Call for Professors: The Future is In Our Hands!
War. Torture. Katrina. Theocracy. Millions of students and youth across the country are looking at the direction that the Bush regime is taking society in utter disgust and fear, desperately searching for a way to do something to actually stop this. And there is a way. World Can’t Wait-Drive Out the Bush Regime is calling for an unprecedented day of mass resistance on October 5th that will break with protest and politics-as-usual. Students need this vehicle to act. And you have a role to play in inspiring them and enabling them to do so.
This fall, students will come to campuses in search of truth and a sense of meaning with which they can define their lives. Yet, at the same time, the forces of the Bush regime will be actively working against them. From David Horowitz’s battering ram that seeks to purge campuses of critical thinking and dissent, to the attacks on science, including evolution and global warming, the Bush regime is seeking to shape intellectual discourse into a suffocating mold that reflects the will of their fascistic program.
This summer, we watched as the U.S. government, Democrats and Republicans alike, fully supported Israel’s pulverization of Lebanon, which top officials have openly stated was just a pretext for an imminent nuclear attack on Iran, the possibility that our generation may witness the outbreak of World War III becomes more and more likely. The dangers in not bringing this to a halt are serious, and could result in utter horror and devastation for millions around the globe, on a level that the world has never seen before.
What we need to do now is confront reality, and act in a way that is commensurate with the enormity of the challenges we face. To be silent in the face of this is to be complicit with the Bush regime’s crimes.
Imagine if hundreds of thousands of students walked out of school, shutting down whole campuses, and joined hundreds of thousands across the country in the streets with the resounding demand that the Bush regime be driven from power and their whole program repudiated. We are writing to you, as students, calling on you to boldly step forward and organize for October 5th; Spread this everywhere throughout campus and into your classes. Invite student organizers to give classroom presentations. Write and distribute statements on why we really must drive out the Bush Regime and why students need to be in the streets on October 5th. Make large donations, so we can put more ads, like the one you may have seen in the New York Times in late August, in newspapers and on radio stations all over the country.
Many of you may remember the profound political movements of the 1960s, where students poured into the streets in masses, and decidedly changed the course of history.The truth is, many students of this generation are looking at the situation in the world today, and are deeply horrified, desperately looking for a way to stop this, but are paralyzed by the narrow confines that currently dominate the political life in society. This fall, many will gravitate towards throwing their hopes and energies into the Democrats, hoping for some savior to stop this, when everyday, they show us that they will not. Many more may be disillusioned with politics as usual, but feel nothing they do will make a difference.
History is calling on you as thinkers, scholars, and opinion makers, to act with tremendous courage and moral clarity, to make a break with the suffocating confines of the current poltical discourse, and join hundreds of thousands of people all over the country in the streets on October 5th! An outpouring on this scale that refuses to accept anything less, is the only thing that has a chance of actually bringing this fascistic program to a halt!
In this late hour, what is needed is professors to take this up and put their energies and resources into October 5th.