Match Challenge of $1,000 Met During the Livestream: “Why We Burned the Flag, What This Revolution Is All About, and How You Can Be Part of It”

July 15, 2019 | revcom.us

 

From readers:

On Sunday, July 7, Revolution Books in NYC hosted a Livestream event with Andy Zee, Sunsara Taylor, and the flag-burners from the Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour. You can watch it here. An important step forward towards reaching the goal of raising $50,000 needed for the Tour over the summer was taken by a supporter announcing a $1,000 match challenge: If we raised $1,000, she would match it, making a total of $2,000 in donations. Good news! We raised $1,110 with an additional $100 pledged afterwards that day, matching the goal. People were very inspired by the flag-burners and this National Revolution Tour to donate, many citing the crimes of U.S. imperialism, and the hope and possibility of many more people coming to the side of making radical change.

Will you take up the challenge now to scale up the fundraising? Get ready: the Chicago Tour started July 13. Set a goal: Donate, get your friends to match your donation, provide housing, food, travel needs, printing needs. Let us know what you can do and why you are doing it. Every donation, large and small, one time or monthly, matters. Here is the  statement from the person who made the $1,000 match challenge during the Livestream (which was written when Joey Johnson and another revolutionary were still in jail after the DC flag-burning, facing criminal charges that initially included a felony charge against Joey), and statements from others who donated.

Stand with Humanity and the National Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour to Meet This $1,000 Challenge

The National Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution Tour needs our support to propel this project forward. They plan to go to Chicago, New York and other cities across the country. They have travel expenses; food; lodging; printing costs for materials; legal costs and more. They have shown bravery and fortitude. They are proving that we can transform the people and expand our forces. They bring inspiration and hope, based on science, for a better world. The tour must be “scaled up” so that they can reach more people and expand this work. We do not want generations of people to have to continue this fight.

Step up and donate to the tour and I will match this up to $1,000. The Tour needs to raise $50,000 this summer, and if you donate now, we would have the first $2,000 of this amount. In fact, I challenge others to make this match as well. Once the first $1,000 is raised, will you pledge to match my $1,000?

I am back with this second challenge because I am convinced that the only way out of the hell that this system brings down on billions of people on the planet is through revolution. This project has as its goal to spread the word about the need for revolution and the leadership we have in Bob Avakian and his scientific formulation in the “New Synthesis of Communism.” This is the strategy for revolution and a whole new world structured with the highest aspirations of humanity in mind, and a world not based on plunder and exploitation.

I am amazed and inspired by what the Tour has been able to accomplish, even since my last challenge in April of this year. You stepped up! Thanks so much. We need you again to step up and we must work hard to get others involved to support this Tour. No less than the people of the world and the planet depend on it. So much has happened that shows the power this Tour has to build for an actual revolution.

Joey Johnson, Carl Dix, Noche Diaz and other members of the Revolution Club courageously burned the red, white and blue American rag on July 4 in front of the White House. This provocative action was needed to go up against the fascist display of military might with Trump’s tanks; weapons of mass destruction and flyovers. This rag is soaked in the blood of immigrants and slaves and Native Americans slaughtered in genocide. It is soaked in the tears of the children in cages at the Mexican border and some dying from abuse and neglect. This rag flies over the military bases the USA commands in over 100 countries around the globe and it embodies other heinous crimes against humanity. Our comrades now have serious charges leveled against them. Comrades supporting this call from the Tour burned rags on the U.S.-Mexican border and other cities across the country. The DC event was covered by journalists nationally and internationally and has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times on social media. That rag burning says to the world that there are people in this country who oppose what this fascist regime is doing and are fighting for another world. I am proud to be a part of all of this!

The Revolution Tour spent a good deal of time in LA with actions that “disturbed” the air and projected a disciplined and organized force for revolution. They showed that they were there to “make a political war on this system” and that “enough is enough.” Noche Diaz gave powerful lessons about the role of the police in this system and of the sordid history of the U.S. They connected with people in South Central LA where the Rodney King beating was videoed years ago when some of the Revcoms were not even born yet! This, now, was a beautiful thing to behold. The Tour members wearing the “BA Speaks—Revolution, Nothing Less” T shirts marching in formation chanting “what’s the problem? The whole damn system! What’s the solution? REVOLUTION!” I was greatly moved by stories of people who this system would be just fine killing off, raising their heads and daring to hope that they could be a part of putting a stop to all of the crap that they must endure each day. Watching kids from the hood putting on the BA shirts in their first steps into the revolution was heart rendering and awe inspiring!

The Revolution Tour worked to bring forward people from diverse backgrounds and from all parts of the socioeconomic strata to check out this movement. They worked with students from UCLA; they went into the neighborhoods; they gave speeches and held picnics getting out the word about what this revolution is all about and why it is needed. We heard a young Jamaican man whose parents were deported when he was very young and he had to survive on his own talk about stepping “outside of my fear” to step up to be a part of this movement. He passionately talked about how even at a young age he thought that this was not right and something needed to change. He was compelled to listen to the Revcoms and jump into the revolution. As Lenny Wolff said, “Something is being born here. If you cannot see it, something is wrong with you.”

I have been following the Tour closely, mainly by looking at the revcom.us website almost every day and listening to interviews with Revolution Club members and leaders of the Tour on the The Michael Slate Show which can be streamed on KPFK radio archives in LA. There are important lessons and guidance there and I encourage everyone to follow the tour at revcom.us and @tuneintorevcom on twitter. Please send in your thoughts, experiences and questions to revolution.reports@yahoo.com.

—A mental health professional and supporter of the revolution

Other Statements

From someone who donated $250: “Deepest thanks for the courageous Revolutionary RevComs. Your action in DC was inspiring. It was also a real example of putting Humanity First which is the essence of proletarian internationalism. I imagined in my mind what your action meant to the hearts of the masses and Revolutionaries in Iran who I have deep affection for... U.S. imperialism keep your bloody hands off Iran.”

From someone who donated $50: “As part of $1,000 donation and as a message to the people of this world that there are people in this country who are fighting for humanity first, not the USA first. Revolution Nothing Less.”

A longtime supporter of the revolution donated $200.

An African-American man said since the age of five he has witnessed the crimes of this system. He feels that this is an important moment to support the Tour because he has seen people come over to the side of making a radical change in the society.