People came from across SoCal to attend the opening night of the protest art collective Indecline's first solo gallery show in downtown LA. The revcoms had a broad impact on this crowd—introducing people to Bob Avakian's voice and leadership, straight up—distributing hundreds of copies of Bob Avakian's social media dispatch, REVOLUTION #81: Why I Am Not Running for President.
The audience was mainly a punk and street art scene—anti-fascist and anti-Trump but largely tuned out and/or cynical about the possibility for fundamental change, but very open to hearing an argument about real revolution.
This crowd is attracted to the creative and satirical way Indecline's art creatively challenges the status quo. (And the art itself was interesting and in-your-face but worth a reflection in its own right.)
Using a car battery, a loud speaker, and projecting a few illustrated video excerpts from Bob Avakian's message from the roof of a pick up truck got people's attention in a way just flyering would not have done. This was a great thing to do! There really is nothing like getting Bob Avakian's voice in front of people—straight and direct with so much sharpness and undeniable hard hitting revolutionary substance.
About 85% of the crowd (approximately 850 people) got the flyer for REVOLUTION #81, many read it in line and stopped to talk, ask questions or responded to the call to be recruited into this revolution.
We were arguing for people to follow, and donate to have an impact with @BobAvakianOfficial and this social media dispatch. And a few people did donate. But we summed up that we needed to make the call for funds even sharper. There were a couple times in the night when a long line amassed out front and we should've concentrated our forces right then and there—with an ideological challenge on where people spend their money, and why giving to the campaign to spread @BobAvakianOfficial is the most important thing to spend money on. This wasn't a monied crowd, but we think could've opened up the debate even more.