Monday, 31 July 2017

AWAY

You will find nothing going on here from Aug. 2nd until Aug. 26th , when I will be going to Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to see family . 

 In the meantime, support these people. After you read the article you will see why I do. They are putting their lives on the line for the people. This is righteous.
Letter from a revcom:

Pig Arrests Spark Mass Debate on Facebook and Intense Back-and-Forth in Neighborhood

July 31, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

In the battle over forging revolutionary organization on the South Side of Chicago, there are further developments in the neighborhood where police arrested five members of the Revolution Club last week. For weeks police have outright retaliated against a whole neighborhood and threatened people individually for beginning to check out the revolution and get organized. With this there has been lots of questioning, controversy, and debate in relation to the message of the Revolution Club and how to understand the police repression and what to do about it, with people on different sides and often switching sides. (The message of the Revolution Club is concentrated in our proclamation: This Summer in Chicago Will NOT Be a Bloodbath of Killing Each Other. This Summer Will NOT Be Free Rein for Police to Murder and Terrorize Black and Brown Youth. This Summer We Get Organized for Revolution to Emancipate All of Humanity.)
This has all sharpened with the escalation of the police attacks last week AND the way the Revolution Club and supporters responded. The Revolution Club held a press conference the same day and then rallied the next day at the scene of the arrests with people from the neighborhood and supporters from other organizations. The commander of the 7th District police has now repeatedly come personally to try to stop the Revolution Club from getting out the message of revolution and was taken on by Carl Dix and members of the community at the rally.

Debate on Facebook

In the days after the arrests, the debate also took off in another arena and brought in wider swaths of people. Someone in the neighborhood who filmed the arrests and was siding with the police against the revolutionaries posted his videos to Facebook. Within a few days, one of the videos had been seen by more than 92,000 people. Throughout the neighborhood, most people have seen the video, and it has also been widely seen in at least one other South Side neighborhood where the Revolution Club is starting to be known.
The Facebook posts quickly also became a place of lots of struggle between people taking different positions, but overwhelmingly siding with the revolutionaries and with a lot of substance and heart. Not only was there outrage against the police clearly carrying out illegitimate arrests against people simply speaking on a public sidewalk, but there was also unity with the message the police were trying to silence, and anger at the videographer who was siding with the pigs and saying they should lock up the revolutionaries for starting trouble with the police.
Some of the back-and-forth:
A: I don’t understand why record them and talk shit when they trying to stand of for us... if you don’t agree with some of things they’re saying just say so, not talk shit
B: Thank u He more on the cops side that’s wats sad
Videographer: You don’t even know what’s going on they making our community hot if the police was fukn with somebody it’s understandable but they fukn with them ppl
A: They wasn’t fucking with them... they was clearly stating that cops are shooting innocent people and getting away with it and as usual cops sit they ass on the corner and watch and then come fuck with people... they asked why was they there and they wasn’t doing shit but trying to appeal to you guys
***
Videographer: Man they making that shit hot and this coming from a mf with a job
C: Y’all just don’t get the point. The block isn’t yours nor the niggas that stand on them corners. I understand most gotta provide but that isn’t the only way. That’s the way they have glorified it for our boys to keep at each other and not really seeing what’s going on around y’all... this is bigger than a damn block and y’all not going to see that until it’s too late
***
D: you lost in this sauce young brother... the block ain’t hot when we going to war with each other but you sneak dissing mfs that got the balls to stand up to the law and stick up for you and your community... something you clearly not about... peep game shorty
***
E: if she can stand up n put her life on the line for something that is definitely right and need to change in our community why is people not coming together to stand with her what is everybody scared of it like no one is trying to get involve or with the movement n people are so stupid up here talking about stop blowing the whistle they are blowing the whistle to get everyone’s attention to see what the police are doing and to hear what the lady is saying I think that is very smart if we had more people to think like this lady Justice will be served we need to wake up and come together I want to find out her name and what is the movement I want to be a part of it and I hope everyone up here do to and why be afraid they killing our kids and family n us anyway it’s either that u live 4 nothing or die for something so if you will die or do anything for your kids or family but yet you are scared to stand for what’s right or die for what’s right so your kids and they kids can have a better future so it can be more safe I just want to know what did our grandparents and great-grandparents and ancestors die and fight for or went through what did they go through it for then ig for us to be afraid I don’t think so. WE ALL NEED TO COME TOGETHER AND GET OUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS INVOLVED WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FAITH AND THE STRENGTH OF OUR CULTURES.
There is actually quite a bit to reflect on in these debates. There is resistance to those who disrupt the “routine”—and a deep aspiration to stand with those who DO dare to disrupt the routine of oppression.
In the neighborhood, the same debate is going on, though also on a deeper level among some who are starting to find out about and engage the work of Bob Avakian (BA), the leader of the revolution. Here the stakes are very high, as the police have made very clear that they will try to make people pay a price for standing up. So people are getting into deep questions and expressing support, with some stepping forward in some ways, but mainly thinking about and weighing getting involved.
At the same time, some are bowing down to the pressure of the police harassment, including one who went so low as to even wave the police over when the revolutionaries were back in the neighborhood talking with people! However, when the police pulled up four cars for three revolutionaries and got out of their cars and started moving in like they were going to start arresting people, others came up from the park, including one person who had been expressing her own disagreements earlier, in the face of the police took the right stand, joining in the agitation the revcoms were doing, standing with the Revolution Club until the police backed off. The Revolution Club has issued and started to distribute a statement, “Revolutionary Communists Serve the Interests of Humanity... Pig Police Serve and Protect the System... Which Side Are You On?” (See statement at right on this page.)

Showing of BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS!

On Friday night, the Revolution Club organized a film showing in the park of BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS!, the major talk from Bob Avakian given in 2012. This is the same park where the revcoms were arrested the week before and the same park where a number of people have been killed in violence among the people. The showing was projected on a big screen and could be heard from the sidewalk.
People had to go up against a lot to come to this showing, and we need to do more showings that maybe are easier for people to come to. There was a small but significant number of people from the neighborhood who did come very consciously to represent their support for the revolution. And then there were others who checked it out on the edges, watching from the sidewalk or along the fence. A number of really young kids wanted to be part of the scene and some of the middle-school-aged people who came with them to keep an eye on them seriously engaged the film.
Then, at the end of the film showing, right at 10 pm, the 7th District commander showed up! Some people had been calling him during the week to demand he stop the harassment and arrests, and when he showed up he did not bring a force to make arrests, this time. He did once again straight-up say to the legal observer that he did not want the message of the revcoms in that neighborhood. And as he did, someone who had been drawn in to watch part of the film passed by holding a copy of the film on DVD and held it up in front of the commander, defiantly saying, “I’m going to watch this!”
The Revolution Club is following up with people from the neighborhood to fight through on people getting deeper into BA and how we can really win a revolution, with the mission of organizing people concretely for revolution and into the Revolution Club. And we are NOT stopping.
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Sunday, 30 July 2017

UNFUCKINGCONDITIONALLY

Does anyone really believe that the u.s. and other imperialist powers are acting in the name of human rights , democracy, and peace ? There must be many people out there who do, but they are afraid to ask questions, and are far more brainwashed than any soviet-era peoples were. It's easier to accept the status quo, and just go about your business.
   The reality is, the imperialists have killed millions in the name of profits and control, and are continuing to do so. They are now braying about North Korea having nuclear weapons, while they  ( the u.s., u.k., france, russia etc., ) have enough to destroy the planet hundreds of times over. Ten years of sanctions led to the weakening of saddam's iraq, making it vulnerable to attack and unable to defend itself. Khadafy gave up libya's nuclear program, and the imperialists marched in and destroyed that country. So why the fuck would North Korea do so, with 30,000 amerikkkan troops on their border, and the u.s. government making threats towards them constantly ? North Korea has every right in the world to defend itself, including developing nuclear weapons. If the u.s. can have them, then so can they . The imperialists seem to deal with nuclear equipped countries a little differently than they do with others. 
  How many countries have the North Koreans invaded vs. the amerikkkans ? How many people has the u.s. killed outside of it's borders vs. the North Koreans ? And the u.s. remains the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons. 
   Fuck imperialism.
       Thank you and good day.
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Wednesday, 26 July 2017

MAKING IT HAPPEN

You don't have to be a Malcolm X to be part of the movement to defeat fascism. You don't have to be THE leader of millions of people to be part of something worthwhile.  Regular people are making it happen. Meet some of them in the following article.

Meeting the LA Heroes of July 15

by Michael Slate

July 24, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

It took courage to be among the hundreds who gathered at Hollywood and Highland, the site of the Trump Hollywood star, to rally and march against the fascist Trump/Pence regime on July 15 in Los Angeles. Trumpite fascists had threatened the marchers in advance—and they did come out to try to intimidate and silence the protesters, and physically assaulted at least two people.
Michelle Xai of Refuse Fascism Los Angeles, the young woman emceeing the rally, called out the fascists in a strong and spirited rap that got right to what was so important and urgent about the protest, and rallied the people forward:
We’re here on a mission to drive out this fascist regime. These people, what are they representing, what are they opposing? When Donald Trump says make America great again, what is he saying? He’s saying make America white again. He wants to go back to the days when there was a separation, when Black people had to use different bathrooms than white people, when they were treated as less than human. We say NO to that, and we are determined to drive out this fascist regime from power. And we are not going to sit back and wait and see. This fascist in the White House has already shown us what they’re gonna do. They’ve told us what they’re gonna do. And we are not gonna be those good Germans who just sat back when there was bodies all around them and just covered their eyes and pretended like it wasn’t happening. No! We are not gonna go back to those days!... We refuse these fucking ignorant fools trying to intimidate us. They came out here to protect a piece of concrete [the Trump star]. If it wasn’t so dangerous, it would be laughable. But these people are serious—this is how fascism consolidates, through these modern-day brown shirts going around and shutting up all opposition while the people in power continue to carry out these genocidal programs against the masses of people. We should not get distracted. We are on a mission to drive out this fascist regime from power, and we’re not gonna back down from that!
There was a moment where the fascists were chanting “USA, USA, USA,” and the crowd responded with “HUMANITY FIRST, HUMANITY FIRST!” The fascists turned strikingly silent, and the moment had a profound effect on everyone involved.
Who were the 400 heroes doing the right thing, marching against the Trump/Pence regime? They represented a wide range of perspectives and backgrounds, and shared a sense of responsibility to humanity to drive out this fascist regime. Revolution correspondent Michael Slate caught up with a number of them, and shared notes on the scene, who was there, and why. We begin those notes here, and will add more in days to come, so stay tuned.
* * * * * * * *
Walking up Highland Avenue you could hear a faint rumble in the distance. When you turned on to Hollywood Boulevard it all got much louder and hectic. It was only 2:15 pm, still 45 minutes before the official beginning of the July 15 protest to demand that the Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!
People had begun to set up and decorate the flatbed truck that was to be the stage for the rally. Some other people had already set up information tables along the sidewalk in front of the truck and within spitting distance of Donald Trump’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. A group of fascists stood guard around Trump’s star, clearly feeling a religious calling to serve and protect.
Within 20 minutes a section of Hollywood Boulevard was transformed into a rally site as the flatbed truck took up a position in the middle of the street and the first of hundreds of protesters to arrive began to gather in front of the makeshift stage.
I walked through the crowd, talking to people here and there, keeping an eye on the fascists and trying to get an overall sense of what was happening. One thing that I found really refreshing was that while the crowd was people of all ages and nationalities, there were a very significant number of younger people, some at their first demonstration along with others more experienced. Each conversation opened another door on what is shaping up in terms of resistance to the Trump/Pence regime and why. Standing at the very back of the growing crowd were two women, each wearing a Muslim hijab. They were listening intently to the speakers while nervously scanning the crowd in front of them and the line of police behind them. Their family has roots in Egypt but they were born here. They are Muslims, and they were a combination of scared, concerned, and angry.
The younger sister, Z, spoke first. “Honestly, me and my family, we just came here for a day on Hollywood Boulevard and then we saw this and we were like, what’s happening here? So we blended in and I honestly agree with the No Trump thing. It’s completely outrageous, with everything he’s been doing and what he wants to do. I’m blown away. What I’m concerned about is how he basically just wants to remove 50 percent of the population of America, just get rid of all of the illegal immigrants. It’s not their fault, they just need some place to stay and they need a job and he is just trying to remove everybody. And he is so racist to everybody, including me and my religion, and that’s not okay with me or anyone who’s with me.”
Z’s older sister, L, had finished a conversation she was having with someone and turned to listen to us just as Z got a quiet, shy smile on her face, and said that while she wasn’t able to conceive of a way to bring down the Trump/Pence regime herself, “There is nothing else that you could lose.”
L jumped into the conversation at that point. She was very thoughtful and upset. “What brought me here today is that Donald Trump, from the beginning of his campaign, has made us feel like we don’t belong in America, despite me and my family being born and raised here. We are American citizens and he has this rhetoric that makes it seem like that doesn’t matter, like being on American soil doesn’t mean that we belong here. And even then, my parents are immigrants and they came here for the American dream. They started from nothing and became successful. And we all belong here. This is what America is about, building something from nothing.”
Trump’s Muslim ban made her scared for a bit, deeply perplexed, and then just straight-out angry. “When the Muslim ban happened, that was very, very disturbing. Honestly, I have no words. I don’t know how you could ban an entire people. There was no reason to ban—I don’t remember how many countries there were but—just for the slightest chance that there would be terrorism. Terrorism is not rooted in Islam. Terrorism happens because of the way that America treats our countries. They send their soldiers and they kill our people and they destroy our homes and expect people not to retaliate. We don’t hate America, I go overseas and nobody hates America, but when American soldiers come in and kill them, how do you want them to react? So, the ban has no purpose, it’s not going to achieve anything at all.”
L thinks the Trump/Pence government is fascist and that it’s important for people to understand that. “I feel that what most people get in their head is that they are Republicans and they have to vote Republican, they have to vote for these conservative values and they don’t see where they are going wrong, where there is a line that has been crossed into this fascist regime. Once you start telling people they don’t belong. Like the gay and lesbian community, the LGBT community, immigrants from all over the world, whatever their values are, whatever their political beliefs are, basically he is dividing America in half and saying these people are wrong and that these people are mental and they don’t know what they are talking about and that ‘we’ are the right ones. That’s what he’s saying and that’s incorrect. We’re all human beings and we all have different opinions and no one is going to be the same. And we all have to accept that.”
I reminded L that I had also asked her if she thought it was important for other people to understand that this is a fascist regime and what that meant in terms of getting rid of it. She said that this was a hard question and she took a few minutes to think, then she said, “Well, I do think that when people understand that Trump is a fascist and when people start coming together like this protest, when people start binding together in solidarity, we will show the government. We will start investigations into his intentions and what he’s actually doing in the government rather than overlooking what he’s been doing.”
L had a troubled look on her face as she said that, and I reminded her of what had happened in Egypt back in 2011 when the Egyptian people rose up and occupied Tahrir Square for almost three weeks in a push to overthrow the Mubarak regime and were defeated when the military came in to put it down. I asked her what she thought of that in relation to what is called for here. “In Egypt things are much, much different. They don’t have the right to protest over there, so when people go out there they get gassed and the police arrest everyone. We’re not safe over there. Here we are safe and we should be able to use our voices. Technically we have the right to protest. Over there, in Egypt, we do not have that right. Here we have to catch him. I know he is corrupt, so he is definitely doing something corrupt in office. We just have to catch him in the act. We can’t have people in the government turning a blind eye and just ignoring what he’s doing. We need to find out, and we need to expose him and get him impeached.”
* * * * * * * *
Hollywood Boulevard is famous for all kinds of reasons. And it really is true that you can find just about anything you want—and a whole lot that you would never even consider wanting—just walking down the street. On one side of the rally there was a junk-filled souvenir store stuffed with miniature Oscar statues, photos of movie stars and lots of Hollywood T-shirts, sweatshirts, and hats.
A group of young women just out of high school were carrying bags stuffed with trinkets to bring back home. They were a group of students from the Midwest here to get an early orientation for a college they’re going to attend in the fall. They came to Hollywood Boulevard just to kick it for a while, and Ellen, one of the young women, said, “We just saw this and we had to join because we had to protest with you all, we can’t walk past it.” Another student, Beth, chimed in, “When I was at Pride in Chicago the same thing happened and I really felt the need to join and the same thing here, I saw it and had to join.”
I asked them what it was that made them feel they had to join this demonstration and stand up against the Trump/Pence regime in general. Ellen jumped up with her response: “His blatant disregard for our livelihood, his superiority to immigrants, to women, to anybody else who he doesn’t think is worth it. It’s just aggravating to see that.”
Beth wanted to say more. “I do believe that everyone deserves to have equal opportunities here, no matter what—you know, race shouldn’t matter, background shouldn’t matter, things like that. We’re all humans and we should all just practice love. We should all really be here for each other and he’s not doing that. And it really sucks because he finds ways to nestle into small crevices like children, and he is breaking everybody apart and it sucks.”
I asked if they thought this was a fascist regime and why. Ellen spoke first: “Yes, this is definitely a fascist regime. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s just how he treats people. It’s obviously like any other experience that we’ve had with fascist regimes. It’s the same scenario.” Beth thought for a moment and then said, “He literally bullies people. He just speaks down to everyone. And what kind of character is that? Honestly, just to start with that. We need to stick together. We need to protest like this that’s happening now. We need to get the word out more than anything because too many people are so ignorant of what’s happening, they just hear what he says on the news and that he’s a good speaker but they don’t know what’s actually happening.” Ellen added, “And even then, sometimes them knowing doesn’t really make a difference because sometimes they agree with it. So honestly, it’s just everybody needs to stick together.”
I asked both of them what they thought it would take to get the Trump/Pence regime out of power. Beth jumped up this time and her friend said that Beth wanted to talk because she had been thinking about that for a while. Beth jumped into it, “Ok, like, if you drive him out of power then Pence is up there. And if you drive Pence out then it’s the other guy. You gotta... honestly, I don’t even know. If you drive him out of power then it’s Pence and he’s worse. I understand that people want to just drive him out completely but at the same time it’s like okay, I get it, I do, but let’s sit back for a second and think logically because you get him out and you think your problem is solved but Pence is even worse.”
Ellen added, “It’s hard because we have two people in line that are both horrible and after that it keeps going and they’re not any better. So I think we need to make more of an impact and make sure that he knows that he needs to change what he is doing because if we don’t kick them out, we at least need to affect their decision-making. We agree that it’s going to take millions of people in the streets to do any of this.”
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Monday, 24 July 2017

REAL HEROES

There are many people doing things that go totally unrecognized by the majority. Certainly, they'll see it when the media talks about people being saved from a burning building , and this is worth commending. They will also talk about cops and the military, the overwhelming majority of who are not involved in anything non-predatory. They are NOT heroes. And then there are those like the young woman being interviewed here, who has dedicated her life to standing with the oppressed in the world. She is a hero. Read it.

Ferguson activist Ashley Yates talks Oakland, Assata Shakur and Black Woman leadership

By Lamont Lilly posted on July 20, 2017
Ashley Yates
Ashley Yates is co-founder of the Ferguson-based grassroots organization, Millennial Activists United (MAU).  Originally from Florissant, Mo., Yates was one of the early on-the-ground organizers following the unjust police killing of Mike Brown on Aug, 9, 2014, in Ferguson, Mo.  In 2015, she was a Black Lives Matter representative at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.  
As one of the more vocal activists at the forefront of the Ferguson Rebellion, Yates’ many contributions have helped provide key leadership to a new generation of young freedom fighters and Black abolitionists.  Affectionately described by CNN as a “disruptor of the status quo,” Yates’ thoughts and critiques on racism and state violence have been featured on NPR, Democracy Now! the Huffington Post and MSNBC.  Read along as we discuss Assata Shakur, Black woman leadership and the recent housing developments in Oakland, Calif.
Lamont Lilly:  Ashley, thank you so much for your time and willingness to talk with me. Though you’re still connected to the ground in Ferguson and St. Louis, you’re actually living in Oakland, California, now. When did you move to Oakland?
Ashley Yates: I moved out here in mid-December 2014, shortly after Darren Wilson’s nonindictment. [While a police officer, Wilson fatally shot  Mike Brown.]
LM: What brought you out to Oakland?
AY:  There were a few different factors that went into that. A few personal things that happened made it clear that my life had drastically changed after I decided to take a stand for Mike Brown and Black lives, especially in a place like Ferguson and the St. Louis area. I realized my life was different and it was not going to go back to the way it was. I also knew I needed some space to heal and grow.
I also came to Oakland to connect with the history here, more specifically the Black Panther Party. I wasn’t a scholar on the Black Panthers or anything, but I did know that this was the founding place. I also didn’t know much about the city, or who was doing what. It just seemed like a place where I could learn and grow, and to soak up some of the organizing history.
I’ve taken a different path than what I expected, but it’s been a huge blessing. Ideally, I wanted to just jump right in and be like, “Yo, take me to every spot the Black Panthers were at.” But it doesn’t work like that. That’s just being idealistic. It’s taken me a few years to build relationships with people, but the city has given me a lot.
LL: In addition to police terror and state violence, there is another major struggle in Oakland — gentrification and affordable housing. What are the housing conditions like in Oakland, particularly within the Black community? What are you seeing there?
AY: In Oakland, there are entire tent cities and it’s concentrated. I can think of at least six tent cities off the top of my head — congregations and communities of folks without housing! And I barely know the city like that. It’s almost indescribable. When you add the developers to the multimillion-dollar corporations, along with the backdoor deals of the courts and city officials, it becomes a multilayered struggle just to keep people in their homes — or to stop an eviction. The rate at which it’s happening is just mind-blowing.
What’s happening in Oakland is a direct effect of Silicon Valley and the tech industry. These people could not be more directly responsible than if they walked in and literally “punched” people out of their homes. For me not to name that would be an injustice to Oakland.
These industries and corporations are violently displacing people, yet they’re wiping their hands clean. On top of that, some of these corporations aren’t paying any local taxes. They’re making more money, yet poor people are being pushed out of their homes.  If you allow it to, it will make your head hurt. The average rent in the Bay Area now is $3,000.
LL:  I just want to make sure I’m hearing you correctly. Did you say the average rent in the Bay Area is $3,000 per month?
AY:  I’m sorry. Let me not be hyperbolic. The number that we pulled from Forbes last year was actually $2,975. I would just round that up to $3,000. That’s absurd!
Last year here in Oakland, I was looking at two-bedroom apartments, ranging from 900 to 1,100 square feet.  Those were $2,400 a month. I saw one apartment I thought about briefly, but it was $1,800 a month. People are paying $2,000 plus for a studio apartment in Oakland now. I just can’t afford that. Also, there are not many Black communities left in Oakland. Gentrification is wiping them out. East Oakland is pretty much what’s left here.
LL: You were recently abroad in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  What was your purpose in going? What were some of the things you learned?
AY:  Funny story about Brazil, I’m still not quite sure how that happened. Out of the blue, I received an email invite to this conference in Brazil. When I contacted the sender, there were some language barriers, but I eventually found out that I was being invited by the Brazilian government to attend their first state conference on racism and anti-Blackness.
The conference was a week long. Everyone wanted to hear about the Black Lives Matter movement in the U.S. People wanted to hear about Ferguson and Baltimore, and some of our strategies of resistance and grassroots organizing. The events were so powerful and political, but also very cultural, and full of art and music. I was the only representative there from the United States.
We also got a chance to visit and build with folks in the favelas, the equivalent of “the hood” in the U.S., the shanty towns. These were the communities that were forced into the most undesirable parts of the city and country — the hillsides and highlands — where the poor were forced to create their own infrastructure. We’re talking strongholds of Afro-Brazilian communities that are direct descendants of African captives, who have thrived in the highlands for quite some time.
This was right after the World Cup. There were units of SWAT teams still present in the favelas. They were charged with “cleaning up the streets” for these huge international events, to make it look a certain way.
This process of “cleaning things up” had been taking place for several months. Developers were coming into the favelas and kicking people out of their homes. These same communities were once undesirable.  But now that people have been there for decades, now that plumbing and piping and foundations have been set up, not to mention the gorgeous view — these favelas have become points of interest for luxury housing. Now, there are thousands of Afro-Brazilians being violently removed from their homes to make way for the rich and their new condominiums.
Being able to witness this for myself was so powerful. It really put a lot of things into perspective for me. It was a reminder of why it’s so important to create these relationships, to learn from each other.
One of the things I found out while I was down there is that, in addition to Israel, Brazil has also been a training site for U.S. law enforcement. We’re talking about the Los Angeles Police Department, the FBI and the Chicago Police Department, who flew down to share tactics and information with Brazilian authorities and state police. We certainly cannot ignore these international partnerships that perpetuate our oppression, both locally and globally. If our oppressors are organizing globally, we should be organizing globally just as hard for our liberation.
LL:  I wanted to ask you about the infamous “Assata Taught Me” tee, which can also be purchased as a hoodie. It has become a staple of movement apparel. Where did the idea of such a simple, but powerful statement come from? What does the phrase “Assata Taught Me” mean to you?
AY:  Right after the murder of Mike Brown, we formed a small unit on West Florissant Street. I hate to say this or perpetuate such an analogy, but when you’re in a war, you have to form a unit of survival. These were groups of people that you would show up with, or connect with throughout the day. You checked in on each other, made sure folks ate or got home safely.
At one of those first meetings of our unit, after some conversation, we knew that we would need a name. We decided on MAU, for Millennial Activists United. We eventually got tees made up, and other people really began to support them, and we were very down with that. But my concern was that a bunch of people, many of whom we didn’t even know, were going to wear our name — but be involved in different types of activities, doing whatever they wanted to do. When you consider the history of the state and their treatment of Black Liberation organizations, I didn’t think that would be a good idea. We were already being demonized by the national media.
On the back of the MAU tee was the Assata Shakur chant. We started to close out our nights with it and bring it to the streets. We originally picked it up from a Black Lives Matter session with a brilliant sister activist, Sister Malkia [Cyril], from the Center for Media Justice. She was the one who pulled this out and made it a mantra on the West Coast.
One night, I was at MoKaBe’s Coffee House and Jamilah Lemieux (from Ebony Magazine) was sitting right across from me. I was talking to her about the Assata chant and about the fact that we needed shirts with a popular movement message, but without MAU on them. Somehow in the conversation “Assata Taught Me” just came to me. It’s not an original phrase, by any means, but it was something that I felt would really resonate with people. Who else better as a symbol of resistance — from the New Jersey Turnpike, to being broken out of prison, to living in exile in Cuba? It’s the real-life story line of a Black woman legend.
The design of the shirt was created right in MoKaBe’s. Jamilah helped me pick out the font because I’m picky as hell about everything. I was just going for something strong, simple and straightforward. After Jamilah helped me through my self-doubt, we said, “Yeah, that looks good.” We put it on Teespring and went from there.
I just hope people feel empowered by it and feel a sense of community when they wear it. I hope they feel the resistance, the ancestors and unapologetically Black. You’re not only wearing Assata Shakur.  You’re also wearing the Black Liberation Army. They were the ones who rescued Assata. I’m just glad people like the shirt. The feedback has been incredible.
LL:  Speaking of women warriors, when we talk about Black Lives Matter, we must also talk about the critical role of Black woman leadership. What does it mean to you to be a Black woman on the frontlines?  And in your case, a queer Black woman on the frontlines?
AY: It’s quite sensitive, to say the least, for so many reasons. I say that because of all of the attention and the kind of misunderstanding around intersectionality, specifically — and identity politics, more largely. A lot of people don’t know this, but after Mike Brown was murdered in Ferguson, it was actually MAU (Millennial Activists United) who were the first to mention anything in reference to “queer” and “movement” in the same breath. We were definitely the first advocates of this specific intersection coming out of Ferguson.
We hear a lot about the Black Lives Matter Network being queer and women now — but the first body to really raise this question was MAU. You can date back what I’m saying now to the interview we did with Darnell Moore and The Feminist Wire. We specifically did this interview to uplift the narrative of our lived experiences. (See tinyurl.com/y9e2824o.)
At the time, a lot of the mainstream media was only focused around the narratives of our two brothers, Tef Poe and Tory Russell, who are certainly honorable, but two men nonetheless. Just to be clear, that wasn’t their fault. We absolutely love Tef and Tory! It’s not a reflection of them; it’s an acknowledgement of how mainstream media works in this country.
We live in a very patriarchal society, you know. But MAU was also very active on the ground, and people were following us, as Black women. It was so important for this narrative to be uplifted as well. And although the media didn’t understand, Tef and Tory were actually a major part of uplifting our narrative. At the time, at least half of our organization was queer women. We just didn’t want that to be left out.
I think that Feminist Wire interview helped to set a new precedent about what it looks like to do this work in a way that honors our ancestors, but also honors the mistakes that were made, the erasure that happened.  There was a time when folks like Bayard Rustin and Marsha P. Johnson couldn’t fight like we fight today because of the times and the politics of those times. As a Black queer woman, it was part of my duty to pick up this mantle and to build on it.
How can we talk about resistance without mentioning the Stonewall Rebellion? How can we talk about the Black Liberation Movement without mentioning James Baldwin? We can’t! I can’t imagine a movement without Black queer people, whether we’re talking 1965 or 2014.
In reference to Black women in general, we’ve been pushing back against that narrative since Harriet Tubman and Ida B. Wells. It’s a shame that Black women still have to be invited to a table that we helped create. As Solange [Knowles] would say, we’ve earned our seat at the table. We’ve earned several seats! Without Black women, there wouldn’t be no damn seats, no table, no nothing!
LL: Thank you so much for talking with me, Ashley, and sharing your experiences. You really are an amazing freedom fighter. Salute to you, Sis!
AY: Thank you, Lamont. Let’s stay in touch and keep building. ■
A North Carolina-based activist, Lamont Lilly was the 2016 Workers World Party vice presidential candidate. In 2015, he was also a U.S. delegate at the International Forum for Justice in Palestine in Beirut, Lebanon. He is also an organizer and journalist in the Black Lives Matter movement.
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Sunday, 23 July 2017

A PERFECT EXAMPLE

This is a perfect example of how just because something is "legal", it doesn't make it right.....

Alert! Supreme Court Again Upholds Trump’s Total Barring of Refugees.
Resist the Muslim Ban!

July 20, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

On Wednesday, July 19, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a lower-court ruling that would have allowed about 24,000 refugees into the United States—these refugees are part of the Trump/Pence regime’s ban on refugees and people from six Muslim-majority countries.
In early July, the Supreme Court upheld sections of the Trump/Pence Muslim Ban 2.0 that barred all refugees and visitors and immigrants from six Muslim-majority countries without “bona fide relationships” to people in this country. The Trump/Pence regime then declared that the relationship between people living here in the U.S. and their grandparents (and some other relatives) in those countries was NOT considered “bona fide relationships.” A federal judge in Hawai'i ruled against the ban on grandparents, and also said that refugees already certified by a resettlement agency should be allowed in.
Now, the latest Supreme Court ruling shuts the door on those refugees. While the ruling does go against the Trump/Pence regime’s efforts to include grandparents among those banned from the six Muslim-majority countries, overall this is a continuation of the escalation of a war on Muslims represented by the Supreme Court’s reinstatement of major parts of the Muslim ban. In October, the Court will take up reinstating the entire ban.
And the fact is that the Trump/Pence regime, with its open contempt for legal challenges and court rulings, has been going ahead with aggressively implementing measures that effectively amount to a Muslim ban. This is gone into in a July 8 New York Times op-ed, “How Trump Is Stealthily Carrying Out His Muslim Ban,” by two representatives of Muslim Advocates. Revcom.us will be writing more about this soon.
The “highest court in the land” is putting a stamp of approval on dehumanizing and terrorizing Muslims in the U.S.—and around the world. This has very serious implications—intensifying a situation where all Muslims in this country must seriously fear legal persecution or violence and terror at the hands of “unofficial” fascist thugs. It ratchets up the hellish conflict between Western imperialism and fundamentalist Islamic Jihad. And to the extent that these fascist developments are not met by widespread outrage and protest, a toxic climate is further fanned in society—where people remain silent, pretending not to see, while others around them are hounded and rounded up... as happened in Nazi Germany.
The Muslim ban must be opposed and stopped—in the name of humanity.

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Thursday, 20 July 2017

MORALLY BANKRUPT

After reading the following unfuckingbelievable article, you'd be hard pressed to convince me that the u.s.a. has any fucking moral authority to condemn or intervene in any fucking country on this dying planet .

A Real-Life Horror Story for Women: Arkansas Law Would Force Rape Survivors to Notify Their Attacker Before Getting an Abortion

July 13, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Imagine you’re a woman who has been assaulted and raped. To add to the agony, you find that you are pregnant. But that’s not the end to the horror. In order to get an abortion, the state is compelling you to let the rapist know about the procedure!
This may seem like a nightmarish scenario out of a novel about a dystopian future. But it’s happening right now—in 2017 America. The state of Arkansas has just passed an anti-abortion law that makes it illegal for women to have an abortion without notifying the man who impregnated her—including if that man is someone who had raped her.
Adding to the reactionary perversity of this law, known as the “Tissue Disposal Mandate,” is that it is a provision being added to an existing law, called the Final Disposition Act, that gives family members of a person who has died say over what happens to the deceased’s body. Under the new provision just passed and set to go into effect at the end of July, the aborted fetus would be considered a deceased family member—and the man who impregnated the woman would have equal say with the woman regarding the disposal of the fetal tissue.
This is totally outrageous—and right in line with the Christian fascist anti-abortion movement’s fanatical, anti-scientific lies about how a fetus is a full human being with “rights” and claiming abortion is “murder.” No! Fetuses are not babies. Abortion is not murder. And women are notincubators—they are full human beings!
As Bob Avakian points out:
Unbelievable as it may seem, in the 21st century there are still people—including people in positions of power and authority—who are determined to force women to bear children, regardless of the situation, the feelings, and the better judgment of those women themselves. That is a way of enslaving women to the dictates of an oppressive male supremacist, patriarchal system; and that is what the cruel fanatics who are determined to deny women the right to abortion are really all about. (From “ON ‘PRINCIPLED COMPROMISES,’ AND OTHER CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY”)
While the new Arkansas law does not explicitly give the man involved in the pregnancy the right to force the cancellation of an abortion, the law requires that there must be agreement on the method of “disposal” of the fetal tissue—and the man could go to court if there is a difference of opinion. Doctors who performed abortion procedures could face criminal penalties if they failed to inform the man about how the tissue would be disposed of. If a woman is forced to go to court over this matter, she could be forced to delay getting an abortion beyond the point where abortion is legal in Arkansas—right now, the state bans abortions after 22 weeks of pregnancy.
         

Click to read
On top of the Tissue Disposal Mandate, Arkansas has passed three other recent anti-abortion laws:
*A ban on dilation and evacuation abortion, a safe and common procedure used in second-trimester abortions.
*A requirement that abortion providers disclose private medical information on patients under 17 to the police and preserve fetal tissue from abortions for those patients as “evidence.”
*A requirement that abortion doctors obtain medical records of a patient’s “entire pregnancy history”—a medically unnecessary measure that could result in the woman not being able to get an abortion before the 22-week cutoff.
Arkansas is a “leader” in anti-abortion laws at the state level—but it is hardly alone. While abortion still remains legal under the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, a barrage of state laws in recent years have put increasingly onerous restrictions on women’s right to abortion. Just in the first three months of 2017, 431 anti-abortion measures were introduced in various state legislatures, and five states (Arizona, Arkansas, Kentucky, Utah, and Wyoming) passed 10 new laws adding to restrictions on abortion. Abortion clinics and doctors continue to be targets of violent threats and attacks from the anti-abortion movement.
And now there is a fascist regime in power in Washington that is taking the already intolerable situation faced by women under this system of capitalism-imperialism to a whole new level. Trump, the predator-in-chief, repeatedly tweets gross and violently misogynist attacks—helping to further whip up a culture of sexual assault, crude degradation, and objectification aimed at women. Mike Pence, the Christian fascist leader next in line behind Trump, vows to send Roe v. Wade “into the ash heap of history.”
There is a way to beat back the escalating assaults on women’s right to abortion—and to break all the chains that bind women under this system. This won’t happen by pinning hopes on the Democrats—under whose “legal but rare” stand on abortion, the Christian fascists continued to gain force and momentum. But it can happen by building massive political resistance to the war on abortion, as part of the movement for an actual revolution to overthrow the whole system of capitalism-imperialism at the soonest possible time and replace it with socialism—a radically new and better society moving toward a world free of all forms of exploitation and oppression (see the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, authored by Bob Avakian and adopted by the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA). And right now, there is an immediate and urgent need for people in their millions upon millions to be out in the streets as part of demanding, in the interests of humanity, that the Trump/Pence fascist regime must go!
Women Are Full Human Beings!
Fetuses Are NOT Babies!
Abortion Is NOT Murder!
Abortion on Demand and Without Apology!

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