On the 2nd Anniversary of Katrina: The Need for Revolution and the Urgent Need for Resistance

Katrina, Jena, and the Whole Damn System
The Need for Revolution and the Urgent Need for Resistance

Issue #99 is an important two-week issue on the Katrina Anniversary, calling people to “Make August 29th a day of remembrance … and political resistance!” Getting this issue out far and wide, with its exposure of this gaping sore, can play a role in propelling people into much needed struggle.

The WANTED poster and t-shirts should go out all over. The poster should be up in stores and projects, apartment windows …

Also, find out what people are thinking about the Gonzales resignation. Check out Sunsara Taylor’s article on the World Can’t Wait web site:

Gonzales Resigns -- But the Torture, Spying, and Round-Ups Continue

Drive Out the Bush Regime, Now More than Ever!
By Sunsara Taylor, 8/27/07

What’s up with a country where a torturer -- and let’s call a spade a spade -- an architect of a police state and fascist laws can be forced to resign and no one in a position of power calls for the reversal of everything he’s done and for his and his boss’s indictment for war crimes?

What’s up is a system that is so hellbent on extending and preserving its empire that a police state that tortures is the program of the whole lot of them. That’s why the Democrats grandstand and garner political advantage over Gonzales’s resignation but have not and will not oppose the essence of his program. And it is why the people must. ...


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Revolution Newspaper Fund Drive Event

Sunday, Sept. 2 — 6pm

Revolution Books
9 W. 19th Street (bet 5th & 6th Avenues), NYC

Support the Reporter’s Travel Fund:

Katrina Two Year Later: How the System Betrayed the People Again

–Clips from testimony of the “Bush Crimes Commission Hearings” and

-- a first hand report from New Orleans by Carl Dix of the Revolutionary Communist Party

Benefit for Revolution newspaper's Reporters Travel Fund

· First hand report from Carl Dix, just returned from New Orleans
· Film of damning testimony of New Orleans residents and others at the Bush Crimes Commission about this regime's abandonment of the people and suppression of relief efforts.
· Hear news of the $500,000 Revolution newspaper expansion and fund drive * Bring your stories about participating in the Fund Drive * Share experience * Make plans for getting Revolution newspaper all over the high schools and campuses as school opens * More! *
Revolution Newspaper Expansion Fund Drive
Support Revolution Newspaper's Six-Month Expansion and $500,000 Fund Drive!by joining us on Sunday, September 2, 2007
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Revolution Books
9 West 19th Street, (Btwn 5th & 6th Ave), NYC

Hear from Revolution newspaper supporters. Talk with others taking up this effort. Learn more about Revolution newspaper -- Sign up -- Get organized with your Fund Drive Kit.
Revolution Books at 212-691-3345 or mailto:revbooksnyc@yahoo.com

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Open House at Revolution Books for the Revolution Newspaper Expansion Fund Drive

Support
Revolution Newspaper's Six-Month Expansion
and $500,000 Fund Drive!

by joining us on

Sunday, August 18th, 2007
an

Open House

6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Revolution Books

9 West 19th Street

(Btwn 5th & 6th Ave)

NYC

Hear from Revolution newspaper writers. Talk with others taking up this effort. Learn more about Revolution newspaper -- Sign up -- Get organized with your Fund Drive Kit.

This will be a potluck event. Please bring your favorite dish, drink, snack.

RSVP Revolution Books at 212-691-3345 or revbooksnyc@yahoo.com

And you won't want to miss :

Sunday, August 19th, 6:00PM
Benefit for Revolution Books:

Featuring Sparrow and the Myk Freedman Band

"One of the funniest men in Manhattan...

Over and above everything else,

Sparrow offers something to believe in."
—Robert Christgau

The Village Voice

Suggested Donation: $20 – All are welcome, buy books, bring friends, spread the word...

About the author:

Sparrow created quite a stir in 1995 when he picketed The New Yorker magazine, holding a placard reading, "My Poetry is as bad as yours." His poetry has since appeared in that magazine as well as The Quarterly, The New York Times and other erudite journals. He was also featured in the PBS series The United States of Poetry and can be heard, along with his legendary band Foamola, on the poetry compilation Poemfone: New Word Order (Tomato). He is a gossip columnist for the Phoenicia Times, a contributing editor to Chronogram, a substitute teacher, and the author of two books: Yes, You ARE a Revolutionary! Plus Seven Other Books and Republican Like Me (both Soft Skull Press). Sparrow lives with his wife and daughter in the hamlet of Phoenicia, New York, in the Catskill Mountains.Marcus Boon (editor) specializes in contemporary literature and theory. He is the author of The Road of Excess: A History of Writers on Drugs (Harvard UP, 2002) which was called "an impressive display of scholarship" by the Boston Globe and a "valuable, philosophically provocative and sometimes quite moving work of literary criticism" by the Denver Post. He writes about music and sound for The Wire and is an Assistant Professor of English at York University in Toronto, Canada.

CHECK BACK FOR INFORMATION ON NEXT FUND DRIVE OPEN HOUSE EVENTS SCHEDULED AT REVOLUTION BOOKS AND ST. MARY'S CHURCH... INVITE EVERYONE YOU KNOW

08/07/07

"TRUTH... In Preparation for REVOLUTION"

This headline of the special Revolution newspaper Broadsheet has really resonated with lots of people throughout the launch of the expansion and $500,000 fund drive – from the streets of Harlem, to the Rock the Bells concert with Rage Against the Machine; from East Flatbush to Sunset Park, from Marcus Garvey Park to Union Square.

People came from all over to attend this concert and 750 papers were sold. One college student from Buffalo, NY took a bundle of Broadsheets, said that he reads Revolution every time he gets the chance – he's been getting it at anti-war demonstrations in Washington DC. People like him represent the potential for far, far more people to regularly read this paper and for many to donate so this paper can reach this much wider, far-flung audience: "Revolution newspaper must be out there much more boldly and much more broadly – exposing what is going on, revealing why, and pointing to a revolutionary solution in the interests of the vast majority of humanity... This $500,000 will be the first step to realize the potential and rise to the challenge." [Broadsheet]

Use the Broadsheet and the Fund Drive kit! We are learning that these materials really help people see very quickly the difference this Expansion and Fund Drive for the paper will make and how to participate starting right away. It is on this basis that people are beginning to step forward to join the Drive. Lots of bundles of the broadsheet have gone out, people are starting $100 teams, and many vendors are taking the broadsheet. Six restaurants donated wonderful food for the kick off events. People are joining in many ways to be part of launching this expansion and fund drive.

Several people like the 60 year old retired steel worker who is quoted below gave testimonials at the weekend Kick-off events:

"$500,000 to us is a lot but it's a drop in the bucket when you consider the way things work in this world. Murdoch is paying $5 billion for the Wall St Journal. We need millions of dollars for Revolution newspaper. From my personal experience, if you want to fight the powers that be, you gotta have money."

An immigrant proletarian wrote:

"For me the paper has been a messenger that transmits the hope for a better future, the hope for changes that we crave and we see is possible. It has allowed me to have a clearer picture of what this country is doing to the world and its own citizens. The articles written by Bob Avakian, which are very insightful and detailed as well as controversial, always open a window for discussions. I know this because I've discussed these articles with fellow workers over the last ten years. Let us do everything we can to support this paper. I have and I will continue to do so. It needs to be read by millions and it isn't yet. Compare it to all the papers out there that lie to us everyday and are read by millions now. That has to change. It is up to us."

A Revolution Books supporter sent a letter to the Kick-off reception pledging to raise $300 from the activists and students he knows in the suburb where he lives, writing from the heart about how he has been reading the paper for three years and what it means to him.

For an ex-Black Panther who has been reading the paper since the Schomburg "Revolution" DVD event in June, the Harlem kick off brunch made it more real that there was a core of people coming together to make this happen. That's when he made the commitment to raising much needed funds and expanding the distribution of the paper.

How many semi-regular readers of the paper do you know? How many people appreciate you emailing articles to them periodically, or buy the paper whenever they see you? How many people do you know who can learn about and get enlisted in this drive right now? Call them. Invite them to the next Fund Drive reception at Revolution Books or in Harlem. Or invite a bunch of people to have coffee and dessert, or a couple of beers.

Whether you are with your friends or on the street talking to new people: Open up the Broadsheet and the Fund Drive kit. Talk about what would happen if this paper was a "voice that cannot be ignored on any campus," imagine the "societal impact of a revolutionary movement, with this newspaper at the center, based among those who society has enslaved, cast off, or locked up – the proletariat;" what if all the requests from prisoners for subsidized subscriptions, and more, could be filled... if reporters can be sent right away to cover major events like Katrina... if the Spanish edition was improved and reached throughout the Southwest and on-line through Latin America...

Point to the section on "What People Are Saying About Revolution Newspaper" with quotes from people like Marcus Jones, the father of one of the Jena students facing trial for a fight after nooses were hung from the schoolyard tree; from prisoners in the US and people in India, about what they think about the paper. Show people what's been covered in this paper and who's been interviewed, and the description of the articles from Bob Avakian. All the parts of the Broadsheet illustrate how "readers find answers to the burning questions of the times" – Truth in Preparation for Revolution.

Do some collective imagining, go through the Fund Drive kit and make plans. Use the Fund Drive Kit to help people plan for how they can take this up themselves together with people they know, starting right away.

Here's one person's idea for getting sponsors and co-riders for a 100-mile (century) bike ride:

"This could be a way to reach out to people I know, who are into cycling but don't know a lot about the paper, and include them in the whole process of getting pledges, training, and doing the ride itself. I've already told one relative, who (usually) reads articles I send her from the paper and likes them and has a lot of respect for writers like Sunsara Taylor, and she said 'good for you,' and that she'd get back to me, and that $1 per mile would be an amount she'd probably be willing to pledge. I think there are at least 20 people I've known over the years in different ways, some who are cyclists and some who are just middle‑class people who give money to progressive stuff, who would also pledge in large part because of the way I'm raising the money. If they're people who don't know the paper or don't know it much, this could be a way for them to get to know it (and I'd imagine it would be a particularly memorable way to be introduced to it) ... I'm thinking of doing this as part of the Transportation Alternatives (the biggest NYC bike‑advocacy group) Century ride through all 5 boroughs on September 9th. This would be a chance to meet a lot of people in the bike advocacy community, which tends to be a section of people that's very progressive and environmentally‑motivated..."

From the Broadsheet: "YOU, and people like you, can make all this happen... Much is at stake. If people are going to really understand what is going on, and if something good is going to be pulled out of the current storms, a greatly expanded Revolution newspaper must be at the heart of that process."