THE WHITEWASH

What are these assholes accomplishing by lying about the bloody history of their country ? There are many people in kkkanada who also don't want to face the truth about their genocidal history , and who will get angry with you for saying so. Fuck 'em . It's there whether you choose to acknowledge it or not, assholes. Read this for fuck's sake :

Identity Politics Hustlers Sanitize "Life of George Washington"

July 22, 2019 | revcom.us

We received this article from a member of the Revolution Club.

In 1954, Mamie Till made the courageous decision to open the casket for the funeral of her 14-year-old son Emmett Till, beaten, mangled, and lynched by Mississippi racists, so that the whole world could see what had been done to him. In 2019, a bunch of identity politics hustlers in San Francisco are trying to slam the casket shut and move on.

“Oppressed people who are unable or unwilling to confront reality as it actually is, are condemned to remain enslaved and oppressed.”

—Bob Avakian, BAsics 4:1

In 1936, Victor Arnautoff, a renowned Russian immigrant artist who worked with the great Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, was commissioned to paint a mural at George Washington High School in San Francisco on the “Life of Washington.” At a time when Washington was almost universally celebrated as a great “founding father” who never told a lie and very few even knew that he owned slaves, Arnautoff painted some reality into his 13-panel fresco. One panel about Washington’s plantation, called “Mount Vernon,” shows slaves in the fields and loading bales of cotton onto a ship. Another panel entitled “Westward Vision” depicts Washington and other “founding fathers” peering over a map and pointing to the West, where a group of frontiersmen (painted in gray, like ghosts) stand over the body of a dead Native American warrior. At the bottom right, a white man and a Native American chief sit by a campfire smoking a peace pipe. Above the chief’s headdress is a broken tree limb representing the many broken treaties made by the U.S. government with Native peoples.

A section of the mural "Life of George Washington"

 
Last month, the San Francisco Board of Education voted unanimously to destroy the mural, arguing that it “glorifies slavery, genocide, colonization, manifest destiny, and white supremacy,” and that students of color are “triggered” and “traumatized” by the images of enslavement and slaughter of Native Americans.

What the fuck?! These people have no problem sending kids to a school named after George Washington but they don’t want them to know the monster that he was, and the monstrous country that he founded. They have no problem with the big bronze statue of him at the school. They have no problem with the panel featuring Washington, Jefferson, and Hamilton discussing a draft of the U.S. Constitution—a constitution that institutionalized slavery, a constitution that still enables the rulers of this capitalist-imperialist system to commit horror upon horror against Black people, Native people, immigrants, women, and LGBTQ people, to wage war and exploit people all over the world in modern day slavery, while doing it all in the name of “We the people.”

If anything, Arnautoff is way too soft on Washington. One of the “Life of Washington” panels features Lady Liberty placing 13 white stars on a blue sky. Outside the school, Arnautoff created a bas-relief of Washington’s face and titled it “Statesmanship.” This is consistent with the non-revolutionary line of the Communist Party, USA, which Arnautoff became a member of, and which in the 1930s was embracing American democracy and its “Founding Fathers” in the name of building a United Front Against Fascism. In fact, the mural could’ve been much more graphic in depicting Washington’s crimes. The Sullivan Expedition, for example, in which Washington sent over 6,000 troops to upstate New York to wipe out over 50 Iroquois villages, ordering the “total destruction and devastation of their settlements, and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible”—villages in flames, scorched earth, refugees freezing during the Iroquois’ “Winter of Hunger.”¹Where’s the demand from the SF School Board to change the name of the school to Conotocarious—the “devourer of villages”—as Washington was known to the Iroquois?!

Despite its weaknesses, the “Life of Washington” clearly contains a subversive and anti-racist critique. And yet these opportunists dishonestly and moronically portray Arnautoff’s mural as some kind of Confederate monument celebrating oppression—not because it’s insufficiently critical of Washington, but precisely because of its truthful exposure of Washington’s role in the enslavement of Africans and extermination of the Native peoples! Let’s look at the identity politics hustle they use to rationalize this.

Students of color might be “triggered” by the images of a dead Indian and Black people picking cotton. So by that logic, should we stop teaching about slavery and genocide, too? Should we whitewash the textbooks (even more than they already are) so that no one finds out that anything traumatic happened in U.S. history? Keloid scars from slave whips, Lakota bodies in a ditch at Wounded Knee, skin peeling off survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Vietnamese girl running down the road burning from napalm, Iraqis being tortured and sexually humiliated by smiling U.S. soldiers, Eric Garner yelling “I can’t breathe,” father and daughter face down in the Rio Grande, and on and on. This is painful and infuriating to look at for anyone who cares about other human beings. But this is the history and present day reality of this country! A country that is rotten to the core—from the “Founders” and their founding documents, to Barack Obama the deporter-in-chief who bombed seven countries, to the grotesque MAGA fascist who spewed forth from the bowels of Amerikkkan capitalism—because all this oppression is built in to the system on which it’s based. A system that can’t be reformed and must be overthrown. That is a truth that must be confronted, and then acted on, if we are going to get beyond all this unnecessary trauma!

One advocate for painting over the murals wrote in The Nation, “people of color have a bright future, not just a tragic past.” Really? What planet are you living on? The one where 500 million “people of color” in South Asia will become climate refugees in the coming decades, where thirsty “people of color” in concentration camps are told to drink out of toilet bowls and congresswomen are told to go back to their country? Another commenter who wants the murals removed said, “school is meant to be a safe space where students can develop their minds instead of being hindered by the past.” First of all, cut the paternalistic “safe space” bullshit! Let students see the world as it actually is, and decide for themselves what they think about it... god forbid they might get outraged and want to change the world! These people who are so eager to unburden themselves of the past, by ignoring it, sound just like the people Bob Avakian describes in this passage from Breakthroughs:

It is very interesting: when these dark ages reactionaries started directing their attacks in the realm of education recently in Arizona, for example, one of the things they did was to move to get rid of Chicano studies. And I heard one of the people in the state education institution responsible for this decision declaring: We can’t have education that tells people that they’re part of a group in society that’s oppressed; we have to have education that tells people that they’re all just individuals.

Now, life would be much simpler if you could actually eliminate social oppression by refusing to talk about it. But, in the real world, these categories of people—these social relations, to put it a better way—exist objectively. They are part of the historically evolved relations in this society. You can’t just wish them away, and you can’t eliminate them by refusing to allow anyone to talk about them. (Of course, the purpose, and certainly the effect, in refusing to allow people to talk about these things is not actually to eliminate them but, on the contrary, to perpetuate and reinforce them.)²

Lastly, there is the argument that since Arnautoff is a white man, he had no right to depict the experiences of people of color. By this logic, Arnautoff’s mural would’ve been fine if he had “stayed in his lane” and just painted the scene at Mount Vernon without the slaves. Let’s just call this for what it is—the outlook of people who want to own oppression, not end it. And if you follow this to its conclusion, it’s the end of art. Just think about it. Thank god these franchise managers of oppression weren’t around to tell Billie Holiday and Nina Simone not to sing “Strange Fruit,” the haunting song about lynching, because it was written by a white man named Abel Meeropol.

And how should art be judged? Anti-mural people say that the criteria should not be the objective social content and overall social effect of the art, but rather the “lived experience” of students—and more specifically, since of course students at GW High School have many diverse views of the mural, that if even one Native American student feels “triggered,” the mural should go. Imagine a society run according to this standard! It’s not hard. We live in a society now where police can get away with anything if they “fear” for their safety. These identity politics hustlers aren’t interested in doing anything about that. They just want to create a little “safe space” bubble, where theycan wield their identity as capital to impose their narrative and silence uncomfortable truths.

All the social justice rhetoric can’t hide the fact that their condescending call to shield students and slather them with “positive” images is just another version of the played out “American dream” lie that anyone can make it if they try. The San Francisco Board of Education should take a fresh look at their city! Where segregation is growing in the school system... where Black people make up 5 percent of the population and about 53 percent of the jail population... where Mario Woods, Kenneth Harding, Alex Nieto, Amilcar Perez-Lopez, and so many more had their lives stolen by killer cops... where la migra terrorizes the community and Nancy Pelosi speaks of “keeping families together” while she gives Trump $4.6 billion for ICE and Border Patrol, so that more indigenous migrants from Guatemala like Claudia Gómez González and Jakelin Caal Maquin can die just like the Indian in the mural... a city flooded with tech money that could not exist without Third World sweatshops and coltan mines in the Congo where kids are worked like the slaves in Mount Vernon... where thousands of homeless are mocked and treated like human garbage.

To the youth in San Francisco and everywhere else: The world doesn’t have to be this way! All this wealth, technology, and interconnectedness could enable us to work together for the common good, to meet everyone’s material and intellectual needs, and solve the real problems humanity faces. But it’s going to take nothing less than a revolution to sweep this shithole world aside and bring the new one into being. We have a strategy for revolution and leadership in Bob Avakian, who has developed a new communism that is about emancipating all of humanity, not turning things upside down so that “the last shall be first and the first shall be last.” And there is an important role for you in this revolution! Learn from the courage of Mamie Till. To change the world you must dare to understand it as it actually is. As Bob Avakian wrote:

3 Things that have to happen in order for there to be real and lasting change for the better:

1) 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.

2) People have to dig seriously and scientifically into how this system of capitalism-imperialism actually works, and what this actually causes in the world.

3) People have to look deeply into the solution to all this.

1. See “American Crime #90: The Sullivan Expedition, 1779—Genocide of Native Peoples and Scorched Earth in Upstate New York.” [back]

2. BREAKTHROUGHS: The Historic Breakthrough by Marx, and the Further Breakthrough with the New Communism, by Bob Avakian, is available online at revcom.us.

DEFENDERS OF FASCISM

This next article is for those who  still think the kkkops are there to defend the "public order " and "keep the peace ". What they are here to do is defend the exploitative capitalist/imperialist system, no matter what kind of fucking fascist is in power. No questions, no brain. Just force threats and intimidation.

Major Controversy Erupts Over LAPD Spying on Refuse Fascism

July 29, 2019 | revcom.us

A major controversy has erupted in Los Angeles about the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) spying on and criminalizing political protest against the Trump/Pence fascist regime.

This has now broken into the editorial section of the LA Times with the lead editorial on the LAPD infiltrating Refuse Fascism, spying on and recording constitutionally protected political organizing and speech. There is a long and sordid history of LAPD political spying and “information gathering” aimed at progressive and radical movements, against police critics inside of city government, and even on the political establishment. In 1975 the LAPD was ordered to destroy files on 55,000 people. Instead they just hid them, and even leaked them to fascist organizers, which was uncovered through a series of lawsuits through the ’80s. This is what the LA Times editorial calls the “LAPD's surveillance hall of shame.” Through court cases and a lot of struggle, there have been consent decrees, reorganization and federal court rulings aimed at “reforming” the police. The LA Times editorial writes, “it is not clear why the department has to keep relearning the same lesson: Snooping on the public in order to gather intelligence is off-limits unless authorities have a reasonable belief that there is a crime afoot. Without a credible tip or other evidence, monitoring a conversation or a meeting amounts to a fishing expedition at best. When directed at people of a particular political leaning, race or creed, it’s unlawful harassment.”

This illegal spying only came to light because of the determined and heroic resistance of the members of Refuse Fascism and the Revolution Club who were arrested and dragged into court, facing illegitimate criminal charges that could land them in jail for up to three years. They were arrested in protests aimed at sounding the alarm and calling people into the streets to stop this fascist nightmare. For more on these cases, and the upcoming trials in August and September, go here.

Word of this needs to spread further—exposing what the LAPD has done and demanding the charges in three trials, currently set for August and September, be dropped. Things people can and should do:

» Call City Attorney Mike Feuer to demand: Drop the charges against the #Freeway9 and #UCLA5. 213.978.8100.

» Sign petition demanding charges be dropped.

» Read/share statements of support from Cornel West, Yusef Salaam, Bill Ayers, Edward Asner)

LAPD Chief Pig Goes on the Attack with Slander and Lies

Last Tuesday, July 23, at the LA Police Commission, when questioned as to who from the Police Commission approved this spying, LAPD Chief Moore went on the attack, spreading slander and lies about Refuse Fascism. He claimed that “members that identified themselves as being within this group had traveled to other parts of the country, and that in other parts of the country, there had been criminal acts including vandalism, assault with a deadly weapon or arson...” This would be laughable if it weren't so dangerous. You went somewhere, while you were there some people mayhave done something illegal, therefore you should be investigated. This was not just an attempt to justify the LAPD’s unconstitutional spying, but a disinformation campaign—a deliberate spreading of false information to try to justify, and deflect from the fact that legal, protected speech and organizing is being targeted by the LAPD (and possibly higher), and to justify more of the same.

This is all the more dangerous against a backdrop of a rapidly consolidating fascist America where protest and dissent are being criminalized, where Trump is calling for locking up his political opponents, vilifying the press and mobilizing and whipping up a fascist social base at Ku Klux Klan style rallies… a time of concentration camps and the looming possibility of war turning to nuclear war.

It was these dangers—the existential threat represented by the Trump/Pence regime—that these protesters were warning of. In the fall of 2017, they recognized that, as Refuse Fascism said, “Only the determined struggle of millions of people acting together with courage and conviction can drive this regime from power.” Not elections, not investigations, not petitions, not lobbying, not posting your outrage on social media and staying home. This is more true now than ever. They broke with the normal routine of protest-as-usual—disrupting traffic on the 101 Freeway and disrupting the polite presentation at UCLA given by the fascist Steve Mnuchin—calling for millions in the streets.

The Democratic Party: Greasing the Skids for Fascism

As these trials reveal, it is this kind of protest that the Democratic Party machinery in the DA’s office (and perhaps higher) is working overtime to suppress and contain. It is likely that this spying was known and approved high up in offices currently held by the Democratic Party in the city of Los Angeles and in the state of California. Why is it that Mike Feuer’s office spent almost a year building these cases—compiling 57 charges against 11 people? Why is he now doubling down to retry these cases?

It’s because they represent the same capitalist system—and they are seeking to resolve the big differences they have with the whole fascist direction Trump and the Republicans are fighting to bolt into place—on the basis of their interests in preserving that system. The Democrats’ job is to make people think their party is at least responsive to their interests and to think that they have a stake in a capitalist democracy that claims to represent “the will of the people.” The Democrats have a shared interest in the plunder of the world and in an America First competition with their imperialist rivals. They have a shared interest in draconian measures of controlling immigration which they euphemistically call “border security,” when their own system, with its wars, invasions, coups and economic domination, has devastated the countries to the south and created the mass migration they consider an immigration crisis, to begin with. The leadership of the Democratic Party is opposing impeachment because it would “tear the country apart,” which means they find it preferable to live with the horrors this regime is bringing down on the heads of people here and all around the world. This is a party that is more afraid of the people getting out of bounds of the official channels they want people confined within and demobilized by than they are of the order of fascism.

Bob Avakian (BA), in making the case for Refuse Fascism, called on people to get out beyond the confines of this kind of politics, to confront that this is fascism, that it comes out of the origins and history of America and to break with the American chauvinism that makes people think “fascism can’t happen here.” To stop thinking like an American and to start thinking about humanity.

Refuse Fascism is right when it calls for massive non-violent mobilization “growing from thousands to hundreds of thousands and eventually millions. Our actions will reflect the values of respect for all of humanity and the world we want—in stark contrast to the hate and bigotry of the Trump/Pence fascist regime. The whole world will take heart. This will shake millions awake, with many losing their adjustment to life under this regime. The international credibility of the regime will be undermined. A determined struggle that doesn’t yield and won’t be provoked can create a serious political crisis. Those in power who are themselves now under attack by the regime but conciliating with it would be compelled to respond to our struggle from below, leading to a situation where this illegitimate regime is removed from power.”

There is still time, but not much time, for people to mobilize in their millions to demand: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! Just as the people in Puerto Rico have done and following examples in Hong Kong, Sudan, Armenia and more.

What Kind of a System IS This?!

Several defendants in these cases are part of the National Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour: seeing the need to prevent the consolidation of fascism as part of making revolution to bring a whole better future into being. Alex Hernandez, one of the defendants in the Freeway 9 case who is a part of the National Revolution Tour, said, “What kind of system sends its armed forces of repression to spy on and criminalize people who are standing up for the interests of humanity while the regime is torturing immigrants at the border and threatening to murder 10 million Afghan people?! This system is illegitimate and needs to be overthrown at the soonest possible time.”

The National Revolution Tour is working to do that, putting before society the need for revolution, the possibility of revolution and the leadership for revolution in BA. There is a solution to this madness. The National Tour is setting out to organize thousands of people into the revolution over the course of a year. It is involving people in the strategy for revolution, spreading the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America written by BA and working with people to solve the problems of the revolution… including very immediately why people aren’t in the streets in their millions acting now to demand: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!

Alex, in talking about why he got on the 101 Freeway in 2017 said, “When I found out about BA, and learned more deeply about the horrors happening to people all around the world, when I learned about the possibility for revolution, I said: I want to dedicate my life to that, to the emancipation of humanity. I decided I couldn't stand aside. When Trump came to power, threatening fire and fury against North Korea, threatening a fascist America, I decided I couldn’t stand aside. Now—with all that this regime has done in the last two and a half years and is threatening to do—that question is really before everyone.”

GLAD I DID

It's another one of those shows that I wasn't really intending to go to, but am glad I made the decision to. I got there a little later than the actual start time, but managed to see Trench from Alberta, a more metallic hardcore sound pounding at us in the stifling heat of the grand environs of the  Cavity Curiosity Shop . They had the energy and the talent to keep things moving and interesting . I'll say it again, I don't care how many times I've heard this type of music before, if it's done with enthusiasm and heart , I'm in . They fucking pulled it off.

I've raved about the heavy hardcore stylings of locals Shallow End in other posts, and stand by my previous statements. Even in the humidity, they had more energy than most , and the songs to stick to your brain long after you've left the gig. I bought their new cassette release, and it's fucking awesome. Get it. Now.

Sadly, I got there too late to catch locals Gush  , but I have no doubt I'll see them one of these days. I only hear good things .

If you missed it, don't feel bad. I almost did too.

BEAUTIFUL

This is the sort of beautiful and inspirational action we can and should all learn from, and from some shit hick town in Tennessee at that ! READ :

Hermitage, Tennessee: Bold Action by Neighbors Prevents ICE from Grabbing Immigrant Man and His Son

July 26, 2019 | revcom.us

On the morning of July 22, a van with two ICE agents pulled behind a parked car with a man and his son inside, preventing them from leaving the driveway of their home in Hermitage, Tennessee, a Nashville suburb. A neighbor who had stepped outside for a smoke saw what was happening. She said ICE told the man “You’ll have to exit eventually”. According to a lawyer who came to the scene later that morning, the ICE agents threatened the man, and told him “If you don’t come out, we’re going to arrest you, and we’re going to arrest your 12-year-old son”.

But the two remained in the car, and the woman began calling other neighbors and an immigrants rights group to the scene. Soon, as the Nashville Tennessean reported, the people who responded surrounded the car, and “worked to bring water, cold rags, and sandwiches to the man and his son, and filled their gas tank so they could keep the AC running”. After several hours, people linked arms to provide safe passage for the man and boy into their house.

The entire scene was observed by cops from the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department, who had been called out by ICE for “assistance”. But police and political officials in Nashville said their cops were on the scene “only as peacekeepers”, and had no authority to participate in an immigration bust. And, as it turns out, the ICE pigs were violating their own law in threatening the two people – they had warrants that allowed arrests only in a “non-REP” area – an area with no “reasonable expectation of privacy”, not in someone’s car or home. After several hours, ICE left. People in the neighborhood said “they are prepared to jump into action again if ICE reappears”.

Learn from This, Build on This

The bold and courageous response by the people in this Tennessee neighborhood should inspire everyone who despises the relentless persecution of immigrants that has been underway for years in this country, and has escalated dangerously in the years of Trump’s presidency. Busts like the one these ICE pigs attempted in Hermitage come down every single day – in homes, along streets and roads, in shopping areas, apartments, workplaces, and parks across the entire country. No one should “look the other way”, or pretend the most they can do is live stream an unacceptable injustice, when they see it happening where they are.

Many, many more actions like the one in Hermitage are needed, and are vital in contributing to a social atmosphere of defiance and resistance. Further, actions like this can and must contribute to the urgently needed massive and sustained resistance to the anti-immigrant offensive the Trump/Pence fascist regime has undertaken, especially if it is built as part of a larger fight to drive out this fascist regime altogether.

WE KNOW WHICH SIDE THEY'RE ON

In case there was any fucking doubt as to which side the pigs are on , here it is. Fuck them and their defense of the system and fascism.

Pig Spying on Refuse Fascism, LA, Hits the Press

July 22, 2019 | revcom.us

We received this correspondence from a comrade in LA who sent it as they were building for the July 21 Evening of Conscience in Support of the #Freeway9 and #UCLA5 Defendants—“It’s right to sound the alarm against fascism!” We will have more reporting on these important cases as the week progresses.

A front page of the LA Times broke the story this week about the LAPD spying on Refuse Fascism, and it was picked up and further elaborated in the Guardian newspaper, which has reverberated through local LA news and national blogs like the Daily Kos and the Daily Beast. The media coverage has put a national spotlight on LAPD spying and the use of informants—who conducted surveillance and recorded meetings of Refuse Fascism in the fall of 2017. This came to light during the discovery process of a trial of two members of Refuse Fascism for two protests on the 101 Freeway—as they were calling for massive mobilization into the streets in nonviolent political resistance to drive out a fascist regime that came to power with the inauguration of Donald Trump and Mike Pence. The prosecutors moved to suppress this surveillance in the trial—which despite this ended in a hung jury and mistrial. Aggressively moving to continue to prosecute and send a message meant to chill the kind of protest they most fear—the retrial of Refuse Fascism begins this Monday.

The transcript of the surveillance—which proved that this police investigation was done without cause—is being read at an evening of conscience and culture to raise funds and support for Refuse Fascism by the former civil rights attorney and chair of Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace (ICUJP) Steven Rhode—being livestreamed by Refuse Fascism.

This story that was broken on the eve of this new trial has highlighted a glaring contradiction. At the time the LAPD was investigating Refuse Fascism—there was a string of violent incidents by right-wing fascist organizations. From the driving of a car at high speeds into a group of counter-demonstrators by a white supremacist in Charlottesville that resulted in the death of Heather Heyer—to an independent activist and journalist who was stabbed filming neo-Nazis calling for a white nation in Sacramento, California. Sacramento police did not treat the journalist like a victim. Instead they monitored his Facebook page and sought to bring six charges against him, including conspiracy, rioting, assault and unlawful assembly. “His presence at the protest—along with his use of the black power fist and ‘social media posts expressing his ideals’—were proof that he had violated the rights of neo-Nazis, police wrote in a report.” (Guardian)

As the Guardian coverage pointed out, the LAPD spying falls “into a pattern of police agencies viewing anti-fascist organizing as terrorism, while overlooking the far more deadly and frequent violence perpetrated by white supremacists and other far-right militants… The LAPD did not conduct a similar spying operation on far-right groups while it targeted Refuse Fascism, according to the Los Angeles Times.”

Right now in 2019 when openly white supremacist and fascist celebration of the mass atrocities being carried out by the border patrol are taking place on Facebook and police in New Orleans are calling for the assassination of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—and being fanned by the president of the United States in his calls to "Send Them Back"—Ted Cruz is introducing a Senate resolution backed up by the former chief of the NYPD (Kerik) to designate the Antifa as a “terrorist organization” and utilizing right-wing activists to open investigations against groups like Refuse Fascism, to conduct internet mis-information barrages and dirty tricks that would put Refuse Fascism in this same "terrorist" category.

This is fascism being bolted into place. It’s the very reason why Refuse Fascism, when they alone called this regime what it is, FASCIST—was right to call for the Trump/Pence Regime to be driven from power by massive nonviolent mobilization in the streets day after day until this demand is met. And why the LA Chapter of Refuse Fascism went onto the 101 freeway to call for this in 2017 and 2018, and there is every reason that the call to drive out this regime has to be taken up now! The example and reality of this road to stop and prevent this regime from inflicting further atrocities and putting the very possibility of a future for humanity in the balance, is being demonstrated all over the world—from Algeria, to the Sudan, from Hong Kong to Puerto Rico. Isn’t it time people stop thinking like Americans and started thinking about humanity, and acting with the whole world in mind?

IS THERE ANY OTHER WORD ?

Is there any word other than "fascist " that describes what is happening in the u.s. today ? That is the direction they are headed in, and that is no exaggeration. All it takes is one look at those detention camps they've set up for the refugees seeking a better life and you can see it for yourself. Fuck amerikkkan imperialism.

 Getting into this issue:

Once You Truly Face the Reality of a Fascist America, the Road Should Be Clear

July 22, 2019 | revcom.us

Trump’s racist onslaught of the past week against Congresswomen Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ayanna Pressley—and the vicious and larger assault that it concentrated on the tens of millions of non-white people in this country—drove home once again: the Trump/Pence regime embodies a very direct and very dire threat of white supremacist genocide, the destruction of the environment, and nuclear holocaust.“The planet is on fire,” you hear people say. And this fascist monster throws more and more gasoline on the flames. He, and his regime, must be stopped, now, before they can wreak any more havoc on humanity.

There has been some welcome motion—but not nearly enough. Way too many people still wait for the elections. But what if—after the voter suppression, and gerrymandering, and the electoral college rigging, and intimidation—Trump again wins the electoral college? Or what if he loses, but he and his followers refuse to leave? And what damage goes on over the next two years while we wait and see?

The affront to humanity and the danger to civilization itself embodied in this regime has crescendoed to a new peak in the past month. This has had an effect on people. Mainstream liberal columnist Susan Glasser of the New Yorker wrote of the past week that “This is what a political civil war looks like, with words, for now, as weapons.” (Emphasis ours.)

This threat is real. Yet the same columnist points out that one side of this prospective civil war is “appalled but not really sure how to combat him,” while the other side… Well, you saw them chanting. You saw, or at least know about, the Facebook posts of their Border Patrol agents. The hope that the bourgeois electoral bullshit is going to stop that is willfully blind—and if it persists will be seen by future generations, if there are any, as criminally irresponsible.

But there is no need for people to be “unsure how to politically combat him.” So let’s all quit playing “let’s pretend we don’t know.” Once you come to grips with the nature of this regime as FASCIST, and the implications of that, there is a very simple answer, one being put into practice right now in different parts of the world: massive nonviolent sustained resistance to make it politically impossible for the regime to continue to rule.

There is an organization dedicated to that answer—Refuse Fascism. The very nature of a fascist regime—as it consolidates its rule and imposes its vision and program, breaking liberal democratic norms through the process—makes this utterly and urgently necessary. Go here to read about how this organization is moving to rise to the challenge. And go here to watch this filmed speech of Bob Avakian (BA) that goes deeply into the roots of this regime and the road to dealing with it, THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO! In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America, A Better World IS Possible.

There is no guarantee of victory against fascism, but allowing the juggernaut to rumble on and do tremendous damage does guarantee one thing: utter catastrophe. The question now urgently posed, especially but not only after the last month or two, is why the fuck are there NOT millions in the streets? And what is stopping YOU from joining with Refuse Fascism to bring them there?

We Need a New World

At the same time, the invocation by Democrats and liberals that we return to some “real America” that is somehow against everything Trump stands for covers over two important things. First, it is a lie: the entire history and present-day reality of this country has been based on brutal exploitation and is saturated with the blood of hundreds of millions of people, as can be seen by a glance at the American Crime series on this website or this chart: “The Republican Party Is Fascist. The Democratic Party Is Also a Machine of Massive War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity. This System CANNOT Be Reformed—It MUST Be Overthrown! Republicans, Democrats and U.S. Crimes Against Humanity.” This is a capitalist-imperialist society, in which the drive for profit and competition among the capitalists themselves forms, as they themselves put it, the bottom line. It is an empire, with a standard of living based historically on slavery and genocide, and now on parasitically sucking the blood of hundreds of millions around the world, and with a military that has enforced that with millions of deaths just since World War II.  

Second, the severity of the crisis faced by this empire created the grounds on which a Trump, in concert with the Christian fascist legions brought over by Pence, could rise to power. For one thing, unless you are willfully blind to the ecological and ethical crisis posed by America’s disproportionate gorging on the resources of a thirsty, hungry planet, you are going to have to face the fact that there will have to be a radical restructuring of this society’s relation to the rest of the world and that the USA will no longer sit bloated, on top of the food chain of a starving planet. What Democrat will even say that, let alone mean it, or be able to carry it out?

The question is whether you are okay with the world Trump is not just previewing but rapidly bolting into place. The pining for the dream of a past America, or a supposed potential America, that never really existed has always justified terrible complicity. At this point, it is a deadly toxin.

There IS a third future, embodied in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, by Bob Avakian, which envisions a society that enables people to go to work on eliminating all exploitation and all oppression and, on that basis and as a fundamental part of that, restructuring the new society’s relation to the world and to nature… in a way that is as concrete as it is visionary. The bridge to this future is an ACTUAL revolution, the overthrow of this system of capitalism-imperialism. That road is hard, but it is possible—and this, too, is outlined by BA, in his filmed speech WHY WE NEED AN ACTUAL REVOLUTION AND HOW WE CAN REALLY MAKE REVOLUTION. Go here to find out more about Bob Avakian and to get into his work and his leadership. And go here to learn about, and contribute to, the National Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour, which is going around the country right now, building a mass movement for revolution, and an organized force of thousands, based on BA's new communism and the leadership of BA

THE REAL EVIL EMPIRE

What right does the u.s.a. have to call any other country on the planet "evil" ? Who has committed more crimes than u.s. imperialism ? Who continues to bully everyone else and threaten them if they don't go along with amerikkkan domination, even if they are such a small country they would in no way pose any threat to amerikka's thievery of the world's natural resources ?
Fuck imperialism.

America—the Lying, Deal-Breaking Aggressor in the Persian Gulf

July 15, 2019 | revcom.us

In 2015, Iran signed a nuclear agreement with the U.S. and five other world powers (China, Russia, France, Germany, and Britain).¹ During his campaign, Trump denounced the deal and in May 2018, after becoming president, he withdrew the U.S. from the agreement. Since then, the U.S. has sharply escalated its punitive sanctions, military deployments and threats of war against Iran.²

After the U.S. unilaterally pulled out and imposed sanctions, Iran continued to abide by the agreement and its terms. Then early this month, it announced it had stepped up its uranium enrichment and had exceeded some of the limits placed on it by the 2015 nuclear deal.

The U.S.—in an act and with the rhetoric of gangster-logic hypocrisy—reacted with outrage, denouncing Iran for not abiding by the nuclear agreement—as if Iran is the deal-breaking aggressor here, and not the U.S.! Trump threatened Iran it had “better be careful” and that it was “playing with fire.” The bourgeois media, by and large, never clearly refutes this lie and sets the record straight for the public.

Instead of this upside-down view, let’s look at the reality:

First, in 2015 the U.S. and its allies forced Iran to sign this treaty through sanctions and military threats. The deal they imposed was seen as benefiting the world’s big powers, particularly the U.S. Iran, headed by reactionary theocrats, would radically cut back its nuclear enrichment program and allow the most intrusive inspections in history in return for the lifting of sanctions and more normalized trade and investments, as part of the global capitalist-imperialist system.

Iran kept its word and upheld its end of the deal. America did neither, keeping with its founding principles and ethos, and its long and genocidal history of breaking every treaty it entered into with the Native peoples.

In 2017, the fascist Trump/Pence regime broke the treaty by withdrawing from it and re-imposing sanctions, which were supposed to be lifted. Then it bullied other countries into breaking the deal—and potentially gutting the whole agreement—by threatening them with sanctions if they honored the nuclear agreement’s promise of increased investment and trade with Iran!³

Now as Iran starts increasing its uranium enrichment since the treaty is no longer binding with the U.S. having broken it, the U.S. turns around and denounces Iran’s move as “nuclear extortion.” This, even though it is Trump and the U.S. that are threatening Iran with “obliteration”—in other words, a nuclear holocaust! (Note: the U.S. has thousands of nukes, Iran has zero.)

On July 1, the U.S. imperialists took their history and gangster-logic of mega, up-is-down and left-is-right lying to a whole new level. The White House issued a statement claiming, “There is little doubt that even before the deal’s existence, Iran was violating its terms.”⁴ How is it possible to violate a deal before there even is a deal?? What outrageous, twisted lie will these monsters come up with next to justify their monstrous crimes?

So who’s the lying, double-crossing, deal-breaking, war-threatening aggressor in the Persian Gulf? AMERICA...No one else!!

The U.S.’s sanctions are having a punishing effect on the people of Iran (see accompanying box on sanctions). The U.S.’s military moves are ratcheting up the threats of war, a war that would be devastating and catastrophic in its death and devastation.⁵

The Democrats Are a Party of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity

Where is the outrage and opposition to all this from the Democrats? Some have introduced resolutions in Congress demanding Trump consult with them before waging war with Iran (which have gone nowhere). But let’s look at the position of two of their leading lights:

First, Chuck Schumer, the minority leader in the Senate: When the nuclear deal was first struck in 2015, Schumer opposed it and voted against it. He said that the agreement was not severe, intrusive and punitive enough against Iran on the nuclear aspects—and on the non-nuclear aspect of extending its influence in the region, Iran would “redouble its efforts to create even more trouble in the Middle East, and perhaps, beyond”—imperialist “double-speak” for contending and competing with U.S. interests.⁶

This is exactly the argument, logic and rationale of the fascist Trump/Pence regime in breaking this deal!⁷

Second, Cory Booker, one of the 24 #BEB Democratic candidates for president: When asked in a recent debate whether he would rejoin the deal, Booker answered: “We need to renegotiate and get back into a deal, but I’m not going to have a primary platform to say unilaterally I’m going to rejoin that deal. Because when I’m president of the United States, I’m going to do the best I can to secure this country and that region and make sure that if I have an opportunity to leverage a better deal, I’m going to do it.” [Emphasis added]

Again, this is a key dimension of what is now being done by the fascist Trump/Pence regime with its deadly sanctions and economic warfare against Iran, forcing it to bend to a “better deal” with Trump and the U.S.—even while the threat of open all-out war remains a looming, constant and intensifying danger.

What about the other leading Democrats? Are they loudly telling the truth about what’s taking place—that the U.S. is the lawless, war-mongering aggressor and treaty breaker here? NO! Are they demanding that the sanctions, which—by their scale, scope and nature of their effects on the Iranian people—are a crime against humanity, be ended right now? NO! Are they demanding that people massively protest against these unjust, murderous, and extremely dangerous moves? NO!

Instead, they agree with Trump that U.S. imperialism has the right to dominate the Middle East, or in Booker’s words “secure the region”—and the world—and that Iran is creating problems for it—it’s just that Trump isn’t dealing with this problem in the most effective way!⁸

In the face of these horrific sanctions and escalating war threats, as we have written previously, it is even more critical that:

All moves and actions the U.S. is undertaking in the Middle East, from economic to open warfare, be resolutely opposed by people in this country.... AT WHAT POINT DO YOU SAY “ENOUGH!”? This is a question—of morality, of humanity—to be asked of all.... [What it will take] for people to do what is needed, to stop relying on the Democrats, to act, to step outside the “normal channels”?

Communists must go further and instill in people a sense that not only are the interests of the U.S. rulers NOT our interests, but the best possible outcome would be a defeat for the U.S. in whatever unjust military action it undertook.⁹ At the same time, people need to question... why does this system wage war over and over and over...what will it take to end America’s unending wars...and what is their responsibility in the face of this—including to repudiate American patriotism and to do all they can to end this scourge on humanity?¹⁰

---

1. See “U.S.-Iran Nuclear Deal: 6 Points of Orientation,” revcom.us, 7/20/15 [back]

2. “Iran Downs U.S. Drone…U.S. Attack Reportedly Called Off: Trump’s “Restraint” Masks Heightened Danger of Devastating U.S. War against Iran…” revcom.us, June 24, 2019; “How Long Must This Go On? Tankers Damaged in Persian Gulf—America Again Ratchets Up Threats, Danger of War Against Iran,” revcom.us, June 17, 2019 [back]

3. And this isn’t the half of it.  The 2015 agreement contains provisions entitling Iran to resume enrichment if another party or parties to the agreement violate it.  And according to a former Carter administration official, Gary Sick, because the Iran deal was ratified by the UN Security Council it constitutes “accepted international law,” which the U.S. is breaking.  The U.S. has also even “tried to prevent Iran from complying with it by preventing other countries from purchasing [Iran’s] excess fissile material, thereby forcing Iran to exceed the limits of the agreement.” [back]

4. “Statement from the Press Secretary,” issued July 1, 2019 [back]

5. “Iran Downs U.S. Drone…U.S. Attack Reportedly Called Off: Trump’s “Restraint” Masks Heightened Danger of Devastating U.S. War against Iran…” [back]

6. Senator Charles E. Schumer, “My Position on the Iran Deal,” August 6, 2015 [back]

7. “Mike Pompeo speech: What are the 12 demands given to Iran?” Al Jazeera, May 21, 2018; “Pompeo Issues Ultimatum to Iran: Only America Can Have Troops in Syria, Bully Iraq, Bomb Yemen, Support Reactionary Thugs, Wield Nukes, and Dominate the Middle East!” revcom.us, May 28, 2018 [back]

8. Meanwhile, the Democrats are busy supporting Trump's tariffs and other imperialist moves and war-like threats against China!  At the first Democratic “debate,” many of the contenders energetically joined with Trump in calling China one of the gravest “national security” threats the U.S. faces.  And Democrat leader Schumer recently counseled Trump to "hang tough on China" because "strength is the only way to win with China." [back]

9. This is the principle of revolutionary defeatism. “Revolutionary defeatism means that, for people in an imperialist country—or in any country where the government is carrying out an unjust war, a war of domination and plunder, a reactionary war that serves only to fortify oppression, or to replace one oppressive power with another—you must put special emphasis on opposing your own government in that war, even if the enemy of your government in that war is equally reactionary. It means that you must refuse to support your government in such a war and, beyond that, you must have a basic orientation of welcoming the setbacks and defeats of your government and making use of them to build opposition to your government and its reactionary war, in accordance with and guided by the objective of making revolution right within your own country and contributing all you can to the international revolutionary struggle. But revolutionary defeatism does not mean that you should actually support the enemy of your government if that enemy and the war it is waging is equally reactionary. Obviously, this can be complicated, and in order to correctly apply this orientation it is necessary to make a concrete analysis of the concrete situation while remaining firmly grounded in basic principle." Bob Avakian, from "The New Situation and Great Challenges." [back]

10. Watch Bob Avakian’s Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution [back]

THIS IS HOW THOSE FUCKING KILLERS OPERATE

They aren't going to do anything about the fucking murderous pigs who killed Eric Garner for selling cigarettes ? Yeah , I'm sure the country is far safer now, the stupid pig fucks . This is just another  reason why all of their shit has to go , and there will be no more room on the fucking planet for them and their bloodstained bloodthirsty system . 

America’s Pig-in-Chief Declares “No” to Any Federal Charges for Police Murder of Eric Garner

July 16, 2019 | revcom.us

Almost exactly five years after New York City pigs murdered Eric Garner, Department of IN-Justice head William Barr announced that there would be no federal charges against the cop who killed Garner with a chokehold as he let out his last desperate words, “I can’t breathe.” None of the cops involved in killing Eric Garner has ever been punished, and now the Attorney General —who is “America’s top law enforcement official”—has given the stamp of approval to the murder.

On July 17, 2014, a bunch of cops on Staten Island surrounded and began to arrest Eric Garner, a 43-year-old Black man, for the “crime” of selling loose cigarettes. Millions of people saw and heard the video where one pig, Daniel Pantaleo, brought down Garner with a chokehold, and the other cops piled on. As was revealed earlier this year (after being kept under wraps for over four years), one cop on the scene texted their commander that Eric Garner was “most likely DOA.” And the commander’s response was: “Not a big deal.”

Eric Garner was known to his family, friends, and neighbors as a generous man who helped settle disputes among the people. He had been married for over 20 years, had a son who was about to start college, five other children, and two grandchildren. To the pigs, all this was “not a big deal.”

A 2015 grand jury refused to bring any charges against Pantaleo or any of the other pigs for murdering Eric Garner. Earlier this year, the NYPD held a disciplinary hearing to determine whether Pantaleo broke department “protocol” by using a chokehold. In the years since he murdered Eric Garner, he has continued be on the force, on “desk duty.” At most, Pantaleo could be fired as a result of the hearing—and even that may not happen.

Now the message has come from the top levels of the U.S. government that the murder of Eric Garner was “not a big deal.” As we have said:

NOT A BIG DEAL!!! These four words totally capture the utter callousness of these pigs and of their entire system, for whom the incarceration of literally millions upon millions of people over the past decades is NOT A BIG DEAL… for whom evictions of hundreds of thousands of women, especially Black and Latino, is NOT A BIG DEAL… for whom the poisoning of countless children by lead—and more than that, the generations of youth that are condemned to oblivion even before they are born—is NOT A BIG DEAL.

As Bob Avakian says in his filmed speech Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution, after naming just some of the thousands and thousands, especially Black, Latino and Native American, murdered by the police:

If this were the only thing wrong with this system, it would be more than enough reason to sweep it off the Earth!

THIS IS WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE

Actually, this is only the beginning of what has to be done, but it's a fucking great start !

Never Again Action Shuts Down ICE Headquarters

July 17, 2019 | revcom.us

Photo: Never Again Action

Photo: twitter/@Yael_Shafritz

“Fuck the semantics. Children are dying. That should be enough. My goal is not to convince you to use those semantics. It’s to get you to stop these atrocities.” An organizer with Never Again Action responding to criticism of the group’s name.

A powerful and courageous action by more than 1,000 protesters shut down ICE headquarters in Washington, DC, Tuesday for at least five hours. People locked arms in the middle of the street and blocked all entrances to the building. “We will not allow them to get to their destructive place of work,” one protester told a reporter. Another said the action is “not just symbolic – we’re actually shutting down ICE.” Dozens of people were reported to have been arrested. Protesters also draped a banner reading “Pelosi, never again is now. #DignityNotDetention” on an overpass near the ICE building.

The protests were organized by Never Again Action, a group of mainly young Jewish activists, and Movimiento Cosecha, an immigrants group fighting for “permanent protection, dignity, and respect for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.” A spokesperson for Never Again Action explained that “We look at … what our government is doing to immigrant communities. We see nothing less than a mass atrocity. While conditions might not exactly mirror the Holocaust, we shouldn’t wait for them to mirror the Holocaust to take action. That’s why we say ‘never again’ means never again for everyone, and never again means now.”

This protest continued the movement among progressive Jews to stand with immigrants and to shut down ICE and its concentration camps. Never Again Action intends to continue these protests and extend them to other cities. People everywhere need to learn from, support, participate in, and broaden these protests

ONLY SLAVES

It looks like the only immigrants the amerikkkans were ever prepared to accept were the ones torn out of their home countries away from their families and brought to the u.s. in chains to work for free until they died, and then have their descendants continue to do the same. Fuck u.s. imperialism.

They Are Coming for the Immigrants... and What the Hell Are People Doing?!?

July 15, 2019 | revcom.us

As we write this, the utterly illegitimate ICE—the special federal police force that acts against immigrants—has begun raiding the houses of hundreds and possibly thousands of immigrants around the U.S., aiming to deport them as quickly as possible. This comes on top of the 80,000 immigrants already locked up by the Trump/Pence regime, including the thousands being kept in utterly inhumane conditions on the border.

Some, but not enough, have seen the clips of what goes on at the border. The horror of the children screaming for their parents, and their parents not knowing where their children are but only that they are being tormented, sickened and possibly killed, will now be expanded to a whole other level. Now yet other children, those born here “legally,” will still find their parents torn from them. They will either be seized by ICE or else left to fend for themselves.

What Kind of World IS This?

In the world we need—in the world that is actually possible—those hit by environmental and social disaster would NOT be made into pariahs, confined as if in prison and then tortured if they dare try to leave that prison. No! They would be given the aid of their fellow humans, and then made part of working to figure out how to solve the disaster. Again, the means exist to do this in this highly developed and interconnected world.

Yet what do we see instead? The ascension to power all over the world of the most repressive elements of an already-oppressive system—of fascists—who make these policies even more nightmarish. If this were the plot of a science fiction movie or video game, it would be criticized for being too obvious and heavy-handed. Yet it is not fiction at all, but the reality that billions are being forced to live... and hundreds of millions are complicit in. What stands between what is actually possible and badly needed, and what is actually going on is: THIS CAPITALIST-IMPERIALIST SYSTEM. And what we need to do—the only solution—is to get rid of this system.

Bob Avakian (BA), the leader of the revolution, has said that the orientation of the revolution we need and are fighting for is that we would welcome everyone to this country who wants to build a new world. This is given substance in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, which BA authored. This solution must be made known to millions, and thousands must be organized right now into this, and this is covered elsewhere on this site.

Needed: Massive Resistance

At the same time, and also very immediately, there is an urgent need for massive and sustained resistance by all kinds of people to the doubling down of this outrageous offensive. The planned raids that began this weekend should be and must be actively resisted, and anyone with a beating heart and functioning conscience should be part of that. The spirit and content of the actions taken last week—especially by those Jewish groups who put something on the line and said NEVER AGAIN—should be learned from and taken further.

Some of this began with actions on Friday and Saturday. While thousands came out, to all appearances this did not come close to matching the outpouring of a year ago. Yet things have gotten worse since then. Trump has not only not relented, he has redoubled his offensive. And the Democrats just recently went along with this, registering some verbal outrage but approving the money for ICE that makes these raids possible.

The question must be posed sharply to people: What the hell are you thinking? Why are you NOT acting?

At this point, to sit on your hands and hope for the Democrats to “do something” is complicit. The leaders of the Democratic Party—including very prominently Fuck Schumer and Nancy Piglosi—are neck-deep in these crimes, having presided over the funding of ICE with barely any restrictions and uniting with fascists to do so. As for the two dozen candidates mumbling out of both sides of their mouth, this is BEB (bourgeois electoral bullshit)! They have no answers to what is going down and still less to the horror that is looming, because they are locked within the requirements and terms of—and will defend right down to the end—the same capitalist-imperialist system that the fascists now run.

Yet not only do we need hundreds of thousands and millions in the streets around this outrage. This badly needed resistance should and must be built as part of a fight to drive out this fascist regime, through sustained, nonviolent resistance, day after day, night after night, with the same resilience and focus now on display in Hong Kong and Sudan. This is the mission of Refuse Fascism, which has been out in these protests while it fights to build this larger, and urgently needed movement, against the whole regime.

And yet... there is still not anything close to what is needed. So we ask our readers: Why are people NOT acting? How do we solve this problem? To quote the old song, there are “lives in the balance”... and even more. Write to us (at revolution.reports@yahoo.com) with your thinking and experience on this