Take Patriarchy By Storm, Aug 4 - 14th, NYC

If you hate the way that women are not only raped but then blamed and shamed for being raped...

If your blood boils at the knowledge of millions of women bought and sold and abused and degraded in the global sex industry...

If you want to puke when you hear Christian fascists moralizing that women should “keep their legs closed” and you want to scream when you hear of another abortion clinic being attacked, another doctor being stalked, another law restricting women’s right to birth control or abortion being passed...

If you are infuriated by how pornography has become more violent, more degrading, more cruel, and more humiliating towards women even as it has become more and more mainstream...

If you are sick of the way women have been trained to hold their tongues, suppress their rage, and remain silent in the face of this all out war against their lives and their humanity...

You need to be part of the August 4 - 14^th intensive effort to TAKE PATRIARCHY BY STORM.

For ten days in New York volunteers from around the country and all over the city will work closely together to launch an all-out counteroffensive against patriarchy and to strategize together to figure out how we are going to go forward to win.

We will:

• hold flash protests outside of porn stores and anti-abortion institutions (like fake clinics and the Catholic church)
• stage positively confrontational “social interventions” (like going into crowds at outdoor concerts with big signs which read, “Stop Watching Porn! Start Fighting Patriarchy!”) and stand our ground in the mass debate this provokes
• get out in the oppressed neighborhoods throughout the city with a beautiful “War on Women” display
• do street theater in crowded areas
• hold public programs on women’s liberation
• organize a cultural talent show against patriarchy
• and discuss and strategize every day as to how to really kick out the jams and take the movement to End Porn & Patriarchy to a whole societal level, particularly making plans for the campuses and high schools in the fall

From our work thus far with this initiative we have found incredible receptivity. Yes, some people are hostile (which is only to be expected in a society where so many have been indoctrinated for so long in such bone-deep misogyny), but there are also many who have been choking on their rage and hungry for an outlet. And there are many who begin by dismissing or even attacking us who, through sharp arguments and political struggle, open up about how much turmoil they have been in over these very questions and express the desire to get involved in the movement to end patriarchy.

But until now we have not found the ways to fully tap into this, to bring it to the surface, to sustain this and to fan it even further. This is what we will do in these ten days. This will be a forging ground for all who attend, a chance to work together with other like minded people to try new things out and figure out what works, to get into deep discussion about all this and strategize about going forward, to project this movement to thousands of people in one of the most trend-setting cities in the world, and to draw in and actively organized hundreds as we do.

stoppatriarchy@gmail.com

BAsics Bus Tour hits NYC -- AND I'm protesting 50 Shades of Grey tonight!

I am absolutely thrilled that the BAsics Bus Tour is kicking off officially today here in NYC.  This time there are two full 30 foot RV's and two dozen volunteers from around the country.  They are impressive and they are taking out the most liberating and inspiring and practical solution to the problems of the world: all the way communist revolution as re-envisioned by Bob Avakian.  Even more specifically, they are promoting BAsics from Bob Avakian and other work of his.  I know from the last leg of the Tour, which went down South, as well as from my broader experience in and knowledge of the movement for revolution that this opens up tremendous enthusiasm, hopes, profound questions and contributions from many kinds of people.  Stay in touch with the blog: basicsbustour.tumblr.com to stay up to the minute on how this Tour is going.

Also, tonight I will be hitting the streets with a small crew of folks from the movement to End Pornography & Patriarchy: The Enslavement and Degradation of Women to protest an event that is celebrating 50 Shades of Grey.  It is called, "50 Shades of Seduction" sponsored by Sidebar in Manhattan.  They are offering drink specials (50% of Grey-tinis) and a class on S&M.  We will be outside passing out fliers and holding signs which read:

50 Shades of Grey: Bad for Women, Bad for Sex!

As we put it in our announcement for this protest:

We'll be calling on people to reject the view of women and of sex that is promoted in the book, not to imitate and celebrate those views.

50 Shades of Grey glamorizes the story of a powerful man hurting a woman who cares for him using riding whips, chains, paddles and violently degrading sex. This is not 'just fantasy.' This does harm.

Every day millions of women around the world are hurt through the real-world acts of rape, battery, sexual slavery, pornography and sexual abuse.   Women should be fighting to end their oppression and degradation, not celebrating it or seeking to get 'in on' their own objectification, commodification and degradation.

50 Shades of Grey is also bad for sex.  More space needs to be opened up for people to imagine and experience the full richness of sex between mutually respectful and equal partners. Instead, this book pushes people to get over their discomfort and wallow in degradation and enslavement.

Letter Points to Dangerous Mischaracterization in National Defense Authorization Act Ruling

Threatening Situation for the RCP and Bob Avakian

from Revolution #274, July 8, 2012

The letter by Raymond Lotta, printed below, addresses highly important legal and political issues focused up in a recent lawsuit initiated by several progressive activists, journalists, and scholars. The lawsuit is contesting the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) of 2012, in particular one of its key provisions, section 1021. The NDAA gives any president the power to detain U.S. citizens indefinitely in military prisons, without charge or trial. It is a very ominous and threatening development. 

On May 16, a federal judge ruled in favor of the plaintiffs that section 1021 of the law is unconstitutional—and issued a temporary injunction blocking its enforcement. At this time, there is a further legal process underway which will determine whether this injunction will become permanent, preventing this section of the law to be enforced. 

But dragged into this mainly positive ruling is an erroneous and potentially harmful characterization of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA and its Chairman, Bob Avakian. This mischaracterization (reproduced in Lotta’s letter below) could lend itself to false interpretations about the principles, objectives and strategies of the RCP, and could be misconstrued in such a way as to insinuate that the RCP is “terrorist.” 

As the letter points out, this is a very serious matter:

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Support the BAsics Bus Tour -- Watch & Spread this video!!

An Open Letter to Those Attracted to the ISO:

Not Internationalist, Not Socialist, and Not Organizing for Revolution…
But There Is a Path to Emancipation

by Sunsara Taylor, writer for Revolution Newspaper

To Those Attracted to the ISO:

You look at the world and it’s a fucking horror.

Life is a living hell from the slums of Mumbai to the favelas of Rio, from the brothels of Bangkok to the sweatshops of Shenzen, from the mines of South Africa to the prisons of the United States. Global climate change; U.S. wars and aggression; global food crisis; repression; attacks against gays and lesbians, against women, against Black people, against immigrants, and against the poor; toxic social relations and a world of alienation – all driven by the workings of this system of capitalism-imperialism.

Humanity needs revolution, communist revolution. This is a revolution that defeats and dismantles the whole repressive apparatus of the current order. A revolution that establishes a new state power that enables people to carry out the most thoroughgoing economic, social, and ideological transformations towards a communist 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 the means for really understanding, and acting to change, the world.

But the ISO has nothing – absolutely nothing – to do with real revolution.  The ISO has nothing to do with communism or forging a radically different world.   As I will show, the ISO:

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