Protests in 230+ Cities Determined to Drive Out the Bush Regime

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 6, 2006
WORLD Can’t WAIT-DRIVE OUT THE BUSH REGIME   www.worldcantwait.org

Contact: Connie Julian, 718-825-9119

Protests in 230+ Cities Determined to Drive Out the Bush Regime

On October 5, a new movement burgeoned nationwide with people in 230+ cities and towns holding rallies and marches that condemned the entire program of the Bush administration, declaring their intention to spread the resistance until the Bush regime is driven out.

 

Speaking in New York City, National Coordinator of World Can’t Wait-Drive Out the Bush Regime, Debra Sweet, stated: “This audacious and historic venture is born of urgent necessity. The Bush regime is setting out to radically remake society very quickly, in a fascist way, and for generations to come.”

The protests were called for mid-day and several thousand people, showing conviction and commitment, took off work, left school, and took to the streets in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Hundreds acted in cities such as Tucson, Portland, Atlanta, and Austin, and scores came out in many small towns.  Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney speaking in NYC said: “This is one of America’s most ignominious moments.  Only the acts of millions of Americans, committed to peace and justice, can avert the mighty collision rushing toward us.”

The marches featured posters of the world aflame as speakers, including Iraq War veterans, demanded an end to the illegitimate war in Iraq and denounced the threats of war on Iran. Speakers also condemned the now-official U.S. policy that condones torture and indefinite detention without any legal rights.

Sweet said: “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. We have to look at ourselves through their eyes-how is the rest of the world seeing us? 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 just not conscionable.”

Across the country, speakers included: Daniel Ellsberg, Center for Constitutional Rights President Michael Ratner, Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, former UN inspector Scott Ritter, along with actors and musicians Edward Asner, Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Phillips, and Tom Morello.  A statement from Sean Penn read nationwide said: “This is an administration that advocates torture, deceives the public, spends billions of dollars on a failed war . . . Out of Iraq. And out with Bush.”

 Condemning the full package of the Bush program, speakers also denounced the administration’s assaults on women’s reproductive rights, its criminal response to Hurricane Katrina, the demonization of gays, their punitive policies towards immigrants, their moves to impose a “narrow and hateful brand of Christian fundamentalism” on society, as well as exposing the whole culture that the Bush regime has fostered of greed, bigotry, intolerance, and ignorance.

 

Nationwide mass organizing meetings were called to take place one week later on October 12.  World Can’t Wait organizers across the country said that only the people themselves taking decisive and determined action – in all spheres of society – can drive out the Bush regime and bring its dangerous criminal and immoral program to a halt.

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