[from national organizers meeting, 11/19 evening panel] 
I am very pleased that we are having this discussion
tonight, because what we have begun to do is truly extraordinary. We launched a movement to drive out a regime
Harold Pinter has rightly called, ‘more dangerous than Nazi Germany because of
the range and depth of its activities and intentions worldwide.’ And in doing so, we have brought together
beginning alliances that will be needed to do the only thing which is
commensurate to the order of the day – to drive the Bush regime from
power.
As it says in our Call, if we speak the truth they will try
to silence us, if we act they will try to stop us. We have begun to see attempts to stop and
silence us, and as we grow the die hard proponents of the Bush regime even more
viciously and desperately lash out – both openly and in underhanded ways to
divide and stop us.
So, it is very important that we do get into what motivates
us from different perspectives to take this up, to learn from each other, to
explore our differences but most importantly to strengthen our unity and
commonality of purpose.
To get into this, I’ll begin by saying that Nazi Germany
wasn’t always Nazi Germany. There was a
process by which that society developed ( the Nazis were genocidal before they
commit genocide. The crime the German
people committed was that they refused to face up to and mobilize to stop those
horrors when they were being spelled out before them ( instead they learned to
accept each day new outrages just a degree or more worse than the day before.
So, let me ask you, who in this room would have thought just
a few years that torture would be being openly legitimized? For real, who thought we’d be witnessing
debates on national television ( not by discredited marginal figures ( but by today’s
Nazis, major mouthpieces of the regime and the media over how much torture
should be acceptable or under what circumstances?
Who would’ve thought that in the face of the biggest natural
disaster in US history, that 100,000 Black people would not only be abandoned
for five days without food or water, but that federal troops would stop them at
gunpoint from leaving and stop aid coming in, and when the government finally
did come in, some of them straight from Iraq, it was with talk of turning New
Orleans into a ‘little Somalia?’
I could take my whole time here and several days just
getting into shocking example after shocking example. But the more disturbing point is that these
things are no longer shocking to most people ( they are fast learning to accept
them all those ‘Your governments’ in the beginning of the Call.
Yes, this and much more is happening here ( and it is more
dangerous than Nazi Germany. To see this
all you have to do is open your eyes and look around and peel away the foggy
glasses of acceptance and accommodation and wake the fuck up.
Here we are in 2005 with the most advanced technology that
has ever existed ( including nuclear weapons, and that they are controlled by a
regime with a figurehead ( Bush ( who calls them ‘nuke-u-lar’ and doesn’t even
acknowledge the most widely established foundational fact of evolution?
And it would be worse than criminal for us to allow the
people of this country to continue to dismiss major figures with influence and
power in this regime who openly advocate executing abortion providers, or float
out genocidal notions of aborting all Black babies, or equate homosexuality
with beastiality.
How is it that we are seriously looking at a situation
which, if left unchallenged will end up in a high tech Dark Ages? To put it
another way, why does the Bush Program, the right wing fascist program have so
much initiative over the ‘liberal’ agenda?
What are the underlying causes driving these shifts?
To answer this, which I can only touch on extremely briefly
here, it is necessary to pull back the lens a bit.
In the last generation, this world has undergone huge,
sweeping and unprecedented and dramatic changes. Through the intense process of imperialist
globalization we have witnessed the most massive migrations of people ( and of
capital and resources and industry and armies and ideas that has ever taken
place. This has literally ripped up
hundreds of years of people’s ways of life, for the first time in history, more
than half of humanity now lives in or around cities ( all of this creates
profound instability.
There have also been huge geo-political changes with the
collapse of the SU, leaving the US
as the sole super power in the world — a position, in this world of fast
paced global capitalism that requires it to assert itself over the entire
planet.
All of this has had reverberations within the US
itself. This country has experienced a
loss of industry, economic dislocations, an influx of millions of immigrants
from all over the world, and the increasing inability to provide any employment
at all for millions of Black people.
In this new era of leaner and meaner and ever more mobile
and highly competitive capitalism, there is no longer the economic basis or
necessity for New Deal consensus, which is a big part of why even before Bush, Clinton
too was setting into motion many things in the same direction that Bush has
taken and gone further on.
I mean, really consider what Clinton did ( from slashing
social services, by giving up the moral high ground by implying there is
something wrong with abortion by declaring it should be rare (when in fact,
they should be well-done!), mouthing the words of tolerance but actually
allowing the fostering of a movement that is vehemently anti-gay, tightening
the noose around communities of Black and other oppressed peoples ( with the
prison populations so escalating that more Black men were thrown in jail
percentage wise than there were Black Africans in prison during Apartheid and
massively militarizing the US/Mexican border
( all the while tightening the economic grip of the US over Mexico
through NAFTA which only further compels people to leave their homelands there
and risk crossing the border desperate for work and survival.
But to those grouped around Bush, this wasn’t and isn’t
enough. They went after Clinton
then, and they are going for even now radically remaking society in a fascist
way.
They are responding to these big economic changes, but also
to the huge cultural shifts ( like those brought about, (and rightly so!!),
through the struggles of the 60’s. For
instance, breaking many women out of traditional roles, or establishing the
idea that the US
doesn’t have the right to go in anywhere they want and invade another
country.
The question for the rulers of this country has been acutely
posed: how to hold together a society that has forces that are spinning apart
from the center? Especially, how are you
going to hold this together as you launch a war without end, against the will of
the people?
The world is profoundly different than it ever has been
before and it is going forward, one way or another. This is why the extremeness of this Bush
program is coming to the fore right now and why it is not going to
subside. The Christian Fascist base in
particular, which does, have a coherent — if 9th century — ideology behind
which it is attempting to organize society, providing people certainty and an
outlet for resentment and anger.
* * *
The WCW Call says ‘that there is not going to be some
magical âpendulum swing.” Bob Avakian
recently wrote: ‘Part of the dynamic at play . . . is the fact that the center
and the âarc’ of the pendulum continues to be moved further and further to the
right.’ Witness: Senator Chuck Schumer
on why the Democrats are running a right to life candidate for Senator in Pennsylvania:
‘We can’t afford to play games anymore . . . the day is over when a candidate
has to check 27 boxes before we support him.’
And, John Kerry said: ‘pro-life Democrats should be embraced.’ And, Hillary: ‘abortion represents a sad,
even tragic choice for women.’
And, let’s be honest, 400 cities passed resolutions against
the Patriot Act. And, most Democrats
just voted with the Republicans to extend it and to make it even worse that it
was.
There is not going to be a savoir from the Democratic Party.
Look, this regime must go; it’s program stopped. But, the underlying causes are deep and
systemic. I hope that as we work and
struggle together, and as we approach a situation where this hated regime is on
the run, that people in this movement will not want any government that would
do any of the things that are concentrated in the ‘your governments.’
And more, that many will look deep into the heart of this
system, come to understand it, and see that we need a revolution to end a setup
where the wealth created by the people of the whole world is controlled by a
handful of imperialists, where the fate of the people and planet is
subordinated to the relentless drive for profit, and where the machinery of the
state, its armies, courts and police are used to enforce that order.
What do I want to see come out of this whole process? I would like to see a situation emerge where a
revolutionary people can develop, where millions of people see the possibility
of a whole new way society could be organized, and are willing to fight for it,
and where a situation develops where it is actually possible to launch a
revolution that has a shot at succeeding.
Will such a situation develop out of this mix? It is a possibility and this would be a
future worth struggling for.
The Chairman of the RCP, Bob Avakian, has developed the
understanding and vision of a socialist society that people would really want
to live in. Drawing from and building on
the liberating experience of the first socialist revolutions, he has envisioned
a new society and a radically new kind of state that not only meets people’s
material needs ( providing decent housing, food, health care, all the basic
necessities) but, one where the whole of society is engaged in uprooting all
forms of oppression: of different nationalities and races, a society where
women will truly be full participants and leaders. Most of all, this will be a socialism where
increasingly the masses of people take up all spheres of social and political
life — from the affairs of state to mastering art & culture. The people will be politically conscious and
mobilized to prevent old or new exploiters and oppressive relations from re-emerging. It will be a lively and engaging society
filled with debate and dissent and wrestling with all these questions to enable
the people to gain mastery over the arenas from which they had previously been
locked out of. And, this will be a
revolutionary society on a mission to struggle for communism where oppressive
classes have been eliminated throughout the entire world.
I encourage you to learn more about this re-envisioning of
communism by Bob Avakian, check out his writings, go to www.bobavakian.net. You should get, read
and distribute Revolution newspaper every week.
WMD’s are not the only thing you’ve been lied to about. Check out the Revolution.
***
None of this — from
a new society to country that doesn’t engage in any of the policies described
by the ‘Your Government’s’ is possible unless this Bush Regime is driven from
power. And when we do that, it will be a
great victory which all of us will celebrate together.
My hope is that I have provoked everyone to think more and
deepened our understanding of why the Bush regime is being driven to such
extremes. Also, by now I think it is
probably clear to you that I am convinced that the Democrats will never do
anything to fundamentally challenge this direction and represent the interests
of the people.
But, if you still hope for something good to come from the
Democrats, you must come to grips with the reality that this will never happen
unless there is a massive upsurge from below demand the World Can’t Wait (
Drive Out the Bush Regime.
In this context, the Democratic Party will have to calculate
what position it will take, not simply in relationship to the terms set by the
Bush camp, but also of an increasingly organized and politically forceful
movement that is demanding the regime step down. Only when there is the real danger of losing
the allegiance of the people would we possibly see an impeachment process in
this (or the next) congress gain legs.
Our movement must affect all sections of society – calling
forward and activating those who are disaffected, but still paralyzed, forcing
the fence-sitters to pick a side ( are you with the torturers, the liars, the
Christian Ayatollahs? Or are you with
this growing organized movement to drive this regime out? For the loyal Bush supporters, this will
confront them, many for the first time, with the full horrors of what they are
supporting, peeling away some of his base and causing others to question.
And for the Bush camp and their die-hard supporters, they
will have to confront the fact of being de-legitimized ( in the eyes not just
of thousands or even tens of thousands, but in the eyes of millions. Where, every new lie, every new policy, every
new outrage becomes a basis on which we bring forward and win even more to join
us in this effort to drive him out.
Think of how this political force ( which we began to bring
into being on November 2nd, a real and significant beginning, but one with
shortcomings which must rapidly and systematically be worked at and overcome (
as it becomes much more widely known by every section of society, debated, and
grows will change the whole political equation in society.
Especially on the State of the Union ( in a national action
in our different cities and towns, bringing the noise when the world-class liar
opens his mouth and drowning him out, and coming right back again just a few
days later in a concentrated and unified massive show of force —- delivering
a verdict on his regime through bringing a significant outpouring into DC to
say, Step Down! And Take Your Whole
Program With You! All together, from our
different perspectives, this is what lies before us to be done ( the world
can’t wait. Let’s be realistic, and
demand the impossible.