Los Angeles Emergency Organizing Meeting

December 22, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

On Wednesday night, December 21, 68 residents, activists representing several organizations from diverse backgrounds, artists, filmmakers, students, and clergy gathered at the United Methodist Church in LA for an emergency organizing meeting, taking up the call to build and mobilize to say NO! STOP a Trump/Pence Fascist Regime Before It Starts.

The group first watched key speeches from the Emergency Organizing Meeting of the REFUSE FASCISM launch event that took place Monday night in NYC. Rousing applause burst from the crowd at powerfully stated truths presented in these talks, and fiery "boos" and gasps marked the moments in which the coming horrors of this regime were nakedly described. The gravity of this situation and what is at stake in this struggle seemed evident to the entire room by the end of Sunsara Taylor's final speech, marking a solemn atmosphere, of a crowd determined to derail the horrific course of coming fascism, by taking up this struggle with all their intelligence, experience, creativity, and effort.

The meeting was led by Annie Day, a revolutionary communist, along with two co-initiators of this Call: Rev. Frank Wulf, pastor of the hosting church, and Isabel Cardenas, a long-time Salvadoran activist, each of whom sharply described the urgency and necessity of what was being organized that night. Taking inspiration from the presentations, dozens of those in attendance rose to the challenge of contributing ideas and their previous organizing experiences to spread this message and call to resistance throughout the city.

Taking from the itinerary for the Month of Resistance set forth by Carl Dix and other presenters, those present quickly worked to hammer out several concrete plans of actions and a time line for key demonstrations, walkouts, and gatherings. Seemingly endless proposals came forward from the crowd, and those able to contribute and participate in these plans linked together and exchanged contact information and set dates to meet up, ensuring then and there that these efforts wouldn't start and end at this meeting, but go on to materialize into action. Those with talents of web and graphic design, visual art, and social media coordination came forth and volunteered their abilities to this critically important struggle. By the end of the meeting everyone left with concrete things to do, places and dates to meet up and carry forth these efforts. Social media plans were developed, plans to get “NO!” spread all over the city through posters and outreach to artists, outreach to networks of religious institutions of different faiths over the next two days, and fundraising efforts begun. A door-to-door canvassing team was assembled which will focus THIS Friday night on the bars of West Hollywood, which will be crowded with people right before the holiday. A filmmaker volunteered to produce short videos for YouTube and social media. A local artist contributed a painted banner design utilizing the "NO!" message behind a painting of Yoda from Star Wars. People volunteered to contact media outlets to run ads and segments spreading the “NO!” and refusefascism.org and the Call. A graphic designer will design and contribute custom stickers to spread the message throughout the city. And literally dozens of further contributions were volunteered. The course of the event seemed to give a realistic model of the kind of broad unity and plans of action that MUST be made a reality in cities across this nation in the coming month.

We finalized the plans for the New Year's Eve protest and for Saturday, January 14, which we're sending to the refusefascism.org website! The only Trump property in LA is a golf course in a place that's hard to get to. So instead, we're protesting at Breitbart's headquarters, 6:00 pm on New Year's Eve. This will culminate in a march through West Hollywood, which will be VERY populated. There were other important ideas and plans developed to reach other groupings of people gathering for New Year's Eve celebrations. Then on Saturday, January 14, converge on City Hall in a protest that doesn't stop!

$744 was raised for materials and people took stacks of posters and flyers in the thousands.

 

 

For full coverage and the current issue of REVOLUTION click here

Volunteers Needed... for revcom.us and Revolution

Send us your comments.

If you like this article, subscribe, donate to and sustain Revolution newspaper.