Rittenhouse Verdict: Racism, Rebellion and Communist Revolution here ♦ Defeat Capitalism’s Gangsterism: Mobilise the Masses for Communism here ♦
Kenosha, Wisconsin, Department of Corrections
Rittenhouse Verdict: Racism, Rebellion and Communist Revolution
The news that Kyle Rittenhouse had gotten away with murder flashed around the school. People had been following the trial.
In the summer of 2020, after cops in Kenosha, Wisconsin, had shot yet another young Black man, Jacob Blake, in the back, a fierce rebellion broke out. Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old kid with an AR 15 had helped contain the rebellion by joining up with a militia group. He killed two and wounded a third anti-racist on the second day.
On November 19, Rittenhouse was acquitted of all charges.
I struggled with what to say to my coworkers. I needed to know more than the media was feeding me. Suddenly a quote in a leftist article jumped out at me: “I’m never going to see my PO (Probation Officer) ever again,” a protester had shouted as he watched the Kenosha Department of Corrections burning to the ground.
Unfortunately, he’s probably wrong. But the sense of liberation that’s unleashed the moment the masses take control away from the forces of government lights up our revolutionary imaginations.
Calls for “Justice” were no longer enough: the system itself would have to go! Although it was not a fully developed political slogan, the action clearly said “Destroy,” not “Defund” the Department of Corrections.
As much as that idea inspired some, it sent shock waves through the elites. It led them to call in the militia as back up and to support them with the authority of the courts.
The Rittenhouse verdict showed we need to build a communist revolution. It also pointed to something more immediate: I need to distribute more RED FLAGS.
The Kenosha rebellion shows that the anger at the system runs deep and wide. The police shooting of Jacob Blake was one more insult in a chain of cutbacks and attacks against the working class.
Sixty years ago, 16,000 auto workers were employed in Kenosha. Today there are none, and a new jail has been built. The industrial vandalism of capitalist production might not leave smoldering ashes, but it has given Kenosha an epidemic of “deaths of despair.” Opioid overdoses run around 34 per hundred thousand people, about 70% higher than the overall US rate.
The anger that exploded after the shooting of Jacob Blake had been building for years. It can be revolutionary, but it needs to be organized. It is ready to tear down the (In)Justice System but it has yet to work out what to replace it with. We need Red Flag ideas to influence and lead those discussions. The more organizers and Red Flag distributers we can get, the faster we can build the communist revolution we need.
-Comrade teacher in the USA
Defeat Capitalism’s Gangsterism, Mobilise Masses for Communism
On the morning of the 25th of November, we lost a friend of the party and a comrade who were together. They were shot as a result of gang violence that has taken many of our family members and friends.
Last year around the same time we lost one of the party leaders, comrade Zipho. This year we lost two. This has been hard. We realise that we can no longer take this as it comes. Things have to change: we also have to find ways to combat this gangsterism.
We know this is a result of a decaying fascist, exploitative capitalist system that has no other response to the misery it has caused to the working class. Often gangsterism serves as a first line of defense for the capitalists who have no solutions for problems they have created.
Therefore, we have to mobilise party members, friends and the community to fight this ugly phenomenon head on. We can no longer tolerate it and just let it happen. We must do this work simultaneously with mobilising masses for communism as we realise that ultimately we cannot win the fight without defeating capitalism.
Although we are burying our comrades today, many more will rise and we will win. Our efforts are not deterred. We will soldier on.
-Comrades in South Africa
Read our manifesto:
Mobilize the Masses for Communism
Available here
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