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

LAST NIGHT

I was feeling like shit yesterday . Not sick, just run down and fucking tired. I knew about a Sunday show at Logan's being put on by the fine people in local skinhead band ( not the bad kind ) No Heart, who were also opening the night's festivities , and even though Mike ( guitar lead vocals ) is my neighbour, I was still gonna opt out.
  Well , after a short evening nap on the couch, I had deluded myself into thinking I was feeling great , so off I went ! No Heart started the night's noise, and it was best I'd seen/heard them . Gruff , melodic, energetic, they have it all. Yes, I bought an LP and 7".
Next up were The Death Ridge Boys from Portland, who are an anthemic mid-tempo punk rock band with lefty politics and catchy singalong choruses. I got their LP also. How could you not ?
The last band of the night were Savage Beat from Holland , again with catchiness and a rock edge. They were competent and energetic enough , but the first two bands killed it .
I again didn't get enough sleep and feel like crap  today, but it was totally worth it.
You shoulda gone.

EFFICIENT

Yesterday we recorded 25 bed tracks and over half the vocals at Lap Of Luxury Studio in beautiful Sooke, B.C. , thanks to the engineering magic of Scott Henderson and Scott Bennett. They make what is usually a chore into something fun and enjoyable.
   It's going to be a while until we can finish, due to summer schedules and shit, but I can't see it taking too much longer. We have no working title or cover as of yet, but stay tuned and it will all get figured out. We'd like to thank everyone for their enthusiasm when they heard we are recording again. That makes it all worthwhile.