News and Statements from the Donors to the Fund Drive Livestream

News and Statements from the Donors to the Fund Drive Livestream

June 5, 2023

These statements were sent in by people who donated to the $100,000 Revcoms Fund Drive.

Share your response or your experience! Write to us at [email protected].

I first encountered the Revcoms through the May Day [May 1st, 2023] parade. It was a very fruitful event for me intellectually. I got to hear personal stories of a Haitian during the parade, who condemned U.S. invasions and interventions in Haiti starting in 1915. I also heard from Black citizens who refused to go to the Vietnam War, for "the true battle is against the ruling class and imperialism." I heard people saying there is only one race and that is humanity. In the evening event at the bookstore that followed, I was invited to read a poem by a Gazan poet, who described the horrors and fears during an Israeli airstrike. People were really appreciative of my poetry reading, and I could sense solidarity in the air among people coming from some 10+ countries. It was really a fantastic night.

A friend made a sizable contribution to putting revolution on the map in 2023, and I added an amount to make a $500 challenge for the livestream.

We feel that in order to get to a new world founded on the New Communism, the vision forged by BA, it's necessary to support all work going in that direction, like The "Woke" Lunacy vs. Real Revolution Tour, The RNL Show, Revcom.us, leaflets, programs….

This clash of ideas is not only necessary, it is what the world needs to raise people's sights, to aspire for the emancipation of humanity, to save the planet, and start resolving the major problems the people of the world face.

In whatever way we can, we need to be flooding the neighborhoods, workplaces, schools, with palm cards, leaflets, posters, the Proclamation, in a very consistent way so that people come to know about this Revolution, and this leadership, and why they need to support it by contributing to putting this Revolution and nothing else on the map.

The Revolution Club in the Bay Area has been broadly distributing and deeply grappling with the proclamation "We Are the Revcoms (Revolutionary Communists)." Since May Day...we’ve taken this message out to several festivals, a flea market, and a farmers’ market. We’ve done all of this with the strategic orientation from Bob Avakian's quote "Everything depends on bringing forward a revolutionary people…"

...It is not easy, but we are confident that if we persevere in this approach that we will bring forward a solid core of revolutionaries along with a presence and support base that's built on the right foundation. Fundraising is really a key way through which people can become part of this movement. We look forward to putting revolution on the map this year together with others throughout the country and raising big funds in order to do so!

It is my pleasure to donate $5k to the movement for Revolution during what feels like a very stifling time. I’m watching the RevComs go very hard with trying to breakthrough people's low sights of just trying to get representation and a seat at the table for whatever crumbs they are willing to give out. I see the RevComs struggling with people, with love but tough love, to imagine a whole other way the world could be.

I feel deeply that other people are yearning for it too but don't see a real way out and haven't yet been introduced to Bob Avakian's new communism. Hoping this contribution helps put Bob Avakian's new synthesis of communism in front of more people and makes it more accessible to those who are searching for a way out.

I too have been a bit demoralized by the aftereffects of the uprising but I always keep in mind this one thing BA says about how in countries where there was a revolution, it seemed like there was no way it would ever happen and afterwards they say it was inevitable. This is the idea I keep returning to when it feels impossible.

Hoping we get to a place where people say "it was inevitable".

Much love to the RevComs!

Our fundraising efforts up to this point had some difficulties breaking into new terrain. The Revolution article "Two Key Things to Do" made some helpful and thought-provoking points, including the orientation of taking the "fundraising letter from Sunsara Taylor to universities, community colleges, and so on that are still in session… go to bookstores… go to programs addressing critical issues or artistic events that are dealing with important questions… and get this out and spread the word about The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show special showing on May 26 of Sunsara Taylor's May 24 speech at UCLA. Raise money utilizing her letter."

A couple of us, friends of the Revolution Club in Chicago, have been systematically sending or dropping off bundles of the broadsheet to some of the many people we have known over the years along with materials about the $100k fund drive that they can distribute too. These examples show the potential we have found in doing this.

A friend of the Rev Club, the father of another young man killed by the police, watched a download of The RNL Show's Andy Zee's presentation on the broadsheet with one of us. He followed along in the broadsheet just like the people in the audience at Andy Zee's presentation. He found the experience very helpful and positive. He put them in the stores in one mini-mall on the southside of Chicago. He wants to get more very soon.

We met with a woman whose grandson was shot by the police years ago. She not only wants a bundle but also is buying several revcom t-shirts to donate funds and to wear to represent for the revolution. She gets out materials at her church and to friends and family.

We mailed 100 copies of the broadsheet and the call to donate to another long-time supporter whose nephew was murdered by the police. He now lives downstate and regularly gets packets of materials to get out in in the city where he lives.

We finally reached someone we did not have a snail mail address for. He is planning to come to the livestream showing at the Revolution Club organizing center and to get a bundle of the broadsheets and calls to donate. He said, "This summer I want to be ‘boots on the ground’."

The [Sunsara Taylor speaking] tour is fighting to take on one of the biggest obstacles that stand in the way of getting lots of students involved in the movement for Revolution and that obstacle is: woke lunacy. Taking on this toxic concoction of American chauvinism, identity politics and cancel culture is key to breaking down this barrier and drawing forward this much needed section of people: the intelligentsia. I'm donating as a part of supporting the Revolution tour going on the offensive.

The trolley car argument was conceived by a sociologist. In it you are asked to sacrifice one human being by pushing them in front of a trolley car that will stop the trolley from a wreck that will kill all of the people in the trolley car. One life for the lives of many.

Let's make some assumptions that I think can be argued are basically correct.

Our government is based on Capitalism.

This Capitalism has led to Imperialism where our government in our name is trying to control the world.

In attempting this control Capitalism has initiated wars of conquest and subjugation.

This Capitalism has exploited many in the USA until many are now useless to them, and it sees incarceration as a means of control here.

This Capitalism has subjugated many outside our borders and ruthlessly exploited their labor. In many cases exploited to starvation and death.

Reform of this system has not worked. The rights that we won by hard struggles in the past are being rapidly stripped from us today.

There is a rift in our form of government, pitting two parties against each other.

This creates a rare opportunity for a "trolley-car event."

That "trolley-car event" is a revolution to overthrow the Capitalism and replace it with a new form of government. The Capitalist class is a very small sub-part of the world's population. They are the "one human being" in the Trolley Car Argument. The people in the trolley car who are saved are the rest of the human beings of the world.

Here are some other, facts, not assumptions.

The Capitalists will not buy into the assumptions above giving up and going along.

The revolution will need to involve many, many people.

Getting the many, many people will require organizing and struggle to get them convinced that there is hope and that this is possible.

This will involve a cycle of raising money to organize this struggle who will then contribute and help organize to win more people … until the real revolution is possible.

Some more facts:

The first round of organizing has happened. They are the Revcoms.

They need money to continue organizing.

That is where we come into play. Give money, give talent, join.

To conjugate: Singular, I give, I gave, I have given. Plural is needed, We give, we gave, we have given. This will lead to the change in Caesar's dictum: We come, we see, we conquer.

I am contributing to help spread the Woke speech because this world hungers for a vision and strategy to orient itself around emancipation and that speech does just that. Close to one billion people face food insecurity, and needless wars for empire on the planet are creating a desperate situation. This economic system also colonizes people, demeans women and differently gendered peoples which creates even more desperation and lowers our sights in creating illusions of competing identities. In contrast, the Woke speech orients people to change the world based on how the world actually works based on science, and our common aspirations for emancipation.

Greeting comrades. I am a strong believer that we need to change the conditions in this world, so to help make a difference and put revolution on the map, I will be selling crochet baby blankets and sleepers as gifts for any boy or girl; they make nice baby shower gifts for your friends or family members. Not only that, but "no more stolen lives, stop killing us" tee shirts. And "put the guns down, stop killing us" shirts!! Roasted peanuts and punching balloons. Let's fight for a better world. Help us put revolution on the map. We need revolution, nothing less!!!! Humanity first!!!!

I’m making this contribution in memory of Gwen Kim, a courageous warrior who never gave up on her dream of revolution and a world free of oppression.

Coming to political life in the late ‘60s, Gwen was strongly influenced by Mao Tsetung and the revolution in China and was an early supporter of the RCP, which continued until her death last week. While involved in local struggles, she exposed the workings of capitalism-imperialism in everyday language to the masses she worked with and linked struggles here to the struggles of the oppressed around the world.

Gwen embraced people from all ethnicities, classes and genders, had a deep love for the people, and a strong belief in the ability of even the most backward to transform. At the same time, she boldly spoke truth to power and harbored a special hatred for the U.S. military's destruction of Hawai`i and its forcible occupation and colonization of the Nation of Hawai`i. In her later years she had health limitations but continued to speak out against fascism, attacks on abortion rights and LGBTQ people, was especially inspired by the heroic uprising of the women of Iran, and regularly shared articles from revcom on social media.

Gwen was well-known in Hawai`i for her involvement in struggles against mass evictions (Kalama Valley, Waihole-Waikane, Ota Camp, Sand Island, Makua Beach), anti-militarism (such as the bombing of Kaho’olawe Island, Makua Valley, and Pohakuloa), a founder of Nuclear Free & Independent Pacific, and many struggles demanding respect for Hawaiian cultural sites and practices (most notably, Mauna Kea), and many more. She was arrested numerous times for standing for justice and defying the orders of the police and military.

Gwen was inspired by the works of BA, following them in the Revolutionary Worker and then revcom.us, and identified herself as an "aspiring communist." While she was on a fixed income, she traveled to the Continent to hear his historic speech in 2003: "Revolution: Why it's Necessary; Why It's Possible; What It's All About" and BA's Dialogue with Cornel West in Riverside Church in 2014. Those who attended the Dialogue will remember Gwen turning to a group of hecklers in the audience who interrupted BA while speaking and loudly and boldly telling them she had traveled all the way from Hawai’i to hear BA speak, and to please be quiet and show some respect.

When I last visited Gwen shortly before her death, she recalled participating in a watch party for the December 2022 fundraiser and shared that while her time with us would shortly be over, she was especially moved by the young revcom leaders and the importance of The RNL Show to bring BA's vision of communism to people more broadly, both here and around the world. She ended by saying her life had been a "fabled journey," had been better than she could have dreamed of, and that she was happy that she was leaving the fight for revolution in good hands. Gwen Kim truly lived "a life worth living."

I invite everyone, those who knew Gwen, and those who share her dream of revolution and a better world, to join me in contributing to this fundraiser to really put Revolution on the map.

We’re making this contribution in memory of Gwen Kim and our shared dream of a Real Revolution against capitalism-imperialism and a world free of oppression. Back in the day we had a slogan: "Revolutionary Fighters Step Forward." In that spirit, we are especially inspired by young revolutionaries who are courageously stepping forward to put revolution on the map and to spread the works of BA everywhere as part of realizing our shared dream. Although we are limited in the ways we can be on the front lines like they are, we are proud to be part of a network to put making a real revolution on the map.

This is a bundled contribution from eight supporters.

Dear Friends: There is so much dynamism in what the revcoms have been doing over the past year. Airing the amazing 3-part interview with Bob Avakian. Breaking with the "gradualist" approach and transforming leaders from "movement activists" to "strategic commanders of the revolution." Leading with revolution to take on the woke lunacy that has become a destructive force in the ideological, moral, and political life of a whole generation—who need this revolution and have so much untapped potential to make history by winning a better future.

I am striving, while seeing and becoming more a part of the collective process, to bring alive the decades of work Bob Avakian has done to lay the theoretical framework and blueprint for the emancipation of all humanity from this putrid system. I'm donating the $100 I can afford right now, but also struggling with others to donate to something that truly promises to transform people and reality. A real revolution requires serious funds, and we have to be serious because the existence of humanity is truly at stake.

Revolution, nothing less!

Follow: @TheRevcomsRead: www.revcom.usWatch: youtube.com/TheRevComs

To everyone who can't stand this world the way it is... who is sick and tired of so many people being treated as less than human... who knows that the claim of "liberty and justice for all" is a cruel lie... who is righteously enraged that injustice and inequality go on, and on, and on, despite false promises and honeyed words from people in power (or those seeking power)... everyone who agonizes about where things are headed and the fact that to be young now means being denied a decent future, or any future at all... everyone who has ever dreamed about something much better, or even wondered whether that is possible... everyone who hungers for a world without oppression, exploitation, poverty, and destruction of the environment... everyone who has the heart to fight for something that is really worth fighting for: YOU need to be part of this revolution. (From WE ARE THE REVCOMS…)

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