Join Us on October 21st to Stopping Stop-N-Frisk!

MASS MEETING:  7:00 PM on October 17, 2011 Monday.  St. Mary's Episcopal Church, 521 West 126th Street.   Between Amsterdam Avenue and Broadway, Harlem.  #1/A/C/D/B to 125th Street stops.

For more information:  stopmassincarceration@ymail.com, Phone: 973-756-7666 .

---------- Forwarded message ----------

STOP "Stop-n-Frisk”

Illegal, racist, unconstitutional, intolerable. 

And it must be stopped!!!
 
The NYPD is on pace to stop and frisk over 700,000 people in 2011!  That's more than 1,900 people each and every day.   More than 85%of those stopped and frisked are Black or Latino, and more than 90% of them were doing nothing wrong when the police stopped them.

We are launching a campaign to take the movement to stop it to a higher level on Friday, October 21st, and YOU NEED TO JOIN US!
 
October 21^st FRIDAY

1:00 PM.  Rally at the Harlem State Office Building

1:30 PM.  March to the NYPD 28^th Precinct at West 123^rd andFrederick Douglass Boulevard.  At the precinct, we will deliver a message that we aim to stop police from violating people's rights through ‘Stop & Frisk.’

The Stop Mass Incarceration Network: P.O. Box 941, New York, New York 10002

Email:  stopmassincarceration@ymail.com * Phone: 973-756-7666  * stopmassincarceration.tumblr.com

Carl Dix had challenged NYPD commissioner Ray Kelly to debate 'stop & frisk' on October 6th at 125th & Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard.  Kelly was a no show, but Carl had many opportunities to speak with Harlem residents about 'stop & frisk' and the need to build resistance against it.  

Here he is speaking before a group of high school students.

A Challenge to Ray Kelly to Debate 'Stop & Frisk' on October 6th

Troy Davis Presente!

THEY MURDERED TROY, BUT WE MUST NEVER FORGET HIM!

September 23, 2011

This system executed Troy Davis — no they murdered him.  They delayed his execution a few hours while the Supreme Court considered and rejected a last minute appeal from Troy’s lawyers.  The court issued a one sentence statement explaining why they refused again to reopen his case and look at the mounting evidence of his innocence.  It might as well have said Black people have no rights we are bound to respect! The content of what the system has told us in this case, as they told us in the case of Shaka Sankofa eleven years ago, is that innocence is no bar to execution.

The powers that be say this country is the homeland of freedom.  They tell the world that they are the greatest defenders of human rights.  Then they turn around and railroad Troy Davis to jail on trumped up evidence, refuse to even consider the mounting evidence of his innocence and execute him on the basis of that railroad.

This was a legal lynching, plain and simple.  It didn’t matter to them that there was no physical evidence to tie Troy to the murder of the cop or that 7 of the 9 witnesses against Troy have come forward and said they lied, several of them claiming they were coerced to lie by cops who were dead set on frying some Black man, any Black man, for the killing of one of their own.  No court has even bothered to reopen the case, listen to the witnesses recanting their statements against Troy and consider the police coercion that went into his conviction!  What else can we take from that but that they are telling us—‘We railroaded him, fair and square, and now we’re going to strap him down and fry him.’

What can you say about a system that would do all this—railroad a man to death row, ignore mounting evidence of his innocence and go ahead with his execution in the face of widespread international protest? The truth is that it’s rotten to the core, and needs to be done away with thru revolution.

And this isn’t just about Troy Davis.  During the protest in Harlem the night of Troy’s execution, a number of people who were hearing of Troy’s case for the 1^st time told me, “They do that to Black people all the time.”  Very true.  The legal lynching of Troy Davis concentrates the way this system treats Black people. This system has criminalized our youth, treating them like they’re guilty until proven innocent, if they can survive their encounters with cops to prove their innocence, and if they can avoid being framed up in the system’s kangaroo courts.  Their cops get away with brutalizing and even murdering people all across the country, all the time.  This has been going on for too damn long.  It is intolerable, and it must be stopped!

The future this system has in store for many of our youth comes down to either crime and punishment or joining their military and killing people to keep their global empire in effect.  Again, what can you say about a system like this?

But things don’t have to be like this.  We could end all the horrors this system inflicts on humanity thru revolution, communist revolution.  We could get rid of this rotten system and bring into being a society and a world that serves the interests of the people.  And we in the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) are building a movement for revolution to do just that.  Get with this movement, sisters and brothers. Join it to help spread revolution everywhere and to mobilize people to “Fight the Power, and Transform the People, For Revolution.”  There are two important things you need to get involved with as part of doing this.

First, get your hands on BAsics, a new book by Bob Avakian, the leader of the RCP.  This book concentrates more than 3 decades of work Avakian has been doing studying the experience of previous revolutionary societies and grappling with everything that stands between humanity and its ultimate emancipation.  With this book, we can introduce people to the leader we have for making revolution and bring to a new generation the new and revitalized understanding of how to make revolution and bring into a being a viable and desirable socialist society that Avakian has developed   If you want to see an end to legal lynchings like we just witnessed in Troy Davis’ case, the way that Black people are beaten down and oppressed and everything else foul this system inflicts on humanity, then you need to get your hands on BAsics.  And you need to help spread the word about BAsics and encourage other people to get a copy of it.  If you don’t know about Avakian, you need to learn about him, and you need to let other people know about him too. You can’t change the world if you don’t know the BAsics.

And second, Cornel West and I have called for a day of non violent civil disobedience to Stop “Stop & Frisk.” The execution of Troy Davis underscores the need for determined resistance to the way this criminal injustice system mistreats Black people.  We have to unite people from many different backgrounds and of different races and nationalities to stand together and say in a loud powerful voice that we refuse to stand by and let them continue to violate peoples’ rights in the way they’ve been doing. 

To get connected with this important action, go to stopmassexecution.tumblr.com or call (973)756-7666.

Go to www.revcom.us for coverage on the execution of Troy Davis and to get more info on everything I’ve talked about here.

Troy Davis—Presente!  They Murdered Him, but We Must Not Forget Him!

Last night they executed Troy Davis.  They delayed the execution a few hours while the Supreme Court considered and rejected a last minute appeal from Troy’s lawyers.  I don’t know if that court issued any statement explaining why they refused again to reopen his case and look at the mounting evidence of his innocence.  But the content of what the system has told us in this case, as they told us in the case of Shaka Sankofa eleven years ago, is that innocence is no bar to execution.

The powers that be say this country is the homeland of freedom.  They tell the world that they are the greatest defenders of human rights.  Then they turn around and railroad Troy Davis to jail on trumped up evidence, refuse to even consider the mounting evidence of his innocence and execute him on the basis of that railroad.

This was a legal lynching, plain and simple.  It didn’t matter to them that there was no physical evidence to tie Troy to the murder of the cop or that 7 of the 9 witnesses against Troy have come forward and said they lied, several of them claiming they were coerced to lie by cops who were dead set on frying some Black man, any Black man, for the killing of one of their own.  No court has even bothered to reopen the case and look at this evidence!  What else can we take from that but that they are telling us—‘We railroaded him, fair and square, and now we’re going to strap him down and fry him.’

Out in Harlem last night, a number of people who were hearing of Troy’s case for the 1^st time told us, “They do that to Black people all the time.”  Very true. The legal lynching of Troy Davis concentrates the way this system treats Black people.  This system has criminalized our youth, treating them like they’re guilty until proven innocent, if they can survive their encounters with cops to prove their innocence, and if they can avoid being framed up in the system’s kangaroo courts.

The future this system has in store for many of our youth comes down to either crime and punishment or joining their military and killing people to keep their global empire in effect.  What can you say about a system like this, except that it’s no damn good?

But things don’t have to be like this.  We could end all the horrors this system inflicts on humanity thru revolution, communist revolution.  We could get rid of this rotten system and bring into being a society and a world that serves the interests of the people.  And we in the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) are building a movement for revolution to do just that.  Get with this movement, sisters and brothers.

Two important things—BAsics, a book by Bob Avakian, the leader of the RCP. This book concentrates more than 3 decades of work Avakian has been doing studying the experience of previous revolutionary societies and grappling with everything that stands between humanity and its ultimate emancipation.  With this book, we can bring the new understanding of how to make revolution and bring into a being a viable and desirable socialist society that Avakian has developed to the new generation   If you don’t know about Avakian, you need to learn about him, and you need to let some other people know about him too.  Get hold of BAsics, and help spread the word about it, because you can’t change the world if you don’t know the BAsics.

And 2, Cornel West and I have called for a day of non violent civil disobedience to Stop “Stop & Frisk.”  The execution of Troy Davis underscores the need for determined RESISTANCE to the way this criminal injustice system mistreats Black people.

Go to www.revcom.us to get more info on both of these.

Denounce the Murder of Troy Davis!

We received the below from the supporters of Revolution Uptown/Harlem.

Denounce the Murder of Troy Davis! 138th and Amsterdam Avenue    noon until 2:00 ---   today Harlem State Building- 125th and Adam Clayton Powell 5:00  --- today Union Square Park     5:00   --- today Hello Folks, Last night this system murdered Troy Anthony Davis. As many thousands of people around the country and the world, including here in Harlem, demanded the execution be stopped, the authorities pressed relentlessly toward Troy's death. A hateful, murderous, yes, fascistic message has just been seen. What is our response? Uptown readers if Revolution newspaper (www.revcom.us) are calling for folks to gather on the corner of 138th and Amsterdam Avenue today from noon until 2pm (and at the Harlem State Building at 5:00) in a powerful denunciation of the execution of Troy Davis and the system that killed him. What happened last night needs to be talked about in every class today, at the bus stop and on the train, at work, and in your circle of friends and family. In a thousand ways, those who are outraged about this legal lynching must spread that outrage, spread the resistance. We need a massive outpourings of resistance! We often look at history and think we would have acted morally, courageously, in the face of slavery, or Jim Crow/KKK terror. This is the New Jim Crow terror- this is a moment that tests our morality and courage. "There is a place where epistemology and morality meet. There is a place where you have to stand and say: It is not acceptable to refuse to look at something—or to refuse to believe something—because it makes you uncomfortable. And: It is not acceptable to believe something just because it makes you feel comfortable."      Bob Avakian  BAsics 5:11 This is such a place. This is such a time!  The days when this system can just keep on doing what it does to people, here and all over the world…when people are not inspired and organized to stand up against these outrages and to build up the strength to put an end to this madness…those days must be GONE. And they CAN be. from The Revolution We Need...The Leadership We Have The Whole Damn System Is Guilty! Do the right thing, Will

Troy Davis Must Not Be Executed!

Editor's Note:  Troy Davis was executed tonight at 11:08 PM EST as the U.S. Supreme Court refused to grant a last minute stay of execution.  What kind of system do we live in where a Black man has been framed and executed for a murder he did not commit?      
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SAVE TROY'S LIFE
by Carl Dix

Paris demonstration for Troy Davis (undated).

     As I write this, Troy Davis is hours away from his scheduled execution. His case is a damning exposure of how the criminal “injustice” system in the US is rotten to the core. Troy Davis was railroaded to prison 20 years ago on charges of murdering a cop in Savannah, Georgia. There was no physical evidence connecting Troy to the cop who was killed, and 7 or the 9 witnesses who placed him at the scene of the killing have since recanted their statements. Several of them have said that they were coerced into fingering Troy as the killer by cops who didn’t care that their statements were untrue. And one of the witnesses who maintains that Troy killed the cop has told acquaintances that he was the one who really killed the cop!
     It is an extreme travesty that Troy has been on death row for 20 years in this case and that he has gotten to the brink of being executed several times. And it will be an outrageous crime if this system goes ahead with his execution.
     What the system is saying with how this case has been dealt with is a big step back to the days of the Supreme Court’s Dred Scot decision—that Black people had no rights the system needs to respect. At every level, from the cops to the prosecutors to the courts, the message has been the same. We railroaded you the way we so often do to poor people and oppressed people, and we don’t give a damn if you’re guilty or not! Every appeals court, including the Supreme Court, has refused to consider the mounting evidence that Troy is innocent and allowed his execution to steamroll ahead.
     Thinking about this injustice reminds me of Shaka Sankofa. The state of Texas executed him despite a lot of evidence that he was innocent, and in that case too the courts ruled that process — "we railroaded him fair and square" — trumped evidence of innocence. And it brings to mind Mumia Abu Jamal, another victim of a railroad by a lynching judge presiding over a kangaroo court. Mumia has spent three decades on death row.
     These cases concentrate the way this system treats Black people! It is intolerable that people get railroaded to prison on trumped up charges and coerced evidence, that people can be executed on the basis of shit like this. And it must be stopped.
     We must do everything we can down to the final minute tonight to fight to save Troy’s life. And we must stand up and fight to end the way horrific numbers of Black and Latino youth are warehoused in prisons across the US. Cornel West and I have issued a Call for a day of Stopping “Stop & Frisk.” The aim of this day of resistance is to take the movement against racially targeted mass incarceration to a whole new level. This Call is available at www.revcom.us, or you could get a copy by writing to the Network to Stop Mass Incarceration at stopmassincarceration@ymail.com. I urge people to take up this Call, spread it and help make this resistance as powerful as possible.
     It’s going to take revolution, millions of people rising up to get rid of this system and replace it with a totally different system that serves the interests of the people, to end mass incarceration and all the other horrors this system enforces on humanity. And a big part of getting ready to revolution is mobilizing people to resist the system’s attacks — Fighting the Power, and Transforming the People, for Revolution.
     So stand up and fight back, for Troy’s life, to end mass incarceration and to end everything this system brings down on the people.

Attica Means Fight Back! Remembering the Legacy of the Attica Rebellion on the 40th Anniversary.

"We are men. We are not beasts, and we do not intend to be beaten and driven as such.” With this declaration, men in the Attica State prison rose in the most powerful prison rebellion in US history. The Attica Brothers took guards as hostages and controlled the prison for 4 days, issuing demands that included an end to brutality, better conditions in the prison and no reprisals against them for rising up.

Their example of defiance electrified the country and the world. And the way in which the prisoners conducted themselves while they controlled the prison showed a glimpse of how the world could be different. They overcame differences between Blacks and whites, they refused to back down in the face of threatened attacks by the state police, they shared what food and water they had amongst themselves and with their hostages, and no one took vengeance against the guards for the brutality they had inflicted.

KATT WILLIAMS IS A SICK JOKE!!! by Carl Dix

Black comic Katt Williams recently unleashed an ugly, reactionary rant during a stand up routine in Phoenix. Addressing a heckler who took exception to his “humor,” Williams told him, “Remember when white people used to tell us to go back to Africa? … If you love Mexico so much, get the fuck back there.  America is the greatest country in the world.”  When the heckler declared, “This is Mexico,” Williams replied, “This used to be Mexico – Now it’s Phoenix.”  Then he capped all this off with, “We were slaves –Y’all just work like that at the landscaper.”

Williams explained his rant by saying, “I wasn’t being anti Mexican.  I was just defending my country.”  This so called greatest country in the world was forged thru stealing the land from the native inhabitants and committing genocide against them, and thru dragging African people to these shores in slave chains.

Williams was defending not only these original sins of the US, but all the foul shit America has done since then as it spread its tentacles around the world, and the shit it continues to enforce on humanity today.  “This used to be Mexico – Now it’s Phoenix.”  That comes down to defending the theft of half of Mexico by the US in the 1800’s.  And his “joke” about Latinos being worked like slaves is nothing but upholding the way so many immigrants have been forced into the bottom tier of the US workforce, slaving for starvation wages.

Williams talks about being descended from slaves.  Let me tell you, he still has the mentality of a slave.  Contrast his slavish upholding of the crimes of America to this statement by Bob Avakian, leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party.

Three Strikes...
      
“The book by Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow, Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, has shined a bright and much needed light on the reality of profound injustice at the very core of this country. 
   And this brings me back to a very basic point:
   This system, in this country, in the whole history of its treatment of Black people, what has it been?
   First, Slavery... Then, Jim Crow—segregation and Ku Klux Klan terror... And now, The New Jim Crow—police brutality and murder, wholesale criminalization and mass incarceration, and legalized discrimination yet again.
   That's it for this system: Three strikes and you're out!”

Which view gets at the history and current day reality of this country?  And which points in the direction of getting out from under this rotten set up.

-30-

London Police Killing Sparks "Righteous Fury"

Taking the Movement of Resistance to Mass Incarceration to a Higher Level Thru Unleashing Determined Mass Resistance

by Carl Dix

Posted August 9, 2011

The decades-long massive incarceration of Black people, along with other people of color, is an outrage that should shock the conscience of the world. It shows the utter illegitimacy of the system. 2.4+ million people are in prisons across the country, the overwhelming majority of them Black or Latino, because the system has criminalized large sections of people and not because these people are criminals. As a revolutionary communist, I stand with Bob Avakian, the leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) who has said, "There will never be a revolutionary movement in this country that doesn't fully unleash and give expression to the sometimes openly expressed, sometimes expressed in partial ways, sometimes expressed in wrong ways, but deeply, deeply felt desire to be rid of these long centuries of oppression [of Black people]. There's never gonna be a revolution in this country, and there never should be, that doesn't make that one key foundation of what it's all about." (Quoted from Basics, 3:19)

This injustice is accepted by society because it is carried out under the appearance of color blindness, and that must stop.

A whole lot is at stake in whether we succeed to build a determined movement of resistance to this incarceration. Mass incarceration is a huge attack on the masses, especially on oppressed nationality masses. 100,000's are jailed for simple possession of banned drugs. People in prison are subjected to horrible conditions. The pipeline leading to this warehousing in prison includes inner-city educational systems that are geared to drive millions of youth to drop out and a criminal justice system that treats a whole generation of youth like potential criminals, guilty until proven innocent, if they can survive to prove that innocence. It includes racial profiling by police, gang injunctions and discrimination in the courts.

And after release, millions of people are stamped with a badge of deprivation and shame. Denied job opportunities, access to public housing, food stamps, government loans for education, the right to vote, and more. All this is the result of conscious policies adopted by the ruling class.

This horrific racially targeted massive incarceration is a consequence of not having made revolution in the '60s. The revolutionary upheaval of that period rocked the ruling class back on its heels, but it didn't seize power from them. Having ridden those storms out, and conscious of the role the uprisings of Black people played in spearheading that and their potential for sparking future upheaval, the ruling class has moved to viciously suppress that potential before it can manifest itself—counter-insurgency before the insurgency.

If things are allowed to continue on this trajectory, the reality of millions of the oppressed penned up in the ghettos and barrios without opportunity or hope will intensify. Going in and out of jail will remain a rite of passage for millions of oppressed youth, many of whom already look to their immediate future and can see nothing more than prison or death. This is slow genocide and, given the sharp divisions in the ruling class and the building up and unleashing of outright fascist forces, it could easily become fast genocide.

This massive incarceration is accepted by most of society as just, as the result of criminal activity by those who end up in jail. Those who are aware of the racial disparity in who gets incarcerated mostly accept that as well, seeing it as reflecting that "those people" commit more crimes. Even those masses who are most directly hit by this incarceration are affected by the chorus of "it's your own damn fault" that comes at them from every sector of society. This is because this extreme oppression is being perpetrated under a cloak of apparent equality. There are no longer laws on the books that say it's illegal for Black people to do this or that. The forms thru which the Black masses were held down under the old Jim Crow have been largely done away with. It appears that Black people have a certain equality of opportunity, so those who don't make it and end up being ground down by the system are thought to be responsible for their fate. This appearance/essence contradiction needs to be broken thru on.

If the rationalizations for this mass incarceration could be broken thru, a determined movement of resistance to this horrific injustice could be brought forward. This could dramatically transform the political terrain. Those who do suffer this could throw off the 'blame the victim' justification and stand up and resist. People who don't directly face this could see it for the injustice that it is and join in the resistance. The way in which being saddled with convictions, parole and probation, or the threat of them, holds many of the youth back from even considering joining in resistance could be busted thru. The feeling on the part of the oppressed that they're alone in the struggle could be addressed by both building resistance among the basic masses and rallying youth and others from the middle strata to join in.

What is key to bringing a determined movement of resistance to mass incarceration into existence? People have to change their thinking about incarceration—millions no longer accepting the justifications for this and millions of the oppressed also breaking with thinking there's nothing to be done about it and/or it's really their own fault. In particular, some big transformation on the matter of the appearance of equality and the related fact that most people, including many of the oppressed, feel incarceration is driven by crime. And because of this, accept it as justified. But this can't be accomplished by exposure alone, or by a focus on exposure around how unjust this is. Much more exposure is needed, and the work done by Michelle Alexander and others remains important. But the key to changing people's thinking about incarceration comes down to unleashing and guiding a mass movement that engages in determined resistance to the outrage of mass incarceration. This movement needs to be aimed at making this a dividing line question in society, one that everybody has to look at, re-evaluate and develop an opinion and a stand on.

Here the experience of the Freedom Riders in the 1960's is instructive. The brutality and indignity of Jim Crow segregation had been in effect for decades. Although there had been important outbreaks of resistance to it, most Black people accepted its horrors as foul shit you just had to put up with. The reality of what Black people were forced to endure was under the radar screen for many whites, and those who were aware of them either eagerly supported them, or were taken in by the rationalizations given for enforcing these conditions on Black people. It took the dramatic actions of a relative handful of courageous resisters to put this situation onto society's front burners and force people take a stand on it. The same will be needed today in relation to mass incarceration and all that it entails.

In this light, the importance of the hunger strike now being waged by prisoners in California must be emphasized. This hunger strike has pushed the outrages of what is done to prisoners into the minds of millions who formerly either never knew about it or gave it a thought, and it has inspired thousands of others to rally to their support. This strike must be supported and used as a springboard for further struggle.

This is the way to get people to think about this deeply and begin to think differently about it. (There's also a global aspect to this. The US still goes around the world, lecturing other countries on freedom and democracy and crowing about the freedoms it affords to its people. A determined movement of resistance targeting the massive and racially disproportionate incarceration the US enforces would lay bare the injustice suffered by so many of the oppressed in this so-called leader of the free world.)

There is a real basis to bring this mass movement of resistance into existence! Something significant is happening right now that needs to, and can, be tapped into. 100's are coming out to hear Michelle Alexander speak about this issue, large numbers of people are reading her book and some of them are recommending it to others and forming study groups around it. The 100's who've come to the dialogues between Cornel West and myself on the theme of "What Future For Our Youth?" include many, many people who gasp when they hear of what's being done to basic masses by the criminal injustice system and who respond positively to the call for people to stand up and resist all this. Something is afoot here. Not that the majority of people have changed their thinking on this, or are even all thinking about this. But a critical mass of people are changing their thinking, and many are ready to be part of doing something about this horrific injustice. This critical mass needs to be forged and unleashed into a movement resisting this outrage in a determined way. Thru doing this, the political terrain can be dramatically affected.

The social base for such a movement has several components: those who suffer this directly—those in prison, former prisoners, their family and friends. Such people are largely basic masses, but many middle strata Blacks also fit into this category, having family and friends who are in and out of prison. (John Edgar Weidman wrote on this in both his Pittsburgh-based fiction and in a memoir.) The same is true for other oppressed nationalities. There are significant numbers of white youth who are already horrified by what they know about the warehousing of so many people in prison and can be won to join in resisting it. And many more from all sections of society could be won to oppose this if they could see thru the justifications to the underlying horrific reality. There are many professionals whose work puts them in contact with masses who suffer this—teachers, social workers, attorneys, others—who see the humanity in these masses and could be won to join in the resistance. Several of the panelists at Michelle Alexander's Riverside event were people who worked on re-entry of formerly incarcerated people. Sometimes people involved in this work are themselves former prisoners.

Students and prisoners can play important roles in breaking this resistance movement loose—both are important, and there's a potential synergy here. Historically, students have been the first section of society to step out and fight injustice, and they will need to play this role in this effort. If things are left to the basic masses to shoulder the responsibility of kicking this movement off, it won't happen because these masses already feel alone in this fight and think they have no chance of winning.

At the same time, there are many, many prisoners who want to be a part of changing the direction of things in society. The prisoners who have engaged in significant resistance in recent months—the California prison hunger strikers, prisoners in Georgia and Ohio—number in the 1000's . There are 100's of prisoners who receive Revolution newspaper regularly and many write to the paper about the influence that reading the writings of Bob Avakian and other articles in the paper have had on them. These prisoners can play an important role in reaching out to other masses, both others on the bottom of society and many in the middle class,c and awake them to this injustice and inspire them to join in the resistance. These prisoners are among the many, many people this system has classed as subhuman and not worthy of consideration. The letters some of these prisoners write to Revolution Newspaper and the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund can put the lie to this and make real the potential for people criminalized by this society to transform themselves and get with the emancipators of humanity. Their examples can reach the hearts of students who are disturbed by the state of the world today and draw them into the fight on this front.

There need to be points where this new movement comes together for action—like supporting the heroic hunger strike of the prisoners in California and taking to the streets to mark 40 years since the Attica Rebellion. And then to join in the effort to unleash powerful determined resistance to mass incarceration in the lead-up to the October 22nd National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation. As an example, in New York the Network to Stop Mass Incarceration has called for a day of No Stop & Frisk in the days leading up to October 22nd. These must not be the usual, routine actions; the situation is too urgent for that. The Network to Stop Mass Incarceration is also working on a statement of conscience condemning racially targeted mass incarceration that will be signed by prominent people in the arts and sciences, the clergy, etc. from all over the world. The aim of this statement will be to contribute to dramatically changing the way people look at the way so many people are warehoused in US prisons.

Demands need to be drawn up that can both rally people to stand with this effort because they can see the justness of what's being called for and serve as focal points for fighting to stop the shit the powers-that-be are doing. The overall theme of this movement needs to be calling for an End to Mass Incarceration. We should develop a theme for it that calls it out as a racially targeted method of social control. Forces involved in taking on the various aspects of racially targeted mass incarceration have developed demands that get at much of the reality of mass incarceration. Here is my contribution to what the demands need to be:

• releasing people convicted or arrested for drug possession.
• ending mandatory minimum sentences.
• ending entirely the crack/powder cocaine disparity.
• ending the way parole is restricted for many in prison and denied in punitive ways.

Other demands could focus in on the way the criminal justice system targets the oppressed:

• ending racial profiling.
• Stop Stop & Frisk. (This demand is specific to New York city where the police enforce this illegal unconstitutional policy, but as an important focal point of resistance, it has national significance.)
• Ending the practice of getting convictions and violations on youth before they're teens as part of criminalizing a whole generation.

Other demands would focus on the stigma and denial of rights people face when they're released:

• ending discrimination in employment. (There is already an effort called "Drop the box," which targets the box on employment applications which asks have you been convicted, etc.)
• Abolishing the one-strike laws and other laws and policies that deny public housing to those formerly incarcerated.
• abolishing laws and policies that deny those formerly incarcerated access to govt assistance like food stamps and education loans.
• restoring the right to vote, etc.

Coming out of the Session, it may be necessary to assemble a commission to sort thru the demands raised by various forces to develop a focused list of demands that can broadly characterize and concretize the reality of mass incarceration in an overall way. Then these demands can be promoted thru the various initiatives taken up to focus the attention of society broadly on the injustice of racially targeted mass incarceration; at actions of mass resistance, at forums and teach-ins, etc.

I will close with a quote from a statement issued two years ago by the RCP titled, "The Revolution We Need... The Leadership We Have:" "The days when this system can just keep on doing what it does to people here and all over the world...when people are not inspired and organized to stand up against these outrages and to build up the strength to put an end to this madness...those days must be GONE. And they CAN be." What we do coming out of the Stop Mass Incarceration Strategy Session needs to be approached as contributing to taking concrete steps to end those days!

If you know someone who would want to get involved in this effort to unleash determined mass resistance to racially targeted mass incarceration, or if you'd like to get involved yourself, contact us at: stopmassincarceration@ymail.com.

Support the Pelican Bay Prison Hunger Strike, July 2011
Go here: http://bit.ly/nqQ2rm

Carl Dix, Revolutionary Communist Party, Served 2 years in Fort Leavenworth Military Prison for refusing to go to Vietnam in 1970 says:

The people on hunger strike in the prisons in California have stood up and declared that they are human beings, not animals, and that they refuse to submit to the torture being enforced by the California Dept of Corrections.

The hunger strikers have put their lives on the line to fight to achieve their demands, and we must support them.  They are asserting their humanity and thru doing that, they are challenging us to reclaim our own humanity—by refusing to allow torture to be carried out in the prison system in our name.

Prisoners at Pelican Bay SHU Announce Hunger Strike

Revolution newspaper received a copy of the “Final Notice: PBSP SHU D-Corridor Hunger Strike” written by prisoners in the SHU at Pelican Bay State Prison. This notice calls for a hunger strike, to start on July 1, 2011, and includes five core demands, which in summary are:

1. End “group punishment” where an individual prisoner breaks a rule and prison officials punish a whole group of prisoners of the same race.

2. Abolish “debriefing” and modify active/inactive gang status criteria. False and/or highly questionable “evidence” is used to accuse prisoners of being active/inactive members of prison gangs who are then sent to the SHU where they are subjected to long-term isolation and torturous conditions. One of the only ways these prisoners can get out the SHU is if they “debrief”—that is, give prison officials information on gang activity.

3. Comply with recommendations from a 2006 U.S. commission to “make segregation a last resort” and “end conditions of isolation.”

4. Provide Adequate Food. Prisoners report unsanitary conditions and small quantities of food. They want adequate food, wholesome nutritional meals including special diet meals and an end to the use of food as a way to punish prisoners in the SHU.

5. Expand and provide constructive programs and privileges for indefinite SHU inmates—including the opportunity to “engage in self-help treatment, education, religious and other productive activities...” which are routinely denied. Demands include one phone call per week, one photo per year, 2 packages a year, more visiting time, permission to have wall calendars, and sweat suits and watch caps (warm clothing is often denied even though cells and the exercise cage can be bitterly cold).

Cornel West Slammed by Obama Supporters For Telling the Truth About Obama

By Carl Dix

A shit storm has been raging around critical comments by Cornel West about Barack Obama’s presidency, in an interview done by Chris Hedges for the online magazine, Truthdig. West has been accused of launching personal attacks and hurling racial slurs at Obama. The attacks on West have had several striking features in common. One is how his accusers have had little or nothing to say about what he actually said about what Obama has, and hasn’t, done as president. The other is how those attacking West have either distorted his history and track record or gone after him like he has neither. (For the interview, go to www.truthdig.com.)

In his interview with Hedges, West bitterly describes Obama as “a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats. And now he has become head of the American killing machine and is proud of it.”

Is this true? Obama is the commander in chief for the U.S. global empire. In that capacity, he has continued much of the thrust of the Bush regime, waging wars for empire, ordering drone attacks that destroy whole villages, carrying out government spying, torture and indefinite detention.

As it says in the 2010 statement issued by World Can’t Wait, “Crimes Are Crimes No Matter Who Does Them”: “In some respects, this is worse than Bush. First, because Obama has claimed the right to assassinate American citizens whom he suspects of ‘terrorism,’ merely on the grounds of his own suspicion or that of the CIA, something Bush never claimed publicly. Second, Obama says that the government can detain you indefinitely, even if you have been exonerated in a trial, and he has publicly floated the idea of ‘preventive detention.’ Third, the Obama administration, in expanding the use of unmanned drone attacks, argues that the U.S. has the authority under international law to use such lethal force and extrajudicial killing in sovereign countries with which it is not at war.

“Such measures by Bush were widely considered by liberals and progressives to be outrages and were roundly, and correctly, protested. But those acts which may have been construed (wishfully or not) as anomalies under the Bush regime, have now been consecrated into ‘standard operating procedure’ by Obama, who claims, as did Bush, executive privilege and state secrecy in defending the crime of aggressive war.” (To read the entire statement, go to www.worldcantwait.net.)

And on domestic policy, Obama has represented the interests of the capitalist class while their system is caught up in an intense financial crisis. This is the backdrop against which Obama has pushed legislation and policies that serve banking and other corporate interests and that has caused severe economic deprivation for the masses. This deprivation includes massive unemployment, a record number of foreclosures and evictions, and cutbacks in all kinds of social services, from education to health. And all this hits minority people disproportionately. While Obama has taken the spotlight off immigration, more deportations have been carried out on his watch than under Bush.

Right-wing forces have continued and escalated their attacks on abortion rights during his presidency. And before him, Bill Clinton did harm on this front, by implying that abortion was morally wrong a stand which Obama has not just echoed but taken further.

And Obama has been singing lead in the chorus that blames poor Black people for what the system does to them. How often has he blamed the poverty and miserable conditions faced by Black youth on absent Black fathers without mentioning how the criminal “injustice” system targets Black men disproportionately and warehouses hundreds of thousands of them in prison? Or blamed Black parents for the high drop-out rates of Black youth while giving a pass to the education system that is geared to fail those youth?

Those slamming West argue that Obama has done the best he can, and that, whatever his shortcomings, he represents the best Black people and progressive people are going to get. They also argue that any criticism of Obama by a prominent voice of conscience like West only aids his right-wing opponents. Instead, people should shut up, get behind Obama and, at most, try to nudge him into a better direction.

But what are people supposed to get behind? Obama’s wars for empire? His attacks on Black people and immigrants? If people fall for swallowing all that because something worse might be waiting in the wings, then the capitalist rulers of this country will ram even worse down their throats.  As Bob Avakian, the leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), puts it in his new book BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian : “If you try to make the Democrats be what they are not and never will be, you will end up being more like what the Democrats actually are.”

What West is really doing in the Truthdig interview is calling Obama out for what he has done, and hasn’t done, in heaping abuse on people in the U.S. and around the world. He has dared to say the emperor has no clothes.

This is consistent with who Cornel West is and what he’s done all his life. He has a history of speaking truth to power, of dramatically telling the truth about the way the powers that be have abused “the least among us.” He tours college campuses across the country to challenge the youth not to become “adapted to indifference” or “adjusted to injustice.” He goes into prisons to meet with, educate and learn from those locked down in this country’s dungeons. He tirelessly speaks out about how Black people and other oppressed nationalities, poor and working people, women, lesbians and gays are being mistreated by the wealthy and powerful. And he bends every effort to forge unity among oppressed groups and between people from different class backgrounds.

Again from West’s interview with Chris Hedges: “‘When you look at a society you look at it through the lens of the least of these, the weak and the vulnerable; you are committed to loving them first, not exclusively, but first, and therefore giving them priority,’ says West, the Class of 1943 University Professor of African American Studies and Religion at Princeton University. ‘And even at this moment, when the empire is in deep decline, the culture is in deep decay, the political system is broken, where nearly everyone is up for sale, you say all I have is the subversive memory of those who came before, personal integrity, trying to live a decent life, and a willingness to live and die for the love of folk who are catching hell. This means civil disobedience, going to jail, supporting progressive forums of social unrest if they in fact awaken the conscience, whatever conscience is left, of the nation. And that’s where I find myself now.’”

Cornel West, a widely respected public intellectual listened to by many, promotes critical thinking. He challenges the young generation to have the courage to speak the truth and to be committed to working to alleviate the suffering of those on the bottom of society. He displays a poetic spirit. In his own words, Cornel would describe himself as “engaging in Socratic questioning, being committed to the least of these and being a bluesman in the life of the mind.” All this is why I love this brother so much.

This is also why he has become the target of Obama’s defenders. The concerted chorus of condemnation of West has coincided with indications of widespread unease and dissatisfaction over the actions, and inactions, of the first Black president, among Black people and progressive people in general. Cornel West is giving voice to that spreading discontent in his critique of Obama, and to some that makes him a dangerous man. But those who are still catching hell every day under Obama, just as they have before, and those not willing to swallow their principles and go along with the continuing outrages, should cherish and defend Cornel West.

The attacks on West come down to a concerted attempt to tear down and discredit him among the Black masses and progressive people generally and to place criticisms of Obama’s presidency and exposure of whose interests it is serving outside the bounds of acceptable discourse. On one level, this shores up the prospects of a second term for Obama as president, but on another and deeper level it serves the global and strategic interests of the U.S. imperialist ruling class.

In 2008, Bob Avakian likened the U.S. ruling class allowing/having Obama win the presidency as their global empire faced heavy challenges around the world and domestically, to them playing a major trump in a bid whist card game to try to change the flow of the game. This was gotten into in an article in Revolution newspaper #148: “Tears & Pride, Reality & REAL Change.”

“Anyone on this planet with any sense of the real history and present-day reality of the U.S.A. and how deeply white supremacy is embedded into the operation of this exploitive system… Anyone who knows about the slave master’s whip…the lynch mobs…and present-day reality where any young Black man who steps out of his door faces a death sentence waiting to be executed by a policeman… Anyone who has any sense of this understands and feels the tears and celebrations that met the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States.”

The article goes on to lay out the global and domestic challenges facing the rulers of the U.S. Then it says:

“In the face of all this, put yourself in the shoes of those who run this system: They see storms on the horizon, and they have some idea of the pent up anger and outrage among Black people in particular. From that perspective, you can begin to get a sense of why they took what is for them, the major strategic step of turning now to a Black man to represent the interests of this system.

“Obama is not talking about any real or substantial positive changes in the conditions of Black people. The ‘first Black president’ is not a concession to struggles or potential struggles against the oppression of Black people. Study Obama’s actual proposals and speeches. Listen to the theme in Obama’s victory speech, calling for ‘a new spirit of sacrifice.’ Obama is a vehicle to rally America, including those who have been systematically cut out of the so-called American Dream, to identify with the system as it forces people to sacrifice.”

We in the Revolutionary Communist Party, along with a very few others, stood against the wave of Obama mania in 2008. We called out how progressive people who were backing Obama in order to end the horrors of the Bush regime were engaging in wishful thinking and self-deception in “On the Nation’s Open Letter to Obama.” (revcom.us/a/139/Nation-en.html) I exposed in “Don’t Be a Buffalo Soldier” how Obama’s call for a new spirit of service to America was aimed at pumping up Black youth and others to enlist in America’s wars for empire. (revcom.us/a/buffalo_soldiers-en.html) We also spoke to how even before his election, Obama was adding his voice to those blaming Black people for the things the system does to them.

We also said that we would stand together with people to oppose injustice, whatever their position on Obama. Cornel stands out as someone whose principles have moved him to re-evaluate his stance on Obama and to expose, rather than ignore or try to justify, actions which inflict abuse on people in the U.S. and around the world.

Again, from his interview with Chris Hedges: “‘I have to take some responsibility,’ he admits of his support for Obama as we sit in his book-lined office. ‘I could have been reading into it more than was there.’”

Cornel was among the many signatories to the “Crimes are Crimes, No Matter Who Does Them” statement I excerpted above. The attacks being aimed at Cornel are vicious, and people need to support him.

Revolution #235, June 12, 2011