Editorial

Bad Moon Rising: About This Issue

Revolutionary Worker #1206, July 6, 2003, posted at rwor.org

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The days since September 11, 2001 have witnessed extraordinary events. The Bush administration waged war on Afghanistan, declaring it part of a world-wide, generation-long "War on Terrorism." It developed a new doctrine--arrogating to itself the right to preemptively wage war on any country that might at some point pose a threat to the United States--and proceeded to invade and occupy Iraq as a test case, using evidence that is now widely seen to have been utterly fabricated. It based its troops in many new countries and embarked on military operations from Yemen to the Philippines to Colombia. It set up a concentration camp on Guantánamo where prisoners from many countries have been held in extreme conditions of deprivation without regard to the Geneva conventions for prisoners of war or U.S. law. Talk of "empire" and a "new imperialism" spread from the left into mainstream discourse.

This new era of war abroad has brought with it what Vice President Cheney has called a "new normalcy" at home. The blandness of his phrasing masks a set of ominous developments. The government has detained thousands of immigrants without trial. Congress has rubberstamped new laws--the Patriot Act the most notorious--and nodded to executive decrees that sharply restrict people's rights. The Pentagon, the CIA and the new Homeland Security Department seem to be in a competition as to who can work up--and implement--the most invasive surveillance plan. And from Bush on down, a tone of "you're with us or with the terrorists" has soaked into every level of public discourse.

These measures have been implemented under a banner of "public safety"--accompanied by campaigns of fear. Yet a closer look reveals that in reality it is the government of the U.S. that is putting the people in harm's way. Their invasions and occupations are fueling hatred of the U.S. and the American people around the world--holding the people in this country hostage to their "war on terrorism." They have lured the American people into a Faustian bargain of giving up rights for a false sense of security. But these security measures have little or nothing to do with safety for the people: they have brought brutality and injustice to thousands of immigrants and threaten to turn the whole society into a Big Brother nightmare.

In our view, these measures are not only very serious in their immediate consequences; taken together, in their direction and logic, they pose the distinct prospect of an emerging police state. It is this--what even some mainstream commentators have called "the war on civil liberties"--that forms the focus of this special issue of the Revolutionary Worker.

This special issue aims to sound the alarm. We aim to expose these different attacks and draw the different strands together to give a real picture of what is going on; we want to provoke deeper analysis and a wider, vigorous dialogue. And we hope to spur resistance to this "new normalcy."

The features of this new assault are not as yet very well known. In this issue we analyze key lines of attack: the wave of repression launched against immigrants; the serious new changes in the laws and the legal system; and the stepped-up ability of the government to regulate, control and suppress protest. The articles "American Nightmare," "Warning! The USA Patriot Act and Other Dangerous Things," and "Every Move You Make" portray the scope and depth of these different fronts. C. Clark Kissinger's "The New Domestic Order: What Has Changed, Why It Changed, and How It Matters" draws these strands together and exposes their underlying dynamics and direction.

RESISTING...AND DREAMING

The group now in power is deadly serious. They have at their direct disposal the army and the police, the bureaucracy and the judges. The media and the congress fall right in line, offering at most a minor amendment or objection to the rush of new wars, new laws and new executive orders. In short, they are riding high.

Yet things are far from settled. The movement to prevent the war against Iraq surprised everyone with its breadth and determination. Moreover, the driving spirit of that opposition went beyond the war itself to tap into a deep disquiet over the whole direction of society, including the repression at home. As we know, this opposition was not enough--this time--to prevent the war. But it did show the potential to build a movement strong enough to eventually STOP this juggernaut of war and repression.

But potential alone won't get us very far. The question to be answered, in theory and practice, is how can this repressive new order be defeated?

For one thing, we need to learn from what people are already doing. Many are exposing the character of this onslaught. Many are organizing to fight it. More than a few have already taken heroic stands. All this needs to be supported and spread, and to this end our correspondent Osage Bell has worked with a team of youth to highlight a number of "voices of resistance" in an effort to give some sense of what is going on. But much much more is required.

In "Resisting Heightened Repression--Building the Movement of Opposition," RCP Chairman Bob Avakian discusses some essential principles and standards for the movement that must be built.

So, how? Where to begin? May we suggest that among the very first jobs should be . . . to dream? This monumental task demands that everyone break out of the narrow confines of what seems possible today to envision what would be needed to actually win. . . in order, of course, to better return to today's reality and set about the steps to realize that vision. To this end, we are confident that Sunsara Taylor's article "Laying Claim to Our Future: The Resistance We Must Build" will spark an important dialogue on what must be done. In "Art Matters," D. Firebrand speaks to the role of artists in creating a culture of resistance.

RESISTANCE...AND REVOLUTION

Our Party believes in revolution. Today's juggernaut is not only a product of the evil and atavistic cabal now running this country; it flows from a strategy for global dominance fitted to the needs of 21st-century U.S. capitalism/imperialism, one that has been honed over the past 15 years and more. It sprang to life with a vengeance on September 12, 2002, but it did not spring out of nowhere. We aim to stop this monster and we aim to uproot and abolish the underlying capitalist-imperialist economic and social relations that generated it and that will continually generate new monstrosities, until this system is no more.

At the same time, we reach out to those who are not yet convinced of the need for revolution or even oppose such a prospect. We believe that people in the movement need to talk about their different views as to sources and solutions as they work together to stop the present madness. In fact, one of the great accomplishments of the movement against the Iraq war was its principled and wide-ranging unity. As the movement grew, that very unity came under fire and our Party, in particular, was singled out for attack-- both by highly connected pro-Bush hacks and even by some who professed opposition to the Bush program. We set forth our reply to some of these attacks in "In Defense of Fighters and Dreamers."

Here let us only add an observation on the German pastor Martin Niemoeller's point about how the Nazis isolated each group of potential opposition, picked them off, and then moved on to the next . . . until all opposition was gone. Those who are against the war and repression need to think about the lessons to which Niemoeller is pointing--including the need to defend all the groups that come under attack from a repressive state.

NO ALTERNATIVE BUT TO RESIST

Many who are sick at heart over the course of this society find themselves pulled to invest their hopes in the 2004 elections. We have written elsewhere, and will write again, on why we think such hopes are, ultimately, a dead end. But whatever one's views on electoral politics, let us unite that the main efforts of those who want to stop this deadly trajectory should lie in building mass resistance. For only mass resistance can awaken millions to the true scope and depths of what is being done in their names--and to their rights. Only mass, well-organized resistance can meet and begin to defeat each new outrage and roll back the ones already in place. And only such resistance can prepare us for the storms in the offing and the opportunities that may well present themselves in the months and years ahead.

Take this issue.

Read it.

Spread it.

Build the Resistance.

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This article is posted in English and Spanish on Revolutionary Worker Online
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