Tenacity:
“Really the world is a pretty good place.”. . . “C’mon man. . . It’s a nightmare, but it doesn’t have to be this way.”

November 19, 2013 | BA Everywhere | revcom.us 

Letter from a reader,

I had a recent discussion about BA Everywhere that I wanted to share with your readers. BA Everywhere is the mass campaign to raise major funds to project Bob Avakian's vision for a radically new society and his works into every corner of society. This was a brief exchange with someone who is propertied and I thought was a good example of how you can join – very briefly – the differences people are raising and bring it back to the need for BA Everywhere.

I just had a couple minutes with him. We were at an event where there was discussion about mass incarceration, and in particular the imprisonment of those later found to be innocent. I introduced myself to him and referenced the event that just happened, saying something about how this was just one of many reasons we need a revolution and need to examine revolutionary solutions, and I said that I would like to talk with him about the revolutionary leader, Bob Avakian and the fundraising campaign to get his work throughout society. He responded that he wasn’t sure that was the case (the world needing revolution), there are things like The Innocence Project or these people who have been let off. “Really the world is a pretty good place.” I responded with something like, “C’mon man, the world may not be able to sustain human life for much longer because of the deep environmental emergency... billions of people on the planet don’t have enough to eat, with millions dying of curable diseases. It’s a nightmare, but it doesn’t have to be this way.”

He did agree with this, and then I added that all this is coming from a system and he said, “What system?” I explained: a system of capitalism-imperialism, a system of mass exploitation and profit above all else. He answered, “Yeah, but what else is there? Communism has certainly failed.” He went on that he thinks people should be allowed to fail and communism doesn’t allow that and it attempts to make things too monolithic. I answered briefly: “First, I’m sorry but you’re just wrong about communism – its history and even what it means. This was an emancipatory, if too brief, lived period in human history. And second, you should get into the work of Avakian, the leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party who has brought forward a new synthesis of communism, building on the best of that history but also where there were shortcomings and errors.” I added, “Look, in our society, people aren’t ‘allowed to fail,’ they are crushed in body and spirit at every turn, they are tracked and forced into failing at every turn.”

He replied, “Yeah, but maybe this is just human nature.” “No, it’s not,” I said, “the only thing you can say about human nature is its great plasticity, human nature has changed qualitatively in different societies at different times in human history.” He actually agreed with this and said he thought I was right.

He added that maybe one thing we could agree on is that there are just too many people on the planet, and we need some kind of population control. I said that the ironic thing is that there are actually enough resources on the planet to meet the needs of everyone alive today, but the problem is the system that is enforced – which rests on exploitation and generates these huge global differences and mass immiseration. He said he didn’t agree, and repeated his last argument about there being too many people on the planet and the need for some kind of population control. That maybe China has gotten this right, including now they fine people for having more than two kids. I explained first that China has been a capitalist country for 40 years as socialism was reversed there in ’76, but then said what it is a good example of is that any changes you make along these lines – without uprooting the system of capitalism – go through these old relations of exploitation and oppression, and if you look at it now, there is mass female infanticide^* in China.

He responded, “Ok, but what would you replace it with.” I had in my hand a copy of the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America (Draft Proposal) and handed it to him. He read the title out loud and laughed, saying, “Oh, pretty good.” I explained that this was a concrete and sweeping framework for a whole different state power and a whole different system and that it’s foundation is the work that Avakian has done – there really is a different way the world can be. He said he would definitely look through it, and thanked me. Also, somewhere through this part of the discussion, I talked about the suffocating terms of everything in society and how we are working to change that right now through BA Everywhere – changing what people think is possible in terms of human society and revolution.

I returned to what I opened the discussion with, that we are in the midst of a major fundraising campaign – BA Everywhere... Imagine the Difference It Could Make – to get Avakian’s vision and works out into society in a major way, to really change very broadly what people see as possible and desirable, to really uncork exactly this kind of debate and discussion. I said: “You don’t have to agree with everything I’m arguing for, but breaking this open throughout society can make a huge difference,” and I said some more about this. I also said I’d like to talk with him more seriously about this. He answered that he would look through what I gave him. I also gave him my business card which he put in the Constitution. I asked again if he had a manager, publicist, agent... someone I could really follow up with? He did then tell me where I could follow up, and I asked again, “and it will really get to you there?” He said, “Yes;” and we shook hands goodbye. As he was walking away, he said with a smile, “I’ll say one thing, you’ve certainly got tenacity.” And thanked me.

I've now written a follow up letter where I talked more about BA Everywhere and asked for an appointment where we could talk more seriously about BA Everywhere and about giving a contribution to impact society in a major way.

* Editor's note: The letter uses the term "infanticide," but what is actually being referred to is gender-specific abortion and other anti-woman measures, not actual infanticide. [back]