6/3/06:
Last summer we began a movement to Drive Out the Bush Regime
based on the conviction of millions here, and around the world, that the regime
is illegitimate and immoral. We are
determined to crate a political situation where Bush himself must leave office,
and where the whole direction he is taking society is reversed. Thursday October 5, we are mounting mass protests
which can and must involve hundreds of thousands to demand this.
It’s important that this movement is named “9-11
truth”, and is actually looking for the
truth of what happened on 9-11.
Given the record of the Bush administration in disclosing or even
valuing the truth on anything, (unless you take George Bush at his absolute
word that god has given him the “truth”), it’s not surprising how
much of an uphill battle this movement faces.
A guiding principle of the Bush Regime is that the workings of the government
will be as secret and guarded as possible, whereas the private affairs of the
people are now virtually completely open to government spying and prying. The 9-11 Commission was a fraud, designed to
further justify their “war on terror”, which has been combined with a
police-state destruction of legal protections through the USA Patriot Act and
orders of the President himself.
We should persevere, determined to rip open the cover-ups
and refute the lies. The World Can’t
Wait Call says, “If we speak the truth, they will try to silence us. If we
act, they will try to stop us. But we speak for the majority, here and around
the world, and as we get this going we are going to reach out to the people who
have been so badly fooled by Bush and we are NOT going to stop.
But, independent of what we learn about 9-11, who was
ultimately responsible for what parts of it, whoever Osama bin Laden and others
might be, and the degree to which the Bush Regime was involved ( and World
Can’t Wait as a very broad movement does not have a position on this ( we are very
clear that the Bush Regime must go. The reasons they must go are very connected
with why we have the audacious idea that then CAN be driven out.
At a minimum, the least case scenario, and this is something
millions already know ( the Bush Regime let
9-11 happen. The least is that they new this attack was
shaping up and didn’t do anything to stop
it. At the least, they stood in the way of getting the truth out by
covering up. A ‘memo’ came from the
Bush Regime: the official version of that attack on 9-11 would serve as
justification for the USA Patriot Act; the massive NSA spying program, and a
so-called ‘war on terror’ that has meant a war on the people of Afghanistan, Iraq,
and now has Iran
in its sights. This war has killed many
more people than the attacks on 9-11, and now the Defense Department is forced
to admit a monstrous slaughter of innocent civilians in Haditha last November,
and a cover-up by the military which is only coming out because of civilian
investigations, with more incidents sure to be exposed.
There is clear evidence they are guilty of crimes against
humanity; this week’s news shows new and indisputable war crimes in
Haditha.
They knew all this,
and they didn’t do anything stop it. They
don’t care. They’re not listening.
We’ve been given a memo by this regime. You don’t like it: ‘shut up’– your protests
don’t matter, dissent is unpatriotic, even traitorous.
The leaders of the government are telling us: ‘get used to
living in a fascist country’. We need to
leave our illusions behind. No
government commission is going to fix this; no grievances will get settled, by
expecting the truth alone to win out.
The way history turns out right depends on US. It depends on you, in fighting for the truth,
and then following where that truth takes us.
You know something about 9-11 the rest of the public doesn’t
know. What is going to happen with that
knowledge? Will we be sitting back 10
years from now in a fascist country, asking ‘why didn’t they do more?’
This Regime must be driven
out. Don’t waste your time appealing
to people who are not listening to you.
No one else is going to do this. In
December, the House passed the hideous Sensenbrenner Bill that would have made
felons of every immigrant without papers and
the citizens who help them, such as medical and church workers. This law would have passed the Senate without
the mobilization of millions of immigrants into the streets, across the U.S. In April the French government proposed a law
drastically cutting benefits for new workers.
The students of France
took to the streets; the law was scrapped, and the minister who proposed it
left in disgrace.
These actions ( combined with the opposition of people
throughout this society (strengthen) are the only things which force open
action in line with the peoples’ interests.
World Can’t Wait calls on you immediately join in planning a mass
outpouring of opposition on Thursday, October 5. We need hundreds of thousands in the
streets.
And I want to say up front, that the memo from the
Democratic Party is the very much the same.
In their plan to appeal to some mythical red state voter, they tell us:
You don’t like the war? Shut up about
it. You are outraged by the Patriot Act
( which they in their majority voted to re-authorize ( shut up about it. They
are backing everyone into the ‘war on terror’ with their program. You’re horrified that the Republican Party
is moving systematically to deny women the right to abortion and even birth control? Shut up about it, because the leaders of
the Democratic Party like Howard Dean, are making nice with the likes of Pat
Robertson on the 700 Club, promising that the Dems won’t fight him on outlawing
gay marriage. (Pat Robertson, remember,
actually came out with one alternative version of who was responsible for the
9-11 attacks, agreeing with Jerry Falwell that ‘abortionists, gays, lesbians,
the ACLU and People for the American way’ were responsible for the
attacks. And, unlike those of us actually
trying to find the truth, HE was listened to, widely quoted as an authoritative
voice, because he is a pilar of Bush regime support).
Vote if you must; none of it will go anywhere good without
an independent political movement expressing the demands unexpressed
otherwise. This is the only thing giving
a choice; people going into the streets.
What more do you need?
Once you know the truth ( the least case scenario even ( this is enough
to wake people up and demand a stop to it.
****
We said in our Call of last July: ‘The Bush regime is setting
out to radically remake society very quickly, in a fascist way, and for
generations to come. We must act now; the future is in the balance.’ These
words were prescient and still too true.
The majority in this country knows the war and occupation of
Iraq
is based on lies, and says so. But Bush
says he has no plans to withdraw troops, and in fact, they have plans to attack
Iran. Seymour Hersh wrote that the US is already in Iran making preparations for
an attack, and that any objections by US military planners to the use of
tactical NUCLEAR weapons by the U.S. is shouted down by the ‘juggernaut’ of
Rumsfeld/Cheney/Bush.
Your government,
on the basis of outrageous lies, is waging a murderous and utterly illegitimate
war in Iraq,
with other countries in their sights.
In January, as we prepared protests across the country of
Bush’s State of the Union message, more and more people signed our Call to
Drive out the Regime because of the revelations of the vast NSA program of
spying on people without warrants. In
May it was revealed that the NSA has been tracing the phone calls of tens of
millions of people. The Bush cabal is
relentless: Impervious to any criticism of the military running civilian
intelligence, Bush appointed General Hayden, the very person responsible for
the warrant-less spying as head of the CIA.
And Congress ( including many Democrats ( approved him!
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.
Bush has never vetoed any
bill in 5 years. This is unprecedented!
But 750 times he has attached a ‘signing statement’ arguing why the bill
doesn’t apply to him, based on Cheney’s theory of a ‘unitary executive’. 2 years after the use of torture was exposed
at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo,
Congress passed a law saying that torture is not officially sanctioned; but
Bush says he isn’t bound by that law, and torture continues.
They are out to change the way people think, based on keeping people in perpetual fear.
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.
This is how far their plan to remake society goes: Bush’s
base of the far-right religious fundamentalists picked Roberts and Alito for
the Supreme Court. We have a President
who says he was appointed by God; who says the ‘jury is still out on whether
evolution happened’ and who is determined to stop legal abortion(and it goes
much further; these people are going after birth control! Not one major anti abortion group supports
birth control or sex education. Their
‘abstinence-only’ program will be the death of hundreds of thousands here, and
in the countries where they are withholding money for condoms to fight HIV
infection. They are withholding approval
for Plan B emergency contraception, which could prevent unplanned pregnancies
and restore women’s control of their bodies, and even approval of a vaccine for
cervical cancer.
This is from a recent piece by Sunsara Taylor in Revolution:
“Take a sober look at the strength and momentum of the American Christian
Ayatollahs who preach biblical literalism and an unthinking, self-righteous
obedience to even the most violent and archaic passages of the New and Old
Testaments. Think what it means that they have infiltrated the highest levels of
the military, are preaching Holy War to stadiums filled with young people, and
are now howling that even Bush hasn’t moved forcefully and quickly enough
against gay people, women, and science. And take a look as a top Democrat
(Howard Dean — makes a pilgrimage to the 700 Club to kiss the ring of Pat
Robertson.
“Bush has not backed off and the key parts of his
agenda have continued to steam forward. All this must be stopped. It has to be
ended. It cannot be tolerated, compromised with, or ignored. If you leave this
precedent in place, if Bush is not impeached or indicted ( if this whole
program is not repudiated, we will be living in a country that accepts torture
as normal, allows a narrow, hateful brand of religious fundamentalism to set
out social norms, and quite possibly is responsible(again(for the use of nuclear weapons against a civilian population
in Iran. Unless it is stopped(unless this whole direction is
REPUDIATED(everything that Bush has done and will do will become part of the
new norms. And again, it would be extremely foolish to think that this man is
still not extremely dangerous and willing to take desperate action to push his
agenda forward.”
The World Can’t Wait’s mission is 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’.
Why can we do this?
Because millions and millions are deeply disturbed and outraged, and are
looking for a way to act. This president
has 30% approval. A majority wanted his
censured over warrant-less wiretapping.
Most people are against the war and want the U.S.
out of Iraq. We ( everyone who knows and sees this whole
program as a danger that must be stopped ( must go out and tell others the
truth. People who are used to being
spectators must now act.
A month ago, Rumsfeld got bamboozled when the World Can’t
Wait and other peace activists disrupted his speech in Atlanta, and then Ray
McGovern ( who used to be in the CIA challenged Rumsfeld’s lies about the
WMD’s, creating a situation that MSNBC called a ‘tipping point’ in the
administration’s credibility. Neil
Young, Pink, Pearl Jam, the Dixie Chicks all have new music out indicting the
Bush Regime. And there is a movement to
Drive Out the Bush Regime that has published major ads in the New York Times
with very well known endorsers like Jane Fonda, Gore Vidal, Howard Zinn, Sean
Penn, advertised on Air America,
and held protests in more than 70 cities.
We need a powerful
movement that is not afraid to give voice to the peoples’ will, to speak the
truth, building toward Thursday, October 5, a day when people across the
country take off work, leave school and come together in mass gatherings
letting the people of the world know that millions of us reject this
illegitimate regime that is as criminal as it is dangerous to humanity &
the existence of this planet, and we intend to drive it out.
It is too late to
deny that it will take acting in unprecedented and unscripted ways. We
are jumping in vans all over the country to get one million people to sign this
Call. We’re doing a bus tour through the
center of the country to the contested areas.
This weekend youth and students are gathering for 10 training in field
work, learning to make substantive arguments on why and how the Bush Regime
must be driven out. We’re running a full
page ad in the New York Times later this month.
WE are the people we’ve been waiting for. We don’t know everything about the truth of
9-11, or even everything else the Bush Regime has done based on it, but we know
enough to get to work on driving out this regime. The World can’t wait for us to do this!