revcom.us, November 16, 2020 through November 22, 2020 (#674)

Voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/673/trumps-trying-to-stay-in-power-hell-no-en.html

Trump’s Trying to Stay in Power? Oh HELL NO!

| revcom.us

 

Right now, WE—the 77 million-plus in this country who voted out the Trump/Pence regime and the millions more across the globe who celebrated this—are on the offensive. WE have the momentum. WE have the political initiative. They—the Trump/Pence regime and its supporters—are on the defensive. They have been politically knocked back on their heels. They have been thoroughly defeated and thoroughly repudiated. BUT... WE can’t let up. We have to STAY on the offensive, because they are trying to pull some dangerous BS to stay in power, and in the name of humanity, we cannot let that happen.

Trump refusing to concede an election he lost by more than 5 million votes in the popular vote and a clear and convincing margin in the Electoral College? Oh HELL no! Trump’s smirking Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, saying there will be a “smooth transition” to a “second Trump administration”?! Oh HELL no! The Trump regime whipping up its dangerous supporters and going to court with completely baseless and absurd allegations of supposed “fraud”? Oh HELL no! The Trump regime seeking to actively block a transition to the Biden administration in a deranged effort to remain in power? Oh HELL no! This is completely unacceptable. It cannot stand, and it will not stand.

It’s this simple: If you were in the streets celebrating Trump’s defeat in the election—or if you took heart from these celebrations—then follow your own logic. Think for a second about all of the reasons that you were so overjoyed. If you do that, you will see that you—and we—must STAY in the streets until Trump’s defeat is cemented and his entire regime leaves office. We demand Trump/Pence Out Now! Trump, Pence, Pompeo, William Barr and the rest won’t commit to leaving office in January? Then they can leave NOW. Actually, the Trump/Pence regime should have been out of office a long time ago, and Refuse Fascism has been saying that—and working to organize people on that basis—for years. But if you ever had any doubt about this, you should have none left now. Think about it: Why should this regime be allowed to stay in office one single day longer when they are threatening, refusing to accept and actively attacking the election and its results?  

Bring your energy... your joy... your anger... your determination... your dance moves... your pots and pans... BACK INTO THE STREETS to demand: Trump/Pence and the whole regime, OUT NOW!! 

A Pledge to the People of the World: In the Name of Humanity, We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America.

 

Follow: @TheRevcoms
Read: www.revcom.us
Watch: youtube.com/TheRevComs

 

Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.

 

Get a free email subscription to revcom.us:



 


 

Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/673/refuse-fascism-statement-from-editorial-board-en.html

Reposted from RefuseFascism.org

A Statement from the Editorial Board of RefuseFascism.org on November 14, 2020

| revcom.us

 

The election is over. Biden won. Trump lost. Now he and his fascist regime need to go. Trump, awash in his bitter fascist delusion, has not conceded. Pence, Barr, Pompeo play a preposterous yet deadly game with their hands on the levers of power talking of a “smooth transition to a second Trump term.”

This is not a game, but dangerous. Blocking the transition to Biden has real cost in lives: in COVID deaths and in international dimensions. Refusing to concede, to peacefully transfer power IS fascist. Whipping up their followers behind the lie of an election fraud is as dangerous as it is absurd.

The people won a righteous victory over Trump. A weight lifted from our shoulders, we danced and celebrated with good reason. These fascist charlatans must continue to feel the heat of our righteous demand that they must goEvery move they make to illegitimately hold on to power and overturn the election must be met by our side standing up—in the streets—defiantly with justice and an electoral victory behind us to say: NO! Trump/Pence OUT NOW!

After all that the people went through to win this election: voter suppression, intimidation, lies, innuendos, robo-calls, standing for hours in line risking COVID infection, we must not cede any ground to Trump’s bogus yet damaging claims. We have pledged to the people of the world: In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE TO ACCEPT A FASCIST AMERICA. TRUMP AND PENCE MUST GO!

We recognize that even beyond their moves to overturn the election, this regime still poses grave danger to humanity. They have put flunky loyalists to Trump atop the Defense Department. They have blocked information on COVID to the Biden transition. Trump’s rabid MAGA base must continue to feel deflated, demoralized, and unable to unleash their white supremacist fury on society. It is on us to turn our celebration of their defeat into our determination to not allow them to dominate the public space or public discourse. Their time IS, and must be, over.

Going forward from today we must be organized and we must mobilize so that every move they make to delegitimize, to overturn this election is strongly opposed. We must not—as some of our progressive friends say, move on. Not now. It is the fascists in power who must be compelled to move on.

Get connected with RefuseFascism.org—get linked up via text message by going to refusefascism.org, clicking “sign up” and filling out the form. Go to refusefascism.org to see latest developments and our calls to action. Over the next weeks we will be holding forums to dig more deeply into the roots of the fascism that has grown and hardened over the past four years, and is still with us as tens of millions voted for Trump. We will sponsor cultural events online to raise our sights to build on the victory won. We will continue to sound the alarm. If you, if we, are not OK with the white supremacy, xenophobia, patriarchy of this fascism and with every move they make to stay in power and advance their hateful movement and vicious program, join us. Stay vigilant and mobilized and take the streets! ¡Adelante! TRUMP/PENCE OUTNOW!

Appearing in the New York Times on Monday, November 9:
A Pledge to the People of the World

See the full ad and share this announcement

 

Follow: @TheRevcoms
Read: www.revcom.us
Watch: youtube.com/TheRevComs

 

Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.

 

Get a free email subscription to revcom.us:



 


 

Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/674/standing-up-to-the-fascist-mob-in-dc-en.html

Standing Up to the Fascist Mob in DC

| revcom.us

 

On November 14, thousands of supporters of Donald Trump, spearheaded by a number of openly fascist forces and greeted by Trump himself, took over the streets in Washington, DC, demanding that the election be overturned.

In reporting on that march, the Washington Post wrote that these marchers were met with a group of counter-protestors from Refuse Fascism. Here’s what the Post described:

Then the appearance of counterprotesters sparked bursts of conflict, though they could have become far more violent had police not worked to keep the feuding sides separate. When a small group holding bright orange “Refuse Fascism” posters arrived at the edge of Freedom Plaza, they were almost immediately surrounded by Trump fans shouting “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” into their faces....

The women leading the tiny march fought their way up 14th Street, repeatedly breaking out of the crowd, only to be engulfed again.

“Trump, pack your s[hit]! You’re illegitimate!” they yelled into their megaphone.

One pro-Trump man attempted to gouge the opposition with a flag bearing the president’s name. Another grabbed a woman’s neon orange poster and hit her with it.

Sunsara Taylor, a member of Refuse Fascism’s editorial board and a writer for this website, was on the scene. Yesterday Lucha Bright, who was also there, interviewed Sunsara for a firsthand account.

LB: Hi, I’m Lucha Bright with the Revolution Club and I’m here with Sunsara Taylor, who’s on the national editorial board of RefuseFascism.org and she’s a co-host for the Revolution Nothing Less Show on YouTube. Hi Sunsara!

ST: Hey Lucha, great to be here. Hello everybody.

LB: So, Sunsara and I have been running together in the streets of DC and this past Saturday, yesterday. RefuseFascism.org nationally called for protests across the country and here in DC going right up against the Million MAGA March. Do you want to tell us a little bit about why Refuse Fascism called for these protests?

ST: So first of all, Donald Trump lost the election. I know we all know that, but he’s refusing to admit that, he’s lying about it and he’s working to overturn that and actually we were just in very close quarters with thousands of MAGA assholes who either refuse to admit or are so deluded by conspiracy and lie-mongering that they actually believe Trump won. So, Trump lost, which was a great victory for the people, and people overcame a lot of obstacles to deliver that electoral defeat. People, especially Black people, overcame misleading robocalls, voter intimidation, long-ass lines in the South—some of them waited 10, 12 hours to vote due to racist voter suppression. There was a lot people had to go up against and did go up against, including in a pandemic, to deliver an electoral defeat to Donald Trump, which was a great victory, and for good reason people poured into the streets and danced in the streets and celebrated about that and felt that a weight was lifted from them.

Yet here we are a week later and Trump is still lying about this. He’s actively obstructing the transition, which is costing lives right now, in COVID deaths and in other ways, and he is riling up a base to actually try to overturn this election. So for all those reasons, we felt it very important that we bring our side into the public square to stand on this victory to say: The election is over. Trump lost. Biden won. Trump’s gotta go. But let’s keep in the public square until that victory is cemented, until he’s actually out of the White House.

Frankly, all his attempts to undermine the election are themselves grounds for removal. Those are fascist moves. And we shouldn’t be normalized just because it’s Trump and we’ve lived through it for four years. Here is a sitting president who is refusing to concede when he lost and is doing great damage and now whips up thousands or tens of thousands of his most violent white supremacist, thuggish supporters to maraud in the nation’s seat of power and to work to overturn that election. That has to be answered. So we felt it was very important that we go and we counter-protest and stand up against that and rally our side to see this defeat of this fascist regime all the way through until they’re removed from power.

LB: Can you just describe what the scene was like here in DC? Who were the fascists that were out? And what did Refuse Fascism do?

ST: The streets of DC were filled with every variety of white supremacist, militia-type, conspiracy-minded, QAnon, deranged Christian fascist; I mean we saw hatred organized writ large against Black people, against immigrants, against women.

It was an attempt, and I think they gained ground in this, by these fascist forces who actually were put on the defensive, who did suffer a bit of a defeat, they did have the puff taken off their chest when Trump lost that election and when they saw people pour into the streets with all the exuberance and all that joy and all that weight was lifted. This took the puff out of their chest, and they were trying to come back together and reassert their dominance in the public square. And I think they actually made ground in that, including that Trump came through and gave it his backing. So we went in the middle of this. And just so people know, some of these people were chanting “Break out Kyle” talking about Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old who murdered two protesters for Black Lives in Kenosha, Wisconsin, who shot them dead in the street. This is the hero of these people. There were Christian fanatic fascists walking thru with signs saying “Women belong in the kitchen.” Just straight up enslavement.

There are people that you would say, “What about the children in cages?” and they’d be like, “They belong there. Their parents did something illegal.” I mean these people are... they have no [touches heart]... they’ve got nothing inside of them for humanity. But they were out there and they were filled with a lust for revenge. And so we went right in the middle of the Freedom Plaza area where they were first amassing, and we went early in the day. And we raised the banner Trump/Pence Out Now. We raised signs that said the same. It was a small group of us. We never got our whole group in one place cuz it actually was, it was very... because Trump gave his backing, this mushroomed in size on the side of the fascists so we didn’t all meet up till later.

And from the second we did this we were set upon. I mean, these people were incensed. They first started verbally harassing us, and then they were, kind of forcefully, purposefully bumping into us and then within a couple minutes there were hundreds of them surrounding us, grabbing at us, at times you’d have five different big, meathead men with their hands on you, pulling you in different directions, grabbing your sign, hitting you; they ripped up our sound system, they were a mob and they were very threatening. One of the people with us, was a Black woman who, by the time we got through this... and I will say for our crew, our crew was so beautiful, they had such heart. I think the Washington Post described it, at different points the women who led the march would break out of the mob and start chanting, “Trump pack your shit! You’re illegitimate.” Or, “Trump/Pence Out Now.” Then we’d be swallowed again, and then we’d break out again and chant again. But the whole time we kept regrouping and keeping our message together and keeping our people together and our spirit intact.

This lasted for two blocks... we were dogged like this, assaulted like this as we marched along, and when we finally got clear and ended up on the other side of a police line through some struggle we had with the police as well, for them to do the semblance of their job and stop a mob assault or at least let us get out of reach of it. When we got through this, this one Black woman who was with us, she was just sobbing, she was inconsolable, she kept saying, “I’m wrong for being Black. I’m wrong for being a woman. My life is in danger every single day. And there was so much hate, that was so much hate they threw at us.” And her eyes were just pouring.

Bob Avakian has said there is a direct line from the Confederacy to the fascists of today. They really are the inheritors of the Confederacy. People who have never reconciled themselves to the end of the Civil War. These are the people who would have gathered with their children to watch Black people be lynched and then fought each other to get a souvenir, a piece of the mutilated body or a postcard of that experience. These are people filled with bloodlust and out for revenge and you saw it all day long. At the end of the night, they were marauding. They came thru BLM Plaza, tore up the murals. Tore up the pictures. And like maniacs, lunatic, animal-like shouting and assaulting pieces of wood that say Black Lives Matter on them, wishing they could be doing it to people. So, it was a very heavy experience, to go right up against this like that. But it mattered because this has to be opposed. They can’t be allowed to dominate the public square and the public discourse.

And it is shameful that there weren’t more people out there. Everybody who was out celebrating, rightfully so, a week before when Trump lost should’ve been out there standing up there against this. It would have been a world of difference. That amount of hatred needs to stay on the defensive.

After we protested in the middle of the mob and then made it in the morning, we went to BLM Plaza near the White House and one of the people we ran into said that when they got off the train at Union Station—they are young and gay and visibly you might guess that—and they were set upon by five of these MAGA fascists with flak vests on surrounded this person, jeering, “Oh you’re gay? You’re a faggot!” They were hurling all these slurs at them and physically domineering and intimidating them. They said, “I just thought to myself, ‘I got to get down to the White House, maybe if I get there I’ll find my people.’ And, yeah, I found my people here.” And the Black woman who was with us, and the others who were with us who were really shook coming through the mob of fascists, when we got down to BLM Plaza and rallied and came back together, people saw it all the way through. They took all that emotion that they felt about what was hurled at them and what the history of that and the threat of that writ large for the future, and they poured it out in their chants and their dance and their song and their sense of standing together. And it actually felt really good to stand up.

You know, the idea that you hide from this shit, and you go in your home and you avoid the confrontation. That is a morally compromised place to be and it does damage and because of that, it doesn’t feel nearly as good as standing and being in the face of this and coming through that. And I was so proud of the people who stood up and I know we gave voice to what millions and millions feel, but those millions have to join this because there is actually a fight for the future that is still ongoing. And Trump is still in power and these MAGA fascists are marauding and they must not be allowed to dominate the public space and the public discourse.

LB: I was going to ask you what you would say to those who told everybody going into this, there was a whole outcry going into this of, “Don’t go into the streets.” It was all over the internet. “Stay home, you’re gonna provoke these people, you’re gonna provoke Trump.” I think you’ve spoken to that some already, but if there is more you want to say about that.

ST: Look, the fascist Trump/Pence regime, a genocidal, racist regime, is still in power. They are unleashing their mobs in the streets. Hiding from that will not make them go away, it will make them stronger. And I’m sorry, if you want to spend more energy—which way too many “woke” people and “progressive” people did—condemning those who stand up against fascists and white supremacists than you want to put into actually standing up against those fascists and white supremacists, you are no different than the people who told the Freedom Riders, “Don’t go to the South. Don’t provoke them.” Who, when they were set upon by mobs said, “Why did you rile them up?” You’re no different than the people who told Frederick Douglass, “Don’t publish your memoir and don’t go on your speaking tour because you might push things too far... we’re getting towards abolition, we just want to go a little slower.” Larry Kramer, everybody loves Larry Kramer today, there’s movies made about him for good reason, he led ACT UP, who led a lot of struggle to wake people up to the AIDS epidemic and get help for people who were dying, gay men especially in massive numbers. But at the time, Larry Kramer was very unpopular and I’m sorry, the verdict is in history and it applies today.

There’s always those who say, “Oh, you’re protesting in the wrong way. Oh, you’re protesting at the wrong time.” I actually had someone tell me today that they could come up with 100 examples of how “poorly planned protests” led to less freedom. No, oppression leads to less freedom. Standing up against it leads to more freedom. That’s the way the fucking world works. And even protests that are maybe, poorly planned or not the most strategically thought through, you still put your arms around people who are on the right side. One side is right and one side is wrong. And those who stand up, even when they do it sometimes without the fullest strategic sense, they’re not the cause of oppression! And all the people who blame the victims and blame those who stand up, I’m sorry you are on the wrong fucking side of history on this. And you gotta get over to the right side, cuz a lot of those people, I think they actually do... they are of two minds. They do actually want to see the Trump horrors ended. But for a long time they have been very resistant to doing the hard work and the struggle that is actually required to stop this. And you see that playing out now, too, where they say now we’ve got a victory, let’s lay low. And you know what? With fascists, you don’t lay low. When you get a victory, you take that and you run the table with it. Let’s stay in the public square. Let’s stay on the offensive. Let’s stay saying Black lives matter. Let’s stay saying women are full human beings. Let’s stay saying get the children out of the cages cuz they’re still in fucking cages. Why would you lay low when all that is still going on and they are threatening to overturn your victory? You stand on that victory and you keep going forward and you give space and oxygen to those who have been suffering under it to come join you and stand up and actually fight for and win a different future.

That’s what we were fighting for yesterday. That’s what I think people should take from it who were part of it. It was very heroic. It was very important. And that’s what other people need to join with. We need to see it all the way through, get Trump and Pence all the way out of office and then we can have... and many of us will continue to fight for going deeper and getting to the roots of this fascism and all the oppression and injustice that is rooted in this system and the need for a whole revolution and other people will split off and go different ways and we’ll have the freedom and space to have that debate and wage that struggle.

LB: OK, well thank you so much, this is a really important discussion and I am so glad we were able to have it.

ST: Me too. Thanks, Lucha.

 

Follow: @TheRevcoms
Read: www.revcom.us
Watch: youtube.com/TheRevComs

 

Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.

 

Get a free email subscription to revcom.us:



 


 

Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/673/sights-and-sounds-nov-14-en.html

Sights and Sounds of November 14 in Washington D.C. and Around the Country

| revcom.us

 


Washington D.C. in front of the White House on election night. Photo: SkyNews.com

Reposted from RefuseFascism.org

A Statement from the Editorial Board of RefuseFascism.org on November 14, 2020

The election is over. Biden won. Trump lost. Now he and his fascist regime need to go. Trump, awash in his bitter fascist delusion, has not conceded. Pence, Barr, Pompeo play a preposterous yet deadly game with their hands on the levers of power talking of a “smooth transition to a second Trump term.”

This is not a game, but dangerous. Blocking the transition to Biden has real cost in lives: in COVID deaths and in international dimensions. Refusing to concede, to peacefully transfer power IS fascist. Whipping up their followers behind the lie of an election fraud is as dangerous as it is absurd.

The people won a righteous victory over Trump. A weight lifted from our shoulders, we danced and celebrated with good reason. These fascist charlatans must continue to feel the heat of our righteous demand that they must goEvery move they make to illegitimately hold on to power and overturn the election must be met by our side standing up—in the streets—defiantly with justice and an electoral victory behind us to say: NO! Trump/Pence OUT NOW!

After all that the people went through to win this election: voter suppression, intimidation, lies, innuendos, robo-calls, standing for hours in line risking COVID infection, we must not cede any ground to Trump’s bogus yet damaging claims. We have pledged to the people of the world: In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE TO ACCEPT A FASCIST AMERICA. TRUMP AND PENCE MUST GO!

We recognize that even beyond their moves to overturn the election, this regime still poses grave danger to humanity. They have put flunky loyalists to Trump atop the Defense Department. They have blocked information on COVID to the Biden transition. Trump’s rabid MAGA base must continue to feel deflated, demoralized, and unable to unleash their white supremacist fury on society. It is on us to turn our celebration of their defeat into our determination to not allow them to dominate the public space or public discourse. Their time IS, and must be, over.

Going forward from today we must be organized and we must mobilize so that every move they make to delegitimize, to overturn this election is strongly opposed. We must not—as some of our progressive friends say, move on. Not now. It is the fascists in power who must be compelled to move on.

Get connected with RefuseFascism.org—get linked up via text message by going to refusefascism.org, clicking “sign up” and filling out the form. Go to refusefascism.org to see latest developments and our calls to action. Over the next weeks we will be holding forums to dig more deeply into the roots of the fascism that has grown and hardened over the past four years, and is still with us as tens of millions voted for Trump. We will sponsor cultural events online to raise our sights to build on the victory won. We will continue to sound the alarm. If you, if we, are not OK with the white supremacy, xenophobia, patriarchy of this fascism and with every move they make to stay in power and advance their hateful movement and vicious program, join us. Stay vigilant and mobilized and take the streets! ¡Adelante! TRUMP/PENCE OUTNOW!

 

The Latest


Washington D.C.

RefuseFascism.org protesters righteously stood up to the fascist thugs who had gathered for the "Million MAGA March" in a Trump-supported action described by RefuseFascism.org's Sunsara Taylor as "an outrageous and illegitimate attempt to overturn the election."

As soon as these courageous protesters began non-violently gathering shortly after 11:30 am near Freedom Plaza, they were set upon by misogynist MAGA goons. Sunsara Taylor told the Guardian, Trump‘s "mob of supporters descended on us as soon as we set off. They assaulted some of us. They grabbed. They shoved. Every single person had hands put on them by multiple MAGA meatheads, but we held it together. We marched together." They chanted: "Trump pack your shit! You're illegitimate!"


The people won a victory when Trump lost and Biden won. In the midst of MAGA thugs, Refuse Fascism's banner is raised high for the people of the world.


In the early hours of November 14 in DC, the anti-people fence in front of the White House displayed a giant banner, along with numerous other "eviction notices." Photo: @nukestrat

Chicago

Los Angeles


Marching through the streets of LA: Trump/Pence Out Now!


Voices of Conscience and Resistance

Appearing in the New York Times on Monday, November 9:
A Pledge to the People of the World

See the full ad and share this announcement

 

Follow: @TheRevcoms
Read: www.revcom.us
Watch: youtube.com/TheRevComs

 

Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.

 

Get a free email subscription to revcom.us:



 


 

Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/673/three-questions-en.html

Three Questions

| revcom.us

 

Why did 70+ million people vote for this genocidal racist, male supremacist, "America First" fascist, Trump? “Is there hope for white people?”

Where did the American fascist movement behind
Trump and Pence come from?

“We should make no mistake about what is at stake in this battle with the religious right. It is not happenstance that it is a movement that draws its strength and finds its support principally in the so-called heartland of the nation and especially in its southern precincts. This is the portion of the United States that has never been comfortable with post‑WWII America. The brief period of normalcy after the war was followed within a decade by a pent-up and long overdue racial revolution that overturned centuries of culture and tradition, especially in the South. The disillusionment, two decades later, with an unpopular war in southeast Asia shook the foundations of traditional/conventional patriotism in American life; it was followed in the next decade by a sexual revolution that upset deeply entrenched views among this portion of the American populace about the subordinate place of women in society and the non-place of gay and lesbian persons in American life. These political and social and cultural defeats have now erupted into a pitched battle to turn back the clock on the last half-century and return America to its pre-war purity. It is not without significance that teaching creationism in the schools, for example, is such a prominent part of the religious right agenda. That was a battle the right lost in the mid-1920s but it is not one that the right ever acknowledged losing—just as some die-hards have never acknowledged losing the Civil War. Consequently, the restoration the religious right seeks is one that would recapture a way of life that disappeared in this nation a half‑century ago.”*

*“Reflections on Pacific School of Religion's Response to the Religious Right,” by Dr. Hubert Locke, also available at revcom.us.

What do people who yearn for a better world
need to do in the current situation?

VOTING WILL NOT BE ENOUGH — WE NEED TO TAKE TO THE STREETS, AND STAY IN THE STREETS
DEMANDING TRUMP/PENCE OUT NOW!

by Bob Avakian

Part 3:

TRUMP’S FASCISM — MORE BLATANT AND DANGEROUS EVERY DAY:
HOW A DETERMINED FIGHT AND MASSIVE MOBILIZATION COULD DEFEAT THIS

Part 2:

TRUMP IS ALREADY STEALING THE ELECTION AND THREATENING EVEN MORE VIOLENCE TO STAY IN POWER

Part 1:

THE DEMOCRATS CAN'T FIGHT TRUMP
THE WAY HE NEEDS TO BE FOUGHT

A talk by Bob Avakian

The Problem, the Solution, and the Challenges Before Us

An important talk given by Bob Avakian in the summer of 2017.

Read talk      |        Listen

 

 

 

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Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/633/bob-avakian-a-radically-different-leader-en.html

BOB AVAKIAN: A RADICALLY DIFFERENT LEADER—A WHOLE NEW FRAMEWORK FOR HUMAN EMANCIPATION

Bob Avakian (BA) is the most important political thinker and leader in the world today.

| revcom.us

 

Bob Avakian is completely different than the endless stream of bourgeois politicians who are put forward as “leaders,” whose goal is to maintain one variation or another of this system of capitalism-imperialism that is founded on and perpetuates itself through cruel and literally life-stealing exploitation, murderous oppression, and massive destruction, in all parts of the world. BA is a revolutionary who bases himself on the scientific understanding that this system must finally be overthrown through an organized struggle involving millions of people, and replaced with a system that is oriented to and capable of meeting the most fundamental needs of humanity and enabling humanity to become fit caretakers of the earth.

Bob Avakian is the architect of a whole new framework of human emancipation, the new synthesis of communism, which is popularly referred to as the "new communism."

BA is the author of the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, an inspiring application of the new communism—a sweeping vision and concrete blueprint for a new socialist society, whose fundamental goal is to bring about a world without classes and class distinctions, a world without exploitation and oppression, and without the destructive divisions and antagonisms among people: a communist world.

Ardea Skybreak, a scientist with professional training in ecology and evolutionary biology, and a follower of Bob Avakian, speaks to the importance of what he has brought forward:

Bob Avakian ... on the basis of decades of hard work [has been] developing a whole body of work—theory to advance the science of communism, to advance the science of revolution, to more deeply explain where the problems come from, what the strategy is for getting out of this mess, what the methods and approaches should be to stay on track and actually build a better world, to build a society that most human beings would want to live in. (From Science and Revolution, On the Importance of Science and the Application of Science to Society, the New Synthesis of Communism and the Leadership of Bob Avakian, An Interview with Ardea Skybreak)

BA is a leader who is firmly convinced, on the basis of a consistently scientific method and approach, that the goal must be nothing less than all-out revolution, and who at the same time has emphasized:

the new communism thoroughly repudiates and is determined to root out of the communist movement the poisonous notion, and practice, that “the ends justifies the means.” It is a bedrock principle of the new communism that the “means” of this movement must flow from and be consistent with the fundamental “ends” of abolishing all exploitation and oppression through revolution led on a scientific basis. (From Breakthroughs: The Historic Breakthrough by Marx, and the Further Breakthrough with the New Communism, A Basic Summary)

As a revolutionary leader, BA also embodies this rare combination: someone who has been able to develop scientific theory on a world-class level, while at the same time having a deep understanding of and visceral connection with the most oppressed, and a highly developed ability to “break down” complex theory and make it broadly accessible.

A leader like this has never before existed in the history of this country, and this leadership is of tremendous importance for the emancipation of all humanity.

What is urgently needed now is for continually growing numbers of people—in the thousands, and ultimately millions—to become conscious and active followers of BA, building the revolutionary movement, based on the new communism, for which BA provides this unprecedented leadership.

Download poster and leaflet:

11x17 poster

8.5x11 two-sided leaflet

CONSTITUTION For The New Socialist Republic In North America

Click to read and download (PDF)

 

 

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Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/670/bob-avakian-only-someone-worse-than-a-fool-en.html

| revcom.us

 

Only someone worse than a fool would want that racist Confederacy-loving white supremacist, pussy-grabbing misogynistic male supremacist, LGBT-bashing, rights‑trampling, science-denying, environment-destroying, war-mongering, xenophobic “America first” bloodsucking fascist motherfucker Trump to get re-elected.

Bob Avakian

Read all the articles in Bob Avakian’s new series

 

Follow: @TheRevcoms
Read: www.revcom.us
Watch: youtube.com/TheRevComs

 

Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/672/quotations-from-bob-avakian-en.html

Quotations From Bob Avakian on the Urgent Need to Drive Out the Fascist Trump/Pence Regime, Voting in This Election, the Need to Take the Streets, and the Fundamental Need for REVOLUTION

| revcom.us

 

Right now, for everyone who is concerned with ending injustice and oppression, and with the question of whether humanity will have a future worth living—or will have a future at all—removing the Trump/Pence fascist regime from power is an immediate, urgent question and truly historic imperative.

STATEMENT BY BOB AVAKIAN, August 1, 2020
ON THE IMMEDIATE CRITICAL SITUATION, THE URGENT NEED TO DRIVE OUT THE FASCIST TRUMP/PENCE REGIME, VOTING IN THIS ELECTION, AND THE FUNDAMENTAL NEED FOR REVOLUTION

We can recognize the looming shadow of a situation where not just school children, but everyone in society, will be required to pledge allegiance to a white Christian fascist America.

STATEMENT BY BOB AVAKIAN, August 1, 2020

Fascism is: open and aggressive dictatorship, trampling on and perverting the rule of law, relying on violence and terror, on behalf of the predatory capitalist system and as an extreme attempt to deal with profound social division and acute crises (both within the country and in the global arena).

STATEMENT BY BOB AVAKIAN, August 1, 2020

Hitler and the NAZIs came to power in Germany in the 1930s through the “normal channels” of the “democratic system” there—including elections—but there was absolutely nothing “legitimate” about their rule and all the truly unspeakable horrors it led to. And the same basic principle applies to the Trump/Pence regime. By its very nature and content, there is no such thing as “legitimate” fascism.

STATEMENT BY BOB AVAKIAN, August 1, 2020

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

STATEMENT BY BOB AVAKIAN, August 1, 2020

The question is not whether Biden and the Democrats represent something “good,” or whether, in fundamental terms, the Democrats are “better” than the Republicans. Both of these parties are ruling class political parties, and none of their candidates represent anything “good” in the most basic and essential sense. Biden is not “better” than Trump, in any meaningful way—except that he is not Trump and is not part of the move to consolidate and enforce fascist rule, with everything that means.

STATEMENT BY BOB AVAKIAN, August 1, 2020

The fact is that there can be one—and only one—“good” that can come out of this election: delivering a decisive defeat to Trump and the whole fascist regime. Doing this would create far better conditions for continuing to wage the struggle against everything represented by the Trump/Pence regime and all the oppression and injustices of this system, and would be a great gift to the people of the world.

STATEMENT BY BOB AVAKIAN, August 1, 2020

Our fundamental goal, and guiding star, remains: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! 

In everything we do, including in all the struggles we take part in that are themselves short of revolution, our consistent approach is, and must be, to make all this serve that fundamental goal of revolution and the emancipation of all humanity.

STATEMENT BY BOB AVAKIAN, August 1, 2020

Only someone worse than a fool would want that racist Confederacy-loving white supremacist, pussy-grabbing misogynistic male supremacist, LGBT-bashing, rights-trampling, science-denying, environment-destroying, war-mongering, xenophobic “America first” bloodsucking fascist motherfucker Trump to get re-elected.

Genocide means killing off a whole people, or a large part of that people. Genocide is what the Europeans did to the native peoples in America, while stealing their land. Genocide is Hitler and the NAZIs murdering six million Jews. Donald Trump is a genocidal racist.

Donald Trump—GENOCIDAL RACIST

Donald Trump hates Black people and everybody who is not a white, English-speaking, Christian American.” If he could, he would kill off a whole lot of them, and put many of the rest in jail for life, or drive them out of the country.

Donald Trump—GENOCIDAL RACIST

The minds of these fascists will not be changed by “being nice” to them or acting as if their “grievances” are “legitimate.”

The reality is that these “grievances” flow from resentment against any changes that even slightly undermine white supremacy, male supremacy, xenophobia (hatred of foreigners), rabid American chauvinism, and the unrestrained plundering of the environment.

VOTING WILL NOT BE ENOUGH—WE NEED TO TAKE TO THE STREETS, AND STAY IN THE STREETS DEMANDING TRUMP/PENCE OUT NOW! Part 1

As truly dangerous as these fascist threats and acts of violence, and preparations to carry out even more violence, are—being cowed by and capitulating to this would lead to a far greater horror.

VOTING WILL NOT BE ENOUGH—WE NEED TO TAKE TO THE STREETS, AND STAY IN THE STREETS DEMANDING TRUMP/PENCE OUT NOW! Part 2

Losing one’s ability to be outraged, and to act on that outrage, means losing one’s humanity—and, given the situation we are facing, it amounts to collaborating with the fascism of this regime and the catastrophe toward which it is relentlessly propelling humanity.

VOTING WILL NOT BE ENOUGH—WE NEED TO TAKE TO THE STREETS, AND STAY IN THE STREETS DEMANDING TRUMP/PENCE OUT NOW! Part 2

As for vice president Mike Pence: While he might not express things in the same blustering, blatant and vulgar ways as Trump, Pence is a religious fundamentalist fanatic, who represents a powerful force driving the whole fascist program of this regime.

VICE PRESIDENT PENCE—FUNDAMENTALIST FANATIC, CRUCIAL FORCE IN THE FASCIST REGIME

While “old school” NAZIs and armed thugs (like the Proud Boys), are useful as storm troopers for the fascist Trump/Pence regime, it is Christian fundamentalism that is the hard core and driving force of this regime.

VICE PRESIDENT PENCE—FUNDAMENTALIST FANATIC, CRUCIAL FORCE IN THE FASCIST REGIME

Do any of the bourgeois politicians, of either the Democratic or Republican Party, represent anything good?

No. They all represent something very bad: the system of capitalism-imperialism that is based on monstrous, literally murderous exploitation and oppression of masses of people, not just in this country but all over the world.

Are all these politicians—and both of these political parties—“the same”?

No, again. They have real differences over how this system should be governed, and enforced, and how this society should be held together under the rule of this system.

Do these differences actually matter for those who are exploited and oppressed under this system, for all those who aspire to a more just world?

It depends. Most of the time, the differences between these two parties are not significant enough to make it right and necessary to single out one party and focus on opposing it. But, on very rare occasions, these differences do matter that much. This is one of those times.

THE ACUTE FASCIST DANGER—RISING ABOVE PETTY “LEFTISM,” ACTING IN THE INTERESTS OF HUMANITY, Basic Questions, Existential Stakes

Driving out the fascist Trump/Pence regime is urgently necessary. It concentrates the question of whether there will be any favorable basis for continuing the struggle against racist oppression and police terror and every kind of injustice and oppression, as well as the plunder of the environment. It concentrates the question of whether there will be a future—one worth living—for humanity.

Refusing to recognize this reality, saying it does not matter now which group of politicians is in power, and taking up the worse than meaningless stance that “these politicians are all the same”—this is not simply silly pseudo-“left” sectarian nonsense—it amounts to active collaboration with this fascist regime and the very real horrors it is relentlessly moving to hammer into place.

THE ACUTE FASCIST DANGER—RISING ABOVE PETTY “LEFTISM,” ACTING IN THE INTERESTS OF HUMANITY, Basic Questions, Existential Stakes

A one-sided civil war—waged only by the forces of fascism against everyone and everything they hate and are determined to wipe out or beat into submission—would be a disaster. Ignoring the reality that these fascists are definitely prepared to carry out such a civil war, if they see it as necessary to achieve their objectives, will only make such a disaster more likely. And nothing good will come from relying on those, like the leaders of the Democratic Party, who refuse to call out this fascism for what it is and oppose it on that basis, because doing so would call into question the “legitimacy” of their whole system, which has given rise to this fascism.

Bob Avakian on CIVIL WAR AND REVOLUTION

What is urgently needed is a massive struggle against the fascism of the Trump/Pence regime and determined opposition to the “base” it is mobilizing in its support. This struggle needs to be waged in a serious way, in accordance with the actual stakes involved—not seeking or initiating violence but also not cowed into submission by the actions of the fascists.

Bob Avakian on CIVIL WAR AND REVOLUTION

Far too often, people who claim to be “woke” say that, since Black people have always been subjected to horrific oppression in this country, Trump is no different than other politicians, and there is no reason, and no need, to focus on opposing Trump and building mass mobilization to demand the removal of the Trump/Pence regime. This is like arguing that, since this country was founded in slavery, it makes no difference if slavery is brought back now!

People need to understand that Trump is a genocidal racist.  He may not be trying to bring back literal slavery but he is definitely aiming to take this country back to a situation where overt white supremacy is blatantly promoted, codified in law and court decisions, and enforced through systematic, full-blown white supremacist violence.

SLEEPWALKING “WOKENESS” AND THE TRUMP/PENCE NIGHTMARE

There can be no “reconciliation” with these fascists—whose “grievances” are based on fanatical resentment against any limitation on white supremacy, male supremacy, xenophobia (hatred of foreigners), rabid American chauvinism, and the unrestrained plundering of the environment, and are increasingly expressed in literally lunatic terms. There can be no “reconciliation” with this, other than on the terms of these fascists, with all the terrible implications and consequences of that!

VOTING WILL NOT BE ENOUGH—WE NEED TO TAKE TO THE STREETS, AND STAY IN THE STREETS DEMANDING TRUMP/PENCE OUT NOW! Part 2

DONALD TRUMP ISN’T “TOUGH,” HE’S A BLOATED BAG OF FASCIST FECES

Bob Avakian (BA) is the most important political thinker and leader in the world today.

Get Into BA »

 

Follow: @TheRevcoms
Read: www.revcom.us
Watch: youtube.com/TheRevComs

 

Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/659/bob-avakian_statement-on-the-immediate-critical-situation-en.html

STATEMENT BY BOB AVAKIAN
August 1, 2020

ON THE IMMEDIATE CRITICAL SITUATION,
THE URGENT NEED TO DRIVE OUT THE FASCIST TRUMP/PENCE REGIME,
VOTING IN THIS ELECTION,
AND THE FUNDAMENTAL NEED FOR REVOLUTION

| revcom.us

 

1The situation today holds truly unprecedented and momentous challenges, with profound implications not only for the people in this country but for all of humanity. Three years ago, I spoke to this reality—which has become even more pronounced, and even more dangerous, in the time since then:

We are confronted by—we are now being ruled by—a fascist regime: relentlessly assaulting civil rights and liberties and openly promoting bigotry and inequality; acting with callous disregard or cold-blooded malice toward those they consider inferior and a drain or stain on the country; on a mission to deny health care to millions who will suffer and many who will die without it; crudely degrading women, as objects of plunder, breeders of children without the right to abortion or birth control, subordinate to husbands and men in general; defying the science of climate change, attacking the science of evolution, and repudiating the scientific method overall; a regime brandishing an arsenal of mass destruction and threatening nuclear war; intensifying state terror against Muslims, immigrants, and people in the inner cities; unleashing and giving encouragement and support to brutal thugs spewing vile “America First,” white supremacist, male supremacist, and anti-LGBT venom—a regime that boasts of all this and declares its intention to do even worse.

This is a regime headed by “a demented bully” with his finger on the nuclear button. It is a regime that, without exaggeration, threatens not just greatly heightened suffering for the masses of humanity but the very existence of humanity itself, through its intensified moves to further the plunder of the environment and its boasts of unequaled weapons of mass destruction and its blatant declaration of willingness to use those weapons, including its massive nuclear arsenal.

I have also emphasized that it is this system of capitalism-imperialism which, through its “normal workings,” has brought forth this fascism, and that no fundamental change for the better can be brought about under this system, and instead this system must be overthrown and replaced by a radically different and far better system, in order to abolish and uproot all relations of exploitation and oppression, and the violent conflicts they give rise to—all of which is built into the foundations of this system and its ongoing functioning and requirements.

Right now, for everyone who is concerned with ending injustice and oppression, and with the question of whether humanity will have a future worth living—or will have a future at all—removing the Trump/Pence fascist regime from power is an immediate, urgent question and truly historic imperative.

And, for those who understand the need for revolution, for the overthrow of this system, as the fundamental solution to the continuing horrors this system causes for the masses of humanity (whether this system is ruled through an open fascist dictatorship, or the disguised “democratic” dictatorship, of the ruling capitalist class), the immediate struggle to oust the Trump/Pence regime from power must be approached not as a “diversion” from (or “substitute for”) building the movement for the revolution that is needed, but precisely as part—a crucial part and urgent requirement—of the overall work of building for this revolution.

Our fundamental goal, and guiding star, remains: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! 

In everything we do, including in all the struggles we take part in that are themselves short of revolution, our consistent approach is, and must be, to make all this serve that fundamental goal of revolution and the emancipation of all humanity.

***********

Normally, we revolutionary communists argue that people should not vote in bourgeois elections, which serve to reinforce the existing system of capitalism-imperialism and feed popular illusions that exploitation, oppression and injustices can somehow be “reformed away” short of getting rid of the system that gives rise to these horrors in the first place. But is this the right position to take in relation to this particular election?

To answer this, we need to look at the whole picture.  [Read again]

2Already, in the nearly four years it has been in power, we have been forced to witness and endure the horrors already committed, and the grave danger posed, by the Trump/Pence regime. Trump ran his campaign in 2016 on what amounted to a straight-up fascist program, including blatant white supremacy and male supremacy, and xenophobic racism toward immigrants, particularly those from Mexico and other countries which Trump regards as “shit-holes,” as well as open advocacy of torture and thuggery by police and Trump’s “civilian” supporters. And, once in power, Trump has blasted ahead with the implementation of this program, steamrolling over any “institutional norms” that stood in the way of this, even in the face of impeachment—and with heightened arrogance and momentum once his fellow fascists in the Republican Party voted to acquit him in the Senate.

Essentially, everything that is described about this regime at the beginning of this statement is what Trump and those around him have carried out with a vengeance. This has become all the more flagrant and aggressive with the approach of the election scheduled for this November. And imagine what Trump will do if he is given a second-term “mandate” through re-election this coming November.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the response of Trump and Pence to this has also provided another graphic illustration of the anti-scientific nature of this regime and its utter disregard for the suffering of masses of people, especially those most despised by this regime and most vulnerable to and hit hardest by this pandemic.

But, as horrific as all this has been, it is not just a matter of horrific policies but of qualitatively different form of rule, based on brutal repression and violation of what are supposed to be the most basic rights.

Already we have seen Trump, in flagrant violation of Constitutional principles, send occupying storm troopers, from various federal government agencies, to criminalize dissent and suppress people protesting in Portland and other cities, and to add to the reign of terror against masses of people in the inner cities of Chicago and elsewhere.

We have seen Trump’s crude displays of “America First” jingoism, including his repeated calls for severely punishing those who, in his view, have failed to show the appropriate patriotic fervor, or who have dared to raise criticism and protest against some of the more glaring oppression carried out by enforcers of this system, in particular the ongoing brutality and murder of Black, Brown, and Native American people by police. We have witnessed his continual encouragement of white supremacist thuggery, by police and by “Second Amendment people” and other “very fine people.”

All this calls to mind the rise to power and the rule of Hitler and the NAZIs in Germany during the 1930s and early 1940s. As Hitler built his fascist movement, thugs would be mobilized to brutalize and terrorize people who didn’t show support for Hitler and the NAZIs—assaulting them on the street and in other public places. Once the NAZI fascist state had consolidated its power, any opposition was severely punished and crushed. All those who did not openly endorse and proclaim the official NAZI ideology were targeted. Large numbers of people were purged from public institutions—all those, in particular Jews but others as well, who were deemed “alien” to the “pure Germanic race” and an obstacle to the monstrous aims of the NAZIs. Beginning with the communists, but before long encompassing the Jewish population, Roma people, homosexuals, and others, concentration camps were filled with those who were considered a threat to the NAZIs or a “stain” on the German nation. And this led, before long, to the mass genocide of millions of Jews in Germany and countries conquered and occupied by the NAZIs.

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

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

A statement from the organization Refuse Fascism (RefuseFascism.org) argues eloquently and powerfully:

Actual lines are being drawn, with catastrophic consequences for all of humanity. If we lose the right to protest—through legal or extra‑legal means—all bets are off. Fascism is not just the worst of a pendulum swing. It is a qualitative change in how society is governed. Dissent is piece by piece criminalized. The truth is bludgeoned. Group after group is demonized and targeted along a trajectory that leads to real horrors. All this has been happening for more than three years, yet with concentration camps at the border, Trump acquitted in a sham impeachment trial, and an executive order to protect monuments while First Amendment rights are criminalized with actual jail time, too many still want to bask in the comfortable delusions that this is not really happening. This is fascism. It is happening, and time is running out to stop it.

For far too long, those of us, including the diverse voices represented by Refuse Fascism, who have been pointing to the very real immediate danger—and potentially even greater danger—represented by the Trump/Pence regime were far too often met with arrogant dismissal by those who could not, or would not, see the reality and the trajectory of this regime; who dismissed the danger by ignoring or downplaying many of the terrible things this regime had already done; and who then pointed to whatever had not yet been done by this regime as supposed “proof” that it would not do those things. Now, at this late and crucial hour, to treat as “alarmist exaggeration” the fascist nature of this regime and its very real parallels with the horrors perpetrated by previous fascist regimes—this is to ignore not only vital lessons from history, but also the extremely dangerous reality of the current situation, including the significance of the fact that Trump—fulfilling his promise to Christian fascists—has stacked the courts, all the way up to the Supreme Court, with legions of Christian fascists and other extreme right-wing judges, who will move to “legally legitimize” the whole horrific program of the Trump/Pence fascist regime.

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

In the most essential sense, the urgent need to mobilize masses of people around the demand to force the removal of this fascist regime is not in conflict with the mass outpouring against institutionalized white supremacy and police terror, or other mass movements against the outrages of this system, but is in basic unity with and is crucial for all these struggles, and all this can and must be understood, and built, in a powerful mutually reinforcing way.  [Read again]

3Simply relying on voting to oust this regime will almost certainly lead to very bad, even disastrous results. This is especially true given what this regime is already doing, and what Trump is saying, in relation to the election.

Through completely unfounded attacks on voting by mail, and preparation to intimidate and obstruct Black people and Latinos attempting to exercise their right to vote, moves are already underway by the Trump/Pence regime and its supporters to suppress the votes of those who are likely to vote against Trump. As he did in the 2016 election, Trump has already indicated his likely refusal to accept the result of the election this time if he is not the winner. And now Trump has openly “floated” the idea of “delaying” the election.

Given what Trump has already done, and what he has blatantly declared, as much as it is horrifying it is also very realistic to envision this regime stationing storm troopers, loyal to this regime, in cities all across this country—viciously moving to suppress any expression of resistance or opposition—with the approach of the election, and continuing beyond that.

The ongoing pandemic, or executive orders to quell “civil disorder” (i.e., protests) in many parts of the country, could also serve as pretexts to “postpone” the election, perhaps indefinitely.

And it is certainly not unthinkable that Trump would move to create a “national emergency”—for example, by carrying out acts of war, against Iran or possibly even China—in order to further institute even more extreme repressive conditions, with even greater numbers of para-military storm troopers occupying cities, in order either to cancel (or indefinitely “delay”) the election, or to control the voting and the results of the election if it is held.

It is of critical importance to continue to build resistance, right now and in an increasingly powerful way, against any and all repressive moves by Trump, including by building mass opposition to this regime’s attempts at voter suppression and through mass mobilization in support and defense of those who are targets of such suppression.

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

From the first days of the Trump/Pence regime, Refuse Fascism has been calling out the fascism of this regime and calling for the mass mobilization to drive out this regime that is now, all the more urgently, required. It would have been very good—it could have made a real difference—if all those who hate this regime but failed, or refused, to recognize its actual fascist nature and the great danger to humanity it poses as such, had much earlier responded to and actively taken up this call by Refuse Fascism. Now, finally, there is a growing recognition, and increasing discussion, about the “authoritarian” nature of this regime, and even the use of the term “fascism” to describe it. (As I have pointed out, on the part of many, this is a case of “Oh, now they’re saying” this is fascism, as if that has just become the case. But, with an understanding of the profound stakes involved, it is important to recognize that now is better than never.) The hour is getting late—but it is still not too late to make this mass mobilization a reality. Relying on, and confining actions within, the “norms” and “regular channels” of this system, including the upcoming election, cannot solve this profound and urgent problem, especially when dealing with a fascist regime and its fanatical followers that are determined to trample on and tear up those “norms.”  [Read again]

4At this critical hour, every appropriate means of non-violent action must be utilized to remove this regime from power. And if, in spite of mass protest demanding the removal of the Trump/Pence regime, this regime remains in power when it is time for voting, then—without placing fundamental reliance on this—using all appropriate means to work for the removal of this regime must include voting against Trump (assuming the election is actually held). To be clear, this means not a “protest vote” for some candidate who has no chance of winning, but actually voting for the Democratic Party candidate, Biden, in order to effectively vote against Trump.

This is not because Biden (and the Democratic Party in general) have suddenly become something other than what they are: representatives and instruments of this exploitative, oppressive, and literally murderous system of capitalism-imperialism. The electoral process continues to be what we revcoms have called it—BEB (Bourgeois Electoral Bullshit). It remains the case that no fundamental change for the better can come about through this electoral process, and that, in general and overall, voting under this system serves to reinforce this system, especially if voting is seen as a way—and more so if it is seen as the (only) way—to bring about meaningful change.

But this election is different.

It is true that, with every election, the Democrats run the same basic con game—blackmailing people who hate injustice and oppression to vote for them as the “lesser evil”— insisting in effect that, “You may not agree with everything we say, you may even have serious differences and criticisms regarding what we’re all about—but do you want them to be in power?!” (the openly white supremacist, male supremacist, climate change-denying plunderers of the environment, and all-around reactionary Republican Party). And the Democratic Party has done this, time after time after time, while itself representing and seeking to preside over this system of capitalism-imperialism which has white supremacy, male supremacy, environmental plunder and wars for empire built into it, at the same time as the Democrats make noises about, and take some steps to implement, minor (and ultimately meaningless) reforms to supposedly address these outrages. All this has actually contributed to the development of things toward the terrible situation we are faced with now. It has politically paralyzed many who seek an end to such outrages, reducing them to passive dependents on the Democratic Party and its role in the electoral process, while adding fuel to the fire of the die-hard fascist sections of society that insist on absolutely no mitigation of these outrages—no concession to the struggle against this—and in fact demand the brutal reinforcement of this oppression and outrage, in extreme terms.

But, again, this election is different—in a crucially important way. The question is not whether Biden and the Democrats represent something “good,” or whether, in fundamental terms, the Democrats are “better” than the Republicans. Both of these parties are ruling class political parties, and none of their candidates represent anything “good” in the most basic and essential sense. Biden is not “better” than Trump, in any meaningful way—except that he is not Trump and is not part of the move to consolidate and enforce fascist rule, with everything that means.

To approach this election from the standpoint of which candidate is “better” means failing to understand the truly profound stakes and potential consequences of what is involved. The fact is that there can be one—and only one—“good” that can come out of this election: delivering a decisive defeat to Trump and the whole fascist regime. Doing this would create far better conditions for continuing to wage the struggle against everything represented by the Trump/Pence regime and all the oppression and injustices of this system, and would be a great gift to the people of the world.

Again, in these very particular, extraordinary circumstances, if the Trump/Pence regime is still in power by the time of the election, in spite of mass mobilizations demanding the ouster of this regime, then the struggle against this fascist regime needs to include voting against Trump by voting for Biden, while continuing to build sustained mass mobilization against this regime and everything it represents and concentrates, and being prepared to carry forward this mass mobilization if Trump loses the election but refuses to leave.  [Read again]

5In recognizing this, however, it is extremely important to stress once again, in the strongest terms, that, for the reasons spoken to here, relying on voting—without this mass mobilizationwill very likely lead to disaster.

There is the possibility that Trump could actually win the election—although whether he wins or loses, this election will involve unprecedented moves to suppress the votes of those opposing him and to use other illegal means to enable him to remain in power. And, even more essentially, with the clear understanding of the fascist nature of this regime, and the full implications of that, this regime is illegitimate, regardless of the means by which it has come to power and moves to retain and further consolidate power. Hitler and the NAZIs came to power in Germany in the 1930s through the “normal channels” of the “democratic system” there—including elections—but there was absolutely nothing “legitimate” about their rule and all the truly unspeakable horrors it led to. And the same basic principle applies to the Trump/Pence regime. By its very nature and content, there is no such thing as “legitimate” fascism.

Whatever happens with the election—and even if Biden wins and succeeds in actually taking office—there will be no “return to normalcy.” First of all, the fascists—those still in powerful positions, and the fascist “base” in the wider society—will not allow it. And, in any case, no one should want it. The “normalcy” of this system has always included the barbaric oppression of Black people and other people of color, with systematic terror, brutality and murder to enforce this oppression. It has always included vicious discrimination, bigotry and violence against immigrants, women, LGBTQ people, and any others regarded as inferior and “alien.” It has always included unjust wars for empire, and continuing crimes against humanity. It now poses a threat to the very existence of humanity through its increasing devastation of the environment and the ever present threat of nuclear war.

The many-sided struggle to oust the fascist Trump/Pence regime must be taken up not as a substitute for but as a part—a crucial part—of moving to get beyond all that is represented by and embodied in the “normalcy” of this system.  [Read again]

6Finally, regardless of what happens with this election, it remains profoundly true—and it is vitally important to recognize, and to act on the understanding—that no fundamental change for the better can come under this system. Even as sustained mass mobilization urgently needs to be built around the unifying demand of Trump/Pence OUT NOW!, all those who have come to see that institutionalized white supremacy, male supremacy and the many other outrages and crimes against humanity perpetrated under this system are in fact built into this system of capitalism-imperialism must work together, in an ongoing way, to build a continually growing movement and to strengthen the organized forces for an actual revolution to overthrow this system.

In summation: Given the truly monumental stakes involved, not only in terms of any particular issue, no matter how important, and not merely in terms of this country, but for the masses of people throughout the world and the future of humanity, there is a great need to approach things and act with the sophistication necessary to handle the complex and difficult contradictions involved in all this—having a broad vision, rejecting petty sectarianism and brittle dogmatism, and not falling into a paralyzing “either/or”: either we fight against white supremacy and police terror, or we fight to bring about the removal of the Trump/Pence fascist regime; either we vote in this election, or we build mass struggle against outrageous oppression and against this fascist regime; either we oppose this regime, by all appropriate means, or we work for revolution. In this extraordinary and very complex situation—and from the point of view of advancing the struggle toward the goal of finally eliminating all exploitation and oppression, everywhere—there is an urgent need to do all of thatand to do so with an understanding of the correct and necessary relation between the different parts of this overall approach: putting the main emphasis and reliance on mass mobilization, with voting in this extraordinary situation necessary and important but not the main thing to be relied upon; and, in fundamental terms, making all this contribute to creating more favorable conditions for, and building up the organized forces for, not only resisting the crimes of this system but finally carrying out the revolution that is needed in order to put an end to this monstrously criminal system and its domination in the world, in any form.  [Read again]

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Bob Avakian
1 août 2020

SUR LA SITUATION CRITIQUE IMMÉDIATE,
LA NÉCESSITÉ URGENTE DE CHASSER LE RÉGIME FASCISTE DE TRUMP ET PENCE,
LE VOTE DANS CETTE ÉLECTION,
ET LE BESOIN FONDAMENTAL D’UNE RÉVOLUTION

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We received this translation in French. This is an unofficial translation, and we do not vouch for its accuracy.

1La situation actuelle comporte des défis véritablement sans précédent et d’une importance capitale, avec des implications profondes non seulement pour les habitants de ce pays mais pour l’humanité tout entière. Il y a trois ans, j’ai parlé de cette réalité – qui est devenue encore plus prononcée, et encore plus dangereuse, dans le temps qui s’est écoulé depuis lors :

Nous sommes confrontés à – nous sommes gouvernés par – un régime fasciste : qui s’attaque sans relâche aux droits et libertés civils et promut ouvertement la bigoterie et l’inégalité ; qui agit avec un mépris impitoyable ou une malveillance de sang-froid envers ceux qu’il considère comme inférieurs et comme un fardeau ou une tache sur le pays ; dont la mission englobe le refus de soins de santé à des millions de personnes qui vont souffrir et à beaucoup d’autres qui vont mourir sans ces soins ; un régime qui dégrade grossièrement les femmes, en tant qu’objets de pillage, comme des pondeuses sans droit à l’avortement ou à la contraception, subordonnées aux maris et aux hommes en général ; qui conteste la science du changement climatique, attaque la science de l’évolution et répudie la méthode scientifique dans son ensemble ; un régime qui brandit un arsenal de destruction massive et menace la guerre nucléaire ; qui intensifie la terreur d’État contre les musulmans, les immigrants et les habitants des quartiers populaires ; qui déchaîne et encourage et soutient des voyous brutaux crachant leur venin « priorité à l’Amérique », de suprématie blanche, de suprématie masculine et anti-LGBTQ – un régime qui se vante de tout cela et déclare son intention de faire encore pire.

Il s’agit d’un régime dirigé par « une brute démente » avec le doigt sur le bouton nucléaire. C’est un régime qui, sans exagération, menace non seulement d’accroître considérablement les souffrances des masses de l’humanité, mais aussi l’existence même de l’humanité, par l’intensification de ses actions visant à poursuivre le pillage de l’environnement, par ses armes de destruction massive inégalées et par sa déclaration flagrante de volonté d’utiliser ces armes, y compris son arsenal nucléaire massif.

J’ai aussi souligné que c’est ce système de capitalisme-impérialisme qui, par son « fonctionnement normal », a fait naître ce fascisme et qu’aucun changement fondamental pour le mieux ne peut être apporté dans le cadre de ce système, et qu’au contraire, ce système doit être renversé et remplacé par un système radicalement différent et bien meilleur, afin d’abolir et de déraciner tous les rapports d’exploitation et d’oppression, ainsi que les conflits violents qu’ils engendrent – tout cela étant intégré dans les fondements de ce système et dans son fonctionnement et ses exigences permanents.

À l’heure actuelle, pour tous ceux et toutes celles qui ont à cœur de mettre fin à l’injustice et à l’oppression, et engagent la question de savoir si l’humanité aura un avenir qui en vaut la peine – ou n’aura pas d’avenir du tout : obliger le régime fasciste de Trump/Pence de quitter le pouvoir est une question immédiate et urgente et un impératif véritablement historique.

Et, pour ceux et celles qui comprennent la nécessité de la révolution, du renversement de ce système, comme la solution fondamentale aux horreurs continues que ce système produit pour les masses de l’humanité (que ce système soit dirigé par une dictature fasciste ouverte, ou la dictature « démocratique » déguisée, de la classe capitaliste dominante), la lutte immédiate pour chasser le régime Trump/Pence du pouvoir doit être abordée non pas comme une « diversion » (ou un « substitut ») de la construction du mouvement pour la révolution qui est nécessaire, mais précisément comme une partie – une partie cruciale et une exigence urgente – du travail global de construction de cette révolution.

Notre objectif fondamental, et notre étoile polaire, demeure : LA RÉVOLUTION – RIEN DE MOINS ! 

Dans tout ce que nous faisons, y compris dans toutes les luttes auxquelles nous participons et qui ne sont pas elles-mêmes de nature révolutionnaire, notre approche constante est, et doit être, de mettre tout cela au service de cet objectif fondamental de la révolution et de l’émancipation de l’humanité tout entière.

***********

Normalement, nous, les communistes révolutionnaires, soutenons que les gens ne devraient pas voter aux élections bourgeoises, qui servent à renforcer le système existant de capitalisme-impérialisme et alimentent des illusions populaires selon lesquelles l’exploitation, l’oppression et les injustices peuvent d’une certaine manière être « réformées » sans se débarrasser du système qui est à l’origine de ces horreurs. Mais est-ce la bonne position à adopter par rapport à cette élection particulière ?

Pour y répondre, nous devons examiner la situation dans son ensemble.  [Relisez]

2Déjà, depuis près de quatre ans qu’il est au pouvoir, nous avons été contraints d’assister à et d’endurer les horreurs déjà commises, et le grave danger que représente le régime Trump/Pence. Trump a mené sa campagne en 2016 sur ce qui équivalait à un programme fasciste pur et simple, englobant une suprématie blanche et une suprématie masculine flagrantes, et un racisme xénophobe envers les immigrants, en particulier ceux du Mexique et d’autres pays que Trump considère comme des « trous de merde », ainsi qu’un plaidoyer ouvert en faveur de la torture et de la brutalité de la part de la police et des partisans « civils » de Trump. Et, une fois au pouvoir, Trump a mis en œuvre ce programme à toute allure, écrasant toutes les « normes institutionnelles » faisant obstacle, même face à la destitution – et avec encore plus d’arrogance et d’élan une fois que ses collègues fascistes du parti républicain ont voté pour l’acquitter au Sénat.

Essentiellement, tout ce qui est décrit à propos de ce régime au début de cette déclaration est ce que Trump et ceux qui l’entourent ont fait avec acharnement. Cela est devenu d’autant plus flagrant et agressif à l’approche des élections prévues en novembre 2020. Et imaginez ce que fera Trump s’il se voit confier un second « mandat » par le biais d’une réélection en novembre.

La pandémie COVID-19 et la réponse de Trump et Pence à celle-ci ont également fourni une autre illustration graphique de la nature anti-scientifique de ce régime et de son mépris total pour la souffrance des masses populaires, en particulier celles que ce régime déteste le plus ainsi que les plus vulnérables et les plus fortement touchées par cette pandémie.

Mais, aussi horrible que tout cela ait été, il ne s’agit pas seulement de politiques horribles, mais d’une forme de pouvoir qualitativement différente, basée sur une répression brutale et la violation de ce qui est censé être les droits les plus fondamentaux.

Nous avons déjà vu Trump, en violation flagrante des principes constitutionnels, envoyer des troupes d’assaut et d’occupation, provenant de diverses agences du gouvernement fédéral, pour criminaliser la dissidence et réprimer les personnes qui manifestent à Portland et dans d’autres villes, et pour ajouter au règne de la terreur contre des masses populaires dans les quartiers défavorisés de Chicago et ailleurs.

Nous avons vu les manifestations grossières de chauvinisme de Trump, genre « priorité à l’Amérique », y compris ses appels répétés à punir sévèrement ceux qui, selon lui, n’ont pas fait preuve de la ferveur patriotique appropriée, ou qui ont osé critiquer et protester contre certaines des oppressions les plus voyantes exercées par les exécuteurs de ce système, en particulier la brutalité et le meurtre continus des Noirs, des Latinos et des Amérindiens par la police. Nous avons été témoins de ses incitations continuelles aux violences suprémacistes blanches, par la police et par les « gens du deuxième amendement » et d’autres « gens très bien ».

Tout cela rappelle la montée au pouvoir et la domination d’Hitler et des NAZIs en Allemagne dans les années 1930 et au début des années 1940. Alors qu’Hitler construisait son mouvement fasciste, des voyous étaient mobilisés pour brutaliser et terroriser les personnes qui ne soutenaient pas Hitler et les NAZIs – les agressant dans la rue et dans d’autres lieux publics. Une fois que l’État fasciste NAZI a consolidé son pouvoir, toute opposition était sévèrement punie et écrasée. Tous ceux qui ne soutenaient pas ouvertement et ne proclamaient pas l’idéologie officielle NAZIe étaient visés. Un grand nombre de personnes ont été expulsées des institutions publiques – tous ceux, en particulier les Juifs mais aussi d’autres personnes, qui étaient considérés comme « étrangers » à la « race germanique pure » et comme un obstacle aux objectifs monstrueux des NAZIs. En commençant par les communistes, mais en englobant bientôt la population juive, les Roms, les homosexuels et d’autres, les camps de concentration ont été remplis de ceux qui étaient considérés comme une menace pour les NAZIs ou une « tache » sur la nation allemande. Et cela a conduit, avant longtemps, au génocide de masse de millions de Juifs en Allemagne et dans les pays conquis et occupés par les NAZIs.

Tout cela ne s’est pas produit d’un seul coup, mais dans un laps de temps relativement court (une dizaine d’années), et à un rythme de plus en plus rapide. L’état de droit n’a pas été ouvertement et formellement abandonné, mais la « loi » et « l’état de droit » sont devenus ce que Hitler et les NAZIs ont dit qu’ils étaient. Une grande partie de ce que Hitler et les NAZIs ont fait, pendant leur règne de terreur et de génocide, était « conforme à la loi » – une loi qu’ils avaient réduite à rien d’autre que leurs buts et moyens barbares, appliqués de manière meurtrière par des institutions qui avaient été dépouillées de tout sens ou but autre que ce qui était conforme à et servait le programme NAZI, réduites à rien d’autre que des instruments de l’atrocité NAZIe.

Dans l’ensemble de ce que Trump fait actuellement – y compris ses appels ouverts à l’annulation des décisions et des précédents de la Cour suprême (par exemple, pour interdire l’avortement et punir le fait de brûler le drapeau), ainsi que ses violations répétées de la loi et des procédures légales et son insistance à dire que c’est lui la loi – nous pouvons voir l’ombre imminente d’une dictature fasciste encore plus ouverte. Car c’est cela le fascisme : une dictature ouverte et agressive, piétinant et pervertissant l’état de droit, s’appuyant sur la violence et la terreur, au nom du système capitaliste prédateur et en tant que tentative extrême pour faire face à une division sociale profonde et à des crises aiguës (tant au sein du pays que dans l’arène mondiale). Et avec les initiatives de la « secrétaire à l’éducation » de Trump, Betsy DeVos – elle-même une chrétienne fasciste dont le but ultime est de remplacer l’éducation publique et laïque par des écoles basées sur l’endoctrinement fondamentaliste chrétien – nous pouvons voir les grandes lignes de la version du régime Trump/Pence de « l’idéologie officielle (chrétienne fasciste) ». Nous pouvons reconnaître l’ombre qui plane sur une situation où non seulement les écoliers, mais aussi toute la société, devront prêter allégeance à une Amérique blanche chrétienne fasciste.

Une déclaration de l’organisation Refuse Fascism (RefuseFascism.org) argumente de manière éloquente et puissante :

Des limites réelles sont tracées, avec des conséquences catastrophiques pour toute l’humanité. Si nous perdons le droit de protester – par des moyens légaux ou extra-légaux – tous les paris sont annulés. Le fascisme n’est pas seulement le pire des mouvements de pendule. C’est un changement qualitatif dans la manière dont la société est gouvernée. La dissidence est criminalisée pièce par pièce. La vérité est matraquée. Un groupe après l’autre est diabolisé et ciblé sur une trajectoire qui mène à de véritables horreurs. Tout cela se produit depuis plus de trois ans, mais étant donné les camps de concentration à la frontière, l’acquittement de Trump dans un faux procès de destitution et un décret visant à protéger les monuments, alors que les droits du premier amendement sont criminalisés avec de véritables peines de prison, trop de gens veulent encore se prélasser dans des illusions confortables que tout ceci ne se passe pas vraiment. C’est le fascisme. Ça se passe bel et bien, et le temps presse pour l’arrêter.

Pendant bien trop longtemps, ceux d’entre nous, y compris les diverses voix représentées par Refuse Fasicsm, qui ont souligné le danger immédiat très réel – et potentiellement encore plus grand – représenté par le régime Trump/Pence ont été trop souvent confrontés à un renvoi arrogant de la part de ceux qui ne pouvaient pas, ou ne voulaient pas, voir la réalité et la trajectoire de ce régime ; qui ont rejetté le danger en ignorant ou en minimisant nombre des choses terribles que ce régime avait déjà faites ; et qui ont ensuite ont indiqué tout ce qui n’avait pas encore été fait par ce régime comme une prétendue « preuve » qu’il ne ferait pas ces choses. Maintenant, à cette heure tardive et cruciale, traiter comme une « exagération alarmiste » la nature fasciste de ce régime et ses parallèles très réels avec les horreurs perpétrées par les régimes fascistes précédents, c’est ignorer non seulement les leçons vitales de l’histoire, mais aussi la réalité extrêmement dangereuse de la situation actuelle, y compris la signification du fait que Trump – remplissant sa promesse aux fascistes chrétiens – a empilé les tribunaux, jusqu’à la Cour suprême, avec des légions de fascistes chrétiens et d’autres juges d’extrême droite, qui vont s’efforcer de « légitimer légalement » tout le programme horrifiant du régime fasciste de Trump/Pence.

Si ce régime parvient à consolider davantage son pouvoir et à faire de nouveaux bonds dans la mise en œuvre de ses horribles objectifs, il en résultera un revers dévastateur pour toute tentative de résistance à l’injustice et à l’oppression, et il est très probable que cela conduira à la répression brutale, voire à l’anéantissement, des défenseurs des droits démocratiques et des partisans de toute réforme progressiste significative, ainsi que de toute force organisée luttant pour un changement révolutionnaire fondamental.

Dans le sens le plus essentiel, le besoin urgent de mobiliser les masses populaires autour de la demande de forcer le départ du régime fasciste n’est pas en conflit avec le déferlement de masse contre la suprématie blanche institutionnalisée et la terreur policière, ou d’autres mouvements de masse contre les outrages de ce système, mais est en unité fondamentale avec et est crucial pour toutes ces luttes, et tout cela peut et doit être compris, et construit de manière puissante et permettant de se renforcer mutuellement.  [Relisez]

3Le simple fait de compter sur le vote pour chasser ce régime conduira presque certainement à des résultats très mauvais, voire désastreux. Cela est particulièrement vrai compte tenu de ce que ce régime fait déjà, et de ce que Trump dit, en ce qui concerne les élections.

Par des attaques totalement infondées contre le vote par correspondance, et des préparatifs visant à intimider et à entraver les Noirs et les Latinos qui tentent d’exercer leur droit de vote, le régime Trump/Pence et ses partisans ont déjà entrepris de supprimer les votes de ceux qui sont susceptibles de voter contre Trump. Comme il l’a fait lors de l’élection de 2016, Trump a déjà fait part de son probable refus d’accepter le résultat de l’élection cette fois-ci s’il n’est pas le vainqueur. Et maintenant, Trump a ouvertement « suggéré » l’idée de « retarder » l’élection.

Compte tenu de ce que Trump a déjà fait, et de ce qu’il a déclaré de manière flagrante, autant il est horrifiant, autant il est réaliste d’envisager que ce régime stationne des troupes d’assaut, loyales à ce régime, dans des villes de tout le pays – s’efforçant vicieusement de réprimer toute expression de résistance ou d’opposition – à l’approche des élections, et après.

La pandémie en cours, ou les décrets visant à réprimer le « désordre civil » (c’est-à-dire les protestations) dans de nombreuses régions du pays, pourraient également servir de prétexte pour « reporter » l’élection, peut-être indéfiniment.

Et il n’est certainement pas impensable que Trump cherche à créer une « urgence nationale » – par exemple, en menant des actes de guerre, contre l’Iran ou peut-être même la Chine – afin d’instaurer des conditions encore plus répressives, avec un nombre encore plus important de troupes d’assaut paramilitaires occupant les villes, afin soit d’annuler (ou de « retarder » indéfiniment) l’élection, soit de contrôler le scrutin et les résultats de l’élection si elle a lieu.

Il est d’une importance capitale de continuer à renforcer la résistance, dès maintenant et de manière de plus en plus puissante, contre toutes les mesures répressives prises par Trump, y compris en construisant une opposition de masse aux tentatives de ce régime de supprimer les électeurs et par une mobilisation de masse pour soutenir et défendre ceux qui sont la cible de cette suppression.

Avec la pleine conscience de ce que représente ce régime fasciste, et de ce que cela signifie que Trump ne cherche pas seulement à supprimer les votes des personnes qui voteront contre lui, mais se prépare également à utiliser une répression violente pour rester au pouvoir s’il n’est pas déclaré vainqueur aux élections, il est d’une importance critique et urgente de construire maintenant une mobilisation vraiment massive et soutenue autour de la demande unificatrice de chasser ce régime tout de suite : OUT NOW ! avec l’orientation d’être prêt à continuer cela même après les élections, si la situation l’exige.

Dès les premiers jours du régime Trump/Pence, le fascisme du refus a crié au fascisme de ce régime et a appelé à la mobilisation de masse pour chasser ce régime qui est maintenant, d’autant plus urgemment, nécessaire. Il aurait été très bien – et cela aurait pu faire une réelle différence – que tous ceux qui détestent ce régime mais ne reconnaissent pas, ou refusent de reconnaître sa nature fasciste réelle et le grand danger qu’il représente pour l’humanité en tant que tel, aient répondu beaucoup plus tôt à cet appel de Refuse Fascism et l’aient activement repris. Aujourd’hui, enfin, la nature « autoritaire » de ce régime, et même l’utilisation du terme « fascisme » pour le décrire, sont de plus en plus reconnues et font l’objet de discussions de plus en plus nombreuses. (Comme je l’ai souligné, pour beaucoup, c’est un cas de « Oh,  maintenant ils disent » que c’est du fascisme, comme si c’était tout juste arrivé. Mais, avec une compréhension des enjeux profonds en jeu, il est important de reconnaître que maintenant est mieux que jamais). Il se fait tard, mais il n’est pas encore trop tard pour faire de cette mobilisation de masse une réalité. S’appuyer sur les « normes » et les « voies habituelles » de ce système, y compris les prochaines élections, et confiner les actions à l’intérieur de ces normes et voies ne peut résoudre ce problème profond et urgent, surtout lorsqu’on a affaire à un régime fasciste et à ses partisans fanatiques qui sont déterminés à piétiner et à déchirer ces « normes ».  [Relisez]

4En cette heure critique, tous les moyens appropriés d’action non violente doivent être utilisés pour écarter ce régime du pouvoir. Et si, en dépit des protestations de masse exigeant le départ du régime Trump/Pence, ce régime reste au pouvoir au moment du vote, alors – sans s’y fier fondamentalement – l’utilisation de tous les moyens appropriés pour œuvrer au départ de ce régime doit inclure le vote contre Trump (en supposant que l’élection ait effectivement lieu). Pour être clair, cela ne signifie pas un « vote de protestation » pour un candidat qui n’a aucune chance de gagner, mais le fait de voter pour le candidat du Parti démocratique, Biden, afin de voter effectivement contre Trump.

Ce n’est pas parce que Biden (et le Parti démocrate en général) sont soudainement devenus autre chose que ce qu’ils sont : les représentants et les instruments de ce système de capitalisme-impérialisme exploiteur, oppressif et littéralement meurtrier. Le processus électoral continue d’être ce que nous, les revcoms, avons appelé le BEB (baratin électoral bourgeois). Il n’en reste pas moins qu’aucun changement fondamental pour le mieux ne peut se produire par le biais de ce processus électoral et que, de manière générale et globale, le vote dans le cadre de ce système sert à renforcer ce système, en particulier si le vote est considéré comme un moyen – et plus encore s’il est considéré comme le (seul) moyen – d’apporter un changement significatif.

Mais cette élection est différente.

Il est vrai qu’à chaque élection, les démocrates mènent le même jeu d’escroquerie de base – en faisant chanter les gens qui détestent l’injustice et l’oppression pour qu’ils votent pour eux en tant que « moindre mal » – en insistant en effet sur le fait que « vous pouvez ne pas être d’accord avec tout ce que nous disons, vous pouvez même avoir de sérieuses différences et critiques concernant ce que nous sommes, mais voulez-vous que ce soit eux au pouvoir ? » (le parti républicain ouvertement suprémaciste blanc, suprémaciste masculin, pilleur de l’environnement qui nie le changement climatique et qui est réactionnaire dans tous les domaines). Et le Parti démocrate a fait cela, maintes et maintes fois, alors qu’il représentait et cherchait à présider ce système de capitalisme-impérialisme dans lequel la suprématie blanche, la suprématie masculine, le pillage de l’environnement et les guerres pour l’empire sont intégrés, en même temps que les démocrates font du bruit et prennent des mesures pour mettre en œuvre des réformes mineures (et finalement sans importance) pour soi-disant remédier à ces outrages. Tout cela a en fait contribué à l’évolution des choses vers la terrible situation à laquelle nous sommes confrontés aujourd’hui. Elle a paralysé politiquement beaucoup de ceux qui cherchent à mettre fin à ces outrages, les réduisant à une dépendance passive du Parti Démocratique et de son rôle dans le processus électoral, tout en jetant de l’huile sur le feu des sections fascistes de la société qui insistent sur le fait qu’absolument aucune atténuation de ces outrages ait lieu – ni aucune concession à la lutte contre cela – et qui demandent en fait le renforcement brutal de cette oppression et de cette indignation, en termes extrêmes.

Mais, encore une fois, cette élection est différente – d’une manière cruciale. La question n’est pas de savoir si Biden et les démocrates représentent quelque chose de « bon » ou si, en termes fondamentaux, les démocrates sont « meilleurs » que les républicains. Ces deux partis sont des partis politiques de la classe dirigeante, et aucun de leurs candidats ne représente quelque chose de « bon » au sens le plus élémentaire et le plus essentiel du terme. Biden n’est pas « meilleur » que Trump, d’une quelconque manière significative – sauf qu’il n’est pas Trump et qu’il ne fait pas partie de la tendance à consolider et à imposer le pouvoir fasciste, avec tout ce que cela implique.

Aborder cette élection du point de vue du candidat qui est « meilleur » signifie ne pas comprendre les enjeux vraiment profonds et les conséquences potentielles de ce qui est en jeu. Le fait est qu’il ne peut y avoir qu’un seul « bien » qui puisse sortir de cette élection : infliger une défaite décisive à Trump et à l’ensemble du régime fasciste. Cela créerait de bien meilleures conditions pour continuer à lutter contre tout ce que représente le régime Trump/Pence et contre toute l’oppression et les injustices de ce système, et ce serait un grand cadeau pour les peuples du monde.

Encore une fois, dans ces circonstances très particulières et extraordinaires, si le régime Trump/Pence est toujours au pouvoir au moment de l’élection, malgré les mobilisations de masse exigeant l’expulsion de ce régime, alors la lutte contre ce régime fasciste doit inclure le vote contre Trump en votant pour Biden, tout en continuant à construire une mobilisation de masse soutenue contre ce régime et tout ce qu’il représente et concentre, et en étant prêt à poursuivre cette mobilisation de masse si Trump perd l’élection mais refuse de partir.  [Relisez]

5En reconnaissant cela, cependant, il est extrêmement important de souligner une fois de plus, dans les termes les plus forts, que, pour les raisons évoquées ici, compter sur le vote – sans cette mobilisation de masse – conduira très probablement au désastre.

Il est possible que Trump remporte effectivement l’élection – et qu’il gagne ou qu’il perde, on verra dans cette élection des mesures sans précédent pour supprimer les votes de ceux qui s’opposent à lui et pour utiliser d’autres moyens illégaux l’aidant à rester au pouvoir. Et, plus essentiellement encore, à partir d’une compréhension claire de la nature fasciste de ce régime, et de toutes les implications qui en découlent, ce régime est illégitime, indépendamment des moyens par lesquels il est arrivé au pouvoir et des mesures prises pour le conserver et le consolider davantage. Hitler et les NAZIs sont arrivés au pouvoir en Allemagne dans les années 1930 par les « voies normales » du « système démocratique » de ce pays – y compris les élections – mais leur régime n’avait absolument rien de « légitime » et toutes les horreurs vraiment indicibles auxquelles il a donné lieu. Et le même principe de base s’applique au régime Trump/Pence. Par sa nature et son contenu, le fascisme « légitime » n’existe pas.

Quoi qu’il arrive avec les élections – et même si Biden gagne et réussit à prendre effectivement ses fonctions – il n’y aura pas de « retour à la normale ». Tout d’abord, les fascistes – ceux qui occupent encore des postes puissants, et la « base » fasciste dans la société au sens large – ne le permettront pas. Et, en tout cas, personne ne devrait le vouloir. La « normalité » de ce système a toujours inclus l’oppression barbare des Noirs et d’autres personnes de couleur, avec la terreur, la brutalité et le meurtre systématiques pour imposer cette oppression. Elle a toujours inclus la discrimination vicieuse, le sectarisme et la violence contre les immigrants, les femmes, les personnes LGBTQ et toute autre personne considérée comme inférieure et « étrangère ». Elle a toujours inclus des guerres injustes pour l’empire, et des crimes continus contre l’humanité. Elle constitue aujourd’hui une menace pour l’existence même de l’humanité en raison de la dévastation croissante de l’environnement et de la menace toujours présente d’une guerre nucléaire.

Il faudra entreprendre la lutte multiforme pour chasser le régime fasciste de Trump/Pence non pas comme un substitut mais comme une partie – une partie cruciale – du mouvement visant à dépasser tout ce qui est représenté et incarné dans la « normalité » de ce système.   [Relisez]

6Enfin, quoi qu’il arrive avec cette élection, il reste profondément vrai – et il est d’une importance vitale de reconnaître et d’agir en fonction de cette compréhension – qu’aucun changement fondamental pour le mieux ne peut se réaliser sous ce système. Alors même qu’il y a besoin urgent de construire une mobilisation de masse soutenue autour de la revendication unificatrice : Trump/Pence, dehors ! OUT NOW!, tous ceux et toutes celles qui ont pu voir que la suprématie blanche institutionnalisée, la suprématie masculine et les nombreux autres outrages et crimes contre l’humanité perpétrés sous ce système sont en fait intégrés dans ce système de capitalisme-impérialisme doivent travailler ensemble, de manière continue, pour construire un mouvement en croissance constante et pour renforcer les forces organisées pour une véritable révolution visant à renverser ce système.

En résumé : Étant donné les enjeux véritablement monumentaux, non seulement pour chaque problème, aussi important soit-il, et non seulement pour ce pays, mais aussi pour les masses populaires du monde entier et l’avenir de l’humanité, il y a un grand besoin d’aborder les choses et d’agir avec la sophistication nécessaire pour gérer les contradictions complexes et difficiles qu’implique tout cela  en ayant une vision large, en rejetant le sectarisme mesquin et le dogmatisme rigide, et en ne tombant pas dans un « soit/soit » paralysant : soit nous luttons contre la suprématie blanche et la terreur policière, soit nous nous battons pour chasser le régime fasciste de Trump/Pence ; soit nous votons lors de cette élection, soit nous construisons une lutte de masse contre l’oppression scandaleuse et contre ce régime fasciste ; soit nous nous opposons à ce régime, par tous les moyens appropriés, soit nous travaillons pour la révolution. Dans cette situation extraordinaire et très complexe – et du point de vue de l’avancement de la lutte vers l’objectif d’éliminer enfin toute exploitation et toute oppression, partout – il y un besoin urgent de faire tout cela, et de le faire en comprenant la relation correcte et nécessaire entre les différentes parties de cette approche globale : mettre l’accent principale sur la mobilisation de masse et s’appuyer sur elle, le vote dans cette situation extraordinaire étant nécessaire et important mais non pas le principal élément sur lequel on doit compter ; et, en termes fondamentaux, faire en sorte que tout cela contribue à créer des conditions plus favorables et à accroître les forces organisées pour, non seulement résister aux crimes de ce système, mais enfin pour mener à bien la révolution nécessaire afin de mettre un terme à ce système monstrueusement criminel et à sa domination dans le monde, sous quelque forme que ce soit.  [Relisez]

 

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بیانیه ای از سوی باب آواکیان
اول اوت ۲۰۲۰

STATEMENT BY BOB AVAKIAN

در باره اوضاع خطرناک پیش رو،  ضرورت فوریِ بیرون راندن رژیم فاشیستی ترامپ/پنس از قدرت،  رأی دادن در این انتخابات و نیاز اساسی به انقلاب کردن

| revcom.us

 

We received this translation in Farsi. This is an unofficial translation, and we do not vouch for its accuracy.

۱ - وضعیت امروز چالش هایی بی سابقه و با تاثیرات درازمدت در مقابلمان گذاشته است که نه تنها برای مردم این کشور بلکه برای کل بشریت پیامدهای عمیقی خواهد داشت. من سه سال پیش، این واقعیت را تحلیل کردم و از آن زمان تا کنون،  بسیار برجسته تر و حتی خطرناک تر شده است :

اکنون با رژیمی فاشیستی که بر ما حاکم است روبرو هستیم: رژیمی که بی امان به حقوق و آزادی های مدنی حمله می کند و آشکارا تعصب و نابرابری را ترویج و ترغیب می کند. این فاشیست ها عده ای از مردم را فرومایه و بی ارزش  یا لکۀ ننگ کشور می خوانند و رفتارشان با آنها بی اعتناییِ سنگدلانه یا کین ورزی بیرحمانه است. آنها محروم کردن میلیون ها نفر از بیمۀ سلامت و درمان را که بدون آن مردم در رنج زندگی کرده و بسیاری جان خواهند داد ماموریت خود می دانند. آنها گستاخانه زنان را اشیاء قابل غارت و ماشین زاد و ولدِ می دانند که حقِ سقط جنین و کنترل بارداری ندارند و باید تابع شوهران و به طور کلی مردان باشند. علمِ تغییرات اقلیمی را انکار می کنند، به علمِ تکامل حمله و به طور کلی روش علمی را تقبیح می کنند. این رژیمی است که زرادخانۀ کشتار جمعی اش را به رخ می کشد و تهدید می کند که دست به جنگ هسته ای خواهد زد. ترور دولتی را علیه مسلمانان، مهاجران و توده های مردم گتوهای آمریکا تشدید کرده است؛ از اوباش بیرحمیِ که از دهانشان تعفن «اول آمریکا» بیرون می زند، از سفیدپوستان برتری طلب و مردسالاران و نفرت پراکنی های ضد دگرباشان جنسی حمایت کرده و آنها را افسارگسیخته می کند. این رژیمی است که به خاطر همۀ این ها به خود می بالد و اعلام می کند که بدتر از همۀ اینها را در انبان دارد .

 در راس این رژیم «قلدر مجنونی» نشسته است که انگشت اش روی ماشۀ بمب هسته ای قرار دارد. این رژیم، بدون اغراق نه تنها تشدید بیسابقۀ رنج توده های بشریت را تهدید می کند بلکه خطری برای موجودیت بشریت است. زیرا در حال افزایشِ غارت هرچه بیشتر محیط زیست است و به داشتن سلاح های کشتار جمعیِ بی نظیر افتخار کرده و با گستاخی اعلام می کند که مایل است از این سلاح ها، از جمله از زرادخانه عظیم هسته ای اش استفاده کند .

همچنین تأکید کرده ام که سیستم سرمایه داری-امپریالیسم از طریق «عملکرد عادی» خود، این فاشیسم را تولید کرده و  تحت این سیستم  هیچ تغییر اساسیِ مثبت ممکن نیست در نتیجه، سیستم را باید سرنگون کرد و به جای آن سیستمی را جایگزین کرد که به شکل رادیکال متفاوت و به مراتب بهتر از آن است، تا بتوانیم کلیۀ روابط ستم و استثمار و درگیری های خشونت آمیزی که این روابط تولید می کنند را ریشه کن کنیم .  تمامی این ها در شالوده های سیستم تعبیه شده اند و  بخش لاینفک و ضروری  از  کارکرد و نیازهای آن را تشکیل می دهند .

در حال حاضر، برای همۀ کسانی که مشغله شان پایان دادن به بی عدالتی و ستم است و برایشان سوال است که آیا بشریت آینده ای که ارزش زندگی داشته باشد را خواهد داشت و اصلا آینده ای خواهد داشت یا خیر، بیرون راندن رژیم فاشیستی ترامپ/ پنس از قدرت، مساله ای فوری و عاجل و یک الزام حقیقتا تاریخی است .

راه حل  اساسی  برای دهشت هایی که سیستم دائما برای توده های بشریت به وجود می آورد، انقلاب و سرنگونی سیستم است (فارغ از این که سیستم از طریق دیکتاتوری فاشیستیِ عریان طبقه سرمایه دار حاکم اداره می شود یا از طریق دیکتاتوری نقابدار «دمکراتیک» این طبقه). کسانی که این نیاز را درک می کنند نباید رویکردشان به  مبارزه فوری  برای بیرون راندن رژیم ترامپ/ پنس از قدرت،  چنین باشد که گویی این مبارزه «انحراف » از (یا  «جایگزینی » برای ) ضرورت سازمان دادن جنبش برای انقلاب است. رویکردشان، دقیقا باید این باشد که این مبارزه بخشی — و بخشی حیاتی و ضرورتی فوری — از فعالیت کلی برای سازمان دهی انقلاب است .

هدف اساسی و ستارۀ راهنمای ما کماکان این است: انقلاب و نه چیزی کمتر از آن !

در هر فعالیتی که امروز انجام می دهیم، از جمله هنگامِ شرکت در مبارزاتی که رویکردشان مبارزه برای هدفی کمتر از انقلاب است، رویکرد ما این است که همۀ این فعالیت ها را به خدمتِ هدف اساسی انقلاب و رهایی بشریت در آوریم و همواره باید چنین رویکردی را داشته باشیم .

معمولا، ما کمونیست های انقلابی استدلال می کنیم که مردم نباید در انتخابات بورژوایی رای دهند. زیرا این کار به تقویت سیستم سرمایه داری-امپریالیسم خدمت کرده و به این توهم رایج دامن می زند که گویا می توان با «اصلاحات» و بدون سرنگون کردن سیستمی که سرچشمۀ همه این دهشت ها است، از ستم و استثمار خلاص شد. اما آیا این موضع در رابطه با انتخابات خاص کنونی درست است؟ برای جواب گفتن به این سوال باید به کل تصویر نگاه کنیم .

۲ - در مدت نزدیک به چهار سال که رژیم ترامپ/پنس در قدرت بوده است، ما را مجبور کردند شاهد جنایت هایی که پیشاپیش مرتکب شده است باشیم و خطر عظیم آن را تحمل کنیم. ترامپ کارزار انتخاباتی خود در سال ۲۰۱۶ را بر مبنای برنامه ای پیش برد که آشکارا برنامه ای فاشیستی بود مشتمل بر برتری جویی سفیدپوستان و مردسالاری و نژادپرستی و مهاجر هراسی به ویژه علیه مهاجران مکزیک و کشورهای دیگر که او آنها را «گودال های متعفن» می نامد. همچنین حمایت آشکار از تبهکاری و شرارت نیروهای پلیس و هواداران «غیر نظامی» او. ترامپ بلافاصله پس از رسیدن به قدرت، با تمام قوا این برنامه را به عمل درآورد و به سرعت کلیۀ «ضوابط نهادینه »[ ۲ ] را که مانعی در مقابل خود میدید، لگدمال کرد و حتا در مواجهه با استیضاح این کار را ادامه داد و پس از این که رفقای فاشیست او در حزب جمهوری خواه وی را در مجلس سنا تبرئه کردند، با تفرعن و شتاب بیشتر به این کار ادامه داد .

اساساً، هر آنچه در ابتدای بیانیه درباره این رژیم توصیف شده چیزی است که ترامپ و اطرافیانش با شدت کین خواهانه به انجام رسانده اند. با نزدیک شدن انتخابات ماه نوامبر، این روند غلیظ تر و پرخاشگرانه تر شده است. تصورش را بکنید که اگر در ماه نوامبر در صورت انتخاب مجدد برای دور دوم، به او مقام «فرماندهی» داده شود، چه خواهد کرد !

پاندمیِ کوید۱۹ و پاسخ ترامپ و پنس به این بیماری عالمگیر، تصویر روشن دیگری از ماهیت ضد علمی این رژیم و بی اعتنایی مطلق آن به رنج توده های مردم ارائه می دهد. به ویژه قشرهایی که این رژیم بیشترین حس تحقیر را نسبت به آنها دارد و شکننده ترین های جامعه اند و در این پاندمی شدیدترین ضربات را خورده اند .

تمام این ها اتفاقات وحشتناکی هستند اما مساله صرفا اتخاذ سیاست های وحشتناک نیست. بلکه ما با  یک شکل کیفیتا متفاوت از حاکمیت  مواجهیم که مبتنی است بر  سرکوب وحشیانه و تجاوز به هر آنچه قرار است پایه ای ترین حقوق باشد .

پیشاپیش دیده ایم که ترامپ در نقض آشکار اصول قانون اساسی، نیروی ضربت نظامیِ اشغالگری را از ارگان های مختلف دولت فدرال به پورتلند و شهرهای دیگر فرستاده است، تا ابراز نارضایتی و اعتراضات مردم را جرم و جنایت تلقی کرده و سرکوب کنند و بر سلطۀ ترور علیه توده های مردم در گتوهای شیکاگو و دیگر نقاط بیافزایند .

ما شاهد نمایش برتری طلبی عریان ترامپ در شعار «اول آمریکا» بوده ایم؛ از جمله در مطالبات مکررش برای مجازات شدید کسانی  که به نظر او نتوانسته اند به طور شایسته شور وطن پرستی نشان دهند، یا جرأت انتقاد از او را به خود داده اند یا علیه برخی از عریان ترین ستم گری های قوای اجراییِ سیستم، به ویژه تداوم سرکوب بیرحمانۀ سیاهان و قتل مردم سیاه، قهوه ای و بومیان آمریکایی توسط پلیس اعتراض کرده اند. ترامپ دائما در حال ترغیب رذالتِ اوباش طرفدار «متمم دوم قانون اساسی »[ ۳ ] و دیگر کسانی که او «آدم های بسیار شایسته» می خواند بوده است .

همه اینها عروج هیتلر به قدرت و حاکمیت او و آلمان نازی در دهه ۱۹۳۰ و اوایل دهۀ ۱۹۴۰ را به یاد می آورند. هنگامی که هیتلر جنبش فاشیستی خود را بنا می نهاد، اراذل و اوباش بسیج می شدند تا آن دسته از مردم را که حمایت خود از هیتلر را نشان نمی دادند ضرب و شتم کرده و بترسانند و به آنها در خیابان و سایر اماکن عمومی حمله کنند. همین که دولت فاشیستی نازی قدرت خود را تثبیت کرد، هرگونه اپوزیسیون را به شدت مجازات و خرد کرد. همه کسانی که با صراحت او و ایدئولوژی رسمی نازی او را تایید نمی کردند مورد هدف قرار می گرفتند. تعداد زیادی از مردم از مؤسسات دولتی پاکسازی شدند. به ویژه یهودیان و همۀ کسانی که به اعتقاد رژیم نازی نسبت به «نژاد خالص آلمانی» «بیگانه» بودند و مانعی در رسیدنِ این رژیم به اهداف جنایتکارانه اش تلقی می شدند. اول از کمونیست ها شروع کردند. اما خیلی زود جمعیت یهود، کولی ها (رومانها)، همجنسگرایان و دیگران را در بر گرفت. اردوگاه های کار اجباری پر از کسانی شد که  برای رژیم نازی تهدید یا برای آلمان «لکه ننگ» محسوب می شدند. و طولی نکشید که این روند به نسل کشیِ گستردۀ میلیون ها یهودی در آلمان و کشورهایی که توسط رژیم نازی فتح و اشغال می شدند، منجر شد .

هرچند این اتفاقات یک باره رخ ندادند اما طی یک دوره نسبتاً کوتاه (یک دهه یا بیشتر) و با شتابی فزاینده روی دادند حاکمیت قانون کاملاً آشکارا و رسماً کنار گذاشته نشده بود اما «قانون» و «حاکمیت قانون» مترادف شد با هیتلر و هر آن چه رژیم نازی می گفت «قانون» است. بخش عمده از کاری که هیتلر و نازی ها در جریان حاکمیت وحشت و نسل کشی انجام دادند «مطابق قانون» بود. قانونی که به اهداف و ابزار توحش آنها تقلیل پیدا کرده بود، و توسط نهادهایی که کاملا از هر معنا یا هدفی به جز خدمت به دستور کار نازی و انطباق با آن تهی شده بودند، از طریق سرکوب و قتل اعمال می شدند و تبدیل شده بودند به ابزار جنایت نازی ها .

درمجموع آنچه ترامپ در حال حاضر انجام می دهد، از جمله فراخوان های علنی وی برای لغو تصمیمات دیوان عالی و مصوبه ها و بدعت های قبلی (به طور مثال، فراخوان غیرقانونی کردن سقط جنین و مجازات سوزاندن پرچم)، به همراه نقض مکرر قانون و آیین های دادرسی قانونی توسط وی و پافشاری بر این که  او  خودش قانون است، سایۀ فرارسیدن دیکتاتوری فاشیستیِ هرچه عریان تر است. فاشیسم همین است. یعنی دیکتاتوری آشکار و تهاجمی، لگدمال کردن حاکمیت قانون، تکیه کردن بر خشونت و ترور به نیابت از سیستم سرمایه داری سیری ناپذیر و به مثابه تلاشی افراطی برای مقابله با شکاف های عمیق اجتماعی و بحران های حاد (در داخل و در عرصه جهانی). و با اقدامات «وزیر آموزش و پرورش» ترامپ (بتسی دو- ووس ) Betsy DeVos می توانیم خطوط کلی نسخۀ رژیم ترامپ/پنس از «ایدئولوژی رسمی» (مسیحیت فاشیستی) را ببینیم. چرا که بتسی دو-ووس خودش یک فاشیست بنیادگرای مسیحی است و هدف نهایی اش تعویض نظام آموزش عمومی و سکولار آمریکا با مدارسی مبتنی بر آموزش آیینیِ مسحیت بنیادگرا است. از هم اکنون می توانیم سایه گستریِ وضعیتی را تشخیص دهیم که نه تنها دانش آموزان مدارس بلکه همۀ افراد جامعه ملزم به بیعت وفاداری با یک آمریکای فاشیستی مسیحی سفید گردند .

یکی از بیانیه های سازمان «رفیوز فاشیسم» این موضوع را در متن زیر  به شکل شیوا و قدرتمند استدلال می کند :

«به واقع خطوط در حال ترسیم شدن هستند و اوضاع آبستن پیامدهای فاجعه آمیز برای کل بشریت است. اگر ما حق اعتراض از طریق قانونی یا غیر قانونی را از دست بدهیم، اصلا نمی توان گفت که چه خواهد شد. فاشیسم صرفا بدترین حالت در چرخش آونگ نیست. بلکه تغییری کیفی در نحوۀ حاکمیت بر جامعه است. گروه ها را یکی پس از دیگری شرور نامیده و در مسیری که به وحشت می انجامد مورد آماج قرار می دهند. همه اینها در ظرف بیش از سه سال در جریان بوده است، اما با وجود برپا شدن اردوگاه های اجباری در مرز، تبرئۀ ترامپ در دادگاه استیضاح قلابی و فرمان اجرایی برای محافظت از بناهای تاریخی و هم زمان جرم تلقی کردن حق «متمم اول» که استفاده از آن مجازات زندان دارد، خیلی ها هنوز می خواهند غرق در توهمات راحت طلبانه شان باشند و نمی خواهند باور کنند که این اتفاق واقعا دارد روی می دهد. این فاشیسم است که به جریان افتاده و زمان برای متوقف کردن آن دارد از دست می رود ».

خیلی وقت است که عده ای از ما، از جمله صداهای متنوعی که توسط «رفیوز فاشیسم» نمایندگی می شود، نشان داده ایم که رژیم ترامپ/پنس خطری فوری و دارای ظرفیت خطراتی بس عظیم تر است. اما این هشدارها اغلب اوقات و بیش از اندازه با واکنشِ انکارهای متکبرانۀ کسانی روبرو شده است که نمی توانند یا نمی خواهند واقعیت و مسیر این رژیم را ببینند. آنها چشمان خود را بر  بسیاری از کارهای وحشتناکی که این رژیم پیشاپیش انجام داده بستند و به آنها کم بها دادند  تا خطر این رژیم را انکار کنند. آنها خاطرنشان می کردند که این رژیم  هنوز  فلان و بهمان کارها را انجام نداده و انتظار داشتند که «اثبات» این ادعا باشد که این کارها را  نخواهد کرد . اکنون که دیری از شب گذشته و در این لحظۀ حساس، با دیدن ماهیت فاشیستی این رژیم و تشابهات بسیار واقعی آن با جنایت های رژیم های فاشیستی قبلی، دادنِ عنوانِ «زنگ خطرهای اغراق آمیز» به این هشدارها هیچ نیست مگر بی اعتنایی به درس های حیاتی تاریخ و علاوه بر این، چشم پوشیدن بر واقعیت بسیار خطرناک اوضاع کنونی: از جمله، اهمیت این واقعیت که ترامپ برای عملی کردن وعده هایی که به فاشیست های مسیحی داده است، دادگاه ها را از مدارج پایین تا دیوان عالی کشور با قشونی از فاشیست های مسیحی و دیگر قضات راست افراطی پر کرده است. این قشون، برای اعطای «مشروعیت قانونی» به کل برنامه هولناک رژیم فاشیستی ترامپ/ پنس حرکت خواهد کرد .

اگر این رژیم بتواند قدرت خود را بیش از اینها تثبیت کند و در اجرای اهداف ترسناک خود جهش های بیشتری کند، نتیجه اش عقب گرد ویرانگر برای هرگونه تلاش در مقاومت علیه بی عدالتی و ستم خواهد بود و به احتمال زیاد منجر به سرکوب بیرحمانه و حتا نابودی مدافعان حقوق دمکراتیک و حامیان هر شکل اصلاحات مترقیِ معنادار و همچنین نیروهای متشکلی خواهد بود که برای تغییرات اساسی انقلابی مبارزه می کنند .

به اساسی ترین وجه، ضرورت فوری در بسیج توده ای مردم حول خواست بیرون راندن اجباری این رژیم فاشیستی در تضاد با خیزش توده ای علیه سفیدسالاری (برتری جویی سفید پوستان) و ترور پلیسی که نهادینه هستند یا در تضاد با جنبش های توده ای علیه دیگر جنایت های این سیستم نیست بلکه در اتحاد بنیادین با تمام این مبارزات بوده و برای همه آنها حیاتی است .  اینها به طرزی قدرتمند با یک دیگر رابطۀ تقویت متقابل دارند که می توان و باید آن را درک کرد و بر این مبنا آنها را سازمان داد .

۳ تقریبا با اطمینان می توان گفت که صرفاً اتکا به رأی دادن برای بیرون راندن رژیم از قدرت، منجر به نتایج بسیار بد و حتی فاجعه آمیز خواهد شد . این امر به ویژه با توجه به کارهایی که رژیم ترامپ/پنس پیشاپیش در رابطه با انتخابات انجام می دهد و آن چه ترامپ در رابطه با آن می گوید، صادق است. پیشاپیش رژیم و حامیانش حرکت هایی را برای سرکوب آرای کسانی که احتمالا علیه ترامپ رأی خواهند داد شروع کرده اند. به عنوان مثال ترامپ دست به حملات کاملاً بی اساس علیه ارسال رأی از طریق پُست زده و برای ارعاب سیاهان و لاتین تباران و مانع تراشی در مقابل استفادۀ آنها از حق رأی شان تدارک می بیند. ترامپ همانطور که در انتخابات سال ۲۰۱۶ گفت در صورت باخت، از پذیرش نتیجه انتخابات سر باز خواهد زد، در مورد انتخابات آینده هم چنین زمزمه هایی را سر داده است. و اکنون ایدۀ «معلق کردن» و «به تاخیر انداختن» انتخابات را طرح می کند

با توجه به کارهایی که ترامپ قبلاً انجام داده و وقیحانه اعلام کرده، می توان تصور کرد که با نزدیک شدن انتخابات و بعد از آن، رژیم ترامپ/پنس گارد توفانِ storm troopers  وفادار به خودش را در شهرهای سراسر کشور مستقر کرده و با شرارت دست به سرکوب هرگونه ابراز مقاومت و مخالفت بزند. این چشم انداز بسیار ترسناک و همچنین بسیار واقع بینانه است .  

تداوم پاندمی کوید۱۹ یا فرمان های اجرایی برای فرونشاندن «بی نظمی مدنی» (اعتراضات) در بسیاری از نقاط کشور می تواند همچنین به عنوان بهانه و نقابی برای «تعلیق» انتخابات و شاید تعلیق نامحدود آن، استفاده شود .

مطمئناً می توان تصور کرد که ترامپ یک «شرایط اضطراری ملی» نیز خلق کند. برای مثال به اقدامات جنگی علیه ایران یا حتا احتمالا علیه چین دست بزند و به این بهانه شرایط سرکوبگرانه شدیدتری را برقرار کند، شمار بیشتری از گارد توفان شبه نظامی اش را برای اشغال شهرها بفرستد و انتخابات را ابطال کند (یا برای مدت نامحدود «به تاخیر» بیندازد) و یا در صورت برگزاری انتخابات، از این طریق آراء و نتایج آن را کنترل کند .

در حال حاضر، استمرار در سازمان دادن مقاومت و سازمان دادن آن به شکل قدرتمند و گسترش یابنده علیه هر حرکت سرکوبگرانۀ ترامپ، از جمله سازمان دادن مخالفت علیه تلاش های این رژیم در سرکوب رأی دهندگان و از طریق بسیج گسترده در حمایت و دفاع از آنهایی که آماج چنین سرکوبگری هستند، دارای اهمیت اساسی است .

با آگاهی کامل نسبت به ماهیت رژیم فاشیستی و آن چه نمایندگی می کند و با آگاهی نسبت به این که ترامپ فقط به دنبال سرکوب آرای کسانی نیست که علیه وی رأی خواهند داد، بلکه در تدارک است که در صورت برنده نشدن در انتخابات برای ماندن در قدرت از سرکوب خشن و قهری استفاده کند... با آگاهی کامل نسبت به اینها،  هم اکنون  باید دست به بسیج حقیقتا عظیم و پایدار حول خواست متحدانۀ بیرون کردن فوری این رژیم از قدرت بزنیم. این مبارزه از اهمیتی اساسی و فوری برخوردار است و باید جهت گیری آن را داشته و آماده باشیم که در صورت ضرورت اوضاع، این بسیج را بعد از انتخابات هم ادامه دهیم .

از روزهای نخست رژیم ترامپ/ پنس، سازمان «رفیوز فاشیسم» ماهیت فاشیستی این رژیم را فریاد زده و فراخوان بسیج گستردۀ توده ای با هدف بیرون راندن این رژیم از قدرت را داده است. تحقق این هدف اکنون هرچه ضروری تر و فوری تر شده است. اگر، آنها که از این رژیم متنفرند اما در گذشته نتوانستند یا نخواستند ماهیت واقعیِ فاشیستی و خطر بزرگ آن برای بشریت را تشخیص دهند، زودتر از این ها به فراخوان «رفیوزفاشیسم» پاسخ داده و فعالانه درگیر آن شده بودند، امروز با اوضاعی واقعا متفاوت و بسیار خوبی روبرو بودیم. اکنون سرانجام و به طور روزافزونی عدۀ بیشتری این واقعیت را تشخیص می دهند و حول ماهیت «اقتدارگرای» این رژیم بحث می شود و حتی استفاده از اصطلاح فاشیسم برای توصیف آن افزایش یافته است. همانطور که  خاطرنشان کردم در مورد افراد زیادی می توان گفت: «اوه !  حالا  می گویند» که این فاشیسم است، گویی به تازگی فاشیسم ظاهر شده است. اما از آن جا که خطرات عمیق را می فهمیم، بهتر است این واقعیت را به رسمیت بشناسیم که  الان  بهتر از  هرگز  است. زمان در حال از دست رفتن است. اما هنوز برای محقق کردن بسیج گستردۀ توده ای خیلی دیر نشده است .  تکیه کردن بر «ضوابط» {«هنجارها»} و «مجاری معمول» سیستم و محدود کردن اقدامات خود در این چارچوب ها، از جمله انتخابات آینده، نمی تواند مشکل عمیق و فوری پیش رو را حل کند، به ویژه هنگامی که مساله مقابله با یک رژیم فاشیستی و پیروان متعصب آن است که مصمم اند این «ضوابط» را لگد مال و پاره کنند .

۴ - در این لحظۀ حساس، باید از هر وسیلۀ عملِ غیر خشونت آمیز مناسب برای بیرون کردن این رژیم از قدرت، استفاده شود. اگر علیرغم اعتراضات گسترده با خواست بیرون کردن رژیم ترامپ/پنس از قدرت، این رژیم در زمان انتخابات کماکان در قدرت باقی مانده باشد، آنگاه (با فرض این که انتخابات به واقع برگزار شود) استفاده از کلیۀ ابزار مناسب برای کنار زدن این رژیم  باید شامل رأی دادن علیه ترامپ باشد . بدون این که تکیۀ اساسی بر روی این روش گذاشته شود  واضح بگویم که این به معنای «رأی اعتراضی» برای برخی کاندیداها که شانس پیروزی ندارند نیست. بلکه برای  رأی موثر علیه ترامپ، در واقع باید به نامزد حزب دمکرات یعنی بایدن رأی داد .

دلیل این امر آن نیست که بایدن (و به طور کلی حزب دمکرات) یک باره تبدیل به چیزی غیر از آن چه هستند شده اند. آنها نمایندگان و ابزار سیستم استثمارگر، ستم گر و به معنای واقعی کلمه، سیستم آدمکش سرمایه داری-امپریالیسم هستند. پروسۀ انتخاباتی کماکان همان چیزی است که ما کمونیست های انقلابی نامیده ایم : BEB (مزخرفِ انتخاباتیِ بورژوازی). کماکان حقیقت این است که هیچ تغییر اساسی به سمت شرایط بهتر نمی تواند از طریق پروسۀ انتخاباتی به دست آید و این که به طور عام و به طور کلی، رأی دادن تحت این سیستم به تقویت سیستم خدمت می کند، به ویژه اگر به رأی دادن به عنوان راهی برای دست یافتن به تغییر معنادار و به خصوص اگر به عنوان «راه» به آن نگریسته شود .

اما این انتخابات، فرق دارد .

این حقیقت دارد که با هر انتخاباتی، دمکرات ها همان بازی شیادانه را اجرا می کنند. یعنی مردم متنفر از بی عدالتی و ستم را می ترسانند که به «شّر کمتر» رأی دهند و اصرار می ورزند که «شما ممکن است با هرچه ما می گوییم موافق نباشید، حتا ممکن است اختلافات و انتقادهای جدی به ما و فعالیتهای مان داشته باشید اما آیا واقعا می خواهید که  آنها  در قدرت باشند؟! (منظور از آنهاسفید پوستان برتری طلب، مردسالاران، غارتگران محیط زیست که تغییرات اقلیمی را انکار می کنند، و مرتجعین تمام قدِ حزب جمهوری خواه است ).

و حزب دمکرات همواره و دائما این کار را کرده است. حزب دمکرات نمایندۀ سیستم سرمایه داری- امپریالیسم است که سفیدسالاری، مردسالاری، غارت محیط زیست و جنگ برای امپراتوری در وجودش تعبیه شده و همواره تلاش میکند در رأس سیستم بنشیند. با این وجود گاها سر و صداهایی در مورد این جنایت ها کرده و برخی قدم ها برای برخی اصلاحات ناچیز (و در نهایت بی محتوا) بر می دارد تا به اصطلاح کاری در رابطه با آنها صورت بدهد. همه اینها در واقع به ایجاد اوضاع وحشتناکی که امروز در مقابلمان است خدمت کرده است. به لحاظ سیاسی بسیاری از کسانی که به دنبال خاتمه دادن به چنین جنایت هایی هستند را فلج کرده و به سطح وابستگان منفعلِ حزب دمکرات و نقش آن در پروسه انتخاباتی فروکاهیده است. ضمن اینکه بر آتش بخش های فاشیستِ سخت جان جامعه دمیده است که مصرند مطلقا اجازۀ هیچ تخفیفی در این جنایات و هیچ امتیازی به مبارزاتی که علیه آن می شود، داده نشود، و در واقع خواستار تقویت بیرحمانۀ این ستم و جنایات آن به طرزی افراطی هستند .

با این وجود، این انتخابات از زوایای بسیار مهمی متفاوت  است  سؤال این نیست که آیا بایدن و دمکرات ها نماینده چیز «خوبی» هستند یا اینکه آیا اصولا دمکراتها «بهتر» از جمهوری خواهان هستند. هر دوی این ها، احزاب سیاسیِ طبقۀ  حاکم  اند و هیچ یک از نامزدهای انتخاباتی آن ها در پایه ای ترین و اساسی ترین مفهوم، چیز «خوبی» را نمایندگی نمی کنند. بایدن در هیچ جنبۀ محتوایی «بهتر» از ترامپ نیست،  جز این که او ترامپ نیست و بخشی از تلاش برای تحکیم و اجرای حاکمیت فاشیستی با تمام معنایی که دارد، نمی باشد .

اگر به این انتخابات از این زاویه که کدام نامزد «بهتر» است نگاه کنیم، از درک خطرات عمیق و عواقب بالقوه ای که در این وضعیت وجود دارند، غافل خواهیم ماند. واقعیت این است که از درون این انتخابات تنها چیز «خوبی » که میتواند بیرون بیاید،   وارد کردن یک شکست قاطع به ترامپ و کل رژیم فاشیستی است  انجام این کار می تواند شرایط به مراتب بهتری برای ادامۀ مبارزه علیه هر آن چه رژیم ترامپ/پنس نمایندگی کرده و علیه کلیه ستم ها و بی عدالتی های این سیستم ایجاد کند و هدیۀ بزرگی برای مردم سراسر جهان خواهد بود .

باز هم در این شرایطِ بسیار خاص و خارق العاده، اگر رژیم ترامپ/پنس با وجود بسیج گستردۀ توده ای حول خواست برکناری این رژیم، در زمان انتخابات همچنان در قدرت باشد، آنگاه مبارزه علیه این رژیم فاشیستی رأی دادن علیه ترامپ از طریق رأی دادن به بایدن را ایجاب می کند،  در همان حال که سازماندهی بسیج گسترده و پایدار علیه این رژیم و هر آنچه نمایندگی و در خود فشرده می کند را باید ادامه داد و آماده باشیم که بسیج گسترده را حتا اگر ترامپ در انتخابات بازنده شود اما از قبول باخت امتناع کند ادامه دهیم .

۵  – با وجود تشخیص این مساله، بسیار مهم است که یک بار دیگر به شدیدترین وجه تأکید کنیم که به دلایلی که در اینجا گفته شد ،  اتکا  به رأی دادن  بدون بسیج گستردۀ توده ای، به احتمال زیاد منجر به فاجعه خواهد شد .

این احتمال هست که ترامپ واقعاً در انتخابات پیروز شود. اما، چه برنده شود یا بازنده، انتخابات شامل اقدامات بی سابقه در سرکوب آرای مخالفان وی و استفاده از وسایل غیرقانونی گوناگون برای ماندن در قدرت خواهد بود. و حتی اساسی تر، با درک دقیق ماهیت فاشیستیِ رژیم و پیامدهای کامل آن، باید گفت فارغ از این که رژیم ترامپ/پنس از چه طریقی به قدرت رسیده و برای ماندن و تحکیم قدرت خود دست به چه حرکاتی می زند، در هر حالت  نامشروع است . هیتلر و نازی ها در دهه  1930 در آلمان از طریق «کانالهای عادی سیستم دمکراتیک» از جمله انتخابات به قدرت رسیدند، اما حاکمیت آنها و اقدامات وحشتناک وصف ناپذیرشان، مطلقاً هیچ «مشروعیتی» نداشت. همین اصل اساسی در مورد رژیم ترامپ/پنس صدق می کند. به دلیل ماهیت و محتوا، چیزی به نام «فاشیسم مشروع» وجود ندارد .

هر اتفاقی در انتخابات بیافتد و حتی اگر بایدن برنده و به واقع رئیس جمهور شود، هرگز «بازگشت به شرایط عادی» در کار نخواهد بود. زیرا، اولا فاشیست ها، یعنی کسانی که کماکان در مقام های بالای قدرت خواهند ماند و همچنین «پایۀ» فاشیسم که در جامعه گسترده شده است، چنین اجازه ای را نخواهند داد. و دیگر این که، به هر حال هیچ کس نباید  خواهان  «بازگشت شرایط عادی» باشد. چرا که «شرایط عادی» این سیستم همواره شامل ظلم و ستم وحشیانه علیه مردم سیاه و سایر رنگین پوستان از طریق ترور، قساوت و قتل عام سیستماتیک برای اجرای این ستم؛ همواره شامل تبعیض شرورانه، تعصب و خشونت علیه مهاجران، زنان، ال جی بی تی کیوها و سایر کسانی که به عنوان فرومایه و «بیگانه» تلقی شده اند، بوده است. همواره شامل جنگهای ناعادلانه برای امپراتوری و ادامه جنایات علیه بشریت بوده است و اکنون همان «شرایط عادی» از طریق ویرانی های روز افزون محیط زیست و تهدید همیشگی جنگ هسته ای، تهدیدی برای موجودیت بشر نیز محسوب می شود .

مبارزات چند جانبه برای براندازی رژیم فاشیستی ترامپ/پنس جایگزینی برای حرکت به فراسوی این سیستم و هر آنچه که توسط «شرایط عادی» آن نمایندگی شده و تجسم می یابد نیست. بلکه باید به مثابه یک بخش – بخشی مهم – از حرکت به  فراسوی  سیستم در دست گرفته شود .

۶ سرانجام جدا از اینکه چه اتفاقاتی در انتخابات جاری بیفتد، یک حقیقت عمیق تغییر نمی کند و آن این که هیچ تغییر  اساسی  به سمت شرایط بهتر  در چارچوبۀ این سیستم  امکان پذیر نیست. تشخیص این حقیقت و عمل کردن بر مبنای درکِ آن اهمیتی حیاتی دارد. هرچند که بسیج گستردۀ پایدار حول مطالبۀ متحد کنندۀ «برکناری رژیم ترامپ/پنس! فوری!» باید به طور عاجل پیش برود. اما در همان حال کسانی که به این درک رسیده اند که سفیدسالاری، مردسالاری و دیگر ستم ها و جنایت ها علیه بشریت که در چارچوب این سیستم جریان دارد در حقیقت در وجود سیستم سرمایه داری-امپریالیسم  تعبیه شده  اند، باید به طور منظم و مداوم با یکدیگر برای ساختن جنبشی گسترش یابنده و تقویت نیروهای سازمان یافتۀ برای انجام انقلابی واقعی جهت سرنگونی سیستم، کار کنند .   

خلاصه کنم: با توجه به وجود خطرات حقیقتا سرنوشت ساز، نه فقط از منظر یک موضوع خاص، هرچند که بسیار مهم باشد، و نه صرفا برای این کشور، بلکه برای توده های مردم در سراسر جهان و برای آیندۀ بشریت، نیاز فوق العاده ای هست که رویکرد و عمل مان دارای آن حد از پختگی باشد که در مواجهه با تضادهای پیچیده و دشوار اوضاع کنونی لازم است – داشتن دید وسیع، رد سکتاریسم کوته نظرانه و دگماتیسم شکننده و بی دوام، و پرهیز از رویکرد فلج کنندۀ «این یا آن». نباید گفت: ما علیه سفیدسالاری و خشونت پلیس مبارزه می کنیم یا برای بیرون راندن رژیم فاشیستی ترامپ/پنس؛ یا در این انتخابات شرکت میکنیم یا مبارزه توده ای علیه مظالم سیستم و این رژیم فاشیستی راه می اندازیم.؛ یا با هر وسیلۀ مناسبی به مخالفت با این رژیم بلند می شویم یا برای انقلاب کار می کنیم .  در این شرایط استثنائی و بسیار پیچیده و از چشم انداز پیشبرد مبارزه با هدف محو نهایی همه انواع ستم و استثمار، در همه جای جهان، نیاز فوری به انجام همه این کارها هست و این کار را باید بر مبنای درک رابطۀ صحیح و لازم بین بخشهای مختلف این رویکرد کلی باید انجام داد: با  قرار دادن تأکید اصلی و اتکا بر  بسیج توده ای وسیع، رأی دادن در این شرایط خارق العاده لازم و مهم است اما نباید تکیۀ عمده را بر آن گذاشت؛ و به طور بنیادین، همه این کارها را باید به خدمت ایجاد شرایط مساعدتری برای ساختن نیروهای متشکل در آورد، تا نه فقط مقاومت علیه جنایت های این سیستم را پیش ببریم بلکه برای این که بتوانیم بالاخره انقلاب کنیم؛ انقلابی برای پایان دادن به حیات این سیستم  فوق العاده جنایتکار و تسلط آن در جهان، به هر شکلی .

 

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/673/rnl-show-episode-33-announcement-en.html

Episode 33 of
The RNL Show—Revolution, Nothing Less!

| revcom.us

 

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"We Won! Trump Lost. But It's Not Over, Trump/Pence Must Go!"

The Revolution, Nothing Less Show

Trump was dealt a defeat in the elections! All over the country people poured out to celebrate. As the Biden/Harris team prepares to transition toward their term, the fascist-in-chief and his regime is not conceding but is on the offensive to stay in power. There is a political battle on our hands, and the fight isn’t over yet.

This episode includes: 

  • Andy Zee, Coco Das, and Sunsara Taylor will speak on the importance of the Refuse Fascism Pledge to the People of the World that was printed in the New York Times on Monday, November 9, and to some crucial lessons in this hour.
  • Bob Avakian on where the American fascist movement behind Trump and Pence comes from. From the 2017 speech called The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept A Fascist America, A Better World IS Possible!
  • Excerpts from Refuse Fascism’s November 3 Election Night Livestream hosted by Andy Zee and Coco Das from the Editorial Board of Refuse Fascism, with conversations with political analyst Jared Yates Sexton; Sara Atkins, who is the Director of Activism of the organization Torah Trump Hate; and Joshua Shanes, who is a Jewish Studies professor and scholar.
  • Sights and sounds from across the country on Saturday, November 7, on the day when Biden defeated Trump in the Electoral College and became president-elect.
  • The song “Amerikkka Goddamn” by Outernational!

 

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Updated | revcom.us

 

Editors' Note: What follows is an important message that concisely outlines the dynamics of the struggle around the presidential election. This originally appeared at revcom.us in late September, before the election and Biden's victory over Trump in the popular and Electoral College votes. The points here are even more relevant than ever.

THIS IS THE SITUATION, THESE ARE THE STAKES.

TRUMP IS DETERMINED, AND HAS A STRATEGY, TO STAY IN POWER, AND HAMMER INTO PLACE HIS FASCIST PROGRAM—MURDEROUSLY ENFORCING INJUSTICE, CRUSHING BASIC RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES, ACCELERATING THE DESTRUCTION OF THE ENVIRONMENT AND HEIGHTENING THE DANGER OF NUCLEAR ANNIHILATION—NO MATTER HOW PEOPLE VOTE. Trump is already stealing the election, he has a plan in place to use key institutions, including the Supreme Court, and violent thugs, in and out of uniform, to keep his regime in power.

THE DEMOCRATS’ STRATEGY IS LIKELY A LOSING STRATEGY THAT WILL LEAD THEM TO CAPITULATE TO TRUMP (even if the actual voting favors the Democrats). Left to their own devices, the Democrats do not have the ability or the will to fight Trump the way he needs to be fought. Despite the fact that the Trump/Pence regime represents an existential threat to humanity, the Democrats have refused to call out this fascist regime for what it is and oppose it on that basis. They are calling on people to just vote as if this is a “regular” election and the “normal rules” apply. The Democrats are trying to rely on procedures and institutions that this fascist regime has corrupted, destroyed, or taken over.

IF FASCISM FULLY TAKES HOLD IN THE MOST POWERFUL COUNTRY IN THE WORLD, THIS COULD LEAD TO A CATASTROPHE FROM WHICH HUMANITY MAY NOT BE ABLE TO RECOVER.

FOR EVERYONE WHO CARES ABOUT JUSTICE, ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT, AND A FUTURE WORTH LIVING FOR HUMANITY: WE NEED TO TAKE UP THE CALL FROM REFUSEFASCISM.ORG TO ORGANIZE AND MOBILIZE DETERMINED AND CREATIVE NONVIOLENT ACTIONS AND SUSTAINED DEMONSTRATIONS, DAY AFTER DAY, BECOMING INCREASINGLY MASSIVE AND POWERFUL, DEMANDING TRUMP/PENCE OUT NOW!—CHANGING THE WHOLE POLITICAL EQUATION AND SITUATION IN THIS COUNTRY, MAKING EVERY FORCE IN SOCIETY RESPOND TO THE POWERFULLY DEMONSTRATED DEMAND OF MASSES OF PEOPLE THAT THIS FASCIST REGIME MUST BE REMOVED.

Despite what the Democrats stand for, and how their approach would severely limit and cripple the fight against this fascist regime, in terms of voting people need to massively vote against Trump, by voting for Biden. BUT IT IS ABSOLUTELY CLEAR:

VOTING WILL NOT BE ENOUGH—AND SIMPLY RELYING ON VOTING WILL VERY LIKELY LEAD TO DISASTER. WE NEED TO TAKE TO THE STREETS NOW, AND STAY IN THE STREETS, DEMANDING TRUMP/PENCE OUT NOW!

For further understanding of all this, see these important works by Bob Avakian, available at revcom.us: the three-part series Voting Will Not Be Enough—We Need To Take To The Streets, And Stay In The Streets Demanding Trump/Pence Out Now! (in particular Part 3, Trump’s Fascism—More Blatant and Dangerous Every Day: How a Determined Fight and Massive Mobilization Could Defeat This) and Statement by Bob Avakian, August 1, 2020, On the Immediate Critical Situation, The Urgent Need to Drive Out the Fascist Trump/Pence Regime, Voting in This Election, And the Fundamental Need for Revolution.

 


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A Deadly Pandemic, a Murderous System, a Fascist Regime That Must Be Removed from Power

Letter from a reader

| revcom.us

 

Editors’ Note: We write as the COVID infections and deaths in the U.S. spike upwards at remarkable rates. The public health infrastructure is at its limits in vast parts of the country, with people dying from lack of access. Trump and his fascist regime persist with their anti-scientific approach, muzzling government public health scientists, refusing any measures of lockdowns despite the recommendations of scientists, and completely abdicating any nationally coordinated plan and approach. This is criminally negligent, gross negligence and, by their scope or nature, acts that shock the conscience. This alone is sufficient reason to demand Trump/Pence OUT NOW!

“This was my fifth COVID-assignment. I was told anybody who goes in that pit (at the University Medical Center in El Paso, Texas), they know that they’re only coming out in a body bag. I’ve seen so many deaths in this last month, (more) than I’ve seen in my entire 13-year career. I have never experienced, and have no words, for what I just experienced in El Paso, Texas.” Travel Nurse Lawanna Rivers1

Earlier this year in Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest city, bodies were left decomposing in homes, abandoned in hospitals, wrapped in plastic and cardboard and left on the street. One video showed a woman begging the government to remove her husband’s corpse from her home. She was quarantined inside the home with the body for days, while government officials told her they were coming to move it. Gabreila Orellena pleaded, sobbing, “If you see this video, Mr. President, please, where are they? ... They told me they were coming, and it was a lie. I’m only asking for you to help him die with dignity. Please. Don’t leave him here, thrown on the ground.”

Infections and deaths from the coronavirus are soaring across most of the world. Worldwide, there have been over 54 million known cases of the virus, and 1.3 million deaths. The actual figure is probably significantly higher. In October, a top official with the World Health Organization reported that “our current best estimates tell us that about 10 percent of the global population may have been infected by the virus” and that the “vast majority of the world remains at risk.”

In the U.S., on November 14 the New York Times reported that more than 1,000 people on average are dying from the virus every day in this country, a 50 percent increase in the last month. On November 12, 153,000 new cases were discovered in the U.S., the most of any day since the viral onslaught began. And all the curves—of infections, of deaths—project upwards, with hospitals and vital life-saving equipment below capacity.

Imperialism’s Savage Inequalities—A Plague of Sickness and Death

Any society would confront viruses and pandemics. But how a society confronts them is shaped by the kind of social system it has. The system of capitalism-imperialism is an obstacle to confronting a pandemic with science, and in the interests of humanity.

This crisis with the coronavirus has brought into sharp relief the reality that the capitalist system is not simply out of step with but is in fundamental conflict with, and a direct obstacle to, meeting the needs of the masses of humanity. Even as the capitalists and governments representing their interests have been forced to take certain emergency steps that in some ways run counter to the inherent dynamics of their system (such as massive intervention by the government in the functioning of the economy), the ways in which this system constitutes an obstacle to dealing with this crisis continue to assert themselves—including not only such perverse actions as the hoarding by some of vital medical and other supplies, in order to drive up the price, but also the fact that the creation of wealth under this system proceeds on the basis of ruthless exploitation and the impoverishment of masses of people throughout the world, while even in the “wealthier” countries there is significant poverty and large parts of the population live paycheck-to-paycheck and are only one serious crisis away from disaster; the ongoing rivalry between different capitalists (or associations of capital), with their private ownership of the means of production (land, raw materials, technology, factories and other structures) and private, competitive accumulation of wealth acts as a hindrance to necessary cooperation and the production of things that may be urgently needed but are not productive of private profit—and the whole ideology of advancing one’s interests at the expense of others, the individualism that is fostered by this system and is promoted to an extreme currently in this country, runs counter to and undermines inclinations toward cooperation and, yes, sacrifice for the greater good. (From THE DEADLY ILLUSION OF “NORMALCY” AND THE REVOLUTIONARY WAY FORWARD, by Bob Avakian)

Capitalism is a system in which the driving commandment is the expansion of profit. This shapes everything in society, and takes expression on a global level. Capitalism-imperialism’s relentless exploitation and deep oppression of billions of people worldwide have created yawning gulfs of inequality in wealth, living conditions, access to medical care, and resources for the most basic needs of life, such as food, decent housing, clean water, and reliable sewage disposal. Those gulfs have been widening and deepening through this crisis.

This has greatly affected the virus’s impact among different populations. For example, Angela Kocherga, the news director at El Paso radio station KTEP, said in an interview that in the northern Mexican city of Juárez, just across the Rio Grande from the U.S., “The Juarez hospitals filled up last week with COVID patients.... [P]eople there are basically being told, take care of yourself, because we don’t have room at the hospital.” As we pointed out in “From Vise Grip to Death Grip: Imperialist Domination, COVID-19, and the Poor of the World Be Damned,” in Juárez there are over 300 maquiladoras—highly profitable foreign-owned factories that produce automotive equipment, medical devices, aerospace products, electronics, and other materials for export to the U.S. Their capitalist owners didn’t want to stop production and cut into their profit, and as Associated Press reported, the COVID-related curfew “has proved difficult to enforce in the sprawling city that is home to hundreds of factories that manufacture ... around the clock.”

The U.S. was founded on genocide and slavery, and built since then on deeply embedded oppression of Black and Brown people, an oppression expressed in every aspect of U.S. society—including today in the impact of the coronavirus. White people have 23 COVID-19 cases per 10,000 people, while the number for Black people is 62 per 10,000, and for Latinx people, 73 per 10,000. Both Black and Latinx people are about twice as likely to die from the virus as white people.

Crimes of a Fascist Regime

In very immediate terms, the outlook and methods as well as the priorities of the fascists, as concentrated in the Trump/Pence regime—with the appointment of the anti-scientific Pence to head government efforts around COVID-19; Trump’s initial denial of the scope and danger posed by this virus and his continuing lies about this; his gross American chauvinism, pitting this country against the rest of the world; his repeated tendency to recklessly deny medical science and ignore the recommendations of medical experts where it runs counter to his own narrowly conceived and dangerously shortsighted interests and objectives; and more—all this amplifies and fortifies the barriers that the “normal functioning” of the capitalist-imperialist system places in the way of a systematic and coordinated approach to combating the coronavirus. (From THE DEADLY ILLUSION OF “NORMALCY” AND THE REVOLUTIONARY WAY FORWARD, by Bob Avakian)

The fascist Trump/Pence regime has criminally amplified and magnified all these horrors. This regime put Mike Pence, a Christian fascist who denies and opposes science, in charge of its response to the virus. Trump has lied about the virus from day one. Trump and his core of fascists continue to undermine, ignore, and oppose scientists and medical experts. One expression of this—they never developed a national plan for virus testing. They have opposed measures of meaningful lockdowns.

Face masks have become a dividing line, where Trump openly flaunts not wearing one, mocks anyone who does including his own fascist supporters like Laura Ingraham,2 making it a standard in his rallies with thousands of people, in his events including indoor “super-spreader” events like the announcement of the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett. During the campaign Trump used his own illness, from which he recovered with tremendous health care, as a way to undermine the seriousness and severity of the disease. He has encouraged his fascist social base to defy the orders on face masks with customers threatening store attendants. He has encouraged and backed his thugs to defy lockdowns, including armed vigilantes occupying the Michigan state house. He has mocked scientific expertise undermining and pitting them against economic growth and well-being. Under capitalism-imperialism, as we have pointed out, there is a real contradiction between the economy and the livelihoods of people and the public health measures needed to contain the pandemic.

They have shut down the border with Mexico using the utterly deceitful claim that they were doing this as a “health measure”—while holding immigrants in prisons that are wracked with more than 13 times the viral rate of the population as a whole, and deporting so many immigrants with the virus that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) became what the New York Times called “a domestic and global spreader of the virus”. They have threatened to cut funding for public schools that didn’t re-open, and said they would funnel that money to Christian fundamentalist schools.

As a global crisis confronts literally all of humanity, this regime and its adherents have promoted ignorant, virulent individualism in the name of “personal freedom.”

They have refused to cooperate with the incoming administration of President-elect Biden, in particular about planning distribution of a virus vaccine—an action that could cause the totally unnecessary loss of many more lives. A “senior official” in Trump’s regime told a Vanity Fair reporter that “The vaccine distribution planning takes time. And Operation Warp Speed has built up a huge database that is guiding their decisions about how best to roll out the vaccine. It’s essential Biden’s camp has access to this information so that when a vaccine does become available it can get out to the public quickly.”

The magnitude of the regime’s crimes as applied within this country were indicated in a study by four doctors at Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness. It concluded that “we estimate that at least 130,000 deaths and perhaps as many as 210,000 could have been avoided with earlier policy interventions and more robust federal coordination and leadership.”

All this—the belligerent opposition to science, the indifference to human suffering, the “me-first, America First, and screw everyone else” mentality, the cascade of lies—is a concentration of the fascism of the Trump/Pence regime and its crimes against humanity. This regime must be driven OUT NOW!

SOURCES

Covid-10 Coronavirus Pandemic, Worldometer

WHO: Number of Coronavirus Cases May Be Much Higher Than Reported, Voice of America, October 6, 2020

‘Every day it’s getting worse’: Bodies of coronavirus victims are left on the streets in Ecuador’s largest city, Washington Post, April 3, 2020

Ecuador’s Death Toll During Outbreak Is Among the Worst in the World, New York Times, May 12, 2020

Trump and Republicans are making the coming covid-19 nightmare worse, Washington Post, November 13, 2020

The Fullest Look Yet at the Racial Inequity of Coronavirus, New York Times, July 5, 2020

Morbidity and Mortality Report, Centers for Disease Control, August 28, 2020

COVID-19 placed a magnifying glass on inequities in the Kansas City area, KMBC News, November 8, 2020

Fact-check: Is the coronavirus death rate in the Rio Grande Valley double the state average? Austin American-Statesman, October 16, 2020

‘A stain on our country’: ICE efforts to stop COVID-19 spread fail to protect immigrant detainees from virus, USA Today, November 11, 2020

‘It Was Like a Time Bomb’: How ICE Helped Spread the Coronavirus, New York Times, July 10, 2020

“130,000—210,000 AVOIDABLE COVID-19 DEATHS—AND COUNTING—IN THE U.S.”, National Center for Disaster Preparedness, Columbia University, October 21, 2020

 


1. In a November 7, 2020 Facebook live video. [back]

2. See “Trump, in Michigan, calls Laura Ingraham ‘politically correct’ for wearing a mask,” New York Times, October 30, 2020 [back]

COVID19 testing-NYCTrump has lied about the virus from day one. Trump and his core of fascists continue to undermine, ignore, and oppose scientists and medical experts. One expression of this – they never developed a national plan for virus testing. People wait in line to get COVID 19 test at a New York City MD Urgent Care Clinic, November 13. (Photo: AP)

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/641/resource-page-on-covid-19-pandemic-en.html

The Coronavirus Pandemic — A Resource Page

| revcom.us

 

This is the interactive Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases Chart from the Coronavirus Resource Center, Johns Hopkins University & Medicine.

 

COVID-19, the disease caused by a new coronavirus, has spread throughout the world, including the U.S. This pandemic is interacting with the state of the world and the gross inequalities and oppressive social relations of capitalism-imperialism. It is having a huge effect on human society as a whole and in individual countries, and may potentially have even more major impacts beyond even what is happening now. As Bob Avakian has said in “The Deadly Illusion of ‘Normalcy’ and the Revolutionary Way Forward”:

Underlying the immediate crisis, and the danger posed by the Trump/Pence regime and its fanatical fascist “base,” there is the more fundamental reality of the capitalist-imperialist system and the consequences of allowing this system to continue to dominate the world and determine the conditions of the masses of humanity and indeed the very fate of humanity itself. This crisis with the coronavirus has brought into sharp relief the reality that the capitalist system is not simply out of step with but is in fundamental conflict with, and a direct obstacle to, meeting the needs of the masses of humanity. Even as the capitalists and governments representing their interests have been forced to take certain emergency steps that in some ways run counter to the inherent dynamics of their system (such as massive intervention by the government in the functioning of the economy), the ways in which this system constitutes an obstacle to dealing with this crisis continue to assert themselves—including not only such perverse actions as the hoarding by some of vital medical and other supplies, in order to drive up the price, but also the fact that the creation of wealth under this system proceeds on the basis of ruthless exploitation and the impoverishment of masses of people throughout the world, while even in the “wealthier” countries there is significant poverty and large parts of the population live paycheck-to-paycheck and are only one serious crisis away from disaster; the ongoing rivalry between different capitalists (or associations of capital), with their private ownership of the means of production (land, raw materials, technology, factories and other structures) and private, competitive accumulation of wealth acts as a hindrance to necessary cooperation and the production of things that may be urgently needed but are not productive of private profit—and the whole ideology of advancing one’s interests at the expense of others, the individualism that is fostered by this system and is promoted to an extreme currently in this country, runs counter to and undermines inclinations toward cooperation and, yes, sacrifice for the greater good. Despite the dedicated efforts of many well-meaning people, even if the immediate crisis with the coronavirus is resolved, this will be done on the basis of intensifying the contradictions built into this system and the suffering of the masses of humanity who are already exploited and oppressed under this system. [Bolded emphasis added]

This is a time when having accurate scientific information and understanding is a life-and-death question for people here and around the world. Yet there is a lot of confusion about the coronavirus. There is misleading information coming from people in power, especially Trump. So getting to the truth on this is urgent.

 

Bob Avakian on Revolution and the Coronavirus Pandemic

In the context of this current crisis, the exploitative and oppressive relations built into this system are asserting themselves in a pronounced way, within this country and internationally, just as they have in previous crises.

— Bob Avakian

CONSPIRACY THEORIES, FASCIST "CERTITUDE," LIBERAL PARALYSIS, OR
A SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO CHANGING THE WORLD

by Bob Avakian

Short Version—The Simple and Basic Truth
Longer Version—The Truth Elaborated

The RNL Show — Revolution, Nothing Less!

Episode 4: Bob Avakian on Science and How Real Socialism Would Handle Pandemics. An excerpt of a speech from Bob Avakian that takes us deeper into the scientific method. Then a reading of Communique #4 from The Revcoms.

 

[Back to top]

 

The Coronavirus Pandemic: Frequently Asked Questions


A model of the Coronavirus COVID-19.

[Back to top]

How is the capitalist-imperialist system making the effect of the coronavirus worse than it has to be?

Letters From Readers:

COVID-19 Catastrophe Inside U.S. Prisons and Jails

Read more


Relatives and friends protest "execution by COVID 19." (Photo: AP)

State of Emergency in COVID-19 Crisis Grows More Dire!

Read more


November 19, Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles. (Photo: AP)

A Viral Pandemic; A Tidal Wave of Ignorance and Hate; a Fascist Regime Soaked in Suffering and Death

Read more


Armed militia occupying the Michigan State Capitol demanding an end to "stay at home" orders intended to slow the spread of Covid-19.

See also:

The Coronavirus... and the Savage Inequalities of America —
past articles from revcom.us

Read more

[Back to top]

How would the revolution handle the coronavirus or similar epidemics if it held state power?

[Back to top]

What should we be doing now?

[Back to top]

 

 

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Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/674/supreme-court-justice-alitos-christian-fascist-speech-en.html

Supreme Court Justice Alito's Christian-Fascist Speech to the Federalist Society

| revcom.us

 

On November 11, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito gave a major speech to the annual Lawyers’ Convention of the Federalist Society—a large fascist legal organization. The Federalist Society, as one observer noted, has as a core goal “shaping the federal judiciary to reflect rigid, conservative religious dogmas,” including overturning the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in 1973 and the Obergefell v. Hodges decision that legalized same-sex marriage in 2015. It is financially backed by other powerful forces who consider the significant reforms and changes in the atmosphere that came about as a result of the struggles of Black, women, LGBTQ, and other people during the upheavals of the 1960s and ’70s to be a violation of “natural law”—i.e., God’s will. And they are well on their way to completely negating those advances and going much further toward a new Dark Ages of religious rule.

Alito’s speech is marked by the sense of bitter resentment and grievance of white Christian men that runs through the whole Trumpist fascist movement. In Alito’s mind, “conservative lawyers” face “harassment and retaliation” for promoting their positions—even though the Federalist Society played a decisive role in picking the majority of justices on the Supreme Court, and 90 percent of the appellate court judges that Trump has put on the courts. At one point he compares a sharply worded amicus (“friend of the court”) brief filed by five Democratic senators with the experience of the supreme court of another (unnamed) country having “a tank pull up and point its gun toward the court.”

Alito also speaks out against what he calls “the vision of early 20th century progressives and the New Dealers of the 1930s” of imposing “the rule of experts.” What he means by this is the idea that government policies should be based on a scientific understanding of reality and not on popular prejudice.

Alito equates the very legitimate response of people who call them out for their “bigotry” as denying them their “freedom of speech.” He is furious that same-sex marriage is now not only legal but that public opinion has shifted. Alito says, “I assume that those who cling to old beliefs [i.e., that same-sex marriage is unnatural] will be able to whisper their thoughts in the recesses of their homes. But if they repeat those views in public, they will risk being labeled as bigots.” Well, hopefully they will, because that is what they are, but being called a bigot does not prevent you from speaking.

In one stunning passage, speaking about stay-at-home orders and mask ordinances aimed at combating the spread of COVID-19, Alito says: “we have never before seen restrictions as severe, extensive and prolonged as those experienced for most of 2020.” Restrictions on public gatherings, mandates on wearing protective masks, and other measures have been implemented for the sake of general public health, because of a lethal global pandemic that is a societal danger, affecting everyone. Science is being looked to and argued for in governing bodies making these determinations. If exercising one’s individual freedom endangers others, like shouting “fire!” in a crowded theater, it is explicitly not a violation of First Amendment rights. And neither are these public health measures taken for the greater societal good, based on public health and scientific epidemiology. Contrary to Alito’s argument, there is no singling out of religious forces, no special rules or restrictions for social gatherings that apply only on the basis of religion.

Alito also claims that in the U.S. today “for many, religious liberty is not a cherished freedom. It’s often just an excuse for bigotry, and it can’t be tolerated.” As evidence he brings up the Masterpiece Cakeshop case in which the owners were sued for refusing to provide a cake for a gay wedding; the Little Sisters of the Poor case in which a group of Catholic nuns were sued for blocking their employees’ access to insurance that covered birth control; and another case in which a pharmacist was sued for refusing to sell the “morning after” pill.

Alito says, “The question we face is whether our society will be inclusive enough to tolerate people with unpopular religious beliefs.” Well, first, let’s note that this is not the issue at all—the issue is whether people can deprive or obstruct other people’s exercise of their legally recognized rights, such as the right to marry, the right to birth control, etc., using their religious beliefs as justification. And the answer is HELL NO, just as you can’t murder someone and use your interpretation of the Bible as justification.

But more importantly, fundamentalist Christianity is hardly an “unpopular religious belief”—in fact it is currently the dominant religion throughout much of American society, including in the U.S. government. The vice president; secretaries of the departments of Education, Housing, State, and other key posts; hundreds of congressmen; and six of the nine justices on the Supreme Court are Christian fundamentalist fascists. Christian fascists have been working for decades to not only “dominate” but to transform U.S. society into one based on (their interpretation of) biblical law. Under the Trump/Pence regime they have made enormous strides—including amassing enormous strength in the judicial system, and building up and hardening a powerful Christian fascist social movement. And even if and when the regime is driven from power, that Christian fascist movement is not going anywhere—it is going to use its tremendous institutional strength and backing of fanatics to carry through this mission, if they are not prevented from doing so.

Alito’s speech was creating public opinion for and a rallying cry for this mission.

 

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/672/actually-we-do-need-to-be-in-the-streets-now-en.html

Actually? We DO Need to Be in the Streets ... NOW!

Trump and MAGA-Thugs Not Backing Down or Going Away.
The Fascist Forces Have a Plan to Steal the Election, and They Are Working It...

| revcom.us

 

Editors’ Note: While this article was published before Biden's Electoral College victory was called by news outlets, we are reposting it because the basic theme remains as relevant as ever in terms of what is urgently needed.

Trump is not quitting. The fascist forces under the command of Trump and Pence—in the government and in the streets—are not quitting. If the election showed anything, it has shown that these forces are deeply dug into this society and will not be vanquished without a huge struggle. Fighting all the way through to drive out this regime is going to be a huge part of that struggle.

They have been stealing, and they are continuing to steal, this election: this is hardly a secret. As it appears, they have a two-pronged plan, and they have been working on it and they are doing it right in front of our faces.

Part one: Suppress the vote. Prevent the votes of hundreds of thousands of people, disproportionately Black and Latino people from the cities, from being counted. Tie up the results in the courts that they have packed, all the way up to the Supreme Court, and the state legislatures that they have gerrymandered... create confusion, doubt, delay, and chaos... and then use holes and ambiguities in the law to overturn the results. (And by the way, this didn’t just start—go here to find out how they have been suppressing the votes of Black, Latino and other people of color for months, and throughout history. See here and here.)

Part two: Dominate the streets and public squares with their fascist-MAGA goons and thugs. Already, they have been mobbing the people who are counting the ballots in Detroit, Philadelphia, and Phoenix—and brandishing automatic rifles to threaten vote-counters in Phoenix. These are the ones who waved around their assault rifles when they came into state legislatures in the spring, and who used those rifles (or their cars) to kill unarmed demonstrators against police murder and racism in the summer... rampaging with escalated brutality since the Republican National Convention. As we go to press, Trump is tweeting “Stop the Count!” He aims to both suppress the vote, and mobilize his thugs who he had earlier ordered to “stand by” in a presidential debate.* Left unopposed, the fascist MAGA forces aided by the police will aim to create so much intimidating violence and chaos that key power centers and institutions decide to back, or go along with, Trump’s theft of the election.

That’s their plan. Totally illegitimate; utterly fascist; and likely to work... if not opposed by massive nonviolent action in the streets.

Think the fascist plan can’t happen? Read some history, and see how George W. Bush became president in 2000, with considerably less threat and mayhem than Trump routinely summons forth. Or more recently, remember how the cops and fascists used violence to suppress the beautiful rising against police terror and white supremacy, redefining terms from the horrors of white supremacy to “law and order,” with Trump using this to come close to actually winning the election outright.

The Idea That We Should NOT Be in the Streets Is Suicidal

Some political forces have told people to stay out of the streets in order not to “play into Trump’s narrative of confusion, chaos and uncertainty.” On that basis, they pulled out of or did not build the already-called-for demonstrations of last night. They had previously called for these protests post-Election Night to prevent Trump from stealing the election.

Reality check: Biden has not assumed the presidency. As of Thursday morning, Biden has not even won the vote. Meanwhile Trump and Pence have not given up, and now they’ve sent their dogs into the streets and lawyers into the courts, aiming to seize the initiative and dictate terms.

NO! Recognizing the dire threat posed by this fascist regime, we cannot afford to play a “waiting game.” We need to come in and stay in the public square NOW, growing every day and night, in massive demonstrations that are nonviolent, sustained, and refuse to back down till this regime is gone. That—massive, sustained, nonviolent demonstrations—is the key way that we can reset the terms of debate, exposing the illegitimacy of the fascists and their moves, winning public opinion to the righteous and legitimate side of driving out the regime. This was done at the beginning of the summer in the beautiful rising against police terror and institutional racism, in a beginning but significant way that showed the potential power of this path; we need to do that again, against this monstrous regime that threatens the future itself.

WE need to be making the case—that the voter suppression, the threats (and carrying out) of violence, and all the rest that Trump, Pence, and the rest of them have already done and  are continuing to do right now is illegitimate ... that the white supremacy, the patriarchal theocracy and the fascism are even more illegitimate... and that this regime must GO.

If you think we should rely on the norms and institutions of this system and not rock the boat, please ask yourself: how did that work when you put your hopes in the Russia investigation? In the blue wave? In the impeachment? It didn’t—and now we really can’t afford not to learn the lesson, especially with the fascists in control of state legislatures and key sections of the judiciary.

We Need Massive, Sustained, Nonviolent Action NOW, Demanding Trump/Pence Out Now!

Can’t work? The civil rights movement of the ’60s did it up against the forerunners of these goons and thugs of today. The moral and political force of the tens of thousands standing up to that inspired people here and worldwide. The process they started raised sharp questions about the legitimacy of this country and its system at home and around the world... and by doing so they changed the terms of debate in society, they forced the institutions and power centers of society—from Congress to the courts—to behave “differently,” to bend and concede to their demands. Something similar is necessary and possible right now, through mass political resistance, with the demand and outcome being the removal of this regime.

Conclusion: If we don’t get rid of this regime NOW, when we can... if they come back stronger and force their way into another term... then shame on us. Some progressive people are already talking about “all the work we can begin after the election.” That rings hollow indeed in the face of this genocidal racist staying in power! The first and crucial step—the work we need to do now—is to finish the job of driving out this regime, with mass sustained non-violent protests.

That is the most pressing and absolutely necessary task right now in the badly needed top-to-bottom transformation of a society so rotten that it could produce a Trump... a dangerous, inhuman fascist who won one election and is too damn close to winning or stealing another.

We’ve got to finish THIS job: removing this fascist regime. Humanity is counting on us.

 


* During the first presidential debate, when asked if he would condemn the white supremacist fascist group the Proud Boys—a group which has been behind violent attacks on protests around the country—Trump directly addressed them from the stage, telling them to “stand back... and stand by.”  [back]


Trump told the Proud Boys to "stand by." Here, Proud Boys in the streets of Portland, Oregon, September 26, 2020. (Photo: AP)

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/672/appearing-in-the-ny-times-a-pledge-to-the-people-of-the-world-en.html

Reposted from RefuseFascism.org:

Appearing in the New York Times on Monday, November 9: A Pledge to the People of the World

| revcom.us

 

On Monday, November 9, “A Pledge to the People of the World: In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America. The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!” appears as a full-page ad in the New York Times. The Times originally tried to censor this, but reversed the decision. The ad has a number of signatories, including Cornel West, Noam Chomsky, Lilly Wachowski, Arturo O’Farrill, and Chuck D.

 

Read this pledge, and see the full list of the signers of this pledge, at RefuseFascism.org

 

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Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

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During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/674/check-it-out-leonard-pitts-en.html

Check It Out:

Columnist Leonard Pitts, Jr.—“This election showed us just who we are as a nation—and it’s not very pretty”

| revcom.us

 

Leonard Pitts, Jr. is a journalist and the winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. Like tens of millions of people in the U.S., he is celebrating the defeat of Trump in the election. As he wrote, “Certainly, this is a glad moment, an ecstatic and delirious moment…. Trump is finally consigned to the dank well of ignominy he so richly deserves.” But, as he points out in a series of recent columns, there are stark realities about this country, its history, and the current situation that people must confront.

In “This election showed us just who we are as a nation—and it’s not very pretty,” Pitts notes that “even in defeat, Trump actually improved on his 2016 popular vote count by—at this writing—roughly 7 million.”

In “What about what’s good for us?” Pitts writes, “I view this moment through the prism of an African-American man who is a student of history. And one thing that prism has impressed on me is how often this country has sold out Black people in the name of some supposedly greater good.

“It happened at the founding, when a condemnation of slavery was removed from the Declaration of Independence to appease the Southern colonies. It happened in 1877 when Rutherford B. Hayes won the presidency in a disputed election after striking a backroom deal to withdraw from the South federal troops who had been protecting black rights – and lives. It happened in the early 20th century when the Senate refused to pass anti-lynching legislation for fear of angering the South. It happened in 1961 when Attorney General Robert Kennedy agreed to the illegal arrest of the Freedom Riders as Mississippi’s price for protecting them from white-supremacist mobs. It happened in 1964 when President Lyndon Johnson blocked a racially mixed delegation from being seated at the Democratic convention because that would offend the South.

“Now in 2020, this great-grandson of slaves is expected, in the name of a supposedly greater good, to seek reconciliation with followers of one of the most flagrantly racist—not to mention misogynistic, xenophobic and Islamophobic—presidents in history?

“In a word: No. In another word: Enough….”

Another recent Pitt column is “Donald Trump may look like he’s fully clothed, but in reality…

At this critical moment—when Trump and the fascists have been dealt a big defeat but still present a dangerous threat as they try to stay in power—these columns by Pitts are important for people to check out. And it would be good if there was a lot more truth-telling like this from people in the media and others with a public voice.


Leonard Pitts, Jr.

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/674/philadelphia-city-council-apologizes-for-1985-move-bombing-en.html

Philadelphia City Council Formally Apologizes for the 1985 MOVE Bombing

| revcom.us

 

The Philadelphia City Council unanimously voted November 12 to formally apologize for a horrific crime committed over 35 years ago by the city and its police and authorized by its first Black mayor, Wilson Goode. On May 13, 1985, Philadelphia police carried out an “eviction” of members of the Black political organization MOVE and their children. After firing 10,000 bullets into the Osage Avenue home in 90 minutes, they dropped two bombs on the roof. The bombs sparked a fire which they let burn, killing five children and six adults trapped in the MOVE house, and destroying 61 other houses in the surrounding area of Cobbs Creek. (See American Crime #99 below.)

The City Council’s vote on the resolution comes after the Black Lives Matter uprising against police murder shook this country this summer. The protests brought millions of young people into the streets across the U.S. and around the world to condemn the systemic racism in this country. The resolution also establishes May 13 as “an annual day of reflection, observation and recommitment.”

The resolution was sponsored and drafted by Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, who grew up in and represents the district that includes the neighborhood destroyed in the police assault on MOVE. She introduced the resolution just days after the October 26 police killing of Walter Wallace Jr. within a mile of the site of the MOVE bombing. In her speech to the Council, Gauthier linked the two events: “We can draw a straight line from the unresolved pain and trauma of that day to Walter Wallace Jr.’s killing earlier this week in the very same neighborhood, because what’s lying under the surface here is a lack of recognition of the humanity of Black people from law enforcement.”

In an earlier statement in May, 11 members of the Philadelphia City Council said: “We apologize for the decisions leading to the devastation of that day, and acknowledge the fundamental injustice, cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity of the MOVE bombing.” Yet not one person has ever been prosecuted for these depraved acts. What kind of a system is this?

And it should be remembered that soon after that atrocity 35 years ago, a group of prominent Black people and others did speak out, in the “Draw the Line” statement initiated by Carl Dix of the Revolutionary Communist Party. The statement, signed by more than 100 people, said in part: “Over the past 35 years, we have witnessed significant increases in the number of Black elected officials. It is often said, and some of us signing this statement do in fact believe, that such increases represent advances in the struggle of Black people. But all of us agree on this basic truth: When Black officials use their positions of power to attack Black people, or to cover up for or to excuse such attacks, they are no friends of ours and don’t speak for or represent the interests of Black people. In the past, lines were clearly drawn on this question. Those who attacked Black people were counted among our enemies. This line must be firmly drawn again. Murder is murder, no matter whether those responsible are Black or white.”


As the neighborhood around Osage Avenue burned, hundreds gathered in the street, indicting the police and chanting "Murderers! Murderers!"

American Crime

Case #99: May 13, 1985: The MOVE Massacre

Read more


Members of MOVE driven out of their home at gunpoint.


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American Crime

Case #99: May 13, 1985: The MOVE Massacre

| Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Bob Avakian has written that one of three things that has “to happen in order for there to be real and lasting change for the better: People have to fully confront the actual history of this country and its role in the world up to today, and the terrible consequences of this.” (See “3 Things that have to happen in order for there to be real and lasting change for the better.”)

In that light, and in that spirit, “American Crime” is a regular feature of revcom.us. Each installment focuses on one of the 100 worst crimes committed by the U.S. rulers—out of countless bloody crimes they have carried out against people around the world, from the founding of the U.S. to the present day.

American Crime

See all the articles in this series.

 

 

THE CRIME: 5:35 am, May 13, 1985. Philadelphia Police Commissioner Gregore Sambor aims his bullhorn at the house at 6221 Osage Avenue and declares: “Attention MOVE! This is America.”

Seven adults and six children, members of the MOVE organization, were in their home. Outside, hundreds of heavily armed police and city officials surrounded them.

Fifteen minutes later the police assault began. Explosives blew holes in the side of the house and tear gas was pumped in; fire hoses streamed water onto the roof. Police opened fire with over 8,000 rounds from handguns, Uzis, and anti-tank weapons. There was no solid evidence that the people inside ever fired a shot.

When the occupants still did not come out, a police helicopter hovered over the roof and dropped a powerful bomb. The roof burst into flames so hot that homes across the street ignited. Flames raced downward through the MOVE house toward the people huddled in the basement. The fire trucks on hand did nothing to stop the fire, which then quickly spread to the surrounding homes.

The MOVE house became an unbearable hell of intense heat, fire, tear gas. and smoke. Some residents burst outside, but were met by police gunfire and either killed or forced back into the flames, to be burned alive.

By the end, five children ages 9 to 14 were murdered by the police, as were six adults, their bodies mostly in pieces. Sixty-one homes were burned; 250 people rendered homeless. The one adult who survived—Ramona Africa—was arrested and served seven years in jail. The one child survivor was torn from those who love him and put in foster care.

THE CRIMINALS AND CO-CONSPIRATORS: Mayor Wilson Goode, the first Black mayor of Philadelphia, authorized and oversaw the massacre, along with other city leaders, which included former generals, and FBI agents.

The Philadelphia Police Department carried it out.

The FBI took part in the months of planning that went into this atrocity, and provided the city with the military-grade C-4 explosives for the bomb and other heavy weaponry.

The news media collaborated, before and after the crime, in painting MOVE as “dangerous terrorists” who left the authorities “no choice” except a full-scale military assault.

Dozens of political leaders, including U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese III, defended and praised Mayor Goode for his handling of the assault. Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates called Goode a “hero.” Not a single major political leader—Democrat or Republican, Black or white—denounced it.

THE ALIBI: Philadelphia authorities claimed that MOVE was a violent terrorist organization, holding a peaceful neighborhood hostage. The city claimed that it “just wanted to protect the neighborhood,” and that MOVE was digging a network of tunnels, building a weapons stockpile and plotting a major incident, perhaps a hostage taking. They further claimed that MOVE “wanted a violent confrontation” and the city was just responding to that threat. According to then-district attorney Ed Rendell, “These are people who essentially committed suicide, and murdered their own children.”

THE ACTUAL MOTIVE: MOVE was a Black radical organization formed in the early 1970s that refused to respect present-day America and its prevailing values. It exposed the rulers of this society for the liars, racists and murderers they are, denounced their brutal police, and talked about “revolution.”

MOVE thought of revolution as changing people’s thinking and behavior, not overthrowing the whole system, and MOVE’s political actions were peaceful. But when MOVE members were threatened and confronted by the authorities, they did not back down. The rulers of this system considered this to be intolerable, especially coming just a few years after the U.S. had been rocked by mass rebellions of Black people.

Over a year before the May 13 attack, city authorities began meeting and planning how to put a stop to MOVE once and for all—these plans included building models of the MOVE house and practicing exploding it!

Mayor Goode said: “If I had to make the decision all over again, knowing what I know now, I would make the same decision because I think we cannot permit any terrorist group, any revolutionary group in this city, to hold a whole neighborhood or a whole city hostage. And we have to send that message out loud and clear, over and over again...” (Emphasis added.) Never mind the fact that the most common definition of terrorism is the murder of innocent civilians for a political purpose—and that MOVE never did anything remotely resembling that, while Goode committed exactly that crime in his bombing.

Addendum: Repeat Offenders

The MOVE massacre is not the first time this system has bombed and burned out rebellious Black people.

In June 1921, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a white mob attempting to lynch a Black prisoner was stopped, partly by Black residents armed with shotguns. In response, white supremacists went on a rampage. A mob of over 1,000—and including police—stormed the Greenwood area, at that time known as the “Negro Wall Street” because of its vibrant Black-owned economy. Looting, burning, and shooting people, the mob met fierce resistance from armed Blacks. The police commandeered a half-dozen small planes, supposedly to provide surveillance for their attack, though many reported that the planes also dropped explosive and incendiary devices on the Black community.

By the time it was over, up to 100 Black people had been murdered, and perhaps two dozen of their white attackers killed. The population of Greenwood had been rounded up by police and forced into detention centers. The whole neighborhood, including 1,256 homes, had been burned to the ground; only a few buildings survived.

 

Taken in by an unending media and police campaign against MOVE and shocked by the scale of violence unleashed against MOVE, too many people stood by paralyzed and did not rise up in response. A "Draw the Line" statement, initiated by Carl Dix and others, was signed by more than 100 prominent Black figures and others denouncing the collusion of Black elected officials in the repression of the Black community.
Draw the Line Statement about MOVE Massacre
Download JPG | PDF

 

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Revcom.us Podcast series "American Crime"

Case #99: May 13, 1985: The MOVE Massacre


Above: Osage Avenue burns after Philadelphia police dropped bomb on MOVE house. May 13, 1985. 11 people died and 61 homes burned down.

 


Above: As the neighborhood burned, hundreds gathered in the street, indicting the police and chanting "Murderers! Murderers!"

Ramona Africa
While the perpetrators of this horrendous crime – the mayor and the police – walked free, the only adult survivor, Ramona Africa (shown here speaking in 2014), was arrested and spent seven years in prison for refusing to renounce MOVE, while the surviving child, Birdie Africa, was seized by the system and taken away from his family. Photo: YouTube

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/667/donald-trump-genocidal-racist-by-bob-avakian-en.html

10 Part Series:

Donald Trump — GENOCIDAL RACIST

| revcom.us

 

Part 1:

Genocide means killing off a whole people, or a large part of that people. Genocide is what the Europeans did to the native peoples in America, while stealing their land. Genocide is Hitler and the NAZIs murdering six million Jews.  Donald Trump is a genocidal racist.

Donald Trump hates Black people and everybody who is not a “white, English-speaking, Christian American.” If he could, he would kill off a whole lot of them, and put many of the rest in jail for life, or drive them out of the country.

Trump has spouted and shouted vicious racism for years, and decades.

Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, who knows him well, said this about him:

“I can only imagine the envy with which Donald watched” the cop killing George Floyd. “I can only imagine that Donald wishes it had been his knee on Floyd’s neck.” (emphasis added)

Think about that.  

What do you think Trump will do if he can get his “knee” even more firmly on the necks of Black, Brown, and Native peoples?

Yes, even after slavery was ended, Black people have been continually subjected to horrific oppression and terror, right down to today—but the fully unleashed rule of genocidal racism, which is what Trump is aiming for, would be a horror on a whole other level. The slow genocide of Black people which has already been going on—through things like mass incarceration and continuing murder by police—can quickly become a much faster and more complete genocide if Trump and his regime succeed in remaining in power and carry forward more fully their fascist program.

And, as I have said in my August 1 Statement,* the hour is getting late, but it is not yet too late, to defeat the fascism concentrated in the fascist regime of Trump (and Pence) and to wrench something positive out of this increasingly terrible situation. But that requires fully facing up to what this regime of genocidal racist fascism represents and what it is aiming to do, and using all appropriate means to remove this regime from power—above all the mobilization of masses of people, to get in the streets, starting now, in the thousands, and stay in the streets, becoming millions, powerfully putting forward the unifying demand that this fascist regime must be OUT NOW!

And, as I emphasized in that August 1 Statement, in the most fundamental terms, it requires working to create more favorable conditions for, and to build up the organized forces for, the revolution that is needed to finally put an end to this system, which has from the beginning rested on genocidal racism and other horrific forms of oppression—and which now, with this fascist regime, is moving to take this to even more monstrous levels, posing a very real and grave threat to the very existence not only of Black people but the masses of oppressed humanity and ultimately humanity as a whole.  

This is not hype or exaggeration in any way—it is the cold hard fact we are faced with—and it demands that, in the name of and for the future of humanity, we act on the basis of fully confronting this reality and moving, in our millions and millions, to change this reality, before it really is too late.

(If you think this is an exaggeration, and the danger is not as great as what is said here, then you don’t know who Donald Trump really is. In part 2 and the rest of this series of articles, further evidence will be brought out to show that Donald Trump is indeed a genocidal racist whose fascist regime is a threat to the very existence not only of Black people, but to the masses of oppressed humanity, and to humanity itself—and, once again, what we are urgently called on to do in the face of this.)

 


*STATEMENT BY BOB AVAKIAN, August 1, 2020, ON THE IMMEDIATE CRITICAL SITUATION, THE URGENT NEED TO DRIVE OUT THE FASCIST TRUMP/PENCE REGIME, VOTING IN THIS ELECTION, AND THE FUNDAMENTAL NEED FOR REVOLUTION.  [back]

See each part for a downloadable poster

Download pamphlet of complete series (PDF printer spread)

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/665/posters-pamphlet-donald-trump-genocidal-racist-en.html

Spread them Everywhere

Pamphlet and Posters of
“Donald Trump—GENOCIDAL RACIST”

| revcom.us

 

 

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Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/666/bob-avakian-voting-will-not-be-enough-pt3-long-en.html

 

TRUMP’S FASCISM—
MORE BLATANT AND DANGEROUS EVERY DAY:
HOW A DETERMINED FIGHT AND MASSIVE MOBILIZATION
COULD DEFEAT THIS

PART 3 of

VOTING WILL NOT BE ENOUGH—
WE NEED TO TAKE TO THE STREETS,
AND STAY IN THE STREETS
DEMANDING TRUMP/PENCE OUT NOW!

(Long Version—The Larger Canvas and Fuller Picture)

(See also "Short Version—The Basic Picture and Essential Vision")

by Bob Avakian

| revcom.us

 

In the Statement By Bob Avakian, August 1, 2020, On The Immediate Critical Situation, The Urgent Need To Drive Out The Fascist Trump/Pence Regime, Voting In This Election, And The Fundamental Need For Revolution, I spoke to this important point:

At this critical hour, every appropriate means of non-violent action must be utilized to remove this regime from power. And if, in spite of mass protest demanding the removal of the Trump/Pence regime, this regime remains in power when it is time for voting, then—without placing fundamental reliance on this—using all appropriate means to work for the removal of this regime must include voting against Trump (assuming the election is actually held). To be clear, this means not a “protest vote” for some candidate who has no chance of winning, but actually voting for the Democratic Party candidate, Biden, in order to effectively vote against Trump.

At the same time, however, I strongly emphasized that

Simply relying on voting to oust this regime will almost certainly lead to very bad, even disastrous results. This is especially true given what this regime is already doing, and what Trump is saying, in relation to the election.

But, if that is true, then how could this regime be removed from power—and, specifically, how could a mass mobilization actually lead to this regime being forced to go? 

Imagine this. 

Among the thousands who have already been reached, and moved, by the work of RefuseFascism.org, raising the demand that this fascist regime must be OUT NOW!, growing numbers become grass roots organizers, reaching out to their families, friends and communities, and involving all kinds of people and groups—through direct contact, social media, and in other ways—drawing into this growing, and increasingly diverse, mass movement thousands more who share their hatred for everything this regime stands for and is moving mercilessly to hammer into place. Many more, in turn, also become organizers. 

Imagine that, as has happened with the mass protests against racist oppression and police terror, people mobilize in the streets, day after day, beginning on October 3rd, responding to the call from Refuse Fascism for sustained non-violent but determined demonstrations around the unifying demand that this regime must go, now. These mobilizations grow, expanding and multiplying—joined by increasing numbers of people outraged by continuing police brutality and murder; by the ravaging of the environment; children in cages and tens of thousands of immigrants in concentration camps on the border; Trump’s heartless and reckless neglect and lying about the COVID pandemic, causing tens of thousands of needless deaths, disproportionately among Black and Brown and Native people; the regime’s relentless move to further consolidate a Supreme Court that is another instrument of fascist bigotry and repression—masses of people, from all parts of society, who are sickened by all this, and are coming to see even more clearly that all this is bound up with and driven by this fascist regime, joining with the ongoing daily mobilizations, linking their outrage and resistance with the unifying demand: OUT NOW! 

Imagine: Students, teachers, scientists, medical professionals, lawyers, clergy and their congregations, unions, civil rights and justice organizations, artists, athletes and others in the cultural arena—all these, and others, take up the call and mobilize to strengthen the movement. Celebrities, and prominent people in many fields, utilize their platforms to magnify the message and help to mobilize still greater numbers. 

As the crimes of this regime escalate day after day—spewing white supremacy, male supremacy, and other bigotry; moving to suppress votes and steal the election; threatening and unleashing violence to remain in power regardless of the outcome of the election; increasingly turning the “Justice Department” into a naked instrument of lawless repression, robbing people of basic rights, while moving to hammer into place a Supreme Court that will declare all this “Constitutional” and “legal”—as all this, and more, becomes increasingly blatant, and accelerates at a dizzying pace with the approach of the scheduled election, growing sectors of society come to the realization that they cannot simply look to the election to deal with this. Casting aside passive reliance on the “normal political process,” and overcoming fear in the face of threats and assaults by fascist thugs, all over the country masses of ordinary people, in growing waves, take to the streets, join the ongoing OUT NOW! mobilizations, or themselves initiate such mobilizations where they are not yet happening. This becomes a massive groundswell, engulfing the country as a whole, dramatically changing the terms of political engagement, forcing every political contender and all the dominant institutions in society to respond to this rising wave of determined mass resistance. This growing mobilization moves from the margins to the center of media attention and coverage, in this country and internationally. People around the world take notice, are inspired and organize demonstrations in solidarity and support. 

Imagine that, all of a sudden, Democratic Party politicians and operatives are forced to realize that they cannot simply funnel all the outrage and discontent into an election that is being daily stolen and violently corrupted by the fascist regime. These politicians now declare that they identify with the sentiments of the masses of demonstrators demanding OUT NOW!—and they seek to have speakers at rallies and work to control and direct the mobilizations into “acceptable channels” that will not lead to further “disorder.” But, given the growing understanding and determination of the demonstrators, these politicians’ efforts only draw even more attention, and still greater numbers, to these mobilizations—and, even in the face of growing threats and acts of repression and violence by the regime and its fascist supporters, in and out of uniform, these mobilizations continue to grow and even more powerfully thunder the demand: OUT NOW! 

Faced with this intensifying situation, the leaders of the Democratic Party calculate that the only way they can hope to gain control over the situation and re-establish some semblance of “orderly process” is to themselves take up the demand that the Trump/Pence regime must go—now—even before a scheduled election that this regime has thoroughly perverted and prevented from proceeding as a “free and fair” process. This move by the Democrats is joined (or supported, behind the scenes) by others in powerful positions in the government, including even some Republican politicians who have finally decided that their political goals and personal ambitions are better served by breaking with this regime and regrouping around other “leaders.” Trump (and Pence) are presented with the ultimatum from these ruling class forces that either they resign or they will be impeached—and, this time, convicted—and those making this demand also make clear that they have the institutional power behind them to enforce this, if Trump (and Pence) refuse to leave. 

Imagine! 

Of course, it is impossible to say exactly where things will end up, and there is no “guarantee” of success. But it is possible. And two things should be emphasized in relation to this. 

First, if masses of people do not take to the streets, now, around the demand that this regime must go; if this regime is allowed to suppress votes and use the threat and force of violence to remain in power; if it is able to further consolidate its fascist rule and to be further unleashed to bludgeon into place its fascist program and aims—then the consequences will truly be catastrophic. 

Second, we—all of us, from many different walks of life and many different political perspectives, who can recognize this fascist regime for what it is and refuse to live in a fascist America—we, by acting together, in the thousands and millions, can give expression to the strongly held sentiments of tens and tens of millions, who righteously hate everything this regime represents and aspire to a much better world than this. We can give life to massive, non-violent but sustained, and rapidly growing, mass mobilizations demanding that this regime must go—now—with the possibility that this can become a reality. We can powerfully give expression to the crucial understanding that—because of its very fascist nature, and with its escalating attempts to corrupt an election and remain in power regardless of the actual outcome of that election—this regime is illegitimate and must be removed. And if, even with this mass mobilization, this regime is still in power on November 3rd, the fact that we have carried out this mass mobilization and powerfully raised this OUT NOW! demand, will mean that there will be much more favorable conditions for continuing, and further amplifying and strengthening, this mass mobilization if Trump and his regime attempt to stay in power, regardless of the actual outcome of the election. 

Whether there will be a real possibility of a society, a world and a future for humanity—one worth living in—will depend, to no small degree, on what we who aspire to such a world decide to do, and strive with the determination necessary to make this a reality.  

********* 

With this basic outline in mind of what is necessary, and what is possible—the determined fight and massive mobilization that could actually defeat the moves of the Trump/Pence regime to further hammer into place its fascist rule, with the truly catastrophic consequences that would lead to—let’s look at this further, and more fully, in the context of the larger situation and crucial recent developments. 

The Death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the Fanatical Woman-Hating Fascists 

The announcement of the death of longtime liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been the occasion for Trump and his fellow fascists, not to pause to honor Ginsburg, but to immediately declare their intention to ram through the appointment of yet another extreme right-wing judge onto the court—to give further “legal backing,” by “the highest court in the land,” to the fanatically oppressive and repressive agenda and aims of the fascist Trump/Pence regime, which include: using “executive power” to trample on the rule of law and turn the “law” into merely an instrument of the fascist regime; giving the police even more unlimited powers to brutalize and murder in the name of “law and order”; ruthlessly persecuting immigrants, LGBT people, Muslims and other “undesirables”; further removing restrictions on the plundering of the environment; forcing patriotism and religious fundamentalism (that is, Christian fascism) down the throats of everyone in society—and, not least, outlawing abortion and in general slamming women more forcefully into a subordinate position in relation to men and in society overall. 

In The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!, I examined the “unholy alliance” between Trump and the Christian fundamentalists, who are the hard core and driving force of this fascism.1 

Speaking to the same phenomenon (and referring to the Christian fundamentalists as “evangelicals,” and having in mind particularly white evangelicals), Kristin Kobes Du Mez has made clear:

evangelical support for Trump was no aberration, nor was it merely a pragmatic choice. It was, rather, the culmination of evangelicals’ embrace of militant masculinity, an ideology that enshrines patriarchal authority and condones the callous display of power, at home and abroad.2

The Christian fascist zealotry in opposition to abortion is not really about the fraudulent notion that abortion amounts to “killing babies”—something which is demonstrated by (among other things) the fact that these opponents of the right to abortion also strongly oppose birth control which prevents pregnancy in the first place. The truth is this:

What is really involved is that abortion, and birth control, help to provide women with a certain independence, a freedom to decide whether and when to have children—and, yes, a certain freedom to engage in sexual relations of their own choosing, on the basis of their own desire and volition, without having to be worried about whether they are going to become pregnant when they have neither wanted nor decided to do so. It is this relative independence and freedom that causes a frenzy among Christian fascists, because it runs counter to reducing the role of women to “helpmates” to husbands and breeders of children for those husbands in patriarchal, male-dominated families, and to the subordinate and oppressed position of women in society as a whole.3

In previous writings and speeches—including the previous article (Part 2) in this series—I emphasized that there is a direct connection and powerful link between the patriarchal misogyny (hatred and degradation of women) of this fascism and its aggressive white supremacy, and that:

there can be no “reconciliation” with these fascists—whose “grievances” are based on fanatical resentment against any limitation on white supremacymale supremacy, xenophobia (hatred of foreigners), rabid American chauvinism, and the unrestrained plundering of the environment, and are increasingly expressed in literally lunatic terms. There can be no “reconciliation” with this, other than on the terms of these fascists, with all the terrible implications and consequences of that!4

It is urgently necessary for everyone who refuses to accept (to be “reconciled” with) all this, to understand what the terrible consequences will be if the Trump/Pence regime is able to make a further leap in consolidating its fascist rule and implementing its fascist program. This fascism “is not just a matter of horrific policies but of qualitatively different form of rule, based on brutal repression and violation of what are supposed to be the most basic rights.”5

The African-American theologian, Hubert Locke—whom I quoted in the previous article (Part 1) in this series—underlines this crucial point:

Were all this only a battle for the hearts and minds of the American people, we could wade into the conflict with a great deal less concern, confident that good sense and human decency would ultimately triumph over ignorance and bigotry. But this is a battle for power—it’s about seizing the reins of government, manipulating the courts and judicial decisions, controlling the media, and making incursions into every possible corner of our private lives and relationships, so that what the religious right perceives as the will of God will reign in America.6

A Rallying Cry and a Call to Action 

All those who can recognize that this nightmare is rapidly becoming a brute reality—who refuse to live in a fascist America where every aspiration for a just world is viciously slandered and mercilessly deprived of air to breathe—we, in our millions and tens of millions, must act together to create a situation where there can be, and there will be, no “normal,” no grinding along of the machinery that is leading to disaster, so long as this fascist regime is in power

We need to fight with the full recognition of the profound stakes that are involved and the ultimate threat to humanity itself that is posed by this regime. What is called for now is struggle that is non-violent, but is daring and bold, fired with the determination not to back down, until this regime has been removed. We must, in a very urgent way, bring into being a situation in which every force—among all the different sectors of the ruling powers and institutions, and in the society at large—has to respond to and weigh heavily the political situation that we are creating through increasingly massive and powerful mobilizations, insisting that this regime must go, now!  

Anything less will mean tying ourselves to forces and procedures, and passively awaiting an outcome, that will very likely lead to capitulating to this fascism, with what will be (without the slightest exaggeration) truly catastrophic consequences. 

As my August 1 Statement emphasizes: “At this critical hour, every appropriate means of non-violent action must be utilized to remove this regime from power.”7 And, if it comes to it, that means voting for Biden in order to effectively vote against Trump

I have also pointed to this important reality:

It is true that, at this point, the vote in a few states essentially determines the outcome of presidential elections—so that, as was the case with Trump in the previous presidential election, someone can lose the popular vote and still become president. But, even given this reality, an electoral strategy that could work much better for the Democrats would be to take on Trump’s whole racist approach, directly and forcefully, and appeal to Black people and other people of color, and the large number of white people (especially, though not only, younger generations) who have shown that they are motivated by a definite desire for an end to social injustice, blatant inequality, and rampant police violence. That is a great “reservoir” that, theoretically, the Democrats could focus on appealing to.8

It is also true that “the Democrats themselves will not—cannot—really do this.”8 But, creating the kind of political situation where Biden and the Democrats are forced to recognize, and reckon with, the powerfully expressed determination of massive numbers demanding an end to the Trump/Pence regime and the fascism it embodies—that could exert a compulsion on the Democrats to voice opposition to Trump on a basis that at least comes close to the heart of the essential fascist nature and program of the Trump/Pence regime...Which, in turn, could impel more people to take to the streets demanding this...Which, in turn, could create still more favorable circumstances and conditions for waging the fight to remove this regime. 

Think about what has happened as a result of the beautiful rising that has taken place against institutional racism and police terror. In very significant ways, “the conversation about race” has been dramatically changed. All of a sudden, the Democrats, and other “mainstream” institutions, feel compelled to talk not only about the need for “police reform,” but about “systemic racism”—and there is widespread discussion and debate about the whole history of this country, with its roots in slavery, and genocide against the indigenous peoples! There is no way that all this would have taken place—and the political landscape would have been so dramatically changed, in such a short period of time—in the absence of this beautiful mass rising! And the same can happen, in the same immediate (“telescoped”) way, if there is not only a continuation of the righteous outpouring against racist oppression and police terror, and other outrageous injustice, but if all this is linked together with, and given powerful expression as, masses of people, in continually growing numbers, in the streets powerfully demanding that the fascist Trump/Pence regime must go! 

If this fascist regime is still in power when it is time for voting—then that will require not just people carrying out the single act of voting themselves, but working to mobilize people in massive numbers to deliver a decisive electoral defeat to this fascist regime. But, at the same time, as I have emphasized repeatedly—and this cannot be emphasized too many times—for all the reasons discussed here (as well as elsewhere in this series and in my August 1 Statement) relying on voting, without the mass mobilization demanding the removal of this regime, is likely to lead to disaster

Masses of people must act, now, to create the most favorable conditions for forcing the removal of this regime, whose continuation, and further consolidation, in power will, without any exaggeration, have truly monstrous consequences. 

Rising to the Historic Challenge and Overcoming All Obstacles (Including in Ourselves) 

As I have also emphasized, it “would be a very grave mistake to fail to take seriously what is being openly proclaimed by Trump and his fascist supporters,” including their threats of even greater violence to ensure that the Trump/Pence regime remains in power. But, an even more important truth is this: “as truly dangerous as these fascist threats and acts of violence, and preparations to carry out even more violence, are—being cowed by and capitulating to this would lead to a far greater horror.”9 In confronting this, every decent person can take inspiration and find courage in the actions of the masses of people who have defiantly braved repeated attacks, by police and government storm troopers under the command of the Trump/Pence regime, as well as assaults by armed pro-Trump fascist thugs, and have poured into the streets, to express their outrage over racist brutality and murder and their determination that this must end

But it is not just fear, however well-founded, that must be overcome. It is also the individualism that has become so widespread, and often expressed in such extreme terms, in this society, especially in recent times. In the situation today, faced with the escalating and accelerating fascist juggernaut, this individualism is often expressed in these terms now: “While I hate everything Trump is about and everything he is doing, I have to look out for myself and those who are close to me; and putting myself on the line to step out and actively oppose this by getting into the streets and demonstrating around the demand that this regime must be removed now—when there are not that many people already doing this—well, that is a risk I am not willing to take, especially when there is an election coming up and there is a chance that this might deal with the problem.” 

Here—along with calling attention once again to the ways in which Trump is already perverting and stealing the election, and is using violence and threatening even more violence to remain in power, regardless of what actually happens with this election—it needs to be pointed out strongly: If everyone who has expressed (or felt) these sentiments were actually to take to the streets, there would be a force of literally millions, and even tens of millions, powerfully demonstrating their insistence that the Trump/Pence regime must be OUT NOW!—as is being called for, and organized by, RefuseFascism.org. 

It also needs to be bluntly said: This rampant individualism—everyone just thinking about themselves and failing or refusing to act on the larger interests of humanity—this is a big part of why we are faced with the terrible situation we are faced with now. And continuing in this way will only contribute to things becoming far, far worse, with truly catastrophic consequences for all of humanity—which few, if any, will ultimately be able to escape. (Besides the ever-present danger of nuclear annihilation, especially with the demented bully Trump having his finger on the nuclear button, think about the environmental crisis and the intensified and accelerated damage the Trump/Pence regime has already done to the environment—and will do on a far more terrible scale, if it remains in power.)

It may not be “easy,” but it is in the fundamental interests of everyone (everyone who cares at all about social injustice and inequality, and having an environment, both natural and social, in which human beings can breathe and hope to flourish) that we all be willing to be “among the first” to boldly step forward and become part of a truly massive mobilization demanding that this regime must be removed, now—and, in doing so, discovering that we are not after all “alone” or “only a few brave souls,” but are together, not just in sentiment but as an active force, with thousands and ultimately millions. 

Yes, it is true that there is no “guarantee” that even such a massive mobilization will succeed in forcing the removal of this regime—and this regime, along with the crazed fascist fanatics who make up its “base,” will rabidly resist this—but it can be guaranteed that, if this regime succeeds in remaining in power, by corrupting and stealing the election and then refusing to leave, once more the consequences will truly be catastrophic. 

And, while there is no “guarantee,” there is a definite possibility of a positive outcome. Once again, think of the tremendous impact that the beautiful rising against racist oppression and police terror has had, almost literally “overnight.” 

At the same time, it is important to understand that, even if and as a mass mobilization demanding the removal of this regime could have a powerful impact on the political terrain, and on all the institutions of power and sectors of society, things would not likely go forward as a simple direct line extension of this mass mobilization. Rather, it would more likely take place as the interplay between that mass mobilization and the contradictions and conflicts among the powers-that-be, which will be heightened by this mass mobilization—possibly leading to a political crisis of such powerful dimensions and depth that forces who normally strongly resist doing things outside of the “traditional institutional means and procedures” of this system, ruling class powers who do not normally involve themselves directly in the politics of the system, and even some of those who have up to now stubbornly stuck with this fascist regime, will conclude that it is necessary to remove the regime—to at least force Trump (and Pence) to resign—in order to avoid an even more profound crisis for their whole system

Again, no one can say, with absolute certainty, what the outcome of all this will be. But a truly massive popular upsurge, aimed at driving out the Trump/Pence regime, even ahead of the election, could play a very powerful role in creating favorable conditions for dealing with the demented determination of this regime to remain in power and wreak even further havoc and horror. 

It is crucial to recognize that

The mass mobilization that is needed cannot be built “overnight,” in the aftermath of the election—and it cannot be built by confining things within the framework and limits insisted upon by the Democrats.10

And, through the work of Refuse Fascism, and some others joining this effort, this mass mobilization has already begun. 

It is a fact that, since the early days of the Trump/Pence regime, Refuse Fascism has been calling for mass mobilization around the demand that this regime must go; and, while it has rallied thousands so far to take to the streets to voice this demand, as yet this mobilization has not resulted in the exponential (by leaps and bounds) growth that it needs to, now very quickly, achieve. But, because those thousands really do give expression to strongly held sentiments of tens of millions, they actually represent a potentially powerful force, and it is crucial to build on every advance that is made in reaching and mobilizing people, including by enabling those who have stepped forward to themselves become organizers of many more...to, in turn, become the organizers of still greater numbers. Further, it is very important to recognize, and act on the understanding, that the times, right now, are very different than they have been over the past few years, even with all the outrages that this regime has committed over those years. 

Things now are much more intense, and are developing in a much more accelerating pace, particularly as Trump is ramping up his fascist offensive, with the approach of the scheduled election. This is having contradictory effects. On the one hand, the violent repression and attacks on people protesting injustice—and the threats of even much worse repression and violence—on the part of this regime, and its fascist supporters, together with the fact that the scheduled election is rapidly approaching: this has led more than a few, among those who hate this regime, to fall into a passive position of just waiting for the election and hoping that it will somehow resolve the crisis that is intensifying now on mainly very bad terms. But, the other side of the story is that the relentless drive by this regime and its supporters, even as the election approaches, to go full steam ahead with their fascist juggernaut, to corrupt and steal the election, to refuse to accept a defeat in the election, and to remain in power regardless of the outcome of the election—this is forcing, more and more to the forefront, the reality of what is represented by this regime, the great objective danger of simply waiting for the election, and the great need to take to the streets, now, to demand that this regime must be removed.

This speaks, once again, to the importance of the mobilization that is already taking place around the demand Trump/Pence OUT NOW! And it speaks to the great importance of this mobilization, with whatever numbers it organizes at any given time, becoming sustained, taking place day after day, and to build on every significant advance it does achieve. As this is done in ways, both determined and creative, that “capture the imagination” of people—together with the continuing intensification of the crisis that is largely being driven, now, by Trump’s fascist actions and declarations—“things can come together,” and “the dam can break,” with growing numbers of people pouring into the streets, raising ever more loudly the demand that this regime must go, now, and calling forth still greater numbers to join in this courageous and urgently needed mobilization. 

In conclusion:

With the full awareness of what is represented by this fascist regime, and what it means that Trump is not only seeking to suppress the votes of people who will vote against him but is also preparing to utilize forceful, violent repression to remain in office if he is not declared the winner in the election, it is of critical and urgent importance to build now truly massive and sustained mobilization around the unifying demand that this regime must be OUT NOW!—with an orientation of being prepared to continue this even past the election, if the situation requires it.11

***

The crazed fanaticism of the fascists insisting that Trump must remain in power, no matter what, must be met, and overwhelmed, by the conscious passionate intensity of masses of people who hate everything that this fascist regime represents, who recognize the very real existential threat that this regime represents for humanity and are fired with righteous determination that this regime must go!12

 


1. The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! In The Name of Humanity We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America, A Better World IS PossibleVideo of this speech is available at revcom.us.  [back]

2. Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, Liveright Publishing. The part quoted here is from the “Introduction.”  [back]

3. Fascists Today And The Confederacy: A Direct Line, A Direct Connection Between All The OppressionThis article of mine is also available at revcom.us.  [back]

4. Trump Is Already Stealing The Election And Threatening Even More Violence To Stay in Power, Part 2 of Voting Will Not Be Enough—We Need To Take To The Streets, And Stay In The Streets Demanding Trump/Pence Out Now! This article is available at revcom.us.  [back]

5. Statement By Bob Avakian, August 1, 2020, On The Immediate Critical Situation, The Urgent Need To Drive Out The Fascist Trump/Pence Regime, Voting In This Election, And The Fundamental Need For Revolution (also available at revcom.us).  [back]

6. “Reflections on Pacific School of Religion’s Response to the Religious Right,” by Dr. Hubert Locke, also available at revcom.us—emphasis added.  [back]

7. Statement By Bob Avakian, August 1, 2020, On The Immediate Critical Situation, The Urgent Need To Drive Out The Fascist Trump/Pence Regime, Voting In This Election, And The Fundamental Need For Revolution.  [back]

8. The Democrats Can’t Fight Trump The Way He Needs To Be Fought, Part 1 of Voting Will Not Be Enough—We Need To Take To The Streets, And Stay In The Streets Demanding Trump/Pence Out Now!  [back]

9. Trump Is Already Stealing The Election And Threatening Even More Violence To Stay in Power, emphasis in the original.  [back]

10. The Democrats Can’t Fight Trump The Way He Needs To Be Fought.  [back]

11. Statement By Bob Avakian, August 1, 2020, On The Immediate Critical Situation, The Urgent Need To Drive Out The Fascist Trump/Pence Regime, Voting In This Election, And The Fundamental Need For Revolution (also available at revcom.us), emphasis in the original.  [back]

12. Trump Is Already Stealing The Election And Threatening Even More Violence To Stay In Power, emphasis in the original.  [back]

Read the 10-part series HERE

 

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TRUMP’S FASCISM—
MORE BLATANT AND DANGEROUS EVERY DAY:
HOW A DETERMINED FIGHT AND MASSIVE MOBILIZATION
COULD DEFEAT THIS

PART 3 of

VOTING WILL NOT BE ENOUGH—
WE NEED TO TAKE TO THE STREETS,
AND STAY IN THE STREETS
DEMANDING TRUMP/PENCE OUT NOW!

(Short Version—The Basic Picture and Essential Vision)

(See also "Long Version—The Larger Canvas and Fuller Picture")

by Bob Avakian

| revcom.us

 

In the Statement By Bob Avakian, August 1, 2020, On The Immediate Critical Situation, The Urgent Need To Drive Out The Fascist Trump/Pence Regime, Voting In This Election, And The Fundamental Need For Revolution, I spoke to this important point:

At this critical hour, every appropriate means of non-violent action must be utilized to remove this regime from power. And if, in spite of mass protest demanding the removal of the Trump/Pence regime, this regime remains in power when it is time for voting, then—without placing fundamental reliance on this—using all appropriate means to work for the removal of this regime must include voting against Trump (assuming the election is actually held). To be clear, this means not a “protest vote” for some candidate who has no chance of winning, but actually voting for the Democratic Party candidate, Biden, in order to effectively vote against Trump.

At the same time, however, I strongly emphasized that

Simply relying on voting to oust this regime will almost certainly lead to very bad, even disastrous results. This is especially true given what this regime is already doing, and what Trump is saying, in relation to the election.

But, if that is true, then how could this regime be removed from power—and, specifically, how could a mass mobilization actually lead to this regime being forced to go?

Imagine this.

Among the thousands who have already been reached, and moved, by the work of RefuseFascism.org, raising the demand that this fascist regime must be OUT NOW!, growing numbers become grass roots organizers, reaching out to their families, friends and communities, and involving all kinds of people and groups—through direct contact, social media, and in other ways—drawing into this growing, and increasingly diverse, mass movement thousands more who share their hatred for everything this regime stands for and is moving mercilessly to hammer into place. Many more, in turn, also become organizers.

Imagine that, as has happened with the mass protests against racist oppression and police terror, people mobilize in the streets, day after day, beginning on October 3rd, responding to the call from Refuse Fascism for sustained non-violent but determined demonstrations around the unifying demand that this regime must go, now. These mobilizations grow, expanding and multiplying—joined by increasing numbers of people outraged by continuing police brutality and murder; by the ravaging of the environment; children in cages and tens of thousands of immigrants in concentration camps on the border; Trump’s heartless and reckless neglect and lying about the COVID pandemic, causing tens of thousands of needless deaths, disproportionately among Black and Brown and Native people; the regime’s relentless move to further consolidate a Supreme Court that is another instrument of fascist bigotry and repression—masses of people, from all parts of society, who are sickened by all this, and are coming to see even more clearly that all this is bound up with and driven by this fascist regime, joining with the ongoing daily mobilizations, linking their outrage and resistance with the unifying demand: OUT NOW!

Imagine: Students, teachers, scientists, medical professionals, lawyers, clergy and their congregations, unions, civil rights and justice organizations, artists, athletes and others in the cultural arena—all these, and others, take up the call and mobilize to strengthen the movement. Celebrities, and prominent people in many fields, utilize their platforms to magnify the message and help to mobilize still greater numbers.

As the crimes of this regime escalate day after day—spewing white supremacy, male supremacy, and other bigotry; moving to suppress votes and steal the election; threatening and unleashing violence to remain in power regardless of the outcome of the election; increasingly turning the “Justice Department” into a naked instrument of lawless repression, robbing people of basic rights, while moving to hammer into place a Supreme Court that will declare all this “Constitutional” and “legal”—as all this, and more, becomes increasingly blatant, and accelerates at a dizzying pace with the approach of the scheduled election, growing sectors of society come to the realization that they cannot simply look to the election to deal with this. Casting aside passive reliance on the “normal political process,” and overcoming fear in the face of threats and assaults by fascist thugs, all over the country masses of ordinary people, in growing waves, take to the streets, join the ongoing OUT NOW! mobilizations, or themselves initiate such mobilizations where they are not yet happening. This becomes a massive groundswell, engulfing the country as a whole, dramatically changing the terms of political engagement, forcing every political contender and all the dominant institutions in society to respond to this rising wave of determined mass resistance. This growing mobilization moves from the margins to the center of media attention and coverage, in this country and internationally. People around the world take notice, are inspired and organize demonstrations in solidarity and support.

Imagine that, all of a sudden, Democratic Party politicians and operatives are forced to realize that they cannot simply funnel all the outrage and discontent into an election that is being daily stolen and violently corrupted by the fascist regime. These politicians now declare that they identify with the sentiments of the masses of demonstrators demanding OUT NOW!—and they seek to have speakers at rallies and work to control and direct the mobilizations into “acceptable channels” that will not lead to further “disorder.” But, given the growing understanding and determination of the demonstrators, these politicians’ efforts only draw even more attention, and still greater numbers, to these mobilizations—and, even in the face of growing threats and acts of repression and violence by the regime and its fascist supporters, in and out of uniform, these mobilizations continue to grow and even more powerfully thunder the demand: OUT NOW!

Faced with this intensifying situation, the leaders of the Democratic Party calculate that the only way they can hope to gain control over the situation and re-establish some semblance of “orderly process” is to themselves take up the demand that the Trump/Pence regime must go—now—even before a scheduled election that this regime has thoroughly perverted and prevented from proceeding as a “free and fair” process. This move by the Democrats is joined (or supported, behind the scenes) by others in powerful positions in the government, including even some Republican politicians who have finally decided that their political goals and personal ambitions are better served by breaking with this regime and regrouping around other “leaders.” Trump (and Pence) are presented with the ultimatum from these ruling class forces that either they resign or they will be impeached—and, this time, convicted—and those making this demand also make clear that they have the institutional power behind them to enforce this, if Trump (and Pence) refuse to leave.

Imagine!

Of course, it is impossible to say exactly where things will end up, and there is no “guarantee” of success. But it is possible. And two things should be emphasized in relation to this.

First, if masses of people do not take to the streets, now, around the demand that this regime must go; if this regime is allowed to suppress votes and use the threat and force of violence to remain in power; if it is able to further consolidate its fascist rule and to be further unleashed to bludgeon into place its fascist program and aims—then the consequences will truly be catastrophic.

Second, we—all of us, from many different walks of life and many different political perspectives, who can recognize this fascist regime for what it is and refuse to live in a fascist America—we, by acting together, in the thousands and millions, can give expression to the strongly held sentiments of tens and tens of millions, who righteously hate everything this regime represents and aspire to a much better world than this. We can give life to massive, non-violent but sustained, and rapidly growing, mass mobilizations demanding that this regime must go—now—with the possibility that this can become a reality. We can powerfully give expression to the crucial understanding that—because of its very fascist nature, and with its escalating attempts to corrupt an election and remain in power regardless of the actual outcome of that election—this regime is illegitimate and must be removed. And if, even with this mass mobilization, this regime is still in power on November 3rd, the fact that we have carried out this mass mobilization and powerfully raised this OUT NOW! demand, will mean that there will be much more favorable conditions for continuing, and further amplifying and strengthening, this mass mobilization if Trump and his regime attempt to stay in power, regardless of the actual outcome of the election.

Whether there will be a real possibility of a society, a world and a future for humanity—one worth living in—will depend, to no small degree, on what we who aspire to such a world decide to do, and strive with the determination necessary to make this a reality.

 

Read the 10-part series HERE

 

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Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/665/bob-avakian-voting-will-not-be-enough-pt2-en.html

 

TRUMP IS ALREADY STEALING THE ELECTION 
AND THREATENING EVEN MORE VIOLENCE
TO STAY IN POWER

PART 2 of

VOTING WILL NOT BE ENOUGH—
WE NEED TO TAKE TO THE STREETS,
AND STAY IN THE STREETS
DEMANDING TRUMP/PENCE OUT NOW!

by Bob Avakian

| revcom.us

 

In the Statement by Bob Avakian, August 1, 2020, On The Immediate Critical Situation, The Urgent Need To Drive Out The Fascist Trump/Pence Regime, Voting In This Election, And The Fundamental Need For Revolution, I spoke to this important point:

At this critical hour, every appropriate means of non-violent action must be utilized to remove this regime from power. And if, in spite of mass protest demanding the removal of the Trump/Pence regime, this regime remains in power when it is time for voting, then—without placing fundamental reliance on this—using all appropriate means to work for the removal of this regime must include voting against Trump (assuming the election is actually held). To be clear, this means not a “protest vote” for some candidate who has no chance of winning, but actually voting for the Democratic Party candidate, Biden, in order to effectively vote against Trump.

At the same time, however, I strongly emphasized that

Simply relying on voting to oust this regime will almost certainly lead to very bad, even disastrous results. This is especially true given what this regime is already doing, and what Trump is saying, in relation to the election.

The Trump/Pence Regime Is Already Moving to Suppress Votes

The fact that Trump, and his supporters, continue to commit outrage after outrage, on a regular basis, can cause people—even those who hate everything Trump represents—to forget about outrages that were committed even just a little while ago. But, it is crucially important not to forget that Trump has already “floated” the idea of “delaying” the election on the basis of his completely false claims that things like mail-in voting will lead to massive fraud and that it could take weeks, months, or even years to know the actual result of the election (note: weeks, months, or even years—during which time Trump would insist on staying in power!). 

Trump and his supporters are making moves to suppress the votes of many Black people, and others, who are likely to vote heavily against Trump. Here is one glaring example: In the state of Florida (which Trump desperately needs to win), the Republican-controlled government is working to undermine changes in the Florida Constitution that have restored the right of convicted felons to vote. This could take away the right to vote from nearly 800,000 people, many of whom are Black and Latino.1 

Trump’s operatives are already in the process of organizing fascist thugs to go to polling places, especially in key “battleground” states, to “watch out for fraud.” In fascist Trumpworld, lying is a way of life and the standard operating procedure. When they say “law and order,” they mean police killing Black and Brown people. To them, the truth is “fake news,” and they claim “science doesn’t know” things that only Trump knows. So, when they talk about “election fraud,” what they mean is people voting against Trump. And what these fascist goons being organized by the Trump camp intend to do is precisely to prevent people from voting against Trump—with the threat, and the use, of force and violence.

Michael Cohen—who, for more than 10 years, was Trump’s personal attorney and “fixer”—has sounded the alarm, more than once, that Trump will do anything to stay in powereven start a war to create a national emergency.2 Trump, who is both a pathological liar and a liar with a purpose, has deliberately and repeatedly downplayed the danger of the COVID-19 pandemic, even while knowing what a serious danger it actually poses. He has already forced government bodies, like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to bend its findings and recommendations about the COVID-19 pandemic to serve Trump’s political ambitions and goals. And it seems increasingly likely that, shortly before the election, in the attempt to offset the exposure of his terrible recklessness with regard to COVD-19, and to perversely declare himself the “savior” of the people from this pandemic, Trump will use his presidential power to pressure approval for the use of a vaccine, even before it has really been scientifically determined whether such a vaccine is not only effective but safe

Trump Has Violently Suppressed Opposition, and Has Threatened Even Greater Violence 

Another thing that must not be forgotten is that Trump has not only justified and supported but openly encouraged violence by armed white supremacist storm troopers (what he calls “Second Amendment people”). He has supported police violently attacking protesters and utilized armed forces of the government to attack and suppress protests, in Washington, D.C., in Portland and other cities. There is already plenty of evidence—and more evidence comes out all the time—that (assuming the election is actually held) regardless of the actual outcome of the election, Trump will declare himself the winner and use whatever means he can, including violence, to stay in power. As pointed out in a recent article posted on revcom.us:

On September 10, Trump was asked by Jeanine Pirro of fascist Fox “News” what his response would be on election night if he won and those against him “threaten riots.” Trump’s response: “We’ll put them down very quickly if they do that.... We have the right to do that, we have the power to do that if we want. Look, it’s called insurrection.”3

Here, it is necessary to “translate” what is being said in this episode of the ongoing fascist lie-athon of Trump and his media accomplices (such as Fox “news”). Trump “winning” the election means Trump declaring himself the winner. (Remember that Trump has already strongly implied that he will not accept the results of the election if Biden wins; and Trump has insisted that the only way he could lose the election is if it is “rigged.”) “Riots,” in fascist-speak, means protests against police brutality and other injustices, even when (as has been the case) these protests are overwhelmingly peaceful; and “insurrection” here means mobilization against the Trump/Pence regime, even if that mobilization is non-violent. 

The same revcom.us article calls attention to this:

Another glimpse at what the fascists may be thinking of and even planning for came from the mouth of longtime Republican operative and Trump stooge, Roger Stone. (In July, Trump commuted the 40-month prison sentence of Stone, who had been convicted of lying to Congress.) In a call with Alex Jones—pro-Trump conspiracy theorist—on his online Infowars show, Stone said Trump should consider declaring “martial law” or invoke the Insurrection Act if he should lose the November election.3

And Stone called on “Attorney General” William Barr (head of Trump’s Injustice Department, chief enforcer of unlawful repression, and a “commander” of the regime’s storm troopers) to prepare now a force ready to act on this “martial law” declaration if Trump loses. 

Note that Stone openly calls for Trump to use violence to remain in office if Trump loses the election. 

And other fanatical backers of this regime, in and out of government, have called on its supporters to arm themselves in preparation for the election. 

It would be a very grave mistake to fail to take seriously what is being openly proclaimed by Trump and his fascist supporters.

But as truly dangerous as these fascist threats and acts of violence, and preparations to carry out even more violence, are—being cowed by and capitulating to this would lead to a far greater horror

The Trumpite attempts to suppress votes must be actively, vigorously opposed; and people must mobilize, now and in an ongoing way, demanding that the whole Trump/Pence regime must go. 

We Can’t Rely on the Democrats, We Can’t Wait Until November

In Part 1 in this series, I examined the reasons why the Democrats will not call out the Trump/Pence regime, and its supporters, for what they are: fascist. I pointed out:

Time and again, the Democrats have sought to deal with this by trying to utilize the very “norms” and institutions that this fascist regime is defying and tearing up, or bending to its fascist aims—the courts, congressional hearings and proceedings, and so on. Time and again, the Democrats have failed. Yet they stubbornly refuse to seek any means of opposing this regime other than by resorting to these “norms” and procedures. This is what they are doing, and will be strongly inclined to continue doing, even in the face of Trump’s increasing and intensifying moves to suppress votes in the upcoming election and his clearly indicated determination to have himself declared the winner in the election, or to remain in power regardless of the outcome of the election.4

Biden and the Democrats act as if—and repeatedly insist that—the reason there is so much bitter conflict, violence, and “chaos” in society is because “Trump is dividing us, not uniting us.” But the truth is that, while Trump has become a “rallying point” and “spearpoint” of the fascist forces in this country, within the structures of power and more broadly among sectors of the population, there are deep-seated reasons and causes for why this fascism has become such a powerful force. Biden and the Democrats cannot “bring the country together,” as they falsely claim, because there can be no “reconciliation” with these fascists—whose “grievances” are based on fanatical resentment against any limitation on white supremacy, male supremacy, xenophobia (hatred of foreigners), rabid American chauvinism, and the unrestrained plundering of the environment, and are increasingly expressed in literally lunatic terms. There can be no “reconciliation” with this, other than on the terms of these fascists, with all the terrible implications and consequences of that! 

As I have also emphasized: “all this points to the very great likelihood that regardless of the actual outcome of this election (assuming it is actually held), if Trump declares himself the ‘winner’and refuses to leave, in the absence of truly massive mobilization demanding that the Trump/Pence regime must be removed, the Democrats will end up capitulating to Trump.4

This does not mean that voting for Biden would be irrelevant—would make no difference. Many people who hate Trump have at the same time expressed a definite lack of enthusiasm for Biden. But “enthusiasm for Biden”—or the lack of such enthusiasm—is really beside the point, and basing things on something like that involves gross ignorance, or a deliberate ignoring, of the crucial stakes involved. The reason to vote for Biden is to vote against Trump and his whole regime. And that should be reason enough, for any person who actually cares about social justice, who refuses to live in a fascist America and has any sense of the very real catastrophe it would mean, not just for people in this country but for all of humanity, if Trump gets a “re-election mandate.” For these reasons, as I pointed out in my August 1 Statement, if it comes down to it—if the Trump/Pence regime is still in power when it is time for voting—then voting for Biden, in order to vote against Trump, will be very important and necessary

As that Statement emphasizes, “there can be one—and only one—‘good’ that can come out of this election: delivering a decisive defeat to Trump and the whole fascist regime.”This would not “put an end” to the fascism that has arisen out of deep-seated contradictions and has gained strength, over decades. But, as the August 1 Statement further emphasizes: delivering a decisive defeat to this regime “would create far better conditions for continuing to wage the struggle against everything represented by the Trump/Pence regime and all the oppression and injustices of this system, and would be a great gift to the people of the world.” 

At the same time, for all the reasons spoken to in that Statement, and highlighted here—the moves by Trump that are already far along to steal the election, and his determination to use whatever means he can to remain in power, regardless of the actual outcome of that election, and at the same time the likelihood that the Democrats, left to their own devices, will end up capitulating to Trump—waiting for November and relying on voting will very likely lead to disaster.

People need to really and fully awaken to the reality of what is at stake, before it is too late. More than a few people have observed, sometimes with sad resignation, that the continuing avalanche of lies and truly monstrous criminal acts by Trump and his regime have worn them down, to the point where they are no longer shocked or feel compelled to act. But losing one’s ability to be outraged, and to act on that outrage, means losing one’s humanity—and, given the situation we are facing, it amounts to collaborating with the fascism of this regime and the catastrophe toward which it is relentlessly propelling humanity.

The crazed fanaticism of the fascists insisting that Trump must remain in power, no matter what, must be met, and overwhelmed, by the conscious passionate intensity of masses of people who hate everything that this fascist regime represents, who recognize the very real existential threat that this regime represents for humanity and are fired with righteous determination that this regime must go! 

And, to make this a reality, this righteous determination cannot just be channeled into voting against Trump. What is urgently required now is “stepping outside of the ‘norms’ of this system and mobilizing masses of people in determined, non-violent but sustained struggle in the streets to demand the ouster of this regime, as is being called for by RefuseFascism.org.”4 And:

The mass mobilization that is needed cannot be built “overnight,” in the aftermath of the election—and it cannot be built by confining things within the framework and limits insisted upon by the Democrats....

We Need To Take To The Streets, And Stay In The Streets, Demanding Trump/Pence Out Now!4

(The next, concluding article in this series will speak to the big question: How the nonviolent but sustained, and continually growing, mass mobilization, demanding Trump/Pence OUT NOW! that has been called for, and is being organized by, RefuseFascism.org, could lead to, or contribute in a major way to, a situation in which the Trump/Pence regime would be removed from power.) 

 


1. See the article “Florida Moves to Deny Voting Rights to Hundreds of Thousands of People Convicted of Felonies,” at revcom.us.  [back]

2. In his testimony before a congressional committee in 2019, Michael Cohen spoke to the danger that Trump would refuse to recognize the results of the election scheduled for November 2020, if Trump did not win this election. And, in his recently-published book Disloyal, The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump, Cohen once again sounds the alarm, even more urgently, with the warning that Trump will do anything, including starting a war, to stay in power. Cohen has acknowledged that, prior to this 2019 appearance before Congress, he had lied to Congress—something he sought to set right by giving truthful testimony in that 2019 hearing. Trump’s fascist falsehood machine has tried to seize on the fact that Cohen is an admitted liar, who has been convicted of the crime of lying to Congress, in the attempt to draw attention away from what Cohen has revealed about Trump and the great dangers he poses. The problem, for the Trumpites, is that the lies they are referring to, and other despicable acts Cohen carried out—this was done precisely on the instruction and for the benefit of the Liar-in-Chief, Trump himself

Cohen, who worked very closely with (or for) Trump, for more than ten years, including the first years of Trump’s presidency, and probably knows Trump as well as anyone can, confirms what is said by Trump’s niece, Mary Trump: Racism, misogyny (hatred and degradation of women), and all-around bigotry are at the very core of Trump’s being.  [back]

3. “Trump on Election Night Protests: ‘We’ll put them down very quickly.’” This is part of the continuing series The Fascist Assault on revcom.us.  [back]

4. The quotes and references here are from Voting Will Not Be Enough—We Need To Take To The Streets, And Stay In The Streets Demanding Trump/Pence Out Now, Part 1, “The Democrats Can’t Fight Trump The Way He Needs To Be Fought.” This article of mine is available at revcom.us.  [back]

VOTING WILL NOT BE ENOUGH—
WE NEED TO TAKE TO THE STREETS,
AND STAY IN THE STREETS
DEMANDING TRUMP/PENCE OUT NOW!

by Bob Avakian

Part 1:
THE DEMOCRATS CAN'T FIGHT TRUMP
THE WAY HE NEEDS TO BE FOUGHT

Part 2:
TRUMP IS ALREADY STEALING THE ELECTION  AND THREATENING EVEN MORE VIOLENCE TO STAY IN POWER

Part 3:
TRUMP’S FASCISM—MORE BLATANT AND DANGEROUS EVERY DAY: HOW A DETERMINED FIGHT AND MASSIVE MOBILIZATION COULD DEFEAT THIS

(Long Version—The Larger Canvas and Fuller Picture)

(Short Version—The Basic Picture and Essential Vision)

 

Follow: @TheRevcoms
Read: www.revcom.us
Watch: youtube.com/TheRevComs

 

Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.

 

Get a free email subscription to revcom.us:



 


 

Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/664/bob-avakian-voting-will-not-be-enough-pt1-en.html

VOTING WILL NOT BE ENOUGH—
WE NEED TO TAKE TO THE STREETS,
AND STAY IN THE STREETS
DEMANDING TRUMP/PENCE OUT NOW!

by Bob Avakian

| revcom.us

 

Part 1

THE DEMOCRATS CAN'T FIGHT TRUMP
THE WAY HE NEEDS TO BE FOUGHT

 

In the Statement by Bob Avakian, August 1, 2020, On The Immediate Critical Situation, The Urgent Need To Drive Out The Fascist Trump/Pence Regime, Voting In This Election, And The Fundamental Need For Revolution, I spoke to this important point:

At this critical hour, every appropriate means of non-violent action must be utilized to remove this regime from power. And if, in spite of mass protest demanding the removal of the Trump/Pence regime, this regime remains in power when it is time for voting, then—without placing fundamental reliance on this—using all appropriate means to work for the removal of this regime must include voting against Trump (assuming the election is actually held). To be clear, this means not a “protest vote” for some candidate who has no chance of winning, but actually voting for the Democratic Party candidate, Biden, in order to effectively vote against Trump.

At the same time, however, I strongly emphasized that:

Simply relying on voting to oust this regime will almost certainly lead to very bad, even disastrous results. This is especially true given what this regime is already doing, and what Trump is saying, in relation to the election.

Trump’s Blatant Racism and Support for White Supremacist Violence

It has become increasingly clear that a pivotal part of Trump’s strategy, in relation to the election scheduled for November, and his overall approach to holding power, is to make more and more blatant appeals to racism by trumpeting a call for “law and order.” Trump portrays the ongoing protests against white supremacy and police terror as violent—and, as is typical with him, he flagrantly and grossly lies about the extent and causes of this violence. He paints a crude horror scene of you-know-who coming to pillage and rape—to violate the homes and the people, especially the women—in the suburbs, which in Trump’s vision are all white. This is a direct “echo” of the vile tactics used by white supremacists organizing mobs to lynch Black people during Jim Crow segregation, and of how Hitler stirred up hatred of and violence against Jews in NAZI Germany. Here again, facts do not matter to Trump and his fascist regime and its supporters—or, rather, facts are to be deliberately distorted, defied, and perverted in pursuit of literally murderous aims.

It has been shown (for example, in a study by Princeton University) that, overwhelmingly (more than 90 percent of the time), these protests against white supremacy and police terror have not been violent; and violence that has been committed by the protesters themselves has been relatively minor (some fires, looting, and trashing of a few buildings, in small, confined areas, often at or near police stations—nothing like the picture Trump paints of whole cities being burned down and destroyed). But, beyond that, most of the violence in connection with these protests has been perpetrated by Trump supporters—by police, who have repeatedly attacked the protests, and by armed fascist thugs (those Trump calls “Second Amendment people”). At least 20 protesters have been killed in this way. And Trump and his supporters have justified—and even glorified—this violence by white supremacists.

The Democrats, and the “mainstream media” generally in the same camp (CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, and so on), have largely tried to shift the focus away from the protests and onto questions where they feel Trump is more vulnerable—in particular Trump’s truly reckless handling of the COVID pandemic, and things such as statements by Trump (or attributed to him) insulting U.S. soldiers. But Trump will continue his racist attacks on the protests against white supremacy and police violence, and his attempts to paint the Democrats as backers of violence and “carnage” by Black “thugs,” anarchists” and other “far leftists”; and this will have the effect of forcing the Democrats to devote significant attention to responding to this. And what has been the response of the Democrats? They have made the point that most of the protests have been peaceful, and they even say that Trump wants violence; yet, at the same time, the Democrats accept, to a large extent, the terms (and the trap) Trump has set. They have put a great deal of emphasis on denouncing violence by protesters, without giving the same emphasis to pointing out who is responsible for most of the violence connected to the protests—once again, overwhelmingly Trump supporters. The Democrats do not highlight the bitter irony that here are people protesting violence by the police and, even when (overwhelmingly) their protests are peaceful, they are subjected to yet more violence by the policeThe Democrats don’t emphasize yet another glaring irony: Here are Trump and his supporters denouncing and attacking people overwhelmingly carrying out peaceful protests against racist violence, while Trump defends monuments to “heroes” of the Confederacy, who waged a war, in which they killed hundreds of thousands of Union soldiers, in the attempt to preserve and extend slavery.

Strategies by Democrats That Flow From and Reinforce the Problem Itself

There are two basic causes for how the Democrats and their allies do—and do not—respond to what Trump is doing with his attacks on the protests and his contrived racist horror story of mobs of “those people” bent on violently attacking innocent (white) people and their property. First, the Democrats’ electoral strategy is focused on winning a relatively small number of “swing voters,” largely white people in the suburbs, in a small number of “swing states.” Flowing from this, and once again largely accepting the terms Trump has set, the Democrats see it as very important to reassure these voters that the Democrats, too, denounce—and, by implication, will use the power of the government to suppress—violence that supposedly is carried out by protesters and supposedly threatens these (white suburban) “swing voters.” Here it has to be said that, even on its own—very wrong and perverted—terms, this is likely a losing strategy. Not only is it the case that, by far, most of the violence connected with the protests has been carried out by Trump supporters (including the police), while overwhelmingly the protests themselves have been peaceful; but, even if the intent of everyone protesting were to remain completely peaceful, including when provoked and attacked by the police and armed “civilian” racists, there will still be violence—exactly because Trump and his supporters will continue to carry out, and to escalate, the violence, no matter what the protesters do.

It is true that, at this point, the vote in a few states essentially determines the outcome of presidential elections—so that, as was the case with Trump in the previous presidential election, someone can lose the popular vote and still become president. But, even given this reality, an electoral strategy that could work much better for the Democrats would be to take on Trump’s whole racist approach, directly and forcefully, and appeal to Black people and other people of color, and the large number of white people (especially, though not only, younger generations) who have shown that they are motivated by a definite desire for an end to social injustice, blatant inequality, and rampant police violence. That is a great “reservoir” that, theoretically, the Democrats could focus on appealing to.

But the Democrats themselves will not—cannot—really do this. And this gets to the deeper reasons why the Democrats approach things in the way they do. Although, in the present situation, where there has been a massive outpouring against police terror, the Democrats have felt the need to talk in general terms about “police reform,” as representatives of this system of capitalism-imperialism the Democrats are very firm about the fundamental need for the police to enforce the oppressive “law and order” of this system, with the racist violence that involves. So, the Democrats cannot carry out a campaign that actually unites with the strongly and widely held sentiment that this police violence must end. At the same time, as representatives of this system, and as upholders of its traditional institutions and “stability,” they do not want to win an election and head the government on the basis of appealing to and further arousing a force of tens of millions filled with passionate intensity to end police terror and white supremacy, which in fact are built into and required by this system. Better, from the Democrats’ point of view, to appeal to longings for “a return to calm and normalcy”—which are likely to resonate with many middle class suburbanites—even though there will not be any “calm and normalcy,” in large part because the fascist forces will not allow it.

Appealing to the “Grievances” of the Fascists Will Only Strengthen Fascism

Once again now, as was the case during and in the immediate aftermath of the 2016 election, there are “mainstream” voices (such as CNN’s Chris Cuomo, brother of the Democratic Governor of New York state, and Thomas Friedman, a prominent proponent of the “great benefits” of highly globalized capitalism) who argue that, in order to win this time, Biden and the Democrats should appeal to Trump’s “base” by recognizing their “grievances,” rather than humiliating them. But there are deep-seated bases for this fascism, and the minds of these fascists will not be changed by “being nice” to them or acting as if their “grievances” are “legitimate. As I (and others who have seriously studied this fascist phenomenon) have pointed out, the reality is that these “grievances” flow from resentment against any changes that even slightly undermine white supremacymale supremacy, xenophobia (hatred of foreigners), rabid American chauvinism, and the unrestrained plundering of the environment. And, even though, in the most fundamental terms, the Democrats represent this system of capitalism-imperialism, which embodies and enforces all of this, the Republican party, as it has become more and more blatantly fascist, has cultivated and organized its “base” through aggressively promoting, in extreme terms, this inequality, oppression, and plunder of the earth, along with a rejection of, and passionate “resentment” against, the scientific method and rational thinking. For example, there is this important analysis, by African-American theologian Hubert Locke, speaking particularly to the Christian fundamentalists that are the driving force of this fascism:

It is not happenstance that it is a movement that draws its strength and finds its support principally in the so-called heartland of the nation and especially in its southern precincts. This is the portion of the United States that has never been comfortable with post-WWII America. The brief period of normalcy after the war was followed within a decade by a pent-up and long overdue racial revolution that overturned centuries of culture and tradition, especially in the South. The disillusionment, two decades later, with an unpopular war in southeast Asia shook the foundations of traditional/conventional patriotism in American life; it was followed in the next decade by a sexual revolution that upset deeply entrenched views among this portion of the American populace about the subordinate place of women in society and the non-place of gay and lesbian persons in American life. These political and social and cultural defeats have now erupted into a pitched battle to turn back the clock on the last half-century and return America to its pre-war purity. It is not without significance that teaching creationism in the schools, for example, is such a prominent part of the religious right agenda. That was a battle the right lost in the mid-1920s but it is not one that the right ever acknowledged losing‑‑just as some die-hards have never acknowledged losing the Civil War. Consequently, the restoration the religious right seeks is one that would recapture a way of life that disappeared in this nation a half-century ago.1

This is what “Make America Great Again” actually means. The Democrats could not “compete” with this, without abandoning their own “identity” as the party that supposedly cares about social justice and addressing the environmental crisis.

All this, in turn, is tied in with the fundamental reasons why the Democrats will not call out the Trump/Pence regime for what it actually is—fascist—which, as I have emphasized, “is not just a matter of horrific policies but of qualitatively different form of rule, based on brutal repression and violation of what are supposed to be the most basic rights.”2 First of all, if you acknowledge that this regime is in fact fascist, then that raises very big questions about the whole system, and how it is that such a fascist regime could come to power—not through something like a military coup, but through the “normal channels” and institutional procedures of this system. And, along with that, if you recognize that this regime is fascist, then that has very big implications in terms of what must be done to deal with the dangers posed by this fascism—which, in reality, requires stepping outside of the “norms” of this system and mobilizing masses of people in determined, non-violent but sustained struggle in the streets to demand the ouster of this regime, as is being called for by RefuseFascism.org.

The Immediate Urgent Need for Mass Mobilization Against This Fascism

In sum, the Democrats, being who and what they are, will not and cannot deal with all this—neither the election, nor the larger situation in which this election is taking place and the profound stakes that are actually involved—in any way other than on the terms, and within the limits, established by this system, which has produced this fascism, and to a large degree on the terms set by the fascists themselves.

This can be seen in what the Democrats have done in their attempts to deal with the way in which the Trump/Pence fascist regime has—repeatedly, and in an escalating way—trampled on the “norms” of this system. Time and again, the Democrats have sought to deal with this by trying to utilize the very “norms” and institutions that this fascist regime is defying and tearing up, or bending to its fascist aims—the courts, congressional hearings and proceedings, and so on.Time and again, the Democrats have failed. Yet they stubbornly refuse to seek any means of opposing this regime other than by resorting to these “norms” and procedures. This is what they are doing, and will be strongly inclined to continue doing, even in the face of Trump’s increasing and intensifying moves to suppress votes in the upcoming election and his clearly indicated determination to have himself declared the winner in the election, or to remain in power regardless of the outcome of the election.

All this is why—even though, if it comes down to it, voting against Trump by voting for Biden will be necessary and important—it will very likely lead to disaster to rely on voting and just hope that the election will solve the problem.

And all this points to the very great likelihood that regardless of the actual outcome of this election (assuming it is actually held), if Trump declares himself the “winner” and refuses to leave, in the absence of truly massive mobilization demanding that the Trump/Pence regime must be removed, the Democrats will end up capitulating to Trump. The mass mobilization that is needed cannot be built “overnight,” in the aftermath of the election—and it cannot be built by confining things within the framework and limits insisted upon by the Democrats.

The truth—the truth about this country, and the truth about what is represented and is being implemented and enforced by the Trump/Pence regime—must be brought alive as a crucial, and immediately urgent, focus of the fight against injustice and oppression and against the fascism of this regime. This must be done without waiting for the election, but by taking action right now, and in an ongoing way, with masses of people—first in the thousands, growing into millions—in sustained mobilization around the unifying demand that this regime must go.

Waiting for November, and Relying on the Election, Will Likely Lead to Disaster:

We Need to Take to the Streets, and Stay in the Streets, Demanding Trump/Pence Out Now!

 


1. Reflections on Pacific School of Religion's Response to the Religious Right, by Dr. Hubert Locke. This is available at revcom.us.

In addition to my own writings and speeches on this question of fascism, which are available in BA’s Collected Works at revcom.us,* there have been a number of important studies of particularly the Christian fascist phenomenon—including in recent books by Katherine Stewart* and Kristin Kobes Du Mez*—which make clear that these fascists are firmly committed to their extremely oppressive, reactionary, and literally lunatic views and aims, and they will not be moved by attempts to appeal to their supposed “legitimate grievances.”

* For example, my recent article Patriarchy and Patriotism—Aggressive Male Supremacy and American Supremacy—The Danger and the Immediate Challenge draws from important insights in Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s book Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation; and my 2017 speech The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! In The Name of Humanity We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America, A Better World IS Possible cites important analysis in Katherine Stewart’s book The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children.  [back]

2. From Statement By Bob Avakian, August 1, 2020, On The Immediate Critical Situation, The Urgent Need To Drive Out The Fascist Trump/Pence Regime, Voting In This Election, And The Fundamental Need For Revolution.  [back]

VOTING WILL NOT BE ENOUGH—
WE NEED TO TAKE TO THE STREETS,
AND STAY IN THE STREETS
DEMANDING TRUMP/PENCE OUT NOW!

by Bob Avakian

Part 1:
THE DEMOCRATS CAN'T FIGHT TRUMP
THE WAY HE NEEDS TO BE FOUGHT

Part 2:
TRUMP IS ALREADY STEALING THE ELECTION  AND THREATENING EVEN MORE VIOLENCE TO STAY IN POWER

Part 3:
TRUMP’S FASCISM—MORE BLATANT AND DANGEROUS EVERY DAY: HOW A DETERMINED FIGHT AND MASSIVE MOBILIZATION COULD DEFEAT THIS

(Long Version—The Larger Canvas and Fuller Picture)

(Short Version—The Basic Picture and Essential Vision)

 

 

 

 

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Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

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So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/670/bob-avakian-kanye-west-ice-cube-en.html

KANYE WEST, ICE CUBE—FOOLS,
AND WORSE THAN FOOLS

by Bob Avakian

| revcom.us

 

Apparently Kanye West is mentally ill—and, if so, somebody should get him some help—but there is a “method” (or at least an effect) to his “madness” politically. Only a fool would be fooled by what he is doing. All his talk about being done with Trump is bullshit, or beside the point—what he is doing by “running for president” is helping Trump! If he were to take just enough votes away from the Democratic Party candidate, Biden, particularly in key “battleground” states, that could help Trump win those states and maybe win the Electoral College vote again.

A vote for Kanye West is not a vote for Kanye West. A vote for Kanye West is a vote for the racist-in-chief Donald Trump. Anyone who falls for this is being played for a chump!

Now comes Ice Cube, who is dealing with Trump because Trump has made promises about working with Ice Cube’s so-called “Contract With Black America.” Never mind that Trump is a blatant white supremacist—he is apparently alright with the hustler bourgeois Ice Cube, who rose to fame as part of NWA, with its powerful and wildly popular anthem “Fuck Tha Police,” and now turns around and tries to “make a deal” with the pig-loving Trump, who says police should be even more brutal. Ice Cube tries to give himself “cover” by talking about how all the politicians, both Democrat and Republican, have been bad for Black people—so, according to Ice Cube, it’s fine to work with the genocidal racist Trump, who openly promotes white supremacy and brays about “law and order,” fully backing the police in their murderous terror against Black people.1

And, besides Black people, what about all the other people, in this country and in the world as a whole, whose suffering is being made far worse, and whose future is being rapidly destroyed, by what Trump and his fascist regime are doing? Ice Cube doesn’t care about that either.

Nothing good, and only something terrible—for Black people, for all oppressed people everywhere, and for humanity as a whole—will ever come from working with and helping Trump.

As I have said before: Only someone worse than a fool would want that racist Confederacy-loving white supremacist, pussy-grabbing misogynistic male supremacist, LGBT-bashing, rights-trampling, science-denying, environment-destroying, war-mongering, xenophobic “America first” bloodsucking fascist motherfucker Trump to get re-elected.

 


1. Donald Trump—GENOCIDAL RACIST, by Bob Avakian, is available—as a series of articles, and to download as a pamphlet—at revcom.us.  [back]

Read all the articles in Bob Avakian’s new series


Read the ten-part series

 

Follow: @TheRevcoms
Read: www.revcom.us
Watch: youtube.com/TheRevComs

 

Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

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During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/670/bob-avakian-biden-a-doorknob-and-going-through-the-door-en.html

BIDEN, A DOORKNOB—
AND GOING THROUGH THE DOOR

by Bob Avakian

| revcom.us

 

It is crucial that there be a massive vote against Trump—which means voting for Biden. Now, a lot of people don’t like Biden, or don’t have any enthusiasm for Biden. That is certainly understandable. But it misses the main point: Voting for Biden is the only realistic way to vote against Trump. I have joked with people that, if a doorknob could defeat Trump in the upcoming election, voting for that doorknob would be better than voting for Biden, since the doorknob wouldn’t have all the negative things about it that Biden does. But the fact is that, in terms of the election itself, only voting for Biden, and not a doorknob, provides the means for handing Trump a decisive electoral defeat.

This is a way of emphasizing the important point I made in my August 1 Statement:

To approach this election from the standpoint of which candidate is “better” means failing to understand the truly profound stakes and potential consequences of what is involved. The fact is that there can be one—and only one—“good” that can come out of this election: delivering a decisive defeat to Trump and the whole fascist regime. Doing this would create far better conditions for continuing to wage the struggle against everything represented by the Trump/Pence regime and all the oppression and injustices of this system, and would be a great gift to the people of the world.1

As a fundamental point of orientation, we need to quit looking to any of these politicians to end injustice, oppression, and the destruction of the environment. Oppression and exploitation, and the destruction of the environment—all this is built into this system of capitalism-imperialism that all these politicians represent. Let me say it again: In regard to this electionthe only “positive” that can come out of this is preventing the further consolidation of the white supremacist, male supremacist, immigrant-hating, LGBT-hating, science-defying, climate-wrecking, nuclear annihilation-threatening, future-destroying fascist Trump/Pence regime. 

And that is a very important positive—it is, really, a matter of life and death.

At the same time, I have repeatedly emphasized that, given the fact that Trump is already stealing the election, through an ongoing rolling coup, simply relying on voting is very likely to lead to disaster. And this is why, while a massive vote for Biden is important, it is crucial that growing numbers of people—in the thousands now, and building to become millions—take to the streets around the country, and stay in the streets, day after day, taking up the call from RefuseFascism.org that the Trump/Pence regime must be OUT NOW!2 

And, having prevented the catastrophe that would result from this regime remaining in power, we can carry forward the struggle to build for something very positive—revolution—to put an end to this system and bring a much better system into being.

 


1. Statement by Bob Avakian, August 1, 2020, On The Immediate Critical Situation, The Urgent Need To Drive Out The Fascist Trump/Pence Regime, Voting In This Election, And The Fundamental Need For Revolution (emphasis in the original). This Statement is available at revcom.us.  [back]

2. In addition to his August 1 Statement, this point (on Trump’s ongoing moves to steal the election, and the need for mass mobilization demanding Trump/Pence OUT NOW!) is emphasized in a number of other works by Bob Avakian, including the important three-part series titled Voting Will Not Be Enough—We Need To Take To The Streets, And Stay In The Streets Demanding Trump/Pence Out Now! (Part 1Part 2Part 3) which is also available at revcom.us.  [back]

Download PDF

Read all the articles in Bob Avakian’s new series

 

Follow: @TheRevcoms
Read: www.revcom.us
Watch: youtube.com/TheRevComs

 

Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/avakian/bob_avakian-breakthroughs/bob-avakian-breakthroughs-excerpt-on-social-forces-en.html

Excerpt from:

BOB AVAKIAN

BREAKTHROUGHS

The Historic Breakthrough by Marx,
and the Further Breakthrough with the New Communism

A Basic Summary

BOB AVAKIAN

BREAKTHROUGHS

The Historic Breakthrough by Marx, and the Further Breakthrough with the New Communism

A Basic Summary

Copyright © 2019 by Bob Avakian. All rights reserved.

 

EXCERPT—ON SOCIAL FORCES:
SEMI-PROLETARIANIZATION, PETIT BOURGEOISIFICATION,
AND LUMPEN BOURGEOISIFICATION

EXCERPT—ON SOCIAL FORCES:
SEMI-PROLETARIANIZATION, PETIT BOURGEOISIFICATION, AND LUMPEN BOURGEOISIFICATION

Editors' Note: Given what seems to be a definitely negative trend among some Black people, especially younger Black men, of attraction to Trump, the following excerpt from Breakthroughs: The Historic Breakthrough by Marx, and the Further Breakthrough with the New Communism, a Basic Summary, is very relevant as a context and scientific understanding of these trends. Bob Avakian has recently written a number of timely polemics against these trends, including KANYE WEST, ICE CUBE—FOOLS, AND WORSE THAN FOOLSCANDACE OWENS: SHAMELESS HYPOCRITE—SUPPORTER OF WHITE SUPREMACIST FASCISM, etc.

When referring to the quote from Marx’s Grundrisse below, Avakian is referring to the following:

In... speaking to the social mobility that is often raised as one of the great features of capitalist society, Marx, in another major work of his, the Grundrisse, pointed out that individuals may change their social and class position within a society like this, but the masses of people can only escape from oppressive production and social relations by revolutionary means—by overthrowing and abolishing the system that is founded on and embodies those relations.

Editors' Note: Given what seems to be a definitely negative trend among some Black people, especially younger Black men, of attraction to Trump, the following excerpt from Breakthroughs: The Historic Breakthrough by Marx, and the Further Breakthrough with the New Communism, a Basic Summary, is very relevant as a context and scientific understanding of these trends. Bob Avakian has recently written a number of timely polemics against these trends, including KANYE WEST, ICE CUBE—FOOLS, AND WORSE THAN FOOLSCANDACE OWENS: SHAMELESS HYPOCRITE—SUPPORTER OF WHITE SUPREMACIST FASCISM, etc.

When referring to the quote from Marx’s Grundrisse below, Avakian is referring to the following:

In... speaking to the social mobility that is often raised as one of the great features of capitalist society, Marx, in another major work of his, the Grundrisse, pointed out that individuals may change their social and class position within a society like this, but the masses of people can only escape from oppressive production and social relations by revolutionary means—by overthrowing and abolishing the system that is founded on and embodies those relations.

Read complete work here

Download PDF for complete work here

 

 

So, what are the backbone, or potential backbone, forces for revolution, particularly in a country like the U.S.? Well, they are the impoverished and bitterly oppressed and repressed masses who do exist in their tens of millions in this country; and this interpenetrates to a great degree with people among the oppressed nationalities, although it is not limited to that. We do have to recognize, at the same time, that there is a phenomenon among many of these masses of what could be called “deproletarianization”—people who were themselves formerly exploited as wage‑workers (or the previous generations of whom were exploited in this way) but who now can’t even find themselves in that position (can’t find a job, to put it simply). This has been accompanied by a lot of what could be called “petit‑bourgeoisification,” as well as “lumpen‑bourgeoisification,” among sections of the oppressed masses—people who get into small‑scale activity, which is essentially petit bourgeois in the sense that it involves small scale ownership and trading, and things like that, and people who are into the life of crime, including those who rise to fairly powerful and wealthy positions within that, even though their situation is often and generally very precarious.

There are these phenomena, and there is the phenomenon that in the realm of culture, for example, a certain, relatively small but influential, section of people has managed to rise from within these masses to basically a bourgeois position. The reason I refer to “lumpen‑bourgeoisification” is that this includes people who have not only utilized the realm of culture but also in some cases the realm of crime to wrench out a position in which they become quite wealthy, and then they invest in lines of cosmetics and clothes, and so on—they become real bourgeois, even as many of them are part of an oppressed nation or people. And they have the corresponding outlook to a very significant degree. I won’t even talk right now about Kanye West! But, more generally, there’s the phenomenon where you are witnessing a profound silence on the part of many of these cultural figures and others on some of the burning issues for the masses today. Some may tweet about different things, but they don’t step out and take a strong stand in response—as a phenomenon there are many who do not step out and take a strong stand around glaring acts of oppression and injustice against the masses of people. And that’s because their position has changed. Not only is there a fairly significant “petit‑bourgeoisification” among oppressed masses but there is also the “lumpen‑bourgeoisification” that I referred to—and there is a culture which mirrors the extremely individualistic and acquisitive character of the dominant culture as a whole.

There is the phenomenon of what could be called “Reaganism among the masses of people,” the whole “ethos” that came in with Reagan in the 1980s, this extreme individualism—and not just individualism in the abstract, but one that is posed in terms of antagonism toward everybody else: “You can’t trust anybody else; nobody else cares about you; you gotta get over on other people before they get over on you.” To a significant degree, this has become a model for the masses, even though (once again going back to Marx’s statement in the Grundrisse) in their masses they are totally incapable of following this path, only a few can do that. In fact, there are millions of talented people in sports, in the arts, and so on, but only a tiny number of them can ever rise to a position of wealth and prominence. Nevertheless, this is held up as a model. Not only is this held up as a way out for people, it is more generally upheld as a model for people to follow and a way that people should think and conduct themselves. This does pose a real problem—and, more than that, it is an acute expression of a much larger problem in terms of the prevailing culture that has to be struggled against. People’s thinking in this regard has to be radically transformed.

At the same time, with all this, there is the poverty and immiseration, and the relentless injustice and oppression, to which masses of people are continually subjected and which, to go back once again to Marx in the Grundrisse, they have no way out of other than by overthrowing the system. Even short of revolution, all this to which they are continually subjected causes people to rise up against the system and its outrages, and provides a powerful part of the objective basis for masses, particularly (though not only) those who catch the worst hell under this system, to be won to, and to play a decisive role in, the revolution that is required to meet what are in fact their fundamental needs and interests. But this will require a tremendous amount of ideological struggle, transforming the thinking of masses of people, while uniting with them in fighting the oppressive powers‑that‑be, winning them to become, not people out for revenge and out for themselves, but emancipators of humanity, and in this way to act as backbone forces for the proletarian‑communist revolution.

As I indicated, this is closely intertwined with the fight to abolish the oppression of Black people and other oppressed nationalities within the U.S. and the whole question of the relation between national liberation and proletarian revolution, particularly in a country like the U.S., which is spoken to in THE NEW COMMUNISM and is addressed, concretely and in an overall strategic sense, in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America.41

At the same time as there are these basic forces for revolution, suffering in this way, who have to be won to this revolution through a tremendous amount of struggle, in which transforming their thinking is pivotal, there is a need for a broader united front, with the leadership of the proletariat—not in the reified sense of individual proletarians representing the essence of this leadership, but in the sense of what are the fundamental interests of the proletariat as a class and, going back to Marx, the fact that the proletariat can only emancipate itself by emancipating all humanity, by eliminating oppression and exploitation throughout the world with the achievement of communism. Being based on that understanding, and proceeding in that way, is what is meant by the leadership of the proletariat. And what is in the fundamental interests of the proletariat, and required for the revolution to realize those fundamental interests, is bringing into the revolutionary process as many forces as possible from the broader ranks of society, and continually struggling to win people to the revolutionary communist position. It is a matter of bringing forward those who catch the worst hell under this system, but also—and fundamentally by bringing them forward—working at the same time to bring forward all different strata of the people, including in particular youth and students, who constitute a crucial force that has an important role in this revolutionary process.

This requires a scientific, dialectical materialist approach to the situation and spontaneous sentiments and inclinations not only of the basic masses who can and must be brought forward as the backbone and driving force of this revolutionary process, but also of the middle class in this country, and the different strata within this middle class, whose situation is significantly different than it was 50, or even 20, years ago. It requires a living and constantly deepening understanding of the material position and outlook—the conditions of life and spontaneous thinking—of these different sections of the people and how to carry out the necessary struggle to bring about a profound change in the outlook and values of large and growing numbers of them, winning them to active and increasingly conscious involvement in the revolutionary process whose final aim is the abolition of all relations of exploitation and oppression, all antagonistic relations among human beings everywhere, and all the agony and anguish that is bound up with those relations.

 


41. Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America (Draft Proposal). Authored by Bob Avakian, and adopted by the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, 2010 (RCP Publications, 2010). Also available at revcom.us and thebobavakianinstitute.org.  [back]

 

 

 


 

Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/671/statement-initiated-by-faith-task-force-of-refuse-fascism-en.html

Statement Initiated by the Faith Task Force of Refuse Fascism:

Urgent! To Religious Communities and All People of Conscience
We Must Not Wait On An Election Being Stolen By A Fascist Regime

Protests Must Continue and Grow! Trump/Pence Out Now!
In The Name of Humanity Stop Terrorizing Immigrant Children!

| revcom.us

 

“Suffer the little children to come unto me for of such is the kingdom of Heaven.”
(Matthew 19:14, Bible)

“By the breath of children God sustains the world.”
(Talmud Bavli, Shabbat 119b)

“They are not from us: the ones who do not have mercy upon young children, nor do they respect the elderly”
(Prophet Muhammad, Qur’an)

People of faith, of all religions—and all people of conscience - of such did we see torn from mothers and fathers during the brutal years of slavery in this nation.

Of such did we see in this nation, during the genocidal separation of Native American children torn from their families to deprive them of their language and destroy their culture.

Of such did we see Japanese children and families torn from their homes and isolated in concentration camps across this nation.

Of such did we see when Jewish children and families were torn from their homes to be incinerated in the ovens of the Holocaust during the monstrous Nazi regime of Hitler’s Germany.

Of such do we now see in this nation with immigrant children crying desperately for their parents while locked in cages by the illegitimate, barbaric, Trump-Pence regime that America must expunge for crimes against humanity.

If a nation, a society is judged by the way it treats “the least of these” then how will we, churches, synagogues, mosques, etc., how will we be judged?
***

It is an atrocity that people are being used as pawns to get a wall built;

That children, akin to the era of slavery in America, have been ripped from the arms of their parents; and moreover are being held in detention centers or transported across the country with little hope of ever being reunited with their parents;

That Trump’s executive orders have mandated military concentration camps—indefinite incarceration in military prisons—for immigrants and refugees. Children. Adults. All families.

And to Trump, Pence, Barr, Pompeo, Devos, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the entire White House: Biblical scripture can be used by anyone to justify their twisted beliefs or deviant behaviors. Scripture was used by King George III loyalists. It was used to justify slavery in general and the Fugitive Slave Act specifically. There is little doubt that the kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls in Nigeria was similarly justified. It is patently clear that all laws are not just. It is an absolute atrocity that any political figure in twenty first century America could justify the evil evidenced by the irreparable harm being done to thousands of children in these United States of America. And, it is not okay to turn a blind eye and accept lame excuses of “justification” when fathers are shot in the back while their children look on!

We are at a critical moment. There is a rolling coup underway and the Trump/Pence regime is shredding every norm of democratic rule with their destruction of the election. In the hope of justice and peace, it is time for our religious communities, and all others, to join together in solidarity to oppose and stop the growing list of atrocities of the Trump/Pence regime and take immediate, positive action to protect humanity!

Protests Must Continue and Grow! Turn Up The Heat - Stay In The Streets! This Nightmare Must End! The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!

 

Initiated by: Faith Task Force of Refuse Fascism - I Am My Brother’s Keeper - The Trump Pence Regime Must Go! In The Name of Humanity Stop Terrorizing Immigrant Children!

Some of the initial religious-affiliated signatories (affiliations for identification purposes only):

Sara Atkins, Director of Advocacy, Torah Trumps Hate; Rev. Bob Bossie, SCJ, Roman Catholic Priest; Isabel Cardenas, American-Salvadoran Citizen; Bishop Gregg L. Greer, President of Freedom First International; Ernestine Henning, Supervisor (ret.), AME Church; Rabbi Burt Jacobson, Founder, Kehilla Community Synagogue; Russ Jennings, Host, Love in a Dangerous Time; Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Kuan, President, Claremont School of Theology; Elly Levy, Immigrant Rights Attorney and Activist; Sara MacDonald, Episcopal Church; Rev. Cecil “Chip” Murray, Former Pastor of First African Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles; Reverend Drew David Murray, Los Angeles; Rev. Karen Nelson, United Methodist Church, Portland, Oregon; Robert Packenham, Unitarian Universalist of San Francisco; Rich Procida, Bible Study For Progressives; Merilie Robertson, Presbyterian Elder, Pasadena, CA; Stephen Rohde, Interfaith Leader and Civil Rights Activist; Ramona Tolliver, Member, Ward AME Church; Anna Viggiano, Religious Education, Newman Center, Hawai’i; Rev. Gary Bernard Williams, Pastor of Saint Mark UMC LA; Rev. Frank Wulf, Echo Park United Methodist Church, LA

 

To add your name to this statement, go here.

 

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Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.

 

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Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/672/planet-cannot-survive-four-more-years-of-trump-part-3-oceans-en.html

| revcom.us

 

The Planet Cannot Survive Four More Years of Trump!

Part 3: Oceans —
Dead Zones, Garbage Patches and Heat Waves


Part of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (Photo: Wikimedia commons)

 

Editors’ Note: We received the following from a reader—the third and final in a series on the destruction of the planet’s ecosystems that has been brought to new levels of devastation and danger under the Trump/Pence regime.

Parts I and II can be found here and here. It is no exaggeration to say that if the Trump/Pence regime stays in power for four more years, the damage they inflict on the planet and its ecosystems, especially in accelerating global warming, and to the continuing survival of large sections of humanity, may well be irreparable.


The Pacific Ocean. Photo: Wikimedia commons

Life on the planet is believed to have begun in the oceans more than four billion years ago. Today, oceans contain somewhere between 500,000 and 10 million species, from whales to bacteria, most of it is unknown to science. Oceans absorb carbon dioxide, cushioning the planet against global warming and absorb more heat than land. Ocean currents help maintain the seasons.

For humanity, oceans are a source of incredible beauty, wonder, and knowledge. They provide human society with one-fifth of the protein we eat (and more in many areas).

Climate Change

The ocean as we know it today is dying. Global warming is responsible for the acceleration and increasingly severe destruction of the oceans. For example:

  • In 2006, a large marine heat wave (called “the blob”) covered a large part of the Pacific Ocean, raising ocean temperatures by five degrees and lasting two years. This ocean heat wave had a devastating impact on marine life such as sea lions and salmon. A similar “blob” formed in 2014-2016 and again in 2019. The formation of such large and long-lasting heat waves is now considered 100 times more likely than just a few decades ago. If fossil fuels continue to burn at the current rate and temperatures rise by five degrees (which is within the range of scientists’ current projections), some parts of the ocean may be in a continuous state of extreme heat, with disastrous consequences for the species that live there.

  • In 2014-16 and again in 2019, the ocean waters off the West Coast were hit with hotter-than-usual temperatures in a marine heat wave that came to be known as "the Blob." The 2014-16 heat wave was the largest marine heat wave since NOAA satellites started keeping track in 1981. The 2019 marine heat wave was the second-largest. (NOAA Coral Reef Watch)

  • A study recently published in the journal Nature Climate Change indicates that oceans are becoming more stratified, with warm water at the top, cooler waters below, and less mixing. According to climate scientist Michael Mann, one of the study’s authors, this poses a number of significant problems: 1) the oceans are unable to absorb as much heat as in the past, leading to more warming for the planet as a whole; 2) the increased stratification contributes to the intensity of tropical storms. Mann’s study found that this is happening much more quickly than previously thought.

  • Warmer oceans contribute to the intensity of tropical storms, an event happening much more quickly than previously thought. Here the aftermath of 2015 Cyclone Pam, which destroyed 90 percent of the buildings in the nation of Vanatu. (Photo: AP)

  • The ocean is absorbing more carbon dioxide from the air, making it more acidic. This makes it harder for corals, oysters, mussels, and other organisms to build their shells. Current estimates are that 90 percent of coral reefs, which comprise some of the richest areas of marine life on the planet, will be dead by the middle of this century.

  • 2010: a variety of corals from a part of the Great Barrier Reef near Cairns, Queensland, Australia. Photo: Toby Hudson (Wikimedia Commons)


    2016: dead staghorn coral killed by bleaching on the northern Great Barrier Reef. Photo: Greg Torda, ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies/Creative Commons

  • Disruption of ocean temperatures leads to a disruption of the “ocean conveyor belt,” which regulates the planet’s climate. Any disruption of this current could lead to massive changes in the planet’s climate.
  • An Unsustainable System

    Pollution, unsustainable fishing, and toxic waste are causing devastating outcomes in the planet’s oceans. Like climate change, this is rooted in the system of capitalism-imperialism. As Raymond Lotta wrote on the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, “The economic models and pricing system of capitalism cannot capture the true measure of these elements of nature. They systematically ‘undervalue’ nature because, historically, these benefits of ecosystems are provided ‘free’ as ‘public goods’—and have been systematically overexploited as imperialism relentlessly and massively commodifies more and more of nature.”

    Look at what is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in the Pacific Ocean, where ocean currents have caused massive amounts of plastic and other garbage, twice the size of Texas, to accumulate. This is one of five similar sites worldwide. As plastics break down, they work their way into every part of oceans, from the surface to the ocean floor. Turtles, seabirds, fish, and marine mammals eat or get entangled in the plastic garbage. Plastic contains toxins, which get concentrated in smaller animals and the animals that eat them. At the top of that food chain are human beings. Studies have found that humans today have plastics in every organ of our bodies.


    Pacific Garbage Patch concentrations (Map: NOAA)

    Even though the environmental harm of plastics has been long known, plastic production has continued to rise, often for useless things such as packaging of consumer goods. Between 2000 and 2010, more plastic was produced than in the previous century. And production of plastic is expected to increase by 40 percent in the next 10 years.

    Look at the dead zone that forms every summer off the Gulf of Mexico. Dead zones form when chemicals, such as those used as fertilizer in industrial agriculture, run off into rivers that flow into the Mississippi and eventually into the Gulf. There they cause algae to bloom on the surface, which decreases the oxygen levels below. Thousands of dead fish wash ashore. Fifty years ago, there were 50 dead zones around the world. Today, this has grown to more than 400.


    A satellite image of the Gulf of Mexico showing sediment flowing into it from the Mississippi River. This year's dead zone in the gulf could be one of the largest on record. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons/NASA Earth Observatory)

    Nonsustainable fishing is also harming the ocean ecosystem. In 2015, one-third of ocean fish stocks were being commercially fished faster than the stocks could replenish. When too many fish are taken out of the ocean, an imbalance is created that leads to a loss of other important marine life—including vulnerable species like sea turtles and corals. Dwindling stocks of fish put millions of people living in poor coastal communities at risk of hunger and loss of their livelihood.

    At the same time as the burning of fossil fuels is wrecking the climate, offshore drilling and the spills that can result are damaging to ocean life. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill from BP-operated wells in the Gulf of Mexico released 200 million gallons of oil. This disaster fouled at least 1,300 miles of Gulf shoreline, endangered public health, and killed 10s of thousands of birds, sea turtles, dolphins, and fish. In addition to large spills like BP’s, there are many smaller spills. Just in U.S. federal waters, there were 6,500 oil spills between 2007 and 2017. Aside from the devastating impact of oil spills, these wells produce many forms of toxic waste, even when they are running as designed.

    We need a society that is based on maintaining a sustainable relationship with the natural world. This is something that capitalism cannot do.


    Trump overturned regulations put in place after the BP oil spill that were meant to prevent future spills. And he has proposed changes that would allow oil drilling in all federal waters. Here, aftermath of BP- Deepwater Horizon oil spill, an industrial disaster, April 2010, in the Gulf of Mexico. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

    Trump and the Oceans

    Much of the environmental devastation in the oceans is the direct result of climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels. This did not begin with Trump; it is the result of a system of capitalism-imperialism, its cutthroat competition, and its quest for profit. But Trump is greatly accelerating the process.

    Trump has denied the science of climate change, pulled out of the Paris climate accord, promoted and deregulated coal power plants, repealed rules that would have reduced automobile emissions, cut regulations on methane, approved contested pipelines, and expanded drilling coal mining and fracking. And Trump has damaged the oceans in other ways:  

    • On June 5, Trump opened the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument, the only protected marine monument, to commercial fishing. The site is home to a rare species of cold-water coral, some of which are more than 4,000 years old, as well as diverse systems of life that exist in its three undersea canyons and four extinct volcanos.
    • Last week, Trump appointed two climate science deniers and a campaign aide to top positions in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the leading U.S. agency studying climate change and the ocean environment. These appointments presage what would likely happen if Trump remains in power: turning an important scientific body into a hack center of climate change denial.
    • On June 19, 2018, Trump signed an executive order overturning the National Ocean Policy (which Republicans called “Obamacare for the Ocean”) and replacing it with a policy that barely mentions climate change and focuses not on ocean conservation but on economic development, including mining the sea floor.
    • Trump overturned regulations put in place after the BP oil spill that were meant to prevent future spills. And he has proposed changes that would allow oil drilling in all federal waters.
    • Trump is a big-time supporter of the U.S. plastics industry. He constantly ridicules efforts to reduce single-use plastics. When he does talk about plastic pollution, he blames other countries (especially China), even though the U.S. produces much more plastics per capita than China.

    ***

    Ocean Endangered Species

    While much less is known about extinction of marine species than their land-based relatives, a 2019 study in the journal Nature found that ocean species were more vulnerable to temperature change than land species.

    Part 1 of this series (on the Great Barrier Reef) covered the situation with coral reefs, which are threatened by rising ocean temperatures. These “rainforests of the sea” could become extinct in coming decades.

    ***


    Leatherback sea turtle

    The leatherback sea turtle is the largest sea turtle, reaching a length of seven feet. They migrate up to 10,000 miles each year. In the last 30 years, the population of these turtles has declined by 90 percent.


    Vaquita

    The vaquita is a small porpoise found only in the northern Gulf of California, off Mexico. Fewer than 20 of these animals remain, down from more than 600 in 1997. They have been caught in fishing nets and more recently have been hunted because their swim bladders are believed to have medicinal value.

    Hawaiian monk seal

    The Hawaiian monk seal, known to native Hawaiians as ilio-holo-i-ka-uaua, or "dog that runs in rough water," is being threatened by rising sea water that is destroying the beaches that the seals need to rest and to rear their young. The seals are also killed when they get caught in fishing nets. There are only around 1,000 of these seals left.

    Read the series:

    The Planet Cannot Survive Four More Years of Trump!

    Part 1: The Great Barrier Reef and the Amazon

    Read more


    Bleached coral, the Great Barrier Reef


    Part 2: The Arctic: Land of (Melting) Ice and Fire

    Read more


    Starving polar bear (Photo: Wikimedia commons)


    See also:

    50 Years Since Earth Day 1:
    Reflections on the Catastrophe That Is Capitalism-Imperialism

    by Raymond Lotta

    Read more


    Jacundá National Forest, part of the Amazon Rain Forest, August 25, 2019 (Photo: AP)

    This series has shown that the global environment is on a precipice, and many ecosystems are facing the possibility of collapse. We have seen species on the edge, from the rainforests to the Arctic to the oceans. As has been emphasized throughout this series, even small changes in an ecosystem can have large effects on the entire system. Because all life is bound together, changes to the ocean ecosystem will affect all other species on the planet, including human beings.

    Right now, humanity faces a choice with huge implications not only for humanity, but for the planet. Four more years of Trump’s science-denying, nature-destroying, fossil-fuel-emitting fascist regime will be a nightmare for the planet. We must use all available nonviolent means to prevent Trump/Pence from consolidating fascism. AND ultimately, to save the planet, we need to overthrow the capitalist-imperialist system and put in place a system of socialism moving on to communism that is based on, among other things, “Protecting, preserving, and enhancing the ecosystems and biodiversity of the planet for current and future generations.” (From the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, authored by Bob Avakian.)

     

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    Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/548/science-of-evolution-philosophical-relativism-en.html

    “BUT HOW CAN WE EVER BE SURE ANYTHING IS TRUE?”: SUCH PHILOSOPHICAL RELATIVISM OFFERS CREATIONISTS EASY PICKINGS

    June 18, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

     

    Following is an excerpt from The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism: Knowing What’s Real and Why It Matters by Ardea Skybreak, published in 2006.

    It’s important to think about how you can tell whether something is really true or not. What are the methods and approaches which can be used for getting at the truth and distinguishing it from falsehood? Without a basic grasp of these approaches and methods it’s easy to fall into accepting just about any lie or falsehood, especially if it seems to be put forward with conviction by people in positions of power and influence (governments, religious authorities, TV personalities, and so on).

    It’s good to have a critical mind and to question everything. But then again it’s also important to recognize when at least the basic truth of something has already been clearly established. If human beings always went around thinking that “nothing is ever sure,” how could we ever survive or get anything done? Should we walk in front of a moving bus because “we can’t ever really know for sure” whether we’ll get run over? Should we not bother setting an alarm clock because we “can’t ever know for sure” that it will ring, or that it even really exists, or that we really exist and have a reason to get up? These examples may seem silly, but they make the point that, even just to function in day-to-day life, we human beings really need to have some way, some approach and method, which can help us to determine when something is actually true (or false).

    Of course we’ll never have absolute truth—in the sense that we’ll never know everything there is to know about everything—but we do have some means and methods for getting to the point that we can say, with a high degree of confidence, that something is true—meaning that it actually corresponds to some aspect of material reality as it really is.

    Again, the point is that it’s good and important to question everything, but it’s also good and important to recognize that not everything is forever up for grabs—sometimes we can know enough about something to accept it as true, stop agonizing about it, and move on. Such is the case with the basic theory of evolution.

    But a lot of people in the United States today still don’t realize that we can be that sure about evolution. Anti-evolution and anti-science Christian fundamentalist Creationists have worked to confuse people’s thinking on this since the late 19th century, typically becoming particularly active and aggressive in times of social turmoil and when the overall direction of society is being broadly questioned and debated. It’s especially at such times that reactionaries resist all forms of social progress and call instead for looking backward and “restoring core values and traditions.” Today is no exception.

    The Creationists have waged such determined anti-evolution and anti-science campaigns in recent years that U.S. universities are now reporting that they are getting very worried about growing scientific illiteracy in the country as a whole as they notice that more and more freshmen are arriving on campuses so poorly trained in even basic science that they actually believe “the scientific community is divided on whether evolution happened” and that “evolution is still just an unproven theory.” To state it clearly again: both those notions are completely false. The scientific community (in the U.S. and worldwide and in every field of science) is not “divided” on the basic facts of evolution. The consensus is overwhelming that (a) life has definitely evolved and that (b) the basic mechanisms involved in how life evolved and continues to evolve (such as natural selection) are by now well understood.

    The “Theory of Evolution”—What a Scientific Theory Is

    As for the question of evolution being “just an unproven theory”: this is also false. As spoken to throughout this book, there is an incredible amount of accumulated and mutually reinforcing evidence for evolution, and the general scientific consensus is that the theory of evolution is among the best-proven and best-documented theories in all of science.

    But one of the favorite methods of the Creationists is to play on people’s ignorance and confusion about some basic words: in regular everyday English, the word “theory” often means “a guess” or something that has not been proven to be true. So the Creationists hope that when you hear the words “theory of evolution” you will automatically think it hasn’t yet been proven to be true. But, in scientific circles, the word “theory” has a very different meaning: a “scientific theory” is what scientists call a complex body of thought that ties together a number of different ideas and proposals which successfully explain—from a number of different angles—the basic principles and mechanisms involved in a natural process, such as the origins and later change and development of some part of actual material reality. So, for instance, scientists talk about the “theory of gravitation” or the “Copernican theory” (of the motion of the planets, including the earth, around the sun) but that doesn’t mean they’re “guessing” that objects fall towards the earth because of the pull of gravity or that they’re “guessing” that the earth goes around the sun rather than the other way around. The theory of gravitation and the Copernican theory are by now well documented and supported by the accumulated scientific evidence, and the same can be said of the scientific theory of evolution.

    Of course scientific theories are always being further extended and developed as human knowledge expands and comes to understand some things that we didn’t previously understand. And as knowledge develops, it is inevitably the case that some old ideas are discovered to be wrong and therefore need to be discarded. Science actually advances by calling into question and critically reviewing previously established scientific notions. It is true that there is always going to be more to learn and discover about everything. But that doesn’t mean that we can never come down and say that something is true. People who like to say things like “but you can never be sure” fall into the mistaken outlook and approach known as philosophical relativism. (Of course, since human knowledge is never complete and perfect, and is always developing, people who think and act like they have “absolute truth” about everything, or everything important, fall into the erroneous method known as dogmatism, which is the “flip-side” of relativism.) But when we say something is “true” it simply means that there is good, compelling and concrete evidence (preferably from a number of different and mutually reinforcing sources and directions) that our understanding of something actually does closely correspond to how that something really is in objective reality, that is, in the real material world—which includes all that is part of the natural world and which encompasses the features and workings of human social organization as well. (See “Reality and Distortions of Reality—Objective Truth and Subjective Influences” on page 216.)

    Scientific theories (whether pertaining to the world of nature or human society) do not get proven to be “true” overnight. Before any great idea or set of ideas can be confidently said to be “true,” it has to get put through the scientific crucible—that means it gets poked at and critiqued and challenged and tested over and over again and from countless different directions. A good scientific theory puts forward some predictions about what we should expect to find in the real world if the theory is true; and it also makes predictions about some of the things we should not be able to find in the world if the theory is true. This is known as the principle of “scientific falsifiability”: a genuine scientific theory, as a matter of principle, has to be capable of being disproved by facts (things which, if discovered, would prove your theory to be wrong). The theory of evolution could be falsified (proven wrong) if, for instance, fossilized dinosaur and human footprints were ever found in the same undisturbed rock layers, because that would mean dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time, and this would completely contradict everything we know about how and when different species evolved. Biologists can give many such examples of the kinds of things that—if they were ever found to exist—would make a complete shambles of evolutionary theory. So, like all good scientific theories, the theory of evolution is falsifiable in principle—but, as a point of fact, science has never found anything (not a single thing) that actually falsifies it. It has, however, found many, many things that support it.

    The theory of divine Creation is a religious belief, not a scientific theory. One of the sure signs of that is that the theory of divine Creation is, by its very nature and definition, impossible to falsify. The Creationists refuse to give people any examples of any kind of scientific discoveries that they could accept as proof that their divine Creation theory is wrong after all. They make a principle of this, because for them it is a matter of absolute religious faith. But if you make a principle of saying that there is no possible way that any information could ever come to light that would prove your theory wrong, then you are, by definition, not being scientific, and your theory has nothing to do with science!

    Again, the theory of evolution was, from its very beginnings, falsifiable as a matter of principle. But as it turns out, all the actual scientific data that has been collected in the nearly century and a half since Darwin published his major work on evolution has repeatedly supported the theory of biological evolution; and none of it has ever provided evidence to the contrary. This more than anything is why there is such a broad and solid scientific consensus on the matter.

    RECOGNIZE, DEMAND AND FIGHT FOR SCIENTIFIC TRUTH

    Throughout this book, it has been shown, from many different angles and different sources, that evolution is a well-established scientific truth which is upheld and applied by the vast majority of scientists in the world. But just because something is true doesn’t mean it will prevail at all times, especially when people who hold false views are able to wield or influence the machinery of the state to spread and impose those false views. People don’t always think about this enough. For instance, in the United States today there are some people who understand that evolution is a proven fact but who think that it’s just a waste of time to worry about the crazy Creationists because, after all, they’re not going to be able to change the fact that evolution is true. They seem to think that, at least in countries like the U.S., society “will never go back to a time when most people didn’t know life had evolved through natural processes”—so why waste energy addressing the creationist lunacy? But in my opinion it’s a serious mistake to be complacent about such aspects of the “culture wars” in the United States. I’ve heard the same argument made about the anti-abortion movement. (“Don’t worry, these people are nuts; women in the U.S. will never have to go back to the days when abortion was illegal and women did not have the right to determine whether or when they would bear a child.”) Oh yeah? Well, look around you—one step at a time the fundamentalist religious forces have managed to chip away at women’s fundamental right to control their own reproduction and in some parts of the country (especially rural areas) it has already become a practical impossibility for many women. In regard to evolution, the same types of fundamentalist reactionaries have managed to confuse a lot of people, take over school boards and even get disclaimers inserted into high school science textbooks, telling people that evolution is “controversial” and “an unproven theory” (it is not!). So why is it so hard to imagine that these people could make even further headway, especially when their right-wing political programs are the order of the day in the highest reaches of government?

    And it’s not like there isn’t still a strong material basis for lots of people to be ignorant and confused about this. Looking not only at the U.S. but at the world as a whole, it is still the case that tremendous numbers of people have never been taught even the most basic facts of evolution (many have never even heard of it!): most believe instead one or another myth or superstition about how all the plants and animals and people came to be. Furthermore, the aggressively expanding Christian fundamentalist movement is a well-funded and well-organized movement which gets significant financial and ideological backing from conservative and reactionary political organizations. Evangelical and fundamentalist Christian movements in the United States in particular are closely allied with the political Right and growing fascist trends and developments (think back to the Santorum Amendment, for instance). Thanks to this support, Creationists have significant and regular access to mainstream media, where their viewpoints and activities are often reported uncritically and as straight news. They also own or control a lot of media outlets themselves: their radio and TV programs, books, pamphlets, museum exhibits, professional-looking web sites (just do a web search for the word “creationism” or look up the web sites of the ICR [Institute for Creation Research] or the Discovery Institute) now reach (and no doubt confuse) millions of people. They have money and other resources that allow them to regularly send speakers on tour to address school boards and parents’ groups, to speak on college campuses and in courtrooms, and to address Congress and other government officials. And, as pointed out before, they have powerful ties right up to the highest levels of the ruling class in American society.

    Can a well-orchestrated and well-funded propaganda blitz in itself “reverse” the truth of evolution? Of course not. But it can do a lot of social damage by training legions of people (including the young and inexperienced) to firmly and zealously believe in completely wrong ideas and to increasingly reject not only evolution but even science more generally, as a method for learning about things and for transforming the world.

    Of course the government, military and big corporate sectors themselves have to regularly make use of actual science to carry out their objectives (they need science to help them wage their wars or develop new pharmaceuticals, for instance), so they are not about to throw all science out the window. They will need to allow at least some people to continue to be trained in actual scientific principles and methods and to learn some actual truths about the way things are in reality—otherwise they could not continue to function and to enforce their rule and domination in the world. But that doesn’t mean they have to let everyone in on it!

    For one thing, reactionary political forces have always found it useful to try to pass off as genuine “science” all sorts of completely false and non-scientific beliefs when it helps them to justify a reactionary political agenda: it should be enough to think for a minute about all the phony “scientific” theories of supposed racial or gender inferiority (phony “science,” which rested on absolutely no legitimate scientific evidence!) which have been used repeatedly to buttress and justify such things as the horrific enslavement of Africans, the Nazi extermination of Jews, the countless forcible restrictions on and coercion of women, and so on. So just because an idea is not true, and a whole lot of people know it is not true, doesn’t mean it can’t be put in the service of concretely aiding some very bad things!

    In short, don’t underestimate the damage that can be done by the unchallenged promotion of wrong ideas, especially when they are being presented as “scientific.” What the Creationists of different stripes are doing by packaging their religious beliefs as “science” is not just trying to make their beliefs more acceptable to a somewhat scientifically oriented public, or trying to get their religious teachings into the public schools even though the Constitution is supposed to guarantee that people in the U.S. are not subjected to the imposition of religious doctrine and the tyranny of religious clerics and diktats. What the creationist program is also doing is working to undermine science itself—the whole method of science and the whole way science trains and encourages people to learn about everything in the world (and also how to change it) through a process of systematic and repeated observations and interactions with the material world as it actually is.

    If the creationist frontal attack on science itself were ultimately successful it would set science back literally centuries and limit us to trying to understand and affect the world (or passively accept the way it is) on the basis of superstition and belief in the supernatural.

    So what can people, in particular those who are not professional scientists, do to better understand what is wrong and untrue about what the Creationists put forward? The accompanying insert, “Some Things You Can Do to Learn More about Creationist Lies and Distortions” on page 222 offers some suggestions and indicates important sources of information.

    Order from Insight Press

    The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism: Knowing What's Real and Why It Matters, by Ardea Skybreak

    The Science of Evolution
    and the Myth of Creationism

    Knowing What's Real and Why It Matters

    by Ardea Skybreak

    "This book will be of tremendous benefit to many..."
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    CAPITALISM-IMPERIALISM—THE SUFFOCATION OF SEVEN BILLION— AND THE PROFOUND NEED FOR A WORLD ON NEW FOUNDATIONS

    by Bob Avakian

    | revcom.us

     

    The rulers of this country, and those who represent their interests, are forever boasting about the supposed “freedom, initiative and creativity” that, according to them, the capitalist system (and only the capitalist system) makes possible, and the great wealth this has created for people in this country especially. And they continually slander communism as a repressive system where people have no freedom and their initiative and creativity is not encouraged and rewarded but stifled and suppressed. All this is fundamentally wrong and completely upside-down.

    First of all, the wealth that these people boast about is extremely unevenly distributed, even within this country, where a very small percentage of the people control the great bulk of the wealth. But, beyond that and more essentially, this wealth rests on a foundation of unspeakable crimes against humanity, historically and right up to the present time. To begin with:

    The USA is a country which established its territory and built the foundation of its wealth through the armed conquest of land, genocide, slavery, and ruthless exploitation of successive waves of immigrants to America.1

    And today, “the wealth and power of the U.S. rests today on a worldwide system of imperialist exploitation”—an international network of sweatshops, mines and corporate-controlled farms—“that ensnares hundreds of millions, and ultimately billions, of people in conditions hardly better than those of slaves.”2

    This system of capitalism-imperialism—a system resting on ruthless exploitation, and super-exploitation, of masses of people, and marked by the cut-throat competition between major capitalist enterprises and financial institutions, and rivalry between capitalist states—suffocates the freedom, initiative and creativity of billions of human beings (the great majority of the more than seven billion people on the earth) including the huge numbers of children who are slaving away at near-starvation wages, and the vast masses of people who have been uprooted from the countryside, throughout the Third World (of Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia) and are crowded into swelling shantytown slums in rapidly expanding urban areas, where most can only survive by hustling in the “informal” economy, legal and illegal.

    The freedom, creativity and initiative of literally billions of women is suffocated and suppressed, often with extreme brutality, under this system, with the patriarchal male supremacy that is built into it.

    Tens of millions of people have died, and countries have been devastated, in wars directly waged by rival imperialists (such as World Wars 1 and 2), or wars in which they have backed contending local forces—all to gain (or maintain) control of strategic parts of the world, in the bloody pursuit of key natural resources, markets, and domination of populations whose desperation leaves them vulnerable to life-stealing exploitation.

    Here is a “snapshot” of the ugly reality beneath all the grand talk about the “greatness” of this system of capitalism-imperialism:

    we live in a world where large parts of humanity live in stark poverty, with 2.3 billion people lacking even rudimentary toilets or latrines and huge numbers suffering from preventable diseases, with millions of children dying every year from these diseases and from starvation, while 150 million children in the world are forced to engage in ruthlessly exploited child labor, and the whole world economy rests on a vast network of sweatshops, employing large numbers of women who are regularly subjected to sexual harassment and assault, a world where 65 million refugees have been displaced by war, poverty, persecution, and the effects of global warming.3

    And the very future of humanity is seriously, and increasingly, endangered by this system with its accelerating destruction of the environment as well as its ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation.

    Within the U.S. itself (this “richest of all countries”) tens of millions, especially in the inner cities, are living in conditions of severe deprivation, with many denied the opportunity to find work at a “living wage,” or denied the opportunity to be employed at all (in the regular “formal economy”) while they are also subjected to discrimination in education, housing, health care, and every other dimension of society—with all this enforced through continual police terror, punctuated repeatedly by outright murder.

    The current COVID-19 pandemic has both highlighted and heightened the profound inequalities, in the world as a whole, and within this country, as people who were already bitterly oppressed and impoverished, and denied access to decent health care, have been hit hardest by this pandemic.

    And, even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, with its crushing effects on the livelihood of masses of people, tens of millions in this country who had been regularly employed were living paycheck-to-paycheck, striving to provide for loved ones and hoping to provide a better future for their children, with many saddled with huge debt and only a serious health crisis away from financial ruin, while their work created wealth for a capitalist (or capitalist corporation) dictating the conditions of work, treating people as cogs in a machine or in many cases the extension of a machine—whether on an assembly line or a computer—work that, in these conditions, can only be alienating and mind-numbing.

    In these (and countless other) ways, this system crushes and deadens the human spirit as well as grinding away the life—or outright stealing the life—of billions of people in every part of the world.

    Think of the tremendous waste—and outright destruction—of human potential that results from all this. All this is the consequence of the fact that the world, and the masses of humanity, are forced to live under the domination of this system of capitalism-imperialism

    All this is the basis on which a relatively small part of the people within this country, and a very small part of humanity as whole, has the conditions and the “freedom” to develop and apply their initiative and creativity—only to have this serve, under this system, to reinforce the “lopsided,” highly unequal and profoundly oppressive conditions in the world as a whole and for the masses of people in the world.

    And all this is completely unnecessary.

    Revolution, the New Communism and the Unleashing of Human Potential

    Even under these conditions imposed by this outmoded, monstrous system of capitalism-imperialism, creativity bursts through repeatedly in many different ways—and notably in music, literature and other expressions of art and culture—from every part of society and every part of the world, including among those most downpressed and despised by this system and its rulers. Think of how much greater this creativity could be—and all the ways it could be unleashed to meet the needs of the masses of people, materially as well as culturally—if the ways in which billions are chained down and suffocated by this system were shattered and cast off through revolution.

    Through the decades of work I have carried out, drawing crucial lessons from the previous experience (positive but also negative) of the communist movement and a wide range of human experience, I have developed a more consistently scientific communist theory, the new communism, which provides the basis for leading this revolution: the methods and principles, and the strategy for carrying out this revolution and, in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, a sweeping vision and concrete blueprint for a radically different and much better society, on an entirely new foundation—a radically different economic system (mode of production) based not on exploiting the masses of people but on unleashing their creativity and initiative to do away with exploitation and oppression of every kind.4 With this socialist mode of production the means of production (land, raw materials, machinery and other technology, factories and other physical structures, and so on) will be publicly owned (not privately owned by capitalist exploiters locked in chaotic and destructive competition and rivalry). This public ownership will make it possible to marshal and utilize the resources of society in a planned and flexible way, to meet people’s needs, both materially (for food, shelter, health care, and so on) and culturally and intellectually, in a continually expanding wayand to respond in a timely way to unforeseen developments and emergencies, while supporting the revolutionary struggle worldwide toward the goal of eliminating all exploitation and oppression everywhere with the achievement of communism throughout the world.

    With this mode of production, people’s initiative and creativity will be encouraged and fostered, and there will be the basis for people to apply this initiative and creativity, in unprecedented ways, in the interests of the masses of people, and ultimately all of humanity: Everyone will be able to work and to acquire the basis for a decent life, while contributing to the development of society on the road to overcoming exploitation, inequality and oppression—contributing through their ideas as well as their work—without being forced into relentless competition with each other in order to survive, or striving to advance at the expense of others (a poisonous way of thinking that will be continually struggled against).

    It is a fundamental understanding and principle of communism, which is given great emphasis in the new communism, that people are the most important productive force—not just as “producers” of the social wealth but also as conscious participants in the planning and overall development of the economy, not only for the benefit of the people in the particular country but most fundamentally to serve the revolutionary transformation of the entire world toward the goal of communism. And:

    The development of the socialist economy has as its source and relies upon the initiative and work, intellectual as well as physical, of the masses of people, of the members of society broadly, in conditions which are increasingly freed from relations of exploitation, and with the aim of overcoming all vestiges and aspects of such relations, and the effects of such relations, not only in... [a particular socialist country] but everywhere on the earth.5

    Along with, and fundamentally on the basis of, this radically different mode of production, there will be radically different political institutions and processes, and an ongoing struggle to transform the social relations which have embodied oppression, with the goal of abolishing and uprooting all relations of oppression as well as exploitation. There will be a radically different approach to education and culture—one which fosters and unleashes the scientific curiosity and artistic creativity of masses of people and “embraces” all this and enables it to contribute, “through many divergent paths, to the advance along a broad road toward the goal of communism.”6 There will be a radically different relation with the rest of the world—not exploiting and super-exploiting people around the world but supporting the struggle everywhere to throw off the rule of exploiters and oppressors and advance toward the goal of eliminating and uprooting all exploitation and oppression. And there will be a radically different relation with the environment—where human beings, instead of being chained to a system that plunders and destroys the rest of nature, are working together to be fit caretakers of the earth.

    This will be a new society aiming for a whole new world, without the suffocation, suppression, and disfiguring of the potential for the masses of humanity to understand and change the world in accordance with what are in fact the fundamental interests of humanity—to live in a world where no part of humanity is subordinated to and dictated to by another part, and where all of humanity is no longer dictated to by the fundamental workings and dynamics of a system that requires antagonistic relations among people, enforced with the continual threat and use of massive violence, where the masses of humanity are no longer reduced to merely a means to make wealth for a small number who rule over them, or are cast off as “surplus” populations that can no longer be exploited in this way.

    This new society and world will not be some kind of “utopia” where all problems and difficulties have “magically disappeared”—and it will not come as a “gift” from some non-existent god—but will be the result of the struggle of masses of people to cast off unbearable exploitation and oppression, and to transform themselves and their thinking in close inter-connection with this struggle to transform their conditions—struggle led by those who have taken up the scientific method and approach of the new communism and are winning growing numbers of people to themselves take up and apply this scientific method and approach to transforming the world in an increasingly conscious way on the basis of their voluntary initiative and cooperation.

    All this will involve whole new dimensions of freedom, and unleashed initiative and creativity of the masses of humanity, on this whole new foundation, with radically different institutions and relations among people, and radically different ways of thinking that correspond to these emancipating relations among people.

     


    1. From The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! In The Name of Humanity We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America, A Better World IS Possible. Video of this speech by Bob Avakian is available at revcom.us.  [back]

    2. BAsics 1:4 (Basics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian). This statement by Bob Avakian is originally from Communism and Jeffersonian Democracy, which is available in BA’s Collected Works at revcom.us.  [back]

    3. This is from Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make RevolutionVideo and the text of this speech by Bob Avakian are available at revcom.us.  [back]

    4. The strategy for revolution is spoken to in depth in the speech by Bob Avakian Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution (video and the text of which are available at revcom.us), and further thinking on this is contained in A Real Revolution—A Real Chance To Win, Further Developing the Strategy for Revolution (which is also available at revcom.us). The Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, authored by Bob Avakian, is also available at revcom.us.  [back]

    5. From Article I, Section 2, sub-section A2, page 19 of the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America. The principles and guidelines for the development of the socialist economy are more fully laid out in Article IV of this Constitution.  [back]

    6. From the “Preamble” to the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America.  [back]

    Bob Avakian (BA) is the most important political thinker and leader in the world today.

    Get Into BA »

    See also:

    Four Months Into the Global COVID-19 Health and Economic Crisis...
    Notes on the Utter Cruelty and Obscene Irrationality of Capitalism-Imperialism

    by Raymond Lotta

    Read more

    The New Communism

    Click to read and download (PDF)

    CONSTITUTION For The New Socialist Republic In North America

    Click to read and download (PDF)

     

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    Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

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    During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

    So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

    Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

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    Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/646/bob-avakian-on-emancipation-from-mental-slavery-all-oppression-en.html

    Bob Avakian On
    EMANCIPATION
    FROM MENTAL SLAVERY AND ALL OPPRESSION

    | revcom.us

     

    In 1863, mid-way in the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln finally issued the Emancipation Proclamation and, as a result of the Civil War, Black people were formally freed from literal, physical slavery. But today the question is: When, and how, will Black people finally be free from all forms of slavery and oppression? And this poses straight-up this big question:

    When will Black people finally emancipate themselves from the mental slavery of religion?!

    We have seen the possibility of a world without oppression powerfully expressed in the not-too-distant past, during the radical upsurge that took place within this country and throughout the world during the 1960s and early 1970s.1 Within this country, the struggle of Black people was at the forefront of all this, and as that struggle became more radical in opposition to the system itself, and groups like the Black Panther Party, driven by the impatience and daring of Black youth, grew and gained influence, the advanced role of the struggle for Black liberation exerted an even more powerful positive role. And, as a very significant part of the widely and strongly held conviction that it was not only necessary but possible to put an end to the nightmare that had been endured for so long:

    among Black people—who we’re always told are just sort of inherently religious—there was a massive turning away from religion, especially among the youth. Why? Because people were filled with hope, they didn’t believe that there was no hope for a better world. They were full of hope for a better world right in this world. And so, among Black people, there was, on the part of the youth in particular, a major turning away from religion and from all the old conventions that went along with religion that were conservatizing influences holding down the people.2

    Hard Truths, Emancipating Truths

    But the great promise of the 1960s radical upsurge, and the hopes that it raised, were not realized—fundamentally because things did not go all the way to an actual revolution. And, over the decades since then, through conscious policy by the ruling powers to foster the growth of more bourgeois and petit bourgeois strata among Black people, while at the same time maintaining and containing the masses of Black people in conditions of deprivation, oppression and vicious repression, this bitter reality has resulted:

    Among the basic masses of people, including Black people (not the more middle class strata being developed through conscious ruling class policy, but the masses of oppressed people), there was a tremendous amount of demoralization and sense of defeat, and the introduction (including through deliberate ruling class policy and action) of massive amounts of drugs further intensified the desperate conditions of the basic masses and further reinforced the sense of demoralization. A lot of people were dying or being reduced to broken wretches on the basis of turning to drugs out of despair—the lack of hope, or the death, in immediate terms, of the hope that inspired so many people, on a real basis, through the course of the 1960s upsurge, which had now ebbed and been transformed. And this situation was made even more desperate and demoralizing with the growth of gangs in the ghettos and barrios of this country (as well as internationally), with youth drawn to the gangs in conditions of increasing deprivation and desperation and what was for most the illusion of getting rich, with the orientation of “get rich or die trying,” fueled by the growth of the drug trade and the influence of the putrid culture promoted throughout society that fostered and extolled the exploitation and degradation of others as the means for making it big, whether on Wall Street and on the world stage, or on the streets in the neighborhoods of the inner city.3

    In the face of all this, amidst a feeling of fatalistic hopelessness, there has been, on the part of large numbers of Black people, a retreat into religion. It is often claimed that religion is what has allowed Black people to endure and persevere through all the trials and tribulations—the very real horrors—they have been subjected to throughout their experience in America, and that this remains the case now. But this is a logic of defeat—it rests on the underlying assumption (spoken or unspoken) that the system will basically remain as it has been, and that Black people will continue to be despised and discriminated against, persecuted, brutalized and terrorized, and the best they can hope for is to somehow survive, and strive to thrive, through all this—or, if you suffer in this life but you “get right with the Lord,” or submit to Allah, you will be rewarded in some “next life.”

    Once more, the question is sharply posed: How can Black people be finally and fully emancipated from centuries of oppression, and how does this relate to ending all oppression, of all people, everywhere?

    The answer is that the possibility of this is real, but it can happen only on the basis of a scientific approach to changing the world and the scientifically-grounded understanding that this oppression is rooted in and caused by the system of capitalism-imperialism—the same system that is viciously exploiting and murderously oppressing people not just in this country but all over the world and is plundering the natural environmentand that this system must and can be overthrown through an actual revolution and replaced by a radically different and far better system: socialism, whose final goal is a communist world, without any oppression or exploitation of anyone, anywhere.

    As I have put it, expressing a simple and basic truth: “in fundamental terms, we have two choices: either, live with all this—and condemn future generations to the same, or worse, if they have a future at all—ormake revolution!”4

    And, in relation to this, I have also spoken to this profound truth:

    There is the potential for something of unprecedented beauty to arise out of unspeakable ugliness: Black people playing a crucial role in putting an end, at long last, to this system which has, for so long, not just exploited but dehumanized, terrorized and tormented them in a thousand ways—putting an end to this in the only way it can be done—by fighting to emancipate humanity, to put an end to the long night in which human society has been divided into masters and slaves, and the masses of humanity have been lashed, beaten, raped, slaughtered, shackled and shrouded in ignorance and misery.5

    But here is another way that, in fundamental terms, there are two choices: either cling to the mental slavery of religion and remain oppressed, or cast off the mental chains of religion while rising up to fight with a real chance to get finally and fully free, in putting an end to all oppression and exploitation.

    Religion may seem to give people comfort in the face of the oppression and anguish they are forced to endure, or to make people feel that with religion they can keep from “doing wrong”—or, even though they may “do wrong,” they still have some worth. And it is true that, for some people, their religious views are a motivation to fight against various forms of oppression, and many people who approach things from a religious standpoint have insights and knowledge that it is important to know about and learn from. But it is also true that, as a way of thinking and a guide to acting, religion relies on the invention of supernatural beings that do not exist but which are said to ultimately shape and control reality, including the fate of human beings. Religion calls on people to submit to those imaginary supernatural beings (or, to very human authorities speaking in the name of those imaginary supernatural beings) and to follow scriptures that in reality do not lead to ending oppression but actually promote and reinforce all kinds of degradation and horror. (This is something I have illustrated very concretely in the book Away With All Gods! Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World, particularly with regard to the three main monotheistic [one-god] religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.6) In this way religion stands in direct opposition to taking up a consistently scientific approach to understanding reality and waging a scientifically-grounded fight to end all oppression.

    This is why the powers-that-be, whose very existence, wealth and power rest on oppression and exploitation, continually promote religion. It is why the very same slavemasters who prohibited Black people from learning to read (and severely punished those who did) actively encouraged their slaves to take up religion and get down on their knees in prayer. And it is why today, the ruling powers in this country are only too willing to provide a platform for, and parade around, any Black people who are inclined to engage in passionate “god-talk.” This may be painful to hear, but the question is: is it true, or not? Think about it.

    It is neither possible nor principled—and no one should ever try—to force people to give up beliefs they hold at any given time. In the most fundamental terms, emancipation—from every form of slavery and oppression—must be the voluntary and conscious act of people. But there is a great need and importance to waging ideological struggle, in a principled way but as sharply as necessary, to win people to take up a scientific approach to understanding, and changing, the world and break with ways of thinking that actually contribute to keeping them, and others, oppressed.

    Again, it is true that many religious people take part now in important struggles against oppression; and it is also true that many religious people will be among the millions taking part in the revolution to do away with this whole oppressive system. But this revolution, and the continuing struggle to end all oppression and bring about real and complete emancipation, must be led by those, among the most oppressed, and others as well, who have taken up a scientific approach to changing the world and have cast off the mental slavery of religion, along with every other way of thinking that promotes, or at least rationalizes and objectively justifies, oppression.

    A bitter truth is this:

    Oppressed people who are unable or unwilling to confront reality as it actually is, are condemned to remain enslaved and oppressed.7

    But, an even greater, emancipating truth is this:

    The notion of a god, or gods, was created by humanity, in its infancy, out of ignorance. This has been perpetuated by ruling classes, for thousands of years since then, to serve their interests in exploiting and dominating the majority of people and keeping them enslaved to ignorance and irrationality.

    Bringing about a new, and far better, world and future for humanity means overthrowing such exploiting classes and breaking free of and leaving behind forever such enslaving ignorance and irrationality.8

     


    1. In HOPE FOR HUMANITY ON A SCIENTIFIC BASISBreaking with Individualism, Parasitism and American Chauvinism (available at revcom.us), Bob Avakian speaks to this major change taking place during the 1960s:

    In the 1960s, masses of people all over the world, including in this country, were filled with hope and determination about the prospect of bringing into being a radically different and better world. Throughout the Third World, there were liberation struggles aimed at throwing off the yoke of colonial oppression that had been imposed on them for decades, generations and even centuries. And in the imperialist countries themselves—including, in particular, the U.S.—the generation that came of age in the 1960s had both the understanding of the need and a real belief in the possibility of bringing a radically different and better world into being, and was not interested in hearing all the arguments about why things had to be the way they are.  [back]

    2. HOPE FOR HUMANITY ON A SCIENTIFIC BASIS.

    In Bob Avakian Responds to Mark Rudd on the Lessons of the 1960s and the Need for an Actual Revolution (available at revcom.us), this point is emphasized:

    in moving from the limitations of the civil rights movement to the more advanced position of demanding Black liberation and linking this with liberation struggles in the Third World, those Black revolutionaries exerted a powerful positive force in influencing the movements of those times, including among educated youth, toward a more revolutionary orientation, even as that orientation was (in the parlance of those times) a “mixed bag,” involving a complex of conflicting tendencies, including the revolutionary communism that was coming from China as well as various revolutionary nationalist and other contradictory trends.  [back]

    3. HOPE FOR HUMANITY ON A SCIENTIFIC BASIS.  [back]

    4. In the speech Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution, from which this quote is drawn, Bob Avakian speaks to those crucial questions. The text and video of this speech are available at revcom.us. And in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, authored by Bob Avakian, (available at revcom.us) there is a sweeping vision and a concrete blueprint for a socialist society aiming for the final goal of communism throughout the world.  [back]

    5. This statement, along with other works by Bob Avakian speaking to the oppression of Black people and the road to their full emancipation, is available at revcom.us.  [back]

    6. Bob Avakian, Away With All Gods! Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World, Insight Press, 2008.  [back]

    7. BAsics 4:1 (BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian).  [back]

    8. BAsics 4:17, emphasis added.  [back]

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    Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/651/it-takes-science-and-leadership-to-truly-get-free-en.html

    To Those Rising Up and Awakening:
    It Takes Science and Leadership to Truly Get Free

    | revcom.us

     

    This is written especially to those who have been righteously standing up and fighting back against murder by police and the oppression of Black people more generally, and to all those who have taken heart and inspiration from this, who are newly encountering the Revolution. Welcome! We stand side by side with you in this struggle and unite with your outrage and fury against centuries of oppression that truly must be NO MORE. This outpouring of resistance must continue and it must grow. People must stay in the streets, and this upsurge must get bigger, broader, deeper, and even more determined. At the same time, the big question that now presents itself—one that literally millions of people are asking—is: What will it take to truly put an end to police brutality, murder by police, and the oppression of Black people, once and for all?

    The answer is that it will take far more than just people staying in the streets and fighting back, as critically important as that is. And this oppression can never be ended by trying to make a few reforms to a system that is completely rotten to its core. As with any big problem—whether a natural disease like COVID-19 or a social disease like racial oppression—solving that problem will take a deep understanding of the cause of that problem and the solution to it. In other words: It will take science. And it will take leadership. So let’s talk about what science and leadership have to do with changing the world.

    Many people hear “science” and think biology and ecology; climate change and the environment; chemistry and physics; labs and microscopes; medicine, technology and new inventions. All of these are very important examples of—or closely related to—science. But for some reason, many people don’t think you need science to understand and change human society as a whole, or even that you can apply science for this purpose. This makes absolutely no sense. Science means investigating reality, gathering evidence, analyzing that evidence, identifying patterns, and drawing conclusions about reality on that basis. Why would it possibly be that this scientific method can’t or shouldn’t be applied to understanding and changing society? Because human society is complicated? All the more reason you need science to understand it!

    Many people hear “leadership” and think of an activist with a bullhorn or a person leading a protest. These can be important and necessary examples of leadership, but leadership in the most important sense is something much bigger than that: Leadership in that sense is a matter of identifying and leading others to see the most fundamental problems confronting humanity and the solutions to those problems. Leadership is a matter of saying “Here’s why we’re in this situation and here’s how we can get out of it.

    In Bob Avakian (BA), we have the science, the leadership, and the understanding of problem and solution we need to not only emancipate Black people but all of humanity from centuries of oppression. Sound like a bold statement? GOOD. It’s meant to be. And it’s backed up with more than 50 years of substance.

    BA came forward as a revolutionary in the 1960s, working and struggling alongside the Black Panthers. In the decades since he has been working tirelessly on bringing forward and continuing to develop the deep, scientific understanding of the need to NOT reform but rather overthrow and completely sweep away this system through an actual revolution; the strategy for bringing into being the conditions necessary to make that revolution and win in those conditions; and the vision for a completely new and radically different system, society, and world. Underlying all of this is BA’s scientific method, which he continues to apply to the biggest questions facing humanity while leading a movement for revolution. A deep understanding of and visceral hatred for the oppression of Black people and the ways that Black people suffer, and a burning desire to see Black people free of this oppression, is at the core of BA and everything he is about, and is a constant thread that runs through his life and work over decades.

    People throughout society and throughout the world need to know about BA. Thousands now and ultimately millions need to follow him in order to make an actual revolution to get free of this monstrous system and bring a far better society, world, and future into being.

    See for yourself. Start with BA’s powerful new statement, “NOTHING LESS!Read it and spread it to everyone you know. Go to revcom.us to see the latest articles from BA on an incredibly broad range of topics related to revolution and radically changing the world, and learn more about and find out how to get involved in the revolution BA is leading. Check out BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian, the handbook for revolution, and the film Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Could Really Make Revolution. Go to the BA portal to get deeper into his extensive works. Learn more as you get involved in spreading this throughout society. Write to us to find out how you can specifically learn more and get involved. Write to us with your questions and let us know what’s on your mind.

    One last thing: Make no mistake—hell yes, this is controversial. Once again, we say: GOOD. Think about this: Could there ever be a genuine movement for an actual revolution that didn’t offend anyone or make them uncomfortable!? There are all kinds of people out there who might talk a big game but are scared of an actual revolution, who want to get in on this system and try to get a better deal for themselves, or who just plain don’t know what they’re talking about. There are people who would have you believe that if the skin color of a person who has a way out for humanity is white, you shouldn’t listen to that person. Needless to say, these people are not going to like BA and what he stands for. And they’re going to come up with all kinds of lies, cheap shots, and slander to attack BA and cover their own asses. This kind of behavior is despicable, it is very harmful and it must be taken seriously and fought against. But it is not at all surprising.

    So let’s end with a question back to you: Are you going to listen to lies and bullshit from the mouths of people who—in one form or another—want to keep the world basically the way it is? Or will you have the courage, integrity, and intellectual honesty to go directly to the source, get into BA, and see for yourself? Just how badly do you want to end oppression, change the world, and get free once and for all?

    BOB AVAKIAN: A RADICALLY DIFFERENT LEADER—A WHOLE NEW FRAMEWORK FOR HUMAN EMANCIPATION

    Bob Avakian (BA) is the most important political thinker and leader in the world today.

    Read more         

    Watch BA's whole speech:

    Watch clips from speech

     

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    Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

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    During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

    So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

    Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

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    Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/674/alert-trump-considers-options-for-military-attack-on-iran-en.html

    ALERT:
    Trump Considers Options for Military Attack on Iran
    No U.S. War on Iran! Trump/Pence OUT NOW!

    | revcom.us

     

    The New York Times reported today1 that in an Oval Office meeting last Thursday, Trump “asked senior advisers...whether he had options to take action against Iran’s main nuclear site in the coming weeks.” According to the Times, “A range of senior advisers dissuaded the president from moving ahead with a military strike.” But clearly, this does not mean that the danger of Trump’s launching a war has gone away. The Times cited “administration officials” revealing that Trump “might still be looking at ways to strike Iranian assets and allies...” 

    Any such attack on Iran, under whatever pretext, would be extremely dangerous, and thoroughly illegitimate—all the more so because Trump has been decisively defeated in the election, yet refuses to concede and continues to whip up his fascist supporters to back him up.

    To be clear, Iran’s fundamentalist Islamic regime has committed real crimes against its people and backs other reactionary forces in the region. But the massive butchery and crimes carried out by America in the Middle East, not to speak of around the world, is thousands of times greater than anything the Iranian rulers could even dream of. Just to name a few of these American crimes in the Middle East, carried out under both Republican and Democratic presidencies: the 1953 CIA coup that overthrew the elected leader of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, and brought to power the Shah (king), who carried out decades of torture and brutal repression; the U.S.-UN sanctions on Iraq from 1990 to 2003 that caused immense hardship for the people and death of hundreds of thousands, including children; the 2011 U.S.-NATO bombing of Libya that killed tens of thousands of civilians and left the country in shambles; the massive 1991 invasion of Iraq based on lies and the years-long occupation that followed and resulted in deaths of hundreds of thousands; the backing of Israel’s bloody attack on and massacre of the people of Gaza in 2008-9.2

    When they came into office, the Trump/Pence regime sharply changed the previous U.S. imperialist policy versus Iran, marked by Obama’s signing of a multinational deal with Iran to limit its nuclear weapons program. Trump unilaterally pulled the U.S. out of the nuclear deal—and then imposed draconian sanctions on Iran as a form of economic warfare. This has strangled Iran’s economy and caused extreme hardships for the masses of people of Iran.3 

    In January of this year, Trump ordered the assassination by drone of top Iranian general Qassim Soleimani while he was in Iraq. This American assassination of a high government official of a sovereign state, on the soil of another sovereign state, was objectively an act of war.4 In June, the U.S. and the International Atomic Agency accused Iran of blocking international inspection of its nuclear sites—setting up possible justification for further American military action against Iran. 

    And now Trump, as he scrambles to stay in power, may be looking to launch a war on Iran. This is an ominous development in a situation already fraught with great danger for the whole world. 

    In the name of humanity, we—the people—must stop Trump from launching a war or any other acts of aggression against Iran. We need to do this as part of staying in the streets to demand: Trump, Pence and the whole regime, OUT NOW!

     


    1. Trump Sought Options for Attacking Iran to Stop Its Growing Nuclear ProgramNY Times, Nov. 16.  [back]

    2. See these article in the revcom.us American Crime series:

    Go to the series page for exposures of many more American crimes around the world.  [back]

    3. See Explosion Destroys Nuclear Fuel Site in Iran as Trump/Pence Regime Steps Up Attacks at revcom.us.  [back]

    4. See On the U.S. Assassination of Soleimani and the Heightened Danger of War: Oppose U.S. Imperialist Aggression—Trump/Pence Out Now! at revcom.us.  [back]


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    FASCISTS TODAY AND THE CONFEDERACY:
    A DIRECT LINE,
    A DIRECT CONNECTION BETWEEN ALL THE OPPRESSION
    by Bob Avakian

    | revcom.us

     

    Recently there has been an uproar at Liberty University, in Lynchburg (!) Virginia, over the fact that its president, Jerry Falwell Jr., who (like many other Christian fundamentalists) had been refusing to wear a mask, then posted a picture of himself wearing a mask with a “blackface” image. This was actually a photo of Ralph Northam (Democratic governor of Virginia) in “blackface” during his college days, and Falwell’s apparent purpose was to use this to ridicule Northam (and, by extension, Democrats, “liberals,” and other enemies of Christian fascists like Falwell). Falwell was apparently “tone deaf” (as the saying goes) to the fact that this “blackface” image would be highly offensive to Black people (and others opposed to racism), and he at first tried to “stonewall” the criticism that arose (and “stonewall” is a very appropriate word here, as it is associated with the Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson). Even when Falwell finally seemed to backtrack and issue an “apology,” it was at least as much a continuation of his attack on Northam as it was any self-criticism. All this has led to an outcry, and some resignations, even from the highly “conservative” students and alumni of this Christian fundamentalist university, which has become a major institution, with tens of thousands of students.

    In reading about this, I was reminded of the following from The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!:

    There is a direct line from the Confederacy to the fascists of today, and a direct connection between their white supremacy, their open disgust and hatred for LGBT people as well as women, their willful rejection of science and the scientific method, their raw “America First” jingoism and trumpeting of “the superiority of western civilization” and their bellicose wielding of military power, including their expressed willingness and blatant threats to use nuclear weapons, to destroy countries.1

    The Direct Line to the Confederacy

    Here it is worth repeating these insightful observations from African-American theologian Hubert Locke:

    We should make no mistake about what is at stake in this battle with the religious right. It is not happenstance that it is a movement that draws its strength and finds its support principally in the so-called heartland of the nation and especially in its southern precincts. This is the portion of the United States that has never been comfortable with post‑WWII America. The brief period of normalcy after the war was followed within a decade by a pent-up and long overdue racial revolution that overturned centuries of culture and tradition, especially in the South. The disillusionment, two decades later, with an unpopular war in southeast Asia shook the foundations of traditional/conventional patriotism in American life; it was followed in the next decade by a sexual revolution that upset deeply entrenched views among this portion of the American populace about the subordinate place of women in society and the non-place of gay and lesbian persons in American life. These political and social and cultural defeats have now erupted into a pitched battle to turn back the clock on the last half-century and return America to its pre-war purity. It is not without significance that teaching creationism in the schools, for example, is such a prominent part of the religious right agenda. That was a battle the right lost in the mid-1920s but it is not one that the right ever acknowledged losing—just as some die-hards have never acknowledged losing the Civil War. Consequently, the restoration the religious right seeks is one that would recapture a way of life that disappeared in this nation a half‑century ago.2

    There is a lot “packed into” that statement, so let’s dig into it. Locke begins by making the point that it is not accidental (not “happenstance”) that Christian fascism in this country is based most strongly in the South (although it also finds significant support in rural areas, and even among sections of people in the suburban areas, in other parts of the country). Why is it the case that its strongest base is among white people in the South?

    In my book Away With All Gods!, there is a section in Part Three with the heading “The Bible Belt Is the Lynching Belt: Slavery, White Supremacy and Religion in America.” There I refer to (and quote) some important analysis in the book by Kevin Phillips, American Theocracy. The following is particularly relevant and important:

    Phillips reviews how, in the aftermath of the Civil War, although the South was defeated and the slave system was abolished, after the reversal of Reconstruction [in the 1870s] the South “rose again” in terms of political power and influence within the country as a whole. In connection with all this, Phillips points out, a religious mythology arose, and took root widely among white people in the South, that the (white) South had a special covenant with God and was the object of a special design by God to restore it to its proper place, righting the terrible wrong that had been done through the Civil War. Phillips makes the very relevant and telling comparison between southern whites in the U.S. and white settlers (Afrikaners) in South Africa, as well as Protestants in Northern Ireland and the Zionists who founded and rule the state of Israel.... Phillips points out that all these groups, including fundamentalist southern whites, see themselves as people being restored to their rightful, and righteous, relation with God—re-establishing a broken covenant and exercising a special, divinely-established destiny.

    But all this is accompanied by a constant sense of insecurity and the reversal of perpetrator and victim, so that these oppressors and terrorizers—including the southern-based white supremacists—devoutly carry the artificial cross of being persecuted, regarding even any minor reduction of their favored position as essentially a threat to their very existence, or at least their purpose for being. As Phillips puts it (in another passage cited in Away With All Gods!), this involves biblical attitudes of “religious intensity, insecure history, and willingness to sign up with an Old Testament god of war for protection.”3

    And there is the following from Katherine Stewart’s book The Good News Club, summarizing the views of a former Christian fundamentalist, Rich Lang, who broke with that and became a liberal Christian pastor:

    Modern fundamentalism, like fascism in earlier times, he says, involves a strong feeling of persecution, typically at the hands of godless liberals or a religious “other”; the belief that one belongs to a pure race or national group that is responsible for past greatness, suffers unjust oppression in the present, and is the rightful ruler of the world; the impulse to submit unquestioningly to absolute authority; and the relentless drive for power and control. It is, he says, a kind of supremacist movement, with religion rather than race at its core.4

    As I have pointed out: “that is the insight of someone very familiar with these Christian Fascists. And the fact is that, in this country, with its whole history of genocide, slavery and racism, any form of fascism, including one basing itself on ‘Christian supremacy’—any urge to ‘restore past greatness’—cannot help but be bound together with white supremacy.5

    White supremacy, even of the most grotesque kind, has always been part of the “worldview” and actions of right-wing forces in this country. To get a sense of this, let’s look at the racism of two patriarchs of right-wing politics and ideology: Jerry Falwell Sr. (founder of Liberty University and father of its current president) and William Buckley.

    Falwell (Sr.), whose Christian fundamentalism was, in his earlier days, intertwined with old-time southern segregationism, viciously opposed the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and early 1960s. Later, when the upheaval of that time had passed, he “apologized” for that opposition. But then, in the 1980s, during the high point of the struggle of Black people in South Africa against the brutal system of apartheid, Falwell once again opposed and denounced that struggle.

    Although from a wealthy northern family and having the bearing not of a crude rural southern “rube” but of a highly-educated intellectual sophisticate, William Buckley, founder of the right-wing magazine National Review, was from the beginning an overt racist. He followed a path very similar to that of Falwell (Sr.): Buckley, too, vigorously and viciously opposed the struggle against overt segregation and white supremacy in the South during the high point of the Civil Rights movement (and he too, later “changed his mind”). And with the same overt racism, he supported European colonialism in Africa and apartheid in South Africa. Buckley regarded the African peoples fighting for liberation from their colonial oppressors after World War 2 as sub-human savages. If, in fact, he had been looking for savagery, he didn’t need to look any further than his own country and the horrific oppression he supported and justified within this country. He might have gotten some valuable education from the following words boldly spoken by abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass in a July 4th speech in 1852: “For revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival”—a statement which, as I have emphasized, “echoes down through time, expressing a profound truth today.”6

    What ties together the racism of these two right-wing patriarchs, despite their very different backgrounds and individual personas, is the fact that both were ardent advocates of the brutally oppressive system of capitalism-imperialism—and more specifically of the “peculiar” way in which this system developed in this country, with its foundation in the enslavement of African peoples (and genocide against the first inhabitants of the continent), and the determination that this particular capitalist-imperialist country must remain dominant in the world.

    Given the history of this country and the fact that, from its founding, slavery played a crucial part in its development (and that, even after slavery was abolished through the Civil War, white supremacy continued to play a crucial role in perpetuating this system, and maintaining the established “order,” in this country) and given the particular role of the South in all this, it is true both that the South would continue to have a special role in perpetuating white supremacy, and everything bound up with it, and that, in every part of the country, the advocates of this particular American “strain” of capitalism-imperialism would uphold, justify, and in various ways propagate white supremacy.

    The “left” (“liberal” or “progressive”) variation of this, among the powers-that-be, speaks in terms of “equality,” “diversity” and “inclusiveness,” while presiding over and perpetuating social relations, built into this system, which actually embody inequality and oppression, and require the repeated use of violent repression to enforce them.

    The right-wing version, which has now taken on the full dimensions of outright fascism, more openly and aggressively promotes and insists upon overt white supremacy, male supremacy, and other oppressive relations, with the insistence that these are the traditional ways that this country has been held together and has been made “great”—and that undermining this, even through limited concessions to the struggle against oppression, will lead to the loss of everything that has enabled this country to become (and, up to now, remain) dominant in the world. This is why, despite their significant differences in backgrounds and individual personas, William Buckley and Jerry Falwell (Sr.) would take the same position in opposition to the Civil Rights movement in this country, and to the struggle in Africa against white colonial rule—they both did this out of a combination of deep-seated racism and the fear that these struggles would undermine the “strength” and “cohesion” of this country and the top-dog position of U.S. capitalism-imperialism in the world. This is why, today especially, with the capitalist-imperialist system wreaking havoc on countries and people all over the world, in multiple ways, including through its plundering of the environment, and with the massive migrations this has caused, immigration—that is, preventing and reversing immigration, especially of people from non-European countries (the kinds of countries that Donald Trump has infamously referred to as “shit-hole countries”)—has become such a major focus and target of virulent, and violent, white supremacist action.

    All this is why today the political (and literal) descendants of the Buckleys and Falwells viciously seek to not simply maintain, but to carry to even greater extremes, the “traditional” oppressive relations of all kinds that have characterized this system and this country from the beginning. And the massive outpouring that has been sparked by the police murder of George Floyd—because it has powerfully shaken the oppressive “established order” by erupting beyond the bounds of meaningless “conversation” and polite requests regarding racial equality, and by sharply posing big questions about the nature of this society and the history of this country—has been met with frenzied and brutal opposition from the Trump/Pence regime and its fascist “base,” and has been the occasion for the profound rot of this country to come oozing out, including in the unhinged screams of unloosed racists attacking the protests as well as Black people, and other people of color, that they randomly encounter.

    The Direct Connection: White Supremacy, Male Supremacy, American Supremacy

    Just as white supremacy has been poured into the foundation and woven throughout the fabric of the system in this country, so too has male supremacy been an essential part of the system of capitalism-imperialism, and all exploitative systems, in every age and every part of the world.7 And, just as overt and aggressive white supremacy has been, and remains, an essential part of the ideology and program of right-wing forces in this country, so too has been the insistence on the subordinate position of women. Along with the many different forms of the oppression of women, in countries like the U.S., as well as in the Third World (of Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia), there is the fact that a major source of the wealth and corresponding power of the capitalist-imperialist system in this country (and others) is the super-exploitation of women, especially in the Third World. This super-exploitation would not be possible if these masses of women were not maintained in all-around conditions of oppression, deprivation and desperation, enforced with horrific brutality and abuse of all kinds (and one of the major ways women are abused and degraded, in the Third World and in the countries of the so-called “developed world,” including the U.S., is through exploitation in pornography and sex-trafficking, both of which are multi-billion dollar “businesses”).

    All of this requires that the relations of male supremacy that have been developed over centuries and millennia be maintained and enforced, even with different variations in different parts of the world and different particular countries. And, here again, religion—and all the more so in its fundamentalist expressions—plays a crucial part. The fact is that

    the scriptures, and the notion of god in the scriptures, in the main “monotheistic” (one-god) religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—are patriarchal, male supremacist (with “god” spoken of in male, patriarchal terms—“God, the Father,” and so on). The relations being described and insisted upon are patriarchal, male supremacist relations, with women being kept in an inferior position, often brutally so. These scriptures were written by human beings who lived within patriarchal, male supremacist societies, and the scriptures they wrote reflect this.8

    This is why the Christian fundamentalist fascists—for whom the subordination of women (to husbands and to men overall) is an article of faith—are so fanatically opposed to the right to abortion. (The fact that more than a few women are involved in the Christian fascist crusade against abortion, and in support of an overall program that actually involves the systematic suppression and degradation of women—this is not a new phenomenon. Among those who are the targets and victims of oppressive relations, there have always been those who have accommodated themselves to—and even acted as enforcers of—those relations and the “traditions” they embody, because they have not only been cowed and conditioned to accept the inferior position into which these relations cast them, but to actually fear that violating these “traditions” will lead to chaos and ruin.) The Christian fascist zealotry in opposition to abortion is not really about the fraudulent notion that abortion amounts to “killing babies” (the overwhelming majority of abortions are carried out during the early stages of pregnancy, when the fetus is tiny and very undeveloped—and, during the whole period of pregnancy, the fetus is part of, completely integrated with and dependent on the body and bodily functions of the woman: it is not yet an actual independent human being). That this opposition to abortion is not about “killing babies” is demonstrated by (among other things) the fact that these opponents of the right to abortion also oppose, with equal fanaticism, birth control which prevents pregnancy in the first place.

    What is really involved is that abortion, and birth control, help to provide women with a certain independence, a freedom to decide whether and when to have children—and, yes, a certain freedom to engage in sexual relations of their own choosing, on the basis of their own desire and volition, without having to be worried about whether they are going to become pregnant when they have neither wanted nor decided to do so. It is this relative independence and freedom that causes a frenzy among Christian fascists, because it runs counter to reducing the role of women to “helpmates” to husbands and breeders of children for those husbands in patriarchal, male-dominated families, and to the subordinate and oppressed position of women in society as a whole.

    Just as it is the case that although there are parts of the New Testament of the Bible that can be invoked to “justify” white supremacy—passages that uphold slavery, for example—it is especially in the Old Testament that there is the strongest basis for this, this is also the case with regard to the subordination and oppression of women. And this is why, despite all their rapturous invocations of Jesus, it is the Old Testament (and, to use Kevin Phillips’ apt phrase, the Old Testament “god of war”) that most anchors these Christian fascists in their reactionary fanaticism.

    In line with this, although what is involved in the struggle for the rights of LGBTQ people is not entirely reducible to the question of overcoming patriarchy, it is definitely the case that the assertion of patriarchy and male supremacy is very much involved in the Christian fascist opposition to these rights: the insistence that there are only two, absolutely different and separate genders, the whole notion of what is the proper, or “god-ordained,” character of a man and a woman, and of sexual relations that must be limited to those between a dominant man and a subordinate woman (as reflected in the Christian fascist mantra: “God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve”).

    Where you have religious fundamentalism, you are going to have not only the forceful assertion of patriarchy and misogyny (hatred of women) but also aggressive patriotism—and notice that these two words have the same root, referring to allegiance to (and subordination to the authority of) the father(land).And, as we have seen, you are going to have white supremacy and racism.

    In the swirling poisonous chaos inside the minds of these Christian fundamentalist zealots (and allied fascists), it is “just one crazy thing after another”: first Black people demanding equality and an end to injustice,...now all people of color complaining about racism...now “illegal aliens” swarming across the border...now women insisting on their right to be independent and equal...now queers, “freaks” and “perverts” wanting to get married, raise children, and use any old bathroom they choose...now they’re tearing down Confederate statues...now they’re going after the National Anthem and burning the American flag...and who knows what’s next?!—“they’re coming for us and everything we hold sacred!”

    What ties all this together, in terms of the method of thinking—or non-thinking—of the fascist fanatics is not simply the departure from but the aggressive rejection of the scientific method, and critical rational thinking, and in its place the embrace of all kinds of lunatic conspiracy theories and other demented notions which serve to reinforce their prejudices and paranoia.

    In all this we see the “direct connection” between the white supremacy of the Trump/Pence regime and its fascist followers and “their open disgust and hatred for LGBT people as well as women, their willful rejection of science and the scientific method, their raw ‘America First’ jingoism and trumpeting of ‘the superiority of western civilization’ and their bellicose wielding of military power, including their expressed willingness and blatant threats to use nuclear weapons, to destroy countries.”

    As Hubert Locke’s statement cited earlier also points out, this is all tied together. And, according to the fascists, in particular the Christian fundamentalist fascists, all the “evil” is concentrated in the fact that “they took God out of the schools” (in the early 1960s, with the Supreme Court decision which, proceeding on the basis of the constitutional separation of church and state, outlawed school-sponsored prayer).

    All this is embodied in the program of the Trump/Pence regime, with its declarations about restoring (and keeping) the supposed “greatness” of America. All this is the very real horror they are determined to impose on not just the people in this country but on the world and humanity as a whole.

    You Cannot Break the Chains of Oppression by Opposing Only One—You Need to Break All the Chains

    Returning to where I began, the fact is that Jerry Falwell (Jr.) and Liberty University stand against liberty and against what a university and education should be all about. The founder of Liberty University, Jerry Falwell (Sr.), was a vehement opponent of the scientific theory of evolution (and the scientific method overall). In opposition to the already well-established truth, and the continually increasing evidence, that all living things on the earth, including human beings, are the result of billions of years of natural evolution, Falwell insisted that everything on the earth is exactly as god created it in the first place. And continuing with this anti-scientific, and dangerous, lunacy, Falwell Jr. is also firmly in the camp of the deniers of climate change and in particular the fact that human activity is playing the decisive role in the accelerating climate crisis. That an institution with someone like the Falwells as its head, and with the kind of anti-scientific indoctrination that flows from their outlook—that this could be accredited as a university is incredible. But, more than that, it is a testament to the bankrupt nature of this whole system in this country, which lends legitimacy to all this and which has spawned a fascist regime not only headed by the narcissistic sociopathic maniac Trump but filled with legions of lunatic Christian fundamentalist fascists, including those holding powerful positions, such as Mike Pence, William Barr, Mike Pompeo, Ben Carson, Betsy DeVos and many others.

    Contrast this anti-scientific lunacy with the orientation and approach to education that is set forth in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, a sweeping vision and concrete blueprint for a radically different and far better society and world:

    The educational system in the New Socialist Republic in North America must enable people to pursue the truth wherever it leads, with a spirit of critical thinking and scientific curiosity, and in this way to continually learn about the world and be better able to contribute to changing it in accordance with the fundamental interests of humanity.9

    It is a good thing that Jerry Falwell Jr.’s exhibition of his racism has been met with outrage and protest, even from among the students and alumni of Liberty University (as well as others). But if this outrage is confined and misdirected into a misguided and fundamentally erroneous notion that this racism is somehow out of keeping with the supposedly positive—but in reality extremely negative—“values” of Liberty University (and the Christian fundamentalism on which it is based), this will result not only in “de-fanging” this outrage but in reinforcing the “package” of reactionary, yes, fascistic, outlook and aims that are represented not simply by Falwell but by the Trump/Pence regime to which he is closely tied and for which he is a relentless advocate and apologist.

    There is, in fact, a direct line from the Confederacy to these fascists of today, and a direct connection between all the various forms of oppression that they seek to fortify and viciously enforce. You cannot finally and completely do away with racism and white supremacy without also doing away with patriarchy and male supremacy, and all the other oppressive relations that are interwoven together with white supremacy. And, fundamentally, you cannot abolish all this without abolishing, through an actual revolution, the system of capitalism-imperialism whose basic relations of oppression, exploitation and plunder, of people and the environment, these fascists are seeking to carry to monstrous extremes.10


    1. THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO! In The Name of Humanity We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America, A Better World IS Possible. Video of this October 2017 speech by Bob Avakian is available at revcom.us. [back]

    2. “Reflections on Pacific School of Religion's Response to the Religious Right,” by Dr. Hubert Locke, also available at revcom.us—emphasis added. [back]

    3. Bob Avakian, Away With All Gods! Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World, Insight Press, 2008, pp. 141-42. The statements by Kevin Phillips cited here are from Kevin Phillips, American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century, Viking Press, 2006.

    There is a definite irony in the fact that Phillips was one of the main people responsible for formulating the Republican Party’s “southern strategy,” which was based on the appeal to the racism of white southerners who are characterized by the very kinds of views and sentiments that Phillips describes, critically, here. It seems that Phillips later came to regret at least much of where this “southern strategy” has led, and this book of his contains important exposure and analysis of this. [back]

    4. Katherine Stewart, The Good News Club, The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children, PublicAffairs, 2012. [back]

    5. THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO! In The Name of Humanity We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America, A Better World IS Possible. [back]

    6. See Revolting Barbarity, Shameless Hypocrisy, For Those Who Cling to the Myth of “This Great American Democracy”: Some Simple Questions. Emphasis has been added here to Douglass’ statement. This article by Bob Avakian is available at revcom.us. [back]

    7. In a number of works—and in particular in Break ALL The Chains! Bob Avakian on the Emancipation of Women and the Communist Revolution (which is available in BA’s Collected Works at revcom.us)—Bob Avakian analyzes the historical and material roots of the oppression of women, in societies divided into exploiters and exploited, the road to the emancipation of women from this oppression, and the pivotal relation of this to the communist revolution with its ultimate goal of emancipating all of humanity from relations of exploitation and oppression. [back]

    8. This is from the article “Morality Without Religion, Emancipation That Is Real,” by Bob Avakian, which is available at revcom.us. [back]

    9. The Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, authored by Bob Avakian, is available at revcom.us. [back]

    10. In Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution, Bob Avakian speaks to those crucial questions—analyzing what an actual revolution really involves, the need and the basis for this revolution, how this revolution can be carried out, up against the powerful oppressive and repressive forces of this system of capitalism-imperialism, and what are the goals of this revolution. The text and video of this speech by Bob Avakian are available at revcom.us. [back]

    Bob Avakian (BA) is the most important political thinker and leader in the world today.

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    The direct line from the Confederacy to the fascists of today

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    The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

    During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

    So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

    Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

    You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.

     

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    Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/674/refuse-fascism-protest-saturday-nov-21-en.html

    | revcom.us

     

    From RefuseFascism.org:

    PROTEST SATURDAY, NOV. 21:

    Trump: You Lost. GET THE HELL OUT!

    STOP Trying to Overturn the Election!
    STOP Your Murderous Covid Program!
    STOP Your Dangerous War Moves!
    STOP Whipping Up MAGA Fascist Mobs!
    Trump/Pence OUT NOW!

     

    The fascist Trump/Pence regime must continue to feel the heat of our righteous demand that they must go. Every move they make to illegitimately hold on to power and overturn the election must be met by our side standing up – in the streets – defiantly with justice and an electoral victory behind us to say: NO! Trump/Pence OUT NOW!

    PROTEST TIMES & PLACES →

    Appearing in the New York Times on Monday, November 9:

    A Pledge to the People of the World

    See the full ad and share this announcement

     

    Follow: @TheRevcoms
    Read: www.revcom.us
    Watch: youtube.com/TheRevComs

     

    Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

    Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

    The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

    During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

    So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

    Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

    You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.

     

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    Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/674/rnl-show-episode-34-announcement-en.html

    Episode 34 of
    The RNL Show—Revolution, Nothing Less!

    | revcom.us

     

    Share this widely

    "Trump, Get the Hell Out!"

    The Revolution, Nothing Less Show

    Episode 34 of The RNL Show comes almost two weeks after Biden won the election and Trump was clearly and decisively defeated. Trump is unleashing a last-ditch fascist effort to stay in power: from refusing to concede to his false claims of voter fraud to mobilizing MAGA thugs in the streets in DC and across the U.S. 

    In addition, there is the fact that 70+ million people voted for Trump AGAIN, many of whom are part of a Christian fascist movement that has been growing in this country for many years. What does this mean for the future?

    In this episode, hosts Andy Zee and Sunsara Taylor will take a look at what has been going on in the halls of power and on the ground since the election results came in, and share some reflections on the past four years. They'll be shining a light on the new situation we are facing with the Trump/Pence regime on the defensive but fighting to re-take the initiative. We'll get into all this and more through commentary and video clips.

    This episode features: 

    • "Trump is Trying to Stay in Power?! Oh HELL NO!"
    • Andy Zee and Sunsara Taylor’s conversation on what's been going on since the election, Refuse Fascism's counter-protest against the #MillionMagaMarch in DC, and reflections on the past four years.
    • Bob Avakian on “The Christian Fascists Now in Power”
    •  
    • Refuse Fascism’s Pledge to the People of the World.

     

    Subscribe: YouTube.com/therevcoms
    Follow: @therevcoms
    Become a patron: patreon.com/therevcoms

    Subscribe to the YouTube channel, leave a comment, and spread the word all over social media to help extend the reach of The RNL Show — Revolution, Nothing Less!

     

     

     

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    Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/674/CDC-issues-warning-of-dangerous-outbreak-en.html

    EMERGENCY: CDC ISSUES WARNING OF DANGEROUS OUTBREAK

    by Toby O’Ryan

    | revcom.us

     

    The CDC today issued a warning against a major outbreak of MAD (Massive Asinine Delusion).

    At an emergency news conference, Dr. Anthony Fauci announced that “the increasing and spreading belief against all evidence that Donald Trump won the election poses a terrible risk to public health, and it is mandatory that we move on this immediately, with testing, contact tracing and immediate treatment.”

    Fauci was backed up in this by experts in mental health who flanked him on the panel. The noted epidemiologist called for making testing available immediately, but worried aloud that testing alone would not help. “Reasoning should be applied wherever possible,” and he sternly warned against the impulse to “slap some sense into these moronic fascists and vicious racists.” 

    “I can understand the frustration,” said the longtime public health authority. “These people refuse to face reality, and this can become—and is growing—extremely dangerous.” Pausing, he looked up from his notes to say, “What’s more, these delusions, if acted upon, can have disastrous real-world implications.”

    Flanked by other white-coated, grave-looking CDC officials, he expressed worry about upcoming Thanksgiving gatherings as “super-spreader events.” “You’ll get people all together in one room, breathing in outlandish conspiracy theories and then exhaling idiotic quotes from Rudolf Giuliani. The viral load of willful ignorance will be off the charts.” 

    Fauci repeatedly warned against the tendency to shrug this off as a “bunch of morons.” “I can certainly understand that impulse,” he said. “But this is significantly more serious than the ordinary outbreaks of ASS (American Stupidity Syndrome).”

    “Let me emphatically state: do not take this lightly,” the respected scientist said. “Such outbreaks in the past have led to witch hunts, the burning of books, the slaughters of minorities and the actual imposition of fascist regimes.”

    Asked about vaccines, Fauci said that while some dedicated people are working hard to root the problem out at the systemic level, until that is accomplished there will be no permanent vaccine available for this disease. “The only known immediate antidote is massive nonviolent political opposition, in the streets, clearly stating the truth, emphatically pointing to the danger, and confronting those in the grips of this public-health menace.” 

    Wiping his glasses, the noted physician warned that the current level of activity was insufficient. “What we saw on November 7, when cities erupted in spontaneous celebration of Trump’s decisive defeat, was an important first step. But it was not sufficient to flatten the curve, and people lost their will much too soon. We need to revive and expand such demonstrations until such time as the source of the virus is definitively removed from the disease epicenter in Washington, DC. And even then there will be a need for constant vigilance and, almost certainly, repeated treatment with massive political struggle.”

    When CNN reporter Jim Acosta asked, “Are you saying that MAD will be around for a while?” the scientist looked sober and somewhat stern. “We cannot ‘get tired’ of fighting MAD,” he stated. “Let me emphasize again: people must stay in the streets as long as it takes. When people have failed in the past to meet the outbreak with the needed consistent treatment, the results have been disastrous.”

    [satire]

    Appearing in the New York Times on Monday, November 9:

    A Pledge to the People of the World

    See the full ad and share this announcement

     

    Follow: @TheRevcoms
    Read: www.revcom.us
    Watch: youtube.com/TheRevComs

     

    Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

    Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

    The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

    During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

    So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

    Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

    You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.

     

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    Permalink: https://revcom.us/a/674/on-the-passing-of-juan-gomez-quinones-en.html

    On the Passing of Juan Gómez-Quiñones

    | revcom.us

     

    Reflections from comrades who knew and worked with him, spanning decades

    “We are all witnesses in history-making and must be involved in mapping human survival for a better world future.” – Juan Gómez-Quiñones

    On Thursday, November 11, the people lost a precious rebel, Juan Gómez-Quiñones—a historian, poet, academic and activist. Over many decades, we came to know and work closely with Juan and cherish his many extraordinary qualities, as a person and in his professional life. We want to extend our condolences to his family and the broader community of those who feel a great sense of loss, mixed with profound appreciation for what he contributed during his life.

    Juan Gómez-Quiñones, or GQ as he was called by many, was a radical in the 1960s, was active in, and shaped by the Chicano liberation movement, and was a key figure in establishing Chicano Studies as an important field in academia. This combination of rigorous intellectual work to better understand the true history of peoples and systems and standing on the side of the oppressed in their struggles was what always came through in any interaction with him. 

    His whole life, GQ stood with the oppressed in this world. He hated the cruelty and the greed of this system. His dry wit and understated sarcasm illuminated the hypocrisies and inequities. GQ had tremendous courage and self-sacrifice. He knew the powers that be would exact a price against those who dared to stand up against them and refused to back down. He didn’t worry about what his political stands would mean for his academic career but thought instead about what it would mean if he didn’t join with others in standing up. His heart soared when the people rose up, when they lifted their heads to think about a whole better world.

    In the period of the 1960s when different oppressed peoples were standing up and demanding an end to that oppression in all spheres, there was an important struggle to establish as legitimate the academic departments focused on the history and present-day reality of these peoples, in departments focused on Ethnic Studies. And as part of that, there was a need to recognize the whole history and character of a section of the people of Mexican descent here in the U.S., oppressed by this system. GQ played a key part in this, establishing the Chicano Studies Research Center at UCLA. These movements had to go up against institutionalized racism in academia and in broader society. GQ fought for the study and recognition of people largely vilified, whose culture and language was demeaned and otherwise ignored. He devoted much of his academic studies to deepening the understanding of relationships between the U.S. and Mexico (and people from Central America), socially, economically and politically.

    As the movements of the 1960s ebbed, he critiqued those who “explored the tolerance of the establishment, and in every way possible—rather than questioning the system—pursued what the system offered.” (from Making Aztlán, Ideology and Culture of the Chicana and Chicano Movement, 1966-1977, co-written with Irene Vásquez) As a renowned intellectual in this field, GQ was also a student mentor, giving a space and encouragement for Chicano students to learn their heritage and to contribute to this field of study with intellectual rigor. But he also wanted them to aspire to a better world, not just a better career. He wanted students to learn the history of resistance so they carried this forward, to not just fight against the cruelty of this system but to aspire to a world of kindness, generosity, liberation. In his later years, he wrestled with the problems of relativism and consumerism among students. He wanted them to develop a sense of the importance of the collective, and the need to be part of something that is bigger than yourself. He wanted students to dig into revolutionary theory.

    In recent years, as the Trump/Pence regime came to power, GQ wrote about the deep roots of anti-Mexicanism in America’s history. He understood that fascism could happen here and argued that we had to sound the alarm against this, that we had to wage a fight against fascism, and make that fight part of the struggle to get to a better world.

    GQ was a friend of the revolution; he vigorously engaged Bob Avakian’s work and was an advocate for others to do the same. He recognized that there was no one who was continuing to develop revolutionary theory the way Bob Avakian (BA) has—not just leading the practical work of building a movement for an actual revolution, but developing the scientific framework and theory for how humanity could get all the way free. While he did not agree with everything that the new communism argues for, he was provoked and hungry to learn what theoretical questions BA was tackling and why. He loved and learned from Avakian’s intellectual rigor and the wide rangingness in his work.

    GQ also felt a kindred spirit in BA as someone who has given his life and soul to the struggle of the people to get free. He was stirred by BA’s revolutionary optimism and excited to wrestle with how BA understood the necessity and the possibility of revolution.

    GQ will be sorely missed!

     

     

    Follow: @TheRevcoms
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    Watch: youtube.com/TheRevComs

     

    Together, WE passed $40,000 in revcom's Winter fundraising campaign to “Transform Revcom.us’ Web Technology and Presence”!

    Reaching this goal is a real achievement and a victory for the people of the world, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the dedicated efforts of many people working creatively and collectively to meet this pressing need: those who donated whether large or small contributions, who fundraised, who spread the campaign, who sent statements, who raised comments, questions, criticisms or suggestions – and of course those who worked so hard on modernizing and upgrading our web technology and presence. It all made a difference!

    The Ongoing Need for Sustainers

    During this four month fund drive, Revcom.us continued to incur thousands of dollars of costs each month for our office, maintaining our existing site and other expenses. But thanks to our existing monthly sustainers we were able to meet these expenses and use all the funds raised in the drive to transform the website.

    So we encourage all our donors and those who’ve not yet donated to become monthly sustainers at whatever level you can afford.

    Remember, humanity’s fate truly hinges on millions taking up the revolutionary science, strategy, and new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian which they can find at revcom.us.

    You’ve read this article and now you need to be part of making sure revcom.us is able to make an urgently needed leap and transformation.

     

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