On the night of Jan. 31st, Bush delivered a State of the Union Address that signaled a State of Emergency and was a public proclamation for the fascist remaking of society. As Bush’s program of unending war, unchecked executive power and torture was met with cheers and standing ovations in the halls of power, a newly emerging movement took to the streets to demand: Bush Step Down and Take Your Program with You! In over 60 cities and on campuses across the country from UC Berkeley to the University of Mississippi to Howard University, thousands of people set out to drown out Bush’s Lies and repudiate his entire program.
Momentum gathered and the following Saturday, February 4th, people around the country descended on the nation’s capitol to deliver the demand Bush Step Down at the gates of the White House. A broad spectrum of communities from military families to business professionals to immigrants to playwrights to religious leaders came together to share a common goal and aim. With the two full page ads in the New York Times that included endorsements from Sean Penn, Cindy Sheehan, Cornel West and Maxine Waters and the guilty verdicts by the International Bush Crimes Commission; the thousands of people who manifested this demand on the streets of D.C. were of historic importance. Everyone holding a copy of this newsletter or reading it online needs to take responsibility in rapidly escalating the reach, determination and impact of this movement.
Why We Must Act and Why the Bush Regime Needs to be driven from Power
Iraq, Katrina, Torture. These are not just bad Presidential policies,these are crimes against humanity. Where do the Democrats stand on this? Where do you stand? The wide gap between the two views is not just unfortunate compromise, but disastrous and demobilizing.
Many people look back in history to countries where fascist regimes consolidated power and ask: How could that happen? Why didn’t the people stop their rise to power? Now look around the globe from Bagdad to New Orleans to Guantanamo and ask yourself the same question. Then look back at history to the Civil Rights movement and the student protests to the Vietnam War. Think of the resistance waged to win the right for women to have an abortion and in opposition to King George’s illegal invasion of Iraq. How much did this matter and where would the world be without the people’s resistance to these injustices? Look around again. Millions are deeply disturbed and outraged by acts that shock their conscience and searching for a way to act that will matter and can take on the enormity of the situation. World Can’t Wait is the vehicle that can give people a way to act on their desire- that all of this must STOP and that Bush must be driven from office.
The Bush Regime will not stop unless we stop them as part of a fight to change the course of history. Talk of impeachment, scandals, military crisis in Iraq and crimes of the Bush Regime exposed in the media can not cannot stand on their own and will not do any good unless there is a relentless movement from below.
Students must step out boldly to the forefront of this movement and act with the determination and moral clarity strong enough to pierce the current political paralysis. We speak the truth and we speak for millions. We will not stop and will not accept a future under the Bush Regime. A movement to drive out the Bush Regime was launched on November 2nd and was brought to the nation’s capitol on February 4th. Join a movement taking root and spreading throughout universities and schools across the country. You are alone only until you step out and join this movement. We unite with those fighting Bush’s outrages, but recognize in a State of Emergency we must all pull together and aim to reverse the entire direction of society before a Fascist theocracy is locked into place.
This is real. Just look at a debate this past December between John Yoo, author of the infamous legal memo justifying Presidential powers to torture US captives around the world, and Doug Cassel, a human rights scholar and professor at Notre Dame.
Cassel: If the president deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the persons child, there is no law that can stop him?
Yoo: No treaty…
Cassel: Also no law by Congress — that is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo…
Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.
Now you can’t say you don’t know.
Resist like the future depends on it) because it does!
What to do now
*Organize Study Sessions and discussions centered around the World Can’t Wait Call found on the website. Publish the Call in your school newspaper, progressive weeklies and zines. Post it on web forums and Myspace.com. This is foundational and the unifying politics of this movement.
*Go to www.worldcantwait.net and print out copies of these posters and copies of the Call to Drive out the Bush Regime to distribute at your school. Get this poster on every dorm room door, in lecture halls, in gyms and cafeterias and covering every blank wall, kiosk and desk at your school. Set up spots and drop-in places where people can pick up materials.
*Regularly check worldcantwait.org for calls for protests and bold actions on campus.
*Organize large teach-ins and forums where speakers bring home the realities of the the 7 “Your Government” Points in the Call and why the Bush Regime needs to be driven from power. Regular film showings can be organized of the Bush Crimes Commission DVD (can be found at bushcommission.com)
*Fundraise! Meet with professors to donate money and throw house parties to raise money. Utilize funds to print up materials by the thousands, publish full-page ads of the call in your local school paper and contribute to building the infrastructure of World Can’t Wait.
*Take inspiration from the Georgetown Law Students who turned their backs on Attorney General Gonzales and organize protests and visible opposition anytime one of Bush’s goons comes to speak at your school.
*Organize your campus to defend professors who come under attack from right-wing witch hunts and confront campus brown shirts head on. Attacks on critical thought and dissent in academia, like those on Ward Churchill or at UCLA are a harbinger for the dissent-free society the Bush Regime wants to lock in place. Defeating such attacks will be an important part of our aim to create a political situation where the Bush regime is driven out.
* World Can’t Wait will be taking part in the upcoming anti- War demonstrations this March on the 3rd Anniversary of the beginning of the War on Iraq and on April 29th. Check worldcantwait.org for upcoming plans and events.
We need to take this movement forward in leaps and all of the plans above are essential. One alone will not suffice for the challenges we must face, but we can create a different dynamic on campuses when they are all brought together by the conscience initiative of students and professors at various levels.