Last Wednesday, the Revolution Club in Los Angeles and members of the National Revolution Tour faced off with anti-science fascists at a grocery store that the fascists were targeting for its mask policy.

These fascists made this particular grocery store a target of their attacks after one locally known fascist leader was trying to shop there without a mask on. She harassed the cashiers and other shoppers as the security guard asked her multiple times to leave or put a mask on. They shouted lunatic conspiracy theories and harassed others who watched. After this, they called for a protest claiming this fascist was “attacked.” They especially targeted this one Black security guard with racist threats calling for his lynching and threats of using his own weapons to beat him. These are the same fascists who have organized numerous Trump rallies and who’ve been running around LA maskless storming into shopping centers, screaming at children (including elementary school children) and their parents for wearing masks, attacking patients and health care workers outside of hospitals ... all going unopposed.

They were not unopposed this time!

We showed up in uniform and disciplined, forming up in front of the store. We held placards with the Six Points of Attention for the Revolution in Spanish and English and a banner that said, “Genocidal Civil War OR Emancipating Revolution.” Revealing their rabid American chauvinism, the fact that we had a sign in Spanish drove them crazy. We had palm cards for the major new work, “Something Terrible, Or Something Truly Emancipating: Profound Crisis, Deepening Divisions, The Looming Possibility Of Civil War—And The Revolution That Is Urgently Needed, A Necessary Foundation, A Basic Roadmap For This Revolution by Bob Avakian, Revolutionary Leader, Author of the New Communism.” We were distributing these to let people know who we are, and that we are there to oppose this fascist lunacy as part of getting organized for revolution—and that we have real answers to where these fascists came from, what they are fighting for, and what needs to be done.

Some people, including people who showed up to the store from the corporate office, thanked us for being there. An older Spanish-speaking woman was really happy to see us and said she had seen the fascists on the news screaming in people’s faces without masks. She said she was really glad that FINALLY someone was standing up to them. She took the palm card and said she would look us up. She was afraid of staying too long out there talking to us while the fascists were yelling at us.

The fascists were rabid, saying the ugliest misogynist things to women. They were denying the existence of COVID and denying the deaths from COVID. All this showed very clearly that these people have no regard for human lives.

This was an important first experience at something new that Bob Avakian (BA) describes in “Something Terrible, Or Something Truly Emancipating,” about people coming together to defend each other from fascist attacks. We were speaking to the people watching who are fed up with seeing these fascists running loose attacking everyone they can, leaving a trail of intimidation wherever they go, confusing people and spreading disease and even death. We were speaking to people watching, giving them a scientific understanding of what we are facing, but what are the openings to wrench something truly emancipating out of this situation.

In a situation where these people have just been running around almost entirely unopposed, it was important that a force came out and said "hell no" to all this! On social media some people thanked us, and one person re-tweeted the video with the comment, “Just like that!!!” This does show how people are watching this go down and are sickened by it. We modeled what needs to be done, not just silently watching, but as BA says:

Instead of fighting and killing each other, what people need to be doing now is uniting to defend each other—opposing all unjust violence, not launching attacks on anyone but at the same time not allowing the police or "civilian" fascist thugs to wantonly brutalize and murder people. And people need to do this as part of building up the forces for revolution.