|
Revolution #270, May 27, 2012
No more generations of our youth, here and all around the world, whose life is over, whose fate has been sealed, who have been condemned to an early death or a life of misery and brutality, whom the system has destined for oppression and oblivion even before they are born. I say no more of that.
Bob Avakian,
Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA
BAsics 1:13
- Palm card (Front & Back)
- Poster 8-1/2x11" (color & B&W)
- Color Poster - 11x17 (PDF)"
- JPEG for web posting (300px)
Building on the Momentum of the
BAsics Bus Tour
By the end of May, the BAsics Bus Tour will have made its way deep into the South... making BA and his leadership known to many thousands. Hundreds will have signed the BAsics 1:13 banners, sending messages, especially to the people of Sanford, Florida, where Trayvon Martin was murdered. Thousands of dollars still need to be raised to support the BAsics Bus Tour and, as we do this, let’s prepare to get out this same message all over the country in the following weeks, building on the momentum of this bus tour and raising money and laying the basis for the next leg of the tour. And as we do this, let’s draw people into getting into BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian and connect them to the whole movement to make this known everywhere.
- Follow the BAsics Bus Tour at basicsbustour.tumblr.com.
- Follow the BAsics Bus Tour on Twitter:
@baeverywhere<http://twitter.com/baeverywhere>
Get updates on the whole mass campaign, BA Everywhere... Imagine the Difference It Could Make. Find out how you and your friends can participate. Join in spreading this widely: ReTweet and ask others to follow it.
The BAsics Bus Tour Sets Off
Something has begun in Atlanta, Georgia. This week, the BAsics Bus Tour spent several days all over Atlanta before heading farther south. And all across the country, people are watching and acting together with this tour.
The volunteers on the tour are reaching out to people in the aftermath of the murder of Troy Davis, in the aftermath of the murder of Trayvon Martin, and in the midst of a situation where, according to one youth the tour spoke with, "The police don't care, they'll kill anybody, that's real." While that's true all over America, there is a particular and painful history in the South where public lynchings are in people's lived memory. There is what is concentrated in Bob Avakian's point, "The 'Bible Belt' in the U.S. is also the Lynching Belt."
- The First 48 Hours on the BAsics Bus Tour by Alice Woodward
- Interview: Going Out Boldly and Broadly to Raise Funds for the Bus Tour
- What People Are Saying (Updated 5/14/2012)
- For fundraising materials, including phone banking tips and scripts, the Bus Tour budget, sample fund letters, and informational pieces, go to "Basics Bus Tour Fundraising Materials" on the BA Everywhere page.
Getting Oriented and Getting Started, the first 2 days of the BAsics Bus Tour
It's been two days now on the BAsics Bus Tour. The volunteers are an impressive bunch. What hit me first is our obvious diversity. Younger and older, Black, white and Latino, male and female, with a tremendous range of different life experiences and depth of experience in the revolution. What hits me just as hard, though, is our common enthusiasm for Bob Avakian and the real revolution.
From Ike to Mao and Beyond: My Journey from Mainstream America to Revolutionary Communist, a Memoir by Bob Avakian
from Chapter Four: High School
Basketball, Football...and Larger Forces
At that time, the basketball coach at Berkeley High, Sid Scott, was a Christian fundamentalist. He was always lecturing the players about religion. He was also a big racist. Every year when I was in high school, and even before I got there, the starting team would always be three Black players and two white. My friends and I used to always talk and argue about why this was, because while sometimes there were white guys who should have been on the starting five, a lot of times you could easily see there were five Black players who should have started, or at least four. I thought that this coach’s thinking went along the lines that if he had four Black players and one white on the floor, the four Black players would freeze out the white guy, so then they wouldn’t all play together—even though, of course, this was ridiculous. And if he had five Black guys out there, he figured all the discipline on the team would break and it would just be an undisciplined mess—also ridiculous. And he couldn’t have less than three Black players because it would be so outrageous, given who was on the team and how good different players were. This is how I used to analyze this.
NATO in Chicago: Thousands Protest War Criminals’ Summit
The following news report was filed late Sunday night, as we went to press. Check revcom.us and future issues of Revolution for more coverage.
NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, held its summit this year in Chicago on May 20-21. NATO, the largest military alliance in the world, is dominated by U.S. imperialism. Its 28 countries account for 65 percent of the world’s military spending, the largest being the United States. NATO’s so-called “peacekeeping” is aimed at maintaining a world of Western, especially U.S., imperialist domination over the people of the world, and at blocking any potential great power rivals. And the fundamental purpose of NATO’s so-called “humanitarianism” is to devote massive weaponry to protect, defend, and extend a system that inflicts great suffering on the vast majority of humanity and enriches a handful—this is the “world order” of capitalism-imperialism.
We Are All Trayvon—The Whole Damned System Is Guilty!
Make June 5 a Day of Justice for Trayvon
June 5 will be 100 days since the murder of Trayvon Martin. George Zimmerman, his murderer, is out on bail—while Marissa Alexander, a Black woman who fired warning shots to chase off an abusive former boyfriend who was threatening to kill her, got 20 years in prison. No stand your ground protection for her.
"Our message was well received."
On April 19, in cities around the country, people took to the streets to BREAK THE SILENCE in response to the reality that "Mass Incarceration + Silence = Genocide." Revolution received the following correspondence from a reader in an area outside of the city.
Some comrades and I felt compelled to have some show of concern and solidarity with our brothers and sisters behind the prison walls and show our general dissatisfaction with the system. We decided to organize a march down a busy street and hold a rally at a public plaza across from the police station. We put out a call on Facebook, sent mass texts and emails, and posted and handed out fliers. We felt sure to get a major turnout.
Drones
Deportations
Drugs
The “3 Ds” of why Obama has been worse than Bush
The presidential elections are gearing up for real... and there is the rising chorus yet again of those who say that whatever problems there are with Obama and the Democrats, the “alternative”—the Republicans—is unthinkable and much, much worse. But the reality is that Obama as president has been even worse than Bush in some key ways for the masses of people in the U.S. and around the world. Here are three of the ways that Obama has outdone Bush in fascistic, brutal, reactionary moves in service of the U.S. capitalist-imperialist system.
- Download 22x17" Poster (PDF)
Two Constitutions, Two Different Systems, Two Different Futures for African-American People
American enslavement of African people and their descendents was a never-ending hell of work, abuse, torture, rape, and degradation. It was enforced by whips, chains, shotguns, and vicious bloodhounds. The culture and outlook of white supremacy penetrated every aspect of life in the U.S., South and North alike. And all this was enshrined in the “law of the land,” starting with the U.S. Constitution—the binding legal document of the new country.
Slavery by Another Name: Sex Work and the "Empowerment" Charade in Gender Studies
An Open Letter on Sexual Subjugation and Intellectual Rationalization
Some people say that it is wrong to call for the abolition of pornography, prostitution and the entire global sex industry. They claim that doing so only further stigmatizes the women—and very young girls—who are bought and sold and denies these women—and these very young girls—of their "agency." Instead of abolishing the sex industry, these people insist, we should be "empowering" women and girls to "reclaim sex work" and we should be fighting the sense of shame that is imposed on these women and girls for the "work" that they do.
On Choices... And Radical Changes
First, people don't make choices in a vacuum. They do it in the context of the social relations they're enmeshed in and the options they have within those relations—which are not of their own choosing. They confront those relations, they don't choose them.
Two, if people feel for whatever reasons that they want to choose to harm themselves and others, we're going to struggle with them—but we're not going to blame them. We're going to show them the source of all this in the system, and call on them to struggle against that system, and transform themselves in the process. Just because a youth "chooses" to sell drugs, or a woman "chooses" to commodify herself sexually, doesn't mean that they chose to have those choices. And there is no other way besides fighting the power, and transforming the people, for revolution that all this will change for the better. Blaming the masses for bad choices just reinforces the conditions that they are oppressed by.
In sum, people do make choices—but they make them enmeshed and confined within social relations that are not of their choosing. We have to bring into being different social relations and conditions so that masses of people can act differently and relate differently to each other. Fundamentally, that takes a revolution which is aiming for communism.
Bob Avakian,
Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA
- Color PDF - 11x17"
- Color JPG for posting on web
Four "defiant days": BA Everywhere at work
At my job more than 25 people have BAsics, and over the past few months the beginnings of networks have developed between some of these co-workers. Over the four "defiant days" around May Day we made a good start toward fund raising and spreading awareness and support for the BAsics Bus Tour as it prepares to head into the South with its powerful revolutionary message. Co-workers bought $110.00 in tickets for our local BA Everywhere fundraising dinner on April 29, and donated an additional $635.00 toward the bus tour.
Houston Cop Acquitted of Savage Beating of Black Youth
We received the following correspondence from Houston:
On May 16, a Houston jury acquitted Houston Police Department cop Andrew Blomberg of "official oppression" in the savage beating of Chad Holley, a Black youth who was 15 at the time two years ago when he was knocked to the ground by a patrol car that tried to run him down and pin him against a chain-link fence. Holley was then brutally stomped, kicked, and hit for several minutes by six Houston pigs.
There will never be a revolutionary movement in this country that doesn’t fully unleash and give expression to the sometimes openly expressed, sometimes expressed in partial ways, sometimes expressed in wrong ways, but deeply, deeply felt desire to be rid of these long centuries of oppression [of Black people]. There’s never gonna be a revolution in this country, and there never should be, that doesn’t make that one key foundation of what it’s all about.
Bob Avakian,
Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA
BAsics 3:19
- Color PDF - 11x17"
- Color JPG for posting on web
An Invitation
Let's go on a crucial journey together—full of unity against oppression and lively struggle about the source of the problem and the solution. Pursue your own convictions—that the outrages that move you are intolerable—to their logical conclusion, and be determined not to stop until those outrages have been eliminated. And if this, as well as learning about other outrages, and ideas about how this all fits together and flows from a common source—and how it could all be ended, and something much better brought into being—leads in the direction of seeing not only the need for bold and determined resistance, but also the need for revolution and ultimately communism, then don't turn away from that because it moves you beyond your comfort zone, challenges what had been your cherished beliefs, or because of prejudices and slanders. Instead, actively seek to learn more about this revolution and its goal of communism and to determine whether it is in fact the necessary, and possible, solution. And then act accordingly.
BIRDS CANNOT GIVE BIRTH TO CROCODILES, BUT HUMANITY CAN SOAR BEYOND THE HORIZON
We are building a movement for revolution…
That movement needs a website…
We need your help to make it happen
This is a world crying out for revolution. Over a billion people on this planet live on less than $1 a day. The earth’s critically endangered ecosystem is under profit-driven assault. In one form or another, everywhere in this world women are degraded as commodities. Creativity is marginalized, coopted, or squashed. And killer police and unjust wars serve and protect all this…
COMMUNISM: THE BEGINNING OF A NEW STAGE
A Manifesto from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA
Available in English, Spanish, Turkish, German, and Farsi from RCP Publications, P.O. Box 3486, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 60654 $5 + $1 shipping.
A new draft translation in Arabic is now available online at revcom.us
The first Arabic draft translation is still available also.
We envision a movement of people working to produce high-quality accurate translations in many languages which can then be distributed around the world on the Internet and in print. We invite your comments. Send them to RCP Publications, Box 3486, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 60654 or rcppubs@hotmail.com.
Some Principles for Building A Movement for Revolution
In each issue of Revolution, you'll find "Some Principles for Building A Movement for Revolution," by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. The events covered in this issue of Revolution demonstrate the critical importance of these principles, and of proceeding from them.
- Poster (PDF)
Support... Sustain... Revolution
In this world of unjust war, unbearable suffering and environmental catastrophe… in these days of discontent, upheaval and questioning… it is critical that this newspaper—Revolution—publish! And that it continue to improve its content and look, and expand its readership.
A Statement from the
Revolutionary Communist Party
ON THE STRATEGY FOR REVOLUTION
Under this system of capitalism, so many in this society and so much of humanity are forced to endure great hardship and suffering, exploitation, injustice and brutality, while wars and the ongoing destruction of the natural environment threaten the very future of humanity. In the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America (Draft Proposal) our Party has set forth an inspiring vision, and concrete measures, for the building of a new society, a socialist society, aiming for the final goal of a communist world, where human beings everywhere would be free of relations of exploitation and oppression and destructive antagonistic conflicts, and could be fit caretakers of the earth. But to make this a reality, we need revolution.
- Poster (PDF)
THERE IS NO "PERMANENT NECESSITY" FOR THINGS TO BE THIS WAY
A RADICALLY DIFFERENT AND BETTER WORLD CAN BE BROUGHT INTO BEING THROUGH REVOLUTION
One of the more important statements in the Manifesto from our Party (Communism: The Beginning of a New Stage) is the quote from Marx: "Once the inner connection is grasped, all theoretical belief in the permanent necessity of existing conditions breaks down before their collapse in practice." This is not just a matter of abstract theory—it has a broader effect. That belief weighs heavily on people who don't like the way things are—they are weighed down by a belief in the "permanent necessity of existing conditions." Over and over we are confronted by the fact that people can't see beyond the way things are now.
What Is Communist Revolution?
It is this system that has got us in the situation we’re in today, and keeps us there. And it is through revolution to get rid of this system that we ourselves can bring a much better system into being. The ultimate goal of this revolution is communism: A world where people work and struggle together for the common good…Where everyone contributes whatever they can to society and gets back what they need to live a life worthy of human beings…Where there are no more divisions among people in which some rule over and oppress others, robbing them not only of the means to a decent life but also of knowledge and a means for really understanding, and acting to change, the world.
This revolution is both necessary and possible.
Who Is Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party?
In Bob Avakian, the Chairman of our Party, we have the kind of rare and precious leader who does not come along very often. A leader who has given his heart, and all his knowledge, skills and abilities to serving the cause of revolution and the emancipation of humanity. Bob Avakian came alive as a revolutionary in the 1960s—taking part in the great movements of those days, and especially working and struggling closely with the most advanced revolutionary force in the U.S. at that time, the Black Panther Party. Since then, and while many others have given up, Bob Avakian has worked and struggled tirelessly to find the way to go forward, having learned crucial lessons and built lasting organization that could continue the struggle, and aim to take it higher, while uniting with the same struggle throughout the world. He has kept on developing the theory and strategy for making revolution. He played the key role in founding our Party in 1975, and since then he has continued the battle to keep the Party on the revolutionary road, to carry out work with a strong revolutionary orientation. He has deeply studied the experience of revolution—the shortcomings as well as the great achievements—and many different fields of human endeavor, through history and throughout the world—and he has brought the science and method of revolution to a whole new level, so that we can not only fight but really fight to win. Bob Avakian has developed the scientific theory and strategic orientation for how to actually make the kind of revolution we need, and he is leading our Party as an advanced force of this revolution. He is a great champion and a great resource for people here, and indeed people all over the world. The possibility for revolution, right here, and for the advance of the revolution everywhere, is greatly heightened because of Bob Avakian and the leadership he is providing. And it is up to us to get with this leadership…to find out more about Bob Avakian and the Party he heads…to learn from his scientific method and approach to changing the world…to build this revolutionary movement with our Party at the core…to defend this leadership as the precious thing it is…and, at the same time, to bring our own experience and understanding to help strengthen the process of revolution and enable the leadership we have to keep on learning more and leading even better.
Works by Bob Avakian (PDF)
Now available
The Ascendancy of Obama
and the Continued Need
for Resistance and Liberation
A Dialogue between
Cornel West and Carl Dix
This historic event took place in Harlem, N.Y. on July 14, 2009
$20.00 per copy
15% discount for 10 or more copies
Add $5.00 shipping for 1-5 copies
For shipping costs for 6 or more copies contact Revolution Books.
Call or e-mail to revbooksnyc@yahoo.com for commercial rates.
Order from Revolution Books New York
146 West 26th Street, New York, N.Y. 10001
212.691.3345, revolutionbooksnyc.org (PayPal),
email: revbooksnyc@yahoo.com
Video Available!
- Rough cut of the video without the audience Q&A
- Rough cut of the of the Q&A that followed the dialogue
- Click here for the audio only of the July 14 dialogue (mp3)
- Watch the Youtube video announcement of the July 14 dialogue
- Response to Obama's "No Excuses" speech at NAACP convention by Carl Dix (Part 1 / Part 2)
Go to YouTube for these must-see videos:
Inaugural issue now online! demarcations-journal.org
Demarcations
A Journal of Communist Theory and Polemic
Demarcations: A Journal of Communist Theory and Polemic seeks to set forth, defend, and further advance the theoretical framework for the beginning of a new stage of communist revolution in the contemporary world. This journal will promote the perspectives of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA.
¡FUERA CON TODOS LOS DIOSES! Desencadenando la mente y cambiando radicalmente el mundo
AWAY WITH ALL GODS! Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World
Is believing in gods actually harmful? How has Christianity for centuries served as an ideology of conquest and subjugation? Why is the "Bible Belt" in the U.S. also the "lynching belt"? Why is there a rise of religious fundamentalism throughout the world? In the intensifying conflict between U.S. imperialism and Islamic fundamentalism, is the only choice to take one side or the other? Why is patriarchy and the oppression of women foundational to so many religions? Can people be good without god? These are just some of the questions explored in this provocative work by Bob Avakian.
