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Revolution #122, March 9,2008

March 8,2008

Celebrate International Women's Day

This year on International Women’s Day, the March 8th Women’s Organization (Iran, Afghanistan) and “The Women’s Campaign for the Abolition of All Misogynist and Gender-Based Legislation and Islamic Punitive Laws in Iran against Women” (Karzar) have called for a bold march through the streets of Brussels. This march is in defiance of the woman-hating regime in Iran and other Islamic fundamentalists—and in defiance of U.S. efforts to use the brutal oppression of women in Iran and Afghanistan to drum up support for its war for empire in the Middle East and its threats to attack Iran.

With this action, women from Iran and Afghanistan are declaring that their fight is against both of these enemies, that they will not choose between two different versions of hell: stonings, forced veil, and brutal anti-woman laws or U.S.-sponsored bombs, occupation and domination. They will take their protest from the U.S. embassy, to European Parliament, to the embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran.Each year since 2006, Iranian women activists in exile in Europe have taken to the streets on March 8th joined by hundreds of Iranian and international revolutionaries and progressives who support their struggle against both enemies.

This year the March 8th Women’s Organization has issued an important call for women and men in the U.S. to support their struggle and to fight against the regime in the U.S. at the same time as they fight against the regime in Iran. A solidarity march will be held on March 8th in the streets of Los Angeles, and solidarity events will also take place in New York and San Francisco. Playwright Eve Ensler, best known for the play, The Vagina Monologues, wrote this statement for the IWD march in Los Angeles: “I stand in solidarity with the women of Iran, that they may be protected from the patriarchs, both within their country and outside, who attempt to censor them, destroy their rights, invade them and occupy them. I stand with you in your struggle for freedom from this tyranny that you may come into your power and voice.”

A great deal is at stake for the future of humanity in whether people in the U.S. step out and take a stand in support of this courageous struggle of women rebelling against both these outmoded forces in the world. Revolution wholeheartedly supports this call and we encourage our readers to build for and attend the solidarity actions.

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Revolution #122, March 9,2008

Let Us Celebrate Our Fighting Unity on International Women’s Day

Demonstration at the Hague, Netherlands in 2006 called by the March 8th Women’s Organization (Iran, Afghanistan). [Photo: Special to Revolution]

We women from Iran will march on the streets of Europe on March 8 in order to let the world know we, who are facing one of the deadliest woman hating regimes on Earth (the Islamic Republic), will go on rebelling against everything reactionary until we achieve emancipation of women and the whole of humanity.

We will reaffirm that never ever in history have slaves been liberated by the slave owners. Therefore we denounce and reject George Bush’s outrageous declarations about wanting to liberate us.

We call upon women and men in the U.S. to act in solidarity and support us in our difficult fight against our two enemies who are part of the same matrix: the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and U.S. imperialism.

Oppression of women is the linchpin of Islamic theocracy in Iran. Religious state guarantees total patriarchy. Here, all kinds of state sanctioned brutal rituals are performed over women’s bodies: obligatory head to toe cover Hejab; arresting and torturing those who rebel against Hejab; stoning and hanging “infidel” and adulterous women. In Iran women have no right to travel, no right to work, no right to education without consent of father or husband. It is total patriarchy. Medieval penal codes ensure medieval moral codes.

In Iran, extreme oppression breaks women and denigrates them but also turns them into formidable rebels. We rebel against our conditions and we struggle to make all oppressed and exploited people in Iran rebel against the slavery of women. Today in Iran, every progressive and revolutionary movement—be it the workers who fight for the right to strike and have unions or the students who are fighting against tyranny and U.S. war threats—calls for abolition of laws demoting women to a slave situation; they call for separation of state and religion, and at the heart of this separation is an end to the slave situation of women.

In the midst of our bloody fight against Islamic Republic of Iran we have to also face another bloody foe: US imperialism.

GW regime claims to be “liberator” of the people in the Middle East: a 100 percent criminal cynical deception. We know what that “liberation” looks like! Misery and oppression of our sisters in Afghanistan and Iraq fills us with deep sorrow and rage. In “liberated” Iraq, with close to one million deaths and total disruption of life for millions of people, many female children who have been spared by U.S. bombs and bestial raids of U.S. army are traded in prostitution free market. After all it has been “liberation” of free market capitalism which trades in human flesh.

We want to make one thing clear: we the women of Iran, who have been in a kind of civil war with Islamic Republic of Iran for the last 29 years, are not fighting to liberate ourselves from the clutches of one outmoded social, ideological, political system like the IRI in order to let another outmoded system like U.S. imperialism replace it. Nothing is more deadly a trap for the oppressed than to prefer one set of oppressors to another set of oppressors.

We don’t need anybody “liberating” us. We have been liberating ourselves for 29 years, and the US has been helping and consolidating the IRI and other “made in USA” Islamic fundamentalists in the Middle East. The US rulers (Republican or Democrats) are experts in putting together all kinds of reactionary mummies, tribal, clerical and warlord patriarchs and “forging a state” out of them. This is the kind of pluralism and democracy US has been dishing out to the people of the Middle East in addition to bombs.

We don’t need “liberation” ala GW. But we do need the support of people in the U.S.!

We need the people in the U.S. to fight against their regime while we are fighting against ours.

GW and Islamic rulers in Iran are warning us that one must choose between them. No! We should not let the people in our countries to be squeezed in this political trap. It is clever on their part to use the fight in between them to also stamp out any possibility of the people taking the helms of society away from them in making revolutions in Iran and U.S. Instead of playing their sinister destructive path we have our own way: to squeeze them in between our internationalist revolutionary struggles.

We believe IRI is just a part and parcel of the world wide system that U.S. and other imperialist powers are controlling and leading: an extremely oppressive anti-people, women-hating system which is prevailing in the world. This system has to be buried in order for us to be liberated. We women of the world must break our chains and unleash women as mighty force for this epochal change. We have one fight to fight for the whole of humanity.

March 8th Women’s Organization
(Iran, Afghanistan)
2008

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Revolution #122, March 9,2008

Donate to the $500,000 Fund Drive

Fund Drive Campaign News and Resources

Celebrate Our Fighting Unity on International Women’s Day

Los Angeles

Celebrate Our Fighting Unity on International Women’s Day

Saturday, March 8, 2008

Join women of Iran and Afghanistan in their struggle against the woman-hating Islamic Republic of Iran and the imperialist U.S. empire. On March 8, women from those and other countries will take to the streets in an international march in Brussels. We will march in solidarity with them in the streets of L.A.!

Assemble at the Federal Bldg. in Westwood –
Noon (corner of Wilshire & Veteran Blvd.)
March through Westwood, Rally at Le Conte & Westwood – 2 p.m.

Endorsers:

International Women’s Day Coalition, Los Angeles 2008 (intlwomensdayla@gmail.com, myspace.com/intlwomensdayla); Carol Downer, originator of self-health and board of Feminist Women’s Health Center; Libros Revolución; Puerto Rican Alliance; Dr. Jose Quiroga, Medical Director of Program for Torture Victims and Executive Vice-President of IRCT; Union of Progressive Iranians; Students for Critical Thinking, CSULA; Media sponsor: KPFK

New York

Stand with Iranian Women
Fighting Two Enemies—

Anti-Woman Islamic Theocracy and U.S. Imperialism

Wednesday, March 12, 2008, 7 p.m.

Revolution Books, NYC 9 West 19th Street

Speakers and films will present the reality of women’s lives and women’s resistance in the Middle East and the need to oppose U.S.
war moves on Iran.

Presented by Revolution Books and the IWD 2008 Committee to Stand
With Iranian Women.
For more information: 212-691-3345; revolutionbooksnyc.org

San Francisco Bay Area

Evening of Solidarity with Iranian Women

Friday, March 7, 7 p.m.

Revolution Books, Berkeley, 2425 Channing Way

For more information: 510-848-1196, revolutionbooks.org

Send us your comments.

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Revolution #122, March 9, 2008

Revolution Books/Libros Revolución presents:

Re-envisioning Revolution and Communism:

WHAT IS BOB AVAKIAN’S NEW SYNTHESIS?

Presentation followed by discussion

(see below for locations and dates)

ON A PLANET WHERE BILLIONS LIVE A DAY AWAY FROM STARVATION...
where the lives of millions of children are cut short by curable diseases...
where brutal wars grind on in Iraq and Afghanistan and hellholes like Guantánamo stay “open for business”...where nooses spring up like weeds, immigrants are hunted and the availability of abortion is rapidly disappearing...
where youth are treated as either criminals or commodities...and where all this
is totally UNNECESSARY—the world badly needs revolution.

Revolutionary state power will set about ending these horrors and meeting the pressing needs of the people. But a truly emancipatory socialism must do more than that. It must lay the basis, and take concrete steps, toward a society where people consciously change the world and themselves, in a society of freely associating human beings and where the need for any kind of state has been surpassed.

In that light, Bob Avakian has done path-breaking work to go beyond even the best of the previous socialist societies and re-envisioned a socialism that is both visionary and viable. His “new synthesis” has tackled a whole realm of questions, including:

HOW DOES THE NEW REVOLUTIONARY POWER MAINTAIN POWER and maintain it as a power worth keeping? How does it not just survive in a world dominated by imperialism, but do that as a base area for further revolutions?
WHAT WOULD BE THE ROLE OF INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS, civil society, and politics outside the purview of the state? What would be the role of a constitution and elections? Why would this re-envisioned socialism not only tolerate, but foster, dissent?
WHAT WOULD BE THE RELATION BETWEEN SCIENTISTS, ARTISTS, AND INTELLECTUALS carrying out urgent work to meet the most pressing needs of society and, at the same time, pursuing work, experimentation, and exploration not tied to those kinds of immediate goals? How would the age-old division between those who work with ideas and those who are locked out of that, be overcome—in a way that does not sacrifice but actually enhances vibrancy and intellectual ferment throughout society in unprecedented ways?
WHAT IS THE IMPORTANCE OF A FEARLESS ATTITUDE TOWARD THE TRUTH and what have been the shortcomings and blinders in regard to this in the communist movement as it has developed?
HOW DOES THIS NEW SYNTHESIS BOTH CONTINUE ON THE PATH FIRST CHARTED BY MARX, LENIN AND MAO—AND YET GO BEYOND IT, IN NEW AND CRUCIAL WAYS?

Come hear the presentation and wrangle over all this.

Bob Avakian is the leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. And he is more than that: he’s an innovative and critical thinker who has taken Marxism to a new place; he’s a provocative commentator on everything from basketball to religion, doo-wop music to science; and he’s a pit-bull fighter against oppression who’s kept both his solemn sense of purpose and his irrepressible sense of humor.

Bob Avakian will not be in attendance at this event.

New York
Sunday, March 9th • 4 pm

St. Paul & St. Andrew Church
Corner of West 86th St & West End Ave
1 train to 86th Street, walk 1 block west to West End Ave
$10 sliding scale admission
We apologize that translation will not be available for this program. Programs in Spanish will be announced later.

Further info: 212-691-3345 – www.revolutionbooksnyc.org
Download PDF flyer for New York event

Chicago
Saturday, March 22nd • 1 to 5 pm

University Center*
525 S. State Street (State & Congress)
Simultaneous Spanish interpretation will be available
Venue is accessible
Parking/Ride sharing - call for information
Red line to Harrison. Walk 1 block north.
Brown, Pink, Orange lines to Library stop. Walk 1 block east, 1 block south

More information: 773-489-0930 - revbookschi@yahoo.com
Download PDF flyer for Chicago event

*This program is not sponsored by or affiliated with University Center

Los Angeles
Saturday, March 22nd • 1 to 5 pm

The New LATC
514 S. Spring Street
Spanish translation will be available
$10 sliding scale admission
For reservations and further information:
Libros Revolución 312 W. 8th St., Los Angeles, CA
213-488-1303
librosrevolucion.blog.com • librosrevo@yahoo.com
Download PDF flyer for Los Angeles event

SF/Bay Area
Saturday, March 22nd • 2 pm
Berkeley

For location and availability of translation, call 510-848-1196

Send us your comments.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/122/principle-and-standards-en.html

Revolution #122, March 9, 2008

MATTERS OF PRINCIPLE AND STANDARDS

As a basic principle, things that involve (or are alleged to involve) matters which are internal to a communist organization but which that organization, for whatever reason, has not decided to discuss publicly, are not things which should be discussed publicly by anyone, especially anyone who even claims to be serious about revolution and communism. This is a matter of standards that is elementary and basic for any serious revolutionary and any real revolutionary-communist organization. If anyone wishes to evaluate what such an organization actually stands for and is working to achieve, there is plenty of basis to do so—and in fact the best basis to do so—by reading the official documents and other publications of that organization and by familiarizing oneself with the practical work that this organization carries out.

These are the standards and this is the approach which the RCP adheres to and applies. If and when the RCP itself decides to make public things which have been adopted through the internal processes of the Party—as has been done, for example, with the 1995 Leadership Resolutions—then of course the Party will not only be willing but anxious to engage with as many people as possible in discussion about these things.

Anyone who is not authorized by the RCP to do so but who claims to be revealing “inside information” about the RCP establishes himself or herself, by that very act, as someone who, at a minimum, is acting very irresponsibly.

Beyond that, spreading gossip, rumors, and distortions about the RCP, and/or others in the communist movement, marks anyone who does so as thoroughly dishonest and highly unprincipled. The more that life unfolds, the more the opportunist character of people who do such things will be revealed.

Send us your comments.

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Revolution #122, March 9,2008

This statement was written in response to a call from Iranian women for people in the U.S. to "act in solidarity and support us in our difficult fight against our two enemies who are part of the same matrix: the Islamic Republic of Iran and U.S. Imperialism ... "* It will be sent to Iranian women marching in Europe on March 8, 2008.
Please add your name by emailing StandwithWomen2008@Yahoo.com and forward widely.

International Women's Day 2008

We Stand With Iranian Women

On International Women's Day, March 8, 2008, we women in the U.S. are proud to stand with Iranian women who are fighting on two fronts: against the anti-woman oppression of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the war threats of the U.S. government.

When a woman is lashed, our bodies, too, feel pain. When a woman is stoned, our own blood is spilled. What happens to any of our sisters, whatever patriarchal horror is inflicted in Iran or anywhere, affects all of us. When one woman is degraded, silenced, abused, or murdered, all women are harmed.

At this time when U.S. war and occupation is devastating the Middle East, including destroying the lives of countless women and children, and is threatening Iran, we declare our determination to oppose imperialist war moves, at the same time as we support your resistance to anti-woman laws and practices in the Islamic Republic. History shows that the U.S. is all too ready to accommodate and encourage Islamic fundamentalists when it suits its interests, as the reality in Iraq and Afghanistan today shows, even while it hypocritically professes concern for women as justification for attacking at other times.

Much is at stake for women - and men - today in the world, and we have much to learn from the Iranian women rallying in Europe on International Women's Day who are refusing to choose between oppressors and are determined to liberate themselves to bring another future into being.

As Iranian women gather in Europe and in Iran this International Women's Day 2008, we in the U.S. salute and stand with you!

(please add your name, a brief identifier, and email to StandWithWomen2008@yahoo.com)

*See www.8mars.com for call from Iranian women, "Let us Celebrate Our Fighting Unity on International Women's Day." Also see http://www.karzar-zanan.com/english.html[back]

Send us your comments.

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Revolution #122, March 9,2008

The Hypocrisy of “Newly Minted Feminists”… And David Horowitz’ Dangerous Agenda

by T. Redtree

Editors’ note: The following article originally appeared in Revolution #105 (10/21/07). That article was written specifically in response to so-called “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” [for background on this, see “Resist ‘Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week’: Confront the Horowitz Fascists with Real Facts and Truth” in Revolution #102, available at revcom.us]. We are reprinting this article now because exposing the hypocrisy of the rulers of the U.S. posing as champions of women oppressed by Islamic fundamentalism is critical for people who want to oppose the oppression of women everywhere

The people putting on “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week”—the October 22–26 series of events at universities and colleges purporting to oppose “Islamo-Fascism” and to develop support for the “war on terror”—pose as champions of the rights of women. And so, at a time when the Supreme Court has thrown the right to abortion into question, when the operatives of the Bush regime have brought birth control increasingly under fire, when violence against women in this country continues and intensifies with vengeance, and when the culture is saturated with ritual shamings of women who “go bad”…Horowitz and his allies have proclaimed their intent to hold sit-ins at Women’s Studies Departments, “designed to protest the absence of courses that focus on Islamic gynophobia,” in order to coerce them into signing the statement “Calling on Feminists to End Their Silence on the Oppression of Women in Islam”!

The hypocrisy of these newly minted feminists is stunning. But behind the hypocrisy lies an ugly and dangerous agenda. Horowitz is seizing on the truth of the real oppression of women in countries ruled by Islamic fundamentalists in the service of a very big lie. There is a way to oppose this oppression—but it is not by enlisting in Horowitz’s crusade. Indeed, if you really do oppose the oppression of women—in Islamic fundamentalist countries and movements and on the rest of the planet as well—opposing Horowitz’s “week” is the most important thing you can do right now.

“Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week”

Horowitz has manipulated and thieved language and tactics from the 1960s to make it look like campus brownshirts are the new wave of student activism—using tactics like sit-ins and protests at Women’s Studies Departments “with the goal of encouraging them to provide course offerings on the abuse of women in Islam.” The scholarship and teaching currently going on in Women’s Studies is dismissed as “trivial” or “imagined” and criticized for the “numerous hours… spent…dissecting the reasons for the ‘wage gap’ in America, violence against women and the ‘privileges’ accorded Caucasian males. But courses on the plight of women in Islamic regimes are strangely absent.” (Sara Dogan—Frontpage, 10/9/07)

Phyllis Chesler and Robert Spensor have written a pamphlet for the week titled The Violent Oppression of Women in Islam, which marshals partial truths about the oppression of women in the service of a gigantic lie—one that has been told by colonial powers since the 19th century—and was trotted out most recently in service of launching the opening act in the war on terror in Afghanistan. “We’re here to save the women! We’re ready to fight the ‘war on terror’ not to extend the violence of empire but to protect the weaker sex!” And now the same war propaganda is being drummed up all over again, to reinforce this “war on terror” and to mount support and consent for attacking Iran.

Chesler and Spensor also exhibit a xenophobic worldview that includes passages that warn of the danger of allowing Islamic people to immigrate—spreading the contagion of Islamic backwardness and terrorism into European and American society. Their treatment of the whole subject conjures up the kind of fear and prejudice that creates an atmosphere where rendition, detention, and torture for “your safety” are tolerated. And their rhetoric is an echo of the war propaganda from World War 2—where stereotypes of “inscrutable” Japanese whose “minds were 2000 years behind” were created to train the public to go along with putting people into internment camps.

A Cautionary Tale—Afghanistan and Iraq

In this land of short attention spans, let’s recall the justifications for war against Afghanistan. Before that war, TV specials about the plight of women forced under the burkah were brought into millions of living rooms—people sympathized and hearts went out to the women living under the Taliban. Young men and women signed up with the U.S. military to fight. The women’s movement was actively courted and put on display to prove the political will and broad sentiment in favor of bombing and invasion.

Susan Faludi’s new book, The Terror Dream—Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America, documents the whole thing in detail. “After months of being snubbed, the Feminist Majority, which had been trying to call attention to the Taliban’s abuse of women since 1996, found itself in the astonishing position of playing belle at the capitol ball.... The White House (which had just abolished the office of women’s ‘initiatives’) began contacting women’s rights organizations and asking them to seek ‘common ground’ with the administration that had iced them since its inception.”

Faludi documents how feminist leaders were invited to brief Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, and others. Congress held hearings on the status of women in Afghanistan. Bush himself pronounced to an audience of women’s rights activists that “the central goal of the terrorists is the brutal oppression of women,” and Colin Powell solemnly stated that the “rights of women will not be negotiable” as the State Department issued a “Report on the Taliban’s War against Women.” And then it stopped. Barely two weeks after the invasion, when questioned about the status of women’s rights, the State Department said it “had other priorities.”

Today Afghanistan has a parliament full of Islamic fundamentalists and warlords and the situation for women in Afghanistan has barely changed. Wearing the burkah is no longer law—but women are in danger of being beaten if they dare to appear in public without it. In September, the same journalist who made the CNN documentary “Behind the Veil” before the invasion returned to Afghanistan to report on the grim situation for women now. The new documentary interview shines a light on an epidemic of young women with serious burns—from setting themselves afire with household kerosene in acts of defiance and despair at arranged marriages.

The same lies and hypocrisy are evident in the Iraq war as well. In summer 2003, L. Paul Bremer, the top administrator of the U.S. occupation, assembled the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC). Among those appointed by Bremer were Islamists who openly declared their intent to restrict women’s rights. Then, on December 29, 2003, the IGC held a quasi‑secret vote to replace Iraq’s 1959 family law which was among the most progressive in the Middle East. The family law had been enacted in 1959 by the secular nationalist government of Abd Al Karim Qasim, who was later overthrown by the Ba’athists (with support from the United States). These laws came into being on the heels of mass mobilization of the Iraqi women’s movement at the end of the British colonial era. Aspects of the progressive family law persisted until the eve of the U.S. invasion. Divorce cases were to be heard only in civil courts, and women divorcees had an equal right to custody over their children. Women’s income was recognized as independent from their husbands. The law also restricted child marriage and granted women and men equal shares of inheritance.

The occupation authorities consistently undermined Iraqi women’s efforts to secure their legal rights. The U.S. threw its weight behind Iraq’s Shiite Islamists, calculating that these forces, long suppressed by Saddam Hussein, would cooperate with the occupation and deliver the stability needed for the U.S. The first battle in the drafting of Iraq’s constitution was over the family laws. The U.S.-backed forces reviled the 1959 law for being “secular” and spawning “deviant decisions that tore families apart.” They also demanded that interpretation of family law be removed from civil authority and handed back to the clerics.

Further, the new Iraqi Constitution that Bush and the media glorify as bringing democracy to Iraq, in reality finalized the establishment of an Islamic Republic. Article 2 of the final version of the constitution makes Islam the official religion of Iraq and its state and makes it clear that no law can be passed to contradict it. Article 14 of the final constitution guarantees equal rights for women—only so long as those rights do not “violate Sharia” (Islamic law). So Sharia comes first. According to Sharia, only fathers can have custody of children in case of divorce. Women are officially valued at only half the worth of men in matters such as inheritance and bearing witness in court.

Meanwhile, Shiite militias patrol the streets of Iraq’s major cities, attacking women who don’t dress or behave to their liking. In many places, they kill women who wear pants or appear in public without a headscarf. In much of Iraq, women are virtually confined to their homes because of the likelihood of being beaten, raped, or abducted in the streets. The Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Sistani—a U.S. ally—ordered all Iraqi women to wear headscarves, and his edicts were enforced by beheadings and acid attacks. In 2006, Sistani also issued an order for the killing of gays and lesbians, which was publicized for several months on his website. And a recent UN report states that 250 women were killed in honor killings in Iraqi Kurdistan alone thus far this year—most of them burned alive.

If David Horowitz really gave a damn about the status of women under Islam, he would be denouncing and protesting at the White House.

Honor Killings

Horowitz and Chesler make use of a surge in honor killings in Iraq and the region more generally to also make their case that there is something unique and intrinsically worse about Islam than any other ideology or religion. To be clear: honor killings are barbaric. They are a horrific manifestation of property relations and of the fact that societies have treated women first and foremost as the property of males. They are one more reason that this whole world needs to be turned right side up through communist revolution and a radical rupture with all traditional property relations and all traditional ideas.

But Horowitz, Chesler & Co. once again take some truths about honor killings to buttress a big lie. First off, incidents of honor killings in Iraq have increased as Iraqi civil society has collapsed under the occupation—strengthening tribal bonds and religious authority. Second, unfortunately the practice of honor killings is far from confined to Islamic culture. It predates Islam and today spans religions, cultures, and countries, including Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Ecuador, Egypt, Guatemala, India, Iran, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Palestine, Peru, Syria, Turkey, and Venezuela.

Moreover, the vestiges of these customs and the same property relations that still dominate the planet can also be found in the U.S.—they are called “crimes of passion” in U.S. legal code where sentencing is not based on the crime but the feelings of the perpetrator. And they have always worked to the advantage of men. For example, in 1999, a Texas judge sentenced a man to four months in prison for murdering his wife and wounding her lover in front of their 10-year-old child. As in an “honor killing,” adultery was viewed as a mitigating factor in the case. Both the “crime of passion” and the term “honor killing” communicate the perspective of the overwhelmingly male perpetrators, and thereby carry an implicit justification. Marital rape laws were non-existent in many states in the U.S. until the 1990s. And many of Horowitz’s strongest allies are the same people who pass laws to strengthen the “sanctity of marriage” and promote the cult of virginity—both of which provide the underpinnings of the honor killings that Horowitz so hypocritically pretends to oppose now, when it suits his purposes.

So when they hold “Islamo Fascism Awareness Week” and they tell you we need a “war on terror” to free the women of Islam, the old saying “fool me once, shame on you—fool me twice, shame on me” applies.

[sources for the section on Iraq and Honor Killings—1) A World to Win News Service and 2) Promising Democracy—Imposing Theocracy—gender- based violence in the US war on Iraq” by Yifat Susskind, www.MADRE.org]

The Bizarre Political Marriage of Phyllis Chesler and Rick Santorum

Phyllis Chesler is a long-time feminist and one-time progressive who now finds herself politically and ideologically allied with the very people who not too long ago desired nothing less than having her head on a pike. Exhibit A in this is her fellow “Islamo-Fascism Awareness” comrade Rick Santorum. Apparently Chesler wants to support Christian fascism to oppose so-called “Islamo-fascism.”

Santorum, formerly the third highest ranking member of the Senate who lost his seat last November, is a featured speaker for Horowitz’s “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week.” Santorum came up with the novel thesis that the liberal climate in Boston gave rise to the rash of pedophile priests in the Catholic Church. He is an opponent of abortion who argues that the right to privacy does not exist in the Constitution and therefore that the Supreme Court decision that legalized contraception is not valid.

In a 2003 interview, Santorum justified his opposition to gay marriage by lumping homosexual relations in with bestiality. He tried to pass legislation to bring “intelligent design” into school science curriculum and does not believe in the separation between church and state. This is a total package—a repressive outmoded and reactionary scriptural view of women and the family that demands women’s obedience and submission.

How in the world can anyone who opposes the oppression of women enlist in a crusade with the likes of Rick Santorum? Chesler wants to condemn the horror of female mutilation in Africa (which is not just Islamic)—but now aligns herself with forces who want to block the human papilloma virus vaccinations that would save millions of women from cervical cancer. The Islamic fundamentalists and the Christian fascists use the same rationalization: both are done in the name of keeping women from engaging in pre-marital and extra-marital sex; both reflect an ugly mentality that this violence towards women is necessary to keep them from “being loose women.” The world that either would have you live in is one where women are the possessions of their husbands and where the sexual lives of all women are controlled by men.

Santorum represents a very powerful section of the U.S. ruling class aiming at bringing just such a world into being. Horowitz himself is a conscious and high-level operative of those same rulers. Anyone who comes in under that banner, no matter what caveats they may issue, will end up as vehicles for those forces and that agenda.

****

A worldwide snapshot of the standing of women at the dawn of the 21st century is looking dreadfully dim. You can look out over the vast technological and productive capacity achieved, the unprecedented availability of information, and the percentage of women who have now entered the global labor force and ask WHY? Why, with all this, does the status of women look socially, practically and existentially more like the Dark Ages than what many people assumed would be the step-by-step progression and advancement of more enlightened attitudes toward women? Suddenly it seems that that fragile progress is being hurtled backwards with hurricane force—threatening to drown the hopes of those who have dreamed of throwing off centuries of oppression and traditions that have squelched the life and potential of half the human race.

The sudden explosion of the globalization of prostitution, for instance, has combined the inequality of nations and the inequality of the sexes into one hideous phenomenon. Today there are 400,000 to 500,000 child prostitutes in India. Some 800,000 children and teenagers in Thailand have been forced into prostitution—an “industry,” by the way, brought into being by the use of Thailand as a “rest and recreation” area for U.S. troops during the Vietnam war. Literally hundreds of thousands of women and children are sold each year by traffickers in a “bull market” of sexual slavery that generates billions of dollars every year. A World to Win News Service points out that, while some refer to the “sex industry” as if it were just another job, “most of the women are youths and children and little more than modern slaves. Workers create commodities, but like old-fashioned slaves these women are commodities to be bought and sold as if they were things, and not human beings. Many hundreds of thousands of women are trafficked every year from the world’s poorest areas to Western Europe, Australia, Israel, Japan, the U.S., the Arab Gulf states and other countries.”

At the same time, mass culture and morality is increasingly imprisoned in a fascination with the virgin and the whore. Someone like Britney Spears is manufactured as a “star”—which includes sexually objectifying her—and then gleefully torn down, with her “fall from grace” put on lurid display and Spears herself put in a 21st-century version of the stocks in the electronic town square. The moral and lesson is driven home to hundreds of millions…and to make sure people “get it,” the same fable will be repeated with another victim next month.

What kind of world is this where the more wealth is created and the more the world is drawn into a single whole, instead of human progress the result is greater tragedy for millions? What kind of a world is it where women are ever more forcefully told that their only choice—if they even have one—is between the feudal nightmare embodied in the traditions of all the major religions, or the commodified “Sex-and-the-City” version of liberation, where you have “autonomy” to market yourself—as a commodity, in a world still premised on the everyday subordination, debasement, and brutalization of half of humanity? The answer is, a world still dominated by capitalism and imperialism.

There was a time when, in truly socialist countries, the first breathtaking steps toward women’s equality were being taken and this is what inspired the world and set the terms for everything. This was especially true in China during the era of Mao (1949-76). Women went from bound feet, domestic slavery, and female infanticide to breaking barriers in every sphere. Socialism—proletarian state power—transformed gender relations in politics, in production, in the arts, within the family and in education (including in the raising of children in a way that really began to overcome gender bias and oppression), and in every other sphere to such an extent that the formerly backward China inspired millions of women—and men—worldwide with a vision of social emancipation for women. But socialist rule in China was overturned—in fact, if not yet in name—and it is no longer a beacon for anything progressive, including for women. Nonetheless, what was accomplished there when the proletariat did hold state power sets a point of departure for a new round of revolutions and for a further, and even more deep-going, effort to break all of tradition’s chains, one that goes even further in mobilizing women, and men, to uproot the oppression of women in every sphere, to fully achieve equality and go beyond it, to a world of freely associating human beings. It is this kind of revolutionary future—and not a return to one or another suffocating and subjugating tradition of the past, or the oppressive emptiness of the imperialist present—that has to be fought for. And it is this kind of future for which the suppressed fury of women must be unleashed, as part of eradicating all oppression

There Is Another Way

As the degradation of and violence towards women are increasingly globalized, the struggle and resistance of women is also taking on an increasingly international dimension. To take one example: on International Women’s Day this year, revolutionary, progressive, and communist women from Iran raised the cry to break “the chain of violence against women [that] goes back thousands of years and is long enough to cross every border and encircle the world.” Their statement read in part:

“We Iranian women will continue on the path…seeking to build ‘another world’ based on the participation and power of the people, who have no interest in maintaining the power structures based on exploitation and injustice. We seek a world where mutilating women is considered a crime, not a tradition. We seek a world where no female child will be forced to submit to ‘matrimonial’ rape, where no woman will face ‘honour killings’, where no woman is forced to commit suicide or to set fire to herself to escape patriarchal violence, a world where no woman is punished or faces death by stoning for loving someone or for sexual relations. We seek a world that does not consider homosexuality a crime, a world where a woman’s identity is not determined by her marriage or motherhood. We are fighting for a world where no one can force women to stay in the kitchen or indoors, where no one can deprive women of the right to participate in social production and in politics. In such a world women will control their own bodies and will make their own decisions about whether they want children, a world in which men and women are truly equal in all aspects of life.”

There IS an alternative to support, if you truly care about uprooting the oppression of women AND opposing this horrific system and its “war on terror.” There ARE people who are fighting, worldwide, to do that. Let’s hear THEIR call and join them!

Send us your comments.

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Revolution #122, March 9,2008

The Horrors for Women in the “Modern” World of Global Capitalism

PDF of photo spread

This is the situation for women in today’s “modern” world of global capitalism:

Sexual trafficking crisscrosses the planet. Hundreds of thousands of women are kidnapped, coerced, bought, and sold into sexual slavery every year.¹
In India there are 400,000 to 500,000 child prostitutes. In Thailand, 800,000 children and teenagers have been forced into prostitution.²
Every day in the United States, four women are murdered by husbands and boyfriends.³
Every year in the United States, at least two to four million women are battered. Every year, approximately 132,000 women report being the victim of rape or attempted rape. An estimated 2 to 6 times as many women are raped, but do not report it.⁴
Millions of women around the world, in sweatshops, in sex shops, in their own homes, are abused and degraded—treated like commodities to be bought and sold. Millions of women are owned and controlled as things, not human beings.

The U.S. relies on and supports backward feudal classes to enforce social and political conditions for imperialist domination. And imperialism incorporates the most backward oppressive feudal relations into its structures of domination and exploitation. This is a nightmare for women where you get this perverse phenomenon: peasant women working in high-tech sweatshops; educated women subjected to arranged marriages; glossy billboards promoting high heels, plastic surgery, and makeup while backward feudal traditions require women to cover their bodies from head to toe.

In Iraq, under U.S. occupation, Shiite militias, empowered by the U.S., patrol the streets of Iraq’s major cities, attacking women who don’t dress or behave to their liking. In Basra, Iraq’s second largest city, 133 women, according to official reports, were killed and mutilated last year, their bodies dumped in trash bins with notes warning others against “violating Islamic teachings.” Ambulance drivers hired to drive through city streets early in the morning to collect the bodies say the actual numbers are much higher.⁵

In 2007, Du’a Khalil Aswad was a 17-year-old woman living in Iraqi Kurdistan. She was beaten and stoned to death by a mob of fanatical men — relatives and neighbors carrying out what is called “an honor killing.” Du’a was killed for falling in love with someone her community did not approve of.⁶

In Iraq, women who have been raped are considered to have shamed their families. More than half of the 400 rapes reported since the U.S. invasion have resulted in the rape survivor being murdered by their families.⁷ Such “honor killings” have increased under U.S. occupation. And they are common in Third World countries around the world.

Behind these horrific anti-women practices are similar customs and property relations that exist in modern-day U.S. society. Here they are called “crimes of passion” where sentencing is not based on the crime but the “feelings” (or what can be described as “male honor”) of the perpetrator. In 1999, a Texas judge sentenced a man to four months in prison for murdering his wife and wounding her lover in front of their 10-year-old child.⁸ What is this but a U.S. version of an “honor killing” that is then approved by the state?

Violence against women, rape, and prostitution are generated and promoted by the relations of male supremacy built into the structure of the U.S. imperialist military. There is the horrifying story of Abeer Hamza, a 14-year-old Iraqi girl who was raped by U.S. troops. Abeer, along with her sister and parents, were killed and their house burned down to cover up the crime.⁹

Sexual abuse and rape are not only practiced against the people of occupied countries but also inside the U.S. military. More than half of women in the Reserve National Guard experienced rape, sexual assault, or sexual harassment while on active duty.¹⁰ Only 2% to 3% of offenders receive disciplinary action as serious as a court martial. Usually, perpetrators receive only a mild slap on the wrist, such as extra duty or a letter of reprimand.¹¹

In the United States, people are constantly bombarded with advertisements, TV, and movies where women are portrayed as little more that objects whose “sex appeal” is used to sell everything from cars to music videos. What does it do to women and men when this stuff is constantly in your face? Is it any wonder that so many women suffer from eating disorders or feel they have to have plastic surgery, or that women’s bodies are treated like private property by the men they love?

What kind of society is it where terms of contempt such as b*tch, c*nt and ho become synonymous with being female? Or when women can’t walk out at night without fear of being raped?

You have Christian fundamentalist anti-woman thinking and practices – officially promoted and enforced from the Supreme Court and White House on down. Christian fascists, a powerful force in the U.S. ruling class, want to impose a literal reading of the Bible, which means women are to be treated as inferior, as servants of men, as private property.

These folks aren’t just crazy. “Family values” are watchwords for both Democrats and Republicans. Why? These various ruling class forces all recognize the danger posed to the capitalist/imperialist system by any weakening of “traditional morality,” including the role this plays in oppressing women.

The right to abortion in the U.S. has been systematically eroded, from the Supreme Court on down—while hip movies like Juno fill young women’s heads with the unscientific lie that “a fetus is a baby” and “abortion is murder.” Every year one clinic in five is the target of extreme anti-abortion violence like bombings, arsons and death threats.¹² And every major anti-abortion group in this country also opposes contraception.¹³ This is about controlling women’s bodies and reproduction.

What kind of world is this where the more wealth is created and the more the world is drawn into a single whole, instead of human progress the result is greater tragedy for millions? What kind of a world is it where women are ever more forcefully told that their only choice—if they even have one—is between the feudal nightmare embodied in the traditions of all the major religions, or the commodified “Sex-in-the-City” version of liberation, where you have “autonomy” to market yourself—as a commodity, in a world still premised on the everyday subordination, debasement, and brutalization of half of humanity? The answer is, a world still dominated by capitalism and imperialism.

The oppression of women developed together with the division of society into classes and the emergence of private property and exploitation. Under these conditions, what had been a more or less spontaneous division of labor between the sexes was transformed into one of oppression and domination. And, while these social relations have undergone changes over the years, the dynamics of the oppression of women is woven deeply into the fabric of class society today, reinforcing and being reinforced by other forms of oppression.

The horrific oppression of women throughout this planet is completely unnecessary—things don’t have to be this way. And the only reason they are this way is because of the economic and social relations constantly generated by class society, by a whole system that can only operate by exploiting and oppressing the vast majority of humanity.

Humanity needs revolution and communism. We need a socialist society where the masses of people are truly mobilized to think and work together, to dig up all the economic and social relations of class society, to transform the world and ourselves and get rid of all forms of oppression, including the oppression of women.

Footnotes:

1. “The Hypocrisy of “Newly Minted Feminists”… And David Horowitz’ Dangerous Agenda,” by T. Redtree. Revolution #105, October 21, 2007. http://www.revcom.us/a/105/feminists-hypocrisy-en.html

2. Ibid.

3. Violence Against Women in the United States. National Organization For Women website. Additional references in the online article. http://www.now.org/issues/violence/stats.html

4. Ibid.

5. “Who is Killing the Women of Basra?” Madre website, January 9, 2008. http://madre.org/articles/me/womenbasra010908.html

6. “The Murder of Du’a Aswad,” Madre website, May 16, 2007. http://www.madre.org/articles/me/duamurder.html

7. Ibid.

8. Murder in the Name of “Honor,” MADRE Speaks, Summer 2006.

9. “Rape and Murder of Abeer Qassim Hamza: Bloody Reality of the U.S. Occupation.” Revolution #53, July 16, 2006. http://revcom.us/a/053/iraqrape-en.html

10. 2003 Veterans Administration report on military sexual trauma cited in “Does a rapist deserve a military burial?” Los Angeles Times Op-Ed by Anne K. Ream, January 23, 2008.

11. The Miles Foundation, a public policy institute specializing in interpersonal violence associated with the armed forces, cited in “Does a rapist deserve a military burial?” Los Angeles Times Op-Ed by Anne K. Ream, January 23, 2008.

12. Restrictions on Roe v. Wade. http://feminist.org/roevwade/restrictions.asp

13. “The Morality of the Right to Abortion...And the Immorality of Those Who Oppose It,” Revolution #38, March 12, 2006. http://revcom.us/a/038/morality-right-to-abortion.htm

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Revolution #122, March 9, 2008

Away With All Gods!

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Revolution #122, March 9,2008

Notes from the Trial of Sean Bell:

Persecuting the Victim of Police Murder

From a correspondent

On February 27, the so-called trial for the police who murdered Sean Bell opened in New York City. And as the trial began, Sean Bell—the victim of police murder—was being persecuted even after his death.

* * *

In the early morning hours of November 25, 2006, five New York City undercover cops surrounded and killed 23-year-old Sean Bell in a storm of 50 bullets as he and two friends left his bachelor party. He was to be married just hours later that day. Two of Bell’s friends who were in the car, 31-year-old Joseph Guzman and 23-year-old Trent Benefield, were hospitalized with multiple gunshot wounds.

Only three of the five cops who fired 50 bullets at Sean and his companions were indicted for anything. And that was only because thousands of people took to the streets in righteous anger in the days and weeks after Sean Bell was murdered. It was three months before indictments came down. All three cops have been out of jail the entire time—two on bail and one released without posting bail.

Now, 15 months later, the trial of these three cops has begun. Two, Michael Oliver and Gescard Isnora, are being tried for manslaughter, and the third, Marc Cooper, on only a misdemeanor. The trial may last for several weeks or maybe even months.

The cops’ lawyers tried in late January to have the trial moved to avoid a New York City jury. This is a tried-and-true tactic for getting brutal cops off. The four police who killed 23-year-old Amadou Diallo in the Bronx in 1999 when he reached for his wallet were acquitted by an upstate Albany, New York, jury. The Los Angeles police who were videotaped beating Rodney King were acquitted in their first trial, in 1992, when their trial was moved to suburban Simi Valley, provoking the Los Angeles rebellion.

When the request for a change of venue for the cops who killed Sean Bell was denied, the lawyers for the police petitioned for and were granted a trial by a judge rather than by a jury.

The Police Defense: They Killed a “Negative Element”

What does the “prosecution” case consist of when for once charges are supposedly being pressed against a few of these murdering enforcers? Assistant District Attorney Testagrossa’s perfunctory opening statement on the first day of the trial reduced what happened to a “tragedy” caused by “carelessness verging on incompetence,” and he attributed it to police preparation for a raid that “fell far short.”

Even so, initial testimony from a woman who had worked as a dancer at the club where Sean Bell was murdered exposed the police story. She testified that a plainclothes cop in a van “got out and started shooting” without identifying himself. “This is causing me so much pain,” she told reporters, “But I decided to tell the truth and do the right thing.” The woman, who now works as a medical assistant, appeared in court wearing blue scrubs. The Associated Press story on her testimony attacked her with the headline, “Stripper Testifies at NYC Shooting Trial.” The dancer (now a medical assistant) refuted police claims that a tense situation in the club justified the shooting of Sean Bell. She testified that the club was busy that night but nothing seemed amiss, that “everybody was having fun.”

The lawyers defending the police laid out their case in two hours of opening statements on Monday, February 25: They said they will prove that the police did what “any reasonable person” would have done under the circumstances. Here’s what they are claiming was reasonable:Five cops shot 50 bullets at Sean’s car. One of the three cops on trial, Michael Oliver, fired 16 times, reloaded and fired 15 more times. Gescard Isnora, who started the shooting, fired his weapon 11 times. Sean Bell, who was already dead, and his two friends Trent Benefield and Joseph Guzman, who were seriously injured, were then handcuffed on the ground. Benefield and Guzman were kept handcuffed to their hospital beds until outraged visitors intervened.

In their opening arguments, lawyers for the police repeated the theme the system has run since the killing —that Sean Bell and his friends were at fault for being the victims of a fifty-bullet assault by police. The attorney for Isnora, one of the indicted cops, argued to the judge that Sean and his friends were part of the “negative element” at the club where they held the bachelor party. Because they drank there. Because they may have had a beef with someone else at the club. Because the cops claim they “thought” someone in Sean’s party had a gun—the phantom gun that was never found.

When an attorney for these murdering police turns to the judge and reminds him that people like Sean Bell are part of the “negative element,” what does he mean by that?

In the beginning of the United States, this system killed off most of the Native Americans, and kidnapped African people and brought them here as slaves. Those slaves who rebelled, or who escaped, were part of the “negative element” at the time, whipped to near death to set an example to others. After the Civil War, Black people remained in near-slave-like conditions, sharecropping. Those “negative elements” who were accused of looking at a white woman, or who didn’t step off the sidewalk quickly enough when a white person passed, were lynched—over 3,000 lynchings. Today, the dangerous, low-paying factory jobs that Black people were brought to the big cities to work at are gone—capitalism has found fresh blood around the world. A whole generation of Black youth are branded “negative elements” because this exploitive system has no use for them.

This system is useless. It has no future for millions of inner city youth, and brings nothing but oppression and suffering wherever it goes around the world. Nothing fundamentally good can be done about this whole situation until there is a revolution. But the people cannot let this trial of Sean Bell go down the way the system has it going. On the first day of the trial, people demonstrated militantly outside the courthouse. Much more political protest is needed. We need to build resistance to police brutality and murder, and demand justice for Sean Bell, as part of building a revolutionary movement.

As we do that, we have to also break the system’s mental chains that keep people enslaved, including stopping all that down-on-our-knees slave talk about the murder of Sean Bell being “god’s will.” People need to stop hoping and praying for justice from a non-existent god—who never seems to be able to get it right when it comes to stopping police murder. There is no such god, and he isn’t going to bring down some mighty justice here.

As the statement issued by the New York City Branch of the Revolutionary Communist Party shortly after Sean Bell’s killing said: “[S]laves can resist and rebel and rise up. Empires can lose wars and empires can fall. And history has shown that the situation of millions of Black and other oppressed people is like a volcano at the foundation of the U.S. empire. Where will liberation come from? Not from getting on our knees to imaginary gods. We need to start lifting our heads. We need massive political resistance to all the outrages of this system, we need to prepare minds and organize forces politically. This is how the ground would be prepared for a proletarian revolution that would have a serious chance of winning, a revolution with a backbone of millions, of all nationalities, with nothing to lose—a revolution that has an answer to this deeply hated, centuries-old oppression that this system can never have.”

“Oppressed people who are unable or unwilling to confront reality as it actually is, are condemned to remain enslaved and oppressed.”

—Bob Avakian, from his upcoming book
AWAY WITH ALL GODS! Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World
(to be published this spring by Insight Press)

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Revolution #122, March 9,2008

If You Think Barack Obama Will Challenge White Supremacy...

by Alan Goodman

If you think that Barack Obama will challenge white supremacy because he’s Black, listen carefully to why he says he would have advised the civil rights movement back in the sixties not to focus on laws banning interracial marriages.

Obama spoke about this at a gay issues forum last August in Los Angeles. In response to Obama’s call for “civil unions” instead of legal gay marriage, a gay activist asked him, “Can you see, to our community, where that comes across as sounding like ‘separate but equal’?”

Obama replied, “When my parents got married in 1961, it would have been illegal for them to be married in a number of states in the South.” And then Obama went on to say, “If I were advising the civil rights movement back in 1961 about its approach to civil rights, I would have probably said it’s less important that we focus on an anti-miscegenation law [laws against interracial marriage] than we focus on a voting rights law and a non-discrimination and employment law and all the legal rights that are conferred by the state.”

The era of outlawed interracial marriage was the era of lynching. You couldn’t oppose lynching at that time, without opposing its legal twin—anti-miscegenation laws. Lynching was justified by vicious racist mythology about the need to control the so-called “lust” of Black men for white women (while at the same time widespread rape of Black women by white men was largely unpunished). It was a package—lynching and anti-miscegenation laws—reflected and reinforced in mainstream culture like D.W. Griffith’s influential 1915 movie, Birth of a Nation (which is still called a “classic”). Lothrop Stoddard, a ruling class racist ideologue in the early and mid-1900s wrote that “White race-purity is the corner-stone of our civilization. Its mongrelization with non-white blood, particularly with Negro blood, would spell the downfall of our civilization. This is a matter of both national and racial life and death and no efforts should be spared to guard against the greatest of all perils—the peril of miscegenation.”

The racist so-called “protection of white women” logic got enforced through lynching, like the widely publicized lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi, in 1955, brutally murdered because he whistled at a white woman.

The oppression and exploitation, the subjugation of Black people as a people is a pillar of this society. And this could not have been accomplished and maintained without carving these divisions and this subjugation into law, without the terror of lynching enforcing it and without the racist ideological onslaught accompanying and justifying all of it. If people back then had stood aside from taking on the laws against interracial marriage—as Barack Obama would have advised them to do—they would have failed to take on and expose the real problem—the whole setup of racism, segregation, discrimination, and lynching; they would have accommodated themselves to the whole setup.

Yes, “race mixing” was a touchy issue for bigots, crackers, white supremacists —and the system that produced and profited from this oppression.

So? What are you going to do about that? Not touch it?! You could not challenge white supremacy, the laws, the prejudice, and the lynchings then without taking on the anti-miscegenation laws and the whole logic behind them. You could not be for real, back then, if you tried to oppose the lynching and the segregation while trying not to offend the segregationists and their backers who saw “race mixing” as a mortal threat to their whole setup.

And you won’t, and can’t, go up against the white supremacy built into this system and even achieve equality and any kind of justice (much less liberation and putting an end to the oppression of Black people) with that kind of mentality either. Barack Obama says, “There is no white America, there is no black America...” How full of shit is that!? Yes there is! Black people are oppressed in this country by a white supremacist system that promotes and is bolstered by white racism. Uncomfortable as it makes some people, threatening as it is to this whole exploitive and oppressive setup, white supremacy has to be called out loud and clear if anything is going to change.

Today, new forms of violent terror against Black people go hand-in-hand with new forms of racist mythology and unjust laws. The lynch mob has been replaced by the trigger-happy police, who shoot down young Black people for holding a comb or a cell phone. Today, one out of every nine Black men between 25 and 29 is locked up. Schools and housing are extremely segregated, as the Supremacist Court overturns even the pretense of school integration. And this is all justified by today’s updated version of racist lies—like that the problem is the “pathological criminal mentality of Black people.” This updated racist mythology justifies the way the system has stripped the inner cities of economic and cultural life, shut down educational opportunities, and created conditions where crime and prison are the only options for millions of youth.

You cannot and will not challenge, much less end, the oppression of Black people by pandering to white supremacy. You will not change anything by “finessing” whether or not this is a racist country. You cannot change anything if your bottom line is making sure that nobody feels uncomfortable about being a white racist.

When people do go up against white supremacy, they also challenge a big part of the economic and ideological glue that keeps this world-oppressing system together. And you know that Barack Obama is not going for that. He is campaigning to be the best one to lead the U.S. empire.

Barack Obama can express sympathy and empathy for Black people, and make promises about this or that injustice, but his whole logic of not touching the foundations of white supremacy boils down to justifying and backing up the oppression of Black people.

People always were and always will be the foolish victims of deceit and self-deceit in politics until they learn to discover the interests of some class or other behind all moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and promises. The supporters of reforms and improvements will always be fooled by the defenders of the old order until they realize that every old institution, however barbarous and rotten it may appear to be, is maintained by the forces of some ruling classes.

V.I. Lenin

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Revolution #122, March 9, 2008

Hook up with the revolution

Coming Events at Revolution Books

New York

9 West 19th St. (btwn 5th and 6th Aves)
212-691-3345
revolutionbooksnyc.org

Sunday, March 9th - 4:00 p.m.

Revolution Books presents:
Re-envisioning Revolution and Communism:
WHAT IS BOB AVAKIAN’S NEW SYNTHESIS?
Presentation followed by discussion

St. Paul & St. Andrew Church
Corner of West 86th St & West End Ave
1 train to 86th Street, walk 1 block west to West End Ave
$10 sliding scale admission

Every Tuesday at Revolution Books
Discussions of "Making Revolution and Emancipating Humanity"
Join us this for these ongoing, and always lively, discussions.

March 4, Tuesday, 7 pm
Part 2: Everything We're Doing Is About Revolution

March 12, Wednesday, 7 pm
Join Revolution Books in celebrating International Women's Day
You are invited to an event of celebration and solidarity with the courageous Iranian women who refuse to accept the deadly anti-woman “choices” of either the Islamic Republic of Iran or war and domination by U.S. imperialism in the name of “liberation.”

March 20, Thursday, 6:30 pm
Revolution Books Hosts NY National Organization for Women
A forum of women writers/activists
(check back for further details)

Chicago

1103 N. Ashland Avenue
773-489-0930
revbookschi@yahoo.com

March 9, Sunday, 2 pm
Weekly discussion of MAKING REVOLUTION AND EMANCIPATING HUMANITY, PART 1: BEYOND THE NARROW HORIZON OF BOURGEOIS RIGHT, by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA.

March 10, Monday, 7:30 pm
Jam Session. An experiment in directive musical improvisation. An open invitation of participation is extended to ALL musicians to join in. The goal of the evening is to create a series of spontaneous collective compositions facilitated by the house band. EVERYONE is welcome to witness and enjoy this musical event and explore Revolution Books.

March 12, Wednesday, 7 pm
Set the Record Straight discussion will kick off by showing an excerpt from the model opera “White Haired Girl.” We'll discuss what was women's oppression in China before the revolution, what changes occurred for women during socialism, and compare this to after the defeat of the revolution.

March 13, Thursday, 7 pm
Discussion of Ardea Skybreak's “The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism, Knowing What's Real and Why It Matters.” Topic of this session: Anti-Evolution Creationism: An Assault On All of Science, In the Name of God.

Friday, March 14, 7 PM
Neil Shubin, author of “Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body,” will appear for a book signing and slide show presentation. Neil Shubin, PhD, is the Robert R. Bensley Professor of Organismal Biology and Anatomy at the University of Chicago and Provost at The Field Museum.

Berkeley

2425 Channing Way near Telegraph Ave
510-848-1196
www.revolutionbooks.org

March 4, Tuesday, 7 pm
Science of Evolution discussion: The evolution of human beings

March 6, Thursday, 7 pm
Revolution Newspaper discussion

March 7, Friday, 7 pm
International Women's Day event: Evening of Solidarity with Iranian Women

March 8, Saturday, 3 pm
Discussion: What’s Up with Juno the Movie? What does Juno have to say about women’s role in the world?

March 9, Sunday, 7 pm
Jeff Paterson & Larry Everest discuss:
"Support the Troops," Military Recruiting, and Ending the War
Jeff Paterson - US Marine Gulf War objector, Courage to Resist* organizer
Larry Everest - Revolution correspondent and author of Oil, Power & Empire: Iraq and the U.S. Global Agenda.
* for identification purposes only

March 11, Tuesday, 7 pm
Science of Evolution discussion: Creationism’s new wrapper won’t fool us: Intelligent design theory is still just religion – it’s not science – and it’s still wrong!

March 12, Wednesday, 7 pm
Author event: Peter Phillips, director of Project Censored, discusses the book Censored 2008: The Top 25 Censored Stories of 2006-2007

March 13, Thursday, 7 pm
Revolution newspaper discussion

Los Angeles

Libros Revolución
312 West 8th Street 213-488-1303
librosrevolucion.blog.com

March 4, Tuesday, 5 pm
Join us at Libros to listen to KPFK radio host Michael Slate interviewing Sussan Golmohammadi, an Iranian revolutionary who has arrived in Los Angeles from Europe to connect with people in the U.S; and Dr. Shahrzad Mojab, Director, Women and Gender Studies Institute, University of Toronto - on the significance of this year's International Women's Day marches in Brussels and L.A., joining women of Iran and Afghanistan in their struggle against woman-hating Islamic Republic of Iran and the imperialist U.S. empire. At 7:30 pm at the bookstore, continue the dialogue with Michael and Sussan.

March 5, Wednesday, 2 pm and 7 pm
International Women's Day film series -
2:00 pm matinee screening of Yilmaz Güney's award-winning film “Yol.”
7:00 pm screening and discussion of Brian De Palma's powerful film “Redacted” about the rape and murder of 14-year-old Iraqi girl and other family members by U.S. soldiers.

March 6, Thursday, 7 pm
Bilingual discussion from Bob Avakian's soon-to-be published new book "Away With All Gods" excerpts in issue nos. 103 (http://revcom.us/a/103/ba-religion-book-en.html) and 104 (http://revcom.us/a/104/avakian-religion-en.html ) of Revolution/Revolución newspaper; while having a work night, banner making for IWD march.

March 7, Friday, 9 and 11 am
Meet at bookstore to take out Revolution newspaper and IWD flyers to garment workers; drop in all day for banner making, flyering.

March 7, Friday, 7 pm
“Vera Drake,” acclaimed drama of woman who secretly helps young women induce miscarriages in 1950s England.

March 8, Saturday
Mobilize for International Women’s Day march and rally in Westwood at 12 noon.

March 9, Sunday, 1 p.m.
SPECIAL BRUNCH GATHERING - Come celebrate the conclusion of the Revolution newspaper fund drive, and help plan for an exciting upcoming major public presentation and discussion: "Re-Envisioning Revolution and Communism - What Is Bob Avakian's New Synthesis?"

March 11, Tuesday, 7 pm
Spanish language showing and discussion of Bob Avakian's DVD “Revolution: Why It's Necessary, Why It's Possible, What It's All About,” focus on sections "A world of rape and sexual assault", "'Traditional values'—tradition' s chains" and "Change for women in a new society?" from the Q&A.

March 12, Wednesday, 7:30 pm
Concluding discussion of Ardea Skybreak's “The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism” will include a look at the ideas and methods of creationists. Reading: Chapter 8. Available in Spanish at http://rwor.org/a/v24/1181-1190/1182/evol_s.htm.

Honolulu

2626 South King Street
808-944-3106

Every Monday, 6:15 pm
Reading circle/discussion of the current installment of Bob Avakian’s series, “Making Revolution and Emancipating Humanity”

March 9, Sunday, 5 pm
International Women’s Day Celebration
Poetry • Testimonials • Potluck supper

Thursday, March 20, 6pm
Book Release Party: Potluck supper * Reading * Booksigning
Guam activist and author Julian Aguon will read from "What We Bury at Night; Disposable Humanity", his recently released book describing present day realities of the U.S.-Micronesia relationship from the eyes of those most affected.

Cleveland

2804 Mayfield Rd (at Coventry)
Cleveland Heights 216-932-2543
revbookscle@hotmail.com
Hours: Wednesday-Saturday, 3-8 pm

March 3, Monday, 7 pm
Discussion of "Making Revolution and Emancipating Humanity" (Part I). The Rupture With Outmoded Thinking and Beliefs ( issue #108).

March 9, Sunday, 4 pm
Movie in commemoration of International Women's Day.

March 10, Monday 7 pm
Discussion of "Making Revolution and Emancipating Humanity" (Part I). Historical Experience and The New Synthesis (issue #112).

March 17, Monday 7 pm
Discussion of "Making Revolution and Emancipating Humanity" (Part II). Enriched What is To Be Done-ism (issue #113).

Seattle

1833 Nagle Place
206-325-7415
seattlerevolutionbooks.blogspot.com

Announcing a New Revolution Books in Seattle!
Join us in making plans for a major revitalization and expansion in our new location. Contact us to get involved.

March 8, Saturday, 7pm
International Women's Day Film Showing: Rabbit-Proof Fence
Three young girls who were torn from their families during Australia's aboriginal integration program of the 1930s resolve to make the 1,500-mile trek home.

March 9, Sunday, 2:30pm
Event to Conclude and Celebrate Revolution Newspaper's Expansion & Fund Drive
Everyone who participated or contributed in any way - as well as people who just discovered Revolution newspaper - are invited!

Dates to be announced
Group outings to Bring Revolution to the Movies! Hook up with people from Revolution Books to see and discuss great and controversial movies and get out Revolution Newspaper, orange ribbons, flyers, etc to other movie-goers. Upcoming movies to see are Chicago 10, Taxi to the Dark Side, and Battle in Seattle.

In April, date to be announced
Author event with Mike Palecek on his new books, Cost of Freedom and Iowa Terror.

Detroit

406 W.Willis
(between Cass &2nd, south of Forest)
313-204-2906

Every Sunday, 4 pm
Discussions of “Making Revolution and Emancipating Humanity—Part 2: Everything We’re Doing Is About Revolution” by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

March 2, Sunday, 4 pm
Discussion on “Making Revolution and Emancipating Humanity—Part 2: Everything We’re Doing Is About Revolution” (continued), Meaningful Revolutionary Work: Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution” by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA (Revolution newspaper, issue #116)

Friday, March 7, 6pm: International Womens Day Celebration
Discussion and potluck dinner with showing of "Moolade", Osmane Sembene's powerful film on a rebellion against genital circumcision in an African village.

Boston/Cambridge

1158 Mass Ave, 2nd Floor, Cambridge
617-492-5443
revbooks@netzero.net
revolutionbookscamb.org

March 8, Saturday, 6 pm
Join us in celebrating International Women’s Day

March 9, Sunday, attend major program in New York
Re-envisioning Revolution and Communism: What IS Bob Avakian's New Synthesis? Presentation followed by discussion.

March 17, Monday, 6:30 pm
"Making Revolution and Emancipating Humanity" Part 2, on the section:
Building the Party. From the point of view of the necessity, and strategic objective, of revolution, the most important form of organization of the masses is the Party itself as the Vanguard of the broader revolutionary movement.

Atlanta

4 Corners Market of the Earth
Little 5 Points, 1087 Euclid Avenue
404-577-4656 & 770-861-3339
rbo-atlanta.blogspot.com

Open Wednesdays & Fridays 4 pm - 7 pm,
Saturdays 2 pm - 7 pm

March 9, Sunday, 3:00-6:00 pm

International Women's Day
Our program will feature the film Water, followed by refreshments and discussion.
Location: Sevananda Natural Foods Market
Education Room
467 Moreland Ave NE
Atlanta, GA 30307
(404) 681-2831

March 16, Sunday, 3:30 pm
Our weekly discussions of "Making Revolution and Emancipating Humanity" by Bob Avakian will resume. Focus this week: “Marxism as a Science—Refuting Karl Popper,” based on excerpts in Revolution newspaper issues 110 and 111.
Meet at the bookstore inside 4 Corners Market
1087 Euclid Avenue
Atlanta 30307
(770) 861-3339

March 23, Sunday, 3:30 pm
Fourth in a series of discussions of "Making Revolution and Emancipating Humanity" by Bob Avakian.

March 30, Sunday, 3:30 pm
Fifth in a series of discussions of "Making Revolution and Emancipating Humanity" by Bob Avakian.

Send us your comments.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/122/berkeley-antiwar-en.html

Revolution #122, March 9,2008

CORRESPONDENCE

The Battle of Berkeley Continues…

From a youth organizer with the Bay Area Revolution Club

On February 12, a major showdown unfolded in the city of Berkeley. Hundreds of Berkeley High School students poured into the streets, along with activists from World Can’t Wait, Code Pink, A.N.S.W.E.R., Vets for Peace, and the Bay Area Revolution Club. They came to demand that the Marine recruiting station in downtown Berkeley be shut down and to support the Berkeley City Council’s statement, which had provoked national controversy, declaring the recruiters “uninvited and unwelcome intruders.” On the other side were hundreds of pro-war people waving flags and baton-swinging riot police. (See “The Battle of Berkeley: This War Must Stop!” in the previous issue of Revolution, issue #121, available online at revcom.us.)

Here’s what’s happened since then.

The next day, February 13, some of us went to Berkeley High. Many students were still wearing their orange bandannas. Everyone was talking about what had happened at the recruiting station. They were struggling to understand the police violence and why Berkeley had become the target of this right-wing assault. What we did out there was beautiful. But to the powers-that-be, we “crossed the line.” We were not waiting for Obama to stop the war. We were not politely asking “our elected representatives” to please, hopefully, one day, strategically redeploy some of the troops at some point. We were saying, “This War Must Stop!” and we will do everything we can to politically oppose the war machine operating right here in Berkeley and spread this spirit of resistance throughout the country. This is what the powers-that-be are trying to squash.

The next two Fridays, February 15 and February 22, World Can’t Wait went back to the recruiting station. Significant numbers of determined orange-clad youth protested both times. And both times the non-violent demonstration was attacked by baton-swinging police who then put out reports to the press justifying their attacks as a response to what they claimed to be WCW’s aggressive and unruly behavior. On the 15th, the police used the pretext of a few picket signs scotch taped to the window of the recruiting center (which was closed) to violently clear the sidewalk of protesters and escort the Marines in to remove the signs. But the protesters would not be intimidated so easily! When the riot police withdrew, the protesters immediately regrouped in front of the recruiting station, more energized than before.

On the 22nd, the police used the pretext of a sound violation for bullhorn use in an area of Berkeley that has traditionally been considered a “free speech zone” and where protests have not been met with this level of repression for years. Two young people were arrested on the 22nd, a WCW youth organizer who had clearly been singled out and targeted, and the other a 21-year-old Army vet and “conscientious objector” wearing an orange Guantánamo jumpsuit. The police hit youth in the face with batons and also assaulted older people, including a WCW organizer who was thrown head first into a brick wall and a Code Pink member who is now on crutches after being thrown to the ground. The protesters again regrouped and ended the day at the Marine recruiters station.

The Right-Wing Assault Continues

The Berkeley City Council had backed down from their original stand, and ended up saying that they now “recognize the recruiters’ right to locate in our city” and “deeply respect and support the men and women in our armed forces.” Despite that, Senator DeMint and other senators sponsoring the “Semper Fi Act” are going forward in their efforts to take funding away from Berkeley public schools and put it into the Marine Corps. A state assemblyman has introduced legislation to cut off millions of dollars in transportation funding to the city. The fascist “pro-troop” organization Move America Forward has launched a nationwide TV ad campaign attacking the city of Berkeley and calling for a full-blown apology “so that no city in America ever again disrespects our troops.”

There has also been an ongoing “story” in the media about the effect of the protesters on the businesses in the area. Apparently some are losing money because of the noise, or because customers are scared to come there! Some of the media stories also add that police overtime due to protesters is costing taxpayers millions of dollars. To all of this we reply: RAISE YOUR SIGHTS! We are speaking for the people of the world: the million Iraqis killed and the over 4 million who’ve been turned into refugees, the torture victims, and countless other victims of the U.S.! Is this recruiting station just another business selling a product? No, they are selling death.

World Can’t Wait Steps It Up for the 5th Anniversary of the War

World Can’t Wait has big plans for March. They have called for a public hearing of the special police review commission, to discuss the police brutality against protesters. The violence of the Berkeley police needs to be documented, and the Berkeley community needs to be mobilized against it. Outrage is mounting because, for the first time in five years, Berkeley police officers have shot and killed someone. A 51-year-old African-American grandmother, Anita Gay, was shot in the back by police in front of her home in South Berkeley on February 16.

March 16, WCW is calling for a community celebration of Berkeley’s resistance to the war, in the park across the street from Berkeley High. And on March 19, the 5th anniversary of the war in Iraq, WCW is calling for a day of resistance at the Berkeley Marine recruiting center and walkouts from high schools.

Learning Lessons and Tackling Big Questions

Throughout this whole struggle, the people, particularly the students, are debating some big questions and learning some very important lessons. What system of war and oppression are these right-wingers upholding? What’s wrong with the slogan “support the troops”? What are the police serving and protecting? What about the school administrators who told the students to get back to class? What about the teachers who encouraged their students to go out and engage in the debate? What about us, the antiwar activists–what future should we represent? And, the Bay Area Revolution Club has been in the thick of it, fighting the power, and transforming the people, for revolution. On February 22, the Revolution Club took its banner into the action: “What future for the youth–Killers for Empire, or Emancipators of Humanity?”

Send us your comments.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/122/cheers-orange-oscars-en.html

Revolution #122, March 9,2008

Cheers and Jeers

Orange at the Oscars!

CHEERS! to those at the 80th Annual Academy Awards who wore orange ribbons to protest torture being done by the United States.

Out on the red carpet, Julie Christie was wearing the “jumpsuit orange” ribbon on her ruby red dress. She said she got it from the American Civil Liberties Union, whose ‘‘very, very important’’ campaign seeks to close the Guantánamo prison camp in Cuba where the U.S. is carrying out torture.

Paul Haggis, who received a 2006 Oscar for his film Crash, was also wearing an orange ribbon at the Academy Awards and had gotten an orange wrist band from World Can’t Wait that says “Torture + Silence = Complicity.” World Can’t Wait has been organizing and urging people to wear orange in protest of U.S. torture and as a mass color of resistance to “Drive Out the Bush Regime.”

When Alex Gibney, director of Taxi to the Dark Side, accepted his Oscar for best documentary, he had an orange ribbon on his suit lapel. Taxi to the Dark Side is an in-depth look at the torture practices of the United States in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantánamo Bay, focusing on an innocent taxi driver in Afghanistan who was tortured and killed in 2002.

In his acceptance speech Gibney said: “Wow. Thank you very much, Academy. Here’s to all doc filmmakers. And, truth is, I think my dear wife Anne was kind of hoping I’d make a romantic comedy, but honestly, after Guant´anamo, Abu Ghraib, extraordinary rendition, that simply wasn’t possible. This is dedicated to two people who are no longer with us, Dilawar, the young Afghan taxi driver, and my father, a navy interrogator who urged me to make this film because of his fury about what was being done to the rule of law. Let’s hope we can turn this country around, move away from the dark side and back to the light. Thank you very much.”

On January 11, the sixth anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo prison, the ACLU placed an ad in Daily Variety that read in part, “Whether you are walking the picket line, the red carpet or standing in the supermarket line, wear the orange ribbon.” The ACLU campaign is aimed at getting people to wear the ribbons “every day until the prison is closed.”

Renee Missel, Julie Christie’s manager, saw the ad and said, “Julie had given me a book—Enemy Combatant, about prisoner treatment at Gitmo. I read it and went berserk.” Christie met with an ACLU staff attorney to talk about the campaign and bunches of orange ribbons were ordered. And according to Allison Walker, the industry liason for the ACLU, Christie, her husband, British journalist Duncan Campbell, and all the Lionsgate people were wearing orange ribbons at the Oscars.

Send us your comments.

Permalink: http://revcom.us/a/122/columb-niu-letter-en.html

Revolution #122, March 9,2008

CORRESPONDENCE

Thoughts On Seeing columbinus

We received the following letter from a reader:

Valentine’s Day at our house is usually not a big deal—maybe a card, hopefully a box of chocolates. But this year my partner got two tickets to a play at the Raven Theater in Chicago called columbinus by Stephen Karam and PJ Paparelli.

But this Valentine’s Day started not with hearts and flowers, but gunshots and students being killed and wounded at Northern Illinois University. I watched the news reports on TV and my mind flashbacked to Virginia Tech and Columbine High School. It didn�

Revolution #122 March 9, 2008

Celebrate International Women's Day

Let Us Celebrate Our Fighting Unity on International Women’s Day

Celebrate Our Fighting Unity on International Women’s Day

WHAT IS BOB AVAKIAN’S NEW SYNTHESIS?

MATTERS OF PRINCIPLE AND STANDARDS

We Stand With Iranian Women

The Hypocrisy of “Newly Minted Feminists”… And David Horowitz’ Dangerous Agenda

The Horrors for Women in the “Modern” World of Global Capitalism

Away With All Gods!

Persecuting the Victim of Police Murder

If You Think Barack Obama Will Challenge White Supremacy...

Coming Events at Revolution Books

The Battle of Berkeley Continues…

Orange at the Oscars!

Thoughts On Seeing columbinus