A Struggle for Nothing Less Than the Future of Humanity

September 5th: A Living Declaration That We Are Not Stopping Until This Regime Is Driven From Power

by Andy Zee

August 24, 2020 | revcom.us

 

Editors’ Note: Following are remarks prepared by Andy Zee for Episode 22 of the The RNL—Revolution Nothing Less—Show, and which were improvised during the filming.

***

Refuse Fascism has issued a Call for nationwide protests on Saturday, September 5, 2020, to demand: Trump/Pence OUT NOW!

This begins a new decisive stage of the struggle for nothing less than the future of people here and around the world.

The Refuse Fascism Call for these protests begins:

We are speeding toward an election that Trump is already contesting and now threatens to delay.

This election, if there is an election, will be a showdown over the form of rule in this country. Will the Trump/Pence regime hold on to power and be given a “mandate” to violently suppress dissent and criminalize protest? Will a regime that brands as their enemy all those who struggle for a better world—whether for Black lives or the environment or immigrants’ rights—be unleashed to exact revenge aimed at destroying our ability to stand up again?

This and worse is unfolding now, and it has a name: fascism.

Now is the time to marshal the people for a determined struggle by Labor Day to demand the Trump/Pence Regime get OUT NOW. All who have been demonized and criminalized by this regime and the millions who hate Trump and what he stands for must unite with an unwavering resolve to remove this regime from power at the soonest possible time.

That was the opening of the Refuse Fascism Call for September 5th.

We face a regime with powerful backing, organization and millions of followers prepared to fight to bring into being a radically reactionary, yes, fascist America. This word has meaning, which is why many fear to utter it, but when fear stands in the way of confronting and calling hard truth for what it is, it is masses of people who will pay a terrible price. This is why Refuse Fascism has said since its founding in December 2016 after Trump’s election and before his inauguration, In the Name of Humanity, WE REFUSE TO ACCEPT A FASCIST AMERICA.

September 5, 2020 needs to be A LIVING DECLARATION by masses of people in this country that we are determined, we are organizing, we are uniting, we are preparing, to struggle with all we’ve got starting now and not stopping until this regime is gone from power and the fascist program it is bludgeoning into place is indeed stopped.

The hour is upon us. From the first days of the Trump/Pence regime, Trump and the movement that backs him have seen this regime as their “last chance” to save their America, a white-supremacist, Christian patriarchal vision of America First.

This past Monday, August 17, Trump said, “The only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged,” telling us that he will not accept the results if he loses.

Trump and the Republican party that he commands have stripped thousands of voters from registration rolls, they have closed polling places, they are mobilizing tens of thousands of vigilante poll watchers from their fascist Confederacy-loving goons—recruiting the police and former special military forces, and they are subverting mail-in voting at a time when people must shelter in place to prevent the coronavirus from killing and damaging even more people.

Trump’s undermining the election has sounded an alarm, as it should. The Democratic Party and all who have relied on the “normal” workings of this system are confronting yet again, now with the highest of stakes, the unrelenting dynamic of fascism that cares nothing for what have been the normal workings of the system—its laws, its courts, its congressional hearings, its separation of powers, its impeachment process, all of this fascists shred in pursuit of their horrific program. And now, people have been told by the Democratic Party, their media and mass organizations to rely on what? The normal political processes—the 2020 elections—which are being undermined, subverted, de-legitimized and possibly cast aside with Trump refusing to leave should their fascist regime see doing that as necessary to hold power if he loses—an electoral loss which is not at all a sure thing.

Will this basic lesson be heeded—this essential feature of fascism that it disregards, ignores and, in actuality, tears up the rule of law while remaking law into whatever they say it is? Democratic Party politicians, pundits and academics endlessly repeat with dramatic shock and dismay of Trump: “This is not who we are,” “This is not how things are done,” while the fascists don’t give a fuck... because they are moving to rip all of that up. Trump says it and then he does it. His flunkies in the regime and Republican Party implement it, Fox News and the fascist mob cheer. Is this not what has happened over and over? And, politics as usual is what you want to rely on? Instead of getting in the streets and staying as we did, and some are still doing, for Black and Brown and Native American lives?

The Democrats draw an analogy and say that Nero (the Roman emperor) fiddled while Rome burned and yes, you joke, Trump golfs while hundreds of thousands are dying... but couldn’t it be said that Trump/Pence bludgeoned into place fascism disregarding every political norm and every ounce of humanity and morality in pursuit of total power while people thumbed through the rule book waiting to see if it really could get worse? Then, we’ll do… we’ll do what? Make a deal?

Have we forgotten all that saviors which people waited and hoped for the system to do for them over these past four years?

• The courts will stop what he’s doing to immigrants... except they’re packed with reactionary judges who gave the regime the go ahead over and over.
• Wait for the Mueller report that will undo him… but it didn’t.
• The responsible Republicans will step up and remove him because Trump’s a psychopathic narcissist and incompetent?… No they didn’t and they won’t. Trump’s mania is achieving their agenda.
• The generals—Kelley, Mattis and McMaster, they’ll be the adults in the room, they’ll check Trump... until they were fired and even more fascist flunkies replaced them.
• The Blue Wave—take back Congress in 2018—will subpoena all Trump’s people and that will constrain Trump... But they didn’t. Did one single fascist measure of this regime get fully stopped? Concentration camps on the border? Child separation?
• Impeachment... that will restrain him even if it doesn’t remove Trump from office... But the Democrats limited impeachment to how Trump tried to subvert the U.S. election by having the Ukraine dig up dirt on Biden… Again, no subpoenas, no conviction, Trump left fired up, vindictive, and further hardened his followers for the fight to come.

All this evidence ignored how a fascist regime plays by their own different rules to make new rules to fit their vision and program. And now as we face the potential of the consolidation of fascism with all that means for people here and around the world... and in the face of all the rigging of the election by the fascist machine of the Trump/Pence regime and the Republi-fascists in state governments around the country and/or his contesting and refusing to leave office, we are told to just channel all our efforts into the elections, full stop.

There are others who say that we must prepare now to protest later if Trump steals the election or refuses to leave if he loses. The warning of what is unfolding is an important truth and preparation matters, but waiting and failing to prepare while acting now ignores the reality that Trump is already doing violence to the results of the election with his voter suppression campaign and it misses the repressive moves already being carried out to intimidate, disorganize, brutalize, throw heavy charges and imprison the very backbone of the resistance needed against these fascists. This is happening now.

NO—we must be in the streets, not only countering his every move but making the case that the very fact that we are having the discussion of what we “might” need to do “if” Trump tries to steal the election (which he has made no secret of) shows the URGENT need to drive out this regime NOW.

There is tremendous damage to the world that this regime can do between now and November. The more we are in the streets, forging unity, strengthening collective muscles, demanding Trump/Pence OUTNOW! not only is it possible we could stave off the great calamity of this regime but people will be prepared for what is surely to be a tough battle. And we must never accept that a fascist regime is legitimate—no matter how it comes to power.

Here we are going to go to a video that brings to life just how serious the regime’s plans and actions are to subvert the election.

***

In the first part of today’s commentary, I talked about the need to get into the streets from the perspective of NOT waiting for Trump to bust more norms and checkmate us before we even make a move. But there’s an even larger reason, a moral dimension:

• Have we gotten inured to, used to, the accelerating fascist program?
• Has it gotten to the point where you are OK with concentration camps on the U.S.-Mexico border, with children separated from their parents?
• Are you not so worried anymore that the Trump/Pence regime has shredded environmental law and should they stay in power this could possibly mean that the planet may never recover from the devastation—perhaps becoming unable to sustain life?
• Do you think about what it means for the existence of humanity that Trump has his itchy, vindictive Twitter finger on the nuclear trigger and has said if we have nuclear weapons why can’t we use them—while pulling out of nuclear arms treaties and expanding the U.S. nuclear weapons capacity?
• Do the thousands of lies and his blatant rejection of science and promotion of quack medicine that has cost now over 170,000 lives from the COVID-19 pandemic blend into the background?

We have covered many times on The RNL Show the Trump/Pence regime’s racist denigration of Black, Brown, and Native American people... their celebration of the Confederacy and of support of police brutality. Trump’s open embrace and unleashing of fascist white supremacists as very fine people and his rallies and tweets calling for more brutality from the police and fomenting his “Second Amendment” very tough people.

In the last few episodes, we discussed and showed the paramilitary forces he has deployed against peaceful protest in Portland, Oregon.

Bob Avakian in his statement on the immediate critical situation we face has drawn a sharp parallel to the rise to power of Hitler and Nazis in Germany in the 1930s. After he describes the process by which this unfolded over a whole period, he goes on to say this:

[plays audio of BA statement]

All this did not happen all at once—but it took place within a relatively short period of time (a decade or so), and with an increasingly accelerating pace. The rule of law was not openly and formally abandoned altogether, but the “law” and “the rule of law” became the same as what Hitler and the NAZIs said it was. Much of what Hitler and the NAZIs did, during their reign of terror and genocide, was “in accordance with the law”—law that they had reduced to nothing more than their barbaric aims and means, murderously enforced by institutions which had been stripped of any meaning or purpose other than what conformed to and served the NAZI agenda, reduced to nothing more than instruments of NAZI atrocity.

In the whole of what Trump is currently doing—including his open calls to overturn Supreme Court decisions and precedents (for example, to outlaw abortion and punish flag-burning), along with his repeated violations of the law and due process of the law and his insistence that he is the law—we can see the looming shadow of even more overt fascist dictatorship. For that is what fascism is: open and aggressive dictatorship, trampling on and perverting the rule of law, relying on violence and terror, on behalf of the predatory capitalist system and as an extreme attempt to deal with profound social division and acute crises (both within the country and in the global arena). And with the moves by Trump’s “Secretary of Education,” Betsy DeVos—who is herself a Christian fascist whose ultimate goal is to replace public, secular education with schools based on Christian fundamentalist indoctrination—we can see the outline of the Trump/Pence regime version of “official (Christian fascist) ideology.” We can recognize the looming shadow of a situation where not just school children, but everyone in society, will be required to pledge allegiance to a white Christian fascist America.

[End BA audio]

Is this not what four years have shown is unfolding, step by killing step: “open and aggressive dictatorship, trampling on and perverting the rule of law, relying on violence and terror, on behalf of the predatory capitalist system and as an extreme attempt to deal with profound social division and acute crises (both within the country and in the global arena)”? That is fascism. And, to those fascism “experts” who say where’s the fascist organization built up that has come to power—look no further than the Christian fascist political movement developed over decades that is at the core of the Trump/Pence regime’s base.

What has already been “accomplished” in law, in local and state governments in the first four years—in relation to women’s basic right to control their own bodies, in public secular education, in terrorizing immigrant communities—including making them death traps for the coronavirus: We could spend the entire show cataloguing measures already taken.

But the point here is, where this goes with a second term... Look at Prime Minister Modi in India, who upon winning his second term practically overnight put a whole state, Kashmir, under total lockdown martial law and soon after millions of Muslims were stripped of their citizenship. Go to revcom.us and read the important article: What Happens When a Fascist Leader Is Re-Elected? A Flashing Red Warning Sign from India.

Miles Taylor, who was head of the Department of Homeland Security under Trump, then was fired, recently told that Trump said he had magical powers that lets him do whatever he wants. Taylor went on to say that people who are still serving in this administration told him, “Just wait until the second term. It’ll be no holds barred, it’ll be shock and awe, we’ll do what we want.”

In March, Trump’s attorney general William Barr revealed new emergency measures that would take away basic rights on their say so—effectively allowing the government to imprison people INDEFINITELY, without ANY legal recourse.

Too many of our youth don’t know what’s coming. They need to be reached. Now. As much hell as they catch every day under this system, they need to know fascism is on a whole other level. This is a regime, a movement and people who glorify the Confederacy, who have been seething in anger about the Black Lives Matter protests, and should the Trump/Pence fascist regime succeed in staying in power they will exact a tremendous vengeance on the people.

In his statement, BA said that the stakes include this:

[Plays BA audio:]

If this regime is able to further consolidate its power and make further leaps in implementing its horrific objectives, this will result in a devastating setback for any attempt to resist injustice and oppression, and will very likely lead to the brutal repression, and even annihilation, of defenders of democratic rights and proponents of any meaningful progressive reforms, as well as any organized forces fighting for fundamental revolutionary change. [End BA audio]

With all the damage done to the rule of law, to the truth, to science and most of all to the lives of people here and around the world already... with all that the regime—Trump; Pence, the attorney general Barr —have said they are going to do and have already begun, including subverting the coming election... this reality and history has taught us that it can become too late to stop fascism... Does it make any sense to simply rely on voting in the election by itself, to remove the regime?

To be clear, because of the extraordinary danger of fascism, if there even is an election, people should vote against Trump and for the Biden/Harris ticket to contribute to what needs to be a decisive defeat for Trump. BA says in his statement doing so will create far better conditions for “continuing to wage the struggle against everything represented by the Trump/Pence regime and all the oppression and injustices of this system, and would be a great gift to the people of the world.”

But, “Simply relying on voting to oust this regime will almost certainly lead to very bad, even disastrous results.”

We need to act, starting now. Everyone watching or listening to be part of planning and building for the most powerful possible actions on September 5th to Demand Trump/Pence OUT NOW! In the weeks to come, I and others on this show will be contributing to the wrangling that must go on to develop, very quickly, the vision, unity, strategy and organizational capacity to do what humanity requires of us at this urgent crossroads. I am going to close with the words of Bob Avakian:

[Play audio]

With the full awareness of what is represented by this fascist regime, and what it means that Trump is not only seeking to suppress the votes of people who will vote against him but is also preparing to utilize forceful, violent repression to remain in office if he is not declared the winner in the election, it is of critical and urgent importance to build now truly massive and sustained mobilization around the unifying demand that this regime must be OUT NOW!—with an orientation of being prepared to continue this even past the election, if the situation requires it.

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Andy Zee Commentary: On Fascism Accelerating & Sept. 5th Protests to Demand: Trump/Pence Out Now!

See the full film, excerpts and Q&A of this film