We're almost 25% to meeting the financial goal of $20,000 to raise funds to reach millions with the current series that Bob Avakian (BA) is running on his social media platform, @BobAvakianOfficial: A Profound Fight for the Soul of Black People: A Defeated People—Or, A Revolutionary People? and to fund an LED billboard truck to roll through the streets of Springfield, OH spreading Bob Avakian's voice and leadership.
Funds have been raised through phone calls and text messages, bake sales and tabling. We want to learn from all this so please send reports, comments and questions.
Check out this moving statement from a revcom discussion group of seniors at an assisted living facility who pooled their contributions for a total of $75. They wrote, in part, "Getting BA’s messages into this mix can be a game changer—sharpening the lines and bringing out the truth no matter how uncomfortable it may make some sections of the people. While the $5 that a few of us gave doesn’t sound like much, it’s actually 18% of our vast monthly income of $90. As one of our members poetically put it, 'I don’t have a pot to piss in, but I still donated out of my non-existent pot because it is a cause I believe in.' So we gave from our hearts and from an intense desire to get this understanding from BA to those who can listen, learn and quickly become the thousands who must and can lead the millions. It is really important that YOU do the same.”
In Chicago, the revcoms are building for a discussion of Revolution #91: A Profound Fight for the Soul of Black People: A Defeated People—Or, A Revolutionary People? to take place on October 20. As part of meeting our goal, we want to spend at least $500-$1,000 to advertise for this—to reach people all throughout the Chicago area.
We've been experimenting with different kinds of advertising on YouTube to reach different sections of people.
In total, we spent about $5,500 on YouTube ads over the last week, getting BA's videos in front of two million people with 50,000 watching some or all of these videos. Of these views, more than 2,000 people subscribed to BA's YouTube channel, signifying they want to hear more.
We've been focused on advertising with the current series, Revolution #91, #92 and #93. We've continued to target zip codes in an around Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Of the over 5,000 people who watched the video from these ads, more than 50 people watched a second video from BA, and 32 people added it to their playlist to share with others. Again, these aren't huge numbers, but they show important potential.
We're targeting different "keywords" to reach different kinds of people (like "Ta-Nehisi Coates," or a range of leftist YouTube channels). Please send us your ideas on what kind of "targeting" we should do—with artists, places, topics, or people with larger platforms on social media whose audience we should be reaching.
In addition to the online advertising, with just three weeks away from the nodal point of the 2024 elections, we want to encourage you to pick a couple neighborhoods in your city (or more), and get posters up all over that challenge and provoke people. Go here for posters.
Tell us where you're postering, so we can coordinate online advertising in and around those neighborhoods.
In LA, revcoms have run into people who have seen the signs on freeway overpasses and when they ran into us in person, commented, "Oh I saw that last week! I was wondering what this was about!" Hitting people from multiple angles is key. Especially with the provocative titles from BA's messages (and you can couple that with posters of the visionary declaration from the revcoms, We Need and We Demand: A Whole New Way to Live, a Fundamentally Different System).
Finally, go back to where we started—with the inspiring call from a group of senior citizens. Stack their spirit, selflessness and emancipating determination up against the one billion dollars that have been poured into the sewer of bourgeois politics of Kamala Harris's campaign—a mass incarcerator and mass murderer vying to be commander-in-chief of the American empire. What we are fighting for with this campaign for @BobAvakianOfficial is about reaching millions with the voice of a radically different leader, who has brought forward a radically new framework for human emancipation, and is struggling that:
This is not a time to be siding with one group of oppressors or another. This is a rare time—a very rare opening—a chance that may come only once in a lifetime—a chance to take advantage of the deep divisions among the ruling oppressors and go after their whole system, with the aim of bringing the whole thing down, and putting something much better in its place.