UPSURGE OF ANTI-BUSH ANGER COALESCING IN 220 OCT. 5 PROTESTS NATIONWIDE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 4, 2006
WORLD CAN’T WAIT– DRIVE OUT THE BUSH REGIME

Contact: Connie Julian, 718-825-9119, www.worldcantwait.org

UPSURGE OF ANTI-BUSH ANGER COALESCING IN 220 OCT. 5 PROTESTS NATIONWIDE; LEGALIZING TORTURE AND STRIPPING RIGHTS LAST STRAW FOR MANY

A nationwide surge of anti-Bush anger and concern is coalescing in over 220 protests nationwide on Oct. 5 – including 87 in “red” states and 9 in Bush’s home state of Texas, and 10 cities in Canada. The protests, organized by World Can’t Wait-Drive Out the Bush Regime, demand: “No! This Regime Does Not Represent Us! And We Will Drive It Out!”

The number of “No Work, No School” rallies has quadrupled in the past 2 weeks, drawing in the famous – Sean Penn, Gore Vidal, Olympia Dukakis, Paul Haggis, Alice Walker, Daniel Ellsberg and others – alongside middle class professionals, undocumented immigrants, and high school and college students.

Authorities in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco attempted to stifle turn-out by limiting permits at the last minute, but legal and political battles defeated this in New York City and San Francisco. The permit battle is still ongoing in Chicago– in federal court.

This new movement’s rapid rise is stoked by deepening fears that Bush is remaking society “in a fascist way,” as World Can’t Wait states, and frustration with the Democrats non-opposition. For many, the passage of Bush’s Military Commission’s Act of 2006– “torture bill”– was the last straw.

Actor Mark Ruffalo told hundreds in New York City on Monday night, “I don’t want to be up here today but I feel I have exhausted the way we have been taught to affect change in the way our government conducts itself”.and still we have a government that refuses to respect the Constitution, a government that engaged in a war with illegal justification, a government that abandoned its own during Hurricane Katrina, a Government that now condones torture, a government that favors big corporations before it favors my children or yours. Step down, Mr. Bush, We are not torturers.”

Ruffalo also read a statement from Sean Penn (his co-star in All the King’s Men) which said: “Stand up as an American and join World Can’t Wait and those demonstrating this Thursday, October 5.”

According to a full-page World Can’t Wait ad in today’s New York Times headlined “Silence + Torture = Complicity,” the Military Commissions act “codified torture” and “officially shredded constitutional promises of basic and fundamental rights to due process.”

National Coordinator Debra Sweet states, “People are agonizing about the situation and looking for the ways to change this whole direction we are being driven in. If not now, when? If not us, who?”

Speakers at tomorrow’s protests include: U.S. Reps. Cynthia McKinney and Maurice Hinchey, whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg, former UN inspector Scott Ritter, former State Department official Ann Wright, radio show host Thom Hartmann, Guantanamo lawyer Michael Ratner, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Chicago Alderman Ricardo Munoz, author Michael Eric Dyson, singer Michelle Phillips, and many others.  

Details at www.worldcantwait.org