Audio Now Available:
[Medea Benjiman] [devorah major] [Dorothy Erlich]
[Sunsara Taylor] [Audience Member] [Will Durst]
[Mark
Leno]
[devorah major (2)] [Mark Bamuthi
Joseph]
Here’s an initial report about this inspiring event. More
will be coming soon, including photos, excerpts of speeches, and comments from
the audience.
The Evening of Conscience benefit was moving and
successful. Hosted by the World Can’t
Wait committees of San Francisco
and the East Bay,
it took place Jan. 12 in Oakland at
the Grand Lake Theater, a beautiful 1926 art deco cinema. The theater owner donated the venue for this
special benefit, and has now twice emblazoned the theater marquee with bold
World Can’t Wait ( Drive Out the Bush Regime! messages.
About 350 people of all ages attended. All were deeply captivated by what each
speaker and performer had to offer. On
stage were World Can’t Wait initiator Sunsara Taylor; California Assemblyman
Mark Leno; poet Marc Bamuthi Joseph and the former San Francisco Poet Laureate
devorah major; Medea Benjamin from Code Pink and Global Exchange; the executive
director of the ACLU of Northern California Dorothy Ehrlich; and political
satirist Will Durst. Dr. Tony Jackson
emceed, and Grand Lake Theater owner Allen Michaan welcomed the audience — and
personally ran the live auction that followed the speakers! Speakers and performers expressed inspiration
at the other performances.
The message from the stage: This regime is extremely
dangerous and it must be stopped! Diverse voices took part in sounding the
alarm about the urgency of the times and the need for the people to act boldly
to force Bush to step down. Dorothy
Ehrlich said, ‘The last time a U.S. president claimed that he alone had the
unilateral power to tap phones without a judicial order, that incident ended in
the national disgrace known as the Watergate scandal) we can no longer stand
for this kind of illegal unchecked abuse of power and we have to stop it
today.’ Mark Leno talked about the critical
leadership role the World Can’t Wait organization is assuming, and called on
people to join and build it to take responsibility for driving out the Bush
regime. Sunsara Taylor spoke powerfully:
“Is it good enough to be against what this president is doing or what this
regime is doing? Or do we actually have a moral obligation to stop it? . . .
It’s bad when the military tortures people, it’s bad when the president lies,
it’s bad when the president spies on millions of people. These things are not
good. But when all this stuff gets dragged out into the light of day it either
gets opposed and stopped or it gets ratified by our passivity. Protest as usual and opposition as usual,
just registering our dissent is not sufficient at this point in history) .” Medea Benjamin took us through a sweep of
reasons around the world that the world can’t wait: the AIDS pandemic, the
environment, the lives of women.
Several prominent community leaders were eager to contribute
financial support to not only assist the World Can’t Wait organization in its
urgent mission but to also set a great example for the crowd. People responded enthusiastically to the
passing of the donation basket, and bid in the live auction for great art
items, dinner and theater tickets, and gift certificates. A long-time tabler said that he had never in
his life had a tabling experience like this, with people lining up after the
program to demand organizing kits.
One woman stood up in the audience and spoke passionately:
‘I’m not an activist, at least I wasn’t until about a year ago. I’m going to write a check for $500. I’m terrified. Aren’t you terrified? Isn’t it time that we really started doing
something! I’m going to reserve an
airplane flight to DC this evening. I’m
going to be there. I’m not part of this
organization [World Can’t Wait]. I’m
part of
Women] . . . Please, please open your
checkbook, make a difference ) ‘ Others
too were similarly moved by the evocations of conscience given by Sunsara, Mark
Leno, Dorothy, Bamuthi, and the others
— and the compelling words of this woman from the audience, in turn,
inspired still others.
A number of people said they are struggling with others who
see that the times right now
that they
benefit because they are literally scared.
Will Durst skewered the ugly hypocrisy of the Bush regime’s morality on
gay marriage, war based on lies, etc.
And devorah major conveyed that if people don’t think that a movement to
drive out the Bush regime can happen, she does — because she remembers the
Black Liberation Movement of the 60’s: one day it wasn’t there, the next day it
was.
To bring the program to a resounding finale, Marc Bamuthi
Joseph read a new poem. The poem spoke about Bamuthi’s own deep struggle over
the decision to actually sign his name to the Call, knowing there are real
stakes and risks involved. The poem
honored the friend who had struggled with Bamuthi to sign on — which indeed,
he had just done.
———————–
Excerpts from the program:
* One of the poems read at the event by devorah major, “emergency alert and the republic for which it stands“, is on our Voices Speaking Out page.
* From Sunsara Taylor’s speech:
‘Each day
people are being led by the mainstream Democrats, by the logic of politics as
usual, and even by protest as usual sometimes unfortunately, to just chase
after the latest outrage, and occupy ourselves with each detail. And yet there is a whole juggernaut coming at
people, and it’s being locked into place and right now, this month in
particular, January — all this shit is being pulled out before society,
debated and largely decided: NSA spying, the Patriot Act, the Alito hearings
which concentrates everything from abortion, as I was talking about, but also
executive privilege, prisoner rights, stripping a ten-year-old, shooting people
in the back if they run from police.) “
‘So here is
what we are proposing. When we say âThe World Can’t Wait Drive Out the Bush Regime’
we have a moral choice and a practical choice. Is this just a slogan we are
raising? Or is it an actual demand — the world actually can’t wait — and we
ourselves need top take responsibility for driving this regime out! And that means doing some things that we
never thought that we would have to do. It means stepping into politics in ways
that normally people don’t do. Usually they leave it to the politicians and
sometimes to the activists. It means confronting the regime as a whole, not
chasing after each outrage. At the end
of this month, when all these events are colliding and being decided, when Bush
steps before the world in the State of the Union we need
to be politically confronting him. And we need to do this with tens of
thousands of people all across the country.’
* From Medea Benjamin’s speech:
‘I was recently at a conference of 2,000 women from all over
the world, mostly from Africa, and they kept saying to me the clinics that we
so desperately need in our countries for health care for women who are
suffering, who are poor, who have AIDS, we are losing our international funding
because Bush regime has re-instituted the gag rule that says if we give advice
to women on their reproductive choices we will not get our international money) .They
say we can’t wait and where are the women of the United States ( why aren’t
they rising up?’