Friday, February 5, 2010

Books to understand, explore and radically change the world

[Post on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter - spread the word]

We recommend:
International Women’s Day (IWD) Coalition
First planning meeting:

Saturday, February 6th, 1:30 PM
Cafe Tropical Meeting Room
2900 W. Sunset Blvd
Silverlake, Los Angeles 90026


International Women’s Day (March 8th) is celebrated around the world to highlight and advance the struggle for the liberation of women. The oppression of women is posing itself ever more profoundly and acutely. The world cries out for resistance to the daily murder, rape, abuse, and degradation of women worldwide.

International Women’s Day can give voice to our outrage, celebrate the resistance, and point the way forward.  This year we in the U.S. are especially 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.

As last year’s call said: “Let us bind together and dare to break our chains.”. This important day is just around the corner, and Revolution Books / Libros Revolucion is part of the local IWD coalition!  Bring your ideas, energy and righteous rage to the first planning meeting.  Spread the word!  Bring others!



Check out this article:
Anti-Woman, Anti-Abortion Super Bowl Ad
And this Youtube video:
Sunsara Taylor, writer for Revolution newspaper, on Tim Tebow and New York protest at CBS.

_______________________________________

Announcing: a national speaking tour by
Sunsara Taylor, “From the Burkha to the Thong:
Everything Must, and Can, Change!” [Click here]


Sunday, February 7, 3 pm

Screening of “13 Love Stories”

at Revolution Books / Libros Revolución
followed by discussion

with 2 of the featured couples


#144-cover


Check out this promotional Youtube piece: [click here]

“13 Love Stories” is a unique and moving series of short films featuring real voices and photos of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer couples in the L.A. area whose relationships hung in the balance as the Proposition 8 battle unfolded in California last year, and as the battle plays out today in the federal trial in San Francisco challenging Prop 8.

Their stories and images bring a crucial dimension to the societal controversy over morality and gay marriage.  Check out 13LoveStories.com.

And check out the Revolution #148 article, Gay Marriage: A Basic Right! A Just Demand!.

revtalk-net

“White supremacy is built into the very foundation of this country. It is something that this system and those who rule it could not do without, even if they wanted to, which they don’t. And this has continued down to the present.”     - Bob Avakian

REVOLUTION: Why It’s Necessary, Why It’s Possible, What It’s All About
a film of a talk by Bob Avakian
Click on Youtube clips, or check out the “Full Talk” at
revolutiontalk.net
Help spread Revolution Talk on Facebook &
twitter.com/revolutiontalk

Email reports and photos on ways you helped the major effort to make the Revolution talk a much bigger deal, and ideas on how to keep it going. And check the Spreading Revolution and Communismpage at revcom.us for reports from Revolution readers.
cornel-carl dvdSunday, Feb 14, 3 pm
at Revolution Books /
Libros Revolución

Screening and discussion of the DVD “The Ascendancy of Obama. . .and the Continued Need for Resistance and Liberation: A Dialogue Between Cornel West and Carl Dix.”This historic dialogue took place in Harlem on July 14, 2009. Cornel West is one of America’s most provocative public intellectuals and a champion for racial justice. His writings, speaking and teaching weave together the tradition of the Black Baptist church, progressive politics and jazz. The NY Times has praised his “ferocious moral vision.” Dr. West currently teaches at Princeton University. Carl Dix, is a longtime revolutionary and a founding member of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. In 1970, Carl was one of the Ft. Lewis 6, 6 GI’s who refused orders to go to Vietnam. He served 2 years in Leavenworth military penitentiary for this stand. In 1996 he co-founded the October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality. Carl coordinated the Katrina hearing of the 2006 Bush Crimes Commission.
Watch the trailer [here]. DVD available at Revolution Books / Libros Revolución for $20.  Use for your Black History month event. Watch Cornel West and Carl Dix interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! [here]

#144-cover

Sat, Feb 13, 3 pm

Join us to discuss A Declaration: For Women’s Liberation And The Emancipation Of All Humanity

As International Women’s Day 2010 approaches and the vicious attacks on women intensify here and worldwide, join us for an important discussion ofA Declaration: For Women’s Liberation and the Emancipation of All Humanity(from Revolution #158, available online at revcom.us).  Unleash the fury of women as a mighty force for revolution!

Click here to donate to help cover the cost of reprinting this special issue of Revolution newspaper for IWD 2010.

#144-cover

Film Screening
Fundraiser for Revolution Books / Libros Revolución

Sat, Feb 13, 6:15 pm


After the discussion on the Declaration and International Women’s Day, join a group going to a screening of
Waiting for Armageddon, at the Downtown Independent Theatre, 251 S. Main St., LA, 90012 - a benefit for Revolution Books ($20, minimum $12).

This is an astonishing and chilling  documentary that explores the alliance between millions of Evangelical Christians, preparing for the Biblical end-of-the-world, and Israel - an alliance that may set the stage for what one prominent Evangelical leader calls “World War III.”

The film runs from Feb 10 to 18. Contact us for tickets/ reservations, good for any showing. We’ll go as a group to the Sat, 2/13, 6:50 pm show. Meet outside before showtime or gather at the bookstore at 6:15 pm to go together; we’ll go out for food, drink and discussion afterwards.

Check out Michael Slate’s interview with David Heilbroner, one of the directors of Waiting for Armageddon, by going to kpfk.org, click on “Audio Archives,” scroll down to Michael’s Jan. 29, 2010 show, 10-11 am, and click “play.”

Go to the film’s website
www.
waitingforarmageddon.
com; watch the trailer.



Howard Zinn

(1922-2010),

From December,
1998:History as a Political Act(Howard Zinn interviewed
by Raymond Lotta).

Posted by Revolution Books / Libros Revolución in 19:18:29 | Permalink | No Comments »

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Howard Zinn
(1922-2010),
People’s historian,
A life well lived.
______________________________

Posted by Revolution Books / Libros Revolución in 06:32:16 | Permalink | No Comments »

Friday, January 29, 2010


We Recommend:

FRIDAY, JAN. 29, 10 to 11 am, KPFK radio, 90.7 FM

The Michael Slate Show

Received in an email from Michael Slate:


AMANDA MARCOTTE on anti-abortion ads being aired during the Super Bowl. “Florida Gators quarterback Tim Tebow,” she wrote, “is trying to marry the hyper-masculine world of football with the hyper-patriarchal belief that women should not have a basic right to control their own fertility.” Amanda writes for blogs Pandagon and RHRealityCheck, and is the author of the book It’s a Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments. More on the ad.

BETTY CLERMONT, author of The Neo-Catholics: Implementing Christian Nationalism in America, from Clarity Press. Her book examines the convergence of neo-cons with powerful right wing Catholics that would change the face of Catholicism in the US, and the American agenda in the world.

DAVID HEILBRONER, one of the directors of “Waiting for Armageddon.” There are millions of Evangelical Christians in the US who believe we are living in “the end times.” The film exposes the politically powerful - and potentially explosive - alliance between these Evangelical Christians and Israel, and those who believe this alliance will set the stage for what one calls “World War III.”

_________________________________________________

You can tune in online and listen live at www.kpfk.org or listen later by going to “Audio Archives” and “Play” or “Download.”

If you enjoy the show, or if you have any comments, drop a line to KPFK and let them know. And you can email Michael  at michaelslate@redfuture.com.



Sunday, January 31, 3 pm
Screening of excerpts from REVOLUTION: Why It’s Necessary, Why It’s Possible, What It’s All About
a film of a talk by Bob Avakian.

#144-cover


From the American nightmare to a sweeping vision of a whole new world, he breaks it all down, and shows how and why a radically different world can be brought forward. This film is full of heart and soul, humor and seriousness. It will challenge you and set your heart and mind to flight. Entire film is available at revolutiontalk.net click on “Full Talk.”

The Revolution is real.
Watch it.  Spread it.
revolutiontalk.net
youtube.com/revolutiontalk
Check out Revolution Talk on Facebook &
twitter.com/revolutiontalk
___________________________________________

“Denying women the right to abortion, denying them the right to decide if, and when, they will have children, with everything that means, and all the effects that will have on their lives, denying this is like battering and rape.  Denying the right to abortion is a means of exercising forcible control by a male supremacist society over the very lives o women and over their bodies.”
- Bob Avakian, RevolutionTalk.net


[Post on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter - Help spread the word]Received in an email from REVOLUTION newspaper:


#144-coverA CALL FOR DONATIONS TO REPRINT THE POWERFUL DECLARATION: FOR WOMEN’S LIBERATION AND THE EMANCIPATION OF ALL HUMANITYLast year on March 8th International Women’s Day, REVOLUTION newspaper printed a very special issue: A Declaration: For Women’s Liberation and the Emancipation of all Humanity.”   International Women’s Day 2010 is now approaching.  In addition we are very pleased to announce that starting in late February Sunsara Taylor will be going on a campus speaking tour to promote and open up debate about the Declaration.  Her tour will be titled “From the Burka to the Thong - Everything Must and Can Change. ”

Our stock of the Declaration is almost completely sold out.  We cannot allow the Declaration to go out print!  Funds are urgently needed to reprint it!  The cost will be approximately $1500.

The Declaration exposes in a compelling way the oppression of women in class society and goes beyond that as it develops and deepens existing communist theory and theoretical analysis as to where this oppression comes from, why it exists and what we have to do to get rid of it and all oppression as we emancipate all humanity.  It lays bare the paltry programs and moral and ideological bankruptcy of those who claim the mantle of women’s advance but only mean getting in on the world as it is.  It presents a vision of what socialism and communism could be like, building on and going beyond the experience in socialist societies so far.

The Declaration can serve to shake people loose of their pre-conceived notions, challenge some deeply held ideas which are narrowing their visions, and liberate their thinking.  The Declaration can inspire and bring forward a whole new generation who are looking for another way.  But it can do all of this only if it gets into people’s hands - men as well as women.

This Declaration is a very radical document and there really has never been anything like it!  Help keep it available and help spread it and promote it!

Donations to cover the cost of reprinting can be sent to RCP Publications, Box 3486, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 60654-0486 or posted on line through PayPal at revcom.us.  Please indicate that the donation is for reprinting the Declaration.

Fundraiser for Revolution Books/Libros Revolución


Screening of The White Ribbon,
Sat, Jan 30, 7 pm at the
Landmark Theatre 10850 W. Pico (at Westwood Blvd.)


#144-cover

“A superb and disturbing film, Michael Haneke’s vision of pre-first world war Germany offers no easy answers.” - guardian.co.uk


“This haunting film never pushes itself on you. It trusts you to suss out the horror that lies beneath the veneer of innocence. You’ll be knocked for a loop.” - Rolling Stone

Join us this Saturday evening, Jan. 30, 7 pm to view THE WHITE RIBBON, winner of the 2010 Golden Globe Award for best foreign language film and the 2009 Palm D’Or Award at the Cannes Film Festival.

Donations of $20 or more per ticket are encouraged to support this indispensable bookstore (minimum $12.50).  Call us for reservations (213) 488-1303.  Pick up your ticket(s) at the bookstore, or meet us from 6:30 to 7:00 pm  Sat. in front of the box office to get your ticket.


Join us after the movie for discussion and coffee/drinks in the cafe next to the theatre lobby area.


Also showing at the Landmark is “Creation, the True Story of Charles Darwin.”



These fundraiser tickets can be used for any movie at any time at the Landmark Theatre.  Support Revolution Books / Libros Revolución!



Sun, Feb 7, 3 pm

“13 Love Stories”


Screening and discussion of “13 Love Stories” a unique and moving series of short films featuring real voices and photos of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer couples in the L.A. area whose relationships hung in the balance as the Proposition 8 battle unfolded in California last year, and as the battle plays out today in the federal trial in San Francisco challenging Prop 8.

Their stories and images bring a crucial dimension to the societal controversy over morality and gay marriage.  Check out

13LoveStories.com

And check out the Revolution #148 article, Gay Marriage: A Basic Right! A Just Demand!.

Howard Zinn
(1922-2010),
people’s historian,
a life well lived.


From December, 1998: History as a Political Act(Howard Zinn interviewed
by Raymond Lotta)


Posted by Revolution Books / Libros Revolución in 03:00:33 | Permalink | No Comments »

Wednesday, January 27, 2010


Join Us to See Best Foreign Film*

#144-cover
“The White Ribbon”
Sat., Jan. 30th, 7 PM Show
Landmark Theater
Exclusive Engagement

10850 West Pico at Westwood Blvd.
Free Parking

* Winner of the 2010 Golden Globe & 2009 Palme   d’Or at Cannes Film Festival


Special fundraiser for Revolution Books / Libros Revolucion

Reserve tickets at 213.488.1303 or  librosrevo@yahoo.com.

Donations of $20 or more per ticket are encouraged to support this indispensable bookstore (minimum $12.50)  More details below.

________________________________________________________________________________

A powerful film with great relevance for today:  The setting of The White Ribbon is a village in Protestant northern Germany from 1913 to 1914, on the eve of World War I. The story revolves around the children and teenagers of a choir run by the village schoolteacher, and their families: the baron, the steward, the pastor, the doctor, the midwife, the tenant farmers - a cross-section of the entire community. Strange accidents and misfortunes befall the citizens of Eichwald, gradually taking on the character of a punishment ritual. But who is behind it all? This provocative and haunting film from writer-director Michael Haneke (Funny Games, Caché, The Piano Teacher) is stunningly photographed in black and white.   Official Web Site

____________________________________________________________

Credit cards payments are accepted by phone at our bookstore.  If you can’t join us on the 30th, these tickets can be used at any time at the Landmark.

We look forward to seeing you for this thought-provoking evening!

Meet 6:30 - 7 PM at the box office on Saturday, so we can be seated together.


Posted by Revolution Books / Libros Revolución in 02:29:34 | Permalink | No Comments »

Monday, January 18, 2010


Special Meeting Monday, Jan. 18th, 7 PM

at Revolution Books / Libros Revolución to discuss

THE CRISIS IN HAITI AND OUR
INTERNATIONALIST RESPONSIBILITIES

Revolution #189, January 17, 2010 - revcom.us

Seven Questions About Haiti
by Toby O’Ryan

First, six questions for the politicians, generals, commentators and columnists who now profess such deep sympathy for Haiti:

ONE: If you are so concerned about the catastrophe in Haiti, and feel so sympathetic to the terrible plight of the Haitian people, then why has President Obama promised a mere $100 million in aid, which is barely 1/10 of 1% of what this country spends on its military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq each year? Why has it taken so long for the most powerful country on earth, a mere few hundred miles from Haiti, to deliver the badly needed teams and technology which can remove people from rubble, the fresh water which people so desperately need, the food and medicine and medical personnel so urgently required? And why does the U.S. Coast Guard still insist on turning back any Haitian attempting to seek refuge in the U.S.?

Are you really so concerned? Or are you in fact giving just enough so that America cannot be criticized for its callousness as it was after the tsunami of 2004 and Hurricane Katrina? And are you giving this aid in such small amounts and so slowly because you are more concerned to maintain the repressive government authority in Haiti than you are about meeting the urgent and immediate needs of the Haitian people by getting the aid directly to the people and allowing them to collectively organize to distribute it in a time of crisis, when the ordinary authorities are not totally in control? Are you thereby, despite your professions of sympathy and urgency, sacrificing lives to the maintenance of the repressive social order you back in Haiti?

TWO: If you are so concerned about Haitian “political culture,” if you are so desirous of “helping Haitian democracy…” - then tell us WHY you supported a collection of gangsters, military men and proven torturers in their overthrow of the popularly elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, in 2004? Why did the U.S. armed forces kidnap Aristide, flying him into exile in Africa, against his will? Why did the U.S. support the ban on the political organization led by Aristide - Lavalas - and why does the U.S. still insist on banning this organization and preventing Aristide from returning to Haiti to mobilize this group to help deal with the suffering now going on?
Are you really concerned to “spread democracy”? Or is it really the case that your system is NOT about “spreading democracy,” but creating structures and instruments for capitalist exploitation and imperialist domination?

THREE: If your army is now the main vehicle you are using to deliver aid, then please inform us as to how this army will be different than the one you used to invade, occupy and dominate Haiti from 1915 to 1934? How will it act differently than that army did, when it militarily suppressed the Caco uprising of peasants, an uprising which demanded an end to the occupation and, in some cases, more equitable agricultural relations in Haiti’s countryside? How will it act differently than the army which enslaved Haitian people to work on its projects and bases, and which then forced a constitution, and a new ruling elite, down Haiti’s throat during that occupation? And how will it be different than the one which gave assistance and training to the military of the hated tyrants Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier? Indeed, how will it be different than the army that now rages through Afghanistan and Iraq, kicking down doors and killing from the air, and imprisoning and torturing people without charges by the thousand in prisons like Bagram?

Will your army really be used only for aid and assistance? Or is it really the case that the army that defends and fights for your system will, in the guise of delivering aid, actually suppress the will and efforts of the Haitian people to deal with this crisis and their overall situation, and will carry out this suppression with maximum brutality and no mercy whatsoever, in order to further dominate them?

FOUR: If you are so sympathetic about how Haiti has been deforested and turned into an ecological disaster area, how its agriculture has been ruined, how it now has half of its population in a city where in some sections unemployment runs as high as 90% (!), then how did it come to be that it was the U.S. itself which insisted that the Haitian peasantry do away with its huge and valuable pig population back in the 1980s, due to some supposed threat to the U.S. pig population…and how did it happen that U.S. agribusiness during that same period dumped surplus rice into Haiti at below cost, and thereby severely crippled and in some senses ruined Haitian rice growers? And why does Bill Clinton’s much-praised plan for Haiti, which we are told will bring hope to Haitians, actually involve setting up sweatshops in which Haitians will be paid 38 cents a day?!?

Do you really want to aid Haitians in developing self-sufficiency? Or is it really the case that America decided in the early 1980s to crush any elements of the economy in scores of oppressed countries, Haiti among them, which might be a basis for self-sufficiency, and to do so in a way that made the economies of these nations even more dependent on the needs and actions of the U.S. imperialist economic system, and that your plans now entail even more fully using the brutal and terrible impoverishment of the Haitian people as a way to pile up even higher profits?

FIVE: If you are so overwhelmingly concerned to just help Haiti, and criticize those who would speak of the U.S. role in creating the conditions that have made this disaster so much worse than it had to be, then why do you grant a megaphone to certifiably insane ignoramuses like Pat Robertson who claim that Haitians made a pact with the devil, or to vicious morons like Rush Limbaugh who stirs up hate and resentment against Haitians among his audience? Why do you have your think tanks like the Heritage Foundation write up ideas for using this disaster to even further take over and reshape the Haitian economy to imperialist needs, and then hurriedly have them remove this blueprint from their website once they are discovered? (Listen to Naomi Klein on Democracy Now!, 1/14/10) Why do your hired slime-merchants like David Brooks of the New York Times spout off about how the reason for Haiti’s suffering is that its “culture” is inferior to that of the country which first, in 1804, isolated Haiti and put vicious economic sanctions on it for daring to rise up and overthrow slavery and French colonial domination (and this policy was the brainchild of that great American “father of democracy” Thomas Jefferson)…inferior to the country which invaded Haiti and occupied it and plundered it, backing tyrants and overthrowing (twice) popularly elected presidents…inferior, in other words, to the “culture” of the imperialist system for which Brooks so slavishly propagandizes?

Or are you in fact concerned only that some political explanations - those which point to the actions of your system - not be allowed out, but that other political explanations - those which blame the Haitian people and absolve American imperialism - be circulated 24/7?

SIX: If you are so eager for people to give to charity and want people to believe that such charity is more important than and should even trump mobilizing politically to fight for aid, then please explain how it came to be that the tons and tons of aid collected by people in 2008 to aid Haitians hit by a series of four hurricanes sat in a warehouse in New York for months, with food and medicine literally rotting there, as government officials shirked responsibility and went back on promises? Please, dear sirs and madames, explain how this won’t be like so many other crises where the huge efforts of people to assist are channeled into ways that dissipate their feelings of solidarity, where governments make huge promises which then are never delivered, once the TV arc lights go away? Or is this in fact just one more crisis for your system to snake its way through, distracting people from the root causes, taking their highest aspirations and channeling them into harmless dead ends, as your system continues to create conditions and preserve social relations which make the cost in human lives of such crises far beyond what they need to be?

And then, one question for the people:

When will we see through these lies and fight the power? When will we penetrate into, and show others, the root causes of the problems we face? And when will we build a movement to fight for a whole other way, a revolution, and bring in a new system and society - a communist revolution - that could actually put an end to the ways that these kinds of situations just amount to horror upon horror, agony upon agony, insult upon insult, trauma upon trauma?

Is NOW too soon to begin working to bring into being the conditions where such a revolution could be made? Or is it time, and past time, to be about this? And will YOU take what you have learned in your agonizing over this crisis and your activity to deal with it to join those who are dedicating themselves to this work?

_____________________________________________________________________


Revolution newspaper is encouraging readers to send reports as you hear from loved ones and others you know in Haiti. We also encourage photographers who can contribute their pictures to send Revolution information on how to access them.

_____________________________________________________________

Contribute financially to Revolution newspaper’s coverage of this important event in the world! [Click here]

Join the major effort  this week, January 18 - 25:

SPREAD THE REVOLUTION ONLINE. . .

“Having this talk available online makes Avakian himself accessible to potentially millions of people that could not be reached otherwise. It can go a long way to making Bob Avakian a household name and making this revolution known. But just having the talk available does not in and of itself drive people to watch it; there is a huge potential audience which must be reached, made aware of it, and drawn to it.”

[Read on]


The REVOLUTION is real. Watch it. Spread it.
revtalk-net
A film of a talk by Bob Avakian

Download, print, spread the Revolution online. . .

Revolutiontalk sticker: [Click here]

Bob Avakian Quote Sheets: [Click here]


Posted by Revolution Books / Libros Revolución in 16:33:26 | Permalink | No Comments »

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Post on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, blogs and websites

Saturday, January 16, 3 pm at

Revolution Books / Libros Revolución

revtalk-net

Join us to discuss a national effort of “creative saturation,” getting out word everywhere of Bob Avakian’s major talk, Revolution: Why It’s Necessary, Why It’s Possible, What It’s All About, now online and potentially accessible to millions.

“This is the most radical, and most liberatory video you can find online. There really is nothing else like it in answering deeply the three questions in the title, three of the most important questions of our time.  And through this talk, you get to meet Bob Avakian - America’s most radical revolutionary. . .his sharp intolerance for the suffering brought onto the masses of people, his deep understanding of the cause of this suffering, and what can be made possible with a revolution made by those same people.  He breaks down an understanding that is hidden, letting people in on the secret workings behind this system. . .and more than that, breaks down a scientific method so they can apply and understand this themselves.  He lays out what this revolution is about, challenging people to step out of the world this system has us locked in, articulating a radically re-envisioned socialism and communism.  And he does it all with heart and humor.”  - From Revolution #188 editorial.

We’ll show excerpts from the talk, and discuss how to get it out everywhere during the week of January 18 to 25.  Read the Revolution #188 editorial [here], share it and bring as many others as you can, come with your comments and ideas.


The REVOLUTION is real. Watch it. Spread it.
revolutiontalk.net, youtube.com/revolutiontalk

From the editorial:


“We are calling for a week of getting out many tens of thousands of posters, palm cards, and other materials as part of driving people to check out the talk online.  In order for this week to have the high impact it needs to have and to involve all kinds of people who would want to be part of this in different ways, we have to start now making concrete plans and getting to people with this vision and purpose, getting their ideas and enlisting them.  On-the-ground and creative saturation with the content of this talk has to synergize with mass campaigns on Facebook, online advertising and reviews.  Everyone can contribute - those with and without Internet knowledge. . .

“. . .There are a lot more ideas, and a lot of creativity that needs to be applied. And we should be learning from experts, admen, madmen and marketing media mavens. This first week will kick off these major efforts to make this talk seen and spread - by hundreds of thousands, and in the process we’ll learn more fully what it will take to make that happen.  Let’s put ourselves to really making this known - go all out, have fun, and learn all we can.”


Posted by Revolution Books / Libros Revolución in 17:58:55 | Permalink | No Comments »

Thursday, January 7, 2010

- Post on FaceBook, MySpace, Twitter - Spread the Resistance -

Justice for Oscar Grant!  PROTEST! OG2-77

Friday, Jan 8 , 8 am at the court hearing of murdering cop Johannes Mehserle

Criminal courts building
210 W. Temple St., Downtown L.A.
8 a.m. Protest & Press Conference

Watch these youtube videos - spread them everywhere [Click here]

The trial of the cop who murdered Oscar Grant in an Oakland BART station on New Year’s Eve 2009 in front of hundreds of passengers and captured on several youtube videos - has been moved from Oakland to Los Angeles!  Tomorrow the first hearing takes place in downtown L.A.

There is an urgent need for YOU to step up to this challenge, to be there at the protest on January 8th and to be part of bringing forward resistance determined to win justice for Oscar Grant.  This resistance can and must be part of a new revolutionary movement aimed at getting rid of a system that requires and unleashes murdering cops to enforce the whole set-up, a revolutionary movement fighting for a new society and the emancipation of all humanity.”

- an excerpt from a leaflet put out by
Revolution Books / Libros Revolución;
read the whole text below.

We are all Oscar Grant!
The whole damn system is guilty!
Join with us!

_____________________________________________________________

TONIGHT, Thurs, Jan 7th, 7 pm at the bookstore: Come to an orientation meeting to join a Revolution team going to the protest.  Read the flyer and the articles linked below if you can.  Or join us at the protest - look for the REVOLUTION banner.
_____________________________________________________________

[Text from Revolution Books / Libros Revolución flyer - contact us to get PDF or hard copies - or use the text to make your own]:

Justice for Oscar Grant!
PROTEST!
Friday, Jan 8
at the court hearing of murdering cop Johannes Mehserle

Criminal courts building
210 W. Temple St., Downtown L.A.
8 a.m. Protest & Press Conference


In a cold-blooded straight-up execution, police in Oakland shot 22-year-old Oscar Grant point-blank in the back on New Years 2009. The videos taken by witnesses show police punching Oscar and his friends and throwing them to the ground. Oscar was face-down on the train platform with one cop holding him down while the other one pulled out his gun and shot (youtube.com/user/oscargrantjustice).  Like a whole generation of Black and Latino youth who are growing up in the sights of police guns, Oscar was murdered like his life meant nothing - in front of a train full of people coming from New Years Eve parties.

Videos of the murder went out all over the internet. The anger exploded. Major protests and rebellion broke open in the streets of Oakland, with hundreds of people demanding “JUSTICE FOR OSCAR GRANT!”  Only then was the murdering cop, Johannes Mehserle, finally arrested and charged with murder.

Mehserle is the first cop in California ever to be charged with murder for killing someone while on-duty.  And just like in 1992 when the Rodney King trial was moved from L.A. to Simi Valley, the system is again working to set things up for this cop to go free.Mehserle’s trial has been moved to Los Angeles, away from the angry and righteous resisters of Oakland.

The murder of Oscar Grant is a concentration of the wanton murders of Black and Latino youth by police that happen daily in this country, and the struggle in Oakland has brought this to the light of day.  As a result of all the protest, many, many people in Oakland know about what happened to Oscar Grant.  The cop’s lawyers argued (and the judge agreed) that the only way Mehserle can get a “fair trial”is by going somewhere where people don’t have this knowledge.  They want to have a trial where people are ignorant of this murder and its connection to the larger epidemic of police murder, to make it easier to get over with lies and deception of what this case is about.  Los Angeles doesn’t lack murders of Black youth by the police, so why did they move the trial here?  Two reasons. One is there has not been resistance here exposing the murder of Oscar Grant as a concentration of this murderous system and its police enforcers.  And two, Los Angeles was recommended as a place where there is enough security to handle this trial.  In other words, those looking out for the interests of the system recognize this case embodies the day-to-day terror masses of Black people live under at the hands of the police and see the potential for the anger of oppressed people to burst open in a way that challenges their whole set-up.

The move to L.A. is a move to protect a murdering cop.  It’s a move to get a verdict that reinforces and strengthens the ability of the police to carry out terror and brutality against Black people in the service of a whole oppressive system. It’s a move to squash and crush the spirit of what sparked up in Oakland - to break and demoralize oppressed people and others throughout the country.

All people in L.A. who want to see an end to the police blowing away Black youth need to take up this battle from our sisters and brothers in Oakland.  There is an urgent need for YOU to step up to this challenge, to be there at the protest on January 8th and to be part of bringing forward resistance determined to win justice for Oscar Grant.  This resistance can and must be part of a new revolutionary movement aimed at getting rid of a system that requires and unleashes murdering cops to enforce the whole set-up, a revolutionary movement fighting for a new society and the emancipation of all humanity.

As the message and call from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA says: “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.” (The Revolution We Need . . .The Leadership We Have).

We are all Oscar Grant!
The whole damn system is guilty!
Join with us!

For outstanding coverage about the murder of Oscar Grant and the resistance in Oakland, read Revolution newspaper articles:

* Judge Orders Change of Venue in Oscar Grant Case: Outrageous…And Unjust.

* The Struggle for Justice for Oscar Grant - Killer Cop Gets Bail, People Take to the Street - “We Can’t Rely On This System For Justice”
* The Struggle Sharpens . . . “We Are All Oscar Grant!”


Posted by Revolution Books / Libros Revolución in 19:02:50 | Permalink | No Comments »


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Watch Book TV - “The Unknown Cultural Revolution” - Jan. 9 & 10

Dear Friends,

A very exciting announcement:  this coming weekend, January 9 & 10, Book TV (C-SPAN2) will be broadcasting Dongping Han’s talk on his new book “The Unknown Cultural Revolution: Life and Change in a Chinese Village.”


Saturday, Jan 9th at 10:15 AM Pacific TimeUnknown CR
Join us for a screening of this broadcast at
Revolution Books / Libros
Revolución.

Sunday, Jan 10th at 9:30 PM Pacific Time - the show will air again on Book TV. (These times may change, check http://www.booktv.org/schedule.aspx or look for our email notification of any changes).


Dongping Han grew up in a village in rural China during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976).  In his talk, he paints an inspiring picture of a time when ordinary people, motivated by an ethos of “serve the people,” worked together, looked out for each other, and were empowered to transform society — all in sharp contrast to the selfishness, atomization, and powerlessness of capitalism.


This will be the first time that most in the Book TV audience (of many thousands) will have the opportunity to hear such a first-hand account of what this “revolution within a revolution” in socialist China was really about, in contrast to the dominant narrative demonizing the Cultural Revolution.  We encourage everyone to forward or post this announcement far and wide.

This book event was part of the Symposium, “Rediscovering China’s Cultural Revolution-Art and Politics, Lived Experience, Legacies of Liberation,” which took place November 6-8 at University of California Berkeley.  A complete video of the entire Symposium and listing of all the other panelists will be posted this weekend at www.revolutionbooks.org.

For coverage of the Symposium, see Report from the Symposium at UC Berkeley.


Go see the movie, and send us your thoughts at librosrevo@yahoo.com:

Embracing Avatar#144-cover

Revolution newspaper received the following letter from a reader:

Avatar has stirred up passion, and controversy, everywhere. The movie had a deep, profound and gripping effect on me, on my 80-year-old mother whom I took to see it, on my 39-year-old son, and evidently on many more who are “weighing in” pro and con.

I speak here from the heart of a communist. Anyone who hates what has become of life on earth and yearns for something entirely different should embrace this movie and hold it closely, warts and all (the few that it may have). It would be quite hard, indeed, for a cynic to do this, no matter what variant of cynicism is at work. But, cynicism (and identity politics) confront this movie in many discussions.

Avatar is about the future, or even if we might continue to have one at all, much less one truly worth having. It is about different ways things could be. While it righteously upholds desertion, treason and rebellion, shifting allegiance of intelligentsia, against exactly the forces that need to be targeted, it hardly stops there.

It indicts the most fundamentally inhumane, grotesque, driving dynamics of the modern world (as they get carried into the 22nd century in this movie). And it raises up the specter of a diametrically opposed dynamic, or way of life, in thoroughgoing, absolute opposition. Something is being powerfully affirmed here beyond defeating and dispatching an imperial death and exploitation machine, righteous as that is. This is essentially what [director] James Cameron has given us.

As a communist I feel I must always keep my vision cast to the very farthest horizons, and to always hold within me a strong sense of a fundamentally different world. Yet, who might inhabit and walk about in this future? Who would those people be? James Cameron is not a communist, but he has been reaching and seeking in a way that many more should. And he has given us his sense of the possibility of a fundamentally different world and the people who might live there.

The Na’vi are his “future people.” Much of how he has envisioned them resonates with me. But, there is some merit to a criticism I’ve seen in other places about problems with idealizing “the noble savage.” I wouldn’t think we should try to return to “primitive communalism.” With Cameron, while this seems to be a fairly strong current in what he presents, he has given it some awesomely re-envisioned perspectives which transcend simple primitive communalism in important ways.

It’s as if he has taken some very basic, core features (the better ones) from the earliest forms of human society, and has given new life and content to them for a future possible. We all should have that spirit and daring to imagine such things and hold them dear.

But, it likely would look much different. All those vast means and forces that are in the clutches and at the behest of the capitalist, imperialist system call out to be liberated through revolutions, the communist revolution in fact, so that they will become the common property of humanity as a whole. Humanity might then truly become a conscious collectivity of mutually flourishing beings, using these means only for the good of all, and of their home, planet earth. And they would do so with their vision cast to their farthest horizons, their future distant, their generations to come. So, who would those people be? I think there are real ways that the Na’vi can help us give true substance to that.

For opening this door in the way that he has, James Cameron deserves a very appreciative nod.


Posted by Revolution Books / Libros Revolución in 03:19:46 | Permalink | No Comments »

Wednesday, December 30, 2009


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Meaningful New Year’s Contributions We Recommend:

Received in an email from the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund (PRLF):

Greetings from PRLF, there’s still time for year-end donations

Greetings for the New Year! Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund (PRLF) has met many new people this year, including through benefits large and small. You may have heard about PRLF if you were one of the 600+ people at the great dialog between Cornel West and Carl Dix in New York, or were at the other benefits in Harlem (hosted by attorney Lynn Stewart), Evanston, IL, Houston, the Bay Area or Honolulu . You may have heard about our work from friends, families or prisoners you know. We greatly appreciate your interest and support; this is the first of the periodic emails that PRLF will be sending out to keep you up to date with new developments.

As you consider your end-of-year giving, we’d like to remind you that PRLF is a project of the 501 (c) (3) International Humanities Center (www.IHCenter.org/groups/prlf.html). Currently, over 800 prisoners receive subscriptions to Revolution newspaper; another 250 prisoners have requested Revolution, but without your support, they will remain on the waiting list, unable to receive it. Just this week we received 40 letters with requests for subscriptions from prisoners in Texas who heard Carl Dix on his nationwide tour “from Buffalo Soldier to Revolutionary Communist”, live on Ray Hill’s KPFT Pacifica weekly radio program “The Prison Show” in Houston, TX. www.prisonersrevolutionaryliteraturefund.org/hill-statement.html.

Through PRLF, prisoners have an opportunity to engage with world events and key political, cultural and philosophical questions of the day from a unique revolutionary perspective, including on morality, religion, science and the arts. To read many prisoners’ letters and the full PRLF Mission statement go to www.prisonersrevolutionaryliteraturefund.org.

After hearing the dramatic reading of prisoner letters, a Black woman attending the PRLF benefit in Evanston remarked, “This is amazing. The prisoners are so smart and thoughtful and write so well. These are our people saying those beautiful things. It gives me hope.”

Here’s what one prisoner wrote recently about how much your donations mean to prisoners:

“I have been receiving Revolution/Revolutionary Worker for about 8 years now, this has been possible through the PRLF and people’s donations - power to the people! Thus the people themselves have made it possible to send me Revolutionary nutrients. I in turn have shared my papers over the years with all I’ve come in contact with in all the prison general populations, holes and control units and planted hundreds if not thousands of revolutionary seeds, so please do not feel as if your efforts/donations are a waste in any way as Revolutionary shoots are sprouting, though sporadic, they are consistent! I am living example of this development! - La Lucha Continua.”

$35     pays for 1 one-year subscription to Revolution

$175   pays for 5 one-year subscriptions to Revolution

$250   pays for 10 copies of Away With All Gods! Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World, by Bob Avakian, and 10 copies of The Science of Evolution and the Myth of Creationism: Knowing what’s Real and Why it Matters, by Ardea Skybreak, the two books most frequently requested by prisoners writing to PRLF

$3500 pays for one-year subscriptions for 100 of the 180 prisoners on the PRLF waiting list

Our subscription and waiting lists are both growing. Your tax-deductible donation can be made easily by clicking here.

Thank you in advance for your consideration and support.

Volunteers for PRLF

From Revolution newpaper:

Contribute to Send Revolution Reporter to Gaza

** See Alan Goodman’s Blog **

Over the winter holiday this year, Revolution correspondent Alan Goodman will be participating in and reporting from the Gaza Freedom March.

We need your financial help to do this.

People are coming from all around the world to participate in this march, which marks the one-year anniversary of Israel’s massacre in Gaza, Palestine. The main demand of the march is an end to the blockade that has cut Gaza off from the world, and prevents people from receiving even necessary food and medical supplies. Before the march, Alan Goodman will be able to spend several days in Gaza, witnessing the devastation of last year’s one-sided war, and the impact of the blockade first hand.

Revolution newspaper has analyzed and exposed the situation for the people of Gaza, and the underlying global and regional forces and interests at work. This trip will strengthen our ability to do so. And beyond that, actually being on the ground in Gaza, talking to people, learning about their lives, their culture, their dreams and their questions will help make it possible to paint a living, breathing, and truthful picture of people who are confined to what has been called the world’s largest outdoor prison. It will help bring to light the lives of people who the most powerful forces on earth have sought to dehumanize. . . [Read on]

Click here for how to contribute.

_________________________________________________

Received in an email from Alan Goodman:

Hello friends,

As many of you know, I’m going on the Gaza Freedom March over the holiday. I set up a blog for the trip at http://alanxgoodman.blogspot.com, and encourage you to tune in and subscribe. I’ve posted some  notes on preparing for the trip, along with an urgent  appeal from the march organizers for letters, emails, and calls to the Egyptian authorities to encourage them to allow us passage into Gaza, something they have at this point denied.

At my blog, you’ll also see an appeal for funds to enable me to make this trip. You CAN make a big difference in the ability of REVOLUTION newspaper to tell the world about the conditions and situation on the ground in Gaza by donating.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Alan Goodman


Posted by Revolution Books / Libros Revolución in 01:57:46 | Permalink | No Comments »

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Rent Party / Tardeada

Help us move in 2010!
Sun., Jan. 3rd, 3-6 PM
With D.J. Sanchez, poetry,
food & fun!

Welcoming the New Year for a revolutionary future.

Sliding scale:  $5 - $20

Revolution Books / Libros Revolucion is needed more than ever,  yet its future is in peril.  This is a moment in history when this bookstore needs to soar, helping to create an atmosphere and culture of defiance, resistance, and revolution.  Your support and involvement right now can make all the difference in launching this drive to save and expand Revolution Books, and move to a center of intellectual, political and cultural ferment.

Metered parking is free in area on Sundays.
Closest subway:  Pershing Square Red Line stop at
5th & Hill or the 7th St./Metro Center at 7th & Flower


Unresolved Contradictions,

Driving Forces for Revolution

Edited transcript of a Fall 2009 talk by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

Sun., Jan. 10th, 3 pm

Join us for a  bilingual discussion of Part 2 “(Some Observations on) The International Movement“  Currently serialized in Revolution newspaper, with entire talk available at revcom.us.  Bound copies - $5.


Save the Date:: Sun., Jan. 24th, 3 PM - Part 3 - “The New Synthesis and the Woman Question:   The Emancipation of Women and the Communist Revolution - Further Leaps and Radical Ruptures”

Justice for Oscar Grant!

Trial Begins Jan. 8 in L.A.
Millions of people saw the video of the Jan. 1, 2009 murder by police of 22-year old Oscar Grant - shot in the back as he lay face down on a train platform.  Righteous protest erupted in Oakland and beyond.  Now the trial of the murdering cop has been moved to Los Angeles under the guise of getting a “fair trial”.  It is our responsibility in this area to mobilize resistance to this outrageous example of police murder.  Read Revolution article Judge Orders Change of Venue in Oscar Grant Case: Outrageous…And Unjust.

From the October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation:

Planning meeting for Justice for Oscar Grant
Sunday, January 3rd - 5 pm
@ Chuco’s Justice Center
1137 E. Redondo Blvd, at corner of West Blvd
Inglewood, CA 90302

Map of Chuco’s Justice Center

For more information:  october22.la@gmail.com; 323.446.7459

**The Case is going to start on Friday January 8th, we need to get a big response NOW!  Everyone, please come to this meeting and invite everyone you know!  WE ARE ALL OSCAR GRANT!
Screening of “The Barefoot Doctors of Rural China”
Sunday, Jan. 17th, 3 PM

Universal health care?  This was a no-brainer during the Cultural Revolution in China in the 1970’s when several million young people were trained as paramedics to provide basic health care to the rural population where medical care had been virtually non-existent.  These barefoot doctors “walked on two legs”, combining Western and Chinese medical techniques, solving epidemics that today plague people of many countries.  (This health care program was abolished in China in the 1980’s, along with the communes, after socialism was defeated by the “capitalist roaders”; but the barefoot doctors remain a shining example of what is possible when a revolutionary society aims to “serve the people”.)
Best Education Film in 1975
University Film Association
Also, pick up the new “Set the Record Straight” Reader ($5).  Get at the truth of the socialist revolutions of the 20th century to raise sights about the possibilities for a different world - and how we can do better in the next wave of revolution. (www.ThisIsCommunism.org)

Barefoot Doctor in Rural China
A barefoot doctor used acupuncture to help a Chinese peasant.

Posted by Revolution Books / Libros Revolución in 00:34:46 | Permalink | No Comments »