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By Sunsara Taylor

Millions of people went to the polls motivated largely by their disgust with the unjust, immoral war on Iraq and their revulsion with the entire Bush program, but there is a huge gap between what drove millions to the polls and the promises and actions of the Democrats who won.  It remains urgent that millions of people take it upon ourselves to act independently of the terms and channels of official politics - to protest, to get out in the streets, to refuse to settle into "business as usual" - to drive the whole Bush regime out of office and bring his program to a halt!

In the 72 hours since she has taken the mantle of the next Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi repeated her pledge that "impeachment is off the table."  In her victory press conference, she didn't speak of the need to repeal the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that revoked habeas corpus and legalized torture.  She didn't decry the unending death and destruction that is daily terrorizing the people of Iraq.  She did not pledge to stand firmly against the new war being prepared against Iran.  Nor did she make a peep about defending women's right to abortion and gay rights - even as Roe V. Wade is under increasing threat and gay marriage bans passed in an additional seven states.

Instead, she recast this election as a mandate on manners and effectiveness: "The American people spoke out for a return to civility to the Capitol in Washington and how Congress conducts its work"And Democrats pledge civility and bipartisanship in the conduct of the work here, and we pledge partnerships with the Republicans in Congress and the president, not partisanship."

The next day she sat down with a President who by any objective standard is a war criminal and who has been massively rejected by the people.  But instead of seizing on the fact that Bush is rapidly losing legitimacy in the eyes of millions who are looking for a way to say "NO MORE!," she lent him a sense of legitimacy by, in her own words, "extend[ing] the hand of friendship, of partnership."

Think what it means to pledge "partnership" with a regime that lied its way into a war that has for years struck panic in the corridors of hospitals, terror in the beds of children, overcrowding in the morgues throughout Iraq and stolen more than half a million lives.

Think of what this means to pledge "partnership" with a regime that left thousands of Black people on rooftops in New Orleans for five days, keeping help out at gunpoint, while green-lighting orders to "shoot to kill" those who tried to fend for themselves.

Think what it means to pledge "partnership" with a regime that has just made legal everything captured in the gruesome pictures of torture at Abu-Ghraib prison.

Think what it means to pledge "partnership" with a regime that undermines science and celebrates ignorance - about global warming, about the cruelties and failure of "Abstinence-Only" programs, about the actual death-count in Iraq, about evolution, and so much more!

Nothing good can come from "partnering" with this regime or its program.  This whole direction must be reversed and it is becoming clearer each day that this has nothing to do with what the Democrats intend to do.  As it says in the Call issued by the World Can't Wait - Drive Out the Bush Regime over a year ago, "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."

Pelosi is not alone in her eagerness to work together with the President.  Chuck Schumer, of New York who headed the Democrats" Senate Campaign Committee, said, "We had a tough and partisan election, but the American people and every Democratic senator - and I've spoken to just about all of them - want to work with the president in a bipartisan way."

On Jon Stewart's Daily Show the day after the election, Howard Dean said bluntly, "I know half the audience wants us to impeach the President and all that kind of stuff," at which point he was interrupted with cheers, but then he continued, "but we"re not going to do that."  Instead, he bragged that the Democrats had won one third of the white Evangelical Christian vote.

Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks spelled out what this means, "So voters kicked out Republicans but did not swing to the left.  For the most part they exchanged moderate Republicans for conservative Democrats.  It was a great day for the centrist Joe Lieberman, who defeated the scion of the Daily Kos net roots, Ned Lamont.  It was a great day for anti-abortion Democrats like Bob Casey and probably for pro-gun Democrats like Jim Webb.  It was a great day for conservative Democrats like Heath Shuler in North Carolina and Brad Ellsworth in Indiana."

We are in a moment that could swing in one of two ways.

In one direction, lies the danger of the millions who hate what George Bush's presidency has wrought and is still planning being lulled into thinking that the game is over, that they have won, that it is time to go home, celebrate, and tune out.  But torture carried out under the banner of bipartisanship is still torture.  The same is true of an immoral war.  And the stranglehold on the rights of women and gays is still tightening.

In the other direction, lies the possibility of actually stopping these horrors and driving out those responsible by breaking millions out of the deadly confines of "bipartisanship and civility."  These elections, while not bringing about the change millions want and need, did raise the expectations of many who are aching for this change, did offer a glimpse of how isolated this regime is from the desires of "its people," and did reveal the potential power of the millions who expressed their massive disgust.

Which way this moment swings is up to each of us and up to all of us collectively.  Read the opening indictments of the World Can't Wait Call below.  Don't just read them like a list, nodding along like you"ve heard it all before, but measure them up against the debates and the promises you heard through, and since, this election.  Make your friends, family, and coworkers confront this reality too.  Then, ask yourself if any of what described below is tolerable and who - if not us - will do something about it.

"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."

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Distribute this flyer from WorldCan't Wait:

Everything the Bush Regime is Doing is INTOLERABLE!
The World Can't Wait until 2008!

Three and a half years into a war that should never have been launched, Iraq has been plunged into a human, environmental, and geopolitical catastrophe of staggering dimensions.  A new study estimates that over 650,000 Iraqis have been killed since the U.S. invasion and those still standing are captives to one of the most violent and unrestrained occupying forces the world has ever seen.

Whole villages wrapped in barbed wire"homes turned into prisons"thousands of men and boys dragged from their families and "disappeared""or stuffed into closets and killed in front of their children" children shot by snipers"hospitals and roads destroyed" women and girls raped" soldiers with nicknames like "Monster" and "King of Torture" acquitted"war-crimes green-lighted"and the desert sands are drenched with blood.

Already preparations have begun for a new, possibly nuclear and even more devastating, war against Iran.  And every bit of torture and degradation captured in the boastful pictures snapped at Abu-Ghraib prison has been made legal through the bipartisan approval of Bush's Military Commissions Act.

This is what is being done in our names.  None of it is tolerable.

Meanwhile, the very freedoms the U.S. purports to be extending at the barrel of a gun in Iraq are being savaged here at home.  The President can snatch anyone off the street, hold them indefinitely without trial, and torture them merely on his say-so.  Fascist theocrats unrelentingly assault science and the fundamental rights of women and gays.  Vigilantes hunt immigrants as politicians cheer them on.  And tens of thousands of black and poor victims of Katrina are still scattered more than a year after being left to die in the toxic floodwaters.

All this sanctified with a morality fit for the Dark Ages.

This is what is being done in our names.  None of it is tolerable.

Far from the end, this is just the beginning of the Bush regime's ambitions to radically remake the U.S. society and the world.  Nothing and no one will be unaffected by this.

The world can not wait till 2008.  The Bush regime must be stopped and driven from office.

Each of us is responsible.  Get involved today:

Read and sign the Call on the back of this flyer.
Give money to support organizing efforts, advertising, and materials.
Volunteer!  Call 866 973 4463 or write This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Gather friends together-or log on yourself--to watch the teach-in held in New York City on Monday October 30 called, "IT'S WORSE THAN YOU THINK: Where the Bush Regime Is Taking the World and Why They Must Be Stopped" worldcantwait.org

Drive out the Bush Regime!

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