A warm greeting to all organizers as we approach Oct 5!
We are on the verge of making a huge step in doing what we say in our Call: “We must, and can, aim to create a political situation where the Bush’s program is repudiated, where Bush himself is driven from office, and where the whole direction he has been taking society is reversed.” Whether you are with tens of thousands in the streets of the major cities or with five people in your village park, you are contributing to this historic day. In more than 175 places you have organized some form of demonstration saying “Drive Out the Bush Regime.”
We have been told the people in the “red states” are firmly in the control of the Bush regime. No! Absolutely untrue! Our national ads have found people all over this country who hate the direction of society. People in 190 towns in 43 states and
Let’s also keep in mind that for every one of us in the streets Thursday, each one of us represents another 100 who feel the same way and haven’t quite yet found their way to the streets-but will as we build this movement further after Oct 5.
As we all prepare for our events, we in the World Can’t Wait national office want to provide a basic check list for the events to assist you. This will be especially helpful for those who are organizing for the first time. It is based on many of your questions.
–To provide a common political focus for every place having a demonstration, we urge everyone to reread the Call before the events. The Call remains our basic document that unites us all of many different viewpoints. Whenever a question comes up, the Call provides a basic framework for answers.
–Print and distribute the Call. A new statement to be put on the back of the Call will serve as a statement from the National Steering Committee. This is the flyer people can take by the hundreds from the rally to organize from that point on. [download flyer pdf]
–Read the Call at the rally. For a moving dramatic reading of the Call, download the reading by Olympia Dukakis read at the Cooper Union event in NYC Oct 2 (available soon on worldcantwait.org). Have a boom box or some other sound amplification to do this.
–Posters and banners. Make a banner with “(name of your city) says Drive Out the Bush Regime”. Take a picture for the website photo gallery. Four color posters are available from the national office. It is too late for the Thursday demonstrations so: (A) Make your own that say “The World Can’t Wait. Drive Out the Bush Regime”. (B) order some for after Oct 5. They have no date on them so they can be used after Oct 5.
–Speakers. Be bold in asking anyone who agrees that we have to drive out the Bush regime by our actions. Have people qualified on a certain one of the Your Government points from the Call–a scientist about global warming or someone from Planned Parenthood about the need to protect abortion. Want to have Mark Ruffalo or Sean Penn speak at your rally? Once again, download them and play them.
–Fundraising. Someone do a fundraising pitch from the stage or the bullhorn. These events cost money. This movement will continue to cost millions of dollars. We are totally unapologetic about asking for people’s time, energy and money-how else can we build a movement strong enough to drive out the Bush regime? Have buckets to pass around-or many garbage cans in the large rallies. Have laptops with wireless if possible so that people can make online donations on the website right there on the spot at the rally.
–Press. Invite the press. Have someone chosen to talk to them. Press people can not only report on the event, they can become allies and activists themselves.
–Build organization for our movement after Oct 5. You may have caught the drift by now-Oct 5 is a leap but we are not stopping. We are going to take all that momentum and go further.
–Sign-up sheets. Every person who comes is valuable and a potential organizer. Add the names to your email lists and have someone assigned to send them in to the national office. Put them one to a line (no punctuation) on a word doc and send to info@worldcantwait.org so they can be added to the national elist.
–Meetings Oct 12-14. Nationally coordinated meetings-Oct 12, 13 or 14, whichever is best for you. We will have summed up and planned the next step by then. You will be able to post your meeting time and place on worldcantwait.org
c. Make an announcement about the need for volunteers, including in the national office in
d. Send reports of your events to reports@worldcantwait.org.
PICTURES: All small towns should send a digital picture to reports@worldcantwait.org. A group picture with everybody standing in front of a banner or sign that says [name of town, name of state/province] says The World Can’t Wait. They can send other pictures too, but we”d like to have a photo display of all the smaller towns and cities.
BASIC QUESTIONS TO REPORT ON OCT 5:(send these in to reports@worldcantwait.org)
1. Name of city/town/area. State/Province
2. How many people came (total throughout the day/evening)
3. What did they do-rally, march, theater, music, walkouts from high schools, etc. Where did they do it. What were the highlights. Did someone read the WCW speech? Was the Call read? By whom? Did they pass out flyers with the Call on it? Who were the other speakers? What (briefly) did they talk about? Any good quotes from speakers?
4. What kind of people came? Ages, job/profession/students? Affiliations: church, union, peace groups, womens groups, high schools, college etc.)
5. Get good quotes about the reasons people had for coming.
6. Response of people at rally/march etc. Did more people join in?
7. Was there local media coverage? What kind? TV, radio, newspaper, etc. Local controversy over this? What specifically?
8. What was the general assessment of Oct 5 by those participating?
9. How did people find out about Oct 5. Have they gone to the website? Were there particular things that were really important in people knowing about Oct 5 and WCW, like MySpace or the USA Today ad, etc.
10. How do they see being part of this from Oct 6 on? Are they planning a meeting in their area. If no chapter, are they going to start one? What do they think of the plans put forward by the WCW national office?
Chants:
The protests need to grow throughout the day, and one key part of that is powerful, loud chants with a focused message. Here are some suggestions:
The World Can’t Wait!
Drive Out the Bush Regime!
Join Us, Join Us, The World Can’t Wait!
Drive Out the Bush Regime!
War, lies,
Bring It To A Halt!
Torture, spies,
Bring It To A Halt!
Theocracy on the rise
Bring It To A Halt!
Earth Destroyed Before Our Eyes
Bring It To A Halt!
Statement to be read at Drive Out the Bush Regime rallies October 5, 2006
A message from the World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime Steering Committee on Oct. 5
A day we’ve all been waiting for is happening. We are standing up together, all over the country, determined to carry forward a great movement to drive out the Bush Regime. This movement is made up of many people of many different view points and backgrounds—all uniting to accomplish something that has must be done. This audacious and historic venture is born of urgent necessity. “The Bush Regime is setting out to radically re-make society very quickly, in a fascist way, and for generations to come. We must act now; the future is in the balance.”
In just the past year we have seen:
Government spying–bolted into law;Alito & Roberts –installed in the Supreme Court;
The Patriot Act passed–again;
Theocratic anti-abortion and anti-gay laws–spreading intolerance;
War in
War on
War on
Torture–legalized.
The act passed last week stripped the fundamental right of habeas corpus for 14,000 detainees in secret prisons around the world and to anyone anywhere that the president accuses of being an enemy combatant – all without any real opposition in the halls of power.
This is how fascism happens here, with an orderly transfer of power to the executive branch, to a president and administration claiming war time powers – in a war promised to last generations; to a president who lied about Iraq and is now laying plans for a catastrophic war with Iran; to a president who believes he is on a mission from God.
This is indeed a defining moment. It is not too late to stop this fascist trajectory but if it goes unopposed by the people of this country it could be too late and the darkness of this Regime descending on the country and the world will succeed in silencing dissent, critical thought, science, the ideals of equality and the way people think of basic human decency.
Millions of people deeply disturbed by this have been looking for a vehicle to express their outrage. Today in more than 180 cities – 90 of them in 26 states that went for Bush in 2004– people are finding their courage in this vehicle. We are punching a hole in the political atmosphere of silence, fear, and going along with a fascist program. And we are opening the way for the kind of resistance we need to stop and reverse the direction this government is taking this society and the world.
Acting in this way, we join with and give support and heart to people all over the globe who so urgently need and want this regime to be stopped. They can’t see our buttons and bumper stickers, but as we gather momentum in numbers too large to be dismissed, they will know this movement is determined to show we are not a nation of torturers. None of this must continue in our name!
Having taken this historic step – one that people the world over are hoping for– we must promise to take this forward to make resistance to all this a reality, now. We must go forward–transforming the anguish, outrage and frustration millions of us feel into truly effective, positive and massive political mobilization. We must stay on the offensive with our opposition to the WHOLE direction of things, and to this regime—including through the immediate period before and after the mid-term elections.
We must not stop, we must go forward. No matter who is elected, we, ourselves, the people, by our OWN active initiative, have to now set entirely different political terms than the ones presently accepted as “realistic”.
We must not stop.
It is time to change the terms of discourse. It is not acceptable, at a time when the Supreme Court is getting ready to overturn Roe v. Wade, for the opposition to be saying that the right of a woman to control her own body is expendable.
It is not right for the terms of debate on War in
We must not stop. There is time but there is very little time. We have to change the political landscape so everyone has to respond to what hundreds of thousands of people are now actively on a mission to accomplish: to Drive out this Criminal regime and to repudiate, to reject, to put beyond the pale the whole immoral and unjust program of this regime. To be silent when your country is waging endless war, legalizing torture, and taking step after step towards consolidating a police state to “make us safe” is to be complicit.
Today is a gigantic step forward in starting the society-wide debate needed for people in their millions to act even more powerfully. As one more immediate step in this we are calling today for STATE OF
We have important plans to make including over the next days and weeks. So, most importantly, know that this is not one of those demonstrations you march and go back home to the same old same old. What do you do when there is warning of a tsunami coming your way? You make plans for emergency mobilization. And we are going to do just that.
In one week, we are calling for MASS MEETINGS – where thousands across the country must come to be part of summing up what we have accomplished and be part of planning how to go forward, rapidly expanding our capacity. We’ll discuss “how do you drive an illegitimate regime from power?”
Plan to bring your courage and your imagination, bring your resources and your political connections – because together we will drive out this Regime before 2008.
Because Bush, because Cheney, because Rumsfeld, because Rice, because Gonzales must all be driven out, they must leave the White House politically repudiated and thoroughly discredited as the war criminals that they are. Anything short of that is unacceptable to the world, to our children, to the future.
THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN – WHICH ONE WE GET IT UP TO US
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The World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime
Worldcantwait.org
866 973 4463