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| At the NYPD's 28th Precinct, October 21, 2011. |
Dear Friends,
This new year 2012 holds great promise and poses serious challenges. The promise lies in 2011’s outpourings of resistance the likes of which the world hasn’t been seen in decades — the Arab Spring, righteous youth rebellion in London, students and others taking to the streets in Spain, Chile and Greece, and the Occupy movement here in the US. The challenge is to build on this resistance, taking on the attempts by the powers-that-be to suppress it, and to go from resistance to revolution.
The truth is, it will take nothing short of communist revolution — defeating and dismantling the existing oppressive state that serves the capitalist/imperialist system and putting in its place revolutionary institutions and governmental structures — that will make possible a totally different society; one with radically different economic and social relations, culture and ideology that is in transition to a world where exploitation and oppression is no more. Short of doing that, humanity will continue enduring the devastation of the environment, of worldwide mass starvation, the brutality inflicted on women around the world, the pillaging of whole nations, the wars for empire and more.
If people aren’t able to lift their heads and see that things don’t have to be this way, that there’s another way society and the world could be organized and run, the resistance that has been unleashed will either dissipate or get sucked back into the deadly embrace of the capitalist rulers. And the machinery of this blood soaked system will continue humming away in the background breaking bodies and crushing spirits.
In 2011 I threw myself into working to advance the efforts of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) to build a movement for revolution.
1) I co-hosted in New York, the April 11th “Celebration of Revolution and the Vision of a New World on the Occasion of the Publication of BAsics” with an unbelievable array of artists, authors and intellectuals. BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian is a new book of quotations and short essays from Bob Avakian, the leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party, that speaks powerfully to questions of revolution and human emancipation. This amazing event took place at the Harlem Stage on the City College campus.
2) I continued the series of groundbreaking Dialogues Cornel West and I have had on the theme of “In the Age of Obama … Police Terror, Incarceration, No Jobs, Mis-Education: What Future for Our Youth?” This year, we did an awesome dialogue at UCLA on April 29th and an even more awesome one at UC Berkeley on December 2nd. (It was broadcasted later by C-SPAN, and you can access it online at this link: http://cs.pn/yEDbB9 .)
3) I helped initiate the Stop Mass Incarceration Network in the summer, and under its auspices, Cornel West and I issued a call for a campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience to end the unconstitutional and racist Stop & Frisk policy of the NYPD. This Call was responded to by some mostly young people who are putting their bodies on the line to take on what Michelle Alexander calls the “New Jim Crow.” We began this campaign on October 21st in Harlem where 34 people, including several ministers and professors, joined Cornel and I in civil disobedience at the NYPD's 28th Precinct. Perhaps you’ve seen the media coverage and my op-ed piece in the Huffington Post (http://huff.to/whDgCy). We followed this up with actions in Brooklyn at the 73rd Precinct which conducts the most Stops & Frisks in NYC, and at the 105th Precinct in Queens where Sean Bell was murdered by undercover cops in 2006. We have plans to continue developing this fight. We have court dates coming up, and we need your support.
4) I also traveled to Atlanta to help launch an effort to raise Big Money to get Bob Avakian, and his work and vision everywhere in society. And as part of this effort we’ve just completed a successful fund drive to raise $23,000 to bring into being a film of the April 11th “Celebration of Revolution and the Vision of a New World on the Occasion of the Publication of BAsics” event. Another element of this campaign is to raise the funds to get Basics into the hands of those sisters and brother behind the walls who are hungering to raise their sights and get with the movement for revolution. Through the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund (PRLF) and Revolution newspaper we are raising $20,000 to send 2,000 copies of BAsics to prisoners across the US.
5) I issued statements on important developments and crucial questions facing humanity, including a video statement of outrage in response to the state of Georgia murdering Troy Davis in its execution chamber on September 21st. I also spoke out in support of the very important hunger strikes of the prisoners in California who put their lives on the line to declare they refused to accept the tortuous conditions being enforced on them.
And I plan to come out even stronger on all these fronts in the year to come.
Looking forward in 2012, Cornel and I are already scheduled to do another Dialogue on April 17th in Chicago, and we plan to take our Dialogue nationwide with a special emphasis on hitting Historically Black Colleges and Universities. I will continue to develop the fight to Stop “Stop & Frisk” and contribute to building a movement to end mass incarceration. And I will be getting out there speaking at campuses and in the media.
Through all this I will be hammering home a clear, hard hitting message — That this world is a horror, but it doesn’t have to be this way. That through revolution, communist revolution, we could bring a totally different and far better world into being. This kind of revolution has been made before, in Russia in 1917 and in China under Mao Tse-tung. Many great achievements were made when power was in the hands of the people. Both of these revolutions have been turned back and capitalism is once more in effect in those countries. But based on the work Bob Avakian has done to develop a new understanding of revolution and communism, we could do better and go farther the next time revolution is made and power is once more in the hands of the people.
Through the course of all this, I will be continuing to promote BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian (www.revcom.us/avakian/About-Basics-en.html), and the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America (Draft Proposal) that the RCP has issued.
There is a role you need to play in all this.
• One, you could bring me to your campus or your area to speak.
• Two, you could connect me to media opportunities.
• Three, you and I could put our heads together over how to further develop and spread the resistance to mass incarceration.
• And Four, you could make a generous contribution so that I can raise the money needed to be able to devote my full attention to building a movement for revolution, spreading the message that the world doesn’t have to be this way and building resistance that fights the power and transforms the people, for revolution.
Here’s what you can do to make your contribution: Go to my blog at www.comradecarl.blogspot.com and make a contribution via the Donate tab; or send a check or money order to Carl Dix, c/o P.O. Box 941Knickerbocker Station, New York, New York 10002-0900.
Get connected with the movement for revolution, either by being a subscriber to Revolution by going online to get a paid subscription, or to get a free e-subscription. Go to www.revcom.us.
Contact me to get copies of BAsics, the Constitution, or a DVD of my Dialogues with Cornel West:
Carl Dix, P.O. Box 941 Knickerbocker Station, New York, New York 10002-0900
With revolutionary love,
CARL DIX
Office of Carl Dix, Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, P.O. Box 941 Knickerbocker Station, New York NY 10002-0900, (866) 841-9139 x2670
Blog: www.comradecarl.blogspot.com
Twitter: Carl_Dix
FaceBook Page: "From Buffalo Soldier to Revolutionary Communist"
Blog: www.comradecarl.blogspot.com
Twitter: Carl_Dix
FaceBook Page: "From Buffalo Soldier to Revolutionary Communist"
YouTube: CarlDix1
