Joke of the Day: Revolutionary Communist Party at Burning Man

What do you get when two RCP members go to burning man? A laugh riot of cultish posi-prose, for one thing! Can you imagine these nutcases from the party that not all that long ago denounced homosexuality as a bourgeois affliction wandering the open sands of burning man, Bob cards and manifestoes in hand, bringing the holy light of Avakian to throngs of naked hallucinating hippies?

You can't make this shit up (note the trademark RCP exuberance dripping off every word -- what kinds of extreme levels of happy pills must the Party prescribe to achieve such heights of emotion from its writers?):

There is a great need for people who are yearning for a different, better world to be introduced to Bob Avakian and his revolutionary vision of the most radical rupture with traditional property relations and traditional ideas, and a vibrant, exciting communist world in which people would really thrive—the unleashing of art and science, awe and wonder, ferment and imagination in mind-boggling dimensions.

What was once a bizarre but relatively harmless Maoist cult busy building bourgeois front groups and disingenuous political alliances with the political middle has truly degenerated into a pathetic and infantile spectacle of fawning hero-worship and self-delusion. I almost miss those days of World Can't Wait and their pathetically simplistic "Anyone but Bush" mantras, designed as they were to sucker well-meaning but silly anti-war liberals into front groups secretly manipulated by RCP cadre behind the scenes. Once captured, these poor saps could be bombarded into levels of unconsciousness sufficient for optimal susceptibility to Bob's flatulent pontifications, administered via marathon eleven hour video watching sessions. No kidding!

But despite their profligate production of thousand word proclamations, don't be fooled! There's not much in terms of real ideas lurking behind all those manifestos, and what little there is to their time travel Maoism can be found in any number of dinosaur commie formations that staggered dazed and tattered out of the ruins of the countless splits of the Seventies when the ever-worshipful Maoists faced the ultimate test of faith that was the collapse of Maoism in China.

Image over substance doesn't even begin to describe the vacuousness that is the RCP. I think the issue of Watchtower left on my door the other day was less fantastical in its evaluation of our current situation and likely future -- and certainly less savior-oriented than the RCP's Maoist millenarianism. It's been said that one of the things that has always distinguished anarchism from communism (and religions) is that anarchism names its tendencies after ideas or strategies, while commies name them after people. So, in that light, we can hardly be surprised when sad little party poopers like the RCP, having lost one dear hero, opt to build up another superman in his place.

Bob Avakian, "leading light" of the RCP

"Who is that man?" the sunburnt masses of burning man apparently demanded, if we are to believe the RCP's flowery text, provoked as they were by the installation of "a large flashing neon version of Bob Avakian's image in the midst of the art on the playa."

Although only visible at night, it looked great! Hundreds of image cards were distributed at the festival itself—left at camps, many of the numerous free bars and parties, and stuck in the spokes of participants' bicycles.

Hilarious! Only the RCP could go to burning man and miss the party (not to mention write a thousand word article about it without once mentioning the word "anarchy"). What I can't figure out is why the new portrait of Bob leaves out the trademark commie cap and hypnotic gaze that we all have come to love over the years? Surely that image, one of the few available to his fans during Bob's self-imposed Paris Left Bank exile, strikes a far more provocative pose than the new stencil! Bring back the old image, I say!

If you're looking for a few more belly laughs, please consider the impending release of the RCP's new "CONSTITUTION FOR THE NEW SOCIALIST REPUBLIC IN NORTH AMERICA" (all caps, naturally, in ironic tribute to its already foreordained irrelevance) which is sure to keep you in stitches. Oh, did you think that, if such a monstrosity were indeed to be considered (and let's hope it never is), something like a new constitution for North America might be the kind of thing that should involve the broad participation of the masses? Wrong again, comrade! The RCP and, more importantly, Chairman Bob has it all figured out for you in advance. Don't you worry your pretty little head about it!

Stay tuned, more comedy surely awaits!

As promised, a third anti-RCP installment. This time a blast from the past.

Well, John Riley and I had intended to do at least three installments in our anti-RCP series but events intervened, particularly on my end, and the third piece never got posted. I am hearing these days that most of the RCP wackos have left town now. Hopefully that's true.

I remember back in 2000 in LA for the DNC, when I first had the misfortune of running into these hacks, just what a joke the "flag on a flag" flag was that they waved around incessantly. For those who haven't seen it, I tried to find a picture online but the closest I could come was the image below (the flag on a banner, I suppose). Just picture it being waved around on a flag.

Lately I've been seeing these printed stencil on a poster images of RCP cult leader Bob Avakian floating around here and there. These aren't actual stencils, of course, printed on glossy paper such as they are. But they are printed to look like stencils, as if they have street cred. But in fact they rolled off some printing press somewhere. I think in many ways those posters and the "flag on a flag" really sums up the RCP. Something disconnected. A facsimile. And endlessly self-referential, for sure.

The flag on a banner! Attached to a bayonet so you know
it's all militant and shit! Watch out! They may cut you!

Just read their newspaper. I checked out their account of the May 29th immigrant march. You can't make this shit up:

At the same time, the agitation that this system can't solve the problems of humanity but the revolution CAN, was captivating for many others. Some people took up the chant started by the communists, "No tenemos que vivir así. Otro mundo es posible" ("We don't have to live this way. Another world is possible"), especially when the anti-immigrant reactionaries came out. And those who were more revolutionary-minded were drawn to the banner that said, "No hay un problema de inmigración, sí hay un problema del capitalismo, la revolución es la solución" ("There is no immigration problem, there is a capitalism problem, revolution is the solution") and the Message and Call from the RCP, USA: "The Revolution We Need… The Leadership We Have." Several college students spoke to the great disparities in the world and how resources exist which could meet the needs of the people, but are instead being used for profit while masses of people are forced to try to find ways to survive. After the rally, several people who were seriously looking for a way out of all this got together to watch Bob Avakian's talk, Revolution: Why It's Necessary, Why It's Possible, What It's All About, and stayed up talking into the night about historic questions of changing the world. (emphasis mine)

I mean, seriously? If you hadn't seen their pathetic little cadre with your own eyes you'd almost believe the people were rallying behind the RCP's bold representation of a flag on a flag. Fortunately, they were not. You'll note the unbearably long paragraphs (and revolutionary enthusiasm!) of the RCP writer -- a hallmark that derives from emulation of their leader, known for his endless, record-breaking even, sentences. What Castro is to the speech, Avakian is to the sentence. Consider this bit I took from a randomly selected article:

To briefly summarize this, the point is that you can conceive of the political structures and the way that they relate to the larger society in the U.S. as something of a pyramid: at the top you have the ruling class forces, which, speaking in broad strokes and for general purposes, are divided on the one hand into the Republican Party and on the other hand the Democratic Party, and what these parties represent in terms of "conservatism" and "liberalism" (about which I'll have more to say a little bit later); and then, continuing the metaphor of the pyramid, you have lines extending (or angling) from the top of the pyramid, where the ruling class sits with its two basic wings, down to the social bases that these different wings of the bourgeoisie at the top of the pyramid seek to appeal to—on the one side the "right," and on the other side the "left," in the terms that are utilized commonly in the framework of bourgeois politics. (emphasis mine)

I've been known to use a semi-colon in my day, but reading Avakian reminds me more than ever of the importance of Kurt Vonnegut's legendary caution against semi-colons: "Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college." Please, Bob, break that shit up!

Anyhow, the response from our series has been very good, with people noting articles and analysis on the RCP that we had forgotten over the years or that we neglected to link to for one reason or another. One comrade out there reminded us of the wonderful essay, "The World Can't Wake", a blistering attack on the RCP's front group during their anti-war organizing phase, World Can't Wait. I remember enjoying that piece when it came out. There's also "What you should know about the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP)" hosted at Infoshop, which has a lot of links and a recommended reading list that includes Daniel Cohn-Bendit's "Obsolete Communism" -- definitely a good read on the topic of authoritarian communists (even if Cohn-Bendit has disappointed us all more than a bit since May 1968).

But my favorite submission of all came from our abiding comrade in Tucson, Dan Todd, who sent along a poster he and John Zerzan distributed some years ago in the Bay, under their Anti-Authoritarians Anonymous monicker. Folks will remember Dan from his presentation at Beer & Revolution last January.

Perhaps there are others out there who have a copy of his collection of posters, "Cold Fury: Advertisements for Anarchy 1982-2010". Those who do will recognize the trademark Situationist-influenced style. Not included in his collection, I seem to remember it appearing in Zerzan's "Elements of Refusal", if memory serves, the RCP gets a mention, although it isn't the focus of the piece. However, the points made are universal and inform just how long the backward RCP has been mucking around the left, lurking and attaching itself like a lamprey to genuine peoples movements everywhere.

Anyhow, as (perhaps) the last in our series on the Revolutionary Communist Party, and as a prelude to a fond farewell (soon, I hope), I present it below.


Enjoy!