On September 7th, in fifty cities around the country, more than 1200 people came to
meetings to get serious about organizing to make October 5th a great
leap in the movement to drive out the Bush regime.
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Worldcantwait.org will feature more reports as well as audio and video of the speakers. Read speech given by World Can’t Wait at Sept. 7 meetings The Plan from now until Oct. 5 Read reports from: |
People
crowded into churches and meeting rooms in every major city and dozens of small
towns. They came off hearing daily ads
on Air America, seeing our two recent ads in the New York Times, or the ads in
the main weekly newspapers in LA, Chicago, Washington DC and San Francisco. There
was also an intensive effort to find people — on the ground with flyers and
via Internet and phone.
The
meetings occurred against a backdrop of looming war against Iran and the news Thursday morning that Bush is
finally acknowledging — brazenly and without apology — the secret prisons
where the U.S.
is torturing people. People were gripped with a sense of urgency.
Air America broadcaster and author, Thom Hartman
compared this moment to Germany
in 1937. He challenged the audience of
more than 250 in New York
with the fact that no positive change has ever been made except through a
massive movement coming up from the bottom. He said the window of opportunity
to avert the great dangers of this regime is closing” and ended with,
“Tag, you’re it.”
In San Francisco, Daniel Ellsberg said the anti-war
Moratorium in 1969 (when two million people to refuse to work or shop)
prevented Nixon from following through with a plan to use nuclear weapons in Vietnam. No one
knew it at the time, but he laid out the timeline and why it was cancelled. He
talked more personally about how when he was planning to leak the Pentagon
Papers the fact that 5000 youth were going to jail rather than Vietnam had a
huge impact on him. He noted that Bush is refusing to rule out using nuclear
weapons against Iran, which
he described as the “portable Auschwitz”
that dwarfs the holocaust and opens up a whole new era of nightmares for
humanity.
People who
attended did so with a sense of how the future is pivoting on what people in
this country do right now. They came
with a sense of seriousness, many ready to offer professional skills in the
arts, in advertising, in business and in design. Many expressed a new sense of hope and commitment
to get involved after hearing WCW’s plans to build the vehicle millions need in
order to change the course of history – by relying on the people themselves to
raise the money and get organized to bring tens of thousands more out on October
5th.
Organizer’s
told stories of a displaced Katrina survivor who donated $100 out of their FEMA
relief money, of a prisoner who gave $30 from his commissary funds, and of an
individual who gave $10,000 after realizing that the $10,000 they had given for
their taxes would be spent on bombs that kill in unjust wars, and people to
give in a way that is substantial for them.
Several present stood up to donate $1,000 on the spot, one college
student pledging to collect the sum from other students, towards placing a
full-page ad in the USA Today on the day that George Bush goes to the UN to lay
the groundwork for a war on Iran. Quite
a few said they hadn’t felt the determination and potential that was present in
these meetings since the 1960’s.
After
presentations, in every city people stuck around to get organized into committees
to tackle student organizing, media campaigns, major fundraising, artistic
works, October 5th production, and massive outreach. And already today people are busy across the
country sifting through stacks of questionnaires that were filled out, calling
people back about what they volunteered to do, and entering everyone into our
elists to stay connected.
Reports
are still coming in and we will fill this out as we learn more, especially from
many of the small towns and outlying areas who got organized for the first time
last night after finding our ads and jumping in with both feet. Clearly, something new – and highly
significant to the world – is fighting its way into being.
Undeniably,
there is new momentum coming off these meeting, but now comes the real work. We must get organized on a much higher level
and make every one of the next twenty-seven days until October 5th
COUNT!
Everyone
who can spread this movement over airwaves and in print, who can design ads,
organize benefits, or donate services in-kind should contact our National
Office. People should start new chapters
of WCW in their areas and get their professional and political organizations,
churches, synagogues, and mosques involved mobilizing for October 5th. On the ground, thousands should be part of
saturating schools, neighborhoods and workplaces with flyers and posters about
October 5th.
The most
decisive element in our plans to leap ahead off the heightened energy, skills
and organization that came together last night is MASSIVE FUNDS! Raising money for the movement to drive out
this regime must itself become a mass movement – and this, in turn, will be THE
KEY THING enabling us to spread this movement towards October 5th to
many millions more.
Further
projecting this movement to millions, repeatedly through more major ads is the
only way to further break the idea of driving out this regime and massive
protests on October 5th into the national dialogue and media. It is decisive in reaching millions more with
the message that a new movement is underway that they must urgently involve
themselves in. And it is the main way we
are going to further activate and involve many thousands more people.
Over the
next two weeks we need to work together to raise at least $500,000. We need a
movement of house-parties and cocktail parties in neighborhoods and among
friends and co-workers where people get together to make plans for October 5th
and raise several hundred to several thousand dollars to send in together
through our website or the mail. We need
a movement of people who are out on the street selling stickers and t-shirts,
shaking the can, and holding bake-sales or car-washes. And we need individuals or businesses who can
donate, or who know someone who can donate $1,000, $5,000, $50,000 or more call
our Development staff today (yes, even on the weekends!) through our National
Office: 866-973-4463.
Plus,
everyone reading has something to give right now. Think about the Katrina survivor who sent in
$100 of their FEMA money even though their life still wasn’t put back together
and ask yourself, if we don’t stop this regime, what will it matter how much
money – if any – you have left in your savings, or on your credit card limit? Go ahead, click the “DONATE” button, the
whole world is counting on us right now.
Here’s
from our plan that was distributed nation-wide last night:
Two Key Prongs – Innovative and
Bold Outreach and Massive Fund-raising
There are hundreds of
thousands of people who will be there with us if we can reach them. Last month,
two New York Times ads punctured the
atmosphere of resignation, gradualism and paralysis that has been keeping
opposition quiet. It’s time to get the message that the Bush regime must go out
of the margins and into center court. Then everyone will have to reckon with
the stakes of acting, or not.
A simple plan:
Public opinion campaign, including
major ads, builds so that many millions more know about October 5 – and get
what IS required to bring this disastrous course to a halt.
Tuesday, September 19, has been
designated Bush Crimes Day. When
Bush shows up at the United Nations with his sights set on perpetrating another
huge crime – war on Iran – actions and ads must be everywhere.
To make this
possible – funds, funds and more funds.
All this requires the skills, creativity, connections, imagination and, yes,
real devotion, from all kinds of people. The world can’t wait!
On Tuesday, September 19,
Bush will be coming to the UN to bully the rest of the world into going along
with widening the “war on terror” and the insanity of preparing for war with
Iran. Is this to be a repeat of his appearance at that same UN podium just four
years ago when he polluted the air with a pack of lies and a thug’s bullying to
prepare the way for another war…Iraq? Now, can you believe, a full rerun,
this time Iran. When Bush comes to the UN he must be met with serious protest
in New York and all around the country.
On that day the whole
country should wake up to find an ad in USA Today calling on people to BRING
THIS CRIMINAL BUSH REGIME’s PROGRAM TO A HALT, and get involved in the movement
TO DRIVE OUT THE BUSH REGIME. They must be called to join the wave building
towards October 5.
This would be a signal to
the whole country and the world that we in this country will not tolerate this
and are moving urgently to stop it. Advertising in USA Today means bringing the news of OCT 5 not just to the
converted, but to millions who are agonizing and weighing what is in the
balance. It’s a huge undertaking. The cost for an ad in USA Today is $104,500. This means finding donors willing to donate
tens of thousands of dollars and a mass grass roots fund-raising campaign that
widens to encompass internet activists, church and professional networks, the
anti-war movement, and far beyond it.
Our efforts to reach
people through print, internet and radio outreach have to be multi-dimensional:
radio networks such
as Air America, Pacifica and National Public Radio
Spanish, college
and urban radio, and internet
African American,
alternative & Spanish press
All of this can create the
buzz and controversy needed to draw into the movement the many prominent
artists, writers, religious and ex-government officials who detest Bush, and
when more of these people get into the media calling for driving out this
regime, the momentum can grow exponentially.
FUNDS: A key part of the plan for Friday
September 8 to Thursday September 21 is raising $500,000. A movement of
fund-raising must take off starting tonight. Make a commitment now. Consider:
Are you someone who could
hold a party and raise tens of thousands from friends?
Can you invite friends
over to show films of the new Bush Crimes Commission testimony, and then
discuss how they can be involved in this effort?
Do you live in a city
where community car washes raise thousands of dollars in a weekend? How about a
stoop or garage sale?
Would students on your
campus consume a lot at a bake sale? Or a used book sale? Is your neighborhood
ripe for canvassing door to door? How about your subway or commuter
station?
Fund-raising can take
place over the internet, and, very importantly, by calling people and
personally talking with the tens of thousands of people who have already signed
our Call. Your skills are needed. Contact fundraise@worldcantwait.org
Get out leaflets, canvas
your neighborhood or leaflet your church, campus, social and athletic clubs.
Put posters on walls and in shop windows, leave the postcards in cafés and
bookstores. World Can’t Wait has to be seen rising from the pages of the most
prominent publications and from our most prominent voices at the same time as
it’s visible everywhere – coming from the ground up. Get the word out at plays,
concerts and movies – anywhere thinking people will be.
Find fund-raising
resources at worldcantwait.org.
Needed! Volunteers!
What do you bring to the
movement to drive out the Bush Regime?
Fund-raisers, publicists,
web designers, media professionals, attorneys and legal observers, stage
production professionals, graphic artists, musicians, office staff, phone bank
volunteers, campus organizers. Bring skills and ideas you have thought of that
we haven’t even imagined yet.
866-973-4463
worldcantwait.org