Why YOU Should Come to May 1st

 

From revcom.us:

Why People Are Coming to Revolutionary Internationalist May 1 Gatherings Across the Country and Why YOU Should Too!

Check out and share widely: - Just a Day After the Conviction of the Cop Who Murdered George Floyd: Andrew Brown, Jr. is Executed by Police in North Carolina - the International Revolutionary MAY DAY 2021 page

An invitation to all—attend celebrations on International Revolutionary May 1st... and start organizing others to attend, too

 

From revcom.us:

We look forward to seeing you, your friends and family on May 1st at Magic Johnson Park!  Contact @revcoms or (323) 671-9839 to get involved.   Watch and share the latest episode of the RNL Show:

A DECLARATION, A CALL TO GET ORGANIZED NOW FOR A REAL REVOLUTION

 

From revcom.us:

The revcoms recently released an urgent and historic Declaration that states, "Revolutions are not possible all the time, but are generally possible only in rare times and circumstances, especially in a powerful country like this. This is one of those rare times and circumstances." Read the basic version below. You can read the extended version HERE.   Let’s get down to basics: We need a revolution—nothing less! To everyone who can’t stand this world the way it is ... who is sick and tired of so many people being treated as less than human ... who knows that the claim of “liberty and justice for all” is a cruel lie ... who is righteously enraged that injustice and inequality go on, and on, and on, despite false promises and honeyed words from people in power (or those seeking power) ... everyone who agonizes about where things are headed and the fact that to be young now means being denied a decent future, or any future at all ... everyone who has ever dreamed about something much better, or even wondered whether that is possible ... everyone who hungers for a world without oppression, exploitation, poverty, and destruction of the environment ... everyone who has the heart to fight for something that is really worth fighting for: You need to be part of this revolution. This revolution is not just “a good idea”—it is actually possible. Is this for real? Are we serious about this, and can we back it up? YES. We are not here to repeat garbage that may be “popular” or to spread the lies we are constantly told by the people in power and their mouthpieces in the media and elsewhere. We are here to bring the truth. So here are some basic truths that we need to understand and live by. 1. The system we live under, the system of capitalism-imperialism destroys lives and crushes spirits. It is the source of endless horrors for the majority of people in this country and all around the world, and it is increasingly threatening the very existence of humanity. The military of this country is not carrying out an “honorable service”—and it is not some “bad ass” force that people should respect. It is doing the same thing around the world, on a massive scale, that the police are doing here: carrying out the cowardly killing and terrorizing of people in the service of the biggest oppressors in the world, the rulers of this country. And it is a major cause of the destruction of the environment. It is a hard but basic truth: For the masses of people, and ultimately for humanity as a whole, there is no future, or no future worth living, under this system. But there is a way to a world and a future that is worth living, and is worth fighting for right now: revolution—a real revolution, not playing around with a few changes that leave this system in place and in power, while benefitting only a small number. A revolution means a force of millions, drawn from many different parts of society and organized for an all-out fight to overthrow this system and replace it with a radically different and much better economic and political system, a socialist system, based on meeting the needs of the people and carrying forward the fight for a communist world where there will finally be an end, everywhere, to the exploitation, oppression, and destruction of the environment that is built into this system of capitalism-imperialism. Anything less than this revolution will completely fail to deal with the root of all the problems or lead to the actual solution. 2. Revolutions are not possible all the time, but are generally possible only in rare times and circumstances, especially in a powerful country like this. This is one of those rare times and circumstances. This system is in real trouble, caught up in crisis and conflicts for which it has no easy or lasting solutions. Throughout this country the workings of this system have given rise to deep divisions which cannot be resolved under this system. Society is being ripped apart. Those who rule are locked in a bitter fight among themselves, and they cannot hold things together in the way they have in the past. Although there are a lot of bad things connected with this and it could lead to something really terrible, it is also possible that we could wrench something really positive out of it—revolution, to put an end to this system and bring something much better into being. We have seen the potential for revolution powerfully demonstrated just last summer when millions of people, of all races and genders, all over this country, and all around the world, rose up together against racist oppression and police murder. We have seen this potential in the mass outpourings of women, in countries all over the world, refusing to put up with being abused and degraded. This potential is also revealed in the deep distress being expressed, by scientists and millions of ordinary people, about the continually worsening climate crisis and the threat this poses to the future of humanity—a crisis this system cannot solve, but can only make worse. But, with all this, right now only a small number of us have recognized the need for this revolution and are acting to make it happen. So there is crucial work that must be done now to win people to understand the need for revolution and act to make it real—to turn the potential for revolution into a powerful movement and organized force for an actual revolution. 3. To make this revolution a reality, we need leadership with the scientific method, the strategy and program that can shine a light through the madness and chaos that this system is constantly creating and can lead in carving the path forward out of this madness to the radically new world we need. AND WE HAVE THAT LEADERSHIP—IN BOB AVAKIAN (BA). BA is the architect of a whole new framework for the liberation of all oppressed people and the emancipation of all humanity: the new communism. We are followers of BA. And you need to become followers of BA too. There never has been a leader like this in this country and there is no other leader like this in the world now. We cannot afford not to follow this leadership if we ever want to get free and put an end to this madness. 4. We need to urgently change the situation where not nearly enough people know about this revolution and are with it. We need to get this revolution, and its leadership, known everywhere. We need to challenge and seriously struggle with people right around us, and all over the country, to do something that, yes, requires real heart and will make a positive difference for real—become part of this revolution, and follow this revolutionary leadership. We need to organize more and more people into the ranks of the revolution. Organizing people into this revolution means reaching out to all sorts of people—not just where there are protests and rebellions against oppression and injustice, but everywhere throughout society—spreading the word about revolution and getting people together (in real life and online) to grapple with why an actual revolution is necessary, what such a revolution involves, and what kind of society this is aiming for. This will enable people who are new to the revolution to themselves become organizers for this revolution and to recruit more and more people to do the same. On this basis, and through the growing ranks of the revolution acting together as an increasingly powerful force, it will be possible to attract and organize the necessary numbers, and build up the necessary strength, to be in the position to do what needs to be done. We need to struggle hard with people to take up the orientation and strategy, the values and goals, for this revolution, and dedicate themselves to working for this revolution, while we unite growing numbers to fight the abuse, brutality and destruction perpetrated by this system, and through all this get thousands and then millions of people prepared and steeled to do away with this system that brings so much hell to people. We need to wield this growing revolutionary force to stand up to this system and its murderous enforcers and to change the whole “terrain” (the political, social and cultural situation and “atmosphere”) throughout society, in order to weaken the hold of this system over people, win people away from acting to strengthen and enforce this system, and create the best possible conditions for this revolution to succeed. To come back to basics: We need revolution—a real revolution. We cannot afford to waste these rare times and circumstances that could be ripened into a real chance to make revolution. We cannot afford to squander the rare and precious leadership we have for this revolution. We have to get busy, build the movement and the organized forces for revolution all over the country, and work together tirelessly for this revolution, to actively prepare for the situation where this system can be brought down and something much better brought into being. To get more of the tools and the knowledge you need to become part of this revolution, and to go to work building for this revolution, get with those representing for this revolution right now, become part of the Revolution Clubs around the country, go to our website revcom.us regularly, and watch The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less—Show every week at youtube.com/therevcoms. If you want to know more about this, right now, keep reading: here is further knowledge about these basic truths.

As the Killer Pig Is Righteously Found Guilty……The Guilt Of This System Can NOT Be Denied

 

From revcom.us:

As the Killer Pig Is Righteously Found Guilty… …The Guilt Of This System Can NOT Be Denied WE NEED TO ORGANIZE NOW FOR AN ACTUAL REVOLUTION! Updated April 20, 2021 | revcom.us   The pig who murdered George Floyd has been found guilty on all three counts he was charged with. His guilt could not be denied. But the only reason there was such a trial in the first place is the fact that WE, people here and all over the world in our millions, came into the streets to demand justice night after night, standing up against murderous repression to do so. Through our struggle, justice has—in this case—been won and people are righteously celebrating. At the same time, the guilt of this system continues, and can also not be denied. Say their names: Daunte Wright, 20 years old, shot dead at a traffic stop, Black and unarmed; Adam Toledo, 13 years old, shot dead in an alley with his empty hands in the air, Latino; and those are only the most well-known. And the names go on, and on …. During the 19-day period of testimony in the trial of the Minnesota killer cop, at least 64 people were killed by police—over one-half of them Black or Latino. THIS MURDER MUST END. This is what every decent person feels. But this nonstop string of horrific murders has forced the whole world to confront the brute fact that so long as this system goes on, THE MURDER AND BRUTALITY BY THE POLICE CANNOT END. To deal with this, to deal with all the other towering outrages this system brings down here and around the world, we need—humanity needs—revolution, nothing less. And this is one of those rare times in which a revolution could possibly be made in this country. “Those who rule are locked in a bitter fight among themselves, and they cannot hold things together in the way they have in the past.”1 At the same time, over these past few years the people have shown their hatred for oppression, and their courage, in powerful demonstrations and mass outpourings, here and around the world, including in the beautiful rising after the murder of George Floyd. These show the potential for revolution. We have the leadership for that revolution in Bob Avakian, BA. BA has further developed the scientific way to understand the world, the strategy for an actual revolution, and a vision and blueprint for an emancipating new society in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, which he authored. To learn more about all this, and to start changing the world while you are learning, dig into and spread A DECLARATION, A CALL TO GET ORGANIZED NOW FOR A REAL REVOLUTION. If you burned with anger and a rage for justice when you saw the life snuffed out of George Floyd and if you ache for something better... you need to be part of this revolution. And we, together, need to urgently get organized now for this real revolution. Right now: come to, and help build for, Revolutionary May 1 celebrations. Meet, and become part of, a serious force, resolutely determined and getting organized now for a real revolution, to bring into being a world without slavery in any form, in which all of humanity can finally and fully breathe free. 1. Quoted from A DECLARATION, A CALL TO GET ORGANIZED NOW FOR A REAL REVOLUTION. [back]

Follow: @TheRevcoms Read: www.revcom.us Watch: youtube.com/therevcoms

A System on Trial Whose Time Is Up—We Need to Organize NOW for an Actual Revolution!

 

From revcom.us:

As the Verdict in the Murder of George Floyd Draws Close… A System on Trial Whose Time Is Up—We Need to Organize NOW for an Actual Revolution! April 19, 2021 | revcom.us   The trial of the pig who murdered George Floyd will soon come to an end. The proof of this pig’s guilt has been overwhelming, and cannot be denied. Anything less than a verdict of guilty for the main charges would be yet another outrage, salt in the wounds that are still fresh. But the guilt of this system also cannot be denied. Say their names: Daunte Wright, 20 years old, shot dead at a traffic stop, Black and unarmed; Adam Toledo, 13 years old, shot dead in an alley with his empty hands in the air, Latino; and those are only the most well-known. During the 19-day period of testimony in the trial of the Minnesota killer cop, at least 64 people were killed by police—over one-half of them Black or Latino. THIS MURDER MUST END. This is what every decent person feels. But this nonstop string of horrific murders has forced the whole world to confront the brute fact that so long as this system goes on, THE MURDER AND BRUTALITY BY THE POLICE CANNOT END. To deal with this, to deal with all the other towering outrages this system brings down here and around the world, we need—humanity needs—revolution, nothing less. And this is one of those rare times in which a revolution could possibly be made in this country. “Those who rule are locked in a bitter fight among themselves, and they cannot hold things together in the way they have in the past.”1 At the same time, over these past few years the people have shown their hatred for oppression, and their courage, in powerful demonstrations and mass outpourings, here and around the world, including in the beautiful rising after the murder of George Floyd. These show the potential for revolution. We have the leadership for that revolution in Bob Avakian, BA. BA has further developed the scientific way to understand the world, the strategy for an actual revolution, and a vision and blueprint for an emancipating new society in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, which he authored. To learn more about all this, and to start changing the world while you are learning, dig into and spread A DECLARATION, A CALL TO GET ORGANIZED NOW FOR A REAL REVOLUTION. If you burned with anger and a rage for justice when you saw the life snuffed out of George Floyd and if you ache for something better... you need to be part of this revolution. And we, together, need to urgently get organized now for this real revolution. Be with us when the verdict goes down. Right now: come to, and help build for, Revolutionary May 1 celebrations. Meet, and become part of, a serious force, resolutely determined and getting organized now for a real revolution, to bring into being a world without slavery in any form, in which all of humanity can finally and fully breathe free. 1. Quoted from A DECLARATION, A CALL TO GET ORGANIZED NOW FOR A REAL REVOLUTION. [back] FROM THE REVCOMS (REVCOM.US): A DECLARATION, A CALL TO GET ORGANIZED NOW FOR A REAL REVOLUTION Read more A statement from Bob Avakian: NOTHING LESS! Read the Statement Download, print, and distribute widely:

Follow: @TheRevcoms Read: www.revcom.us Watch: youtube.com/therevcoms

Celebrate International Revolutionary May 1st: WE ARE HUMAN BEINGS - WE REFUSE TO ACCEPT SLAVERY IN ANY FORM!

 

From revcom.us:

We are recruiting people as part of the organized forces working to win thousands of followers of Bob Avakian   CELEBRATE INTERNATIONAL REVOLUTIONARY MAY 1ST Join us Saturday May 1st 2-5 pm Magic Johnson Park For a celebration & BBQ  Mask up & social distance   Planting seeds, setting terms, and bringing forward new followers Reflections from a Revolution Tour Member April 5, 2021 | revcom.us   After a long winter, the revcoms on the National Revolution Tour are hitting the streets again… to the masses, with revolution. We are out with a new orientation and new materials and analysis, and seeking to plant the seeds today for a harvest so urgently needed… principally wielding Bob Avakian’s New Year’s Statement, as well as the piece “Bob Avakian for the Liberation of Black People and the Emancipation of All Humanity,” we are out to make big advances over this next period towards organizing thousands of people into this revolution, to follow Bob Avakian and the path he is forging. Very crucially, we are stepping to people with this: If you wanna get free, then you need to follow BA. Read the entire article HERE.

Derek Chauvin Trial Opens with Devastating Portrayals of Cold-Blooded Murder

 

Read and share the revcom.us Blog - Updates from the Derek Chauvin Trial: The trial of Pig Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis is underway. Chauvin is now charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. The outcome of this trial—and what the masses of people do in an effort to determine that outcome—will have consequences. The system must not be allowed to let Chauvin off, or to give him a slap on the wrist—Chauvin must be punished for straight-up murder of George Floyd. So it is very important that people have begun to stand up and fight to prevent what could be a terrible injustice on top of an utter horror from going down. But to really get free... to put an end to the kind of horror that the world saw go down on that Minneapolis afternoon but that goes on and has gone on all the time, year in and year out, over the centuries... to end the oppression of Black people as part of ending all forms of oppression and exploitation all over the world, people need science and they need leadership. So the most important thing is that through this struggle for justice, more people are enabled to learn about, to get into, and to get organized around the scientific understanding of the problem and the road to the solution—to revolution, nothing less—brought forward by Bob Avakian. Last summer Bob Avakian wrote a number of important works going into issues raised by the murder of George Floyd and the massive struggle against police brutality and institutionalized racism that arose in its wake, as well as other critical issues in that period, including the struggle against Trump-Pence fascism. Go here for some of those articles; and go here for other seminal works by Bob Avakian on the oppression of Black people, the possibility of ending that oppression through revolution, and its connection to revolution. And go here to learn more about Bob Avakian’s historic relation to this struggle. Follow: @TheRevcoms Read: www.revcom.us Watch: youtube.com/TheRevComs Watch and share the latest episode of The RNL Show:

Imperialist Parasitism and Class-Social Recomposition in the U.S. From the 1970s to Today

 

From revcom.us: Parasitism and Class-Social Recomposition in the U.S. From the 1970s to Today: Introduction-Summary by Raymond Lotta August 24, 2020, updated March 22, 2021 | revcom.us   In Breakthroughs—The Historic Breakthrough by Marx and the Further Breakthrough with the New Communism, Bob Avakian writes that an increasingly globalized capitalism: relies to a very great degree for production and for maintaining the rate of profit on a vast network of sweatshops, particularly in the Third World of Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia, while capitalist activity in the capitalist-imperialist “home countries” is increasingly in the realm of finance and financial speculation, and the “high end” of  (not the physical production of the basic physical materials for) high tech, as well as the service sector and the commercial sphere (including the growing role of online marketing). As Lenin phrased it, this puts the “seal of parasitism” on the whole of societies such as the U.S.  In relation to that “seal of parasitism,” Bob Avakian posed two intertwined questions for research and grappling: Is there a definite and operative connection between heightened globalization and intensification of exploitation by imperialism, in particular U.S. imperialism, in the Third World (or “global South,” as it is often called) and the changing social and class composition of the U.S, as a defining expression of imperialist parasitism? The answer is yes. This research paper is now posted at revcom.us. In what follows, I highlight some of the key findings and conclusions. A profound transformation of the occupational structure and of the distribution of income in the U.S. has occurred over the last 45 years. This is bound up with important demographic shifts and changes, like a growing proportion of women, and proportionately more immigrants from the Third World, in the labor force. American society is very different than it was in 1970. How people enter into the economy, job prospects, living standards, the goods that people consume, declining social mobility, patterns of inequality—all this and more are part of the picture. Different factors have been at work—but deeper imperialist penetration into the Third World, and fuller integration of the oppressed economies into the world-capitalist economy, has been decisive. Parasitism is an important concept that V.I. Lenin, the great communist theorist and leader of the Russian Revolution of 1917, worked with extensively in his analyses of imperialism, the system that dominates the world. Parasitism refers to the ways in which the imperialist countries benefit from the superexploitation of labor—horrific conditions of employment with pay that is at bare subsistence or below-subsistence levels—in the poor countries of Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The subjugation of the oppressed countries by imperialism not only distorts the economies and societies of the global South but also “reacts back” on the entire social structure of the imperialist countries. The profits, or “spoils,” of empire enable the imperialists to maintain a certain, relative social stability in the heartlands of empire in normal times. Parasitism results in the greater concentration of wealth among bourgeois-financial strata evermore divorced from organizing production. Bob Avakian has further extended and applied this concept of “parasitism” to develop a deeper, a more scientific, understanding not only of defining economic features of the world imperialist economy today, but also ideological and cultural phenomena: like the “selfie” and “brand me” individualism rampant in America, and the aggressive chauvinism that sees America as the source of wealth and “good” in the world. People need to understand the material roots of the changes that have taken place in U.S. society. These changes have implications for revolution—for its bedrock and broader forces, and the potential for and obstacles to making revolution. And for understanding the highly parasitic society that the socialist-communist revolution must transform In this light, Bob Avakian's New Year's Statement A New Year, The Urgent Need for a Radically New World—For the Emancipation of Humanity  is essential reading—to understand the dynamics that have led to the dire situation that humanity is now confronting and why revolution, guided by the new communism that Avakian has developed, is the only real alternative to this system of capitalism-imperialism with all its horrors. Globalization, de-industrialization, and downsizing of the last few decades have not led to a “great leveling” in the U.S. Rather, this has contributed to an increasingly fractured, polarized, and “enclaved” society—not only racially but also in terms of different social groups. America is a society marked by extreme deprivation on the bottom...income and employment gains for “credentialed” professional-technical strata...the transfer of value produced by superexploited labor in the oppressed countries to the imperialist countries...and the extreme, grotesque upward redistribution to and concentration of wealth among a smaller fraction of society. Here are more specific findings of the study: *By the 2010s, 80 percent of global trade was flowing through global supply chains dominated and controlled by Western transnational corporations. These supply chains connect different units of production worldwide in the manufacture and transport of goods. They combine high-tech, 21st century coordination with 19th century sweatshop conditions. Women workers are a major share of the supply chain labor force, as in the garment factories of Sri Lanka. Think about it. Apple, the iconic emblem of so-called “American ingenuity,” would not exist without global commodity chains that require and thrive on brutally “efficient” assembly lines in China, where suicide was a form of work protest in the early 2010s. Think about it, Apple would not be the U.S.'s first 2 trillion dollar company without the 40,000 children who dig tunnels and haul rocks in the cobalt mines of the Democratic Republic of Congo. *From 1970 to 2012, the share of developing nations in world exports of manufactured goods— like auto and plane parts, apparel and electronic devices—rose from 20 percent to 60 percent. Many of these exports become part of domestic production in the imperialist countries. *In 1950, 34 percent of the world's industrial workers lived in “less developed regions”; in 1980 that share rose to 54 percent; and in 2010 it soared to 79 percent. This industrial-labor force shift has enhanced the profitability of imperialist capital and put downward pressure on wages worldwide. *In the U.S. over the last 40 years, manufacturing employment (traditionally better paid and more stable) declined as a share of total U.S. employment: from 28 percent in 1960 to 8 percent in 2017. The loss of millions of manufacturing jobs over this period is very much connected to global outsourcing and sub-contracting, as in border factories in Mexico, and direct investment (U.S. companies opening auto factories in China). This decline in manufacturing employment, along with more output being produced by fewer workers, is also the result of technological transformation—like robotics, information technology, transport innovations, etc.—and corporate strategies of downsizing and “more efficient” modes of workplace organization. In 2010 China replaced the U.S. as the world's largest manufacturer (measured by output). *Two or even three service jobs are often required to replace the income of one decent-paying manufacturing job. *The disruptive and job-squeezing effects of “deindustrialization” have hit Black and Latino workers especially hard. Many African-American workers have become part of a “surplus” labor force—unemployed or underemployed. Many of the formerly incarcerated are locked out of the labor market or channeled into poverty-wage, irregular jobs. *A major demographic change in the U.S. economy over the last 50 years is the further leap in women's participation in the labor force, including the professions. At the start of 2020, women were the majority (slightly over 50 percent) of employees in the U.S. This change has been driven both by economic necessity and political-social struggle. The “traditional” patriarchal household (married-couple family with children and a sole male breadwinner) no longer prevails. Yet shifting gender norms are colliding with the brutal reassertion of patriarchy, including pervasive sexual harassment and entrenched inequality. *The vast increase of low-cost imported consumer goods based on superexploitation—high-productivity/low (often below subsistence) wage labor—in the oppressed countries has allowed prices to fall (the “Walmart price”) and cheapened the cost of labor-power in the U.S. These imports have also helped sustain mass-consumer purchasing power in the imperialist countries—even with advancing de-industrialization and downward pressure on wages and employment. *The single largest employment category in the U.S. is retail. *Heightened globalization has gone hand in hand with heightened financialization of the U.S. economy. By the early 1990s, the finance, insurance and real estate sector surpassed manufacturing as a share of the U.S. economy (GDP). *Imperialist parasitism—superexploitation of the labor forces of the oppressed countries and plunder of raw materials—and fierce imperialist competition for markets has contributed to growing occupational polarization in the U.S. The U.S. economy requires engineers, money managers, and information technology workers...but it also needs cashiers, hospital orderlies, and low-paid logistics and delivery workers. *Globally, an important trend is the expansion of non-standard or what is called “informal” work—non-regulated, low pay, and irregular (legal and illegal) employment. This is what rules in the burgeoning urban slums of the Third World, where well over 1 billion desperately struggle to survive.  *In the U.S., 1 in 10 workers relies on “gig work” (freelance, contract, like Uber) as their primary income source. *Heightened imperialist globalization has led to a significant increase in immigration (both official and undocumented) to the U.S. and other imperialist countries from the oppressed countries. Key sectors of the U.S. economy rely on immigrant labor for profitability—like construction, meatpacking, and crop farms—with workers subjected to cruel conditions of employment, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the system's edict to work and possibly die...or go hungry and homeless. *A “brain drain” from the oppressed to the imperialist countries has severely impacted the impoverished countries—at the same that it has been a source of competitive advantage for U.S. imperialism. Seventy-one percent of tech employees in Silicon Valley in the mid-2010s were foreign born. Why did Silicon Valley end up in America? The answer is multidimensional, but the “brain drain,” especially from South Asia, is an essential factor. *Slightly more than 1 in 4 doctors in the U.S. is foreign-born. Africa, which has the “greatest “disease burden” in the world, was losing on average 1 African-educated physician to the U.S. a day in 2015. Keep in mind that during the height of the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, there was an average of 45 doctors per 100,000 in Nigeria—compared to 250 in the U.S. One in 10 nursing, psychiatric, and home-health aides comes from the Caribbean and Central America alone—while basic health needs go unmet in these countries. *A trend towards pervasive and widening income inequality is a basic feature of the U.S. labor force: income inequality between college- and non-college educated, between highly skilled and lesser skilled, etc., and within professions. Upward mobility in the U.S. is almost entirely for the college-educated but almost entirely downward for non-college educated (still the majority of the labor force).  *The traditional “blue-collar” middle class has shrunk, but the middle-class has not disappeared; rather, it has become more centered around higher-paid business and professional services. *The labor force of the so-called “knowledge economy” (professional-financial-university/educational-information technology) is clustered in certain geographic areas, especially cities. So there are great regional divergences in income as well. This is linked with the role of cities like New York City and Los Angeles as parasitic financial-administrative-command centers of imperialist capital and empire. And with this has come the emergence of a new underclass of “urban servants” servicing “wealth workers.” As stated at the start, the U.S. is a far more polarized, fractured, and segmented society than it was in 1970. Globalization and deindustrialization have not led to a “great leveling.” Bob Avakian reveals the underlying reality of this capitalist-imperialist system: This system crushes and deadens the human spirit as well as grinding away the life—or outright stealing the life—of billions of people in every part of the world. Think of the tremendous waste—and outright destruction—of human potential that results from this. All this is the consequence of the fact that the world, and the masses of humanity, are forced to live under the dominance of this system of capitalism-imperialism.  All this is the basis on which a relatively small part of the people within this country, and a very small part of humanity as a whole, has the conditions and “freedom” to develop and apply their initiative and creativity—only to have this serve, under this system, to reinforce the “lopsided,” highly unequal and profoundly oppressive conditions in the world as a whole and for the masses of people in the world. And all of this is completely unnecessary.  (Bob Avakian, CAPITALISM-IMPERIALISM—THE SUFFOCATION OF SEVEN BILLION—AND THE PROFOUND NEED FOR A WORLD ON NEW FOUNDATIONS) To read the entire paper that has just been published, click HERE. Follow: @TheRevcoms Read: www.revcom.us Watch: youtube.com/TheRevComs