What People Are Saying About The Bob Avakian Interviews on The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show
If you haven’t watched the Interviews yet, watch them now right here.
Bob Avakian is someone who doesn’t let people’s attention get diverted from the widespread and continual crimes of capitalist system. He scientifically shows that an oppressor in any shape or form—whether it is of the Islamic Republic rulers or the Taliban or the US, the Russian or the Chinese imperialists—the shape doesn’t matter. They’re all products of the capitalist system. Read more
What I liked most about the interview with Bob Avakian was the warmth, humor, and directness of the real human being. Not the incisive philosopher and revolutionary—though he is marvelously both—but this person, with a past, with passions, with flaws, with modesty. I was not in the presence of a “god-man”; I did see a fully human man: his revolutionary challenge is, for me, made all the more powerful. Watching the interview also sparked my memory of having appeared as a lawyer in Spurgeon Avakian’s courtroom. I have gained greatly from both son and father.
I am donating [to the $100,000 Fund Drive to Put Revolution On The Map in 2023] because the work that Bob Avakian and the revcoms are doing in scientifically analyzing our current oppressive conditions is important and needs to be put center stage of discussions about what is happening in this country and this world. Too much of what is provided by commercial media and traditional or patriotic institutions, including schools, is more a matter of covering up government misdeeds and oppressions than they are about clarifying them and being part of a solution to improve them. Bob Avakian, and revcom, have proved to be clear eyed in doing a lot of that good work, it needs to be widely disseminated, debated and discussed.
University of Southern California
There’s this routine description of our system as a democracy in the election coverage when it is no such thing at all. As Bob Avakian would point out, it is in reality bourgeois democracy providing a cloak for an underlying capitalist class dictatorship. I did watch the Avakian interviews. They’re really, really first rate, and among many things people can extract from them are the historical context for the rise of Christo white nationalist fascism in the country. I don’t know anybody that has spoken and written more persuasively and brilliantly about how and why we have a fascist movement in this country, the historical context for that as a response to the victories of the social movements of the 1960s and the 1970s.
In this interview what really struck me was just how deep he went into governing, like how would you govern a new society, how would you actually, why it is so important to institutionalize these things so that they support the revolution. And like really going deep into that, like the way that he went into the question of victims’ rights was by starting with what laws are for. Taking it out of the personal realm, like just seeing that methodology and where he began with that, and then you follow and by the end of it, you’re like of course! Then, what does a victim’s right have to do with this like what you’re trying to figure out in this court of law. Yeah so, it also did make me want to look into the Constitution (for the New Socialist Republic in North America) more and really try to understand that.
Have you ever hit a dead end, struggling with futility to find answers that give you an escape from the despair you see in the world around you? Have you ever imagined that things don’t always have to be the way they are in our failing institutions of power? Then it’s time to revolutionize your mindset; to welcome thoughts and actions that will bring radical change to the way our systems of governance operate today. With an urgent focus on the power of our collective aspirations, challenging the exploitation, environmental degradation and societal brutality of Capitalism in our society, Bob Avakian renews our necessary call to scientific liberating action in his recent interview with the RNL Show. The invitation is open to all as you watch, listen and meditate on his insights throughout the talk. Its never too late to change the course of history in society today.
Every once in a while, to get to see the man again, and not just reading his articles, to see him in person, up close and personal, as the title indicates—for most of us who have known him through his articles and talks, especially seeing him in his age being in good shape and good frame of mind. And especially for people who meet him for the first time, to see and hear from him in person, where he comes from and how many years he’s been through this struggle. And as Cornel West has said, he’s a long-distance runner in this and not has given up and turned the opposite way, which a lot of people have given up on revolution. So, it’s good really for what these interviews are all about and hopefully there’ll be more of it in the future.
I got it! I listened to various parts. I will watch it weekly. He is funny. I loved the part that living in the United States is like living in the house of Tony Soprano. I find what he said fairly accurate and so all his putting forward of the contradictions about the ‘little goodies’ all of us enjoy here in the U.S. made me look at it a little bit differently. Obviously different than what we normally hear, but a ferocious attack on all the contradictions. I have it on but will need to still catch up. I also see how he got along with the Panthers.