Revolution #223, January 23, 2011
A letter to raise funds for:
BAsics, from the Talks and Writings of Bob Avakian
Editors’ Note: The following letter was developed by volunteers working on BAsics, from the Talks and Writings of Bob Avakian. Download this letter from revcom.us and get it out broadly to raise urgently needed funds for the publication of this book. Money orders can be made out to RCP Publications.
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The whole point of principle is that you have to fight for it when it is not easy to do. There is no need for principle if the only time it is applied is when it doesn’t matter.
The above quote is from Bob Avakian. There’s plenty more where that came from!
BAsics, from the Talks and Writings of Bob Avakian—a book of quotations as well as several powerful short essays from Avakian—is set to be released in the spring of 2011. Your generous financial support is needed to ensure that this important book gets out into the world and into the hands of people being beaten down in this society and people who hate the injustices being inflicted around the world and wonder what if anything could be done to end them.
Who is Bob Avakian? He is many things: The Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party; the most radical revolutionary on the planet; someone Cornel West has called “a long distance runner in the freedom struggle against imperialism, racism and capitalism”; a wide-ranging thinker and provocative commentator on art and science, religion and philosophy, doo-wop and basketball; a leader whose sense of humor is as sharp as his hatred for oppression is fierce. Most of all, Avakian is the person who has devoted decades to deeply studying the experience of earlier revolutionary societies and has developed a new vision of the kind of world that could be brought into being through revolution... and he is the leader of the movement for revolution in the U.S.
BAsics... will make Avakian’s work accessible, concentrating more than 30 years’ work on everything standing between humanity and complete emancipation into a concise book of essential quotes and seminal short essays. This book needs to get out broadly in society. It can dramatically change the way people look at the world and the prospect of radical change. There are plans to send 2,000 copies to people in prison, and funds are urgently needed to cover the cost. We need to place ads in newspapers, magazines and on the Internet. BAsics..., and through it Avakian’s work overall, becoming known broadly in society can help lift the lid on today’s suppressed social imagination, helping many more people to see that things don’t have to be this way; that radical change is not only necessary, but possible. Your financial contribution will help make all this possible.
Think about inner city youth—brutalized, and even killed by police; incarcerated in staggering numbers; sacrificed by a military that sends them around the world to kill, rape, and torture; driven to crime and violence against one another by the desperation and misery this system imposes on them; enticed with the supposed allure of “getting theirs” in a dog-eat-dog world; constantly degraded and objectified if they happen to be born female; viciously persecuted if they are lesbian or gay; and repeatedly hit with the message that any attempts to fundamentally change the world are “naive” and “unrealistic.”
Imagine these youth discovering this quote from Avakian:
No more generations of our youth, here and all around the world, whose life is over, whose fate has been sealed, who have been condemned to an early death or a life of misery and brutality, who the system has destined for oppression and oblivion even before they are born. I say no more of that.
Imagine this quote being read aloud, posted and discussed in high-school cafeterias, on Facebook pages or in college dorm rooms. Imagine lively debates about the true nature and history of this country in the back of school buses, or in the hallways of housing projects, or campus coffee shops. Think about people from all walks of life, in the cities, suburbs and rural areas wrestling with a scientific understanding of what it would take to build a far better world and what they can be doing now to build that world.
Consider what it would mean for humanity for BAsics... to get out into the world. For people to discover this revolutionary leader who not only has a deep understanding of the root cause of all this madness but also knows the way out, and who has taken responsibility for leading all the way through. Consider all this and help make it happen by making a generous financial contribution.
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