The World Can’t Wait / USA Today – 2006-10-01 07:50:16
http://worldcantwait.net
OCTOBER 5, 2006
BRING THIS TO A HALT!
The World Can’t Wait —
Drive Out the Bush Regime
YOUR GOVERNMENT, on the basis of outrageous lies, is waging a murderous and utterly illegitimate war in Iraq, with other countries in their sights.
YOUR GOVERNMENT is openly torturing people, and justifying it.
YOUR GOVERNMENT puts people in jail on the merest suspicion, refusing them lawyers, and either holding them indefinitely or deporting them in the dead of night.
YOUR GOVERNMENT is moving each day closer to a theocracy, where a narrow and hateful brand of Christian fundamentalism will rule.
YOUR GOVERNMENT suppresses the science that doesn’t fit its religious, political and economic agenda, forcing present and future generations to pay a terrible price.
YOUR GOVERNMENT is moving to deny women here, and all over the world, the right to birth control and abortion.
YOUR GOVERNMENT enforces a culture of greed, bigotry, intolerance and ignorance.
People look at all this and think of Hitler — and rightly so. The Bush regime is setting out to radically remake society very quickly, in a fascist way, and for generations to come.
We must act now; the future of the world is in our hands.
Millions and millions are deeply disturbed and outraged by this. They recognize the need for a vehicle to express this outrage, yet they cannot find it;politics as usual cannot meet the enormity of the challenge. There is not going to be some magical “pendulum swing.”
People who steal elections and believe they’re on a “mission from God” will not go without a fight. There is not going to be some savior from the Democratic Party. This whole idea of putting our hopes and energies into “leaders” who tell us to seek common ground with fascists and religious fanatics is proving every day to be a disaster, and actually serves to demobilize people.
But silence and paralysis are NOT acceptable.
That which you will not resist and mobilize to stop, you will learn — or be forced — to accept. There is no escaping it: the whole disastrous course of this Bush regime must be STOPPED. And we must take the responsibility to do it. And there is a way.
We are talking about something on a scale that can really make a huge change in this country and in the world.
We need more than fighting Bush’s outrages one at a time, constantly losing ground to the whole onslaught. We must, and can, aim to create a political situation where the Bush regime’s program is repudiated, where Bush himself is driven from office, and where the whole direction he has been taking society is reversed. We, in our millions, must and can take responsibility to change the course of history.
October 5: A National Strike for Peace and Democracy
On October 5, people everywhere will walk out of school, take off work, and come to the downtowns and town squares and set out from there, going through the streets and calling on many more to join us — making a powerful statement: “NO! THIS REGIME DOES NOT REPRESENT US! AND WE WILL DRIVE IT OUT!”
Acting in this way, we join with and give support and heart to people all over the globe who so urgently need and want this regime to be stopped. This will not be easy. If we speak the truth, they will try to silence us. If we act, they will to try to stop us. But we speak for the majority, here and around the world, and as we get this going we are going to reach out to the people who have been so badly fooled by Bush and we are NOT going to stop.
History is full of examples where people who had right on their side fought against tremendous odds and were victorious. And it is also full of examples of people passively hoping to wait it out, only to get swallowed up by a horror beyond what they ever imagined. The future is unwritten. WHICH ONE WE GET IS UP TO US.
SIGN THIS CALL TO DRIVE OUT THE BUSH REGIME!
Click here.
• Join this partial list of endorsers:
James Abourezk, Edward Asner, Russell Banks, Ed Begley Jr. , Harry Belafonte, St. Clair Bourne, Gabriel Byrne, Margaret Cho, Ward Churchill, US Rep John Conyers Jr. , John Densmore, Jesse Diaz Jr. , Michael Eric Dyson, Steve Earle, Niles Eldredge, Daniel Ellsberg, Eve Ensler, Jane Fonda, Martin Garbus, André Gregory, Sam Hamill, Suheir Hammad, Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Rickie Lee Jones, Sarah Jones, Brig. Gen. (Ret) Janis Karpiniski, Jonathan Kozol, Jessica Lange, Rabbi Michael Lerner, US Rep Cynthia Mc Kinney, Mark Crispin Miller, Tom Morello, Viggo Mortensen, US Rep Major Owens, Grace Paley, Harvey Pekar, Sean Penn, Michelle Phillips, Harold Pinter, Michael Ratner, Mark Ruffalo, US Rep Bobby Rush, Susan Sarandon, Richard Serra, Rev. Al Sharpton, Cindy Sheehan, Martin Sheen, Nancy Spero, Gloria Steinem, Lynne Stewart, Serj Tankian, Sunsara Taylor, Studs Terkel, Gore Vidal, Kurt Vonnegut, Alice Walker, Naomi Wallace, Lt. Ethren Watada, US Rep Maxine Waters, Cornel West, Ann Wright, Howard Zinn, and thousands more who have already joined us. . .
ON OCT. 5, PROTEST IN CITIES ALL ACROSS THE COUNTRY
NO WORK! NO SCHOOL! MARCH WITH US!
ENDLESS WARS! TORTURE! KATRINA! THEOCRACY!
BRING THIS TO A HALT!
• Contact: THE WORLD CAN’T WAIT-DRIVE OUT THE BUSH REGIME
305 W. BROADWAY, #185
NEW YORK, NY 10013
• TO FIND A PROTEST IN YOUR AREA, GO TO http://www.worldcantwait.net/ads/usatoday.pdf
“A Note from Jean”
Dozens of US cities are already listed to participate. There will even be a protest in Geneva. This could become a worldwide event if everyone rallies to support this…
Think of all the people who are deeply distressed over the direction in which the Bush regime is dragging the country – and the world… All the people who are outraged over the way in which this regime is arrogantly seeking to bludgeon into submission people in the Middle East, and throughout the world, while trampling on the rights of the people in the U.S. itself… All the people who care about the future of humanity and the planet we live on, and who recognize the many ways in which the Bush regime is increasingly posing a dire threat to this… All the people who are stirred with a profound restlessness by these feelings but are held back by the fear that they are alone and powerless; or who say that they wish something could be done to stop and reverse this whole disastrous course, but nothing will make a difference; or who hope that somehow the Democrats will do something to change this, when everyday it becomes more clear that they will not… All these people, who make up a very large part of the population of this country and whose basic sentiments are shared by the majority of people throughout the world…
Imagine if, from out of this huge reservoir of people, a great wave were unleashed, moving together on the same occasion, making, through their firm stand and their massive numbers, a powerful political statement that could not be ignored: refusing that day to work, or walking out from work, taking off from school or walking out of school — joining together, rallying and marching, drawing forward many more with them, and in many and varied forms of creative and meaningful political protest throughout the day, letting it be known that they are determined to bring this whole disastrous course to a halt by driving out the Bush Regime through the mobilization of massive political opposition.
If that were done, then the possibility of turning things around and onto a much more favorable direction would take on a whole new dimension of reality.
It would go from something only vaguely hoped for, by millions of isolated individuals, and acted on by thousands so far, to something that had undeniable moral force and unprecedented political impact.
There is a way to make this happen. There is a day, coming soon, on which people will be mobilizing to make this a reality. There is a vehicle and a means through which anguish, outrage and frustration can be transformed into truly meaningful, positive and powerful political mobilization.
On October 5, 2006, on the basis of the Call, The World Can’t Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime!, people throughout the country will be stepping forward in a day of mass resistance. The breadth, the depth, the impact and the power of that day depends not only on those in The World Can’t Wait organization, and others, who are already organizing for this day — it depends on you, on us, on all those who have been hoping and searching for a means to do something that will really make a difference.
If we fail to act to make this a reality, then it will definitely make a difference—- in a decidedly negative way. But if we do take up the challenge to build for this, and then do take history into our hands on that day, through political action on the massive scale that is called for — it can make all the difference in the world, in a very positive sense and for the possibility of a better future for humanity.
