Chicago–In a first, both the G-8 and NATO summits will be held in Chicago at the same time, May 15-22, 2012. Chicago’s Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy has already threatened to restrict the civil liberties of demonstrators who will converge from around the world to confront the tottering high priests of capitalism and their dogs of war.

This situation does present an unprecedented opportunity to confront the ruling class, not only with more demonstrations, but with the perspective of the revolutionary history of the modern age. The rulers that have devastated lives and communities with their bottomless austerity programs will be coming to the home of the struggle for the eight-hour day, with all its revolutionary implications: the city of Haymarket. That should be thrown back in their faces.

They will be coming to the city where the most revolutionary of labor organizations, the Industrial Workers of the World, was founded. The city of great Black revolutionaries like Lovett Fort-Whiteman and Richard Wright. That is the history that we will claim as our inheritance, seizing the opportunity to create new international (and local) links and support networks, seizing the opportunity to make history.

Further, the G-8/NATO summit protests will be happening in the wake of the Arab Spring, the most significant revolutionary movement in decades. It will be the perfect moment for discussing and clarifying ideas on how to end the cycle of austerity, repression and war that has gripped the capitalist order for decades and which, as the masses in the Middle East have shown, demands nothing less than revolutionary change.

–Gerry Emmett