Our Trip to World Can't Wait National, NY

Although rain was pelting down, the view of the New York skyline was magnificent from the 22nd floor of the SEIU Building in lower Manhattan, where a group of activists from across the country gathered recently to take a sober look at the direction the United States is taking.

About 75 members of World Can’t Wait (WCW) from California, Ohio, Illinois, Colorado, Michigan, New York and Minnesota met to discuss the possibilities and ramifications of having the Bush regime step down.

Organized nine months ago, the group has issued a Call citing seven statements about the current government.

Addressing the people of the United States, this Call claims “Your government is waging a murderous and illegitimate war in Iraq, based on lies; your government is openly torturing people and justifying it; your government puts people in jail on the merest suspicion, refuses them lawyers and holds them indefinitely or deports them; 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 agenda; your government is moving to deny women here and all over the world the right to birth control and abortion; and your government enforces a culture of greed, bigotry, intolerance and ignorance.”

Serious charges, but ones that 18,000 people across the country have agreed with. They have signed this Call online at www.worldcantwait.org <http://www.worldcantwait.org/> .

Based on these conditions, the organization is demanding that Bush step down.

Throughout two days of meetings, Debra Sweet, national director of WCW, kept bringing the group back to two important questions: are the statements cited tolerable, and is getting the regime to step down the only way?

“Some say people are too cowardly, ignorant or brainwashed to act,” Sweet said. “We feel it is more complicated than that. We have to convincingly argue for what we’re supporting, and we have to match the conviction of the religious fanatics in this country.”

WCW has set Oct. 5, 2006, as a day of reckoning. People from across this country, and other countries as well, are being asked to stay home from school and work and march in the streets, showing the strength of those who are unwilling to live with the current political beliefs that are being espoused by this nation.

“The majority of the country is learning to live with torture and accept it,” Sweet said. “We have to convince people this is wrong.” She cited the victims of Katrina, the potential loss of women’s abortion rights in South Dakota, the detainees being held in eastern Europe as further evidence of the problems within the United States.

“The Bush regime says openly that international law does not apply to them,” Sweet continued. “There are not any checks and balances in Bush’s world, and if you dissent, you’re a traitor.”

James Rudin, in the book “The Baptizing of America: The Religious Right’s Plans for the Rest of Us,” describes a systematic destruction of government organizations. Each step taken is so small, no patriot would dissent.

Looking at the current administration, one can identify the numerous changes, large and small, that have been made in recent years. Ideas and actions that would have been unimaginable just a few short years ago are today tolerated and accepted.

Sweet said that many claim protest does not make a difference, and it has not stopped the Iraqi war. “But without protest,” she said, “the situation would likely be so much worse.”

She talked about the groundswell of immigrant protests that have arisen in the past few weeks surrounding the Sensenbrenner bill and its ramifications for the immigrant population.

“Without protest, the immigrants would have been demonized,” she said. “They hit the ground running. How did they mobilize that quickly?”

Many WCW members want to look at individual struggles and unite them into one struggle, citing the need for abortion rights, gay marriage rights and immigrants’ rights. Others want to focus on only one mission, ending the Bush regime.

“We have to go with what we can win,” said Mike, a chapter member from Chicago. “If we get rid of Bush, then what? We still have a fascist theocracy. We can win on impeachable offenses; eight months ago no one was even discussing impeachment.”

Mikael Rudolph, founder of the Minneapolis chapter of WCW, said he believes in finding the common ground that most people will agree with.

“We must take a prosecutorial mindset,” he said, “and focus on the impeachable crimes of this administration, the violations of American law first and international law, second. We must insist on answers and the truth, first and foremost.”

Rudolph said he believes other issues must be put aside until the Bush regime is out and future leaders know that the people will not tolerate the actions that have been undertaken in this administration.

“When that is done, we can return to fighting the individual political battles,” he said.

As well as planning for Oct. 5, a Bush Crimes Commission Tour is scheduled to start in August, with a bus tour of noted individuals hitting the campuses and speaking about what has been happening in this country.

Another major planned event is a speech by scientist Niles Eldridge May 2 at Columbia University. Eldridge is a renowned evolutionist.

The discussions continued in the New York skyscraper, and individuals voiced their thoughts. There were high schoolers, expressing their political opinions for the first time, as well as the seasoned activists who started their protests with the Vietnam War. Some appeared to be college professors, others were aging hippies. But they are all fighting for what they believe is a just cause.

“The problem,” said Sweet, “is not that Bush is an idiot. The problem is that he is guilty of crimes against humanity.”

The Minneapolis chapter of WCW meets Tuesdays at 7:30 pm, and the Saint Paul chapter meets Thursdays at 7. For further information check the local website, impeachforpeace.org. You can also contact Mikael Rudolph at 612-302-9252.

"I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace."
Bush, June 18, 2002

"War is Peace"

George Orwell in "1984"