Below is the text of the speech given by World Can’t Wait on September 7 at meetings across the country organizing for the protests on October 5.
Also available as a video file: [mpg] [mov] [wmv]
These are dire times, consequential times – times that shape the course of history and which way it goes is up to us. This is why you, why we are all here tonight.
Remember how you felt this
summer when you watched “An Inconvenient Truth” and came to terms
with the limited time we have to do something about global warming – the
sheer magnitude of the problem when the fate of the environment is in the
balance.
Remember how you felt when
you watched Spike Lee’s film – “When the Levees Broke” and relived
the days when your government left Black people abandoned in the flood waters –
how we all watched powerlessly & in horror people dying and
crying for help at the convention center. And now the burning shame you
feel a year later knowing that a city that has produced something entirely
unique in American life & culture is being cleansed of the very people who
brought us this and who are its future.
Remember how you felt when
you read Seymour Hersh’s article in the New Yorker – after all the
revelations that they cooked the evidence to go to war with Iraq – after all
the lies – after Haditha, after Abu Gharib, there is now a very big danger
that they are going to do it all over again in Iran.
You now know that Bush and Rumsfeld have
cynically been in on planning the bombing that put the civilians of Lebanon under rubble as a dry run for a war with
Iran.
You have the facts – that there is no opposition to this coming from the
Democratic Party.
Condolleezza Rice glibly
describes the loss of life and destruction of the civilian infrastructure
in Beirut as the birth pangs of a new Middle East. The new Middle East they are bombing into
existence – and the polarization resulting from this – is
driving secular people in Lebanon to support Hezbolla and
creating new Hezbollas by the tens of 1000’s all over the middle East. Your
government is leaving the option of “nuclear bombs” on the table to
deal with Iran. Think
of the humanitarian disaster that would mean. And think of political
disaster as well, when people all over the world will see only two possible
options before them – Iranian-style theocracy, or the Bush-style crusade. No
one will be left unaffected by where those in power in the US are rapidly
pushing things and its necessary – indeed critical – to confront the urgency
posed by all this.
If you know but refuse to
acknowledge the terrible acts your government is committing and planning in the
Middle East and within the US itself -or if you do recognize but you do
not act in a meaningful way to oppose and stop this – then there is no way for
the rest of the world to see the people in this country as anything other than
complicit in these crimes. PEOPLE ALL OVER THE WORLD MUST SEE SOMETHING
DIFFERENT COMING OUT OF THIS COUNTRY, AND YOU MUST SHOW IT TO THEM ON OCTOBER
5.
Time is running out – time
is of the essence – and there is still time to do something to bring this
TO A HALT if we act now and act decisively and you in this room take it as
your mission to get the critical numbers we need to start something new –
something different in this country on October 5th.
How do you send a pack of
thugs and criminals packing in disgrace instead of allowing them to overpower
the planet? How do you drive a hated regime from office? By not
acquiescing to it. By creating a
situation where the populace is no longer paralyzed, silent and complicit – but
acting to stop it. By people not
lowering their practical goals and ambitions to the political terms being set
by the mid term and 08 elections.
If you limit your
political activity to electing candidates and demobilize protest in order win a
Democratic majority – then, even if the Democrats win, we will lose.
If you elect Democratic
candidates who are “strong on national security” you will get more
war and repression.
If you elect
candidates who tell you abortion is tragic you will see Roe Vs Wade overturned,
birth control under attack, and prayer in school.
If you give your money to
PAC’s that think the Democratic Party has to regain the south you will see
the return of the confederate flag Dixiecrats. You”ll see a situation
where demanding racial equality will be considered as strident
as upholding abortion or gay marriage is today.
If you elect democrats
supporting the flag amendment you will silence freedom of speech.
If you elect
democrats who are “tough on border security,” you will see
more deaths in the desert and the war on terror broadened to hunt people
down for the crime of looking for work.
That’s the direction – where
yesterday’s outrage becomes institutionalized and accepted as the new
normal. That is why our call says, “That which you do not resist and
mobilize to stop you will learn or be forced to accept.
What if we
could succeed in electing more people who oppose the war?
In the current
climate they will be swallowed up or silenced or scandalized out of
office – it only took a scream to take Howard Dean out of the race and
back into the fold.
Be realistic – compare
five Kuciniches in the Congress and one in the Senate to what difference a
million people in the streets to Drive Out the Bush Regime can.
Which has more impact?
Which sets terms that
everyone in society has to pay attention to?
What changes hearts and
minds among the people and forces politicians to sing to a different tune?
There will be
no impeachment – no end to the wars, the lies, the torture, no justice for
Katrina, no reversing the deadly assault on women and gays – without this kind
of uproar from below.
What caused LBJ and
& later Nixon/Agnew to leave office in disgrace?
What caused the troops in Vietnam to
refuse to fight an unjust war?
All of it would never have
happened without the mobilization and active political participation of
millions of people whose activity went out of bounds – was independent of
the normal official political processes – by people who didn’t ask
permission to take history into their own hands.
What is being silenced in
the halls of power must be massively heard in the streets.
We need to change the face
of EVERYTHING.
We are talking about
setting a dynamic rolling on October 5th on a scale that can really
make a huge change in this country and the world.
Many have been valiantly
fighting these many outrages one at a time but constantly losing ground to the
whole onslaught.
We have to change the face
of EVERYTHING-say a massive NO to this whole disastrous course.
It is worth taking
off work and walking out of class for this!
It is worth it to put
reputations and careers on the line.
It
is right refuse to participate in war crimes and resign in protest as
Ann Wright and other government officials have done.
We are not calling for
just another demonstration but a groundswell of people who will not accept that
this is future for generations – by starting with many 10’s of thousands on
October 5th – by getting enough people to kick open the
door that draws in 100’s of thousands of people and gives them a way
to express their desire to stop this madness – that gives them the vehicle
they need to act. But only if enough people make this alternative a reality.
We have 4 weeks and
you can make miracles in 4 weeks if you decide it’s worth it. If many more
people decide to share the load with the Gold Star mothers who have changed
their lives.
As Bush and Condi are
calculating launching another war – this time on Iran – they need to be facing
massive political upheaval throughout their own country.
Especially on the
campuses a new student movement is urgently needed. A movement that can
not be dismissed has to find expression in every nook and cranny of the country:
in small towns and in rural areas people have to know they can go to their
city hall with a poster saying Drive Out the Bush Regime and find others
like them there on October 5th. You can hear this taking
shape already on Air America.
Is stepping out of bounds
scary? Maybe it is for you, but if you step back and look at the situation
honestly there is nothing scarier than where the normal working of the
political process is presently leading.
To go along with the
continuation of this regime and the current accommodation to it in an attempt
to avoid the necessary political upheaval is in fact to become complicit in –
to be an accessory to – the terrible crimes this regime has already
carried out and the still greater ones they are gearing up for.
History will judge us
sharply should we fail to act decisively. Rumsfeld in a ludicrous speech to
legionaries likened the critics of the Iraq war to appeasers of a new kind
of fascism. He talked about Americans suffering from a moral and intellectual
confusion – but could Americans he’s attacking perhaps be thinking that
the threat of a new kind of fascism is the one coming from Rumsfeld and
Gonzales or religious fanatics now entrenched in the Supreme Court, the
Senate and the army?
After world war 2 Pastor
Martin Niemoller who survived the concentration camp made a famous statement
about the German people waking up to the rise of fascism too late to make
a difference. It’s not that people did not resist or do courageous things as
individuals but that they acted too late.
After the war he left this
lesson for future generations ” First they came for the Communists , but I
was not a communist so I said nothing; then they came for the Jews, but I was
not a Jew, so I said nothing… .. And then they came for me, and by that time
there was no one left to speak up.”
Niemoller did not make
this statement so that people could repeat it -so they could say some things
are very bad but it’s not happening to me – or maybe some of these bad
things happening to other people are keeping me safe, or maybe we can passively
wait it out for 2 more years. He called on us not to do as he
did in 1933. We have the lesson and now it’s up to us to heed it – to take
responsibility for challenging others to see where the logic of a
president who thinks everything he does is justified because he is on a mission
from God will end up. Isn’t it time to bring this to a halt, NOW?
Your Government exercises
disproportionate influence in the world and is trying to build an
unchallenged empire that uses the terror of weapons of mass destruction and the
instruments of torture & repression to keep it unchallenged for generations.
We as people living in this country have a disproportionate responsibility to
act – To Say Not in Our Name – and on October 5th engage in a
day of mass repudiation of the Bush Regime so that people in the rest of the
world know that millions of Americans find this President and his
whole administration – and his whole agenda illegitimate. To say they do
not represent us and we will drive them out.
October 5 is not just
another demonstration as usual – it’s a conscious act and declaration that there
is something new on the move in the country – a signal that people are shaking off
denial and despair and no longer leaving the driving to the democrats, who are
taking responsibility for changing the direction of the country through massive
political mobilization from below. What difference does a single day make?
Everything, if it can reach critical mass – and that is up to you.
Imagine if all the people
deeply distressed who care about the future of humanity and the planet we live
on, and who recognize the many ways in which the Bush Regime is increasingly
posing a dire threat to this.
All the people who hate
this but are being held back by the fear they are alone and by the inertia of
so many like them – imagine if out of this reservoir a powerful wave was
unleashed – moving together on a single day and making it known that people are
determined to actually stop this and drive this regime from office.
Imagine if this day were
able to punch a hole in the dam that is holding people back – and
then we and many more, newly seeing and seizing on this opening,
could push on to unleash a season of massive, really massive, political
resistance.
This undeniable moral
force could create a very different political climate in society – one
that is radically different, in a positive way. It could make everyone,
from top to bottom, react to THIS, and create the kind of political
situation where Bush is driven from
office.
If you find the road being
traveled intolerable and unacceptable there is another road to choose from
and we are calling on everyone here tonight to pitch in and pave it. We have a
plan for the next 4 weeks that you will find in your organizing kits – a plan
to make sure that October 5 is the kind of turning point that people the
world over are hoping for.
Two New York Times ads
have punctured the atmosphere of resignation, gradualism and paralysis
that still grips this country. The first received thousands of responses and
donations, and the second ad prompted the Boston Globe to write an editorial
criticizing it for making a comparison of Bush to Hitler – Exactly
the kind of discussion that needs to be provoked, and now we have to bring
the people who are debating into action …and reach many millions more.
Efforts to reach people through print, internet and radio outreach has to
be multi-dimensional – outreach through Air America, the African American
Press, Spanish Radio and newspapers. College radio also has to go into
full swing
On Tuesday Sept 19th
Bush will be coming to the UN to bully the rest of the world into going along
with the insanity of preparing for war with Iran. 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.
Get involved in the movement TO
DRIVE OUT THE BUSH REGIME and join the wave building towards October 5th.
September 19, nationwide,
will be Bush Crimes Day-a day of mass indictment and exposure on college
campuses, in high schools, on the streets and in the media.
All of this will be
creating both the buzz and the controversy needed to get a big media
platform for the many prominent voices of our movement – artists, writers,
religious leaders, and ex-government officials.
This plan pivots on
fundraising. And the next two to three weeks there must be massive
fund-raising. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are needed. Fund-raising has to
quickly expand through the internet, phone banking and personally talking
with 10s of thousands of people.
A movement of fund-raising
must take off starting tonight – some of you will hold house parties, others
will give hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. Some
of you will hold cocktail parties, and reach people who can make a can
give even more. Everybody has an important role to play.
Getting to October 5 will
require the skills, creativity, connections, imagination and the inspired
devotion of all kinds of people starting with everyone in this room. We Are
What We Have Been Waiting For.
If we succeed on Oct 5,
the idea of stopping this regime by driving it from power through massive
political protest can go from something only vaguely hoped for by millions of
isolated individuals, and acted on by thousands so far, to something that has
undeniable moral force and unprecedented political impact.
This is what the world
needs from us. This is what the future
needs from us. And this is what we here
tonight have a tremendous responsibility – and opportunity – to be part of
making real.
The World Can’t Wait! Drive Out the Bush Regime!