THE CASE AGAINST MY GENERATION
by anastasia gomes
Mission of a Generation Speaking
Tour
Stop the War– Drive out the Bush Regime
A quick overview of how this tour was
conceived, what it set out to do, and what we”ve learned along
the way.
A harsh charge leveled against the youth:
The youth of the 60’s once faced an illegal,
immoral war, with a criminal president at the helm who was determined to expand
the American empire’s reach.
The youth of this generation now face a similar-but
infinitely graver-situation.
The youth of the 60’s fought back and created the
fiercest anti-war movement this country had ever seen or had even known was
possible.
Today’s youth just don’t seem to care. They watch too
much television and surf the internet too much. They are uninformed,
ill-informed and misguided. They are spoiled, lack conviction and are starved
of passion.
The anti-war sentiment is growing, but the youth are
overwhelmingly absent.
The question posed to World Can’t Wait-the question on
the lips of everyone in the face of a slow but steadily growing anti-war
movement-was clear to just about anyone watching”.
Where are the students?
Apart from the widespread speculation and
theorizing over why today’s young generation has faltered in joining the peace
movement, there has been an altogether absence of solutions to meet the
problem.
As the increasingly horrific trajectory of Iraq and
Afghanistan’s downward spiral into hell plays out on a global stage for the
entire world to see, there is yet another parallel between now and the 60’s
emerging; the threat of an expansion of the war into yet another country-Iran.
According to Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon
papers, President Nixon, unbeknownst to the public and much of his White House
for that matter, had been secretly considering the use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam. But
Nixon, confronted by hundreds of thousands of peace protesters spilling into Washington, was forced
to change the nature of this discussion and effectively pulled the nuclear
option off the table.
At the present moment President Bush and Vice
President Cheney are openly threatening Iran, building the rhetorical case
for war, and vowing that no option, even nuclear, is off the table, with top
Democrats like Hilary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama echoing the same
assurances.
At the present moment, as the precarious nature of
this situation seems poised to plunge even further into chaos, a student
movement could, as it did in the past, dramatically change the terms of
discussion and conceivably protect Iran
from the malevolent forces in Washington.
With a renewed and even greater sense of urgency in the face of the ominous
shape of things to come, World Can’t Wait-Drive out the Bush Regime decided to
take a markedly different approach to answering the charges that have been and
continue to be leveled against today’s generation of youth.
In an unprecedented move to actually mobilize young
people and move past the rhetoric, World Can’t Wait-Drive Out the Bush Regime
launched a national speaking tour whose message is being taken to high schools
and campuses around the country, seeking to effectively change the discussion
about students into a discussion between students.
This speaking tour was not envisioned as a simple trip
to various schools to talk about the war. In order to unclog the arteries of
fiery and honest debate on college campuses and high schools around the
country, the appeal to students had to be commensurate with the urgency of the
situation.
A rigorous campaign was born, with the understanding
that unless the political dynamic on campus is changed, the anti-war resistance
would remain mortally compromised.
The challenge would be clear. The lines are drawn, the stakes are set and
thus the message is straightforward:
We the youth, MUST make ending this war and
driving out the Bush Regime the MISSION OF OUR GENERATION!
What we”ve learned: A damning indictment of the
prosecution’s case.
Having embarked upon this tour merely a few
weeks ago, the good news is that World Can’t Wait is already finding
gaping holes in the traditional wisdom about what really is and isn’t
true about young people’s plight in America and what’s more, how it relates to
taking their place in the anti-war movement.
Apathy? Not Quite.
One of the most damning indictments in the case
against the allegation that young people in this country are apathetic came the
first night WCW’s diverse, three-person panel spoke in at Mills College in San
Francisco.
On this leg of the tour, speaking engagements turned
into organizing meetings, with students excitedly springing to action over
things they had been feeling for a long time.
Mills College was the most pronounced case of this,
and it proved to be an amazingly encouraging eye opener into the fact
that there are hundreds if not thousands of students who are deeply and
profoundly upset with the direction of the Bush regime. The varying element
of that fact was often the degree of clarity possessed by students of the logic
behind their convictions.
Sunsara Taylor’s deep breadth of knowledge on the
topics of women’s rights as well as the other far reaches of the Bush regime
cleverly and poetically encapsulated in her speech that night were met with
audible gasps.
Students at this all-female college were shocked to
hear about the religious right’s fascist assault on abortion and its move
towards theocracy, as illustrated, for one example, in Ms. Taylor’s description
of a group called “Snowflakes.” In this
movement, women “adopt” and impregnate themselves with the unused frozen
embryos of strangers that normally would have been discarded — an unbelievable
but very real harbinger of the radical ideals those on the Christian right
espouse, made all the more sinister by the fact that Bush himself has posed
with them for photo-ops.
One student remarked afterwards that she “had known it
was bad” but “had absolutely no idea that it was this bad”.
Liam Madden, co-founder of the Military Appeal for
Redress, gave a thorough explanation of the war crimes that the Bush Administration
has committed during its war with Iraq, revealing to students that night cruel
information about the risks, criminality and widespread use of indiscriminate
weapons like depleted uranium.
When it was my own turn to speak, I gave my own
perspective; the inner dialogue I had wrestled with myself as a 22-year-old
recent college graduate deciding whether or not to get really involved in
trying to stop this war through organizing and resistance. I spoke about my own
personal agonizing and how I was finally led to turn down a nomination from the
Peace Corps, despite it having been my dream.
Sunsara, Liam and I each made different but equally
compelling arguments as to why students must start realizing that the urgency
of the situation. Given the fact that
our country is waging endless war, we must recalculate our priorities and
rethink our commitments and lives. Each speaker accomplished this speaking from
invaluable personal perspectives and experience.
Observing the students” reactions to these very different
and important presentations was a testament to the fact that many, many
students are deeply worried, frustrated, upset and angry about what’s going on
in Iraq. Aside from the stunned
expressions they wore once the speeches were over, there was a noticeable
despair on the faces of these students, and an urgency to know how they could
actually for once get involved.
America’s youth: willing to move, willing to
sacrifice.
Once the discussion began at Mills College and the
speakers opened the forum for questions, the flood gates really began to burst
open. It seemed literally as if something had been unleashed in the room, a
newfound hope and determination colored the voices and faces of these women, as
they went back and forth amongst one another.
It took just a few minutes for them to decide that
they would take part in a student strike on February 15th. They
spent the rest of the subsequent hour debating, not over whether this strike
would be fruitful, but how they could come up with the best, most innovative
and bold protests, strikes, and resistance action.
“This all sounds great” one woman stood up and told
the rest. “But can we nail down which person is doing what job because we have
a lot of work to do and it’s best for us to start now.”
With one week to go until the planned strikes, the
women acted quickly, calling for an organizing meeting to happen the next
night.
“Why an evening meeting?”, another student objected.
“If we do it first thing tomorrow we can have all day to work on this.” Heads
nodded in eager unanimous agreement.
Not ready to move unless directly affected?
Wrong. Not directly affected? Wrong again.
The idea that young people of this generation are
spoiled and incapable of seeing the point in dealing with any problem that does
not directly apply to them, is another widely touted allegation.
WCW found that not only is that argument simplistic
and overwhelmingly untrue, it ignores the reality that there are many young
people who are personally affected and deeply troubled by the crimes of the
Bush Regime.
At each stop of the tour the fact that students are
able to empathize with the plight of people who exist outside their own
immediate communities was illustrated further by some of the revulsion, horror
and fear we”d see in students whenever we”d get to the portion of our speeches
that covered the subject of torture. The horrific pictures depicting the
unspeakable acts at Abu Ghraib prison were widely circulated and received
widespread notoriety around much of the world. That being said, we were
continually shocked that many students had not seen them or had known little
about them. Those who did were shocked further to hear the fact that these
pictures are not isolated incidents but a careful policy being implemented
against people deemed enemy combatants.
When World Can’t Wait visited Oakland High School and
Fremont High School, two high schools located in high crime low income areas, the
writing on the wall was even more apparent. Young people in both schools
angrily and unanimously condemned the President, but they could not link their
feelings towards him with their own personal struggles, their family’s
immigration struggles, the handling of Hurricane Katrina, and the drug use and
police brutality festering in their neighborhoods. Many of these high school
students live in a veritable war zone of their own, where disagreements often
escalate to violence, sometimes in the shape of gunfire, a fact that seems less
surprising after learning as we did, that almost every one of the 100-200
students that we spoke to raised their hands when we asked who knew someone
killed by a police officer.
Those who did blame Bush for Hurricane Katrina
understood that-as Kanye West put it-Bush does not about black people, but they
did not understand how the program’s different assaults on humanity all relate
to one another.
Admittedly, it’s hard to explain to a crowd of high
school students enmeshed in their own difficult fight for survival, the significance
of things like the Military Commissions Act. In small communities wrought with
day-to-day turbulence of their own, the torture at Abu Ghraib may have seemed
too abstract a concept to try to relate to these kids. But when Sunsara asked who in the audience had
ever found themselves the target of unprovoked harassment by police, a large
number of students raised their hands. To those whose hands were raised Sunsara
posed a question.
“So, when the cops kill someone, they go to jail,
right?”
Students: “NO!!!!”
“Those who”ve been bothered, harassed or arrested by
the police are always guilty right?
Students: “NO!!!!”
“Well,” Sunsara continued, bringing her analogy full
circle, “just like here, in Iraq huge numbers of people are brutalized, killed
or tortured but they never did anything wrong.
And there is almost never any punishment if U.S. troops kill civilians.
There are no laws saying that people have to be let go if they are innocent. In
fact, the U.S. doesn’t even have to press charges against the 14,000 people
they are holding in Iraqi prisons right now in order to keep them and torture
them for long as they want.”
At that moment, the similarity of these two seemingly
distant narratives became crystal clear, and I watched a wave of realization
wash over the students.
In these young people’s cases, the problem was not
that they were unwilling to join together-almost all of them agreed that protest
and resistance was necessary and almost all agreed that GW Bush should leave
office. At the same time, the logic behind the different issues these young people
are fighting on numerous fronts, and are being swallowed up by, seem impossible
to fight against. Why? Because these students did not understand why it is
these things are happening.
By addressing the entire package of the Bush Regime,
World Can’t Wait has established itself as an organization uniquely capable of
unlocking students out of the current political paralysis by explaining the
interplay between the issues that are attacking these young people from every
end of the spectrum.
The night we visited Mills College some of the women
stayed late after the others had left, telling tearful stories of family
rejection on the basis of sexual identity.
Quite a few of the students from that night were
lesbians, and when I made the point that it was our collective
responsibility to protect those of us in our generation who are more under
attack then others, there were no selfish objections of “why, that is not
my problem”.
A refreshing fact, given the way people in America
have been blanketed with the assertion that the youth are only willing to act
out of their own interests.
No deficit of passion
Those who are convinced that a dearth of passion is
preventing a student movement in America are wrong. In school after school, we
met students who spoke movingly about their desire to act on the issues facing
society. Students like Eucynthio and Stephanie.
Stephanie marched in the immigrant protests last year.
She stayed after our presentations to say that she would walk to Washington if
it meant the difference to future immigrants like her mom who tried to cross
the border twice, and once more while she was pregnant, only nearly escaping
rape.
Eucynthio, a teenager at Fremont High, addressed an
auditorium filled with students his age and delivered one of the most
impassioned speeches we”d ever heard.
“Torture-could happen to any of us”, he warned
sternly, “and it’s happening to people now.”
As motivation to act, Eucynthio spoke about the
hundreds of thousands of Iraqis whose lives have been lost, citing the power of
people in both the civil rights movement, and the women’s movement. Speaking to
the audience about the power they possessed to change the world, Eucynthio
reminded them of rights they stood to lose, such as abortion rights, to the rights
they”d already nearly lost-the right of habeas corpus.
“Rise up! Take action! Get educated, we have to act
now!” Eucynthio cried out, before concluding his speech to this wide eyed,
captive audience.
For those of us who set off upon this tour, certain
moments stand out as concrete proof that the powerful will and determination
needed for change exists in young people. Glimpses of hope in moments like after
Eucynthio put his mic down and this crowd of high school students erupted in raucous
applause. The support, awe and inspiration we saw in that crowd for Eucynthio
spoke volumes, with high fives, pats on the back and tight hugs from his fellow
students as he walked back to his seat.
In all our hearts that day was a surge of gratitude
for a young man who had the courage to dream of something better, and the
strength to demand that we fight for it.
Conclusion
President Bush and those in his administration
repeatedly speak about the need to act in America’s best interest, but the fact
is they have made a living out of acting in direct opposition to the interests
of people from all walks of life. In waging and funding endless attacks on Iraq
and Afghanistan irrespective of the wishes of the majority of Americans, in
endangering the planet with threats of nuclear war, in ignoring and suppressing
science in favor of corporate entities, by inflaming bigotry, xenophobia and
intolerance, they have made clear their real objectives. Throughout our travel
on this tour we have come face to face with the physical, tangible, human dividends
of George Bush’s legacy of choosing profits over people.
We are facing incredibly precarious times. Our
politicians have failed us and to depend on them further would be not just
reckless but criminally naïve and morally wrong. Failure to prevent, repudiate
and reverse the Bush administration’s disastrous course will have a devastating
effect on millions of people’s lives. History has shown that successful social
movements can change the world, but in order to be successful, young people
must be at the forefront of popular struggle.
Armed with that truth, and the lessons we”ve learned
so far in our effort to engage young people, study the political terrain and
understand the potential to build the student movement, we are moving forward
with the knowledge that there is tremendous potential for success, and that we
face monumental disaster should we fail.
The tour’s strategy in realizing these goals is
multi-pronged
1) Inform/Arm with truth- Due to having been raised in
an era of information overload, we”ve found that many students have a hard time
making a case for their convictions and often felt ill prepared to stand up for
them.
Therefore the tour seeks to arm students with the
information they need to think critically about the situations they are alarmed
about, also providing a realistic view of what’s going on in terms of the Bush
regime’s whole package. WCW understands
that this movement cannot be a “stand and go home protest”, but a continued,
urgent, and determined effort, given the expansive implications of the regime.
2) Inspire/compel – The secondary component of
this speaking tour seeks to embolden students by inspiring them with the
courage to act on their convictions. The Mission of a Generation speaking tour
confronts students in a way that is unapologetic about what needs to be done,
and what the mission of students must be. David Horowitz, a self-described “right-wing battering ram,” has imposed
himself in the goings-on of Academia, and he’s had a chilling effect on
campuses through harassment campaigns he has spearheaded under the false guise
of demanding “balance in the classroom”.
This has led to a severe backlash on professors who
bring politics into class that go
against the status quo. In order to combat this type of intolerant attitude on
campus, the tour seeks to help provide students with some of the moral
certitude they”ll need to stand up to the many different right wing
organizations that have been set up to subvert any kind of social resistance
movement.
The tour also hopes to provide students with the
inspiration that they need in terms of history, specifically the history of
social movements, and the various different successes of revolutions (i.e. why
protest works and historical examples to
draw on.)
What they”ve said about the students is wrong, but it
won’t matter if that is not brought to light and acted upon. Having seen the will in students to move,
World Can’t Wait’s challenge to this generation must be the message of the day-
“Its time to stop looking up at politicians for
help and start looking around, to one another. The world is waiting for you,
asking for you and wondering when you will rise to the mission that is on you
to stop this and galvanize the whole of society when you do it.”-Sunsara
Taylor