CPI At the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

by Dan Nowman

The Los Angeles group spent two days at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books in mid April. This was the second year that CPI members together attended the festival, though Western Regional Captain Dan ‘Nowman’ Niswander has been a volunteer or attendee since about 2010.

The festival started on the campus of the University of California–Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1996, where it remained until 2010. The festival was then moved to the campus of the University of Southern California, where it has taken place ever since. Hundreds of thousands of books are probably for sale over the two-day period, covering all kinds of subjects and genres. There were numerous book vendors from around the country as well as locally. There were authors in person to sign books, whether known or unknown, also special events and panel discussions. There were specific themed areas focused on genres such as poetry, cooking, children, young adult, romance and fantasy, as well as a real mixture of cultural, political, religious, philosophical, and more. There were stages for live music of various styles.

CPI Los Angeles was there to ‘get out to the masses,’ which is our main goal, and also to those who would be interested in learning more about CPI if they considered themselves political in some way or another.

We were open and had some fruitful conversations with people of all ages who shared some of our passions for peace and ending wars, finding unity, building coalitions, real economic solutions, and more.

Highlights included meeting Ben Freeman from the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, who is the co-author of the book ‘The Trillion Dollar War Machine,’ and also publishers PM Press and Verso. We were also able to talk to Chinese and Korean groups representing various organizations. We talked to attendees from two days of crowds in the tens of thousands who were there to buy books and hear authors speak. One gentleman approached us to share his passion for peace in our world now.

At the end of each day, we went outside of the buying areas, pulled out our peace signs and got positive responses. Some people got palm cards and No War with Iran flyers.

The Los Angeles group is prepared to take on challenges and plant seeds. They are always open to learn a lot from their outreach efforts and to improve their effectiveness as they continue to develop strategies.