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Join us for the L.A. Premiere:

NESHOBA:

THE PRICE OF FREEDOM

Q&A with filmmakers & Ben Chaney,

brother of one of the murdered

Friday, September 10, 7:20 pm

Laemmle Music Hall, 9036 Wilshire Beverly Hills, CA 90211

(5 blocks west of Robertson, just east of Doheny Dr.

Meter parking free after 8 pm or $3 parking in lot just south of theatre, enter on Doheny)

$20 suggested donation for Revolution Books / Libros Revolución
Call for tickets & reservations 213.488.1303 or librosrevo@yahoo.com.

Support this important film on it’s opening night, and support
the relocation and revitalization of this essential bookstore!

In 1964, a mob of Klansmen murdered three civil rights workers in the Mississippi county of Neshoba: Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner. They were in the Deep South during what became known as “Freedom Summer.”  This film tells the story of three men whose lives and deaths should never be forgotten, as well as the battle to jail their killers. It is the story of Neshoba County then and now, a county sharply divided around the oppression of Black people.

Listen to an interview with filmmakers Tony Pagano and Micki Dickoff on last week’s Michael Slate Show, Friday, Sept. 3, 10 am by going to kpfk.org, click on Audio Archives, search for the show and play.

“In 2005, a coalition of black and white residents succeeded in bringing to trial Edgar Ray Killen, the Klansman who instigated the murders.  Killen, still staunchly racist and confident of exoneration, cooperated with the makers of this compelling documentary which avoids simplistic self-righteousness in favor of troubling questions about racial reconciliation and still-unredressed injustices.”

“The tools used to tell the tale (particularly old newsreels, family photos and seldom-seen crime scene and autopsy photos) are masterfully employed. Within the first 15 minutes, [filmakers] Dickoff and Pagano milk tear ducts (iconic newsreel footage of a young Ben Chaney weeping as he sings “We Shall Overcome” at his brother’s funeral has lost none of its power to devastate), and then use that emotion to fuel the rest of the film.”

Key Planning Meeting: SUNDAY, JULY 11th, 3 – 5 PM

Based on this kind of revolution, the bookstore needs voices and literature on the many spheres of life - science, art, poetry, novels, philosophy, politics – and author readings, book debuts, film “talk backs” with directors and more, that inspire and unleash awe and wonder, that contribute in a variety of ways to “freeing the spirit from its cell” – of revolution in the world, including the world of ideas – a place where epistemology meets morality – of knowing and changing the world.

Let’s talk frankly – the bookstore as it is today is NOT that kind of place. But it needs to be and CAN be – with a radical transformation of the revolutionary content, edge and feel of the bookstore; and a new location where people from many different strata, ages and nationalities can mix it up – where there’s cultural, political, social and intellectual ferment, for instance in the Silverlake / Echo Park area. This revitalization and revolutionizing of the bookstore provides a big opportunity to bring something fresh into being that can act as a real magnet for all who yearn for a far better future for humanity.

We have exciting plans for the major transformation and relocation of the bookstore this summer – and we need YOUR participation! 

We urgently need your input on both finding a new location, aiming for a grand opening around September 1, 2010, and fundraising, FUNraising, fundraising! We need to raise $60,000 from many people to create the foundation of this new bookstore. An exciting centerpiece this summer will be the special benefit for the bookstore with world-renowned Kenyan author Ngugi Wa Thiong’o on July 25th at the Downtown Independent Theater (see promotional below).

To accomplish this we need your ideas, energy, creativity, expertise and enthusiasm – we need lawyers, accountants, architects, web designers, carpenters, professors, students, basic masses, poets – fighters and dreamers all – to take up this tremendous task.  Join us this Sunday.

The bookstore needs to get way out in the world and play an essential and vital role in shifting the political and ideological terms that predominate in society, including helping to break through the lowered sights and dearth of engagement with revolutionary communist analysis and solution.

Revolution Books is part of contributing to a new spirit and atmosphere of critical engagement, putting revolution back into larger societal conversation and ferment.

Arizona Freedom Summer – Initial organizing meeting
Wednesday, June 16th, 7 pm

at Revolution Books / Libros Revolucion

Organize for people to go to Arizona “en masse” from all over the country to challenge the new law on the basis of these slogans:

“We are All Illegals!”

“We don’t gotta show no stinkin’ papers”

“The rulers of this country are the ones who are illegitimate”

This summer be part of taking the campaign, “The Revolution We Need…The Leadership We Have,” to people in Arizona, especially in areas where the contradictions are the sharpest, and organize masses to take this up.  Unleash a broader initiative to challenge the law directly and help put a more defiant face on the resistance to it.  Come and bring others to this first organizing meeting.

THE PEOPLE MUST ACT – COME TO NEW ORLEANS

STOP THE OIL CATASTROPHE

A monumental crime against the planet and humanity is unfolding before our eyes. Toxic oil and gas continue to spew in the Gulf of Mexico-and the government and BP have proven unable and unwilling to truly deal with this rapidly escalating environmental, wildlife, and human catastrophe.

Millions are outraged. But many feel powerless and don’t know what to do. People are looking for ways to act, to fight.

We have a bold vision and big plans to rally people to stop this catastrophe, protect the environment, and to spread revolution. We call on all who are sick at heart and feel the urgency of the crisis to join these efforts. And we call on all those who see the importance of these efforts to donate generously-funds are urgently needed…

· Join us in New Orleans to help set up a political encampment

·  Help organize an Emergency Summit in New Orleans

· Help mobilize clean-up, protection and resistance

· Be part of teams building a movement for revolution across the region

Detroit June 15-30 BE THERE!
Put Revolution on the Map

On May 12th, the Detroit police murdered 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones. Then they treated her family like criminals, arresting her grandmother and testing her for drugs and gun powder residue and making her father lay on the floor in the very room his little girl had just been blown away in, his face in her still warm blood. Then the authorities blamed Aiyana’s family for their little girl’s murder. These pigs are lying through their teeth! This is wrong, it is illegitimate and it is unacceptable. AND WE MUST NOT ALLOW THEM TO GET AWAY WITH THIS!

Come to Detroit and join us in letting people know that there is a revolutionary movement which will not be backed down in the face of this kind of stuff, and which says: “The days when this system can just keep on doing what it does to people, here and all over the world…when people are not inspired and organized to stand up against these outrages and to build up the strength to put an end to this madness…those days must be GONE. And they CAN be.”

But that’s not all that’s happening in Detroit. The United States Social Forum is happening on June 22-26 – thousands of people coming from all over the country, and beyond, putting their heads together and debating about how to make a different and better world. And this revolutionary movement will be there, too – part of the debate, and learning from everyone we can, even as we’re going to boldly put forward our revolutionary solution to this madness. [Read on]

Watch “Carl Dix Says, ‘Come to Detroit, June 15′” [here]

People who want to volunteer to go to Detroit or make a financial contribution to this effort should get in contact with us right away.

Write, call, e-mail: Revolution Books / Libros Revolucion or

RCP Publications, P.O. Box 3486, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 60654 ·

773-227-4066 · rcppubs@hotmail.com.

Please give your name, e-mail, phone number so someone can get back to you right away. Checks can be made out to RCP Publications (marked “Detroit Effort”).

Friday marks the beginning of ten days of actively distributing 200,000 copies of “The Revolution We Need . . . The Leadership We Have,” a Message and Call from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA – across the country.  Come and be part of forging plans, organizing teams, brainstorming about places and events throughout Southern California where this statement needs to appear over the next 10 days.  Your ideas, creativity, energy and struggle – your participation – is needed.

Follow-up meetings will be on Monday and Friday evenings, June 7 and June 11, 7 pm – come and bring others who want to join in.

This will be the kick off for distributing 1,000,000 copies of the statement by the end of the summer and making a big leap in the campaign and in building a movement for revolution.

Saturday, May 22nd, 3 PM
at Revolution Books / Libros Revolución
312 W. 8th St., LA, 90014 Special Invitation:

Strategizing on the mission and role of Revolution Books with Andy Zee, Spokesperson for Revolution Books, NYC

Join us for a presentation and discussion about the revitalization of the Revolution Books national network as a key center of building a new movement for revolution, and a crucial part of making a leap in the campaign, “The Revolution We Need, The Leadership We Have.”  Your participation at this gathering is essential for saving Revolution Books, L.A., and greatly expanding its work and influence.

Andy Zee is the spokesperson for Revolution Books, NYC, a photographer, and a writer for Revolution newspaper.  In April 2009, Revolution published his critical article, “In the Era of Obama: The Collapse of ‘The Movement’; the Resistance and the Revolutionary Movement We Need.“.

In the past year, Revolution Books, New York (RBNY) has become a force in the literary, intellectual and cultural scene in New York City.  Andy has been instrumental in this beginning transformation of RBNY.  He is bringing some new thinking about the role of the Revolution Books network, full of revolutionary ferment and cultural vibrancy, in the movement for revolution we are building.  Following Andy’s presentation, we will dig into the mission of Revolution Books / Libros Revolución, and do some brainstorming!  Bring your creative ideas and be part of forging a whole new future for humanity.

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