Thursday, July 28, 2011

We received this from statement from the Revolutionary Communist Party USA, Chicago Branch

Chicago Police on a Murderous Rampage:

42 people shot in 2011

Jimmell Cannon

We Say NO MORE!

The Chicago police have shot 42 people this year, almost double the rate of 2010, and brutalized many more. Chicago – home of the first Black president – is gunning down Black and minority youth in the streets. Chicago – host in May 2012 of world leaders for the G8 and NATO – is gunning down Black youth in the streets. The police chief justifies this by painting the victims as thugs who “pull out guns and shoot at police officers... with wanton disregard.” This is a bald-faced lie to cover up the extreme brutality and murder of an occupying army let loose on communities of the oppressed. Look at two of the most recent police shootings:

Jimmell Cannon is 13 years old. He just finished 6th grade. You couldn’t ask for a nicer kid. One of his teachers told the Chicago Sun Times: “He’s a doll. This is a kid who made more improvements in one year than any other student.” (7/27/11) On July 26, Jimmell was with family and friends at a birthday party at a west side park when the police rolled up, claiming to respond to “shots being fired in the area." The police claimed that Jimmell ran and aimed a BB gun at them so they shot him 8 times! These cowards shot a child 8 times!

Eyewitnesses said Jimmell never had a BB gun. Plus 2 of the shots hit Jimmell’s open hands – one ripping through his palm, the other blowing off a finger – something that could only happen if his hands were in the air as eyewitnesses said. Additional shots tore through his body, including his buttock, which could only happen if his back was turned – hardly a position from which he would have been threatening the police. The evidence completely contradicts the cop’s story. 13 years old! Who indeed is shooting with “wanton disregard”? The police!

Three hours earlier on the west side, the police claim that they stopped Joe Banks, 21, and he pulled a gun, so they shot him. Again, nothing but lies. Witnesses tell of cops swarming into the neighborhood. All of a sudden they took out after Joe, who didn’t seem to even realize that the cops were after him because he was just trotting along holding up his pants. Witnesses say a cop coasted up on his bicycle behind Joe, pulled out a gun and shot him in the back, barely missing his heart. Cops cuffed him and jumped on his back so hard that they broke 2 of his ribs.There was no gun. The cops then beat and arrested 3 of Joe’s family for daring to yell that the police had “done wrong”!

These are not exceptions. Woodlawn, June 2011: JonRynn Avery bled to death in his own bathroom after the police chased him through the plate glass front door of his house. Englewood, June 2011: Flint Farmer was killed in a hail of police bullets; they claimed his cell phone was a gun. The list goes on over the years and across the country. Thousands of stolen lives.

We say NO MORE! "No more generations of our youth, here and all around the world, whose life is over, whose fate has been sealed, who have been condemned to an early death or a life of misery and brutality, whom the system has destined for oppression and oblivion even before they are born. I say no more of that."

(BAsics 1:13 by Bob Avakian, leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party)

People are angry. Many ask why are the police shooting our young people down like animals in the streets? And why are the police never indicted, convicted, and jailed for these crimes?

“The role of the police is not to serve and protect the people. It is to serve and protect the system that rules over the people. To enforce the relations of exploitation and oppression, the conditions of poverty, misery and degradation into which the system has cast people and is determined to keep people in. The law and order the police are about, with all of their brutality and murder, is the law and the order that enforces all this oppression and madness.” BAsics 1:24

IT IS TIME FOR US TO WAKE UP. 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.

No more stolen lives!

Demand justice for all those murdered, shot and brutalized by the police.
Expose the police lies and call out their murdering ways.
Take our determination to the streets - enough is enough!
Reach out to many other people who could be won to stand with the people, if they knew the truth.
Build a powerful October 22, National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation.

Fight the Power, and Transform the People,

For Revolution.

This System Has No Future for the Youth.

The Revolution Does!

Get connected with the revolution:

Get organized for the time when we can sweep away this system once and for all. We have a strategy and the leadership. Read and spread the Message and Call from the Revolutionary Communist Party, "The Revolution We Need ... The Leadership We Have." Read, spread, post Revolution newspaper Get the book with the essentials of revolution, BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian.

Revolutionary Communist Party, Chicago branch

c/o Revolution Books, 1103 N. Ashland, Chicago, 773-489-0930, revbookschi@yahoo.com

Revolution newspaper: revcom.us

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

This Friday

FRIDAY July 29, 7pm at Revolution Books - A film showing of

FBI'S WAR ON BLACK AMERICA

Directed and Produced by

Deb Ellis and Denis Mueller

Suggested $10 donation earmarked to send copies of Basics, from the talks and writing of Bob Avakian to prisoners across the US through Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund.

FBI's War on Black America is an eye- opening documentary expose directed by Deb Ellis and Denis Mueller (directors of Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train) featuring exclusive interviews and rare footage of Geronimo Pratt, Fred Hampton, Malcolm X, Stokley Charmichael, Huey P. Newton, Eldridge Cleaver and Kathleen Cleaver, among many others.

This illuminating and compelling 1989 expose' chronicles the government's covert program of violence against Black radical leaders and organizations during a period of social upheaval and racial conflict in America. In the 1960s, the rulers of this country felt their system and their interests threatened and the US government never hesitated to use extreme violence against a wide array of political opponents. On the 20th plus anniversary of the original release of the film, FBI's War on Black America offers a historical perspective absolutely critical today.

"History tells us that whoever is in the White House, the secret arms of government are always at work, carrying on their deadly practices of surveillance and worse. The film, 'FBI's War on Black America' by Denis Mueller and Deb Ellis is therefore important as a warning and as a call for all of us to be watchful in defending our freedoms..." Howard Zinn

Pelican Bay Hunger Strike Into Third Week

Outpouring of Support Needed Now!

Prisoners at the Security Housing Unit (SHU) at Pelican Bay State Prison have been on a hunger strike since July 1-demanding an end to what amounts to torture and brutally inhumane conditions. The weekend of July 2-3, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) reported that 6,600 prisoners, in 13 different prisons, refused food in solidarity with the strike. And there has been growing support on the outside from people who are demanding that the CDCR meet the prisoners' demands.

The 13th day of the strike, alarming, urgent reports started coming out that the medical condition of some of the prisoners was at a severe crisis. (Read full text of The Humanity and Courage of the Prisoners...And the Moral Responsibility to Support Their Demands .)

Revolution newspaper is posting daily updated coverage on the prisoners' struggle: click here. Send out this link to everyone you know.

Statements from Prominent People

in Support of Prison Hunger Strikers

Updated 10:00 pm July 19

At the July 14 emergency meeting at Revolution Books in New York City on the Pelican Bay hunger strike, participants discussed the need to heighten awareness and support for the hunger strike among people on the outside to a new level - as part of forcing prison officials to meet the prisoners' demands. One idea that came up was to contact prominent people, calling on them to write support statements and use their voice to spread the word. A letter was quickly written and sent out the next day. The following are initial statements written in response. More statements are urgently needed from other artists, public intellectuals, and prominent voices of conscience and should be sent to revbooksnyc@yahoo.com.

VOLUNTEERS URGENTLY NEEDED

-- Support of prisoners on hunger strike at Pelican Bay & other California prisons: come by Revolution Books to share your ideas or pick up copies of Revolution newspaper; help spread Revolution's coverage online; work with us at the store or from home to do outreach to solicit statements of support, contact media with news of the hunger strike, or help organize local protests.

-- Work with the Revolution Books book table at the Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed conference (July 20-23) where 300 educators, artists and activists will be talking about enabling people to think critically and and confront injustice. We will be doing the general bookselling for the conference, getting out BAsics, and organizing support for the hunger strike.

-- Help mail out Revolution newspaper subscriptions to prisoners this Monday July 25 from 3-7pm (and every Monday a new issue is published).

Contact us at 773.489.0930, email us, or come by the store.

Friday, July 15, 2011

Hunger Strikers in California Prisons

Need Your Support NOW!

The following was posted on July 14, 2011 at prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com by Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity (PHSS) which describes itself as "a coalition based in the Bay Area made up of grassroots organizations committed to amplifying the voices of and supporting the prisoners at Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit (SHU) in their hunger strike to end tortuous conditions."

From Prison Hunger Strike Solidarity: More on Medical Crisis, Need Support Pressuring Immediate Negotiations

Legal representatives made visits to Pelican Bay SHU Tuesday and interviewed a number of hunger strikers. Each prisoner explained how medical conditions of hundreds of hunger strikers in the SHU are worsening. Many prisoners are experiencing irregular heartbeats and palpitations, some are suffering from diagnosed cardiac arrhythmia. Many are also experiencing dizziness and constantly feel light-headed. Many struggle with shortness of breath and other lung and respiratory problems. Dozens of prisoners have fainted and been taken to either the infirmary and/or outside hospitals. Some prisoners also have Crohn's disease, which leads to extreme loss of fluids and electrolytes and needs to be treated by adequate nutrition and hydration.

This PHSS statement concludes with:

Clearly the prisoners are in dire need of adequate food and hydration. The only way to prevent people from dying right now is for the CDCR to negotiate with the prisoners with the outside mediation team the prisoners have approved of.Support the Prisoners in Winning their Demands! Take Action NOW! Click here for info on how to get involved.

Prisoner hunger strikers at Corcoran SHU urge people to:

"Call or email your local TV station; blog about it on the web; organize support at your local church, mosque, temple, synagogue, or community center; contact your Congressman, Alderman, or local legislature; write and call the governor. Oppose the continued use, expansion and broadening of those psychological torture units in your nation." (See Update from Corcoran.)

Far too few people even know this heroic hunger strike is happening.

GET THE WORD OUT.

Spread Revolution newspaper's breaking coverage of the Pelican Bay prisoners hunger strike, including reports on solidarity actions and letters that the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund has received from prisoners participating in the hunger strike. (See below.)

Go to Democracy Now! July 15 coverage Protests Grow in Solidarity with California Prisoners as Hunger Strikes Enter Third Week includes interviews with Dorsey Nunn, co-founder of "All of Us or None" and executive director of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, and one of the mediators between the prisoners on hunger strike and the California Department of Corrections; Molly Porzig, a member of the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity coalition and a spokesperson for Critical Resistance; and Desiree Lozoya, the niece of an inmate participating in the Pelican Bay Hunger Strike, who visited him last weekend.

Solidarity Rally at Cook County Courthouse:

On July 12 people rallied at the Cook County Courthouse in Chicago in support of the hunger strikers at Pelican Bay Prison. Participants included Mark Clements, who spent 28 years in prison after being tortured into a confession, Fred Hampton, Jr., and Revolution newspaper distributors. More protests are being planned.

Revolution Newspaper

Update: July 15, 2011