show we're looking at radical alternatives and for that to happen you first have to have the imagination you have to have a place where people can come discuss and feel that it's safe to express offering alternative visions of what anti war women's movement so we need to tackle those same issues in different forms as well today we're looking forward to joining with the younger generation with all of us in this effort because we can't do it alone we need to do it together we are confronted by we are now being ruled by a fascist regime relentlessly assaulting civil rights and liberties and openly promoting bigotry and any quality this has caused disgust anger and agonizing among human can numbers of people and there have been many important acts of resistance big and small to the continuing outrages committed by the re gime and its supporters but the regime remains in power and is determined to ride roughshod over all obstacles to carry out his monstrous agenda and the need for a massive outpouring of people acting together nonviolently but with the staying determination to create a political situation where this regime cannot remain in power cries out the organisation refuse fascism refuse fascism dot org has put forward a call and a plan and is actively building for that math mobilization so this poses sharply the immediate urgent challenge we face calling this regime fascist is not an insult but speaks to the terrible reality there is a direct line from the confederacy t fascists of today and a direct connection between their white supremacy their open disgust and hatred for l g b t people as well as women their willful rejection of science and the scientific wrong america first jingle with them and trumpeting of the sort of period already of western civilization and their bare bellicose wielding of military power including their expressed willingness and blatant threat to use nuclear weapons to destroy countries with the finger of a demented bully on the nuclear button a regime that without exaggeration threatens not just greatly hiding heightened suffering for the masses of humanity but the very existence of humanity itself it used to be a common saying to the person of the right order is more important than justice while for the person of the left it is the opposite now the question is put squarely to liberals and really to everyone which after all it is more important order even if that is the order of fascism with everything that means or justice even if that means stepping outside of our comfort zone and putting ourselves on the line to prevent this fascism from consolidating it rule and fully implementing its program whether we consider ourselves revolutionaries convinced of the need for a radical overturning of the system and throw transformation of society or we believe that it is possible to bring about changes that will lead to a more just society within this system where our understanding is that america is not and cannot be a force for good in the world or we hope it still can become that all of us need to come together and act together with the urgency that corresponds to the terrible present and the gravely in peril future that this fascist regime represents for humanity and with the conviction that something far better is necessary and possible closing it must be organized to take to the streets in cities all over the country beginning on november fourth overcoming fear and feeling the strength of their common cause in action and their common aspiration and determination making clear their results are not just make a statement but to continue and more than that bread and multiply their numbers and impact and tell millions have been mobilized and refused to stop until the demand has been met this nightmare must in bros i'm a sociologist who's taught at john jay college here in new york the left at times has done a masterfully self destructive job by allowing various parochial factions and schisms to dominate their message and these arguments have often insisted that all those on the left should follow their particular version of the leftist truth as engage in one ups manship as a whose message is the purest version of that has strains an authoritarian left have managed to accomplish the turning off of large segments of the general population to the cause and demonstrated a cannibalistic capacity to divide and conquer burgeoning movements that could have made large progressive differences for vast segments of humanity from french radical republican and utopian socialism to marx and engels influential communist manifesto from the first international to the split between supporters of marx and the anarchists in there because in and for many international workers association from the divisions in the second international over the issue of world war one and opposite opposition to the war by lenin and rosa luxemburg to more recent divisions in the states between the old communist left and the left the left unfortunately has often been its own worst enemy on this show today as progressive activists and the radical magination seek to a service a more inclusive vision for the betterment of humanity were excited to have o representative of the revolutionary communist party usa he grew up in a good and a baltimore ghetto and was one of six g r i z in one nine hundred seventy who refused orders to go to vietnam and spent two years in prison for his stand i was proud to be a part of his and cornel west organizing efforts in two thousand and eleven to protest and demonstrate against the new york city police department's infamous stop and frisk policy the subsequent trial and media attention helped dramatically change the narrative in the city and around the country influence major candidates positions on this all important issue in the two thousand and twelve new york city mayoral campaign carl has recently been throwing his all into mobilizing people across the country in the streets and campuses to take up the call of stopping fascism and putting an end to the trump pence was he he's an ardent advocate of the work five he's developed a theoretical framework for what he considers to be a new stage of communist revolution calling it a new synthesis of communism i've invited car along to dialogue about this major work and its potential to bring the left progressives and people of goodwill together for revolutionary change so welcome karl to the radical magination especially  april fourth here fiftieth anniversary of commemorating what was a kid's assassination so i think it's it's it's even more poignant to have you here and talk about this very interesting work and what you've been doing in terms of organizing and so on so it's great to have you here so great to be on the show again jim to reflect well tell me about what you've been doing what what is this new work about the demonstrations  what are you doing in terms of crisscrossing the country organizing well look what we're trying to do is to bring took people the understanding that trump is much more than a  for the thrust of hammering fascist rule into place in this country and that will not only mean intensifying all of the horrors that were already coming down on black people the police may or may not be aware is that what you are ok i think i think he's aware ok ok i will get we can talk about that article go ahead ok but it will not only be intensifying horace like what you and i and cornell and others took to the streets for around stopping stop and frisk and police terror in general not only intensifying the horrors that were already coming down on the right immigrant pop sisters and brothers because barack obama was done by many immigrant rights forces as the deporter in chief definitely rolling back recent gains by lesbian gay bisexual transgender and queer peoples and escalating the threat of war and the threat to the devastation of the environment but not only intensifying all of that but also ripping away the rights that people have to stand up and resist that and that would be a critical dimension and we can talk about how all of this comes together like i said i think he's aware of it because some of the stuff like the i alone can fix these problems first off misstating overstating and sometimes creating out of nowhere the problems that he alone can fix but this whole thing of i alone can fix it then becomes if he shall enjoy like on a basic point of not as many people came to his inauguration as came to because millions of people that no one else knew about according to trump voted illegally and that's why the numbers seem to indicate that he lost the popular vote and then he keeps going with all of that challenge media the challenges him becomes fake news and we're talking here he's not talking about revolutionary media like rev com dot us and revolution newspaper he's talking about c n n and and all the rest of it he's basically saying other sections of even the capitalist imperialists ruling class are illegitimate and only the section that's behind me the christian fascist part of a structure that he represents that he is put in that is supported by behind the scenes or are he is is he a rogue element that in a machiavellian sense can manipulate representative for it and see this is why people need to really watch this film because one of the things avakian does very early in the film is he poses the question how did we get into this situation with this fascist in the white house and  him give us a little back on about bob avakian and to set the stage a little more for his writing and his thinking over the years and why this is so important you feel this is so important right now ok well let me say a little bit about this saying then i'll get back in who is this guy saying it's ok but he talks about well what is it about the history of this country that brings us to this point and it didn't just spring up with trump when you talk about the white supremacy that is now a calling card of the administration that's running this country you know we saw that when donald trump couldn't bring himself to condemn the white supremacists who were gathering under confederate flags and nazi banners and assaulting people killing one of their counter protesters this is all a part of america and it has been bubbling up in particular in the republican party for five decades you go back to richard nixon southern strategy you go through ronald reagan declaring his but also goes back to the confederacy i know it goes all the way back i didn't work in the republican modern republican party that it's fifty years and reagan did declaring his candidacy for president at the yeah philadelphia mississippi the site of an atrocity committed by coup klux klan or is against civil rights workers of akin gets into all of that and he tries visiting bits birth yes he traces it up to the current day and shows that what we have is a capitalist imperialist system that because of its own contradictions needs to bring forward a severe repression and repressive program in order to keep the empire the global empire to just to die and trump has become the vessel for that and it does fit into and it brings with it and particularly your facets like there is a certain the guy's in to himself it's pretty clear we're not talking about a lunatic fringe here but an actual movement that's the valid and avakian traces it in this film and shows how we got here and then he challenges people to see it for what it is and act in relation to it because he speaks to you know because people say oh well that was the way working class well actually the whites who voted for trump were from all economic stratus and backgrounds and he didn't actually a little better among somewhat better off white people than with the white people on the bottom in the working class but it was not economic issues that cemented people to trump because if that was the case how come black and brown working class people overwhelmingly rejected it's wrong right and that was because the white supremacy that was being pushed out there made real clear to black people and most latino's and other oppressed people people of color hey this guy is not for us white feelings of of of inadequate security of having been victimized yeah white nationalists see appealing to same thing whites yes the white knight and see a lot of white people have been victimized but not as white people a lot of white working class people have been victimized as workers who've been exploited and then tossed aside they haven't told very black so you begin to look at it like yours i've been victimized as a white person then you're wrapping yourself around yeah i see our all stuff in the history of america because we are talking about a country again avakian brings us out in the film we're talking about a country that was founded on genocide against the native inhabitants and dragging millions of people from africa in the chains of slavery and people have to recognize that and get that those are twin evils in the foundation of this country that have never been purged have never been addressed even when there were advances on it like the ending of formal ending of slavery through the civil war it gets followed by an older authority in the thirteenth amendment overturning of the reconstruction era where there was the opening in the possibility for black people to get equal rights and slavery by another name convict leasing people becoming sharecropper us on the same plantations where they had been slaves in slave previously still being exploited  subjugated and today it's like you were saying the thirteenth amendment which supposedly was a part of ending slavery and open the door to millions of people being imprisoned because it talks about slavery is no longer legal except as conditions as a condition of imprisonment and then you have mass incarceration which disproportionately targets black and brown people so this is what we're dealing with and we have to bring this to people and not just talk about it with them but challenge them to act and before you get to that now so bob is it's showing this historically he also uses science right he is scientifically using a scientific method to establish these connections understanding how's that brought into his work well it just goes all the way through it because when you're talking about bob avakian you're not only talking about a guy who's thrown his whole life into this struggle to uproot injustice in this country and through the course of dealing with that became a revolutionary and a communist in a leader in but someone who was always going to like we got a question this is is this right are we going at this right the congo we're going to standing it right what's a dial a goal yes ok that that what's the reality and what are the pathways to transform that reality and you saw it you know i've been a follower of his back in the one nine hundred seventy s and you know might say to him dies the revolution and the revolutionaries in china who were his close call or it's get arrested in the question comes up does this mean revolution isn't possible and of course in your vision of revisionism are yeah well counter movements china had taken the revolution is not a communist country not anymore ted in the night in the middle of one nine hundred seventy s when mao died and his comrades were arrested it was the pinnacle of the revolution the farthest the revolution had gone and that was a real body blow to the revolution and some people gave up the revolution well if china can't do it what's the sense of us try others tried to religiously cling to it avakian by contrast was like ok let's look at this why it let's say  on the shortcomings and that's something that he's been doing all of his life and that's what led to him forging the new synthesis of communism that you talked about in the intro in this film the trumpets regime must go is a case of him applying that synthesis to this major development of a fascist regime taking bring it up to date yes and so yes that's the contemporary struggle in america and and see that's the point because  analyzed everything about it the point is to change it and that's of a key and always digging into the reality what's new and developing is there something we didn't see previously ok this is here how does that factor into and change the situation but always from the perspective of how are we going to eradicates practices how are we what is a radical this injustice and that's what he's doing here with this film and what we're doing with refuse fascism and again like he did in the trailer inviting everybody into it we're not saying if you're a revolutionary get with us and fight fascism we do want revolutionaries to get with the revolution but look if you're not for the revolution if you are a christian if you're a muslim if you're a buddhist but you see this fascist regime for what it is then we have to come together and work to drive it out and that even with our differences that we're gets is dangerous because i see a poor what we differ over is less than what should bring us together and that should be our shared refusal to accept a fascist america and we're seeing what a fascist america could be were seeing it especially in the assault on the immigrant population the sisters and brothers i remember ravi rugby here going to his regular check in with the immigration services that he's been doing for ten years i think it's every couple of months or every six months he goes and checks in and then they see ok you're still around you're ok everything's cool come back in a few more months well this time they grab him up they have a limo outside they take him to the detention center in miami and they're planning on just zipping him out of the country and this is happening with many many more people in robbie's case he was a leader in the immigrant's rights struggle which is part of why they were targeting him but that also meant that a lot of people became aware of it and took to the streets and fought around it it was taken into court  his deportation was stopped and we got you know out of the maas of for free water right now for right now it's still an ongoing fight but this is happening to many more people and it really you know because i've been studying the nazi germany experience and i look at what's being done to the immigrants they're in a situation where if you go to court say for a traffic ticket ice might be stalking that courthouse and waiting there to grab you if you go to say my partner beat me up and i want to get on order of protection you know you could get grabbed up you go to work at seven eleven you could get swept up broken windows parodies taking their children to school have been stopped by ice see in this is forcing people into the further into the margins of society and i'm thinking about anne frank having to live in the attic of a sympathetic german family we can accept this or are we going to say no this is not acceptable right now and it's the same thing with the many attempts to flee bring down the list slim ban the rights being taken away from lesbian gay bisexual and transgender people we cannot sit back and say well this thing hitting me so it's ok the thing that he talks about in terms of if you watch the film farther he talks about  many people of liberal orientation are essentially saying it hasn't hit me yet and i hope it won't go that far and see that's why i bring up the nazi analogy because a lot of germans s essentially the same thing me and i do you know ok well you know they're going after the communists but i'm not a communist oh they're getting the trade unionists well i'm a professor i'm not in a trade union oh they're going after the jews i'm a christian and see first off you can't sit back and say oh go ahead and take those other people as long as you don't get me because if injustice is allowed to fester it's going to spread and in the other thing is when they do come for you who's a mule who's going to be there and that is a struggle that i have with a lot of black activists you know so well people are saying for up is not a question for black people yeah police are killing people now but they were killing people before is that of what he says i agree with these problems did not start with right ok you know if you want to talk about the police murdering black people and brown people i've been dealing with that for decades i know in these points out as you he been worse well yes it has been were slave or it was worse than this i'll grant you that but it is a continuation of savage oppression that's been built into the fabric and framework of the capitalist imperialist system that's the reality and we have to look at it not just as well since it was going on before this isn't anything different so we shouldn't look at it and i'll even give reverend barber that they have not yet hammered fascist rule into place the point is though if you're dealing with a regime out to hammer a fascist rule into place you actually need to it's all politics is not the same i was even what discussing this last night i was at n y u what a program and someone brought these points up and i said this actually talks about the politics in the a state x because that was the before and right you're saying well i'm ok with the continuation of these horrors i just don't want to spread to me and we i'm not ok with the continuation of these are as they need to be ended but part of what you need to do to end them is to see to it that what doesn't happen is the regime doesn't get the hammer into place conditions that make it far harder to rise up against us and see that's the thing that the nazis did they went step by step they didn't even though hitler had laid out that he hated all kinds of sections of people and had plans for all of them they went step by step the courts the media they did so for the communists they did go for the trade unionists and the they love other sections of the population to sleep what we are trying to alert people to is we cannot be lulled to sleep millions of people who hate this need to take to the streets and stay in the streets with one single demand this regime must go the trump pence regime must go this is not the revolution we're not saying we're trying to overthrow the system through this refuse fast as you went different ways and the same ole same ole essentially maybe a bit of privatization prison so so so but at this point we need to get out there and sort of put up a brake to all of this and get enough people out there and then it's a just because it's you know i just had mark rutte on the show previously and so the company rebellion was something like that then he said that was pretty damn good idea and a lot of organizing that went into that but then what happened was not much as as he admits i mean if he goes off more radicalized violent way he essentially sabotages the anti war movement or not  personally but you know so things fall apart so in other words what are the options for people people deal turnips as well as resisting here and we're getting people out there what is there's got to be something for them to then think about do and and you know put their energies toward that they see practically is going to lead to something in their own personal lives and i mean yeah and see this is actually a very important point that you bring up because when people come together from all of our different perspectives backgrounds really great whatever we're not saying to people because malcolm x used to say this thing of we'll leave your differences at home that's actually not correct even though i love  come as you are bring with you the things that you differ with other people on but recognize and understand and remember what brought you together and that we're acting together to accomplish a goal to drive out a regime that's trying to hammer fascist rule into place and through the course of that let's even figure out the ways and forms to discuss and debate our differences not you know have to cut out against the possibility to go forward in any kind of progressive direction and we are struggling to keep that open and then we can debate and discuss what are the ways to do that how to go about it how to carry this out kind of in the ways that avakian and bob avakian in cornell west of the dialogue over revolution and religion and the point wasn't either of them trying to beat the other into submission science question but and religion aired the different approaches to it and also to bring out where they overlap because on a number of questions you know because this was a day right around the time that the michael brown murder was going to the grand jury the question of whether any cops were going to be punished around eric garner and there was a lot of unity at one stage about that they both were calling for people to act to let the authorities the system know right now we are not taking sides but they also had differences on where things could go and what was even possible and it was very important for them to air it and the same thing with the dialogues that i did with cornell various campuses you're going all around the country campuses churches this is unity center says some business owners have like this that hey come and show it in my business and i should actually say please tell us how that you can get into the film at the website w w w dot rev com dot us you can go there the trailer for the film that we saw and other excerpts from it are there the whole film is there and then in addition to the one hour film there are several question and answer segments were vacant takes up some of the questions that we've been talking about here and some other questions that came up from the audience and then you could also get of just regular people who have seen it or like when people have to watch this this guy speaks with a lot of passion and substance and people need to check it out i see wow this is gone so fast here so we we need to as we're told here wrap it up i can't believe it but have you gotten all your the major points that you wanted to other than i guess find avakian as works other films like be a speaks ok revolution nothing less you can get access to the new communism which brings together recently and his new synthesis of  many other things and then you get the regular coverage of revolution newspapers karl thank you again one fortune got to wrap it up you're always welcome as you know i love you the deaths were in the struggle together we're also going to be showing a short clip with tracy chapman talking about revolution which is a great way to end it and thank you so very very much again will see the next week jim verraros here your host on the radical imagination thank you carl dix thank you for having me on jim why is it that the democrats can only try to resolve this on the terms of the system and for that reason cannot offer any alternative that is in our interest in the interests of humanity why are they determined to keep things within the established norms and acceptable limits we can turn to the word to barack obama shortly after trump won the electoral college vote we democrats and republicans are on the same team obama insisted and he made a point of saying that we should wish trump well and help him succeed because his success is success for all of us well we can say that here obama was telling an important truth ultimately and fundamentally they are all on the same team which explains why the democratic party will only oppose what the trump pence regime is doing with narrow limits and always in the interests of the team of which they are all a part and really we should all help trump succeed with this fascist agenda because a successful fascism will be good for all of us only with a perverted logic of the system all these politicians serve and with the poisonous outlook of american children is could anyone put forward such a position like the republicans the democrats believe in the superiority of the capitalist system of exploitation and the exceptional greatness of america and its empire they champion a brave new world of twenty first century globalization which rests on a vast network of sweatshops where people including children slave long hours for near starvation wages they firmly believe in the right of america to dominate the world and to overturn governments bomb countries and slaughter people to do so but they say it should be done with the cooperation of allies and in the name of making the world more free orderly and peaceful they will talk about diversity and inclusiveness while actually acting to maintain the fundamental relations of inequality and oppression that are hallmarks of this country because those relations are built into this system and it could not exist or function without them and short even with their real differences with the republicans they represent and serve the same system the systems whose normal working and have now brought fascists to power rights anti war women's so we need to tackle those same issues in different forms as well today we're looking forward to joining with the younger generation with all of us in this effort because we can't do it alone we need to do it we are confronted by we are now being ruled by a fascist regime relentlessly assaulting civil rights and liberties and openly promoting bigotry and equality this has caused disgust anger and agonizing among human can numbers of people and there have been many important acts of resistance big and small to the continuing outrages committed by this supporters but the regime remains in power and is determined to ride roughshod over all obstacles to carry out his monstrous agenda and the need for a massive outpouring  people acting together nonviolently put with the stain determination to create a political situation where this regime cannot remain in power cries out the organization refuse fascism refuse fascism dot org has put forward a call and a plan and is actively building for that mass mobilization so this poses sharply the immediate urgent challenge we face calling this regime fascist is not an insult but speaks to the terrible reality there is a direct line from the confederacy to the fascists of today and a direct connection between their white supremacy their open disgust and hatred for l g b t people as well as women their willful rejection of science and the scientific method their wrong america first jingle wisdom and trumpeting of this a period already of western civilization and their bare bellicose wielding of military power including their expressed willingness and blatant threat to use nuclear weapons to destroy countries with the finger of a demented bully on the nuclear button a regime that without exaggeration threatens not just greatly hiding heightened suffering for the masses of humanity but the very existence of humanity itself it used to be a common saying to the person of the right order is more important than justice while for the person of the left it is the opposite now the question is put squarely to liberals and really to everyone which after all it is more important order even if that is the order of fascism with everything that means or justice even if that means stepping outside of our comfort zone and putting ourselves on the line to prevent this fascism from consolidating it rule and fully implementing its program whether we consider ourselves revolutionaries convinced of a need for a radical overturning of the system and thorough transformation of society or we believe that it is possible to bring about changes that will lead to a more just society within this system where our understanding is that america is not and cannot be a force for good in the world or we hope it still can become that all of us need to come together and act together with the urgency that corresponds to the terrible present and the gravely in peril future that this fascist regime represents for humanity and with the conviction that something far better is necessary and possible thousands must be organized to take to the streets in cities all over the country beginning on november fourth overcoming fear and feeling the strength of their common cause in action and their common aspiration and determination making clear their results are not just make a statement but you continue and more than that bread and multiply their numbers and impact until millions have been mobilized and refused to stop until the demand has been met this nightmare must in the regime must go white anti war women so we need to tackle those same issues in different forms as well today we're looking forward to joining with the younger generation with all of us in this effort because we