Editor’s note: On August 13, Counterpunch published “The RCP, Fascism, and Chairman Bob’s Endorsement of Biden for President” by Gary Leupp, an attack on Bob Avakian’s statement, ON THE IMMEDIATE CRITICAL SITUATION, THE URGENT NEED TO DRIVE OUT THE FASCIST TRUMP/PENCE REGIME, VOTING IN THIS ELECTION, AND THE FUNDAMENTAL NEED FOR REVOLUTION. The following is a reply to Leupp.
Reposted from RefuseFascism.org
Fascism is the exercise of blatant dictatorship by the bourgeois (capitalist-imperialist) class, ruling through reliance on open terror and violence, trampling on what are supposed to be civil and legal rights, wielding the power of the state, and mobilizing organized groups of fanatical thurgs, to commit atrocities against masses of people, particularly groups of people identified as “enemies,” “undesirables,” or… Read more »
August 1, 2020
ON THE IMMEDIATE CRITICAL SITUATION,
THE URGENT NEED TO DRIVE OUT THE FASCIST TRUMP/PENCE REGIME,
VOTING IN THIS ELECTION,
AND THE FUNDAMENTAL NEED FOR REVOLUTION
1 The situation today holds truly unprecedented and momentous challenges, with profound implications not only for the people in this country but for all of humanity. Three years ago, I spoke to this reality—which has become even more pronounced, and even more dangerous, in the time since then:
We are confronted by—we are now being ruled by—a fascist regime: relentlessly assaulting civil rights and liberties and openly promoting bigotry and inequality; acting with callous disregard or cold-blooded malice toward those they consider inferior and a drain or stain on the country; on a mission to deny health care to millions who will suffer and many who will die without it; crudely degrading women, as objects of plunder, breeders of children without the right to abortion or birth control, subordinate to husbands and men in general; defying the science of climate change, attacking the science of evolution, and repudiating the scientific method overall; a regime brandishing an arsenal of mass destruction and threatening nuclear war; intensifying state terror against Muslims, immigrants, and people in the inner cities; unleashing and giving encouragement and support to brutal thugs spewing vile “America First,” white supremacist, male supremacist, and anti-LGBT venom—a regime that boasts of all this and declares its intention to do even worse.
Read the full statement
by Coco Das
Reposted from RefuseFascism.org
by Bob Avakian
The rulers of this country, and those who represent their interests, are forever boasting about the supposed “freedom, initiative and creativity” that, according to them, the capitalist system (and only the capitalist system) makes possible, and the great wealth this has created for people in this country especially. And they continually slander communism as a repressive system where people have no freedom and their initiative and creativity is not encouraged and rewarded but stifled and suppressed. All this is fundamentally wrong and completely upside-down.
As the revcom.us article Trump Gestapo Violently Assaults, Snatches Portland Protestors—Not “Theater” vividly showed, the sending of federal forces to Portland is “part of deadly serious, all round fascist escalation.” Trump sent in these militarized police forces to Portland in defiance of both the local mayor and the state governor. Trump is attempting to exert his authority over these Democratic local authorities and insisting on even more brutal, openly fascistic means of repression. It is a threat to protesters in other cities and it is establishing a “model” for wielding a national gestapo force which can be deployed in other cities on Trump’s command.
