This is an article for those people who think the system is fine, it just needs some fine tuning. For those who are okay with things, because it's not them on the garbage heap, trying to survive another day. For those who support the troops, because they are "grateful for our freedom", without trying to know what those troops are doing elsewhere in the world, or the fact that these same troops would be called into action if the people here dared to rise up and take what they have created. Read this. Please.
An Illegitimate System... and the Need for Revolution
Burning Questions
December 8, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
The murders by police this summer of Eric Garner and Michael Brown—along with murder after murder after murder of other unarmed Black and Latino men and children during these past months—and then the exoneration of the killers are, in one horrific sense, nothing new. These monsters have been doing this for years, and for years the system has let them walk, either without a trial or just a farce of one, or—in rare, rare cases—a slap on the wrist.
But this time things changed. People in Ferguson—the everyday people in the streets—refused to follow the rules of "protest as usual" and forced the world to wake the hell up. What had been an outrage that oppressed people had been forced to learn to accept—however bitterly—and that other people had learned to ignore or shrug off, became intolerable.
The actions of those standing up—beginning in the hard streets of Ferguson but spreading to all parts of the country and then the world, and to all walks of life—have forced everyone in this country to confront the reality of the epidemic of police brutality and murder, of mass incarceration, of the criminalization of entire peoples. More than that: These actions have begun to compel people to confront what Bob Avakian has called the "simple and basic truth" that "There would be no United States as we now know it today without slavery," and that the legacy of this slavery has continued—and morphed into new forms of white supremacy, still central to this society.
All this raises serious questions.
First: What legitimacy does a system have which not only generates crime after crime from those in authority, but exonerates the culprits? What legitimacy does a system have whose laws and rules have functioned for centuries to repress and condemn and murder entire peoples? What legitimacy does a system have which offers no future for millions of Black and Latino and Native American youths, and then pens them in, locks them down and kills them off? What legitimacy does a system have whose laws and rules have functioned to exploit and plunder and rape and rob, not only here but worldwide, not only in some so-called "isolated instances" but against millions and tens of millions and, yes, hundreds of millions? And what legitimacy does a system have which not only does all this, but all the while continues to hurtle humanity into nightmare ecological disaster and possible planetary suicide?
None whatsoever.
What must be done to a system so illegitimate, so bankrupt, so lacking in any humanity or justification?
We have to be real here. Reform after reform after reform has been tried for years. And the result of all this has not been a "more perfect union," but—to get right down to the essence of things—a "more perfect" machinery of exploitation, violence, and repression, and bamboozlement of the people.
No. You cannot clear away the weeds but leave the roots intact. We need revolution. We need revolution to do away with this whole system, root and branch. We need revolution to defeat and dismantle its machinery of violence and oppression which it uses to terrorize people. We need revolution to replace it with a new economic and political system that leads people to do away with exploitation and oppression and to bring into being the world that actually IS possible—a world of cooperation and true justice, where human beings can flourish.
This does NOT mean that we do not need to fight against the powers today. We cannot let them grind the people down to dust. And when people do rise up, it opens minds—as we have seen these past three months. In fact, now is the time to INTENSIFY the battle for justice. But we must wage these battles to WIN, in both senses—to actually defeat these attacks AND to do this as part of building a movement for revolution.
Could a revolution really overcome these horrors and longstanding agonies?
Yes! As we have said elsewhere, "The wretched of the earth have made revolution and started on the road to communism—first in Russia and then in China—and they achieved great things in doing so, before they were turned back by the forces of the old order. We are here to tell you that not only has this been done before, but we can do it again—and even better this time. This is the truth that is covered up and lied about, but we have the facts and the analysis to back this up—tremendous historical experience has been summed up, scientifically, and is there for us to learn from and build on." This work of scientific summation has been led by Bob Avakian and has brought forward a new synthesis of communism. This new synthesis is concentrated in theConstitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America (Draft Proposal). And this Constitution shows how we could go forward to transform everything, in unity with the people of the whole world.
But is such a revolution possible?
Again, yes! There is a strategy for this revolution, crystallized in our Party's "On the Strategy for Revolution" that shows how to go from where we are today to a time when an all-out struggle for power would be possible. The heart of this strategy is captured in the slogan Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution. Battles like those today play one part in that, raising people's understanding in society and serving to develop the organization needed to win, when the time is ripe. There is also a doctrine that could actually enable revolutionary forces to meet and defeat the powers of repression when things develop to that stage. And there is a core of leadership willing and able to take this whole process forward: the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA and its leader Bob Avakian.
If you have never heard about this, is this not the time to get into this and see what it's about? And if you are one of those who once yearned for revolution but then, one way or another, stepped back but now have awakened once again—don't you need to see if your questions have been answered?
The times are too serious—and too promising—not to.
FERGUSON IS EVERYWHERE!!
JUSTICE FOR MICHAEL BROWN AND ERIC GARNER!
FIGHT THE POWER, AND TRANSFORM THE PEOPLE, FOR REVOLUTION!
GET ORGANIZED FOR AN ACTUAL REVOLUTION!
