Monday, 30 April 2018

REAL HISTORY

Occasionally there are tiny steps made in the direction of truth, but not without opposition, especially when it comes to the history of a colonialist imperialist country that is still exploiting millions today. Here is one small microscopic step :

New National Memorial Marks Black Victims of White Supremacist Terror and Violence—from Slavery to Jim Crow Lynching to Mass Incarceration Today

April 30, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the accompanying Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration opened in Montgomery, Alabama, on April 26. Located on what used to be a pen that held captive Black people before they were sold at slave auctions, the memorial and museum are important contributions to helping people in the U.S. face up to the actual history of this country, including slavery and lynchings, and the effects of this white supremacist terror and violence down to today.
At the center of the memorial are more than 800 columns made of weathered steel, hanging from the roof—one for each county where lynchings took place—inscribed with the names of those lynched, or with “anonymous” where the identity of the lynching victim is not known. A New York Times reviewer described how “The columns meet you first at eye level, like the headstones that lynching victims were rarely given. But as you walk, the floor steadily descends; by the end, the columns are all dangling above, leaving you in the position of the callous spectators in old photographs of public lynchings. The magnitude of the killing is harrowing, all the more so when paired with the circumstances of individual lynchings, some described in brief summaries along the walk: Parks Banks, lynched in Mississippi in 1922 for carrying a photograph of a white woman; Caleb Gadly, hanged in Kentucky in 1894 for walking behind the wife of his white employer’; Mary Turner, who after denouncing her husband’s lynching by a rampaging white mob, was hung upside down, burned and then sliced open so that her unborn child fell to the ground.”
All through the South today, there are monuments and statues to the Confederacy and its generals—those who fought for slavery, for the right of whites to own Black people as property. These are monuments celebratinghundreds of years of untold horror brought down on millions of enslaved people. As Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), the nonprofit organization behind the new memorial and museum, points out, if you go to South Africa, you can’t help but hear about the decades of apartheid. If you go to Berlin, there are memorials to mark the places where Jewish families were forcibly taken from to be sent to concentration camps during the Holocaust. “[B]ut in America, we don’t talk about slavery, we don’t talk about lynching, we don’t talk about segregation.” The memorial and museum are intended to change that—to make people say, “Never again.”
As viscerally spoken to by Bob Avakian (BA) in his talk Revolution: Why It’s Necessary, Why It’s Possible, and What It’s All About (in the section on “They’re selling postcards of the hanging”), these lynchings were violent, depraved actions and were often public spectacles advertised ahead of time to draw crowds—literally a family pastime in which all too many white people took part, for more than 100 years. The lynchings were tolerated and often encouraged, if not assisted, by federal, state, and local officials and law enforcement. Most of the time, no one was arrested for these murders, let alone convicted and jailed in the rare cases where the perpetrators were arrested—like the white men who lynched 14-year-old Emmett Till in Mississippi in 1955, who were acquitted by an all-white jury and then publicly boasted about what they had done.
As BA also points out in another section of his Revolution talk (“Emmett Till and Jim Crow: Black people lived under a death sentence”), all Black people—from the very young to the elderly—were made to live in terror. Every Black person living in the rural South, where the majority of Black people lived during this time, were under a death sentence, which might or might not be carried out but always hung over their heads. This had everything to do with the overall outrages to which Black people were subjected. As BA notes, “This experience of lynching and its effect on the masses of Black people can in a real sense be taken as representing and concentrating the experience of Black people as a whole, long after literal slavery with all its horrors had been ended in the 1860s.”
Bryan Stevenson and a small group of lawyers at EJI spent many years researching through archives and libraries to document lynchings across the South. They catalogued nearly 4,400 in total—many acknowledged for the first time. The EJI notes, “The memorial is more than a static monument. In the six-acre park surrounding the memorial is a field of identical monuments, waiting to be claimed and installed in the counties they represent. Over time, the national memorial will serve as a report on which parts of the country have confronted the truth of this terror and which have not.”
Visitors to the memorial are first confronted by a sculpture on slavery by Kwame Akoto-Bamfo. After the columns memorializing the lynching victims, as the EJI site described, “The memorial experience continues through the civil rights era made visible with a sculpture by Dana King dedicated to the women who sustained the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Finally, the memorial journey ends with contemporary issues of police violence and racially biased criminal justice expressed in a final work created by Hank Willis Thomas.”
The EJI describes the Legacy Museum as the “physical manifestation” of decades of research on “the history of racial injustice” in the U.S. “The Legacy Museum employs unique technology to dramatize the enslavement of African Americans, the evolution of racial terror lynchings, legalized racial segregation and racial hierarchy in America. Relying on rarely seen first-person accounts of the domestic slave trade, EJI’s critically acclaimed research materials, videography, exhibits on lynching and recently composed content on segregation, this ... museum will explore the history of racial inequality and its relationship to a range of contemporary issues from mass incarceration to police violence.”
The opening of the memorial and museum in Montgomery is very urgent and relevant in the situation we face today. The horror depicted so vividly there IS the history of this country. This terror and violence served to keep in place a whole system, which could not have existed without first slavery and then near-slavery and outright segregation centered in the South while a great majority of Black people lived there. White supremacy is built into the foundation of the USA—something that this system and those who rule it could not do without. And this has continued down to the present. As BA says, “There would be no United States as we now know it today without slavery. That is a simple and basic truth.” (BAsics 1:1) Segregation, discrimination and racism exist in housing, jobs, schools, healthcare, culture—in every part of society. And this continues to be backed up with brutality and violence—by the uniformed lynch mobs of the “officers of the law” who disproportionately target Black and other people of color for murder and brutality, and through mass incarceration of oppressed people.
More information, photos and videos about the memorial and museum are at the EJI website.

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Saturday, 28 April 2018

THIS SAYS IT ALL

Before you start hysterically screeching about " terrorism ", read this about the world's #1 terrorist :

10 Days, 6 Outrages: What This Says About AmeriKKKa

April 23, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

April 3: University of Chicago Police shoot a Black/Asian student who is clearly having a mental health crisis and then charge him with assault. April 5: A young Black man convicted of burglary and theft is also found guilty of murder and sentenced to 30 years in prison for the death of his friend who was murdered by the police. April 5: Cops fire more than 30 shots into a car in a Walmart parking lot, killing a 26-year-old Black man. April 12: Two Black men are arrested in Starbucks for “not ordering anything.” April 12: A white racist shoots at a Black youth asking for directions. April 13: Cambridge pigs beat Black Harvard student who is standing in the street, naked and mentally disoriented.
These are not aberrations, isolated incidents. It is a basic fact that whether it is in the news or not, police murder of Black people, racist vigilante attacks, blatant discrimination goes on all the time. But this is not happening just because of individual racist cops, judges, store managers, or neighbors—and it won’t be stopped by “diversity training.” There is a bigger pattern here that reveals something deeper and built into the capitalist-imperialist system we live under.
There has been righteous anger and protests at these incidents. Many are sick and tired of hearing about such outrages happening over and over and over again. And people need to ask themselves: What kind of society, what kind of government, what kind of ruling class unleashes this, sanctions this, and does nothing to stop this?
This situation is utterly needless. But it IS necessary to this system. White supremacy has been a part of the DNA of Amerikkka from day one. As Bob Avakian has said, “There would be no United States as we know it today without slavery. That is a simple and basic truth.” (BAsics 1:1) And now the workings and policies of this white supremacist system are in the hands of all-but-open fascist—Trump, who continues to demonize Black people and institute all kinds of moves to unleash the police even more and heighten repression. This is the overall situation in which these police murders, white vigilantism, and freelance racist actions are taking place.
From the cops whose job is to repress, brutalize, and murder—to keep Black people under control. To the white racist “neighbors,” business owners, managers, and others—who act as freelance enforcers of white supremacy, intent on maintaining the privilege of white people and enforcing the oppression and discrimination of Black people in all different parts in society. To the armed KKKers who Trump calls “good people.” To the less overt, but still racist acts carried out in the name of “safety,” “protecting my business,” or getting a good education for my kids, maintaining “law and order,” etc. This is 2018, but this can be compared to the bounty men who hunted down escaped slaves, the “good Southern families” who carried out the most brutal measures to keep the slaves “in their place,” the KKK nightriders who accosted Black men and lynched them in the forests, and the respectable people who tsked and turned their heads.
A different kind of society—without all this—is possible. But it is not going to happen by trying to reform this system, by simply trying to “change people’s thinking.” If we want to know how to put an END to all this, once and for all, we have to get at the root of why this shit keeps happening. We have to understand how these things keep happening because of the very nature of this system.
It will take a revolution to get beyond not only these horrors, but all of the unnecessary madness plaguing humanity—a real revolution aimed at getting rid of this system and bringing into being a whole different economic and political system aimed at emancipating all of humanity. There must be an uncompromising struggle against racist white vigilantism and the police murder of Black people—as an important part of preparing the time for when the people can make revolution to get rid of this goddamn system. Bob Avakian has said:
There will never be a revolutionary movement in this country that doesn’t fully unleash and give expression to the sometimes openly expressed, sometimes expressed in partial ways, sometimes expressed in wrong ways, but deeply, deeply felt desire to be rid of these long centuries of oppression [of Black people]. There’s never gonna be a revolution in this country, and there never should be, that doesn’t make that one key foundation of what it’s all about. (BAsics 3:19)
Because of the struggle of millions of people, some things have changed. We don’t have straight up legal segregation and the KKK is not just running amok lynching people. But we still have the same system with new ways of enforcing white supremacy. And the oppression of Black people is manifested in a thousand different ways—not only in open violence and blatant discrimination but revealed in all social indicators like incarceration rates, health, education, income, social services, etc. For example, maternal and infant mortality rates among Black people are twice as high compared to the rates among white people—and segregation and unequal treatment in housing continue and are even intensifying in many ways.
A revolution to get rid of this system and to bring into being a whole new, liberating society IS possible. With the leadership of Bob Avakian, there is a truly scientific way to understand the roots of this oppression, the forces that keep it going, and the way to overcome it—as part of overcoming and abolishing all other forms of exploitation and oppression and destructive conflicts among the people, and emancipating humanity. This is the new communism of Bob Avakian (BA).
So every time, when another outrage happens—when there’s yet another police murder of an unarmed Black man, yet another racist vigilante attack, yet another incident of blatant discrimination—get mad. But don’t just get mad. We need to fight the power, build the movement for revolution, and as we do that, get into BA to understand how we can put an end to this shit once and for all.
Editor’s note: Tyisha Miller was a 19-year-old African-American woman shot dead by Riverside, California police in 1998. Miller had been passed out in her car, resulting from a seizure, when police claimed that she suddenly awoke and had a gun; they fired 23 times at her, hitting her at least 12 times, and murdering her. Bob Avakian addressed this.
If you can’t handle this situation differently than this, then get the fuck out of the way. Not only out of the way of this situation, but get off the earth. Get out of the way of the masses of people. Because, you know, we could have handled this situation any number of ways that would have resulted in a much better outcome. And frankly, if we had state power and we were faced with a similar situation, we would sooner have one of our own people’s police killed than go wantonly murder one of the masses. That’s what you’re supposed to do if you’re actually trying to be a servant of the people. You go there and you put your own life on the line, rather than just wantonly murder one of the people. Fuck all this “serve and protect” bullshit! If they were there to serve and protect, they would have found any way but the way they did it to handle this scene. They could have and would have found a solution that was much better than this. This is the way the proletariat, when it’s been in power has handled—and would again handle—this kind of thing, valuing the lives of the masses of people. As opposed to the bourgeoisie in power, where the role of their police is to terrorize the masses, including wantonly murdering them, murdering them without provocation, without necessity, because exactly the more arbitrary the terror is, the more broadly it affects the masses. And that’s one of the reasons why they like to engage in, and have as one of their main functions to engage in, wanton and arbitrary terror against the masses of people.
Bob Avakian, BAsics 2:16
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Thursday, 26 April 2018

NOTHING STANDS ALONE

It doesn't surprise me that the perpetrator of this week's attack in Toronto was once in the military, even if for a brief period of time. His wannabe macho bullshit and anti-women attitude would not be out of place there. Read this :
APRIL 25, 2018 · 13:24

Toronto terror attack, toxic masculinity and militarism

Progressive online commentary about Monday’s van attack in Toronto has focused on the influence of “toxic masculinity”. The analyses should be expanded to include the alleged perpetrator’s ties to a powerful patriarchal institution that is Canada’s biggest purveyor of violence.
Early reports suggest alleged mass murderer Alek Minassian may have targeted women and been motivated by sexism. Before carrying out his horrific attack he posted on Facebook about the “Incel Rebellion”, a community of “involuntarily celibate” men who hate women, and praised misogynistic US mass murderer Elliot Roger. Minassian reportedly wrote: “Private (Recruit) Minassian Infantry 00010, wishing to speak to Sgt 4chan please. C23249161.The Incel Rebellion has already begun! We will overthrow all the Chads and Stacys! All hail the Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!”
It should surprise no one that alongside his call for an “Incel Rebellion” the misogynist Minassian cited his (short) military service. Last fall he joined the Canadian Forces, which has one hundred thousand active members and three hundred thousand retired members.A 2015 investigation led by former Supreme Court justice Marie Deschamps found a “culture of misogyny” in the CF “hostile to women and LGTBQ members.” While women now represent 15% of military personnel, the Deschamps report concluded that “the overall perception is that a ‘boy’s club’ culture still prevails in the armed forces.”
Until 1979 women were excluded from the Royal Military College. Until 1989 women were excluded from combat roles in the CF. In 2000 the submarine service was finally opened to women.
A 1992 Department of National Defence survey found that 26.2% of female CF respondents were sexually harassed in the previous 12 months. Subsequent investigations have shown steady improvements, but 27.3% of women in 2016 still reported having been victims of sexual assault at least once since joining the CF. The Deschamps review “found that there is an undeniable problem of sexual harassment and sexual assault in the CAF.” In 2017 plaintiffs in five separatecities united to sue over sexual assault, harassment and gender-based discrimination in the CF.
When Nichola Goddard became the first female CF member to die in Afghanistan it came to light that she wrote her husband about sexual violence on the base. Goddard wrote about “the tension of living in a fortress where men outnumbered women ten to one” and “there were six rapes in the camp last week, so we have to work out an escort at night.” But, theCF only admits to investigating five reports of sexual harassment or assault in Afghanistan between 2004 and 2010. Valerie Fortney, author of Sunray: The Death and Life of Captain Nichola Goddard said she “hit a brick wall” when seeking to investigate sexual harassment in Afghanistan.
Male veterans have repeatedly engaged in gender-based violence. Last year Lionel Desmond killed his wife, daughter, mother and himself while Robert Giblin stabbed and threw his pregnant wife off a building before killing himself in 2015.
After the worst incident of patriarchal violence in Canadian history members of the elite Airborne Regiment reportedly held a celebratory dinner to honour Marc Lepine. In 1989 Lepine massacred fourteen women at the Université de Montréal while shouting “you’re all a bunch of feminists, and I hate feminists!”
Not only is the CF a patriarchal social force, it is the country’s greatest purveyor of violence. The Canadian military spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year promoting militarism and during the past quarter century it has fought wars of aggression in Libya, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia and Iraq (not to mention helping to overthrow an elected government in Haiti and engaging in gunboat diplomacy in a number of locations).
To a large extent the CF is the institutional embodiment of toxic masculinity and therefore its not surprising that Minassian was drawn to it. His connection to an organization that receives over $20 billion a year in public funds while upholding patriarchy and promoting violence ought to be part of the discussion of this horrible act.
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Tuesday, 24 April 2018

YOU ARE BEING LIED TO

I do not accept the dominant narrative as the truth, or the mainstream media's take on world affairs. I do not use stupid terms like " fake news ". Something is either a lie or it isn't. Fake news is fucking idiotic. Everything the imperialist media tells us should be challenged . Trump and Trudeau are supporters and leaders of the same fucking system. Imperialism is not a policy. It is a system of worldwide exploitation. We are constantly being bombarded and lied to with catchwords like " freedom, democracy, human rights", etc. , which are ultimately meaningless without context. Watch this short video by Raymond Lotta .
Good day.
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Monday, 23 April 2018

FROM THE DUNGEONS

It is always inspirational when those locked up in the capitalist hellholes get to the root of what the problem is. Read.

Prisoners Write on Bob Avakian and the Emancipation of Humanity

April 23, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Revolution receives many letters from prisoners writing on a range of topics. The following are excerpts from letters from prisoners writing about Bob Avakian and communist revolution.

“Brother Bob Avakian and the Revolutionary Communist Party has, theoretically and practically, taken responsibility for leading the Revolution”

The study of science and the study of life through science (also philosophy) especially that of evolution, has taught me the true origins of creation and that of life and the interconnectivity of all of life. And to respect and appreciate the rich diversity of life and its multi-beautiful expressions. It has taught me that all of life is related through a long line of related ancestors. That all of life can be traced back to a line of common ancestors. It has taught me that all of life is connected through a web of interdependence. That no life exists of its own and isolated from the rest of life. That each life is dependent on other life for its very existence.
As a consequence of this interdependence when life is being destroyed especially when whole groups of species, plants, etc. are forced into extinction and/or the natural habitats are destroyed or/and damage is being done to the air and water quality and supply the effects are felt throughout the whole of life. It’s like Brother Amos Wilson once said “certain actions are like causing a stone to fall into a lake, the ripples are felt far and wide effecting generation after generation yet to be born”. History bears witness to this—It’s literally historical facticity.
There has been actions taken by the ruling class in the remote past that, even today, continue to affect individual groups and humynity as a whole. There are actions being taken today by the capitalist-imperialist ruling class of the United Snakes of AmeriKKKa that, while being felt immediately, the ripples will also be felt far and wide affecting generation after generation after generation yet to be born. Actions such as the consolidation of fascism, the denial of global warming, science, and the scientific method, Nuclear Posture Report (N.P.R.) [See revcom.us article on the Trump/Pence regime’s nuclear posture report, here—editors], criminalizing of protest, which is the forcible suppression of opposition. A primary principle in consolidating fascism. And We are the opposition. Things will continue to get worse unless We Unite, Organize, and Mobilize and stop these fascists in their tracks. When you look around the world and see the horrors that been going on and the ones that are materializing, there is only one solution “Revolution.” It’s as simple as that.
My loyalty and dedication to Revolution and the Liberation of Humynity originated with the study of Black History. While studying Black History i became conscious of the fact that the same conditions my ancestors were fighting against We are still suffering from today. That Our enslavement, oppression and exploitation never ended but evolved, mutated into other forms. And that the physical chains were removed only because the ruling class has created a system that, unless it’s completely overthrown, will forever Keep Us in bondage.
Only i did not understand this until i began to study the history, ideas, ideology and philosophy of the 1966 Black Panther Party founded by Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton. It is through the Black Panther Party that i started to understand the underlying causes of Our Suffering is the System itself. And it is not just a New Afrikan (so-called Blacks) problem because everyone was suffering because of this system. And everything from the oppression and exploitation of Black, Brown, and Native Peoples, to the genocide of Native People, to the enslavement, oppression, and exploitation of Winmin and Patriarchal relations, the oppression L.G.B.T.Q community, to drugs, violence, poverty, etc. etc. has its roots in the system itself. And the ending of all of this can only be brought about through the over overthrow of the system and the radical transformation of society as a whole and ultimately the world.
Through the Black Panther Party i became aware of other Peoples’ struggles throughout the world and the leaders of those struggles. People like Mao, Lenin, and Castro just to name a few. I started to realize and understand the interconnectivity of all Peoples Struggles. That there was a connection between the oppression and exploitation of People in AmeriKKKa and those in other countries. And that We were/are struggling against the same forces, which therefore, We all had a common enemy (the Capitalist-imperialist ruling class) which, undeniably, gave Us a common unity.
The more i read and studied about the horrors going on, not just in the United Snakes of AmeriKKKa, but the entire world and how it is all connected and coming from a common source, the more i developed and extended Love & Unity to Humynity. The realization and understanding of the interconnectivity of Our struggles, the common enemy and unity We shared compound with the Love i developed and have for Humynity lead me to start preparing and dedicating My life to the Freedom of Humynity.
I started practicing by speaking out and standing up against the injustice, mistreatment, and abuse of prisoners which led to a whole lot of hole time. But one thing kept bothering me, the Masses in AmeriKKKa lacked a Revolutionary Party—at least that was what i thought. From this thought came the idea and the contemplating of getting out and finding some dedicated, intellectual, and conscious sisters and brothers forming a Revolutionary Party. Only it was one already out there i just didn’t know it.
While sitting in the hole with these thoughts running through my mind a brother down the walk called my name and told me he got something he want me to check and that he know i will like. Sent me a newspaper that was titled Revolution. The name itself caught my immediate attention. Staring at the newspaper title Revolution for a minute and then my eyes dripping to the corner where it said Voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA i opened the newspaper and was introduced to Bob Avakian (BA) and the Revolutionary Communist Party USA.
I had read about Communist Parties in other countries but did not know it was one in the United Snakes of AmeriKKKa. Yet, the fact that it was/is was relieving.
I read the whole newspaper. Every article attentively hoping not to miss anything. By the time i was through i was hooked. I got the information for the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund and wrote and asked to be put on the mailing list to start receiving Revolution newspaper. I would spend the next eight years studying and researching the things P.R.L.F. sent. And i encourage you to do the same.
The Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund in Solidarity with Bob Avakian and the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA that he leads has clarified so much for me, has furthered my understanding of things, and has awoken me to so much more. They have connected the dots on international things and have explained and clarified the connection of those dots. They have shown Us the historical reality of past horrors in the present and reality of them being future horrors if We do not act now.
Brother Bob Avakian and the Revolutionary Communist Party has, theoretically and practically, taken responsibility for leading the Revolution. BA and the RCP, USA have over 40 years of dedication of serving the Revolutionary cause and to the Liberation of Humynity. And they’re the ones out there putting in the work and effort constantly trying to raise the consciousness of the Masses and trying to organize and mobilize them.
BA has went so far as drawing up a blueprint for the future Revolutionary Society. Now grasp the dedication and seriousness of this Revolutionary Leader and his Revolutionary Party. Many people and organizations are explaining to Us everything that is wrong with the present society and world. And some of these People and organizations analysis are dead on and some are espousing Revolution. But none (that i know of) has given Us a good idea on what the future Revolutionary Society will be like or look like. However, BA has not only given Us a good idea on what future Revolutionary Society will look and be like, he has written a constitution (Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America (Draft Proposal)) based on this idea. Now if that ain’t a serious dedication to the Emancipation of the Masses i don’t know what is....
***

“Stand up for humanity and get down with BA and this New Wave of Revolutionary Communism”

What Bob Avakian means to me on a personal and individual level can be defined in my ability to view reality in a more broadened scope than I could prior to meeting him through his work as both a member and Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party U.S.A. The Scientific Method of Revolutionary Communism has molded my thinking in such a way that I now have a basic understanding of why myself and other individuals, male and female, of my caste group live in such a marginalize state of existence. I am a 39 yr. old convicted felon and I’ve been in prison for 19½ yrs., so to me having a “solid core with a lot of elasticity” means to have a serious fucking attitude problem for having to survive within this marginalize state of existence for so long, while at the same time being able to maintain my sense of humor. (smile)
Bob Avakian represents a man of principled action which is a characteristic of his that I try to mimic. Even when being engaged in some unprincipled bullshit, I try my best to do it in the most principled way possible. Does that last statement make any sense? Let me give you an example of "trying" to be principled while engaging in some bullshit.
A fight breaks out amongst two convicts who are drunk on wine. Inmate one is battered and bruised so bad that he is taken to the hospital, while inmate two is sent to solitary confinement. While inmate two is in solitary confinement, inmate one is released from the hospital and he gathers support from other inmates, and once inmate two returns to population inmate one and those in his support group plan to attack him...To make a long story short, it is decided that the two inmates fight each other again in a one on one battle.
And to the victor went the spoils. Since inmate two beat inmate one to a bloody pulp it was decided that inmate two was right and inmate one was wrong. It wasn't until after some investigation on my part did I learn that inmate two has a history of getting drunk and starting fights and that inmate one doesn't even drink. This is a true story of actual recent events, and I am mentioning this here because in BA's book “From Ike to Mao and Beyond” on page 355 (The Real Deal section) he speaks at taking a pragmatic approach to real life situations and taking the backwards position/line that “might is right” and “if you lose you must be wrong and if you win you must be right.” In Chairman Mao's “Little Red Book” there is a quote of his in Chapter 23 (Investigation and Study) when he says “No Investigation, no right to speak.” I'm not sure what today's party position is on Chairman Mao's quote, but during those days of the Cultural Revolution Mao said it was ridiculed as “narrow empiricism,” and again, I am mentioning all of these things because I am attempting to make the connections to immediate circumstances and events here within, and how a more principled approach to the above mentioned fight could have drawn a much more solid conclusion. On the other hand there has been those times where I can arguably say that situations came about that were of a more principled nature, and an attempt to approach the situation in a more principled way was executed. My Rule of Thumb is to divide any encounter that may arise into two when trying to be scientifically accurate, and recognize that in the midst of struggle—any struggle—there may be some set backs along the way. I may not be as principled and patient as Bob Avakian, but I'm working towards it.
The leadership of Bob Avakian is what we need. We got a Bully like Donald Trump as President and Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. From my marginalized state of existence, especially from where I currently am being warehoused in this maximum security prison, life can be very depressing at times.... Sometimes people will say what they would have done during the times of Chattel Slavery. I'm sure you've heard it in your life time, maybe after watching Roots on television people will talk about what they would have done way back then. Well, now is the time for anybody who may have entertained those thoughts to... Stand up for humanity and get down with BA and this New Wave of Revolutionary Communism. I just recently read one of the printouts of the material posted on Revcom.US where the people took to the streets in protest, and were met by wanna be intimidators who were chanting “U.S.A.! U.S.A! U.S.A.!” but were silenced when those courageous revolutionaries shouted out in defiance “Humanity First! Humanity first! Humanity first!” How can you—we—anybody lose when the fight is for all of Humanity and the environment? BA and the leadership he provides is what the people need. Someone who has proven to be in the Interest of All Humanity. Fuck Donald Trump!
***

“Having the Teachings of Bob Avakian and the philosophy of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA as a Foundation”

Greetings Comrades and Friends,
I appreciate you informing me that my letter (thoughts) were of some positive use. Especially, to the point of it being posted on the South Side of Chicago [See here for an account of how the Revolution Club in Chicago took out this prisoner’s letter to the people—Editors]. Hopefully, it reaches at least one of the many searching for an answer.
I am, also, glad that I can show that we locked in the “Belly Of The Beast” can still contribute positively to The Struggle. Yes, I know PRLF and Bob Avakian has been telling us that from day one. Still, it does the Spirit good and motivates us to keep striving in The Struggle. And yes, we (prisoners) can grasp and wield the scientific method and approach for getting to a radically different and better world.
At times, we (prisoners) get caught up with the Drama and Bullshit of this world we exist in. But, having the Teachings of Bob Avakian and the Philosophy of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA as a Foundation (something like a safety net). We don’t need to fall back into our old self-destruction ways, and the powers-that-be can’t stand it! They hate to see US (prisoners) moving forward when it’s not coinciding with their overall plan/program (religion, or snitching on each other). It hurts them to see a positive movement that they don’t approve of or authorize. It’s a lot of GREAT MINDS and untapped energy behind “The Walls.” I witness it every day, it just needs to be focused. It’s so much potential sitting in here, I know that WE could build a better world for the future generations to inherit!
I understand the policy of not writing responses to PRLF subscribers. So, please tell all my comrades and friends there—THANK YOU! And you all silent support is the Guiding Light when it is the darkest in here. Just knowing we are not alone, nor forgotten gives us the strength to keep striving in The Struggle!
I shall keep you all informed of any retribution against me, but sometimes it’s better to fade it, and deal with it In-House. Does that make sense?
IN THE STRUGGLE,
P.S. Once again, Thank All Of You!
***

“I love and respect what you do and say, fuck the fascists and pigs”

The other day I got your questionnaire and yes I still want your literature. I love and respect what you do and say, fuck the fascists and pigs. See I’m doing 30 to life. I wish I would of knew about your P.R.L.F when I was a youngster. I would have been a better person. But it’s never too late right. I wanted for a long time to find the right way where everyone has a part and is important. And yes I passed on your knowledge to other prisoners. And yes I want all the information [you] can give me and teach me. I’m sure the pigs probably read our mail but that’s okay. Maybe they’ll learn from us. Smile. I was blind deaf. Now I hear and see what these ass kissing pigs and politicians and capitalist truly are. Also this pigs enforce the capitalistic fascist regime, oppression by mass incarceration of the Brown, Black, white, red, yellow people that are marginalized and disenfranchised. They can kiss my ass. I rather die or sit in the hole before I give them my sweat blood and tears or make them money. The pen and the heart and mind, true believers and revolution are the only way. These pigs and politicians can take physical but not my faith in Bob Avakian and the collective whole who believe in him and the revolution. Power to the people. Long live BA. You have a comrade for as long as these fascist pigs let me live.
Respectfully &

We greatly appreciate receiving these letters from prisoners and encourage prisoners to keep sending us correspondence. The views expressed by the writers of these letters are, of course, their own; and they are not responsible for the views published elsewhere in our paper.
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Sunday, 22 April 2018

INTERCONNECTED

From the streets of north amerikkkan cities, to the sweatshops of the oppressed countries, we are all interconnected. The same forces and system which sets killer kkkops loose on the youth of amerikkka , are the same motherfuckers who send their troops to kill oppressed people all over the world. They need to be stopped.
Barstow, California

Police Murder Diante Yarber with Barrage of Gunfire

April 20, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us


On the morning of April 5, Diante “Butchie” Yarber, a 26-year-old Black man, drove a few friends to Walmart in his hometown of Barstow, California. While Diante was still driving through the parking lot Barstow pigs pulled up on him. Within seconds they unleashed a barrage on the car. Witnesses told reporters that it sounded like the police fired over 30 shots.
Within moments, Diante Yarber was bleeding to death. The cops critically wounded 23-year-old Mariana Tafoya, then cuffed her and put her in a police car before finally getting her medical attention. A man in the car was also wounded, and the other passenger was “taken into police custody,” according to news reports.

Police Concoct Story Full of Lies

Police claim they had received a “call of a suspicious vehicle.” Then they claimed that they wanted Diante Yarber “for questioning” in a stolen vehicle case. Then they claimed that the unarmed Yarber accelerated his car in reverse into the police.
All this is bullshit. The cops have produced no evidence to back up their claims. Diante was driving a car that belonged to his cousin, who was a passenger in it. The car had not been stolen, or reported stolen. He was going away from the cops, in reverse in a parking lot, when they unloaded their guns on him.
Lee Merritt, a lawyer representing Yarber’s family, wrote on his Facebook page that “Diante Yarber was profiled, stalked and murdered by Barstow PD officers. While waiting for one of his passengers to return from shopping at Walmart, Diante and his passengers were labeled ‘suspicious’ and targeted for harassment by the BPD. When officers, lacking reasonable suspicion for stopping Yarber in the first place, attempted to box his vehicle in, Yarber maneuvered his car around the police vehicles. Video footage of his car reversing slowly away from law enforcement was captured by a pedestrian, just before officers began to shoot into the vehicle. ... in a crowded parking lot, police officers decided to halt Yarber’s vehicle by unleashing over 30 rifle rounds in the windshield and driver side door.”
Brittany Chandler, mother of Yarber’s 19-month-old daughter, said, “The police took him away for no reason. The police should be held accountable for this… They are sick people for them to be able to shoot someone down in broad daylight.” Ruby Hawkins, Yarber’s sister, told the Guardian newspaper that Barstow police often targeted her brother. “They are the biggest criminals. They are bullies with badges ... I don’t know how you can fear for your life with a person that is moving away from you.”

Justice for Butchie!

On April 10 about 100 people rallied and marched in Barstow, a desert town about 120 miles east of Los Angeles, to protest the murder of Diante Yarber. Many people wore T-shirts with pictures of Diante, and carried signs saying “Justice for Butchie.” A woman who spoke at the rally in front of Barstow City Hall told the crowd, “We are here to say, Stop killing us!”
Alice Brown, a relative of Diante’s, said “There were no firearms found inside the car. Police still haven’t said what even led to them pulling him over in the first place. We need answers.” The cops who shot Diante Yarber have not been charged with anything as of this writing. All the cops at the scene of the cold-blooded murder have been put on “paid administrative leave.”

We Don’t Have to Continue Living This Way

In the past few weeks: Stephon Clark, gunned down by police in his grandmother’s yard in Sacramento. Saheed Vassell, shot and killed by cops on a street in Brooklyn. The police killers of Alton Sterling, murdered while selling CDs in Baton Rouge, not charged with any crime after a bullshit 21 month cover-up called an “investigation.” And now, in Barstow, Diante Yarber.
This kind of state-sanctioned murder is a 21st century continuation of the days of slave catching posses. The courts and their rulings that uphold the killer cops over and over and over are a 21st century continuation of the Supreme Court ruling in 1857 that a Black man had “no rights which a white man is bound to respect.”
It is unacceptable. People in Barstow are right to get in the streets, and people across the country need to get in the streets in protest of the police murder of Diante “Butchie” Yarber, and all the police murders of Black, Brown, and Native American youth.
As Carl Dix said recently at a Brooklyn rally protesting the murder of Saheed Vassell, “We cannot continue to live this way, and we don’t have to. There is another way. An important part of getting out of this madness means taking this fight against murder by police even higher, and joining the movement to drive the fascist Trump/Pence regime from power before they are allowed to consolidate their fascist rule. And doing all this while digging into and getting organized for an actual revolution.”
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