I guess I don't need to tell anyone to go to this, as it's sold out. Get there early to see Scott Henderson's new band, The Skidmarxists.
See you there, assholes !
See you there, assholes !
CALL THEM OUT IS OUR NEW ALBUM. LPs WILL BE HERE EVENTUALLY, BUT IN THE MEANTIME WE HAVE CDs. 25 SONGS IN 41 MINUTES. GET IT PLEASE.
Saturday, 30 September 2017
Wednesday, 27 September 2017
MONUMENTS TO THIEVES
There has recently been a monument dedicated to those who served imperialist interests in Afghanistan put up in Victoria. It's the usual garbage of " remembering those who served our country " and other such fucking nonsense. What has been achieved in Afghanistan ? The country is worse off than when the taliban ruled, and there is no end to the conflict in sight. kkkanada is just one of the invading countries, and their motive for being there has nothing to do with "helping " the people. As the Comrades in the RCP/PCR put it :
Hell yes.
If Canada was really a force for progress and freedom as the government claims, it would not have tagged the PKK as a terrorist organzation. It would condemn the State of Israel for its policy of colonization and destruction of the occupied territories and support the revolutionary forces in monarchies such as Bahrain. Above all, it would stop the repression against indigenous peoples here: the future of their territories would be in their hands, like factories and production sites would be in the hands of workers.
Those who are mainly responsible for the unjust and barbaric world in which we are living will never be allies in the struggle against barbarism, oppression, and exploitation. Down with Canadian imperialism! Let’s unite with the workers and popular masses who fight for their freedom everywhere!
Hell yes.
Tuesday, 26 September 2017
Monday, 25 September 2017
WILLFUL IGNORANCE
The trump regime, seemingly more than others, thrives on a culture of chauvinistic ignorance. After all, that's what the whole " amerikkka first " thing relies upon. Sadly, there are millions who are more than happy to not know anything, and will go along with whatever shit program is thrust upon them. At the same time, those who see through this shit and are calling the government out on it, will be attempted to be made an example of, especially celebrities. Read.
Fascist Pig Trump and His Racist, Chauvinist Rant on NFL Players: This Is What His “Make America Great Again” Is Really About
by Carl Dix
September 24, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
The Klucker-in-Chief, the Grand Dragon of the Land of the Thief and Home of the Slave, has once again vomited out his racist filth all over the world. He has made even clearer his absolute contempt for Black people and shown again that he needsto arouse the most backward, would-be lynchers to roar for blood. THIS is what his rule is all about; this is what he is trying to consolidate and expand.
Here’s what he said:
Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners when somebody disrespects our flag, to say “Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired. He’s fired.” You know, some owner is going to do that. He’s going to say, “That guy that disrespects our flag, he’s fired.” And that owner, they don’t know it, they don’t know it, they’re friends of mine, many of them, they don’t know it, they’ll be the most popular person for a week, they’ll be the most popular person in this country because that’s a total disrespect of our heritage, that’s a total disrespect of everything that we stand for, OK? Everything that we stand for....The NFL ratings are down massively. Now, the number-one reason happens to be that they like watching what’s happening on, you know, with yours truly. They like what’s happening. Because, you know, today if you hit too hard, right, they hit too hard, 15 yards, throw him out of the game. They had that last week. I watched for a couple of minutes and two guys just really a beautiful tackle, boom, 15 yards. The referee gets on television, his wife is sitting at home, she’s so proud of him, they’re ruining the game. Right? They’re ruining the game. Hey, look, that’s what they want to do, they want to hit, OK? They want to hit. But it is hurting the game.
Think about this. He starts with a sexist slur, goes on to demand that anyone who questions blind obedience and dares to raise their voice in protest be denied their right to make a living, and then ends by attacking even the ineffectual efforts the National Football League has been forced to take to rein in the horrible epidemic of brain damage among the players that has been dragged into the light of day. This pig dares to oink this out the very day that it came out that Aaron Hernandez, formerly of Trump’s beloved New England Patriots, had been suffering from devastating brain damage when he murdered a friend and then later committed suicide in prison. This pig does not care that he makes clear that Black people—and let’s be clear, 75 percent of the National Football League is African American—this pig makes clear that Black people for him are ONLY bodies, ONLY means to his own enjoyment... and HIS enjoyment, and the enjoyment of those like him, comes best when it comes with the literal destruction of the brains of Black people. THIS is what he means when he says “Make America Great Again.”
If you have made your peace with three or seven more years of this lynch-mob master, of this lunatic with his finger at the nuclear button, what have you made your peace with?
It was righteous that Colin Kaepernick started his protest last year, refusing to stand for the pre-game national anthem because he was "not going to stand up to show pride in the flag of a country that oppresses Black people and people of color.” It’s good that other NFL players, and athletes in other sports, have done similar protests—and very important and positive that now, in response to Trump’s attack, many more are protesting. This is a good example for everyone, something to be learned from by the whole movement against the fascist regime.
Sunday, 24 September 2017
PERSPECTIVE
trump is wreaking havoc all over this fucking planet, and his spokespeople are telling everyone else to be reasonable. What the fuck is that ?
There’s A Fire In the Living Room and the Basement Is Filled With Gasoline… “But Let’s Not Lose Our Heads”!
September 22, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
James Rubin, an ex-State Department spokesperson for Clinton and Obama, recently wrote an article with the title, “Trump’s UN Speech Was Bad, But Let’s Not Lose Our Heads.” [Emphasis Added]
Okay, so Trump went to the UN and threatened genocide against North Korea… threatened to break a treaty with Iran… threatened to invade Venezuela—but let’s not lose our heads. There’s an impulsive fascist with his finger on the nuclear button, and the whole logic of fascism is to never “back off” and to always “double down”… but let’s not lose our heads. Nazis march in the streets of Charlottesville, attack counter-protestors, and kill one of them, and Trump says some of those celebrating the violent enforcers and defenders of slavery are good people and goes on to equate the Nazis/Klansmen with the counter-demonstrators… but let’s not lose our heads. Operation Rescue invades abortion clinics, fascists have the run of Berkeley, murdering, brutalizing cops are given encouragement by Trump and Sessions (“don’t be too nice”)… but let’s not lose our heads. Immigrants live in terror, lunatics feel empowered to carry out hate crimes against people of color or Muslims, LGBTQ people are being shoved back into the closet… but let’s not lose our heads. Religious fascists—and that’s what they are, fascists—brag that they’ve never had such a “friend in the White House”… the environment is being sacked and gutted by the hour, with irreversible damage… truth itself is being rendered meaningless… but let’s not lose our heads.
James Rubin, there is both great irony and great crime in your piece. The great irony is that, evidently, you, James Rubin have already lost your head and any semblance of honest, rational judgment. The great crime is that you are trying to get others to do so as well, trying to turn off the alarm when the fire rages out of control and threatens at any time to engulf the whole planet.
Let’s keep our heads, and our conscience and hearts for that matter, and fully confront what this fascist regime means.
Wednesday, 20 September 2017
EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW
This is a piece of amerikkkan history that EVERYONE should know about. Read motherfuckers, read !
Part 12 ("A Nation of Law 1968-1971") of the PBS documentary Eyes On The Prize begins with the murder of Fred Hampton. The segment on the Attica uprising, with powerful footage and testimony, begins at 31:13.
On September 13, 1971, New York State launched a military assault on the Attica prisoners. Helicopters sprayed tear gas, sharpshooters fired into the yard, and state troopers blasting shotguns swarmed against the rebels. Twenty-nine unarmed prisoners and 10 prison guard hostages were murdered, and hundreds more prisoners were wounded or injured. Above, prisoners were forced to strip naked, crawl through mud and broken glass and run a gauntlet of baton wielding rows of cops. (AP Photo)
Case #81: September 13, 1971—Massacre of Heroic Attica Prisoners
September 5, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
On September 9, 1971, the most powerful and significant prison rebellion in U.S. history erupted at Attica state prison in New York. Attica was part of the Black liberation struggle and the revolutionary upheaval of the 1960s. (AP Photo)
Bob Avakian recently wrote that one of three things that has “to happen in order for there to be real and lasting change for the better: People have to fully confront the actual history of this country and its role in the world up to today, and the terrible consequences of this.” (See “3 Things that have to happen in order for there to be real and lasting change for the better.”)
In that light, and in that spirit, “American Crime” is a regular feature of revcom.us. Each installment will focus on one of the 100 worst crimes committed by the U.S. rulers—out of countless bloody crimes they have carried out against people around the world, from the founding of the U.S. to the present day.
This September 9 marks the 45th anniversary of the prisoners’ uprising at Attica.
The Crime: On September 13, 1971, police, sheriffs, park police, and the National Guard launched a murderous assault at Attica prison in upstate New York, killing 39 unarmed people
Four days earlier, on September 9, the most powerful and significant prison rebellion in U.S. history had erupted at Attica. Over half of Attica’s 2,200 inmates, mainly Black but also white and Puerto Rican prisoners, seized control of large parts of the prison, taking 38 guards hostage.
The uprising was fueled by the guards’ routine abuse, horrific living conditions, the state’s refusal to address their grievances, and the racism and national oppression permeating Attica and U.S. society. Many Attica prisoners had been radicalized by the upheavals of the 1960s, and the August 21 murder of the revolutionary prisoner and leader George Jackson, by guards at California’s San Quentin prison, hit them very hard, sparking a silent fast in protest.
The spirit of the Attica Brothers, as they came to be called, was captured by their 21-year-old spokesman L.D. Barkley: “We are men. We are not beasts, and we do not intend to be beaten and driven as such... What has happened here is but the sound before the fury of those who are oppressed...”
The prisoners took control of D-yard and a number of cellblocks. They organized food, medical care, sanitation, workshops, command posts, and a security squad to ensure the safety of the hostages. They issued demands “that will bring closer to reality the demise of these prison institutions that serve no useful purpose to the People of America, but to those who would enslave and exploit the people of America.” Their key demands included complete amnesty for their takeover, transport to a “non-imperialistic country” for those who wanted it, and negotiation through a team of observers that they chose. They set forth 15 “practical proposals,” including freedom for political activity and ending the censorship of literature sent into the prison.
The Attica prisoners reached out to the world and to prominent voices in the U.S., including radical lawyer William Kunstler, Black Panther Party leader Bobby Seale, leaders of the Puerto Rican Young Lords Party, and New York Times writer Tom Wicker. “We are standing here for the oppressed people of the world, and we are not going to give up or knuckle under,” Herbert X Blyden declared, “We are going to show the way, for we know the way!”
The Attica rebellion took place as the U.S. was being rocked by powerful upheavals against the oppression of Black people and the Vietnam War. There was a mass revolt against mainstream American culture. The legitimacy of the existing order was under severe duress, millions dreamed of revolution, and the rulers feared things could slip from their control. They were shocked and shaken by the prison takeover. New York prison officials refused to accept the prisoners’ demands, especially for amnesty. Governor Nelson Rockefeller rejected calls from many quarters to visit the prison. Instead, he and New York’s police forces secretly planned a full-scale military assault.
An Appeal to Those the System Has Cast Off
Here I am speaking not only to prisoners but to those whose life is lived on the desperate edge, whether or not they find some work; to those without work or even homes; to all those the system and its enforcers treat as so much human waste material.
Raise your sights above the degradation and madness, the muck and demoralization, above the individual battle to survive and to “be somebody” on the terms of the imperialists—of fouler, more monstrous criminals than mythology has ever invented or jails ever held. Become a part of the human saviors of humanity: the gravediggers of this system and the bearers of the future communist society.
This is not just talk or an attempt to make poetry here: there are great tasks to be fulfilled, great struggles to be carried out, and yes great sacrifices to be made to accomplish all this. But there is a world to save—and to win—and in that process those the system has counted as nothing can count for a great deal. They represent a great reserve force that must become an active force for the proletarian revolution.
Bob Avakian, BAsics 3:16
September 13. The assault began shortly after 9:30 am. when National Guard helicopters showered the prison with a burning, choking fog of CN and CS tear gas. The Attica prisoners had no guns and hadn’t engaged in any violence after their takeover, but moments later over 550 state troopers and sharpshooters opened fire with shotguns, pistols, Thompson submachine guns and semi-automatics. They unleashed an indiscriminate barrage of over 2,000 (perhaps as many as 4,500) rounds. Around 10:00 am, state police ordered prisoners to stand up and put their hands on their heads, assuring them they wouldn’t be harmed. But the shooting continued and surrendering prisoners were hit.
Within 20-30 minutes, the state’s armed forces were rampaging through the prison. “They came in there with their guns and bayonets blasting everything that moved. They shot at everybody,” Attica Brother Akil Al-Jundi recalled. “They went from cell to cell with machine guns, spraying the cells, under the beds. They didn’t care whether there was anybody there. They were just shooting. Their objective was to kill, not to ask questions, but to kill...”
Political prisoners, leaders of the uprisings and others were singled out and executed. Black Panther Kenneth Malloy was shot at least 10 times, including four rounds from a .357 magnum into his eyes from a foot away. Sam Melville, a white revolutionary who reportedly had his hands folded on top of his head in a surrender gesture, was killed by a shotgun blast to his chest. L.D. Barkley was shot in the back with a .270 silver-nose bullet, likely from a sharpshooter’s hunting rifle.
Hundreds of prisoners were forced to strip naked, crawl through mud and broken glass and run a gauntlet of baton-wielding rows of cops. Several bled to death due to denial of medical care after being wounded, left to lie in their own blood, urinated upon by guards, or beaten until their bones broke.
Frank “Big Black” Smith was stripped naked and tortured for six hours. Smith was forced to lie on a table with a football under his chin and told he would be killed if the ball moved or fell, while he was being burned with cigarettes and hot bullet casings and beaten on his testicles. One inmate had his femurs shattered by a bullet but was ordered to walk. When he couldn’t, a trooper repeatedly jammed a screwdriver into his rectum and forced him to crawl.
Twenty-nine prisoners and 10 guards being held hostage were murdered. Another 89 prisoners were wounded by gunfire and 319 more were injured. A week later, a state court investigation found that 90 percent of the inmates still had visible signs of being brutalized.
Sixty-two prisoners were indicted for 1289 "crimes" stemming from the rebellion, but no guards were ever charged, tried, or convicted. Twenty years later, in a civil suit filed by the prisoners, only Deputy Warden Karl Pfeil was found liable for any wrongdoing.
Part 12 ("A Nation of Law 1968-1971") of the PBS documentary Eyes On The Prize begins with the murder of Fred Hampton. The segment on the Attica uprising, with powerful footage and testimony, begins at 31:13.
The Alibi: New York authorities claimed they were simply trying to retake control of Attica and rescue the guards being held. After retaking the prison, they claimed prisoners had slit the throats of hostages, even castrated one, and murdered others with zip guns. (This was exposed as a lie the very next day when the medical examiner announced his findings: all the deaths at Attica, prisoners and guards, were caused by gunshots. There were no mutilated genitals, no slit throats, no zip gun wounds. And only the state’s forces had guns.)
Overall, New York authorities and the media portrayed the prisoners as “rioters” bent on carrying out vengeance, while the state had tried to resolve the crisis with a reasonable offer and then simply tried to regain control of the prison and protect the guards who were being held by the prisoners. Governor Rockefeller told President Nixon the official story line, that his police had killed prisoners during the takeover, “though, only when they were in the process of murdering the guards, or when they were attacking our people as they came in to get the guards.” In other words, the state had totally made up these slanders, which the media dutifully reported.
The Actual Motive: Attica was part of the Black Liberation struggle and revolutionary upheaval of the 1960s. It was a declaration of the humanity of those this system treats as “beasts,” and a profound exposure of the barbarity of America’s prisons and machinery of violent repression. It highlighted the ongoing enslavement of Black people. And Attica became a clarion call to rise against imperialism and oppression that reverberated worldwide.
The rulers felt they could not tolerate this challenge to their authority and legitimacy by society’s most oppressed. They feared the impact the Attica uprising was having on the millions from many strata who were following it on television, and witnessing the prisoners’ deep humanity. So Rockefeller, backed by the Nixon administration, felt compelled to not only violently crush the Attica rebellion, but make an example out of it with a savage “shock and awe” massacre to terrorize, vilify, and isolate the prisoners, and to send an unmistakable message to the oppressed everywhere “never dare to do this again.”
The Criminals:
On September 13, 1971, New York State launched a military assault on the Attica prisoners. Helicopters sprayed tear gas, sharpshooters fired into the yard, and state troopers blasting shotguns swarmed against the rebels. Twenty-nine unarmed prisoners and 10 prison guard hostages were murdered, and hundreds more prisoners were wounded or injured. Above, prisoners were forced to strip naked, crawl through mud and broken glass and run a gauntlet of baton wielding rows of cops. (AP Photo)
New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller and the State of New York. An important new book by Professor Heather Ann Thompson, Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy, which draws from previously secret state documents, reveals that Rockefeller had secret meetings with his state troopers to plot the massacre and fabricate the alibi. And the coverup began before the massacre took place: many of the police and prison officers removed their ID badges; the serial numbers of their weapons were not recorded, and normal reports of ammunition discharged were deemed unnecessary.
Rockefeller phoned Nixon the day of the assault. He said it was a “beautiful operation” and a “superb job.” He confided to Nixon he thought as many as 200-300 prisoners could be killed, but he ordered the operation anyway. The prisoners’ demand for amnesty was totally unacceptable, they both agreed; he and Nixon feared granting it would ignite other rebellions.
Blood in the Water also exposes Rockefeller’s and the state’s cover-up of the criminal massacre at Attica. Long-hidden documents showed that state investigators knew law enforcement had committed murder at Attica, but refused to indict a “long list” of police who had killed or wounded prisoners, including one who fired at Kenneth Malloy so many times at such close range that “his eye sockets were shredded by shards of his own bones.”
Pre-publication PDF of this major work available here.
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President Richard Nixon. The Nixon White House and the FBI closely tracked the Attica uprising, which Nixon saw as “a black thing.” After the state retook control of the prison, Nixon said of Rockefeller, “He’s got a hell of a lot of guts... We have got to be tough on this.” And Nixon told Rockefeller he had his full backing.
Scores of prison officials, police, sheriffs, state troopers, and park police who carried out the murder, brutality, and torture. One, Deputy Warden Pfeil, yelled, “Kill the Jew bastard,” as he watched jailhouse lawyer Jerry Rosenberg being beaten, and then hit Rosenberg across his head with a chain himself. State troopers and police outside Attica could be heard gleefully yelling “white power,” as they reloaded to continue the massacre.
In Their Own Words:
On the day of the massacre, Nixon talked to Rockefeller by telephone and told him:
I know you’ve had a hard day, but I want you to know that I just back you to the hilt...the courage you showed and the judgment in not granting amnesty, it was right, and I don’t care what the hell the papers or anybody else says. I don’t care what they say. I think that you had to do it that way, because if you would have granted amnesty in this case, it would have meant that you would have had prisons in an uproar all over this country...you did the right thing. It’s a tragedy that these poor fellows were shot, but I just want you to know that’s my view, and I’ve told the troops around here they’re to back that right to the hilt.
Commemorations and actions will be taking place around the 45th anniversary of the Attica rebellion on September 9. We encourage readers to attend, bring the revolution, and write revcom.us (revolution.reports@yahoo.com) about significant events or struggles.
Sources
“40th Anniversary of Attica Prison Rebellion: ‘We are not beasts and we do not intend to be beaten or driven as such’,” revcom.us, September 11, 2011
“ATTICA!” revcom.us, November 15, 2009
“Attica Brother Akil Al-Jundi,” revcom.us, August 21, 2011
William Kunstler, My Life as a Radical Lawyer, chapter 12 (Carol Publishing Group, 1994)
POV YouTube clip from Disturbing the Universe about the life of William Kunstler
Malcolm Bell, Turkey Shoot: Tracking the Attica Cover-Up (Grove/Atlantic, 1985)
Jennifer Schuessler, “Prying Lose the Long-Kept Secrets of Attica,” New York Times, August 3, 2016
Heather Ann Thompson, Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy (Penguin Random House, 2016)
Sam Roberts, “Rockefeller on the Attica Raid, from Boastful to Subdued,” New York Times, September 12, 2011
“40 Years After Attica Rebellion, New Tapes Reveal Nixon, Rockefeller Praised Deadly Crackdown,” Democracy Now! September 16, 2011
Bill Berkowitz, "Cover-Up of Slaughter at Attica Prison Continues Decades Later," BuzzFlash at Truthout.org, September 10, 2014
Bruce Jackson, “ATTICA: an anniversary of Death,” Artvoice, September 9, 1999
“Top Government Official Admitted: The ‘War on Drugs’ IS a War on the People,” revcom.us, April 11, 2016
Tuesday, 19 September 2017
DEPORT THEM
Deport trump, trudeau, obama , and all of the imperialist politician motherfuckers who created the situations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, etc. Put them all in the middle of the battles in Iraq and Syria, the bloodthirsty assholes. Fuck them all.
A letter:
Recently deported immigrant calls on us to stand up NOW
September 17, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
My cousin is a revolutionary. She asked me to write about my experience being deported. At first I didn’t take her seriously. I guess I didn’t think my story could matter to anybody, but then I heard about how these fuckers ended DACA and I thought—this is not normal.
All my life I’ve lived in fear of deportation. All my life I had to think about things that others don’t have to think about. I have to be especially cautious when driving so I don’t get pulled over to have a cop ask me for a license I didn’t have. I have to avoid certain places known for having checkpoints. I lived in constant fear. It was always in the back of my head almost like it was only a matter of when. When will I be deported? I came to this country when I was 10 years old. I didn’t know English. It was hard to get used to all the changes, and I came up against a lot of racism from my teachers and from my peers. I was treated like I was stupid and I had a lot of anger growing up. I didn’t think my life counted for anything so I got into stupid shit and I got myself a criminal record. Nothing impressive, but enough to stop me from qualifying for programs like DACA.
As I got older I got my life together. I met a woman that challenged me to be a better man and I was ready to start a family, but in an instant my whole life was turned upside down. I was grabbed up by ICE at work. I was lucky that I had a friend to contact my family because when I went to the detention center I learned that many people weren’t even able to tell their families they had been detained. There were people who were there for a long time. It’s basically a prison and you’re treated like you don’t matter for shit. I even met a guy who wasn’t getting his medications that he needed. They didn’t treat us like people and I felt the same way I felt as a teen. An anger coming from realizing that in the eyes of others you don’t count--you’re an animal or worse.
When Trump became the president I was so angry. I just thought back to his comments calling Mexicans rapists and I knew that I had to be even more afraid now. I was angry, but my life went on, and I didn’t do anything to act on my anger. I just felt alone. I knew people were protesting but I didn’t think to be a part of that. Now I wish I had. I thought of my cousin every time I watched the news. I heard her voice telling me to get out there and do something, but honestly I was scared to put myself at risk like that. Now I wish I had done something more. I want to say something to the people who feel the fear that I did. None of us are safe, and we can’t just stay on the sidelines to try and save our own asses because they will come for us. They will come for you like they came for me, and then your life will be thrown away and they will be in control. I think right now people have to get over the fear because if our lives are already at risk, we might as well control the risk. We might as well put ourselves out there to make a difference and see if we can stop this from happening to other people. Not just deportations but all the other shit they are doing to people—to women and Black people, to Muslims and LGBT people. You can’t make excuses to stand aside and not do anything because people’s lives are at stake, and we all need to be brave and stand together for them.
Monday, 18 September 2017
RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS
There seems to be a right, and even an obligation to be ignorant in the imperialist countries. If you do not accept the official narrative about how great or free your country is, you're looked upon as crazy, ungrateful, seditious, and worse. Well motherfuckers, reality will not let you be ignorant for too long, if you dare to open your fucking eyes. Here we go again. Fuck the police.
Days and Nights of Protest After St. Louis Judge Acquits Pig Who Murdered
Days and Nights of Protest After St. Louis Judge Acquits Pig Who Murdered
Anthony Lamar Smith
THIS is What Justice Looks Like in America
September 17, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Sunday, September 17: For the third day and night in a row, a thousand or more protesters have taken to the streets of St. Louis, Missouri, furious and disgusted that Jason Stockley—the pig who murdered 24-year-old Anthony Lamar Smith in cold blood in 2011—was found “not guilty” after his trial before a JUDGE. People, young and old, of all nationalities, have been expressing their fury that yet another pig has gotten away with cold-blooded murder of a Black man. When hundreds refused to leave the streets Friday night, the police used pepper spray on protesters, arresting 33. The National Guard had been put on alert before the judge’s verdict was announced. This is what justice looks like in the eyes of this utterly unjust system!
On Saturday, protesters mobilized for noisy marches through suburban malls chanting “Black Lives Matter” and “It’s our duty to fight for our freedom,” spreading the movement to wider communities. At one point the marchers were joined by Nick Cannon―rapper, actor, director, comedian, and television personality. And a mass rally was held Saturday night. A Washington University professor told St. Louis Public Radio, “I’m honestly pissed off about everything right now. It keeps happening. People protest, but nothing changes.”
After most protesters left, the police ordered the rest to disperse, bringing in hundreds of riot-clad cops with armored vehicles. It was reported that as the demonstrators retreated, windows along one side of a two-block nightlife area were broken. To get a sense of the breadth of the outrage in St. Louis, someone cleaning up the glass from their shattered windows on Sunday told the Chicago Tribune he understood why people are angry; the justice system is broken. “I’m not saying this is the right way to fix it,” but “the window isn’t murdered. Nobody is going to have a funeral for the window. We can replace it.”
On Sunday, 1,000 people mobilized in front of the St. Louis Police Department, lined up in rows from block to block, and then held a die-in. From there they went to Saint Louis University and marched through the campus.
St. Louis is ten miles away from Ferguson, where Michael Brown’s murder in 2014 triggered an uprising of the people who refused to back down, sending shock waves around the country and beyond. This and the rebellions following other killings have forced people to face the ugly reality that when police murder Black, Latino, Native American, and other oppressed people they are doing their job—and that’s why they are almost never punished.
The Cold-Blooded, Premeditated Execution of Anthony Lamar Smith
Anthony Lamar Smith was approached by two pigs who claimed they had seen a “drug deal.” Smith took off in his car and the pigs chased him down. Along the way, Stockley told his partner: “I’m going to kill this motherfucker, don’t you know it!” One minute later Smith was murdered. The pigs slammed into Smith’s car, Stockley got out, walked right up to the car, and fired five shots through the driver’s window into Anthony Lamar Smith. One of them—the “kill shot”—was fired from six inches away. This was a police execution.
Stockley was not done yet. When he discovered that Smith had no gun, he did what cops do all the time: He went to his pig car; dug through his duffle bag for a “throw-down” gun; and planted that gun in the car next to the body. All of this evidence was recorded and is available online, including the fact that the weapon had none of Anthony’s DNA on it—but it did have the DNA of the pig!
In a sign of how blatant this murder was, five days before the verdict, the Ethical Society of Police, an organization of “officers of color” in the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, issued a video statement of their findings that called for Stockley to be convicted. “He wasn’t defending himself in the line of duty,” said the Society's president. This statement was issued jointly with the President of the National Coalition of Law Enforcement Officers for Justice, Reform and Accountability.
But none of this mattered to the judge. In fact, in the court ruling he wrote, “Finally, the Court observes, based on its nearly thirty years on the bench, that an urban heroin dealer not in possession of a firearm would be an anomaly.” Here the judge violated his own rule of law: claiming that regardless of the facts in this case, that the only gun found in this murder had been planted by the cop, it could be assumed that this “urban heroin dealer” was armed.
Why does this happen over and over and over again? Because, as Bob Avakian, the leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party, says in BAsics 1:24: “The role of the police is not to serve and protect the people. It is to serve and protect the system that rules over the people. To enforce the 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. The law and order the police are about, with all of their brutality and murder, is the law and the order that enforces all this oppression and madness.”
Enough with this system that needs to have pigs gun down Black and Brown people by the hundreds each year. Enough with police getting away with murder!
Hundreds and hundreds of people marching in St. Louis Friday after the judge released his verdict.
Sunday, 17 September 2017
SPINELESS MOTHERFUCKERS
Not that I'd expect the fucking democrats to be any better than this, but are we really " on the same team "? Fuck that.
Democrats Cut Deals With Fascist Trump
“We’re All on THE Same Team”
— Obama on Trump
September 15, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
On September 6, the day after the fascist Trump/Pence regime ended DACA and put the lives of 800,000 Dreamers and millions more immigrants in peril, the Democrats, led by Chuck Schumer and Nancy Piglosi aka Pelosi, merrily cut a deal with Trump, who brushed aside Congressional Republicans, to continue funding the government and deliver a pittance of relief aid to flood-ravaged Houston.
Then, the following Thursday, September 14, Democrats Schumer and Piglosi dined and dealed with Trump once again, this time announcing they cut an agreement to protect DACA recipients.
This wasn’t Trump becoming “bipartisan” or “normal.”
And no, Peter Baker of the New York Times, Trump is not “the first independent to hold the presidency since the advent of the current two-party system around the time of the Civil War.” He’s the first fascist president, and this was Trump shattering the traditional norms of governance, concentrating power in the executive in relation to both parties, and attempting to impose new fascist norms—with the Democrats aiding, abetting, normalizing, and grinning all the way.
As for protecting DACA recipients, no deal has been struck and there’s no guarantee there will be one, and Trump made clear any deal would not include amnesty or a path to citizenship. And that’s not the worst part. Trump insisted on—and the Democrats agreed to— “a massive border security upgrade,” which means more Migra, more border patrol, more vigilantes, and more beatings, arrests and deaths along the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump’s press secretary also made clear on Friday that the “deal” also means stepped up “interior enforcement”—i.e., more ICE raids, more families broken up, more immigrants terrorized.
Meanwhile, Schumer was busy giving Trump advice on how to succeed, and gushed, “He likes us; he likes me anyway.”
The Democrats’ collaboration goes way beyond shameful and unconscionable—it’s criminal. And it speaks volumes about why the Democrats cannot be relied on to stop and reverse the Trump/Pence fascist juggernaut.
This past week’s turn of events—Trump’s undercutting Congressional Republicans and dealing directly with the Democrats—points to the ongoing tumult and sharp struggle within the ranks of the ruling class as the Trump/Pence regime aggressively pushes ahead to consolidate fascism. These battles are not unimportant or irrelevant, if they are understood and acted upon from the vantage point of how they relate to and can create openings for mass struggle “from below,” and most crucially for mobilizing people to drive out this whole fascist regime, which poses a grave, existential threat to humanity.
Thursday, 14 September 2017
LIBERAL MORONS
If you think you're somehow doing something that might be seen as "objectively " in the name of " freedom ", think again, asshole. Defending the "right" of fascists to organize so they can imprison or kill you is fucking stupid. Sunsara Taylor is on fucking target again. Read this :
he Issue is NOT “Free Speech”—
he Issue is NOT “Free Speech”—
The Issue Is Fascism!
By Sunsara Taylor, writer for www.RevCom.us and co-initiator of RefuseFascism.org
September 8, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Fascists are targeting Berkeley. This includes unvarnished hate-mongers like Milo Yiannopoulos and Ann Coulter as well as intellectual hitmen like David Horowitz and Ben Shapiro, and the armed white supremacists and fascist thugs who have repeatedly assembled in the streets.
Most of all, this includes—and all the others serve—the Trump/Pence regime which is moving rapidly to consolidate a fascist America. Not exaggeration or insult, this is what is happening. They have already come for the Muslims, declared war on the media and the courts, and begun shredding environmental protections. They are criminalizing protest while encouraging white supremacists and Nazis. Pence and other Christian fascists are hell-bent on criminalizing abortion and ripping up protections for LGBTQ people. Trump not only pardoned, but heralded a sheriff who defied the courts to racially profile and torture immigrants. They are threatening nuclear annihilation.
Ben Shapiro dresses his arguments in intellectual garb but serves this same basic agenda. He argues that the campuses are dominated by “leftist thugs,” but the reality is that this country as a whole, and the campuses in particular, are increasingly coming under assault by the fascists in power and the mob they’ve unleashed. Shapiro is part of this assault. He mocked Trayvon Martin on what would’ve been his 21st birthday and argues that poverty among Black people is a result of Black culture, that being transgender is a “mental illness,” that abortion is akin to the Holocaust, that “Arabs Like to Bomb Stuff and Live In Open Sewage” and more.
The targeting of Berkeley is in the service of the consolidation of fascism in America. Berkeley symbolizes the heroic struggles of the 1960s against white supremacy, patriarchy, imperialist war, and mindless obedience to “America Right or Wrong.” Reversing these verdicts and gaining a foothold at Cal would mark a major leap in the consolidation of fascism in society. On another level, Cal has become a flashpoint of the fascists’ fight to transform the campuses from places with greater initiative for critical thinking, the pursuit of the truth, and resistance to injustice into sites of fascist indoctrination. THIS MUST NOT BE ALLOWED! Campuses must become FASCIST-FREE ZONES.
All this is why RefuseFascism.org invites everyone opposed to white supremacy, misogyny, xenophobia, climate-change denial, and fascism to join a People’s Speak Out in opposition to Ben Shapiro’s upcoming appearance. As the flyer says: “Fascists must NOT have an audience. DON’T GO. Or if you do go, WALK OUT when Shapiro starts to speak, and come to the Speak Out.”
BUT WHAT ABOUT “FREE SPEECH”?
Because Chancellor Christ’s focus on “free speech” has confused more than a few people, let’s examine her argument briefly.
Christ draws from John Stuart Mill, arguing that “truth will always ultimately prevail.” This claim requires denying—or discounting—the monstrous suffering that has been inflicted before the truth has prevailed in any of a number of countless examples: slavery, the Holocaust, the burning of the Library of Alexandria, the continued existence of Creationism, the lie that Iraq had WMDs, and much more. Christ also argues that shutting down any speech makes all speech vulnerable to being shut down. But no one can seriously argue that the key in ensuring a better outcome for Jews in 1930s Germany or Black people in the early U.S. or Iraqis more recently would’ve been to better protect the speech rights of Nazis or slave-holders or George W. Bush’s lies about WMDs, respectively.
This is not to dismiss everything John Stuart Mill argued; it’s vitally important that there be a broad contestation of opposing viewpoints and that people hear views put forward by their most ardent advocates. It’s just that this important principle cannot be treated as an “absolute” and elevated above the real-world conditions in which it must be applied. Today, fascists are in power, they have a platform and are using it to silence its critics and threaten whole peoples. Allowing them a foothold on campus serves shutting down real debate and truth-seeking! There’s more to say about this, which is further reason to come to the People’s Speak Out on September 14.
THE REAL LEGACY OF THE FREE SPEECH MOVEMENT
Christ also invokes the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley, describing it as a time when “students on the right and students on the left united to fight for the right to advocate political views on campus.” This is revisionist history!
The Free Speech Movement was about the right of students on campus to take up the fight against broader injustices in society, particularly the fight against segregation and racial discrimination. It was NOT about the “right” of racists and fascists to spew their bigotry on campus. Further, these students broke the rules—they climbed up on police cars, they occupied buildings, they went to jail, and through this kind of defiant and disruptive protest, they actually broke open much wider debate and engagement.
It is perverse for Christ to attempt to claim the Free Speech Movement while simultaneously defending the “right” of fascists to spew their toxic bigotry and creating a police-state shutdown of assembly, speech and protest in a huge part of campus, including the very Sproul Plaza made famous by the Free Speech movement.
FROM DIVERSE PERSPECTIVES, STAND UP AND SAY NO!
This must not be accepted! Everyone who refuses to accept a fascist America, from a great diversity of perspectives, is invited and urged to come together and speak out against this on September 14. Raise your voice against misogyny, white supremacy, xenophobia and fascism. Join in opening up real discussion and debate over what we face and what it requires of all of us.
At the same time, join in putting a stop to the imposition of fascism in America. Learn about and get organized for efforts to go into the streets in cities and towns across this country on November 4 in mass sustained protests that stay night after night and day after day, growing and not stopping until our demand is met: This Nightmare Must End: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!
Learn more about this at www.RefuseFascism.org.
Sunsara Taylor is an advocate of the new synthesis of communism developed by Bob Avakian, a writer for www.RevCom.us, and a co-initiator of RefuseFascism.org. Follow her at: @SunsaraTaylor
Tuesday, 12 September 2017
FUCK YOU AND YOUR FUCKING FLAG
Statement from Comrade Niko, Facing Felony Charges off the Burning of the American Flag at the Republican National Convention in 2016
September 11, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
On July 20th [2016], we went up to the gates of the Nazi Republican National Convention and burned their blood-soaked rag of empire making a bold statement to people here and around the world, saying that there is another way—we’re not following either one of their leaders, the fascist Trump or the war criminal Clinton, we’re standing with the people of the world bringing forward another way, revolution and communism and the leadership of Bob Avakian.
Now the state is coming back with their repression, hitting us with trumped up charges. Why? I’ll tell you: they don’t want to see people get linked up with this revolution—especially oppressed nationalities taking this up and bringing forward others, so they want to make an example of us. Particularly me being a Black youth, they couldn’t have that, so they brought down the boot now, in a time when political speech and the RIGHT to dissent is coming under attack. So in this context, this CASE means so much to the people whether they know it or not. If they are allowed to attack us [revolutionaries] and put us in jail for years, what is that preparing people for? And also this leadership the masses have is precious and people need to defend it not let it be taken away, while also bringing more forces forward. That’s why I’m calling on people to defend the RNC 16.
I want to say about flag burning, you may like it, or some people may not personally agree with it, but it is protected political speech. But people have the right to burn the American flag and that right is coming under attack and should people be criminalized and go to jail for years and years just for burning a flag?
I stand by what I did. I’m very proud of what we accomplished standing with the people of the world!! Calling out and sounding the alarm about the fascism of the Trump regime. I got to be part of that.
But I want to say this about the risks... jail, losing your life. These are times that are calling on us to rise to the occasion. Courage, conviction, and sacrifice is required. People go to jail, go to court, all the time for bullshit. This is for a reason. For the people. To get people organized into something that is the opposite of what is going on. I’d do it again. Seeing that flag burn, after the long years of slavery that went on behind, and the long years since, where it is held up as a symbol of democracy, but that is bullshit, it is a symbol of imperialism, of domination and suffering. Every time that flag flies, people here and around the world are being devastated.
When we burned it at the Republican National Convention. That was my first time burning it. And I think it was “right on.” My only regret is that more American flags didn’t burn. Felt that what we did was a rallying cry to the people of the world. There is a force that is serious about getting organized for revolution to overthrow the system, right here in the belly of the beast and people taking heart from that.
I been down here in Chicago now for like five months as a Revolution Club volunteer. And I see there are lots of people, a lot of Black youth, putting your life on the line for bullshit. Why can’t you put your life on the line for something much more—emancipating humanity? For a world where there are no desolated and devastated communities of people gunning each other down, but instead transforming society to where those things are not going on anymore. That’s why people are needed now to get with this revolution. It is not going to be easy, it is going to be a struggle, but a worthwhile struggle. You are going to have to break with those old ways of thinking and transform yourself, and start on the path to be a revolutionary communist—an emancipator of humanity.
People can be part of making all this happen. The alternative is to let these fascists and white supremacists get organized and consolidate, while we are helping them out by killing and dividing each other, while they sweep up humanity.
One of the reasons I’m down in Chicago is because I have this understanding from BA of how the world can be different, and to act on that understanding, to bring others forward, so I am happy to be part of this with the Revolution Club. Even though I get frustrated and have contradictions, but there is nothing I would rather be doing. That is why I left my home and my job to do this. It is a worthwhile sacrifice. Now we are about to go to Cleveland for this trial and I say let’s do it. Let’s defeat this shit.
As Repression and Threats Against Dissent Grow…
Two Protesters Face Felonies in Cleveland for Burning Flag at Republican National Convention
September 4, 2017
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