“Field Reports” From Taking Out the Revolution, April 26

April 26, 2019 | revcom.us

 

Over the past several days, the National Tour has continued to go out in Los Angeles, working to draw people into the revolution. From a South Central neighborhood, to campuses, to phone banking: finding the ways for masses of people to come into and work on the problems of the revolution. The Tour is building right now for a picnic this Sunday. We’re including reports from their work and encounters to help give everyone a sense of what they’re working on and how they’re viewing it, and to foster the widest possible ferment over how to break through.

 

Growing Pains

From a member of the National Revolution Tour:

I feel that there is a real straining to bring people into being PART of this picnic that is a departure from how we have normally done things. It is one of our weakest muscles & when you start to work that muscle it hurts a little bit, but once we start to do it regularly, we will get stronger at it.

You have to follow up with certain people, struggle with people to get into things and fight for their participation; sometimes more than once. You set up meetings, people don’t show, they call you and say they want to meet but their auntie got sick or their car broke down... could we meet a different day?

And then you meet people who have been taking this out & they are sincere in that; and then they tell you, when can I take you out on a date.

They reschedule BUT they DO want to be part of this, & we are constantly re-setting the terms to fight for their participation; fighting for the Points of Attention. But these people are there and we can’t lose sight of their potential nor of our responsibility to lead that.

And then we put some necessity on ourselves because we don’t always handle all our contradictions appropriately, having long, drawn out conversations or doing too much “chasing of people” rather than unleashing of people to solve the problems of the revolution.

Instead, what we are doing that is new, is trying to bring people through a process, taking it out, learning the questions that come up; being part of a process that writes those questions, poses them; all as part of “figuring out” how we are going to do this whole thing, revolution all the way through, raising objections/criticisms to what we are about & why; even while there is agreement on the 5 Stops and how we lead all of this with firmness, confidence, and big arms and a LOT of science. So I myself am having more of an appreciation for BA’s science & what he has developed in terms of solid core with a lot of elasticity and the OHIO.

Some key things we are working on with this picnic:

1. We are trying to figure out how you actually bring people into the whole of a production—provide a sweeping enough view & particularities where people can take initiative & responsibility and people see how THIS is part of building a movement for revolution.

2. How do you keep returning to people; the problems of the revolution; as part of waging ideological struggle? IE the woman question, using the revolution for personal gain... And how does returning to & strengthening people’s understanding of the “material basis” for these Points of Attention of the Revolution motivate people now to “go against the grain” in fighting for these Points of Attention.

3. Breaking out of let’s us do it all because it’s “easier,” rather than taking the time and finding the forms to bring others into this; and waging the short, sharp struggle necessary to bring them into it.

 

Phone Banking and Getting Into Things

From a member of the National Revolution Tour:

I did some phone banking to a few people who I had mainly gotten their numbers from the day people were out in Crenshaw/Slauson during Nipsey Hussle’s funeral procession. The first woman I called had actually found out about us through a flyer put up around a prominent art college with tabs to tear off from with the Revolution Club’s contact info. She had texted us through that, telling us she was interested. It was brief text messaging, then she stopped responding. I finally decided to call her after a few days and when I did she was really glad to hear from us. She said she had gone to our website and checked things out and liked it, but didn’t know how to contact us or get involved further. I asked her what attracted to her to the flyer and she said, “I’ve been thinking about these kinds of things and I feel like I have no one to talk to about it.” I explained to her how there’s a lot of people like her who are looking at the world and thinking that “shit is fucked up” and don’t know what to do about it, but she emphasized how she’s seeing the world, how fucked up it is and wants to do something about it. She also said, “I’m really interested in this.” I told her about the picnic and what it’s all about and she said she would come, and I also posed to her that we want to prepare the picnic together with others as part of new people stepping into the movement for revolution and building a revolutionary community and culture, and that means bringing a dish, helping set up, or anything they are capable of doing to make the picnic possible. She said she’d bring food, and also asked, “Do you know how many people are going so I know how much food to bring? And what kind of food should I bring?” I told her however much she wanted to bring. She’s looking forward to talking more, though she did send a text later on saying she’d be busy all Sunday actually and can’t come anymore, but would like to know about future events.

I also talked to another woman who I met at Crenshaw/Slauson during the Nipsey Hussle funeral procession. When I met her, I walked up to her to give her a flyer and she says, “Oh you’re with Bob Avakian, yeah I know Bob Avakian, I used to run with ya’ll all the time!” When I asked “What happened, how come you stopped?” She said, “I’ll have to tell you that another time!” and she took the flyers and was happy to give me her contact. When I called her she explained how she was involved seven years ago and dropped a name of someone who has been in the Revolution Club for a while. I invited her to the picnic and then asked if she read the material. She said she read a little, and then I asked her again why she stopped being involved. She kind of skirted around it saying she was dealing with personal issues, but then as we were talking more and I posed to her the two choices, she was like, “OK. You wanna know why I stopped coming around? I got so discouraged and dismayed. Like, I was in it, running with ya’ll all of the time and we would go to the high schools but no one gave a fuck! And I thought to myself, ‘If they don’t give a fuck, then why am I here every day putting all this energy into this!?” So I broke it down for her and said something along the lines of “Look that’s real. You look at the world and what’s happening and you see people aren’t doing shit about it and you wanna smash something. And there is a lot of people who do care but are caught up in a lot of bullshit, whether it be the Democrats, or American chauvinism, or doing for self, identity politics or relying on god. Etc.” Basically walking through all the mental shackles that people have as a result of living under this system, and part of what this national tour is out to do is break people out of those mental shackles and bring forth the reality that there is a way out of all this madness and really put revolution on the map. She “mhhm’d” and said “Yes!” to all of the mental shackles I was laying out, especially the one on individualism. I also said how it can be discouraging too when you have a highly developed leadership, science and strategy but you don’t have the masses of people, and how that’s been a setback for quite sometime now mainly because we really haven’t been putting the problems to people and is what we’re set out to change, to save the communist project, and that it’s also not going to change without people like her stepping in. She also asked about plans of action in which I told her about HWCW and the film. I then told her about being a part of bringing this picnic together as part of forging a revolutionary movement to emancipate humanity and she also said she would bring a dish and asked how much and what kind of food. She was really glad I called and said, “You know what, it’s about time I get back into it.”

One of the last guys I talked to was also from Crenshaw/Slauson on that day. He said he had gotten one of our emails or something and watched the clip from BA on the gangs. He really liked the clip and talked about how important leaders like him are and compared him to Zapatista and Pancho Villa, but also explained how when leaders like that die, the movement also dies and how do you keep it going. He also explained how important it is for us to come together because of this and form something new, something like the Democratic Party. He was getting a phone call from his mom, but then I called him back and I explained to him how important it was for him to recognize the necessity of leadership and the leadership he sees in BA and why that’s important because of what BA has done, and then I also got into the role of the Democrats and how all elections under this system and the Democratic Party are “BEB.” When I told him what BEB was, he started laughing and saying, “Oh my gosh teenagers these days with all their lingo and stuff!” I then gave an example how a lot of good-hearted people are into Bernie Sanders even though he says he’s not for open borders and quoted Bernie on what he said recently on why he wasn’t for open borders, and then compared it to Point of Attention number 3 and then asked him what he thought about that. He responded, “Wow that makes me really happy. That makes me really happy that there are people doing something like this. That really brings music to my ears.” He then continued, “Things like this are not just a phase but are a part of your life, we all bleed the same at the end of the day no matter what color we are, we’re all human. My parents are from Mexico and when I was 16 I witnessed my father being taken away by I.C.E. and another time I’ve been held at gunpoint.” I asked if we could record his response to this POA when he’s at the picnic and then he also said he would bring food and be a part of anything the picnic needs to be brought together. He then mentioned, “I work with film and I also do photography, so I’m down if you guys ever want to do a collaboration. I made a documentary on what happens after deportation and I did it on my dad. I made it so I hope that people don’t have to go through what I go through.” I explained how heavy his story was and how millions of people go through that and why, and basically walked through the 5 Stops and how that can’t be reformed under this system and how much of an outrage it is the way that Trump is demonizing and brutalizing immigrants. He told me he’d send the link to the doc (which he did and it was very good) and when the conversation was ending he was like, “Don’t worry I won’t hang up! I want to keep talking to you! We can keep talking!”

 

Challenging People with the 2 Choices

We went to some restaurants yesterday—we summed up the importance of agitation around the “No More Generations” and posing two alternatives... live with all this or make revolution and this potluck being part of that... And then on this basis, people dividing themselves out.

We felt we had to sharpen up these points after people said, “ I donate to a lot of things already.” They were donating to church programs, youth programs, etc. So we did have to delineate why this isn’t just another “stop the violence program” or doing some good things, “we wish you the best...”

The struggle doesn’t have to be on everything but it does have to be around the two choices. Live with all this or make revolution.

Some people who read the flyer about the picnic, were asking, wait what is this?

In other words, I think it makes sense to us. But for other people who read it for the first time; it’s not very clear. Partly because people are in their own frameworks and partly because we don’t enough jolt them out of their frameworks & hit people where they live...

In other words—are the people getting this flyer about the picnic feeling like—damn I have to be there. I am wondering if this agitation about “NO MORE” should be worked into flyer in the headline—“No More Generations” quote, with the two alternatives.