Sunsara Taylor: Are there any born-agains in the
house who are deep into biblical armageddon prophesies? No? In that
case, I first need to first walk you all through my ‘Armageddon
Crash Course for post-Enlightenment Thinkers’....

At this very moment millions of people are being seduced into
going for simple, good-versus-evil answers to the agonizing and
growing complexities of the world. They are consumed with the coming
Judgment Day, the return of Jesus, Armageddon, the Rapture.

 

Decoding Da Dubya Code

 

Revolutionary Worker #1266, January
  30, 2005, posted at rwor.org

 

 

Sunsara Taylor: Are there any born-agains in the
  house who are deep into biblical armageddon prophesies? No? In that
  case, I first need to first walk you all through my ‘Armageddon
  Crash Course for post-Enlightenment Thinkers’....

 

At this very moment millions of people are being seduced into
  going for simple, good-versus-evil answers to the agonizing and
  growing complexities of the world. They are consumed with the coming
  Judgment Day, the return of Jesus, Armageddon, the Rapture.

 

Here’s the Revelations scenario rolling around
  in their heads: First, Israel finds peace and then the Rapture
  happens. God calls up his true believers and all those who are pure
  of heart—those 12 years old or younger. Cars pile up in huge
  crashes on the freeways as drivers are called up to heaven, airplanes
  plummet to the ground as the true-believing pilots
  disappear—there are black-outs and sheer havoc. The
  anti-christ, an internationalist talking world peace, rises through
  the United Nations. During the next seven terrible years of
  tribulation, punishment is meted out by a vengeful Jesus, the rivers
  will run six feet deep in blood, and people must be willing to fight
  and die for the Lord.

 

Okay, that’s the mindset of a good section of Bush’s
  audience. And knowing that, his speech was deliberately loaded up
  with lots of coded "End Times" language fashioned by his
  hotshot evangelical speechwriter, Michael Gerson—all designed
  to send the Armageddon addicts into orbit.

 

At the same time, the central thrust of Bush’s speech, and
  the clear message telegraphed to his imperial minders, cohorts and
  rivals—was an affirmation of the U.S. right and intention to
  rampage, to flex its "sole superpower" status and roll up
  the planet under its permanent domination (all cloaked in deceitful
  banalities: "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly
  depends on the success of liberty in other lands.")

 

Then Carl Dix and Sunsara Taylor took turns
  reading

 

"The Communist Guide to the Top Ten Lies and Armageddon
  References in George Bush’s Inaugural Speech"

 

Lie 10

 

Scientifically, the word FIRE refers to combustion. But in the
  Bible, fire refers to the wrathful punishment of a vengeful God. When
  Bush said "a day of fire," he meant 9/11, which
  many Christian fascists believe is punishment for American’s
  turning their backs on Jesus.

 

The reality is that 9/11 and the rise of the Islamic
  fundamentalists cannot be understood without Bob Avakian’s
  writings on the Enlightenment, the massive dislocations of
  globalization, and the loss of revolutionary China as a pole of
  attraction in the world.

 

Lie #9

 

Many people were confused to hear Bush talk so much about
  "freedom," some figured he was just straight-up lying.

 

But when he says "Because we have acted in the great
  liberating tradition of this country, tens of millions have achieved
  their freedom," Bush is actually (believe it or not)
  referring to the never-ending U.S. conquest of Iraq, and telling the
  world to expect more of the same and worse! His global mission of
  "spreading freedom" is nothing more than the freedom of
  U.S. empire to further dominate the world.

 

Years ago, on Tom Snyder’s TV show, Bob Avakian pointed out
  that "If the exploiters are free to exploit, then the masses of
  people are not free to be free of that exploitation."

 

Lie #8

 

At the end of his speech, Bush speaks of "liberty and the
  Author of Liberty." The implication is that liberty is
  God’s will and its author is God.

 

Mainly Bush uses "freedom" as a stand-in for global
  configuring—but his use of vocabulary also allows evangelicals
  to hear a message that literally sanctifies American attacks
  in the world.

 

Listened to from this framework, the use of the word
  "freedom" 27 times and the use of "liberty" 15
  times give this global mission of George Bush a true crusader
  feel.

 

Lie #7

 

Bush said: "From the day of our founding we have
  proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights and
  dignity and matchless value."

 

This, about a country that dragged Africans to its shores in slave
  chains? This, about a country that carried out systematic genocide
  against the Native inhabitants?

 

Did Condoleezza tutor him about this history? Does she know it
  herself?

 

In contrast, Bob Avakian has recently written his memoir, From
  Ike to Mao and Beyond,about what he learned from Black
  classmates in an integrated high school during the 1950s and by
  getting to know leaders of the Black Panther Party in the 1960s. This
  played a critical role in his development as a revolutionary
  communist leader who has dug deeply into how revolution must and can
  uproot every last vestige of racism and national oppression.

 

Lie #6

 

Bush said in his speech: "Americans, at our best, value
  the life we see in one another, and must always remember that even
  the unwanted have worth."

 

Bush didn’t choose to speak openly about his plans to
  criminalize abortion and the doctors who perform them. But this
  deceitful talk of "valuing life," coupled with "the
  unwanted have worth" was clearly a set of codewords.

 

The day after his reelection, he called up a newly elected senator
  who believes in legally executing abortion providers, and said,
  "It’s time to get the job done."

 

Okay, in Bush’s twisted world, fetuses are holy persons and
  adult women are just incubators.

 

The Revolutionary Communist Party says, "Break the chains!
  Unleash the fury of women as a mighty force for revolution!"

 

In our new revolutionary society, women and men will develop new
  ways of relating with mutual respect and equality. And the impatience
  of women to tear up the old oppressive arrangements will actually be
  a positive factor that pushes the whole revolution forward until
  communism is achieved.

 

Lie #5

 

Bush said, "Leaders of governments with long habits of
  control need to know: To serve your people you must learn to trust
  them." Right. From the man who called the protests of
  millions worldwide against the Iraq invasion a "focus
  group."

 

Bob Avakian doesn’t huddle with advisors trying to
  manipulate or deceive the people. His approach is to put
  contradictions in the hands of more and more people, including the
  biggest questions of how to make revolution and how to run a society
  that the masses would actually want to live in. He leads the people
  to understand these contradictions and to help solve them.

 

He actually does trust the people and has confidence that
  with genuine communist leadership they can change the whole
  world.

 

Lie #4

 

Bush says, "America’s vital interests and our
  deepest beliefs are now one."

 

Bush is effectively saying he recognizes no separation between
  church and state.

 

For example, Bush’s faith-based initiative: They are pulling
  millions of dollars in government funding out of secular social
  service programs and pouring it almost exclusively into Christian
  organizations.

 

Lie #3

 

Bush says, "Rights must be more than the grudging
  concessions of dictators; they are secured by free dissent and the
  participation of the governed..."

 

This, said at the most militarized inaugural address in history,
  where protesters were attacked, cordoned off, and even reactionary
  George Will said the whole affair looked like a banana republic under
  siege.

 

Bob Avakian understands that the proletariat must hold firmly on
  to state power once it is achieved, that it is not worth holding onto
  if it doesn’t just tolerate dissent, but foster it. Because
  even truths that bring to light negative things about the
  revolutionary vanguard can become part of what we need to learn to
  move society forward.

 

Lie #2

 

We’re getting up there in our Top Ten, this is Number Two.
  We saved it till the end because it is such a BIG LIE. Throughout
  Bush’s speech dwells this HUGE LIE that has been with humanity
  for thousands of years, causing untold slaughter and suffering, the
  lie used by all of the biggest tyrants in the world. That lie is
  GOD.

 

The Truth: GOD DOES NOT EXIST.

 

Chairman Avakian has said it is time to quit praying to things
  that don’t exist and time to be liberating our minds and moving
  to end oppression the only way it can be done—by fighting
  it.

 

Finally, let’s have a drumroll here for the Number One
  lie from Bush’s speech!

 

Lie #1

 

Bush said: "After the shipwreck of
  communism..."

 

It is now supposed to be an assumed and accepted fact that
  communism was a failure—and that any hopes of a radically
  different and liberated alternative to capitalism are a false
  hope.

 

But, in fact, communism was no shipwreck!

 

The actual history of socialist society puts to shame Bush’s
  mangling of the truth, and his smirking declaration that no society
  greater than the U.S. has ever existed.   "fr">Au contraire!

 

Bursting through the cracks of the 20th-century lumbering
  imperialist death machine, the workers and peasants in Russia in 1917
  and in China in 1949 made revolution and accomplished amazing things.
  They went from unspeakable poverty and misery to becoming the people
  who, for the first time in history, started to consciously transform
  society and themselves.

 

During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, workers,
  peasants and students were called upon by Mao Tsetung to struggle to
  keep China on the road to a classless communist world. They
  criticized those leaders who were trying to take things back to the
  old society. They debated philosophy, political economy, and world
  affairs. They got involved in the running of factories, hospitals and
  schools.

 

In the end, the communist revolutions of the Soviet Union and
  China were overturned. How should we sum this up?

 

Bob Avakian looks at these socialist experiences of the last 100
  years, and sees a great start! But, he says, we can do much better
  and soar much higher.

 

Standing on the accomplishments of these great chapters in human
  history, and fearlessly examining the grievous aspects of these
  revolutions, Bob Avakian has re-envisioned what it will take to get
  to a communist world, and even what that classless society could look
  like.

 

Avakian’s approach combines the need for firm revolutionary
  leadership to hold onto power with involving more and more people in
  the process of exercising that power. It includes unleashing ferment,
  giving expression to the diversity in society as opposed to people
  being regimented and saluting an "official ideology." He is
  about moving society and the world to the point where there is no
  longer a need for a government of any kind; where the people
  consciously and voluntarily transform themselves and the world.

 

For all the real and monumental dangers that Bush concentrates,
  the same global shifts and changes that are driving Bush to his
  extremes are also bringing the possibility of Bob Avakian’s
  liberating future more sharply into focus. These two futures are
  colliding. If people come to know about Bob Avakian and throw
  everything they have into this battle for the future (for indeed,
  everything is at stake!) then some day folks will look back and be
  able to speak with profound truth and profound joy
  about the "shipwreck of capitalism."