Revolution #269, May 20, 2012
Four "defiant days": BA Everywhere at work
At my job more than 25 people have BAsics, and over the past few months the beginnings of networks have developed between some of these co-workers. Over the four "defiant days" around May Day we made a good start toward fund raising and spreading awareness and support for the BAsics Bus Tour as it prepares to head into the South with its powerful revolutionary message. Co-workers bought $110.00 in tickets for our local BA Everywhere fundraising dinner on April 29, and donated an additional $635.00 toward the bus tour.
In preparation I went to Revolution Books and bought 10 issues of Revolution #265 with the "We are all Trayvon Martin: The Whole Damn System is Guilty" centerfold, 10 copies of #266 with the beautiful BAsics Bus Tour centerfold and 30 copies of the May 1st issue with Bob Avakian's quotes. I also bought a portable DVD player so that I could show DVDs at work and elsewhere. I downloaded the "Video Fundraising Kit," with three clips—the clip of BA speaking, the interview with Joe Veale, and "Next Stop Revolution" from Los Angeles. (We need many, many copies of these DVDs in the Revolution Books stores for others to see and use—this is really essential.) And I am never without copies of BAsics.
I went out to my co-workers over the course of four days, talking about how, in the wake of the savage murder of Trayvon Martin, tens of thousands of youth and other around the U.S. have stood up, boldly raised their heads and are searching for answers. Millions are suffering and in great turmoil because of the workings of this whole system where for the youth in the hood crime becomes a rational choice.
Most of my co-workers, including the lowest paid workers and professionals, are very down on and judgmental of these youth and the "choices they make." I posed that it's been 60 years since the murder of Emmett Till to the murder of Trayvon Martin and asked what has really changed for Black people? Doesn't this situation cry out for revolution? I showed them the clip on the DVD of Joe Veale and BA speaking—there is a powerful message to these youth and others to pull back the lens and look at the whole world, so "you are not regulating this corner or controlling this hood—you are being regulated" was one of my major themes. The LA Bus Tour clip shows many youth who stop to give their views after seeing the side panel on a public bus: Revolution: Why It's Necessary, Why It's Possible, What It's All About rolling through their neighborhoods day after day for weeks. Most of these youths had apparently not engaged this revolution before, or met its supporters. Yet their views are alive with hope of a better world and revolutionary future and the pain and suffering of their lives under the present system. For the masses in this clip, just seeing this message was very transformative in a beginning sense.
When my co-workers viewed this I would point out that people themselves really needed to check out this talk on the internet but that we also now have BAsics with all that it represents and a bus representing for this revolution and its leader, which contains not commuters like in LA but a core of revolutionaries of varying ages and experience who will be boldly plunging into the South to find tens of thousands who are searching for a way out of this madness. Also that Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution is offering a profoundly "better choice" out of the horrible lives that people are forced into under this system.
Five of my co-workers who are professionals contributed $635.00. Many co-workers bought the 11 tickets to the fundraising dinner. Some of the maintenance workers and I distributed all of the 50 copies of Revolution I had bought, in the course of these few days. I sold five copies of BAsics as well—one of these copies was to someone who did not support the bus tour but wanted to check out BA and then decide what he thinks.
We were able on lunch break or other creative ways to show quick 15-minute viewings of one or two pieces from the DVD on several occasions. Comments of those who supported this effort: An African-born professional who works in the ghetto—"I had no idea anything like this existed in the U.S. I applaud your efforts at educating the youth." He bought BAsics and asked me for a copy of the DVD he could take home. A Black professional—"I used to listen to the Black Panthers when I was young—BA's presence and message is inspiring." A white co-worker who already has BAsics and also Communism and Jeffersonian Democracy—"I don't know if I really agree with BA's message but a bus like this going into the South is still a very good start." A Black co-worker who has BAsics gave $15.00—"Getting this book into the South into the hands of these youth would be really good." A prominent retired professional took BAsics to think about this but then gave it back saying "We both really agree that change on the earth is desperately needed, but communism will never be the answer." She then asked if we could meet for lunch next month and plans to bring a friend who "will probably agree more with you than with me about all of this."
Really this was a great way to celebrate May 1st. Think what it will mean to the people of the earth if we begin to connect thousands with BA and our revolution through the BAsics Bus Tour and all it represents. So this is just a beginning and was a lot of fun!
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