Interviews conducted by Revolution newspaper (published in issue #53, July 16, 2006)
Drive Out the Bush Regime Summer Bus Tour
With
only three months until the October 5 day of mass resistance, the World
Can’t Wait ( Drive Out the Bush Regime is going all-out to shake
society up this summer, including by launching a national bus tour on
July 4 in New Orleans.
We interviewed several World Can’t Wait organizers who are participating in the bus tour. Here are some excerpts.
Debra Sweet, World Can’t Wait National Coordinator:
Q: The World Can’t Wait Steering Committee’s ‘Enough Bush Crimes(Bring This to a Halt‘
statement (6/15/06) identified many outrageous crimes the Bush regime
has committed in the last few months. While millions of people hate all
this, there’s still too much paralysis. Could you talk about what WCW
is doing to transform that, including with the Drive Out the Bush
Regime bus tour that was just launched?
Debra Sweet:
There is something people can do now to resist these outrages. The
point of this Bus Tour is to go to the people to make a public battle
over what this society will look like.
Look at just the last
six months, the increasing speed of the outrages that you mentioned.
And then there is a pattern that has been established where there will
be a minute and a half of shock and ‘outrage’ by the Democrats, and
then Congress will come together and change the laws to legitimize the
very things people were so outraged by. Just last week, after the
Supreme Court made their decision against military tribunals conducted
by executive order for Guantanamo detainees, Democratic Senator Chuck
Schumer came out and said, ‘Had they come to Congress a few years ago
on this issue, my guess is they would have gotten most of what they
wanted.’ This is why the world can’t WAIT and why we must drive out
this regime!
We are calling on people to join us on this bus
tour! Specifically, come to Mississippi to ride out to meet the
anti-abortion theocrats trying to shut down the last abortion clinic
there. If you can’t make it, send a message and a financial
contribution. Or, get some friends, hop in a car, and be part of the
‘spin-off’ tours that we want to see crop up all across the country.
There are outrages and battle lines being drawn all across the country:
things like the hearings on immigration, the recent unveiling of a
‘Statue of Liberty’ holding a Bible in Memphis. These things should be
countered, and they can be by people everywhere with signs saying, ‘The
World Can’t Wait(Drive Out the Bush Regime. October 5th: Bring this to
a HALT!’
Be bold, get in the news. Find people wondering
what to do, and challenge those who have been fooled, or think maybe
there is nothing that can be done.
****
Prachi Noor, World Can’t Wait Steering Committee member:
Q:
Why, at this moment in history, is World Can’t Wait sending activists
to some of the ‘red states’ and other areas in Middle America, as a
central part of its summer plans?
Prachi Noor: The
bus tour is going to the areas in the so-called red states, areas that
the Bush regime calls its own. We are going into these contested areas
that are sharp battlegrounds over what society will be like in the
future if the agenda of the Bush regime goes unchallenged. These are
areas where there is a lot of sentiment against the Bush regime. There
are millions in these states that oppose this and they need to know
they are not alone. Women’s right to choose, gay rights, the battle
over evolution in schools are all issues that fuel and feed the forces
that openly dictate directions to the Bush regime. As we speak, whole
states are being transformed into theocratic base areas for the extreme
right. We will bring with us the analysis that theocracy, unending wars
around the world, the repression of science, attacks on women,
immigrants and gay people(all of this is part and parcel of the Bush
agenda that is a harbinger of fascism. People throughout the country
need to understand this and take a side.
Q: Could you share some of the thinking on how the various stops on the tour were decided on?
Prachi Noor: Each
stop on the bus tour draws attention to an area where the Bush regime
is setting out to remake society. Appropriately, the bus tour began in
New Orleans, a city with a rich African-American history, a city that
has been left to rot, and plans of privatization are a means for ethnic
cleansing and provide a glimpse of the horrific future represented in
the Bush program. The horror has not ended. People have been kept from
returning to their homes and bodies continue to surface in the 9th
Ward. Meanwhile officials like the representative from Baton Rouge,
Republican Richard Baker, claim that ‘God cleaned up’ the public
housing for them in New Orleans.
The next stop is in
Jackson, Mississippi, where Operation Save America, an anti-abortion,
anti-Muslim group, is bringing in people across the country to attack
the last abortion clinic there. We are working with the National
Organization for Women chapter in Jackson, who are calling on people to
do week-long actions in the area around the town, so this anti-abortion
agenda does not go unopposed.
Some of the stops are also
some of our big chapters like Chicago and Minneapolis, where we will
have evening events to talk about the experiences of the Bus Tour and
build for October 5.
****
Elaine
Brower, a WCW organizer whose son is currently deployed in Iraq, is
joining the bus tour at Fort Polk military base in Louisiana July 8-9
Q:
Activists going right to military bases with the message that the war
in Iraq is wrong is not something you see all that often these days.
What compelled you to do this, and to do it as part of the WCW Bus Tour?
Elaine Brower: Back
in March I went to 29 Palms Marine Corps base in California, where my
son was leaving for Iraq, and I decided then that the antiwar movement
needed to reach out to the troops because the polls that were being
taken of the troops were saying that 72% of troops wanted to get out
[of Iraq] now. The second thing that motivated me was that I lived
through the 60s, and there was a lot of troop dissent and I thought,
‘There’s probably the same thing today, but they’re afraid to express
that.’ So we protested by 29 Palms and it turned out that it was
successful. It was scary at first cause we didn’t know what to expect,
but I was willing to take that chance.
Q: Could
you paint a picture of the kind of resistance that would be needed in
this country in order to actually drive out the Bush regime?
Elaine Brower: Well,
my picture is millions of people out on the streets, refusing to work,
refusing to shop, refusing to buy into this government. You’re gonna
need millions of people finally putting their foot down to say
‘enough.’ Constant struggle in society, not just in New York City, but
all over the country. Until you get to the point where there’s societal
unrest that interferes with large corporate interests and the
government, you’re never gonna have change. If you look back in
history, the only thing that has affected was a massive uproar.
Check online at worldcantwait.org for updates and contact information about the WCW bus tour.