BA Everywhere Fundraising—6 Days to Reach $20,000
All Out to Bring Growing Numbers into Filling the Greatest Need Humanity Faces!

by Sunsara Taylor | July 9, 2013 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

The following are some thoughts I wanted to share with readers of revcom.us/Revolution newspaper, off of taking out BA Everywhere—the campaign to spread the liberating vision and framework for a radically new world brought forward by Bob Avakian—and linking that with the movement to End Pornography and Patriarchy: The Enslavement and Degradation of Women.

I want to say straight up that I am writing this because it is an urgent need—and a truly great opportunity—right now for everyone who cares about the future of humanity to take part in raising $20,000 for BA Everywhere by July 15 (just six days from now).

This is a great need because without millions increasingly engaging and lifting their sights to what BA has brought forward, and growing numbers of people actively taking it up and joining the movement for revolution on that basis, the world will remain as it is—with this system grinding up the lives of millions and crushing spirits on a truly mass and monstrous scale every day.

This is a great opportunity because asking people to give and to get involved in raising this $20,000 is a means through which we can take what BA is about, and the vision of what difference BA Everywhere can make, to many new people—beginning this process of engagement with them, transforming relationships with them, and concretely growing our capacity to change the world on an even bigger scale at a truly critical time.

Let me explain...

It is hard to think of a time in recent years when there were more truly big things and truly huge contradictions of the system we live under intensifying and erupting all at once. From the eruptions of protest in Brazil and Turkey to the U.S.-backed coup and turmoil in Egypt... from the extremely "intense calm" as millions are riveted by the trial of Trayvon Martin's vigilante killer to the heroic hunger strike now underway by prisoners in California... from the trial of Bradley Manning to the self-sacrificing revelations by Edward Snowden of massive spying by the U.S.... from the massive explosions of "natural gas" and destruction in Quebec to the sharpening up of the struggle over women's right and access to abortion in state houses across the country... it is dizzying trying even to keep up with major developments.

Yet these are precisely the kinds of times that should most bring revolutionaries alive! These are times when people are shaken out of their normal routines and more open to hearing, thinking about, and engaging the biggest questions of why the world is the way it is and what, if anything, can be done to change it radically and in the interests of humanity.

No one has answers to these questions like BA (Bob Avakian). As it has been put many times and quite scientifically: "Because of Bob Avakian and the work he has done over several decades, summing up the positive and negative experience of the communist revolution so far, and drawing from a broad range of human experience, there is a new synthesis of communism that has been brought forward—there really is a viable vision and strategy for a radically new, and much better, society and world, and there is the crucial leadership that is needed to carry forward the struggle toward that goal."

This is what humanity needs more than anything else—and there is no time like right now to be taking this to people!

At the same time, times like these demand a great deal of different things from a movement for revolution. The Revolutionary Communist Party has a whole strategy for revolution and the movement for revolution is acting on the BIG STAGE NOW overall, and in relationship to many of these faultlines. We are taking responsibility for leading thousands to fight the power and transform the people for revolution, and to reach out to and influence millions in the process. In particular, some of us are out in a big way around the trial of George Zimmerman and around the prisoner hunger strike, and some of us—through the Abortion Rights Freedom Ride set to kick off on July 23—are spearheading a major national counteroffensive to the whole onslaught of laws shutting down access to abortion across the country.

These struggles are essential, and we have spoken elsewhere and repeatedly in our newspaper as to just how urgent it is that masses be drawn forward into these struggles, and to the basis for this to be done and the tremendous impact this can have.

But here what I want to speak to is how urgent it is for ALL OF US—even in the midst of everything else that cries out to be done... actually BECAUSE of the greatest need of all that cries out to be met—to make it our responsibility to fight to fulfill the goal of the current IndieGoGo campaign to raise $20,000 to get vans out around the country to spread BA Everywhere.

On one level, spreading of BA Everywhere raises people's sights and strengthens these major struggles we are involved in. But even more importantly, through all we do as a movement for revolution we need to be increasingly raising people's sights to everything that BA has brought forward... increasingly opening up many thousands more to the method and approach of understanding and acting together to transform the world... spurring mass debate over these most urgent and life-and-death questions for humanity... concretely growing the mass involvement of first hundreds and soon thousands in this effort at spreading BA everywhere as well as the whole movement for revolution.

Forty years ago Roe v. Wade made abortion legal, and today abortion is more restricted, more stigmatized, and more dangerous to provide than ever before. Fifty years ago Emmett Till was lynched, and today Trayvon Martin was gunned down for wearing a hoodie in the rain. Forty some years ago, a whole generation rose up in revolt against the murderous U.S. war on Vietnam, and today we see the devastation that the U.S. military has brought to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and many other places, including their backing of the recent military coup in Egypt. I could go on and talk about the destruction of the environment, the truly gross and putrid culture, the war against science and critical thinking and a million other things, but I think you get the idea.

Because a real revolution wasn't made, the system that enforces and requires all these horrors is still intact.

So the question is not simply whether people will fight back—although that matters a great deal and we are taking responsibility to ensure that they do. The biggest question of all is whether people will remain trapped under the system that enforces all this horror—or whether we will make revolution and bring into being a better world.

This is what BA has been working on and developing answers to—and this is the possibility that spreading BA Everywhere can open up! Without this, humanity will remain trapped—with unspeakably horrific consequences that we simply cannot allow.

All this is to say that THIS is precisely the time to be going all-out to people with BA and with the vision of BA Everywhere and what difference it can make. What difference it will make for people to begin to understand that these problems don't simply flow from "human nature." What difference it will make for people to see the real-world possibilities of people overcoming the long wounds of white supremacy and living together in a way that not only respects but celebrates diversity and different cultures. What difference it will make for people—including those who have been locked out of any decent education—to be awakened to the scientific method and critical thinking in their engagement with reality and contributions to understanding and changing the world. What difference it will make as the culture comes alive with music and art of rebellion and a spirit of true liberation. What difference it will make for millions to know that, as events in the world continue to shock and awaken them, there is a movement and a leadership fighting for a radically different and far better world that they can hook up with and contribute to, even as they are learning more and coming from their own perspective.

We have already seen, in glimpses, what it means for people to engage BA through the premieres earlier this year of BA Speaks: REVOLUTION—NOTHING LESS! Bob Avakian Live, through last year's BAsics Bus Tours, and in other ways. Much of this is captured powerfully in the video up on the Indiegogo campaign page. Now is the time to take this to a higher level with the funding of the BA Speaks: Revolution—Nothing Less Van Tours taking off from four cities within days.

Giving money to this is an opportunity to be part of something truly historic and something that can transform individual people, whole scenes, and ultimately society and the world as a whole. It really is wrong to deprive anyone of the opportunity to be part of this—and I really mean anyone.

This brings me to a few final points:

1. The big changes erupting in the world are having an effect on everybody. Don't assume that the way people have responded in the past to BA and to the BA Everywhere campaign is the way they will respond now. Whether people's responses have been positive or negative or not-at-all in the past, now is a time for them to deepen and transform. I have experienced very directly the way that the big events in the world have set a context where people have been more open than in the past to what BA is about. This has still required argumentation (not necessarily an "argument") as to why BA is speaking to the greatest need humanity is facing, but there is a lot to bring to bear in how people are visibly straining for a way out and yet continually thwarted precisely because they have been denied exposure to what BA has brought forth. I want to point people's attention to the key editorial on revcom.us and in Revolution this week, "All Out to Raise Funds for the BA Speaks: Revolution Nothing Less! Bob Avakian Live Summer Van Tours." And I found the piece "Filling the Greatest Need Facing Humanity: The World Emancipating Urgency of BA Everywhere!" very helpful and worth bringing to bear in my discussions with others.
2. Often people think that you can only go and ask people to donate to something they are already convinced of or partisan to, so the spectrum of people they approach ends up being fairly narrowed and constrained. In reality, a fundraising campaign is a perfect vehicle to introduce people to something for the first time. It is more than fine to just call someone up or get together with them and say directly, "I want to talk to you about donating to an effort that is filling the greatest need humanity is currently facing. Let me tell you a little about it..." and go from there. Think of everyone you know who cares about humanity's fate—whether you've met them through a particular aspect of the movement for revolution or through your personal or professional/work life—and then set aside some time to talk to them about this and ask them for a specific contribution.
3. A lot of people are very uncomfortable asking others for money. Remind yourself that you are not asking them for money as a personal favor. You are asking them to join you in filling a great need and making something truly liberating happen. Think about how infrequent it is for people to be given the chance to really have an impact on the future of the world and how many meaningless and truly degrading things people constantly are asked or required to put their money towards. By bringing them this campaign and asking them to donate, you are opening up a deep engagement over the conditions and future of humanity, and you are giving them a way to join with others in having an impact much greater than they could have on their own.

Do not only go to people you expect will say yes. The fact that most people aren't thinking about revolution and communism is precisely what we are fighting to change with this campaign, so bringing this to new people for whom this wasn't already on their minds is not a distraction. Some will say yes and this will mean a great deal. Some will have questions and ideas about others you can go to. But even for those who say no, taking this to them in a serious way will transform the way they are thinking about the aims of this movement for revolution. And then all of this—the money that we raise, the relationships that we transform, the new people who are opened up to this for the first time—will be part of the bigger and growing sections of people who are aware of and watching and contributing to the ongoing fight to raise even bigger funds in the future, to project BA Everywhere and to make major leaps and advances in the whole movement for revolution.

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