URGENTLY NEEDED, MASSIVE RESISTANCE ON NOVEMBER 2ND!
Editor's Note: The below op-ed piece was a late submission to the Final Call newspaper, and was not printed.
---
With all that's going down today, massive resistance is indeed urgently needed. George Bush and co. are inflicting untold horrors on the country and the world. And they have plans to enforce even more horrendous things if they're not stopped. Stopping them needs to begin immediately, and there's a call for the kind of resistance that's needed. There's call to mobilize massive resistance to everything the Bush regime represents on November 2nd. On that day, in cities across the country, people will take to the streets in determined action to drive the Bush regime from office.
There are many, many reasons why this is what urgently needs to be done today. Already the US is waging an illegitimate and immoral war and occupation in Iraq, and they're threatening war against Syria and Iran. The Bush regime has decreed that it has the authority to detain without charges or the possibility of review by any court anyone they deem a threat as an enemy combatant. They have also legitimized torture. And much more.
What happened in New Orleans before, during and after Hurricane Katrina underscores the horrors the Bush agenda have in store for Black people. 10,000's of people, most of them Black were left in the path of the hurricane without emergency evacuation. After it hit, they were left for days without food, water or message, and the authorities made no attempts to rescue them. Kanye West said that this showed Bush doesn't care about Black people. This is true, and it's even worse than that. Bus drivers from Houston organized a convoy of several hundred buses and came to New Orleans to bring food and water to people and take 1000's of them to safety. But they were stopped and sent back to Houston without being allowed to rescue anyone. Health professionals who volunteered to treat people were blocked from doing so. Companies that donated emergency supplies for people weren't allowed to
bring them in. And when the people of New Orleans organized themselves to get the emergency supplies they needed to save their own and others' lives, Bush called them "criminals" and "looters."
And I'm not hyping this one bit. Look at what Bush & co had to say about the situation in New Orleans. Bush told Michael Brown, the crony he appointed to head up Federal Emergency Management Agency, "Brownie, you're doing a hell of a job" while untold numbers of people were dying and suffering needlessly. Republican Congressman James Baker of Louisiana said: "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did" The general in charge of the troops who came into New Orleans right after the hurricane when 1000's of lives were at risk from flooding and lack of food and water said: "This place is going to look like Little Somalia. We're going to go out and take this city back. this will be a combat operation to get this city under control." Bush's own mother had this to say about the horrendous conditions the survivors of Katrina faced in the Houston
Astrodome: "So many of the people in the arena here were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them." The genocidal implications of all this should be clear.
The events in New Orleans represent a murderous coming together of the oppression this system has forced Black people to endure since the 1st African was dragged to these shores in slavery's chains and the concentration and of that oppression that the Bush regime represents. Clinton contributed to the misery people faced in New Orleans thru his role in ending welfare as we know it. But it is real that Bush's agenda represented an intensification of all this. And his regime is moving to intensify it even further. Jeb Bush, governor of Florida and George's brother, has just received federal authorization to impose an annual cap on Medicaid payments. This means that more poor people will die from lack of access to medical treatment. We can't go thru 3 more years of this. New Orleans can't wait. Iraq can't wait. The World Can't Wait!
All this is why people need to join the mobilization on November 2nd. Our actions on that day must make it the beginning of the end for the Bush regime. Doing anything good for the people requires that Bush & co. be repudiated and driven from office. To get more information on the November 2nd mobilization, go to www.worldcantwait.org, or call (347) 693-3319.
* * *
Carl Dix is the initiator of the statement--New Orleans - A Time To Resist. He is also a co-founder of the October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation and the national spokesperson for the Revolutionary Communist Party.
