1-2-3-4: WE HAVE SEEN THIS SHIT BEFORE!
by Bob Avakian
It’s time to put an end to this!
It’s time to put an end to this!
I just read Bob Avakian’s recent article: “1-2-3-4: We Have Seen This Shit Before!” This is such a brilliant and concise exposure of what BA refers to as “the well-worn ‘four-step method’” of the defenders of the system “to ‘pacify,’ ‘domesticate’—and misdirect into meaningless channels—the mass outpourings of outrage that erupt when crimes of this system, such as police terror and murder, become sharply exposed.”
Everywhere we go, and in everything we do, we revcoms boldly put forward: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! This is not just a slogan—though it is a very good and very important slogan. It is the concentrated statement of a very profound truth, which is also captured in our slogan: This System Cannot Be Reformed—It Must Be Overthrown!
I began the article “Radical Change Is Coming” with this blunt statement:
For those who cannot help but hunger for a “return” to some kind of “normalcy” as an answer to the madness of Trump, Pence and rest—forget it, it is not going to happen!1
I went on to speak to ways in which the fascist forces aligned with Trump (and Pence) are preparing to react, quite possibly with violence, if the election does not go Trump’s way (or if Trump cancels the election and there is an outpouring of resistance to this). In fact, for more than 20 years now, I have been analyzing the fascist nature of the kind of forces that have rallied around Trump and how they have been increasingly talking about, and preparing for, a civil war.
by Bob Avakian
For those who cannot help but hunger for a “return” to some kind of “normalcy” as an answer to the madness of Trump, Pence and the rest—forget it, it is not going to happen!
This is written especially to those who have been righteously standing up and fighting back against murder by police and the oppression of Black people more generally, and to all those who have taken heart and inspiration from this, who are newly encountering the Revolution. Welcome! We stand side by side with you in this struggle and unite with your outrage and fury against centuries of oppression that truly must be NO MORE. This outpouring of resistance must continue and it must grow. People must stay in the streets, and this upsurge must get bigger, broader, deeper, and even more determined. At the same time, the big question that now presents itself—one that literally millions of people are asking—is: What will it take to truly put an end to police brutality, murder by police, and the oppression of Black people, once and for all?
To all those who have risen up so powerfully and are demonstrating to say “No More!” after the murder of George Floyd, and all the other cold-blooded murders by police.
To all those who have drawn inspiration from this righteous uprising.
To all those who have had the blinders forced from their eyes and have been provoked to think anew about what kind of country it is that we live in.
by Bob Avakian
The brutal murder of a black man, George Floyd, in Minneapolis which had all the makings of deliberate modern-day lynching and street execution has outraged the whole world. Protests and rioting erupted in many cities in the US. The sentiments of the masses of people in the US streets rising up in bitter anger and demanding justice echo across the world. The following words by Bob Avakian sharply express the truth and the essential lesson of this situation.
Editors’ Note: These are edited excerpts of reflections from a member of the National Revolution Tour after a group discussion of Bob Avakian’s article Conspiracy Theories, Fascist “Certitude,” Liberal Paralysis, OR A Scientific Approach to Changing the World (Longer Version—The Truth Elaborated)
The following is a summation of some group study and discussion of the new communism and the leadership of Bob Avakian (BA).
Refuse Fascism has issued an important new Statement of Conscience to be signed by many thousands and spread throughout all of society.
As the COVID-19 pandemic spread worldwide, the global economy contracted. As suffering and deaths caused by the virus have mounted across the planet, the world imperialist system, U.S. imperialism in particular, has responded as it always has: acting to maintain the profitable functioning and interests of empire… to even more horrific effect, especially in the oppressed countries.
Dear friends and comrades,
The continuing progression of the coronavirus pandemic higlights the critical importance of taking a scientific view both of the virus and more fundamentally of the structure and dynamics of the capitalist-imperialist society that is bringing about so much unnecessary death and suffering all over the world.
(Longer Version—The Truth Elaborated)
As the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread, the following points of orientation remain relevant. What is coming into sharper relief is how the underlying workings of this system, the system of capitalism-imperialism, really constrain and obstruct the necessary response at a global level—despite people’s best sentiments.
The following is from Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, authored by Bob Avakian. (The Constitution is available in PDF format online here.)
From Demarcations: A Journal of Communist Theory and Polemic, available at: http://demarcations-journal.org/.
A World to Win News Service for 9 June 2019 contains one article. It may be reproduced or used in any way, in whole or in part, as long as it is credited. Web site: aworldtowinns.co.uk To subscribe: http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/AWorldToWinNewsService/ Write to us – send us information, comments, criticisms, suggestions and articles: aworldtowinns@yahoo.co.uk What time is it? Look at the European… Read more »
5 April 2019. A World to Win News Service. People began flooding into Algiers’ main square in the early morning today before it filled up. By afternoon the square and surrounding streets were solidly packed with people celebrating their victory, the fall of the hated President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. The same happened in cities throughout the country. The hundreds of thousands in the streets – and millions more broadly – felt a once-in-a lifetime exuberance. They were dealing a powerful blow to the hogra, the humiliation of the people, in their individual lives and as a nation, at the hands of a corrupt clique, obsequious to foreign powers and cruel to the masses of people.
19 January 2019. A World to Win News Service. Trump’s foreign policy chief Michael Pompeo gave a major speech in Cairo, Egypt, at the start of a tour of the Gulf countries, Jordan and Iraq. He came to announce – and implement – what he called “a new beginning”, supposedly overturning the orientation set out by Obama in an address in the same city a decade ago.
7 December, 2018. A World to Win News Service. The Yellow Vest revolt that erupted suddenly among the usually ignored and voiceless lower classes in France’s rural areas and smaller cities has stormed into the centre of political life and may have blasted a hole in the dam through which much broader and diverse social discontent can erupt. “The house is on fire” is the assessment prevalent among the country’s “political class” – but the flames have been kindling.
November 11th marked the commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of the end of World War I. In Paris more than 70 heads of state and government invited by French President Emmanuel Macron memorialized one of history’s worst crimes against humanity – a war among imperialists whose purpose was to forcibly resolve great power rivalries over zones of influence and colonies. Macron’s hypocritical plan to drape the weekend in talk of peace while honoring the imperialist war machine that ended in the slaughter of ten million soldiers, and featuring Donald Trump as the honored guest, triggered a call to protest.
2 October 2018. A World to Win News Service. With the election of Jair Bolsonaro – who said he’d rather be called a Hitler than gay – Brazil’s electoral system has brought fascism to power. It would be hard to overstate the impact this will have on the country, the continent and the world.
20 October 2018. A World to Win News Service. The apparent murder of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi and subsequent events demonstrate an extremely ugly turn in global politics, embodied most of all by U.S. President Donald Trump and increasingly common to governments around the world: a naked discourse that “might makes right” and whatever is good for the national interests is good.
9 October 2018. A World to Win News Service. This speech is about something that has never been addressed this way before – the basis and strategy for how a revolution could actually be carried out in a country like the U.S. Such a revolution would receive a tremendous welcome all around the globe, and people worldwide need to see this film to learn how an actual revolution could deal with the immense and unnecessary suffering humanity faces. The Revolutionary Communist Party, USA is seeking to activate hundreds of people right now to make sure as many people as possible see and engage with it.
20 September 2018. A World to Win News Service. People in Germany and around the world were horrified by the images flashing across their TV screens at the end of August, not sure if they were seeing the return of the dark past or a preview of a horrible future. In the city of Chemnitz, located in the state of Saxony in former East Germany, hordes of Nazi hooligans and other right-wing thugs hunted down pedestrians who looked like “foreigners”, left-wing counter-demonstrators (who the Nazis call “ticks”) and journalists. Some people in the mob displayed Hitler salutes (officially forbidden in Germany) and chanted, “Germany for the Germans! Foreigners out!”, “This is our city!’, the Nazi slogan “Free, social and national!”, “We are football fans – Adolf Hitler hooligans” and “For every dead German, one dead foreigner.”