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.
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.
