One person who stopped said, "This is a very powerful art piece," and many remarked that it was appropriate because the situation with the planet is extreme and they were interested in what the flyer said. Some people also came by to "defend" capitalism, but walked away when we stayed in character and on message. 

We want to do this same action again in other locations. It had radical simplicity that we can keep learning from and improving (including by making fund raising more integral to our efforts). We are continuing to challenge ourselves and others to find creative ways to take out BA's messages, to jolt people awake and get them to look at reality and turn their heads to the only emancipating alternative to all this madness.

We incorporated creative ways to catch people’s attention with this message. At the music event, we pinned pieces of long fabric to our clothes displaying colorful slogans, “In the name of humanity we refuse to accept a fascist America” and “This whole system is rotten and illegitimate, We Need and We Demand a Whole New Way to Live, a Fundamentally Different System.” We were like elegant walking sandwich boards. At the gallery event, we used a projector outside to run clips from @BobAvakianOfficial #102 as well as a video introducing people to BA and calling on them to donate to get these messages everywhere. 

It was important and effective to do this kind of experimentation.  To raise serious funds, you do have to talk to people individually. But we were trying to think about how to have a bigger impact on the scene as a whole -- to shake things up and attract the advanced.

We're not sure why, but the audiences were pretty different in terms of the kinds of responses we were getting.  While a number of people appreciated the signs we were wearing, the audience at the music event had a lot more people who didn’t really want to confront the reality of fascism coming to power and were bound by trying to find ways to live with it.  But there were some more serious people who wanted to talk and were open to hearing what BA is arguing right now.  At the gallery event, we found a lot more agonizing and angry about Trump, but also people who have had it with this whole system (however they understand that spontaneously).  There were very thoughtful people wanting to talk about not keeping things confined to the terms of this system, in some cases reading Bob Avakian’s message on the spot, and wanting to know more about how it could be possible to make the revolution we’re talking about. 

At both events, there was a need to really bring forward the struggle Bob Avakian is waging with people when he says, “so long as things are on the terms of this system—and limited within the confines of this system—the fascists will have initiative which decent people cannot have.” Posing this sharply up against what people are thinking broke open discussions of a more serious and radical character.  And we put the need for funds central to our conversations, asking people to donate so that Bob Avakian's voice can reach millions. We also wielded copies of We Need and We Demand: A Whole New Way to Live, a Fundamentally Different System since there were big questions about whether a different world is possible, and questions about the new communism that Bob Avakian has developed.

We met a number of people who gave us a way to follow up with them for serious  discussions about donating to this.