No one knows what tomorrow will bring.
What used to be "routine election cycles" where the ruling class of this system agreed to play by certain rules, including the peaceful transfer of power, are being shredded.
While elections in the system of capitalism-imperialism are not, and have never been, how political decisions get fundamentally made, they have played a vital role in maintaining the legitimacy of this illegitimate system in the eyes of millions. Over the last ten years, the fascists have stated their willingness and determination to shatter those "cohering norms" as part of installing their overall fascist program. All that took a leap on January 6, 2021, when Trump fomented a violent attempted coup. Elections have turned into increasingly bitter and antagonistic fights—with an ever present fear that the fascists will outright refuse to respect elections they lose.
We are now watching the spectacle of an unhinged lunatic fascist president threatening to execute or deport his political opponents; holding open, and actively preparing for, the possibility of sending the military or ICE gestapo to the polls on election day; making vicious degrading attacks on the media, trans people, Muslims, women... anyone who opposes this fascist program.
The Trump fascist regime has put into place a vast government network to rig, discredit and even outright steal the election—through the legal channels of this system if they can, or through outright violence and mob terror if they must. [See: The Fascist Attacks on the Midterms] No one knows what the fascists might feel compelled, or able, to do.
A Sharp, Irreconcilable Divide At A Time Of Great Crisis
This reflects the sharp, irreconcilable divide among the rulers about how this system of capitalism-imperialism should be ruled. The fact that they are unable to hold this system together in the “normal” ways that millions of people have become conditioned to accept has given rise to a rare time where the revolution that humanity urgently needs is more possible—even in this powerful country.
As Bob Avakian—the revolutionary leader and architect of the new communism—wrote recently: "Among people who are exploited and oppressed, there will always be resistance and rebellion—but, when a profound crisis grips the system as a whole which exploits and oppresses them, the objective possibility is greatly heightened for actually putting an end to that system." [From WHY BLACK PEOPLE FLOODED INTO THE UNION ARMY IN THE CIVIL WAR... AND WHAT THAT HAS TO DO WITH NOW]
We are amidst such a crisis now.
The Trump fascist regime is determined to lock into place a fascist America, and is attempting a wholesale reordering of the world.
The Trump fascist regime, working with the genocidal apartheid state of Israel, launched an illegal, vicious and unprovoked war against Iran. And there are clear moves from Trump to relaunch that war—with threats to cause even more horrific destruction to the civilian population of Iran. The regime has unleashed a gestapo force to terrorize immigrants and attack protesters. They've purged the military of many Black and female commanding officers, imbued it with “take-no-prisoners,” “Christian warrior” fanaticism, and preached to its commanders that they must prepare for “the war within.”
The Democrats have no answers to any of this except to cling to the "norms" of the same outmoded, oppressive system which has given rise to this fascism and which is driving the planet to environmental catastrophe and the increased danger of nuclear war.
This Is NOT The Only Way To Live… And These Are NOT Our Only Choices
Again, Trump is not “apart from this system.” He is a product of it and the qualities it breeds—the racism, the misogyny, the aggressive ignorance and egomania—in extreme forms, to meet extreme times. And the Democrats are not the “good guys”—they are contending with the fascists for control of the same capitalist-imperialist system. That system not only grinds up people from Congo to Colombia, from Bangladesh to Brazil and beyond—it unleashes violence to protect that exploitation. Violence that just since World War 2 has taken over 10 million (!!!) lives through wars waged by both Democratic and Republican presidents.
That system is now running up against its limits, and this conflict between the two sections of the rulers and two sections of society has continued to sharpen. The underlying and driving forces of this are gone into in the accompanying excerpt from Bob Avakian (BA).
In speaking to the ways this has intensified around the role of women in society, which he calls a “powderkeg,” BA made a point that applies far more broadly:
It is not conceivable that all this will find any resolution other than in the most radical terms and through extremely violent means. The question yet to be determined is: will it be a radical reactionary or a radical revolutionary resolution, will it mean the reinforcing of the chains of enslavement or the shattering of the most decisive links in those chains and the opening up of the possibility of realizing the complete elimination of all forms of such enslavement.
—Humanity on the Brink — A Forced March Into the Abyss, or Forging a Way Forward Out of the Madness?
Of course revolution will not just happen automatically because the system is in a deep crisis. To draw again from BA, it also requires "A revolutionary people in the millions and millions, with their 'allegiance' to this system broken, and their determination to fight for a more just society greater than their fear of the violent repression of this system." And it requires, "An organized revolutionary force—made up of continually growing numbers of people, from among the most oppressed but also from many other parts of society—a force which is grounded in, and is working systematically to apply, the most scientific approach to building for and then carrying out revolution, and which is increasingly looked to by masses of people to lead them to bring about the radical change that is urgently needed."
This is what people who want to see a better world need to urgently work towards—above all else.
The Revolution We Need, The Leadership We Have
We don't have to live this way! There is a basis in the technology and knowledge that exists now to meet the material and intellectual needs for everyone on the planet, doing away with all exploitation and oppression and becoming fit caretakers of the earth. This will not be easy but it is possible. The problem standing in the way is this system of capitalism-imperialism—a system which has locked the world into a mad dash of cutthroat competition for profit above all else. For those who are sick of the world the way it is, and hunger for a way out of this madness, the fact that real revolution has become more possible in the time we live in now is incredibly rare and precious.
As BA has said, "This rare time must not be squandered—wasted and thrown away. It must be actively and urgently seized on—to bring about a truly emancipating revolution.... The outcome of this rare time can’t be left to the brutal enforcers of this system, in one camp or another—or to any force which cannot, or will not, look beyond and lead people beyond the confines of an oppressive system, in one form or another. There must be—and there can be—an organized force of thousands, in a position to lead millions, to take this where it needs to go—to an actual, emancipating revolution." (REVOLUTION #8)
The REAL future that humanity could have, the future in which humanity could not just somehow survive these apocalyptic horrors in some sort of “keep-your-head-down” hell, but could actually flourish—is concentrated in the New Communism brought forward by Bob Avakian, and the ongoing leadership that BA is providing.
This New Communism is above all a scientific way to understand the world, and human society in particular, and to apply it in such a way so as to unleash humanity’s potential. In forging this New Communism, Avakian has built on the real achievements of past revolutions and revolutionary thinkers, but he has also ruptured in significant ways with unscientific approaches and methods that have been part of and held back communist theory and the communist movement up to now.
The concrete application of all this can be seen in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, authored by BA. This Constitution provides a sweeping vision, firm foundation and concrete blueprint for a society whose fundamental goal is to bring about a world without classes and class distinctions, a world without exploitation and oppression, and without the destructive divisions and antagonisms among people: a communist world.
The Huge Stakes Right Now… And The Larger Stakes To Come
This fight between the Trump MAGA fascists and the Democrats (both "left" and "mainstream") is a fight between two sections of imperialists over HOW to rule this oppressive system. At the same time, there are real stakes for humanity in preventing the fascists from further locking down their rule.
There is no living with this fascism—with its open, violent misogyny and its constant attacks on trans people, and LGBT people overall… with its demonization and violent repression of immigrants, and its unhinged racism… with its horrific and dangerous wars and threats of wars… with its celebration and enforcement of ignorance and its “brand” of apocalyptic, violent religion… with its growing political repression, election fuckery and so much more. We should not underestimate what this regime would do to secure what it sees as its interests. Nonviolent, determined political resistance to these outrages is righteous, critical and must be supported—and, at the same time, struggled with to break out of the ways the rulers will seek to channel this back into the terms of this same system.
What happens over these next few weeks and months could have huge consequences for the future. But that is just the point: the future that humanity must have, if it is to have a future at all, must be one of revolution, nothing less—for the emancipation of all humanity!
IN THE NAME OF HUMANITY, WE REFUSE TO ACCEPT A FASCIST AMERICA!
THIS WHOLE SYSTEM IS ROTTEN AND ILLEGITIMATE—WE NEED AND WE DEMAND: A WHOLE NEW WAY TO LIVE, A FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT SYSTEM
"We can no longer afford to allow these imperialists to dominate the world and to determine the destiny of humanity. They need to be overthrown as quickly as possible. And it is a scientific fact that humanity does not have to live this way."
—Bob Avakian
Excerpt from Revolution #118
This system has brought forth Trump/MAGA fascism: People, in their millions, must put an end to this fascist regime—NOW—before it is too late!
This is Bob Avakian—REVOLUTION—number 118.
Why are we facing this fascism? The answer is that the fundamental cause of this fascism is the fact that this system of capitalism-imperialism is running up against its limits.
This system, in this country, has proclaimed that it provides equality, liberty and justice for all, but over and over again this is shown to be a lie. During the 80 years since the end of World War 2, the ruling class of this country has been forced to make certain partial concessions when confronted with massive struggle against inequality and oppression—but this system has once again shown that it cannot put an end to this inequality and oppression, for the basic reason that this inequality and oppression is built into this system.
So, when people rise up against the continuing inequality and oppression, this provokes and outrages those who do not want to see an end to this inequality and oppression—who insist that the struggle against this injustice has “gone too far” and represents an existential threat to them.
This has gone along with big changes in the world—including the way that capitalist-imperialist plunder of poorer countries, and its accelerating destruction of the environment, has forced huge numbers of people to migrate across the globe. Large numbers of people from “non-white” countries, documented and un-documented, have entered the U.S., and the increasing number of “non-white” people is also seen as a serious threat to those drawn to fascism.
This rise of fascism has also been strengthened by the fact that, over the decades since the 1970s, the capitalist-imperialist system has become even more a system of globalized exploitation—with especially intense, cruel exploitation of masses of people, including more than 150 million children, in the poorer countries of the world, while many formerly high-paying factory jobs have been eliminated within this country.
This has been accompanied by other major changes within this country, notably the increased role of women in many different sectors of the economy, including the professions—radically altering the “traditional” situation where a family was headed by a sole “male earner”and women were confined within a “dependent” position. Reinforced by the demented rantings of woman-hating, demagogic “bros,” this has given rise to an irrational orgy of “revenge” on the part of some men against the relative independence many women have gained and the demands for an end to the continuing, often brutal, oppression of women.
All this has driven those threatened by these changes to embrace lunatic conspiracy theories and other blatant distortions of reality, in supporting Trump’s fascism, with his vicious insistence that if vulnerable people are not blamed and persecuted, his followers “won’t have a country anymore.” All this is aimed at a return to “how things are supposed to be,” where whole groups of people—women, LGBT people, Black people and other people of color, non-European immigrants, and others—are openly regarded and treated as inferior, not deserving the same rights as “regular people,” or even not having a right to exist at all.
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