Comments on: Where Have You Gone, Bob Avakian? The Nation Turns Its Lonely Eyes to You

By: Ron Newman

Ron Newman — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 04:51:48 +0000

Didn’t Bob Avakian once have a railroad?

By: Josh in Philly

Josh in Philly — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 09:18:10 +0000

KB#13: He’s a splittite, actually. And I say this as a witness to the Red Collective’s failed 1997 bid to control the third-floor photocopier in SUNY-Buffalo’s Clemens Hall, a tactical gaffe that caused some serious splittage.

By: Michael Bérubé

Michael Bérubé — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 20:11:10 +0000

And you try and tell the young TWCW people of today that, JP —they won’t believe you.

By: JP Stormcrow

JP Stormcrow — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 17:31:59 +0000

Has Avakian been exiled and then assassinated (or indeed assassinated and then exiled)?

While under surveillance Bob Avakian has to get up in the morning at ten o’clock at night half an hour before he goes to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid in prison, be harassed twenty-nine hours a day during his political trials, and pay the government to exile him, and on his way home, he gets assasinated by FBI agents who dance about on his grave singing the “Revolution”.

By: Bill Gardner

Bill Gardner — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 15:41:22 +0000

What Harry B @ #24 said. I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by sectarianism…

By: christian h.

christian h. — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 15:06:35 +0000

duppy, I’d really want to support Avakian if he’s actually being oppressed, and I have great respect for any New Communist veterans who haven’t gone over to the dark side.

But you can’t read that statement (it reads like “Bob Avakian …. Bob Avakian …. Bob Avakian…”) and not be dumbfounded by the insane level of, well, Avakian-worship it exhibits. This isn’t made any better when comrades in the RCP act all offended when called on it (“there is no personality cult. I just happen to carry this book with a huge picture of Bob Avakian on the cover around because it’s the greatest book ever written.”)

By: Michael Bérubé

Michael Bérubé — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 13:24:12 +0000

CPUSA-LSMFT. Afraid the humor of that is lost on you youngsters.

Well, some of us Lucky Strike smokers in the late 1970s used to say “CPUSA—it’s toasted.” Does that help?

And never mind Cornel West! The really remarkable signature on that petition is “nineteen people at the Oct 22nd National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality demonstration in Los Angeles.” I’m so disappointed—I’d always respected the work of nineteen people, and I can’t believe they’d put their name to this.

By: harry b

harry b — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 12:48:46 +0000

duppy—don’t assume that all we do is talk. Its just all we do here (that’s all there is to do here). Nor that we feel no sorrow that people put so much work into such a fruitless enterprise.

By: magistra

magistra — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 11:09:15 +0000

I have read the statement (URL in comment 17) and I am still slightly stunned by the comment:

Surveillance, harassment, suppression, political trials, prison terms, exile and even assassination have been the fates of many revolutionaries throughout U.S. history and many of those measures have, in fact, been visited upon Avakian.

Has Avakian been exiled and then assassinated (or indeed assassinated and then exiled)? What specifically has happened to him? Or is is just that we’ve not engaged with him enough? (By the way, how much would be enough and how engaging is he?)

By: Henry (not the famous one)

Henry (not the famous one) — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:16:32 +0000

Someone in the UFW Legal Department way back in the 70’s used to refer to one of the other Maoist groups of the day as CPUSA-LSMFT. Afraid the humor of that is lost on you youngsters.

By: duppy conqueror

duppy conqueror — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 08:06:15 +0000

ugh. you’re all just talking. what is this place?
maybe, once in a while, while you’re standing outside of the movement, criticizing people who are killing themselves to wrench something out of this pile of sinking shit, you’ll get a tiny little headache and have to stop talking.

By: JP Stormcrow

JP Stormcrow — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 05:49:13 +0000

Bob Avakian doesn’t hide from the world. The world hides from Bob Avakian.
Bob Avakian doesn’t run for president. The president runs for Bob Avakian.

http://bobavakianfacts.com

By: christian h.

christian h. — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 01:58:57 +0000

Trackback 18. calls Avakian “far left”? What have they been smoking – the man is, to misquote the renegade McLemee from his days in the Proletarian Hammer Tendency, “wretchedly popular front”. Or, to mis-apply another old pamphlet, “left in theory, right in practice”.

As an aside, the “wretchedly popular front” denunciation of the Worker’s Vanguard by comrade McLemee was likely the starting point of the central committee campaign to have him expelled. It’s not quite clear from reading Proletarian revolution and the renegade McLemee – I might have misinterpreted the accusation about “undermining the Proletarian unity about to be organised in the 7th international.”

[More seriously, TWCW is not simply a front for RCP, that’s a little too simple. I’m sure most of the members I know have barely heard of Avakian, aren’t even comrades, and certainly don’t have pictures of Chairman Bob over their beds; they are often more anarchist or just broadly anti-capitalist in orientation.]

By: Fruits and Votes » Prof. Shugart's Blog » Far left, take 2

Fruits and Votes » Prof. Shugart's Blog » Far left, take 2 — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 00:58:52 +0000

[...] if you are really looking for a far-left candidate and Kucinich is just too much of a collaborator, there is hope, after all… [...]

By: will

will — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 00:51:17 +0000

The statement is located here:

http://www.engagewithbobavakian.org/statement.htm

It was also signed by DJ Spooky!

I’m greatly enjoying the biography given on the same site:

“Avakian’s writings are marked by great breadth – from discussions about religion and atheism and morality, to the limits of classical democracy, to basketball.”

Hence the man dunking in the header image.