PASADENA, CA, August 5—Fifty people gathered today in a quickly-organized street protest with slogans calling for an end to US support for the massacre in Gaza, and for a warm welcome for the refugee children fleeing poverty and violence in Central America.  The main speech highlighted the theme that "another world is possible:"

"A world based on cooperation, not competition

"A world where there are no rich and poor, no oppressor and oppressed, and no one is marginalized;

"A world where everyone lives in the abundance that the earth provides; without money and without possession, but rich, free, and serving one another."

Homemade signs reflected a broad range of politics.  Some carried quotes from the Old and New Testaments, such as:  "Woe to them that covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away." (Micah 2)  Others simply said "Peace" or "Stop Killing Kids." 

One sign read, "Capitalism kills kids from Gaza to Honduras and right here" and another quoted Marx, "From each according to ability, to each according to need." These were picked up and carried by friends of friends, not by Party members.

One sign said (in Spanish) "Everyone will be welcome in a communist world without borders."  A good friend was a little shocked to see this, but happily surprised to see that nobody objected.

The event was organized at a Party-led study group that meets monthly in a comrade's home.  We wrote the main speech collectively, with very open struggle. 

One comrade suggested that it use the word "communist" for the world we want to see, but another said that he and his friends didn't agree with that.  Actually, the speech did not describe communism since it said nothing about revolution or the need for a party to unite the masses and organize political struggle. 

We should have worked harder to guarantee that Red Flag was distributed to put forward communist politics clearly.  However, communism did come up for discussion, for example when a group went out for dinner afterward.

Many of us are involved in churches and other mass organizations.  That's how we were able to mobilize our friends and their families and friends for this event.  "Thank you for doing this," we heard again and again. 

One friend brought a petition to Congress and got several dozen signatures, but the energy for the protest didn't come from a fight for reform demands.  It came from outrage at what we're seeing every day and from a growing openness to the idea that we need to work for radical, maybe even revolutionary, change.

It was an eye-opener for some of us who are communists and atheists to see how our friends use Biblical language to express political views we share.

"Do not look to the strong, to those who are wise in the ways of empire and domination; do not follow after those who trust in their own superiority.

"For it is the weak in the world who shame the strong; it is the low and despised in the world, … who reduce to nothing the Great Powers that grind the face of the poor and destroy the earth for profit!"

And our religious friends happily read words from the Internationale: 

"We have been naught, we shall be all; the world shall rise on new foundations!"

Though this event was not very large, it had a qualitatively mass character with important elements of communist politics in the lead.  Our next study group will surely have much to say about this. 

Meanwhile, the potential exists to get a few more people to participate in the study group, and possibly to consolidate a small Party club as well.