October 2007 The World Can’t Wait (for us to act) Plans to Drive Out the Bush Regime:
Adopted at WCW National Meeting 10-7
There are War Criminals in the White House – Drive them Out NOW! No Attack on Iran!
At the meeting of World Can’t Wait organizers this weekend, we honestly confronted and reconfirmed the great stakes in fulfilling the mission of drive out the Bush regime — and the ticking clock to do so-so that we can break out a different dynamic in society, BEFORE an attack on Iran, and BEFORE the elections potentially suck up people’s political energy and imagination. We confronted also the imperative to resist the “moral monsters” of the Bush regime with the knowledge that we have reality, truth and facts on our side.
The basis to drive out the Bush regime lies in the contradiction between the crimes of this regime, and the sentiments, desires and interests of the majority of people in this country and the world. This contradiction is intensifying with each lurch forward of the monstrous, fascist re-making of this society, even as they are preparing a potential new war on Iran. If we aim our efforts at politically arousing and giving active expression to the vast reservoir of discontent in this country, we still have time to wrench out a movement from below capable of driving out the regime.
The pace of developments in the world is intense, and there is no way to keep up with every outrage that develops everyday in every city. The Bush regime’s relentless assaults on other countries, on the rights of the people here, and on reason and science itself mean this country is never going back to what it was pre 9/11. This has all been helped along by the collusion of the Democratic Party leaders who aren’t leading the people to oppose the Bush program, much less to impeach and try them for war crimes. New secret memos from the Justice Department authorizing torture were exposed last week. Will Bush and Cheney weather the storm and become stronger? Or will that which we do not resist and mobilize to stop be forced down all of our throats?
But we, acting as a national organization, have some things going for us. There are stirrings of resistance and hope among the people, especially in the sudden, intense response of African American college students in the Jena 6 case, as just one example of how people can quickly get active when they feel they make a difference. World Can’t Wait is choosing key parts of the Bush program and concerting our efforts to expose and defeat them. We can assert a major influence on the national political climate and begin to reverse the momentum in society. Nothing is pre-determined. What we do could prevent an attack on Iran.
The following are key plans and nodal points we decided to focus on. It is important to see them not as simply a list of things to do, but as key concentrations of struggle over which future we will get. Taken together, this focus can have a positive synergy and can begin to bring forward the thing that is so sorely missing today: the people as an independent political force. This is a plan to bring people onto the stage of history in growing waves in the next four weeks. In all this — campuses and students and young people are key — both because they are a place that is being targeted by the fascist clamp-down and because there will be no drive out the Bush regime without an aroused and radicalized youth movement in this country.
World Can’t Wait is working to create a political atmosphere to prevent an attack on Iran. Students, the anti-war movement, and all the people horrified by the Bush regime’s crimes, including the recent revelations that the White House has secretly returned to using “extreme” interrogation measures, must come to see this as their responsibility.
Through all our efforts, we”re challenging people to Declare It Now: Wear Orange, with a goal of having 1% of the population – 3 million people-wearing orange this fall, across the society. This happens by:
3x3x3 approach. Each person talks to 3 people; they talk to 3 more; follow up in 3 days, asking each to wear and display orange in their daily lives, and talk about why.
Orange will also become identified as the color of resistance, with orange jumpsuits, banners, signs in street protests, as people confront outrages such as ICE raids, or torture apologists.
Promotion of Declare It Now in public service announcements, on radio shows, internet.
Raising $100,000 this month through Declare It Now house parties, phone-banking, by putting the challenge before people to pay for ads and media access to have Declare It Now being seen all over.
Most importantly, we”re focusing on key college campuses to build sentiment and protest among students against an attack on Iran, and to spread and defend critical thinking.
Week of Monday October 8-11 WCW will administer the Iran Quiz to at least 1000 students, tally the results by 8pm Thursday October 11, and send out a press release with the results to campus and national media (also announcing Orange Friday). This will mean conversations with more than 1000 students, and the opportunity to spread orange, as well as an opening for national exposure. Do students know why and how Bush plans to attack Iran and what this could mean? Will many be outraged to know they are being lied to, not only by the proven liars in the White House, but by the media? From experience with the “?
Goals are: Bay Area 100 (UC Berkeley and SF State) ; NYC area 650 (NYU, Columbia, Pace, LaGuardia & John Jay CUNY); Chicago (Columbia College and DePaul) 200; Greensboro (UNC) 100; Seattle (U Washington) 100; Atlanta 200; Houston (Texas Southern) 100; total: 1450. ADD your school! Send plans and results to quiz@worldcantwait.org.
An activist in central PA is going to a war college and a National Guard base to conduct the quiz. Get professors to give the quiz to their classes; and radio hosts to read it on the air. Link to it on Facebook and MySpace pages. Publicize all of this on radio interviews, and in op-eds to student papers.
Friday, October 12. Demand NO WAR on Iran Orange Friday. If you”re against George Bush attacking Iran, it doesn’t count unless you Declare It Now. Show it by wearing and displaying orange at work, school, at the mall or the movies. At 5 pm, get into the streets, or in front of the Fox News offices with signs and determination, saying NO ATTACK on Iran, no way! The Fox network has been leading the drumbeat urging an attack on Iran. Bring in orange jumpsuits – expose the secret torturers under Bush. The National Office will provide a press release for October 12.
The right winger David Horowitz is, at the same time, mounting a huge effort to shut down dissent against Bush’s “war on terror” through “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” October 22-26. We will saturate the campuses with information on who Horowitz is, engaging students with basic facts through the Iran Quiz, films, discussions, ads and articles in college papers, and lead students to stop attacks on Muslim students and women’s studies departments which Horowitz is organizing. See worldcantwait.org for resources, (coming soon) From blanketing the campuses, we meet students who want to understand more, and act.
We will publish the Iran Quiz ad in several nationally important college newspapers (cost: $10K)
(Monday October 22 is the National Day to Stop Police Brutality, Repression, and the Criminalization of a Generation”check http://october22.org for plans.)
Saturday October 27. United for Peace & Justice regional mobilizations against the war in 11 cities. World Can’t Wait will turn them orange with placards, armbands, buttons”and a strong message of NO ATTACK ON IRAN. The work on campuses should bring determined groups of youth into the front of the marches. We will work with other groups to plan mass, dramatic, die-ins.
Tuesday, November 6, election day. Proposed by Garret Keizer as a “general strike”. What we can do to spread the orange upsurge that day is still under discussion.
Several points that came out of the weekend discussion:
“If you”re against all this, and you don’t show it, it doesn’t count. If you don’t act when it counts, it doesn’t matter”.
“If you don’t choose, you”ve chosen.”
FOLLOW up, call people. Systematic follow-up brought a number of new people to the meeting. When people put their phone number on our sign-up sheets, it means “Call me please.”
Get into discussion and debate by wearing orange all the time. Declare It Now and 3x3x3!
Reports and questions to national office 866-973-4463 office@worldcantwait.org.