Sights and Sounds From Revolution Reports on the Climate Strikes Across the Country

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In the past weekend, the world saw millions of people pour out into the streets, coming from many diverse viewpoints, demanding a shift from the way the environment has been handled under this system. Many are frustrated with how things have been led from the top. In this country, the youth took to the streets on Friday on a scale that has not been seen in this country around the environment. The following is a series of excerpts from reports about going out to the Climate Strike on Friday, September 20 written from Chicago, LA, New York, and a team from the National Tour who went to Washington, DC. Readers should learn from the experiences of these different cities from a national scope and contribute their questions, comments and reflections to this process (revolution.reports@yahoo.com).

Chicago

We had a chant we did during the march that the masses around us liked and some danced to and took up chanting: “The planet’s on fire, the politicians are liars, this system created this mess, revolution nothing less!”

One thing we noticed was how warm the response was to agitation about capitalism-imperialism destroying the planet and the need to overthrow it. What people meant by that was not all the same, but mainly people were cheering when they heard it. We asked to say over the bullhorn why they were cheering. One youth said something about ending greed and corporations. Another said he wants his grandchildren to have a planet. Our agitation didn’t stop at the need to overthrow this system. We talked about how capitalism is driven to destroy the planet and humanity, but in overthrowing it and replacing it with the New Socialist Republic we can restructure the economy to put the needs of humanity and the planet first, and unleash people to work together to solve the problems, scientists, and regular people, on the local scale and global scale. And we talked about how no Democratic politician or Green New Deal can stop what is happening to the planet, because they can’t and don’t and won’t uproot this capitalist system.

We set up in places where lots of people were passing through. People stopped to talk to us off of the agitation or seeing the banner. We worked as much as possible to bring groups of people to talk with us and each other to start bringing people into working on the problems of the revolution. This ranged from two-three people to at most four-five. We were not able to get a whole scene going of people in a mass speakout or anything like that. The people coming up were really open to talking about socialism and communism and BA and the new communism. Many, as we got deeper into things, wanted to know more about how a real revolution could be made and what to do now to work towards getting there, and many were interested in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America

In the discussions people did begin to speak to each other, agreeing and disagreeing, and learning from each other, including connecting with people from different backgrounds and experiences. One thing interesting and important was seeing how people sorted out in relation to each other. In the different groupings, there were people who stepped forward who were clearly more drawn to actual revolution and a new state power than others and were more deeply drawn into things through the course of some disagreements with others who were more going in different directions. Which also had a positive impact on those other people, much different than had these been one-on-one discussions with us.

In one discussion a woman suddenly got clear that we were talking about an actual overthrow and establishing a new society and was very excited about this and explained that to everyone else who walked up to join the conversation. Her friend was asking about how this would affect indigenous people, and when this was put back to them about how they saw the contradiction, some other people who joined in for a little bit were arguing that any attempt at a new society would need to ask the indigenous people for permission first. We came back to humanity and the whole system and not proceeding from the interests of any one people and the woman who was really excited about actual revolution was seeing the difference of these things and disagreeing with the people who were more narrowly talking about indigenous people as the measure of everything.

In another discussion, after watching the trailer of BA, one person said he’s backing Bernie, but sees that doesn’t get us all the way where we need to go. After that another person responded more directly to the trailer, saying what stood out to him was “this is a difficult road.” He agreed, but also that it is necessary. He stayed to talk much longer and a woman who is more drawn to Zapatista-style “anarcho-communism” joined in. We talked about several different problems of the revolution and the guy was getting a deepened understanding of and interest in the new communism, while the woman was not sure she really wanted to go there, but remained open.

In several discussions, either one-on-one or in groups, we were putting the problem to people of this revolution and BA needing to be more widely known’ having greater impact in society and building the organized forces for this—and all pretty concretely in answer to questions from people about how do we get to being able to make this revolution that they were starting to see is needed. One person on our team read the POAs with a number of people and worked with people on how do those POAs get taken up and fought for, including that they can begin to do that now. We also talked with some people about the urgent question of people getting into the streets to drive out Trump/Pence, getting their thinking on that and working to enlist them in contributing to the active social investigation/challenge of that question, in relation to assessing Refuse Fascism calling for week after week… and whether people will respond at this point. On all these problems, people were contributing their thinking and some agreed to help work on them in various ways going forward.

New York

Some notes on responses, section of people were drawn and the fact that capitalism is the problem was resonating with people even as they didn’t fully understand what that meant. When we broke it down more sections of people would be trying to follow and listening. There were some people who resonated with the anti-capitalism and some who didn’t know what they thought, understood something is wrong and wanted to hear the argument. When we agitated about B.E.B. and green new deal there was actual listening and some were attracted. People were trying to evaluate this. Communism was a question people brought up a number of times. Many and most people, a lot of whom were young, were there to save the planet—didn’t see themselves as doing protest as usual. They were very concerned about why and how to do something and searching for answers.

In addition to points above, overall agitators had different strengths and weaknesses, but overall one thing to examine is how we were fighting to make more palpable that we are calling on people to get organized for this revolution NOW, the “Six Points of Attention For the Revolution,” and joining and starting clubs. There was some good putting forward what we have, BA, including on the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America and how it would deal. There was also broadening out the “5 STOPS.” Points from statement on American parasitic consumer society, and that the Military biggest contributor and enforcer of system responsible—global problem. At different points in the agitation we made the point about this, and this was an important challenge that for many couldn’t be dismissed, and was an attractive edge to some.

DC

With a very small team, we did live agitation in the paths where people came streaming in, chanting, “There is no Planet B—REVOLUTION IS WHAT WE NEED!” We drew forward anti-fascists and anarchists and democratic socialists to come and talk to us. We did agitation as the march began, snaking through and agitating about why we need an actual revolution and the need to drive out this fascist regime by pouring our efforts into getting the millions we need into the streets, which is the only way you can drive out a fascist regime. People chanted with us and took flyers including the 5-2-6 broadsheet, and we drew a crowd when we did agitation on the side of the Capitol building that pointed to the fact that there is a fascist in the White House, and we can do what they did in Puerto Rico and Hong Kong, but none of the “5 Stops” could be resolved under this system, and that’s why we are on a National Revolution Tour getting organized for an actual revolution to put an end to the same system that produced a Donald Trump. More people drew closer and pulled out their camera phones to record when a policeman came up to the agitator to stop the agitation, but he had to back away when the agitator called out what they were doing and more people began crowding the agitation.

Two female high school students, one white and one Black, came up as we were walking past with the poster board of the cover of REVOLUTION Newspaper featuring the National Tour as its cover. The young Black student said they ran up to us because there was nothing else there like the poster board we had that was as honest and was so straight-up as this that was calling out the reforms and was about getting rid of this whole system. We organized people on their social media on the spot.

LA

[Chants from the Revolution Club LA:]

There is no planet B
Revolution is what we need
They’re killing all the bees
Revolution is what we need
They’re cutting all the trees
Revolution is what we need
They’re poisoning the seas
Revolution is what we need
They’re polluting the air we breathe
Revolution is what we need
Endangered species
Revolution is what we need

Capitalism is destroying our planet
Only a real revolution can save it

I did a lot on internationalism, agitating about it (including war threats to Iran) and doing call and response around America first vs. humanity and the planet come first. And American lives are not more important than other people’s lives. All this really resonated with people, and people took it up with enthusiasm. Although one chant that did not really get taken up was the “America was never great" one. Also, as part of fleshing out the reform vs. revolution thing, did a lot of call and response on Republicans are fascists (which everyone chanted) and Democrats are party of war crimes and crimes against humanity (some people uncomfortable and looking around to see who else is doing it, while others more unleashed).

Also did some things like this: If you’re tired of all these lying politicians and the solutions they give you that are really no solution, lemme get a fuck capitalism [fuck capitalism!]. If you know recycling and changing your lightbulbs and driving an electric car ain’t gonna do shit, lemme get a fuck capitalism [fuck capitalism!]. If you don’t want to live in a system based on the competitive chase for profit, where money is more important than people, lemme get a fuck capitalism [fuck capitalism!]. If you don’t want to live in a country that has 5% of the world’s population but consumes 25% of the world’s resources, lemme get a fuck imperialism [fuck imperialism!]. A country that exploits and pollutes the rest of the world, backed up by the U.S. military... etc [fuck imperialism]. At one point we had a crowd of youth chanting “Fight for humanity, fight for the planet, fuck the military, join the Revolution Club!” Off of all this we would try to organize people to make all this real and sign up with the club (the text service) over the bullhorn, which didn’t work so well.

All of this did have a big impact on the crowd. In addition to the many people who chanted along, someone observed that for about 5-10% of the people it was like they had found their group when they saw/heard us. Some of these people were already radicalized youth, like a couple who wanted to sign up as soon as they heard us indict U.S. imperialism. But it was mainly people who fall in the category of “those who are fed up with this society and its solutions that are no solutions” even while still being in the framework of those non-solutions (having never heard anyone challenge those non-solutions before). One young woman (wearing a Green New Deal t-shirt and carrying a Bernie sign) came up to us after the march to thank us, saying that she’s worried about what’s gonna happen in the next election, and that us being out there gave her hope that no matter what happens with these politicians we can still make a change.

600 of these provocation flyers got out at the Climate Strike in LA from Revolution Club’ LA

 

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