Everything the Bush regime is doing is more intolerable than ever – We must drive this regime out!

 

Table of Contents:

Introduction

Background

1. Politics as usual
cannot meet the enormity of the challenge

2. The Bush Regime is
remaking society rapidly in a fascist way

3. Get
college students activated to stop these outrages

4. Stopping the War on Iraq and Driving Out the
Bush Regime

5. The moral responsibility to actually drive out
the Bush Regime

6. But still, how the hell are we doing to drive
out the Bush regime?

 

Introduction:

In the wake of the October
5^th demonstrations and continuing through the month of November
2006, after the Republican defeat in the midterm Congressional elections, World
Can’t Wait organizers conducted an extensive active investigation among
hundreds of people to learn more deeply what they thought:

Why were the protests on
10/5 not as large as needed?  What did
people think World Can’t Wait accomplished? What would the significance of the
Democratic victory be?  Would the
Democratic majority in Congress reverse the political direction of the country
– would it stop the Bush program?  Was it
still necessary to drive out the Bush administration before its term
expires?  If so, why must this be done
and how could it be done?

This was an active process
– not an opinion poll.   Organizers from
World Can’t Wait engaged people in deep conversation as we continued to argue
for, and organize, resistance to the whole direction of the Bush regime.

Through this process, we
identified some of the key issues and common themes that people broadly were up
against – questions that were, and remain, ideological stumbling blocks to
really thinking outside the box and taking the kind of stand and action the
Call for “World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime” says is necessary to
change the course of history. 

This engagement was a rich
process. Here we will address a few of the key questions that people
confront.  Our answers are challenges to
what people understand about the scale and scope of what the Bush regime has
already done and what it is planning to do, to their responsibility to act in
response to that and, a challenge as well, to rise to the huge responsibility
to confront and act on the reality that no one is going to do this for us.  As our Call says: “We, in our millions, must
and can take the responsibility to change the course of history.”

This is a draft, a work in
progress for discussion and comment.  
Wrestling with these issues is integral to leading a movement that has
the capacity and understanding to accomplish our goals.  Following are key issues, a table of
contents, if you will, that this summation will address:

1} Politics as usual cannot
meet the enormity of the challenge

2} The Bush regime is
remaking society rapidly in a fascist direction

3} Where are the
campuses?  Why aren’t the college
students out in front?

4} Stopping the War on Iraq and
Driving Out the Bush Regime:  a position
paper from a member of the WCW, SC

5} The moral responsibility
to actually drive out the Bush Regime: a position paper from a member of the
WCW, SC

6} What is it going to take
to drive out the Bush regime?

Background:

When Bush was reelected
President in November 2004, horror crept up in the minds of people in this
country and around the world.  Three
years after the PATRIOT Act, a year and a half into a “preemptive” war started
by a series of lies, months after photos emerged of thumbs-up U.S.
interrogators torturing Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib, amidst the escalating
war cries of a cruel religious right, millions sensed an unprecedented
situation was upon us.

The Bush regime was puffed
up and pressing ahead, radically remaking the laws, culture and basic
assumptions of life in the U.S. and forever changing the relationship of the
U.S. to the rest of the world.

Millions sensed that the
future was at stake.  They longed for a
meaningful way to act and they sensed that politics as usual would not meet the
enormity of the challenge.

In the months that followed,
The World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime was formed to do something as
unprecedented as the danger that confronted us: to lead millions to create a
political situation 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.

Presidents had been driven
out before.  Johnson was unable to run
for reelection and Nixon was compelled to resign.  Both were driven out by a confluence of
international strategic setbacks and massive domestic disaffection and unrest.

Today, the stakes are far
greater.  

Driving out the regime had
to be the aim.  Anything less would not
avert the devastating and lasting consequences of what the regime had set out
to do.

To launch this, on November
2, 2005, the one-year anniversary of Bush’s reelection, The World Can’t Wait
organized protests in seventy cities across the country.  The call went out: no work, no school, let’s
march!  Thousands of high school students
answered the call, walking out of more than 200 schools across the country –
often climbing out windows, defying truancy cops, facing suspension – to take
to the streets against a future of wars, lies, theocracy and in protest of the
murderous response to Hurricane Katrina just eight weeks before.  Far-sighted luminaries and artists lent their
voices in support and thousands took off work to join the youth.  Some 20,000 people marched through the
streets in seventy cities calling on others to “Join Us!”

A movement to stop the Bush
regime had been launched, but not on a scale large enough to force its way into
the major national and international media. 
Many still did not know about this movement.

And, among those who did
know, many were not yet convinced that things were as bad as World Can’t Wait
claimed.  Many were not ready to accept
that the regime had to be driven out. 
Many bristled at WCW’s comparison between Bush and Hitler, thinking it
was too extreme to talk about the dangers of fascism in America.

Then came Bush’s nomination
of John Roberts to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, with no
opposition.  Then, the NSA illegal
domestic spying broke open.  Then, Samuel
Alito was confirmed to the Court, again without any opposition.  Then, South Dakota
banned abortion and Louisiana
followed suit.  A draconian law
criminalizing immigrants was proposed and got very far in the approval
process.  Refugees from Katrina were
spread over the country, with hundreds of thousands of the poorest kept from
returning to New Orleans.  The Iraq War ground on with periodic shocking
exposures such as the torture photos of Abu Ghraib, the white phosphorous
gassing of Falujah and the estimated 655,000 Iraqi deaths, along with, by now,
3000+ American military members.

Just before the 2006
elections Congress, including members from both parties, passed the Military
Commissions Act, revoking habeas corpus and legalizing torture!

Again and again, initial
criticism voiced by the Democrats would transform into reasoned debate and then
compromise and then capitulation to what caused the outrage.  Again and again, the unthinkable became law
and people adjusted to “the new normalcy.”

The trajectory warned of in
the World Can’t Wait Call has been writ large:

That which you will not resist and mobilize to stop, you will learn-or be forced-to accept.

The changes witnessed
during these months have been so breath-taking, so far-reaching, and, taken
together, downright dizzying.  Even those
who have opposed these changes have had a hard time wrapping their heads around
them, especially as the country has been continuously jostled with one
fantastical scare story after another: mushroom clouds, weapons of mass
destruction, dirty bombs, a “war on Christmas,” sleeper cells, “activist
judges,” and color-terror level alerts.

On the other hand, the
approval of a President who, just 36 months before, had shocked and awed the
world with his seemingly successful invasion of Iraq, fell from 80% after 9-11 to a
pitiful 25%.  He was responsible for leading
the U.S.
into the largest scale military disaster of the 20^th and 21^st
centuries.

And yet, he and his regime
remain at the helm of power, their agenda still in effect.

By the fall of 2006, the
truth captured in the World Can’t Wait’s Call was resonating much more deeply
and broadly throughout society.  Its
publication as a full-page ad in the New
York Times and in USA Today
provoked thousands to contact this organization that spoke bluntly about the
rise of fascism and the responsibility of people living in the U.S. to the
world to drive out the criminal Bush regime.

In the teeth of a mid-term
election in which neither major political party was demanding an immediate
withdrawal from Iraq
or promising to reverse the developing momentum towards theocracy, World Can’t
Wait again called people into the streets. 
On Thursday, October 5, 2006 in more than 230 cities, almost half in
“red states,” people took off work and protested.

Significant advances in the
strength, breadth and understanding of this movement were made.  But, again the outpouring fell far short of
what was needed to announce to friend and foe alike the emergence of a movement
determined to gather up millions more and not stop until the whole Bush program
had been reversed.

Most of society was putting
its hopes and energies into the midterm elections.  As the debacle of the Iraq War grew, there
was significant dissension at the top of the military.  A bi-partisan commission, the Iraq Study
Group, was formed to provide Bush with some semblance of an exit strategy.  The issue of the war became joined with the
election in the minds of millions. On November 7, 2006, in a significant turn
of events the Democrats won a majority in both houses of Congress.

Some have looked at all
this and concluded that the mission of World Can’t Wait is no longer necessary,
while others despaired that it was no longer possible.

The fundamental direction
that the world and the U.S.
is being propelled towards by the Bush regime is still in effect.  It is setting the political parameters for
everything.  As a real catastrophe for
the interests of the U.S. empire rapidly unfolds in Iraq, very few
Congressional Democrats have spoken up and acted, while the Democratic
leadership and some Republican politicians are making noise about how to [a]
save their interests and [b] cool out the growing disaffection of the American
people. 

At this point, symbolic
opposition – aimed at taking the edge off the anger of the people is all that
the Democratic leadership is seriously proposing.  But, this is a very volatile situation which
provides a huge opening for the people to burst through and fight for our own
agenda.  In this context, when the huge
strategic dominance of the Middle East hangs in the balance for the U.S., the possibility
of sudden and dramatic change can come on the agenda.   World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime
as an organization needs to understand that now
is the time when all that we have been working towards has the real potential
to break through, and break out, big time – leading to a political situation
where literally millions are demanding that the Bush Administration be removed
from office, the war ended and the whole program stopped.

This will not happen if
World Can’t Wait and those who support it sit passively on the sidelines
bemoaning that the people haven’t acted and that we didn’t succeed on October 5^th.  Nor, on the other hand, will we succeed in
our mission if we become mere advocates and cheerleaders for the anti-war
movement as it currently is – with its political agenda set by what the more
liberal Democrats in Congress want “street pressure” exerted for.

Now is precisely the moment
to step up and link the demand that the U.S.
Get Out of Iraq
Now to Driving Out the Bush Regime – including identifying and repudiating its
whole fascistic program.  Nothing less
will bring any of this, including the Iraq War, to a halt.  This is why World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the
Bush Regime is in the process of uniting very broadly with other forces to
demand impeachment.  The people want all
of this changed.  That is what they
wanted their votes to be for – even as, in many cases, they voted for pro-war,
anti-abortion, pro-Patriot Act Democrats. 

There is a huge gap between
the people’s desires and the reality of what the Democratic leadership is
actually going to do.   Two things about
this gap:

First, World Can’t Wait has
an absolutely critical role to play in bringing forward its program,
concentrated in the Call, which does represent the way forward out from under
the boot of the Bush administration, up against what the Democratic leadership
and Republicans in Congress are actually proposing.  Arch-conservative Pat Buchanan had half a
point when he said that the Democrats” actual program in opposition to Bush’s
troop surge is a version of Bush’s old “stay the course.”   They are loath to put forward a real plan to
actually get out of Iraq
now and the various plans that they have put forward all continue the war, even
if in modified forms.  And, all the major
Presidential contenders are keeping “all options” on the table for war on Iran.  All this could change with the unraveling of
the Bush plan.  But, it will only result
in something positive if the people are unequivocal that this war, and the attendant
torture and police state policies, are war crimes and crimes against humanity
cut from the same cloth.

Second, this gap between
people’s expectations and the reality of Congress – which exists not only in
regard to the war but, in an even more pronounced way, in relationship to
everything else in the Bush program – creates an opening to break many people
out of the political framework where they passively wait for Congress to do
something however paltry.  It creates the
basis for people to see the necessity and the basis, the why and the how, to
forge a movement to drive out the Bush administration in the context of
repudiating its whole program.   At this
point in the development of the movement the future rests on World Can’t Wait
finding every opportunity to bring this understanding, which is concentrated in
the World Can’t Wait Call, out into society in a huge way while uniting very
broadly with all those in struggle against the regime.

***

But we are head of
ourselves here.   Our active investigation
into why people did and did not come out on October 5^th and into how
they are looking at the midterm elections is our subject.  The more we listen to what is being analyzed
by people in the media, in government, in academia as well as in the streets
and newspapers, including what many are telling us directly, the more clear it
becomes that people are up against very big questions and very real challenges
in the constantly shifting political landscape.

It is in this context that
we have set out to analyze, in this report, what this movement has
accomplished, where it has fallen short, what was repudiated in the elections,
and why this won’t stop the Bush program. 
In this context, this report identifies key obstacles the movement has
encountered, the ceiling on people’s political imagination for how we can
change the world – as well as approaches towards systematically and rapidly
overcoming them.  It is our expectation
that in identifying these key questions, and in initiating a process of
addressing them, we are preparing the basis for a profound, deep society-wide engagement and struggle with broad numbers of people,
on the campuses, in our communities and in the media about what is the
situation and how, through a movement to remove the Bush regime, it can really
be changed.

Through the process of
analyzing recent events and considering the input of many hundreds from around
the country to write this report, we have deepened our own understanding of the
extremely radical and fascistic remaking of society and the world that the Bush
regime has undertaken.  We appreciate the
words of Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, to
the Bush Crimes Commission:

“… It is up to us. We
must not sit with our arms folded and we must be as radical as the reality we
are facing.”

In the process of engaging
in this active investigation we have deepened our commitment to working with
everyone we can to provide the vision and organization to activate millions to
change the course of history at this critical hour when the world is imperiled.

 

1.  Politics as usual
cannot meet the enormity of the challenge

A number of the responses
World Can’t Wait received to our call to Drive Out the Bush Regime argued that
acting outside or beyond the bounds of the official political process either is
not possible, is too extreme or that it might lead to chaos.  They said that the enormity of what we are
facing requires electing and pressuring politicians as the only ones with the
power to stop this.  They argued for
focusing attention on the 2006 midterm elections and/or the 2008 presidential
elections. 

From a student:

We can’t get rid of
Bush without the Democrats. We need to co-opt the Democrats , We need to bring
them to us. How are we going to get rid of Bush if we leave the status
quo?   People have attitudes like it does
not matter if Democrats win the House – wrong! 
It’s the only thing that matters in the next couple weeks.

Or, this letter we received
after the November election from a minister:

Dear Debra,

I understand why you have been so angry in the past but the
country is changing along with the leadership. You seem to be dedicated to
keeping people angry and full of fear and distrust.  I sincerely believe that we have got to change
our thinking and attitude now.  We must
move away from the idea of impeachment because it would only make the Democrats
seem vindictive.  Yes, Bush has screwed
up royally.  But now we have a chance to
go in a new direction.  If the new
leaders focus on punishment and getting even they are wasting their time,
energy and our tax money (when the country is already facing huge debt).  And they will be seen as no better than the
Republicans who shut out the Democrats over the last six years.  We have to take a higher road now and focus
on doing what is right for this country and for the world.  Bush’s power will be crippled in January and
he will not be able to accomplish what he might have.  Right now the country is behind the new
leadership.  What they do from here on
will determine what happens in 2008. 
They must take a higher road.

I suggest that rather than continuing to preach impeachment,
you begin to encourage our new leadership to make positive changes and not
focus on vindication and punishment for a lame duck president. Put aside your
hatred of this man and begin to or our leaders that they have the courage and
strength to do what is right instead of what the special interests want.  I know you can’t sell impeachment t-shirts
that way, but perhaps you come up with a different logo…

Best regards,

Rev G.

As the writer above sees
it, now that peoples” anger and disgust with the war has carried the Democrats
into the leadership of Congress, the task now is not to move decisively to derail the Bush agenda – but to work with the President, to be uniters and
not dividers in order not to lose the election in 2008.  This same logic was used during the midterm
election to get people to vote for candidates who would not call for an
immediate end to an unjust war.  It was
used to abolish basic constitutional protections by supporting the PATRIOT ACT
in the name of being strong on national security.

This is the murderous logic
that justifies Congress not saying
“STOP EVERYTHING” when the Military Commissions Act revoked the right of habeas
corpus, made torture legal and put war criminals in high office above the law.
This is the logic that gets progressive people to back away from support for
women’s reproductive rights or the extension of basic civil rights to gay
people and to condone ignorance, bigotry and patriarchal authority. 

This is why today, in the
face of truly massive outrage at Bush’s escalation of the Iraq War and threats
of a far wider, potentially far more dangerous war with Iran, all that the newly
elected Democratic Congress can bring itself to actually consider doing is to
hold a symbolic vote. 

Our Call puts it this way:
“This whole idea of putting our hopes and energies into “leaders” who tell us
to seek common ground with fascists and religious fanatics is proving everyday
to be a disaster and actually serves to demobilize people.”  Rev. G., and many others, need to confront
the reality that although the Republicans lost and Bush is widely unpopular, and that he was given a “way out” of the
Iraq debacle by the Iraq Study Group, he is going ahead to widen the war
anyway.  And, the Democratic leadership
will make symbolic gestures but will [a] not do what’s needed to stop the war,
and [b] will not call out the people to demand that it stop.

It is at the peril of the
future that people put on blinders to the unlimited harm that the Bush Regime
can do in two years. With Iraq
in a state of civil war and collapse Bush is pledging to fight till
victory.  He has not only rhetorically
threatened Iran, but has demanded UN action, sent battle fleets to the Persian
Gulf and on Jan. 11, 2007 attacked and taken over an Iranian government
ministry in Northern Iraq.   And, almost
every Democrat has said that Iran
must be stopped from becoming a regional power with nuclear capability –
whatever the cost.

Bush continues to nominate
religious and right wing fanatics for judicial appointments and is continuing
to put theocrats into government positions. 
He continues to block stem cell research.  There is no sphere of his program that he has
backed away from.  

The changes that Bush has
already made in foundational principles of this country – the separation of
powers, separation of church and state, the assumption of innocence until
proven guilty, the right to habeas corpus – all of this will be codified and
legitimated if his whole program is
not repudiated and he serves out his term. 
If all of this is not challenged and rejected, it will become part of
what Dick Cheney aptly called: the “new normalcy,” whoever the next President
is.

Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid
and the rest of the Democratic leadership are not taking the “high” road when
they advocate being bi-partisan and pledging reconciliation. This is the road
of accommodation and capitulation. Is this what you want to reconcile
with?  Torture. Illegal war.
Theocracy.  The whole direction.   To go along with all of that is to be
complicit in great crimes. 

The pathetic logic that
this is what the Democrats have to do to get elected means only that you have
accepted the political terms set by the Bush regime – a hardcore cabal of
fanatical Christian fundamentalists and fascistic neo-cons.  

Take this simple test: Make
a list of what you believed four years ago that you have had to sacrifice at
the altar of electability in the past year. 
Will you remember what you believed in and stood for if you have learned
to accept any of this as a way to live or be governed?

To the student who argues
that the only way we can change things is by relying on the Democrats, it just
isn’t so.  Honestly look at what the
Democrats have said they will actually do. 
Look at all the list of things
that the Bush regime is doing encapsulated in the seven “Your government”
statements at the beginning of the World Can’t Wait Call and ask yourself,
truthfully, how many of these have the Democrats even spoken to, let alone
pledged to change?  Relying on and
pressuring the politicians is not how anything fundamental has ever changed in
this country.

Look back to ending the
Vietnam War and Nixon’s resignation. 
Sunsara Taylor described the complex process in her speech at the
National Press Club at the opening of Congress on January 4^th:

Let’s remember, as even George Bush is acknowledging in
the eulogizing of Gerald Ford, that near impeachment of Nixon flowed out of a
period of turmoil, “one of the most divisive moments in our nation’s
history.”

These were divisions over an unjust war in Vietnam and a
whole host of other struggles against the oppression of black people and women and
other critical questions.  The political
turmoil that led to the removal of Nixon from office was completely bound up
with the process of getting out of that unjust war in Vietnam and today, as
then, the impeachment of George Bush has everything to do with ending this
unjust war.

This turmoil is not
regrettable.  More than just necessary,
it will lead to a great questioning and imagining of new possibilities.   The great struggles of the civil rights movement,
the anti-war movement, the women’s movement all led to real changes and
fundamentally they marched to their own drummer. When the people, in their
millions, are determined to fight for matters of principle, and against great
injustice, only then is great change possible. 
And, stopping this administration is the great challenge of this moment
in history.

 

2.  The Bush Regime is
remaking society rapidly in a fascist way

Three letters from people
active with World Can’t Wait express, from different angles, the divide in the
country over what will be the basic norms and assumptions of this society:

Mississippi:

I am very proud to be part of the movement
but there is one thing that I perceive as a huge error the movement is
making.  I could be wrong but to bring in
the most Americans and attempt to be ‘all inclusive’ WCW should only focus on
IMPEACHABLE OFFENSES.

For example I believe the vast MAJORITY of Americans would
consider the following to be IMPEACHABLE OFFENSES:

* The on-going occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, with
ominous threats of war on Iran, possibly nuclear war – all expressions of a
strategy of unchallenged global supremacy and an illegal doctrine of
“preventive war”

* The Patriot Act, NSA spying, the Military Commissions Act
– all represent significant and qualitative steps towards a police state under
a president unrestrained by law

* A criminal response to Hurricane Katrina that still
continues.

* The passage of the “TORTURE” bill and the fact
that it is RETROACTIVE, i.e. self-admitted WAR CRIMES by the Bush administration.

Things that that vast MAJORITY of Americans would NOT agree
are ‘impeachable offenses: Dubya Gump’s views on abortion, gay marriage, prayer
in schools, global warming, gun laws, 
etc.

If WCW attempts to bring DIVISIVE ‘wedge issues’ that the
MAJORITY of Americans do not believe are ‘impeachable offenses’ into the debate
then we will be ‘shooting ourselves in the feet’.  I personally know many many CONSERVATIVE
REPUBLICANS in Mississippi who would favor impeaching Bush but as soon as they
read about those issues they will NEVER back the movement. I would highly
recommend removing that language ASAP! We MUST be SMARTER than Karl Rove!

New Jersey:

I am afraid to speak publicly about these
issues!   The ironic thing is that my
community is extremely cosmopolitan, only 30 minutes from midtown Manhattan. It
is certainly one of the most sophisticated populations in the world. There are
no Mega-churches here. The religious right keeps a very low profile here. On
the surface, it appears to be a progressive and liberal microcosm. I do not use
the word “liberal” as it is usually used. I only mean that there appears to be
tolerance for a wide variety of racial, social, cultural and belief-oriented
groupings of people. 

Nonetheless, I am afraid.

Everything the founding fathers feared is coming to pass
and, unfortunately, the checks and balances they installed in the bill of
rights appear, at the moment, to be ineffective in preventing the tyranny they
feared. When the executive branch unilaterally decides to undermine the checks
and balances [judiciary oversight of the executive and legislative branches,
the legislative power of the filibuster, the 700 year old Magna Carta and its
modern descendent, the writ of habeas corpus], the tradition of a nation of
laws and due process, protection against brutal and tyrannical government power
and our constitutional democracy is in grave danger.

The issues getting the most attention, i.e. the definition
of marriage, protecting unborn fetuses (unconscious clusters of cells) from
immoral research that may benefit the lives of conscious, sentient human
beings, with lives, families and diseases that may be cured through stem-cell
research, do not come close to the real issues of upholding the constitutional
democracy and the rule of law upon which this (used-to-be-great) nation is
based. The icing on the cake is when the leaders of this frightening Christian
theocracy and the political power structure which does its bidding, seeking to
return us to the dark ages where knowledge and learning were forbidden by the
church, violate the very moral principles that they preach. If it were not so
serious, it would be outrageously funny.

Texas:

May I suggest
that you concentrate some extra special effort on this cause in Texas? 
It wouldn’t be for the faint-hearted.  I have been driven out of a
church I was in
for 32 years.  It was pretty much all
over once I came out and told the pastor we were Democrats.   I once
had a prayer request for former
President Bill Clinton (after his heart surgery) refused, but George
Bush has
an equal standing with Jesus.  Voter
guides for conservative candidates are everywhere. We had our
Kerry-Edwards
sticker ripped off our bumper.  The major
issues of choice are abortion and same-sex marriage, no other sins are
ever
mentioned.  We live in the Dallas-Fort
Worth Metroplex area which is a hotbed of a religious movement called
the
Purpose Driven Church Movement.  All
Southern Baptist churches are now a part of it, also Assemblies of God,
and
many other denominations.  It was started
by Mr. Rick Warren, author ofThe Purpose Driven Life.  Over 400,000 churches in America are now a
part of it.  I would take a close look at
that movement because they abide by a belief in something called Kingdom
Dominion theology.  This is very similar
to the principle of imminent domain.  The
Religious Right has a deep hunger for power and control fueled by their belief
in KD theology.  George Bush was supposed
to open the door for the beginning of Kingdom Dominion.  They also lean heavily on a literal
interpretation of Scripture (Romans 13:1-5) about being in submission to
rulers.  I never believed that George
Bush was a born-again Christian, but most people here just take it on his
say-so. 

Life here in Texas can be pure hell if you are not a
Republican and a Bush supporter! Right now our daughter in law [whose husband
is in the US military in Iraq] refuses to let us come and visit the
grandchildren until our son gets home; she Googled my name and found an
anti-war petition I had signed and something I had written that was out on the
internet about the churches, so I am pouring my energy into something
constructive – causes such as yours.

**************

Life in Texas, if you are
not a Bush supporter is pure hell. 
Someone in a cosmopolitan, liberal community in New Jersey is afraid to
talk publicly about growing tyranny. 
These letters, written late fall 2006, come from a country sharply and
deeply divided on basic questions of how society should be, and not simply over
some red state/blue state election results. 
The divide has been there going back to slavery days. The Bush regime did not
start that divide but, as described in our Call, it moved quickly, especially
after 9-11, to change laws and promote social values in line with building up a
social base for its program. And this affects the whole country, including
urban areas in New Jersey known for liberal inclusiveness!

“Your
government is moving each day closer to a theocracy where a narrow and hateful
brand of Christian fundamentalism will rule.” 
The Bush regime publicly promotes right-wing Christian leaders who
preach that the separation between Church and state is a myth and advocate the
reshaping of social institutions (not just churches, but schools and the
military as well) to make the U.S. an official Christian nation, a theocracy
where narrow absolute religious scriptures form the law.  They provide a theoretical justification for
political operatives at all levels of federal, state and local government.  They”ve permeated the U.S. military command
structure dominating not just religious observance but also military training.

“Traditional
morality” has become code terminology and rallying cry for gay-bashing and
denial of basic rights to women.

Pat Robertson
and Jerry Falwell claimed that 9-11 and Katrina were retribution for sin.  Not only did they receive ample media
coverage but Falwell’s Liberty University has become a de rigueur stop for
Republican and even some Democratic candidates and Robertson’s organization was
the #2 charity listed on the government’s web site in the weeks after Hurricane
Katrina. 

The
legitimation and advance of a radical reactionary Christian fundamentalist
morality legislated into law — on such fundamental issues as to whether or not
a woman can control her own body and reproduction – is upon us.  Roe v. Wade hangs by a thread or by a Supreme
Court Justice nominee.  Access to birth
control itself is being restricted.  And
the atmosphere of capitulation to this by the Democratic Party and an important
sector of the women’s movement has led to a shameful place where at most the
mantra of the opposition is “safe, legal, and rare” with the emphasis on rare –  a defensive posture that greases the slide
towards the elimination of reproductive rights.

Since the end
of the cold war the social safety net has been under assault by Democrats and
Republicans due to a certain consensus that it doesn’t conform to the needs of
a fast-paced competitive global economy. 
But the Bush regime has accelerated the destruction of New Deal and
Great Society social programs and provided a moral and ideological
justification echoing the fundamentalist (and Calvinist) theology that it
morally weakens society to have the government take care of the poor.  “Personal responsibility” and “faith” are the
watchwords.  Public education and social
services are cut in favor of “faith-based” initiatives, religious schools and
private contracting of prison services – to Christian fundamentalist
providers.    What the poor need is not
access to jobs, health care and college tuition, they say, but “traditional
values.”  The devastation after Katrina,
in fact, has become an excuse for the destruction of public housing and closure
of public schools in favor of private.  A
historically black city has hundreds of thousands of long-time residents who
are now kept out.

These
“culture-war issues” are dramatically shaping the world we will all live
in.  Twenty-seven states have now passed
laws making marriage only between men and women, disallowing basic rights to
gays and lesbians.  Will it end
there?  Absolutely not.  These same forces want to make marriage
inherently religious and ban divorce. 
James Dobson, a frequent advisor to the White House, advocates execution
for homosexuals, and influences 400,000 churches. 

Is it really
wise – or morally acceptable – to ignore the divide that these forces have
cleaved to avoid controversy over the influence of religious bigots?  Should we direct our message only to those on
“our side” of the divide?  No, on all
counts. 

The Christian
theocrats are allowing no middle ground. 
Joel Hunter, an evangelical minister, was just forced to resign as head
of the Christian Coalition because he wanted the organization to start being
active against global poverty and environmental destruction positing that “if
we are going to care for the vulnerable, we ought to care as much about the
vulnerable outside the womb as inside the womb.”

There are
people depending on us to change the political climate.  The Mississippi and Texas letter writers both
live in places where the divide is palpable. What does a 16 year-old gay
teenager face now in a small town?  How
will pregnant teenagers get help to have any choice when “abstinence only” sex
miseducation is the only program funded? 
How do kids being taught “creationism” have any chance of knowing the
way in which the natural world evolved? 

The World Can’t
Wait Call is not just looking for ways to disagree with George Bush’s
views.  It describes, even more accurately
today than 18 months ago, a package of political changes in U.S. society that’s
all of a piece by a regime that took power by stealing an election and believes
it’s on a mission from God.  There is no
“work around” dealing with what the Bush regime has done nor a short cut to be
had by making the indictment of their crimes more narrow.  We need to find the people to be the heart of
this movement who can look squarely at the direction the Bush regime is going
and reject it, even if they are not themselves gay or about to go into the
military or seeking an abortion.

These
theocratic changes are taking place in a new context of fascistic police state
measures where the President, on his own say so, can spy on citizens without
warrant, imprison people anywhere in the world indefinitely without charge or
trial without informing anyone and can torture with impunity under the cloak of
law.  Daniel Ellsberg, John Dean and
others have warned that we are one more “9/11” incident away from even more
draconian ruptures with Dean saying it will be end of the 230 year experiment
in democracy.  With the escalation of the
Iraq War, and the danger of a far wider Middle East war, the danger increases
exponentially.

Here again, The
World Can’t Wait Call is to the point:

History is
full of examples where people who had right on their side fought against
tremendous odds and were victorious. And it is also full of examples of people
passively hoping to wait it out, only to get swallowed up by a horror beyond
what they ever imagined. 

It’s up to us
to turn the political discourse in this country inside out and right side
up.  With massive society-wide resistance
the people can set radically different political terms, ones that value human
life whether it’s American or Iraqi.  We
advocate values that uphold critical thinking and dissent, that promote science
and reason and the separation of church and state, that advance the concept of
equality for women and different nationalities, that are opposed to all forms
of discrimination, that believe we should protect the tenuous existence of the
planet so we can pass it on to future generations.

 

3.  Get
college students activated to stop these outrages

From a report
on a meeting after October 5:

A student said that fear was really holding a
lot of young people back.  I thought that
she was initially talking about students getting punished for stepping into the
streets but she made it clear that it was a much bigger fear.  She had grown up thinking that if “you don’t
get straight A’s you would fail life.” 
She said that she had only recently learned that this wasn’t true but
she felt that people really felt the pressure to perform in school so that they
could get ahead in life.  Another person
elaborated, saying that she agreed. 
There is a great deal of fear holding people back because of the rat
race and competition.  Also, there is a
climate of fear being perpetuated by the government and also a fear of the
government and what they will do if you step out of line.  Along with this, there was a fear paralyzing
people because the government justified all the heavy things it was doing in
the name of “protecting people.” 

Another student elaborated on this point.  She said that the pessimism that many people
felt was so total it was almost overwhelming and that she felt almost totally
“freaked out.”  She described herself as
a queer and reproductive rights activist and said that most people did not
understand “the big picture.”  The Bush
regime was carrying out attacks so big that most people couldn’t get their mind
around it and she was very excited about the plans for the teach-ins because
she felt that it would break things down to the levelwhere you could understand
what was happening.  Many young people,
especially young women, had not been alive when the right to abortion had been
won and did not really grasp what it meant to not have access to abortion or
how close it was to being taken away. 
The Bush regime had been chipping away at it.  People only saw certain small things that
were happening and did not see the big picture or where this was going.  They took things for granted and did not see
that it could really be changed.  She
knew this because her mother had been a women’s rights activist and had told
her about what it was like when abortion was illegal and given her some history
about the struggle for women’s rights.

And last, from a popular song by John Mayer:

Me and all my friends

We”re all misunderstood

They say we stand for nothing and

There’s no way we ever could

Now we say everything is going wrong

With the world and those who lead it

We just feel that we don’t have the means

To rise above and beat it

 

So we keep waiting (waiting)

Waiting on the world to change…

Hello out there
students!  Who says there’s nothing you
can do to have an impact on the world? 
Open your eyes.  Look at
history!  It’s happened many times
before!

Students took
the front lines in learning and spreading the truth about the unjust nature of
the Vietnam War and then again in mounting serious prolonged resistance that
played a key role in bring that war to an end. Students by the thousands rode
down on buses to the South to register black voters, help break the back of Jim
Crow and bring the realities of racism out into society more broadly.  Students spoke out about the horrors of
back-alley abortions and rebelled against the shame and discrimination heaped
on women for stepping out of traditional roles, contributing to tremendous
strides in securing previously unimagined rights for women.

But none of
this happened because they waited around for everyone else to move first.  None of this happened because people
acquiesced to a culture of individual fulfillment and advancement that
suffocated peoples” aspirations to make a better world.  None of this happened because people
restricted their support to already-established non-profits and charities that
were being undercut and clearly overwhelmed. 
None of this happened because each “identity group” stayed severed off
from each other convinced that it was wrong to fight against injustice unless
they were directly affected.  And none of this happened because students
talked themselves into believing that nothing they could do would matter.

We have heard
from many students who are frustrated by what they describe as a
“self-conscious apathy” among their peers. 
So get out there and challenge that. 
Tell people (or yourself) that this is just a cop-out.  People are being tortured in our names right
now, Iraqi lives are being destroyed, the fundamental rights of women and gays
are being subverted and Katrina victims are still casting about far and
wide. 

There is a
historical track-record proving that students have repeatedly had an impact in
changing the world.  The only reason they
can’t do so now is if they don’t dare to try. Specifically, students
historically have set the pace and opened up space for others in society – who
are often more weighed down by responsibility or already facing a greater level
of repression – to step into resistance and know they aren’t alone.  Right now this is needed even more acutely
than in the past.

We believe that
turning around the situation on campuses need not take a long time.  Students are concentrated together on
campuses.  Ideas spread fast.  So can organization.  And so can resistance” across a campus and
then on to others.  We have heard from many, many professors – thousands have
signed our Call – who would love to find ways to support students who step out.

But one thing
we need to get over is the paralyzing relativism that prevents so many
progressive students from having the courage of their convictions and from
feeling like they have the right to challenge how others are thinking and
acting.  When it comes to the war on
Iraq, the Katrina disaster or the future of the female half of society and the
world, everyone – no matter what your
“identity group” – has not only the right but also the responsibility to struggle over how to understand and how to
build resistance to these outrages and others.

In waging this
struggle not every point of view is equally valuable.  Ideas that start from and correspond to the
reality of the dangers we are actually confronting need to be fought for.  And ideas that try to paint this over or tone
it down – no matter who is professing them – should be disputed, challenged and
vigorously dispelled.  We need a higher
level of intellectual and cultural ferment, political debate and dissent as
well as protest and resistance breaking out on campuses everywhere.

We understand
that the situation on campuses is not the same as it was during the 60’s and
every generation does things its own way. 
But every generation puts its stamp on the world.

Every
generation contributes or detracts” actively engages or passively lets events
take their course” and each influences the way history will unfold.

But not every
generation lives through pivotal history-shaping events.  The generation that rose up and abolished
slavery, the generation that laid down in the face of the Nazis.  These are the generations that are heralded
or scorned.

Today’s youth
generation is living at a time with greater role to play than even these.  What students do – or fail to do – in the
next few months, in the next year, will cast a very long shadow into
future.  Driving out the Bush regime
before 2008 must be the mission of this generation.

 

4. Stopping the War on Iraq and Driving Out the
Bush Regime:
A position paper by Elaine Brower, World Can’t Wait Steering Committee
Member

What it will
take to end the Occupation of Iraq 

March 19, 2007
will mark the fourth anniversary of this illegal and immoral war, a war that
was begun by the Bush regime based on lies to the American people and the
world.  It is impossible to imagine that
we can look forward to marking four years after the anti-war movement has
expended so much money, energy and time in ending this war even before it even
began.  So what does that tell you?

The Bush regime
decided a long time before the events of 9/11 to invade Iraq. The Project for a
New American Century clearly delineates the push to remove Saddam Hussein from
power.  Those in power in this regime
took the horrible fearsome event of murdering almost 3,000 people on 9/11 by
those they called the “evildoers” or “Al-Queda” and, building on that fear,
drove this country into a pre-emptive war. 
Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and
others were banging the war drums from the moment the chatter started prior to
9/11.  We just didn’t know it.  The American people were lulled into
complacent sleep mode prior to that day and were jolted into fear.

On that fear,
this regime has played for five years. Every single anniversary of 9/11 those
in power prepare for photo ops at “Ground Zero,” the site where buildings
should now be standing.  However, as a
reminder and to keep us fearful, a hole in the ground remains.

Our military,
the most lethal and well equipped, descended upon Afghanistan to capture the
most wanted, only to come up short. Afghanistan was only a smoke screen for
what this regime had truly in its sights. These war-mongers convinced this
nation to attack another sovereign country totally against all conventions
prescribed by this world. After 2,000 days of the announcement of “Mission
Accomplished”, we plan for the upcoming anniversary of our invasion. After
3,000 military deaths that we are aware of, over 28,000 wounded and an
appalling 655,000 Iraqi deaths accounted for, we are still an occupying force
with no end in sight.

Commissions are
formed and issue “reports;” meetings are held to discuss possible game plans to
end this war; our elected officials banter about policy and decisions and
people keep dying by the hundreds in Iraq every single day.  Does anyone see something wrong with this
picture?  What strategy meeting does it
take to say bring them home now?  Stop
the killing of innocent people.

It appears that
none of our elected officials, and certainly anyone in the White House, wants a
withdrawal of   our troops from Iraq.

Permanent
military bases have been established with our taxpayer dollars as well as heavy
duty equipment, satellite connections, computer networks by the thousands and
permanent military structures to house military personnel.  Countless restaurants like McDonald’s,
Starbucks, Subway, Wendy’s and Quiznos have been constructed all over the
“Green Zone.”  Troops have to pay the
same amount, if not more, for a Mocha Latte as we do. There are pools, game
rooms, movies and places to actually go to for R & R.  People, we are there for good.

War profiteers
like Halliburton, KPG, Exxon, Mobil, Blackwater and others have been given
no-bid government contracts worth billions also thanks to the taxes of the
American people.  Mercenaries and private
contractors are making four times what our men and women in uniform do and live
in relative luxury.  Billions of dollars
are being poured into these operations. 
Do you think anyone in D.C. isn’t getting rich off of this war?

Most, if not
all, of our politicians are stalling.  A smokescreen
has been thrown up in front of the anti-war movement by these same people who
are supposedly representing us.  They no
more want to end this war than the Saudi Princes, Jordan’s prince or the
Iranian president.  Being at the top has
its rewards.

So how do we
end this war? Several ingredients and they don’t include our Congress:

(1) Massive
mobilizations in the streets. Yes, we have to get our hands dirty and put our
butts on the line.  Cause disruptions
around this country, end the business as usual lazy days of our cities.  Hard, yes! 
If you review the history of any successful movement in our entire
existence, it took the masses in dissent loudly protesting to get what they
wanted.  Sometimes it turned ugly;
sometimes it was scary and there were very dark moments. In this movement, we
must ALL join forces and step forward. Not on one day here or another day
there.  It means constant struggle
everywhere.

(2) Do not
trust the politicians and their promises. You are wasting time. We must find
those companies that are profiting and boycott them. The anti-war movement must
direct lots of energy and massive amounts of people protesting at the
headquarters and affiliates of all of those companies getting filthy rich off
the dead. Hit them where it counts, in the pocket. Or else, they will keep
making billions. It can be done. It was done against the apartheid government
in South Africa. Weed out those specific companies and hit them hard.

(3) Speak to a
soldier.  Outreach.  Spend time in towns that have military
families and troops.  Do you think all of
them want to return to Iraq three or four times?  They need support and
to be listened to.  Troop resistance is what ultimately ended the
Vietnam War.  This government made a
mistake.  It trained our military to
operate in brigades or platoons together, an “all for one and one for
all”
mentality.  But when the troops decide to
put their weapons down, it will be the group that will do it together. 
That’s impressive and will make a strong
impact.

(4) Most
importantly, the struggle against the war is integrally and completely bound up
with the struggle to drive out the Bush regime.

 

5. The moral responsibility to actually drive out
the Bush Regime:
A position paper by
Prachi Noor, World Can’t Wait Steering Committee

In a time when
torture is being openly justified, the occupation of Iraq along with the
killing of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis continues to escalate, legal
structures are being put in place to cement the ideology of women as incubators,
people left to die in New Orleans continue to be ignored and a hateful brand of
fundamentalist Christianity is being enforced – it is absolutely necessary that
people of conscience take a moral stand against all the crimes being committed.  Even if you know that the majority may not be
with you and even though you may not be sure that what you are standing against
can be actually stopped or not it is your moral responsibility to resist. 

However, it is
not enough to only to take a moral stand. When you have the knowledge of the
inhumane crimes committed and you know that they should be stopped then it is
also your responsibility to resist and build a movement of resistance to
actually put an END to these crimes.  You
must take the responsibility to rise to the challenge to stop the injustices
and give hope to those who have resigned themselves to passivity. While giving
full support and defending those who have courageously taken moral stands, we
must take the responsibility to find ways to end the crimes of the Bush regime.
If you understand that fascism will consolidate power in the U.S. and the Bush
regime will inflict more horrific crimes around the world and you know
thousands taking independent historic action can drive the Bush regime from power,
then you have a big responsibility to act.

As the call to
World Can’t Wait says, “The point is this: history is full of examples
where people who had right on their side fought against tremendous odds and
were victorious. And it is also full of examples of people passively hoping to
wait it out, only to get swallowed up by a horror beyond what they ever
imagined.”  Time and time again
history has shown that people have fought courageously against injustices.
People put their lives on line without knowing how each of their actions was
affecting the goal of justice and freedom. 
People around the world have waged independence movements against
colonialist regimes and fought against unjust governments and rebelled against
slavery not merely for moral reasons but with hope and resolve to win.  During the 1960s the student movement in the
United States shook up society and compelled the whole of the country to
resist, contributing greatly to ending the war in Vietnam.  These movements went further in winning the
right to abortion and made gains in the civil rights movement.

All these
movements were fought with courage, moral certitude and determination. We
should base our actions based on moral conviction of what is right and coupled
with hope that our actions will create a world better for us to live in.

World Can’t
Wait’s movement is about giving people hope that what we are aiming for can
actually happen. It is asking people to pour their hearts and minds and
energies into this because we are saying that it will actually make a
difference and it will actually stop the disastrous course of the Bush regime.

 

6.  But still, how the hell are we doing to drive
out the Bush regime?

From a
conversation after October 5:

Notes from a phone-banking conversation with a
70-year-old retired professor in Ithaca who drove by himself to October 5th
in NYC.  He doesn’t remember where he
first heard about WCW and read the Call (perhaps in the New York Times)
but he was struck by how there is no other
group identifying and calling out the totality of the Bush regime.  “No
one else is saying what your organization
is saying – it’s because I agree with exactly what WCW is saying, what
that
Call says, that’s why I went.”  He went
on to pose a problem. “Please believe me,” he said, “my heart and soul
is
behind this organization.”  But he went
on at length that he thinks the actual goal is “elusive.”  “Drive Out
the Bush Regime – how could this happen?  I would love to see the kind
of upheaval
there was in the 60’s which I was very involved in – and  that all
contributed to stopping the
war.  But these were all aimed at
policies.  I think the scenario you envision
is quite elusive.  What do you
envision?  I think there’s a vagueness
and enormity of this goal that doesn’t carry a great deal of
credibility.  It’s almost like you”re talking about
revolution.  Believe me, I would love to
see something like massive civil disobedience, stopping traffic,
blocking
traffic.  We”re so far from that.” 

We walked through the rapidly accelerating
developments now including real moves on Iran. 
That the very extremes where the Bush regime is taking things also means
millions are horrified by this and there is the potential for mass upheaval –
including the kinds of massive resistance that we saw in the 60’s.  In the context of a big society-wide debate
of the very legitimacy of the Bush regime, and splits in sections of those on
top, e.g. even some Republicans not wanting to go with theocracy, there is the
potential for the Bush forces to lose initiative.   Maybe they would first sacrifice
Rumsfeld.   This could fuel even further
protest demanding Bush’s resignation.

He responded, “But they”re all going to have to
leave or you wouldn’t change this direction.  
Short of an open rebellion throughout all of society, I can’t see this
happening.  The massive protests in 1969
took years for that to develop.  You say
we don’t have that much time” I can more see a movement aimed at
changing
policies.   To make the government’s
policies so politically expensive, they have to change them.  WCW has
taken a categorical stance against
all these things, “your governments.” 
Like you say, even if the Democrats win, without challenging this, we
lose.  This will requires massive popular
opposition to force a more radical alternative into center stage.  No
one in Ithaca has ever heard of WCW.   So many people here are scared
and sick of
what is going on, but revulsion doesn’t translate into action.  Those
demonstrations in 1969, there had been
four years of political mobilization, but WCW is just starting to get
underway.  Yes, I think I understand what
you”re trying to convey, but if you”re going to have a movement that
aims at
actually driving out the regime, you have to somehow explain this to
people.  You have to make it more real
that this could be accomplished.  I
understand why you”re not saying impeachment explicitly, but maybe you
have to
do something like this.  And frankly, its
hard to imagine.  I think you need a
tactical position that seems realizable.”

He reiterated that he feels this “heart and
soul” and is perhaps interested in getting together a teach-in in Ithaca.

A very good
question, one that needs to be continually grappled with, including by
returning to the World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime Call and and
using it to figure out how to act in relation to the unfolding reality that the
Bush Regime is creating. 

Driving out a
sitting administration through the independent political actions of millions of
people is not something you can do everyday. 
But, we have never faced a situation like this.  It is for good reason that many octogenarians
have told us that having lived through the Depression, World War II,
McCarthyism, the Cold War, Vietnam and the 60’s they have never been so afraid
and alarmed as they are today.

This has been
true since the inception of World Can’t Wait. 
The situation we are in now is both more ominous and more dangerous and full of potential for unleashing
massive struggle to change the course of this country.   It is true, as we discussed earlier in this
report that the people in the U.S. have learned
to adjust to a horrific normalcy of torture and an illegal aggressive war done
in their names.  But, it is also true
that they are deeply anguished and opposed to the war.  And this acuteness of the Iraq war is going
to repeatedly give rise to very sharp turns of events – situations that can be
seized on to further arouse the people to struggle against the regime.

Yet the people
will only be awakened to demand that Bush go and the whole direction be stopped
if we, first of all, engage and sharply struggle with people about the scale
and scope of Bush’s full program, where it is headed and why it falls to the
people to remedy it.  Second, plans need
to be made for key junctures where the movement organizes to make advances
through major protests, forums, concerts and teach-ins along with massive
advertising.  And third, we have to be
ready to seize on moments when the eyes of the country and the world are
focused on the direction of society – such as the opening of Congress, the
announcement of the troop surge, in response to major revelations that may
arise from investigations or even, for example, when Bush vetoes the bill for
stem cell research.  We need to have a
movement that is poised to get out into the streets protesting and spreading
the word, especially the World Can’t Wait Call. 
We need to get our message in front of millions through the media.  Finally, as discussed earlier, driving out
the Bush regime must become the mission of this generation of youth.

World Can’t
Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime is now raising the demand to impeach Bush for
war crimes and crimes against humanity as a part of its program to drive Bush
out.   World Can’t Wait is not predicating
its actions on the exact mechanism by which Bush leaves office – resignation,
indictment or impeachment.  All would be
just fine.  Nor are we writing the
articles of impeachment.  But, as the
professor from Ithaca suggests, this demand for impeachment, particularly in
the fulcrum of the struggle against the war, can play a crucial role in
focusing the struggle on why ending the war, along with the rest of this
program, is integrally bound up with removing Bush from office. 

It is true that
this program will only be repudiated with the Bush cabal removed from office in
the crucible of a society wide struggle. 
To effect such a massive change will involve what Howard Zinn has called
a “great popular upheaval.”  Nothing less
will shake this program loose.  The
Democratic Party leadership – even with the sharp differences it has with the
fascistic core of the Bush regime and its base in the media and Christian right
who do not hesitate to call top Democrats traitors, with all that implies – is,
as Al Gore put it last year, “lashed to the mast of the ship of state.”  That leadership is not going to lightly
abandon U.S. strategic interests in the Middle East or anywhere else.  It does not have an answer that is
diametrically opposed to almost every aspect of the Bush program.  Up to now, all it has had to offer are minor
amendments, a slightly softer and more inclusive tone, a Bush-lite version of
the horrific Bush program.   It is
certainly not going to mobilize its base to fight for what that base wants.  Hence, the abandonment of women’s and gay
rights and the leading Democrats continual efforts to grandstand for more
police measures for homeland security.  

No, it falls to
the people to fight in our own interests. 
And yes, it means creating such a political uproar in society that those
in power feel compelled to change their positions.

The professor
spoke of the 1960’s.  The World Can’t
Wait speaker on January 4, 2007 discussed this history:

Let’s look back at how Nixon won
the presidency in a landslide election but just two years later he resigned in
shame.  The U.S. war in Vietnam was going
terribly.  The military was
disintegrating.  The whole of society was
in political upheaval – campuses were being shut down and taken over, soldiers
were in political rebellion, hundreds of thousands were out in the streets, the
music of the time pulsed with disaffection and dreams of a better world,
revolution was on the lips of many among the most oppressed – and millions more
were on the verge of losing their faith in the whole political system.  It was in the face of all this that some
Republicans changed their position and voted for impeachment, that John Dean, a
member of Nixon’s own cabinet, refused to lie for him, where his subordinates
refused to carry out Nixon’s request to fire the special prosecutor
investigating Watergate and where the whole dynamic in society was radically
reversed.

Today all this is being rewritten as
if this was an unfortunate and painful period and the pardon of Nixon by Gerald
Ford is being upheld as a model for national unity and healing.

But this is a moment when the real
lessons of that period are more relevant than ever.  When Nixon said he”d end the war by
escalating it to Cambodia, campuses across the nation were shut down in the
largest student strike in the history of this country.  This is something the purveyors of war for
empire fear – but this is something that people who have no interest in today’s
war should be working urgently with every resource they can command to
achieve.

We have a lot
of work to do.  This is not the
“60’s.  And it is true that we don’t have
a lot of time.  But, as we have said, we
have enough time because the situation is such that changes that seem to come
out of nowhere can burst through.  This
will only happen if we, all of us, step up to the plate to draw a sharp line
between what is right and what is wrong.  
We have to make sure that everybody knows what is being done in their
names.  The curtain must be pulled back
and spotlight shined on these crimes.  If
you know, yet choose to remain silent or passive, then that is being complicit
in forging a society and a world that no one would want to live in.

A better world
is possible.  People do not like the
direction Bush has taken the world.  It
is a very positive legacy of the 60’s that many in this country do not believe
that American lives are worth more than others throughout the world.  There are legions of people who want a world
of equality between men and women and among people of different nationalities
who appreciate and value diversity and who do not want to live in a new Rome
dominating and exploiting peoples around the world.   We have this to build on and promote.

People also
sense that things are approaching a brink. 
World Can’t Wait must rise to its responsibility. 

As the World
Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime Call states:

History
is full of examples where people who had right on their side fought against
tremendous odds and were victorious.  And
it is also full of examples of people passively hoping to wait it out only to
get swallowed up by a horror beyond what they ever imagined.

THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN

WHICH ONE WE GET IS UP TO US