What World Can’t Wait is DOING in 2013

by Debra Sweet

Based on mail I get, it seems that some moral clarity is emerging among people that we depend on to join in opposing U.S. wars and the whole package we’ve come to know as the “war on terror.” Did the hurricane blow away some fog? Or maybe it’s the sudden absence of hysterical messages about how bad it would be if Romney won that’s given people the space to look at what the election provided.

And it doesn’t hurt that the Obama administration is so openly bellicose in justifying the use of targeted killings via drone. Curt Wechsler, who edits FireJohnYoo.net, writes:

Three weeks into the post-election season of backslapping for “mission accomplished,” the reality of targeted assassination continues to hold center stage for people of conscience.

Endorsers of this criminal enterprise face the reality of complicity in the brutal practice of American global hegemony maintained by endless war and destruction, validated by a voting system that suppresses individual initiative to take moral responsibility for those actions. The toll of murders by drone, estimated at 2500 and counting, reveals the insanity of Obama’s determination to codify his illegitimate claim of executive power to murder by proxy.

As the sensationalized fear of something “worse” represented by reactionary Republicans dissipates, people may find themselves rationalizing their “choice” of president and the atrocities that enables. The concern this may occasion can be transformed by ownership of mistaken judgement and determination to change course. That is our — and that of those who have come to their senses — job.

Brian Terrell, who reports to federal prison on Friday to serve six months for protesting drones at Whiteman AFB earlier this year, writes in his going away message:

There seems to be in these last weeks a new openness to speaking about the issue of the drones. It is as if with the dreadful distraction of the presidential election over, people are wiping the sleep from their eyes and are shocked to see the evil that had been festering while they were not looking.

I have had countless media interviews, both in the ‘movement’ venues and in the mainstream where I have experienced a more sophisticated level of discourse than usual. One you might want to listen to is with David Swanson.

Because the election took so much attention — including from those who backed third party candidates, or got involved in local issues — many things that should have been coming together to oppose the crimes of our government are very slow. But, just in January 2013, we will protest in Washington DC:

Friday January 11: 11 year anniversary of Guantanamo
Noon U.S. Supreme Court

Stay tuned for details.

Monday January 21 Inauguration Day
Protesting U.S. Drone War & Indefinite Detention

Week of Action for Abortion Rights January 20-26
Organized by stoppatriarchy.org

Help make all this happen. Join the end of year drive to raise $27,000:

World Can’t Wait could exist in the heads of a few people as a memory of something good that happened when Bush was in power, or it could just be a valiant effort to keep people focused on the crimes of the US government under Democrats. It could stay static, and safe, and not aim to really STOP those crimes.

But that’s not what we’re interested doing. The whole mission of World Can’t Wait remains to be realized.  The world can’t wait and really needs us, as conscious people of conscience, now, to act.

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Bradley Manning to testify this week

Ray McGovern writes:

It is a bitter irony that Army Pvt. Bradley Manning, whose conscience compelled him to leak evidence about the U.S. military brass ignoring evidence of torture in Iraq, was himself the victim of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment while other military officers privately took note but did nothing.

Protesters calling for Manning’s release gathered in Maryland, where his hearing is being held, as well as Berkeley, where protesters gathered outside the military recruiting center. Click to watch video.