by Sunsara Taylor
Last week I spent three busy days in Altanta. I met with key individuals, spoke at a
city-wide meeting of World Can’t Wait, met with a group of local high school
students, met with the local Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade and I did
interviews on the community radio station and Mike Malloy’s national Air
America Program. I also spoke at a
house-party of thirty professionals, to 35 students at Georgia
State University,
and to more than 150 at Morehouse.
In recent months I have spoken at 20 college campuses and in
cities across the country and gotten a very good response. But in this last trip to Atlanta,
there was a palpable shift in people’s mood.
Everywhere I went, people were extremely attentive, serious, and eager
to take up organizing and spreading the word for the BUSH STEP DOWN protests
during Bush’s State of the Union and the following Saturday, February 4th,
in Washington, DC.
Here’s a few stories from that trip:
MOREHOUSE:
My favorite experience was at the Peach Cobbler and Politics
event held at Morehouse College,
an all-male historically Black campus.
The organizers set up a panel of speakers in the cafeteria along with a
DJ and gave out free peach cobbler. The
cafeteria was noisy and it was unclear, when we began, whether the students
were listening. But once we got going,
the cafeteria came alive.
I asked students, ‘Are you for torture? Or are you against it?’ And they perked up. I asked, ‘Are you for forcing women to have
babies they don’t want? Or are you
against it?’ And I heard some
noise. I asked, ‘Are you for wrapping
entire villages in Iraq
in barbed wire and reducing others to rubble?
Or are you against that shit?’ a table in the way back broke out in
applause and then it just went from there.
Students got up on their feet, cheered for some and heckled others who
spoke.
Others on the panel included Tony Anderson and Daniel Edward
from the Morehouse NAACP, Steven Waddy from the Hip Hop Convention on campus,
Luc Severe from the Young Republicans on campus.
Daniel revealed a startling and ominous form of Black
disenfranchisement during his remarks.
Apparently there are new laws in place that will require a form of state
ID to vote in Georgia. Most university student ID’s are accepted at
the polls, but not those of the Historically Black Colleges and University like
Morehouse, Spellman, Clark and Atlanta
University!
The Young Republican tried to defend this outrageous law,
but was booed and heckled. One student
in the cafeteria began shouting, ‘Fuck you.
Fuck Bush. I’m going to the CNN
Center.’ (That is the site of the
local January 31st protest).
Our panel debated the war on Iraq,
the NSA security spying, and other issues of the day. Then, the audience was allowed to come up and
ask questions and the room got even more animated. By the time we were done, two other panelists
had advocated for the BUSH STEP DOWN protests and a student from the cafeteria
had come up to the front of the room to hold one of the bright green ‘BUSH STEP
DOWN’ signs up at the front of the room so everyone could see.
Organizers were in the crowd signing people up and getting
out flyers. They told me afterwards that
many of the students mentioned Kanye’s statement when taking the flyers, ‘George
Bush doesn’t like Black people.’ And
last night, one of the other panelists told me that he’s been seeing the green
signs all around campus and in dorm rooms since then.
Georgia State
University:
About 35 students turned out to hear about driving out the
Bush regime only to find out that the administration has backed out and
canceled the room reservation for our event.
Without being deterred, we all relocated to a student lounge and sat on
the floor in a circle. First, we
introduced ourselves and everyone said briefly why they had come.
The reasons were powerful and incredibly diverse, as were
the students. Several students started
by saying they are pretty far left and are looking for something to do about
Bush. A young Black man spoke movingly
about Katrina, the loss of life, and how it reminded him of slavery. A young woman talked about the need for
women’s rights and abortion access and another spoke passionately about what is
behind the denial of gay marriage. A
young white student acknowledged that he has never been ‘left’ or even
‘liberal’ but lately he’s been feeling pushed that way because of how extreme
things are getting under George Bush.
One student had heard World Can’t Wait’s ads on Air America
and were eager to find that we were organizing on his campus and brought a
group of friends with him.
I spoke, laying out the outrages of the Bush regime and the
need for millions to take independent historic political action to drive them
out ( NOW. I laid out the stakes coming
together during Bush’s State of the Union and how he cannot be allowed to
legitimize all his lying, spying, Alito and the rest.
Then the students asked questions. People wanted to know if driving out the Bush
regime was short-sighted, if Cheney would just take Bush’s place. We discussed the need for people to set new
political terms for the country and how, years ago, when people were massively
active and protesting they created a situation where Nixon himself was pulling
out of Vietnam
and instituting things like Affirmative Action.
And, how Nixon actually resigned before
he was officially impeached.
I got into the need for us to make our demand that Bush Step
Down and Take His Program With Him be what is setting terms in society. And I spoke to the fact that Bush’s whole
crew is criminally indictable, but that none of that matters to those who rule,
unless we make it matter through our massive resistance.
We discussed the analogy of seeing a tsunami coming. Perhaps we all have different long-term
strategies for how to adjust society so that tsunamis don’t pose such a
devastating effect. Some might want better scientific warning systems set up
and others might be interested in building better infrastructure for
evacuation. And we should debate and
move forward on these things too ( but when a tsunami is on its way, we have to
come together from different perspectives to throw in everything we can to move
millions to higher land.
We almost all agreed that the Bush regime and their attempts
to legitimize their fascist new direction are an imminent tsunami. We all need to move millions to drive it out
if we are going to have a chance to implement or argue over our longer term
strategies.
Every one stuck around till the end and participated in
planning to spread the word on campus every day for the remaining week and a
half before January 31st and two weeks till February 4th.
Fundraising House Party:
About 30 friends and colleagues gathered at someone’s home
and snacked on food donated by a local Middle Eastern restaurant and other
items that the hosts provided. The
organizers displayed literature and an enlarged poster of the New York Times ad
demanding BUSH STEP DOWN.
After a while, the host called people together and I spoke
for about 15-20 minutes about the aims and plans of The World Can’t Wait. I described the powerful response that we
have gotten from our ads and called on people to donate significant funds so
that we can reach more people right now
while the mood and the moment exist.
Tracy, a local organizer, made a few comments as well and
pointed out how well financed and organized the radical right is, and again put
the challenge to attendees to donate generously.
Questions and discussion followed. One theme that developed was the level of
fear that many feel. One woman stepped
forward and spoke with tears in her eyes about how she hesitated before coming
to the house-party or inviting others because her husband is not from the U.S.
and she is afraid something would happen to him. She told how she had discussed this with him
and how he told her, ‘That’s why you have to do this.’
An Iranian lawyer stepped to the front of the room and
talked about how he has been persecuted by Homeland Security for filing
challenges to the new repressive laws since 9/11. He compared the situation in this country to
that during the rise of Nazi Germany and called on people to defy this
direction with him.
Again, discussion emerged about long-term strategies for an
alternative party or other reforms, but many agreed with the need to also act
now to drive out the Bush regime.
People all signed up to be more involved, many took large
stacks of flyers and bright green signs for their windows, most people donated
generously and several agreed to hold house-parties of their own.
The 10 year old daughter of the host has saved up $2 a week
for over a year that she is allowed to give to any charity she wishes. After sitting through the discussion, she
stepped forward to donate $157 to driving out the Bush regime and began to make
plans with her mother to travel to Washington DC
on February 4th.
THE LOCAL MEETING
About 30 people turned out to a tavern in Atlanta
for a local city-wide meeting to Drive Out the Bush Regime. I gave a presentation at the beginning which
highlighted some of the very heavy and true statements made by Al Gore in his
speech the day before. I also emphasized
three things that we needed to make a leap on organizationally: 1. Saturating
the city with stickers, posters, and info about the State of Emergency
protests. 2. Filling busses to DC for
February 4th. 3. Raising
buckets of money!
People came to this meeting from several different
organizations active in the city and got serious about making plans, including
for a big car caravan over the weekend with a loudspeaker, posters, and lots of
flyers to spread the word.
RADIO SHOWS
The Mike Malloy interview can be listened to here: http://server4.whiterosesociety.org/content/malloy/MalloyShow-(17-01-2006).mp3
And, the community radio show was hosted by Adam Shapiro and
took call-ins. I don’t have an audio of
the show up online yet, but the callers were extremely enthusiastic and were
grateful for the chance to do something that matters. We plugged the local meetings and the times and
places for the State of Emergency
protests.
OVERALL
As I said above, the mood everywhere was ready to move,
ready to do something that matters. We
have a challenge ( with 7 days to go before January 31st and 11 days
until February 4th ( of thinking big enough and mobilizing all those
who are looking to act.
We need to open the doors and let people in. Every new person should be given important
responsibilities, whether it be flyering high school students or emailing every
Yoga studio in town and asking them to print and display flyers about the
protests. This is a moment where
millions are looking for a way to act, and they urgently need to know about our
plans. Time, place, and demand: BUSH
STEP DOWN.
Time to step it up, go all out. Demand Bush Step Down and force his program
out.