Friday, August 28, 2009

Urgent Update in Eviction Battle

Books to understand, explore and radically change the world

 

Do you have good quality, almost new or new books?  Donate them to Libros Revolución .

We know there’s a treasure house of books out there on people’s bookshelves and closets–the hidden histories of the Soviet and Chinese revolutions, memoirs from the 60s Black liberation and women’s movements, out-of-print chronicles of struggles in Africa, Latin America, Asia… art books, novels, poetry…

Bring them to Libros
Revolución and we will get them back in circulation to the people who yearn for a different future. And you will help keep this revolutionary bookstore open.

 

Sunday, September 6,
12 noon at
 Echo Park
 

Join us for a fundraising Labor Day Weekend Picnic for REVOLUTION newspaper and  LIBROS REVOLUCION
 

Come and bring others to celebrate The Revolution We Need…The Leadership We Have!

Music, spoken word, program starts at 2 pm. $10 a plate, sliding scale for unemployed.

(Echo Park - Park Ave. east of Glendale Blvd. in L.A., off the 101 Fwy north at Glendale Blvd.)

Call us at 213.488.1303 to find out about the next Planning meeting.


Libros Revolución  / Revolution Books -
Flooded But Not Deterred!

Revolución, and deliver or send them along with statements expressing why you support the bookstore.  Don’t have alot in your pockets?  Get creative!  One friend is donating his hair styling skills to raise funds. At a time when we’re putting revolution and the indispensable leadership of Bob Avakian on the map and forging cores of people who are determined to bring into being a communist world, Libros Revolución is needed more than ever.  In the midst of this eviction battle, we’ve met old and new friends of Libros, and are thrilled that through emails and press coverage some people are discovering this bookstore and this revolutionary movement for the first time.    Yesterday, however, we encountered a new challenge when the store was flooded by the boiler next door, resulting in water-damaged books and other materials.  Today when we met with the landlord to discuss an extension to raise the next $2,000 - due Aug. 31 - because of disrupted business and damages, he refused to take any responsibility, and told us if we didn’t meet the deadline, he would commence new eviction proceedings.  This means we have only 5 days to raise $2,000, so we are calling on everyone reading this to donate generously.  Make checks payable to Libros Revolución, and deliver or send them along with statements expressing why you support the bookstore.  Don’t have alot in your pockets?  Get creative!  One friend is donating his hair styling skills to raise funds.  

It is no exaggeration to say that the future is at stake.  And Libros Revolución provides a glimpse into that future, and helps pave the way. 


More than a bookstore, it is a center of revolutionary ferment - a crucible where a re-envisioned revolutionary communism interacts and mixes it up with all the streams of progressive, radical, and revolutionary intellectual life.  It’s a place to engage the whole world.   So give all you can to enable Libros Revolución to continue to play this role.

 
revolution dvd
 

Thursday, August 27, 7pm at Libros Revolución 

 

Join us for a bilingual discussion of the editorial,  “Online Launch Revolution: Why It’s Necessary, Why It’s Possible, What It’s All About,” from Issue #173, and Appearing Online 9.1.09 revolutiontalk.net from Issue #174.

 

Get with and be part of launching the Revolution film online!

 
We must spread the word to every corner of this country. . . giving people the means to become part of this revolutionary movement, and organizing into this movement everyone who wants to make a contribution to it, who wants to work and fight, to struggle and sacrifice, not to keep this nightmare of a world going as it is but to bring a better world into being.

- “The Revolution We Need. . .The Leadership We Have, Revolution #170, July 19, 2009

 
Posted by LibrosRevolución at 20:40:58 | Permalink | Comments Off

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Partial Victory - The Fight Goes On
 
Partial Victory - The Fight Goes On
to Stop the Eviction of Libros Revolucion / Revolution Books
 
A warm salute to everyone who stepped forward to stop the eviction of Libros Revolucion/Revolution Books.  We were able to meet the first deadline to stop the eviction by delivering a check for $2,000 today to the landlord!  We have received some wonderful letters of support with the donations mailed or dropped off at the store, and we learned from the online article about the eviction in Publishers Weekly that the landlord has already received over 100 emails in support of bookstore! (see below). This shows the real potential that exists to defeat this eviction and to get Libros Revolucion on an even stronger footing, as you help spread the word and build support.  And the battle continues as we need to raise another $2,000 by August 31 and $4,100 over the next four months to pay off the back rent, while we keep up with the current rent.   

Your responses and generous contributions reflect the hopes and dreams of millions worldwide for a whole different future and reveal the important role of the bookstore in bringing this into being.  As the new challenge and call from the Revolutionary Communist Party states, “A whole different world, a much better future, is possible.  We have what we need to fight for that world, that future.  It is up to us to get with it and get to the challenge of making this happen.” 


We have traversed the first hurdle of stopping the eviction. We need to continue this fight to raise the rent but most importantly see this as an opportunity to further transform the bookstore so it can better serve to understand and change the world.  One significant development in this battle is that in a beginning way people have also stepped forward to become monthly sustainers of the bookstore, organize fundraising projects, as well as to come in and join our all-volunteer staff, contributing their time and skills.  And many new people are discovering the bookstore through all the ways that the word has gotten out about the threatened eviction.    

Will you hold a fundraising dinner, bake sale, used book sale or yard sale for the bookstore in the next ten days, and let people what you’re raising money for?  We can help brainstorm - call us at 213.488.1303.


The battle for this bookstore is part of initiating a whole new stage of revolution, here and around the world.  Check out the statement and the orientation for spreading “The Revolution We Need…The Leadership We Have” [Read here].  As the Revolutionary Communist Party’s Constitution says, “The emancipation of humanity:  this, and nothing less than this, is our goal.  There is no greater cause, no greater purpose to which to dedicate our lives.”   

____________________________________________________


Donations are still urgently needed to pay the rent and outstanding balance.  Come down with cash or checks made out to Libros Revolución, call us to make donations online, or send to 312 W. 8th St., LA, CA  90014; and very importantly, become a regular monthly sustainer and approach others to do the same, so the bookstore comes out of this with a greatly expanded  financial and support base. 


A few of the emails that have been sent to the landlord:   “If this were Jamba Juice, a Starbucks, even a Barnes and Nobel I would not be writing you.  I am writing you as someone who wants to see diversity of thoughts and culture in this city and someone who knows first hand the difficulties involved in maintaining an alternative resource.”
- A.  

“In these difficult economic times with independent bookstores diminishing in the shadow of corporate bookstore chains it is vitally important that everything be done to save Libros Revolucion…We hope that you will stand up for this fine bookstore and its devoted clientele by making it possible for Libros Revolucion to continue to serve the community.  They are a beacon of light.” - C & D 

From H. to his listserve:

“…Put simply, my friends, attending an event at Libros Revolucion, or even just visiting the store, changes your chemistry. You can thumb through rare works of political thought, and literally FEEL their ideas in the very air around you. Libros is no academic ivory tower, but a PEOPLE’S UNIVERSITY WITHOUT WALLS! …I am asking everyone who receives this letter to join with me in sending as generous an emergency donation as you can, and then consider being a vital sustainer of this pillar of uncensored learning. We can win this fight, and stop this injustice in its tracks.” 

And we were inspired by this news today:  A high school student is organizing a bake sale for Libros Revolucion at a shopping center and will be asking her grandmother and others to donate baked goods (this student doesn’t know how to cook, so is asking those who do.) 
Posted by LibrosRevolución at 20:00:29 | Permalink | Comments Off

Monday, August 10, 2009

Larry the Penguin Searches for the Meaning of Life - Book Signing

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Book Party for “Larry the Penguin Searches for the Meaning of Life” with author CHARLES W. BELSER
Sat, Aug 15, 3 PM at Libros Revolución


#144-coverThis unusual book challenges widely-held notions about death, religion/superstition, magical belief systems vs.critical thinking, morality, and the validity of so-called “sacred texts”  with biting satire…and the author’s unique and scientifically supported view of reality. It dares to ask the question, “Is it true just because most penguins believe it?”

Generating lots of controversy and excitement, this book is for thinking adults who aren’t afraid to question their own deeply-held religious beliefs.  Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, has added this to his personal library.

Join us for a provocative and fun conversation and book signing. 

Check out larrythepenguin.com.  And check out an interesting interview with the author last month on Michael Slate’s KPFK show at: www.redfuture.com.

(Street parking free after 3 pm on Saturdays.)

Libros Recommends:

Listen to “Beneath the Surface” with Michael Slate every Tuesday on KPFK radio, 90.7 FM, from 5 to 6 pm.

Received in an email from Michael Slate:
THIS WEEK’S GUESTS:
 
Kendrick Frazier, editor of Science Under Siege: Defending Science, Exposing Pseudoscience, a new anthology of some of the best thinking and writing in opposition to the society wide assault on science and critical thinking. Kendrick Frazier, longtime editor of the Skeptical Inquirer, describes this assault as one of the most dangerous in modern times. Frazier has gathered together works from some of the most provocative and insightful authors on the subject in this anthology and the result is a remarkable and powerful counterattack.

Deidrie Henry and Thomas Silcott, currently appearing in Athol Fugard’s Coming Home, at the Fountain Theatre.
 
Ten years after she left to pursue a singing career in Cape Town, Veronica Jonkers (Deidrie Henry) comes home to her beloved grandfather’s farm and the village of her youth. Carrying a heart filled with disappointment, she returns determined to plant the seeds of a new life for her young son. Wrote one critic: “It is achingly beautiful, exposing life in contemporary South Africa through the unforgettable love of a mother and her child, and the promise of a new world.”

Coming Home is Fugard’s first sequel, continuing the story he began in Valley Song, his first post-apartheid play, in which Veronica left to follow her dreams in the big city. In Coming Home, Fugard confronts the hard truths of contemporary life in his homeland while also celebrating the unquenchable power of hope. 
 
“As the years have passed,” Fugard recently said in an interview, “I have seen the dreams start to wither. It just seems to me, at this moment in South Africa’s history, I needed to follow up and take a look at that big dream that we had.” More info and tickets.
_____________________________________________
 
If you miss this show, or want to hear it again or download it, go to www.kpfk.org, and click on “Audio Archives” on the left. You have to scroll down through a number of shows to the correct date and time.

August 10, Monday 7 to 9 pm - Come to Libros to pick up a powerful, new, 2-week issue of Revolution newspaper, now posted at revcom.us.

#144-cover


August 13, Thursday, 6 PM - Spread Revolution at the monthly Downtown ArtWalk.  Meet at Libros Revolución or call to find out our table location.

Announcing new store hours:

Libros Revolución / Revolution Books will be open 11 am to 7 pm, Tuesdays through Sundays, beginning tomorrow, Tuesday, August 11.

Drop in to check to out Revolution newspaper; the works of Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA; and other literature and art.
Engage over the necessity and possibility of a whole new world, and hook up with the growing revolutionary movement to get there. Let us know your thoughts and questions, and volunteer! 

Donate and sustain Libros to keep this independent, all-volunteer store open and help spread it’s influence throughout society. 

This is the only bookstore in Southern California that is all about revolution, and enabling people from all walks of life to understand, explore and radically change the world!
Spread the Word

#144-cover #144-cover

The Revolution We
Need. . .The
Leadership We Have

Read this full message

and let us know what you think of it.

Check out the editorial in Issue #170, Spread the Word for what difference it will make  if you help spread this special issue everywhere.
 
Take out this message on your own, or with friends in your  neighborhood, on buses, at school or work; or find places like cafes, youth centers, barber shops that will carry and distribute copies of this statement.

 

Organize your own Revolution DVD showing - contact us to have a speaker at your showing for question and answer and discussion afterwards.

Or join us as different teams take this special message out to people  all over the Southern California area.

Friday, August 14, 10 am: meet at Libros to join us in taking this statement and new issue of Revolution / Revolución to our immigrant brothers and sisters at the U.S. / Mexico border!

Posted by LibrosRevolución at 23:13:10 | Permalink | Comments Off

Friday, August 7, 2009

Papa West in Leimert Park: REVOLUTION DVD Showing Sat, Aug 8, 7 pm

 
[Post on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace; forward to your email lists]
 
#144-cover
Sat, Aug. 8th, 7 pm
Screening of

REVOLUTION: Why It’s Necessary, Why It’s Possible, What It’s All About

a film of a talk by Bob Avakian

Followed by a discussion with Clyde Young of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA.
At Papa West Dinner Club
4336 Degnan Place
Leimert Park, L.A. (near Crenshaw & Vernon)

In 2003, Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, delivered an historic talk in the United States. This talk, followed by questions and answers, is a wide-ranging revolutionary journey, covering many topics. It breaks down the very nature of the society we live in and how humanity has come to a time where a radically different society is possible.

Bob Avakian is a creative and wide-ranging thinker who maintains a profound sense of the actual struggles, trends and sentiments among the masses, the movements of opposition, and society broadly.  And he is the leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, which is seriously setting its sight on the seizure of power right within the U.S. itself, and the revolutionary transformation of society as part of the world proletarian revolution.  He will take you on a journey that can change your life.

Get this DVD of this Talk by Bob Avakian at this event for $20, or $25 for the DVD plus a 10-week subscription to Revolution newspaper (revcom.us).
Book Party for “Larry the Penguin Searches for the Meaning of Life” with author CHARLES W. BELSER


Sat, Aug 15, 3 PM at Libros Revolución

#144-coverThis unusual book challenges widely-held notions about death, religion/superstition, magical belief systems vs.critical thinking, morality, and the validity of so-called “sacred texts” via an emotion-packed and entertaining fantasy featuring engaging characters, biting satire…and the author’s unique and scientifically supported view of reality.

The book dares to ask the question, “Is it true just because most penguins believe it?”  Generating lots of controversy and excitement, it is for thinking adults who aren’t afraid to question their own deeply-held religious beliefs.  Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, has added this to his personal library.

Join us for a provocative and fun conversation and book signing. 

Check out larrythepenguin.com.  And check out an interesting interview with the author last month on Michael Slate’s KPFK show at: www.redfuture.com.

(Street parking free after 3 pm on Saturdays.)

August 10, Monday, 7 - 9 pm- Hot off the press!  Pick up the new issue of REVOLUTION newspaper, informally discuss key articles, bring your questions and help make plans for wide distribution.  At Libros Revolución/Revolution Books.  (Street parking free weeknights after 7 pm).
 
August 13, Thursday, 6 PM - Spread Revolution at the monthly Downtown ArtWalk.  Meet at Libros Revolución or call to find out our table location.
 

Spread the Word

 
#144-cover
 

#144-cover


The Revolution We Need
. . .The Leadership We Have

 

Read this full message and let us know what you think of it.

Check out the editorial in Issue #170, Spread the Word for what difference it will make in bringing forward a revolutionary movement now, if YOU help spread this special issue everywhere.
 
Take out this message on your own, or with your crew in your neighborhood, school, work; or find places like bookstores, cafes, libraries that will carry and distribute copies of this statement.

 

Organize your own Revolution DVD showing - contact us to have a speaker at your showing for question and answer and discussion afterwards.

Or join us Saturday, Aug 8th as different teams take this special message out to people in the Crenshaw / Leimert Park area, as well as to youth at the Rock the Bells concert in Devore, CA (San Bernardino). Come to an orientation and planning meeting this Friday, Aug 7th at 7 pm at Libros; and/or join us at Libros on Saturday to go out:

Sat. 8 am at Libros to go to Rock the Bells.

Sat. 12 noon at Libros to go to the Crenshaw / Leimert Park area.  (Note: this is a time change from email sent out.)

Email or call if you are interested in either team.

 
Posted by LibrosRevolución at 18:32:55 | Permalink | Comments Off