The Righteousness of Going to Denver and Where We Go From Here

By Jill McLaughlin 

I and many World Can’t Wait activists
have been back in our home towns for a little over a week now. Already
to me it seems like a life time ago, but I can’t stop thinking or
reflecting on our experience there. I will never forget it and I know
it was the right thing to do to go to Denver. I felt it in Denver and
I feel it now. The last night we were in Denver we all listened to Barack
Obama give his acceptance speech. Much of what he said and didn’t
say underscored why World Can’t Wait is needed now more than ever
and why we had to be in Denver that week.

Barack Obama promises to continue the
so called war on terror, by promising to put more troops in Afghanistan
to fight “the right war” and continues to say that all options are
on the table with regard to halting Iran’s nuclear program. Instead
of saying that there would be an immediate withdrawal from the illegal
and immoral occupation of Iraq Obama called for a “responsible”
withdrawal. Obama continues to move to the right by promising more faith
based initiatives when in the last 8 years we have seen a growing theocracy
in which Christian fascists have a foot hold in the highest offices
of the land. Obama stated in his acceptance speech that more resources
are needed to ensure a woman can bring her pregnancy to term, completely
dismissing the cases where carrying a pregnancy to term may be fatal
to the woman. He dismissed cases where a woman is pregnant because of
incest or rape. And he completely dismissed that it is a woman’s damn
right to choose whatever the circumstances.  

Obama whittled down the rights of gay,
lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people to access of visitation with
sick partners and failing to mention civil unions/marriage or job protection.
As in his infamous Father’s Day speech Obama once again pointed the
finger at young black men for not being present in the lives of their
children completely dismissing the complex tie between racism and classicism
that has all but ensured that a good percentage of young black men can
never provide or be present for their children. He failed to mention
that a disproportionate number of young black men are locked away in
this nation’s prison system or that scores are targeted by police
and shot down. Immigrants were not promised protection from Gestapo
like ICE raids in which families are torn apart and people languish
in detention centers where most are denied their most basic rights.
Obama failed to mention even once the word torture and what he would
do to end torture or repeal the Military Commissions Act. Obama continues
to avoid the issue of accountability of the Bush administration for
war crimes and crimes against humanity. 

With that said it is the people we met
and came into contact with that really made clear the righteousness
of our presence in Denver. We began the week by counter protesting the
Christian fascists who protested outside the Planned Parenthood. And
we continued to challenge and confront them through out the week. Nowhere
was this more electrifying than in downtown Denver where the Christian
fascists would go on an almost daily basis. WCW organizers would do
agitation that would really call out the misinformation and lies that
these people were pedaling and crowds of people would gather around
to hear what WCW was saying. Soon we would see the people in Denver
begin to spontaneously confront the Christian Fascists. In the united
anti-war march the youth around us went from chanting “Whose streets-Our
Streets” to the chants of young WCW organizers that went “End the
torture, End the war-this is what we”re fighting for”. This dynamic
would continue throughout the week as we participated in the various
marches. On Monday when we marched in the Human Rights march we bought
the message of “No Torture” in by having over 40 youth who signed
up on the spot to wear orange jumpsuits and black hoods and performing
a water boarding demonstration which the press was eager to cover. The
youth who joined us on that day really connected to this message and
began to see the urgency of taking up the responsibility of stopping
the torture that is being done in our name.  

On Wednesday Iraq Vets against the War
held a concert at the Denver Coliseum that featured Rage against the
Machine, The Coup, and the Flobots. It was announced ahead of time that
IVAW would march from the Denver Coliseum to the Pepsi Center and the
concert goers were encouraged to join this march. Many of the youth
had no intention of joining but because of the politicization coming
from the stage over 6,000 people marched with IVAW. Here again the presence
of WCW was felt and reverberated throughout the march. Many joined in
the chant, “They”re our brothers, they”re our sisters-We support
the war resisters” and many participated in the die-ins that WCW led
along the way. From Sunday’s anti-war march to Thursday’s Immigration
Rights march the color orange permeated the crowd. Once it was understood
that orange was the color of solidarity with those being detained and
tortured in our name and the color of resistance to endless war for
empire, torture, and the whole fascist trajectory many people took it
up throughout the week and it could be seen almost everywhere on a daily
basis.  

The tables that WCW had at both Civic
Center Park and Skyline Park was constantly busy. Many who visited the
table thought we were Obama supporters because of our name, but were
open and listened when it was explained that no matter who is the next
President that the Bush program continues unless there is a mass movement
of the people acting independently of politics as usual to bring to
a halt the Bush program. And this is the message that we carried to
people wherever we went and whatever we did in Denver.

We made many friends in Denver. Some
are ready to join us and are planning on forming chapters in their towns.
A couple of youth are planning to form a chapter in Denver. Some who
liked our message and see its importance and legitimacy are still not
ready to act but they sure as hell know there is something there for
them when they are ready to join in this struggle. 

I’m sure there is a lot I”ve missed
here-so much happened there and it’s hard to remember everything.
We made a big impact in Denver given the repression we were facing from
the police, FBI, and CIA and given the number of people who are pulled
constantly into the confines of the politics as usual and politics of
the possible of this election.  

There is one story that would like to
recount for the reader that for me solidifies why World Can’t Wait
is still a much needed vehicle. On the last day of the convention I
and two other WCW activists were walking from Invesco Field to meet
up with our ride. We came to median and were waiting for our ride when
a Native American woman crossed the road and came up to us. She was
wearing a baseball cap that sat askew on her head. On the cap was an
enormous Obama button and she had a still fresh split lip. She was inebriated,
but still coherent enough to carry on a conversation. The first thing
she said was, “Can I sit with you guys?” “I’m lonely”. She
asked me for cigarette which I promptly gave her. As we stood there
she told me someone had put that hat with the button on her earlier
and that was the only reason she was wearing it. Then she commented
on the number of protesters there were. She then revealed she had just
been released from jail that morning where she said that there were
jailed protesters. When she walked outside she was surprised by the
amount of police in their riot gear.  

I asked her what she thought about the
protests and the protesters. And this is what she had to say, “People
need to protest otherwise the police and the government will control
things and that’s bad for people. It’s up to us”. That night as
I sat there with other activists from World Can’t Wait listening to
Obama give his acceptance speech my mind kept going back to this woman
with the split lip and the askew hat with the Obama button and the irony
was not lost on me. I was trying hard to blink back my tears as I imagined
the kind of life she had been forced to live here in this country and
I thought about the kind of life people are being forced to live around
the world because of what our government does in our name. And I know
it can be different-it can be better. This is what World Can’t Wait
is about and it is up to us to do what our government will not do. 

Where we go from here between now and
the election and after the election is not all that different from where
we”ve going. We have gone to the people and we must continue to go
to the people. The people as we learned in Denver do hate this fascist
trajectory and they are aching for this to be brought to halt and they
are hungry for real change. This is why World Can’t Wait continues.
And we must fight for the conscience of a people whose hopes and energies
are getting sucked into the black hole of this election and we must
continue to provide them with the moral clarity and the political orientation
to act to resist and bring to a halt the Bush program no matter who
the nest president is. The World Can’t Wait.