FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 5, 2006
WORLD CAN’T WAIT– DRIVE OUT THE BUSH REGIME
Contact: Connie Julian, 718-825-9119, www.worldcantwait.org
200+ NATIONWIDE PROTESTS DECLARE:
“THE BUSH REGIME DOES NOT REPRESENT US! AND WE WILL
DRIVE IT OUT!”
On October 5, people in over 200 cities nationwide will walk
out of school, take off work, and join protests organized by “World Can’t
Wait-Drive Out the Bush Regime” declaring:
“This Regime Does Not Represent Us! And We Will Drive it Out!”
This new movement condemns the entire Bush agenda: illegitimate war in Iraq and threats of war
on Iran, torture and illegal detention, assaults on science and women’s
reproductive rights, the criminal response to Hurricane Katrina, the
demonization of gays and immigrants, steps to impose a “narrow and hateful
brand of Christian fundamentalism,” and, “a culture of greed, bigotry,
intolerance and ignorance.”
A full-page World Can’t Wait ad in Wednesday’s New York
Times headlined “Silence + Torture = Complicity,” denounced Bush’s
Military Commissions Act for legalizing torture and gutting due process. “The
Bush regime is setting out to radically remake society very quickly, in a
fascist way, and for generations to come,” the ad stated. “This entire package must be repudiated, and
the whole direction of this country must be reversed.”
“We CANNOT wait for the elections to right this sinking
ship,” says Dede Miller of Gold Star Mothers for Peace. “If you are silent, you are complicit …If
you are complacent, you are complicit.”
The contagion of the “World Can’t Wait” movement in recent
weeks culminating in today’s mass protests reveals that across the country
people are responding to the message that politics as usual is leading to disaster,
and that there will be no savior from the Democratic Party – it is up to
ordinary people to join together to stop the Bush regime.
World Can’t Wait’s vision is resonating deeply. The number of protests 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, people from the ghettos and barrios, and high school and college
students.
Actor Mark Ruffalo told hundreds in New York City on Monday
night, “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.”
Sean Penn’s October 5 statement said: “President Bush and
his functionaries have created the greatest cultural, religious, and political
divide domestically since our own Civil War.”
National Coordinator Debra Sweet said that today’s protests
will show the world that the Bush regime does not speak or act in our
name: “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.”
Sweet added that “from October 5 forward, World Can’t
Wait-Drive Out the Bush Regime will not stop until there is such society wide
active resistance that a political situation emerges where the Bush regime’s
program is repudiated, where Bush himself is driven from office, and where the
whole direction he has been taking society is reversed.”
Speakers at today’s protests include: U.S. Reps. Cynthia
McKinney and Maurice Hinchey, whistle-blower Daniel Ellsberg, former UN
inspector Scott Ritter, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights,
Michael Ratner, musician Tom Morello, former State Department official Ann
Wright, radio show host Thom Hartmann, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Chicago Alderman
Ricardo Munoz, author Michael Eric Dyson, singer Michelle Phillips, and many
others.
Details at www.worldcantwait.org
******************
BREAKING NEWS:
* 108 PROTESTS IN 26 RED STATES (16 IN FLORIDA,
14 IN TEXAS, 13 IN NORTH CAROLINA)
* STUDENTS AT OVER 54 HIGH SCHOOLS AND 17 COLLEGES IN 18
DIFFERENT STATES PLANNING WALK OUTS
* 11 PROTESTS IN CANADA
* PERMIT BATTLE WON IN NEW YORK, CONTINUES IN CHICAGO
& SAN FRANCISCO