Unless, of course, they are torturing their own children.....
OTTAWA - A Mountie accused of torturing and starving his 11-year-old son told an Ottawa court he was in a constant battle to control the boy's bad behaviour — a battle that ultimately resulted in him physically restraining and hurting the boy.
But in a second day of testimony in his own defence, the man, whose name cannot be published in order to protect the boy's identity, said his wife was never present when he "hit, burned or slapped" his son.
"It was a war between me and (my son)," the man said Tuesday as he detailed behavioural problems he said he experienced with his son, suggesting the boy was often out of control.
"I am living with the devil at home."
But the officer, who once worked for the RCMP's national security unit, said his wife was never present when he assaulted his son.
And he never told his wife to hit the boy with a wooden spoon, the man said.
In September, the boy, who was then 13, told the court that his father forced his stepmother to hit him for not doing his homework.
The court heard the boy had been beaten by his father with a wooden stick and burned with a barbecue lighter while chained in the basement of his west-end Ottawa suburban home.
The man and his wife each face a charge of aggravated assault, forcible confinement and failing to provide the necessaries of life.
The woman is also charged with assaulting the boy with a weapon, while the man faces other charges of sexual assault causing bodily harm and assault with a weapon.
In earlier testimony Tuesday, the father told court the boy frequently made up outlandish stories.
He described in detail a Florida family vacation taken in 2012, a trip he said he thought his son enjoyed.
Last fall, the boy testified that during the vacation he was left tied up in a hotel room, where he was forced to urinate on himself.
"That never happened," the officer said under questioning from his lawyer Robert Carew. He showed the court pictures from two vacations where he, his wife and three children appeared happy together.
The Mountie, now 44 and suspended from the force without pay, and the boy's stepmother were charged in February 2013 after the emaciated boy, then 11 years old, was found wandering in search of water.
The court earlier heard testimony that the boy was fed two peanut butter pitas a day before escaping his chains and weighed only 50 pounds when taken to hospital.
The man said his son consistently made up stories and that it always frustrated him.
His frustrations with the boy's behaviour, combined with problems at work, led him to go on anti-depressants, said the officer. He also testified that he attempted suicide three times, the first time at age 19 and twice later when he felt helpless against his son's problems.
The boy finished the 2012 school year in June, but never returned after his parents decided to home-school him the following September.
That seemed to be a good decision, for about a month and a half, until the boy "suddenly decided he didn't want to do homework anymore," the father testified.
And soon, the boy was acting out again, even defecating on his books, the man said.
In a police interview after his arrest in 2013, the officer admitted he tied his son to a wall or a pole in the basement of his home, where the boy developed cuts on his wrists from the chains or plastic zip ties used to bind him.
The current portion of the trial is scheduled to run until May 6.
Many people in north amerikkka think that bernie sanders is the answer to u.s. aggression, and the answer to idiots like trump. No, he is not. He merely believes that workers in the u.s. should get a greater share of the spoils of imperialism than they are getting now. He does not seem to acknowledge where the wealth of his fucking fascist country comes from, and what it is built upon. Fuck their system.
The people this system makes homeless mean less than nothing to those in power, and the enforcers of this same system make sure you know this. This is just one more reason........
“They just shot him” San Francisco Pigs Murder Homeless Immigrant
Memorial for Luis Gongora. Special to www.revcom.us
Welcome to San Francisco, the so-called progressive city of tolerance and respect for diversity, the “beautiful city by the Bay,” seen by people around the country and the world as a trendsetter in liberal causes, social justice, and high-minded efforts—something that’s an exception to America. But San Francisco IS in America. Look beyond the cute tourist areas and past the well-endowed museums, urban parks, and designer bridges; search behind the calculated gestures or cynical lies of its city officials—and you’ll see a city of ethnic cleansing. A city where a large majority of Black people and thousands of Latinos have been driven out in recent years. A city where Black people make up less than six percent of the population and 56 percent of those in county jail. A city of thousands of homeless treated like an eyesore to be hidden away—or shot down in the street. Welcome to San Francisco, a city that’s part of the same America built on the foundation of slavery, genocide, conquest, and oppression.
And in San Francisco, the police have murdered yet again.
At about 10 am, Thursday, April 7, Luis Gongora, a 45-year-old immigrant from Yucatan, Mexico, and resident of a homeless encampment in the Mission District, was coldly killed by two SFPD cops. According to news reports, earlier that morning a city homeless outreach team working at the encampment called police to report someone waving a large kitchen knife.A security camera recorded the arrival of three squad cars to the encampment. Police exited their patrol cars and rushed towards an area off camera. Within seconds police can be heard shouting, “Stay on the ground, stay on the ground” and “Drop it, drop it”—followed by the sound of cops firing four beanbag gun rounds and seven gunshots from 40-caliber police pistols. Luis Gongora was hit and declared dead shortly after at SF General Hospital.
Luis was fatally wounded in less than 30 seconds from the time the police exited their cars. The executive director of the city’s Coalition on Homelessness, Jennifer Friedenbach, said, “From the video, it appears that the officer came at the situation with guns blazing.”
Shortly after the shooting, SF police chief Greg Suhr told reporters that after the initial volley of beanbag rounds, Gongora “charged” at the officers with a knife, forcing cops to open fire with live rounds. But a witness who was at the encampment, quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle, said that Luis “didn’t charge the officers. He was going round in circles. He didn’t understand what they were saying. They just shot him. They just shot him.” (Luis did not know English and could not have understood the police commands.) Another witness told the UK Guardian that she ran to her apartment window when she heard someone shout, “Get on the ground!” She said about Luis, “He was on the ground, crouched with his head between his knees. He didn’t get up until they were shooting. I would by no stretch of the imagination say that he was charging them. His body was recoiling from bullets. It’s like they came out shooting. It’s complete bullshit what’s happening. There’s no way that somebody deserved to lose their life.”
In a press conference after the murder, a police spokesperson displayed a photo of an approximately 13-inch kitchen knife Luis allegedly had. But numerous witnesses have said that Luis was not brandishing a knife and not threatening anyone, and folks in the encampment pointed out that carrying a knife for self-defense is common among homeless people who live and sleep outside and have few ways to protect themselves and their possessions.
Gongora was regarded as a friendly man who collected bottles and cans and loved to kick a soccer ball around. A resident of an apartment in the area described how her son practiced Spanish by talking with Luis. A friend who lived in a tent near Luis’s, and who was with him shortly before he was killed, tearfully related how Luis always called him “hermano” [brother] and how he and Luis would help each other out and share whatever food or money they managed to come by. “It was half down the middle with everything.”
Why are we still fighting for justice in 2015?
"Why are we still fighting for justice in 2015?" is a clip from the film REVOLUTION AND RELIGION: The Fight for Emancipation and the Role of Religion; A Dialogue Between CORNEL WEST & BOB AVAKIAN. The film is of the November 2014 historic Dialogue on a question of great importance in today's world between the Revolutionary Christian Cornel West and the Revolutionary Communist Bob Avakian. Watch the entire film here.
Luis Gongora was one of the tens of millions driven from homelands ransacked and ruined by the workings of this system of capitalism-imperialism and seeking a way to survive in the U.S. Behind the glitter of the SF Bay Area is cutthroat, expand-or-die competition for big profits within the global networks of capitalist exploitation, especially among high-tech firms and big real estate and financial investors. Huge profits have enriched some—and caused havoc and hardship on many more. Housing prices and rents have spiraled into the stratosphere, along with evictions of those who can’t afford a roof over their heads. Shiny new skyscrapers with multimillion-dollar condos rise while the streets below and areas under freeway overpasses or embankments are lined with tents of the homeless—filled with people discarded by the system and forced to fend for themselves.
According to a 2015 report, 71 percent of San Francisco homeless people formerly had housing in the city. Luis Gongora was one of them. The contrast here could hardly be more stark: The tent community where Luis lived sits within a shrinking Latino immigrant neighborhood, the Mission District—where more than 8,000 Latinos have been forced out in the last 10 years and rents have soared to among the highest in the world. The rising population of the homeless on the streets has caused numerous West Coast cities to declare homeless shelter crises or homeless states of emergency—acts normally reserved for natural disasters.
The powers that be in San Francisco see the rising population of homeless encampments on many city streets as a stain that mars the value of the SF “brand”—as a financial and high-tech center, as a trendy place to live, as a tourist attraction. When San Francisco hosted the Super Bowl 50 spectacle this February, city officials took great pains to force the homeless out of sight of visitors and media. Within days after Luis Gongora’s murder, SF mayor Ed Lee announced that all homeless encampments in the city were going to be taken down! The supposed reason given by the mayor? To make the city “safe.” SAFE?! If this heartless move was about safety of humanbeings like Luis Gongora, the city officials should have set out to disband the SF police, with their vicious record of murder and mayhem, and Luis’s blood fresh on their hands. But taking down the homeless encampments is not about protecting the safety of people—it’s about protecting the interests of this people-crushing system.
On April 10, the SFPD sent three or four officers to the homeless encampment where Luis had been killed. An activist reported that the police “arrived with long sticks with which they hit the tents. Residents of the tents, including three eyewitnesses to the shooting, were told to leave or risk arrest.” Cops smashed candles that had been lit for Luis by his friends. Some people fled while others started packing their belongings. Cops slashed tents with knives, and a city worker loaded some belongings in a truck. The activist said, “This was an act of harassment plain and simple, because after tearing down three tent homes, the cops just left. They left a mess and they left several homeless people without shelter on a rainy night.”
The taking of Luis Gongora’s life and the cruel and violent attacks on the homeless come amidst a murderous onslaught by SF police over the past several years—as well as important beginning resistance and a scramble among local authorities to try to contain the outrage.
Just hours after Luis Gongora’s murder, the Justice for Mario Woods Coalition held a town hall meeting just a few blocks away. Hundreds of people marched from the meeting to the encampment where Luis was gunned down and on to the Mission District pig sty. Mario Woods was a 26-year-old Black man executed by police early last December in the city’s largely African-American Bayview district. A cell phone video caught the brutal murder of Mario, shot at 40 times by five SFPD thugs in front of a city bus filled with middle school children. The video went viral and set off torrents of angry protests, including disruption of Mayor Lee’s inauguration.
The city has ignored the demands that Police Chief Suhr be fired and murder indictments be brought against the killers of Mario Woods. Instead, the mayor and police chief have trotted out threadbare and pathetic promises to “re-engineer the SFPD’s Use of Force policies” so as to “de-escalate” conflicts.
We now see the results of such promises in the brutal police murder of Luis Gongora! His name has been added to the growing list of those unjustly and outrageously murdered by San Francisco police. Along with Mario Woods, recent victims include Alejandro “Alex” Nieto, Amilcar Perez-Lopez, O’Shaine Evans, Kenneth Harding, Herbert Benitez, Alice Brown, and many more. And they are among the thousands upon thousands of other stolen lives, murdered by police across the country.
Again and again, SF cops murder someone in cold blood, in front of all kinds of witnesses, often captured on video. There is outrage, protests, sometimes powerful protests. Then Chief Suhr gets up in front of everyone and justifies it once more—“the officers feared for their safety,” blah blah blah. And the cops get off, again and again and again. This must be brought to a stop!
Repeated scandals over racist, sexist, and homophobic text messages sent among at least 18 SFPD officers have also deepened the rage against the police. The first revelations came in court filings from a 2015 federal corruption case involving at least 14 officers, including veterans with more than 10 years on the force. The texts carried vile genocidal rants like “All n*****s must fucking hang” and “Cross burning lowers blood pressure.” In early 2016, a new batch of texts was discovered by prosecutors during an investigation of an alleged sexual assault by an SFPD officer. Again the texts were racist and homophobic, used the “n” word and even mocked the investigation of the original text scandal. The cops in this second round of texts felt completely free with their racist texts even at the time that there was a public scandal over the first round of racist texts. Why? These cops were trained by the system in the outlook of white supremacy, male supremacy, homophobia, and loathing for the masses of poor and oppressed. They knew there is backing for their ugly views from the highest authorities and that this is in line with what they are called on by the system to do every day in the streets.
The powers that be are maneuvering to contain the widening outrage and limit how much more about police murder and brutality comes out, to quell questioning of the legitimacy of the police’s use of force against oppressed communities, and to channel the anger into dead ends of puny reforms and empty promises of “change.” They want this moment of heightened outrage to be a big go-nowhere moment.
But we—those most directly hit by police terror as well everyone who refuses to be silent in the face of these outrages—have to stay in the streets, raising hell, demanding justice, and building the movement for revolution. As part of that, the call for nationwide student protests on April 21 tostop police terror!, issued by students at San Francisco State University and taken up by the Stop Mass Incarceration Network and students at different campuses, is timely and urgent right now.
Luis Gongora came from Yucatan to the U.S., responding to a world in which capitalism-imperialism dominates the globe and reaches into and warps and exploits countries like Mexico. He found himself in the shadows of the SF capitalist “success story,” living in the streets with others forced into a similar situation. Treated like a criminal by the enforcers of this unjust system, he was shot down in cold blood—and the encampment he was part of was ripped to pieces by the cops who forced Luis’s fellow homeless out into the rainy night. This is the capitalist-imperialist system, once again showing everyone it is utterly cold-hearted and vicious, ravaging and destroying lives.
We need a revolution and a whole new system. Nothing less will do.
Get Organized for an Actual Revolution Get Ready to Bring This System DOWN... And Bring Something Much Better into Being
Prepare the ground, prepare the people, and prepare the vanguard—get ready for the time when millions can be led to go for revolution, all-out, with a real chance to win.
Are there any moronic liberals left who are still glossy eyed over obama and his management over a murderous empire, or is everyone playing the " at least he's not trump" thing? Fuck obama, trump, cruz, clinton, and all of those lying hypocrite assholes.
Chicago Eight Years Later: If You Think Voting Solves a Single Goddamn Thing, Look at Obama’s Home Base and Tell Us Why...
April 18, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Pierre Loury
May 6, 2015, victims of police torture under the command of retired Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge, at the Chicago City Council. Some victims spent decades in prison after confessing to crimes they did not commit. (AP photo)
January 28, 2016, Chicago State students and supporters shut down the Dan Ryan Expressway to protest the closing of their school. Photo: YouTube
If you think voting can change a single goddamn thing, look at what went down last week in Obama’s home base, Chicago. Then tell us why voting for anyone else is going to change anything.
Monday April 10, Pierre Loury, a 16-year-old Black high school junior ran from police, in a country where police murder Black youth with impunity. Chicago police shot and killed him as he fled. Leroy Collins, Pierre’s uncle, said, “We know what happened, they shot an innocent kid and are now covering it up. It’s the same thing—just a different day and neighborhood.” Barack Obama never said shit about police and white racists killing Black people until thousands were in the streets. But he has done nothing—not a damn thing—while the epidemic of police murder rolls on.
Two days after the murder of Pierre Loury, a report from Chicago’s Police Accountability Task Force came out saying data from the Chicago Police Department “gives validity to the widely held belief the police have no regard for the sanctity of life when it comes to people of color.” [emphasis ours] This system has nevertreated people of color as human beings. If a Black man in the White House didn’t change that, how are you going to tell yourself that voting for anyone else will?
The same day the task force report came out, theGuardian newspaper published an exposure of Homan Square—a warehouse in Chicago where at least 7,351 people, more than 6,000 of them Black—have been detained without access to attorneys, tortured, and in at least one case, killed. Remember when Obama ran for president as the anti-torture candidate? Prisons and police were torturing people then and the CIA was torturing people around the world... and they still are—from Chicago to Guantánamo.
April 14, an op-ed in the New York Times by Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve, author of the book Crook County: Racism and Injustice in America’s Largest Criminal Court, exposed how “the rottenness [of] the Police Department” is enabled by “racist practices [that] extend far into the criminal courts, indeed they are the very foundation of the cases that enter into the court system. The hands of many judges and prosecutors are just as dirty as the bigots in blue.” Obama’s Department of Justice defended the police in every single case of police brutality that came before the Supreme Court. But when heroic youth rose up in Baltimore in April 2015 demanding justice for Freddie Gray, he called them “thugs.”
As of April 15, there were 166 murders in Chicago alone. It is a horror that our Latino and Black youth are killing each other off—deprived of hope and a chance for a future, in a system where crime becomes, in the words of a conservative economist, “a rational choice”—and indoctrinated with the dog-eat-dog survival ethic of capitalism. Remember—they told you that just having a Black president would give “hope” to the ground-down youth in the ghettos and barrios? That was a sick lie that has done great harm to people.
At the end of this month, the government is set to shut down Chicago State University on the South Side—a school whose students are overwhelmingly poor and Black, and mostly women. If you voted for Obama, you endorsed a war on public education with a devastating impact on the most oppressed—in his home base Chicago and around the country.
Obama has done little or nothing about any of this. Angela Davis told you that Obama’s election was a “victory, not of an individual, but of ... people who refused to believe that it was impossible to elect a person, a Black person, who identified with the Black radical tradition.” All that did was set you up for another eight years of horrors.
Some of those who promised you “change” say: Well, see, Obama, or whoever, can’t do it all alone, we have to pressure “the system”—as if you can make this system work in the interests of the very people it eats up. That’s a lie too—as we insisted, pretty much alone, eight years ago: the fact is, "pressure from below” or not—Obama couldn’t bring about any real change even if he tried, and he wasn’t intending to in any case. Why? Because it IS a system—the system of capitalism-imperialism—and that has real meaning. You can’t get justice out of this system by voting. And it’s not just a waste of time, it’s harmful to try. If you play that game, it makes you complicit of the crimes of the system. Wake the fuck up, admit it, and act accordingly.
Eight years ago, when almost everyone else was drinking the Obama-lade—the Revolutionary Communist Party fought with you to confront the reality that this system’s elections wouldn’t and couldn’t change things. And what WE were saying about elections eight years ago is just as true today, and in some ways even more apparent.
Humanity can get beyond all this. None of these outrages are necessary. But NOTHING is going to change under this system.
Revolution CAN bring about a whole new, and much better, way of organizing society. Here’s the reality:
This system of capitalism-imperialism cannot bring any justice and must be overthrown and replaced with something far better—a socialist society on the way to communism.
This IS possible, but it will require us to be very scientific to identify and take advantage of the weaknesses of this system and to develop the potential strengths of the people.
We have a leader, Bob Avakian, who has developed the new synthesis of communism that has taken the science of revolution and emancipation to another level, and following THIS leadership—and REJECTING the Obamas, Sanderses, and Clintons of the world—is what is needed.
The following quote not only applies to the u.s., it also applies here, where the lame-brained media love to focus on what the prime minister's wife is fucking wearing. I'm sure there are many morons out there who eat this shit up, but don't give Attawapiskat a second thought.
So long as human society is divided into different classes of people, there is, and there can be, no such thing as a "free election," in the sense that no group in society has a greater influence than others on elections and in general on political decision-making. In a world of this kind, one group in society—fundamentally representing a ruling class of one kind or another—will always have greater influence than the rest of the people. Only when we get to a communist world—without class divisions, and without oppressive social relations and social antagonisms—will this no longer be the case; and then elections will not have the same character and the same role as they do now.
All this is very much bound up with the following "three sentences" on democracy and class rule:
In a world marked by profound class divisions and social inequality, to talk about "democracy"—without talking about the class nature of that democracy and which class it serves—is meaningless, and worse. So long as society is divided into classes, there can be no "democracy for all": one class or another will rule, and it will uphold and promote that kind of democracy which serves its interests and goals. The question is: which class will rule and whether its rule, and its system of democracy, will serve thecontinuation, or the eventual abolition, of class divisions and the corresponding relations of exploitation, oppression and inequality.
Bob Avakian Chairman, Revolutionary Communist Party, USA
A little detour here, but several months ago I was experiencing terrible foot pain, to the point that I was limping some days. I hadn't done anything to injure it recently, so what the fuck?! I went to the doctor, and she sent me to get it x-rayed. It turns out I have arthritis. Yes, I'm getting old, and in some ways paying for youthful stupidity, but I digress. I bought insoles for my shoes, did some stretching exercises, but still has some bad days and some okay. ( Playing the Jay Brown Show fucking hurt, but it was all for rock and roll!!!! And to fight cancer also). I still plan on going to a physiotherapist, but all in good time. So about two weeks ago, a co-worker asked if I had tried Turmeric root . Not being a believer in trendy super foods and crap like that, I had severe doubts, but thought it was worth a try. I went to the local grocery store, and bought some root, which I then took home and made into tea. I started feeling the results within two days, and am skateboarding with the kids, playing soccer with them, etc. Mind you, arthritis doesn't ever go away, but the results are incredible. Keep in mind, the root could discolour your mouth ( temporarily). But this shit works. Go ahead. Go.
Anyone who actually knows me will attest to the fact that I am NOT a fan of drugs, and the harmful ways that they can and do affect people. That being said, I'm even less of a fan of the "War On Drugs", and the way the system has used that to attack the people in a million different ways. After all, the government and their representatives are a bunch of lying anti-people motherfuckers. Okay? Thank you and good day.
Top Government Official Admitted: The “War on Drugs” IS a War on the People
For decades and decades, millions of lives have been RUINED by the government’s “war on drugs.” Black and Latino people have especially been targeted. Tens of thousands have been imprisoned for years for even small amounts of marijuana. Millions have been hounded on the street, stopped and frisked, beaten and murdered by the police. Children have grown up without their fathers, young kids have grown up in juvenile detention.
Did this happen because the government was trying to “get drugs off the street”?
No. And John Ehrlichman, a top government official under President Nixon in 1969, admitted this in a 1994 interview on the “war on drugs”:
The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.1
Decades of a War on the People
When the “war on drugs” was launched almost 50 years ago, the U.S. ruling class was facing a huge legitimacy crisis. The whole system was under siege from rebellions and revolutions—in the U.S. and around the world.
The civil rights movement in the South had given way to a nationwide Black liberation movement and rebellions against racism and police brutality had erupted in over 100 U.S. cities. There were huge protests against the U.S. war in Vietnam; millions of people were not only against the war but taking up struggles against racism and police brutality, the fight for women’s liberation, and gay rights. Millions of people, especially the youth, saw themselves as revolutionaries, many looking to Mao’s China (which at that time was a genuinely socialist country). The “war on drugs” was part of the system’s counteroffensive in the face of the huge challenge this presented to the ruling class. As Ehrlichman put it: “We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities.”
During his presidency, Bill Clinton oversaw an explosion of prison-building while cutting welfare and other services for poor people. Here, he poses in front of a chain gang of Black prisoners at Stone Mountain, Georgia. Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton denounced Black youths as “super-predators” who had to be “brought to heel.” (AP photo)
For generations now, the “war on drugs” has meant cops kicking down doors; people locked up for small amounts of marijuana; harsh sentencing laws; occupation armies of police in Black and Latino communities, harassing, beating, killing people. It has meant Black and Latino youths being criminalized, demonized, and treated as elements in society that need to be feared and controlled, to be incarcerated and subjected to the torture of solitary confinement because they are the “worst of the worst.”
And EVERY U.S. president since, Republican and Democrat, has continued this war on the people.
Under Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, racist sentencing procedures were introduced, such as the law punishing possession of crack cocaine (more common in poor Black communities) 100 times more harshly than powder cocaine (more popular among the white middle class.) “Mandatory minimums” for drug crimes meant that people were getting life sentences for possessing small amounts of drugs.
Bill Clinton oversaw an explosion of prison-building while cutting welfare and other services for poor people. He posed for photos in front of a Black chain gang, while Hillary Clinton denounced Black youths as “super-predators” who had to be “brought to heel.” Between 1980 and 1997 (near the end of Clinton’s term), the number of people in U.S. prisons for nonviolent drug offenses went from 50,000 to over 400,000—an 800 percent increase. Nearly 60 percent of these were Black people, even though they constituted only about 15 percent of drug users.
Then we got Obama, who made a big deal about commuting the sentences of 248 nonviolent drug offenders. But this is just a fucking insult to the hundreds of thousands living behind bars because they’re victims of the racist and unjust “war on drugs.” In fact, Obama has done nothing to really put an end to the whole way the “war on drugs” especially targets Black and Latino people.
Since the 1960s, there have been big changes in the global economy and the U.S. capitalist system. There are now millions of Black and Latino people this system cannot profitably exploit, that this system has no future for—that this system fears as a potentially volatile and rebellious force. The “war on drugs” is a big part of the system’s attempt to control and repress this section of society.
The “war on drugs” always was and continues to be a war on the people. This underscores the totally illegitimate nature of this system and that it needs to be overthrown as soon as possible.
1. “Legalize It All” by Dan Baum, Harper’s, April 2016. (Some people question the authenticity of this quote because Ehrlichman is no longer alive to verify it. However, in addition to the fact that Dan Baum is a respected author and journalist, it should be noted that the Ehrlichman quote is in line with other existing evidence, such as the quote from the diary of another top Nixon aide, H.R. Haldeman, that “President [Nixon] emphasized that you have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this, while not appearing to.”) [back]
The imperialist rats would have us frame the current world situation as a case of the enlightened west ( being "us" ) vs. the backward masses of the Arab world ( being "them" ). This is, of course, total bullshit. There are many morons in both the u.s. and kkkanada who would love to have a "christian" version of sharia law in north amerikkka. Witness all of the recent anti-gay discriminatory laws passed in mississippi and north carolina. And the other side of this hypocritical crap is, that the western powers in many cases have funded and armed these jihadi groups in the first place. isis would not be what it is today without u.s. support, at least in the beginning. So fuck amerikkka and isis. Read this.
Three Reasons Fundamentalist Islamic Jihad Is NOT Radical—and Is DEFINITELY NOT a Real Answer to Oppression
April 11, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Bringing Forward Another Way is an edited version of a talk by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, to a group of Party supporters, in 2006. It is must reading for a serious understanding of what the U.S. "war on terror" is really about and how to bring forward a positive force in the world in opposition to both Western imperialism and Islamic Jihad.
This imperialist world is a nightmare for humanity. The world doesn't need to be this way, but fundamentalist Islamic jihad is NOT an answer to this oppression. And it is NOT “radical.” “Radical” means getting to the root of the problem.
Look at just a few recent examples.
****
One: Humanity needs science. Science makes it possible to understand nature and society and the ways things can change. In this imperialist world, science and truth get distorted and twisted, reduced to what is useful in the mad drive for profit. When ideas and discoveries come forward that challenge the legitimacy of the rule of capital or would get in the way of how capitalism functions, these ideas and the people putting them forward get marginalized, mocked, and suppressed, even violently at times.
What is fundamentalist Islamic jihad's “answer” to this need for humanity to scientifically know the world?
In the city of Dhaka, Bangladesh, on April 6 of this year, Mohammad Nazim Uddin, a law student who frequently posted his atheist views on social media, was publicly attacked and murdered by men who, according to witnesses, shouted “Allah is great!” as they rode off. At least four others have been murdered like this. Just for voicing their ideas. Last year a leader of an Al Qaeda group posted a video on Facebook taking responsibility for two of these murders, calling the victims “blasphemers.” Fundamentalist Islamic jihad insists on, and enforces with violence and law when they can, fundamentalist Islam as their brand of ignorance, superstition and dark ages mentality. They fear the unfettered search for the truth.
What is radical about this? How does this contribute to the emancipation of humanity? It does not—it is just another force crushing people’s ability to understand the world around them.
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Two: The imperialist system is a world of horror, including because the half of humanity that is female is, in thousands of ways, reduced to breeders; playthings; punching bags; objects to be exploited, raped, owned, demeaned, and worse. Just this past week in the U.S., more restrictions on the rights of women to abortion and birth control were passed and signed into law—forcing even more women to have children against their will, a form of female enslavement.
What is the “answer” to this from fundamentalist Islamic jihad?
This past week two Nigerian women, one 25, the other 15, told their stories of being raped nearly every day for seven months by jihadists of the group Boko Haram, which has kidnapped and enslaved nearly 2,000 women and girls. Later this week it came out that Boko Haram was also forcing young women to be suicide bombers to mass murder civilians going to market or getting food supplies.
Mass rape, sexual slavery and medieval patriarchy are core Islamic fundamentalist jihadist principles—enslaving, NOT EMANCIPATING half of humanity.
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Three: Everywhere you turn in this imperialist world, one country, nationality, religion, or “race” is oppressing another.
What is the “answer” to this from fundamentalist Islamic jihad?
On April 7, during a raid near Damascus, Syria, ISIS kidnapped hundreds of workers at a cement factory. They publicly murdered those who were Druze—followers of a different religion.
What is radical about this? How does this contribute to oppressed people coming together to throw off the divisions this system imposes and emancipate humanity? It does NOT. Fundamentalist Islamic jihad insists on, with murderous violence, religiously “justified” ethnic cleansing, fanning the flames of divisions that serve oppression.
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Fundamentalist Islamic jihad is not in any way an answer to the madness of imperialism. It does not and cannot contribute in any way to humanity getting free of the long night of societies divided into masters and slaves, oppressor and oppressed nations, exploiters and exploited, shrouded in ignorance and superstition. These so-called “radicals” are nothing but wanna-be exploiters and oppressors—small-time slavers fighting to get in on the plunder, not to end it—and using horrific oppression all dressed up with religious mystification to cover it over.
NO ONE should want any of this.
There is something else that actually is a radical alternative, another way this world could be—through an ACTUAL REVOLUTION—COMMUNIST REVOLUTION. This answer is found right here.
This is truth. Can you feel this? If not, then fuck off.
Three More Reasons Why This System Needs to Be Overthrown as Soon as Possible
April 11, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
#1 – Scientists Say Planet and Millions in Danger… U.S. Rulers Shrug
On March 22, scientists issued a new report saying the planet is in even MORE DANGER because of climate change. Global warming is overwhelmingly due to human activity, especially the unrestrained burning of fossil fuels under capitalism. The report says the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet and the overall warming of the planet is happening much faster than earlier predictions. Together with ice melting in other regions, the total rise in the world's sea level could reach five or six feet by 2100—leading to unprecedented killer storms and the drowning of coastal cities where millions of people live. This would endanger the planet and the lives of millions who are being born now.
How did the rulers of this system respond? A Washington Post headline sums it up: “We had all better hope these scientists are wrong about the planet’s future.” In other words, “If what they’re saying is true, we’re fucked! But let’s just hope or pretend this isn’t true because we can’t and aren’t going to do anything about it anyway.” Indeed, from Obama on down, the report’s alarming conclusions have been IGNORED and nothing has been done to make this report widely known. This goes right along with politicians and others who say people should ignore what scientists say about global warming, training people in a totally unscientific outlook.
WHY this response in THIS society? Because the constraints of the economic and social relations of capitalism make it impossible for this problem to be seriously discussed, let alone actually addressed. Last November, rulers of the world’s nations met at the UN Convention on Climate Change and no plans were discussed that even came close to meeting their own stated goals of limiting the increase of global temperatures to a reasonably safe level. A New York Times article concluded this was because a serious plan to cut carbon emissions—in ways that would change the trajectory where the sea level will rise 10 feet this century—would be “potentially disruptive to [the big powers’] economies and politically unrealistic.” [our emphasis]
A society that cared about the planet and the fate of humanity would respond to this report by STOPPING business as usual and SOUNDING THE ALARM. It would bring to bear resources to evaluate the validity of the report, figure out the truth and implications of it, and then based on that, come up with a plan to address the problems revealed by the scientific evidence. It would widely educate people about this; organize teach-ins; mobilize scientists, students, activists, and anyone concerned about this problem—not just here in the U.S., but internationally—to come together to address this crisis. Through this process, the best possible approach would be developed and the societal will would be forged to deal with this crisis in a way consistent with bringing into being a world without any oppressive relations and divisions between peoples.
THIS system cannot and won’t confront and address this problem. But the world could be a whole other way. Read this.
Photo: Patrick Kelley, USCG
This Revolution special issue focuses on the environmental emergency that now faces humanity and Earth’s ecosystems. In this issue we show:
the dimensions of the emergency...
the source of its causes in the capitalist system, and the impossibility of that system solving this crisis...
a way out and way forward for humanity—a revolutionary society in which we could actually live as custodians of nature, rather than as its plunderers.
#2 – White Cop Body-Slams 6th Grade Latina…Business as Usual in America
On March 29, a cop in San Antonio, Texas, body-slammed a sixth-grade Latina to the ground. Millions of people have seen this brutality on YouTube where 12-year-old Janissa Valdez is hurled to the ground, a loud crack can be heard as her head hits the brick pavement, then she’s handcuffed. Janissa says there was some kind of altercation between her and some other girls leading up to this, but nothing that would justify this pig getting involved AT ALL, let alone viciously brutalizing Janissa.
What would be the response if something like this happened in a revolutionary society where the lives of children, including Black and Latino youths, are valued and where there is a commitment to get rid of white supremacy? First of all, security forces in the new society would NOT be enforcers of oppressive social relations. And their first priority would be to handle any situation in a way that values the lives of the people—they would sooner put their own lives on the line than brutalize or kill the people. But if a member of the security forces did do something even remotely like what this cop did in San Antonio, from the top down there would be calls to thoroughly investigate and denounce this. And beyond that, and more importantly, widespread discussion and debate—involving kids and adults—would be organized in society about what the incident shows about the continuing need to eliminate white supremacy; there would be a deep examination of how children are being treated and why beating kids like this is NOT the way to solve problems and NOT in line with the overall goals of the new society—of getting rid of all forms of oppressive economic and social relations and all the ideas that go along with this.
But in THIS society, nothing is done to put a STOP to this police terror. This kind of thing happens over and over. The cops go unpunished. Their actions are justified. More generally, children of color are treated as “problems,” “threats,” and generally people whose lives and dreams are worth nothing. Why? Because the very nature of the system prevents overcoming this oppression. From the beginning, white supremacy has been built into the very foundations of this system. Even though the form may change, the essential racism at the core goes on. In this society, the role of the police is to enforce these relations of exploitation and oppression, the conditions of poverty, misery, and degradation into which the system has cast people and is determined to keep people in. Tearing it up would not just get in the way of its functioning, it would make it impossible.
But the world doesn’t have to be this way. There IS a serious plan for a society based on different relations that could end this madness the only way it can be ended—as part of emancipating all of humanity. Read this.
#3 – Bombing in Yemen, 25 children Murdered: Deafening Silence in the U.S.
On March 15, Saudi Arabia-led coalition airstrikes using U.S.-supplied bombs killed at least 97 civilians, including 25 children, in northwest Yemen. The two strikes were carried out on a crowded market full of people going about their daily lives. Reports said the bombs, which may have killed about 10 (anti-government) Houthi fighters, caused a hugely disproportionate loss of civilian life. And this is only the latest of many such atrocities in Yemen that have gone on for nearly a year.
What was the response to this war crime among people in the U.S.? A Deafening Silence. And we have to ask... WHY?
Look at the tears, sadness, deep questioning among millions of people in the U.S. after 20 children and six adults were killed at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Obama came out and cried before the nation. But he didn’t say anything about the innocent children being killed in Yemen. That isn’t surprising—it was his decision to support the Saudi war in Yemen that ultimately led to the children’s deaths! And most people in the U.S. are not even thinking about the kids in Yemen.
Sandy Hook was a horrible, senseless tragedy. But is it ANY LESS HORRIBLE than these 97 civilians, including 25 kids, who were blown to smithereens—and not by just a lone individual, but by a reactionary regime encouraged by the U.S., using U.S.-supplied bombs and U.S. “logistics/intel” to guide the bombs?
People are being trained to THINK AND ACT like American lives are more important than other people’s lives. And if people think and act like this, then they WILL be complicit in the war crimes being carried out by the United States, like the killing of 25 children in Yemen.
The U.S. wages wars of empire in order to maintain its oppressive domination of the world, and civilian casualties like the children killed in Yemen are seen as “collateral damage.” These wars are being done “in our name”; we are told they are in “our interest,” to “keep us safe.” But these wars for empire are NOT in the interests of the people here or around the world. People have to STOP thinking like Americans and start thinking about humanity!
A revolutionary society would NOT be carrying out wars for empire and war crimes.
The children in Yemen are OUR children. All lives are precious. And we need a society where people think and act as members of an international community struggling together to bring about the emancipation of humanity. Such a thing cannot be done under capitalism, where nations compete against each other for markets and world domination and which trains people to think in terms of “our nation against everyone else” and “USA Number One.” But a world in which humanity strives to break down borders and people foster unity between nationalities IS possible. Read this.
I have just finished reading "Balkan Babel" by Sabrina Petra Ramet. It's about the disintegration of yugoslavia, down into full scale war. It can be kind of dry at times, but it is detailed, and a very good analysis about what happened there. I've owned it for a while, but finally got around to reading it cover to cover.
Right now I am into a Noam Chomsky book :
I haven't read anything by him in ages, and now I am wondering why. This is an excellent reading of u.s. imperialism today, even though some of the specifics are a little dated, coming out in 2003. Still great, though. Look it up, ya bastards.
The following article shows me that Revolution is necessary here, as part of the worldwide Revolutionary movement.It is NOT okay for people to be living like this here, or anywhere else on this fucking planet.
CTVNews.ca Staff Published Sunday, April 10, 2016 5:28PM EDT Last Updated Sunday, April 10, 2016 8:33PM EDT
The remote northern Ontario First Nation of Attawapiskat has declared a state of emergency after 11 people attempted to take their own lives on Saturday.
A document signed by Chief Bruce Shisheesh and eight councillors says the small community of about 2,000 on James Bay also saw 28 suicide attempts in March.
"Community frontline resources are exhausted, and no additional outside resources are available," says the document that was issued on Saturday.
The remains of a Canadian flag can be seen flying over a building in Attawapiskat, Ont. on November 29, 2011. (Adrian Wyld / The Canadian Press)
Perry Bellegarde, National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, told CTV News that the 11 suicide attempts happened Saturday.
In total, more than 100 people in Attawapiskat have attempted suicide since September of last year and one person has died.
The state of emergency has prompted the dispatch of a Nishnawabe Aski Nation crisis response unit to the community.
A representative for Health Canada told The Canadian Press that two mental health counsellors were also sent to Attawapiskat.
"We recognize that there are serious and long-standing issues of mental health and addiction in some communities," wrote Health Canada spokesman Sean Upton.
He added that the department gives the First Nation funding for community services, including $340,860 for mental health and wellness programs and $9,750 for the National Aboriginal Youth Suicide Prevention Strategy.
But Charlie Angus, the local MP and NDP critic for indigenous affairs, told The Canadian Press that role of grief counsellor is often taken on by untrained community members who are trying to cope with their own issues.
"It's the local cops, it's the local teachers, it's parents," Angus said.
If the emergency was declared in any other community, “it would have an immediate response," he said. "I've lost count of the states of emergency in the James Bay region since I was elected."
Earlier on Sunday, Angus called the situation in Attawapiskat a "nightmare."
"I just talked to one of the young youth leaders, there were attempts last night. I don't know what is going on," Angus said in an appearance on CTV's News Channel.
Angus said the community lives in "third-world conditions" and children are "giving up hope."
"This is a national catastrophe … this is a warzone of despair," he said.
Angus said that this is not the first state of emergency issued in the area because of suicide attempts.
"It is a wake-up call for Canada. We need to take some action here," he said.
Jackie Hookimaw, a resident of the First Nation, told The Canadian Press that her 13-year-old great-niece Sheridan died by suicide in October.
Hookimaw said Sheridan was dealing with multiple health conditions and was bullied at school.
The Attawapiskat resident said she was also recently at the community's hospital where she saw a number teenage girls who had intentionally overdosed on drugs.
She said the latest string of youth suicide attempts began with Sheridan's death.
Part of the problem, Hookimaw said, is that the community does not have enough resources, and when Sheridan's peers were grieving there weren't adequate support systems in place.
"There's different layers of grief," Hookimaw said. "There's normal grief, when somebody dies from illness or old age. And there's complicated grief, where there's severe trauma, like when somebody commits suicide."
In response to the suicide attempts, Hookimaw said youth from Attawapiskat and other nearby communities organized a walk last week to shed some light on the issue.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau offered his sympathy to the community in a tweet on Sunday night.
Attawapiskat came to national attention in 2011 during a housing crisis that prompted its third state of emergency in three years.
Its former chief, Theresa Spence, also rose to prominence after going on a hunger strike for six weeks in an act of protest as part of the Idle No More movement.
May 6, 2015, victims of police torture under the command of retired Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge, at the Chicago City Council. Some victims spent decades in prison after confessing to crimes they did not commit. (AP photo)
