DISTRACTIONS AND BULLSHIT

There is a video that is being widely promoted and circulated by the fucking media. It is the one where a mother slaps her son around for taking part in the rebellion in Baltimore. I am not going to link the stupid thing here. Reactionaries and other fools are calling for this woman to be named "mother of the year", and calling her a "hero". What about the fact that she might be afraid her son could be the next victim of the thugs in blue? She might just be trying to save his life. And as far as those morons calling her a hero, they would probably also call the cops heroes. Fuck them. Get into this:

To the Revolutionaries and Resisters in Baltimore and Beyond:

What Is It That The Masses Most Fundamentally Must Be Led to Understand and Act On?

April 28, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

A really important and helpful way for revolutionaries and resisters—right in the heart of the struggle, and more broadly—to be looking at things, and a critical question to be asking themselves and others is this: What is it that the masses—including, very importantly those rising up in defiant, courageous, and determined struggle as we speak—most critically and fundamentally need to be led to understand, and act on?

Most critically and fundamentally: The masses who are now defiantly and courageously rising up in struggle, and the masses of people more broadly, need to be led to correctly understand—and act on the correct understanding of—problem and solution, and the fact that, through communist revolution, there is a way out of the horrors and outrages that they are rising up against and that this system forces them to endure every day.

More specifically on that point: The masses in Baltimore and beyond must be led to understand that the source of the horrific brutality and murder committed by police every day against Black and Latino people, the larger program of mass incarceration and police terror that this fits into, the centuries-long oppression of Black people this is part of, and many, many other outrages and forms of needless suffering confronting humanity every day—the source of all this is the capitalist-imperialist system we live under; that this system, and all of the horrors it spawns, including the outrages that people are now rising up against, cannot be tweaked or reformed or fixed with band-aids—this can only be ended as this system is swept away through revolution, nothing less, and replaced with a radically different and far better system and society where these horrors could be ended once and for all; that this revolution really is possible; that the leadership we need to make this revolution exists in Bob Avakian (BA) and the Revolutionary Communist Party he leads; that because of the work that BA has done over decades, there is the vision, strategy, and method we need for this revolution; that this revolution NEEDS THEM, that the masses of people broadly, can and must step forward and get with this revolution and the leadership we have for this revolution in BA and the RCP, as they are learning more about this; and that the most oppressed masses themselves can and must step forward to not only be part of this revolution but be the backbone of it.
                                                                                                                                   
Leading people to understand all of that means connecting them with the leadership and work of BA. When we connect people with the leadership and work of BA, we are—in the most powerful and scientific way possible—bringing out to people everything spoken to in the above paragraph.

For people reading this who are new to the revolution and new to revcom.us, if you want to see why this is true, go directly to the source. Take the time to watch the new film of the incredible Dialogue between Bob Avakian and Cornel West in November 2014, REVOLUTION AND RELIGION: The Fight for Emancipation and the Role of Religion. Check out two other key works—BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! and BAsics: From the talks and writings of Bob Avakian and go to the section at revcom.us on Bob Avakian, to see what BA and his work and leadership, are all about.

The words “most critically and fundamentally” are used deliberately. It is not that what is spoken to above represents the only critical things the masses must be led to understand. The revolutionaries must also lead the masses to continue to fight the power, including leading them through all the twists and turns, major developments, and heavy repression, slanders, and diversions thrown at the struggle by this system and its enforcers, mouthpieces, defenders and apologists. And, in fact, the masses must be led to understand the scope and scale of the outrages that they are rising up against—the fact that there is a national, decades-long, andunrelenting epidemic of police brutality and police murder, and that they are not isolated in being outraged by and fighting against this epidemic of police murder and brutality, as the system and its mouthpieces constantly try to make them think and feel that they are. This is one of many reasons that broadly getting out the posters and banners from revcom.us with the faces and names of victims of police brutality and murder has been, is, and will continue to be so important, as is continuing to fight to broaden and deepen the struggle against police brutality, murder and mass incarceration, bringing forward and leading people broadly, from many different sections of society, to take up this fight.

So, again, doing all of the above is, has been, and will continue to be extremely important. But it is very important not to lose sight of what is most fundamental and essential for the revolutionary communists to lead the masses to understand and act on, as spoken to here.

OBAMA IS AN ASSHOLE

After yet another murder by the bloodthirsty pigs, this time in Baltimore where they killed Freddy Gray , obama in his fucking infinite ignorance came out and said that the people involved in the rebellion were "not protesting, not making a statement, they're just stealing". Wrong, asshole. The statement is that "we are not going to take this shit for one more fucking day", and the protest is against the daily grinding poverty and harassment that the people endure at the hands of this fucked up system. The idiot president also said that "the police have to do some soul searching". What soul? The same "soul" that's in the troops and drones he sends overseas to kill civilians ? There is no fucking "soul", just brute fucking force.
  The rebellion in Baltimore is a righteous act, and if the "president" condemns it, that is only proof of it's righteousness. Fuck the system, fuck the police.

EVERYTHING AMERIKKKA TOUCHES TURNS TO SHIT

The u.s. government pounds the world with their incessant lies and filth, saying one thing but doing the exact opposite. They have destroyed Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and most of the world suffers due to the regular workings of the  system that they benefit from. And if someone doesn't go along, here come the threats and sanctions. All of that country's reporters are complicit in this. Read this excellent article.

Media Silence on Libya

BY MARGARET KIMBERLEYBLACK AGENDA REPORT | LAST UPDATED: MAR 9, 2015 - 12:51:58 PM

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Despite the all-encompassing belief in democracy and a free press, Americans have very little democracy left and perhaps the worst media in the world. Even people who make efforts to be informed don’t know what is happening domestically and internationally because of the constant lies and disinformation they are exposed to by the corporate media. They act as spokespersons for the powerful instead of providing analysis and information for readers and viewers. The result is a world turned upside down, with lies being sold as the truth. Libya is just the latest example of press malfeasance.

In 2011 the leaders of NATO appeared to pull off the perfect crime. That year they used the Arab Spring democracy movement as a cover to destroy Libya, kill its president, Muammar Gaddafi, and turn that nation over to jihadists supported by the Persian Gulf monarchs.

Regime change was the only issue ever on the agenda. They used the dubious doctrine of Responsibility to Protect, R2P, as a means of getting away with murder. This was no mysterious conspiracy either. The American secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said quite publicly that her government wanted Gaddafi dead. “We hope that he can be captured or killed soon,” said the characteristically undiplomatic diplomat. After the deed was done she again spoke openly about killing a head of state. “We came, we saw, he died.”

“The American government unleashed a race war in the intervention and, to this day, African migrants and darker skinned Libyans are at risk of assault and death. The town of Tawergha was turned to rubble and inhabitants who survived the assault were forced to flee. America’s first Black president was responsible for this terror.”

The American government unleashed a race war in the intervention and, to this day, African migrants and darker skinned Libyans are at risk of assault and death. The town of Tawergha was turned to rubble and inhabitants who survived the assault were forced to flee. America’s first Black president was responsible for this terror.

2011 was the year that Barack Obama made his bones and a fiendish re-election campaign commercial by going on a killing spree in the Middle East. Osama bin Laden, Gaddafi and American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki were all victims of the U.S. hit squad, in a clear violation of law.

Now Libya is back in the news and this very recent past is never mentioned by corporate media. When ISIS decapitated 21 Egyptian Christians the horror was separated from American involvement in that country. The murder of the American ambassador in 2012 is used by Republicans as a club to beat Obama but none of them question the very premise of American involvement there.

Libya is now a ruin. As Vladimir Putin pointed out, everything America touches will end up the same way. The once prosperous country is now in a tumultuous civil war, with war lords fighting for their own piece of the action and ISIS using the media to spread fear and outrage. None of this would have taken place had NATO left Libya alone.

One wouldn’t know this of course from watching the news or reading the newspaper. The United States role in the destruction of Libya has been shoved down the Orwellian memory hole, never to be seen or discussed again.

Boko Haram’s rampages in Nigeria and jihadists incursions in Mali are all a result of the fall of the Gaddafi regime. Death was unleashed not just in Libya, but throughout the region. The killing of the United States ambassador at Benghazi in 2012 was a harbinger of things to come as the jihadists repeat their standard operating procedure toward their benefactors. Now Libyans and Egyptian migrant workers pay the price for western aggressions.

It is staggering to see the depth of manipulation directed at the people of this country. If the president openly calls for the overthrow of a sovereign state, networks and newspapers go along and regurgitate every word. When the project goes south, no one who bragged about it in 2011 will now admit to their role in the disaster and the press continues to repeat official policy like the good little scribes they have always been.

The ISIS story has been dumbed down to tired analysis about a clash of civilizations and whether or not Islam is a religion of peace. Muslims can be peaceful or warlike but the hand of American involvement and the silence about it is the real story.

Therein lies the perennial problem. This is not the first time in history that an administration directed what the media does and doesn’t report. Journalists know that they have to play ball so to speak. If they want the good gig and access to senior officials they will write only what they are told to write. They won’t stray from the script or tell any inconvenient truths like the United States spending the last nearly forty years supporting jihadists who they later end up fighting.

When the next ISIS video of immolation or beheading is released, the history of American involvement ought to be told too. But no one should hold their breath and think that the press will report on any such thing.

Margaret Kimberley’s Freedom Rider column appears weekly in Black Agenda Report, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com. She can be reached via e-mail at Margaret.Kimberley@BlackAgendaReport.com.

THIS IS WHY

There is a connection between the way pigs are shooting down black and brown youth in north amerikkka, and the way the troops from over here kill and degrade the invaded populations. And that is why I do not believe in "supporting our troops", or fucking thanking them for our "freedom". They are doing the imperialists' dirty work. Theft at the fucking point of a gun, or the anonymity of killing thousands of people with drones. Fuck that.

Blackwater’s Nisour Square Massacre, a Glimpse of U.S. Mass Murder in Iraq

by Larry Everest | April 20, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

This past Monday, April 13, four Blackwater contract killers were sentenced to long prison terms for the 2007 massacre of 17 unarmed civilians in Nisour Square in Baghdad during the height of the Iraq war. (The mercenaries were only charged for 14 of the 17 murders.) After years of investigations and hearings, they had finally been convicted late last year. One got life in prison for first-degree murder, three others got 30 years each for manslaughter.

This unprovoked massacre, the lies rolled out to attempt to cover it up, and the years it took to get any taste of justice for the Iraqi victims isn’t some exceptional incident that “tarnished,” as the New York Times put it, America’s war effort. It provides a glimpse into, and speaks volumes about, what the U.S. brought—and is still bringing—to Iraq, and what imperialism brings all over the world.

September 16, 2007, Nisour Square, Baghdad, Iraq. The U.S. had invaded and occupied Iraq four years earlier, in a war based on the deliberate, conscious lie that Saddam Hussein’s regime had links to Al Qaeda and possessed weapons of mass destruction. By 2007, an armed resistance to the U.S. occupation and installation of a new reactionary regime was raging, based largely in the now-dispossessed Sunni population. At that point, roughly half of the more than 300,000 personnel the U.S. imperialists were using to occupy Iraq and suppress the Iraqi people were private military contractors. Blackwater was one of those companies, run by a Christian fascist—Erik Prince.

That day a gang of Blackwater operatives had been called to respond to a reported incident across town. They drove furiously, but then they hit the traffic-crowded Nisour Square. According to journalist Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army, here’s what happened next:

What often would happen in Iraq is that mercenary contractors would start throwing frozen water bottles at cars, trying to force them off the street, and then eventually escalate up to shooting at vehicles. These guys basically tried to take over this traffic circle, the Blackwater guys, so that they could speed around and continue on to their destination. A small white car with a young Iraqi medical student and his mother didn’t stop fast enough for the Blackwater convoy, and they decided to escalate it all the way up to assassinating those individuals. And I say “assassinating,” because they shot to kill these people, and then they blew their car up. And then, that started this massive shooting spree that went on for—it was sustained for minutes. And at the end of it, 17 Iraqis were killed, including a nine-year-old boy named Ali Kinani, whose story we’ve told on the show before, and some 20 others were wounded in the attacks. And it was—you know, it became known as Baghdad’s “Bloody Sunday.” (Democracy Now!,October 23, 2014)

For years, Blackwater claimed that its forces had been fired upon and were simply defending themselves—a bald-faced lie—and the Bush regime had resisted any prosecution. And while in Iraq, both U.S. forces and private contractors were immune from any prosecution by Iraq’s authorities. (The current proceedings are in U.S. courts—not Iraqi courts.)

These contractors were not “rogue” operatives; they are a key part of how the U.S. wages war—in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and globally. According to the Christian Science Monitor, “By 2008, the US Department of Defense employed 155,826 private contractors in Iraq—and 152,275 troops. This degree of privatization is unprecedented in modern warfare.” (March 19, 2013)

And right now, while the U.S. currently has 9,800 troops in Afghanistan—it has 40,000 private contractors.

And U.S. regular forces were just as capable of committing heinous massacres as the contractors were, as one former contractor bitterly writes pointing to the 2005 massacre of 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians at Haditha in a “revenge killing spree” by the U.S. Marines. After the Marine Humvee was hit by an IED, “the squad immediately killed five people in the street. They then went house to house, and killed 19 more civilians, ranging in age from 3 to 76. Many were shot multiple times at close range, some still in their pajamas. One was in a wheelchair.” One Marine ended up getting “a slap on the wrist,” and the Pentagon blamed “an unscrupulous enemy” for an operation gone bad. (“Reining in Soldiers of Fortune,” New York Times, April 17, 2015)

But these examples are just the tip of an iceberg of massive killings, dislocations, destruction, and torture. A new study by the German affiliate of the Nobel Prize-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) finds that a million Iraqis were killed as a result of the U.S. invasion and its aftermath—five percent of the entire population of Iraq. (The study finds that 220,000 have been killed in Afghanistan and 80,000 in Pakistan for a total of around 1.3 million killed by the U.S. “war on terror.” See “Doctors group releases startling analysis of the death and destruction inflicted upon Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan from the ‘War on Terror’ in Body Count,” March 19, 2015.)

The conviction of the Blackwater murderers is not about the U.S. imperialists turning over a new leaf and repudiating mass violence. This has everything to do with the necessities now facing the U.S. rulers in Iraq—especially their need to send troops and mercenary contractors back into Iraq. (Prince blamed the prosecution of his operatives for the Nisour massacre and Blackwater’s collapse on “shifting political tectonic plates.”) “There was a lack of confidence between the Iraqi people and the United States administration,” a spokesman for Iraq’s vice president told the New York Times. “I think this verdict will help restore confidence.” (April 14, 2015) In short, to pave the way for more U.S.-sponsored atrocities in Iraq.

AND THE SHIT GOES ON.....

Is there more police murder happening right now, or is it just hitting the spotlight more often? I remember when the Rodney King incident happened in 1992, and all of those los angeles pigs were caught on film beating the shit out of him. Black people were saying, "Finally, now maybe you'll believe us!" to the rest of society, most of whom still want to think that the pigs are actually there to " help" them ,and not to uphold the status quo at any fucking cost. For those of us who have been long time Revolutionary Worker/Revolution readers, and who know people who have been on the painful end of a cop nighstick, none of this is a shock. And the shit goes on.....

Baltimore –

Another Black Man's Life Stolen by the Police!

Statement by Carl Dix

April 22, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Freddie Gray

Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old Black man, is dead after being taken into custody by Baltimore City cops. Freddie was chased and arrested on April 12. Why? We don’t know because police haven’t yet made public why they arrested him. All we know is that Freddie ran when the cops swaggered into the neighborhood like an occupying army. A video made by a witness to his arrest shows him being dragged to the police van screaming like he was in excruciating pain and seemingly unable to walk. 40 minutes later, the police call an ambulance to the precinct Freddie was taken to, and at the hospital doctors find his spinal cord had been broken. Freddie died a week later. The city has exploded in protest, with 2000 people in the streets on April 21 demanding Justice For Freddie.

Baltimore City officials are saying, “People should wait for the results of our thorough investigation.” Apologists for the cops ask, ‘Why did he run in the first place?” I don’t want to hear any of that crap. Freddie is another Black man whose life was stolen by the police. This is a horror that has been going on for decades and is intensifying today. It is a concentration of the slow genocide being enforced on Black and Latino people by this capitalist/imperialist system. It will take revolution, nothing less, to end this, and all the other horrors this system forces humanity to endure. And everybody who refuses to stand by while the color of someone’s skin determines how they live and whether they live needs to join those in the streets of Baltimore and everywhere else saying that “Police Getting Away With Murder Must STOP!”

April 21: Thousands march in front of the Baltimore Western District police station to seek justice for Freddie Gray, who died after being taken into police custody. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

ABSOLUTELY TRUE

I don't know why I find this so amusing. Yes I do. It's the North Koreans telling the amerikkkan politician that he should keep his fucking arrogant trap shut, or something worse could happen than merely getting stabbed in the face. Funny shit.

North Korea tells US diplomat stabbed in face that a ‘bigger mishap’ is possible

Published time: April 18, 2015 03:36
Edited time: April 18, 2015 05:34

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Mark Lippert. (Reuters/Kim Hong-Ji)

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North Korea, Politics, South Korea, USA,War

North Korea is warning the American ambassador to South Korea that he could face a “bigger mishap” than being stabbed in the face – an act of violence that he suffered in March.

The comments were made by the country’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea, which took exception to recent comments made by US Ambassador Mark Lippert about North Korea’s poor human rights record and nuclear program.

On Wednesday, Lippert said North Korea could improve its relationship with the world and the United States by boosting its respect for human rights and moving to halt its nuclear program.

“Lippert needs to drop the bad habit of rashly engaging in scheming chatter distorting the truth and instigating war by taking issue with us,” the North Korean committee said on the Uriminzokkiri website Thursday, as quoted by Reuters.

Read moreRazor attack on US envoy to S. Korea 'just punishment' for drills – N. Korea

“Otherwise, next time, he could face a bigger mishap than getting cut in the cheek by a South Korean citizen,” it added.

The two Koreas are still technically at war since an armistice was signed in 1953 instead of a peace treaty, and North Korea frequently accuses the US of threatening to renew hostilities in the region. The US, meanwhile, recently accused North Korea of masterminding a hack against Sony Pictures.

“It is unbearable insult and mockery against us and a laughable and brazen charge that cannot be overlooked,” the comittee added, referring to Lippert’s statements.

The US State Department said only that it had seen the statement and that it is “unfortunately consistent with the nature of the regime and its rhetoric.”

The comments from the North come more than a month after a South Korean slashed Lippert in the face with a fruit knife. The man reportedly yelled some kind of comment about reuniting the Koreas during the attack.

“The guy comes in wearing traditional Korean brown and tan dress. He yells something, goes up to the ambassador and slashes him in the face,” Michael Lammbrau of the Arirang Institute think tank, who witnessed the attack, said to Reuters.

“People wrestled the guy to the ground, the ambassador was still in his chair. The ambassador fought him from his seat. He was escorted out afterwards. There was a trail of blood behind him. He had about a seven inch-long gash on the right side of his face.”

Lippert was hospitalized but recovered. The man who slashed him has been charged with attempted murder.

INTERVIEW WITH CARL DIX

Here's an interview that all hiphop.com did with Carl Dix, National Spokesperson of the RCP:

Carl Dix Talks Ending Police Brutality, Marching With Cornel West & Shutting ‘Em Down

April 13, 2015 
by AHH Staff (@AllHipHopcom) 
Features, Trending.

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Carl Dix and Dr. Cornel West

It has been over 20 years since NWA recorded the song “F**k The Police,” a protest song that criticized law enforcement for excessive force, brutality, harassment and more. Before the 80’s law enforcement groups and others have used their power to oppress and intimidate. Now, the Unites States and all over the Earth, we are seeing that there is a seeming rise in the number of murderous crimes perpetrated against people of color, homing in on Black men. Before the winter of 2014, unified people marched to reject the rash of brutality and, now that spring is here, the outward movements have started again. #ShutDownA14 (Shut Down April 14) takes place all over the nation with the New York City action going down in Union Square. The nation march includes Dr. Cornel West, rapper Jasiri X, Ev Ensler, actress Jasmine Guy and over 30 families that have lost loved ones at the hands of police. One of the loudest voices comes from Carl Dix of Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (RCP). Dix, a fierce fighter against Mass Incarceration, talked to AllHipHop about the current movement

AllHipHop.com: It may seem like an obvious question, but why are you marching? 

Carl Dix: We are taking to the streets on April 14 to disrupt business as usual; because what’s needed to deal with the emergency situation we face is nothing less than people standing up to say that murder by police must stop. We will be speaking for those who can no longer speak for themselves because their lives have been stolen.
Walter Scott shot in the back in South Carolina. Eric Garner choked to death. Now Eric Harris gunned down by a part time cop and when he cried out: “I’m losing my breath,” the pigs who were beating him as he died told him: “Shut the fuck up. You ran. Fuck your breath.” All of these caught on video. And before that there was Michael Brown. Look at the contemptuous disregard these murdering pigs have shown for the humanity of their victims. Ninety-one unarmed black and Latinos have been shot by police since the start of 2015.

On April 14, 2015: we’re going to revive the spirit of Ferguson, of refusing to suffer the brutality of the system in silence. And we’re going to TAKE IT HIGHER. The determined resistance that began last summer in Ferguson is why this epidemic of police killings is in the national/international spotlight. April 14 will be THE FIRST NATIONAL PROTESTS of murder by police since the upsurge last Fall.

We get told that we have to respect the decisions of the grand juries that let killer cops walk or of the Department of Justice to not prosecute the killer cops. No, we don’t have to respect that process and those decisions. Every day, the police come in and snatch our children away. Every day they lock them up. Every day they gun us down. Every day their killer cops walk free. Every day they try to shut us down. Then they tell us to respect their decision. Respect their laws. Respect their process. Respect their system …as they keep killing our Black and Brown youth. NO! NO! NO! When they do this again and again, tell me why we should: respect their process, respect their decision, respect a system that does this to people here and around the world. We respect the lives of Black and all oppressed people. We respect the pain of Michael Brown’s parents. We respect the future of our youth. So, on April 14, we are going to stand up and say this system giving a green light to cops to brutalize and murder people must STOP! On April 14, We Will NOT BE SHUT DOWN. On April 14, WE WILL SHUT THEIR BUSINESS AS USUAL DOWN. SHUT IT DOWN.

Why do you think these sorts of shootings of (mostly) unarmed Black men is becoming more and more frequent?
What’s really changed is that these killings by the police are more out in the public eye today because people have stood up in a way we haven’t seen in decades to say NO MORE! This started in Ferguson and spread across the country, and it forced everybody to look at what was being done to people on the bottom of this society by the police and the whole criminal “injustice” system. We don’t even know for sure whether the killings are more frequent, or are we just finding out about things that have been going on for a long time because the police don’t even keep statistics on how many people they kill. And the Justice Department doesn’t require them to report this information.

This system has been brutalizing and stealing the lives of Black people since the first Africans were dragged to these shores in slave chains. It continued after slavery was officially ended by the civil war in the form of Jim Crow segregation and lynch mob terror. Today this has been replaced by a new Jim Crow of mass incarceration, police brutality and police murder, and widespread misery and degradation targeting Black and Latino people. Tens of millions of people are caught up in what amounts to a slow genocide that could easily become a fast one if we don’t act to stop it.

The resistance began by the defiant young people in Ferguson that spread around the country needs to be continued, pushed forward and taken even higher. Those of us saying no more to police getting away with murdering people, and there’s many, many people in society who feel that way, need to re-take the offensive. And that’s what April 14 is about.

Is there a lack of outrage because these are people of color/particularly Black men?

This system hates and fears Black people. Those who run it remember the 1960’s when Black people rose up against the savage oppression being enforced on them and rocked the whole system back on its heels. They want to beat Black people so far down that they could never rise up against the oppression that is still being brought down. A key part of that has been the criminalization and demonization of Black people which is used to justify treating them like permanent suspects, guilty until proven innocent, if they can survive to prove their innocence. As is all too clear, far too many don’t survive to prove their innocence.

This system has no answer to this. The only thing that the powers that be can do is to keep on enforcing and reinforcing this oppression and continue to spread their justifications for it. But others can be won, and are being won, to stand with Black & Latino people. This happened in a big way in the protests in the fall. And it is happening with April 14. People like Eve Ensler and anti war activist Cindy Sheehan have pledged to join us in the streets on April 14. Alice Walker, Arturo O’Farrill, the actress Jasmine Guy, noted anthropologist Richard Leakey and others have issued statements of support for April 14. And everybody who doesn’t want to live in a world where this goes on, who what their life to be about something that matters needs to join them and everybody in the streets on April 14.

What is the temperature to the masses of people on this issue?
People are boiling with rage over the way these killings have continued to happen again and again. And the system keeps exonerating these killer cops. People want to see something done about these horrors. Many, many of those who bear the brunt of this savage oppression don’t want to see future generations having to continue to deal with this shit. They are in a mood of standing up and calling for this shit to STOP. They want to see something done about the hell they have endured for so long.

All this resistance and the non stop killings, the videos of another Black man murdered, or another person brutalized, and the system telling us to wait and let the system work is opening the eyes of many people who have been shielded from what is being done to people on the bottom of society, horrifying them and challenging them to join the resistance to it. All this is ripe to be tapped into and given powerful expression. What’s needed is determined action aimed at STOPPING all this, not lessening it or taking the rough edges off it, but STOPPING it. This is what the April 14 day of disrupting business as usual is all about. And it underscores the importance of powerful outpourings in the streets on April 14 – to keep giving those suffering this hell the sense that they are right to stand up, and to keep awakening everybody to that hell and challenging them to join in acting to stop it.

Hundreds of thousands marched in the fall, but the winter has cooled things off. Are people
becoming de-sensitized?

What happened is the system came back with its fangs bared at the protests. The authorities hit back at the beautiful, powerful and very necessary protests of the fall with mass arrests and threats; and with lies and false promises. They worked very hard to change the story from cops killing innocent, unarmed people to cops being heroes who do a tough job well. There’s nothing heroic about gunning down unarmed people, about choking people to death, about responding to calls to help people who are mentally unstable and killing them instead. This has brought society to a crossroads. Will the system’s rulers get away with suppressing the protests and reinforcing the normal routine of American society, a routine that includes police getting away with murder? Will future generations still be dealing with police brutalizing and murdering people and getting away with it? Will Black and Latino youth still have to go thru life with targets on their backs? Or will people again stand up all across the country and say in a loud powerful voice that police getting away with murder must STOP! Thru mobilizing powerful resistance on April 14 we will be making a big advance toward getting rid of this shit and all the horrors this system enforces on people here and around the world.

How have different organizations/individuals been working together?
Cornel West, a man motivated by deep Christian faith, and me, a revolutionary communist, came together to issue the call for April 14. The actions tomorrow have room for everyone who wants to see police getting away with murder stopped. If that’s where you’re coming from, you need to, and can, get involved.

And this is happening. I mentioned some of the people who joined with and supported April 14. Also people like the rappers Jasiri X (who just dropped a slamming video – “Don’t Let Them Get Away With Murder”) and Immortal Technique have supported it. Talib Kwali has tweeted about it. Tom Morello is is supporting. There are people from different backgrounds; Blacks, Latinos, whites, Asians; have taken up the call for April 14. Many, many family members of people killed by police will be in the streets in cities across the country. People are planning to act on April 14 in more than 25 cities and on campuses across the country.

At the same time, there are people and groups who should be part of this who have stood aside. This reflects some leaders being cowed by the system that has hit back at the protests, and by some leaders buying into thinking that discussing body cameras, special prosecutors and the like with the authorities could really stop this ongoing murder by police. This system is deeply committed to unleashing its police and its criminal “injustice” system to beat down, pen in and kill off people it hates and fears, especially Black and Latino people. Reforms and policy changes won’t do anything to stop the genocidal program being brought down on people on the bottom of society. It’ll take revolution, nothing less to end this and all the other horrors this system enforces on people in this country and around the world. And, everybody with an ounce of justice in their hearts, whether or not you agree now that we need a revolution, needs to join the resistance to these horrors, beginning with taking to the streets on April 14.

Final words?

The system has no answer to the horror of people being murdered by their police except more of the same and worse. It’s up to us to stand up and say we refuse to accept this any longer. We will take to the streets on April 14 – to disrupt business as usual… because business as usual in America means police getting away with murdering Black and Latino people. Everyone who’s tired of living their lives under the guns and billy clubs of brutal, murdering cops; and everyone who refuses to stand by while savage oppression is being inflicted on people because of the color of their skin needs to join us. Get involved. Go to the web site: stopmassincarceration.net. People’s lives, and our very humanity are at stake here. Everyone with an ounce of justice in their hearts needs to be part of this.

FUCK YES !!!

April the 14th was fucking righteous.

A Message from Carl Dix

THE MOVEMENT TO STOP MURDER BY POLICE TOOK BACK THE STREETS

Police Strike Back with Vicious Arrests—Drop All the Charges!

April 15, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Carl Dix

April 14: People stood up.  Defiant.  With the joy of fighting for justice and for the humanity of Black and Latino people.

April 14 announced to the whole country that the beautiful movement that began in Ferguson and spread through the fall to stop the killing and the utter disregard for Black and Latino lives is back. 

Thousands of people took to the streets in more than 30 cities across the country—to STOP BUSINESS AS USUAL BECAUSE BUSINESS AS USUAL IN AMERICA MEANS POLICE GETTING AWAY WITH MURDERING BLACK AND LATINO PEOPLE.  The streets were alive with righteous youth saying they won't live this way. #ShutdownA14 was kicked off nationally by Cornel West, myself, and the Stop Mass Incarceration Network.  They were joined in NYC by Rev. Dr. Calvin Butts and the United Clergy Caucus, Eve Ensler, and Arturo O'Farrill—who brought a moral support to the day.

In NY—1500 people took to the streets and stopped traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge.  1000 marched in Los Angeles.  City Hall in San Francisco was filled with protesters.  From Springfield, Mass, to Gainesville, Florida people stood up.

The police and the powers that be, struck back.  In NYC with viciousness—with 2 protesters sent to the hospital after hours delay.  Over 30 arrested.  In LA over 20 arrested with threats of serious charges.

This is unacceptable! The police brutalize and murder people every day—every day—with impunity. Then, when people take to the streets to declare to the world this must stop, they lash out to brutalize and arrest people who protest these horrors.  And, in NY the mayor and media spread outrageous lies about the protest.

This cannot and will not be allowed to go down. In New York the Stop Mass Incarceration Network has called for a demonstration at City Hall on Thursday, 4/16/15 at 4:00PM to condemn these vicious attacks. On Wednesday, 4/15, at 6 PM, the Network is calling an Emergency Meeting at West Park Presbyterian Church on Amsterdam Ave and 86th Street.

If you were in the streets on April 14, build for this demonstration and be in the house for the Emergency meeting. And if you didn't make it out into the streets on the 14th, get involved now, join this movement of resistance.

April 14 marked a new beginning.  After a winter of murder after murder, video upon video, passivity has been cracked.  A door opened to a new wave of defiant resistance to say that this murder of Black and Latino people must STOP.  NOW.  Join Us.

NEW YORK CITY, THURSDAY, 4/16, CITY HALL AT 4 PM

THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT

April 14th was a day chosen to show the pigs, their system, and the world that people have had enough of this shit. Being shot down in the street, brutalized, or you could just as well end up joining the over 2 million in amerikkka's jails. Fuck the police and their rotten fucking system.

Come to the Defense of Those Arrested in Los Angeles

March 14, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

Dozens of protesters determined to keep shutting it down on A14 to STOP police murder stayed in the LA Downtown area through rush hour.  Twenty of them sat down in a very busy intersection downtown stopping the blue line metro train, backing up street and freeway traffic for over an hour.  The LAPD has threatened them with felony charges, high bail and keeping them locked up through Thursday. 

This is intolerable! Call to demand their immediate release and for all charges to be dropped!  

Call LA Central Division 213.486.6606. In addition, four UCLA students stopped traffic on the 405 Freeway offramp earlier today. Call Century Regional Detention Center at 323.568.4000 and West Hollywood Sherriff's at 310.855.8850 to demand their immediate release with all charges dropped.

Photo: Los Angeles—blocking the train. @Jayron26

STOP YOUR WHINING AND SUPPORT THIS !

I can hear the fucking selfish entitled north amerikkkans now..." But I need my fresh fruit and vegetables", blah blah fucking blah. Never mind the slave like conditions that people have to work under in order to get you your food. Never mind trying to give them a decent life. You need your food NOW! Fuck you, and read this.....

“We Are Workers, Not Slaves!”
Farmworkers in Baja California Stand Up!

April 11, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

As many as 50,000 Mexican farmworkers in the San Quintín Valley of Baja California, just 200 miles south of the U.S. border, walked out of the fields March 17, at the peak of the growing season, demanding an end to horrific conditions—including extremely low pay, inhuman working and living conditions, child labor, and sexual abuse of women workers. The fruits and vegetables grown under these conditions are sold to many of the leading grocery chains in the U.S.

After leaving the fields, the striking farmworkers took over the Trans-peninsular Highway, the only way to ship produce out of Baja into the U.S. They set truck tires on fire on the highway and stopped vehicles trying to go north, shutting down the highway for over a day. With the link broken between these sites of extreme exploitation and the U.S. grocery giants that profit from them, companies like Walmart, Costco, Safeway, and others began reporting shortages of tomatoes, strawberries, zucchini. and other fresh produce. More than 225 farms were paralyzed, including the 12 largest, which dominate production in the region and are the main suppliers of this produce to the U.S.

It is the first time in decades that farmworkers in Baja California have stood up and challenged the brutal—and extremely profitable—production relations of capitalist-imperialist exploitation that dominate agriculture in Mexico and other oppressed countries around the globe; and the political structures as well as the violent force of this U.S. client state used to enforce and maintain those conditions.

The Mexican government wasted no time in coming to the aid of these agribusinesses, sending in the federal police and military troops. Using tear gas, rubber bullets, and clubs, they reopened the highway and arrested 200 farmworkers. A thousand police and military forces were then spread out in this area of Baja.

Intolerable Conditions

The majority of workers on these farms are indigenous people brought by contractors from the Mexican state of Oaxaca, as well as other impoverished southern states like Chiapas and Guerrero. These workers once continued to migrate north into the U.S., following the harvests up the West Coast. But the ever-increasing militarization of the U.S.-Mexico border in recent decades has led these workers to settle in and around San Quintín.

Told they would be able to make enough money to send some back to help the families they have left behind, migrant workers find that in reality the $8 or so a day they make is barely enough to support themselves. This daily pay includes mandatory overtime and they work seven days a week. It is also common practice for the employers to break the law and not pay the workers till the end of the harvest season, to ensure the workers won’t leave early. By the end of the season, there is less produce left to harvest, so their pay, which is tied to the amount they harvest, drops even further. Many of the workers putting fruits and vegetables on American tables are themselves malnourished.

Many of the employers also violate the law by refusing to provide the medical benefits the workers are entitled to through membership in the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS), the public health system. The housing in the labor camps, where the workers are forced to live, is overcrowded and filthy. Workers have had to carry water to the camps for drinking and washing at times because there was no water.

San Quintín has become one of the most productive agricultural regions of Mexico, with as many as 80,000 people working in the fields and packing plants. Because it is so close to the U.S., major agribusinesses have poured millions and millions of dollars into developing the infrastructure. This has dramatically transformed farming, with modern, large scale irrigation systems and greenhouses for many of the crops. These state-of-the-art facilities stand in sharp contrast to the horrific working conditions and social relations, which have been described as “19th century.” The fact that the U.S.-bound produce is more precious than the people who produce it is symbolized by the requirement that farmworkers who handle produce like peaches cut their fingernails so that they cause no harm to the fruit.

The largest agribusinesses in the San Quintín area have deep political connections with the politically powerful in Mexico—such as ex-president Felipe Calderon—who are deeply invested in agribusiness exploitation.

The farmworkers’ strike also challenged the government- and business-controlled unions. This strike was organized by a coalition of groups called the Alliance of National, State and Municipal Organizations for Social Justice, which is representing the workers in opposition to the company-run unions. Its organizers have had experience organizing farmworker struggles in the U.S. One of the leaders was involved with the Immokalee workers union in the tomato fields of Florida; another led a battle in Oregon to get rid of a contractor stealing wages. The United Farm Workers—UFW—has also been involved, circulating a petition supporting the Baja workers which it plans to give to the major supermarket chains.

By the end of the first week, with produce rotting in the fields and packing plants, and millions of dollars being lost, the workers forced the alliance of company representatives—the Agricultural Council of Baja California—to negotiate directly with the Alliance, bypassing the official unions.

“We Are Workers, Not Slaves”

With negotiations approaching an impasse, on March 26, thousands of the striking farmworkers marched 15 miles alongside the Baja Peninsular Highway in an angry show of force. Carrying banners saying “We Are Workers, Not Slaves,” and surrounded by police in riot gear, they marched to state government offices in San Quintín.

The following day the talks broke down when the growers’ representative walked out after their offer of a 15 percent increase in wages was rejected by the workers’ representatives. The growers’ statement claimed that raising the wages any higher “would lead to economic collapse.”

On March 29, a 10-bus caravan traveled from San Quintín to Tijuana, Mexico, where workers went to the border and reached out in solidarity to farmworkers and supporters on the U.S. side, and spoke out about their strike. A 19-year-old youth, who has worked in the fields of San Quintín since he was 12, said: “We all thought it was normal that they suspended people for 3 or 4 days or fired them for demanding that our rights be respected, for trying to force the bosses to pay overtime or to pay us for working on our days off... We got used to earning 100 pesos (a little over $6) for more than 10 hours a day, but now that’s not enough even to cover the bare necessities, to live, to support a family.”

And a Mixtec Indian from Oaxaca, who started working in these fields at the age of seven, described the discrimination and abuse from the bosses she faced because she didn’t speak Spanish. She went on, “That’s how it was for many years. That was too much already. During all that time we were asleep, but now the people have stood up and we will continue in this struggle for what is right, so that our grandchildren will have a better future.”

But by March 31, nearly two weeks since the beginning of the strike, the majority of the farmworkers began returning to the fields. Although the companies claimed “the people are happy with the raises”—which amount to about 12 cents an hour—the strike leaders say the farmworkers “are returning under protest, under threat.” The supplies that had been collected to support the strikers had been used up, and many workers feared that those who didn’t return then would be blacklisted, with no chance of being hired in the future.

“Product of Mexico”

A part of the backdrop to this strike was a four-part series on agriculture in Mexico published in December, 2014 by the Los Angeles Times entitled; “Product of Mexico.” The 18-month investigation by reporter Richard Marosi and photographer Don Bartletti revealed that over 100,000 children under age 14 are employed in agriculture for pay, and that many workers are held almost as slaves.

Interviewed on NPR, Marosi called the farmworkers “the invisible people of Mexico, the poorest, the most discriminated.” They “live in rooms 6-by-8 generally, and shedlike housing, sometimes no furniture. They sleep on scraps of cardboard.” He said, “A lot of these places, they illegally withhold the wages of the workers; they’re there on three-month contracts, they’re not paid until the end. That means they don’t even have the money to catch a bus and escape the farm.”

This strike and the fallout in its wake come at a time when all across Mexico, there has been upheaval and protest, particularly focused on the disappearance and murder of 43 students in the state of Guerrero. An opinion column in the national daily La Jornada called the killing and disappearance of the Ayotzinapa students “a state crime”—“repression carried out by a government that has brought organized crime violence into its service.” With a deepening political crisis and a government losing its legitimacy, this strike by the farmworkers has stung the Mexican ruling class and its U.S. backers. It could well signal the emboldening of new sections of Mexican society, further fueling the upheaval and revolt from below.