I've watched the RCP do this crap for decades. When you and I met. front orgs like World Can't Wait were exploiting the anti-war movement; long before then, its precusor destroyed Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Thank you and everyone speaking out about this.
Kris...I'm assuming you've already contacted leaders of the Removal Coalition. We need to make sure these fringe groups don't derail all your amazing efforts to bring down the regime.
I can’t thank you enough for this! RevCom is a cancer here in LA and CONSTANTLY tries taking over all of our protests. They even tried to lead our MayDay march at a few points. I kept yelling “They’re a cult”.
They're posting all over Threads and don't allow comments that aren't blindly agreeing. For instance on three of their posts now it hasn't let me post a link to this article. Scary times we live in.
Wow. Really appreciate this. I hope Waj sees this...he just had a spokeswoman for RF on his show very recently, which is why I recognized the group's name. I thought it was weird how vague she was. I will forward to my local groups.
I was lightly involved w them earlier this year. I went to a couple trainings or talks. They consistently put all the work on volunteers, asking us to spread the word, get others involved, etc but didn’t offer any kind of real support. I kept asking which other groups they were coordinating with. Others joined in that ask. They ignored us and never answered. That’s when I left them.
That’s a great summation. I wanted to join forces as a partner and was very displeased that they did not disclose their connection to RCP. I emailed them about that and asking them to clarify, and their response was (a) shaming me for asking the question, (b) telling me to ‘do my own research, and (c) considering it was signed by the actual leader of Refuse Fascism who is *also* a leader in RCP, **did not disclose that connection in that email**!! If you’re not somewhat ashamed of or being coy about the connection, why not own it?
🤔This was the email we recall sending which encouraged principle, encouraged you to go to the source, and was completely transparent regarding one of our co-initiators who did disclose her perspective in her letter including in the video shared of her speech.
Dear Melissa, Thank you for reaching out to us directly with your concerns. You are correct that as an organization, we have a single unifying demand: The Trump Fascist Regime Must Go Now, and we have a commitment to nonviolent, mass protest as the means to achieve this goal. We also have a firm commitment to unite all who can be united in this mission to defeat fascism and to prevent a fascist America in the name of humanity. Here is a link to our principles, which spell all of this out more fully. You should be assured, and assure your readers, that not only do we publicly promote these principles, but we also have a nine year track-record of abiding by them. With regard to your specific query about the involvement of Revcoms (revolutionary communists) in this movement, there seems to be an embedded assumption on your part that the Revcoms would be at odds with these principles and with the conduct you saw and appreciated in DC recently. We would caution against this kind of assumption. As we say in our Statement of Unity and Principles, we must “not mischaracterize the positions of other groups or people and to not remain silent when others do so.” As such, let us elaborate a bit. In fact, the Revcoms are involved in this movement, alongside others from very different perspectives, and many of these revcoms played a critical role in precisely the conduct that you so appreciated. Ie: Some of them played a key role in de-escalating and nonviolently keeping fascist provocateurs separate from our rally and march. In fact, some of them played a critical role in developing the principles of unity and nonviolent methods that our movement ascribes to. In line with our principles overall, we encourage you to find out directly from the Revcoms what they stand for and how they see achieving their goals – and why that brings them into sincere unity with others from very diverse perspectives in this Trump Must Go Now movement. Here is a speech from Sunsara Taylor, one of our co-founders and co-leaders, where she speaks some about her perspective on this at a recent event in New York City. Here is a statement from Bob Avakian, the leader of the Revcoms, about the urgent need to unite all who can be to nonviolently drive out the fascist Trump regime and how that could be achieved. And here is a timeline of some of the work that Bob Avakian has done over decades in analyzing the rise of fascism in this country and how to counter it. It is crucially important that we unite all who can be united if we are going to defeat Trump MAGA Fascism, so of course there are many in this movement who come from very different political perspectives than Bob Avakian and other revcoms. And there need to be even more people from even more perspectives standing in nonviolent but determined unity against this regime because the futures that any of us want – even if there are differences in these visions – will only be possible if we unite to prevent the consolidation of fascism in this country. Building this broad unity and growing movement that humanity is counting on us for, requires that we not fall prey to anti-communist prejudices or any other divide-and-conquer schemes. For this reason, we deeply appreciate that you reached out to us directly with your concerns and we would be more than happy to schedule a time to talk with you further about this.
Melissa, I'd been looking for your comment for a little while now. It's taken searching through this full thread.
Your comment reflects the experience of some folks I know locally and elsewhere (east coast, west coast, midwest) - everyone pretty much universally put off by the 'do your own research' phrasings and general tone (shaming, dismissive, condescending) as people asking questions. Why not own the connection, indeed.
on my socials because everyone should be aware of the shady shenanigans of Refuse Fascism. Thank you ON OFFENSE. It is important to be wary of bad faith actors that co-opt groups for personal gain. That is the quickest way to undermine and de-legitmize a movement.
In my country Belgium we have the same problem with the communist workers party. They’re verry smart in the ‘recuperation’ of grassroots actions and jumping with their well organised machine on popular topics like antiracism , lgbtq, environment ect. They go to grassroots Actions and than make Photoshops for their socials and websites. even if asked explicitlyby the organisation to not bring their own publicity they do it anyway. But they’re totally top down and a lot of their members still support ‘anti-western’ regimes who are one-party, openly authoritarian and with no respect for minority groups, lgbtq and crack down violently on peacefull opponents( China, Russia, Venezuela , … sometimes even Iran). They stand up for Palestine but contradict the violence and assimilation on ‘Oeigoers’ in China as western propaganda. Very frustrating
We are all Americans and can’t let these fringe groups take our power. Thank you for the work you do!
I've watched the RCP do this crap for decades. When you and I met. front orgs like World Can't Wait were exploiting the anti-war movement; long before then, its precusor destroyed Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Thank you and everyone speaking out about this.
Thank you for the information. I appreciate all that you do.
Kris...I'm assuming you've already contacted leaders of the Removal Coalition. We need to make sure these fringe groups don't derail all your amazing efforts to bring down the regime.
I can’t thank you enough for this! RevCom is a cancer here in LA and CONSTANTLY tries taking over all of our protests. They even tried to lead our MayDay march at a few points. I kept yelling “They’re a cult”.
Thank you for informing us. Please keep up the great work you are doing.
Can't love this enough! Thanks so much. 👍🏾
They're posting all over Threads and don't allow comments that aren't blindly agreeing. For instance on three of their posts now it hasn't let me post a link to this article. Scary times we live in.
They seem to be hyper aware of this article, fwiw. I posted a video on TikTok about it and they commented within minutes.
Wow. Really appreciate this. I hope Waj sees this...he just had a spokeswoman for RF on his show very recently, which is why I recognized the group's name. I thought it was weird how vague she was. I will forward to my local groups.
I was lightly involved w them earlier this year. I went to a couple trainings or talks. They consistently put all the work on volunteers, asking us to spread the word, get others involved, etc but didn’t offer any kind of real support. I kept asking which other groups they were coordinating with. Others joined in that ask. They ignored us and never answered. That’s when I left them.
That’s a great summation. I wanted to join forces as a partner and was very displeased that they did not disclose their connection to RCP. I emailed them about that and asking them to clarify, and their response was (a) shaming me for asking the question, (b) telling me to ‘do my own research, and (c) considering it was signed by the actual leader of Refuse Fascism who is *also* a leader in RCP, **did not disclose that connection in that email**!! If you’re not somewhat ashamed of or being coy about the connection, why not own it?
🤔This was the email we recall sending which encouraged principle, encouraged you to go to the source, and was completely transparent regarding one of our co-initiators who did disclose her perspective in her letter including in the video shared of her speech.
Dear Melissa, Thank you for reaching out to us directly with your concerns. You are correct that as an organization, we have a single unifying demand: The Trump Fascist Regime Must Go Now, and we have a commitment to nonviolent, mass protest as the means to achieve this goal. We also have a firm commitment to unite all who can be united in this mission to defeat fascism and to prevent a fascist America in the name of humanity. Here is a link to our principles, which spell all of this out more fully. You should be assured, and assure your readers, that not only do we publicly promote these principles, but we also have a nine year track-record of abiding by them. With regard to your specific query about the involvement of Revcoms (revolutionary communists) in this movement, there seems to be an embedded assumption on your part that the Revcoms would be at odds with these principles and with the conduct you saw and appreciated in DC recently. We would caution against this kind of assumption. As we say in our Statement of Unity and Principles, we must “not mischaracterize the positions of other groups or people and to not remain silent when others do so.” As such, let us elaborate a bit. In fact, the Revcoms are involved in this movement, alongside others from very different perspectives, and many of these revcoms played a critical role in precisely the conduct that you so appreciated. Ie: Some of them played a key role in de-escalating and nonviolently keeping fascist provocateurs separate from our rally and march. In fact, some of them played a critical role in developing the principles of unity and nonviolent methods that our movement ascribes to. In line with our principles overall, we encourage you to find out directly from the Revcoms what they stand for and how they see achieving their goals – and why that brings them into sincere unity with others from very diverse perspectives in this Trump Must Go Now movement. Here is a speech from Sunsara Taylor, one of our co-founders and co-leaders, where she speaks some about her perspective on this at a recent event in New York City. Here is a statement from Bob Avakian, the leader of the Revcoms, about the urgent need to unite all who can be to nonviolently drive out the fascist Trump regime and how that could be achieved. And here is a timeline of some of the work that Bob Avakian has done over decades in analyzing the rise of fascism in this country and how to counter it. It is crucially important that we unite all who can be united if we are going to defeat Trump MAGA Fascism, so of course there are many in this movement who come from very different political perspectives than Bob Avakian and other revcoms. And there need to be even more people from even more perspectives standing in nonviolent but determined unity against this regime because the futures that any of us want – even if there are differences in these visions – will only be possible if we unite to prevent the consolidation of fascism in this country. Building this broad unity and growing movement that humanity is counting on us for, requires that we not fall prey to anti-communist prejudices or any other divide-and-conquer schemes. For this reason, we deeply appreciate that you reached out to us directly with your concerns and we would be more than happy to schedule a time to talk with you further about this.
Warmly,
Coco Das and Sunsara Taylor
refusefascism.org
Melissa, I'd been looking for your comment for a little while now. It's taken searching through this full thread.
Your comment reflects the experience of some folks I know locally and elsewhere (east coast, west coast, midwest) - everyone pretty much universally put off by the 'do your own research' phrasings and general tone (shaming, dismissive, condescending) as people asking questions. Why not own the connection, indeed.
Thanks for the information. I will take it under consideration.
Thank you for this extremely informative article!! I went to the site and it was an immediate red flag!
Thanks again!
I shared this: https://open.substack.com/pub/onoffense/p/warning-for-remove-the-regime-protestors?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
on my socials because everyone should be aware of the shady shenanigans of Refuse Fascism. Thank you ON OFFENSE. It is important to be wary of bad faith actors that co-opt groups for personal gain. That is the quickest way to undermine and de-legitmize a movement.
This is so interesting, well-written, and helpful. Thank you.
Thank you Nick for this information. Bless you ❤️🙏
In my country Belgium we have the same problem with the communist workers party. They’re verry smart in the ‘recuperation’ of grassroots actions and jumping with their well organised machine on popular topics like antiracism , lgbtq, environment ect. They go to grassroots Actions and than make Photoshops for their socials and websites. even if asked explicitlyby the organisation to not bring their own publicity they do it anyway. But they’re totally top down and a lot of their members still support ‘anti-western’ regimes who are one-party, openly authoritarian and with no respect for minority groups, lgbtq and crack down violently on peacefull opponents( China, Russia, Venezuela , … sometimes even Iran). They stand up for Palestine but contradict the violence and assimilation on ‘Oeigoers’ in China as western propaganda. Very frustrating