We’ll Make Buckingham Palace The People’s Palace!
The Queen of England visited the Grenfell Tower disaster the other day. She talked to survivors and they talked to her. It was all way too civil!
She is one of the leading landholders in Britain. We should have made some demands on “Her Highness.” She lives in Buckingham Palace, just 4 miles down the road from Grenfell Towers. It has 775 rooms. Before you get there, you pass another of her houses, Kensington Palace. That looks like it has 200 rooms.
The Grenfell fire left between 400 and 600 people homeless. “(The) theory of Communism,” Marx wrote in the Communist Manifesto, “may be summed up in one sentence: Abolition of private property.”
If ICWP was a force on the streets of Britain surely we would be agitating to: Abolish Private Property. Requisition all spare rooms for the Grenfell homeless. Make Buckingham Palace the People’s Palace. Fight for Communism.
Red Commoner
The Other Teenth
Last Saturday, June 18th, a couple of us took Red Flag to the local JuneTeenth celebration, which marks the day of Emancipation from Slavery in Texas. It was a low-key social event but we were able to introduce Red Flag to a new audience.
There was a lot of interest when we told them about “the other teenth -June 15th, the anniversary of the struggle in Soweto” and pointed them to the articles on the back page.
Next year we’ll make more of this opportunity to build international class consciousness.
California (US) comrades
When Will Communism Come?
I am waiting to live in communism! I was 28 years old when the revolution came in my country in eastern Europe and the capitalists got all the factories and banks. Now the worker does not have medical insurance, job or money. Poverty is bigger and bigger every year! My life in communism was the best. When will communism come? Capitalism is no good any more.
Thank you,
Online Red Flag reader
Red Flag responds: Thank you for your letter. The “color” revolutions certainly let the capitalists steal the products of workers’ labor and wreck their lives. That could happen because those countries were socialist, not communist. Communism will be even better! It will come sooner if you and other readers join our Party. Study, translate and share our documents, starting with Mobilize the Masses for Communism. We need your translations for our website.
Communist Struggle Against Sexism
Recently my 7-year-old son and his 7-year-old friend were surfing the internet and ended up on some pornographic sites. After I yelled at and hit my son, I tossed and turned all night in anger, disgust, and then finally remorse. I realized that a 7-year-old is searching the word “naked” out of curiosity and humor. To him butts, farts, and naked people are funny. My reaction without an explanation was simply a moral judgment about right and wrong.
In the morning, I reassured him he was a “good boy” even though he had done something I did not like. I then attempted a principled discussion as to why I disapproved. I explained that our brains were designed to like sex so we can continue our human species, but under capitalism things like sex, water, food, clothes, shelter and almost everything humans need is bought, sold, and exploited. I explained that for me, sex is something for grownups to do in private when they love each other and for having children and not something to videotape and put on the internet, television, or magazines. I explained that women who sell their bodies for these things are usually doing it out of necessity and not because it is something they like.
He may have understood half of what I said, but certainly this was more of a communist struggle for principles. I am not okay with him living in fear as to whether he will upset me or be a “bad boy.” I want him to gain a better understanding of sexism and sexual exploitation under capitalism. Research indicates that 75% to 85% of women would leave prostitution if they had secure housing. Furthermore, among prostituted people and commercial sex workers seeking services to leave prostitution at an agency in Portland, Oregon, 85% reported a history of childhood sexual abuse and 70% reported incest.
My son’s friend’s mother told me, “None of us is good and will ever be good. We are truly wicked in our hearts, selfish, mean, and many other ways. But Jesus covers our sin and changes us when we believe in Him and he takes all our shame away. So, my son needs to know that in Christ he gets a clean slate moment by moment. And what he did doesn’t change my love for him and nothing he ever does will separate him from God’s love.”
We both love our sons, but I think this shows the difference between religion and communist dialectical materialism. As a communist I know there is nothing “morally” wrong about liking sex. We are not born wicked or sinful. We don’t need a savior – we need to save our own class from capitalism.
What capitalism does to us is damaging to our psyche and our social relations. We need a revolution to replace it with a society based on collectivity and sharing, not on the selfishness and meanness of capitalism. In communism, there will be no need for some to sell their bodies, exposing them to violence and disease. We need communism more than ever because only communism will wipe out the exploitation of women, men, and our planet.
Communist Mom
Building A Communist Collective in MTA
LOS ANGELES, US–Recently in the MTA workers’ club, we made progress in the process of building and consolidating communist leadership. A woman co-worker Red Flag reader decided to join our collective. The same thing happened with another co-worker, a man who works on natural gas engines.
These victories are products of several things: 1) The credibility and correctness of our political line, especially in the stormy times in which we find ourselves. 2) The patience and perseverance that the party has maintained for a long time in developing communist consciousness among the MTA workers. 3) The principle of involving folks in party political tasks according to their communist consciousness. For example: helping to distribute Red Flag, donating money for political tasks, getting involved in political discussions about how they visualize communism, etc. and the constant struggle to write for Red Flag.
We still have a long way to go to overcome our obstacles that keep other workers from joining our party, but small victories have given more confidence to our collective.
The biggest obstacle in some workers is not believing that we can defeat such a powerful government. We explain to them that the greatest strength in capitalist society is the working class organized in the ICWP. The working class world wide will lead the struggle to establish a communist society, where we will sweep away exploitation of human by human from the face of the earth. All the members of the ICWP have to be confident that everything we do today counts and if we persevere, the fruits will come little by little.
MTA Comrade
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