Spreading the Truth in Preparation for Revolution

Far and Wide

From a distributor:

Some of us who distribute Revolution in the Bay Area went to the October 27 demonstration against the war in San Francisco. We wanted to share our experience selling twenty-five subscriptions to Revolution that day.

The people at the demonstration felt a strong compulsion to ACT! And people come to these demonstration link up with like-minded people and in search of answer to some deep questions about just exactly what is behind these dark times of endless war and a culture of Dark-Ages mentality that suppresses any questioning of the status quo.

We were looking forward to connecting up with all kinds of people of all ages and walks of life. Many people didn’t understand the extent of U.S. war moves against Iran, what is driving the U.S. rulers to put the world’s people in such great danger and possible devastation, For that week, there was a very timely issue of the paper with the lead article “Bush the Liar Escalates War Threats Against Iran” that just hit the spot in terms of telling the truth about what the U.S. is up to and fulfilling people’s need to know WHY are the rulers SO determined to go it on with Iran and just WHAT can people do about it.

Our orientation was that we had exactly what people needed – the truth in preparation for revolution. We knew that people would be attracted to the uniquely scientific analysis that this paper has that also serves as a guide to action. We set out with a plan: To zero in on selling subscriptions and raising funds for the paper. Part of the reason that it is important for people to get subscriptions is that the paper is like a tapestry with all these intertwining designs and when you step back from the various designs, what gets revealed is a deeper perspective of the whole tapestry. We were constantly thinking about what a world of difference it would make in people’s lives and how they think and act as conscious human beings if they read this paper every week and went out to change the world based on that understanding.

We were guided in our mission that day by the vision laid out in the “Revolution… Truth in Preparation” fundraising broadsheet and linked that to the various articles in that paper that week. Then we got clipboards with subscription forms, sign-up sheets and stacks of the newspaper and went into the crowd at the Civic Center where the demonstration started. Right away, there were throngs of people entering into the area and we situated ourselves at a good place with displays of enlargements of various front pages and back pages. The enlarged poster from the newspaper on the Jena Six was especially eye catching to many of the youth. One youth walked right up to the poster and studied everything on it. He asked us, “Where do you get news like this? It’s so rare to see.” He pulled out $5 right away to get a 10-week subscription.

We found that youth were particularly eager, but there were also older people who had more political experience who came up to us. One guy came up and said, “Yeah, revolution. That’s what I’m looking for.” As we talked briefly, he said that he was down for a radical upending of this system, but didn’t know how to go about doing it. We said that we had just the thing for him and referenced the “Three Main Points” that’s on the back of the front page of every issue of the paper and also introduced him to the Revolution DVD by Bob Avakian. He said, “Hmm… I’d like to read this all the time,” He bought a one-year subscription and the DVD. Another youth said, “ I came here to rile things up.” Well we had just to thing for him! It’s good to not be complacent and want to rile things up. Let’s do it in a conscious way by reading this paper regularly and getting multiple copies to get out to others.

Some of us went on the march and sold subscriptions along the route. You can do that, but you have to move quickly. The best advertisement for the paper is the paper itself. Hold up the front page or the eye-catching back page poster and be on the lookout for people who are drawn to it. Approach those that are interested right away and give them a short snapshot of the front page. Several subscriptions were sold in the midst of this situation. People would come up to the front page of that issue and point at the picture (showing U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf) and ask, “Is that happening NOW?!” Yes, it’s happening now, and the article by Larry Everest on the desperate reasoning behind it is right in here. By the end of the day, we summed up what we learned and tallied up the number of subscriptions sold. Most of the 25 subscriptions we sold were 10-week subscriptions for $5. These short subscriptions are just great for people who are wanting to check out this point of view and, after this they can get a full year subscription. But don’t get us wrong, getting a one-year subscription would also be great—but some don’t want to make that kind of commitment right at first.

We really encourage all those who want to go out there and change the world for the better in a big or small ways to get with Revolution newspaper—buy a subscription and make arrangements to get a whole stack of this paper and become a spreader of REVOLUTION.

Get a stack of subscription forms from the paper and go out and sign up friends, family, co-workers. This is a great gift for the holidays.

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