Important advisory for October 5
From: Debra Sweet, World Can’t Wait National Co-ordindator
For organizers and monitors:
World Can’t Wait should issue no posters, leaflets or messages that in any way advocates violence or can be construed as violence towards the President or other individuals. If other people bring posters or signs or images or depictions that do so they should be asked not to carry them and replace them with posters from World Can’t Wait. World Can’t Wait is united around and advocates mass political protest and action to drive Out the Bush Regime (see below).
I’m asking everyone to read “What Should be Character of the Rallies and Demonstrations on Oct 5?” below for clarity on this.
On one of our national conference calls, an organizer from Hawai’i
said she is planning to have extra posters in case someone would show
up with a poster that would need to be replaced. We can’t have too many
signs that say: DRIVE out the BUSH REGIME!
***
Monitors & Rally MC’s should practice leading people in the main
and pre-dominant chant that should mark the character of the marches:
*Join Us! Join Us! Drive Out the Bush Regime! THE WORLD CAN’T WAIT!
*Drive Out! Drive Out! Drive Out the Bush Regime! The World Can’t Wait!
We
know from previous marches and rallies that these are very very
powerful and uplifiting when chanted by people and especially when this
is being chanted in unison by thousands and tens of thousands of people
marching.
Let’s keep our sense of purpose and have a great outpouring on Thursday!
What should be the character of the rallies and demonstrations on October 5?
Posted 9/10/06:
We’ve got to keep in mind what we’re trying to do with these events. We
are intensifying a movement that will drive the Bush Regime from office and
reverse the whole direction in which he’s been taking society. Every day
a new outrage drives home the need for nothing less than this. If anyone
needs more proof, look at the speeches Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld have been
giving in the past week, trying to justify the totally illegitimate and unjust
wars they are already waging, and prepare the way for new ones!
This will take a movement that is very broad, very serious and very
determined. We need to speak to the “millions and millions”, as
it says in our Call, who are deeply disturbed and outraged by this.
In doing this, we have already been up against the powers-that-be, and here too
we need to keep our Call in mind: “This will not be easy. If we
speak the truth, they will try to silence us. If we act, they will try to
stop us. But we speak for the majority, here and around the world, and as we
get this going we are going to reach out to the people who have been so badly
fooled by Bush and we are NOT going to stop.”
But these days have also borne out that we do truly speak for millions of
people, as more and more people and organizations have been endorsing and
contributing to October 5 and vowing to come out for it. Currently over
30 cities and towns have posted information on their October 5 activities, and
the number continues to grow.
Our actions on October 5 have to be very broad, on a scale that can really make
a huge change in this country and in the world. We need to begin with a
strong core of at least tens of thousands in the major cities and then draw in many
more along the way. We need all kinds of people there, from the youth to
the “raging grannies,” vets from all wars, wheelchair contingents,
people from different religious congregations (and no religion at all), gay
people, union members, and immigrants. We need everyone on the political
spectrum who won’t go along with Bush, from disaffected Republicans to
disappointed Democrats and beyond.
Now, we fully understand the anger and deep outrage that a lot of people
feel. If you’re not angry at this point, you’re not paying
attention! So let’s turn that anger into a determination to make these
demonstrations as powerful and magnetic as possible.
Make no mistake: thousands and thousands of people not going to work and coming
out instead to demonstrate is a powerful show of determination. Thousands and
thousands of young people not going to school, or even walking out of school,
and coming out instead to rally and march is a powerful show of
determination. People seriously putting forth their intent to drive out a
regime — same thing. Right there you’ve gone way beyond politics as
usual.
And when all those people march through the streets, chanting “JOIN US!
JOIN US! THE WORLD CAN’T WAIT! DRIVE OUT THE BUSH REGIME!
JOIN US! JOIN US!” . . . and when hundreds and then thousands more people
answer their call, coming out from the sidewalks and office buildings and
stores, and joining the line of march . . . and when the energy and enthusiasm
of the youth plays a special role in all that? Then that will be an
extremely powerful and determined message, and will be understood as such by
both potential friend and foe alike.
A day of demonstrations like that, all across the country, can begin to
change the whole “political equation” in society. It can work
wonders on what people think is possible, and whether they will act.
But, to speak bluntly, tactics that cut against bringing out the tens of
thousands on October 5 and speaking to the millions go in the wrong direction
and should not be done. The Call for the October 5 demonstrations is very
clear: it is not calling for violence and it is not calling to remove the Bush
regime from office by any means other than mass political action.
Again, there is plenty of room for outrage and energy. But the point is
to channel that into something that can really begin to change things for real.