The American Revolution holds profound meaning today for all who seek to end US criminality abroad and at home, and who want to stop an illegal war against Iran. 

Here is a link to an audio clip of some concluding comments made by David North at an emergency webinar held this past weekend, followed with a transcription and notes.

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David North: 

"I recall, of course, the period of the Vietnam War back in the sixties when I was politically radicalized, and the anger which to so many of my generation felt over the atrocities being committed by the US government-- the daily bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong-- the announcement of body counts, [and] "Hey hey LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?" 

And the outrage over Vietnam was of course, underlying that, was not just Vietnam, but our familiarity with the fact that imperialism had been responsible for two horrifying wars in the Twentieth Century.  World War One was the war my grandparents fought. World War Two was the war my parents went through. So we were aware of that. And we were of course exposed to the many antiwar films of that time. And we felt profound outrage over this.

But outrage without perspective can be misdirected (and that was the fate of many of my generation), or misled.  

The great question was one of perspective.  (Which becomes so critical.) And I just want to stress from [among] a few other points, again speaking to young people:  don't, of all the false propaganda, perhaps the most misleading is the conception that this government is all powerful. They're not. [Vladimir] Lenin once said very profoundly in response to a claim, I think it was by Kautsky, "that governments are never so powerful as when wars begin." He [Lenin] says it's just the opposite is true: they're never so weak. And that is profoundly true. 

But of course weakness also motivates violent actions, repression. And I am not in any way minimizing the dangers that exist. They are real and they are extreme. 

Trump, this government, is risking everything on this war. And they too see themselves fighting an existential conflict.

But I want to emphasize, and it really occurred to me, particularly when I heard Will [Lehman] speak-- and he evoked the traditions of Pennsylvania which played such an enormous role in the American Revolution, the formation of Committees of Correspondence, the growing outrage over the actions of the equivalent of ICE of the eighteenth century, the British troops who were marching here and there around American towns and villages committing acts of repression against the citizens in Pennsylvania, [and] of course in Boston [Massachusetts], and it seemed to those who lived through that-- what could be done to stop this? The British army or the British military or the British empire was the most powerful force in the world against which the forces of the American colonists seem paltry. 

And somehow those traditions are being reawakened and it's important to understand that with all the political problems we face in the United States, all the problems (you might say) of political backwardness, the backwardness of the culture, the endless and relentless propagation of anti-socialism, anti-communism. Nevertheless this is a country with profound democratic and revolutionary traditions.

And in fact these traditions, in a way which is quite unique. define what Americans see themselves as. This is a country which is extraordinarily diverse: ethnically, religiously.  But what underlies [it all] with a common element or foundational element of consciousness is: that this is a democratic country.

The great documents of American history are of course the Declaration of Independence which declared, in a way which had never been said before, that "all men are created equal" and declared that this is "self evident" (at a time when everything in the world said it wasn't self evident). 

But in writing that document (and I think it's important to refer to the opening passage), in writing the document [Thomas] Jefferson explained that he was writing this, or the colonists were writing this document because, as he said, a decent respect for the opinions of mankind require them to explain why they had entered into revolutionary struggle. 

A decent respect for the opinions of mankind! Does this government [in Washington DC today] show a decent respect for anyone's opinions? Other than that of that idiot, scoundrel, felon: Donald Trump? And his coterie of political nutcases?

They have no respect for anyone. They have no respect for the American people. They have no respect for the opinion of the world.

There is another great document, which is [Abraham] Lincoln's Second Inaugural [Address]. Of course it says in the famous gooding passages:  "With malice toward none, with charity for all!"

And then it concludes that the aim of the US Republic, and he said, in the last words:  "to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." 

That was Lincoln.

And the extraordinary place that Lincoln occupies in the collective consciousness of the American people was that he defined the fundamental ideals which motivated the revolutions of the United States. 

Now Lincoln wasn't into socialism. He lived in different historical period, and I'm not saying this so we all should get out and sing the Stars and Stripes! 

But these traditions mean something. And what Trump is doing, and what this government is doing, is profoundly offensive. It is undermining, in a profound and irretrievable way, how Americans understand their government. How they see it. 

It's not just that they disagree with policy they see this as an alien force. Something which is against them: everything they believe!  

And revolutions take place, not only because of the immediate impact of bad conditions. That's what [Leon] Trotsky also said quite well, he said not everyone responds the same way to an argument but everyone responds the same way to a red hot poker. 

Well, the red hot poker is the growing economic crisis, the deterioration of conditions, growth of unemployment.

But it also takes place under conditions in which there is a profound shift underway in social consciousness. The way people see this country, the way people see this regime. And it is under these conditions that a process of mass radicalization acquires a new theoretical, ideological form. 

And here we are about to observe the two-hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the American Revolution. And all at once it's implications for us, and for the world, become enormously important." 

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Notes:

1. David North is the chairman of the International Editorial Board of the World Socialist Web Site and current National Chairman of the Socialist Equality Party (US).

2. "Hey hey LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?" was a popular chant among anti-war youth during the Vietnam War.

3. Karl Johann Kautsky was a prominent Marxist theorist. 

4. Will Lehman is a socialist who is running to become the president of the United Auto Workers (UAW). 

5. Committees of Correspondence

6. Gooding refers to the final paragraph of Lincoln's address. It is also called the "charity passage". It refers to the actions required "to make good" or to "make a good restoration." 

7. "...revolutions of the United States." Trotskyists recognize the American Revolution as the first revolution, and the Civil War as the second revolution. The first replaced a government by monarchs with a government by the people. The second abolished slavery.

8. Stars and Stripes refers to a patriotic march and song, The Stars and Stripes Forever by John Philip Sousa. 

 For the entire recording of the Emergency Meeting, please visit this webpage.