By Jed Brandt, 10/2/06
This letter is a personal
appeal for your active involvement with World Can’t Wait, on your own terms, starting
now.
Momentum is building for the Oct. 5 protests, but many activists have
yet to step up — or even investigate for themselves the scope of this effort.
The lull in the protest movement since the start of the war, exactly as the
population has turned against this disaster is more confusing than it should be
and, I’d argue, related to a passive orientation towards the elections.
Let’s stop waiting. Let’s stop pretending like Bush will change his mind or the
Democrats will “grow a spine.” They have backbone, but they don’t
as a party represent us. After literally years of this same wishing game,
we have to learn the lessons that are there in plain sight. That’s right. I’m
using the imperative “we have to.” We have to act consciously,
resist, and stop politically pussyfooting around.
Too many of us have been involved in day-to-day activism that isn’t taking into
consideration the political root of the current situation. Massive
popular revulsion at the legalization of torture, surveillance without warrant
— and Bush’s recent legislation exempting himself and his cabinet from war
crimes prosecution must be galvanized, mobilized, given tangible expression.
This requires experienced activists, media workers, community-based organizers.
It requires that we put distrust aside, and work like what we do matters.
If you are not now involved, please question why. What is holding
“radical” movements from radical action? It certainly isn’t that
people aren’t ready to move. Hardly. The problem as I see it is in the habits
of the organized left and its refusal to get with the times, leave comfort
zones and challenge all the orthodoxies of political passivity.
We cannot be afraid of leading, of breaking consensus, challenging ineffective
if comfortable habits. We can’t just reduce every political initiative to a
“been there, done that” when too many of us haven’t been here
and haven’t done this. Talking about “it” isn’t doing it, and
by “it” I mean taking resistance out to millions of people when 70%
of the country is moving against the Bush agenda.
For many long-time activists, involved in community-based activity and
institution-building, this ongoing hard-press by the Bush regime is seen as
just a little more of the same old shit. It is not. It is a fundamental
change in the structure of the state — and much worse is threatened. Many
folks who have never been involved in “the left,” or called
themselves “activists” are stepping up, without the cynicism and
turf mindsets we’ve come to know as the pathology of our own movements. We
have to rise above this; and this requires a conscious decision.
While there are hopes that there will be a change in Congress during the
upcoming mid-term elections, this is like praying for change without backing it
up. Watching Democracy Now on Friday,
Amy Goodman confronted a Democratic Party senator over the fact that Democrats
provided the crucial votes in the Senate for a law which allows Bush to
arrest any person anywhere on earth on the merest claim that they
are “enemy combatants.” Habeus Corpus, one of the most basic
rights of American law, has been “shattered,” according to Michael
Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Now. Not later, not some later worst-case scenario. This is it, here we are:
and what are we now going to do about it? Let them withdraw from Iraq through Tehran? Hoping Hillary Clinton will end
this war (that she supports) and stop the repression (that she votes for)?
That’s not politics, that’s faith-based organizing. I’m a part of the
reality-based community, and we need to change reality — the very
choices people think they have. And if you already know all that, then what are
you doing now to back it up?
Without a massive, ongoing demonstration of resistance to this far
right-wing program, we will continue to be rolled over. We will continue to
lose one “constituency” fight after another. We will continue to
“oppose” what we refuse to resist. We will be governed by our
very enemies down a dangerous path.
The Democratic Party’s leadership has allowed this new legislation to pass
without effective or even theatrical resistance. The incoming Supreme Court
will likely overturn Roe v. Wade,
already in tatters, and uphold every repressive piece of legislation Bush and
Congress have put forward. They are not slowing down.
Here is an option. Here is a way to take up the frontal fight
over the direction of this country.
Many of the people I’m sending this email to will vote, some will work on the
mid-term campaigns. Some of you are active, some are rarely, a few of you have
yet to volunteer in any capacity. We all have a way to engage this whole
assault. World Can’t Wait wants and expects participation on your own terms,
with your own politics and culture, in agreement with the initiating call. Period.
Anyone who says otherwise would rather you stayed home than took up this fight.
We’ve seen where this kind of cynical passivity leads: to more to the same and
worse.
Participation has spread far beyond the initiating group, and this is as they
want it to be. I can say this, but coming to the forum tonight at Cooper Union
is the best way to see who is actually involved, not the rumors and
half-baked shit-talking that passes for debate too often. We can’t let a fear
of our movements’ most radical (and honest) participants justify apathy,
despair and disengagement. You can’t let it.
I will be at Cooper Union tonight (10/2) to talk with anyone, go over
any specific concerns and help you find a way to get involved as an individual,
collective or organization.
Again, the genuine breadth of this movement is near unprecedented.
Cindy Sheehan, Jonathan Kozol, Suheir Hammad, Michael Eric Dyson, Alice Walker,
Howard Zinn. From inside the system, Democratic lightning rods like Al
Sharpton, congressional representatives such as Cynthia McKinney, John Conyers,
and Major Owens have joined radicals like Mumia Abu-Jamal, Ward Churchill and
Sunsara Taylor. Ralph Nader is urging people to come out. Rabbi Michael Lerner of
Tikkun Magazine and the Network of Spiritual Progressives, and Medea Benjamin
of CodePink have urged everyone to get involved, and to make this their own.
The very army general who ran Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq
has joined, as did the first State Department official to resign over Iraq and career
CIA man Ray McGovern helped disrupt a Rumsfeld presentation on national TV
alongside WCW activists.
Prominent signatories are one thing. The infrastructure of a successful
movement is another.
Speaking directly, the range of signatories to the World Can’t Wait call
is broad, diverse and speaks to the unfolding moment we are in. Specifically
among activists, including many receiving this email, there is considerable
skepticism regarding communist involvement.
The role of the Revolutionary Communist Party is not a secret — but despite
claims to the contrary, World Can’t Wait is not a “front group.” This
kind of accusation is not “telling uncomfortable truths” — it is a
distortion. This crude, dishonest and unprincipled red-baiting aims to convince
honest activists (read: you) that they will be “secretly”
controlled by some shadowy group. Nothing could be further from the truth.
This kind of argument-by-slur aims to hinder participation without principled
discussion by using fear instead of engagement. It’s time to retire these vapid
Karl Rove-style attacks within the left. Reject it, or at least don’t
accept it as the end of the discussion.
In my experience, those who urge “caution” or rely on crude political
stereotypes to end discussion are arguing for passivity in the face of open
horror. If you are not engaged in this fight to stop Bush’s agenda in an
ongoing, explicit way — what are you waiting for?
Investigate World Can’t Wait for yourself and make informed
choices about involvement. If you are in NYC or SF, come to tonight’s
rallies and the Oct. 5 protests. See with your own eyes who is really
involved — and make your choices for the coming week (and months) accordingly.
No one is trying to control anyone in this movement. It is about
putting some new facts on the ground, refusing to accept the “new
normal” and kicking Bush when he is down through the power of the people.
REGARDLESS, we must be in the streets — and you must find a way not to
just “get behind” the WCW banner, but to take up this campaign on
your own terms.
Specifically: You have the space to operate as direct action
activists, anti-authoritarians and community/labor-based organizers. This
is a straight-up political pitch. It is not about signing up for any man behind
the curtain. What you see really is what you get.
If you can’t make the meeting tonight at Cooper Union, check out this list of local groups
around the country and take initiative. Forward this email, or write your
own. But seize the day, friend. Make history, and put that little cynic in
the back of your head out of its misery.
In struggle,
Jed Brandt
Activist and writer with New York’s “free paper for free
people,” The Indypendent.