These Lunatics Are Serious—Are You?

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These Lunatics Are Serious—Are You?

Trump Summons Fascist Mobs to DC to Stop January 6 Election Certification

December 28, 2020 | revcom.us

 

If this were a normal year, it wouldn't even be news when the Senate and Congress meet on January 6 to formally certify the well-established fact that Joe Biden beat Donald Trump handily in the 2020 election. Most elections, the January 6 congressional certification passes as a mere formality.

But this is not a normal election.

Yes, Biden DID win—decisively. And yes, the Electoral College—despite Trump’s demagogy, threats and bribes—DID certify Biden as the winner. And yes, the courts DID decisively throw out Trump’s utterly groundless lawsuits. But Trump continues on the warpath. And this, unfortunately, is not a joke. One way or another, it will have consequences.

Trump Calls the Fascist Mobs Back to DC

This year on January 6, Donald Trump—the fascist president of the United States—is stoking the reactionary rage of his rabid base of MAGA mobs and white supremacist street-fighters with deranged conspiracy theories of a stolen election. He is calling them into the streets of DC in record numbers to a rally he promises will—and this IS a quote—“be wild.”

At the last #Overturn rally held in DC, MAGA fascists and Proud Boys savagely assaulted counter-protesters and bystanders. They targeted Black churches, openly tearing down their Black Lives Matters signs and setting them ablaze in a scene that Rev. Dr. Ianther M. Mills described as “reminiscent of cross burnings” (a signature of the Ku Klux Klan terror). In this context, Trump's call can only be understood as an urging of the same and worse.

This year as January 6 approaches, Trump is lashing out at Republicans in the Senate and Congress, pressuring them to override the votes of millions by refusing to certify the election. In his usual way, Trump attributed to his opponents what he is actually doing, claiming that the Democrats would have treated an electoral loss as an “act of war, and fight to the death.” Then he castigated Senate Majority Leader McConnell for not doing the same. Already, several unhinged, fact-denying, fascist Congresspeople have promised to do so.¹ And while most Republicans have thus far refused to follow Trump’s urging to disrupt the January 6 certification, Trump is whipping up resentment against them for this at a time when mobs of his supporters are already showing up armed at the homes of elected officials who don't fall in line with Trump's coup.²

To state what should be obvious: Even if Trump doesn’t succeed in preventing the certification of the election on the 6th, this is unprecedented and dangerous. It is FASCIST. At minimum, Trump and his fascist movement will emerge further battle-hardened, aggrieved, and hungry for vengeance. This must not be normalized or ignored.

Yet, that is precisely what is happening. The decent people of this country are silent. They are passive. They are looking the other way. Unless this starts to change, humanity's future is in serious peril.

Every decent person needs to take up the challenge of confronting this deeply and contributing to a collective effort to turn this around.

Trump’s Fascist Attempt to Overturn the Election Is Doing Damage—Now and for the Future

Too many people are evaluating this unprecedented and many-sided fascist assault on the election and the planned rampage in DC on the 6th only in terms of whether or not it might “succeed” in the short term. They point to Trump’s overwhelming electoral defeat and the way that the courts have shot down his claims of electoral fraud to insist that his threats regarding January 6 are even more far-fetched and therefore dismissible, perhaps even laughable.

But this is akin to standing behind a wall that is being repeatedly hit with a battering ram, smugly chuckling when each blow only leaves a crack or sends a few splinters flying through the air... all while ignoring that the wall is weakening, the foundation rotting, and the mob outside is growing harder and more determined.

For one thing, no one can say when and if the wall might come down. While it is not the most likely at this point that Trump will succeed in overturning the election or otherwise staying in power, no one—not Trump, not Biden, not you who is reading this—can be completely sure at this point. But even if he doesn’t succeed in staying in office past January 20, this fascist movement is gaining strength and initiative, with profoundly dangerous implications both long term and near-term.

Think What It Means… for Now, and for the Future

Think what it means that fascist terror has been normalized to such a degree that a heavily armed mob of hundreds of fascists stormed the Oregon state-house on December 21 and it wasn’t even a major news story.³ Or that a Trump campaign surrogate can casually say things like: “January 6 is a big day. If you get a stimulus check, you might want to go out and spend it on guns and ammo because it could come down to that.” A former FBI assistant director for counterintelligence compared the threatening rhetoric of many close to Trump to the language that leads to “radicalized terrorist cells in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.”

Think what it means that outrageous fascist maneuvers once believed to be “unthinkable”—like calling out the military against domestic protest or declaring martial law to overturn an election—must now and going forward be treated as real possibilities. A latest example: Trump invited Michael Flynn to the White House and, according to CNN and New York Times, asked his aides about Flynn's proposal that Trump re-do the election under conditions of martial law. According to reports, “ranking officers have discussed what they would do if the president declared martial law.”

Think what it means that the overwhelming majority of Trump voters—a population numbering in the many millions—actually believe the conspiracy theory-driven LIE that the election was stolen from Trump! And that this LIE centers on supposed voter fraud concentrated in urban, heavily Black-populated areas. Not only are these people completely inoculated against any facts or evidence that contradict that and any other fascist LIE Trump might tell them, they are convinced to their core that Trump was betrayed and victimized by the institutions, laws, and norms of government that obstructed his fascist coup. All this is already fueling—and will continue to fuel—a growing fascist determination to further assault and shatter these institutions and norms and carry out violence driven by white supremacy, misogyny, and hatred of immigrants.

A defeated coup, when backed by a battle-hardened determined core of millions, with tens of millions more believing that their opposition—i.e., Biden—is in power illegitimately, has the potential to reemerge, especially when that opposition is demobilized oblivious to the threat.

It is unacceptable—a real problem that must be confronted and actively worked on and transformed—that the millions of decent people who correctly voted in overwhelming numbers against Trump are silent in the face of all this, letting it fester and worsen.

There Can Be No “Reconciliation” with These Fascists

The most conspicuous thing about the Democrats through all of this is their near-total silence about any of it. In fact, it is far easier to find the spattering of Republicans who will condemn the mobs, threats of death and other violence, and attempts at a coup than it is to find sharp denunciation from the Democrats or any attempt by them to organize serious resistance inside Congress or to call for masses into the streets to stand against this attempted fascist coup.

Instead, they are busy talking about “national healing” and common ground. As Biden put it in a recent tweet: “After a year of pain and loss, it’s time to unite, heal, and rebuild.” But as Bob Avakian has pointed out:

…there can be no “reconciliation” with these fascists—whose “grievances” are based on fanatical resentment against any limitation on white supremacy, male supremacy, xenophobia (hatred of foreigners), rabid American chauvinism, and the unrestrained plundering of the environment, and are increasingly expressed in literally lunatic terms. There can be no “reconciliation” with this, other than on the terms of these fascists, with all the terrible implications and consequences of that!

It is necessary for the interests of the people—of this country and around this world—to be asserted and fought for by growing numbers of decent people who uncompromisingly reject and repudiate the whole fascist program of America-first, white supremacy, male-supremacy, and hatred of foreigners. This requires stepping outside of—and acting in opposition to the political terms set by—the normal political channels and the terms being fought for by these Democrats.

There Is Leadership, and Work to Do, to Turn This Around

There are reasons, rooted in the nature of the system of capitalism-imperialism that we live under and the massive changes and crisis this system has brought about on a world scale and in this country that this fascism has emerged and is not going away even in the face of electoral defeat. There are reasons, also rooted in this system and its dynamics that the Democrats are determined to seek common ground and stability for their system, rather than call out and take on these fascists and the threat they pose to humanity's future. Bob Avakian (BA) has done unparalleled work, much of which can be found on this resource page, to scientifically examine these reasons and their implications.  

Understanding those reasons—and on the basis of that understanding, what to do about them and how to go about changing the situation we face—is essential for the storms ahead. To not dig into that work that BA has done is to insist on flying blind into the hurricane when the stakes for humanity are far too high to do so.

It is extremely important that RefuseFascism.org, an organization that unites people from very diverse political perspectives to work to mobilize the millions of decent people in this country in nonviolent mass protest to stop a fascist America, has put out the call for people to find creative ways to express their opposition to this fascist marauding on January 6. We urge our readers to join in that effort as well as to learn from the important forums RefuseFascism.org has held to understand this situation and the way forward.

Finally, we urge you to talk with others you know and to write to us with your thinking and ideas on how we transform this situation so that it is no longer the case that decent people are silent as fascism gains momentum and threatens humanity's future.

E-mail: revolution.reports@yahoo.com
@therevcoms

 

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1. These include Alabama Representative Mo Brooks, senator elect Tommy Tuberville who said he is considering the idea, and QAnon conspiracy theorist and Georgia congressperson-elect Marjorie Taylor Greene who said, “I’ve got President Trump’s back.”  [back]

2. See “MAGA Fascists Threaten to Kill, Burn, Rape Officials Who Resist the ‘Overturn’ Campaign,” at revcom.us.  [back] 

3. As reported by Oregon Public Broadcasting, the fascists pushed their way through the doors to the state Capitol in Salem, demanding an immediate “reopening” of the economy and calling for the arrest of the governor. Some carried guns and bear spray, and most were not masked.  [back]

Proud Boys with their deranged conspiracy theory that Trump won the election at the “Million MAGA March.” Washington, D.C. Photo: AP

Proud Boys burn banner torn from Asbury United Methodist Church, Washington, D.C., December 12, 2020. Credit: @KristenClarkeJD

 

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Tune In Wednesday, 5-7 PM PST: Musicians Against Fascism

 

From RefuseFascism.org:     Join us for an online cultural event & fundraiser: RefuseFascism.org presents   MUSICIANS AGAINST FASCISM Highlights of an extraordinary concert Filmed January 19, 2017 at Symphony Space, NYC Wednesday December 30 5:00 – 7:00 pm PST Featuring: Arturo O’Farrill, The Jazz Passengers, Matthew Shipp & William Parker, Vijay Iyer & Rudresh Mahanthappa, Somi & Liberty Ellman, Claudia Acuna, The Westerlies, Mary Halvorson, Jonathan Black & many more of NYC’s greatest jazz innovators. >> RSVP and you will be sent a link to the event All invited to watch; donations requested to support RefuseFascism.org

THURSDAY: The RNL Show presents a special holiday screening of the documentary STEPPING INTO THE FUTURE!

 

From Revolution / revcom.us: ANNOUNCING: The RNL Show presents a special holiday screening of the documentary STEPPING INTO THE FUTURE! Updated December 22, 2020 | revcom.us   Dear friends, The RNL Show is proud to present a special holiday online premiere of the documentary film: STEPPING INTO THE FUTURE: On the Occasion of the Publication of BAsics— A Celebration of Revolution and the Vision of a New World December 24, 5 pm PT / 8 pm ET YouTube.com/TheRevComs

Up against a fascist movement that increasingly grows stronger in the U.S. and worldwide … up against the monstrous system—capitalism-imperialism—that not only gives rise to fascism but during “normal times” keeps grinding the lives of billions of people into the ground … up against a putrid culture that justifies all these horrors and encourages so many to want to get in on this degradation … up against all the horrors of the world of today … We invite you to STEP INTO THE FUTURE! On April 11, 2011, Harlem Stage in NYC came alive with music, poetry, dance, visual art, and words of revolution on the occasion of the publication of BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian. STEPPING INTO THE FUTURE is the 2013 documentary film that tells the story of that night, and the reflections of the artists and participants: what inspired them, their hopes and their dreams.  Come on a journey with us. Imagine a whole different art and culture ... Imagine if this culture, instead of degrading people, lifted us up ... Imagine if it gave us a vision of a whole different world ... The film features performances and interviews with:  Matthew Shipp and William Parker / David Murray / reg e gaines / Maluca Mala / Abiodun Oyewole / Outernational / Maggie Brown / Guillermo E. Brown / Moist Paula Henderson / Aladdin and Avirodh Sharma / and others The film also features interviews, new and archival film with:  Bob Avakian / Dr. Cornel West / Richard Brown / Annie Day / Carl Dix / Leah Bonvissuto / Sabel / Kyle Goen / Dread Scott / Joe Veale / Alejandro del Fuego Watch the online premiere of STEPPING INTO THE FUTURE, December 24, Thursday, 5 pm PT / 8 pm ET. YouTube.com/TheRevComs

The handbook for revolution. You can’t change the world if you don’t know the BAsics. Get the free e-book: Right-click to download the e‑book for the Kindle here. Right-click to download the e‑book for other e-readers here. For instructions on downloading and moving files from your computer to your e‑reader, click here.

Monday: PEN / MS Magazine Online Event About Iranian Political Prisoner Nasrin Sotoudeh

From Revolution / revcom.us:         Check It Out: PEN / MS Magazine Online Event About Iranian Political Prisoner Nasrin Sotoudeh December 21, 2020 | revcom.us   International human rights organizations have spoken out about the intensifying repression in Iran. On Monday, December 21, the international writers’ organization PEN and feminist magazine MS are hosting a special virtual event about Nasrin Sotoudeh, the imprisoned human rights attorney. The online conversation includes writer Margaret Atwood, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, the directors of the documentary film NASRIN, and a message from Nasrin Sotoudeh’s husband. We urge our readers to register and log in to this event to unite with and learn from this effort and, where appropriate, to enter into the online chat—as part of amplifying the campaign called by burn_the_cage and make it a global struggle as expressed in the statement “We Demand Justice and Freedom for All Political Prisoners in Iran NOW“ that calls on people to stand and act in solidarity. The statement can be signed here. Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh with a poster of South Africa's Nelson Mandela, in a scene from the Nasrin documentary. (Photo: Floating World Pictures)

EXCLUSIVE: Free the Political Prisoners in Iran! Unite to Defeat the Waves of Repression! December 12, 2020 | revcom.us   Below is a letter from a participant in the new campaign to free Iran’s political prisoners Burn the Cage, Free the Birds, which was launched by their call “Let Us Unite and Fight Together against Waves of Suppression in Iran.” A New and Dangerous Wave of Repression In the last 42 years, the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) has ruled by waging campaigns of terror and suppression against any sort of opposition. But we are facing a new wave of continuous two-pronged mass arrests. This intensified in October 2020—right before the anniversary of November 2019 rebellion. This violent repression is still going on with new people arrested every day, even as we enter the height of COVID deaths and the deadly flooding of major Southern cities of Iran. The new campaign of suppression by the IRI is two pronged. One prong is to search and arrest known and unknown political activists with the aim of “finding” and breaking up presumed or real organized revolutionary forces. To this end, they are making sweeping arrests of all sections of people known for their oppositional views and activities against this regime. Also, they make mass arrests of people who have taken part in protests against atrocities of this regime. During the November 2019 uprising, hundreds of people were killed during street protests and in the marshland of Mahshahr (a major Iranian port city that exports gas and refinery products). Between six to eight thousand people were arrested. These numbers have been published by many human rights organizations, including Amnesty International. According to names collected and verified by the @burn_the_cage campaign, the past two months have seen more than 140 people arrested or detained by the brutal Evin prison authorities to serve their sentences. Many of the arrested have not been identified by the human rights groups and lawyers because the norm is to make arbitrary arrests. People are taken off the street and from their homes without even informing their families. Many are taken to unofficial dungeons by the police of the Sepah Pasdaran (the “Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,” IRGC). The lawyers of the arrested (i.e., those appointed by the relatives and not those designated by the regime) are desperately overwhelmed. The arrests are of all strata of people: workers, students, women, teachers, lawyers, literary intelligentsia of the left and liberals. The Kurdish and Arab peoples (oppressed minorities in Iran) are accused of wanting to “disintegrate Iran,” as are people of the Bahá’í and Dervish faiths. Those arrested include even established journalists such as the 72-year-old chief editor of Iran-e-Farda journal, Mr. Keyvan Samimi, who was sent to Evin prison to serve a three-year sentence on December 7, 2020, for protest coverage (or “spreading propaganda against the system”). His brother Sassan was executed in 1975 under the CIA installed dictator, Shah of Iran, for involvement with the People’s Mujahedin.1 Mr. Samimi’s other brother (Kamran) was executed by the IRI in 1982 for being a member of Iranian Students Association and the Union of Iran Communists).2 Dr. Mohammad Maleki was the first chancellor of Tehran University after the overthrow of the Shah’s regime in 1979. He was a long-time fighter for freedom of political prisoners in Iran, and spent years in the IRI’s torture chambers and prisons. He died on December 2, 2020 in part from a back operation that worsened from ruthless tortures. Among those recently given a sentence of both execution and 13 years in prison is Hamed Ghara Oghlani. He is charged with moharebeh (enmity or hostility against God) and insulting Iran’s leader Ayatollah Khamenei on social media. Also arrested recently was a daring young woman, who rode a bicycle in the ultra-religious city of Najafabad, for not wearing a hijab, therefore showing contempt for the forced Islamic scarf. Just last week the so-called revolutionary Islamic court of Mashhad sentenced five people of the Bahá’í faith to five years in prison for organizing resistance against their discrimination in an underground academy, as Bahá’ís are not allowed to attend university in Iran. Iranian wrestler Navid Afkari, who had taken part in the 2018 protests, was arrested and executed this past September after a “confession” extracted through torture. His brothers (Vahid and Habib) now face 27 and 54 years of imprisonment from the same case. And there is the repeated arrest of Arab youth in the oil-rich and ethnically diverse state of Khuzestan. For example 15-year-old Amir Kaabi was recently arrested in city of Shush, and many men were taken to unknown prisons from the city of Mahshahr.3 In mid-October 2020, the IRI arrested scores of people in one sweep. One of them was German-Iranian dual citizen Nahid Taghavi, whose case has been taken up by Amnesty International (see photo of the Amnesty International poster). Her relatives in Germany have been very active in popularising her case as well as the case of other political prisoners. This has put much pressure on the German state and the European Union to not act as accomplices to the crimes of the IRI against the people of Iran. The Massive Uprisings in 2017 and 2019 Shake Iranian Society Two mass uprisings in November 20194 and December 2017 have been extremely important developments. They oxygenated all of Iranian society and were taken by the fascist theocratic rulers as potentially a threat to their whole system. The regime is dead serious about not allowing such an actual threat to their rule. They want to make sure the upsurge is not infused with the outlook and program of the need for the most radical revolutionary societal change. The core of these rebellions was mainly the impoverished youth. According to official newspapers in Iran, one-third of the population around mega-cities like Tehran and Mashhad live in shanties. As of 2017, 19 million Iranians lived in very poor shanty towns infested with drug addiction. After the December 2017 rebellion, there was a good polarization among politically active students. A good number of them were searching and grasping for revolutionary politics. This was echoed by the now-famous slogan chanted by heroic students at the beginning days of the December 2017 rebellion. At a gathering right at the door steps of Tehran University, mainly women students raised the slogan “Reformers. Hardliners. The game is over for both of you. This is the end of the line!” That is, they were referencing a game played by two factions of the IRI regime to hoodwink the masses to remain hopeful to “slow change from within the system.” After the November 2019 uprising, there was even more of a shift among the students away from just being concerned with small demands around students. They expressed a broad outlook and an urgent need to fight for big societal and radical change as to what the masses of people need. The people are being crushed by many fault lines—of super exploitation, of patriarchy, of national/racial oppression, of police state violence, and of Sharia laws and religious obscurantism governing Iranian society. There are the reactionary wars in Iraq and Syria that this regime actively participates in and in which untold atrocities against oppressed humanity in those countries are committed, and there is the destruction of environment which is hitting scores of cities with floods and droughts. This regime absolutely does not have anything to offer to the impoverished youth who constituted the heart of these two rebellions. So it increasingly rules by relying on gallows, prisons and torture chambers. Plus, growing portions of the middle class are being thrown down there with the impoverished. Following the November 2019 uprising came the Student Day on December 7. This is the anniversary of December 7, 1953, when the Shah’s regime welcomed U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon to Iran. The students rose up against this imperialist henchman and were gunned down by the police and three students died (Ghandchi, Bozorgnia and Razavi). In 2019 on this anniversary, the students held rallies in defense of the people. Although these rallies were held only in a few universities and with the presence of a small number of students, they raised slogans that targeted both the IRI and imperialism, as well as repudiating the right-wing and pro-imperialist opposition to the IRI. Three categories of slogans were raised by the rallies of December 7, 2019: 1) against the Islamic Republic and in support of the November uprising; 2) against forcing women to wear the Islamic hijab and other anti-women laws, and 3) against police brutality and poverty, and in solidarity with struggles around the world. The IRI Regime Responds to a Potentially Serious Challenge to Its Rule with Vicious Repression The IRI regime sees a convergence between repeated mass rebellions and development of a revolutionary organized movement as a death blow to its existence. It is determined to stop this by any means necessary. And for us it is very vital to stop this machinery of cruel persecution of the masses and political, social and literary activists. In this context it is crucial to take up the Call for “Burn the Cage, Free the Birds” to Free All Political Prisoners in Iran NOW! It is imperative for revolutionaries and all social movements in Iran to defeat this and future waves of state repression. This is a vital and a foremost necessity for all social movements, because with the continuation of this repression, none of the just struggles will thrive and develop. So it’s a matter of being and growing or not being (i.e., getting crushed). This is the situation in Iran which has made such a Call timely and urgent necessity. The IRI often accuses political dissidents of the vague charge of acting against national security. This is one of the most reactionary and anti-people regimes in the world. It is a regime which labels all kinds of opposition to its crimes and outrages as “spies of the imperialists” or “conspiracy against national security.” Just imagine the rebellions that the IRI deems “conspiracy against national security”: a) against cruel and life threatening poverty; b) against unemployment; c) demands of intellectuals and artists for freedom of thought and creation; d) demands of workers for right to strike and assembly; e) protests by women against enslaving conditions, of which the forced hijab is a stark symbol; f) protests against national (or racial) oppression; and g) any attempts by environmentalists to save the planet Earth. These can all be deemed “conspiracy against national security,” harshly punishable by law. This is a fascist ruling class that has wielded a lethal mix of theocracy, anti-imperialist demagoguery, legal and functional discrimination against oppressed nationalities and women, securitization of society under the guise of safe guarding “Islamic Revolution” from “foreign” harm. It is true that today this regime is facing threats from the U.S. and other Western imperialist powers, which the regime tries to offset by hanging onto the Chinese and Russian imperialists. But in this contention, both sides have punished the masses of people to make them choose one side over the other when in fact none of these two rotten sides have one iota of interest of the people in mind. The “securitization” of any political opposition also flows from the theocratic nature of this regime. Since it considers itself a representative of God on Earth, this regime considers any opposition to its “Islamic Revolution” and its holy Leader as a “war against God,” which according to Sharia law is punishable by death. All of these are written into its fascist laws. It is a regime that imposes anti-scientific superstition and religious ignorance on the people, but buys the most technologically advanced tools of espionage and repression from China, Russia, Germany, France and other traders of torture and repression instruments and military hardware and knowhow. To conclude: the regime has to respond violently to struggles of the masses and the revolutionaries because it wants to survive. That is what is meant by “national security.” Widespread repression and killing of the masses, on the one hand, and political activists, on the other, should not be tolerated. And under no circumstances should we let the atmosphere of fear and despair to settle in. Yes! It is true that repression is widespread. It is vital for advancing the revolution to confront the attacks of the ruling powers who want to destroy the movement for revolution and its leadership. The cruel and illegitimate nature of the IRI’s class rule and theocracy must be exposed, their repression reversed, and their police state defeated! For further information, contact Donya Zed: zeddonya1@gmail.com, member of the “Burn the Cage, Free the Birds” campaign.   1. The Mujahideen name are actually many different groups of Muslim armed combatants or jihadists that exist in different countries (e.g., Iran, Iraq, and mainly Afghanistan). In Iran, they started out as a radical religious/nationalist organization under the Shah’s monarchy when many of their members were imprisoned and executed by that regime. During the 1979 uprising and afterwards, many of their leaders were freed, and their popularity surged to become one of the biggest organizations in Iran. Their political and ideological views shifted from supporting IRI to one of opposition to it. Through a period of time, they had to go underground against the IRI and eventually waged their opposition from inside Iraq. They have further degenerated and digressed as a political force to the point of working with and relying on U.S. imperialism. In 2016, U.S. imperialists Rudolph Giuliani and John Bolton were invited and spoke at a Mujahadeen Khalq conference in Europe. For the overall global context of the jihadist trend, see Bob Avakian’s Away With All Gods! Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World, pp. 59-114 (“Christianity, Judaism and Islam—Rooted in the Past, Standing in the Way of the Future”).  [back] 2. During the 1960s and ’70s, students from Iran went all over the world to study and get an education, but the world situation ushered in a different path for them. They became impacted by the upsurge of national liberation struggles against colonial rule in the oppressed countries around the world, the impact of revolutionary socialism in Mao’s China, and the radical opposition to the Vietnam war worldwide. All this worked to turn significant numbers of Iranian students against the regime of the Shah of Iran, and against any forms of oppression and exploitation all over the world, under the umbrella organization of Iranian Student Association (ISA). Many of these students became more radicalized and took up communism with variety of understandings of what that meant at that time—some allied with revolutionary socialist China while others allied with the non-revolutionary Soviet Union (which became socialist in name, imperialist in reality, after socialism was overthrown and capitalism was restored in the mid-1950s). One of those trends developed into the Union of Iranian Communists (UIC), which took up Maoism. Most of the UIC supporters went back to Iran before and after the revolution of 1979, and many of their members were imprisoned and executed by IRI, including those who participated in an uprising in the city of Amol in 1981. The UIC went through a significant process of ideological and political and reorganization and developed into the Communist Party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist) (cpimlm.org), which is an organizations that has taken up and upholds the new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA.  [back] 3. Mashahr is the city that played an outstanding part in the November 2019 uprising when people effectively blocked the entrance to three major oil and gas (i.e., petrochemical) industrial towns and the special petrochemical economic zone for three days. The protests stopped the production lines and the transportation of the production of these industries and its derivatives. After three days, the governor of Khuzestan ordered the IRGC guards to carry out a ground and air attack, killing people by using tanks, artillery, helicopters, and gunships. Seventeen protesters were killed, including two children ages four and eight. Many people took refuge in the surrounding marshlands but were mowed down there. The IRGC guards immediately took over the hospitals and started arresting the wounded. In these areas, Arab people live and carry the double burden of super-exploitation and oppression as a minority/oppressed nationality. They are always accused by the IRI of trying to make trouble and help “the enemy.”  [back] 4. See coverage at revcom.us: “Massive Protests Rock Iran: Islamic Republic Shoots Down More Than 100, Injures or Arrests Thousands More. U.S. Sheds Crocodile Tears While Intensifying Collective Suffering, Risking War.”  [back] See also: • “Let Us Unite and Fight Together against Waves of Suppression in Iran.” Issued by friends and supporters of resisters inside Iran, and re-posted from social media. Read more • We Demand Justice and Freedom for All Political Prisoners in Iran NOW A call from and to people in the U.S. to join and develop the campaign for political prisoners in Iran right now. Read more   Follow: @TheRevcoms Read: www.revcom.us Watch: youtube.com/TheRevComs

The Fascist “#OVERTURN” Campaign & New Fascist Norms -- What Will “Decent People” Do?

 From Revolution / revcom.us:

The Fascist “#OVERTURN” Campaign And The Fight To Establish New Fascist Norms What Will The “Decent People” Do? December 14, 2020 | revcom.us The last several weeks have witnessed an unprecedented campaign against the truth that Joe Biden won the election… and the truth overall. So let’s start out with the truth. Which is that Biden won, by over 7 million votes of the people and by 74 votes (306 against 232) in the Electoral College. According to Chris Krebs, who had been head of cybersecurity in Trump’s Department of Homeland Security, this election was the “most secure in American history”—a statement, backed by facts, for which he was promptly fired and threatened. According to dozens of court decisions throwing out Republican objections to the voting—including by many Republican judges and even Trump-appointed judges—there was no significant fraud or even honest mistakes in the counting. According to some high-ranking state Republican office-holders in disputed states—secretaries of state in charge of counting the votes, and two governors—Biden won their states. Biden’s clear-cut victory is one hugely significant truth. To get a sense of just how significant, look around you at what the Trump/Pence regime has been leading for the past several weeks in what Trump himself calls his “overturn” campaign—and what many other people have correctly called out, based on the evidence, as an ongoing attempted coup. Last week, Trump “consecrated” the array of violent threats, bogus lawsuits, outrageous demagogy, and utter lies that he is deploying to illegally stay in power as the “#OVERTURN” campaign. This campaign signals that there will be no going back to normal—and the “new normal” is not anything that decent people can accept. The Normalization of Mob Rule Officials who have stated the simple factual truth that Biden won—from ordinary people who volunteer to count votes to prominent Republican office-holders—have been menaced, fired, threatened with firing, subjected to death threats, had their houses surrounded in the middle of the night by gun-toting chanting mobs, and publicly threatened with death. One Republican office-holder pleaded with Trump to stop stirring up people around the blatant lie that the election was stolen, saying that people are going to get killed; Trump ignored the plea and continued to whip up his mobs. Think about what it means that today, as we go to press, Electoral College electors in at least one state—Michigan—must enter and exit the meeting under heavy armed security, due to fascist threats. The fascists are fighting to establish a new normal of mob rule and intimidation of all who oppose them. And the decent people have done nothing. The Normalization of Anti-Constitutional Mass Disenfranchisement 126 Republican members of the House of Representatives—60% of their total membership—signed on to a bogus suit filed in the Supreme Court to throw out the results of the elections, including minority leader Kevin McCarthy, as well as 18 Republican state attorneys general (who are the highest law enforcement officials in their states).The lawsuit, filed by the fascist-dominated government of the state of Texas, objected to some of the legally established voting rules in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Georgia and Michigan, claiming that these rules had somehow violated the rights of Texas. This is so groundless that the Supreme Court, now honeycombed with fascists, refused to even hear it. Think about what it means that these many prominent Republicans are demanding that what are indisputably lawful results of an election be overturned on baseless grounds. The fascists are fighting to establish a new normal of massive disenfranchisement in which the winner is NOT determined by the votes cast, but by what the hard-core fascist bloc of states, acting at the direction of leading fascists, state is in their interests. And the decent people are doing nothing. The Further–and Violent—Normalization of Blatant White Supremacy The Trump overturn campaign has been saturated with the most blatant white supremacy in generations, in the halls of power and in the streets, and this has reached new depths in the past weeks. Their core argument has been that the votes of Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Detroit, and Atlanta—all cities in which there is a very large Black vote—should not be counted. Again, this is not on the basis of any proven fraud whatsoever but rather of the mere suspicion of the possibility of such fraud, which is what the actual case filed by Texas in the Supreme Court argued. To put it very plainly, the unstated foundation and obvious implication of the argument of these fascists is that “Black votes are not only inherently suspicious but illegitimate and in any close race should be disallowed.” Justice Jill Karofsky on the Wisconsin Supreme Court wrote in a decision around one such Trump effort that “This lawsuit… smacks of racism." After the pro-Trump rally in Washington, DC, on December 12, 700 Proud Boys rampaged through the streets, terrorizing people; they violently attacked and vandalized Black churches, destroying Black Lives Matter banners in front of the churches, in acts which the minister of one of the churches compared to the cross-burnings of the Ku Klux Klan. And when the Texas lawsuit was turned down, the head of the Texas Republi-fascist party threatened to secede—which evoked the language and ideology of the slave holding side of the U.S. Civil War. Think about what it means that the police allowed the Proud Boys to rampage, and that no leading Republican—who endlessly and demagogically carry on and wildly exaggerate about vandalism against stores and the removal of reactionary statues—said anything about this. The fascists are fighting to establish a new normal in which openly white supremacist ideology and actions which prevent, invalidate and throw out Black votes and which attack Black people, political activists, and Black churches are not only okay, but set the terms for all of society. And the good people are doing nothing. The Normalization of Conspiracy Theory and Lunatic Epistemology According to numerous polls, the majority of Republican voters refuse to let go of their belief, in the face of all evidence, that Trump won. Literally insane conspiracy theories—the kind that used to be made fun of as “tin-hat” thinking and that in other countries, when taken seriously, have justified the deaths of millions of people—are believed and spouted by tens of millions of people. What does it mean when this lunacy gets led and continually reinforced by the White House, Fox News, Republican legislators, the talk radio demagogues, and other fascist power centers, and some of these liars and lunatics are given guest shots on “the regular” media? The fascists are fighting to establish as a new normal epistemology in which “narratives”—in this case the fascist narrative—can “trump” the objective evidence, and grease the way for the worst crimes against humanity. And the good people are doing nothing. What Will You Do Now? Again—it is important that Biden won. As we said in the beginning, look at what these enraged fascists are doing now and think what they might now be doing if Trump had actually won. And if you are taking comfort in the fact that thus far the courts have ruled against the fascists, and thus far the fascist movement headed by Trump has not succeeded in this, think what might have happened had the Biden victory been closer. Think… and then, wake the hell up. It matters that people voted Trump out—it matters greatly. But the fascists have shown you that they are not going away. They are doubling down and going on the attack for years to come, whether they succeed in their current coup attempt or not (and by the way, the threat is still real). And the Democrats, by their overwhelming silence and by the pitiful peeps of protest that they do make, have shown you that they do not intend to fight them. Indeed, it is even worse. Biden, along with the New York Times editorial board, are making proposals for bipartisan cooperation. The main problem is not that these proposals have no chance of coming into being—which they almost certainly don’t—and not only that they are promoting deadly illusions about the intent of these fascists—which they are—but that they are promoting the ethos of conciliation with the fascists. In the words of Bob Avakian: Biden and the Democrats cannot “bring the country together,” as they falsely claim, because there can be no “reconciliation” with these fascists—whose “grievances” are based on fanatical resentment against any limitation on white supremacy, male supremacy, xenophobia (hatred of foreigners), rabid American chauvinism, and the unrestrained plundering of the environment, and are increasingly expressed in literally lunatic terms. There can be no “reconciliation” with this, other than on the terms of these fascists, with all the terrible implications and consequences of that!   This new normal—of decent people conciliating with fascists—must also be opposed… thoroughly, uncompromisingly and unceasingly. The wish to “go back to normal”—a “normal” which at its “best” is a horror for billions of people around the world and tens of millions within the U.S.—is not only indefensible but impossible. There is no going back. The simple fact is that if the “decent people” continue to essentially do nothing in the face of this other than get behind Joe Biden’s disastrous plans—if the streets and public square are ceded to the fascists, if all political initiative stays in their hands—then not only won't Biden be able to “bring people together,” not only will his administration be treated as illegitimate by tens of millions, but all of this along with the workings of the capitalist imperialist system itself will strengthen the fascist movement causing great harm—including potentially fueling a return to power. Which leads to another simple fact: if the decent people do not rouse themselves from their political opium-dream and really ask themselves WHY this fascism has taken such root, WHAT within the structures and dynamics of this society gave rise to it, and HOW can we act to root out this threat… again, this victory will have been squandered. There are answers to this—most importantly in the work of Bob Avakian who has studied this question for decades and given leadership to the movement against it for over 20 years. The future remains unwritten—and right now, it is acutely in the balance. In the words of the revolutionary rock band The Clash, “What are we gonna do NOW?” The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go—In The Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America, A Better World IS Possible, a film of a talk by Bob Avakian (BA)  See the full film, excerpts and Q&A of this film THE DEADLY ILLUSION OF “NORMALCY” AND THE REVOLUTIONARY WAY FORWARD  by Bob Avakian Read more Bob Avakian (BA) is the most important political thinker and leader in the world today. Get Into BA »   Follow: @TheRevcoms Read: www.revcom.us Watch: youtube.com/TheRevComs