From A Former Prisoner Who's Answering the Call to Contribute to "1000 Years - $1000 for BA Everywhere"

May 30, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

I'm a former prisoner who's answering the call to contribute to "1000 Years - $1000 for BA Everywhere." I'm also extending a challenge to everyone who hates and wants to eliminate the many outrages that unceasingly flow from the capitalist-imperialist system - or anyone who hates to see injustice go unchallenged - to match not just the amount I'm raising, but all that will be given by prisoners, ex-prisoners, and their loved ones. All those that haven't been directly affected by the mass incarceration of Black and Brown people need to step forth and answer this call, but it's also urgent for those who remain behind the walls I left to answer this call as well.

There is an important role that prisoners can play by answering this call. The "BA Everywhere" campaign is a mass fundraising campaign aiming to make Bob Avakian and the leadership he concentrates known throughout all society, it's about putting REAL revolution back on the ideological map in order to prepare the ground for a revolutionary rising that has a solid basis and a real chance of winning. I'm aware that prisoners have very limited funds and that is why it would be so meaningful for prisoners themselves to answer this call. If those locked down in the hellholes of this nation of cages, who have so fucken little as it is, can come up with ways to raise a dollar for every year they've spent in prison, they could have a resonating impact not only on our fund-raising efforts out here on the streets, but also in the overall work we are doing in building the movement for a REAL revolution.

This isn't about raising money for some feel-good-about-yourself charity that doesn't change shit, this is about filling the great need to raise the consciousness of the masses to a level that, when conditions are right, opens up the possibility to meet, defeat, abolish, and dismantle the repressive forces and institutions that have targeted and hounded us on the street, decided our fate with the mere hit of a gavel, and held us in torturous conditions for years on end. Huge chunks of our lives have been stolen from us, while the real criminals - those BA has said make the godfather look like Mary Poppins - remain free to plunder and exploit, bomb and invade whole countries whenever and wherever they feel the need to pursue their interest, the interest of their horrid capitalist-imperialist system. Despite the horrible consequences pursuing those interests have on innocent children and humanity as a whole, these monstrous criminals never have to worry about setting foot in one of those cages that currently hold more than 2 million people.

I'm making the years that have been stolen from me count for something that will really matter, but I want to make the years that have been stolen from my family members, childhood friends, cellmates, and other people I got close to while in prison count as well. However, adding up all those years is overwhelming in more ways than one. The list of people I jotted down and the number of years they've spent in prison up until now is incomplete. I started adding from the 17 years I did until I got up to 324 years before giving up - there are more people and a lot more years that need to be counted. I'm pledging to donate $200 (of the $324 goal) and I'm doing it to help spread BA's vision, strategy, and leadership in every corner of society so as to increase our chances of making real breakthroughs in our mission to sweep this heartless system off the face of the earth and bring a truly liberating world into being. A world where there will be not just no more of our youth in the inner cities robbed of a future, killed at an early age or destined for prison, but where there will be no more children unnecessarily dying from hunger and preventable disease the world over. Raising money to get BA known everywhere is part of bringing that world into being.

I want to call on all those who can find the means to help me reach the goal of $324 and then others to match the full amount. And I especially want to call on prisoners to make their own years count as well because of the inspiring effect they can have in answering this particular call, "1000 Years--$1000 for BA Everywhere." I want to urge you to not just raise money but to become actively involved in building the movement for revolution-inside and outside the walls that hold you. Contributing to this project can be one of the first steps you take on a road full of struggle and sacrifice but also full of the great joy that comes from making your life about something that is really worth living for and fighting for. As BA said in his new year's message, "The challenge is there. The leadership is there. What's needed… is you."

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