Revolution #201, May 16, 2010
You Are Needed. Be There!
To all those who have participated in the campaign "The Revolution We Need... The Leadership We Have"...
To all those who want to see this campaign succeed....
Your ideas, creativity, energy and struggle—your participation—is needed.
Now.
Concretely, you are needed at the Memorial Day Weekend conferences being called by the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA to take this campaign to another level.
* * * * *
The RCP has been undertaking a campaign with world-historic stakes. As one student put it, "it's a question of whether revolution will die out with the '60s generation"...or whether it will take on new life as a vital force in the world. When headlines scream about obscene oil spills...about Nazi-like anti-immigrant and Latino laws in Arizona...about American troops dealing death in Afghanistan and Pakistan, while the president jokes about it at fancy press dinners... When you hear about yet another police shooting or murder going unpunished...when the airwaves assault you with anti-woman propaganda...when people are murdered because someone suspects them of being gay...when sharp cutbacks hit the schools, while the prisons keep filling up...when fascist movements are being fanned from high levels of government...can there be any question that such a revolutionary force is needed—urgently?
People need to hear and see that things DON'T have to be this way. They need to hear about revolution. And they need to know there is a Party that is building a movement for revolution. That is what this campaign is about. We aim to make known to millions the goal and character of this revolution, communist revolution, as it has been revitalized and reconceived by Bob Avakian; to make the leader of this revolution a household word; and through all this to forge a core of dedicated fighters who are going to advocate for this revolution and make it a driving dynamic force in society and the world.
Many of you have joined in these efforts and much has been accomplished—growing numbers of people are hearing about the revolution. More people are hearing about the leadership of Bob Avakian, and some are finding out about and getting deeper into what he's bringing forward. From the streets to the campuses, from the prisons to the suburbs—the revolutionary movement has begun to simmer and percolate. The Message and Call that is the foundation of this campaign is beginning to get out...and new things are happening that combine to give life to what that call says: "This is NOT the best of all possible worlds...and we do NOT have to live this way!"
But this campaign is still only just getting its footing. And let's face it—we are far from the goals laid out above. We need to get into a higher gear, and we need to do it very quickly. Because again—think about what is going on, every day...think about how the horrors every day, about how the future is being foreclosed and the walls are tightening...think about how people face all this and either think that there is no way out, or go with false and destructive paths... It is true: we can NOT afford to lose; anything short of the goals laid out above—anything short of getting revolution really on the map as a contending force—is unacceptable. There is a very real and very pressing need to accomplish the objectives of this campaign, as a key part of transforming this whole political and ideological "terrain" and "polarization," from terms that are currently quite negative to ones which are more favorable, in relation to the goal of revolution, and which lay more of the basis to further repolarize things in line with this goal.
Now the fact is that we CAN do this. But in order to do this we have to do much better at doing what the message and call says: "giving people the means to become part of this revolutionary movement, and organizing into this movement everyone who wants to make a contribution to it, who wants to work and fight, to struggle and sacrifice, not to keep this nightmare of a world going as it is but to bring a better world into being." That is what these conferences are going to be for and about: giving people a sharper understanding of the content of this revolution and its leadership and of WHY this campaign is so important right now; getting much more deeply grounded in the ways that this campaign can put this revolution into people's thinking and spread the word about its leader; and getting us closer to actually making revolution and emancipating this battered planet and its suffering and bitterly suppressed people.
The Party's going to be bringing some big ideas into these conferences—and then there's going to be massive wrangling with those ideas, debating and getting into them and working on them and letting all that spark new ideas. Everybody will be able to put the vexing problems and sharp challenges we've run into on the table. We'll also look deeply at the advances that have been made and figure out how to spread and build on those. These conferences will be key—to forging plans to get this campaign into a higher gear...and to getting a whole lot better organized, so we can actually bring all these ideas much more powerfully to fruition, and accomplish the aims of this campaign.
These conferences are not just for those who have already been into this campaign (although they definitely ARE for them); these conferences are for everyone who recognizes that the stakes for humanity are too great to sit it out, who recognizes that making revolution is a living process and requires the collective problems solving of all of us, and who sees in the revolution being fought for by Bob Avakian and the RCP a real hope for the future. They are for everyone who sees in the mission and objectives of this campaign a way to actually do something—again—"not to keep this nightmare of a world going as it is but to bring a better world into being."
If this is you—and it should be—you are needed to be part of this process. Clear your decks. Talk to someone connected with the Party about what it will take to get there. You are needed to be at this conference.
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