(Thursday, July 20,
2006)
-Mike, WCW organizer from Atlanta
reporting live from the Bus Tour
Thursday
morning we awoke to yet another steamy Mississippi
delta day, hovered over our coffee and breakfast snacks then hit the ground
running to canvass some North-central Jackson
neighborhoods. This mixed “working turf,” working poor and middle-class ranch
style brick and asbestos-shingled homes from the 50’s seemed ideal to get out
the Oct. 5th call to Drive Out the Bush Regime to folks both Black
& white, seniors and many recently-arrived young families. The demographics have changed much in these
past few decades in the “Deep South,” reflecting a much-welcomed cosmopolitan
tolerance and desire for progress, as we are finding out from these intense
summer days in Jackson.
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The
prevailing opinions of these door-to-door dialogues, both in the working family
homes and Housing Authority apartments show that while the majority of these
folks here in the heart of the “Bible Belt” are not necessarily “pro-abortion,”
they unhesitatingly add they do not want the choice taken away from the
individual woman by an American Christian-fundamentalist Taliban. One pregnant woman who did not approve of
abortion for herself out of her own beliefs quickly added that for several of
her friends, it was the “right choice”
and was certain that the government should not dictate any part of that
decision, the whole time she struggled with her very deeply-rooted evangelical
Christian upbringing. Many of the
predominately Black young mothers, single young men & women, and
middle-aged family women were very happy to have activists come to their doors
to ask them their opinions and discuss very openly the politics of religion/politics-as-usual that are being spoon-fed to the public and what THEY
think is the real deal of the man behind the curtain in the Bush Regime.
Initially,
it took some “On The Job Training” to fine-tune a “rap” to encourage people to
open up about their views on “what time it is,” but getting past the usual
pleasantries and Southern politesse – centuries old reservation of opinion
& curiosity as not to offend new guests – was easy enough when asking, “So
what do YOU think of Bush?” – and people would GO OFF!
People
weren’t shy at all and were near unanimous in their disgust with Bush’s rotten
regime with Iraq,
torture, domestic spying, theocracy (so many to choose from!) Especially heart-felt was the treatment of
Katrina victims, many living in homeless and near-homeless conditions still
here in Jackson, vis-à-vis the thousands of U.S. citizens that are being
ferried out by military helicopters by the day from Lebanon – another man-made
disaster made even more criminal by Bush and his neo-“con-men.” Only in America.
Reason
seemed to be a defining point in these discussions where people struggled with deeply-held
religious beliefs of “Revelations” and “Armageddon” and “nothing you can do, so
leave it in the Lord’s hands” versus the recognition of “the man behind the
curtain” – the very calculating and power-hungry fascists who “sucker-punch”
the population with their literal interpretations of the Bible (and fabricated
intelligence for war) in order to divide-and-conquer. One group of women braiding hair argued the point
of what was truly cruel: an abortion? Or forcing a woman to bring a child into
Bush’s world of man-made mayhem – for his profit and at our expense, unloved
& unwanted?
One
young woman who opened the door was quite relieved to discover our young woman activist
defending choice as she popped the question: “I’m pregnant and don’t know what
to do; what would YOU do?” Apparently, her friends were pressuring her against
an abortion decision. When you take on
this arduous and often risky door-to-door task in this sweltering heat, there’s
absolutely no telling how you might just walk right into someone’s life that
needs to hear from you more than anything.
The
whole time canvassers were spreading out across the city, the evil and hateful
fanatics of Operation Rescue/Operation “Save America” were out again having
been rallied by the burning of the Qu’ran at their evening “Klan-bakes” the
night before earning them the condemnation they so richly deserve from the
spectrum of religious communities across Mississippi. (No word on any ritual cross-burnings by
OR/OSA yet at their hosts, “Making Jesus Real” Church, in Pearl, but who could
be surprised at this point?) This time
the “anti’s” as they are more commonly known, held a fake funeral for a fake
plastic fetus downtown today (apparently, the real one they wanted, Sen. Rick
Santorum’s wife’s 20 week-old miscarried fetus that they brought home for their
kids to play with wasn’t available).
As
usual, this fetus-fetishist version of the Manson cult-family paraded out their
wives and kids to line the mock memorial in a wailing procession to the
would-be-born. Fortunately, a number of
the press corps tired of this lobotomy-fest and wanted to interview our
activists for some fresh and intelligent perspective.
WCW
activists were quoted, “We’re here to expose the hypocrisy of OR/OSA’s Fake
Funeral For Fake Fetuses while there are REAL people dying across the Middle
East, Guantánamo Bay,
New Orleans. Women will be forced to have deadly back alley
abortions under the Bush regime. This
shows the moral bankruptcy of groups like OSA that promote Bush’s program and
shows a real need to DRIVE OUT THE BUSH REGIME!”
Certainly,
it couldn’t have been better put by our activists in the streets, “When you see
the expressions of relief and hope on the people’s faces as we share our vision
of defending choice and running off Bush before 2008, it really makes fighting
in this oppressive Mississippi
summer heat and mosquitoes really worth it!”