in El Paso, Texas. (Photo: AP)

Immigrants under Paso del Norte bridge in El Paso, Texas. As we went to press, the camp was evacuated—with no word as to what happened to the people. (Photo: Now This News video screen grab)

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This System Cannot Be Reformed, It Must Be Overthrown!”

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Video Shows Pigs Blowing Willie McCoy to Pieces—While He’s Still Unconscious!
How Long Will This Go On?
How Many More Must Die at the Hands of This System’s Enforcers?

April 1, 2019 | revcom.us

On February 9, Willie McCoy, a 20-year-old Black man and up-and-coming rapper, had fallen asleep or was unconscious in his car in the drive-through lane of a Taco Bell in Vallejo, California. Someone called the police. Moments later Willie was dead.

The police immediately justified the killing, saying they “feared for their lives” and had to act in self-defense.

Now they’ve been forced to release the video, and what does it show?

These same pigs who claimed they “feared for their lives” walked right up to Willie’s car window, guns drawn and pointed right at him. One says they see a gun—the video doesn’t show it—but they didn’t try to wake him. They didn’t try to talk to him. Instead, they talked calmly and coldly—for five minutes!—about how they’re going to “pull him out and snatch his ass,” and be ready to open fire: “If he reaches for it, you know what to do”—even though they see there’s no magazine in the gun.

Then Willie moves slightly, scratching his shoulder, not yet awake or alert. Within seconds, all six pigs unleash a barrage of gunfire, hitting Willie 25 times—in the face, the middle of his throat, his chest and arms, blowing one ear halfway off. A lawyer who saw Willie’s corpse said she’d never seen anything so horrifying in her life.

The contempt and dehumanization continued in death. “They left him out there like an animal carcass ... like a dog that got run over by a car,” Willie’s cousin said. All this was part of the message—and the terror—these police assassinations are designed to send.

One of Willie’s friends spoke to the bitter truth that every single Black, Brown, or Native person in America lives under a death sentence, whether it’s carried out or not. “I’ve been fearful all of my life,” he said, “and wondering, am I next?”

Meanwhile, the six Vallejo murderers were given a two-week paid vacation (so-called “administrative leave”) and are now back on the job.

How many more times will this happen? How many reforms will be made, how many commissions appointed, how much bullshit will be pumped out and proposed while this continues to go on? Can we really not see, after 400 years, that the oppression of Black people runs like blood through the veins of the capitalist-imperialist system and that the people in charge of this system could not get rid of this even if they somehow wanted to?

If this were the only crime of this system, it would be reason enough to get rid of the system. But remember: this is the same system that also degrades and oppresses women and gay (LGBTQ) people; the same system that wages wars all over the globe that take the lives of millions of innocent people; the same system that persecutes and terrorizes immigrants; and the same system that is destroying the environment for the future generations.

The leader of the revolution, Bob Avakian, says:

Let’s get down to basics: We need a revolution. Anything else, in the final analysis, is bullshit. (from BAsics 3:1)

And he has also said:

We have two choices: either, live with all this—and condemn future generations to the same, or worse, if they have a future at all—or, make revolution!

Which will YOU choose?

It’s Time to Wake Up Vallejo!

April 1, 2019 | revcom.us

Revcom received this from someone who is active in the protests against the police murder of Willie McCoy.

We the residents of Vallejo, CA are mourning the murder of Willie McCoy, our dear friend, brother, uncle, cousin, son, boyfriend etc. May he Rest In Paradise.

The video footage VPD released only proves what we all believe happened on the night of February 9, 2019, these six animals (Ryan McMahon, Collin Eaton, Bryan Glick, Jordon Patzer, Anthony Romero-Cano and Mark Thompson) prepped to slaughter Willie McCoy. These six trigger-happy pigs were eager to murder Willie without any regards for HIS life. This was premeditated murder in the first degree! Law enforcement officers that KILL at WILL are guilty of war crimes, and must be prosecuted in the International Criminal Court on Crimes Against Humanity charges. There was no way my friend was leaving Taco Bell that night alive... 

TWENTY FIVE shots were fired into Willie’s unconscious body, twenty five! This is overkill, these pigs plotted to kill an innocent kind-hearted young man that was sleeping... These six police think they’re untouchable, they think they can get away with murder, and sweep this under the rug. NO we shall hold the VPD accountable as a community. 

This is the Bay Area, Vallejo CA and WE ARE OUTRAGED! 

NO JUSTICE. NO PEACE. 

VPD have always been corrupt rampaging through the city like thugs targeting black residents for years. Vallejo officers have been involved in over eight shootings since 2017, police brutality, illegal searches, false police reports, etc. Vallejo has been suffering. NO more No longer! How many more of our sisters and brothers do we need to lose to WAKE UP? I don’t want to protest about another one of my friends next month... The video footage hurt me, my spirit. Now these animals are just free back at work hiding behind a badge. 

VPD is victimizing Willie all over again and his family. Willie never reached for his gun! Even with a firearm on his lap, you’ve got to wake the citizen up with something other than semi-automatic pistol fire. These maniacs hunted him. “If he reaches for it..." one pig says, and nods, “Yup” the other pig replies. 

Willie’s passenger window was BROKEN! He didn’t get it fixed before this incident, there were sheets of plastic covering it, those pigs had access inside of the car all along, but the plan was to kill. Twenty five shots later they ask for him to raise his hands. Abuse of power, these pigs made their minds up together they were ready to kill! 

Death sentence for falling asleep. These six animals did not ask any questions, they need to be prosecuted and buried under the jail! We the residents of Vallejo are even more angry after watching the video footage of them hunting Willie McCoy. We shall continue to rise up for all our sisters and brothers lost to this corrupt system that’s made to kill us. 

VPD better make the right decisions fast. We the community will continue to hold these six animals accountable. It’s time to RISE UP! 

Love n peace B 

The Fascists Are Moving To Take Away Reproductive Rights...
But Where Is The Fight To Defend Them?

April 1, 2019 | revcom.us

Forced Motherhood Is Female Enslavement.

This is what is at the heart of the struggle over abortion—and birth control—that is sharply posed right now for every female, and for everyone who cares about what kind of world we are going to live in. There is a ferocious fight to make half of humanity be subordinated to the mandates of a system that enshrines patriarchy and domination.  

Think about it. What does it say about this system that women have had to fight for the freedom and the right to decide whether or not to have a child, and that this has right now become such a ferocious fight? This basic right is tightly linked to the overall degradation and patriarchal domination of women that has deep roots in and is an integral part of this system, and it is not possible to resolve this basic question so long as we live under this system. If we don’t make revolution to end this system, this will be a fight that has to be fought over and over again. We need to make revolution and to see this fact as a driving force for revolution.

Right now the question of the basic right to choose to have an abortion, the right of a woman to decide if and when she will become a mother, is under attack in an escalated way as part of the overall cohering of the fascist Trump/Pence regime. Women have already been forced by different laws to have babies against their will, but there is an overall full court press to make that the law of the land right now. Legal initiatives centered on taking away any legal protection for women to control reproduction—specifically preparing for the overturning of Roe v. Wade¹—have accelerated in these past few months. This goes hand-in-hand with offensives to promote public opinion that abortion is murder, to establish as truth the bogus religious concept that each human life is begun at conception by a creator (God), and to insert that religious criteria into the laws regulating the choices women can make.

In the first three months of this year, there have been 304 new bills introduced in state legislatures either imposing new restrictions on the right to abortion or making abortion illegal, period.

These include:

* So-called “heartbeat laws” that would make abortion illegal if a fetal heartbeat is detected, which could be as early as six weeks into a pregnancy. In simple language, this means that before a woman may even know she is pregnant, a safe legal abortion would be off the table. Some of these laws would make both the woman and her provider liable for jail, up to 10 years if an abortion were provided after a fetal heartbeat is heard.

Just this past week, both houses of the Georgia state legislature passed such a law, which now sits on the governor’s desk to sign–which he has said he would do. Other states are following suit, and the governor of Mississippi just signed a law like this in a state where there is only one abortion clinic.

* “Trigger laws” in a number of states (including Louisiana, North Dakota, Arkansas and Iowa) outlaw abortion outright and are on the books even though under the Supreme Court standard of Roe v. Wade, these are considered unconstitutional. They are intended to be able to go into effect if the Supreme Court rules on a case in such a way that Roe v. Wade is overturned.

* Multitude of laws restricting access to abortion are being passed, both to undercut the protections provided by Roe v. Wade state by state, and also with the hope that one of these laws will make its way to the Supreme Court, and will be the one that will overturn Roe v. Wade, now that the balance on that Court has been shifted against abortion with Trump’s appointment of Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.

* Planned Parenthood, which provides not only abortion, but also counseling on birth control and actual medical means of birth control, is threatened with the withdrawal of federal funds for these services so long as they also provide abortion services—even though no federal money is used under current restrictions for the abortions Planned Parenthood does provide. But now Trump is going to divert $5.1 million of federal funds from Planned Parenthood to the non-profit Obria Group, which describes itself as being “led by God” and which receives millions of dollars in funding from groups associated with the Catholic Church—one of the most hardcore anti-abortion, anti-birth control institutions here and all over the world.

All of these taken together are a multi-pronged assault explicitly intended to force women to have babies whether they want to or not. They are part of an offensive that started over 40 years ago, when the Roe v. Wade decision established the constitutional right for a woman to choose to end a pregnancy for any reason. This unleashed an anti-abortion movement that has been fueled by reactionary religious doctrine about the role of women in society as mothers being their most fundamental role. This has now been given great backing and a green light from the Trump/Pence regime, aided by Senator Mitch McConnell—with the courts being packed by nutcase reactionaries committed to outright outlawing abortion, on the Supreme Court and on lower levels.²

Forced Motherhood Is Female Enslavement

The misogyny and degradation of women that is bound up with imposing these conditions on all women comes from the system itself, but it has been a principal objective of the Christian fundamentalists for decades, and they now form one key pillar of the Trump/Pence regime and are a major part of the energized fascist social base backing Trump–and Pence.

The Democratic Party has conciliated and conceded the terms of this fight, with its “safe, legal and rare” declarations, ceding the moral ground to those who have been on the offensive against the right to abortion, including attacks on clinics and the murder of abortion providers. This is a major factor in how we have gotten to the situation we are in today.

It is outrageous enough that these limits and outright banning of abortion will force those who have decided they do not want to—or cannot—carry forward with their pregnancy, to use dangerously unsafe means in an effort to abort the fetus growing inside her body. But it is also the case that if any woman does not have the ability and legal right to decide whether or if she will have a child no matter the circumstances—if that is taken from any woman—then all women are subject to being relegated to being in a subordinate category of human being–as sex objects and incubators.

This is not the world we want to live in, and must be ended by making revolution and winning the full emancipation of women as part of the emancipation of all humanity.

Women are not incubators.... they are full human beings.

1. The 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalized abortion nationwide by recognizing women’s right to privacy to decide whether or not to have a child up to the third trimester of pregnancy. Before Roe v. Wade, thousands of women in the U.S. were seriously injured or died each year from unsafe illegal abortions. Countless others were forced to bear children they did not want. Roe v. Wade was decided in the context of a tenacious fight by women and others during the social upheaval of the 1960s and early 1970s—as well as the huge economic and social changes affecting the family and the role of women.  [back]

2. Twenty-five of 30 appeals court judges appointed by Trump are on the ultra-reactionary Federalist Society list; 85% of his circuit court nominees are members of the Federalist Society; 92 out of 177 Trump federal judge appointees have been confirmed so far; 5 of 12 circuit courts are now composed of 25% Trump appointed judges.  [back]

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Pete Buttigieg: Fuck You for Your Service!

On the Elections: the Auditions for the Next “Lincoln”

From a member of the Revolution Club, LA

April 1, 2019 | revcom.us

Editors’ note: We received this correspondence from a Revolution Club member. Particularly with Buttigieg now being promoted, the reader raises some timely observations and questions.

During the March 10 CNN town hall with South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, we were assaulted with a barrage of military worship and a complete papering over of the massive war crimes and crimes against humanity that this system, and the military which serves this system, carries out all over the world, as well as an illustration of the bankruptcy of identity politics and the inability of the Democrats to mention, let alone confront, fascism.

Buttigieg, who entered the 2020 presidential election process openly in January, is a veteran of the U.S. imperialist war on Afghanistan and is peddling an inane form of homonationalism, which, as opposed to the fascist “Gays for Trump” phenomenon, has more mainstream appeal. The grift, in essence, is this: support the U.S. empire and we will protect your rights while the system grinds up people just like you here and all around the world.

To the masses of LGBTQ+ people: don’t be fooled by imperialist sharks that tell you that the U.S. empire will advance your interests. The masses of humanity can only get free, and the oppressive patriarchy and its myriad forms of gender oppression can only be abolished, through an actual revolution against this imperialist beast, the defeat and dismantling of their armed forces of repression, and the establishment of a new socialist state power that will enforce fully in law the complete equality of women and all LGBTQ+ people in all spheres of life. We cannot vote in our freedom, or anyone else’s. We need to get organized for an actual revolution.

To Pete Buttigieg: FUCK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE. There is nothing “honorable” about serving, advocating for, and celebrating as “greatness” a system of terror, mass slaughter, and environmental degradation. As Bob Avakian said this past summer,

...there is nothing heroic about being part of the mechanized and digitized machinery of death, devastation, and degradation that is the U.S. military, or the missions they carry out to violently enforce the dictates of the system this military serves. What is truly heroic, and what will represent a great service to humanity, is standing up against this system and its unending war crimes and crimes against humanity—and, when the time comes, going up against and defeating the violent force that is used to maintain this system. (From Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution)

The Topic Not Raised—the Reality of a Fascist America

Tellingly, Buttigieg refused to call for Trump’s removal now, toeing the Democratic Party line that Trump must be removed through the election, and that the normal channels of the system must be the form by which there is any resistance. “I would like to see this president and the style of politics that he represents sent off through the electoral process, decisively defeated at the ballot box. ... Because I just don’t think that’s what America is. I understand how it happened,” he said.

Nowhere in the town hall was fascism raised, even as it is posed sharply that we are living in a modern-day Weimar Republic, with an unrepentant fascist regime barreling ahead and making real headway in ramming through its white supremacist, male supremacist, anti-LGBTQ+, anti-immigrant, imperialist gangster program. That said, we cannot confine ourselves to defending “the Weimar,” which itself is a daily nightmare for the masses of humanity. The reality of imperialism in “normal” times is utterly intolerable, and fascism itself is another form of (openly dictatorial) rule of the same system. As revcom.us recently printed, “[fascism] is one form of rule—one option—that capitalist ruling classes (or sections of those rulers) may feel compelled to resort to when they confront extreme contradictions, as they do today.” Working within the confines of the capitalist-imperialist system, even with the best of intentions, only makes certain the horrors bound up with this system’s further existence (what is concentrated in the Five Stops) will continue, and with that the possibility of fascist movements and regimes escalating these atrocities.

Auditions to Be the Next “Lincoln”

When asked what former U.S. president he most admired, Buttigieg provided an answer, which, under different circumstances, might be very unremarkable. “Whenever I worry about our country, I remember that at one time, part of our country broke off and declared war against the other part. And President Lincoln led us through that; brought us together, and did so with a spirit, I think, of service and empathy that I certainly aspire to emulate.” This invoking of the Civil War was no accident, but a deliberate stance that the other imperialist contenders will have to orient themselves around: How are we going to lead through what might be coming soon?

The fascist section of the ruling class and those masses under its wing have been talking about civil war for decades, and have it on the mind with great frequency now. On Saturday, March 16, white supremacist congressman Steve King of Iowa posted a meme to Facebook that openly invoked a coming civil war. According to the Los Angeles Times, the meme featured “two fighting figures, one red and one blue, each an amalgamation of states based on their political leanings.” The text read: “Folks keep talking about another civil war. One side has about 8 trillion bullets, while the other side doesn’t know which bathroom to use.” The post has since been taken down, but the fact that a sitting imperialist representative laid this out in such stark terms should not be taken lightly. Despite its tone and anti-transgender “joke,” the meme does speak to the very negative polarization that exists, with reactionaries, fascists, and Christian fascists maintaining and seeking to expand their grip on power, by force of violence if necessary (that is, force against the “liberal side” of the “Pyramid of Power” Bob Avakian has referred to, aside from the daily violence that the system employs against the masses and anyone who challenges their legitimacy), and the non-fascist, mainstream section of the ruling class both opposing them to a degree while seeking to keep the masses under their wing in a position of weakness, compromise, and capitulation to the fascists.

Let’s not forget: those sections of the people who are the most hard-core fascists DO have a lot of weapons, many of them being military and ex-military. These fascists, emboldened and unleashed by the Trump/Pence regime, are deadly serious, and deadly period. Ignoring them won’t make them go away. It won’t stop them from organizing online, preying on the young, vulnerable, and alienated. It won’t make them stop forming militias, terrorizing immigrants and Black and Brown people, or from shooting up synagogues and churches, leaving carnage and terror in their wake. All of this is happening right now.

The question remains: Will the revolutionaries be able to wrench something positive from all this—or will this fight be confined to a choice between different forms of imperialist rule?

With this in mind, the shadow that fascism is casting over this election cycle makes this, in a certain sense, auditions among the imperialists for who can be the next “Lincoln”—a process to see who can lead through the struggle among the two sharply opposed sections of the rulers and the broader populace while maintaining their monstrous, unreformable, criminal system. Buttigieg thinks he can be that next “Lincoln” (and it should be noted that in the weeks following his town hall his popularity has grown), and in this first stage of 2020’s “America’s Got Imperialist and Wannabe-Imperialist Talent,” who’s to say which BEB the ruling class will favor as the winner? In the midst of all this, and cutting through all the bullshit, increasingly large numbers of people need to be fighting for our, that is humanity’s, highest interests; they need to see that this system has no future for them, whether it is a slow, orderly grind to oblivion or a fast, chaotic one, and that a communist future is the only way to a world where the needless suffering and degradation that is now daily life for billions of people will be no more.

“You Think You’re Woke...
But You’re Sleepwalking Through A Nightmare —

This System Cannot Be Reformed, It Must Be Overthrown!”

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