This week, the Revolution Club in Los Angeles pulled together by Zoom a newly forming “RNL Circle.” RNL circles are collectivities of club members and others checking out the club, coming together weekly to watch The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show, discuss it, and work together to apply what we’re learning there.
This gathering included four people who have all come forward in relation to the fight for abortion rights in the last couple of weeks, two members or close supporters of the club, and members of the National Get Organized for An ACTUAL Revolution Tour who led the discussion after the show.
We used the time waiting for the show to go live for people who hadn’t met to introduce themselves and talk a bit informally. This helped forge a sense of collectivity and gave people a chance to talk about things like what it meant to be learning about a way to act around the attack on abortion rights, and beginning to see the ways that old ways of thinking are coming up even in their personal lives.
The show was Episode 93, “War in Ukraine & War on Women: Dangerous Times, Fearless Truth, Raising Hell & Getting to the Root.” After we watched it, people shared what they were getting from it. There was a lot of appreciation for how the show shined a light, and gave much-needed perspective, about the situation in Ukraine, what the “no-fly zone” is about, and how to understand the way people’s sentiments are being directed. A number of people expressed feeling like the show was having them confront some things about reality that they either don’t know, or are at times afraid to confront. This was connected, in part, to the fact the people usually don’t see any hope or possibility in confronting the real dangers of things like WWIII or nuclear war.
Connected to that, the different segments featuring Bob Avakian were something that really spoke to people watching the show, and it was also very important to people to see again what was done on International Women’s Day, the continued inspiration this provided, as well as the desire to see this grow and spread so that women don’t have to keep fighting these same battles for what should be basic rights.
Members of the Revolution Club also shared some of their own reflections from the show, and the importance of these RNL circles—coming together to understand what’s driving things, what is a revolution, what does it involve, what is it aiming for... and getting organized together. So we got concrete about how people could share this show with others, following @TheRevcoms to spread this on social media, and we came back to taking up the fight to Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights, coming to the upcoming meeting and brainstorming on taking this fight out to others. We encouraged people to come back together next week for the next show and to further what we have started together.
