You've seen them all summer long.

The angry mobs in Arizona, overwhelmingly white, threatening immigrants—and sometimes carrying out their threats. The ones in New York City, and in many much smaller towns, demonstrating—and, again, threatening violence—against the right of Muslims to have places of worship and painting all Muslims as "enemies" in the so-called "war on terror." They call civil rights groups racists—while they themselves post vicious racist "jokes" on their web sites, and make openly racist slurs against Obama. And there they were again, last Saturday in DC, rallying at the behest of the reactionary Fox News broadcaster Glenn Beck, in a show of "Christian soldier" piety—to anoint their vicious edge with holy water and to "sanctify" the blood-soaked U.S. military in particular.

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• Centerfold (PDF)

Basketball, Football...and Larger Forces

At that time, the basketball coach at Berkeley High, Sid Scott, was a Christian fundamentalist. He was always lecturing the players about religion. He was also a big racist. Every year when I was in high school, and even before I got there, the starting team would always be three Black players and two white. My friends and I used to always talk and argue about why this was, because while sometimes there were white guys who should have been on the starting five, a lot of times you could easily see there were five Black players who should have started, or at least four. I thought that this coach's thinking went along the lines that if he had four Black players and one white on the floor, the four Black players would freeze out the white guy, so then they wouldn't all play together — even though, of course, this was ridiculous. And if he had five Black guys out there, he figured all the discipline on the team would break and it would just be an undisciplined mess — also ridiculous. And he couldn't have less than three Black players because it would be so outrageous, given who was on the team and how good different players were. This is how I used to analyze this.

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• Spread Bob Avakian's Memoir Far and Wide!

For the latest updates and guidance on the campaign "The Revolution We Need… The Leadership We Have," check out the "This Week" column that appears in every issue of Revolution newspaper and online at revcom.us.

• Art Murmur
• This Week
• A Report from a Campus on Getting Out the Message and Call
• The Revolution Summer @ the Hip Hop Festival & World Cup Party

The RCP, USA announces with great enthusiasm the upcoming publication of the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America (Draft Proposal).

This Constitution will be a historic and visionary model of the future revolutionary socialist society and government. At the same time, it will give people a very concrete sense of how the new power would be constituted and exercised in the new society. People will get a feel, and an in-depth understanding, of how that new, revolutionary state power could work to truly usher in a new world, a world in which people would want to live and could flourish.

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The following are excerpts from two articles in the special Revolution issue on the environment (#199, April 18, 2010) that discuss how a revolutionary socialist society would actually act as custodians of nature, rather than its plunderers. Other articles in the special issue examine the dimensions of the crisis and how the source of the problem is the capitalist system. The articles and the issue as a whole are available online at revcom.us/environment.

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A quick, one question current events quiz:

What do you call a country where the head of state can order the assassination of a citizen, with no arrest warrant, no formal charges, no trial, and no appeals process, far afield from any military conflict? And where such an order occasions little public outcry?

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• Crimes Are Crimes No Matter Who Does Them (PDF)

August 30, 2010. A World to Win News Service. "When the water came, we moved our women and children to high ground. Three of my daughters stayed behind to help the men pack up whatever belongings we could carry with us… within minutes, the current got too strong and the waters rose head high." This is how a villager from Sardaryab, a village in northwest Pakistan, lost two of his daughters ages 16 and 17. He was only able to save his youngest daughter. "Their bodies were found three days later, dumped on the bank by receding waters about 6 kilometers down the river."

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I was 22 and full of hope about my future. As a recent graduate from Howard University and a NY Teaching Fellow, enrolled in City College, I thought Harlem was the best place to start my adult life, filled with express trains and crosstown buses to whiz me to masters classes and leisurely destinations on time and in style. In fact I would often sing the jingle of the Jeffersons' "Moving on Up," the lyrical apex of black assimilation, while moving to Harlem soon after Bill Clinton did, into one of the first renovated "luxury" rentals on 129th and Malcolm X Blvd (or Lenox Ave). Kitten heels and keyless entry, walking through a faux marble foyer with a chandelier and a smiling doorman was a good balance for a hard day's work as a literacy teacher for special education students in the Bronx.

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We received this from the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund

On Tuesday, August 31, 50 people attended a benefit for the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund, featuring dramatic readings of letters from prisoners, at the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago. About 40 of the 50 people were new to PRLF. They included an incoming freshmen class of 25 from DePaul University in Chicago, an African-American woman student at a theological seminary, and students and staff from the University of Chicago. The key force behind the event was a summer intern for PRLF, a student at the University of Chicago; she mobilized several of her friends in the spoken word community.

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A grave injustice has been perpetrated! In an outrageous trial, for "crimes" that never happened, a young man who came out of prison and took up revolutionary politics was convicted in a Skokie, Illinois, court on August 26 of three totally trumped-up criminal misdemeanor charges of trespass, simple battery (on a cop) and resisting arrest. In an additional outrage, instead of allowing Gregory to remain out of jail on bond pending a sentencing hearing, the judge revoked his bond and he was taken directly from the courthouse to jail. The sentencing hearing is September 8, where he faces as many as three years in jail. This railroad must be stopped!

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• Videographer writes from jail

In each issue of Revolution, you'll find "Some Principles for Building A Movement for Revolution," by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. The events covered in this issue of Revolution demonstrate the critical importance of these principles, and of proceeding from them.

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• Poster (PDF)

A special issue of Revolution on the nature and role of Israel is in the works. It will give students on college campuses—along with a broader audience—a vivid and rigorously documented picture of Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians and reveal the role of Israel around the world. It will speak directly and honestly to the toughest questions students and others have.

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One of the more important statements in the Manifesto from our Party (Communism: The Beginning of a New Stage) is the quote from Marx: "Once the inner connection is grasped, all theoretical belief in the permanent necessity of existing conditions breaks down before their collapse in practice." This is not just a matter of abstract theory—it has a broader effect. That belief weighs heavily on people who don't like the way things are—they are weighed down by a belief in the "permanent necessity of existing conditions." Over and over we are confronted by the fact that people can't see beyond the way things are now.

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Letters

An Historic Contradiction: Fundamentally Changing The World Without "Turning Out the Lights"

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It is this system that has got us in the situation we’re in today, and keeps us there. And it is through revolution to get rid of this system that we ourselves can bring a much better system into being. The ultimate goal of this revolution is communism: A world where people work and struggle together for the common good…Where everyone contributes whatever they can to society and gets back what they need to live a life worthy of human beings…Where there are no more divisions among people in which some rule over and oppress others, robbing them not only of the means to a decent life but also of knowledge and a means for really understanding, and acting to change, the world.

This revolution is both necessary and possible.

From: The Revolution We Need... The Leadership We Have
A Message, And A Call, From The Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

In Bob Avakian, the Chairman of our Party, we have the kind of rare and precious leader who does not come along very often. A leader who has given his heart, and all his knowledge, skills and abilities to serving the cause of revolution and the emancipation of humanity. Bob Avakian came alive as a revolutionary in the 1960s—taking part in the great movements of those days, and especially working and struggling closely with the most advanced revolutionary force in the U.S. at that time, the Black Panther Party. Since then, and while many others have given up, Bob Avakian has worked and struggled tirelessly to find the way to go forward, having learned crucial lessons and built lasting organization that could continue the struggle, and aim to take it higher, while uniting with the same struggle throughout the world. He has kept on developing the theory and strategy for making revolution. He played the key role in founding our Party in 1975, and since then he has continued the battle to keep the Party on the revolutionary road, to carry out work with a strong revolutionary orientation. He has deeply studied the experience of revolution—the shortcomings as well as the great achievements—and many different fields of human endeavor, through history and throughout the world—and he has brought the science and method of revolution to a whole new level, so that we can not only fight but really fight to win. Bob Avakian has developed the scientific theory and strategic orientation for how to actually make the kind of revolution we need, and he is leading our Party as an advanced force of this revolution. He is a great champion and a great resource for people here, and indeed people all over the world. The possibility for revolution, right here, and for the advance of the revolution everywhere, is greatly heightened because of Bob Avakian and the leadership he is providing. And it is up to us to get with this leadership…to find out more about Bob Avakian and the Party he heads…to learn from his scientific method and approach to changing the world…to build this revolutionary movement with our Party at the core…to defend this leadership as the precious thing it is…and, at the same time, to bring our own experience and understanding to help strengthen the process of revolution and enable the leadership we have to keep on learning more and leading even better.

From: The Revolution We Need... The Leadership We Have
A Message, And A Call, From The Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

• Works by Bob Avakian (PDF)

This historic event took place in Harlem, N.Y. on July 14, 2009

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Video Available!

• Rough cut of the video without the audience Q&A
• Rough cut of the of the Q&A that followed the dialogue
• Click here for the audio only of the July 14 dialogue (mp3)
• Watch the Youtube video announcement of the July 14 dialogue
• Response to Obama's "No Excuses" speech at NAACP convention by Carl Dix (Part 1 / Part 2)

Go to YouTube for these must-see videos:

• Sunsara Taylor
• "Sunsara Taylor discusses new book by Nicholas Kristof & Sheryl WuDunn"
• "Vigil for Dr. Tiller in Union Square, NYC on June 1st 2009"
• Carl Dix
• "Carl Dix: Making Revolution, Fighting Police Brutality"
• "Response to Obama’s 'No Excuses' speech at NAACP convention by Carl Dix"
• Joe Veale
• "The Revolution Needs You: A Letter to Prisoners"
• "Next Stop Revolution"

Is believing in gods actually harmful? How has Christianity for centuries served as an ideology of conquest and subjugation? Why is the "Bible Belt" in the U.S. also the "lynching belt"? Why is there a rise of religious fundamentalism throughout the world? In the intensifying conflict between U.S. imperialism and Islamic fundamentalism, is the only choice to take one side or the other? Why is patriarchy and the oppression of women foundational to so many religions? Can people be good without god? These are just some of the questions explored in this provocative work by Bob Avakian.

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