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Houston, May 28

Breaking into New Avenues for Fundraising

Our fundraising efforts up to this point had some difficulties breaking into new terrain. The Revolution article “Two Key Things to Do” made some helpful and thought-provoking points, including the orientation of taking the “fundraising letter from Sunsara Taylor  to universities, community colleges, and so on that are still in session… go to bookstores… go to programs addressing critical issues or artistic events that are dealing with important questions… and get this out and spread the word about The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show special showing on May 26 of Sunsara Taylor’s May 24 speech at UCLA. Raise money utilizing her letter.” 

This is a preliminary report on that experience, but one to build on.  We have to better figure out how to break through some of the overt indifference or cynicism we encounter, quickly and sharply pose the challenges.

So, we made plans to break into new terrain in building for the RNL showing of Sunsara Taylor’s talk in Los Angeles, including holding a local group watch party at a coffee shop on Friday night. Over the past week small teams (of two people, sometimes three) went to a collaborative art show raising questions about social justice and an immersive dance performance celebrating the ethos of 1968, plus a couple of high schools as they entered the last week of classes—one a magnet arts high school that has produced a whole roster of prominent artists, another an inner-city school where one of the most famous graduates is George Floyd. We went to a “Comic Palooza” gathering, and have plans to go to the final showing of the musical “Rent” on Sunday. This was in addition to the material getting up and out at various small businesses in some areas of the sprawling city.

We got out about 1,000 copies of material on the speaking tour, including Sunsara’s fundraising letter, promotion of the special RNL show episode of her speech at UCLA, and 500 copies of the broadsheet. We didn’t raise a lot of cash (only about $50). This is something else we have to do better at, in today’s increasingly “cashless” society: many people said they would be donating online, but few did so on the spot. 

Taking out Sunsara’s fundraising letter and flyer on the RNL show was an exciting experience—it began to open up some people’s thinking, and many were introduced to revolution for the first time. Even the name of the tour itself, “‘Woke’ Lunacy vs. Real Revolution,” really surprised people. Reframing the question from the perspective of the emancipation of humanity was very new to people. Many know that “woke” is under attack from fascists as a way to attack civil liberties, but hadn’t thought of it as an obstacle to bringing into being a better world without oppression and exploitation.

This was all contentious and controversial—especially in the context of relentless attacks by Republi-fascists, including an onslaught of bills in the process of becoming law in the Texas state legislature, many of which are written and presented to the public in the guise of “anti-wokeness.” There was a fair amount of confusion and defensiveness among people.  But when we made it clear that this effort, and calling out “woke lunacy,” is about strengthening the possibilities for an actual revolution, and how “woke” lunacy is both wrong and an obstacle to making revolution, it opened up the thinking of many people on a number of different questions.

A young white guy said that the title “Woke is a destructive force…”  just pissed him off, until he started reading the flyer and then said “this is great.”  He’d never heard about the revcoms, and would donate.  A number of people talked about their personal experiences and how suffocating the culture is.  For example, a Black man said that it's like people are so sensitive now, you have to watch what you say or you might get cancelled. Where is our freedom of speech? It's not like back in the day when you could really speak your mind. There were a few young people who were trying to figure out how the “wokeness,” standing for social justice turned into what it is today.  Many people talked about how divisive it is, when what we need is unity to fight against the injustice, especially now.  Some people understood it as another form of hate.  Especially some younger people recognized the features of woke lunacy, and when contrasted with revolution, and when they saw the "'woke' identity politics hustlers vs revolutionary communists" poster, it resonated with them. 

WOKE" IS A BAD JOKE! Spitting On The People & Furthering This Capitalist Nightmare!

On Friday night, we held a small RNL watch party featuring Sunsara Taylor’s talk at UCLA.  $230 was raised at the party.  We only had a brief time after the show ended before our venue closed, but in that time there was some animated discussion on things like the relation between continuing the $100,000 fund-raising effort and getting out the message of Revolution and the broadsheet to places and protests where people are protesting things like the state of Texas’s fascist takeover of Houston and Harris County, or the horrors of the County Jail; and whether calling out the “lunacy” of wokeness serves to drive people away from an effort they may otherwise be drawn towards. One person whose interest was piqued by Sunsara’s agitation bought a copy of the Constitution for a New Socialist Republic in North America.

The show definitely energized people to develop further plans collectively and try to find fun ways to raise money during the fund drive. We’re trying to figure out how to turn a couple of ideas that came up–like a “game night” of cards and board games, and a movie night showing “Sir, No Sir” and possibly other movies—into actual fundraisers.

Help Make 2024 Our Year—a Year of Revolution! 
Donate to Revcom.us

From the genocide in Gaza, to the growing threat of world war between nuclear powers, to escalating environmental devastation… the capitalist-imperialist system ruling over us is a horror for billions around the world and is tearing up the fabric of life on earth. Now the all-out battle within the U.S. ruling class, between fascist Republicans and war criminal Democrats, is coming to a head—likely during, or before, the coming elections—ripping society apart unlike anything since the Civil War. 

Bob Avakian (BA), revolutionary leader and author of the new communism, has developed a strategy to prepare for and make revolution. He’s scientifically analyzed that this is a rare time when an actual revolution has become more possible, and has laid out the sweeping vision, solid foundation and concrete blueprint for “what comes next,” in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America

The website revcom.us follows and applies that leadership and is essential to all this. We post new materials from BA and curate his whole body of work. We apply the science he’s developed to analyze and expose every key event in society, every week. Revcom.us posts BA’s timely leadership for the revcoms (revolutionary communists), including his social media posts which break this down for people every week and sometimes more. We act as a guiding and connecting hub for the growing revcom movement nationwide: not just showing what’s being done, but going into what’s right and what’s wrong and rapidly learning—and recruiting new people into what has to be a rapidly growing force.

Put it this way: there will be no revolution unless this website not only “keeps going” but goes up to a whole different level!

So what should you give to make 2024 our year—a year of revolution? 
Everything you possibly can! 
DONATE NOW to revcom.us and get with BA and the revcoms!    

Your donations contribute to:

  • Promotion of BA on social media and the Bob Avakian Interviews on The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show 
  • Strengthen revcom.us as an accessible, secure, robust website able to rise to the challenge of meeting the extraordinary demands of navigating the storms and preparing for revolution in this pivotal, unprecedented year
  • Fund revcoms to travel to national “hotspots,” where extreme contradictions are pulling apart the fabric of this country and creating the possibility of wrenching an actual revolution out of this intensifying situation
  • Expand the reach and coverage of revcom.us
  • Printing and distribution of key Revcom materials including the Declaration and Proclamation