We Are Not Amused by Your Phony Debate, We Are Not Registered to Vote, We Will Not Participate in Your Murderous Spectacle!

Today is October 9, 2016. Tomorrow marks the commemorative holiday of the pig Columbus’s expedition to the Americas, a voyage that spelled genocide or slavery for millions of the indigenous people of these lands, the eventual kidnap and forced slavery of millions of Black people from Africa, and the eventual setting up of the settler nightmare, the plague that calls itself “America”. Tonight, two of the phoniest, blood-soaked, criminal, hypocritical pieces of garbage in the country, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, will descend upon our city for yet another phony song and dance that calls itself a debate. Not just descend on our city, but visit the richest institution of higher learning in the city, Washington University, one that is for all intents and purposes closed to the masses of people. They will yell at each other, run their mouths, act like they hate each other, and then call each other up when they get on the plane to go to their next campaign stops and laugh and pat each other on the back. Trump and Clinton are class comrades, they attend each others weddings, their kids go to the same schools, they move in the same social circles. Trump is a loudmouthed, boastful, racist, fascist braggart, while Clinton is a sneaky war criminal and racist that represents a party that has governed this city for years and has done absolutely nothing whatsoever for the masses of poor black people here. Chief Sam Dotson is a Democrat, yet under him we find it against the law to provide material aid and assistance to the houseless, police brutality run amok, and his department playing a role in aiding and abetting gentrification. Now, it seems, he appears to be ready to run for mayor. He’ll fit right in with people like Slay and others. We don’t have time for it. We’re dying out here. No time to vote. No reason to do so. Whoever wins, there will be struggle. Remember, Ferguson, Baltimore, Milwaukee, and countless other cities went up in flames under the watch of our dear President Obama, who was seen by many in 2008 as the ultimate realization of all black people’s hopes and dreams and the end of racism. See what we have now? Where is our power? Where can we make a difference? In the streets, in the communities, not at the polls.

Mexican comrades show what to do with ballots.

Voting has nothing to offer us. This is not our system, it never has been, it never will be until we hold power. The rich make the decisions, the working class takes them. Without power, all is illusion. Liberal activist groups posing as revolutionaries, groups such as Socialist Alternative and the so-called “Communist Party, USA”, by discarding and refusing a firm rooting in political theory and the lessons of the past, by refusing to orient towards the lowest and deepest groups of people, by abandoning class struggle and choosing instead to take an approach where they hop from demonstration to demonstration, hawking one meaningless third party candidate or “outsider” like Jill Stein or Bernie Sanders (who gave up the ghost to Clinton without the slightest struggle or delay) after another, registering people to vote, and bending over backwards, chasing meaningless reform after meaningless reform, are rightfully rejected by the masses of people who long for and desire revolution. They talk about Fred Hampton, they talk about the Black Panther Party, and then go right on and channel the righteous anger of the people right back into the system. They holler about a “party of the 99%”, while acting like the left wing of the Democrats. Is this the act of a comrade, or is this the act of an enemy? Who waters down their language, acting as if capitalism is not something that is literally killing us every single day? Call a spade a spade, call a duck a duck. It’s not “the billionaire class”, it’s the capitalists and the imperialists, not all of whom are billionaires. We don’t need a “political revolution” at the polls, where some savior comes down from heaven and delivers us to the Promised Land, we need a revolution like that which the Black Panther Party called for. The power is in our hands, we can solve our own problems, we can deliver ourselves, if we dare to organize, dare to  struggle and dare to win. It is the height of arrogance to call yourself a revolutionary and act as if the polls in an American election are a revolutionary center, and push people there to vote for your worthless candidate.

Flyers from comrades in Austin. Expect these to be going up on a telephone pole or streetlight near you very soon.

What is PYO-STL’s line on the elections? What is the revolutionary line on elections in general? Which candidate do we endorse? Jill Stein? Bernie or Bust? Mimi Soltysik? No. We have no rationale or reason to continue to feed and legitimize this election and this fake democracy for the rich and the exceptional. We are revolutionary working class youth, we are revolutionary students. We see the power in our hands, and in the hands of the masses. We don’t vote. Anyone that asks us to register will get an earful, especially if they call themselves a revolutionary. We boycott elections, and prepare to build something new, in the streets, in the hoods, among the people. This is a spectacle that we have no part of, we do not endorse the harassment of our Latino and Muslim comrades, we do not endorse the drone bombing of our comrades overseas, we do not support the system that incarcerates hundreds of thousands of our friends, neighbors, brothers and sisters every year. Fuck Clinton. Fuck Trump. Don’t vote. Don’t let yourself be shamed into voting. Do we want Trump to win? Black and brown working class people might as well have lived under Trump for 400 years, if we study history. We struggle regardless. We show out regardless. We make revolution regardless. DON’T VOTE! REVOLT!