by R.J. Schinner, National Student Organizer for World Can’t Wait, youth_students@worldcantwait.org
9/21
We need to shake things up on the campuses. The fact is, people are not
by and large apathetic right now. Millions have watched with horror the
mass murder in New Orleans at the hands of the Bush regime, torture
after bombs after lies in Iraq, and this past week hearings to appoint
a fascist to preside over the Supreme Court, while the right to
abortion (among other things) hangs in the balance. Millions are
agonizing over all this but don’t know what to do about it. People are
paralyzed. They are up against a powerful regime that doesn’t care
about what people think, what is true, or what is good for the planet
and its people. They have been played by a Democratic Party that works
overtime not to stop any of this nightmare (in fact it is part of
making it); stirring people around in circles that go nowhere, only
demobilizing and preventing people from stepping out in resistance that
could actually stop the Bush regime.
World Can’t Wait(Drive Out the Bush Regime is heading
a different route. We are acting on what’s true, what’s right, and what
the world needs. And we’re not afraid to go out and challenge people to
be a part of this. If we are to break the millions who hate where the
Bush regime is taking things out of this deadly paralysis, we need to
shake things up in bold, creative, and determined ways that connect
with and draw forward millions in resistance to drive out the Bush
regime.
To this end, we are calling for and leading a student
movement that will pierce the paralysis on campuses across the country.
Truth generally starts off in the hands of a minority, and it is on
this minority to go out and win others to understand and act on this
truth. If you understand that the world really cannot wait for fascism
to consolidate power in the U.S. and for further and more atrocious
crimes to be committed by the Bush regime around the world, and if you
understand that the only way to do this is by breaking out of the
framework of relying on the Democrats to save us and taking independent
historic action to drive the Bush regime from power, then you have a
big responsibility on your hands. You must become an organizer, step
out and shake things up, and draw forward millions in massive
resistance to drive out the Bush regime.
How Can We Do This?
First, we need to keep a firm grip on the fact that
this is what the world needs. That all the reality that is described in
the opening paragraphs of the World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush
Regime call about the crimes this government is committing are simply
true, and need to be stopped. Some have told us we need to tone down
our message or find some way to gradually convince people, instead of
putting out the truth straight up and then struggling for it. For a
number of reasons, this logic is not only wrong, but deadly. For one
thing, we do not have time to gradually convince people, baby-step by
baby-step. And furthermore, the logic of compromise and cutting to the
middle only loses ground to the Bush regime and trains people in
paralysis and capitulation. It must also be said that no major social
change has ever happened without a minority stepping out and standing
up for what’s right and true, refusing to compromise, and winning over
millions. It’s time to ‘call a spade a spade.’
Second, we need to step out and act on this
understanding even if we are at first acting alone. This means finding
the ways to shake people up and show that there is a way to resist and
STOP the Bush regime. This past Thursday (9/15), we put out a call for
students to go out on campus in the midst the Roberts hearings with
visual displays of coat hangers bearing the words ‘Resist or Die,’ ‘The
World Can’t Wait(Drive Out the Bush Regime,’ and exposure of where
society will be going with the Supreme Court of the Bush Regime (i.e.
they intend to outlaw abortion, in case you haven’t noticed by the fact
that people like and including Roberts have openly stated this as their
goal1). Where students took this up, this shook things up on campus,
stopped students in their tracks, and got people thinking about what
needs to be done. This kind of action is the beginning steps of sharply
bringing home the stakes for humanity right now and breaking people out
of the paralysis. We need far more and far greater of this. We need to
be bold, determined, and creative.
Third, we need to connect all this with the millions
out there who do hate what’s going on, and desperately want a way out,
and begin reaching out to those who have been fooled by Bush. But we
CANNOT do this, as some have argued, by watering down our message or
making reality or our resistance more palatable to the ‘mainstream’.
And while this may offend some at first, this will also inspire and
galvanize those who are looking for a way out from this nightmare.
There is a basis, especially now, as the crimes of the Bush regime in
New Orleans are exposed for all to see, to bring millions of people
into this resistance, if we go out and challenge them to.
Fourth, we need to take on the Bush regime and its
shock-troops on campuses whenever they rear their ugly head. If David
Horowitz comes to your campus to advocate fascist thought police and
purging progressive thought and faculty, he needs to be publicly
repudiated and made to look like the bumbling fascist fool that he is,
and we must make NO APOLOGIES for doing so. And all these Young
Republicans and Students for Academic Freedom (sic) need to be put on
the defensive, because they are not simply ‘expressing their views’,
but are part of a well-funded and organized brown-shirt movement to
impose a fascist clampdown on the campuses. Similarly, whenever some
crony of the Bush regime comes to your campus to justify their crimes,
they need to be publicly repudiated. When this has happened, as much as
the media tries to cover this up and make people forget about it, it
has a huge effect.
And fifth, we need to do all this in a way that
builds strength, momentum, and organization up to November 2nd. We must
take bolder and more determined actions, including making sacrifices,
and spread these to campuses across the country. And we must seize on
moments and places where students are ready to step out in resistance
and set an example for others to follow. Beginning now, students need
to write statements about why they are taking up the Call for World
Can’t Wait(Dive Out the Bush Regime and what they are doing at their
campus on November 2nd,, and spread these statements to other campuses.
We have called for walk-outs, student strikes, and campus shut-downs.
Right now,students need to call for such actions on Nov. 2nd, put this
call out to everyone on their campus, welcome and enter into all the
controversy and debate this will spark, and galvanize and organize
students to walk out and protest on Nov. 2nd.
Build a Student Movement
Students have a big responsibility in all this. This
is because they are in a key position in society to act as a catalyst
for sparking resistance, exactly because students have more access to
progressive and radical ideas, are not weighed down by tradition and
acceptance, and are able to organize and sacrifice. This was certainly
true of the 1960s, and needs to be true NOW. Just think of what it
meant to the world when students shut down campuses across the country
in response to the US invasion of Cambodia, risking jail, riot police,
and even murder (Kent State and Jackson State) at the hands of the
authorities. Think about what it meant when elite universities like
Columbia and Harvard turned out determined resisters of the status quo,
or when Berkeley was known as the People’s Republic of Berkeley. Just
think about what it would mean now for campuses to turn into centers of
resistance, refusing to stop until Bush stepped down from power, and
spreading this everywhere.
Some people say that the students of the 1960s were
just a bunch of spoiled rich kids who really didn’t affect anything. By
‘some people say,’ I mean this is what the status quo that was
threatened by the radical student movement has been telling us for
decades in order to convince students not to do it again. The simple
fact is the student movement shook up society, called forth others to
resist, and lost the allegiance of a generation to the American empire,
not to mention contributing to ending the war in Vietnam, winning the
right to abortion, gains in the civil rights movement, and more. Ever
since then, the status quo has been working overtime to reverse
anything that was won through the struggle of the people in the 1960’s,
and bombard us with the lie that this is the best of all possible
worlds, so accept it. So let’s draw the real lessons from the
1960s(that when millions of people break from ‘mainstream politics’
(i.e. the Democrats) and fight for what’s right, it can actually make
difference(and take things further.
And while I’m on the subject, let me say a few words
about ‘spoiled college kids.’ Instead of just complaining about them or
(if you’re one of them) saying ‘we don’t want to impose our views on
others,’ let’s organize students at the elite universities to change
the whole direction of society and take responsibility to fight for
what’s right and true. If this is not our orientation, the only thing
that will be ‘spoiled’ is our chance to drive out this horrible regime.
*******
Become an organizer. Send us your audacious plans for
what November 2nd is going to look like on your campus. Take this
challenge out to other campuses, and society as a whole. RESIST OR DIE.