|
November 19. 2005
Presentation to National Meeting of The World Can't Wait – Drive Out the
Bush Regime
Debra Sweet, National Co-ordinator
Somewhere this morning, perhaps in a secret “detention camp” in
Eastern Europe, a man kidnapped by US military forces is likely being
tortured. No one knows where he’s
disappeared to. Somewhere in the
Mississippi Delta, a sixteen year old girl is 6 months pregnant; she’s had no
medical care at all, and never had any “choice” because the federal government
has cut back on prenatal care, and the last abortion clinic left in Mississippi
is 4 hours away. Somewhere in Kansas a
biology teacher is trying to prepare a lesson plan for her students that
interests them in science, but can NEVER teach the concept of evolution! As Sunsara Taylor said at our rally on the 2nd,
this isn’t so complicated. Are you for
that biblical literalism being what the law is, or are you against it?
Ten weeks ago
some of us here now met in NY, brought together by the compelling Call to Drive
Out the Bush Regime. We struggled hard
over a weekend, and we decided, this Regime does NOT REPRESENT US and WE
WILL DRIVE IT OUT. Over the next eight
weeks we fought to launch a historic movement that seeks to do something
entirely unprecedented in this country: drive a sitting President from power,
and stop the whole direction his Regime is taking society.
Our launch on
November 2 brought thousands into the streets as they left work and school and
signaled the powerful potential our movement has. It was a real beginning, and a new thing. But we have to ask: will that good beginning
be an interesting footnote in the history books one day? Or will November 2 go down really as the day
“history started to change”? We here
have a lot to say about how that question is settled.
Our mission
this weekend is to decide and make real plans for politically drowning
out Bush’s State of the Union message across the country, and the following
Saturday, gather people from all over for a massive demonstration in
Washington, D.C., raising our demand full of determination: BUSH MUST GO! BUSH
MUST GO! STEP DOWN STEP DOWN, BUSH MUST
GO! STEP DOWN STEP DOWN, BUSH MUST GO!
But we have
work to do to make that real. We -
friends, in this room -must decide and figure out this weekend how to
build the poles we need to vault this movement to where it must be in another 8
weeks to politically drown out Bush’s State of the Union message and make real
the demand BUSH STEP DOWN and TAKE YOUR WHOLE PROGRAM WITH YOU!
I want to
talk a little a bit about the foundation of this movement, the Call that we put
out last July 1. Why is our Call so important? It provides the basis for
uniting and guiding a movement to drive the Bush regime from power—and to take
its program with it.
The first and most
important thing is this: the Call tells the truth about the
situation. Listen:
“Your
government, on the basis of outrageous lies, is waging a murderous and utterly
illegitimate war in Iraq, with other countries in their sights.
Your
government is openly torturing people, and justifying it.
Your
government puts people in jail on the merest suspicion, refusing them lawyers,
and either holding them indefinitely or deporting them in the dead of night.
Your
government is moving each day closer to a theocracy, where a narrow and hateful
brand of Christian fundamentalism will rule.
Your
government suppresses the science that doesn't fit its religious, political and
economic agenda, forcing present and future generations to pay a terrible
price.
Your
government is moving to deny women here, and all over the world, the right to
birth control and abortion.
Your
government enforces a culture of greed, bigotry, intolerance and ignorance.”
In light of
this, let’s ask: Is it too “extreme”, as some would say, to launch a massive and determined political
movement to drive such a regime from power? Or is the situation extreme,
and we are responding to that—and rightly so? We must drive this
regime from power—the only way it can be done, by mass political action.
We cannot
rest for one second to really get this movement moving. This is a serious
situation, and we must be—we are!--serious about driving this regime from
power—the world can’t wait. Bush hasn’t
stopped since November 2.
This Bush
crew is relentless. Give them falling
public support for the war, and what?
Bush makes 3 speeches on military bases arguing for endless war. He calls anyone who opposes him – even the
few Democrats in Congress who have raised questions – traitors, and commits
more troops. Meanwhile, the horror and
the carnage goes on, every day. Do you
realize just how extreme that is?
Give them
opposition to secret US detention centers in European countries, and what? Dick Cheney, the poster boy for torture,
makes clear again and again that this regime openly opposes ANY bill that would tie the US hands in openly proclaiming its
right to torture. Last week the Senate
voted to overrule a federal court decision, and reinstated Bush’s self-declared
mandate to declare anyone an enemy combatant and deny anyone the right to
habeas corpus – that is, the right to not be secretly held in prison without
the benefit of a lawyer, a fair trial and what used to be called due
process. Do you realize that this
over-rules 900 years of habeas corpus?
Do you realize just how extreme that is?
Give them
public outrage at the treatment of people who somehow survived Katrina and the
government’s draconian response let them die, and what? FEMA announces suddenly this week that
they’re throwing 53,000 families out of subsidized hotel rooms. 53,000 families! Do you realize just how extreme that is?
We are in a
race against time, literally for peoples’ lives. Our call rightly says “The
Bush regime is setting out to radically remake society very quickly, in a
fascist way, and for generations to come.”
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that most of the elected officials who
have come first to endorse our Call and who spoke at our November 2nd
rallies are lesbian or gay. Why have
they this taken this risk? What do they
see that others don’t? Bush staked his
election chances on pulling out thousands of churches against gay marriage last
year. These theocrats - and I advocate
calling them Christian Fascists because that’s just what they are - Christian
fascists. Anyway, these theocrats that
Bush is so indebted to have a program based on the book of Leviticus in the Bible
that advocates killing people who are gay.
This is no secret; and these politicians are not crazy to fear
annihilation.
Some people
are clear on what our Call is warning against when it speaks of what this
government is doing in Iraq, or in openly carrying out torture, but they are
less clear when it warns of “theocracy, where a narrow and hateful brand of
Christian fundamentalism will rule.” But this is a very timely warning about a
real and dangerous attempt to make law out of a literal belief in the
Bible. An attempt, which is well underway, by powerful forces with real power
and initiative in this society—and the Republican party and the Bush regime in
particular. Is this threat real? Well,
just look at how Bush dropped the nomination of Harriet Miers, when powerful
forces in the Republican party, motivated by this Christian fascist agenda,
demanded not just a “stealth” reactionary zealot, but an open ideological representative on the Supreme court. Someone they say, like Scalia, who has
argued, among other things, that governmental authority and law derive from
God.
And what is
the result when these theocratic forces grab even a little bit of power? Well, what has happened just this month in
Kansas, where not only has a religious creationist belief been brought into
science classrooms, but the very definition of science itself has now been
changed, as a matter of state policy. And what about “abstinence only” as state
policy in reproductive health? Let’s call it for what it is—genocide. Know effective
means of AIDS protection are BANNED from any government funded health programs
in Africa, as literally MILLIONS of Africans—men, women and children die.
Or take what
is happening with women’s right to abortion, and even birth control. Are these forces actually trying to outlaw
birth control, as well as abortion?
Yes, they are! The columnist
Ellen Goodman recently wrote about how these Christian fascist forces are mobilizing
against a new medical breakthrough in the treatment of cervical cancer, because
it undermines “abstinence only.” She quotes Senator Coburn, one of these
dangerous lunatics with real power, saying he would forbid his daughter this
treatment for cervical cancer because it would serve promiscuity.
Opposing
theocracy, Christian fascism, is not about opposing religion. But we MUST oppose the imposition of this
literal interpretation of the Bible as law. Let me emphasize, because this is very important. Some of us in this movement believe in
God...and some of us do not. But all of
us are united in opposing the imposition of a “hateful brand of Christian
fundamentalism” as law. This is the
meaning, and the importance, of the Call which unites us. Lives are at
stake—and most definitely the rights and very lives of women.
And let’s be
clear. These people are not just a
handful of people on school boards.
They are in the Courts. They are
all up into the armed forces. And they
are at the very highest reaches of government.
Martin
Neimoeller was a German minister who lived through the development of Nazi
times. He even supported Hitler in the
election that brought the Nazis to power.
Slowly he became alienated, and began to express opposition to how the
Nazis affected him. It was only in
1937, four years after Hitler came to power, that Niemoeller was arrested, and
spent the next eight years in prisons and concentration camps.
And what
lesson did he draw? Did he say
that it was really good that we didn’t all get together to fight the whole
regime, but just looked after “our own struggle”? Did he say that the problem was that we were too extreme in our
opposition? Well, listen to what he
said:
“First they
came for the communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a communist.
“Then they
came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.
“Then they
came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade
unionist.
“Then they
came for the Catholic, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant.
“Then they
came for me. . . and by that time no one was left to speak up.”
Today, we
live in Neimoeller times. This regime is on a course to radically remake
society and the world, and our Call put it straight: “That which you will not
resist and mobilize to stop, you will learn –
or be forced to – accept.”
And our Call
also says this: “History is full of examples where people who had right on
their side fought against tremendous odds and were victorious. And it is also
full of examples of people passively hoping to wait it out, only to get
swallowed up by a horror beyond what they ever imagined. The future is
unwritten. WHICH ONE WE GET IS UP TO US.”
On November
2, we led thousands to become the first kind of people, and we took a
first step into writing a different kind of future.
I want to
talk some about what we accomplished.
And what we still need to do.
You’ve
probably read all the reports on worldcantwait.org. There were good reports on truthout.org and Michael Moore
featured it for 2 days on his site.
Local news coverage across the country was overall very positive and
widespread. Our launch brought joy and
hope over the outpouring of youth and determined energy.
Across the
country, this outpouring had many different faces, reflecting the variety of
people who have cast aside politics-as-usual and are daring to do something
unprecedented. People who had been in
prison, and had reason to fear getting arrested, still came out to march with
us. In the last week before the 2nd,
hundreds of people who are the voices of conscience in this society, including
a few household names like Jane Fonda, endorsed our Call, and it began to take
on more influence. Boots Riley of the
Coup stuck his neck way out speak for the World Can’t Wait on national radio
spots. On the very morning of the 2nd,
the famous writer Gore Vidal, went on the local New York City NPR station and
called to hundreds of thousands of listeners to come out to Union Square.
Howard Zinn made his beautiful challenge to students. And the playwright Harold Pinter – an artist who has, among other
things, shown how language can be perverted into oppression and who won this
year’s Nobel Prize for literature – wrote from England: “The Bush
Administration is the most dangerous force that has ever existed. It is more
dangerous than Nazi Germany because of the range and depth of its activities
and intentions worldwide. I give my full support to the Call to Drive out the
Bush Regime.”
Nation-wide,
thousands of high school students flooded to the forefront. They walked out of school in the face of
massive repression, suspension, truancy officers and military recruiters. Students climbed out bathroom windows after
their school doors were locked shut, or were locked in the boiler room but made
it to the rally anyway. Some kids like
students in Batavia IL, had no rally at all to go to so they marched to the
Republican Congressman Hastert’s office and screamed. We just heard - and only by accident - that in Dover PA, the very
place where evolution has been on trial by a school board that wanted to
replace it with so-called “intelligent design”, that 60 kids walked out of
Dover High School on the 2nd.
Overall, it was probably the most significant high school walk-out since
the 60’s - over 200 schools taking part.
And in many places, parents and teachers defended them, and so did our
movement, which is exactly what we should be doing!
The demand
BUSH STEP DOWN has come to the notice of some millions of people. This IS the news that we made.
November 2 was
a public proclamation that we refuse to be ruled this way, and it called out to
millions who heard about it. But it was
not massive. We had thousands of
people out in 200 some locations, and the low thousands in several large
cities. This IS a beginning
step, but it is not yet nearly what we need to drive out the regime,
where millions are in the streets taking responsibility, led by tens of
thousands of organizers. We raised tens
of thousands of dollars from thousands of people. We need millions of
dollars from hundreds of thousands of donors.
The
participation of high school youth was our main strength surpassing any
predictions, and you can never have a social movement without youth. But we can’t leave them to take on the whole
thing. They have to be joined by tens
of thousands and then millions of people from the rest of society. We needed a student movement on 100
campuses, including the elite universities, and while they were great
mobilizations at a few schools like Columbia and Pitzer Colleges, these are
shoots of what we must do now more broadly.
To create a
political situation where the Bush regime’s program is repudiated, where Bush
himself is driven from office, and where the whole direction he has been taking
society is reversed, we need to have the institutions people look to - the
schools, professional organizations, local governments, unions and religious
institutions in turmoil over whether they are with Bush, or see his Regime as
illegitimate and intolerable. As much
as the left political movements have not joined in this effort, they
should. But we are really going for
something much bigger, involving millions of people who have never been
activists rather suddenly deciding to take to the streets, to debate with
people at work, canvass their neighborhoods, ask their friends for money, call
radio talk shows to say that challenge anyone who defends the Bush Regime.
We have
decided to lead people in taking independent historical action, with what
aim? To drive out this regime, and
nothing less. I’ll say it again: TO DRIVE
OUT THIS REGIME, AND NOTHING LESS. We
are not about passively waiting out the storm.
We got something different we are doing. We are giving a voice and vehicle to people who are locked out of
the process, and are seeking to change the terms by we’re told by which
political change can even happen.
We meant what
we said and we said what we meant. And
that means we have to be very serious to accomplish that aim. We have to be serious – and we also have to
be mad creative, refusing to accept the conventional wisdom of what we can’t
do. We have to learn from the resisters
of an earlier generation who said ‘BE REALISTIC; DEMAND THE IMPOSSIBLE.” We learned much more deeply on November 2
how it IS realistic to move thousands and thousands of people around this
demand, and on the foundation of our Call.
Now we have to take what we learned, and what we accomplished, and get
this thing into a whole other place.
Now I want to
speak to directly to a huge question we are asked often. Why would Bush step
down? How could the Bush Regime be
driven out? There are actually quite a
few different possibilities. If we
build the movement powerfully and quickly enough, things can start opening up
and coming out. The first bit of criminality has been attached to the Bush
Regime with the Libby indictment. This
could go much deeper. The Downing
Street Memo has not been answered; the WMD’s never found. The lies the Bush Regime is based on way
surpass anything Richard Nixon was forced to resign over. The stolen elections
- including the voting machine scandal which has remained suppressed – could
open up. Thieves fall out when the
going gets tough, and ugly splits in the ranks could develop, even between some
very bad people.
Now there is
absolutely no juice behind impeachment right now - that would take more than
the Democrats in Congress, even if they did want to push that. But that could change with a big movement in
the streets. I can never resist the
example of Richard Nixon, who won by the biggest landslide ever in the 1972
election; and was gone in disgrace less than two years later. But whether it’s by impeachment or
resignation – it can only happen with a huge social movement, determined to
settle for nothing less than getting this regime OUT OF THERE.
And we are
not talking about a President Cheney or Rice, either. We are talking about a REGIME, not just one individual. And we are saying “Take your whole program
with you.” We are building a movement
to drive out this regime, and as we do that we are galvanizing
people against the whole logic and direction this crew is taking society.
But we got a
problem.
We’re up
against a way things work politically in this society that people have come to
accept. We’re up against a framework of
“how things work” which is killing us.
It’s called accommodation. Some
people who should know better, like the President of the National Organization
for Women, are declaring that “the tide has turned” because a Democrat won election
in Virginia over a Republican Bush campaigned for. This guy Kaine is anti-abortion and pro-death penalty and ran on
the basis that he’s more openly religious than the other guy! This wasn’t a
victory against the moves to turn this country into a theocracy. This was not a blow against the trend to
force intolerant and absolutist religious dogma into every realm of public and
private life - including into the law.
No, this was a maneuver - yet again - on the part of the Democrats to
see if they could become more like the Republicans we all hate and should hate
so much. And, they are saying openly,
this is a model for them, something to emulate.
I want to
quote from an essay that is on our website.
“Of course,
there are still people who hate everything the Bush regime represents, and its
whole agenda, but who are holding out the hope that the difficulties it is
facing will make things more favorable for electing a Democratic Congress in
2006 (and a Democratic President in 2008) and who therefore think that, rather
than mobilizing to drive out the Bush regime, we should pin our hopes on, and
wait for, those elections. But the
questions must be honestly, and urgently, posed:
“ Can we
afford to wait that long before doing something decisive to defeat this regime
and its whole agenda? And by voting for
Democrats would people really be doing anything to change the whole course on
which this regime has set the country, and indeed the world? The answers are NO and NO.
“If, instead
of bringing forth, from here forward, the kind of massive resistance, of
millions, that is both urgently needed and is possible, we focus our attention
on elections and on electing Democrats, this will only mean that things will be
in an even far worse place by a year from now, in terms of what is happening in
the world and what it is possible to do to oppose it. And, anyway, what exactly is it we would be “waiting for” in
terms of these elections? Can anyone
honestly say that in 2006 (or 2008) it will be possible to vote for a Democratic
Party that would:
·
“Bring an end to U.S.
occupation in Iraq and other wars to enforce and extend American imperial
domination in the world?
·
“Put a stop to the
torture being carried out by the U.S. government and others cooperating with
it?
·
“End the imprisonment
of people without rights or legal representation and the heightened repression
embodied in the Patriot Act?
·
“Actively and uncompromisingly
oppose Christian fundamentalist attacks on evolution and on science and the
scientific method in general, and on the separation of church and state?
·
“Vigorously defend
the right to abortion, and to birth control?
·
“Consistently and
systematically defend the rights of gay people?
·
“Seriously address
and do something to actually end the continuing discrimination and
institutionalized racism, oppression and poverty that were once again and
dramatically brought tow light through hurricane Katrina and in the way the
government has dealt with that natural disaster and its aftermath?
“The answer
to these questions, as well as the actions of Bush himself, in the face of
growing difficulties for his regime and its agenda, show once again why the Call,
“The World Can’t Wait! Drive Out The Bush Regime!” is speaking to a profound
truth and a profound need when it says:
“There is not
going to be some magical ‘pendulum swing.’ People who steal elections and
believe they’re on a ‘mission from God’ will not go without a fight.
Quite
frankly, it seems to me that the “fix is already in” on the 2006
elections. The Diebold machines are in
place, the crooked redistricting has all been done, and the money and
high-level support that does go to Democrats are for the ones running on anti
abortion or other “Republican lite” platforms.
And fascism
need not come with funny mustaches or canceling elections — In countries all over the world trained
and managed by the CIA fascist regimes hold elections every year. The PRI ruled
for 60 years in Mexico as a single ruling party that won every election.
One thing we
can say with certainty is that the Democratic Party will not do anything in the
direction of what the vast majority of it’s base truly wants and believes in – like
the overwhelming public opinion to end the war now, or the over 400 cities that
opposed the Patriot Act until their feet are to the fire – until the they fear
that people are getting beyond their control. The blunt truth is that as long
as they think people are willing to be passively go along with the whole
process and are dependent on them, they are never going to bend to the things
people really care about.
Even for
those of us who strongly believe there is still hope and something to believe
in in the electoral process - or room to be created for those in congress
trying to do something - we are here together because there is recognition that
this will not happen short of a massive upsurge from below. When that does happen it changes everything
and creates a political situation that everyone has to respond to.
We have to
recognize that the only thing that can save us is our own independent political
activity.
Now, the
political cohesion of our Movement is not voting vs not voting; the Call doesn’t
tell people not to vote. And it would
be very wrong to make that the dividing line.
Anybody who says that this movement is against voting perhaps has not
read the Call. The point is that we
cannot rely on the Democratic Party - that as our call says “This whole
idea of putting our hopes and energies into leadership who tell us to seek
common ground with fascists and religious fanatics is proving every day to be a
disaster, and actually serves to demobilize people.”
Let’s be real
clear. This regime may be wounded, but
is as dangerous, and determined, as a wounded beast. And at this State of the Union Bush will attempt a big comeback
for his regime and his program. It must
be massively answered. And it will not
be answered by what is being brought forward following after the leadership of
the Democratic Party. In fact, the time
of the state of the Union is going to mark the beginning of a whole campaign to
draw peoples’ hopes and energies into relying on “leaders” who tell us to seek
common ground with fascists and religious fanatics.
Our mass
actions around the State of the union must provide people the way to get on a
different road - the road of taking independent mass political action, driving
out this regime. Our plan for the State
of the union must meet that challenge - nothing less-or we will fail in our
responsibility to powerfully provide people with that path, at this crucial
time. The future we get really is up to
us.
So let’s talk
about what we ARE going to do. Let’s
talk about, and let me share, an audacious vision that our steering committee
has come up with, beyond what we sent out earlier in the week. Let’s about a vision commensurate with what
we need to really make a leap toward driving out this regime. Let’s talk about taking a step that’s going
to create a whole new dynamic in this society.
Let’s talk
about the State of the Union speech, when Bush will strut out there, putting on
his best face, and put forward his program of more war, more repression, and
more horror, with all the major networks covering him and all eyes on him. Let’s talk about how just as he starts to
run his lies to people all over the country and all over the world, from every
corner of the country he is politically drowned out by mass action. Let’s talk about how THIS becomes what
everyone has to relate to, and how the biggest question in society becomes, to
quote the Clash: SHOULD HE STAY OR SHOULD HE GO?
And let’s
talk about how we answer that question loud and clear to millions and millions
of people with further powerful action.
That’s what we have been wrestling with, and I’m going to present you a
new and even more powerful vision, from the Steering Committee, of how to do
that in a minute.
But let’s be
clear first: that is a tall order but this is what we need. To say we made a beginning on November 2
cannot mean that now we settle into gradual and incremental tactics to slowly
grow this movement. This is not the
same old same old. This is not a pet project or a way to build a movement. It is a serious challenge to unseat and
drive out of power a sitting regime and not just any old regime – but one that
has to be driven out – because what will happen if we don’t?
We said in
our Call that, In the face of what this Regime is doing, silence and paralysis
are NOT acceptable! If we are going to
politically drown out the state of the union and get things into a different
dynamic, we have to shake people up AND we have to make a compelling case that they
join us! There are many people who
would respond to our message, but we have not yet even reached them. That’s for starters – we REALLY have to get
this Call out there much more broadly.
At the same
time, we very much need to learn better the things that prevent some people who
have heard our message and speak to their questions more
powerfully. But we can do that. The very things that compelled thousands to
step up and step out in the face of both repression and despair are still here,
and getting worse by the day. The very
things that made each and every person in this room turn their lives around are
still there, and getting worse by the day.
And the vision that inspired all of those people that is embodied in our
Call is still here, and the potential to make that seemingly impossible dream a
reality not only manifested on November 2, but can and must manifest all the
more powerfully as we go into the State of the Union. We can break the constraints – political and practical – that
held people back. And we will.
This weekend
we have to decide this will happen and build our own framework to make
it happen. We are responsible to all
the people who are not here, who worked behind the scenes to make those events
happen, or who couldn’t afford to come here today. We’re responsible to our growing movement.
Therefore,
the Steering Committee proposes a more ambitious and audacious plan for the
State of the Union, in 2 phases:
1) On the night of the State of the Union message, in real time across
the country, everyone mobilizes in their own area to Drown Our Bush’s
Lies. At rallies called one hour before
the speech (starting at 8 pm EST, 5 pm PST, and so on) we will proclaim our
determination to Drive out the Bush Regime.
The whole diversity of our movement, from high school students who have
spent the day mobilizing, to local government officials who bring resolutions
calling for Bush to Step Down, to prominent artists and activists, unions,
professional associations, student governments will represent. As Bush begins to speak, literally, we will
BRING THE NOISE in a cacophony of sound that drowns out his speech. From drum circles to violins, cat-calls to
air horns to banging pots and pans-the whole variety of musical expression from
hip hop to classical will make a noise.
Big media outlets like Fox News might make good gathering spots for
public DROWN OUTS. People in nursing
homes and hospitals, or at work on late shifts, could participate where they
are. The students, especially the high
schools, can help by not even going to school that day, but by criss crossing
the cities and towns in car caravans and flat bed trucks, and marches.
This part of the
plan utilizes the strength we have in the youth and the fact that people want
to demonstrate wherever they are that they demand BUSH STEP DOWN, and Take your
whole program with you!
2) Then, the very next Saturday, we will get everyone possible to
Washington DC by bus, car, train or plane to protest at the seat of
government. There will be prominent
voices of conscience to help deliver the peoples’ verdict on the State of the
Union. And that verdict will ring
through the streets of DC, and echo through the world: STEP DOWN STEP DOWN,
BUSH MUST GO! DRIVE OUT THE BUSH
REGIME!
Here are a few nuts
and bolts before we break. Even though
we don’t know the date of the State of the Union, we should begin selling
tickets immediately for the DC demo, putting this on everyone’s agenda. We should right now make materials, putting
out the slogans:
State
of the Union, with an international NO slash across the Union, replaced with
“EMERGENCY”
Bring
the Noise - Drown Out Bush’s Lies - Drive Out the Bush Regime
We should get out a student flyer: State of the Union; No School - National Student
Mobilization -Stand up and Drive Out the Bush Regime
To do this, to get this
going, we have 5 very serious and necessary tasks to accomplish in the next 5 weeks
1) Raise hundreds of thousands of dollars by early December
2) Run the call for The World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime
in the NY Times, and from there go to other major papers
3) we have to get out onto the college campuses BEFORE the break,
getting out to professors as well as students, working with the cores on the
campuses that have stepped out, as well as bringing high school students
on to the campuses to challenge the college students.
4) We need to saturate with materials announcing this, and take out
ads specifically calling for this State of the Union manifestation
5) We have to reach out to the middle class and bring them solidly in
the movement - Librarians, neighborhood associations, Churches — getting not
just endorsements but resolutions that BUSH STEP DOWN and taking action during
the State of the Union.
So, there it is. We took a first huge step on November
2. We put our challenge out there, and
we are determined to see it through. We
aim to change the direction of society and, yes, the course of history. And, to conclude with the final words of our
call:
“The future is
unwritten. WHICH ONE WE GET IS UP TO
US.”
Thank you
Phone: (213)
924-8571
Address:
Los Angeles World Can't Wait
P.O. Box 48332
Los Angeles, CA 90048
| 