LOS ANGELES, November 1—As communists, we know everything is political. We strive to make that apparent to our friends and the entire working class. It is with this in mind that we took Día de Los Muertos, a holiday to honor the dead, and united with impacted families to not only honor loved ones, but indict this racist system that stole them from us. The event with about 75 attendees included dinner, music, poetry, a police car shaped piñata, and a pin the Molotov cocktail on the cop car game.
A poem, excerpted below, was written and performed by a comrade who has spent the last two years immersed in the struggle against police murder. As a Party, we have consistently injected revolutionary politics into the reform struggle. This poem lays out the current struggle we are waging –that police murder cannot be reformed away. KKKops will only be abolished when we overthrow the entire system of capitalism through a revolution led by Progressive Labor Party. The poem was well received and we will follow up with a Party forum discussing this very topic.
Día de los Muertos
This Día de los Muertos
We honor Nicholas Burgos
And all those souls the police stole
With stories of our loved ones told
Break bread, art and music
And a film with raised tombstones
Flowered by multiracial fists and Mexican marigolds
And poems
Both passionate and bold
And gotta fight like Ghada writes
Tonight
We deepen our ties
And love a little deeper
See past the masks and masquerades
Of politicians that parade by
But instead listen
What are those who passed away trying to say?
What is the lesson?
I think of Julius Fuchick on this night of hallow
A Czechoslovakian communist who wrote notes on scraps in secret
Even as he faced certain death by Nazi gallows
He said, “in real life there are no spectators: you all participate in life”
His work in the underground helped defeat fascism
and inspired Ricardo Neftalí Basoalto
You know him as Pablo
But you probably didn’t know it
That he took the name of a Czechoslovakian poet
Neruda—
So what are the deceased who live on within us trying to tell us?
The building blocks of life are found on icy rocks of comets
The universe is ours!
But beyond the poetry and astrophysics
Capitalism is killing us and the environment
It’s never been more apparent
But if only common sense was enough
If we couple it with scientific philosophy
We can learn that we need to be communists
Cuz the jig is up and the vote is in
Drugs are being criminalized by Joe Biden again
A public health crisis like covid
And we are dying by the hundreds of thousands
From synthetic opioids and overdoses
And guaranteed more police violence
The community harm – you name it
Are these sins of capitalism?
And forever destined to repeat
Because they’re imprinted in the profits
And foundations of finance on Wall Street
Which has stood the test of every reform for centuries
Including Abolition and a civil war
We live in one of the most democratic cities
In the most democratic state in one of the most democratic countries
And it cages the most people than any place on Earth
So where does this confidence that their state apparatus can work for us come from?
When billionaires fund U.S. imperialism abroad
Do we raise a fist or a brow?
What is in it for them?
When folks who claim to be the new political sages
Maybe using different language up on these stages
Sounding radical but with the same message wrapped in a new package Do we still say they’re the lesser evil, the answer, or do we get enraged?
And recognize the fundamental flaws of simply passing laws
Focusing on the effects and not the cause. Going to the polls for politicians within institutions designed for our demise
Petitioning for legislation that can purportedly abolish their policing
That they created and control since day one in this country
Is not up for discussion let alone defunding
The belief that through passing bills or even with a storm on capitol hill
That this system can be abolished piecemeal
Without a violent revolution to end this whole damn system
Is the new opiate of the masses—
It’s about more than shutting it down and burning it down
But what do we build now and in its place?
The genius of the masses is found
Where the struggle abounds
In the groundedness
Yes it’s about the sun on high but without the fertile dirt
It’s the difference between Mars and Earth
So what is our class trying to teach us
The working class
That is screaming out segregated
Like our dearly departed
But trying to reach us
In desperate need of organization
We are inevitably defeated before we get started
If we don’t build a communist Party
I know this poem
Is only words on a page
Like pan de muerto on an altar
But consider this food for thought
From those beyond the grave
Resting in power
And when
Maria, Evelia
Marie, Pamela
Sam, Amanda
Rosa, Eloina Leti, Hilda
Deanna, Christina
Valerie, Barbara
Lisa, Lea
Emily, Jonetta
Ghada,
Hasta la Victoria!
Victoria
When we join together.