Speech at the Cleveland November 2nd rally:
‘All power in struggle!.On this day of the commemoration of his second
coronation George Bush has had his day of fear. Take my word for it,
this is his day of fear. He is not afraid of guns, he is not afraid of
tanks, he is not afraid of planes. He has plenty of those. What he is
afraid of is you and me. He is afraid of us because we’ve come together
during the past year to manufacture the most important weapon in the
world: public consciousness. That’s what Bush fears. We’ve come here
armed with our consciousness which like dynamite is going to blast Bush
out of the White House. We will manufacture that consciousness with our
minds, our hands, our marching feet, our standing here, our chanting.
That’s what needs to happen, awakening, a reawakening of the public
mind, and this is the start that is going to touch it off. All of us
gathered together wielding this mass weapon of public consciousness, a
political consciousness of linking our struggles to other struggles, to
struggles all over the world. Do this not just for yourselves, do it
for people all over the world. This is a global effort. When I say
public consciousness, I mean during the last year millions have risen
up against Bush from New Orleans to Baghdad to the Philippines to
Columbia. This is a global movement, millions stand behind you now.
Take a look around you, it is not hundreds, it is not thousands, it’s
millions of
people. We’re here to blast away at the lies, the falsehoods, the false
consciousness that Bush wants us to believe in. and we will do it by
speaking, by writing, by marching, by getting together. March and
mobilize and make public consciousness for the sake of those who came
before us. Millions of people had to sacrifice their lives so we could
be here to struggle today and continue that struggle in a chain of
struggle that will go on forever until victory. Yes victory, victory,
victory(everyone shouting). We need to hear the shouts, the screams, of
all of those who cannot speak for themselves. When a brother is put in
prison simply because of his ethnicity or race or political or
religious beliefs we don’t need to walk, we need to run to his defense.
When a sister is thrown off welfare and thrown into the slavery of
workfare we need to not walk, not run, but rush to her defense. Yes,
millions are watching, millions will join, millions
will come together in this global struggle which has started now. We’re
doing this for those who came before us to honor their memory, the
fighters from China to Vietnam to Cuba to Columbia who fought for us.
We ‘re doing this for the present generation of Africans, Asians, Latin
Americans, Latinos in this country, everyone who needs our help and
most of all we’re doing it for the future, because we’re going to forge
the future, not George Bush. The future belongs to us! The future
belongs to us!’ (people took up the chant, ‘The future belongs to us.’)
All power to the people!’