From a World Can’t Wait organizer in North Carolina, 10/1/06:
We just found out today from the World Can’t Wait national
office, who have been doing the very important job of getting the bird’s-eye
view of this emerging movement and sharing their observations with the local
chapters and regions, that North Carolina
will have the second-largest number of demonstrations of any state in the US on
October 5th, with eleven, right behind California, which has twenty
protests scheduled. What?!? North
Carolina? The land
of Jesse Helms and the 1979 Greensboro massacre? The
red state? How could this be? That’s the question that the national put to us
to answer, or more specifically, “How did it happen, and what can people learn
from it in the last few days before October 5th?”
Well, there’s a lot that goes into answering that question,
and it’s not easy to know exactly in an exhaustive way without doing the kind
of social investigation that we just don’t have the time to do right now. But
we do have a few ideas that are based on our experience here with the Greensboro chapter and people nearby, particularly in Asheboro, Chapel Hill, and Charlotte. We offer these observations about
what’s been successful for us with the hope that they will be useful for others
here and around the US
who are struggling to bring this movement into being.
1. Clarity about “what time it is”: The Call has been
essential to what we do. We struggle over it sometimes within our ranks, over
the impact of saying “your government” vs. “our government”, over the Hitler
comparison, but that struggle is a pretty dynamic and friendly one, and has
served to keep us grounded in what’s necessary and what’s required of us in
this extremely dangerous period, as opposed to what people are willing or are
conditioned to hear. This has been probably the most important thing. When we
make a mistake, it’s in understating the importance of the truth in that Call.
2. Communication and following up: We”ve done our best to
stay in contact with new people and new areas, as well as with the national
office. This hasn’t always been easy to do since we are a smaller area and
don’t (or didn’t used to) have the number of people in our core group to be
able to be one every conference call, or enter new email addresses to the list
quickly, and so on. But we”ve made every effort to be out there in the mix
amongst all sorts of events in our part of the state, and have spent time
bringing new people in new areas forward to take up responsibility for their
areas-I”ll take a sec to tell what we know about the different areas that are
really stepping out.
a) Asheboro
really shook things up in their small town starting on Labor Day. The group of about
ten punk rockers, all in their teens to mid-twenties, that found WCW through
the band Anti-Flag’s website took the big step of organizing a march that a
group of our core Greensboro organizers joined, during which we happened to
catch the attention of a journalist who happened to drive by (on his day off).
We made the front page of the local paper, which brought forward a new core in
that town of about six people for the older generation who were determined to
make something new happen in that town, long considered to be a “Republican
stronghold”. Our new Asheboro
friends were raising deep concerns about torture and unending war, and yes,
fascism which resonated for different reasons amongst them, ranging from
religious conviction, to a historical view, to a knowledge of the oppressive
role that the US
has played in the home countries of two of the youth. We solidified a
relationship through the Sept. 7th meeting and a follow-up meeting
in Asheboro, at which a place and time were
chosen for their October 5th demo, and even though they”re only 30
minutes from Greensboro, they (rightly) chose to
stay there on the 5th and build visible resistance in Asheboro itself. That’s
pretty damn good for a group that started off with just ten people. (Note-you
CAN do it with less, so don’t look at your own area and think “Aw, man”we”ve
only got four people!” It’s all about being clear, bold, and persistent.)
b) Charlotte: a couple of Charlotte people came up
to our Sept. 7th meeting b/c they learned about it from the NY Times
ad. Lots of others in Charlotte
got hooked in with us by meeting us on the Warped Tour their and getting on the
email list. The main organizer with the Action Center
for Justice (ACJ), independent of us, took up the Call for October 5th
and began building for it, and asked one of us to come speak at an impeachment
rally he was building with the local Green Party. Then last Saturday, at a
human rights festival he organized with some local punk bands, the cops decided
to violently shut things down. They swung on kids with billy clubs, tasered
several others, and broke one guy’s ribs and punctured his lung. Over a dozen
people were arrested, and five were charged with things like resisting arrest,
assault on an officer-the typical charges that are handed out when cops decide
to beat people. This police violence,
and the organizers” and the punks” determination to tell the truth that this
was an unprovoked attack, has kept the movement on the front pages of the local
press and politicized and mobilized a large number of young punks-AND put
October 5th on the map for large numbers of people in that city. One
of the youth who was arrested told me that he was glad to see that “because we
didn’t back down” about telling the truth that it was the cops who committed
the violence, that “the cops were having to back down.” At the impeachment
rally, Greensboro
and Chapel Hill WCW organizers helped ACJ make sure that everyone in the crowd
got the flyer about the 5th, and our WCW speaker announced it from
the stage, chanting, “Free the Charlotte Five!” The Charlotte organizers are really taking the
right steps by confronting this situation head-on and connecting with the whole
police-state agenda of the Bush regime, and making October 5th an
outlet for people’s outrage at not just that situation, but the whole Bush
agenda of war, repression, and theocracy. There was a strong theme expressed by
many of the people we talked to at the impeachment rally that “something new”
had to happen and that “somebody had better do something quick”, and some of
the biggest cheers at the rally were for those who dared to use the “F-word”
(fascism) and for Ann Wright, who pointed out the need for an escalation of
civil disobedience.
c) Chapel Hill: Again, the NY Times ad reached a very
committed person over there who was convinced by it that he needed to drive an
hour to Greensboro
to join the Sept. 7th meeting. The UNC-CH chapter of Students for a
Democratic Society had already heard about it, and were already making plans
for the 5th when we hooked up with them at the demo that they
organized against John Ashcroft. I think WCW and SDS did a pretty good job of
echoing and feeding off of each others” militancy, clarity, and determination
in a situation where there was some division amongst the demonstrators over how
“disrespectful” to be to that Christian Fascist ideologue, keeping things on a
high, non-sectarian level while still escalating the level of militancy to the
point that when Ashcroft was spotted talking to some students outside the
lecture hall, a group of combined WCW, SDS and others moved toward him chanting
“Fascist go home””and so he did! This created a pretty big stir on campus, and
the debate stayed in the campus press for days, with debate raging on the
online forum of the “Daily Tar Heel” student newspaper. October 5th
got a lot of mention in these debates, in which the Greensboro WCW Chapter and
Chapel Hill SDS played prominent parts. We”ve kept in touch with the Chapel Hill folks, both students and “townies” through
phone calls, emails, and meetings.
d) Other areas, real quick, as we know less about these
places: Greenville is coming to Greensboro on the 5th b/c they
didn’t feel like they got enough of a core together in such a short amount of
time to make it happen, though they will show “Sir No Sir” as a way to build up
a core when they get back. Asheville
organizers know some people from both Charlotte and Chapel Hill SDS, and we”ve
had email contact with them, and are helping funnel people there to these
organizers. Hickory, Newton, Maiden, etc, we know nothing about.
They must have heard about it either through the ad or online. Same with
Swananoa/Warren Wilson College, North
Wilkesboro, and Wilmington.
(Note to those areas: If y”all read this, hit us up at ncworldcantwait@yahoo.com or (336)
574-9088!)
3. We”ve been all over MySpace. We set up a chapter profile
which has helped us to bring a couple hundred people on board as “MySpace
friends”, and probably reach a few thousand more because the bulletins we send
out to this “friends list” usually get forwarded by our friends to THEIR
friends lists, giving us a multiplier effect. We”ve gotten a few phone calls
from these and brought a number of people on board this way for the 5th.
A few lessons:
When we done our best, had the most impact, and laid the
best groundwork, it’s been because we”ve done a few key things well:
Remember what time it
is, and insist that others do the same. Make the Call central to everything
you do. The Bush regime is showing us every day how right we”ve been from the
beginning that the trajectory that they have put this country on is toward
fascism of an all-American sort. We can’t afford to be timid about that. Don’t be afraid
to struggle for for the understanding in the Call. It’s about uniting everyone who can be united
to drive out the Bush regime.
Make your tactics fit
the urgency of this historical moment. Stay visible. Be bold, and give
people something to remember, like marching through a campus building playing
the drums at top volume, or shouting down a hideous politician. It IS
necessary, and you should NEVER be embarrassed or apologetic that you did it.
Be persistent and
communicate. Call people back. Get them to commit to doing something.
Get the most clear,
determined, and energetic people activated right away. Don’t expend too
much energy trying to win over the most cynical naysayers, no matter what sort
of “movement credentials” they have, or how “cool” they are. They”ll come along
when they see that the truth we”re telling has resonated deeply with people,
and has become a material force. Or they won’t. Stick instead with the people
who DO step forward. If people don’t step forward right away, LOOK SOMEWHERE
ELSE. Challenge yourself to go places you”ve never gone.
National and regional
coordinators make a crucial difference. Without them, the NY Times, Air America,
USA Today, and MySpace ads wouldn’t have happened, and let’s face it-these ads
have made ALL the difference. We”ve seen it in NC to be sure. Also, the
coordination of chapters with the national movement and with each other would
be severely limited and probably non-existent in many areas, and this would
cripple us.
I hope these ideas are useful to people”onward to October 5th!
We”ve got a regime to drive out, and MUCH more work to do to make that a possiblity!