News
and opinions on situation in Haiti |
|
| 30/1/06 |
The World Can’t Wait: Answer the Call To Drive Out the Bush Regime |
|
|
|
|
Bush Regime’s crimes against the Haitian people — one more reason to DRIVE OUT THE BUSH REGIME! This week’s New York Times in-depth exposé of the International Republican Institute confirms what hundreds of thousands of Haitians know about the continuing crimes of the Bush regime in Haiti. There needs to be a STRONG mobilization from all progressives in the Haitian community on Tuesday night to drown out Bush’s lies during State of the Union and in Saturday in Washington, DC. Have your organization endorse these actions, mobilize. Contact Dahoud Andre to endorse, to mobilize and for organizing a bus from the Haitian Community to DC (janpetro@aol.com). The following is more information: In New York City: gather at Times Square — 8PM-9:30PM – to hear poets, musicians, youth, politicians and activists with the determined call to Bush to STEP DOWN NOW. Speakers will include Al Sharpton, Rhadames Rivera, Vice President, 1199/SEIU and a representive of Tepeyac, the largest organization of Mexican immigrants in the NYC area. Father Luis Barrios will be co-moderating. Bring noise makers, pots & pans, drums, etc. to drown out Bush’s lies! Saturday, Febuary 4, converge on Washington, DC for a national march around the White House: Bush Step Down! From NYC, busses leaving at 6:00 AM. For tickets and more information call: 212.969.0772 or email: nyc@worldcantwait.org There are plans for mobilization in over 60 cities, if you are outside of NYC, go to www.worldcantwait.org for information about plans in your area. Discussions are going on with people in a number of unions, about their mobilization (speaking, organizing, arranging busses to DC) as well. I urge you to mobilize in your union and would love to hear of your plans. Millions are outraged over revelations of secret NSA spying, the packing of the Supreme Court with right-wing fascists like Alito, and the whole radical remaking of society in a fascist way. This regime is immoral, unjust and indictably criminal. Further, this is a government that abandoned thousands of Black people in New Orleans, causing the needless death of over 1,000. Bush has militarized the border, while forces with ties to the Bush regime organize “Minutemen” racist vigilantes on the Mexican border and prepare vicious legislation in Congress that would greatly step up the war on immigrants, making it a felony to be merely an immigrant without documents and a crime to give even humanitarian aid to an undocumented immigrant. The Bush regime has taken to a whole new level the elimination of social programs like social security and basic rights to organize, in effect since the 1930's, but now on the chopping block. Now is the time to act. As the Call to Drive Out the Bush Regime puts it, :”silence and paralysis are NOT acceptable. That which you will not resist and mobilize to stop, you will learn — or be forces — 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.” Without mass resistance on the part of millions, there will be no impeachment and Bush won’t be forced to step down, and this murderous regime will march on. WE must act ourselves. *** On November 2, there were protests in 60 cities, walkouts in over 200 high schools and 50 colleges. The next major step will be with Bush’s “State of Union” address on January 31, making the demand: “BUSH STEP DOWN – and take your program with you!” In cities and towns all across this country plans are being made for protests to begin one hour before Bush’s speech [8:00 PM in Times Square in the case of NYC], followed by a national march in Washington DC the following Saturday, February 4. We need to bring many thousands from the labor movement and the community into this battle. Union members are among the immediate targets of Bush’s whole program. Unions are among the most organized of those who need to be mobilized to Drive Out the Bush Regime. The union movement therefore has a special responsibility to mobilize our organized strength in a powerful way. This can have a tremendous effect on pushing forward the whole movement to force Bush to Step Down. We urgently need to plan, to organize, to mobilize — what we do (or don’t do) can determine our future, our children’s future, not only here but around the world. Truly, the World Can’t Wait! Here are some proposals: (1) Read and discuss the Call to Drive Out the Bush Regime (copy below) which thousands have signed and which appeared as a full page ad in the New York Times in December. Send back an e-mail, indicating your endorsement of this Call and get other organizations to also endorse the Call. (2) Make plans immediately for a large contingent(s) at the mobilizations around the country on Tuesday evening [in New York City at Times Square at 8:00 PM], January 31 to drown out Bush’s lies during his State of the Union address. Mobilize your union for a sizable contingent, and charter buses for members, to come to Washington on Saturday, February 4, at the national march demanding “BUSH STEP DOWN – and take your program with you!” (3) Get out organizing kits of leaflets, stickers and other information to all the shop stewards to get out in every shop, so that the broad membership is awakened and drawn in. Driving Out the Bush Regime won’t be easy, and it definitely isn’t a spectator sport — we need everyone out of the stands and into the field! — Our future truly depends on it. Contact us for materials or download and produce your own from www.worldcantwait.org. (4) Popularize the actions that your organization takes to drive out the Bush regime. Let it inspire others — to also take action. Please email back right away — with your thoughts and plans. If you agree, add your name to the list of signers of this letter and send it along to others to do the same. *** The Call to Drive Out the Bush Regime Your government, on the basis of outrageous lies, is waging a murderous and utterly illegitimate war in Iraq, (the silent war on Haiti) 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 ó and they are right to do 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 is in the balance. 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, and people sense this. 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 ó or be forced ó 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. 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. The point is this: 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. The World Can’t Wait! Drive Out the Bush Regime! Thousands have endorsed this Call including: ACT UP, New York City *Organization for identification purposes only. ***************************************** Forwarded by the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network ****************************************** |
|
|
|
|