When the President used the State of the Union address January 31 to relentlessly push his case for unending war on the world, unimpeded domestic spying, faith-based initiatives and an attack on stem cell research and abortion, some reported this as a "moderate speech with no new proposals."  But there was a different response in the streets of more than 60 cities, when tens of thousands perceived Bush's address as a State of Emergency. Then, Saturday, over two thousand came right to the White House to demand "Bush Step Down and Take Your Program with You!"

Many thousands of individuals who had been looking for something that can really make a huge change in this country and the world found it this month in the vehicle we are building with The World Can't Wait ( Drive Out the Bush Regime.  A soldier who just returned from Iraq one week earlier drove straight from Indiana to protest in DC on Saturday after hearing about it 2 days before. At the rally we met people who had traveled from Oklahoma, Maine, Indiana, Colorado, Florida, Kentucky, the Carolinas and other places, who had not yet hooked up with a WCW chapter. Many commented on the spirit and determination of the crowd, including the sight of elderly and disabled people marching through a driving rain alongside this very young movement. Many longtime organizers noted the wide range of nationality, age, and political outlooks, not often seen together in a way that is united around a common message and purpose. Political office holders, union officers, religious leaders, Iraq veterans and military families, leaders of a new student movement, defectors from the Bush Regime, and revolutionaries shared a common stage and goal.

In the weeks preceding, the World Can't Wait reached millions through local newspaper and radio ads in San Francisco, Washington and NYC, and through national ads on Air America Radio.  Our ad in The New York Times on January 20 brought new signers to the Call, including U.S. Representatives John Conyers, Cynthia McKinney, Bobby Rush and Maxine Waters; Daniel Ellsberg; CHOICE USA; Dennis Rivera (President, Local 1199 SEIU); Gloria Steinem; St. Clair Bourne; Mark Ruffalo; and Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski (ret). Prominent artists and writers have starting speaking to their audiences on the importance of the people standing up now.  Former CIA consultant Ray McGovern, speaking at the National Press Club where the findings of the International Bush Commission on Crimes Against Humanity were presented, said: 'This is what our German forebears in the 1930's did not do. They sat around, blamed their rulers, said ‘maybe everything's going to be alright.' That is something we cannot do.'  We learned that people in the national press are watching this movement closely to see if it will reach, as they put it, 'critical mass.'

Friend and foe alike are now dealing with the existence of an emerging movement that is demanding the extraordinary.

At the same time, we have to soberly assess everything we said was coming to a head in January: the fact that Bush has been able to install Alito to the Supreme Court with no effectual opposition by Congress.  This surrender is not being answered with mass resistance on the part of hundreds of thousands who are deeply opposed to this. As events accelerate and Bush blitzkriegs through his program of massive military spending for endless war, now rattling his saber at Iran) as prisoners in Guantanamo are forced to end their hunger strike, indefinitely detained in a twilight zone where there is no due process and no one to witness) as the NSA revelations are being readied for another white wash and more betrayal) we must also confront the fact that our numbers and our reach are still far short of what it will take to stop this all this madness.

Our movement is brand new and the thousands who came into the streets represent millions more who want to see this President out of office and his whole program repudiated and reversed, but who do not yet know about this movement, or are not yet convinced that mass independent political action and protest can make a decisive difference. Or they may be still hoping to passively wait it out, not confronting the horror that will be done in their name if they remain idle and complicit.

Our movement with its powerful Call needs to reach out even more broadly to organizations and institutions to join us and to plan broader and more powerful resistance. There are many people we must connect with who have never stepped into taking responsibility for the direction of history before. While we are considering our next major steps we need to actively investigate with those who have acted and those who have not yet done so-- to get a deeper understanding of both why those who came have decided to act now and what is holding back those who have not yet done so. This is not just a job for the organizers of committees but for every participant in this movement.  Seek out and really listen to people-- engage with people on the substance in the Call to drive out the Bush Regime with the content of what 'your government' is doing; with the morality of 'that which you do not resist and mobilize to stop;' with the reality of where politics as usual has brought us to; and with the positive and hopeful message that there is a way to really make a huge change in this country and in the world if we act.  As the Georgetown law students put it on February 4, 'we are what we have been waiting for.'

As we carry out this mass inquiry and analysis and plan our next big steps, chapters should firmly take hold of what we have built and accomplished and take it forward.  Get back to everyone we have talked with and bring them actively into the movement. Ask people to volunteer and get organized to make their efforts really matter!

1) If you have not already done so, bring social gatherings together to report back and sum up our work protesting the State of the Union.  Make use of our website (including the speeches and statements sent) to give people a sense of themselves and the significance of what they are bringing into being, and get their input.

2) Return to the analysis and political objectives contained in the Call.  This is critical for maintaining our bearings and direction, and allows people from many different perspectives to unite. Get this out even more widely, leafleting and posting, as well as continuing to print and publish it.

3) Get back with all the new people we met, encouraging them to hold fund-raising house parties.  The Portland chapter has a goal of a house party in every neighborhood they marched in on January 31. Plan fund-raising events and reach out to potential funders so that we can really build up the infrastructure and reach of this movement.

4) Organize forums, town hall meetings and speaking engagements where people representing for or who have signed the World Can't Wait Call can speak to what the situation is and what it requires. Invite speakers who can speak to the "Your Government" indictments of our Call. Hold events on particular aspects such as the response to Katrina.  Especially important on college campuses, we need speakers who can give the full sense of what this regime represents, and speak to the influence of openly theocratic political operatives in every area of this administration, of the fascist remaking of law and government, etc.  As we are doing all this, we should be making further steps in developing World Can't Wait as an organized political force in its own right, founded on the Call as its basis of unity, and increasingly drawing in individuals and organizations of various kinds to be part of the movement to Drive Out The Bush Regime.

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