Monday, November 30, 2015

We received this message for Chicago-area friends of Stop Patriarchy. We urge you to support this important rally. If you are on Facebook, please join the event there and invite friends!

In the face of a gunman's deadly attack last Friday on the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, I urge Chicago-area friends to respond by joining in the important rally called by our friend, Benita Ulisano and sponsored by "Support Legal Abortion:"

TUESDAY DECEMBER 1 
4:30 PM 
Corner of State and Jackson, Chicago
SOLIDARITY EVENT TO SHOW SUPPORT FOR ALL ABORTION CLINIC PROVIDERS, STAFF, AND CLINIC ESCORTS!

Wear your heart on your sign as we stand with Planned Parenthood and all Independent Clinics! 
ABORTION CLINIC TERRORISM MUST STOP NOW!!

Sunsara Taylor, the initiator of Stop Patriarchy and writer for Revolutionnewspaper, called Friday for emergency demonstrations for Abortion Rights and Women's Lives, which were held Saturday in NYC, SF, LA, Seattle. Sunsara's call:
"Everyone who cares about women's rights and lives needs to stand up against the vicious violent assault on the Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs on Friday 11/27/15, and beyond that the whole assault on women's rights to abortion and birth control. Across the country, providers of abortion have faced escalating legal restrictions, increased harassment, and violent assault. These attacks have grown over decades, and escalated at a startling rate in recent years and months. Before Friday's attack, 8 providers of abortion have been murdered, most recently in 2009 with the murder of George Tiller in Wichita, Kansas. Many scores of clinics have been attacked, bombed, invaded, and destroyed.
"State legislatures all over the US have put the right to abortion, and birth control, on the firing line and the Supreme Court itself plans to make a major ruling this Spring. Whether these attacks on women's right to abortion come through laws or through extra-legal violence, the result is the same: they deny women the fundamental right to control their own bodies, reproduction, and lives. These attacks are illegitimate. Fetuses are NOT babies! Abortion is NOT murder! Women are NOT incubators. Women are full human beings, they are half of humanity. Their rights and their lives MUST be defended. NOW is the time for everyone who cares about women, who opposes Christian fascist violence and theocracy, who believes in justice, to defend the clinics, and to stand up, demonstrate and declare:
ABORTION ON DEMAND AND WITHOUT APOLOGY.
ABORTION PROVIDERS ARE HEROES. 
FORCED MOTHERHOOD IS FEMALE ENSLAVEMENT."
I'm looking forward to seeing you tomorrow.
warmly,
Martha in Chicago


Above: Union Square, New York City - Sat, Nov 28
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Friday, November 20, 2015

Sunday, Nov 22, 4 pm
The terrorist attacks in Paris have stunned millions in this society and the world over. Everywhere people are talking about these events and responding, in twos and threes and in larger groupings, including people who may be coming together to express their grief and solidarity with the citizens of Paris and some who may be protesting the draconian repression and military measures being taken by the French and U.S. governments. In the swirl of these events revcom.us has published an important statement which speaks to these events and as the title says: the Need to Bring Forward Another Way. This statement needs to reach thousands and thousands of people in this country and around the world. Come to RB on Sunday, get copies of the statement, and take part in the discussion.

And pick up a copy of Bringing Forward Another Way, an edited version of a 2006 talk by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. It is "must reading" for a serious understanding of what the U.S. "war on terror" is really about and how to bring forward a positive force in the world in opposition to both Western imperialism and Islamic Jihad.
Bringing Forward Another Way
"What we see in contention here with Jihad on the one hand and McWorld / McCrusade on the other hand, are historically outmoded strata among colonized and oppressed humanity up against historically outmoded ruling strata of the imperialist system. These two reactionary poles reinforce each other, even while opposing each other. If you side with either of these 'outmodeds,' you end up strengthening both.
"While this is a very important formulation and is crucial to understanding much of the dynamics driving things in the world in this period, at the same time we do have to be clear about which of these 'historically outmodeds' has done the greater damage and poses the greater threat to humanity: It is the historically outmoded ruling strata of the imperialist system, and in particular the U.S. imperialists." 
--Bob Avakian, from Bringing Forward Another Way
Chicago Book Expo
Sat, Nov. 21 - 11 am to 5 pm
1104 S. Wabash, 8th Floor
Columbia College Chicago
This is the fourth annual celebration of Chicago independent presses and authors - an event no book lover would want to miss. Here's the complete schedule. Revolution Books' volunteer Jay Becker will be  conversing with Jerry Coyne, University of Chicago professor and best-selling author (Why Evolution Is True) about his new book, Faith vs Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible. (Noon, Room 835-836)
Sat., Nov 21, 11 am
Book Club Discussion
The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall

This novel tells the story of tomboyish Stephen, who hunts, wears trousers and cuts her hair short - and who gradually comes to realize that she is attracted to women. Charting her romantic and professional adventures during the First World War and beyond, the novel provoked a furor on first publication in 1928 for its lesbian heroine and led to a notorious legal trial for obscenity. Virginia Wolfe and E.M. Forster testified at the trial and statements in support of Hall came from authors including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sinclair Lewis, Sherwood Anderson, H. L. Mencken, Upton Sinclair, Ellen Glasgow, and John Dos Passos. Hall saw the book as a pioneer work and today it is recognized as a landmark work of gay fiction.
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Monday, November 16, 2015

Wednesday, Nov 18, 7 pm
Ongoing discussion of articles from Demarcations,
A Journal of Communist Theory and Polemics


 The article we're discussing this week is described as a contribution to "a consistently scientific political economy, a consistently dialectical materialist approach to the relation between the economic base and the superstructure of politics and ideology," in Bob Avakian's "The New Synthesis of Communism: Fundamental Orientation, Method and Approach, and Core Elements." We will focus on Part I, getting as far as we can with these four concepts:

--
The fundamental contradiction of the capitalist-imperialist system is the contradiction between socialized production and private accumulation--between an internationalized system of production involving millions of producers and the private ownership and control of this socialized production by a relatively tiny capitalist class.

--
This fundamental contradiction manifests itself and moves in two forms of antagonism:    
* The struggle between classes (especially but not only between the ruling class of capitalists--the bourgeoisie--and the working class--the proletariat); and 
* The struggle between "the organization of production at the level of the individual workshop, factory, enterprise, and unit of capital, and the anarchy of production in society overall." 
 
 --Between these two manifestations, the "anarchy/organization" contradiction is principal overall.

--There is opposition to this analysis, including within the international communist movement, but also among those who say that the capitalist system can be reformed (see Part II).

You don't have to have read the whole article to join this discussion; we welcome everyone, and together we will break down these complex theoretical concepts.   
 
Chicago Book Expo
Sat, Nov. 21 - 11 am to 5 pm
1104 S. Wabash, 8th Floor
Columbia College Chicago
This is the fourth annual celebration of Chicago independent presses and authors - an event no book lover would want to miss. Here's the complete schedule. Revolution Books' volunteer Jay Becker will be  conversing with Jerry Coyne, University of Chicago professor and best-selling author (Why Evolution Is True) about his new book, Faith vs Fact: Why Science and Religion Are Incompatible. (Noon, Room 835-836)
Sat., Nov 21, 11 am
Book Club Discussion
The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall

This novel tells the story of tomboyish Stephen, who hunts, wears trousers and cuts her hair short - and who gradually comes to realize that she is attracted to women. Charting her romantic and professional adventures during the First World War and beyond, the novel provoked a furor on first publication in 1928 for its lesbian heroine and led to a notorious legal trial for obscenity. Virginia Wolfe and E.M. Forster testified at the trial and statements in support of Hall came from authors including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sinclair Lewis, Sherwood Anderson, H. L. Mencken, Upton Sinclair, Ellen Glasgow, and John Dos Passos. Hall saw the book as a pioneer work and today it is recognized as a landmark work of gay fiction.
Tuesday, Nov. 24, 7 pm   
 
Max Blumenthal, author & filmaker 
Grace Place, 637 S. Dearborn

American journalist Max Blumenthal has reported widely from Israel and Palestine and was in Gaza during the 2014 war on Gaza. His experience is reported in his most recent book, The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza. Blumenthal combines intimate testimonies from residents with clear-eyed analysis of the political trajectory that has led to repeated catastrophe. This event, sponsored by Committee for A Just Peace in Israel and Palestine, will be an unflinching look at the disastrous violence in and repeated assaults on Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, the international failure to change this pattern, and the rise of radical nationalism in Israel. The Facebook event with more details is here. Revolution Books will be the bookseller at this event; call us to reserve a copy today! 

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REVOLUTION BOOKS
1103 N. Ashland Ave. Chicago, IL 60622
revbookschi@yahoo.com773.489.0930 
Wed-Fri: 4-7 pm  Sat & Sun: 12-5 pm 

Go to Chicago Revolution Books blog for upcoming events. 

Monday, November 9, 2015

Wednesday, November 11, 7 pm
*A Special Author Event*

James Kilgore will read from his new book,
Understanding Mass Incarceration, A People's Guide to the Key Civil Rights Struggle of Our Time. Called "both field guide and primer,...[it] is an essential resource for those engaged in criminal justice activism as well as those new to the subject."

[A] graphically pleasing, very readable, emotionally and intellectually engaging work. It is concise, fairly complete, and quite convincing in its presentation of the facts surrounding the inhumane and socially destructive policy of mass incarceration.
   --Counterpunch

An excellent, much-needed introduction to the racial, political, and economic dimensions of mass incarceration.
    --Michelle Alexander

Book is available now at Revolution Books for $17.95
Get a free esubscription to Revolution here.
Stay connected with Revolution Books on Like us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter

Forward this email to everyone you know by the pressing "Forward email' button below. If you use the forward button on your browser at top of the page, you may get unsubscribed.
Donate to Keep the Doors Open at Revolution Books
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Join the Friends of Revolution Books today. 
REVOLUTION BOOKS
1103 N. Ashland Ave. Chicago, IL 60622
revbookschi@yahoo.com773.489.0930 
Wed-Fri: 4-7 pm  Sat & Sun: 12-5 pm 

Go to Chicago Revolution Books blog for upcoming events. 
Name | Company | Phone | Email | Website

Sunday, November 8, 2015


Sunday, November 8, 4-6 pm
Discussion Series: Serious About Making an Actual Revolution--
The Oppression of Black People, The Crimes of This System, and the Revolution We Need

Our discussion will take off from the following quote:
There is the potential for something of unprecedented beauty to arise out of unspeakable ugliness: Black people playing a crucial role in putting an end, at long last, to this system which has, for so long, not just exploited but dehumanized, terrorized and tormented them in a thousand ways--putting an end to this in the only way it can be done--by fighting to emancipate humanity, to put an end to the long night in which human society has been divided into masters and slaves, and the masses of humanity have been lashed, beaten, raped, slaughtered, shackled and shrouded in ignorance and misery.
    --Bob Avakian, Chairman, Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

The Special Issue of Revolution on the oppression of Black people (#144) can be found at revcom.us. We encourage people to check it out in preparation for the discussion. We will also focus on key quotes from BAsics: 1:1, 1:11, 1:24, 2:16, 3:18 and 3:19 (also available at revcom.us).

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