As Operation Save America started early Monday morning with
its week-long siege on the last abortion clinic in Mississippi, volunteers on
the Drive Out the Bush Regime bus tour decided to be there countering their
message, defending the clinic, and joining a society-wide debate over whether
we will live in a theocracy or not. It
is extremely important for people to see a visible presence debunking OSA’s
lies, showing how they are storm-troopers for the larger Bush agenda, and
demonstrating a way in which people can manifest in resistance that can stop
this whole dangerous direction (particularly through the massive protests
planned for October 5).
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One of OSA’s biggest lies is that abortion is genocide, and they
promote this lie particularly among the Black community in an attempt to fool people
into their theocratic agenda. The truth
is that abortion is not murder, a fetus is not a human being, and women are not
incubators. Moreover, OSA doesn’t have
any problem with the mass murder of Black people in New Orleans who were left
to die on rooftops, or the massacres of Iraqi people committed by US soldiers,
or torture perpetrated by our government in our names – in fact, they support all
this! Moreover, the logic of their
bigotry (“Homosexuality is a sin. Islam is a lie. Abortion is
murder.”) has genocidal implications.
For example, William Bennett, a prominent theocrat with close ties to
the White House, said last September, if “you wanted to reduce crime …
if that were your sole purpose, you could abort every black baby in this
country, and your crime rate would go down.”
So volunteers with the World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush
Regime (WCW) will be outside of the clinic countering OSA’s protests every
morning this week. While many people
passing by were happy to see WCW and its message, the police actually followed
requests from Flip Benham, OSA’s leader, to threaten to arrest WCW activists if
they didn’t move (law enforcement has by no means played a neutral role thus
far).
The morning at the clinic was followed by OSA’s rally at the
state capital building. This drew nearly
one-hundred pro-choice people to counter OSA’s rally. It was very good to see many people seeing
and acting on the importance of not allowing this theocratic anti-choice crusade
to go unchallenged. There is a
significant mood among progressive people in Jackson, as well as from others
who have come from around the country, that right now is a very urgent time to
act to stop not only what OSA is doing (attempting to shut down abortion
clinics), but the whole direction the current regime in power is taking
society.
WCW spent the rest of the day going out to people in Jackson, talking about
why we need a movement to drive out the Bush regime, and getting people
organized for October 5th.
While there is much rich experience to learn from in this, one
interesting example was from a cafe located right near the abortion
clinic. When first approached, the owner
said he didn’t want the abortion clinic to be there because it just causes
trouble, and because he was opposed to abortion. But when WCW organizers got into conversation
with him about the larger implications of this, how the attacks on women’s
right to choose were part of the Bush agenda and are part and parcel with
attacks on gays, Katrina, the war, torture, etc., the cafe owner began to
change his mind. By the end of the
discussion, he was giving WCW organizers drinks and taking flyers to
distribute.
