Excerpted from: "From Ike to Mao and Beyond: My Journey from Mainstream America to Revolutionary Communist"

The Free Speech Movement

by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

Revolution #020, October 30, 2005, posted at revcom.us

The following is an excerpt from Chapter Six, “Your Sons and Daughters...,” in Bob Avakian's memoir, From Ike to Mao and Beyond: My Journey from Mainstream America to Revolutionary Communist.

The Free Speech Movement

Despite the administration’s rule that you couldn’t do “on-campus organizing for off-campus issues,” people at Cal were organizing on the campus to protest against local businesses which they identified as practicing racial discrimination in their hiring, such as the Oakland Tribune and this drive-in restaurant called Mel’s Diner. Everybody on campus was aware of this, it was becoming more and more of an issue that people were debating and talking about and getting involved in — or not getting involved in and opposing, because there was polarization. To jump ahead for a second in order to give a sense of this, at a later point in the FSM, during one of the nights when people were sitting in around a police car, 500 fraternity boys came to throw things at the people sitting in and shout insults at them. I’ve often said that in the ’60s even ­fraternity boys grew brains, but that was later in the ’60s — at the time of the FSM they didn’t have them yet.

So the administration sent the campus police to put a stop to this on-campus organizing for “off-campus issues.” A guy named Jack Weinberg was sitting at a table organizing for this and he refused to fold up the table. They arrested him, put him in a police car to drive him off, and then a bunch of students came and surrounded the police car. While this sit-in was going on, I was at a reception that the Chancellor, Chancellor Strong, was having for honor students at the university. At that reception, one of the students asked him what was going on with the sit-in, and the Chancellor basically said: “Well, the area in which they were originally organizing wasn’t the area where the police car incident took place, but where they were originally organizing, we thought that was actually city property, because it was right at the entrance to the campus. But then we looked into it and found out that it was university property, so we decided we should put a stop to it.” And why did they look into it? Well, he went on to tell us, because of pressure from the Oakland Tribune, which was owned by William F. Knowland, who was a well-known reactionary.⁵ The Tribune called up, the Chancellor told us, complaining about the organizing of civil rights demonstrations against the Tribune for discriminatory hiring practices. “So,” Chancellor Strong concluded, “we cracked down on that organizing.”

I was just stunned. I was shocked, first of all, that this was actually how this came about and, second, that he was just saying this so baldly as if everybody would accept it. As I’ve said elsewhere,⁶ I guess his idea was this: since we had good grades, we must be “grade-grubbers,” in training to become money-grubbers, and we wouldn’t find anything objectionable in what he told us. But a lot of people there did find this very objectionable, including myself. I immediately went over to the sit-in around the police car and got in line to speak — the police car had been surrounded by the protesters and transformed into a speaking platform while Jack Weinberg was still sitting inside. It was really great! So when my turn came, I got up on the police car and told this story and explained how it led me to support this whole thing, and I donated my $100 honorarium for being an honor student to the FSM. And that’s how I first got directly involved.

Stepping back, I think the FSM expressed the general feeling that students wanted to be treated as adults and citizens, they wanted to have the same rights as other people. Phil Ochs had this song where the refrain went something like, I’ve got something to say, sir, and I’m going to say it now. And as it was in that song, so it was in reality with students and youth at that time. But, beyond that, there were a lot of big things going on in the world. Vietnam was already beginning to heat up in the fall of ’64, and there was the civil rights movement. People wanted to be actively involved in or debating about these things, they wanted to be part of the larger world — they didn’t want to be treated like little children just because they were students. So all this was going on and mixing together: the general resistance against treating college students as if they didn’t have any minds, against the whole bureaucratization of the university and the functioning of the university as machinery to serve the corporate world and the military, and against the depersonalizing effects of all that on the students, on the one hand, as well as the big things going on in society and the world, like the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements, that people wanted to be involved in. It was all that together.

The university tried to claim that it was all being fomented by “outside agitators.” There were some people who weren’t students who were involved — and they were welcomed, it was good that they were involved. But it was overwhelmingly students who were involved. This came out, for example, when people were arrested in the big sit-in at the University Administration building. In the aftermath of these arrests, this claim was made: “Oh, these are just ne’er-do-wells, these are just disgruntled students and non-students.” But the records showed that overwhelmingly those arrested were students. Then, since they couldn’t deny that most of those arrested were students, they claimed that they were students who were failing or getting poor grades anyway, so they were just being troublemakers. In response to this, the FSM committee took a survey of the people who’d been arrested, and among other things asked the grade point average of the students who were arrested. This survey revealed and confirmed that the students who were arrested had higher grade point averages than students in the university overall, and were generally not failing or getting poor grades.

At this time Liz was more politically aware and more of an activist and radical than I was. She had a family background of people who’d been involved with the Communist Party, and even though that ultimately meant revisionism — reformism in the name of communism — it still gave her a broader political outlook than I had at that time. And she had a big influence on me. It was partly the political discussions we had and partly, to be honest, the fact that I was interested in her romantically and she wanted to be very active in the Free Speech Movement, that led me to be so consistently involved.

When we went into Sproul Hall for the big sit-in, and as the sit-in went on, I was trying to help keep the morale up. At one point I went from floor to floor organizing singing to keep the spirits up. But, at the same time, this sit-in lasted several days and I was still a serious student, so I was also trying to keep up with my schoolwork during the sit-in — until at one point I just decided, “Oh, the hell with it,” and threw my homework away. I literally took my homework and threw it down the hall. But this also had a larger symbolic meaning, even though I myself wasn’t fully aware of it yet.

Another one of those ironies of “straddling two worlds” happened to me at the end of the sit-in, when people were arrested in almost an assembly line fashion. As they were arrested, a lot of people were thrown down the stairs, and the women in particular were grabbed by the hair and thrown down the stairs. I was on the top floor and saw many people brutalized like that and, of course, this was only a few months after I had finally recovered from being sick. So besides being outraged generally, I was also a little worried about what would happen to me if I got thrown down the stairs or otherwise brutalized, especially if I got hit in the area of my kidneys. And as my turn came to be busted, I recognized the cop who was arresting me as someone who had played basketball for a local college. I saw his nameplate said Gray, so I said, “Aren’t you the ‘Gray’ who played basketball for St. Mary’s?” And I kind of shrugged my shoulders as if to say, “So what you gonna do?” And he replied, “Sorry, can’t do nothin’ for you” — and off I went.

Of course, I was very happy to be arrested, to put it that way. I wanted to be part of this, and there was a great camaraderie. When I did this thing with this cop Gray, I wasn’t trying to not get arrested, I just didn’t want to get thrown down the stairs or hit in my kidneys. But I was very happy to be part of this.

At the same time, my whole involvement in the Free Speech Movement came shortly after my dad was appointed as a judge by the same governor, Edmund G. “Pat” Brown, who sent the police in to arrest us in Sproul Hall. So that kind of captures a sharp contradiction. My dad was saying to me and also to my younger sister, “Look, I just got appointed...” In effect, he was saying: “Don’t do anything to screw up my getting established as judge.” My sister and I both had the attitude: “Well, we’re not gonna go out of our way to make trouble for you, but we’re also not gonna hold back from doing the things we think are right or important.”

When I did get arrested, it was another case where both of my parents agreed with the principles of free speech, and even agreed generally with what the students were fighting for, but I think were made very nervous, not only in a personal sense but in a larger sense, by the whole turmoil that was being created — the shutting down of the university, in effect, and people getting busted and all that kind of thing, as well as the personal dimension of how this might affect my dad’s standing as a judge. On the other hand, as soon as they learned that I got arrested, my parents called up my doctor, since I had just gotten over this very serious illness, and I was still in a precarious position. And my doctor, who I later learned was sympathetic to protests like this, told my parents: “This could be very dangerous for him. Even if he spends just one night on a cold floor, it could kick back in his whole kidney disease.” Actually, my doctor felt so strongly about this that he insisted that my dad get me out that night, so that I wouldn’t have to spend the night on a cold floor under jail conditions. So I was surprised to get out a little earlier than some of the other people did, though most everybody was out by the next morning or the next day sometime.

Mario Savio

Mario Savio, who led the FSM, had a big effect on me, though I ­didn’t really know him personally. I was active and involved in FSM pretty much all the way through, from the beginning; I went to all the rallies and heard Mario and others speak. Like everyone else who was involved, or who heard his speeches, I was very moved by them and felt they spoke very penetratingly to how we saw things and what was motivating us. But while in general I was very moved by his speeches, I remember one time right before we all got busted in Sproul Hall, Mario gave a speech. I think this was just when we found out that the governor, Pat Brown, was sending the troopers to bust us, and Mario talked about the duplicity and the double-dealing of the university administration and the governor and so on — that they hadn’t negotiated in good faith and that they’d done these back-handed things — but then he said, “And this is just like what our government is doing in Vietnam.” This was in early December of 1964, and I was actively looking into the Vietnam War and trying to figure out what stand to take on it, but I ­hadn’t made up my mind yet.

As I referred to earlier, I was troubled by Mario’s saying this at that point, because I felt like we had a certain level of unity in the Free Speech Movement, but it didn’t include opposing the Vietnam War. You didn’t have to be opposed to the Vietnam War to be actively and enthusiastically involved in the Free Speech Movement, though probably if you took a survey, the overwhelming majority would have been opposed to the Vietnam War. And, within a short time after this, I myself became convinced that it needed to be very actively and strongly opposed. But at that time I was still in the process of wrangling with this — debating and studying and trying to learn enough to make up my mind about it. So this was a little troubling to me — although, as I’ve said before, as I was trying to make up my mind and come to a decision about Vietnam, the things that were said by people like Mario Savio, for whom I had great respect in general, obviously had a big influence and played a role in convincing me to oppose what the U.S. was doing in Vietnam. So it was that kind of contradictory thing.

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The Deadly Illusion of the Swinging Pendulum

By Bob Avakian

Revolution, October 20, 2005, posted at revcom.us

Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, recently sent some observations on the “World Can’t Wait/Drive Out the Bush Regime” initiative to comrades involved in this political struggle. Because of their importance to actually accomplishing the goal of truly making November 2 “the beginning of the end of the Bush regime,” we are sharing these with all our readers as we go into these final crucial days before the 2nd.

We have to address—to hit from many angles, in a compelling way and with substance—the whole “pendulum swing”/”Bush is weakened and on his way out, so we don’t have to do anything” illusion that is not only asserting itself more or less spontaneously (in one sense) but is being actively encouraged and promoted by various forces, including Democratic Party representatives and those with ties to them. . . It will be necessary, on essentially a daily basis, to continue to return to and hit at this—again, in a compelling way and with substance—not only in a general and overall sense but more specifically in the particular ways in which this continues to pose (and re-pose) itself, the ways in which it continues to “metamorphosize” as events unfold. Part of the dynamic at play, which at one and the same time is part of and helps to reinforce the “pendulum swing” illusion, is the fact that the center and the “arc” of the pendulum continue to be moved further and further to the right—as illustrated by what is upheld, or not opposed, by the Democrats (witness the Commander-in-Chief wannabe Hillary Clinton, and her stand on the Iraq war, torture, the Patriot Act, and abortion, or what happened around Katrina, to name a few key issues—and think of where she will be by the year 2008 if things are allowed to continue with the dynamic and on the trajectory they are on, and if the question of Hillary Clinton’s positions is even relevant then). Thus, what even some progressive people perceive as the place where the pendulum might swing back to is something that a few years ago they would have considered totally unacceptable and outrageous (this is shown not only in the Hillary phenomenon just referred to, but also, very dramatically, by the way in which people got suck[er]ed into voting for Kerry—even while, on issues these people consider to be crucial, Kerry had the opposite position from theirs, not the least on the Iraq war). What this is illustrative of is the principle embodied in that statement of mine that if you try to make the Democrats be what they are not, and never will be, you will end up being more like what the Democrats actually are. And, very importantly, what is also illustrated here is the essential truth of the statement in the “World Can’t Wait” Call: That which you do not resist and mobilize to stop, you will learn—or be forced—to accept. So, once again, in the final push for 11/2, it will be especially crucial to struggle, consistently and sharply, compellingly and with substance against this whole basic illusion (of “pendulum swing,” etc.) in a fundamental and overall sense and in the many different forms it continues to take with the unfolding of events.

One key expression of the thinking that there will need to be persistent struggle against is the notion that we are exaggerating (and by this I mean what is said by World Can’t Wait (WCW) and its Call, not just the Party), that things are not really—and could not really become—that bad. Here again, it is necessary to answer this in a way that is sharp and at the same time has real substance, and is therefore—in the combination of substance and sharpness—really compelling. In this connection, I have been continuing to read the Crier book (CONTEMPT: How the Right Is Wronging American Justice, by Catherine Crier, Court-TV analyst and former Republican judge in Texas). She definitely makes a strong case, from her perspective, of just how serious this is, how real and how urgently posed the danger is (as indicated, once again, by the opening chapter of her book and in a concentrated way by its title: “Be Very Afraid”). And she provides some useful information and analysis of the links between the big business, political and legal, and the religious fundamentalist (Christian Fascist) elements in all this, and in particular the “storm trooper” role of the latter. This is gone into in some detail, for example, in the tenth chapter, “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” This refers to four key figures she identifies (described with that name in a Wall St. Journal article) who are: C. Boyden Gray, an heir to the Reynolds Tobacco fortune, with extensive business ties; Leonard A. Leo, executive vice president of the Federalist Society; Edwin Meese—no need for further comment; and Jay Sekulow, who converted from Judaism to Christianity in college and is a close associate of Pat Robertson and chief legal counsel for the Robertson-founded American Center for Law and Justice (Christian Fascist “counterpart” to the ACLU). According to Crier:

“Every Monday morning the Horsemen set up a conference call to discuss ways of furthering their hard-line agenda. The call includes White House staffers and other conservative leaders....Tim Goeglein, Bush’s deputy director of the Office of Public Liaison and a close friend of Karl Rove¹ [and himself a Christian Fascist], is almost always on the line.” [pp. 102-3]

While Rove plays an important role at this point, he is not indispensable, and there are a number of people in the Christian Fascist leadership who are already within, or who have direct access to, the centers of power at the highest levels. As an example, we can cite the statement by Dr. Richard Land, leading figure in the Southern Baptist Convention, who (as Crier cites him) says: “‘Bush doesn’t just understand our issues, he shares our worldview.” Crier also cites Ted Haggard, a leader in the National Association of Evangelicals, who makes the point that people like him have direct access to key White House aide Tim Goeglein: “he’ll take my concern to the president and get back to me in twenty-four hours,” Crier quotes Haggard as saying. [p. 112]

In summarizing the role and power of the “Four Horsemen” and what they represent, Crier puts it this way:

“What these Four Horsemen have, in abundance, is experience, networks, and clout. Taken together, they represent every side of the ultraconservative battle for the federal judiciary—big business, intellectual rigor, political reach, and religion.” [p. 102]

And note the way in which Crier concludes this chapter:

“The Four Horsemen lead the extreme Right’s campaign. But in order for them to be effective, in order for their existence to have meaning, they need the cavalry. That cavalry, as Sekulow’s media presence attests, is the religious Right. They are the willing followers, ready and eager to charge the ramparts to create a Christian America.

“The Four Horsemen are an aptly named group of leaders. For their followers truly believe in their namesake—the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the four riders who will usher in the end of the world and the last coming of Christ. To the followers, these judicial appointments aren’t just a matter of politics as usual.

“They’re a matter of life or death.” [p. 104]

And keep in mind that, with the Presidency and the Congress in the hands of a Republican Party in which the “religious Right” plays a dominating role, the judiciary is the one branch of government not yet fully under this kind of domination.

As to what these Christian Fascists in particular are after, let us have one of their own prominent leaders speak for them—the Reverend Dr. D. James Kennedy, of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida—who, according to Crier, has “ten thousand congregants and broadcasts his weekly sermons to over forty thousand cities and towns in the U.S. as well as over two hundred nations.” And, Crier goes on, “Kennedy isn’t just a pastor—he’s also a reactionary ideologue.” [p. 110] And he is also powerfully connected politically. Here, as cited by Crier, is Kennedy’s articulation of the Christian Fascist program for the U.S.—which they are very serious about and determined to realize:

“At a rally at Coral Ridge, he elaborated to an enthusiastic crowd: ‘As the vice regents of God, we are to exercise godly dominion and influence over our neighborhoods, our schools, our government, our literature and arts, our sports arenas, our entertainment media, our news media, our scientific endeavors—in short, over every aspect and institution of human society.” [pp. 110-11]

Are we exaggerating? I don’t think so!! Can we continue to “comfort” ourselves with the dangerous illusion that this is merely the rantings of a marginalized crackpot—or even just a religious fundamentalist with a significant following but no real connection to the centers of political power? Only at the cost of repeating the profound historical error, and crime, that Pastor Neimoeller summed up from the experience of, yes, NAZI Germany and ignoring what he called on others to learn from in that tragic and monstrous experience.

Of course, things should not be reduced to just the Christian Fascist element and the danger it poses, as real as that is. The reasons why the Bush regime must be driven from power are spoken to very eloquently and powerfully in the Call for WCW (and in particular the opening indictment [“Your government’s”] in that Call), and it is crucial to continue to bring all that (and more) out in a living way (on the part of WCW in accordance with its basis of unity, and on the part of our Party in accordance with its full views and program).

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Martin Niemoller and the Lessons for this Moment

by Toby O'Ryan

Revolution #020, October 30, 2005, posted at revcom.us

"First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

"Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

"Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

"Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.

"Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up."

Regular readers of this paper, and many more besides, are familiar with this little poem. The author was Martin Niemöller, a German pastor imprisoned by Hitler from 1937 to 1945. But how did Niemöller "become" Niemöller?When did he make this famous remark? And what became of him? The story of Martin Niemöller is itself fascinating and sheds more light on the meaning of the poem--then and now.

"From U-Boat to Pulpit"

Niemöller first came to German public awareness in 1933 with his book From U-Boat to Pulpit, outlining his journey from a U-Boat commander in World War 1 to a pastor in a Protestant church. But his was no tale of a warrior-turned-pacifist--Niemöller maintained pride not only in his U-Boat career, but also his post-war activity in the Freikorps, a group of counter-revolutionary veterans which did battle with the revolutionary workers' movement in post World War 1 Germany. Not for nothing, as they say, was his book praised in the Nazi press, and it went on to become a bestseller in the early days of Nazi rule. Indeed, Niemöller celebrated the Nazi assumption of power in the conclusion to his book for bringing about a "national revival."

Niemöller was hardly unique in this--according to William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, most Protestant clergy welcomed the "advent" of Hitler. But in 1934 Hitler attempted to forcefully bring the many Protestant sects into one "Reich Church" and to somewhat transform their ideology along Nazi lines. Niemöller led the Confessing, or Confessional, Church, and he opposed this move against its autonomy; in May 1934 the Confessional Church declared itself to be the legitimate Protestant Church of Germany, effectively in opposition to Hitler's bid for religious hegemony. Several years of skirmishes alternating with uneasy truces ensued, with the level of friction steadily escalating, but most of this friction focused on Hitler's moves against the church. For instance, Niemöller opposed Hitler's measures forbidding converted Jews from being ministers in Protestant churches, and the later Nazi mandates confining such converts to segregated worship, away from ethnically German Protestants; but the larger measures against the Jews--and others--went unopposed.

Even as Niemöller came increasingly into conflict with the Nazis, he carefully kept within certain bounds. He even attempted to out-do the Nazis in patriotism at one point, and at other times claimed to friends that Hitler was an intelligent man, surrounded by fools and charlatans. And when Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Protestant theologian and fellow minister in the Confessional Church, demanded that Christians not just help the Jews but take direct action against their persecution, Niemöller himself opposed Bonhoeffer. He told Bonhoeffer that before standing up for others, the Church must first secure its own safety.

In the end, none of this did Niemöller or the Confessing Church any good. In May of 1936, when the Confessional Church dissented from elements of the government's anti-Semitism and again demanded an end to its interference in church affairs, the Nazis arrested hundreds of pastors, murdering one of the most prominent, and confiscated church funds. Then on July 1, 1937, Niemöller himself--the former U-Boat commander, the bestselling author, the famous minister to a wealthy congregation and one-time darling of the Nazi press--was arrested for treason. He spent the next eight years in prison and, later, concentration camps, including four years in solitary confinement.

But by 1937 Niemöller and the pastors arrested with him were essentially alone--the vast majority of the Protestant Church had already bent to the government's will. And even the Confessional Church itself came around after Niemöller's imprisonment, voting in 1937 to begin closer cooperation with the state church and thanking the government for its revitalization of German life! Niemöller, for his part, only gained his release upon Germany's loss in the war in 1945.

"What Would Have Happened?"

In January 1946, representatives of the Confessional Church met in Frankfurt to discuss reconstitution. Niemöller again mounted the pulpit to give a sermon, this time of a most different character. He spoke first of the rationalizations that he, and by implication, others had had for not stepping forward. Yes, Hitler went after the communists, but weren't they after all atheists and revolutionaries? And yes, he went after the disabled and the sick, but weren't they really a burden? And the Jews, yes, Hitler came for the Jews, and that was deplorable, but the Jews were not Christian, were they? And the Occupied Countries, it was a shame, but still, that was not Germany, was it?

None of the rationalizations would do, he insisted.

"We can talk ourselves out of [our need for atonement] with the excuse that ‘it would have cost me my head if I had spoken out'," Niemöller said.

"We preferred to keep silent. We are certainly not without guilt or fault and I ask myself again and again, what would have happened, if in the year 1933 or 1934, 14,000 Protestant pastors and all Protestant communities in Germany had defended the truth until their deaths? If we had said back then, "It is not right when Hermann Göring simply puts 100,000 communists in concentration camps in order to let them die." I can imagine that perhaps 30,000 to 40,000 Protestant Christians would have had their heads cut off, but I can also imagine we would have rescued 30 to 40 million people, because that is what it [cost us.]"

Niemöller, with the vantage point of hindsight and with the task of actually getting his countrymen to face their responsibility, put it starkly. It is important for every single progressive person in the U.S. to think about this little-known remark of Niemöller--and think hard about it.

After the War

Oddly enough, Martin Niemöller never wrote down the exact poem for which he became famous. He would speak all over after the war, usually along the lines quoted above, and his poem more or less took shape in the course of his speeches. The version given here is the one that was officially "approved" by his widow. Unfortunately, the "oral tradition" character of the poem has allowed all kinds of forces to play fast and loose with it--including, to take but one significant example, the U.S. Holocaust Museum, which eliminated the whole first sentence about communists in its posting of the poem. This effectively guts Niemöller's meaning and also clearly does violence to his intent, as he almost always began with the communists in his speeches. Besides, the whole thing makes no sense if you cut out the communists who were, after all, the first to be put into the camps! This outrageous rewriting of history, however, apparently poses no problem and raises no fuss if it furthers the political agenda of U.S. imperialism.

Niemöller himself did not stop changing. The one-time U-Boat commander became a passionate opponent of imperialist war generally and especially the post-World War 2 nuclear arms races. In 1965, he visited North Vietnam while it was under U.S. bombardment, and he met with Ho Chi Minh; the fact that Niemöller was president of the World Council of Churches at the time, coupled with his great moral authority, caused no small chagrin to the U.S. government. On his 90th birthday, Niemöller discussed his evolution from an arch-reactionary to what he himself called "a revolutionary," and ironically remarked that if he lived to be 100 he would probably become an anarchist.

And today, Niemöller--has your time come again?

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Excerpted from: "From Ike to Mao and Beyond: My Journey from Mainstream America to Revolutionary Communist"

The Free Speech Movement

by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

Revolution #020, October 30, 2005, posted at revcom.us

The following is an excerpt from Chapter Six, “Your Sons and Daughters...,” in Bob Avakian's memoir, From Ike to Mao and Beyond: My Journey from Mainstream America to Revolutionary Communist.

The Free Speech Movement

Despite the administration’s rule that you couldn’t do “on-campus organizing for off-campus issues,” people at Cal were organizing on the campus to protest against local businesses which they identified as practicing racial discrimination in their hiring, such as the Oakland Tribune and this drive-in restaurant called Mel’s Diner. Everybody on campus was aware of this, it was becoming more and more of an issue that people were debating and talking about and getting involved in — or not getting involved in and opposing, because there was polarization. To jump ahead for a second in order to give a sense of this, at a later point in the FSM, during one of the nights when people were sitting in around a police car, 500 fraternity boys came to throw things at the people sitting in and shout insults at them. I’ve often said that in the ’60s even ­fraternity boys grew brains, but that was later in the ’60s — at the time of the FSM they didn’t have them yet.

So the administration sent the campus police to put a stop to this on-campus organizing for “off-campus issues.” A guy named Jack Weinberg was sitting at a table organizing for this and he refused to fold up the table. They arrested him, put him in a police car to drive him off, and then a bunch of students came and surrounded the police car. While this sit-in was going on, I was at a reception that the Chancellor, Chancellor Strong, was having for honor students at the university. At that reception, one of the students asked him what was going on with the sit-in, and the Chancellor basically said: “Well, the area in which they were originally organizing wasn’t the area where the police car incident took place, but where they were originally organizing, we thought that was actually city property, because it was right at the entrance to the campus. But then we looked into it and found out that it was university property, so we decided we should put a stop to it.” And why did they look into it? Well, he went on to tell us, because of pressure from the Oakland Tribune, which was owned by William F. Knowland, who was a well-known reactionary.⁵ The Tribune called up, the Chancellor told us, complaining about the organizing of civil rights demonstrations against the Tribune for discriminatory hiring practices. “So,” Chancellor Strong concluded, “we cracked down on that organizing.”

I was just stunned. I was shocked, first of all, that this was actually how this came about and, second, that he was just saying this so baldly as if everybody would accept it. As I’ve said elsewhere,⁶ I guess his idea was this: since we had good grades, we must be “grade-grubbers,” in training to become money-grubbers, and we wouldn’t find anything objectionable in what he told us. But a lot of people there did find this very objectionable, including myself. I immediately went over to the sit-in around the police car and got in line to speak — the police car had been surrounded by the protesters and transformed into a speaking platform while Jack Weinberg was still sitting inside. It was really great! So when my turn came, I got up on the police car and told this story and explained how it led me to support this whole thing, and I donated my $100 honorarium for being an honor student to the FSM. And that’s how I first got directly involved.

Stepping back, I think the FSM expressed the general feeling that students wanted to be treated as adults and citizens, they wanted to have the same rights as other people. Phil Ochs had this song where the refrain went something like, I’ve got something to say, sir, and I’m going to say it now. And as it was in that song, so it was in reality with students and youth at that time. But, beyond that, there were a lot of big things going on in the world. Vietnam was already beginning to heat up in the fall of ’64, and there was the civil rights movement. People wanted to be actively involved in or debating about these things, they wanted to be part of the larger world — they didn’t want to be treated like little children just because they were students. So all this was going on and mixing together: the general resistance against treating college students as if they didn’t have any minds, against the whole bureaucratization of the university and the functioning of the university as machinery to serve the corporate world and the military, and against the depersonalizing effects of all that on the students, on the one hand, as well as the big things going on in society and the world, like the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements, that people wanted to be involved in. It was all that together.

The university tried to claim that it was all being fomented by “outside agitators.” There were some people who weren’t students who were involved — and they were welcomed, it was good that they were involved. But it was overwhelmingly students who were involved. This came out, for example, when people were arrested in the big sit-in at the University Administration building. In the aftermath of these arrests, this claim was made: “Oh, these are just ne’er-do-wells, these are just disgruntled students and non-students.” But the records showed that overwhelmingly those arrested were students. Then, since they couldn’t deny that most of those arrested were students, they claimed that they were students who were failing or getting poor grades anyway, so they were just being troublemakers. In response to this, the FSM committee took a survey of the people who’d been arrested, and among other things asked the grade point average of the students who were arrested. This survey revealed and confirmed that the students who were arrested had higher grade point averages than students in the university overall, and were generally not failing or getting poor grades.

At this time Liz was more politically aware and more of an activist and radical than I was. She had a family background of people who’d been involved with the Communist Party, and even though that ultimately meant revisionism — reformism in the name of communism — it still gave her a broader political outlook than I had at that time. And she had a big influence on me. It was partly the political discussions we had and partly, to be honest, the fact that I was interested in her romantically and she wanted to be very active in the Free Speech Movement, that led me to be so consistently involved.

When we went into Sproul Hall for the big sit-in, and as the sit-in went on, I was trying to help keep the morale up. At one point I went from floor to floor organizing singing to keep the spirits up. But, at the same time, this sit-in lasted several days and I was still a serious student, so I was also trying to keep up with my schoolwork during the sit-in — until at one point I just decided, “Oh, the hell with it,” and threw my homework away. I literally took my homework and threw it down the hall. But this also had a larger symbolic meaning, even though I myself wasn’t fully aware of it yet.

Another one of those ironies of “straddling two worlds” happened to me at the end of the sit-in, when people were arrested in almost an assembly line fashion. As they were arrested, a lot of people were thrown down the stairs, and the women in particular were grabbed by the hair and thrown down the stairs. I was on the top floor and saw many people brutalized like that and, of course, this was only a few months after I had finally recovered from being sick. So besides being outraged generally, I was also a little worried about what would happen to me if I got thrown down the stairs or otherwise brutalized, especially if I got hit in the area of my kidneys. And as my turn came to be busted, I recognized the cop who was arresting me as someone who had played basketball for a local college. I saw his nameplate said Gray, so I said, “Aren’t you the ‘Gray’ who played basketball for St. Mary’s?” And I kind of shrugged my shoulders as if to say, “So what you gonna do?” And he replied, “Sorry, can’t do nothin’ for you” — and off I went.

Of course, I was very happy to be arrested, to put it that way. I wanted to be part of this, and there was a great camaraderie. When I did this thing with this cop Gray, I wasn’t trying to not get arrested, I just didn’t want to get thrown down the stairs or hit in my kidneys. But I was very happy to be part of this.

At the same time, my whole involvement in the Free Speech Movement came shortly after my dad was appointed as a judge by the same governor, Edmund G. “Pat” Brown, who sent the police in to arrest us in Sproul Hall. So that kind of captures a sharp contradiction. My dad was saying to me and also to my younger sister, “Look, I just got appointed...” In effect, he was saying: “Don’t do anything to screw up my getting established as judge.” My sister and I both had the attitude: “Well, we’re not gonna go out of our way to make trouble for you, but we’re also not gonna hold back from doing the things we think are right or important.”

When I did get arrested, it was another case where both of my parents agreed with the principles of free speech, and even agreed generally with what the students were fighting for, but I think were made very nervous, not only in a personal sense but in a larger sense, by the whole turmoil that was being created — the shutting down of the university, in effect, and people getting busted and all that kind of thing, as well as the personal dimension of how this might affect my dad’s standing as a judge. On the other hand, as soon as they learned that I got arrested, my parents called up my doctor, since I had just gotten over this very serious illness, and I was still in a precarious position. And my doctor, who I later learned was sympathetic to protests like this, told my parents: “This could be very dangerous for him. Even if he spends just one night on a cold floor, it could kick back in his whole kidney disease.” Actually, my doctor felt so strongly about this that he insisted that my dad get me out that night, so that I wouldn’t have to spend the night on a cold floor under jail conditions. So I was surprised to get out a little earlier than some of the other people did, though most everybody was out by the next morning or the next day sometime.

Mario Savio

Mario Savio, who led the FSM, had a big effect on me, though I ­didn’t really know him personally. I was active and involved in FSM pretty much all the way through, from the beginning; I went to all the rallies and heard Mario and others speak. Like everyone else who was involved, or who heard his speeches, I was very moved by them and felt they spoke very penetratingly to how we saw things and what was motivating us. But while in general I was very moved by his speeches, I remember one time right before we all got busted in Sproul Hall, Mario gave a speech. I think this was just when we found out that the governor, Pat Brown, was sending the troopers to bust us, and Mario talked about the duplicity and the double-dealing of the university administration and the governor and so on — that they hadn’t negotiated in good faith and that they’d done these back-handed things — but then he said, “And this is just like what our government is doing in Vietnam.” This was in early December of 1964, and I was actively looking into the Vietnam War and trying to figure out what stand to take on it, but I ­hadn’t made up my mind yet.

As I referred to earlier, I was troubled by Mario’s saying this at that point, because I felt like we had a certain level of unity in the Free Speech Movement, but it didn’t include opposing the Vietnam War. You didn’t have to be opposed to the Vietnam War to be actively and enthusiastically involved in the Free Speech Movement, though probably if you took a survey, the overwhelming majority would have been opposed to the Vietnam War. And, within a short time after this, I myself became convinced that it needed to be very actively and strongly opposed. But at that time I was still in the process of wrangling with this — debating and studying and trying to learn enough to make up my mind about it. So this was a little troubling to me — although, as I’ve said before, as I was trying to make up my mind and come to a decision about Vietnam, the things that were said by people like Mario Savio, for whom I had great respect in general, obviously had a big influence and played a role in convincing me to oppose what the U.S. was doing in Vietnam. So it was that kind of contradictory thing.

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"First They Came for the Communists"

Revolution #020, October 30, 2005, posted at revcom.us

It's worth a close look at the first line of Martin Niemöller's famous poem --"first they came for the communists." At the time of the rise of the Hitler, the German communists were the most implacable opposition to the Nazis. Beyond that, though--and related to that--they represented the only force that posed a real path for the German people out of the horror that was looming; they stood for nothing less than a revolution to overthrow German imperialism.

The German communists were identified in the people's minds with the new-born, struggling but very inspiring Soviet Union, which itself had burst out of the imperialist world-system with a revolution after World War 1. There, millions of people were being mobilized to build a whole new world, working to free society of the stamp of class division and exploitation, and the relations, institutions and ideas that went along with it. The Soviet Union was also intent on eradicating the oppression of nations and nationalities and eliminating discrimination; indeed, Hitler intentionally conflated the Soviet Union and the Jews, pointing to the lack of discrimination there as evidence of Soviet degeneracy and danger! Leaving aside whatever shortcomings the German communists may have had in vision and strategy, they stood for something completely different than the Nazis and they also had something of a mass following, receiving nearly 20% of the vote in the last election before Hitler was installed. For all these reasons, they were the first on Hitler's list, and he went after them with a vengeance.

A lesson to be pondered--and applied. During the height of the huge antiwar antiwar upsurge of 2002-03, prominent right-wing commentators called for the prosecution of communist opponents to the war on grounds of treason, and the most vitriolic attacks prominently targeted Revolutionary Communist Party Chairman Bob Avakian. At the same time, a number of left-liberal commentators also attacked the participation of communists, including the RCP, in the antiwar movement, slandering the Party and pressuring prominent individuals to distance themselves from it. And we are now seeing attacks in the mainstream media, and elsewhere, on the role of communists in the battle to drive out the Bush regime.

Niemöller, anyone?

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John Yoo War Criminal, Author of Bush's Torture Memos and UC Berkeley Law Professor

Revolution #020, October 30, 2005, posted at revcom.us

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A former law clerk to Clarence Thomas and a member of the right-wing Federalist Society, John Yoo was among a group of Bush administration lawyers—including Alberto Gonzales, now Bush's attorney general—who crafted legal justification giving Bush a free hand to order the torture of those he has declared as “illegal combatants” and held at Guantanamo and elsewhere

According to the PBS documentary "The Torture Question," after 9/11, John Yoo

“wrote the first draft of a sweeping war powers authorization designed to give President Bush unprecedented power... The new statute would vest virtually unlimited power in the President to fight the war on terror. Congress passed it overwhelmingly.”

The following quotes by Yoo are from New Yorker magazine (“Outsourcing Torture” by Jane Mayer):

"There is a category of behavior not covered by the legal system ...If you were an illegal combatant, you didn’t deserve the protection of the laws of war... They were tried in a military court, and executed"

Congress has no power to "tie the President’s hands in regard to torture as an interrogation technique."

"It’s the core of the Commander-in-Chief function. They can’t prevent the President from ordering torture."

Conservative My Ass!

These People Are Nazis!

7TH IN A SERIES. COLLECT THEM ALL AT REVCOM.US

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Speaking Out on Why “The World Can't Wait”

Revolution #020, October 30, 2005, posted at revcom.us

The following are quick bites from worldcantwait.org with different perspectives on why the Bush Regime must be driven out. Read these statements (and more) at worldcantwait.org, and listen to an audio statement by historian Howard Zinn [link from web version].

 Fr. Aaron Archer, Rector, St John the Baptist, R.O., Spring Valley, NY; Fr. Luis Barrios, St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Harlem; Fr. Earl Kooperkamp, Pastor, St. Mary's Epsicopal Church, Harlem; Reverend George W. Webber, President Emeritus, New York Theological Seminary:

...We all know the litany of abuses that call out to the heavens demanding our action: Immoral and illegal warfare based on lies, the justification of torture in the name of state security, the campaign of detentions of our immigrant sisters and brothers, the demonization of gays and lesbians, the racism, the intensified oppression and repression of poor people, and more... and the religious rhetoric employed to justify these deeds. ...

Juan Torres - Gold Star Family Member:

...I come from Argentina. It was a country without justice, everything covered up. Now the civilians control, the civilians pushed out the government. In this country, it is the opposite. They are too much interested in staying inside the house. They need to put the head out and see what really happens in America. I am the father of a solider who died in this war (Afghanistan). I know how I and my family feel. We die forever. My son give me my new mission - stop the war, stop the lying, stop the recruiting liars to the 16-year-olds. I don't want to see no more Gold Star Families.

Tomás Olmos, Dean Emeritus, People’s College of Law*; President, Mexican American Bar Foundation, Los Angeles County*; and partner in the law firm of Allred, Maroko & Goldberg*, representing employees in discrimination & wrongful termination claims. (*affiliation for identification purposes only):

...I believe that we are living in a very dangerous time in which the very future of our society is in the balance. Over the past five years, we have experienced major changes in national and international politics with frightening consequences. Most of these changes are the direct outgrowth of policies implemented by the Bush Administration. Bush continues to govern as if he is unaccountable to the electorate or to the guiding principles of our Constitution. Each day, Bush becomes bolder and more brazen in his acts...

A Call to Democrats, Independents & Non-Voters --Janet, Connecticut:

...Leave your groups behind. They no longer serve you. They serve the needs of so-called "viable" candidates who, in the end, do not stand for peace, freedom or equality. With fraudulent elections, your vote means nothing anyway. Join us, and your friends will follow. The world can't wait.

A call to my fellow conservative businessmen - Taking stock: a review of america - live free or die! Marc L. Terbeek:

... An unaccountable regime that has come to power and held on to power through racially based voter disenfranchisement, politically based voting irregularities and just plain fraud that had denied the vote to millions. A corrupt regime that doles out billions of dollars to its hand-picked corporate benefactors via no-bid contracts that shortchange our citizens at home and our troops abroad. A crony regime that plants sycophants in the most sensitive positions of our government -- some of which are lifetime appointments with power over our most cherished liberties ...

Stephen Rohde, civil liberties lawyer and peace and justice activist:

...We see the gruesome evidence of the terrible toll that George Bush's war against Iraq is taking back at home. The funds that should have gone (and should now be going) to flood control, to rebuilding the levees, to disaster relief, to helicopters, to National Guardsmen, to water and food and shelter, has instead gone (and continues to go) to support Bush's illegal war against Iraq. To fuel this illegal war, Bush has drained the resources of America. He has stolen the lives of almost 2,000 young men and women serving in the U.S. military, hundreds more from other countries and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi lives. He has caused permanent injuries to countless soldiers and civilians. He has laid waste to the infrastructure of Iraq.

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Why we must not wait?

Revolution #020, October 30, 2005, posted at revcom.us

The following is an article by Rev. Luis Barrios, regular columnist for the Spanish language El Diario la Prensa, which appeared on Oct. 23.

A few days ago, during one of those prayers when God allows me to fight with her, I said: “George W. Bush is a murderer, a racist, a hangman, a liar, a dictator and he’s  bloodthirsty.”

And God, very wisely, as she always does, answered: “I know it. What are you going to do about it?” How wonderful it is to have a Godess that doesn’t absolve us of any responsibility and instead makes us confront it head on!

This presents us with the need to recognize the existance of a Bushist challenge that expresses itself through a nazi-onalist ideology.

This kind of idolatry that could be defined as Christian fascist aims to justify hatred and disdain and, at the same time, to justify certain racist, sexist, heterosexist, ethnocentrist, and classist actions, just to name a few.

Based on this reality, we must accuse Bush and his regime of genocide and holocaust against humanity. Resolution 260 (III), of the UN General Assembly, adopted December 9, 1948 states in Article 2 that, among other things, genocide means killing members of certain groups; or causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the groups. Article 3 states that genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, attempt to and complicity to commit genocide should be punishable.

In my judgement, Bush and his regime are guilty of committing all of these violations against the dignity and human integrity of the people affected by Hurricane Katrina. The people of Loiusiana and Mississippi were left to die because they belong to one or more of those groups that the U.S. ruling class doesn’t like: the Blacks and Latinos or the poor.

In its 2005 report on the U.S., Amnesty International (U.S.) made serious accusations against the Bush regime concerning torture against prisoners of war being held in the military jail in Guantánamo, Cuba and the military airforce base in Garam, Afghanistan. The report emphasizes and criticizes the Bush regime's refusal to allow investigations and evaluations of the prisoners’ conditions, which is a cover-up.

It is also necessary to accuse the Bush regime of the crime of holocaust since this concept is applicable to situations where the government apparatus carries out or oversees the persecution, or commits genocide against political groups.

Here we have the case of the Puerto Rican Independence groups. The assassination of Comandante Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, leader of the Ejército Popular Boricua, los Macheteros, in Puerto Rico by the federal police (FBI) is an example of this type of crime, as is the threat to persecute and arrest more than 150 people who participate in this anti-colonial movement.

Why we shouldn’t and can't wait? Because we don’t feel like letting Bush and his administration continue governing in this fascist manner.

We have to drive him out of the presidency, that’s enough, god damit!

This brings us to the invitation to be part of the big demonstration being organized for Wednesday, November 2, whose purpose is to drive these people out of the presidency.

On that day, all paths lead to Union Square (14th St.) in New York City at noon.

Peace and justice, lets get rid of Bush, it can be done!

Ibarrios@jjay.cuny.edu

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Cheers and Jeers: Etan Thomas

Revolution #020, October 30, 2005, posted at revcom.us

Cheers to Etan Thomas, star power forward for the NBA's Washington Wizards and a published poet, who spoke from the stage at the September 24 antiwar protest in Washington, DC. Thomas said he wanted to talk about “a tremendous problem we are currently facing.” He went on to say:

“This problem is none other than the current administration which has set up shop in the White House. In fact, I'd like to take some of these cats on a field trip. I want to get big yellow buses with no air conditioner and no seatbelts and round up Bill O'Reilly, Pat Buchanan, Trent Lott, Sean Hannity, Dick Cheney, Jeb Bush, Bush Jr. and Bush Sr., John Ashcroft, Giuliani, Ed Gillespie, Katherine Harris, that little bow-tied Tucker Carlson and any other right-wing conservative Republicans I can think of, and take them all on a trip to the ‘hood...

“I’d show them working families that make too much to receive welfare but not enough to make ends meet. I’d employ them with jobs with little security, let them know how it feels to be an employee at will, able to be fired at the drop of a hat. I’d take away their opportunities, then try their children as adults, sending their 13-year-old babies to life in prison. I’d sell them dreams of hopelessness while spoon-feeding their young with a daily dose of inferior education. I’d tell them no child shall be left behind, then take more money out of their schools...

“I’d soak into their interior notions of endless possibilities. I’d paint pictures of assisted productivity if they only agreed to be all they can be, dress them up with fatigues and boots with promises of pots of gold at the end of rainbows, free education to waste terrain on those who finish their bid. Then I’d close the lid on that barrel of fool’s gold by starting a war, sending their children into the midst of a hostile situation, and while they're worried about their babies being murdered and slain in foreign lands, I’d grace them with the pain of being sick and unable to get medicine...

“Then I'd feed them hypocritical lines of being pro-life as the only Christian way to be. Then very contradictingly, I’d fight for the spread of the death penalty...

“Then I’d introduce them to those sworn to protect and serve, creating a curb in their trust in the law. I’d show them the nightsticks and plungers, the pepper spray and stun guns, the mace and magnums that they’d soon become acquainted with, the shakedowns and illegal search and seizures, the planted evidence, being stopped for no reason. Harassment ain’t even the half of it. Forty-one shots to two raised hands, cell phones and wallets that are confused with illegal contrabands. I’d introduce them to pigs who love making their guns click like wine glasses. Everlasting targets surrounded by bullets, making them a walking bull's eye, a living piñata, held at the mercy of police brutality....”

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Hunter College, NYC: 5 Arrested for Protesting Torture

Revolution #020, October 30, 2005, posted at revcom.us

Revolution received this correspondence:

On Tuesday, Oct. 18, Hunter College, a liberal arts college in Manhattan, was buzzing with the question of torture. Five youth from the NYC chapter of The World Can’t Wait and the NYC Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade--wearing orange jump suits and with black hoods over their heads--knelt in a cluster in the hallway outside the cafeteria. A crowd of 200 to 300 students quickly gathered.

For two years people have seen photos and videos (at least the few images that have seen the light of day) of anonymous, faceless men in prison suits and hoods, imprisoned at Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere. Now these victims of U.S. torture and brutality were right in front of the students at Hunter.

One torture victim told people to grab the leash around his neck and  asked,

“George Bush says I’m a bad guy--do you believe him? Do you feel better that I’m in Guantánamo? Do you want to be holding the leash? Because, as long as you do nothing, you’re holding the leash. They’re raping me and torturing me! What are you going to do?!” World Can't Wait organizers challenged the onlooking crowd: "You are complicit with torture, you are saying you are okay with Abu Ghraib, unless you are resisting and mobilizing others to drive this regime out of power. What will you be doing Nov. 2nd?"

The question of “what are you going to do?” became even more immediate when campus police attacked and arrested the protesters. One security guard grabbed the leashes of three youths in orange jump suits and hoods and pulled them together. The guards picked the youths up by the arms and dragged them away, and threatened to break the arms of one protester. One youth was punched in the groin while he was handcuffed behind his back.

World Can't Wait organizers challenged the students, "Would you stand by as they rounded up the Jews in Nazi Germany? They are rounding up people right in front of your face--why are you not opposing this?!" The room was sharply divided. Some complained that the protest was interrupting their day. Many others were stunned and challenged. Some  were crying because they were so upset. And some spoke out against the arrest. Chants went up: “Let them go!” and “Torturers!”

The arrested youths were charged with misdemeanors. The Associated Press story on the action was picked up by Newsday, 1010 WINS (the largest NYC radio station), CBS, NBC, and the Metro.

That very same night PBS TV aired the documentary “The Torture Question,” which clearly reveals how the torture at Abu Ghraib was not the work of a “few bad apples” but the result of systematic government policy directed from the highest levels of the Bush regime. (Watch the film online at pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/torture/)

A message posted on the Youth and Student page at worldcantwait.org said:

“To those who stood by while torture protesters were hauled away by police at Hunter College:

“People go to Holocaust museums and ask 'how did this happen?' It becomes all too clear 'how it happened' when students walk by or stand there and allow the police to arrest people for dramatically illustrating the torture that is going on daily and legally at the hands of the Bush regime. That which you will not resist and mobilize to stop, you will learn—or be forced—to accept.

“While what happened at Hunter College was an enactment by World Can’t Wait organizers, the reality is that YOUR GOVERNMENT is torturing people in Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and who knows where else. And when you walk by, when you decide that your career or your grades are more important than stopping this, you are complicit by your silence. It is unconscionable to go about our daily lives while such atrocities are committed in our names.

“To those who voiced opposition…

“…'There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop.' –Mario Savio”

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The Truth About the Righteous Rebellion in Toledo

Special to Revolution, October 30, 2005, posted at revcom.us

Revolution received this correspondence from comrades in Detroit:

On Saturday, October 15, there was a major uprising in the northern Ohio city of Toledo against a Nazi march that was protected by police. (See Revolution #19). This uprising was slandered in the media as “gang violence.” A couple of us went to the neighborhood where the uprising took place to learn the truth of what happened.

North Toledo is close to the huge Chrysler Jeep plant in Toledo. It is a working class neighborhood, mainly Black but also Mexican and white. People here used to have factory jobs, but now unemployment is high. Like many similar neighborhoods, there are few stores and restaurants, one small park, and schools that look like they have seen better days. But this neighborhood drew national attention when more than 600 people protested a Nazi march through their neighborhood, drove the Nazis out, and fought police who protected the Nazis and brutalized protesters. As Revolution #19 pointed out, this Nazi march was “framed by the genocidal rants against Black people by major ruling class figures like William Bennett, who posed that 'if you wanted to reduce crime...you could abort every Black baby in this country,' and by the racist vilification of poor and Black people in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.”

Though the media, even the Toledo Journal, a Black newspaper, slandered the rebellion as “gang” and “mob” violence, the people we spoke to in North Toledo were very firm that they were “right to rebel” against the Nazis and the police. One man told us how police were going around in the neighborhood for days before the planned Nazi march, telling people that up to 200 Nazis were coming and warning them to “stay in your houses.” Jack Ford, the Black mayor of Toledo, had also told people to stay indoors and “ignore” the Nazis. City officials organized an “Erase the Hate” event miles away to try and keep people from confronting the Nazis. But people weren’t having it. Another man described the start of the uprising:

“Police told us the Nazi march was going to start at LaGrange (a business district blocks away), but then they came right into the center of the neighborhood. They say it was gangs out here, but it was grown people, kids, everybody, Blacks, whites, Mexicans. It wasn’t just people from this neighborhood. My cousins came from the East Side. People wanted to protest the Nazis. There were more than 400 people saying 'You all aren’t about to walk through our neighborhood.' Police were taking up for the Nazis, protecting them. They took them in the school (Woodward High school). Then the police came in with horses, knocking people around. Some kids started throwing stuff, and it escalated.”

Another young man pointed to a group of young kids playing nearby.

“The Nazis said they were coming for gangs. These kids aren’t even in a gang. The Nazis are a gang. They’re organized.” He spoke poignantly about the conditions in the neighborhood these youth face. “They’re tearing down schools. There’s only one park here, one store. I can see the police police pulling you over one time. But don’t pull me over five or six times.” He decried the media slanders of “gang violence.” Pointing to two friends, he said, “We grew up in this neighborhood. Our parents came up here, went to Woodward High. I used to work in a steel factory. Now who do you know who’s working?” He asked,”How are people poor when we make money? Why are people starving?”

His friend said,

“We live our lives. We have fun. We don’t have the money to go have fun far away, so we have fun in our own neighborhood. But if we walk a block away to the Polish neighborhood, they’ll call the police and the police will drag us out. That’s racial profiling.“

He, and several others we talked to, thought the Nazi march was a deliberate provocation by police to go after those they considered “gangs”--a taunt, like the recently revealed incident in Afghanistan where U.S. soldiers desecrated the bodies of dead Taliban to provoke Taliban soldiers out of hiding.

Another friend contemptuously dismissed arguments by the Mayor and others that the Nazis had a “consitutional right” to march.”What if we went to another neighborhood to protest?” He told us that since the rebellion, police have been rounding up youth on street corners and arresting them, calling them “rock throwers,” and that upwards of 100 youth, in groups of 20 a day, had been dragged out of the high school by police and arrested. We later found out that these youth were put on $10,000 bail without possibility of a 10% bond.

A woman who works in a local restaurant was furious about the Nazi march and the way the neighborhood youth were attacked. She said, ”You bring hate into someone’s backyard, what do you expect?“ She asked, “Why did no one come to support these kids? They were attacked and in survival mode. No one taught them how to react.” She said angrily, “They put the Nazis in the school, but they were sending kids home if they even wanted to talk about it. If someone gets killed, they have counseling for the students. These kids went through a traumatic experience, why didn’t they have counseling for them here?” She said these youth should have been “protected,” but “the police are punching them, beating them every day.”

A Muslim man we spoke with expressed pride in the rebellion.“They came to disrespect us, but they’ll think twice before they want to disrespect North Toledo.” He said police brutality had “never left, just different uniforms,” and connected it to the “military in the schools, recruiting for Amoco and BP’s war.” He said , “the young brothers and sisters pay a price for resistance, we are always punished for resistance.” He was angry that “there were not enough preachers and community leaders” standing with the people in the rebellion. He acknowledged that racist calls by ruling class figures like Bennett “carry a lot of weight,” but had a viewpoint we hear from a lot of people, that “it doesn’t make a difference who’s president” because some powerful and mysterious forces behind him, the “Illuminati,” are calling the shots. This view keeps people from seeing the actual danger posed by the Bush regime and the Christian fascist forces around them and that a serious struggle is necessary to drive them out of power.

We also met a woman in a beauty shop who concentrated those Black Christian forces who Bush is reaching out to and uniting around reactionary fundementalism. Unlike everyone else we talked to, she was arguing that people didn’t need to confront the Nazis because “God will take care of Black people.” She supported Bush on prayer in the schools and opposition to gay marriage. She argued that America is the greatest country in the world, the land of opportunity. We struggled with her to see the genocidal “package” she was lining up with. But even she, when asked if the rebellion was right or wrong, couldn’t come out and condemn it.

We talked to a local minister whose church is in the neighborhood where the rebellion took place. He said,

“The Nazi party came here to express white superiority. They said Blacks should leave the country. The youth today are a different generation. They have no respect for their elders. They felt like the police were protecting the Nazi party and they were.”

He felt like the youth had been “provoked” by the Nazis. On the one hand, he felt like there was a problem with “gang violence.” On the other hand, he decried the way Black people are treated by police, “the way they pull them over. Minorities get more tickets on certain highways. We can’t hide our identity. The problems we’re having, we need to come together on.” He talked about racism in the area, how there are neighborhoods like Ottawa Hills where police stop people from walking. “Who would they put their security on?”

While he was supportive of the Mayor, he was clearly sympathetic to the rebellion. He explained that far from the “random violence” portrayed in the media, people had targetted the Nazis, the police, and racist establishments in the neighborhood, like a local bar where “politicians went and Black people couldn’t go in there.” And he admitted that even people in his own church would have participated in the rebellion if they had been out there that day.

Several people we talked to in North Toledo took bundles of World Can’t Wait flyers to distribute and some were considering joining convergences in Detroit and Cleveland. The blatant state support of a Nazi march right into a mainly Black neighborhood is a sharp expression of the genocidal and fascist edge of governance today, and what makes the call for November 2 so urgent. The righteous rebellion of the people of North Toledo points to the power of resistance from those on the bottom of society, and how it affects the way broader strata in society see things. It should be popularized and supported. And what a difference it would make if this could be joined with the movement to drive out the Bush regime, and beyond that, a revolutionary communist movement to drive the whole system behind it from power!

Send us your comments.

The Revolutionary Communist 4 Tour Is Coming Your Way!

Revolution #020, October 30, 2005, posted at revcom.us

The RC4 Speaking Tour is on the road, spreading revolution and communism and challenging those at the bottom of society to step forward and become emancipators of humanity.

To learn about the RC4 Tour, go to:

           rc4tour.info and rc4ny.blogspot.com

Next scheduled tour event:

Houston, Texas
Saturday, October 29 * 1 p.m.
Thurgood Marshall School of Law, Room 107
Texas Southern University
(corner of Wheeler and Tierwesker)

Contact: 713-684-4701

or

The RC4 Tour
PO Box 941
Knickerbocker Station
New York, NY 10002-0900

Email: rc_speaks@yahoo.com
Phone/fax: 866-841-9139 x 2670

Send us your comments.

The U.S. at War - A History of Shame

"My God was Bigger Than His"
The New World Order Invasion of Somalia

Revolution #020, October 30, 2005, posted at revcom.us

"I knew that my God was bigger than his."

- Lt. General William G. "Jerry" Boykin, named Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence after making this statement about the time he headed the U.S. Army’s Delta Force in Somalia.

Obscenely named “Operation Restore Hope,” U.S. and “allied” troops invaded and occupied Somalia in the early 1990s, bringing a reign of terror. The occupation came to an abrupt end shortly after the “Battle of Mogadishu,” when Somali fighters shot down two U.S. helicopters, and thousands of Somalis attacked downed U.S. troops. Eighteen U.S. troops were killed, and 84 wounded.

It is instructive to look back at the U.S. invasion and occupation of Somalia in the context of the current argument that one must “support the troops” when the U.S. government sends them to invade, plunder, and terrorize people around the world. And it is also useful to remember Somalia when the Louisiana National Guard’s Joint Task Force commander, Brig. Gen. Gary Jones, announces that occupied, post-Katrina New Orleans “...is going to look like Little Somalia.”

Imposing the “New World Order”

While the invasion of Somalia was marketed “operation restore hope,” and was supposed to provide food to starving people, Colin Powell revealed the real goal when he stated at the time that pulling U.S. troops out of Somalia would be “devastating to our hopes for the New World Order ..." George Bush I's post-cold war “New World Order” had, in part, the objective of creating a monopoly of U.S. power in regions of the world where the former Soviet Union had held influence, including the horn of Africa where Somalia is located. When he was elected, President Clinton kept U.S. troops in Somalia, while adding tens of thousands of UN troops to the occupation.

The book  Black Hawk Down (which accepts and promotes the official justification for the invasion) gives a picture of the mindset of the U.S. troops in Somalia. They strutted around like they owned the world and had the right—and the power—to fuck anyone or anything they wanted. They greeted each other with "Hoo-ah!" They considered Somalis less than human, calling them "skinnies" or "sammies." This mindset was a reflection of widespread racist vilification of the Somali people, Africans, and Black people in general as uncivilized savages. NBC News Executive Producer Jeff Gralnick, for instance, called Somali clan leader (and target of U.S. occupation) Mohammed Farrah Aidid an "educated jungle bunny."

U.S. troops often flew their powerful Black Hawk helicopters low over markets, streets and neighborhoods at any hour of the day or night. The intense downdraft from the helicopter blades damaged and destroyed entire neighborhoods, blowing down homes, mosques, market stalls and walls. It would terrify cattle. Women would have clothes torn off their bodies and infants torn out of their arms.

On one raid, the U.S. troops handcuffed a woman who would not stop screaming. Finally, a half hour later, a translator arrived and discovered that her baby had been blown down the street by the downdraft from the Black Hawk just before the U.S. troops handcuffed her. On September 19, 1993, helicopters from the U.S. Army 10th Mountain Division shot missiles into a crowd, killing 100 unarmed people.

Elite U.S. “Ranger” units would quickly converge on their target, destroy the building or kidnap people, then just as quickly be picked up by the helicopters and disappear from the area. In one raid, aimed at grabbing Aidid, a secret U.S. army team mistakenly kidnapped a Somali general who the U.S. was grooming to help run the country. They laid waste to his home before realizing their mistake and letting him go.

Black Hawk Down

Even without progressive, much less revolutionary leadership or organization, the Somali people waged a ferocious and self-sacrificing struggle against U.S. occupation that came to a head in the famous “Black Hawk Down” battle on October 3, 1993. In that battle, Jerry “My god was bigger than his”  Boykin's troops were pinned down for hours, under seige by thousands of Somali people.

The battle began when a Somali fighter with an RPG (a shoulder-fired rocket) shot down a Black Hawk in the Somali capital of Mogadishu. Somalis, including thousands of unarmed people, poured into the combat zone. In the course of the fighting, another Black Hawk was shot down and two more Black Hawks were hit but limped back and crashed at their base.

People from all over the city of Mogadishu armed and unarmed, attacked downed Army Rangers from every side. Battle locations were communicated by smoking tires. Neighborhood patrols gathered their fighters and weapons by word of mouth. The book Black Hawk Down describes instance after instance of amazing courage and determination, from the perspective of shocked U.S. soldiers. U.S. troops were stunned that unarmed civilians would rush toward a firefight and not away from it, and to see women and children shooting at them! At the cost of at least hundreds of lives, the Somali people cracked the aura of invincibility that the U.S. was trying to project through terror in Somalia.

Shortly after the Black Hawk down battle, the U.S. withdrew from Somalia, bringing to a close this particular chapter in the history of U.S. wars of shame.

Send us your comments.

From A World to Win News Service

Afghanistan: 4 years after the US-led invasion
Part 2

Revolution #020, October 30, 2005, posted at revcom.us

Part 1 of this article, which appeared in last week's issue of Revolution, analyzed the current political and military situation in occupied Afghanistan.

The Economic Situation

The so-called reconstruction of Afghanistan has been mainly limited to building some roads and rebuilding parts of Kabul in order to meet the occupation’s communication and transport needs. There has been a rise in certain kinds of economic activity among entrepreneurs linked to foreign capital--last year a billion dollars worth of pre-paid phone cards were sold in Afghanistan. At the same time, the people lack the most basic necessities. Joblessness is a scourge, and widows suffer the most. Office workers earn $20 per month, while monthly rent for a small house could be as high as $100. Many people in the cities are homeless. Often powerful figures or government organs have confiscated their homes. Some 90 percent of the country’s budget is dependent on foreign aid. Little of Afghanistan’s economic infrastructure has been rebuilt.

The occupiers have shown no sign of interest in restoring agriculture. In fact, growing poppies for opium is Afghanistan’s only real productive activity. A heavy price is paid in the rising number of people whose lives are destroyed by drugs, not only here but in many other countries, since the bulk of the world’s heroin originates in US-occupied Afghanistan. Despite empty noise about fighting drugs and sometimes real harassment of peasants and the eradication of their crops, the situation is worse than ever. When Karzai’s Interior Minister, one of the regime’s most powerful figures, resigned recently, whatever his motives he complained that the regime and its supporters run the drug trade.

The overproduction of poppies has led to a sharp drop in the price of opium, as even the British officials in charge of opium eradication have admitted. Some US representatives criticize the British and Karzai for not tackling the problem vigorously enough. They advocate harsher methods against the peasants. But first of all, opium is the heart of Afghanistan’s economy, with high officials, warlords and the authorities on every level from top to bottom deeply involved. The two main reactionary sections of Afghan society allied with the occupiers, the feudals and comprador (imperialist-dependent) capitalists, draw their nourishment from it. So far, at least, the occupation has not been able to do without opium.

Secondly, what is the real effect of the anti-opium measures that have been carried out?

Reducing the amount of poppies on the market could bring a rise in the price of opium, which would especially benefit those involved in the global drug network, including top officials in and outside Afghanistan. But these measures bring the peasants disaster. The farmers are completely under the thumb of the moneylenders (usually associated with warlords or other feudal authorities) who advance them the money to buy seeds for their crop. If the crop is destroyed, the moneylenders want their pound of flesh anyway. The International Herald Tribune (September 29) describes a peasant who “could not pay off a loan of about $1,165 because his crops had been eradicated. [Instead], the farmer offered his 14-year old daughter. The practice of giving away a daughter to pay a debt is expected to increase sharply after the aggressive campaign against poppies.” Harassing the peasants only tightens the chains of semi-feudal exploitation and oppression gripping all of Afghanistan’s countryside.

The Liberation of Women

The occupiers said they came to liberate women, but women have been the worst affected by the invasion. It is true that in some areas of Kabul, women might be able to exchange the burqa, which completely covers the eyes and the whole face, for another kind of Islamic hijab (head scarf). Legally girls are now allowed to go to school, a right that was taken away by the Taliban. Women can work in some parts of the capital. But these legal rights are highly conditional on real circumstances. Women can work, but only if someone gives them a job. They can go to school, but only if they have enough money, if they are willing to risk rape and kidnapping by military groups working for the government and other jihadi forces, if their schools are not burned down, and many other "ifs."  Today more than 65 percent of girls do not attend school because their families can’t or won’t pay or because they are afraid. And this is not the worst of it.

The situation for women has remained unchanged in many aspects or has even become worse under the occupation. A few months ago a woman accused of adultery was stoned to death by a local court in Badakhshan, while the man was sentenced to a beating. Women are still persecuted and imprisoned for adultery on the say-so of their husband or other men. There are more and more cases of young women burning themselves alive. In the fourth year of the occupation there has been a fifty percent increase compared to the previous year. Women are at much greater risk of rape and kidnap now than before the invasion. Wearing a burqa is no longer legally compulsory, and women might not get beaten by the Taleban morality police anymore, but instead they might get raped or kidnapped or both. Forced marriage is as standard as ever. Girl children are sold for a couple of hundred of dollars. Since the invasion, prostitution has increased tremendously. Violence against women by family members is still as widespread as before, if not worse. The situation of women in Afghanistan cannot be judged by the few women in certain limited areas of the capital who might now wear a scarf and drive a car. It should be judged by the hell that more that 90 percent of the women are going through.

The imperialists and their flunkies are incapable of liberating women or even radically improving their situation, because they are not going to change the fundamental semi-feudal economic and social relations on which the severe oppression of women in Afghanistan is based. In fact, they have been helping to strengthen these relations for 25 years by allying themselves with the most reactionary economic, social, political and ideological representatives of these relations. And if they want to continue the occupation they have no choice but to rely on these forces and strengthen these relations. The interests of the imperialists are dependent on that, no matter what they might want. But in fact, Bush, Blair, Schroeder, Chirac and company and their Karzai have chosen to do as little as possible.

The constitution endorsed by the second Loya Jirga in December 2003 gave equal importance to Sharia law (Islamic law) in conducting the life of the people and established the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Not only will these laws not end the oppression of women, but they will also strengthen the semi-feudal relations that are the basis for it. Bush and Blair can brag that their guns brought elections to Afghanistan, but the electoral democracy imposed by the imperialists is a form of rule by the traditional backward classes propped up by the world’s biggest reactionaries. It is a thin cover for the general oppression of the people in which the domination of women is a keystone.

Rising People’s Resistance

The people are responding to the imperialist occupiers and their puppets with their struggle. They are clearly raising their voices louder and louder.

Upwards of 10,000 people took part in the demonstrations in Jalalabad and Nangarhar last December. In a series of protests last May in Kabul, Harat and other cities, students, joined by teachers and workers, clashed with security forces and even occupation troops and occupiers and burned the flag of Uncle Sam. A dozen students were killed. The massive demonstrations against rape in Badakhshan and many other places are additional signs of the discontent of a people who are becoming more and more clearly opposed to the occupiers and their puppet regime. Resistance is growing in different forms. This heralds difficult days ahead for the occupiers.

Send us your comments.

God the Original Fascist

Part 4b: Holy Wars—Manifest Destiny in a Biblical Setting

a series submitted by A. Brooks, a reader of REVOLUTION newspaper

Revolution #020, October 30, 2005, posted at revcom.us

EDITOR’S NOTE: This series of articles was submitted by a reader who was inspired by Bob Avakian’s writings and talks on religion and, further provoked by discussions and arguments with friends about the Bible, engaged in a systematic study of the first five books of the Bible. These books, which are known as the “Mosaic Books” (and which contain such crucial passages as that outlining the Ten Commandments), lay out the foundation for some of the Bible’s most important themes. After having read these five, Mosaic books of the Bible, the reader was struck even more deeply by how profoundly the essence of the Bible’s message has been distorted and hidden.

As mentioned before, it is not always God himself that articulates the philosophy of conquest—sometimes, he relies on his chief foot soldiers to speak in his name. This is the case in Numbers 14, when Joshua reassures the Israelites returning in awe from a scouting mission of the enemy by saying: “Have no fear, then, of the people of the country, for they are our prey.... Their protection has departed from them, but the Lord is with us.” (Numbers 14) This passage calls to mind the logic of war architects depicted in Bob Dylan’s “With God on Their Side,” in which Dylan brilliantly captures how all sorts of atrocities have been justified by conquerors on the basis that God has willed it to be so. Quite convenient, this God is!

As the book of Numbers unfolds, it becomes increasingly clear that God’s followers are getting the hang of how to properly carry out what God has instructed them to do. Some of God’s people are taken captive while invading Canaan. In response, “Israel made a vow to the Lord, ‘If you deliver this people into our hand, we will proscribe their towns.’ ” (Numbers 21) The footnote in the edition of the Bible that I was reading noted that “proscribe” meant to “utterly destroy.” Numbers 21 goes on to clarify that, not surprisingly, “God heeded Israel’s plea and delivered up the Canaanites; and they and their cities were proscribed.” (Numbers 21)

Later on in that same passage we find another fine instance in which God’s followers implement his “foreign policy” exactly as he would have designed it: The Israelites send a message ahead to the Amorites asking for permission to pass through their land. The Amorites refuse, so the Israelites “Put them to the sword and took possession of their land.... Israel...settled in all the towns of the Amorites, in Hesbon and all its dependencies.” (Numbers 21)

Perhaps no passage in the entire Bible, however, is as open a celebration of unrepentant and merciless conquest as that found in Numbers 31. A little background here first, in order to properly situate the passage: Yet another astounding example of God unleashing tremendous wrath against his own people that was not mentioned in the previous section of this series came in Numbers 25: The story went that some of the Israelites had been seduced by a Midianite woman and had laid with her. Upon discovering this, God became so enraged that he struck down 24,000 Israelites in (any guesses, anyone?)...yes, a plague!

Numbers 31 describes the instance during which the Israelites “took revenge”—not only on the one Midianite woman guilty of seduction, but the entire Midianite community. Numbers 31 is indeed so brutal, its violence so vicious and unforgiving, that were it not from the Bible, there is no doubt that Christian fascists would be lamenting the destructive effect this “immoral” passage would have on America’s youth. But once again, we are reminded: Violence, no matter how brutal, that is committed in the name of God is A-ok:

“They [the Israelites] took the field against the Midianites, as the Lord had commanded, and slew every male....the Israelites took the women and children of the Midianites captive, and seized as booty all their beasts, all their herds, and all their wealth. And they destroyed by fire all the towns in which they were settled, and their encampments. They gathered all the spoil and all the booty, man, and beast, and they brought the captives, the booty, and the spoil to Moses.” (Numbers 31)

But, as the saying goes...Wait, it gets worse!! Moses, being the compassionate agent of God and liberator of humankind that he was, naturally became enraged at the death and destruction God’s armies had unleashed—because it didn’t go far enough: “Moses became angry with the commanders of the army, the officers of the thousands and the officers of the hundreds, who had come back from the military campaign.” (Numbers 31) And why, one might ask, was Moses angry? Well, here is the answer: “Moses said to them, ‘You have spared every female! Yet they are the very ones who, at the bidding of Balaam, induced the Israelites to trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor....Now, therefore, slay every male among the children, and slay also every woman who has known a man carnally.’” (Numbers 31)

To any who would doubt that repugnant and supposedly divine-sanctioned violence characterizes the five Mosaic books of the Bible, I don’t know how the above passage could help but remove these doubts. Here is a passage where in essence genocide is committed against an entire people, and yet Moses—again, the chief communicator between God and his followers while he lived—is consumed with rage that the children and the women were spared (except for the women who were virgins—they were to be carried off as concubines—sex slaves)!

In Deuteronomy (once more, a book said to have been written by Moses, who in turn was of course speaking through God) we find this lovely passage where Moses commands his troops: “Up! Set across the Wadi Arnon! See I give into your power Sihon the Amorite, King of Hesbon, and his land. Begin the occupation: engage him in battle. This day, I begin to put the dread and fear of you in peoples everywhere under heaven, so that they shall tremble and quake because of you wherever they hear you mentioned.” (Deuteronomy 2) Thus, Moses is not only admitting that what his troops are engaged in is a bloodthirsty occupation, but he actually brags about and celebrates it!

Similar sentiments can be found one passage later, when Moses recalls: “Sihon with all his men took the field against us at Jahaz, and the Lord delivered him to us and we defeated him and his sons and all his men. At the time, we captured all his towns, and we doomed every town—men, women, and children, leaving no survivor. We retained as booty only the cattle and the spoil of the cities we captured.” (Deuteronomy 3) Once again, it was useful to consult the footnotes in the edition of the Bible I was reading, to grasp even more fully what is being commemorated here: The footnote says that “doomed” is being used to mean “totally annihilated.”

The supposed inferiority of those being conquered is once again used as justification for atrocities committed in Deuteronomy 8, when Moses explains to God’s people: “It is not because of your virtue and your rectitude that you will be able to possess their country; it is because of their wickedness that the Lord your God is dispossessing those countries before you.” (Deuteronomy 8) Thus, we see here another instance when Moses does not even bother attempting to deny that he is leading the occupation and destruction of peoples already on the land; rather, he is celebrating it and deeming it necessary because of their supposed “wickedness.” Think again for a moment about the history of genocide by the U.S. government against Native Americans and the rhetoric that was used to justify it, and then ask yourself: Sound familiar?

Coming next week: Part 4c gets into how the Bible repeatedly speaks about the supposed justifications and necessity for wiping out any people who are not God’s “chosen people.”

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From Set the Record Straight: FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What Is Communism? What Is Its Real History? What Does It Have to Do with the World Today?

Part 3

Revolution #020, October 30, 2005, posted at revcom.us

Revolution is running this FAQ in four parts. Go to the Set the Record Straight website at ThisIsCommunism.org for the full FAQ.

8). Where can you find socialism in the world today?

There are no longer socialist countries. The Soviet and Chinese revolutions were turned back and defeated by the guardians of the old order. But there are Marxist-Leninist-Maoist parties and organizations in many parts of the world committed to the principles of communism and building on the experience of the “first wave” of socialist revolutions of the 20th century. The Revolutionary Internationalist Movement brings many of these groups together. A Maoist people’s war is being waged in Nepal. In the United States, there is the Revolutionary Communist Party led by Bob Avakian.

9). Isn’t Marxism a dogma?

Marxism is a creative, self-critical, and developing science. People should check out the writings of Bob Avakian. He has been critically summing up the profound lessons of past socialist societies, analyzing vast changes in the world since, and has been extending the horizons of Marxism. He is developing a model of vibrant socialism and communism for the 21st century.

10). But isn’t communism outdated—with globalization and new technologies leveling social differences and eliminating the working class?

The need and basis for communist revolution is greater than ever. The gap between rich and poor in the world has widened enormously since Marx wrote “The Communist Manifesto.” The three richest Americans have assets that exceed the combined gross domestic product of the 48 least developed countries. Ten million children die each year of preventable disease and malnutrition. AIDS plagues the world while pharmaceutical companies guard their intellectual property rights and profits. An exploited working class is definitely not disappearing, including in the U.S. Look at the labels on your sneakers and shirts, or at the components of your computer. They are produced by exploited and superexploited labor in all corners of the world.  

11). How can communism be relevant to a wealthy and advanced technological society like the United States? 

America has a large middle class. But for many, life is alienating; and the system thwarts people from applying their skills and expertise to benefit society and humanity. Hurricane Katrina revealed the deep faultlines of class exploitation and racial discrimination in the U.S. America is a society with many impoverished (40 million) and working poor…a society with horribly inadequate and unequal health care…a society with a prison system that warehouses huge numbers of young Black and Latino men. For all its advanced technology and store of knowledge—the system can’t mobilize people to deal with basic problems like hurricane disaster relief. And it has a president who doesn’t even accept evolution as a scientific fact!

Read Part 4 in the next issue of Revolution: What about human nature and selfishness? Will people be able to practice religion and have personal possessions under socialism? Will there be democracy and elections, and will dissent be allowed?

Send us your comments.