Starting July 4th The World Can’t Wait will launch a Bus Tour to Drive Out the Bus Regime, stopping off at some of the hottest spots in the country:
– New Orleans, where the struggle of displaced residents continues in the wake of Katrina;
– Jackson, Mississippi where anti-abortionists will be rallying to close the last abortion clinic in the state;
– Creationist Museums and other places where the battle over evolution rages;
World Can’t Wait plans to make news and spread the spirit of confronting and resisting head-on the intolerable consequences of the Bush program.
This is a freedom ride-” not unlike the one that changed the course of history in 1961. This time, there is even more at stake.
Voices of conscience, public figures, writers, whistle blowers, members of the press who are under investigation for printing the truth, and academics are all invited to ‘GET ON THE BUS’ for all or part of this tour.
On July 4th, the bus tour will begin in New Orleans. Just last year, the images of tens of thousands of people left on their roofs to die while George Bush strummed a guitar on vacation shocked us all. The sight of African Americans at the foot of the Gretna Bridge, who were prevented from leaving the flooded city at gunpoint by racist police, reminded us of the way Bull Connor’s dogs attacked Civil Rights demonstrators 40 years ago. The Bush Administration’s criminal response to Katrina has left families from New Orleans scattered across the country. Tens of thousands of public housing residents, the poorest Katrina survivors, are being denied right of return. A Survivors Village has opened up to be the command center for the struggle to take back public housing in those areas. On July 4th we will join their ‘day of resistance’.
From there we will travel to Jackson Mississippi, the site of the last abortion clinic in the state. From July 15-22, Operation Save America (formerly Operation Rescue) is bringing in anti-abortion activists from around the country to attempt to close the clinic, demonizing LGBTQ people and Muslims along the way. We will unite with pro-choice activists who are gathering in Jackson, helping people to see the danger of Christian fundamentalist protesters being allowed to set terms on the government can do to suppress women’s rights.
Now that a new and even more draconian abortion ban is coming up in Ohio, people have requested we come there. Arkansas has just decided that lesbian and gay people can no longer be foster parents. Activists in Missouri and Kansas are battling abortion bans, lack of access to birth control, and the suppression of evolution as an established way to understand the world.
We are trying to build in flexibility, and at the same time, invite as many people as possible to join and host the bus tour. People from all walks of life including artists, musicians, poets, professors, gay rights activists, youth and students to come along and bring the message that we need to drive out this criminal, dangerous regime. A staff in New York will be organizing media appearances at important stops, recruiting new riders, coordinating feeder car caravans and welcoming committees, working for national and regional news coverage, raising money to support the tour and supply it with materials. We also need filmmakers who can be part of the traveling media/film crew that will feed a special news blog on worldcantwait.org.
We will be making the argument that, in spite of what the Democrats say, we cannot afford to sit and do nothing while the Bush regime supposedly self-destructs. As we roll across the heartland of America, we will be sharply posing where the Bush Regime’s program will take society. We will not let them roll us back before Roe vs. Wade, before the Voting Rights Act, the New Deal, Darwin’s legacy, and even back before the Enlightenment to a high-tech Dark Ages.
And we will be connecting many thousands with the plans for Thursday, October 5, when the world will know that there is a movement determined to drive out this regime.
Contact: getonthebus@worldcantwait.org or call 866-973-4463 to join the tour or help in anyway you can.
If can’t come, donate to make this possible.
Bus Tour Schedule:
Note: This is a somewhat flexible schedule, depending on numbers of people joining the tour, and news & events that develop in the meantime.
July 3 – 11 New Orleans, LA (Orientation Monday July 3)
The Bush Administration’s criminal response to Katrina has left families from New Orleans scattered across the country. Tens of thousands of public housing residents, the poorest Katrina survivors, are being denied right of return. A Survivors Village has opened up to be the command center for the struggle to take back public housing in those areas. On July 4th we will join them in a “day of resistance” defending the right of return of public housing residents and section 8 renters displaced from the city initially as a result of Katrina and now as a result of a conscious decision by authorities, local and national, to not reopen about 85% of the city’s existing public housing units.
July 12-14 Fort Polk, LA
Stop near the military base. Thousands of US military personnel have deserted from duty in Iraq to an illegal and immoral war against people of Iraq. The bus tour will be at this military base to protest the war and support those who refuse to fight this illegitimate war.
July 14 – 22 Jackson, MS
From July 15-22, Operation Save America (formerly Operation Rescue) is bringing in anti-abortion activists from around the country to attempt to close the clinic, demonizing LGBTQ people and Muslims along the way.
We will unite with pro-choice activists, including the National Organization for Women who are gathering in Jackson, helping people to see the danger of Christian fundamentalist protesters being allowed to set terms on the government can do to suppress women’s rights.
National Organization for Women Pro-choice events July 15-22nd
http://www.now.org/issues/abortion/events/jackson06/
July 23 Fayettevile, AR
Sunday 11:00am Sunday Morning service : Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Fayetteville
Sunday 4 pm World Can’t Wait bus tour joins the OMNI Center for Peace, Justice and Ecology to discuss antiwar issues and how they fit into the Bush Regime’s agenda of Theocracy, attacks on science, women’s right to choose etc. The bus tour orgnizers will speak about their experiences in Mississippi and New Orleans. The plans for National Day of Mass Resistance on Oct. 5, 2006 will also be discussed
5pm Bus Tour joins the local LGBT group for dinner at Jose’s Mexican Restaurant
7pm– 10 pm OMNI center will show a movie called Vera Drake about an “abortionist Vera Drake who finds her beliefs and practices clash with the mores of 1950s Britain–a conflict that leads to tragedy for her family.” There will be a discussion on abortion issues, what abortion really is and why we need to defend women’s right to choose.
July 24 Springdale, AR
Monday 10 am – 12 noon
The OMNI Center for Peace, Justice and Ecology in conjunction with World Can’t Wait plans to hold a demonstration against the continued US occupation of Iraq.
WHERE:On the public sidewalks in front of the Northwest Arkansas Convention Center in Springdale
Vice President Dick Cheney is scheduled to appear at a fundraiser for Asa Hutchinson. Asa Hutchinson is in the race for Governor of Arkansas. In 2003, he was appointed by Bush as the Under Secretary for Border and Transportation Security.
July 25 Eureka Springs, AR
Tuesday 12pm
World Can’t Wait will be at the steps creationist museums bringing out the message of driving out the Bush Regime. “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.”
“Creation Truth foundation has joined with the makers of the Great Passion Play in Eureka Springs, AR, to develop a world-class museum that presents the biblical account of early history. This phenomenal venture will offer high-quality, scientific exhibits displayed in a totally biblical setting. Viewers will journey through three epic periods of ancient history often overlooked by modern historians: life before the fall, the post-fall world, and life after the devastating effects of the great Genesis Flood.” -from the website of the creationist museum in Eureka Springs, AR.
July 26 Little Rock, AR
Wednesday 9-12pm
World Can’t Wait Bus Tour will arrive at the steps of the City Hall in Little Rock to perform an untradtional marriage in protests of the state’s ban on gay marriage.
The state has banned gay marriage. Therefore, its Child Welfare Agency Review Board bars unmarried couples that live together from becoming foster parents. The state regulation also bans anyone living in a household with a gay adult from being foster parents. State lawyers argued that a morally sound environment is important to a foster child’s welfare. (AR: Gay Foster Parents Ban Protects Kids).
July 27-28th Indianapolis, IN
Bus tour arrives in Indianapolis to join the Warped tour.
Fri. Jul. 28 the Warped tour will be in Indianapolis at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre at 12:00 pm. AntiFlag will be there with their new album blood and empire!
July 30-August 1st Columbus, OH
Sunday, July 30- Tuesday, August 1
Join the “Ohio
leg” of the WORLD CANT WAIT BUS TOUR!
Wherever you are in Ohio, converge on COLUMBUS to join the
World Can’t Wait Bus Tour!
cleveland@worldcantwait.org 216-633-6200 ohioworldcantwait.blogspot.com
Sunday, July
30: NO THEOCRACY DAY:
“YOUR
GOVERNMENT is moving each day closer to a theocracy, where a narrow and hateful
brand of Christian fundamentalism will rule.”
11 am: Meet at Goodale
Park, by the Gazebo (Park St. and
Buttles). We will decorate our cars and then… Car caravan/critical
mass bicycle ride – rolling protest to the major right-wing megachurches: Rod
Parsley’s “World
Harvest Church”
and Russell Johnson’s “Fairfield Christian Church,” home of the
notorious “Ohio Restoration Project.”
Monday July 31: NO ATTACKS ON IMMIGRANTS, NO STOLEN ELECTIONS, AND NO POLICE
STATE SPYING (Yes, this will be a busy day)!
9 am: Protest the
“Paul Revere Riders,“ at the Ohio Statehouse; an anti-immigrant national group
holding a motorcycle rally whose slogan is “The wetbacks are coming! The
wetbacks are coming!”
“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.”
2 pm: Join us for a “spy in” at the office of Ohio Homeland Security,1970 West Broad Street
(I-70 west to Broad St), to
protest their new sinister snitch program, “See Something, Say
Something.” And car caravan to our
next stop…
“People who
steal elections and believe they’re on a ‘mission from God’ will not go without
a fight.”
4 pm: Protest at Ken Blackwell’s office, 180 East Broad St (at 4th) –Join Bob Fitrakis, who has been at
the core of exposing Ohio’s stolen 2004 election story, and others outraged at
Blackwell’s links to the Christian right.
7 pm: “Meet and Greet” the Bus Tour at Shisha Lounge, 2369 N
High St., Columbus, (614) 299-2434.
Tuesday Aug. 1: NO
TO BANNING ABORTION IN OHIO
“YOUR
GOVERNMENT is moving to deny women here, and all over the world, the right to
birth control and abortion.”
Noon: Protest at
the “Pregnancy
Decision Health
Center,” ie fake clinic: 6 E. 17th Ave
(at High St.). Focus on Ohio’s attempt to put into the law the most
draconian abortion law in the country. Blackwell wants to ban all abortions,
even to save the life of the mother. NARAL gives Ohio an ‘F’ on its abortion record.
———-
The tour may continue into August through Ohio and Pennsylvania, ending in Washington DC.
Please visit the website at www.worldcantwait.org
Please let us know if you can be a part of this.