Fundraising Dinners to Celebrate and Spread the Film: BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! Bob Avakian Live
March 30, 2013 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Person after person leaving the premieres of BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! Bob Avakian Live said over and over: "People need to see this." More than 100 DVDs of the film were sold in New York City alone. Wanting others who've been through trials like she has to see the film, one woman said: "I'm going to play this DVD, I bought it, at the shelter—instead of listening to Maury Povich and who's the daddy, not the baby daddy ..."
Over the past two weekends, hundreds of people in 10 cities across the country spent the day—six-and-a-half hours that most couldn't believe went by so fast—absorbed in the film of the talk by Bob Avakian, REVOLUTION–NOTHING LESS! Moved and provoked... their bitter experiences of life under this brutal system spoken to, a deep and challenging analysis of why this shit keeps happening to people here and around the world, struck many in the audience to their core—with people speaking back to the screen in recognition of the hard truths BA spoke. The rooms became hushed with concentration when BA put forward the strategy for revolution and how we could win, for real. It was a day when how people looked at the world was challenged and changed. Many left thinking hard about what to do with what they just experienced, and some with what to do with their lives.
This was a deep experience that can and must be amplified and built on so that people no longer have to live this way. So that the movement for revolution accelerates... the film spreads, watched and shown in housing projects, schools, living rooms, in theaters as well as on the streets and in the parks.
The next important springboard from the experience of premieres to making this real are the fundraising dinners planned for April 5, 6, 13 and 14 across the country. Everyone who saw the film, everyone who planned to see the film but missed it, everyone with a heart for humanity and who the movement for revolution can reach over the next seven days should be at these National BA Everywhere Dinners celebrating the release of BA Speaks: Revolution—Nothing Less! and making plans to spread the film far and wide and raising funds so that this film, this leader, and the vision and plan for revolution are known.
To build for the dinners, the movement for revolution must go back to all the places and among all the people where we built for the premieres. Where groups of people came from neighborhoods, schools, etc., let's sit down and listen to what they have to say, learn deeply what it meant to them: their questions, ideas, hopes, in order to lead them and many others to realize their belief that this film needs to be seen.
The April 5, 6, 13 and 14 dinners are an opportunity to break bread together and renew the experience of the premieres and carry forward the desire people spoke of for others to see this film. The dinners should be built for and they should have the spirit and mission of coming together to make a huge difference in the lives of the people of the world by spreading this powerful talk by BA far and wide—because people need to know there is a way out and there is a leadership to enable them to realize their potential as emancipators of humanity.
People will also come to the dinners because it will make a difference—eating and talking with others, probing further about the problem humanity faces and the solution of real revolution. Grappling with what BA put forward in the film, plans can be taken up and further discussed to make a big impact with the film; people can get hooked up with DVDs on consignment along with selling tips with new ways developed and connections made for everyone to take part, including by joining in raising funds to spread the revolution—letting people know about BA and the new synthesis of communism he has developed.
At the heart of the film is a central theme which captures what this revolution is all about. Bob Avakian says:
"Those this system has cast off, those it has treated as less than human, can be the backbone and driving force of a fight not only to end their own oppression, but to finally end all oppression, and emancipate all of humanity."
Think about this in relation to the potential of the young people standing up proud in newly formed Revolution Clubs at two of the premieres, or in the experience in this reflection by a woman at her first revolutionary event responding to what BA said about "those this system has cast off:"
"That's me. There were certain points in this movie where I was moved to tears because I identified with it. And that quote right there, that's exactly how I feel... [she starts to get really choked up] I feel cast aside. But hopefully getting involved with this group, learning more, actually learning how to apply this, changing my political affiliation, I'm going to, and working from there, whatever I can do to help. I also have a sister who I think will be very interested in this. So I'm going to play the DVD as much as I can."
Such feelings are a beginning. Now they must be given an opportunity to solidify, develop further, and spread to others. This begins in a collective way at the dinners on April 5, 6, 13 and 14.
Building and going forward from the dinners should forge growing BA Everywhere Committees as well as many other avenues into the movement for revolution.
A vision and ambitious plans can be put forward of a spring and summer running into the fall of making BA known everywhere through getting the film way out in the world as the leading edge of pushing the whole movement for revolution forward, becoming a real force that impacts and influences all of society. BA SPEAKS: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! Bob Avakian Live should be foundational—training and forging many people into the revolution.
The dinners should launch a real grassroots movement to get out BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS!. Each city should set specific goals for DVD sales and fundraising to be reached by May 1 as launching efforts to go much wider and bigger during the summer and into the fall.
To do this requires two things in addition to people having DVDs to sell. First, that the BA Everywhere Committees create a real presence of the film in key areas, and eventually citywide, with posters, palm cards, and the DVD being shown and sold widely. One idea is forming small film squads—teams that pick a neighborhood or a school and go out and get posters and promo cards all around, stopping into all kinds of places from bodegas and corner stores to hair salons, bookstores/DVD stores/music stores, art galleries, and jazz clubs, as well as homeless shelters youth centers, etc., connecting people with the film, arranging showings (on the spot and scheduled), and consigning copies of the film so that BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! becomes a social presence and compulsion. This organized grass roots work will encourage all kinds of simple ways for people on their own to be watching, showing and spreading the film.
Second, plans should foster a positive dynamic back and forth between spreading the film through promoting and selling many DVDs and getting going a process of deepening people's understanding of what this revolution is all about by watching and digging into it. And keep in mind: make fundraising an integral part of all these plans.
The dinners should aim for everyone to leave with a T-shirt, DVDs of the film to get out to others, and lots of buttons to sell. The buttons have the potential to become a mass phenomenon. Together with the image pin, they make a serious revolutionary fashion statement contributing to making BA and the revolution a happening thing that people want to know about.
Let's have a great time at these dinners, which need to be a further big step in building the movement for revolution.
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